1960

Events

January

• January 1 – Cameroon becomes independent from France.
• January 9–11 – Aswan Dam construction begins in Egypt.
• January 10 – British Prime Minister Harold Macmillan makes the "Wind of Change" speech for the first time, to little publicity, in Accra, Gold Coast.
• January 19 – A revised version of the Treaty of Mutual Cooperation and Security between the United States and Japan, which allows U.S. troops to be based on Japanese soil, is signed in Washington, D.C. by Prime Minister Nobusuke Kishi and President Dwight D. Eisenhower. The new treaty is opposed by the massive Anpo protests in Japan.
• January 21
• * Coalbrook mining disaster: A coal mine collapses at Holly Country, South Africa, killing 435 miners.
• * Avianca Flight 671 crashes and burns upon landing at Montego Bay, Jamaica killing 37, the worst air disaster in Jamaica's history and the first for Avianca.
• January 22
• * Charles de Gaulle, President of France, dismisses Jacques Massu as commander-in-chief of French troops in Algeria.
• * Jacques Piccard and Don Walsh descend into the Mariana Trench in the bathyscaphe Trieste, reaching the depth of, and become the first human beings to reach the lowest spot on Earth.
• January 24 – A major insurrection occurs in Algiers against French colonial policy.
• January 28 - The NFL bring in two new teams, the Dallas Cowboys and the Minnesota Vikings.

  February

• February 1 – Greensboro sit-ins: In Greensboro, North Carolina, four black students from North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University begin a sit-in at a segregated Woolworth's lunch counter. Although they are refused service, they are allowed to stay at the counter. The event triggers many similar non-violent protests throughout the Southern United States, and six months later the original four protesters are served lunch at the same counter.
• February 3 – Prime Minister of the United Kingdom Harold Macmillan makes the Wind of Change speech to the South African Parliament in Cape Town.
• February 5 – The first CERN particle accelerator becomes operational in Geneva, Switzerland.
• February 8 – Hollywood Walk of Fame is established.
• February 10 – A conference about the proposed independence of the Belgian Congo begins in Brussels, Belgium.
• February 11 – China–India relations: Twelve Indian soldiers die in clashes with Red Chinese troops along their small common border.
• February 13 – Gerboise Bleue: France tests its first atomic bomb, in the Sahara Desert of Algeria.
• February 18 – The 1960 Winter Olympics begin at the Squaw Valley Ski Resort in Placer County, California.
• February 26 – Alitalia Flight 618: A Douglas DC 7 en route to New York crashes into a cemetery at Shannon, Ireland, shortly after takeoff, killing 34 of the 52 persons on board.
• February 29 – The 5.7 Agadir Earthquake shakes coastal Morocco with a maximum perceived intensity of X, destroying Agadir and leaving 12,000 dead and another 12,000 injured.

  March

• March 5 – Alberto Korda takes his iconic photograph of Che Guevara, Guerrillero Heroico, in Havana.
• March 6
• * Vietnam War: The United States announces that 3,500 American soldiers will be sent to Vietnam.
• * The Canton of Geneva in Switzerland gives women the right to vote.
• March 17
• * Northwest Orient Airlines Flight 710 crashes near Tell City, Indiana, killing all 63 on board.
• * U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower approves a covert Central Intelligence Agency plan to train a paramilitary force against Cuba, which will result in the 1961 Bay of Pigs Invasion.
• March 21 – The Sharpeville massacre in South Africa results in more than 69 black protesters shot dead by police, 300 injured.
• March 22 – Arthur Leonard Schawlow and Charles Hard Townes receive the first patent for a laser, in the United States.
• March 23 – Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev meets French President Charles de Gaulle in Paris.
• March 29 – "Tom Pillibi" sung by 18-year-old Jacqueline Boyer wins the Eurovision Song Contest 1960 for France.

  April

• April 1
• * Abdul Rahman of Negeri Sembilan, 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.
• * The United States launches the first weather satellite, TIROS-1.
• * The 1960 United States census begins. There are 179,323,175 U.S. residents on this day. All people from Latin America are listed as white, including blacks from the Dominican Republic, European whites from Argentina and Mexicans who resemble Native Americans.
• April 4 – At the 32nd Academy Awards Ceremony, Ben-Hur wins a record 11 Oscars, including Best Picture.
• April 9 – White gunman David Pratt shoots South African Prime Minister Hendrik Verwoerd in Johannesburg, wounding him seriously.
• April 12 – Eric Peugeot, the youngest son of the founder of the Peugeot Corporation, is kidnapped in Paris. He is released on April 15, in exchange for $300,000 in ransom.
• April 14 – Motown is incorporated as Motown Record Corporation.
• April 19 – April Revolution: South Korean students hold a nationwide pro-democracy protest against President Syngman Rhee, eventually leading him to resign from office.
• April 21 – In Brazil, the country's capital is relocated from the city of Rio de Janeiro to the new city, Brasília, in the highlands. The actual city of Rio de Janeiro becomes the State of Guanabara.
• April 27 – Togo gains independence from France, with the French-administered United Nations Trust Territory being terminated.

  May

• May 1
• * The U-2 incident: Several Soviet surface-to-air missiles shoot down an American Lockheed U-2 spy plane. Its pilot, Francis Gary Powers of the Central Intelligence Agency, is captured.
• * In India, this day is declared as 'Maharashtra Divas', i.e., Maharashtra Day.
• May 3 – The European Free Trade Association is established.
• May 4 – West German refugee minister Theodor Oberländer is dismissed because of his Nazi past.
• May 6 – United States President Dwight D. Eisenhower signs the Civil Rights Act of 1960 into law.
• May 10 – The U.S. nuclear-powered submarine, under the command of Captain Edward L. Beach Jr., completes the first underwater circumnavigation of the Earth.
• May 11 – In Buenos Aires, four Mossad agents abduct fugitive Nazi German war criminal Adolf Eichmann in order that he can be taken to Israel and put on trial. This is announced on May 23 by Prime Minister of Israel David Ben-Gurion. Eichmann is convicted and executed in 1962.
• May 13 – A joint Swiss and Austrian expedition makes the first ascent of the Asian mountain Dhaulagiri, the world's 7th highest.
• May 14 – The Kenyan African National Congress Party is founded in Kenya, when 3 political parties join forces.
• May 15 – The satellite Sputnik 4 is launched into orbit by the Soviet Union.
• May 16
• * Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev demands an apology from President Dwight D. Eisenhower for the U-2 reconnaissance plane flights over the Soviet Union, thus aborting their summit meeting scheduled for Paris this year.
• * Theodore Maiman operates the first laser.
• May 18 – Real Madrid beat Eintracht Frankfurt 7–3 at Hampden Park, Glasgow, and win the 1959–60 European Cup in Association football, their 5th successive victory in the competition.
• May 22 – The 9.5 Valdivia earthquake affects Chile with a maximum Mercalli intensity of XII. This megathrust earthquake ruptures from Arauco to Chiloé Archipelago, causing the most powerful earthquake on record and a destructive basin-wide tsunami.
• May 27 – In Turkey, a bloodless military coup d'état removes President Celâl Bayar, and installs General Cemal Gürsel as the head of state.
• May 30 – Cemal Gürsel forms the new government of Turkey.

  June

• June 1 – New Zealand's first television station begins broadcasting, in the city of Auckland.
• June 5
• * The Lake Bodom murders occur in Finland.
• * The First Vatican Council, adjourned in 1870, is officially closed.
• June 9 – 1960 Pacific typhoon season: Typhoon Mary kills 1,600 people in China.
• June 10 – The "Hagerty Incident": As part of the ongoing Anpo protests in Japan against the U.S.-Japan Security Treaty, a car carrying Dwight D. Eisenhower's press secretary James Hagerty and U.S. Ambassador to Japan Douglas MacArthur II is mobbed by protesters outside of Tokyo's Haneda Airport, requiring the occupants to be rescued by a U.S. Marine helicopter.
• June 15
• * The "June 15 Incident": As part of the massive Anpo protests against the U.S.-Japan Security Treaty in Japan, radical student activists from the Zengakuren student federation attempt to storm the National Diet compound, precipitating a battle with police in which female Tokyo University student Michiko Kanba is killed.
• * The BC Ferries company, later to become the second-largest ferry operator in the world, commences service between Tsawwassen and Swartz Bay, British Columbia, Canada.
• June 16 – Premiere of Alfred Hitchcock's landmark thriller film Psycho in the United States.
• June 19 – The new U.S.-Japan Security Treaty is automatically ratified 30 days after passing the Lower House of the Diet.
• June 20
• * The short-lived Mali Federation, consisting of the Sudanese Republic and Senegal, gains independence from France.
• * Floyd Patterson becomes the first person to regain the world heavyweight boxing championship, with a knock-out of Ingemar Johansson in New York City.
• June 22 – 1960 Quebec general election: the ruling Union nationale, led by Antonio Barrette, is defeated by the Quebec Liberal Party, led by Jean Lesage, beginning the 'Quiet Revolution' in the historically conservative Canadian province.
• June 23 – Japanese prime minister Nobusuke Kishi announces his resignation.
• June 24
• *Joseph Kasa-Vubu is elected as the first President of the independent Democratic Republic of the Congo.
• *Assassination attempt of Venezuelan President Rómulo Betancourt.
• June 26
• * The State of Somaliland receives its independence from the United Kingdom. Five days later, it unites as scheduled with the Trust Territory of Somalia, to form the Somali Republic.
• * The Malagasy Republic becomes independent from France.
• June 28 – King Bhumibol Adulyadej of Thailand arrives in Washington, D.C. for a 4-day royal visit to the U.S.
• June 30
• * The Belgian Congo receives its independence from Belgium, as the Republic of the Congo. A civil war follows shortly.
• * Public demonstrations by democratic and left forces against Italian government support of the post-fascist Italian Social Movement are heavily suppressed by police.