January 2, 1959 (Friday)
- The Soviet Union successfully launched the Luna 1 satellite from Baikonur Cosmodrome. Luna 1 became the first man-made object to escape the pull of the Earth's gravity.
- As Castro's rebel forces rolled into Havana, the 32 year old leader named Dr. Manuel Urrutia Lleo as President of Cuba.
- CBS Radio cut four soap operas: Backstage Wife, Our Gal Sunday, The Road of Life, and This is Nora Drake.
- Died: William D. Francis, 69, Australian botanist
Read more about this topic: January 1959
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)