1958

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THE YEAR 1958 was revolutionary in many ways. The spectacular advances made in science and technology, as well as the gradual emergence of the colonial peoples of the world during the postwar years had far outdistanced the static policies of the major powers. In May the French army and settlers in Algeria rose up against the government in Paris. The revolt brought to an end the Fourth Republic, created the Fifth, and returned Charles de Gaulle to political life. He promised France glory but was unable to find a solution to the debilitating war in Algeria.

The year had opened with a successful revolt against Venezuela's dictator, Perez Jime'nez. The rebellion in Cuba gained strength through the year and Castro eventually overthrew the government of General Batista. In the Middle East, General Nasser was elected president of the United Arab Republic, a union of Egypt and Syria formed in February. Iraq and Jordan joined together in the Arab Federation, headed by King Faisal, who was killed by rebels on July 14. The revolution in Iraq upset again the precarious Middle East peace. U.S. troops were ordered to Lebanon; British troops were dispatched to Jordan. The crisis quickly subsided even though the underlying conflicts were unresolved.

 

Then, on August 4th, Communist China began shelling Quemoy. Bombardment continued for months. On the mainland, peasants were brought into communes to accelerate the "socialist revolution" with "one great leap forward." Moscow stepped up its campaign against Titoism or "revisionism" and, for added emphasis, the execution of Imre Nagy was announced. In November Khrushchev called for and end to Big Four occupation of Berlin, proposing that it be made a free city and announcing that the U.S.S.R. would withdraw from East Germany in six months-regardless of Western opposition. The year ended with a new possibility of war and man seemed hardly aware of the moons of his own devising circling the earth.

 

 

CHRONOLOGY FOR 1958

JANUARY

 

Jan.13 - President Eisenhower submitted a record peacetime budget of $73.9 billion for fiscal 1959. Over 9,000 scientists from 43 nations petitioned UN Secretary Hammaarskjold for a ban on nuclear tests.

Jan.23 - A seven-man junta overthrew Venezuelan president Gen. Marcos Pere Jirne'nez.

Jan.27 - Ferenc Munnich replaced Janos Kadar as premier of Hungary. Kadf remained Communist party first secretary.

The United States and the Soviet Union agreed to widen cultural, technical, educational, and sports exchanges

.

FEBRUARY

Feb. 8 - Twenty-five French planes bombed the Tunisian village of Sakiet~Sidi-Youssef. Reports listed 68 dead.

Feb.11 - Marshal Chen Yi replaced Chou En-lai as foreign minister of Communist China. Chou En-lai remained premier.

 Feb. 14- Kings Faisal II of Iraq and Hussein of Jordan announced the formation of the Arab Federation, to be headed by Faisal.

Feb. 15 - The Central Sumatran Revolutionary Council proclaimed a provisional government for Indonesia.

Feb. 23 - In free elections Arturo Frondizi was elected president of Argentina.

Feb. 26- President Eisenhower and Vice President Nixon announced agreement on a course of action in case of a presidential disability.

MARCH

Mar 2 - It was announced that Yemen would federate with the United Arab Republic.

Mar. 17 - The U.S. Navy launched Vanguard I, the second successful U.S. satellite.

Mar. 24 - King Saud of Saudi Arabia granted Crown Prince Faisal full power over internal, foreign, and financial affairs.

Mar. 26 - The U.S. Army launched Explorer III, the third successful U.S. satellite.

Mar. 27 - Nikita Khrushchev replaced Nikolai Bulganin as chairman of the Council of Ministers of the Soviet Union.

Mar. 31 - Canadian Prime Minister John Diefenbaker's Conservative party overwhelmingly won the national elections.

APRIL

Apr. 8 - Official figures put U.S. unemployment in March at 5,198,000, a 17-year high.

Apr. 13 - Van Cliburn of Texas won first prize in the international Tchaikovsky piano competition in Moscow.

Apr. 15 The first conference of independent African states opened in Accra, Ghana.

Apr. 17 - The Brussels World Fair officially opened.

MAY

May 8 - Vice President Richard Nixon was stoned and spat upon by anti-U.S. demonstrators in Peru.

May 13 - Gen. Raoul Salan, Commander in Chief in Algeria, assumed full civil and military powers. The army asked for the return to power of Gen. Charles de Gaulle.

Rioters attacked Vice President Nixon in Venezuela.

May 14 - The French National Assembly confirmed the government of Pierre Pflimlin, 27~129.

May 15 - The Soviet Union launched Sputnik III, weighing 2,925 lb., more than half in scientific equipment.

May 18 - The French cabinet called up reserve gendarmes, banned public meetings in Paris, and began indirect press censorship.

May 28 - French Premier Pflimlin resigned.

 

JUNE

June 1 - Gen. de Gaulle was confirmed as French premier.

June 3 - The French Assembly approved de Gaulle's requirements: power to rule by decree for six months, renewed special powers in Algeria, and constitutional reforms to be submitted directly to a plebiscite.

June 16- The U.S. Supreme Court invalidated State Department regulations withholding passports from Communists and others of allegedly doubtful loyalty.

June 17 - The executions of Imre Nagy, Geii. Pal Maleter, and other leaders of the 1956 Hungarian uprising were announced.

Presidential Assistant Sherman Adams testified before a U.S. congressional subcommittee that he had never used his post to influence government agencies, admitted he might have acted "a little more prudently."

June 26 - Indonesian military authorities announced the occupation of Manado, last major rebel stronghold in Indonesia.

 

JULY

July 1 - The East-West technical talks on the detection of nuclear explosions opened in Geneva, Switzerland.

July 2- Bernard Goldfine admitted to a U.S. congressional subcommittee that he had charged as business expenses on income tax returns his gifts to Sherman Adams.

July 7 - President Eisenhower signed the Alaskan statehood bill.

July 14- Reports from Iraq indicated that the army had seized power and declared a republic, with Gen. Abdul Karim Kassem as provisional premier. Reportedl killed were King Faisal II, Crown Prince Abdul Illab; and Premier Nun es-Said. King Hussein of Jordan announced he had assumed power as head ol the Arab Federation of Iraq and Jordan.

July 15 - U.S. marines landed on beaches south of Beirut, Lebanon, in response to a formal plea for U.S. intervention by President Chamoun.

July 17 - In response to a request from King Hussein of Jordan, British paratroops landed in Amman, Jordan.

July 19 - Soviet Premier Khrushchev proposed a summit conference on the Middle East crisis.

July 22 - President Eisenhower replied to Khrushchev that a summit meeting should be held within the UN framework.

July 23 - Premier Khrushchev accepted Western proposals for a summit conference within the Secufity Council, if India and the Arab nations should be represented.

July 26 - The U.S. Army fired into orbit Explorer IV, the fourth and heaviest U.S. satellite.

July 28 - Secretary of State Dulles signed a declaration committing the United States to cooperate with the Bagdad Pact nations.

July 31 - The Lebanese parliament elected Gen. Fuab Chehab to succeed President Chamoun.

 

AUGUST

Aug. 2 - King Hussein of Jordan formally declared the Arab Federation of Iraq and Jordan dissolved.

Aug. 4- Chinese Communists shelled the Quemoy islands.

Aug. 5 - Soviet Premier Khrushchev rejected proposals for a summit meeting ~ the Security Council, and called instead for a special meeting of the Gener Assembly.

Aug. 7 - A U.S. resolution in the Security Council, calling for an immediate emergency session of the General Assembly, was unanimously adopted.

Aug. 8 - The White House announced the nuclear-powered submarine Nautilus completed a submerged passage beneath the North Pole.

Aug.29 - The Soviet Union announced it had sent two dogs inside a rocket 280 mi. into space and returned them safely to earth.

Aug.30 - The official report of the Geneva conference of nuclear experts stated t virtually all nuclear explosions above the 1,000-ton TNT equivalent could be detected.

SEPTEMBER

Sept. 4- French Premier de Gaulle made public the text of the new constitution.

Sept. 11 - President Eisenhower said the United States would fight if necessary t keep Quemoy and Matsu from being taken by the Communists.

Sept.12 - Gov. Orval Faubus of Arkansas closed all Little Rock high schools when the U.S. Supreme Court rejected the school board's appeal for delay in integrating Central High.

Sept. 15- The U.S. and Chinese Communist ambassadors to Poland opened talks on Sept.19 - Algerian rebels in Cairo, Egypt, formed a provisional government for a Republic of Algeria, with Ferhat Abbas as premier.

Sept. 22 - Sherman Adams resigned as chief assistant to President Eisenhower. Five days later Maj. Gen. Wilton B. Persons (Ret.) succeeded Adams.

Sept. 23 - The UN General Assembly voted against considering any proposal to seat Communist China during the 1958 session.

Sept. 26- The army seized power in Burma with Gen. Ne Win, heading a new government, as requested by Premier Nu.

Sept. 27 - Voters in Little Rock, Ark., rejected a proposal to open the city's high schools on a desegregated basis.

Sept. 28 - Voters in France and French-ruled possessions approved the new constitution of the Fifth Republic. Only French Guinea voted to break ties with France.

Sept. 30- The Chinese Communists announced that 90.4 percent of China's peasant families had joined communes.

OCTOBER

Oct. 6- Communist China offered a one-week suspension of the shelling in the Quemoy area, provided no American ships escorted the Nationalists' supply convoys.

Oct. 7 - Pakistan's President Iskander Mirza declared martial law, annulled the constitution, and dismissed the cabinet.

Potter Stewart was appointed to the U.S. Supreme Court.

Oct. 8 - The State Department announced that U.S. naval vessels had stopped escorting Chinese Nationalist convoys supplying Quemoy.

Oct. 9 - Pope Pius XII died.

Oct. 13 - Communist China ordered a two-week extension of the cease fire in the Taiwan Strait.

French Premier de Gaulle ordered the French army in Algeria to cease political activity and permit completely free legislative elections there.

Oct. 20- The Chinese Communists resumed shelling the offshore islands because of alleged violations by the U.S. fleet.

Field Marshal Sarit Thanarat staged a bloodless coup in Bangkok, Thailand. ct. 23 - The Nobel prize for literature was awarded to Boris Pasternak, Russian poet and author of the novel Doctor Zhivago.

French Premier de Gaulle promised safe conduct to Algerian rebel leaders to come to Paris to discuss a cease fire.

Oct. 25 - The Chinese Communists ordered a truce effective on alternate days, contingent on cessation of U.S. convoying.

The Algerian rebel government declined de Gaulle's offer to go to Paris. U.S. armed forces completed their withdrawal from Lebanon.

Oct.26 - Pakistani President Iskander Mirza resigned, giving full power to Gen. Ayub Khan.

Oct.28 -Angelo Giuseppe Cardinal Roncalli, Patriarch of Venice, was elected Pope and he chose the name John XXIII.

The Nobel prize in physics was awarded to Pavel Cherenkov, Ilya Fran~ and Igor Tamm, all of the Soviet Union. The chemistry prize went to Frederick Sanger of Great Britain.

Oct.29- British troops completed their evacuation from Jordan.

Boris Pasternak declined the Nobel prize he had previously accepted.

Oct. 30- The Nobel prize in medicine went to U.S. geneticists George Beadlf Joshua Lederberg, and Edward Tatum.

Oct. 31 - U.S., British, and Soviet representatives met in Geneva for a conference discontinuing nuclear tests.

 

NOVEMBER

Nov. 4 - In U.S. elections the Democrats gained 13 seats in the Senate and 47 in the House, to control the next Senate 64 -34 and the House 283-153.

Nov.10- Soviet Premier Khrushchev demanded the end of Big Four occupation of Berlin.

The Nobel peace prize was awarded to the Rev. Dominique Georges Heni Pire, Belgian priest.

Nov.11 - President Frondizi declared a state of siege in Argentina1 suspending con- stitutional guarantees for 30 days.

Nov.17 Lieut. Gen. Ibrahim Abboud took control of the Sudan government in bloodless coup.

Nov.23 - Ghana and Guinea announced a provisional agreement to federate.

Nov.27 - The Soviet Union proposed that West Berlin become a free demilitarized city with its own government, and announced that all Soviet occupation functions would be turned over to the East German governement in six months

Nov.30- France chose an overwhelmingly Gaullist National Assembly in elections for the first parliament of the Fifth Republic.

Dec. 7 - The Social Democratic party won 52.1 percent of the vote in West municipal elections; 93.1 percent of those eligible voted, and the Communists received only 1.9 percent of the votes.

Dec. 8 - The first All-Africa People's Conference opened in Accra, Ghana.

Dec.14 - The United States, Britain, and France formally rejected Soviet demands for their withdrawal from Berlin.

Dec.17 - Mao Tse-tung's retirement as chairman of the People's Republic of Chi was announced; he will continue as chairman of the Chinese Communist party.

Dec. 18 - The United States placed an Atlas ICBM into orbit around the earth it weighed about 8,800 lb.

The conference on means of preventing surprise attacks adjourned in deadlock at Geneva.

Dec.19 - The Geneva conference on prohibiting nuclear tests adjourned temporarily after reaching agreement on four articles of a draft treaty.

Dec.21 - De Gaulle was elected first president of the French Fifth Republic.

Dec.27 - Britain and nine West European governments announced currency owne by nonresidents would be freely convertible into other currencies including the dollar.

Dec. 29 - Cuban rebels claimed control of 80 percent of Las Villas Province in central Cuba.

THE END OF ANOTHER

STRESS FREE YEAR IN THE

FIFTIES???

[Partial Answer ][ Contact Made ][ Press Release ][ A Visit Back ][ Why we Were at Sea in 1963 ] [1958 ][ 1959 ]
[ 1960 ][ 1961 ][ 1962 ][ 1963 ][ Burning World ][ Start Page-XO'S Office ]

 

 

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