Hawaii (August 21, 1959), bringing the total to fifty.

Work begins in 1959 on Danish architect Jorn Utzon’s distinctive design for the Sydney Opera House, scheduled for completion in four years with a budget of AUS $7 million.

Mao’s Great Leap Forward devolves into chaos upon the Soviet’s withdrawal of aid to China’s agricultural and industrial push.

Chinese troops crush the Tibetan rebellion in 1959 and suppress Buddhism.

The Dalai Lama flees with 100,000 Tibetans to India.

China and Russia quarel over communist policies towards the West.

Kerry Thornley is assigned to the U-2 base in Atsugi, Japan in 1959.

The 1959 collapse of Laos’s coalition governent, one of a series in which the Pathet Lao participate, is followed by a series of coups.

A 40,000 strong mercenary force allegedly recruited by the CIA and known as the Armeé Clandestine (“secret army”) draws half its members from Thailand and the rest from South Korea, Taiwan and other US client states.

The Armeé Clandestine begins operations against the Pathet Lao.

An increasingly authoritarian Sukarno dissolves Indonesia’s elected parliament in 1959.

As the Uzbek S.S.R.

slowly regains direct contact with the outside world, Uzbeks rise to high levels in Soviet politics.

Nuritdin A. Muhitdinov, Sharaf R. Rashidov, and Yadgar S. Nasriddinova give Uzbeks greater visibility in the USSR, serving actively in Soviet diplomacy and foreign affairs.

From 1959, Rashidov, the Uzbek Communist party chief, rules the Uzbek S.S.R.

The Bilderberg group holds its 1959 meeting is held in Yeşilköy, Turkey, a village and a sea resort on the Marmara Sea about eleven kilometers (seven miles) west of Istanbul's historic city center.

The rebels of the Omani interior are finally forced to surrender in early 1959.

The sultan, after terminating the 1920 treaty, subsequently voids the office of imam.

Egypt forms the United Arab Republic with Syria; Syria will withdraw shortly after.

Public investment in East Pakistan increases, although private investment remains heavily skewed in favor of West Pakistan.

The Ayub Khan regime is so highly centralized, however, that, in the absence of democratic institutions, densely populated and politicized Bengal continues to feel it is being slighted.

The site of Islamabad, located on the Potwar Plateau, 9 miles (14 km) northeast of Rawalpindi, the interim capital, is chosen by a commission in 1959 after Karachi is found unsuitable as the capital.