March 1959 - March 3, 1959 (Tuesday)

March 3, 1959 (Tuesday)

• The United States launched the Pioneer IV satellite toward the moon, shortly after midnight EST. The object became the first American spacecraft to escape the Earth's gravity.
• The Mosul uprising began in Iraq as Colonel Abd al-Shawaff staged a rebellion against the government of President Abdul Karim Qasim. al-Shawaaf was killed the next day, and after the insurrection was put down, Qasim ordered the execution of officers suspected of complicity.
• In Tifton, Georgia, nine children, ranging in age from 5 to 15, drowned after a loaded school bus ran off a road into a farm pond.
• In Nyasaland (now Malawi), Colonial Governor Robert Armitage declared a state of emergency after riots broke out in that Southern African nation, banning the Nyasaland African Congress (NAC).
• At the British colonial detention camp in Hola, Kenya, where Mau Mau rebels were held, eleven prisoners were beaten to death and 20 others seriously injured by prison staff, in what later was known as the Hola massacre.
• Died: Lou Costello, 52, American comedian (famous for his partnership with Bud Abbott)