January 8 – 14-year-old Bobby Fischer wins the United States Chess Championship.[1]
January 13 – In One, Inc. v. Olesen, the Supreme Court affirms that homosexual writing is not per se obscene.
January 18 – Battle of Hayes Pond: Armed Lumbee Indians confront the Ku Klux Klan in Maxton, North Carolina.
January 28 – Hall of Famebaseball player Roy Campanella is involved in an automobile accident that ends his career and leaves him paralyzed.
January 31 – The first successful American satellite, Explorer 1, is launched into orbit.
February 5 – The Tybee Bomb, a 7,600 pound (3,500 kg) Mark 15 hydrogen bomb, is lost in the waters off Savannah, Georgia.
February 11 – Ruth Carol Taylor is the first African American woman hired as a flight attendant. Working for Mohawk Airlines, her career lasts only six months, due to another discriminatory barrier – the airline's ban on married flight attendants.
February 20 – A test rocket explodes at Cape Canaveral.
February 28 – Prestonsburg, Kentucky bus disaster: The worst school bus accident in U.S. history up to this date occurs at Prestonsburg, Kentucky; 27 are killed.[2]
March 1 – Archbishop of ChicagoSamuel Stritch is appointed Pro-Prefect of the Sacred Congregation for the Propagation of Faith, thus becoming the first American to head a dicastery of the Roman Curia.
March 8 – The USS Wisconsin is decommissioned, leaving the United States Navy without an active battleship for the first time since 1896 (it is recommissioned October 22, 1988).
March 11 – 1958 Mars Bluff B-47 nuclear weapon loss incident: A U.S. B-47 bomber accidentally drops an atom bomb on Mars Bluff, South Carolina. Its conventional explosives destroy a house and injure several people, but no nuclear fission occurs.
March 17 – The United States launches the Vanguard 1satellite.
March 19 – Monarch Underwear Company fire in New York.
March 24 – The U.S. Army inducts Elvis Presley, transforming "The King Of Rock & Roll" into U.S. private #53310761.
March 26
The United States Army launches Explorer 3.
The 30th Academy Awards ceremony, hosted by Bob Hope, Rosalind Russell, David Niven, James Stewart, Jack Lemmon and a premade animation of Donald Duck, is held at RKO Pantages Theatre in Hollywood. David Lean's The Bridge on the River Kwai wins seven awards, including Best Motion Picture and Best Director for Lean. Joshua Logan's Sayonara receives the most nominations with ten.
April–June[]
April – Unemployment in Detroit reaches 20%, marking the height of the Recession of 1958 in the United States.
April 15 – The San Francisco Giants beat the Los Angeles Dodgers 8–0 at San Francisco's Seals Stadium, in the first Major League Baseball regular-season game ever played in California.
April 21 – A United Airlines DC-7 and U.S. Air Force F-100 Super Sabre fighter jet collide near Las Vegas, Nevada, killing all 49 aboard the two aircraft.
May 9 – Actor-singer Paul Robeson, whose passport has been reinstated, sings in a sold-out one-man recital at Carnegie Hall. The recital is such a success that Robeson gives another one at Carnegie Hall a few days later. But after these two concerts, Robeson is seldom seen in public in the United States again. His Carnegie Hall concerts are later released on records and on CD.
May 12 – A formal North American Aerospace Defense Command agreement is signed between the United States and Canada.
May 13 – During a visit to Caracas, Venezuela, Vice PresidentRichard M. Nixon's car is attacked by anti-American demonstrators.
May 20 – A Capital Airlines airliner and Air National Guard jet collide near Brunswick, Maryland, killing 12.[1]
May 23 – Explorer 1 ceases transmission.
May 30 – The bodies of unidentified soldiers killed in action during World War II and the Korean War are buried at the Tomb of the Unknowns in Arlington National Cemetery.
June 2 – In San Simeon, California, Hearst Castle opens to the public for guided tours.
June 7 - The ill-fated freighter SS Edmund Fitzgerald was launched into Lake Michigan.
June 15 – The first Pizza Hut restaurant opens in Wichita, Kansas.
June 17 – The U.S. condemns the execution of Imre Nagy as a "shocking act of cruelty".
July 7 – PresidentDwight D. Eisenhower signs the Alaska Statehood Act into United States law.
July 9 – 1958 Lituya Bay megatsunami: A 7.8 Mw strike-slip earthquake in Southeast Alaska causes a landslide that produces a megatsunami. The runup from the waves reached 525 m (1,722 ft) on the rim of Lituya Bay.
July 15 – During the 1958 Lebanon crisis, 5,000 United States Marines land in the capital Beirut in order to protect the pro-Western government there.
July 29 – The U.S. Congress formally creates the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA).
August 3 – The nuclear powered submarine USS Nautilus becomes the first vessel to cross the North Pole under water.
August 17 – The first Thor-Able rocket is launched, carrying Pioneer 0, from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station Launch Complex 17. The launch fails due to a first stage malfunction.
August 18 – Vladimir Nabokov's controversial novel Lolita is published in the United States.
August 23 – President Dwight D. Eisenhower signs the Federal Aviation Act of 1958, transferring all authority over aviation in the U.S. to the newly created Federal Aviation Agency (FAA, later renamed Federal Aviation Administration).
August 27 – Operation Argus: The United States begins nuclear tests over the South Atlantic.
September – The University of New Orleans begins classes as the first racially integrated public university in the South.
September 15 – Newark Bay rail accident kills 48 people and injures the same number.
September 23 – The Spirit of Detroit statue is dedicated in Detroit, Michigan.
October–December[]
October 1 – NASA starts operations and replaces the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics.
October 9 – The New York Yankees defeat the Milwaukee Braves, 4 games to 3, to win their 18th World Series Title.
October 11 – Pioneer 1, the second and most successful of the three-project Able space probes, becomes the first spacecraft launched by the newly formed NASA.
November 12 – The Nose (El Capitan) in Yosemite National Park is first climbed, by Warren Harding,[3] Wayne Merry and George Whitmore in 47 days.
November 20 – The Jim Henson Company is founded as Muppets, Inc.
November 23 – Have Gun, Will Travel debuts on American radio.
December 1 – Our Lady of the Angels School fire: At least 90 students and 3 nuns are killed in a fire at Our Lady of the Angels School in Chicago.
December 6 – A third Thor-Able rocket launch, carrying the Pioneer 2 probe, is unsuccessful due to a third-stage ignition failure.
December 9 – The right-wing John Birch Society is founded in the U.S. by Robert W. Welch, Jr., a retired candy manufacturer.
December 19 – A message from President Dwight D. Eisenhower is broadcast from SCORE, the world's first communications satellite, launched by the U.S. the previous day.
December 25 – Tchaikovsky's balletThe Nutcracker (the George Balanchine version) is shown on prime-time television in color for the first time, as an episode of the CBSanthology seriesPlayhouse 90.
December 28 – 1958 NFL Championship Game: The Baltimore Colts beat the New York Giants 23–17 in overtime to win the NFL Championship in American football.
Undated[]
Based on birth rates (per 1,000 population), the post-war baby boom ends in the United States as an 11-year decline in the birth rate begins (the longest on record in the country).
The United Kingdom, Soviet Union and the U.S. agree to stop testing atomic bombs for 3 years.
Robert Frank publishes his photographic essay The Americans (in Paris).
The PBA Tour is established by the Professional Bowlers Association at its headquarters in Seattle for ten-pin bowling.
Ongoing[]
Cold War (1947–1991)
Space Race (1957–1975)
Births[]
January[]
Lorenzo Lamas
Ellen DeGeneres
January 1
Dave Silk, American ice hockey player and coach
Grandmaster Flash, born Joseph Saddler, African American hip-hop/rap DJ
January 4
Andy Borowitz, American comedian and author
Lorna Doom, musician (d. 2019)
James J. Greco, American businessman
Jim Powers, American wrestler
January 6 – Scott Bryce, actor, director, and producer
^"Wendy Makkena profile". Movies & TV Dept. The New York Times. Baseline & All Movie Guide. Archived from the original on July 12, 2012. Retrieved May 16, 2012.