Events from the year 1958 in the United States.
Incumbents
Events
January–March
- January 8 – 14-year-old Bobby Fischer wins the United States Chess Championship.
- January 13 – In One, Inc. v. Olesen, the Supreme Court affirms that homosexual writing is not per se obscene.
- January 18 – Battle of Hayes Pond: Armed Lumbee Indians confront the Ku Klux Klan in Maxton, North Carolina.
- January 28 – Hall of Fame baseball player Roy Campanella is involved in an automobile accident that ends his career and leaves him paralyzed.
- January 31 – The first successful American satellite, Explorer 1, is launched into orbit.
- February 5 – The Tybee Bomb, a 7,600 pound (3,500 kg) Mark 15 hydrogen bomb, is lost in the waters off Savannah, Georgia.
- February 11 – Ruth Carol Taylor is the first African American woman hired as a flight attendant. Working for Mohawk Airlines, her career lasts only six months, due to another discriminatory barrier – the airline's ban on married flight attendants.
- February 20 – A test rocket explodes at Cape Canaveral.
- February 28 – Prestonsburg, Kentucky bus disaster: The worst school bus accidents in U.S. history up to this date occurs at Prestonsburg, Kentucky; 27 are killed.[1]
- March 1 – Archbishop of Chicago Samuel Stritch is appointed Pro-Prefect of the Sacred Congregation for the Propagation of Faith, thus becoming the first American to head a dicastery of the Roman Curia.
- March 8 – The USS Wisconsin is decommissioned, leaving the United States Navy without an active battleship for the first time since 1896 (it is recommissioned October 22, 1988).
- March 11 – 1958 Mars Bluff B-47 nuclear weapon loss incident: A U.S. B-47 bomber accidentally drops an atom bomb on Mars Bluff, South Carolina. Its conventional explosives destroy a house and injure several people, but no nuclear fission occurs.
- March 17 – The United States launches the Vanguard 1 satellite.
- March 19 – Monarch Underwear Company fire in New York.
- March 24 – The U.S. Army inducts Elvis Presley, transforming The King Of Rock & Roll into U.S. private #53310761.
- March 26
April–June
- April – Unemployment in Detroit reaches 20%, marking the height of the Recession of 1958 in the United States.
- April 15 – The San Francisco Giants beat the Los Angeles Dodgers 8–0 at San Francisco's Seals Stadium, in the first Major League Baseball regular-season game ever played in California.
- April 21 – A United Airlines DC-7 and U.S. Air Force F-100 Super Sabre fighter jet collide near Las Vegas, Nevada, killing all 49 aboard the two aircraft.
- May 9 – Actor-singer Paul Robeson, whose passport has been reinstated, sings in a sold-out one-man recital at Carnegie Hall. The recital is such a success that Robeson gives another one at Carnegie Hall a few days later. But after these two concerts, Robeson is seldom seen in public in the United States again. His Carnegie Hall concerts are later released on records and on CD.
- May 12 – A formal North American Aerospace Defense Command agreement is signed between the United States and Canada.
- May 13 – During a visit to Caracas, Venezuela, Vice President Richard M. Nixon's car is attacked by anti-American demonstrators.
- May 20 – A Capital Airlines airliner and Air National Guard jet collide near Brunswick, Maryland, killing 12.[1]
- May 23 – Explorer 1 ceases transmission.
- May 30 – The bodies of unidentified soldiers killed in action during World War II and the Korean War are buried at the Tomb of the Unknowns in Arlington National Cemetery.
- June 2 – In San Simeon, California, Hearst Castle opens to the public for guided tours.
- June 17 – The U.S. slams the execution of Imre Nagy as a "shocking act of cruelty".
July–September
October–December
- October 1 – NASA starts operations and replaces the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics.
- October 11 – Pioneer 1, the second and most successful of the three-project Able space probes, becomes the first spacecraft launched by the newly formed NASA.
- November 23 – Have Gun, Will Travel debuts on American radio.
- December 1 – Our Lady of the Angels School fire: At least 90 students and 3 nuns are killed in a fire at Our Lady of the Angels School in Chicago.
- December 6 – A third Thor-Able rocket launch, carrying the Pioneer 2 probe, is unsuccessful due to a third-stage ignition failure.
- December 9 – The right-wing John Birch Society is founded in the U.S. by Robert W. Welch, Jr., a retired candy manufacturer.
- December 19 – A message from President Dwight D. Eisenhower is broadcast from SCORE, the world's first communications satellite, launched by the U.S. the previous day.
- December 25 – Tchaikovsky's ballet The Nutcracker (the George Balanchine version) is shown on prime-time television in color for the first time, as an episode of the CBS anthology series Playhouse 90.
- December 28 – 1958 NFL Championship Game: The Baltimore Colts beat the New York Giants 23–17 in overtime to win the NFL Championship.
Undated
- Based on birth rates (per 1,000 population), the post-war baby boom ends in the United States as an 11-year decline in the birth rate begins (the longest on record in that country).
- Illinois observes the centennial of the Lincoln-Douglas Debates.
- The United Kingdom, Soviet Union, and the U.S. agree to stop testing atomic bombs for 3 years.
- Robert Frank publishes his photographic essay The Americans (in Paris)
Ongoing
Births
January
February
- February 7 – Kevin Schon, American voice actor
- February 8 – Sherri Martel, American professional wrestler (d. 2007)
- February 16
- Ice-T, born Tracy Marrow, American rapper
- Nancy Donahue, American fashion model and entrepreneur
- February 17 – Alan Wiggins, American baseball player (d. 1991)
- February 18 – Gar Samuelson, American drummer (d. 1999)
- February 21
- February 24 – Todd Fisher, American actor
- February 25 – Kurt Rambis, American basketball player
- February 26
- February 27
- February 28 – Mark Pavelich, American professional ice hockey player
March
April
May
- May 4 – Keith Haring, American artist (d. 1990)
- May 8 – Lovie Smith, American football player and coach
- May 10
- May 11
- May 12
- May 15 – Ron Simmons, American professional wrestler
- May 19 – Jenny Durkan, American politician
- May 20
- May 21 – Tom Feeney, American politician
- May 23
- May 25 – Carrie Newcomer, American singer-songwriter & musician
- May 26 – Margaret Colin, American actress
- May 27 – Linnea Quigley, American actress
- May 29 – Annette Bening, American actress
- May 30 – Ted McGinley, American actor
June
- June 2
- June 4 – Gordon P. Robertson, American televangelist and son of Pat Robertson
- June 5 – Eric Strobel, American professional ice hockey player
- June 7 – Prince, born Prince Rogers Nelson, African-American rock musician (d. 2016)
- June 8
- June 9 – Tony Horwitz, American journalist and author (d. 2019)
- June 10 – James F. Conant, American philosopher
- June 11 – Tim Draper, American venture capitalist
- June 12
- June 14 – Eric Heiden, American speed skater
- June 15 – Wade Boggs, American baseball player
- June 17 – Jello Biafra, American punk musician and activist
- June 20
- June 21 – Eric Douglas, American actor (d. 2004)
- June 22
- June 24
- June 26 – Glen Stewart Godwin, American fugitive and convicted murderer
- June 27 – Jeffrey Lee Pierce, American musician (d. 1996)
- June 29 – Jeff Coopwood, American actor, broadcaster and singer
- June 30 – Tommy Keene, American singer-songwriter (d. 2017)
July
August
- August 10 – Don Swayze, American actor
- August 13 – Lizzie Grey, American musician (d. 2019)
- August 15 – Rondell Sheridan, American actor
- August 16
- Angela Bassett, African-American screen actress and film director
- Madonna, born Madonna Louise Ciccone, pop singer and performer
- August 17 – Belinda Carlisle, pop rock singer
- August 18
- August 19 – Rick Snyder, American politician
- August 20 – Michael Silka, American spree killer (d. 1984)
- August 22
- August 24 – Steve Guttenberg, American actor
- August 25
- August 26 – Billy Ray Irick, American convicted murderer (d. 2018)
- August 28 – Colm Feore, American-Canadian actor
- August 29 – Michael Jackson, African-American singer and musician (d. 2009)
- August 31 – Julie Brown, American actress
September
October
November
December
Deaths
- January 1
- January 6 – Lois Irene Marshall, wife of Thomas R. Marshall, Second Lady of the United States (born 1873)
- January 8 – Mary Colter, architect and designer (born 1869)
- January 11 – Edna Purviance, silent film actress (born 1895)
- January 13 – Jesse L. Lasky, film producer (born 1880)
- February 1 – Clinton Davisson, physicist, winner of the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1937 (born 1888)
- February 27 – Harry Cohn, film producer (born 1891)
- March 22 (in plane crash)
- March 28
- May 5 – James Branch Cabell, fantasy writer (born 1879)
- June 10 – Angelina Weld Grimke, African American lesbian journalist and poet (born 1880)
- July 9 – James H. Flatley, naval aviator and admiral (born 1906)
- July 26 – Eugene Millikin, U.S. Senator from Colorado from 1941 to 1957 (born 1891)
- August 14 or 15 – Big Bill Broonzy, African American blues singer-songwriter (born 1893)
- August 27 – Ernest Lawrence, nuclear physicist, winner of the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1939 (born 1901)
- August 29 – Marjorie Flack, artist, illustrator and writer (born 1897)
- September 25 – John B. Watson, psychologist (born 1878)
- October 8 – Lori J.Stratton, environmental toxicologist, innovative acid precipitation research in Green Mountains of Vermont (born 1958)
- October 19 – Mary F. Hoyt, first woman appointed to the U.S. federal civil service, in 1883 (born 1858)
- October 29 – Zoë Akins, playwright, poet and author (born 1886)
- November 15
- November 21:
- December 29 – Doris Humphrey, dancer and choreographer (born 1895)
See also
References
External links
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