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Top Stories for the month of July, 1958:
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July 5 – Islamabad (INN)
Today Gasherbrum I, the 11th highest mountain in the world, was first ascended.
Gasherbrum I, also known as Hidden Peak or K5, is the 11th highest peak on Earth, located on the Pakistani–Chinese border in the Gilgit–Baltistan region of Pakistan and Xinjiang region of China. Gasherbrum I is part of the Gasherbrum massif, located in the Karakorum region of the Himalayas. Gasherbrum is often claimed to mean "Shining Wall", presumably a reference to the highly visible face of the neighboring peak Gasherbrum IV, but in fact it comes from "rgasha" (beautiful) + "brum" (mountain) in Balti, hence it actually means "beautiful mountain."
Gasherbrum I was designated as K5, meaning the 5th peak of the Karakorum, by T.G. Montgomerie in 1856 when he first spotted the peaks of the Karakorum from more than 124 miles away during the Great Trigonometric Survey of India. In 1892, William Martin Conway provided the alternate name, Hidden Peak, in reference to its extreme remoteness.
Gasherbrum I was first climbed today by Pete Schoening and Andy Kauffman of an eight-man American expedition led by Nicholas B. Clinch. Richard K. Irvin, Tom Nevison, Tom McCormack, Bob Swift and Gil Roberts were also members of the team.
July 7 - Washington (INN)
President Dwight D. Eisenhower signs the Alaska Statehood Act into United States law.
Alaska will be the largest state in the United States by area. It is situated in the northwest extremity of the North American continent, with Canada to the east, the Arctic Ocean to the north, and the Pacific Ocean to the west and south, with Russia further west across the Bering Strait. Alaska will be the 4th least populous and the least densely populated of the 49 United States. Approximately half of Alaska's residents live within the Anchorage metropolitan area.
Alaska was purchased from Russia on March 30th, 1867, for $7.2 million dollars) at approximately two cents per acre. The land went through several administrative changes before becoming an organized territory on May 11, 1912, and will become the 49th state of the U.S. on January 3, 1959.
The name "Alaska" (Аляска) was already introduced in the Russian colonial period, when it was used only for the peninsula and is derived from the Aleut alaxsxaq, meaning "the mainland" or, more literally, "the object towards which the action of the sea is directed". It is also known as Alyeska, the "great land", an Aleut word derived from the same root.
Statehood for Alaska was an important cause of James Wickersham early in his tenure as a congressional delegate. Decades later, the statehood movement gained its first real momentum following a territorial referendum in 1946. The Alaska Statehood Committee and Alaska's Constitutional Convention would soon follow. Statehood supporters also found themselves fighting major battles against political foes, mostly in the U.S. Congress but also within Alaska. Statehood was approved by Congress on today. Alaska will officially be proclaimed a state on January 3, 1959.
July 9 – A 7.5 Richter scale earthquake in Lituya Bay, Alaska, causes a landslide that produces a huge 1719-foot high wave.
The major earthquake that struck on the Fairweather Fault had a Richter scale reading of 7.9 and a maximum perceived intensity of XI (Extreme) on the Mercalli intensity scale,[2] although some sources have reported the magnitude to be as much as 8.3 on the moment magnitude scale.[1] The epicenter of the quake was at latitude 58.6° N, longitude 137.1° W near the Fairweather Range, 7.5 miles (12.1 km) east of the surface trace of the Fairweather fault, and 13 miles (21 km) southeast of Lituya Bay. This earthquake had been the strongest in over 50 years for this region. The Cape Yakataga earthquake, with a reading of 8.2 on the Richter scale, occurred on September 4, 1899.[2] The shock was felt in southeastern Alaska cities over an area of 400,000 square miles (1,000,000 km2), as far south as Seattle, Washington, and as far east as Whitehorse, Y.T., Canada.[4]
The earthquake caused a subaerial rock fall in the Gilbert Inlet.[4] This landslide caused 30 million cubic meters of rock to fall into the bay, creating the megatsunami.[3] Deaths from the event totaled five, with three being killed on Khantaak Island and two having been caught by a wave in the bay.[2] In Yakutat, the only permanent outpost close to the epicenter at the time, infrastructure such as bridges, docks and oil lines all sustained damage. A water tower collapsed and a cabin was also damaged beyond repair. Sand boils and fissures occurred near the coast southeast of there, and underwater cables that supported the Alaska Communication System were cut.[2] Lighter damage was also reported in Pelican and Sitka.
The same topography that leads to the heavy tidal currents also created the highest wave from a tsunami in recorded history. The earthquake caused a landslide in the Crillon Inlet at the head of the bay, generating a massive mega-tsunami measuring 1,719 ft. For comparison, the Empire State Building is 1,470 ft high, including its antenna spire.
The wave possessed sufficient power to snap off all of the trees up to 1,720 feet high around the bay. Most of these were spruce, and most were 6 feet thick. The wave stripped the soil down to the bedrock around the entire bay. There were three fishing boats anchored near the entrance of Lituya Bay on the day the giant wave occurred.
One boat sank and the two people on board were killed. The other two boats were able to ride the waves. Amongst the survivors were Adam Gray, William A. Swanson and Howard G. Ulrich, who each provided accounts of what they observed. Based on Swanson's description of the length of time it took the wave to reach his boat after overtopping Cenotaph Island near the bay's entrance, the wave may have been traveling up to 600 mph. When it reached the open sea, however, it dissipated quickly. This incident was the first direct evidence and eyewitness report of the existence of mega-tsunamis.
The 1,720-foot wave runup at the head of Lituya Bay where the landslide occurred, and the subsequent large waves along the main body of the bay, measuring between 200 to 300 feet high, were caused primarily by an enormous subaerial rockfall into Gilbert Inlet at the head of Lituya Bay, triggered by dynamic earthquake ground motions. The large mass of rock and ice, acting as a monolith, impacted the bottom of the inlet with great force.
The impact created a crater which displaced and folded recent and Tertiary deposits and sedimentary layers. The displaced water and the folding of sediments broke and uplifted 1,300 feet of ice along the entire front of the Lituya Glacier. Also, the impact resulted in a water-splashing action that reached the 1,720-foot elevation on the other side of the inlet. The same rockfall impact, in combination with strong ground movements, the net vertical crustal uplift of about 3.5 feet, and an overall tilting seaward of the entire crustal block on which Lituya Bay was situated, generated the giant wave which swept the main body of the bay.
July 12 - Brussels (INN)
Henri Cornelis has been appointed as Governor-General of the Belgian Congo.
July 15 – Beirut (INN)
It was announced today that 5,000 United States Marines have landed in the capitol of Beirut in order to protect the pro-Western government there.
July 17 – Amman (INN)
It was announced today that the UK has dispatched British paratroopers to Jordan in response to King Hussein's request for assistance against pressure from Iraq.
July 19 - London (INN)
An up and coming band called the Quarrymen, has revealed that they paid 17 shillings and 6 pence to have their first recording session where they could record That'll Be The Day by Buddy Holly and In Spite Of All The Danger by Paul McCartney and George Harrison.
July 20 – Havana (INN)
It has been reported by the Batista Government that various rebel groups in Cuba have joined forces, but they believe the communists are not amongst them.
July 24 – London (INN)
The first life peerage under the Life Peerages Act 1958 is created in the United Kingdom.
The Life Peerages Act of 1958 has established the standards for the creation of life peers by the monarch of the United Kingdom. Life peers are barons and are members of the House of Lords for life, but their titles and membership in the House of Lords are not inherited by their children. Judicial life peers already sat in the House under the terms of the Appellate Jurisdiction Act of 1876.
The Life Peerages Act has vastly increased the ability of the Prime Minister to change the composition of the House of Lords and considerably lessened the dominance of hereditary, part-time, peers.
The Act has allowed for the creation of female peers entitled to sit in the House of Lords. A life peer is created by the Queen by Letters Patent under the Great Seal on the advice of the Prime Minister.
Before the Act was passed, former Prime Ministers were usually created Viscounts or Earls, which are hereditary peerages, in gratitude for their public service in high office.
July 26
In the real world Explorer 4 is launched.
July 26 - London (INN)
Today Elizabeth II has given her son, and heir apparent, the title of The Prince Charles, the customary title of the Prince of Wales.
July 29
In real life the U.S. Congress formally creates the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA).
July 31 – Washington (INN)
It was revealed today that the Tibetan resistance movement against rule by China has been receiving support from the Central Intelligence Agency.
In 1950, the People's Liberation Army of the People's Republic of China (PRC) entered Tibet and the US government made contact with the Dalai Lama's brother Gyalo Thondup who was living in India to offer US help, which was rejected. In May 1951, a delegation representing the Dalai Lama, only 15 years-old at the time, and led by Ngapoi Ngawang Jigmei traveled to Beijing to be presented with the Seventeen Point Agreement for the Peaceful Liberation of Tibet, which established a PRC suzerainty over Tibet: assuming responsibility for Tibet's external affairs while leaving the domestic governance to the Lhasa government and assuring religious freedoms.
The treaty was signed by the Lhasa delegation and the 10th Panchen Lama, who had already switched his loyalty to the PRC after flirting with the Kuomintang and conspiring against the central Tibetan government, which still refused to recognize him as the true Panchen Llama. Later there would be much controversy over the validity of the agreement stemming from claims it was signed under threat of arms and disagreements about whether the delegates had the authority to sign.
At the time, in Lhasa, the Kutra aristocrats mingled with Chinese officials and even prospered from this association. Mixed parties were thrown throughout the year and even by the Dalai Lama himself. The burden on farmers and peasants with supplying the troops with food led to shortages and rising prices, coupled with influenza and smallpox outbreaks, weighted heavy on the majority of Tibetans, who were only marginally surviving before. Protests called "people's assemblies" began in Lhasa, where organizers sent letters of grievances to the government and posted anti-Chinese slogans in public places. The leaders were promptly arrested and the protests stifled.
In early 1952, Thondup returned to Lhasa with a economic reform plan that would include lowering taxes and land reform. With the Dalai Lama in agreement, Thondup went about implementing the reforms only to meet with strong resistance from the wealthy old guard who labeled him a radical communist. The label sparked the interests of the Chinese who invited him to Beijing to study, but instead he fled back to India, where he began conspiring with the CIA to form and train a Tibetan insurgency. Again the US tried to convince the Dalai Lama to do the same with an offer of "full aid and assistance", but he refused.
The Dalai Lama saw the need to modernize Tibet and was open to Marxism. “It was only when I went to China in 1954-55 that I actually studied Marxist ideology and learned the history of the Chinese revolution. Once I understood Marxism, my attitude changed completely. I was so attracted to Marxism, I even expressed my wish to become a Communist Party member. Tibet at the time was very, very backward. Marxism talked about self-reliance, without depending on a creator or a God. That was very attractive. I still think that if a genuine communist movement had come to Tibet, there would have been much benefit to the people. Instead the Chinese communists brought Tibet so-called liberation. They started destroying monasteries and killing and arresting lamas.” —14th Dalai Lama
Indeed, on the Tibetan leader's journey home from his year in China, Khampa and Amdowa clan leaders informed his chief of staff of their plans to rebel against the Chinese in retribution for land confiscation and attacks on monasteries. But all was relatively quiet in Lhasa and in April, 1956 he received a Chinese delegation to inaugurate the Preparatory Committee for the Autonomous Region of Tibet: a 51 man committee composed mostly of Tibetans.
Meanwhile, open rebellion began with the massacre of a Communist Chinese garrison in Kham, which left an estimated 800 Chinese dead, sparking air strikes that killed hundreds of Tibetans. In addition, the CIA met with the Dalai Lama's two brothers Thubten Jigme Norbu and Gyalo Thondup in India and offered to train a pilot group of six Khampas in guerrilla warfare and radio communications in Saipan. They were smuggled out of Tibet and would later be parachuted back in to train others and to report back to the CIA on the insurgency's progress and needs.
According to the Dalai Lama, his visit to India in November 1956, during which he met with Tibetan freedom fighters, which included two of his elder brothers, "had spoiled good relations with China." The exiles encouraged him to stay and join their fight for independence, but Indian Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru warned him that India could not offer any support. Chinese Premier Zhou Enlai, who was also in Delhi, assured him of Mao's decision to postpone for six years any further reforms in Tibet. Both Nehru and Enlai counciled the Lama to return to Lhasa.
Although the Chinese let up on reforms, they continued military operations in the areas in rebellion causing thousands of refugees to gather around Lhasa. In July 1957, the Dalai Lama hosted a large ceremony in the Potala Palace, during which he accepted a golden throne and petition from representatives of the Chushi Gangdruk movement and in return gave them a blessing touch on their foreheads, and issued them with a talisman.
They would soon become a 5,000 man strong "Defenders of the Faith Volunteer Army" under the leadership of Gompo Tashi Andrugtsang that would struggle against the Chinese for years. However, in September 1957 when the first two CIA trainees dropped into Tibet to deliver a message from the CIA offering support to the Tibetan leader, it was refused. The second drop of four men was disastrous: only one managed to escape alive. Meanwhile, by 1958 Gompo's army was doing quite well taking control of large portions of central Tibet.
Once in exile, the Dalai Lama's discourse changed from cooperative autonomy to independence. He cited the 17 Point Agreement as proof of Tibet's claim to sovereignty, while at the same time he declared it void because the Chinese had violated it and because, he claimed, it had been signed under duress. He also made clear that he was in favor of economic, social, and political reforms, but that the Chinese had not acted in good faith.
Already by July 1958, air drops of arms to the Chushi Gandruk had begun, the CIA had relocated Tibetan guerrilla trainees to Camp Hale in Colorado.
David Richlen
International Desk, International News Network