1959: The Year in People

Baby Boomers · Year of the Pig 🐖 · Born in 1959 turn 67 in 2026

The year in numbers

Gas, per gallon

$0.30

Median home

$12,400

Minimum wage

$1.00/hr

Movie ticket

$0.68

US population

2.98B

US president

Dwight D. Eisenhower

Top song

"The Battle of New Orleans" — Johnny Horton

Top film

Ben-Hur

Top TV show

Gunsmoke

Best Picture

Ben-Hur

In the news: Fidel Castro takes power in Cuba

What happened in 1959

1959 (MCMLIX) was a common year starting on Thursday of the Gregorian calendar, the 1959th year of the Common Era (CE) and Anno Domini (AD) designations, the 959th year of the 2nd millennium, the 59th year of the 20th century, and the 10th and last year of the 1950s decade.

Summary from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0

Born in 1959

344 people in our data · most viewed first

John C. McGinley

b. 1959 · August 3

American actor

Bradley Whitford

b. 1959 · October 10

American actor

Clancy Brown

b. 1959 · January 5

American actor

Allison Janney

b. 1959 · November 19

American actress

"Weird Al" Yankovic

b. 1959 · October 23

American comedy musician

Fred Couples

b. 1959 · October 3

American professional golfer

Randy Travis

b. 1959 · May 4

American singer

Aidan Quinn

b. 1959 · March 8

Irish-American actor

David Koresh

1959–1993 · August 17

American religious cult leader

Chris Hadfield

b. 1959 · August 29

Canadian astronaut

David Hyde Pierce

b. 1959 · April 3

American actor

Emeril Lagasse

b. 1959 · October 15

American celebrity chef and restaurateur

Kelly Lynch

b. 1959 · January 31

American actress

Babyface (musician)

b. 1959 · April 10

American singer, songwriter, and record producer

Duško Vujošević

1959–2026 · March 3

Yugoslav and Serbian basketball coach

Anthony LaPaglia

b. 1959 · January 31

Australian actor

Anil Ambani

b. 1959 · June 4

Indian businessman

Ira Glass

b. 1959 · March 3

American radio personality (born in 1959)

Dave Coulier

b. 1959 · September 21

American actor

Frank Darabont

b. 1959 · January 28

American filmmaker

Lawrence Taylor

b. 1959 · February 4

American football player

Apollonia Kotero

b. 1959 · August 2

American singer and actress

Danny Bonaduce

b. 1959 · August 13

American professional wrestler, actor and radio/television personality

Cherie Currie

b. 1959 · November 30

American musician, actress, and woodcarver

Died in 1959

Billie Holiday1915–1959 · American jazz singer
Ante Pavelić1889–1959 · Dictator of the Independent State of Croatia from 1941 to 1945
Edmund Gwenn1875–1959 · English actor
D. F. Malan1874–1959 · Prime Minister of South Africa from 1948 to 1954
Bernard Berenson1865–1959 · American art critic
Albert Namatjira1902–1959 · Australian painter
Blind Willie McTell1898–1959 · Piedmont blues and ragtime singer and guitarist
Abraham Flexner1866–1959 · American educator
Bohuslav Martinů1890–1959 · Czech composer
Alfred Kubin1877–1959 · Austrian illustrator and writer
Bruno Gröning1906–1959 · German mystic
Ernest Bloch1880–1959 · Swiss-born American composer