November 1958

November 1, 1958 (Saturday)

• The crash of Cubana de Aviación Flight 495 killed 17 of the 20 people aboard, after being hijacked by rebels during its flight from Miami in the U.S. to the vacation resort of Varadero in Cuba. The Vickers Viscount 755 apparently ran out of fuel and crashed on a beach at Punta Tabaco as it was approaching the airport for the village of Preston in Cuba.
• A court in Havana refused to suspend the November 3 presidential elections in Cuba, after candidate Carlos Márquez Sterling asked that voting be delayed in the provinces of Oriente and Las Villas because of violence.
• One day after the U.S. and British moratorium on nuclear testing had gone into effect, the Soviet Union exploded a "relatively low yield" atomic weapon at its test site, and followed with another one two days later. U.S. President Eisenhower responded by statement that "We shall continue suspension of such tests for the time being, and we understand that the United Kingdom will do likewise. We hope that the Soviet Union will also do so. If there is not shortly a corresponding renunciation by the Soviet Union, the United States will be obliged to reconsider its position."

  November 2, 1958 (Sunday)

• Thailand's dictator, Field Marshal Sarit Thanarat, issued Proclamation No. 21 as the Supreme Commander of the Armed Forces and commander of the Revolutionary Council that had overthrown the civilian prime minister in 1957. Proclamation 21 was directed against the anthaphan in urban areas, thousands of people identified by the council as hooligans, with the goal of removing "a menace to society and the common people" in order to "promote the happiness of the people." The proclamation soon extended to the round up of nonconformist young people who had long hair or "flashy clothes", who could be among those detained for 30 days and, if deemed necessary, sent to reform institutions.
• The splitting of "Ice Island Alpha", an ice floe in the Arctic Ocean, stranded 21 members of the U.S. International Geophysical Year exploration team on a "drifting island" for four days without supplies. After delays for bad weather, a U.S. Air Force C-123 cargo plane sent from the Thule Air Base in Greenland rescued the group.
• Pakistan's former president, Iskander Mirza, went into exile six days after he was forced to resign in favor of General Mohammed Ayub Khan. Mirza and his wife boarded a KLM Royal Dutch Airlines flight at the airport in Karachi and moved to the United Kingdom, where he would receive two pensions.
• Died: Jean Couzy, 35, French mountaineer, was killed when he was struck on the head in a rock fall while climbing in the Dévoluy Mountains in the French Alps.

  November 3, 1958 (Monday)

• The new UNESCO building, World Heritage Centre, was inaugurated in Paris.
• Former Cuban Prime Minister Andrés Rivero Agüero, the nominee of President Fulgencio Batista's Progressive Action Party, was elected President of Cuba with more than 70 percent of the popular vote. Rivero, scheduled to be inaugurated on February 24, 1959, would never take office, and would flee Cuba along with Batista on January 1 in advance of Fidel Castro's march into Havana during the Cuban Revolution.
• Jorge Alessandri was sworn in as President of Chile for a six-year term. Because of Chile's economic crisis, "all unnecessary pomp was omitted in the inaugural ceremonies", and Alessandri opened his new home at La Moneda, the presidential palace in Santiago, to the public for three hours.
• The initial contingent of military service aeromedical personnel reported for duty and began working on human factors, crew selection, and crew training plans for the U.S. crewed spacecraft program.
• Died: Harry Revel, 52, British-born American song composer, died of a cerebral hemorrhage.

  November 4, 1958 (Tuesday)

• Iraqi Army Colonel Abdul Salam Arif, who had led the bloody coup d'état on July 14 that had included the assassination of the King, the royal family and the prime minister, was arrested in Baghdad on orders of Premier Abd al-Karim Qasim.
• The coronation of Pope John XXIII took place in Rome after his throne was carried into St. Peter's Basilica.
• In midterm elections in the United States, the Democratic Party fell slightly short of a two-thirds majority in Congress. The Democrats, led by Senate Majority Leader Lyndon Johnson, gained 13 seats and increased their 49 to 47 lead to a 62 to 34 majority in the Senate. The elections were the last for a 48-state United States. Led by Speaker of the House Sam Rayburn, the Democrats increased a 234–201 lead to a 283 to 153 majority in the House of Representatives.
• The CBS television network in the U.S. announced the immediate cancellation of its once-popular quiz show The $64,000 Question, which had last been shown on November 2. Vice President for TV programming Hubbell Robinson Jr. said in a statement, "Although the integrity of the first big quiz show was not an issue in the replacement, The $64,000 Question has nevertheless become a victim of declining quiz show audiences."
• Died: Sam Zimbalist, 53, Russian-born American film producer and editor, died of a heart attack in Rome during the production of Ben-Hur, which would win 11 Academy Awards.

  November 5, 1958 (Wednesday)

• In a drive-by shooting in Bonn, the capital of West Germany, French terrorists from the "Red Hand" group fatally wounded Améziane Aït Ahcène, the chief representative from Algeria's rebel government-in-exile of the Front de Libération Nationale. Ahcène was driving to the Tunisian Embassy at Bad Godesberg when he was shot multiple times by machine gun fire from another car. He would survive for almost six months in a hospital in Tunisia until his death on April 24.
• The Space Task Group, unofficially established on October 8, 1958, was officially formed at Langley Field, Virginia, to implement a crewed satellite project. Robert R. Gilruth and Charles J. Donlan were appointed as Project Manager and Assistant Project Manager, respectively. Personnel transferred from the Langley Research Center to the Space Task Group included Gilruth, Donlan, Maxime A. Faget, Charles H. Zimmerman, and Christopher C. Kraft. Personnel detailed from the Lewis Research Center to the Space Task Group and Project Mercury included Glynn S. Lunney. Individuals from Lewis would remain on a detailed status until 1959 when they were permanently reassigned to the Space Task Group.
• Born:
• *Robert Patrick, American film and television actor known for the title role in the 1991 film Terminator 2: Judgment Day and for the CBS show Scorpion; in Marietta, Georgia
• *Eddie Pepitone, American actor and comedian; in Brooklyn, New York City

  November 6, 1958 (Thursday)

• Under the leadership of Dr. Maurice E. Müller, the AO Foundation was founded by a meeting of 13 orthopedic surgeons at the Elite Hotel in Biel, near Bern in Switzerland. The creation by the surgeons of the Arbeitsgemeinschaft für Osteosynthesefragen, has been described as a "small gathering that would someday... cause a worldwide revolution in trauma care, and spawn a global industry for the manufacturing of the necessary implants and related surgical tools" for open reduction internal fixation to mend broken bones with screws and plates, intramedullary rods and other metallic devices.
• An 8.3 magnitude earthquake off of the coast of the Soviet island of Iturup and injured 51 people.

  November 7, 1958 (Friday)

• Albert Freedman, the producer of the U.S. television game show Twenty-One, became the first person to be arrested in connection with the TV quiz show scandals. He was indicted for perjury on charges of having knowingly lied under oath to a grand jury about supplying questions or answers to contestants on Twenty One.
• A contractor briefing, attended by some 40 prospective bidders on the crewed spacecraft, was held at the Langley Research Center. More detailed specifications were then prepared and distributed to about 20 manufacturers who had stated an intention to bid on the project.
• Spartak Plovdiv defeated Minyor Pernik before 20,000 fans in Sofia, 1 to 0, to win the Bulgarian Cup, the Eastern European nation's soccer football championship.
• Born:
• *Dmitry Kozak, Deputy Prime Minister of Russia 2008 to 2020, Deputy Chief of Staff for President Putin since 2020; in Bandurovo village, Ukrainian SSR, Soviet Union
• *Jeewan Kumaranatunga, Sri Lankan film and TV actor who later became a cabinet minister between 2007 and 2015; in Seeduwa, Ceylon

  November 8, 1958 (Saturday)

• The U.S. Air Force's third consecutive failure of a rocket to the Moon happened shortly after the 2:30 a.m. launch when the third stage of the four-stage rocket failed to ignite.
• Cuban Army intelligence officers and police raided an apartment in La Víbora, a suburb of Havana, and killed Angel Almejeira, the chief of militia of Fidel Castro's 26th of July Movement, along with two other rebels, in a gun battle.
• Born: Yoav Gallant, Israeli politician and military officer, Minister of Defense ; in Tel Aviv
• Died: C. Ganesha Iyer, 80, Sri Lankan Tamil philologist

  November 9, 1958 (Sunday)

• All 36 people aboard an Aero-Topográfica Martin PBM-5 Mariner disappeared and were presumed dead after the flying boat airplane experienced trouble during the Portuguese airliner's flight from Lisbon to Funchal while over the North Atlantic Ocean. The last transmission was an international Morse code distress signal, "QUG", meaning ""I am forced to land immediately."
• The wreckage of the B-24 Liberator bomber nicknamed Lady Be Good, was found in the Libyan Desert more than 15 years after it had crashed on April 4, 1943. An oil exploration team from the British Petroleum company had accidentally discovered the airplane debris. The remains of the crew, who had bailed out from the airplane and then died of thirst days later, would not be found until 1960.