1960

Table of contents

1 Events 2 Year in topic 3 Births 4 Deaths 5 Nobel Prizes 6 Office holders

Events

• January 1 - Independence of Cameroon
• January 11 - Chad declares its independence.
• January 14 - Ralph Chubb, the gay poet and printer, dies at Fair Oak Cottage in Hampshire.
• January 23 - Jacques Piccard and Don Walsh in the bathyscaphe USS Trieste break a depth record when they descend to the bottom of Challenger Deep 35,820 feet (10,750 meters) below sea level in the Pacific Ocean.
• January 25 - The National Association of Broadcasters reacts to the Payola scandal by threatening fines for any disk jockeys who accepted money for playing particular records
• February 9 - Joanne Woodward receives the first star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
• February 13 - Nuclear testing: France tests its first atomic bomb.
• February 21 - Cuban leader Fidel Castro nationalizes all businesses in Cuba.
• February 29 - Earthquake totally destroys Agadir, Morocco.
• March 6 - Vietnam War: The United States announces that 3,500 American troops are going to be sent to Vietnam.
• March 21 - Apartheid: Massacre in Sharpeville, South Africa: Afrikaner police open fire on a group of unarmed black South African demonstrators, killing 69 and wounding 180.
• March 22 - Arthur Leonard Schawlow & Charles Hard Townes receive the first patent for a laser.
• April 1 - Tuanku Abdul Rahman ibni Almarhum Tuanku Muhammad, 1st Yang di-Pertuan Agong of Malaysia dies in office. He is replaced by Hisamuddin Alam Shah ibni Almarhum Sultan Alaeddin Sulaiman Shah, Sultan of Selangor.
• April 1 - The United States launches the first weather satellite, TIROS-1.
• April 21 - In Brazil, The Country's capital (Federal District) is shifted from Rio de Janeiro to Brasília. The Estado da Guanabara (State of Guanabara) is founded to succeed Rio de Janeiro as the Brazilian Federal District.
• April 27 - Togo gains independence from French-administered UN trusteeship.
• May 9 - Reproductive rights: The Food and Drug Administration approves sale of the birth control pill.
• May 10 - The nuclear submarine USS Nautilus completes the first under water circumnavigation of the earth.
• May 11 - In Buenos Aires four Mossad agents abduct fugitive Nazi Adolf Eichmann who was using the assumed name "Ricardo Klement."
• May 13 - First ascent of Dhaulagiri, 7th highest mountain
• May 15 - Sputnik 4 is launched into Earth orbit.
• May 16 - Nikita Khrushchev demands an apology from US President Dwight D. Eisenhower for U-2 spy plane flights over the Soviet Union thus ending a Big Four summit in Paris.
• May 23 - Prime Minister of Israel David Ben-Gurion announces that Nazi war criminal Adolf Eichmann has been captured.
• May 27 - In Turkey, General Cemal Gürsel leads a military coup d'etat removing President Celal Bayar and the rest of the democratic government.
• June 20 - Independence of Mali and Senegal
• June 24 - Avro 748 first flight at Woodford, UK
• July 1 - A Soviet MiG fighter north of Murmansk in the Barents Sea shot down a six-man RB-47 crew. Two young United States Air Force officers survived and were imprisoned in Moscow's dreaded Lubyanka prison. (see RB-47H shot down)
• July 4 - With the admission of Hawaii as the 50th U.S. state earlier in the year, the 50-star flag of the United States debuts in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
• July 20 - Sri Lanka (then Ceylon) elected Sirimavo Bandaranaike Prime Minister, the world's first female head of government.
• August 6 - Cuban Revolution: In response to a United States embargo, Cuba nationalizes American and foreign-owned property in the nation.
• August 7 - Côte d'Ivoire becomes independent.
• August 16 - Joseph Kittinger parachutes from a balloon over New Mexico at 102,800 feet (31,333 m). He sets unbeaten (as of 2003) world records for: high-altitude jump; free-fall by falling 16 miles (25.7 km) before opening his parachute; and fastest speed by a human without motorized assistance, 982 km/h (614 mi/h).
• August 16 - Cyprus gains its independence from the United Kingdom.
• August 17 - Gabon gains independence from France.
• August 19 - Cold War: In Moscow, downed American U-2 pilot Francis Gary Powers is sentenced to ten years imprisonment by the Soviet Union for espionage.
• August 19 - Sputnik program: The Soviet Union launches Sputnik 5 with the dogs Belka and Strelka (Russian for "Squirrel" and "Little Arrow"), 40 mice, 2 rats and a variety of plants. The spacecraft will return to earth the next day and all animals will be recovered safely.
• August 20 - Senegal breaks from the Mali federation, declaring independence.
• September 1 - Hisamuddin Alam Shah ibni Almarhum Sultan Alaeddin Sulaiman Shah, Sultan of Selangor and 2nd Yang di-Pertuan Agong of Malaysia dies in office. He is replaced by Tuanku Syed Putra ibni Almarhum Syed Hassan Jamalullail, Raja of Perlis.
• September 1 - Disgruntled railroad workers effectively halt operations of the Pennsylvania Railroad, marking the first shutdown in the history of the company (event lasted 2 days).
• September 8 - In Huntsville, Alabama, US President Dwight D. Eisenhower formally dedicates the Marshall Space Flight Center (NASA had already activated the facility on July 1).
• October 7 - Second notable flood in Horncastle
• October 12 - Cold War: Nikita Khrushchev pounds his shoe on a table at a General Assembly of the United Nations meeting to protest discussion of Soviet Union policy toward Eastern Europe.
• October 14 - US presidential candidate John F. Kennedy first suggests the idea for the Peace Corps.
• October 29 - In Louisville, Kentucky, Cassius Clay (who later took the name Muhammad Ali) wins his first professional fight.
• November 1 - While campaigning for President of the United States, John F. Kennedy announces his idea of the Peace Corps.
• November 2 - Penguin Books is found not guilty of obscenity in the Lady Chatterley's Lover case.
• November 8 - U.S. presidential election, 1960: In a close race, John F. Kennedy is elected over Richard M. Nixon, becoming the youngest man elected to that office.
• November 15 - The Polaris missile is test launched.
• November 28 - Mauritania becomes independent of France.
• November 30 - Production of the De Soto automobile brand ceases.
• December 1 - Patrice Lumumba, the deposed premier of the Republic of the Congo was arrested by troops of Col. Joseph Mobutu
• December 1 - A 5-ton Soviet space ship containing animals, insects and plants was launched into orbit. The spacecraft burned up upon re-entry.
• December 2 - The Archbishop of Canterbury, the Most Rev. Geoffrey Francis Fisher, talked with Pope John XXIII for about an hour in the Vatican. It was the first time in more than 500 years that a head of the Anglican church had visited the Pope.
• December 2 - U.S President Dwight D. Eisenhower authorized the use of $1M for the relief and resettlement of Cuban refugees in Florida. Cuban refugees were arriving in Florida at the rate of 1,000 a week.
• December 4 - Admission to the United Nations of Mauritania was vetoed by the USSR.
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