There are 15 SETI (Search for Extra Terrestrial Intelligence) projects, but for the first 10 years the Soviets have a virtual monopoly; then, from 1975, the Americans dominate.

The Soviets hit the Moon with a probe (Luna 2) and photographed its hidden side with another

Tullio Regge proposes to treat the structure of space-time as a four-dimensional (4D) structure built with “bones” that form irregular tetrahedra

At the 21st Congress of the Soviet Communist Party, President Khrushchev claims that the USSR would surpass the United States in agricultural and industrial production by 1970. The claim will backfire.

William Shockley introduces JFET (Junction Field Effect Transistor) transistors

At Hebgen Lake, near Yellowstone, an entire mountainside collapses (80 million tons of rock), killing 28 campers.

The United States launches the 64-kg Explorer 6 satellite. Its perigee is 237 km and its apogee is 41,900 km. This allows it to observe and characterize the Van Allen radiation belts. As a token of gratitude, at the end of the mission, a missile, part of the Bold Orion project, is fired at it, passing just 6,400 m away. This experiment is also considered a success.

The United States and the USSR met in a kitchen. On July 24, 1959, in a setting depicting a suburban American kitchen, US Vice President Richard Nixon and Soviet Prime Minister Nikita Khrushchev engaged in an impromptu discussion on the benefits and drawbacks of capitalism and communism. Nixon was in Moscow to inaugurate the American Trade and Cultural Fair in Sokolniki Park, organized as a sign of friendship by the Soviet Union. The “kitchen” debate was broadcast on television and helped strengthen Nixon’s reputation as a tenacious and capable prime minister, marking a turning point in the Cold War.

Robert Noyce of Fairchild Semiconductors files the patent for the integrated circuit (disputed with Texas Instruments). Noyce emphasizes the planar process, which allows each component to be connected with copper strips. Although he is the second, after Kilby of Texas, to file the same concept, his patent is analyzed first and granted in April 1961. Noyce is declared the inventor of the integrated circuit. But then Texas files a Priority Contest, which leads to the Kilby vs. Noyce case, which drags on for several years: in June 1964, the patent is granted to Kilby and his priority is recognized. In February 1967, the final verdict confirms this position. Fairchild then appeals, and the court concludes in November 1969 that Noyce is in favor. Texas appeals to the Supreme Court, which declines to hear the case. Eventually, however, the integrated circuit market will be so vast and advanced compared to the original patent, that the two companies will agree to grant each other cross-licenses.

Planet Corporation’s first commercial robot. It was controlled by cams and limit switches.

First flight of the X-15 aircraft designed to fly at speeds exceeding Mach 5 and above 70 km in altitude: the first true aerospace plane.

Regina Fischer, mother of American chess champion Bobby Fischer, leaves home to study in Europe, leaving her son alone at home. Bobby is 16 and a national chess champion.

145 CORONA spy satellites provide the Americans with a clear, factual picture of the Soviet nuclear arsenal: number, type, and location of warheads. This will give the United States the ability to negotiate at the negotiating table for nuclear arms reduction with the knowledge of being able to verify with certainty the enemy’s actual deployment. CORONA will be the first photo-reconnaissance satellite, the first recovered from space, the first recovered on-the-fly, the first spatial mapping, the first combined stereo observation, and the first program with more than 100 active missions. 120 of the 145 missions will be successful, with 700 km of Kodak film exposed for 800,000 photos. Find ALL Soviet ICBM sites, all IRBMs, all ABMs, all naval and submarine bases, and previously unknown military-industrial sites.

Vietnam. North Vietnam begins infiltrating guerrillas along the Ho Chi Minh Trail.

Munich. A KGB agent assassinates Stepan Bandera, legendary (to Western Ukrainians) but controversial (to Eastern Ukrainians) leader of the Ukrainian resistance, now in exile in Germany.

Fidel Castro and the bearded men enter Havana

By choice of party ideologue Mikhail Suslov, only successes would be announced. Korolev became Professor Sergeev, and Glushko Professor Petrovich. Then, on January 2, 1959, the 1st Cosmic Ship made it. It carried a detector of gas, magnetic fields, ions, meteoroids, and cosmic rays. On January 3, 1959, it released, as planned, a tail of sodium vapor to make it visible, but it missed the Moon, albeit narrowly (6,000 km). It was called the 1st Cosmic Ship, to hide the fact that it was designed to hit the Moon. Only in 1963 was it renamed Luna 1. The Americans followed, missing the Moon with Pioneer 4 by a full 60,000 km. On September 13, the 2nd Cosmic Ship finally hit the Moon, not far from where Apollo 15 would land.

New Guinea. The Australian government outlaws cannibalism and implements strict controls. The restrictive measure puts an end to the kuru epidemic, a fever that had already wiped out more than 20,000 Fore indigenous people.

In 1958 the Soviets launched one satellite, 4 failures, the Americans 7 satellites, 10 failures

Charles De Gaulle is elected President of the French Republic

1958 was the year that saw Morris Chang (future founder of TSMC in Taiwan), Pat Haggerty (future chairman of Texas Instruments), Jay Lathrop (co-inventor of photolithography for solid-state chips at Texas Instruments), and Jack Kilby (co-inventor of integrated circuits at Texas Instruments and future Nobel Prize winner) all working together at Texas Instruments. In Washington, DC, there was a conference attended by Morris Chang, Gordon Moore (co-founder of Fairchild and later of Intel), Bob Noyce (co-founder of Fairchild and later of Intel and co-inventor of integrated circuits at Fairchild); then they all went out for a beer together. After the pub, they walked through the cold sidewalks of the American capital to return to their hotels. Anyone who saw them would never imagine that they were the future titans of technology, a technology that would change the lives of billions of people across the planet.

The first stretch of the Autostrada del Sole, from Milan to Parma, has been inaugurated.

More than 60 nuclear-tipped Jupiter IRBM missiles are being installed at US military bases in Italy and Türkiye.