Plenty of Nothing

Renza Hale, First Woman on the Moon

Nancy Gates played Renza Hale in the Men Into Space episode "First Woman On The Moon," written by James Clavell, which aired on December 16, 1959. Read about it at wcftr.

 

Hockeyists

Hokkeyisti (1959-60), by Alexandr Deineka. Source.

Scottish Cup Final 1959

From the 1959 cup final. Source.

 

SCOTTISH CUP TRIUMPH

    FOR ST MIRREN

Large Attendance At Final

    by Cyril Horne

    St Mirren, as had been freely forecast, won the Scottish Cup on Saturday at Hampden Park for the second time, their previous success having been in 1926. If the defeat of Aberdeen was far from unexpected the size of the crowd who attended the match certainly surprised most people. At last year's final (between Clyde and Hibernian) the attendance was 95,123 and in 1957 the gate for the Falkirk-Kilmarnock final was 79,960. On this occasion, however, there were 108,591 paying spectators -- over 2000 more than the number who saw the Celtic-Clyde Saturday final in 1955.

    British Record

    Finals in which Celtic or Rangers have participated have generally attracted the largest crowds in view of those clubs' huge following -- the record attendance at a club game in Britain is the 146,433 at the Celtic-Aberdeen final in 1937 -- but the greatest crowd at a final since the Scottish Cup competition was resumed in season 1946-47 was for a match in which neither Celtic nor Rangers were involved -- 136,274 for Motherwell v. Dundee in 1952.

    Three factors contributed to the unexpectedly large gate on Saturday:--

    (1) The weather was fair for the start of the match, though in the middle of the afternoon there was heavy drizzling rain; (2) there was no first-division opposition, the major league programme having been completed; (3) Aberdeen's important victory over Rangers on the previous Saturday had given the final new appeal.

    Nevertheless, the spectator's appetite for the game at the end of a season which has been far from distinguished is remarkable.

 

INJURY MARKS TURNING POINT

        AT HAMPDEN PARK

        St Mirren 3, Aberdeen 1

    For nearly half an hour at Hampden on Saturday Aberdeen played as if they might repeat their success of the previous week in the role of non-favourites. Brownlee, Clunie, and Glen confidently contained the menace of the St Mirren inside forwards, and the left half and Wishart had St Mirren's veteran, Lapsley, clearly worried as they used the still not inconsiderable speed of Hather.

    The even faster Baker had, it is true, once run clear of Clunie and beaten Martin with a shot which grazed the outside of a post, but St Mirren had an even more narrow escape when Walker made a desperate save of a fast ground shot from Davidson and baulked Ewan as the outside right raced in for the kill.

        Rearranged Team

    But in 28 minutes Caldwell limped from the field suffering from a pulled muscle and though he returned five minutes later it was as an outside left, Hather having been withdrawn from the forward line to take over as right back.

    Thereafter it was St Mirren's match and St Mirren's Cup. Caldwell was willing but severely handicapped -- early in the second half when the score was 1 - 0 a fit player would have scored when Walker misjudged a cross from Ewen -- and Hather, beaten by Miller, as Caldwell not once had been, before the cross which Bryceland headed away from Martin two minutes from half time, was too left-footed and too deficient in positional sense to succeed as a right back. I am sure Aberdeen could have tackled their problem much more intelligently; it certainly was rank bad strategy to permit a full back so lacking in mobility as Lapsley an hour of welcome leisure.

    In any event St Mirren's halfbacks proceeded to exert the influence their opposite numbers had done in the first half-hour and Bryceland and Gemmell revelled in the new-found freedom from close marking. In 65 minutes Miller had merely to side-foot the ball over the line for St Mirren's second goal, and seven minutes later Baker strode away from Clunie, who had slipped as he tried to intercept Bryceland's pass, and coolly directed his shot out of the reach of the advancing Martin. In the final minute Baird scored for Aberdeen, having as a right half in his side's later readjustment of their forces made a much more direct approach than ever he had done as a centre forward.

        Semi-Final Form

    For me at least this, after Caldwell's injury, was no great game. Well as St Mirren -- and Bryceland and Gemmell in particular -- played after Aberdeen's misfortune they rarely touched their form of the semi-final on the same ground. Perhaps there will be general agreement now that Celtic that day were a shockingly poor team.

    Martin, Hogg, all three half-backs, and Wishart made tremendous efforts for Aberdeen. The St Mirren half-backs were throughout equally fine players and latterly one could appreciate the combination of skill and thrust that Bryceland, Baker, and Gemmell have introduced.

    Aberdeen's match-winner of recent weeks, Davidson, had an unhappy day. Injured in the first half and justifiably annoyed about the Leishman tackle which caused him hurt, he set about giving a Roland for an Oliver* and in the end had his name taken by the referee. Two St Mirren players were cautioned, Wilson for a dreadful foul on Ewen and Baker for an angry lunge at Hogg. All of this unseemly behaviour occurred in the second half. There was an unequally unpleasant action of Bryceland in the first half which caused Clunie to have trainer's attention; Mr Mowat could not have detected it so firmly did he deal with the latter offenders. Little men should be extra careful in their attentions to opponents; I have known half-backs who without getting themselves into trouble would have lent a great deal of weight to an argument with such as Bryceland.

    St Mirren's well-deserved success would have been more commendable without those misdemeanours.

    ST MIRREN -- Walker; Lapsley and Wilson; Neilson, McGugan, and Leishman; Rodger and Bryceland; Baker; Gemmell and Miller.

    ABERDEEN -- Martin; Caldwell and Hogg; Brownlee, Clunie, and Glen; Ewen and Davidson; Baird; Wishart and Hather.

    Referee -- J. A. Mowat (Burnside).

Glasgow Herald, April 27, 1959, page 4.

*The Song of Roland.

The First Astérix

The first instalment of Astérix was released on this day in 1959. Source.

Space 1959: Luna 1

On this date in 1959 the USSR launched Luna 1, the first attempt by humans to crash something into the moon. It missed, and is now in orbit around the Sun between Earth and Mars. Luna 2 achieved the desired impact on September 14, 1959, a little east of Mare Imbrium. Source.

Space 1959: Luna 3

On October 7, 1959, the Soviet space probe Luna 3 took the first pictures of the far side of the moon. This view is actually of the east side of the moon. That's Mare Moscoviense in the upper right. Compare.

Space 1959: Big Joe 1

Big Joe 1, the first Project Mercury spacecraft to cross the Karman Line (100 km) into space, and the first to ride an Atlas rocket, was launched on this day in 1959. The purpose of the flight was to test the capsule's heat shield, but it almost didn't come off, because the capsule almost didn't come off the rocket. Flight control had to fire the capsule's manoevring thrusters to yank it free of the rocket stage after the explosive bolts failed. Overall the Atlas didn't cover itself with glory, and it wasn't until 1962 that NASA dared put an astronaut atop one. The heat shield worked, though, and the capsule is now in the National Air and Space Museum.

Serfs Emancipation Day

On this day in 1959 the government of the People's Republic of China abolished the Tibetan government of the Dalai Lama. Since 2009 this anniversary has been an official holiday called Serfs Emancipation Day. Source.

Greenock in 1959

These grainy images seem to come from a time much more distant than only half a century ago. To see them in live action, view William Braid's movie here.

The Manitobans Reached Space in 1959

Bristol Aerospace of Winnipeg have been constructing versions of their reliable Black Brant rocket since 1959 and are presently up to the Black Brant XII.  NASA fires off about a dozen of the suborbital sounding rockets per year from Wallops Island, White Sands, Poker Flats in Alaska, or Andoya in northern Norway, oftentimes with the Black Brant as part of a three or four stage launch vehicle.  In September 1959 the Canadian Armament Research and Development Establishment began to test the Black Brant at Fort Churchill, Manitoba, on Hudson Bay, and quickly exceeded an altitude of 100 km, the unofficial edge of space.  Hence the shock in 1989 when the headquarters of the new Canadian Space Agency was placed in Montreal.