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1958 Fun Facts, Trivia and History |
Table of Contents Quick Facts from 1958 |
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Top Ten Baby Names of 1958Mary, Susan, Linda, Karen, Patricia, Michael, David, James, Robert, John |
Fashion Icons and Sex SymbolsCarroll Baker, Brigitte Bardot, Claudia Cardinale, Doris Day, Diana Dors, Anita Ekberg, Annette Funicello, Ava Gardner, Audrey Hepburn, Gina Lollobrigida, Sophia Loren, Jayne Mansfield, Marilyn Monroe, Julie Newmar, Kim Novak, Elizabeth Taylor, Mamie Van Doren |
Sex Symbols and Hollywood HunksPaul Newman, Elvis Presley |
Oscars: 30th Academy AwardsThe Oscars unfurled their red carpet at the RKO Pantages Theatre in Hollywood on March 26, 1958. Rosalind Russell and Bob Hope hosted the ceremony. The Bridge on the River Kwai had a night to remember, scoring seven awards, including Best Picture. Alec Guinness captured Best Actor for the same film. The Best Actress honor went to Joanne Woodward for The Three Faces of Eve. Emmy Awards: 10th Primetime Emmy AwardsHosted by Danny Thomas, the Emmy Awards on April 15, 1958, took place at the Coconut Grove Ambassador Hotel, Los Angeles. Gunsmoke received the accolade for Best Dramatic Series, while The Phil Silvers Show claimed Best Comedy Series. Robert Young snagged Best Actor for Father Knows Best, and Jane Wyatt received Best Actress for the same show, proving that father—and mother—did know best that year. |
“The Quotes”“What counts is not necessarily the size of the dog in the fight – it’s the size of the fight in the dog. ” “Look, Ma, no cavities!” “Life is a banquet, and most poor suckers are starving to death!” |
Time Magazine’s Man of the YearCharles de Gaulle |
Miss AmericaMarilyn Van Derbur (Denver, CO) |
Miss USAEurlyne Howell (Louisiana) |
The ScandalsDJ Alan Freed, the inventor of the term ‘Rock and Roll’, was accused of being paid to promote specific songs on his popular radio and live shows. His career ended, along with his street cred, in the PAYOLA scandal. Jerry Lee Lewis married his 13-year-old 2nd cousin. Disney murdered scores of Lemmings for the ‘suicide scene’ in the 1958 movie White Wilderness. Producers pushed and threw them off a cliff while shooting footage of the cruelty, then framed it as a natural occurrence for the audience. Lana Turner’s daughter, Cheryl, saw her mother being beaten by her boyfriend, Johnny Stompanato, and killed him with a kitchen knife. Some people think that Lana did the self-defensive killing. |
1958 Pop Culture Facts & HistoryThe Adventures of Superpup never passed the ‘unaired pilot’ stage. |
The Modern plastic Hula Hoop was invented in 1958 by Arthur K. Melin and Richard Knerr. In the 1930s, the first marketed Hula Hoops were made of bamboo and sold as exercise equipment, but they have been used for at least a few hundred years; even in Europe, they used metal tubes. But When they started marketing them in the Summer of 1958, Wham-O sold 25 Million of them. By 1960, 200 Million of them were sold. Two pilots, Robert Timm and John Cook, took off from McCarran Airfield in Las Vegas, Nevada. They flew a Cessna 172 for 64 days, 22 hours, 19 minutes, and 5 seconds without landing (December 4, 1958- February 4, 1959), refueling by matching speed with a fuel truck driving down a road. The Ford Motor Company had conceived a nuclear-powered car called the “Nucleon,” with its own contained reactor. The gesture of celebrating victory by lifting the trophy above the head came in 1958 when photographers asked Hilderaldo Bellini, captain of the Brazilian team at the time, to lift the World Cup trophy after beating Sweden so that they could get a better view of it. Bobby Fischer (14 years old) won the United States Chess Championship. As a test, Bank of America mailed 60,000 residents of Fresno, California, a small plastic card with a $500 credit line. The experiment was successful, and the program became Visa. Music producer Phil Spector’s high-school band (The Teddy Bears) made their first record, To Know Him Is to Love Him. It became number one on the pop charts. Led by the retired Boston candy manufacturer Robert H.W. Welch Jr., a group of anti-communist activists founded an organization called the John Birch Society that was dedicated to finding and destroying all traces of communism in the United States. The group got their name from John Birch, an intelligence officer killed in China during the Cold War. The US 50 Star Flag was designed in 1958 by Robert Heft as a junior high history project and got a B-. The grade was later changed to an A after Heft’s design was accepted and adopted by the United States Congress in 1959. Robert and his teacher agreed after the initial B minus grade was given but before the US Congress accepted it. Crayola’s Prussian Blue crayon was renamed Midnight Blue in 1958. First Class Postage Stamps increased to 4 cents on August 1, 1958. The only gas station ever designed by Frank Lloyd Wright was built in 1958 and still operates at 202 Cloquet Avenue, Cloquet, Minnesota. The LEGO was patented (#3005282A) in 1958. The world’s tallest ever recorded tsunami was in Alaska in 1958, caused by a landslide after an earthquake in the Fairweather Fault in the Alaska Panhandle. The 100-foot wave reached 1720 feet above sea level. The Bossa Nova music genre was created in Rio de Janeiro with João Gilberto’s recording of Chega de Saudade. |
Bruce Lee was the 1958 Hong Kong Cha Cha Dance Championship winner. Elvis Presley was inducted into the US Army, Private #53310761. Dick Dale invented Surf Guitar Music with Let’s Go Trippin’ |
Vanguard 1, launched in 1958, is the oldest man-made satellite in orbit. Communication with it stopped working in 1964. Sir Edmund Hillary reached the South Pole. The 1958 National Football League Championship Game was the 26th NFL championship game, played on December 28th at Yankee Stadium in New York City. It was the first NFL playoff game to go into sudden-death overtime, and the final score was Baltimore Colts 23, New York Giants 17. The game has since become known as “The Greatest Game Ever Played.” Lawrence Welk was the first TV show to air in stereo before stereo TV had been invented. ABC simulcast one audio channel on its radio network and the other via TV so that listening to both would give you a stereo effect. |
Nuclear OopsThe US Air Force lost a 7,600-pound (3,400 kg) Mark 15 nuclear bomb in an F-86/B-47 collision in the Atlantic Ocean off Tybee Island, near Savannah, Georgia, and it has still not been found. A 26-kiloton Mark 6 mistakenly fell out of a B-47 jet, dropping 15,000 feet into the backyard of Walter Gregg in Mars Bluff, South Carolina. The non-nuclear part of the bomb blew up and left a crater. It’s on private property, so don’t visit without permission. |
Project A119The US Air Force made plans to detonate a nuclear bomb on the moon and wanted it to visible to the naked eye on Earth. They hoped it would boost American morale to counter the USSR’s advances in the space race. #coldwar |
Civil RightsGarth Williams, the illustrator of Stuart Little, wrote a kids’ book in 1958 called The Rabbits’ Wedding. An Alabama State Senator claimed the book was “propaganda for integration and intermarriage,” as the book featured a bunny with white fur and another with black. Clennon Washington King Jr. applied to the (then) all-white University of Mississippi, and he was committed to Mississippi State Hospital in Whitfield for trying to attend it. In 1960, King ran for President as the candidate of the Independent Afro-American Party, with Reginald Carter as his running mate. |
TragedyOne of the worst school bus accidents in American history occurred in Prestonburg, Kentucky. 26 children and the bus driver were killed. Twenty-two children escaped. |
World War I UpdateAndorra declared war on Germany during WWI but didn’t send any soldiers because they didn’t have an army. At the Treaty of Versailles, Andorra was forgotten and technically remained at war with Germany until the two countries declared peace in 1958. |
World War II UpdateDuring a visit to Germany in 1958, Comedic Actor Groucho Marx climbed a pile of rubble that marked the site of Adolf Hitler’s bunker, the believed site of Hitler’s death, and performed a two-minute Charleston Dance. |
Nobel Prize WinnersPhysics – Pavel Alekseyevich Cherenkov, Ilya Mikhailovich Frank, and Igor Yevgenyevich Tamm |
1st Appearances & 1958’s Most Popular Christmas Gifts, Toys and PresentsLEGOs, Skateboards, Beat the Clock Game, Crayola Crayons ’64 box’ with built-in sharpener*, Concentration TV Game home version, Hula Hoop (U.S.) |
The HabitReading Doctor Zhivago by Boris Pasternak |
More 1958 FirstsThe American Express card was introduced in 1958. The term “meritocracy” was coined by Michael Young in his 1958 dystopian essay The Rise of the Meritocracy. The modern hula hoop was invented in 1958 by Arthur K. “Spud” Melin and Richard Knerr and distributed for sale by their company, Wham-O! An Evening with Fred Astaire, the first television show recorded on color videotape, was broadcast on NBC. Chicken Ramen, the first instant noodles, went on sale in Japan. Clifton Hillegass in Lincoln, Nebraska, started cliffsNotes. Dracula was released, starring Christopher Lee. It was the first horror movie from Hammer Films. The Jim Henson Company (Muppets Inc.) was founded. The internationally recognized peace symbol was designed in 1958 by Gerald Holtom as the logo for the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament. Pizza Hut was founded in Wichita, Kansas, by Dan and Frank Carney. The first video game, “Tennis for Two,” invented by William Higinbotham, was introduced at the Brookhaven National Laboratory Visitors’ Day Exhibit in the United States. Jack Kilby invented the first integrated circuit while working at Texas Instruments. Kitchens were smelling a lot cleaner thanks to the introduction of Mr. Clean in 1958. In 1998, People Magazine called Mr. Clean “one of the sexiest men alive.” Commercial, domestic jet airline service opened between New York and Miami. |
Best Film Oscar WinnerThe Bridge Over River Kwai (presented in 1958) |
Popular and Best-selling Books From 1958A Fly Went By by Mike McClintock and Fritz Siebel |
1958 Most Popular TV Shows1. Gunsmoke (CBS) |
1958 Billboard Number One SongsDecember 30, 1957 – January 10, 1958: January 11 – February 14: February 15 – March 21: March 22 – April 25: April 26 – May 2: May 3 – May 16: May 17 – June 13: June 14 – July 25: July 26 – August 8: August 9 – August 22: August 23 – August 29: August 30 – September 5: September 6 – October 3: October 4 – November 14: November 15 – November 21: November 22 – November 28: November 29 – December 5: December 6 – December 26: December 27, 1958 – January 18, 1959: |
SportsWorld Series Champions: New York Yankees |
More 1958 Facts & History Resources:BabyBoomers.com (1958) |