Fifty people, all male, were executed in the United States in 1959, forty by electrocution, nine by gas chamber, and one by hanging.
The state of West Virginia would conduct its final execution this year, before abolishing capital punishment in 1965. Leonard Shockley became the last juvenile to be executed in the United States. John E. Day, who was executed by the military for murdering a South Korean civilian during the Korean War, remains the last American to be executed for war crimes by his own country.