January 31, 1958

1958Armin Reichel, German footballer and manager^[†]

Armin Reichel is a German former professional football goalkeeper.

1958Karl Selter, Estonian politician, 14th Estonian Minister of Foreign Affairs (born 1898)^[†]

Karl Selter was an Estonian politician and a Minister of Foreign Affairs of Estonia. He served as Minister of Economic Affairs from 1933 to 1938 and as minister of Foreign affairs from 1938 to 1939. His historically most memorable act was to sign a non-aggression and mutual assistance treaty with the Soviet leaders in Moscow in September 1939. This was also his personal and national Estonian most tragic act. It followed a brutal ultimatum from the Soviet Foreign Minister, Vyacheslav Molotov on 24 September. Molotov said to Selter: Estonia gained sovereignty when the Soviet Union was powerless, but you “don’t think that this can last… forever… The Soviet Union is now a great power whose interests need to be taken into consideration. I tell you—the Soviet Union needs enlargement of her security guarantee system; for this purpose she needs an exit to the Baltic Sea … I ask you, do not compel us to use force against Estonia.” The enforced in this manner treaty gave the Soviet army a right to set up military bases in Estonia, and it significantly reduced Estonia's independence until Estonia was formally incorporated into the Soviet Union between June and August 1940. Selter left Estonia in November 1939, resigning both as Foreign Minister and as a member of Parliament. He moved to Geneva, Switzerland as a diplomat. After Germany occupied Estonia between 1941 and 1944, and after it was re-incorporated into the Soviet Union in 1944, he stayed in Switzerland as an exiled diplomat and politician.

1958Cold War: Space Race: The Explorer 1, the first successful American satellite, detects the Van Allen radiation belt.^[†]

The Space Race was a 20th-century competition between the Cold War rivals, the United States and the Soviet Union, to achieve superior spaceflight capability. It had its origins in the ballistic missile-based nuclear arms race between the two nations following World War II and the onset of the Cold War. The technological advantage demonstrated by spaceflight achievement was seen as necessary for national security, particularly in regard to intercontinental ballistic missile and satellite reconnaissance capability, but also became part of the cultural symbolism and ideology of the time. The Space Race brought pioneering launches of artificial satellites, robotic landers to the Moon, Venus, and Mars, and human spaceflight in low Earth orbit and ultimately to the Moon.