Events from the year 1959 in the United Kingdom.
Monarch – Elizabeth II
Prime Minister – Harold Macmillan (Conservative)
Parliament
41st (until 18 September)
42nd (starting 20 October)
15 January – Tyne Tees Television, the ITV franchise for North East England, goes on air.
22 January – Racing driver Mike Hawthorn is killed after his Jaguar 3.4-litre car collides with a tree on the A3 near Guildford.
29 January – Dense fog brings chaos to Britain.
19 February – First of the London and Zürich Agreements under which the U.K. agrees to grant independence to Cyprus.
23 February – UK Prime Minister Harold Macmillan holds talks with the Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev on a visit to the USSR.
7 March – Independence movement leader Kanyama Chiume, wanted in the British territory of Nyasaland, flees to London and goes into hiding.
10 March – Comedy film Carlton-Browne of the F.O. released.
30 March – 20,000 demonstrators attend a CND rally in Trafalgar Square.
1 April – The official name of the administrative county of Hampshire is changed from "County of Southampton" to "County of Hampshire".
2 April – United Dairies merges with Cow & Gate to form Unigate Dairies.
22 April – Ballerina Margot Fonteyn is released from prison in Panama having been suspected of involvement in a planned coup against the government of President Ernesto de la Guardia.
30 April – Icelandic gunboat fires on British trawlers in the first of the "Cod Wars" over fishing rights.
2 May
The Chapelcross nuclear power station in Scotland opens.
Nottingham Forest beat Luton Town 2–1 in the FA Cup final at Wembley Stadium.
7 May – Scientist and novelist C. P. Snow delivers an influential Rede Lecture on The Two Cultures, concerning a perceived breakdown of communication between the sciences and humanities, in the Senate House, University of Cambridge. It is subsequently published as The Two Cultures and the Scientific Revolution.
24 May – British Empire Day becomes Commonwealth Day.
28 May – Mermaid Theatre opens in the City of London.
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