March 1959 - March 22, 1959 (Sunday)

March 22, 1959 (Sunday)

• In a televised address, Cuban dictator Fidel Castro announced that, effective immediately, he was outlawing all racial discrimination. Previously segregated clubs, parks and beaches were opened to Cuba's black residents by law.
• The Constitutional Assembly of Mauritania approved a democratic constitution for the African state, which would become independent of France in 1960. Provisions for a multiparty parliamentary system would last only five years, after which Governor Moktar Ould Daddah's Mauritanian People's Party became the only legal party.
• Born: Matthew Modine, American film actor, in Loma Linda, California