1958 Fun Facts

What Things Cost in 1958:

Car: $2,200
Gasoline: 30 cents/gal
House: $18,000
Bread: 19 cents/loaf
Milk: $1.01/gal
Postage Stamp: 4 cents
Stock Market: 584
Average Annual Salary: $5,500
Minimum Wage: $1.00 per hour

U.S. Information

President: Dwight D. Eisenhower
Vice President: Richard M. Nixon
Population: 174,881,904
Life expectancy: 69.6 years
Homicide Rate (per 100,000): 4.5
US GDP (1998 dollars):   $467.3 billion
Federal spending:   $82.41 billion
Federal debt:   $279.7 billion
Consumer Price Index:   28.9
Unemployment:   4.3%
Cost of a first-class stamp:   $0.03 ($0.04 as of 8/1/58)

SPORTS

World Series
NY Yankees d. Milwaukee Braves (4-3)
NBA Championship
St. Louis Hawks d. Boston (4-2)
Stanley Cup
Montreal d. Boston (4-2)
Wimbledon
Women: Althea Gibson d. A. Mortimer (8-6 6-2)
Men: Ashley Cooper d. N. Fraser (3-6 6-3 6-4 13-11)
Kentucky Derby Champion
Tim Tam
NCAA Basketball Championship
Kentucky d. Seattle (84-72)
NCAA Football Champions
LSU (AP, UPI) (11-0-0) & Iowa (FW) (8-1-1)

Entertainment

Music:

• Billboard debuts its Hot 100 chart. Ricky Nelson's "Poor Little Fool"  boasts the first No. 1 record.
• Alvin Ailey establishes the American Dance Theatre.
  
• Elvis Presley is inducted into the U.S. Army (March 24)

Movies:

• Vertigo, Gigi, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, The Defiant Ones

Books:

• Antonin Artaud, The Theatre and Its Double
  
• Truman Capote, Breakfast at Tiffany's
  
• John Cheever, The Housebreaker of Shady Hill
  
• Jack Kerouac, The Subterraneans, The Dharma Bums
  
• Stanley Kunitz, Selected Poems, 1928—1958
  
• Theodore Roethke, Words for the Wind
  
• Claude Lévi-Strauss, Structural Anthropology
  
• Leon Uris, Exodus

Pulitzer Prizes:

• Fiction: A Death in the Family, James Agee
  
• Music: Vanessa, Samuel Barber
  
• Drama: Look Homeward, Angel, Ketti Frings

Academy Award, Best Picture:

• The Bridge on the River Kwai, Sam Spiegel, producer (Columbia)

Miss America:

• Marilyn Van Derbur (CO)

World Events

• European Economic Community (Common Market) becomes effective (Jan. 1).

• Egypt and Syria merge into United Arab Republic (Feb. 1).

• Khrushchev becomes Premier of Soviet Union as Bulganin resigns (Mar. 27). Background: Rulers of Russia since 1533

• Gen. Charles de Gaulle becomes French premier (June 1), remaining in power until 1969.

• Eisenhower orders US Marines into Lebanon at request of President Chamoun, who fears overthrow (July 15).

• New French constitution adopted (Sept. 28), de Gaulle elected president of 5th Republic (Dec. 21).
  Population: 2.945 billion

• The US Supreme Court rules unanimously that Little Rock, Ark., schools must integrate (Sept. 29). Background: Civil Rights

• Army's Jupiter-C rocket fires first US satellite, Explorer I, into orbit (Jan. 31).

• First transatlantic jet passenger service started by BOAC, with a New York to London route (Oct. 4). Background: Famous Firsts in Aviation

• The existence of the Van Allen Belt, a radiation belt surrounding the Earth, is confirmed by the Explorer I satellite. Background: Astronomy

• NASA initiates Project Mercury, aimed at putting a man in space within two years. Background: US Staffed Space Flights

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