February 4 » The Philippine–American War begins with the Battle of Manila.
February 6 » Spanish–American War: The Treaty of Paris, a peace treaty between the United States and Spain, is ratified by the United States Senate.
March 31 » Malolos, capital of the First Philippine Republic, is captured by American forces.
July 11 » Fiat founded by Giovanni Agnelli in Turin, Italy.
December 2 » Philippine–American War: The Battle of Tirad Pass, termed "The Filipino Thermopylae", is fought.
December 11 » Second Boer War: In the Battle of Magersfontein the Boers commanded by general Piet Cronjé inflict a defeat on the forces of the British Empire commanded by Lord Methuen trying to relieve the Siege of Kimberley.
Day of death February 5, 1959
The temperature on February 5, 1959 was between -3.4 °C and 3.2 °C and averaged -0.9 °C. There was 7.7 hours of sunshine (83%). The average windspeed was 3 Bft (moderate breeze) and was prevailing from the east-northeast. Source: KNMI
March 10 » Tibetan uprising: Fearing an abduction attempt by China, thousands of Tibetans surround the Dalai Lama's palace to prevent his removal.
April 8 » A team of computer manufacturers, users, and university people led by Grace Hopper meets to discuss the creation of a new programming language that would be called COBOL.
July 21 » NSSavannah, the first nuclear-powered cargo-passenger ship, is launched as a showcase for Dwight D. Eisenhower's "Atoms for Peace" initiative.
October 7 » The Soviet probe Luna 3 transmits the first-ever photographs of the far side of the Moon.
November 20 » The Declaration of the Rights of the Child is adopted by the United Nations.
November 21 » American disc jockey Alan Freed, who had popularized the term "rock and roll" and music of that style, is fired from WABC-AM radio over allegations he had participated in the payola scandal.
When copying data from this family tree, please include a reference to the origin: Hendrik Dreyer, "Dreyer Tree", database, Genealogy Online (https://www.genealogieonline.nl/dreyer-tree/I13280.php : accessed February 1, 2026), "Petrus Adriaan Johannes (Piet) Dreyer (1899-1959)".
Copy warning
Genealogical publications are copyright protected. Although data is often retrieved from public archives, the searching, interpreting, collecting, selecting and sorting of the data results in a unique product. Copyright protected work may not simply be copied or republished.
Please stick to the following rules
Request permission to copy data or at least inform the author, chances are that the author gives permission, often the contact also leads to more exchange of data.
Do not use this data until you have checked it, preferably at the source (the archives).
State from whom you have copied the data and ideally also his/her original source.