1959

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• On 1 January, Cuban revolutionary leader Fidel Castro enters Havana and proclaims himself prime minister.

• On 14 December, Archbishop Makarios is elected president of Cyprus. Independence from Britain finally occurs on 16 August 1960.

• The 17 March uprising in Tibet against Chinese rule is brutally suppressed. The Dalai Lama flees to India, arriving there on 31 March after a 300-mile trek.

• Achmad Sukarno proclaims 'Guided Democracy' in Indonesia.

• Soviet space probe Lunik 3 takes the first photographs of the dark side of the moon.

• Novels include the West German Günter Grass's Die Blechtrommel (The Tin Drum), the American William Burroughs's The Naked Lunch and the British Alan Sillitoe's The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner.

• Films include Billy Wilder's Some Like It Hot, Jean-Luc Godard's A bout de souffle (Breathless) and Michelangelo Antonioni's L'avventura (The Adventure).

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