* Brett Austin ( 1959 – 1990 ), New Zealand swimmer

British Medical Journal, Jan. 3, 1959, 1 ( 5113 ): 1 – 6.

* 1959 – Gail Shea, Canadian politician

* 1883 – Dally Messenger, Australian footballer ( d. 1959 )

* 1959 – Paul Gross, Canadian actor, director, and writer

* 1959 – Stephen Harper, Canadian politician, 22nd Prime Minister of Canada

* 1959 – W. Thomas Smith, Jr, American author and columnist

* 1909 – Lester Young, American saxophonist ( d. 1959 )

* 1959 – Gerhard Berger, Austrian race car driver

* 1959 – Downtown Julie Brown, English television host and actress

* 1959 – Juan Fernando Cobo, Colombian painter and sculptor

* 1959 – András Petöcz, Hungarian author

* 1959 – Jeanette Winterson, English novelist

* 1959 – Rajendra Singh Indian water conservationist

* 1875 – Albert Ketèlbey, English conductor, composer, and pianist ( d. 1959 )

* 1959 – Kurtis Blow, American rapper and producer

* 1959 – Stuart Hughes, Canadian actor

* 1959 – Michael Kors, American fashion designer

* 1959 – Toni Servillo, Italian actor and director

* 1959 – Danny Bonaduce, American actor

* 1959 – Michael Bradley, Irish bass player and radio host ( The Undertones )

* 1959 – Bruce French, English cricketer

* 1959 – Tom Niedenfuer, American baseball player

* 1959 – Victoria Jackson, American comedian, actress, and singer

* 1959 – Apollonia Kotero, American singer and actress ( Apollonia 6 )

* 1959 – Physicist Richard Feynman gives a speech entitled " There's Plenty of Room at the Bottom ", which is regarded as the birth of nanotechnology.

* 1959 – Richard Dodds, British field hockey player

* Condon, Richard ( 1959 ).

* 1959 – At the opening of the American National Exhibition in Moscow, U. S. Vice President Richard Nixon and Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev have a " Kitchen Debate ".

Frankenheimer and producer George Axelrod bought Richard Condon's 1959 novel after it had already been turned down by many Hollywood studios.

The potential of very small machines was appreciated before the technology existed that could make them — see, for example, Richard Feynman's famous 1959 lecture There's Plenty of Room at the Bottom.

There's Plenty of Room at the Bottom is the title of a lecture given by physicist Richard Feynman at an American Physical Society meeting at Caltech on December 29, 1959.

These and other developments hint that the retroactive rediscovery of Feynman ’ s “ Plenty of Room ” gave nanotechnology a packaged history that provided an early date of December 1959, plus a connection to the charisma and genius of Richard Feynman.

* The Manchurian Candidate ( 1959 ) by Richard Condon

By 1959, the death of Buddy Holly, The Big Bopper and Ritchie Valens in a plane crash, the departure of Elvis for the army, the retirement of Little Richard to become a preacher, prosecutions of Jerry Lee Lewis and Chuck Berry, and the breaking of the payola scandal ( which implicated major figures, including Alan Freed, in bribery and corruption in promoting individual acts or songs ), gave a sense that the initial rock and roll era had come to an end.

In 1959, Richard was named NASCAR Rookie of the Year, after he produced 9 top 10 finishes, including six Top 5 finishes.

Ritchie Valens ( born Richard Steven Valenzuela ; May 13, 1941 – February 3, 1959 ) was a Mexican-American singer, songwriter and guitarist.

* Richard William Smith ( born 1959 ), Canadian prelate of the Roman Catholic Church

* Richard Weber ( born 1959 ), Canadian Arctic and polar explorer

Previous Mephisto setters were Richard Kilner ( only setter, 1959 to 1973 ), Richard Whitelegg ( only setter, 1973 to 1995 ), Chris Feetenby ( 1995-2008 ) and Mike Laws ( 1995-2011 ).

In 1959, when Richard Mulcahy resigned the leadership of Fine Gael to James Dillon, Costello retired to the backbenches.

His roles include Brutus in Julius Caesar ( 1953 ), Field Marshal Erwin Rommel in The Desert Fox: The Story of Rommel and The Desert Rats, the amoral valet turned spy in Joseph Mankiewicz's 5 Fingers, the declining actor in the first remake of A Star Is Born ( 1954 ), Captain Nemo in 20, 000 Leagues Under the Sea ( also 1954 ), a small town school teacher driven insane by the effects of cortisone in Bigger Than Life ( 1956 ), a suave master spy in North by Northwest ( 1959 ), a determined explorer in Journey to the Center of the Earth ( also 1959 ), Humbert Humbert in Stanley Kubrick's Lolita ( 1962 ), a river pirate who betrays Peter O ' Toole's character in Lord Jim ( 1965 ), the evil Doctor Polidori in Frankenstein: The True Story ( 1973 ), the vampire's servant, Richard Straker, in Salem's Lot, and surreal Royal Navy Captain Hughes in Yellowbeard ( 1983 ).

Richard won the Stanley Cup eight times in Montreal, was captain for four of the five straight cup wins from 1955-56 to 1959-60, won the Hart Trophy in 1947, was elected eight times to the first all-star team and six times to the second all-star team, and played in every National Hockey League All-Star Game from 1947 to 1959.

The 1958 – 59 and 1959 – 60 seasons saw Richard battling injuries that reduced his games played to 42 and 51.

In 1959 he attended the summer courses at Darmstadt under Karlheinz Stockhausen, and in 1960 relocated to New York in order to study electronic music with Richard Maxfield at the New School for Social Research.

In November 1959, Perry Smith and Richard Hickok stopped for dinner in Great Bend on their 400 mile journey to Holcomb, KS, where they murdered the Clutter family.

* Richard Barrett Lowe 29th Governor of American Samoa ( 1953 – 1956 ) and 8th Governor of Guam ( 1956 – 1959 )