January 1, 1959 (Thursday)
- Cuban President Fulgencio Batista fled to the Dominican Republic as the forces of Fidel Castro closed in. Before leaving, Batista named Judge Carlos Manuel Piedra as provisional president. Piedra ordered a cease-fire moments after taking office. At 10:00 pm, the ships F.M. Robinson, Jack W. Wilke and the Peterson were directed to sail to Cuba to evacuate Americans if necessary.
- Cultivars of plants, such as new varieties of roses, could no longer bear a Latin name, as of this date, based on an amendment to the ICNCP, the International Code for Nomenclature of Cultivated Plants.
- Born: Azali Assoumani, President of the Comoros 1999–2002; in Mitsoudjé
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Famous quotes containing the word january:
“Here lies interred in the eternity of the past, from whence there is no resurrection for the days—whatever there may be for the dust—the thirty-third year of an ill-spent life, which, after a lingering disease of many months sank into a lethargy, and expired, January 22d, 1821, A.D. leaving a successor inconsolable for the very loss which occasioned its existence.”
—George Gordon Noel Byron (1788–1824)