lightning bolt, struck a cornfield near Leland, Illinois, leaving a crater deep, and breaking windows in homes almost away. Born: Juha Kankkunen, Finnish rally car driver and four-time world champion; in Laukaa April 3, 1959 (Friday) Vito Genovese, New York Mafia don and boss of the Genovese Crime Family, was convicted on federal narcotics conspiracy charges, but was released three days later after posting $150,000 bond. Elmer David Bruner died in the electric chair at the West Virginia Penitentiary in Moundsville, West Virginia, becoming the last person to be executed in that state, which abolished the death penalty in 1965. Born: David Hyde Pierce, American television actor known for Frasier; in Saratoga Springs, New York April 4, 1959 (Saturday) In a speech at Gettysburg College, U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower announced the first American commitment to keeping South Vietnam as a separate, non-Communist nation. "We reach the inescapable conclusion", said Eisenhower, "that our own national interests demand some help from us in sustaining in Vietnam the morale, the economic progress, and the military strength necessary to its continued existence in freedom." April 5, 1959 (Sunday) In Dortmund, West Germany, Rong Guotuan of Communist China defeated Ferenc Sido of Hungary to win the 25th World Table Tennis Championships, becoming the first Chinese player to do so. At the Southmoor Hotel in Chicago, black nationalist S.A. Davis, Chairman of the Joint Council of Repatriation, and eight of his associates met with George Lincoln Rockwell, white supremacist, and two of his associates in the American Nazi Party, to discuss a joint resolution in support of government-supported "repatriation" of African-Americans to a homeland on the African continent. April 6, 1959 (Monday) The Academy Awards ceremony took place at the RKO Pantages Theatre in Hollywood. Gigi won a record nine Oscars, including the award for Best Picture. Texas A&M University won in its fight against admitting women as students, as the U.S. Supreme Court dismissed an appeal by two women from a state court decision. Robert Sobukwe founded the Pan Africanist Congress as a black African alternative to the African National Congress. Hal Holbrook began his career of portraying a retired author, with his first performance of Mark Twain Tonight! at the Forty-first Street Theatre in Manhattan. The "escudo" was created as the new currency of the South American nation of Chile, with the signing by President Jorge Alessandri of Law 13,305 in response to