September 1959

September 1, 1959 (Tuesday)

• In India, seven people were killed, and 30 others injured, when police fired into a crowd of rioters gathered at the University of Calcutta during the second day of violence arising from food shortages. India's Defense Minister V. K. Krishna Menon and the chiefs of India's Army, Navy and Air Force all resigned over handling of the riots. After the Indian Army restored order, 27 rioters were dead.
• McDonnell Aircraft Corporation issued its report on using a modified Mercury capsule to explore spaceflight possibilities beyond Project Mercury, with experiments for touchdown control, maneuver in orbit, self-contained guidance, 14-day mission, crewed reconnaissance, and lunar-orbit reentry. All six experiments could be conducted with practical modifications of Mercury capsules. Over the next seven days, McDonnell moved a segment of its Mercury effort to Cape Canaveral to prepare for the next phase of the program, assigning personnel to Hangar 5 for the development of plans for the Mercury-Redstone and Mercury-Atlas missions.
• Liquor could legally be sold in the U.S. state of Oklahoma for the first time since its admission as the 46th state.
• Born: Kenny Mayne, American sportscaster on ESPN; in Kent, Washington

  September 2, 1959 (Wednesday)

• The U.S. House of Representatives voted 274–138 in favor of overriding President Dwight D. Eisenhower's veto of a appropriation bill but fell one vote short.
• At a conference in Edmonton, Dr. Linus Pauling said that 290,000 people then living would eventually die of cancer due to fallout from atomic blasts since 1945, and that another 30,000 to 60,000 would die for every nuclear bomb exploded in the future.
• Born: Guy Laliberté, Canadian founder of Cirque du Soleil; in Quebec City

  September 3, 1959 (Thursday)

• Singapore's new flag was raised, replacing the British flag after 140 years. The flag-raising was performed as the new anthem, Majulah Singapura, composed by Zubir Said, was played. Singapore would become independent on December 22, 1965.
• The merger of South Korea's six Kwans created the Korean Taekwondo Association.

  September 4, 1959 (Friday)

• The American National Exhibition at Moscow's Sokolniki Park closed after six weeks, having been open since July 25. Earlier in the summer, the Soviet Exhibition of Science, Technology and Culture had been displayed in New York City. The display of American life has been described as "probably the most productive single psychological effort ever launched by the U.S. in any Communist country."
• Born: Kevin Harrington, Australian TV actor ; in Melbourne

  September 5, 1959 (Saturday)

• NWS-9, the first television station in the State of South Australia, began broadcasting.
• The Kingdom of Laos proclaimed a state of emergency a day after asking the United Nations to protect it from rebels from North Vietnam. UN Secretary General Dag Hammarskjöld cut short a tour to return to New York to convene a meeting on the crisis.

  September 6, 1959 (Sunday)

• The radio show Fibber McGee & Molly was broadcast for the last time. Starring Jim and Marian Jordan, the show debuted on April 16, 1935, and was one of the NBC network's top programs during the 1940s, each Tuesday evening at 9:30. An NBC television version, with Bob Sweeney and Cathy Lewis in the title roles, debuted on September 15 and ran for only 12 episodes.
• The first jet airliner landed in Honolulu, a Pan American 707. With the advent of jet travel, a trip to Hawaii was less than five hours from the mainland, turning the islands into a prime tourist destination. The same plane landed in Tokyo at, cutting flight time between the United States and Japan from 29 hours to 17 hours.
• Died:
• *Edmund Gwenn, 81, English actor
• *Kay Kendall, 33, British actress, winner of Golden Globe in 1957 for Les Girls and wife of Rex Harrison, died of leukemia
• *Andrew Jackson May, 84, Congressman from Kentucky who was later imprisoned in 1949 for conspiracy to defraud but pardoned 1952

  September 7, 1959 (Monday)

• Eighty-one students from Kenya departed from Nairobi on the first flight of the East African Airlift, en route to New York City and then to colleges in the United States and Canada. The operation, which has been called "The Kennedy Airlift" because of its sponsorship by then-U.S. Senator John F. Kennedy of Massachusetts, would bring hundreds of young East African men and women to North American universities and colleges during 1959 and 1960.
• Died: Maurice Duplessis, who had governed the Province of Quebec as its Premier since 1944, died four days after suffering a stroke while visiting Schefferville. One observer opined later that it was "the event that enabled Quebec to open up to the modern world", adding that "He had been a dictatorial leader, treating members of his cabinet as ciphers, and making all the decisions himself."

  September 8, 1959 (Tuesday)

• U.S. President Eisenhower signed a bill to protect American mustangs into law, making it a violation of federal law to use aircraft or motorized vehicles on public land in hunting wild horses and burros. Velma Bronn Johnston of Wadsworth, Nevada, nicknamed "Wild Horse Annie", had lobbied Congress to pass the bill.
• Britain's Prime Minister Harold Macmillan announced that new elections for the 630 seats in the House of Commons would take place on October 8, with Parliament to be dissolved on September 18.
• Born: Daler Nazarov, Tajik composer; in Dushanbe, Tadzhik SSR, U.S.S.R.

  September 9, 1959 (Wednesday)

• The final tests of the Atlas-D, the first ICBM, were conducted "in separate launches from opposite sides of the United States". At Cape Canaveral in Florida, Atlas missile number 10-D, known as Big Joe 1, carried an uncrewed Mercury capsule into space. Although booster-engine separation did not occur, the flight proved that the heat shield could protect humans from the heat from reentry. Most of the test objectives were attained. Missile number 12-D was launched successfully from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California.
• The Space Task Group provided McDonnell with guidance in the development of the "Astronauts' Handbook."
• Born: Éric Serra, French composer of film scores, including the music for GoldenEye; in Saint-Mandé, Paris
• Died: Collie Smith, 26, Jamaican cricket star, in an auto accident

  September 10, 1959 (Thursday)

• After 145 vetoes that stood, Congress overrode U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower for the first time as both houses got the necessary two-thirds majority. The President had vetoed a $1,185,309,093 public works bill. The vote in the House was 280–121, followed by a 72–23 vote in the Senate.
• At Mountain Lake Park, Maryland, seven children were killed when their school bus stalled on a railroad crossing and was struck by a freight train. The bus, with 26 on board, was on its way to Denett Road Elementary School in Oakland when the accident happened at
• At a Mercury spacecraft mock-up review on September 10 and 11, the astronauts submitted several recommended changes which involved a new instrument panel, a forward centerline window, and an explosive side egress hatch.

  September 11, 1959 (Friday)

• After a preliminary study of the Mercury environment with regard to astronaut food and water requirements, Dr. Douglas H. K. Lee of the Natick Quartermasters Research and Engineering Laboratory estimated that water use would be in the order of /hr and that the caloric intake per day would be about 3,200 calories of food.
• One day after a similar accident in Maryland, a train killed children on their way to school. Mrs. Irene Zimmerman and her six children were struck while on their way to Sacred Heart Parochial School in Waseca, Minnesota.
• Relief pitcher Elroy Face of the Pittsburgh Pirates recorded his only loss in an 18–1 season, losing 5–4 to the Los Angeles Dodgers.

  September 12, 1959 (Saturday)

• Bonanza appeared for the first time on American television, premiering at Eastern time on NBC. The Western, first to be broadcast in color, ran for 14 seasons and 440 episodes until January 16, 1973.

  September 13, 1959 (Sunday)

• A man-made object landed on the Moon for the first time in history, as the Soviet satellite Lunik 2 crashed near the Sea of Tranquility at 2202 GMT. Astronomers on Earth with telescopes were able to watch the results of the impact, which spread dust and debris over an area of over five minutes, in a radius of. The metal sphere bore five-sided pieces stamped with the Communist Party emblem, the hammer and sickle.
• The National Games of China, the first of their kind in the People's Republic of China since the Communist rise to power ten years earlier, opened in Beijing with 7,707 athletes from 29 provinces and autonomous regions, along with the People's Liberation Army, to be played over a three-week period. Chinese leaders, CCP chairman Mao Zedong, president Liu Shaoqi, premier Zhou Enlai and vice-president Zhu De presided over the opening ceremony, which was attended by delegations from nine Communist nations, as well as France and the Sudan. Official slogans of the games exhorted everyone to "exercise the body" and to "protect and serve the construction of the Great Socialist Motherland" and "serve the development of Industry and Agriculture".
• Born: Jean Smart, American TV actress known for Designing Women; in Seattle

  September 14, 1959 (Monday)

• The Soviet Union announced the success of Lunik 2 on Radio Moscow with the words "Today, the 14th of September, at 00:02:24 Moscow time, the second Soviet cosmic rocket reached the surface of the moon. It is the first time in history that a cosmic flight has been made from the earth to another celestial body." Speaking at a news conference for the Soviet Academy of Sciences, Leonid Sedov emphasized that the USSR had "no territorial claims whatsoever" on the Moon.
• For the first time, a radar signal was sent, and the echo received, from the planet Venus.
• President Eisenhower signed the Landrum–Griffin Act into law, after it had passed the Senate 95–2 and the House 353–52.
• Born: Morten Harket, Norwegian lead singer for a-ha; in Kongsberg