February 1959

February 1, 1959 (Sunday)

• Male voters in Switzerland voted overwhelmingly against allowing women the right to vote, by a margin of 654,924 to 323,306. It was not until 1971 that Swiss women were granted full suffrage. On the same day, however, Vaud became the first of the cantons of Switzerland to allow voting in provincial elections. The Canton of Neuchâtel followed on September 27.
• Between February 1 and 14, some 508 records were reviewed for prospective Project Mercury pilot candidates of which about 110 appeared to qualify. The special committee on Life Sciences decided to divide these into two groups and 69 prospective pilot candidates were briefed and interviewed in Washington, D.C. Out of this number, 53 volunteered for the Mercury program, and 32 of the 53 were selected for further testing. The committee agreed there was no further need to brief other individuals, because of the high qualities exhibited in the existing pool of candidates. These 32 were scheduled for physical examination at the Lovelace Clinic, Albuquerque, New Mexico.
• Died: Frank Shannon, 84, American actor who played in the Flash Gordon serials

  February 2, 1959 (Monday)

• The "Regiment of Spirit Soldiers" launched an uprising against the Chinese government at Sizhuang County, Henan, China.
• Nine hikers died mysteriously while on an expedition in the Ural Mountains of Russia in the Dyatlov Pass incident.
• Thirty-five test pilots from the United States Navy, Marine Corps and Air Force attended a briefing at the Pentagon in Arlington, Virginia, where NASA representatives invited them to become candidates for the first group of American astronauts.
• Schools in Norfolk and Arlington County, Virginia, integrated peacefully, as 21 African American students began classes at formerly all-white schools. At Stratford Middle School, with 1,076 white and 4 black pupils, in Arlington, there were fewer absences than usual despite threats of a boycott, and white students volunteered to escort the new students to class. In Norfolk, 7,000 of 10,000 students, including 17 African-Americans, returned to senior and junior highs after four months of attending private schools or being tutored.
• After arriving from Green Bay, Wisconsin, Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens and J.P. Richardson gave their last performances, appearing at the Surf Ballroom at 460 North Shore Drive in Clear Lake, Iowa.
• Born: Jari Tervo, Finnish author; in Rovaniemi

  February 3, 1959 (Tuesday)

• American singers J.P. Richardson, 28, "The Big Bopper", Buddy Holly, 22, and Ritchie Valens, 17, were killed in the crash of a private plane on their way to Fargo, North Dakota. They had boarded the plane at Mason City, Iowa, along with pilot Roger Peterson. Waylon Jennings had given his seat to Richardson, and Valens and Holly's guitarist Tommy Allsup had flipped a coin to see who would get the other seat on the plane. The plane, a Beechcraft Bonanza, took off at and crashed minutes later on the farm of Delbert Juhl, killing all four persons on board. This became popularly known as "The Day the Music Died".
• American Airlines Flight 320 from Chicago crashed into the East River while trying to land at La Guardia Airport, killing 65 of the 73 persons on board.
• Martin Luther King Jr., Coretta Scott King and Lawrence D. Reddick departed from Idlewild Airport New York for a tour of the Middle East and India.
• Died: Vincent Astor, 67, American philanthropist who inherited a fortune after the death of his father on the RMS Titanic in 1912, then donated most of it to various charities.

  February 4, 1959 (Wednesday)

• In Chelyabinsk in the Soviet Union, Latvian speed skater Nikolay Shtelbaums broke the world record for the 10,000 meter skate, set by Hjalmar Andersen in 1952. Shtelbaums completed the 10K skate in 16 minutes, 31.4 seconds, besting the Andersen's 1952 mark by 1.2 seconds.
• Born: Lawrence Taylor, American NFL linebacker for the New York Giants from 1981 to 1998, inductee to the Pro Football Hall of Fame; in Williamsburg, Virginia
• Died: Una O'Connor, 78, Irish actress

  February 5, 1959 (Thursday)

• The U.S. State Department released tapes that showed that Soviet jets had shot down an unarmed American C-130 transport plane on September 2, 1958. Transmissions between the two fighter planes, identified as "201" and "218", had been intercepted in Turkey. The Soviets denounced the tapes as a "clumsy fake". On the same day, Soviet Premier Nikita S. Khrushchev invited U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower to visit Moscow, adding that he could bring anyone, and go anywhere, he chose. In his speech, Khrushchev referred to the Secretary of State and said, "Mr. Dulles, if you so desire, then for the sake of ending the Cold War, we are even prepared to admit your victory in this war that is unwanted by the peoples. Regard yourselves, gentlemen, as victors in this war, but end it quickly."
• The title E-1 for U.S. Air Force personnel was revised from Basic Airman to Airman Basic.

  February 6, 1959 (Friday)

• Jack Kilby, working for Texas Instruments, filed for a patent for the first integrated circuit, which was granted as U.S. Patent 3,138,743 on June 23, 1964. Kilby had recorded his inspiration on July 24, 1958, writing "The following circuit elements could be made on single slice: resistors, capacitor, distributed capacitor, transistor" and put these on a silicon wafer.
• Following industry-wide competition, a formal contract for research and development of the Mercury spacecraft was negotiated with the McDonnell Aircraft Corporation. The contract called for design and construction of 12 Mercury spacecraft. Later, orders were placed with the company for eight additional spacecraft, two procedural trainers, an environmental trainer, and seven checkout trainers. McDonnell had been engaged in studying the development of a crewed spacecraft since the NACA presentation in mid-March 1958.
• Born: Ken Nelson, English record producer; in Liverpool

  February 7, 1959 (Saturday)

• Former SS Colonel Sepp Dietrich was released from prison in Munich after serving half of a sentence for assisting in the execution of high-ranking German officers in 1934.
• After spending a record 64 days, 22 hours and 21 minutes aloft, two fliers landed their Cessna 172 in Las Vegas. Pilot John Cook and businessman Bob Timm had taken off on December 4, 1958, and on January 23, had broken the previous record of 50 days. They refueled twice each day at Blythe, California, from a truck that would drive beneath the plane.
• At the Lovelace Clinic in Albuquerque, New Mexico, the medical tests for the Mercury astronaut selection began.
• Died: Daniel F. Malan, 84, Prime Minister of South Africa to 1948 to 1954 and architect of apartheid

  February 8, 1959 (Sunday)

• In the British Aden Protectorate, the United Kingdom created the six member Federation of Arab Emirates of the South, a political federation of the emirates of Beihan and Audhali; the sultanates of Dhala, Fadhli, and Yafi as-Sufla; and the sheikdom of al-Awalaq al-Ulya, a move that enraged Yemeni nationalists who claimed Aden as part of Yemen.
• Died: William J. Donovan, 76, Director of the United States Office of Strategic Services during World War II, and one of the persons who helped organized the Central Intelligence Agency. President Dwight D. Eisenhower remarked, "What a man! We have lost the last hero!" A retired Army Major General, Donovan was the first person to be awarded the Medal of Honor, the Distinguished Service Cross and the Distinguished Service Medal.

  February 9, 1959 (Monday)

• The first ICBM, the R-7 Semyorka missile, became operational at Plesetsk in the Soviet Union. The missile, capable of hitting targets at a range of was first tested on December 15, 1959.

  February 10, 1959 (Tuesday)

• At 2:20 a.m. CST, a tornado in St. Louis killed 21 people and injured hundreds. The twister flattened a neighborhood two blocks from Busch Stadium I.
• Wind tunnel tests of Project Mercury configuration models were started. By the end of the year, over 70 different models had been tested by facilities at the Air Force's Arnold Engineering Development Center and the NASA Langley, Ames, and Lewis Research Centers.

  February 11, 1959 (Wednesday)

• Meeting in Switzerland at Zürich, Prime Minister Konstantinos Karamanlis of Greece and Prime Minister Adnan Menderes of Turkey signed the first of two agreements concerning the upcoming independence from the United Kingdom of the island of Cyprus, which had large populations of Greek and Turkish Cypriots. The two nations, after consulting with the leaders of their respective ethnic communities on Cyprus, agreed to a constitution that would provide for both groups to be represented in the Cypriot government, and temporarily abandoned their conflicting demands. Greece refrained from pursuing enosis, the incorporation of the entire island as Grecian territory, and Turkey refrained from pursuing a partition of the island between the Turks in the north and the Greeks in the south. The two sides would sign a second agreement, the Treaty of Guarantee, with the United Kingdom in London on February 19.
• The Royal Air Force made its first public launch of one of its 60 Thor missiles, at a press conference at RAF Feltwell base. The intermediate range missiles had a range of.
• Space Task Group and Army Ballistic Missile Agency personnel met at Huntsville, Alabama, to discuss Redstone and Jupiter flight phases of Project Mercury. During the course of the meeting the following points became firm: Space Task Group was the overall manager and technical director of this phase of the program, ABMA was responsible for the launch vehicle until spacecraft separation, ABMA was responsible for the Redstone launch vehicle recovery, Space Task Group was responsible for the spacecraft flight after separation, McDonnell was responsible for the adapters for the Mercury-Redstone configuration, and ABMA would build adapters for the Mercury-Jupiter configuration.
• After five seasons of being officially known as the Cincinnati Redlegs, baseball's Cincinnati Reds reverted to their former name as evidenced by the release of their 1959 spring training media guide to the nation's sportswriters. The club's general manager, Gabe Paul, who said in 1953 that he had made the change to "Redlegs" because "we wanted to be certain we wouldn't be confused with the Russian Reds" insisted to reporters that "We haven't changed a thing. Reds... Redlegs... Red Stockings... they're all part of our name. We just decided to use Reds a little more." The UPI pointed out that "virtually every piece of publicity from the club spoke of the team as the 'Redlegs' since 1953."
• Died: Marshall Teague, 36, American race car driver, was killed in an accident at the Daytona Speedway, 11 days before the start of the first Daytona 500.