dead a few weeks later. February 3 A chartered plane transporting musicians Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens and The Big Bopper with pilot Roger Peterson goes down in foggy conditions near Clear Lake, Iowa, killing all four on board. The tragedy is later termed "The Day the Music Died", popularized in Don McLean's 1971 song "American Pie". American Airlines Flight 320, a Lockheed L-188 Electra from Chicago crashes into the East River on approach to New York City's LaGuardia Airport, killing 65 of the 73 people on board. February 6 – At Cape Canaveral, Florida, the first successful test firing of a Titan intercontinental ballistic missile is accomplished. February 9 – Yugoslavia and Spain set trade relations (not diplomatic ones). February 13 – TAT-2, AT&T's second transatlantic telephone cable goes into operation. February 16 – Fidel Castro becomes Premier of Cuba. February 17 – Vanguard 2, the first weather satellite, is launched to measure cloud cover for the United States Navy. February 18 Jesús Sosa Blanco, a colonel in the Cuban army of Fulgencio Batista, is executed in Cuba after being convicted of committing 108 murders for Batista. Women in Nepal vote for the first time. February 19 – The United Kingdom decides to grant independence to Cyprus. February 20 – The Canadian Government cancels the Avro Canada CF-105 Arrow interceptor aircraft project. March March 1 The , , and are stricken from the United States Naval Vessel Register. Archbishop Makarios returns to Cyprus from exile. March 3 – Lunar probe Pioneer 4 becomes the first American object to escape dominance by Earth's gravity. March 9 – Mattel's Barbie doll debuts in the United States. March 10 – The Tibetan uprising erupts in Lhasa when Chinese officials attempt to arrest the Dalai Lama. March 11 – The Eurovision Song Contest 1959, staged in Cannes, is won for the Netherlands by "'n Beetje" sung by Teddy Scholten (music by Dick Schallies, lyrics by Willy van Hemert). March 17 – Tenzin Gyatso, 14th Dalai Lama escapes Tibet and arrives in India. March 18 – American President Dwight D. Eisenhower signs the Hawaii Admission Act, granting statehood to Hawaii. March 19 – Two other islands join Addu in the United Suvadive Republic (abolished September 1963), in the Maldives Islands. March 28 – The Kashag, the government of Tibet, is abolished by an order signed by Chinese premier Zhou Enlai. The Dalai Lama is replaced