February 1959 - February 21, 1959 (Saturday)

February 21, 1959 (Saturday)

• The Douglas DC-8 30 Series, a longer range version of the DC-8 passenger jet, made its first flight.
• "On the Sidewalk", John Updike's parody of On the Road, was published in the New Yorker.
• The Ben Hecht Show, a live television program on New York's WABC-TV, was cancelled permanently after Hecht's guest, surrealist painter Salvador Dalí, used the word "orgasm" in an interview. Ben Hecht, a screenwriter whom Mike Wallace described as "a trifle profane" on the air, had already been in trouble with the station. Wallace would later describe the episode as "the 'Orgasm and Out!' show"