- In 1959: In the U.S.A. Johnny Horton's Battle of New Orleans was Billboard's #1 song of the year.
- In 1959: In the U.S.A. Johnny Horton's Battle of New Orleans was Billboard's #1 song of the year.
- In 1959: The inflation rate was1.01% . The average home cost $12,400.00 ($102,631.52 in 2016 dollars). The average yearly wage was $5,010.00 ($41,466.44 in 2016). A gallon of gas cost 25 cents ($2.07 in 2016).
- In 1959: Bobby Darin`s real name was Walden Robert Cassotto.
- In 1959: Bobby Darin had an IQ of 137 (only found in the top 2% of the population) and was a member of MENSA.
- In 1959: Wilbert Harrison`s song Kansas City refers to Kansas City Missouri, not Kansas City, Kansas.
- In 1959: The song Kansas City, a rhythm and blues song was written by Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller, two white guys, in 1952. It became one of their most recorded tunes, with more than three hundred versions.
- In 1959: Charles Van Doren, the all-time winner on the TV game show Twenty One, admitted that he had been given the answers in advance.
- In 1959: Mackenzie Phillips, John McEnroe, and Emma Thompson were born. Buddy Holly, Max Baer, and Lou Costello (of Abbott & Costello fame) died.
- In 1959: Rodgers and Hammerstein's The Sound of Music, premiered on Broadway at the Lunt-Fontanne Theatre. Mary Martin starred as Maria von Trapp.
- In 1959: Ben-Hur was the most popular film of the year. It won a record 12 Academy Awards.
- In 1959: The Rocky and Bullwinkle Show was introduced, originally called Rocky and Friends, but Bullwinkle the moose soon became more popular than Rocky the flying squirrel. Who could have known?
- In 1959: The Curtiss-Wright Corporation developed a new internal combustion engine with only two moving parts, later known as the rotary engine.
- In 1959: The Soviet Union successfully launched the Luna 1 satellite,
the first man-made object to escape the pull of the Earth's gravity. - In 1959: On January 3, Alaska became the 49th U.S. state, adding 663,268 square miles (more than twice the size of Texas) to the United States.
- In 1959: Carl "Alfalfa" Switzer of the Little Rascals movie series was shot and killed in North Hollywood during a fight with Bud Stilz, whom Switzer confronted over a claimed debt.
- In 1959: Buena Vista Pictures released Walt Disney's animated film Sleeping Beauty. It was the last Disney adaptation of a fairy tale for thirty years until the release of The Little Mermaid in 1989.
- In 1959: On February 3, 1959, Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens, and J.P. Richardson (the Big Bopper) died in a plane crash. It was The Day the Music Died.
- In 1959: The Marx Brothers made their last screen appearance, as Groucho, Chico and Harpo Marx, starring in "The Incredible Jewel Robbery" on the CBS anthology program General Electric Theater.
- In 1959: Action Comics No. 252 (May 1959) reached the newsstands and, in a story entitled "The Supergirl From Krypton", introduced Supergirl to the world.
- In 1959: Gigi won a record nine Oscars, including the award for Best Picture.
- In 1959: The Russian spacecraft Luna 2, launched on September 12th, crashed into the surface of the Moon on September 14th, becoming the first man-made object to reach the Moon.
- In 1959: Bonanza premiered on NBC, the first weekly television series broadcast completely in color.
- In 1959: QANTAS Airlines introduced the Boeing 707 on its Sydney-San Francisco route, the first transpacific service flown by jet.
- In 1959: Important inventions included the computer modem, the pacemaker, the Barbie Doll, and the Etch A Sketch.
- In 1959:Time Magazine's Man of the Year was President Dwight D. Eisenhower.
- In 1959: The most popular television shows were Gunsmoke (CBS), Wagon Train (NBC), and Have Gun Will Travel (CBS).
