| 1958-02-21
The Peace symbol is designed and completed by Gerald Holtom, commissioned by Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, in protest against the Atomic Weapons Research Establishment.
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| 1958-09-15
A Central Railroad of New Jersey commuter train runs through an open drawbridge at the Newark Bay, killing 58.
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| 1958-07-26
Explorer program: Explorer 4 is launched.
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| 1958-04-13
Van Cliburn is the first American to win the Tchaikovsky Competition in Moscow.
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| 1958-02-17
Pope Pius XII declares Saint Clare of Assisi (1193~1253) the patron saint of television.
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| 1958-10-14
The American Atomic Energy Commission, with supporting military units, carries out an underground nuclear weapon test at the Nevada Test Site, just north of Las Vegas, Nevada.
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| 1958-05-30
Memorial Day: the remains of two unidentified American servicemen, killed in action during World War II and the Korean War respectively, are buried at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in Arlington National Cemetery.
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| 1958-03-01
Samuel Alphonsus Stritch is appointed Pro-Prefect of the Propagation of Faith and thus becomes the first American member of the Roman Curia.
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| 1958-10-07
The U.S. manned space-flight project is renamed Project Mercury.
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| 1958-01-26
Japanese ferry Nankai Maru capsizes off southern Awaji Island, Japan, 167 killed.
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| 1958-02-06
Eight Manchester United F.C. players are killed in the Munich air disaster.
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| 1958-11-25
French Sudan gains autonomy as a self-governing member of the French Community.
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| 1958-10-04
Fifth Republic of France is established.
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| 1958-09-02
United States Air Force C-130A-II is shot down by fighters over Yerevan, Armenia when it strays into Soviet airspace while conducting a sigint mission. All crew members are killed.
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| 1958-10-11
Pioneer program: NASA launches the lunar probe Pioneer 1 (the probe falls back to Earth and burns up).
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| 1958-06-01
Charles de Gaulle comes out of retirement to lead France by decree for six months.
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| 1958-08-18
Vladimir Nabokov's controversial novel Lolita is published in the United States.
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| 1958-03-03
Nuri as-Said becomes the prime minister of Iraq for the 14th time.
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| 1958-12-01
The Our Lady of the Angels School Fire in Chicago, Illinois, kills 92 children and three nuns.
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| 1958-08-23
Chinese Civil War: The Second Taiwan Strait crisis begins with the People's Liberation Army's bombardment of Quemoy.
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| 1958-06-17
The Wooden Roller Coaster at Playland, which is in the Pacific National Exhibition, Vancouver, Canada opens. It is still open today.
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| 1958-07-07
U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower signs the Alaska Statehood Act into law.
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| 1958-01-04
Sputnik 1 falls to Earth from its orbit.
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| 1958-07-01
The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation links television broadcasting across Canada via microwave.
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| 1958-07-29
U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower signs into law the National Aeronautics and Space Act, which creates the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA).
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| 1958-10-01
NASA created to replace NACA.
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| 1958-05-18
An F-104 Starfighter sets a world speed record of 2,259.82 km/h (1,404.19 mph).
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| 1958-03-25
Canada's Avro Arrow makes its first flight.
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| 1958-12-28
"Greatest Game Ever Played" – Baltimore Colts defeat the New York Giants in the first ever National Football League sudden death overtime game at New York's Yankee Stadium.
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| 1958-01-31
James Van Allen discovers the Van Allen radiation belt.
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| 1958-02-05
Gamel Abdel Nasser is nominated to be the first president of the United Arab Republic.
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| 1958-01-03
The West Indies Federation is formed.
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| 1958-10-02
Guinea declares its independence from France.
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| 1958-01-21
The last Fokker C.X in military service, the Finnish Air Force FK-111 target tower, crashes, killing the pilot and winch-operator.
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| 1958-05-13
The trade mark Velcro is registered.
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| 1958-01-18
Willie O'Ree, the first African Canadian National Hockey League player, makes his NHL debut.
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| 1958-05-27
The F-4 Phantom II makes its first flight.
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| 1958-08-31
A parcel bomb sent by Ngo Dinh Nhu, younger brother and chief adviser of South Vietnamese President Ngo Dinh Diem, failed to kill Sihanouk of Cambodia.
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| 1958-07-09
Lituya Bay is hit by a mega-tsunami. The wave is recorded at 524 meters high, the largest in recorded history.
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| 1958-01-01
The European Community is established.
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| 1958-02-01
The United States Army launches Explorer 1.
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| 1958-09-12
Jack Kilby demonstrates the first integrated circuit.
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| 1958-11-10
The Hope Diamond is donated to the Smithsonian Institution by New York diamond merchant Harry Winston.
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| 1958-05-23
Explorer 1 ceases transmission.
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| 1958-05-13
During a visit to Caracas, Venezuela, Vice President Richard Nixon's car is attacked by anti-American demonstrators.
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| 1958-02-05
A hydrogen bomb known as the Tybee Bomb is lost by the US Air Force off the coast of Savannah, Georgia, never to be recovered.
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| 1958-12-05
The Preston bypass, the UK's first stretch of motorway, opens to traffic for the first time. It is now part of the M6 and M55 motorways.
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| 1958-12-14
The 3rd Soviet Antarctic Expedition becomes the first expedition to reach The Pole of Relative Inaccessibility in the Antarctic.
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| 1958-03-17
The United States launches the Vanguard 1 satellite.
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| 1958-03-19
The Monarch Underwear Company fire leaves 24 dead and 15 injured.
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| 1958-01-31
Explorer program: Explorer 1 – The first successful launch of an American satellite into orbit.
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| 1958-02-28
A school bus in Floyd County, Kentucky hits a wrecker truck and plunges down an embankment into the rain-swollen Levisa Fork River. The driver and 26 children die in what remains the worst school bus accident in U.S. history.
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| 1958-08-29
United States Air Force Academy opens in Colorado Springs, Colorado.
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| 1958-01-13
Moroccan Liberation Army ambushes Spanish patrol in the Battle of Edchera.
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| 1958-04-15
Walter O'Malley's Los Angeles Dodgers host the first Major League Baseball game played on the West Coast of the United States.
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| 1958-05-13
May 1958 crisis: a group of French military officers lead a coup in Algiers demanding that a government of national unity be formed with Charles de Gaulle at its head in order to defend French control of Algeria.
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| 1958-06-09
Queen Elizabeth II officially opens London Gatwick Airport, (LGW) in Crawley, West Sussex, United Kingdom.
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| 1958-07-01
Flooding of Canada's St. Lawrence Seaway begins.
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| 1958-12-23
Dedication of Tokyo Tower, the world's highest self-supporting iron tower.
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| 1958-05-15
The Soviet Union launches Sputnik 3.
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| 1958-03-26
The African Regroupment Party is launched at a meeting in Paris.
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| 1958-08-04
The Billboard Hot 100 is founded
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| 1958-12-09
The John Birch Society was founded in the United States.
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| 1958-04-05
Ripple Rock, an underwater threat to navigation in the Seymour Narrows in Canada is destroyed in one of the largest non-nuclear controlled explosions of the time.
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| 1958-02-01
Egypt and Syria merge to form the United Arab Republic, which lasted until 1961.
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| 1958-01-23
Overthrow in Venezuela of Marcos Pérez Jiménez
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| 1958-09-14
The first two German post-war rockets, designed by the German engineer Ernst Mohr, reach the upper atmosphere.
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| 1958-11-12
A team of rock climbers led by Warren Harding completes the first ascent of The Nose on El Capitan in Yosemite Valley.
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| 1958-10-27
Iskander Mirza, the first President of Pakistan, is deposed in a bloodless coup d'état by General Ayub Khan, who had been appointed the enforcer of martial law by Mirza 20 days earlier.
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| 1958-03-26
The United States Army launches Explorer 3.
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| 1958-04-26
Final run of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad's Royal Blue from Washington, D.C., to New York City after 68 years, the first U.S. passenger train to use electric locomotives.
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| 1958-05-22
Sri Lankan riots of 1958: This riot is a watershed event in the race relationship of the various ethnic communities of Sri Lanka. The total number of deaths is estimated to be 300, mostly Sri Lankan Tamils.
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| 1958-03-05
The Explorer 2 spacecraft launches and fails to reach Earth orbit.
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| 1958-05-21
United Kingdom Postmaster General Ernest Marples announces that from December, subscriber trunk dialling will be introduced in the Bristol area.
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| 1958-12-11
French Upper Volta gains self-government from France, becomes the Republic of Upper Volta, and joins the French Community.
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| 1958-10-07
President of Pakistan Iskander Mirza, with the support of General Ayub Khan and the army, suspends the 1956 constitution, imposes martial law, and cancels the elections scheduled for January 1959.
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| 1958-10-23
The Smurfs, a fictional race of blue dwarves, later popularized in a Hanna-Barbera animated cartoon series, appear for the first time in the story Le flute à six schtroumpfs, a Johan and Peewit adventure by Peyo which is serialized in the weekly comics magazine Spirou
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| 1958-11-28
Chad, the Republic of the Congo, and Gabon become autonomous republics within the French Community.
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| 1958-01-28
The Lego company patents the design of its Lego bricks, still compatible with bricks produced today.
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| 1958-02-03
Founding of the Benelux Economic Union, creating a testing ground for a later European Economic Community.
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| 1958-08-03
The nuclear submarine USS Nautilus travels beneath the Arctic ice cap.
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| 1958-06-17
The Ironworkers Memorial Second Narrows Crossing, in the process of being built to connect Vancouver and North Vancouver (Canada), collapses into the Burrard Inlet killing many of the ironworkers and injuring others.
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| 1958-10-26
Pan American Airways makes the first commercial flight of the Boeing 707 from New York City to Paris, France.
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| 1958-03-27
Nikita Khrushchev becomes Premier of the Soviet Union.
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| 1958-12-01
The Central African Republic becomes independent from France.
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| 1958-09-28
France ratifies a new Constitution of France; the French Fifth Republic is then formed upon the formal adoption of the new constitution on October 4. Guinea rejects the new constitution, voting for independence instead.
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| 1958-06-23
The Dutch Reformed Church accepts women ministers.
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| 1958-04-18
A United States federal court rules that poet Ezra Pound is to be released from an insane asylum.
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| 1958-12-05
Subscriber Trunk Dialling (STD) is inaugurated in the UK by Queen Elizabeth II when she speaks to the Lord Provost in a call from Bristol to Edinburgh.
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| 1958-06-16
Imre Nagy, Pál Maléter and other leaders of the 1956 Hungarian Uprising are executed.
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| 1958-02-23
Cuban rebels kidnap 5-time world driving champion Juan Manuel Fangio.
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| 1958-05-12
A formal North American Aerospace Defense Command agreement is signed between the United States and Canada.
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| 1958-07-14
Iraqi Revolution: in Iraq the monarchy is overthrown by popular forces lead by Abdul Karim Kassem, who becomes the nation's new leader.
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| 1958-04-14
The Soviet satellite Sputnik 2 falls from orbit after a mission duration of 162 days.
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| 1958-05-24
United Press International is formed through a merger of the United Press and the International News Service.
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| 1958-12-12
Guinea joins the United Nations.
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| 1958-10-14
The District of Columbia's Bar Association votes to accept African-Americans as member attornies.
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| 1958-04-04
The CND Peace Symbol displayed in public for the first time in London.
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| 1958-03-24
Entertainer Elvis Presley is conscripted into the U.S. Army.
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| 1958-07-25
The African Regroupment Party (PRA) holds its first congress in Cotonou.
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| 1958-10-23
The Springhill Mine Bump – An underground earthquake traps 174 miners in the No. 2 colliery at Springhill, Nova Scotia, the deepest coal mine in North America at the time. By November 1, rescuers from around the world had dug out 100 of the victims, marking the death toll at 74.
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| 1958-03-16
The Ford Motor Company produces its 50 millionth automobile, the Thunderbird, averaging almost a million cars a year since the company's founding.
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| 1958-12-04
Dahomey (present-day Benin) becomes a self-governing country within the French Community.
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| 1958-02-22
Egypt and Syria join to form the United Arab Republic.
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