1958
East German police captured nine Army crewmen when a helicopter accidentally landed beyond the West German border. The International Red Cross negotiated their release.
Fidel Castro's army captured 37 Americans and 4 Canadians at the Guantanamo Bay U.S. Navy Base.
The nuclear-powered submarine Seawolf ran underwater without surfacing for 60 days.
Besting the Soviet Union, America launched three successful Earth-orbiting satellites. Four attempts to reach the moon with rockets during the year were unsucessful.
The vocally anti-American Nikita Khrushchev became the premier of the Soviet Union.
An engineer suffered a heart attack just before his Jersey Central commuter train plunged off an open draw bridge over Newark Bay, killing 45.
U.S. first class postage was increased to 4 cents.
The Beat Movement had begun, fueled by the literature of Jack Kerouac, the sounds of progressive jazz and espresso.
In the 1958 Miss America telecast, host Bert Parks was 
told by a contestant that America should not try to reach the moon.
Danish-born comic Victor Borge was given his own one-man TV show by CBS.
David Seville (Ross Bagdasarian, cousin of William Saroyan) had two novelty hits, Witch Doctor and The Chipmunk Song, using sped-up voice tracks. Other 1958 chart-toppers included At The Hop by Danny & The Juniors, All I Have To Do Is Dream by the Everly Brothers and Hard-Headed Woman by Elvis Presley.
