 The AARP Class of 2009 (Celebrity Birthdays) |  PRICES for 1959 |   | Turning 50? Know somebody who is? CLICK HERE for some books on being 50. |
Note: Music History and Song Lists for 1959 are located HERE
 | Danny’s Coffee Shops are renamed Dennys. | ||
 | The John Birch Society, a radical anti-Communist organization, is created in the U.S. | ||
| Pantyhose, which give women the look of stockings without garters, garter-belts, or corsets, are introduced. By a man, no doubt. | ||
| February 3, 1959. A plane crash kills singers Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens and J.P. Richardson (The Big Bopper.)Read about the Day the Music Died | ||
| Lee Harvey Oswald announces in Moscow he will never return to US. If only he had meant it. | ||
| The Nikon F 35-mm. single-lens reflex camera is introduced by Nippon Kogaku K.K. | ||
| She’s here! BARBIE! shhhh… don’t tell Ken but she’s turned 50! | ||
| U.S. supermarkets number 32,000 and account for 69 percent of all food store sales although they comprise only 11 percent of food stores. | ||
| New York’s Four Seasons restaurant and The Brasserie open in the new Seagram Building. | ||
| New Best Friends. Iran & US sign economic treaty. Iraq & USSR sign economic/technical treaty. Israeli Knesset agrees to weapon sales to West Germany. | ||
| South Africa decides not to introduce any television. The decision will stand for 16 years. Guess they’ll have to catch Lucy on reruns. | ||
| On the Air! You’d find 3,287AM radio, 578 FM radio and 509 TV Stations. | ||
| The book Lady Chatterly’s Lover banned by the U.S. Postal Service. Buy:Lady Chatterly’s Lover | ||
| 31.7% of all advertising dollars are spent on newspapers – 13.7% on TV. Complete allocation of ad dollars. | ||
| Hurray for Jiffy Pop! | ||
| Swimmer Esther Williams gets her own Wheaties box! Read her autobiography The Million Dollar Mermaid | ||
| “Think Small” campaign from Volkwagon. In 1999 Advertising Age picked this as the number one ad campaign of the century! Must of worked because VW will sell 120,000 cars in the U.S. this year, which is four times the number sold in 1955. | ||
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| The BIC ballpoint pen is introduced in America! | ||
| And the winner is…Oscar stuff. | ||
| One billionth can of Spam sold. Remember, you heard it here first. | ||
| The second annual Grammy Awards! read who won… | ||
| Briefly In Sports… | ||
| Space monkeys Able and Baker boldly go where no monkey (or human) has gone before | ||
| The space monkeys (above) paved the way for humans. This year, NASA picks the Mercury Astronauts, 7 guys with the “right stuff.” | ||
| After 13 years as a colony of Britain, Singapore becomes a self-governing republic on June 3 under Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew. |
| On February 3, Alaska is admitted to statehood. Followed by Hawaii on August 21. For about a year in between America had a 49 star flag. |
| Americans will spend $1.2 billion on books in a year in which 14,876 new ones are published. |
| A sad number. 1.25 million Americans have now died in car accidents, which is more American than have died in war. |
| Confederate Walter Williams is the last veteran of the Civil War to die. Albert Woolson, the last Union soldier of the Civil War died in 1956. |
| The average American worker earns $91.53 a week. |
| Oklahoma repeals their 51 year old Prohibition law leaving Mississippi the only “dry” state in America. |
| Bonanza debuts on TV. The Fifties Web TV Western Pages as does the Twilight Zone. |
| The microchip is invented by Jack Kilby and Robert Noyce of the U.S. A host of products using miniaturized electronics will be produced in the next few years. |
| Anthropologist Louis S.B. Leakey’s wife Mary discovers bone and tool fragments in the Olduvai Gorge, Tanzania, Africa. These suggest that Australopithecine Man lived more than 1.75 million years ago. The find greatly increases scientists’ estimates of humankind’s history. |
| The Elements of Style, by William Strunk Jr. and E. B. White is published. This book remains the “bible” for writing skills. Buy the book. |
| The Guggenheim opens in New York City. |
| Pulitzer prize awarded to James Agee for Death in the Family Buy the book! |
| The Sound of Music staring Mary Martin opens on Broadway.Buy the Broadway cast CD or Buy the movie cast CD. |
| Metrecal is introduced by the 59-year-old Mead Johnson Company of Evansville, Ind. as a weight reducing aid. It will be the forerunner of all other dietary products such as SlimFast and others. |
| 12 nations sign treaty for the scientific peaceful use of Antarctica |
| Presbyterian church accepts women preachers. Now that’s progress! |
| There is a 51.8% business failure rate.Chart for 1946-1964 |
| Groucho, Chico & Harpo Marx’s final TV appearance together – on G.E. Theater with host Ronald Reagan |
| Walt Disney’s “Sleeping Beauty” released. |
| Japanese-Americans who renounced their citizenship in 1942 when they were placed in American prison camps under Executive Order 9066 regain full citizenship May 20 but receive no compensation for the losses they incurred as a result of their relocation. |
| Fidel Castro gets control of Cuba. |
| Unemployment is 6.8% |
| U.S. GNP (Gross National Product) is $503.5 billion |
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