# September 1957
## 1957

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The following events occurred in September 1957:

## September 1, 1957 (Sunday)

* Apparently because a stopcock in the brake line was accidentally bumped by a coupler, the brakes failed on a heavily loaded 12-car church excursion train returning from Montego Bay to Kingston, British Jamaica. The crew failed to detect and act on the problem until the train ran away and derailed on a curve at Kendal. Five cars rolled into a ditch and two became wedged in a narrow cutting; 179 people were killed, and hundreds injured.
* Born: Gloria Estefan (born Gloria María Milagrosa Fajardo García), Cuban-born American singer; in Havana
* Died: Dennis Brain, 36, English French horn player, died in a traffic collision.

## September 2, 1957 (Monday)

* Died: Bobby Myers, 30, American NASCAR driver, was killed in a race crash during the Southern 500 in Darlington, South Carolina.

## September 4, 1957 (Wednesday)

* Died: Hermann Kastner, 70, East German politician and defector, died of a heart attack aboard a train in Munich, West Germany.

## September 5, 1957 (Thursday)

* During the Cuban Revolution, Fulgencio Batista’s forces bombed anti-government riots in Cienfuegos.
* The United Nations Security Council unanimously passed Security Council Resolution 125, recommending to the General Assembly that the Federation of Malaya be admitted to the United Nations.

## September 6, 1957 (Friday)

* Born: José Sócrates, 117th Prime Minister of Portugal; in Vilar de Maçada, Alijó

## September 7, 1957 (Saturday)

* Approaching a section where one track was closed for construction, a train from Paris to Nîmes failed to slow for the crossover at Nozières-Brignon station, and reached it at 92 km/h (57 mph) instead of 30 km/h (19 mph). The locomotive derailed and breached a culvert under the track, which stopped it suddenly, worsening the pileup of cars. 27 people were killed and 134 injured, 30 seriously.
* In New Orleans, Louisiana, television station WWL-TV went on the air for the first time.
* Marilyn Van Derbur won the Miss America 1958 pageant in Atlantic City, New Jersey.
* Born:
** Stewart Finlay-McLennan, Australian actor; in Broken Hill, New South Wales
** José Luis Gaitán, Argentine footballer; in Rosario
** Lynbert Johnson, American professional basketball player; in New York City
** Anders Jormin, Swedish bassist and composer; in Stockholm
** Ewa Kasprzyk, Polish athlete; in Poznań
** Corporal Kirchner (ring name of Michael James Penzel), United States Army paratrooper and professional wrestler; in Chicago (d. 2021, heart attack)
** John McInerney, British-German singer-songwriter (Bad Boys Blue); in Liverpool
** Iskra Mihaylova, Bulgarian politician and Member of the European Parliament; in Sofia
** Nasser Mohammadkhani, Iranian footballer; in Tehran
** J. Smith-Cameron (born Jean Isabel Smith), American actress; in Louisville, Kentucky
** Jermaine Stewart (born William Jermaine Stewart), American R&B singer; in Columbus, Ohio (d. 1997, AIDS-related hepatocellular carcinoma)
* Died: Manlio Rho, 56, Italian painter

## September 8, 1957 (Sunday)

* Born:
** Joe Bocan (born Johanne Beauchamp), Canadian pop singer and actress; in Montreal
** Walt Easley, professional American football fullback; in Charleston, West Virginia (d. 2013)
** Ricardo Montaner (born Héctor Eduardo Reglero Montaner), Argentine-born Venezuelan singer; in Valentín Alsina, Buenos Aires
** Heather Thomas, American actress (The Fall Guy); in Greenwich, Connecticut

## September 9, 1957 (Monday)

* U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower signed the Civil Rights Act of 1957 into law, establishing the United States Commission on Civil Rights.
* Died: Muhammad al-Muqri, 103, former Grand Vizier of French Morocco

## September 10, 1957 (Tuesday)

* Shortly after midnight, a bomb exploded at Hattie Cotton Elementary School in Nashville, Tennessee, which had admitted its first African-American student the previous day, severely damaging one wing of the building.
* William C. Beall, chief photographer for The Washington Daily News, took the Pulitzer Prize-winning photograph Faith and Confidence at a parade in Chinatown, Washington, D.C.
* Born: Murat Zyazikov, Russian politician, President of Ingushetia (2002-2008), Ambassador of Russia to Cyprus, in Osh, Kyrgyz SSR, Soviet Union
* Died: Walter A. Lynch, 63, American lawyer and politician, former member of the United States House of Representatives from New York

## September 11, 1957 (Wednesday)

* Born: Preben Elkjær, Danish footballer; in Copenhagen

## September 12, 1957 (Thursday)

* Born:
** Jan Egeland, Norwegian politician, diplomat and humanitarian; in Stavanger, Rogaland
** Kadim Al Sahir, Iraqi singer; in Mosul
** Rachel Ward, English-Australian actress; in Cornwell, Oxfordshire
** Hans Zimmer, German film score composer; in Frankfurt, West Germany
* Died: Clendenin J. Ryan, 52, American businessman and magazine publisher, shot himself to death.

## September 13, 1957 (Friday)

* Born:
** Cesare Bocci, Italian actor; in Camerino
** Mal Donaghy, Northern Irish footballer; in Belfast
** Bongbong Marcos (born Ferdinand Romualdez Marcos Jr.), 17th President of the Philippines; in Santa Mesa, Manila

## September 16, 1957 (Monday)

* Born: David McCreery, Irish footballer; in Belfast
* Died: Qi Baishi, 93, Chinese painter

## September 17, 1957 (Tuesday)

* Born: Wayne White, American painter and puppeteer

## September 18, 1957 (Wednesday)

* Born: Mark Wells, American professional and Olympic champion ice hockey player; in St. Clair Shores, Michigan (d. 2024)
* Died: Sir Galba (born George Brindsley McSween), 38, Grenada-born calypsonian, died by suicide after stabbing his girlfriend.

## September 19, 1957 (Thursday)

* Born:
** Mark Acheson, Canadian film, television and voice actor; in Edmonton, Alberta
** Chris Roupas, Greek-American basketball player; in York, Pennsylvania

## September 20, 1957 (Friday)

* American boxer Archie Moore retained the world light-heavyweight title with a seventh-round knockout of Tony Anthony in Los Angeles.
* Born: Sabine Christiansen, German journalist and television presenter; in Preetz, Schleswig-Holstein, West Germany
* Died:
** Jean Sibelius, 91, Finnish composer, died of a cerebral hemorrhage.
** Merrill Moore, 54, American poet and psychiatrist, died of cancer.

## September 21, 1957 (Saturday)

* King Haakon VII of Norway died of a respiratory ailment at the age of 85. His 54-year-old son, Olav V, succeeded him as King.
* The German sailing ship Pamir sank off the Azores in a hurricane. Of the 86 men aboard, 80 died either in the sinking or over the next three days before the survivors were rescued.
* Born:
** Ethan Coen, American film director, producer, screenwriter and editor, brother of Joel Coen; in St. Louis Park, Minnesota
** Kevin Rudd, 26th Prime Minister of Australia; in Nambour, Queensland
* Died: Norma Giménez, 27, Argentine stage and film actress, committed suicide by throwing herself under a train.

## September 22, 1957 (Sunday)

* Born:
** Nick Cave, Australian musician, songwriter, author, screenwriter and actor; in Warracknabeal, Victoria
** Mark Johnson, American college and Olympic ice hockey coach and college, professional and Olympic champion ice hockey player; in Minneapolis
** Dalia Reyes Barrios, Venezuelan art collector; in Maracaibo
* Died: Toyoda Soemu, 72, Japanese admiral

## September 23, 1957 (Monday)

* Born: Rosalind Chao, American actress known for M*A*S*H, Star Trek: The Next Generation and Star Trek: Deep Space Nine; in Los Angeles

## September 24, 1957 (Tuesday)

* Camp Nou, home stadium of FC Barcelona, officially opened in Barcelona, Spain.

## September 25, 1957 (Wednesday)

* The second Atlas launch vehicle was destroyed in a launching attempt at Cape Canaveral, Florida.

## September 26, 1957 (Thursday)

* Born: Luigi De Canio, Italian footballer and football manager; in Matera

## September 27, 1957 (Friday)

* Born: Peter Sellars, American theatre director; in Pittsburgh

## September 29, 1957 (Sunday)

* The Kyshtym disaster occurred at the Mayak nuclear reprocessing plant in Russia.
* In British Nigeria, a 16-car train from Lagos to Kano was being driven carefully because of possible track damage from heavy rain, but when a culvert became blocked, the water rose rapidly and the driver was caught unawares by the resulting washout, about 20 miles (30 km) south of Ibadan. Seven cars derailed; early reports indicated 300 people missing, but it turned out that many of them walked away. However, 66 were killed and 122 injured.
* At Montgomery, Pakistan, a Karachi-bound express passenger train collided at full speed with a stationary oil-tanker train before midnight. 300 people were killed and 150 injured by the accident.
* Born: Andrew Dice Clay, American comedian; in Brooklyn, New York City
* Died: Manuel Briones, 64, Filipino lawyer, judge and politician

## September 30, 1957 (Monday)

* The funeral of composer Jean Sibelius was held in Helsinki.
* Born: Fran Drescher, American actress; in Flushing, Queens, New York City
* Died: David Frederick Wallace, 57, American architect, brother of former First Lady of the United States Bess Truman, died of kidney disease.