1958 in Belgium

Decades:	1930s; 1940s; 1950s; 1960s; 1970s;
See also:	Other events of 1958; List of years in Belgium

Events in the year 1958 in Belgium.

Incumbents

Monarch – Baudouin[1]

Prime Minister – Achille Van Acker (to 26 June); Gaston Eyskens (from 26 June)

3 February – Treaty creating Benelux Economic Union signed, to come into force 1 November 1960, providing for free movement of workers, capital, services, and goods between Belgium, the Netherlands, and Luxembourg.[3]

11 March – Prince Albert takes his seat in the Senate.[2]^:904
12 March – Fud Leclerc comes sixth in the Eurovision Song Contest, singing "Ma petite chatte".
18 March – Atomium completed.[2]^:904

4 April – Tourist information office opens on the Place de Brouckère, Brussels.[4]^:175
12 April – Bokrijk open-air museum opens.
17 April – King Baudouin opens Expo 58, the first major World's Fair since the Second World War.[4]^:184 John Carl Studder of El Paso, Texas, had queued for 48 hours to be the first visitor admitted.[2]^:904

18 May
- Demonstration of about 200,000 marches through Brussels to protest the Socialist government's education policy.[2]^:904
- A Douglas DC-7 on a Sabena flight to Léopoldville crashes in Casablanca, with 65 fatalities and 4 survivors.[2]^:904
28 May – Real Madrid wins the European Cup Final against A.C. Milan in the Heysel Stadium, Brussels

1 June – General election held: Christian Democrats become the largest group in parliament.
15 June
- Tony Brooks wins the 19th Belgian Grand Prix at Spa-Francorchamps.
- Brussels Film Festival opens, with Georges Simenon chairing the jury.[2]^:907
22 June – Olivier Gendebien, partnered with Phil Hill in the Scuderia Ferrari team, comes first in the 24 Hours of Le Mans.[2]^:906
26 June
- 45th Tour de France starts in Brussels.[4]^:164
- Gaston Eyskens (Christian Social Party) replaces Achille Van Acker (Socialist Party) as Prime Minister.[2]^:906

9 September – USS Skate (SSN-578) ceremonially welcomed in Zeebrugge after its Arctic mission.[2]^:906
25 September – Belgian government intervenes to reduce the price of Belgian coal, with 7,855,000 tonnes stockpiled but uncompetitively expensive on international markets.[2]^:906

4 October – Sabena breaks Brussels–Paris air speed record with an S58 helicopter.[2]^:904
10 October – Patrice Lumumba founds Mouvement National Congolais.[2]^:906
12 October – Municipal elections; Christian Social Party makes gains.[2]^:904
19 October – Expo 58 closes.[4]^:171

6 November – Political agreement reached on post-war reforms to educational policy, ending a period of contention known as the "Second School War".
28 November – Patrice Lumumba declares in Léopoldville that "Independence is not a gift of Belgium but a fundamental right of the Congolese people."[2]^:904

1 December – Francis Walder awarded the Prix Goncourt for his Saint-Germain ou la négociation.[2]^:907
11 December – Dominique Pire receives the Nobel Peace Prize.[5]

Léon Kochnitzky, Negro Art in the Belgian Congo (New York, Belgian Government Information Center)[6]

20 August – First performance of Gian Carlo Menotti's Maria Golovin at Expo58.[2]^:904

Nature documentary Les Seigneurs de la forêt[2]^:907 – English version with narration by Orson Welles distributed internationally by 20th Century Fox as Lords of the Forest (UK) or Masters of the Congo Jungle (US)

"Baudouin I | king of Belgium". Encyclopedia Britannica. Retrieved 28 March 2019.
Alain de Gueldre et al., Kroniek van België (Antwerp and Zaventem, 1987).
H.F. van Panhuys, L.J. Brinkhorst, and H.H. Maas (eds.), International Organisation and Integration (Deventer and Leyden, 1968), p. 978.
Gonzague Pluvinage, Expo 58: Between Utopia and Reality (Racine, 2008)
https://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/peace/laureates/1958/pire-lecture.html
https://archive.org/details/NegroArtInTheBelgianCongo

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