Window on Holland 1958

Queen Juliana and Queen Elizabeth during the British royal couple’s state visit to the Netherlands in 1958 (© Wikimedia)

Good old-fashioned radio roundup of the year’s main events from the Dutch perspective, with interesting little facts and sound bites about Holland and the world in 1958: Queen Elizabeth I and Prince Philip’s state visit to the Netherlands, the formative months of creating a European Common Market and a great deal of news about aviation, atomic research, space travel and mobility in general: KLM’s first (31-hour) non-stop flight to Tokyo, new economy-class flying, a groundbreaking 8-day transatlantic crossing of a fully submerged U.S. submarine, the launch of the Holland America Line’s beautiful new flagship, the S. S. Rotterdam and the launch of the first Dutch passenger car to be built in 35 years…with automatic transmission!

Broadcast: December 1958