October 1959

October 1, 1959 (Thursday)

• Aleksandr Alekseyev, a Soviet KGB agent and correspondent for TASS, arrived in Cuba to forge a relationship between the U.S.S.R. and the Castro government. By October 12, he had met with Che Guevara, and by October 15 with Fidel Castro, creating a Soviet ally from the United States.
• NFL Enterprises, the forerunner to NFL Properties, was created as a joint project between Western star Roy Rogers and the owners of the 12 NFL teams. The first licensed product was glassware, to be given away at Standard Oil filling stations.
• NASA approved funds for major changes to the Mercury spacecraft, including installation of an egress hatch, an astronaut observation window and a reefed ringsail landing parachute, as well as redesign of the rate stabilization and control system, the main instrument panel. The original contract with McDonnell had only specified configuration, research and development flight tests for the original spacecraft.
• Born:
• *Brian P. Cleary, American children's author; in Lakewood, Ohio
• *Youssou N'Dour, Senegalese singer; in Dakar

  October 2, 1959 (Friday)

• The political system of Panchayati Raj was revived in India, starting with legislation in the State of Rajasthan to allow villages to elect their own local council to have authority on selected issues. The first new councils were in villages in the Nagaur district.
• A total eclipse of the sun was visible from the northeast United States to West Africa. During the brief time in which the Moon came between the Sun and the Earth, Maurice Allais confirmed the "Allais effect", causing a change in the swing of a pendulum, which he had first observed during a 1954 total eclipse. The point of greatest eclipse was in the Sahara Desert in Mali.
• General Motors introduced the Chevrolet Corvair automobile. The Corvair, subject of Ralph Nader's 1965 book Unsafe at Any Speed, was manufactured until the 1969 model.
• The Twilight Zone debuted on CBS television with the episode "Where Is Everybody?"
• NASA issued specifications for the Mercury spacesuit, with operational research suits for astronaut training and further development, followed by the final Mercury pressure suitconfiguration.

  October 3, 1959 (Saturday)

• The ballistic missile submarine, USS Theodore Roosevelt, was launched from Mare Island. Alice Roosevelt Longworth, the 75-year-old daughter of the 26th American president, broke the champagne across the submarine hull on her second attempt.
• Born:
• *Fred Couples, American professional golfer who won the 1992 Masters Tournament; in Seattle
• *Greg Proops, American comedian; in Phoenix
• *Frank Stephenson, Moroccan-born Spanish-American automobile designer known for his designs of cars including the BMW Mini Hatch, the Ferrari F430 and the Maserati MC12; in Casablanca
• *Jack Wagner, American actor known for General Hospital; in Washington, Missouri

  October 4, 1959 (Sunday)

• Lunik 3, billed by the Soviet Union as "the first automatic space station", was launched into space. It would orbit the Moon and show a side never before seen by humanity.
• A Little Joe launch vehicle carrying a boilerplate Mercury spacecraft was successfully launched from Wallops Island. The flight, lasting 5 minutes 10 seconds, gained a peak altitude of, and a range of. The destruct packages on the rocket were successfully activated well after the flight reached its apex. There was a slight malfunction when ignition of the two second-stage Pollux motors happened before the exact time planned, but the planned trajectory was only slightly affected and the structural test of the vehicle was greater than planned.
• Born: Chris Lowe, British musician for the Pet Shop Boys; in Blackpool, Lancashire

  October 5, 1959 (Monday)

• The IBM 1401 computer and data processing system was introduced, providing the first fully transistorized computer intended for business use. The three-piece system, which could be rented for $2,500 a month, had a memory ranging from 1.4 KB to 16K, could read 800 punchcards per minute and could print 600 lines per minute. More than 14,000 units were installed.
• The Mead Johnson food company introduced two powdered nutrition products, both of which became popular, on the same day. Enfamil, which remains an active brand 60 years later, was the first infant formula designed to be "a low protein duplication of mother's milk", while Metrecal was a low-calorie diet food, to be mixed with water for form a milk shake like product and "containing the essential nutrients of protein, carbohydrate, fat, vitamins and minerals" to be consumed four times a day for 900 calories of nutrition.
• Born:
• *Maya Lin, American architect best known for the Vietnam Veterans Memorial; in Athens, Ohio
• *Kelly Joe Phelps, blues musician; in Sumner, Washington

  October 6, 1959 (Tuesday)

• At a congressional subcommittee hearing investigating allegations of fraud on television quiz programs, former game show contestants Herbert Stempel and James Snodgrass revealed that they had been supplied the answers in advance on the show Twenty-One. The two would be portrayed in the film Quiz Show by John Turturro and Douglas McGrath, respectively, in 1994.
• Cambodia filed suit against Thailand in the World Court claiming a violation of its territory by Thai use of Preah Vihear, an 11-century Hindu temple. In 1962, the Court ruled in favor of Cambodia.
• The International Olive Oil Council was created, with 17 member nations, representing 97% of the world's exports of olive oil.
• A record 92,706 fans watched Game 5 of the World Series between the Dodgers and the White Sox, in hopes of seeing the Dodgers win the Series at home. The White Sox won the game, 1 to 0, and the Series then moved to Chicago's Comiskey Park.

  October 7, 1959 (Wednesday)

• From 0330 to 0410 GMT, the Lunik 3 probe took the first pictures of the far side of the Moon, 29 images that were later transmitted back to Earth.
• A Taiwanese RB-57 surveillance plane, flying at an altitude of, was downed by three V-750 missiles as it flew near Beijing. It was the first time that a surface-to-air missile had brought down an aircraft.
• On Baghdad's al-Rashid Street, Iraq's President Abd al-Karim Qasim was ambushed on his way to the East German embassy. The five-man team, led by future Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, killed Qasim's driver and wounded Qasim. One assassin died and Saddam himself was injured, but escaped to a farm. After the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003, Saddam fled to the same farm, where he was captured on December 13 of that year.
• The U.S. Court of Claims ruled that the Tlingit and Haida Indian tribes had been the original owners of southeast Alaska and entitled to monetary compensation. An award for was made in 1968.
• Born:
• *Simon Cowell, English television producer and judge ;, in Brighton, East Sussex
• *Lourdes Flores, Peruvian presidential candidate 2001 and 2006; in Lima
• *Michael Paré, American film actor ; in Brooklyn
• Died: Mario Lanza, 38, American tenor, died of a pulmonary embolism

  October 8, 1959 (Thursday)

• In the British general election, the Conservatives increased their majority in Parliament, capturing 365 of the 630 seats. Labour had 258 seats, followed by the Liberals and the Independent Conservative Party.
• The Los Angeles Dodgers beat the Chicago White Sox 9–3 to win the 1959 World Series in the sixth game. Larry Sherry, the winning pitcher, had saved Games 2, 3 and 4 as well.
• The Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union issued "About some changes in History lessons in school", a decree revising the curriculum and textbooks in Soviet schools, with an emphasis on "the inevitability of the collapse of capitalism and the triumph of communism."

  October 9, 1959 (Friday)

• Russell Langelle, a CIA agent with a cover as security officer at the Embassy of the United States in Moscow, was arrested as he stepped off a city bus, where he had met Soviet double-agent Pyotr Popov. Langelle was expelled from the Soviet Union, and Popov was later executed for treason.
• Eugene Bullard, who had been the first African-American military pilot, received the Croix de la Légion d'honneur, France's highest military award, at a ceremony in Paris, for his services to the French Foreign Legion during World War I.
• Died: Shirō Ishii, 67, Japanese germ warfare specialist who was granted immunity from war crimes prosecution

  October 10, 1959 (Saturday)

• Fatah, a Palestinian nationalist political party, was founded by Yasser Arafat, Khalil al-Wazir, and others to fight for Palestinian independence. "Fatah" is a reverse acronym for Harakat al Tahir al Filastini.
• A courageous letter of protest from author Viktor Nekrasov appeared in the Soviet weekly Literaturnaya Gazeta, after Nekrasov learned that the city planners of Kiev planned to pave over Babi Yar, site of the 1941 Nazi massacre of more than 30,000 Ukrainians, mostly Jews. Learning that a soccer stadium was to be built there, Nekrasov wrote, "How is this possible? Who could have thought of such a thing? On the site of such a colossal tragedy to make merry and play football? No! This must not be allowed!" Yevgeny Yevtushenko and Anatoly Kuznetsov were inspired by Nekrasov's protest to write their own works about Babi Yar.
• The Watts Towers, a metal sculpture by Simon Rodia, withstood a "10,000 pound pull" stress test and earned its right to remain a Los Angeles landmark. The city's Building and Safety Department had ordered the demolition of the landmark, but agreed to let Rodia prove that the structure would not collapse.
• James Earl Ray was arrested after robbing a supermarket in St. Louis, and given a 20-year sentence in the Missouri State Penitentiary. With more than twelve years remaining on his jail term, Ray would escape on April 23, 1967, and would carry out the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. the following year.
• Born: Kirsty MacColl, British singer and songwriter; in Croydon, London