1959
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1 January 1959 The private practice of medicine is ended in Czechoslovakia.
Egyptian authorities arrest about 200 communists in the country. They close two publishing companies.
France grants full internal autonomy to French Cameroon.
President Fulgencio Batista y Zaldivar of Cuba resigns and flees to the Dominican Republic. The Cuban General Staff orders a cease-fire throughout the country. Rebels enter Santiago. Celebrations in Havana over the departure of Batista turn into riots. Rebel leader Fidel Castro calls a general strike in Havana against the formation of a new government by Supreme Court Justice Carlos Piedra.
2 January 1959 The first Soviet space probe, Daydream, is launched toward the moon. It is the first man-made object to escape the gravity of Earth.
Great Britain ends its embargo of scientific instruments and apparatus to the USSR and China.
6,000 rebel soldiers enter Havana and put down the rioting begun yesterday. In a radio address from Santiago, rebel leader Fidel Castro designates Manuel Urrutia as provisional President. The US State Department estimates that about 500 of Batista’s closest associates and family members have arrived in the United States.
Suite no.1 for unaccompanied violin by Ernest Bloch (78) is performed for the first time, in London.
3 January 1959 Alaska becomes the 49th state of the United States.
4 January 1959 Fighting between Indonesian troops and rebels in Aceh Province, Sumatra ends with a truce agreement.
The Soviet space probe Daydream reaches within 7,500 km of the Moon and passes into orbit around the Sun.
Three days of nationalist rioting begins in Léopoldville, Belgian Congo.
Supreme Court Justice Carlos Piedra abandons attempts to form a new government in Cuba.
5 January 1959 While staying briefly with Richard Rodney Bennett in Hamstead, Cornelius Cardew (22) leaves his wife of nine months, Ruth Aaronberg. In the evening he returns to the WDR in Cologne.
Provisional President Manuel Urrutia arrives in Havana to take charge of the government.
Two new works of John Cage (46) are performed for the first time, in Rome: Aria for solo voice, and Fontana Mix for tape.
6 January 1959 Three days of rioting in Léopoldville, Belgian Congo leaves 35 people dead, 100 injured after Belgian and colonial troops fire on rioters.
The Cuban Congress is dissolved and all provincial governors and mayors are removed.
7 January 1959 On his sixtieth birthday, Francis Poulenc is elected an honorary member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters and the National Academy of Arts and Letters.
The United States becomes the seventh nation to recognize the new Cuban government.
Soviet First Deputy Prime Minister Anastas Mikoyan lands in Cleveland and begins a two-week tour of the United States as a guest of the industrialist Cyrus Eaton.
The Eighty-sixth Congress of the United States convenes in Washington. The opposition Democratic Party controls both houses.
8 January 1959 Charles de Gaulle takes office as the first President of the Fifth French Republic. He appoints Michel Debré of the Union for the New Republic (Gaullist) as Prime Minister.
Rebel leader Fidel Castro enters Havana at the head of 5,000 troops to jubilant crowds. Trials and executions of ex-Batista officials on charges of murder and torture begin throughout Cuba.
Thea Musgrave’s (30) Obliques for orchestra is performed for the first time, over the airwaves of BBC Scotland.
9 January 1959 A federal judge in Montgomery, Alabama orders circuit judge George C. Wallace to allow agents of the Federal Civil Rights Commission to view voter registration records in Barbour and Bullock counties.
A federal judge in Atlanta rules that racial segregation laws on the city’s public transportation is unconstitutional.
The new regime in Cuba lifts the ban on the Communist Party.
10 January 1959 Mr. and Mrs. Paul Hindemith (63) sail from Genoa making for New York.
A federal judge in Atlanta orders the Georgia State College of Business Administration to stop barring entrance to students on the basis of race.
Trois pas des Tritons, an orchestral excerpt from Hans Werner Henze’s (32) opera Undine, is performed separately for the first time, in Rome. See 3 March 1958 and 27 October 1958.
12 January 1959 Peter Sculthorpe (29) is accepted into Wadham College, Oxford.
Portuguese Air Force General Humberto Delgado, leader of the opposition Independent National Movement, enters the Brazilian embassy in Lisbon to escape arrest. He will reappear in Latin America.
In defiance of a federal court order, circuit judge George Wallace, in Clayton, Alabama, refuses to let federal agents see the voter registration records in Barbour and Bullock counties.
13 January 1959 Väinö Johannes Suksalainen replaces Karl August Fagerholm as Prime Minister of Finland.
The new French government issues a broad clemency and amnesty to Algerian rebels. Four rebel leaders in prison are transferred to more comfortable surroundings. Sentences of up to 200 rebels are commuted to life in prison. All prison terms of rebels are shortened by 10%. 7,000 rebel suspects are released.
The Belgian government announces a plan to grant independence to the Belgian Congo at an unspecified future time.
15 January 1959 French President Charles de Gaulle offers safe conduct to Paris for Algerian rebels to negotiate a cease-fire.
17 January 1959 Representatives of Great Britain and the United Arab Republic conclude an agreement in Cairo over financial arrangements as a result of the nationalization of the Suez Canal by Egypt in 1956. Great Britain unfreezes Egyptian assets in the country in return for compensation payments to British and Dutch property owners.
Dahomey, Upper Volta, Senegal, and French Sudan vote to form the Mali Federation within the French Community.
Juno, a musical play with book by Stein after O’Casey and music and lyrics by Marc Blitzstein (53), is performed for the first time, in the National Theatre, Washington. Critics love the production but are generally disappointed by the work itself. See 9 March 1959.
19 January 1959 A federal appeals court in Norfolk prohibits Virginia officials from closing any of Norfolk’s schools.
20 January 1959 The American Scene for orchestra by William Grant Still (63) is performed for the first time, in University Auditorium, Tucson.
21 January 1959 Mr. and Mrs. Paul Hindemith (63) arrive in New York, almost six years after moving to Switzerland.
23 January 1959 A military court in Havana finds Jesus Sosa Blanco, commander of government military forces in Oriente, guilty of 120 counts of murder, theft, arson, and looting. He is sentenced to death by firing squad.
String Quartet no.11 in the sixth-tone system op.87 by Alois Hába (65) is performed for the first time, over the airwaves of Hamburg Radio.
24 January 1959 Moskva, Cheryomushki, an operetta by Dmitri Shostakovich (52) to words of Mass and Chervinsky, is performed for the first time, at the Moscow Operetta Theatre. There was an open dress rehearsal on 20 January. Critics find the music generally good, the libretto generally bad.
25 January 1959 Pope John XXIII announces a call for major church council to seek Christian unity.
27 January 1959 Nikita Khrushchev tells the 21st Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union that his country has begun production of ICBMs to ensure victory in any world war.
Belgian and colonial troops are called out to quell violence today and tomorrow in Léopoldville.
The new Cuban government removes thousands of people from government payrolls who do no work. They report that the land seized from former President Batista and his associates has now reached $40,000,000.
28 January 1959 Schools reopen in Norfolk, Virginia after being closed by the governor. 17 black students are duly registered in previously all-white high schools.
Marc Blitzstein (53) is elected to the National Institute of Arts and Letters.
30 January 1959 The Philips Pavilion for the 1958 Brussels World’s Fair, designed by Le Corbusier, is destroyed by implosion. The Philips Corporation feels that it can not maintain the structure. Edgard Varèse (75) will call this “an insult to a great artist.” (Le Corbusier)
Pilgrims for strings by Ned Rorem (35) is performed for the first time, in New York.
Pittsburgh Symphony by Paul Hindemith (63), commissioned to celebrate the 200th anniversary of Pittsburgh, is performed for the first time, in Pittsburgh.
31 January 1959 Voters in Switzerland reject 2-1 a proposed constitutional amendment which would give women the right to vote in federal elections and hold federal office. In the canton of Vaud, women are given the right to vote in cantonal elections.
Fantasia Concertante for piano and orchestra by Bohuslav Martinu (68) is performed for the first time, in Berlin.
1 February 1959 The Hungarian government orders an increase in the collectivization of farms.
2 February 1959 Mrs. Indira Gandhi, daughter of Indian Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru, is chosen as President of the ruling Congress Party.
Soviet authorities detain a US Army truck convoy headed for West Germany from West Berlin at the Marienborn border crossing and demand to inspect it.
Four black children attend previously all-white Stratford High School in Arlington, Virginia.
The new government of Cuba begins implementation of a land reform program which will distribute 33 to 100 acres of land to each landless farmer. Robert Nye, former US Navy pilot, is charged with attempting to kill Fidel Castro on payment of $100,000 from Air Force commander Gen. Carlos Tabernilla Palmero. Nye, who was captured by rebels last December in Oriente province, denies the charge.
3 February 1959 Leaders of twelve African states meet in Paris with President de Gaulle to constitute the Executive Council of the French Union.
Popular music entertainers Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens, and the Big Bopper are killed in a plane crash near Clear Lake, Iowa.
4 February 1959 Soviet authorities release the truck convoy after detaining it for 54 hours. They are not allowed to inspect it.
Havana University is seized by its students. They announce that all professors who collaborated with the Batista regime will be sacked.
After a five-year attempt to extract $9,655 in taxes from Paul Robeson’s $25,000 Stalin Prize of 1953, the US Internal Revenue Service decides that the prize is tax-exempt after all.
Estampes for orchestra by Bohuslav Martinu (68) is performed for the first time, in Louisville.
5 February 1959 The 21st Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union adjourns after accepting a new seven-year plan.
The US State Department releases a tape recording of what they say are the cockpit conversations of Soviet pilots engaged in shooting down an unarmed US transport plane last 2 September over Armenia. The USSR returned the bodies of six of the 17 crewmen but has given no information on the other eleven. They say the recording is a fabrication.
6 February 1959 Two former SS guards at Sachsenhausen are sentenced to life in prison at hard labor by a Bonn court. They were convicted of murdering 67 and 47 people respectively.
Francis Poulenc’s (60) tragédie lyrique La voix humaine, to words of Cocteau, is performed for the first time, in the Opéra-Comique, Paris.
The United States successfully fires an intercontinental ballistic missile for the first time, from Cape Canaveral, Florida.
9 February 1959 Incidental music to Molière’s play L’Avare by Peter Sculthorpe (29) is performed for the first time, at Oxford.
11 February 1959 The Prime Ministers of Greece and Turkey announce in Zürich that they have reached a settlement of the Cyprus issue. According to the agreement, Cyprus will become an independent republic with a power sharing arrangement between the two communities. British bases will remain. A mixed force of Greek and Turkish troops will maintain order on the island.
Felipe Pazos, President of the National Bank of Cuba, reports that the nation’s cash reserves have fallen to under 111,000,000 pesos, below the minimum allowed by law. He says the Batista dictatorship systematically looted the nation’s assets of over 424,000,000 pesos.
13 February 1959 Parables, a symphonic suite by Bohuslav Martinu (68), is performed for the first time, in Boston.
14 February 1959 The Curie Hospital in Paris releases five Yugoslav scientists after apparently being cured of fatal doses of radiation. They are the first reported successful transplants of bone marrow on record.
15 February 1959 Antonio Segni replaces Amintore Fanfani as Prime Minister of Italy.
16 February 1959 Anti-British demonstrations and riots break out in Nyasaland (Malawi).
Three days of rioting begins in Brazzaville between rival African groups. 120 people are killed, 300 injured.
Fidel Castro Ruz is named Prime Minister of Cuba.
Suite for guitar by Ernst Krenek (58) is performed for the first time, in Los Angeles County Auditorium.
17 February 1959 A plane carrying Turkish Prime Minister Adnan Menderes to talks in London on the future of Cyprus crashes at Gatwick Airport. Menderes and nine other passengers survive, but 15 do not, including the Press Minister and other government and press officials.
Vanguard II, the first weather satellite, is launched by the US from Cape Canaveral.
The UN Trusteeship Council votes to end the trusteeship over French Cameroon by 1 January.
18 February 1959 French troops enter Brazzaville and impose order. A curfew is put in place.
19 February 1959 The Cyprus agreement reached on 11 February is signed in London by Prime Ministers Constantine Karamanlis of Greece, Adnan Menderes of Turkey and Harold MacMillan of Great Britain. Also signing are representatives of the two communities on the island, Archbishop Makarios and Fazil Kutchuk.
20 February 1959 The Columbia-Princeton Electronic Music Center comes into existence with the beginning of a grant of $175,000 to the two universities. The directors are Otto Luening (58) and Vladimir Ussachevsky (47) at Columbia, and Milton Babbitt (42) and Roger Sessions (62) at Princeton.
21 February 1959 After a brief concert tour in the United States, Paul Hindemith (63) and his wife sail from New York, heading for Europe.
22 February 1959 The British authorities on Cyprus end the state of emergency in place for four years. They release all remaining political prisoners. Beyond the previous agreement, this accord sets forth the system of government in the new republic.
23 February 1959 The European Court of Human Rights convenes for the first time, in Strasbourg.
24 February 1959 The banishment of Archbishop Makarios from Cyprus is lifted by the British governor.
Colonial troops fire on rioters in Lilongwe, Nyasaland. One person is killed. Air Force planes drop tear gas, dispersing the crowd.
Four songs for voice and piano by Ned Rorem (35) are performed for the first time, in Carnegie Recital Hall, the composer at the piano: What Sparks and Wiry Cries to words of Goodman, Visits to St. Elizabeths to words of Bishop, Love to words of Lodge, and Lullaby of the Woman of the Mountain to words of Pearse (tr. MacDonagh).
25 February 1959 El Al Israeli airlines begins an airlift of Romanian Jews from Vienna to Israel. Romania has recently released its Jews and allowed them to emigrate.
26 February 1959 Prime Minister Edgar Whitehead declares a state of emergency in Southern Rhodesia and outlaws all nationalist organizations. 435 people are arrested.
George Rochberg’s (40) Symphony no.2 is performed for the first time, in Severance Hall, Cleveland.
To Saint Cecilia, a cantata by Norman Dello Joio (46) to words of Dryden, is performed for the first time, in Kansas City, Kansas.
27 February 1959 Symphony no.2 by Charles Wuorinen (20) is performed for the first time, in Great Hall, Cooper Union, New York.
1 March 1959 Archbishop Makarios returns to Cyprus after three years of exile imposed by the British. He is met by 150,000 Greek Cypriots.
2 March 1959 Iran renounces the 1921 treaty which allows Soviet troops to enter Iran.
Miles Davis records the first of two sessions for Kind of Blue.
Piano Piece 1952 by Morton Feldman (33) is performed for the first time, at the Circle in the Square Theatre, New York. Also premiered is Feldman’s Piano Four Hands by the composer and David Tudor.
3 March 1959 The British Governor of Nyasaland declares a state of emergency to deal with ongoing violence in favor of independence. 249 leaders of the Nyasaland African Congress, including Hastings Banda, are arrested. Rioting erupts in several places in the province today through 8 March. 39 people are killed.
Eleven Mau Mau prisoners are beaten to death by guards at the Hola detention camp in Kenya. When the incident becomes public 7 March, protests and demonstrations ensue.
On its fifth attempt, the United States succeeds in launching a space probe towards the Moon. It is the first vehicle from that country to escape earth’s gravity.
Symphony no.13 “Madras Symphony” by Henry Cowell (61) is performed for the first time, in Madras.
4 March 1959 Pioneer 4 becomes the second man-made object to pass the Moon and travel into orbit around the Sun.
The new Cuban government takes over the Cuban Telephone Company.
5 March 1959 Power Among Men, a film with music by Virgil Thomson (62), is performed for the first time, at the Museum of Modern Art, New York.
6 March 1959 Four Madrigals for chorus by Jacob Druckman (30) to words of Beaumont, Jonson, Donne, and Herrick, is performed for the first time, at the Juilliard School, New York.
8 March 1959 Elements of the Iraqi military revolt against the government of Prime Minister Abdul Karim Kassem. The rebellion begins in Mosul.
9 March 1959 The revolt against the government of Iraqi Prime Minister Abdul Karim Kassem is put down in Mosul. Top members of the embassy of the UAR in Baghdad are ordered to leave the country.
Greek Cypriot rebels call a halt to their activities and pledge their support to Archbishop Makarios.
Former Nazi gauleiter of eastern Poland Erich Koch is sentenced to death in a Warsaw court for the murder of 300,000 people during World War II.
The Barbie Doll is first exhibited in New York.
After seven weeks in Washington and Boston, substantial cuts and rewrites, changes in essential personnel, and the involvement of several lawyers, Juno, a musical play by Marc Blitzstein (54) to a book by Stein after O’Casey and his own lyrics, opens in New York at the Winter Garden Theatre. The press goes from disappointed to scathing. Blitzstein call the reviews “respectful but disparaging.” It will close after 16 performances. See 17 January 1959.
Sweet Bird of Youth by Tennessee Williams opens in the Martin Beck Theatre, New York.
11 March 1959 Speaking in Damascus, UAR President Gamal Abdel Nasser declares opposition to the Iraq regime and blames the USSR for rifts between the Arab states.
Slavonic Popular Proverbs op.84, a cycle for children’s or women’s chorus by Alois Hába (65) to words of Celkovsky, is performed for the first time, in Prague.
Studies in Sound, Plus for tape by Vladimir Ussachevsky (47) is performed for the first time, in Kaufmann Concert Hall, New York.
12 March 1959 General elections in the Netherlands once again leave the two largest parties, the Catholic Peoples Party and the Labor Party, almost evenly divided, each with one-third of the seats. The Catholic Peoples Party will continue to lead the ruling coalition.
The British governor of Northern Rhodesia bans the Zambian African National Congress. Detained for deportation are Kenneth Kaunda and other nationalist leaders.
Jews in Vienna report that Romania has stopped issuing exit visas to Jews.
13 March 1959 Chinese troops fire on crowds demonstrating in Lhasa their support for the Dalai Lama.
Australia and the USSR agree to reestablish diplomatic relations.
Colonial troops and police continue to battle nationalist unrest in Nyasaland.
Mobs in Lusaka, Northern Rhodesia, riot in response to the British actions of yesterday.
Greek Cypriot rebels begin surrendering their weapons to police.
14 March 1959 Différences for five instruments and tape by Luciano Berio (33) is performed for the first time, in Salle Gaveau, Paris.
Gambit, music for dancers and orchestra by Ben Johnston is performed for the first time, at the University of Illinois on the eve of the composer’s 33rd birthday.
15 March 1959 Symphony no.7 by Karl Amadeus Hartmann (53) is performed for the first time, over the airwaves of NDR originating in Hamburg.
Music for the documentary Burma Road by Darius Milhaud (66) is performed for the first time, over the airwaves of CBS television, originating in New York.
17 March 1959 Tibetans revolt against Chinese rule as the Dalai Lama escapes Lhasa.
The USS Skate becomes the first submarine to surface at the North Pole.
18 March 1959 US President Eisenhower signs a bill making Hawaii a state, as soon as certain provisions are achieved.
Incidental music to Leckel’s “electric theatre fantasy” by Lejaren Hiller (35) is performed for the first time, at the University of Illinois, Urbana.
19 March 1959 The New York Times reports that in August and September of last year, the US exploded three small nuclear devices in the atmosphere, 500 km above the south Atlantic Ocean. The story is confirmed by the US Defense Dept.
Green Mansions, a film with some music by Heitor Villa-Lobos (72), is shown for the first time, in New York.
20 March 1959 Carols of Death for chorus by William Schuman (48) to words of Whitman, is performed for the first time, in Canton, New York.
21 March 1959 Officials of the US Defense Dept. reveal that the concentration of Strontium 90 from nuclear tests is “greater in the United States than in any other area in the world.” They blame Soviet atomic weapons tests.
22 March 1959 Sonatine for piano op.354 by Darius Milhaud (66) is performed for the first time, in San Francisco.
24 March 1959 Iraq officially withdraws from the Baghdad Pact.
25 March 1959 Two FBI agents visit Marc Blitzstein (54) at his New York home. He tells them that he has nothing to add to his testimony before the House Un-American Activities Committee and that they are invading his privacy. They do not press the matter.
27 March 1959 Soviet warplanes threaten US transport planes in the Berlin air corridor to try to make them conform to a 3,000 meter ceiling.
Bulgaria and the United States agree to restore diplomatic relations.
28 March 1959 Prime Minister Chou En-lai of China orders the dissolution of the Tibetan government and its replacement by a committee headed by the Panchen Lama.
30 March 1959 A district court in Tokyo rules that the presence of US military forces in Japan is illegal and violates the constitution.
Secret testimony by members of the Joint Chiefs of Staff to a US House committee is revealed today in which they say the US has much more atomic weaponry than it needs to destroy the Soviet Union.
31 March 1959 The Dalai Lama reaches the Indian frontier at Chutangmu.
1 April 1959 Variations for violin and orchestra op.71 by Wallingford Riegger (73) is performed for the first time, in Louisville.
2 April 1959 The Colombian Senate convicts former dictator Gustavo Rojas Pinilla of violating the constitution and abusing his powers. They remove all his political rights and titles, strip his pension, and bar him from holding public or military office.
Five motets for voice and piano by Paul Hindemith (63) to words from the Bible are performed for the first time, in Vienna: Cum natus esset, In Principio erat Verbum, Pastores loquebantur, Nuptiae factae sunt, and Defuncto Herode.
Elegy for small orchestra by Kenneth Gaburo (32) is performed for the first time, in New York, conducted by Leonard Bernstein (40).
3 April 1959 For a second time, Soviet warplanes threaten US transport planes in the Berlin air corridor to try to make them conform to a 10,000 ft. ceiling.
5 April 1959 The US Navy reports that radioactivity over the eastern United States has risen three times since last year.
6 April 1959 Police raids in the Paris area net 172 Algerians, some of them suspected of being rebel leaders.
7 April 1959 French authorities seize a Czechoslovakian freighter in the port of Mers-el-Kebir. It contains 581 tons of arms believed intended for Algerian rebels.
The voters of the State of Oklahoma repeal prohibition.
8 April 1959 Brass Music for trumpet, horn, trombone, tuba, and piano by Leonard Bernstein (40) is performed for the first time, in Carnegie Hall, New York.
Wind Quintet no.1 by George Perle (43) is performed for the first time, in Berkeley, California.
9 April 1959 André Malraux, Minister for Cultural Affairs, announces a reform of the French national theatre system, including increased emphasis on the classics.
The US National Aeronautics and Space Administration names the first seven “astronauts” for the Mercury program. They say one of them will be chosen to be sent into space in 1961.
Frank Lloyd Wright dies in Phoenix at the age of 91 of complications following surgery.
10 April 1959 465 Algerians are arrested in major French cities for “nationalist agitation.”
After a federal judge refuses to issue a stay, nine black children are enrolled in three all-white schools in Alexandria, Virginia.
Two Piano Pieces by Gottfired Michael Koenig (32) are performed for the first time, in Cologne.
12 April 1959 A report issued today by 35 Roman Catholic priests who served with the French army in Algeria claim they witnessed numerous examples of arbitrary arrest, torture, killing of wounded prisoners, and summary executions.
Former US Navy pilot Alan Nye is sentenced to death in Havana for plotting to kill Fidel Castro. The sentence is suspended providing he leaves the country. Nye flies to New Orleans.
An episode of the CBS television program The Twentieth Century entitled “Submarine!” with music by Ulysses Kay (42) is broadcast for the first time, over the airwaves of the network.
Ensemble for string orchestra by Henry Cowell (62) is performed for the first time, in New School Auditorium, New York.
13 April 1959 The Vatican decrees that Roman Catholics may not vote for Communists.
The Indian government announces that the Dalai Lama may reside at Mussoorie, Uttar Pradesh, 80 km north of New Delhi.
14 April 1959 British authorities release Jomo Kenyatta and four other Kenyan leaders from prison after serving five years of seven year sentences.
15 April 1959 Fidel Castro arrives in Washington for a speaking tour of eastern North America. He will meet with Secretary of State Christian Herter and Vice President Richard Nixon.
Catalogue des Oiseaux for piano by Olivier Messiaen (50) is performed for the first time, in the Salle Gaveau, Paris.
16 April 1959 The Triumph of Saint Joan, an opera by Norman Dello Joio (46) to his own words, is performed for the first time, in New York. It is an adaptation of his television opera The Trial at Rouen. See 8 April 1956.
18 April 1959 The government of Pakistan seizes the Pakistan Times and its four newspapers for receiving money from “foreign sources.”
26,000 young African-Americans rally before the Lincoln Memorial calling for the integration of schools. The main speaker is Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
Symphony no.3 by Ned Rorem (35) is performed for the first time, in Carnegie Hall, Leonard Bernstein (40) conducting.
Fantasia for string quartet and orchestra by Otto Luening (58) is performed for the first time, in McMillin Theatre, Columbia University.
19 April 1959 String Quartet no.3 op.81 by Vincent Persichetti (43) is performed for the first time, in Tuscaloosa, Alabama.
20 April 1959 A court in Pretoria dismisses treason charges against 61 colored, Indian, and black defendants for lack of evidence.
22 April 1959 President Sukarno of Indonesia calls on the Constituent Assembly to adopt measures which will lead to the gradual elimination of capitalism in the country.
Aram Khachaturian (55) is awarded the Lenin Prize.
The composer and violinist Claire Delbos, wife of Olivier Messiaen (50), dies in a nursing home in La Varenne.
The G-2 nuclear reactor begins operation in Marcoule. It is the first commercial reactor in France.
Miles Davis records the second of two sessions for Kind of Blue.
Governor John Patterson of Alabama tells a US Senate committee that citizens of his state “will scrap their public school system rather than submit to the integration of the races.”
23 April 1959 Peking Radio announces that Chinese forces now control all vital strongholds between the Tsangpo (Zangbo) and the Himalayas, east to Gyantse (Gyangze).
24 April 1959 Deutsche Sinfonie op.50 for solo voices, chorus, and orchestra by Hanns Eisler (60), to words of Brecht, is performed for the first time, in Deutsche Staatsoper, Berlin.
25 April 1959 The St. Lawrence Seaway is opened to shipping, joining the Great Lakes to the Atlantic Ocean.
Ricercar and Doubles on “To Many a Well” for instrumental ensemble by Peter Maxwell Davies (24) is performed for the first time, at Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire.
26 April 1959 Moderates and conservatives do well in elections for the first Senate of the Fifth French Republic.
The winners of an anonymous composition contest sponsored by the League of Polish Composers are announced in Warsaw. First, Second, and Third Prize all go to Krzysztof Penderecki (25).
Six Characters in Search of an Author, an opera by Hugo Weisgall (46) to words of Johnston after Pirandello, is performed for the first time, in New York.
Last Pieces for piano by Morton Feldman (33) is performed for the first time, at The Village Gate, New York.
Song of Peace op.82 for male chorus and piano by Vincent Persichetti (43) is performed for the first time, in Hamilton, New York.
27 April 1959 Liu Shao-ch’i (Liu Shaoqi) is elected Chairman of the Chinese Peoples Republic, replacing Mao Tse-tung.
28 April 1959 Coexistence, a ballet by Pierre Henry (31) to a choreography by Béjart, is performed for the first time, at the Galerie internationale d’art contemporain in Paris.
29 April 1959 President Charles de Gaulle announces that his policy is to integrate Algeria into France.
30 April 1959 Concert Piece for clarinet and piano by William Bolcom (20) is performed for the first time, at Mills College, Oakland by Morton Subotnick (26) and the composer.
2 May 1959 Fugues and Cantilenas for orchestra by Virgil Thomson (62) is performed for the first time, in Hill Auditorium, Ann Arbor, Michigan, the composer conducting.
4 May 1959 François Truffaut’s film Les Quatre Cents Coups is released in France.
The first Grammy Awards are announced by the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences.
Lady Chatterley’s Lover by DH Lawrence is published uncensored in the United States for the first time. The book was written in 1928.
5 May 1959 After three moderate members of the Little Rock school board walk out of a meeting, the remaining three members sack 44 teachers. Board President Ed McKinley remarks that Little Rock schools have no place for teachers who believe the Supreme Court Brown v. Board of Education decision of 1954 is legally binding.
6 May 1959 A coroner rules that eleven Mau Mau prisoners who died in the Hola detention camp last March were beaten to death by colonial guards.
Scientists testify before a joint congressional committee in Washington that resuming atomic testing to the levels of the past six years will result in unacceptable radiation danger for the inhabitants of the Earth.
9 May 1959 Psalm and Prayer of David for chorus by Walter Piston (65) is performed for the first time, at Brandeis University in Waltham, Massachusetts.
10 May 1959 In parliamentary elections in Austria, the Socialists win the most votes but receive one less seat than the Peoples Party. The Communists lose all representation in Parliament. The Peoples-Socialist coalition continues under Chancellor Julius Raab.
11 May 1959 Foreign Ministers of France, Great Britain, the USSR, and the United States meet in
Geneva to discuss Berlin, German unification, and a German peace treaty. It is the first high level meeting between the four since 1955.
12 May 1959 Good Morning, a film with music by Toshiro Mayuzumi (30), is released in Japan.
Quartetto for strings by Luciano Berio (33) is performed for the first time, in Vienna.
13 May 1959 Prime Minister Debré of France announces his government intends to stay in Algeria permanently. European residents of Algeria boycott observances of the first anniversary of the uprising because of what they see as President de Gaulle’s failure to carry out its purpose.
The Cuban government votes to expropriate the assets of 117 companies owned by 18 persons.
14 May 1959 By one vote, the Swedish Riksdag approves a bill to give all wage earners pensions equal to two-thirds of the average of their peak incomes over a 15-year period.
Ground is broken in New York for the new Lincoln Center. 12,000 people attend (including President Eisenhower) while 500,000 watch on television. The master of ceremonies is Leonard Bernstein (40). Representing the Juilliard School is William Schuman (48).
Rapunzel, a chamber opera by Lou Harrison to words of Morris, is performed for the first time, in Kaufmann Auditorium, New York on the composer’s 42rd birthday. See 14 April 1954.
Sound effects for the opera Glittering Gate by Vladimir Ussachevsky (47) are performed for the first time, in New York.
16 May 1959 Duke Ellington (60) flies to Los Angeles from Michigan to work on the score to the film Anatomy of a Murder.
17 May 1959 China resumes bombardment of the Matsu (Mazu) Islands.
The new Cuban government institutes its first agrarian reform law, attempting to address the fact that 70% of the country’s farm land is owned by foreigners. The government pays the landholders the assessed value and distributes the land to ordinary Cubans.
Mirandolina, an opera by Bohuslav Martinu (68) to his own words after Goldoni, is performed for the first time, in Prague.
Ulysses Kay’s (42) cantata Phoebus, Arise for soprano, bass, chorus, and orchestra is performed for the first time, in Town Hall, New York.
19 May 1959 Jan Edvard de Quay replaces Louis Joseph Maria Beel as Prime Minister of the Netherlands.
Oboe Quartet by Stefan Wolpe (56) is performed for the first time, conducted by Ralph Shapey (38).
20 May 1959 Marc Blitzstein (54) is inducted into the National Institute of Arts and Letters in a ceremony in New York.
Quintuple Jazz op.72 for orchestra by Wallingford Riegger (74) is performed for the first time, in Iowa City.
21 May 1959 Gypsy, a musical by Arthur Laurents, Jule Styne and Stephen Sondheim, opens at the Broadway Theatre, New York.
String Trio by David Del Tredici (22) is performed for the first time, in Herz Hall of the University of California, Berkeley.
22 May 1959 Reports surface that the best selling children’s book The Rabbits’ Wedding has been removed from shelves by the Alabama Public Library Service because it involves the marriage of a white rabbit and a black rabbit.
Five works by Ralph Shapey (38) are performed for the first time, in Carl Fischer Concert Hall, New York: Trio for violin, cello and piano, Piano Trio, Rhapsodie for oboe and piano, String Quartet no.5 with female voice, to words of Klement, and Form for piano. Also premiered are three of the five movements of Enactments for three pianos by Stefan Wolpe (56). See 26 April 1963.
23 May 1959 The Cuban government votes to expropriate seven airline and airport companies owned by members of the Batista dictatorship.
A film of Modest Musorgsky’s (†78) opera Khovanshchina, with music reorchestrated by Dmitri Shostakovich (52), is shown for the first time.
Recitatives from Lou Harrison’s (42) Political Primer to his own words are performed for the first time, at the University of Buffalo.
24 May 1959 The Resurrection of Don Juan, a ballet by Dominick Argento (31), is performed for the first time, in Karlsruhe. See 5 May 1956.
25 May 1959 A recall election in Little Rock removes the three segregationist members of the school board who took the actions of 5 May.
The US Supreme Court rules that a Louisiana law banning interracial boxing matches is unconstitutional.
Igor Stravinsky (76) is awarded the first Léonie Sonning Music Prize in Copenhagen.
March: A History of the English Speaking Peoples, a theme composed for a BBC television series by William Walton (57), is performed for the first time, in a recording session at the Elstree ADPC studios conducted by the composer. It will never be used in the series.
27 May 1959 The Big Four foreign ministers talks in Geneva are recessed so that all four may attend funeral services in Washington for former Secretary of State John Foster Dulles.
South African Justice Minister Charles Swart forbids Albert Luthuli, President of the African National Congress, from making any speeches or attending any meetings for five years. He further banishes him to his home area in Natal.
28 May 1959 Two monkeys, Able and Baker, become the first Earth mammals to travel into space and return alive. They are sent 500 km up from Cape Canaveral and are recovered 90 minutes later off Antigua.
30 May 1959 Ahmet Emin Yalman, publisher of the newspaper Vata, is sentenced by a Turkish court to ten months in prison and banishment to northeastern Turkey for three months. His son and an editor on the paper are sentenced to one year in prison and four months banishment. The crime is “insulting the government’s integrity.”
Bohuslav Martinu is hospitalized once again, for the entire month of June.
1 June 1959 The US embassy in Baghdad announces that the Iraqi government has renounced all military aid from the US because it compromises their neutrality.
36 people, including 34 high ranking members of the Batista military, are sentenced in a Havana court to terms in prison ranging from five to 25 years.
2 June 1959 The owners of the Danish freighter prevented from entering the Suez Canal on 21 May because it carried an Israeli cargo, refuse to offload the cargo as required by Egypt.
3 June 1959 Great Britain grants internal self-government to Singapore as the constitution goes into effect.
Chairman Francis Walter of the House Un-American Activities Committee announces that he has checked into the backgrounds of 67 artists chosen for a US exhibit in Moscow and found 34 with “records of affiliation with Communist fronts and causes.”
5 June 1959 A Queen’s Fanfare for brass by William Walton (57) is performed for the first time, in Westminster Hall, London. The work was composed for the entrance of Queen Elizabeth at the NATO Parliamentary Conference.
9 June 1959 Yaju shisubeshi, a film with music by Toshiro Mayuzumi (30), is released in Japan.
Sonatine for viola and cello op.378 by Darius Milhaud (66) is performed for the first time, in Saskatoon.
10 June 1959 Minister of State for the UAR Ali Sabry declares that no ship, no matter what flag, will be permitted through the Suez Canal if it carries Israeli goods.
Alain Resnais’ film Hiroshima mon amour is released in France.
Improvisations sur Mallarmé III for soprano and orchestra by Pierre Boulez (34) is performed for the first time, in Donaueschingen.
Prolation for orchestra by Peter Maxwell Davies (24) is performed for the first time, in Auditorium del Foro Italico, Rome.
Aria antigua for flute and piano by Joaquín Rodrigo (57) is performed for the first time, in Circulo Cultural Medina, Madrid. See 18 December 1994 and 21 February 1996.
Fanfare for St. Edmundsbury for three trumpets by Benjamin Britten (45) is performed for the first time, in the Cathedral Precincts of Bury St. Edmunds, Suffolk.
11 June 1959 The French National Assembly approves two bills designed to bring greater integration of Algeria and France.
The first hovercraft designed by Christopher Cockerell is tested by Saunders-Roe, Ltd. near the Isle of Wight.
Postmaster General Arthur E. Summerfield bans Lady Chatterley’s Lover from the United States Mail saying it “is an obscene and filthy work.”
12 June 1959 Marcel Camus’ film Orfeu negro (Black Orpheus) is released in France.
Incidental music to Cocteau’s play Le poète et sa muse by Gian Carlo Menotti (47) is performed for the first time, in Teatro Caio Melisso, Spoleto, Italy.
Samuel Barber (49) is awarded an honorary doctorate from Harvard University.
13 June 1959 Michael Tippett (54) is named Commander of the British Empire by Queen Elizabeth II.
15 June 1959 Madrigals (Part-Song Book) for chorus by Bohuslav Martinu (68) to traditional Moravian words is performed for the first time, in Brno.
17 June 1959 A London court finds the Daily Mirror and columnist William Connor guilty of libel and requires them to pay £8,000 to pianist Wladziu Valentino Liberace for implying that he is a homosexual.
A Hand of Bridge, an opera by Samuel Barber (49) to words of Menotti (47), is performed for the first time, in Teatro Caio Melisso, Spoleto.
Two songs by Charles Ives (†5) are performed for the first time, at Bennington College in Bennington, Vermont: Nov. 2, 1920 (An Election), to his own words, and Romanzo (di Central Park) to words of Hunt.
18 June 1959 Mikes of the Mountains, a cantata for solo voices, chorus, and instruments by Bohuslav Martinu (68) to words of Bures, is performed for the first time, in Prague.
19 June 1959 Big Four foreign ministers meeting in Geneva agree to recess until 13 July. After 41 days of negotiation over Berlin and German reunification, it is one of the only things they have agreed upon.
At ceremonies marking graduation from Moscow Conservatory, works by the diploma recipients are performed in the conservatory’s Bolshoy Hall. Among them are a Symphony in E flat by Sofia Gubaidulina (27).
20 June 1959 At Mussoorie, India, the Dalai Lama accuses China of the persecution of the Tibetan people. He challenges China to allow an international commission to visit Tibet to assess the situation. He charges that 65,000 Tibetans have died since 1956, large numbers have been deported to China, 1,000 monasteries have been destroyed, and 5,000 Chinese have been settled in Tibet.
23 June 1959 Sean Francis Lemass replaces Eamon de Valera as Prime Minister of Ireland.
Klaus Fuchs is released from Wakefield Prison in Yorkshire after serving nine years of a 14-year sentence for passing nuclear secrets to the Soviet Union. He goes to East Germany where he is granted citizenship.
25 June 1959 Eamon de Valera replaces Sean Thomas O’Kelly as President of Ireland.
26 June 1959 Conservative veterans viciously beat Jean-Jacques Servan-Schreiber, editor of L’Express, as he speaks to a veterans group advocating a negotiated settlement in Algeria.
Queen Elizabeth II and President Dwight Eisenhower dedicate the St. Lawrence Seaway at St. Lambert, Quebec. The two with their spouses then cruise the seaway for five hours aboard the royal yacht Britannia.
27 June 1959 Suite no.2 for unaccompanied violin by Ernest Bloch (78) is performed for the first time, in Aldeburgh.
Voters in Hawaii overwhelmingly approve statehood.
29 June 1959 The US Supreme Court rules that citizens may not be sacked by defense contractors simply because the government has labeled them a security risk.
1 July 1959 Anatomy of a Murder, a film with music by Duke Ellington (60), is released in the United States.
A filmed version of Porgy and Bess with music by George Gershwin (†20) is released.
4 July 1959 The Crown Colony of the Cayman Islands is created by Great Britain as part of the Federation of the West Indies.
The Galapagos Islands are made a national park by the government of Ecuador.
5 July 1959 President Sukarno of Indonesia reinstitutes the 1945 constitution giving him virtually decree powers. He dissolves the Constituent Assembly.
Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion resigns when leftist members of his coalition withdraw support for him in a Knesset vote to approve arms sales to West Germany.
Concerto grosso for winds by Heitor Villa-Lobos (72) is performed for the first time, in Pittsburgh.
11 July 1959 Refrains and Choruses for woodwind quintet by Harrison Birtwistle (24) is performed for the first time, in Town Hall, Cheltenham.
12 July 1959 Four excerpts from Florestan do Amazonas, music from the film Green Mansions by Heitor Villa-Lobos (72), is performed for the first time, at Bear Mountain, New York. This is the last appearance by Villa-Lobos as conductor.
13 July 1959 The Big Four foreign ministers resume their talks on Berlin and German reunification in Geneva after a recess of three weeks.
St. Michael Sonata for 17 winds by Peter Maxwell Davies (24) is performed for the first time, in the Town Hall of Cheltenham, Gloucestershire, directed by the composer.
14 July 1959 500,000 US steelworkers strike against 28 companies making almost all of the nation’s steel. The issues are wages, benefits, and working conditions.
The cruiser USS Long Beach is launched in Quincy, Massachusetts. It is the first nuclear powered surface warship.
Heitor Villa-Lobos (72) is awarded the Carlos Gomes (†62) medal in Rio de Janeiro.
15 July 1959 The 284-member Senate of the French Community is installed by President de Gaulle in Paris.
Ernest Bloch dies in Good Samaritan Hospital, Portland, Oregon, of cancer, aged 78 years, eleven months, and 21 days. His earthly remains will be cremated and kept by Mrs. Bloch until her death in 1963. At that time, the two sets of ashes will be spread over the Pacific Ocean.
17 July 1959 Mary Leakey finds Zinjanthropus in Olduvai Gorge. It is dated at 1,750,000 years old and rewrites man’s prehistory.
Cuban Prime Minister Fidel Castro resigns saying he has “moral differences” with President Manuel Urrutia Lleo. Later in the day, the President resigns and takes refuge with his family.
Billie Holiday dies in New York.
18 July 1959 Osvaldo Dorticós Torrado is appointed President of Cuba by the cabinet.
Sonata for cello and piano op.377 by Darius Milhaud (66) is performed for the first time, in Vancouver.
21 July 1959 Unable to form a new coalition, Israeli Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion announces he will remain until new elections.
A federal judge in New York reverses the ban on Lady Chatterley’s Lover from the US Mail. He holds that it is not obscene and constructing a rule to ban it would also mean the banning of a considerable part of the world’s literature.
22 July 1959 Missa brevis op.63 for boys’ chorus and organ by Benjamin Britten (45) is performed for the first time, in Westminster Cathedral.
23 July 1959 National Guard troops fire into demonstrating students in León, Nicaragua killing four. The United States ambassador calls the students communists.
Symphony no.1 “Communique” by Ross Lee Finney (52) is performed for the first time, in Interlochen, Michigan.
24 July 1959 In Katmandu, King Mahendra opens the first elected parliament in the history of Nepal.
The “Kitchen Debate” between Soviet General Secretary Nikita Khrushchev and US Vice-President Richard Nixon takes place in Sokolniki Park, Moscow at the American National Exhibition. Before videotape cameras the two debate the accomplishments of the two countries and systems.
26 July 1959 Tapes of the Kitchen Debate of two days ago are broadcast on the three US television networks.
Fidel Castro resumes his post as Prime Minister after resigning 17 July.
27 July 1959 Nonet no.2 by Bohuslav Martinu (68) is performed for the first time, in Salzburg.
30 July 1959 President Sukarno of Indonesia creates a 45-member Provisional Supreme Advisory Council and a 77-member National Planning Council to realize his plans for “guided democracy.”
The Spanish government creates the overseas province of Fernando Póo and Río Muni (Equatorial Guinea).
Étude aux objets for tape by Pierre Schaeffer (48) is performed for the first time, in the Salle Gaveau, Paris.
31 July 1959 Cho Bong Am, twice the presidential candidate of the opposition Progressive Party, is hanged in Seoul. He was accused of aiding North Korea.
President Rajendra Prasad of India sacks the state government of Kerala and institutes direct presidential rule. It was the only democratically elected Communist government in Asia.
1 August 1959 US Vice President Richard Nixon addresses the people of the Soviet Union in a television and radio speech from Moscow.
2 August 1959 The home of George Rayfield and his family in the Collins Park section of Wilmington, Delaware is destroyed by a bomb blast. No one is home at the time. Collins Park is all white. The Rayfields are black. It is the second time the house has been bombed.
3 August 1959 US President Eisenhower announces that he and Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev will visit each other’s countries before winter.
4 August 1959 The Kingdom of Laos declares a state of emergency in five provinces adjacent to North Vietnam because of attacks by Pathet Lao guerrillas.
5 August 1959 The foreign ministers of France, Great Britain, the USSR, and the US, who have been meeting in Geneva off and on since May about Berlin and German unification, recess their conference indefinitely. Little progress has been made.
7 August 1959 The Cuban government restores the right of habeas corpus.
8 August 1959 Bohuslav Martinu (68) enters a hospital in Liestal, Switzerland suffering from stomach cancer.
12 August 1959 Four high schools in Little Rock open with small numbers of black students attending the traditionally white schools. 200-250 segregationists demonstrate at Çentral High School and police and firemen use batons and firehoses to hold them back.
13 August 1959 A plane carrying ten counterrevolutionaries from the Dominican Republic is tricked into landing at Trinidad Airport in Las Villas Province. A gun battle ensues after which the ten are captured. The pilot is found to be Lt. Col. José Antonio Soto, responsible for flying the dictator Fulgencio Batista to safety in the Dominican Republic.
14 August 1959 Music for Merce Cunningham by Christian Wolff (25) is performed for the first time, to a dance by the dedicatee, at Connecticut College for Women, New London.
15 August 1959 Blacks begin four days of rioting against apartheid policies throughout Natal.
16 August 1959 Jordan and the UAR reestablish diplomatic relations.
Wanda Landowska dies in Lakeville, Connecticut at the age of 80.
17 August 1959 The USSR charges that Laos has violated its neutrality agreement by allowing the presence of US military personnel in the country.
19 August 1959 Officials of the Baghdad Pact in Ankara announce that the organization’s name is changed from the Middle East Treaty Oganization to the Central Treaty Organization (CENTO).
20 August 1959 An interview appears in the Greek daily Ta Nea in which Mikis Theodorakis (34) attacks his country’s musical establishment, “they inevitably drive backwards every aspect of our musical life.”
Former Cuban dictator Fulgencio Batista arrives in Lisbon from the Dominican Republic where he has been granted asylum by the fascist dictatorship.
21 August 1959 Hawaii becomes the 50th state of the United States in a ceremony at the White House.
22 August 1959 The New York Philharmonic Orchestra, conducted by Leonard Bernstein (40), begins a tour of the Soviet Union with a concert at Tchaikovsky Conservatory, Moscow.
24 August 1959 A new political party, the Kenya Independence Movement, is formed in Nairobi led by Tom Mboya. They aim for the release of Jomo Kenyatta and the equality of whites and blacks.
Over the last week, 1,300 black women have been arrested in anti-apartheid rioting in Natal Province, South Africa.
25 August 1959 Pathet Lao forces are reported within 60 km from the royal capital, Luang Prabang.
Zyklus no.9 for solo percussionist by Karlheinz Stockhausen (31) is performed for the first time, in Darmstadt.
26 August 1959 The US announces it will not test any more nuclear weapons for the rest of the year.
28 August 1959 19:30 Bohuslav Martinu dies of stomach cancer in Liestal, Switzerland, aged 68 years, eight months, and 20 days.
Transición II for piano, percussion, and two tapes by Mauricio Kagel (27) is performed for the first time, in Darmstadt.
29 August 1959 Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru of India informs Parliament of continuing cases of aggression and border crossings by Chinese troops.
Concertante IV for violin, piano and chamber orchestra by Charles Wuorinen (21) is performed for the first time, in Bennington, Vermont.
30 August 1959 Heitor Villa-Lobos (72) enters Hospital dos Estrangeiros in Rio de Janeiro suffering from kidney failure.
Pierre Boulez (34) delivers the lecture “Kommentar zur 3. Klaviersonate” at Darmstadt including his own performance of the work.
1 September 1959 The mortal remains of Bohuslav Martinu are laid to rest at Schönenberg, the villa of Paul Sacher, in Pratteln, near Basel. See 27 August 1979.
Luigi Nono (34) delivers the lecture “Geschichte und Gegenwart in der Musik von heute” at Darmstadt. It is seen as a personal attack on John Cage (46) and his influence in Europe.
Hodograph I for flute, piano/celeste, and percussion by Earle Brown (32) is performed for the first time, in Darmstadt.
2 September 1959 Concerto for piano and orchestra by Bruno Maderna (39) is performed for the first time, in Darmstadt. His first piano concerto, from 1942, has been lost.
Composition for Orchestra no.2 (Diario polacco ‘58) by Luigi Nono (35) is performed for the first time, in Darmstadt.
Unable to cure his kidney ailment, doctors release Heitor Villa-Lobos (72) from hospital in Rio de Janeiro. He goes to the family home of his companion, Arminda Neves de Almeida.
4 September 1959 The government of Laos appeals to the UN to send a force immediately to deal with Pathet Lao guerrillas reportedly supported by North Vietnam.
The American National Exhibition closes in Sokolniki Park, Moscow. An estimated 2,700,000 people saw the exhibit since it’s opening in July.
Musik für sieben Instrumente by Isang Yun (41) is performed for the first time, in Darmstadt.
5 September 1959 A state of emergency is declared in Laos in the face of guerrilla attacks in the northern provinces.
Otto Luening (59) marries his second wife, Catherine Johnson Brunson at her family home in Elba, Alabama. She is a pianist and musicologist at Columbia University.
6 September 1959 Five Pieces for piano by Isang Yun (41) is performed for the first time, in Bilthoven.
7 September 1959 Three bombs explode in Little Rock at targets connected with the schools and city government. No one is injured.
On Independence Day, Heitor Villa-Lobos (72) attends a concert for the last time, in the Teatro Municipal, Rio de Janeiro. He hears his Magnificat Aleluia.
9 September 1959 The Dalai Lama cables UN Secretary-General Dag Hammarskjöld, asking the intervention of the United Nations in Tibet in view of the crimes against humanity.
Great Britain grants internal self-government to Brunei.
11 September 1959 Leonard Bernstein (41) conducts the New York Philharmonic in their last performance during the current tour to the USSR, in Tchaikovsky Hall. In attendance is Dmitri Shostakovich (52) (whose Symphony no.5 is performed), and his son Maxim, Boris Pasternak, Dmitri Kabalevsky, and Kiril Kondrashin.
14 September 1959 The Soviet space probe Luna 2 crashes into the Moon east of the Sea of Serenity. It is the first man-made object to reach another celestial body.
The first, third, and fourth movements of Symphony no.1 by Henryk Górecki (25) are performed for the first time, in Warsaw. See 15 July 1963.
15 September 1959 Regular television service begins in India with broadcasts originating in Delhi.
Heinrich Lübke replaces Theodor Heuss as President of the Federal Republic of Germany.
General Secretary Nikita Khrushchev lands at Andrews Air Force Base near Washington, beginning the first visit of a Soviet leader to the United States. He is welcomed by President Eisenhower. Khrushchev will stay until 27 September. As soon as he left Moscow, the USSR ceased jamming broadcasts by the Voice of America.
16 September 1959 On French and Algerian television and radio, President Charles de Gaulle explains his plan for ending the conflict in Algeria. He offers Algerians a plebiscite with three choices, integration into France, internal autonomy with France the sovereign power, or independence (which he calls incredible and disasterous).
The Xerox 914 copier is first demonstrated publicly in New York. It is the first copier that does not need special paper.
L’usignolo dell’imperatore, a pantomime by Hans Werner Henze (33) to a scenario by di Majo, after Andersen, is performed for the first time, at Teatro La Fenice, Venice.
17 September 1959 The rocket-powered airplane X-15 makes its first powered flight, piloted by Scott Crossfield, landing at Edwards Air Force Base, California.
Strophes for soprano, speaker, and ten instruments by Krzysztof Penderecki (25) to words of Menander, Sophocles, Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Omar Khayyam, is performed for the first time, in Warsaw.
18 September 1959 French conservatives in Algeria denounce the de Gaulle plan and demand immediate integration with France.
General Secretary Nikita Khrushchev, speaking at the UN in New York, calls for complete disarmament of all countries within four years.
19 September 1959 Nikita Khrushchev lands in Los Angeles from New York for meetings with film industry executives. At a civic dinner, Mayor Norris Poulson makes a speech critical of Khrushchev and the General Secretary responds in kind. He is then given a tour of 20th Century Fox studios where the movie Can-Can is being filmed. He remarks to reporters that the dance is “immoral.” “A person’s face is more beautiful than her backside.”
20 September 1959 General Secretary Nikita Khrushchev travels by train from Los Angeles to San Francisco where he is given a much warmer welcome than in Los Angeles. He meets with seven American labor leaders and engages them in a heated debate.
21 September 1959 The British government makes public a constitution granted by Queen Elizabeth II to Basutoland.
A reduction for cello and piano of the Cello Concerto no.1 by Dmitri Shostakovich (52) is performed for the first time, at the USSR Composers’ Club, Moscow by Mstislav Rostropovich and the composer. See 4 October 1959.
The fifth and sixth of the Six Orchestral Songs from Das Marienleben by Paul Hindemith (63) are performed for the first time, in Copenhagen. See 13 August 1939.
22 September 1959 Josef Matthias Hauer dies in Vienna, aged 76 years, six months, and three days.
General Secretary Nikita Khrushchev travels from San Francisco to Des Moines where he is given an enthusiastic welcome and tours a farm machinery company and a meat packing plant.
23 September 1959 General Secretary Nikita Khrushchev travels to a corn farm near Coon City, Iowa, and the University of Iowa at Ames. In the evening he arrives in Pittsburgh where he is greeted by the mayor.
Herbert von Karajan conducts a performance of Olivier Messiaen’s (50) Réveil des oiseaux in Berlin, in the presence of the composer. Karajan admits he does not understand the music and conducts without a score. It is not well received by the audience. Mustering the courage to go backstage, the composer finds the conductor elated. He hugs Messiaen and says “Thank you--at last, thanks to you, my first scandal!”
Allez-Hop for mezzo-soprano, eight mimes, dancers, and orchestra by Luciano Berio (33) to words of Calvino, is performed for the first time, in Venice.
24 September 1959 General Secretary Nikita Khrushchev tours Pittsburgh to friendly crowds and a steel plant, one of the few not closed by the ongoing steel strike. He then ends his tour by returning to Washington.
25 September 1959 Prime Minister Solomon West Ridgeway Dias Bandaranaike of Ceylon is shot by Talduwe Somarama Thero, a Buddhist monk, in Colombo. The reason seems to be that Bandaranaike supported increased use of western medicine in Ceylon’s hospitals, in opposition to Ayur-Vedic medicine practiced by Thero.
General Secretary Nikita Khrushchev meets with President Eisenhower at Camp David near Washington.
Conversations for string quintet and jazz quartet by Gunther Schuller (33) is performed for the first time, in Town Hall, New York, the composer conducting.
26 September 1959 Typhoon Vera comes ashore at the Kansai Region of Honshu, with 260 kph winds. Over 5,000 people are killed today and tomorrow, with 39,000 people injured. It is the strongest typhoon to hit Japan in recorded history.
Prime Minister Solomon West Ridgeway Dias Bandaranaike of Ceylon dies of his wounds suffered yesterday and is replaced by Wijayananda Dahanayake.
Piano Sonata by Hans Werner Henze (33) is performed for the first time, in Berlin.
General Secretary Nikita Khrushchev departs Andrews Air Force base near Washington for Moscow after a 13-day visit to the United States. East-West relations are not materially advanced.
29 September 1959 A map showing the extent of Chinese territorial claims on India is produced in New Delhi. It affects the entire 4,000 km Himalayan frontier and constitutes 100,000 sq km.
The earthly remains of Josef Matthias Hauer are laid to rest in Dornbach Cemetery, Vienna.
Sechs Motetten nach Worten von Franz Kafka for chorus by Ernst Krenek (59) is performed for the first time, at Berlin Conservatory.
2 October 1959 Refrain no.11 for three players by Karlheinz Stockhausen (31) is performed for the first time, in Berlin as part of the first ever all-Stockhausen concert. Cornelius Cardew (23) plays celesta.
4 October 1959 Cello Concerto no.1 op.107 by Dmitri Shostakovich (53) is performed for the first time, in the Leningrad Philharmonic Bolshoy Hall. See 21 September 1959.
6 October 1959 Wakai koibitotachi, a film with music by Toshiro Mayuzumi (30), is released in Japan.
The Soviet Union announces that Lunik III, launched two days ago, has passed around the Moon.
A committee of the US House of Representatives opens hearings into charges of fraud in televised quiz shows.
7 October 1959 The dark side of the Moon is photographed for the first time, by the Soviet space probe Lunik III.
Five gunmen attack a car carrying Iraqi Premier Abdul Karim el-Kassem as it travels through Baghdad. The driver and one attacker are killed. Kassem is hit by three bullets but survives.
8 October 1959 National elections in Great Britain result in a victory for the ruling Conservative Party with an increased majority.
9 October 1959 Psalms of David for chorus, percussion, keyboard, and double basses by Krzysztof Penderecki (25) is performed for the first time, in Kraków.
10 October 1959 Incidental music to Ardrey’s play Tower of Solitude by Henryk Górecki (25) is performed for the first time, in Katowice.
11 October 1959 An offer by the French government to the FLN Algerian rebels to negotiate a cease-fire is made public.
Introduction and Allegro for orchestra by TJ Anderson (31) is performed for the first time, in Oklahoma City.
12 October 1959 The US Supreme Court upholds an appeals court decision that the conviction of Robert Lee Goldsby was invalid. Goldsby was tried in a Mississippi county where more than half the population is black, but there are no black voters. Jurors are chosen from voter registration lists in Mississippi. The state has eight months from today to retry Goldsby in a constitutional manner.
16 October 1959 Socialist Senator François Mitterand escapes unharmed when his car is struck by bullets from right-wing attackers in Paris.
String Quartet no.17 by Heitor Villa-Lobos (72) is performed for the first time, in Washington.
17 October 1959 Variations on a Slovak Folk Song for cello and piano by Bohuslav Martinu (†0) is performed for the first time, in Prague.
Igor Stravinsky’s (77) Epitaphium für das Grabmal des Prinzen Max Egon zu Fürstenberg, for flute, clarinet, and harp, is performed for the first time, in Donaueschingen, conducted by Pierre Boulez (34). Also premiered is Boulez’ Tombeau for soprano and orchestra.
19 October 1959 He is There for unison chorus and orchestra by Charles Ives (†5) to his own words is performed for the first time, in the Norwalk High School Auditorium, Norwalk, Connecticut.
The Miracle Worker, a play by William Gibson, opens on Broadway.
20 October 1959 Chinese troops patrolling 65 km inside the Indian border in southern Ladakh kill nine Indian policemen and capture ten others.
The government of Pakistan begins its move from Karachi to Rawalpindi.
Madrigals for chorus Bohuslav Martinu (68) to Moravian folk lyrics is performed for the first time, in Prague.
21 October 1959 The United Nations General Assembly votes 45-9-28 to deplore the events in Tibet and calls for the restoration of the civil and religious rights of Tibetans.
The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum opens in New York in a building designed by Frank Lloyd Wright.
Major Huberto Matos is arrested by Cuban government agents after he resigned in protest over too much communist influence in the new regime.
22 October 1959 Dmitri Shostakovich (53) and five other Soviet musical luminaries begin a tour of seven American cities as part of a cultural exchange program sponsored by the United States State Department. They will be in US until 21 November.
Igor Stravinsky (77) suffers what might be a second stroke, in Bologna. In the evening he conducts half of an orchestral program
23 October 1959 Three New England Sketches by Walter Piston (65) is performed for the first time, in Worcester, Massachusetts.
Eagles, a symphonic poem by Ned Rorem, is performed for the first time, in Philadelphia on the composer’s 36th birthday.
24 October 1959 Symphony no.7 op.80 by Vincent Persichetti (44) is performed for the first time, in St. Louis.
27 October 1959 The Moscow newspapers Pravda and Izvestia print the first publicly available photograph of the other side of the Moon, taken by Lunik III on 7 October.
A Pacific hurricane strikes the Mexican state of Colima killing over 1,000 people with torrential rains which cause deadly mud slides.
Harmonica Concerto by Heitor Villa-Lobos (72) is performed for the first time, in Edison Hall, Jerusalem.
28 October 1959 Love Propitiated, a revision of Panifilo and Lauretta, an opera by Carlos Chávez (60) to words of Kallman after Boccaccio, is performed for the first time, in Mexico City. See 9 May 1957, 21 May 1963 and 26 July 1968.
29 October 1959 GD Searle Company requests approval from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to use their Enovid (a drug used to treat menstrual disorders) as a contraceptive.
Suite for flute and orchestra op.129 by Florent Schmitt (†1) is performed for the first time, in Paris.
30 October 1959 Anti-white rioting takes place today and tomorrow in Stanleyville, Belgian Congo. At least 20 people are killed.
The US agrees to withdraw from its bases in Morocco.
Symphony no.2 by Roberto Gerhard (63) is performed for the first time, in Royal Festival Hall, London.
String Quintet by Ross Lee Finney (52) is performed for the first time, at the Library of Congress, Washington.
31 October 1959 West Nigeria Television begins broadcasting from Ibadan. It is the first television station in Africa.
A former US Marine named Lee Harvey Oswald of Ft. Worth, Texas informs the US embassy in Moscow that he has applied for citizenship in the USSR.
2 November 1959 Four-and-a-half months after graduating from Moscow Conservatory, Sofia Gubaidulina (28) gives birth to a daughter, Nadia.
Testifying before a subcommittee of the US House of Representatives, Charles van Doren admits that he had the questions in advance for the NBC quiz show Twenty-One. He is one of many witnesses who testify that several game shows on US television have been rigged.
3 November 1959 Elections to the Israeli Knesset produce gains for the leading Mapai Party of Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion.
President de Gaulle announces his intentions to withdraw from the NATO integrated command.
On Independence Day, Panamanians attempt a symbolic “invasion” of the Canal Zone to plant their flag. They are prevented by US police. Rock throwing by Panamanians is answered by tear gas. US troops are called out and the Panamanians respond by attacking US interests in Panama City. About 80 people are injured.
Fanfare for SS Oriana for brass by Benjamin Britten (46) is performed for the first time, in Barrow-in-Furness at the launching of the vessel named in the title
One, Two, Buckle My Shoe for oboe, clarinet, violin, and cello by Irving Fine (44) is performed for the first time, in a documentary broadcast over the airwaves of WGBH-TV in Boston.
4 November 1959 The French government announces its intention to conduct atomic weapons testing in the Sahara unless the US, UK, and USSR “renounce their nuclear armament.”
5 November 1959 A Pearl River County, Mississippi grand jury adjourns without indicting anyone for the lynching of a black man last May, in spite of the fact the FBI provided the state with a 378-page report naming at least twelve possible suspects.
Ulysses Kay’s (42) Serenade no.2 for four horns is performed for the first time, at the University of Illinois, Champaign-Urbana.
6 November 1959 A UN committee investigating the situation in Laos finds no clear evidence of intervention in the country by North Vietnam.
String Quartet no.2 by Ulysses Kay (42) is performed for the first time, at the University of Illinois, Champaign-Urbana.
7 November 1959 Turkish opposition leader Osman Bolukbasi is sentenced to seven months in jail and four months house arrest for “insulting Parliament.”
A US Supreme Court ruling upholds an injunction under the Taft-Hartley law requiring striking steelworkers to go back to work. They comply. The strike has been going on for almost four months.
Vortex, founded in the Morrison Planetarium on 28 May 1957, moves its popular mixture of music and images to the San Francisco Museum of Art.
10 November 1959 The British government in Kenya declares that the Mau Mau rebellion is over and ends the state of emergency.
Dance Preludes for chamber orchestra by Witold Lutoslawski (46) is performed for the first time, in Louny, Czechoslovakia. See 15 February 1955.
Incidental music to the radio production of Christine Lavant’s Asylum Diary by Roberto Gerhard (63) is broadcast for the first time, over the airwaves of BBC Third Programme.
11 November 1959 Symphony no.3 by Charles Wuorinen (21) is performed for the first time, in Carnegie Hall, New York.
12 November 1959 Belgian authorities declare a state of emergency in Ruanda-Urundi because of ongoing violence between Hutus and Tutsis.
An Israeli offer to negotiate the refugee question and all other Arab-Israeli disputes is rebuffed by the Saudi ambassador to the UN saying, “there is nothing to negotiate.”
13 November 1959 Chamber Music no.1 for clarinet, violin, viola, cello , harp, and piano by Bohuslav Martinu (†0) is performed for the first time, in Braunschweig.
Symphony no.2 by Ross Lee Finney (52) is performed for the first time, in Philadelphia.
14 November 1959 China repatriates the ten Indian policemen it captured and the bodies of the nine policemen it killed on 20 October.
A record depth of 5,600 meters is reached by Andreas Rechnitzer and Jacques Piccard in the bathyscaphe Trieste in the Mariana Trench off Guam.
The Dounreay Fast Reactor begins producing electricity in Dounreay, Scotland. It is the first breeder reactor.
Antiphony for Divided Orchestra by Henry Cowell (62) is performed for the first time, in Temple B’nai Jehuda, Kansas City, Missouri.
15 November 1959 An episode of the CBS television program The Twentieth Century entitled “The Fall of China” with music by Ulysses Kay (42) is shown for the first time, over the network.
A television program called “Aaron Copland meets the Soviet Composers” is shown for the first time, over the airwaves of WGBH television in Boston. It is a discussion between Copland (59), Nicholas Slonimsky, five visiting Soviet composers, including Dmitri Shostakovich (53), and the Soviet musicologist Boris Yarustovsky.
16 November 1959 The Sound of Music by Rogers and Hammerstein opens in the Lunt-Fontanne Theatre, New York.
Four Songs by Virgil Thomson (62) are performed for the first time, in Carnegie Recital Hall, New York, the composer at the piano: the Holly and the Ivy to traditional words, Remember Adam’s Fall to anonymous 15th century words, At the Spring to words of Fisher and Look, How the Floor of Heaven to words of Shakespeare.
17 November 1959 15:55 Heitor Villa-Lobos dies at his apartment on Rua Araújo Porto Alegre, Rio de Janeiro, of uremia, aged 72 years, eight months, and twelve days.
Requiescant for chorus and orchestra by Luigi Dallapiccola (55) to words of Wilde, Joyce and the Bible is performed for the first time, over the airwaves of Norddeutscher Rundfunk, originating in Hamburg.
Domine, Domine noster op.119 for chorus and organ by Florent Schmitt (†1) to words of he Psalms, is performed for the first time, in the Church of the Madeleine, Paris.
Incidental music to Shakespeare’s play Richard II by Peter Maxwell Davies (25) is performed for the first time, in the Old Vic Theatre, London.
Sonata for violin and piano by Leslie Bassett (36) is performed for the first time, in Ann Arbor, Michigan.
18 November 1959 Attended by President Juscelino Kubitschek de Oliveira and other dignitaries, the mortal remains of Heitor Villa-Lobos are laid to rest in Cemitério São João Batista in the Botafogo section of Rio de Janeiro.
19 November 1959 The Ford Motor Company announces that it is discontinuing production of the Edsel due to low sales and the steel shortage. In the 26 months since its introduction, only 110,000 have been sold.
Concerto for violin with percussion orchestra by Lou Harrison (42) is performed for the first time, in Carnegie Hall, New York.
20 November 1959 Olafur Thors replaces Emil Jonsson as Prime Minister of Iceland.
Representatives of Austria, Denmark, Norway, Portugal, Sweden, Switzerland, and the UK sign an agreement in Stockholm to create the European Free Trade Association.
The Belgian Parliament votes to approve eventual independence for the Ruanda-Urundi territory.
The UN General Assembly votes unanimously to support a joint US-USSR proposal for disarmament.
Francis Poulenc (60) receives a cable from Leonard Bernstein (41) and David Keiser, music director and president of the New York Philharmonic inviting him to composer a major work for the inaugural season of Philharmonic Hall at Lincoln Center. He will accept.
Governor John Patterson of Alabama signs measures into law designed to limit black voter registration in his state.
21 November 1959 Iridescent Rondo in Old Modes for accordion by Henry Cowell (62) is performed for the first time, in Carnegie Recital Hall, New York.
22 November 1959 Hausmusik for seven different chamber combinations by Ernst Krenek (59) is performed for the first time, over the airwaves of RIAS, Berlin.
23 November 1959 Roger Sessions’ (62) String Quintet is performed completely for the first time, in New York.
24 November 1959 James Joyce Songs op.74, a cycle for voice and piano by Vincent Persichetti (44), is performed for the first time, in Fleischer Auditorium, Philadelphia.
25 November 1959 The French Senate votes to strip Senator François Mitterand of his parliamentary immunity and allow prosecution of charges he obstructed an investigation into an allegedly fake attempt on his life last month.
Five Songs for soprano and piano by Witold Lutoslawski (46) to words of Illakowicz are performed for the first time, in Katowice. See 12 February 1960.
Investigations for tape by Pierre Henry (31) is performed for the first time, at the Galerie internationale d’art contemporain in Paris.
26 November 1959 Ernesto Guevara is placed in charge of the National Bank of Cuba.
27 November 1959 30,000 people protesting the Japan-US security treaty enter the grounds of the Diet in Tokyo and battle with about 5,000 police. Hundreds of thousands demonstrate elsewhere in the country. 462 people are injured.
The first of the Four Last Songs for voice and piano by Ralph Vaughan Williams (†1) to words of his wife Ursula Vaughan Williams, are performed for the first time, in London. See 3 August 1960.
Seven Studies on Themes of Paul Klee for orchestra by Gunther Schuller (34) is performed for the first time, in Minneapolis.
28 November 1959 Three Chinese Lyrics for soprano and two violins by Ben Johnston (33) to words of Li Po (tr. Pound) is performed for the first time, at Donnell Library, New York. Also premiered is Johnston’s Nine Variations for string quartet.
30 November 1959 On the anniversary of independence from Spain, Panamanians attempt to enter the Canal Zone again, throwing rocks at US troops. Prevented from entering, they turn their anger again on US interests in Panama City.
1 December 1959 Twelve nations sign a treaty in Washington designed to protect the ecological safety of Antarctica. The continent is set aside as a military-free scientific area.
The first photograph of Earth taken from space is snapped by a camera mounted on a Thor missile launched from Cape Canaveral, Florida. The camera will not be recovered until next 16 February in the Bahamas.
2 December 1959 LaMonte Young (24) begins a series of “Noon Concerts” for the University of California at Berkeley music department. They feature contemporary composers, including John Cage (47) and himself. Vision, a theatre and music piece by Young is performed for the first time. Musicians are separated spatially and the performance takes place in the dark. Among the performers is Terry Riley (24).
4 December 1959 Pu-Yi, the last Manchu emperor, is granted a pardon along with 32 other war criminals.
5 December 1959 The UN General Assembly votes to accept 1 July 1960 as independence day for Italian Somaliland and 17 April 1960 for French Togoland.
6 December 1959 Piano Quintet no.2 by Ernest Bloch (†0) is performed for the first time, in Town Hall, New York.
9 December 1959 Legend, a symphonic poem by Andrew Imbrie (38) is performed for the first time, in San Francisco.
11 December 1959 Oedipus der Tyrann, a funeral play by Carl Orff (64) to words of Sophocles (tr. Hölderlin), is performed for the first time, in the Württembergisches Staatstheater, Stuttgart.
12 December 1959 Speaking in St. Louis, Senegal, French President Charles de Gaulle says that he intends to turn the French Community into an association of sovereign states.
13 December 1959 The first presidential elections in Cyprus give the office to Archbishop Makarios.
Mela/Fair for orchestra by Henry Cowell (62) is performed for the first time, in a radio broadcast from New Delhi.
14 December 1959 Nocturnes for soprano and chamber orchestra by Louis Andriessen (20), to his own words, is performed for the first time, in The Hague, the Netherlands.
Dr. Willar Uphaus is committed to prison for no more than one year in Concord, New Hampshire, for refusing to divulge the names of people attending meetings of World Fellowship, Inc. in Conway, NH.
15 December 1959 21 former officers in the revolutionary army of Cuba are found guilty of treason in Havana, including Hubert Matos, a close military aide to Fidel Castro. Matos is given 20 years in prison, the others receive sentences ranging from two to seven years. 13 others are acquitted.
Blue Flame, an opera by Alan Hovhaness (48), is performed for the first time, in San Antonio.
17 December 1959 King Baudouin of Belgium begins a two-week tour of the Belgian Congo in Stanleyville. Large crowds demand independence and the release of Patrice Lumumba.
Berry Gordy, Jr. founds Motown Records in Detroit.
18 December 1959 Zoltán Kodály (77) marries his 19-year-old student, Sarolta Péczely.
UN Secretary-General Dag Hammarskjöld protests to UAR President Gamal Abdel Nasser that he has violated an agreement to allow Israeli cargo through the Suez Canal if it is on ships of other nations. The Egyptians yesterday refused to allow a Greek ship carrying Israeli cement through the canal.
20 December 1959 In a memorable evening in New York, Igor Stravinsky (77) conducts a performance of his Les Noces. The four pianists are Roger Sessions (62), Aaron Copland (59), Samuel Barber (49) and Lukas Foss (37). Premiered this evening is Stravinsky’s (76) Double Canon for string quartet.
Miracles of Christmas for chorus and organ by Ned Rorem (36) to words of Jacob is performed for the first time, in Garden City Community Church, Long Island, New York.
21 December 1959 A report by the US Food and Drug Administration finds substantial amounts of DDT and chlorine pesticides in milk sold in eleven large cities.
23 December 1959 Alfred Krupp industries agrees to pay DM5,000 compensation to every Jewish slave laborer who worked at a Krupp facility during the Third Reich.
25 December 1959 Swastikas and anti-Jewish graffiti are painted on a synagogue in Cologne, West Germany. It begins a month of similar incidents throughout western Europe and the United States.
26 December 1959 Fantasy Quartet for four cellos by Gunther Schuller (34) is performed for the first time, in New York.
27 December 1959 Citizens of the Wallis and Futuna Islands vote to become a French Overseas Territory.
28 December 1959 King Baudouin of Belgium arrives in Léopoldville, Belgian Congo and again is protested by large crowds.
29 December 1959 US President Eisenhower refuses to renew the unilateral ban on atomic testing.
Beginning today through 4 January, representatives of seven nations sign the European Free Trade Association in ceremonies in each nation’s capital. The members of the “Outer 7” are Austria, Denmark, Great Britain, Norway, Portugal, Sweden, and Switzerland.
30 December 1959 The governments of France, the UK, USSR, and US agree to a summit meeting to take place in Paris next 16 May.
The French National Assembly approves a measure to lift the ban on state aid to Roman Catholic schools.
31 December 1959 Members of the outlawed Union of Cameroon Peoples attack the airport at Yaoundé. At least 30 are killed by government troops.
Contours for orchestra by Gunther Schuller (34) is performed for the first time, in Cincinnati, the composer conducting.
©2004-2016 Paul Scharfenberger
21 May 2016
Last Updated (Saturday, 21 May 2016 04:42)