Year 1958 (MCMLVIII) was a common year starting on Wednesday (link will display full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar.

January

• January 4 – Sputnik 1 (launched on October 4, 1957) falls to Earth from its orbit.
• January 8 – 14-year-old Bobby Fischer wins the United States Chess Championship.
• January 18 – Armed Lumbee Indians confront a handful of Klansmen in Maxton, North Carolina.
• January 28 – Hall of Fame baseball player Roy Campanella is involved in an automobile accident that ends his career and leaves him paralyzed.
• January 31 – The first successful American satellite, Explorer 1, is launched into orbit.

February

• February 1 – Egypt and Syria unite to form the United Arab Republic.
• February 2 – The word Aerospace is coined, from the words Aircraft (aero) and Spacecraft (space), taking into consideration that the Earth's atmosphere and outerspace is to be one, or a single realm.
• February 5 – Gamel Abdel Nasser is nominated to be the first president of the United Arab Republic.
• February 5 – The Tybee Bomb, a 7,600 pound (3,500 kg) Mark 15 hydrogen bomb, is lost in the waters off Savannah, Georgia.
• February 6 – Munich air disaster: 23 are killed, including 8 players for Manchester United.
• February 11 – Marshal Chen Yi succeeds Zhou Enlai as Chinese Minister of Foreign affairs.
• February 11 – Ruth Carol Taylor is the first African American woman hired as a flight attendant. Hired by Mohawk Airlines, her career lasts only six months, due to another discriminatory barrier--the airline's ban on married flight attendants.
• February 14 – The Hashemite Kingdoms of Iraq and Jordan unite in the Arab Federation of Iraq and Jordan with Iraqi King Faisal II as head of state.
• February 17 – Pope Pius XII declares Saint Clare the patron saint of television.
• February 20 – A test rocket explodes at Cape Canaveral.
• February 21 – A peace symbol is designed and completed by Gerald Holtom, commissioned by the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, in protest against the Atomic Weapons Research Establishment.
• February 23 – Cuban rebels kidnap 5-time world driving champion Juan Manuel Fangio, releasing him 28 hours later.
• February 23 – Arturo Frondizi is elected president of Argentina.
• February 24 – In Cuba, Fidel Castro's Radio Rebelde begins broadcasting from Sierra Maestra.
• February 25 – Bertrand Russell launches the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament.
• February 28 – One of the worst school bus accidents in U.S. history occurs at Prestonsburg, Kentucky; 27 are killed.

March

of Faith, becoming the first American member of the Roman Curia.

• March 1 – The Turkish passenger ship Uskudar capsizes and sinks at Izmit Bay, Kocaeli, Turkey; at least 300 die.
• March 2 – A British team led by Sir Vivian Fuchs completes the first crossing of the Antarctic in Snow-cat caterpillar tractors and dogsled teams in 99 days.
• March 8 – The USS Wisconsin is decommissioned, leaving the United States Navy without an active battleship for the first time since 1896 (it is recommissioned October 22, 1988).
• March 11 – A U.S. B-47 bomber accidentally drops an atom bomb on Mars Bluff, South Carolina. Its conventional explosives destroy a house and injure several people, but no nuclear fission occurs.
• March 17 – The United States launches the Vanguard 1 satellite.
• March 19 – Monarch Underwear Company fire in New York.
• March 24 – The U.S. Army inducts Elvis Presley, transforming The King Of Rock & Roll into U.S. private #53310761.
• March 25 – Canada's Avro Arrow makes its debut flight.
• March 26 – The United States Army launches Explorer 3.
• March 26 – The 30th Academy Awards ceremony is held.
• March 27 – Nikita Khrushchev becomes Premier of the Soviet Union.