Modern Era · North America · Culture
1959
Buddy Holly dies in plane crash
1959
After a show in Clear Lake, Iowa, twenty-two-year-old Buddy Holly, seventeen-year-old Ritchie Valens, and the Big Bopper climbed into a small plane in a snowstorm. It went down in an Iowa cornfield minutes later. Rock and roll lost its sweetest songwriter. Don McLean would later call it the day the music died.
In context
Also in 1959 (4 other events on record)
- Castro takes Havana · North America · Politics
- Dalai Lama flees Tibet · South Asia · Politics
- Alaska and then Hawaii join the Union · North America · Politics
- Alaska joins the Union · North America · Politics
Before and after in North America
Before and after in Culture
- Before: March 6, 1957: On the Road published
- After: 1961: Catch-22 published
Era
Modern Era (1901–2000), one of 590 events from that era on Saeculum.
Sources