1959

January 1959 January 1 – Cuba: Fulgencio Batista flees Havana when the forces of Fidel Castro advance. January 2 – Soviet lunar probe Luna 1 is the first human-made object to attain escape velocity from Earth. It reaches the vicinity of Earth's Moon, where it was intended to crash-land, but instead becomes the first spacecraft to go into heliocentric orbit. January 3 Alaska is admitted as the 49th U.S. state. The southernmost island of the Maldives archipelago, Addu Atoll, declares its independence from the Kingdom of the Maldives, initiating the United Suvadive Republic. January 4 In Cuba, rebel troops led by Che Guevara and Camilo Cienfuegos enter the city of Havana. Léopoldville riots: At least 49 people are killed during clashes between the police and participants of a meeting of the ABAKO Party in Léopoldville in the Belgian Congo. January 6 – The International Maritime Organization is inaugurated. January 7 – The United States recognizes the new Cuban government of Fidel Castro. January 8 – Charles de Gaulle is inaugurated as the first president of the French Fifth Republic. January 9 – The Vega de Tera disaster in Spain, a flood caused by a dam collapse, nearly destroys the town of Ribadelago and kills 144 residents. January 10 – The Soviet government recognizes the new Castro government of Cuba. January 11 – The Confédération Mondiale des Activités Subaquatiques is founded in Monaco. January 15 – The Soviet Union conducts its first census after World War II. January 21 – The European Court of Human Rights is established. January 22 – Knox Mine disaster: Water breaches the River Slope Mine in Port Griffith, near Pittston, Pennsylvania, United States; 12 miners are killed. January 25 American Airlines begins the first U.S. domestic jet service with a Boeing 707 airliner flight between New York and Los Angeles. Pope John XXIII announces that the Second Vatican Council will be convened in Rome. January 30 – Danish passenger/cargo ship , returning to Copenhagen after its maiden voyage to Greenland, strikes an iceberg and sinks off the Greenland coast with the loss of all 95 on board.