World Around Me 1959
I am off to high school and ready to conquer the world... But the world is changing rapidly, at least we thought! These are pretty important happenings for our time of life. Do you remember these???
- Danny's Coffee Shops are renamed Denny's.
- Pantyhose, which give women the look of stockings without garters, garter-belts, or corsets, are introduced. By a man, no doubt.
- A plane crash kills singers Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens and J.P. Richardson (The Big Bopper.)
- 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.
- 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 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.
- 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.
- 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 scientific peaceful use of Antarctica
- Swiss males vote against voting rights for women. A pox on your clocks, gentleman.
- Presbyterian church accepts women preachers. Now that's progress!
- There is a 51.8% business failure rate.
- Vince Lombardi signs on to coach Green Bay Packers, a job he would hold until 1968. Lombardi took the losing Packers to winning back-to-back NFL titles in 1961 and 1962, and Superbowls I and II in 1966 and 1967. A great book about Lombardi, When Pride Still Mattered.
- Groucho, Chico & Harpo Marx's final TV appearance together - on G.E. Theater with host Ronald Reagan.
- Walt Disney's "Sleeping Beauty" released.
- This year in the Civil Rights movement.
- Alf Dean using a rod & reel hooks a 2,664lb, 16' 10" white shark. Getting it in is one thing, mounting it on the wall...
- 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.
- Dalai Lama flees Tibet for India
- Giants Stadium is renamed Candlestick Park.
- Fidel Castro gets control of Cuba.
- American will import 430,808 passenger cars.
- There are 36,981 motor vehicle related deaths. While in the air, there were 8 accidents resulting in 125 fatalities.
- Unemployment is 6.8%