WHAT ALL HAPPENED AUGUST TO OCTOBER 1958
Find out what all happened August to October 1958

The District of Columbia's Bar Association votes to accept African-Americans as member attorneys. (14. October 1958)

United States Air Force C-130A-II is shot down by fighters over Yerevan in Armenia when it strays into Soviet airspace while conducting a sigint mission. All crew members are killed. (2. September 1958)

NASA is created to replace NACA. (1. October 1958)

Pioneer program: NASA launches the lunar probe Pioneer 1 (the probe falls back to Earth and burns up). (11. October 1958)

Paddington Bear, a classic character from English children's literature, makes his debut. (13. October 1958)

A Central Railroad of New Jersey commuter train runs through an open drawbridge at the Newark Bay, killing 48. (15. September 1958)

The Billboard Hot 100 is published for the first time. (4. August 1958)

The U.S. manned space-flight project is renamed Project Mercury. (7. October 1958)

Pan American Airways makes the first commercial flight of the Boeing 707 from New York City to Paris, France. (26. October 1958)

The nuclear submarine USS Nautilus travels beneath the Arctic ice cap. (3. August 1958)

Pioneer 0, America's first attempt at lunar orbit, is launched using the first Thor-Able rocket and fails. Notable as one of the first attempted launches beyond Earth orbit by any country. (17. August 1958)

United States Air Force Academy opens in Colorado Springs, Colorado. (29. August 1958)

Vladimir Nabokov's controversial novel Lolita is published in the United States. (18. August 1958)

Fifth Republic of France is established. (4. October 1958)

John XXIII is elected Pope. (28. October 1958)

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. (23. October 1958)

Herbert Hoover eclipses John Adams as having the longest retirement of any former U.S President. Hoover would live another ten years, his record 35-year retirement still holding the record as of 2013. (5. August 1958)

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. (14. October 1958)

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 La flute à six schtroumpfs, a Johan and Peewit adventure by Peyo, which is serialized in the weekly Spirou magazine. (23. October 1958)

A parcel bomb sent by Ngo Dinh Nhu, younger brother and chief adviser of South Vietnamese President Ngo Dinh Diem, fails to kill King Norodom Sihanouk of Cambodia. (31. August 1958)