The Surf Ballroom in Clear Lake, Iowa, is the historic venue where Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens, and The Big Bopper performed on February 2, 1959.
A 1959 earthquake in Montana caused an 80 million ton landslide that created Quake Lake by blocking the Madison River in the Gallatin National Forest. 28 people were killed.
Kiwi fruit is named after Kiwi birds, and before 1959, were known as Chinese Gooseberries. They originated in China and came to Australia in the early 1900s.
The British Alpine Hannibal Expedition, led by John Hoyte, found the path used by Hannibal’s army to cross the Alps and invade Roman Italy successfully traversed the Alps from France to Italy with an 11-year-old former circus elephant named Jumbo.
In 1959, Westerns were the most popular television shows. There were 26 running that year.
In 1959, the FDA proposed a standard for peanut butter that was not finalized until a decision by the U.S. District Court of Appeals in 1970. The final standard required a 90% peanut content.
Bob Timm and John Wayne Cook broke the World Record for the longest manned, refueled flight in 1959 by traveling 150,000 miles over 64 days without landing.
25 South African students climbed into a telephone booth, setting a world record for the ‘event’ they had just created. For visitors born before 1990, a ‘phone booth’ contained a large ‘cellphone’ connected via wires to other telephones. They initially cost a nickel (5 cents) for a three-minute call.
Ben Hur won 11 Oscars.
The Rat Pack first appeared, including Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Sammy Davis Jr., Peter Lawford, and Joey Bishop.
Russia’s ‘Luna-2’ landed on the moon, the first successful landing by an unmanned craft.
The Conair hair dryer changed the way hair was styled in the American household.
Neil Sedaka’s first Top Ten Hit Oh! Carol referred to his high school girlfriend Carol Klein. She is better known as songwriter/singer Carole King.
Scientists discovered the Y chromosome was needed to create males.
The opening scene of Raiders of the Lost Ark was inspired by a comic book story from 1959 – The Prize of Pizarro, in Uncle Scrooge #26, where Donald Duck, his nephews, and Uncle Scrooge must evade a succession of booby traps.
A Cement Truck crashed near Winganon, Oklahoma in 1959, It was too heavy to move, so locals painted and decorated it like a spaceship.
