December 1960


The following events occurred in December 1960:

[December 1], 1960 (Thursday)

  • The Soviet Union launched Sputnik 6, a 5-ton satellite, into orbit with two dogs, Pchelka and Mushka, plus mice, insects and plants. The next day, the capsule was reported to have burned up on re-entry into the atmosphere at too steep an angle. According to later reports, a self-destruct system had been built to destroy the satellite if it did not re-enter at the correct time, in order to prevent it from landing outside the Soviet Union.
  • The Congolese Army arrested Patrice Lumumba, deposed premier of the Congo, while he was on his way to Stanleyville to meet his supporters. Lumumba would be moved around the country and then shot to death on January 17, 1961.

[December 2], 1960 (Friday)

[December 3], 1960 (Saturday)

[December 4], 1960 (Sunday)

[December 5], 1960 (Monday)

  • In the case of Boynton v. Virginia, the U.S. Supreme Court declared, by a 7 to 2 vote, that a law requiring permitting bus stations to exclude patrons on the basis of race, was unconstitutional under the Equal Protection Clause. The case had arisen when a law student at Howard University, Bruce Boynton, was fined for refusing to leave a "whites only" restaurant at the Trailways bus terminal in Richmond, Virginia.
  • Born: Sarika, Indian film actress; as Sarika Thakur in New Delhi

[December 6], 1960 (Tuesday)

  • Public Land Order 2216 established the Izembek National Wildlife Range, which included Izembek Lagoon and its entire watershed near the tip of the Alaska Peninsula as "a refuge, breeding ground, and management area for all forms of wildlife".
  • U.S. Secretary of the Interior Fred A. Seaton issued Public Land Order 2214, reserving of land as the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.

[December 7], 1960 (Wednesday)

[December 8], 1960 (Thursday)

[December 9], 1960 (Friday)

  • The first episode of the long-running ITV soap opera Coronation Street aired in Britain. It was originally planned to be a 16-part series but became such a success that, running five times or more per week, it continued past its 10,000th episode in its 60th anniversary year. William Roache who played Ken Barlow in the first episode would still be in the show to this day.
  • Entrepreneur Tom Monaghan and his brother James took over the operation of "DomiNick's Pizza" store at 301 West Cross Street in Ypsilanti, Michigan. In 1965, after the original owner declined to allow the use of his name for other locations, Tom Monaghan renamed his restaurant Domino's Pizza.
  • NASA's Spacecraft No. 7 was delivered to Cape Canaveral for the Mercury 3 mission intended to be the first to put an American astronaut into space. Shepard would be launched in Mercury 3 on May 5, 1961, on a suborbital, 15-minute flight, reaching an altitude of.
  • Japan and the Philippines signed a treaty of amity, commerce and navigation, their first ever. Japanese military forces had invaded the Philippines in World War II and had occupied the islands until the end of the war.
  • French President Charles de Gaulle's visit to French Algeria was marked by bloody European and Muslim mob riots in Algeria's largest cities, resulting in 127 deaths.
  • Born: Jeff "Swampy" Marsh, American animator, producer, and voice actor known for creating the Disney Channel cartoons Phineas and Ferb and Milo Murphy's Law; in Santa Monica, California
  • Died: Hyperion, 30, British thoroughbred racehorse who won the British Triple Crown in 1943 and later a champion sire.

[December 10], 1960 (Saturday)

[December 11], 1960 (Sunday)

  • Richard Paul Pavlick, a 73-year-old postal clerk from New Hampshire, loaded his car with dynamite and then parked outside the Kennedy family estate in Palm Beach, Florida, and prepared to kill President-elect John F. Kennedy, waiting for Kennedy to depart for Sunday mass. Pavlick changed his mind after seeing that Kennedy was accompanied by his wife and two small children. Pavlick was arrested four days later by Palm Beach city police.

[December 12], 1960 (Monday)

  • Television came to the South American nation of Ecuador as Red Telesistema de Ecuador began regular broadcasting at 5:00 in the afternoon on Channel 4 in Guayaquil. José Rosenbaum, a German-born radio station owner in Ecuador, had purchased three cameras and other TV equipment while visiting a trade fair in West Germany and then spent more than a year with engineers in setting up the station.
  • The revision of the most commonly used Spanish-language version of the Holy Bible, the Reina-Valera, was released, and would soon outsell the original. The original version had been published in 1569. A more recent, but not as popular, revision would be released in 1995.

[December 13], 1960 (Tuesday)

[December 14], 1960 (Wednesday)

[December 15], 1960 (Thursday)

[December 16], 1960 (Friday)

  • In the collision of two airliners over New York City, 136 people were killed, including eight people on the ground who were struck by falling debris. United Air Lines Flight 826 from Chicago, with 77 passengers and seven crew, was outside its designated holding pattern for circling New York's Idlewild Airport, and collided with TWA Flight 266 over Staten Island at 10:37 a.m. The United DC-8 jet crashed in Brooklyn at the intersection of 7th Avenue and Sterling Place. Stephen Baltz, 11, was pulled conscious from the wreckage, but died the next day. The TWA plane, a Lockheed Super-Constellation with 39 passengers and five crew, had been on its way from Columbus, Ohio, to New York's La Guardia airport, and crashed on a vacant area at the Miller Field U.S. Army base on Staten Island. In addition to the 128 passengers and crew on both planes, eight more people on the streets of Brooklyn were killed by the falling debris.

[December 17], 1960 (Saturday)

  • At 2:10 in the afternoon, a U.S. Air Force plane crashed into a crowded street in Munich, West Germany, killing 32 people on the ground and all 20 people on board the airplane. The plane, whose 13 passengers were American college students returning home, lost power after takeoff and clipped the steeple at the St. Paul's Church, then fell onto a streetcar on Martin Greif Straße, near the intersection with Bayerstraße.
  • Died: Abebe Aregai, 57, Prime Minister of Ethiopia since 1957, was killed by machine-gun fire as the army stormed the Genetta Leul palace where he was being held hostage by rebels.

[December 18], 1960 (Sunday)

[December 19], 1960 (Monday)

[December 20], 1960 (Tuesday)

[December 21], 1960 (Wednesday)

  • Prince Faisal bin Abdulaziz Al Saud and his cabinet of ministers were dismissed from his job as Prime Minister of Saudi Arabia by his older brother, King Saud, who assumed the job as head of government in addition to his monarchial role as head of state. Faisal retained his position as Crown Prince and would regain the position of Prime Minister on October 31, 1962, which he would continue during his reign as king upon Saud's death on November 2, 1964.
  • In the Japanese city of Kumamoto, a fire on the third floor of a cabaret killed 14 people, nine of whom were hostesses, at a party to celebrate the end of the year. The fire spread to adjacent houses and left 100 people homeless.
  • All nine crew on a U.S. Navy P2V Neptune patrol plane were killed when the aircraft plummeted into the Atlantic Ocean at a point south of the Canadian town of Argentia, Newfoundland.
  • Eileen Derbyshire, 30, first played the role of Emily Bishop on the British soap opera Coronation Street. She would portray the character for more than fifty years.

[December 22], 1960 (Thursday)

  • The Vostok-K rocket made its maiden flight, carrying a satellite with two dogs, Kometa and Shutka. An attempt to put the payload into orbit failed when the third stage failed seven minutes into launch, but the dogs survived the landing.
  • The crash of Philippine Air Lines Flight 85 killed 28 of the 37 people aboard. The twin-engine DC-3 took off from Cebu City at the start of a scheduled flight to Davao on Mindanao Island when one of its engines failed.
  • Massachusetts U.S. Senator John F. Kennedy resigned from his job in preparation for his January 20 inauguration as President of the United States.
  • Born:
  • *Uncle Luke, American rapper for 2 Live Crew; in Miami
  • *Jean-Michel Basquiat, American musician and graffiti painter ; in New York City
  • *Tyrell Biggs, American heavyweight boxer, 1984 Olympic gold medalist; in Philadelphia
  • Died: Sir Ninian Comper, 96, Scottish architect

[December 23], 1960 (Friday)

  • After the news came out that Israel was building a nuclear reactor, with assistance from France, Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser warned in a nationwide speech that the United Arab Republic would go to war "if we become sure that Israel is building an atom bomb." Nasser added "We shall take every step in order to preserve our country and to destroy our enemy." Nasser later pledged to send Egypt's army to destroy the Dimona Nuclear Centre.
  • Born: Miyuki Miyabe, Japanese author; in Tokyo

[December 24], 1960 (Saturday)

  • The Boston Celtics set an NBA record for most rebounds by a team, 109 rebounds, in a 150–106 win over the visiting Detroit Pistons. Only 2,046 people turned out to Boston Garden to watch the Christmas Eve game.
  • A roof collapse killed 21 coal miners in Iran at the Shemshak mine, northeast of Tehran.
  • Born:
  • *Charles Ng, Hong Kong-born serial killer who committed numerous crimes in the United States with his accomplice Leonard Lake; in British Hong Kong
  • *Carol Vorderman, English television presenter; in Bedford

[December 25], 1960 (Sunday)

[December 26], 1960 (Monday)

  • Eleven days after ending an experiment with an elected government, Nepal's absolute monarch, King Mahendra Bir Birkam installed a new government with himself as Prime Minister and nine people as cabinet ministers, including Nepal's Ambassador to the U.S., Rishikesh Shah, and former Foreign Minister Tulsi Giri.
  • The Philadelphia Eagles defeated the Green Bay Packers, 17–13, to win the 1960 NFL championship. The AFL title game, between the Houston Oilers and the Los Angeles Chargers, would not take place until New Year's Day 1961.
  • In the Soviet Union, all 17 people aboard an Aeroflot Ilyushin Il-18 turboprop were killed when the flight was preparing to land at Ulyanovsk after its departure from Kuybyshev.
  • Born: Andrew Graham-Dixon, English art historian; in London
  • Died: Tetsuro Watsuji, 71, Japanese philosopher

[December 27], 1960 (Tuesday)

  • After being forced to leave West Germany, The Beatles made a triumphant return to Liverpool, playing at the ballroom at the Litherland Town Hall. Author Hunter Davies, who wrote the authorized biography of the band, commented that "If it is possible to say that any date was the watershed, this was it. All their development, all their new sounds and new songs, suddenly hit Liverpool that evening. From then on, as far as a devoted fanatical following was concerned, they never looked back."

[December 28], 1960 (Wednesday)

[December 29], 1960 (Thursday)

[December 30], 1960 (Friday)

  • In the Mexican city of Chilpancingo in the state of Guerrero, government troops fired into a crowd of anti-government demonstrators, killing 13 people and wounding 37 others. The protest began after a Mexican Army officer shot and killed a man who was tacking up a poster criticizing the Governor of Guerrero.
  • The Third Test match of the series between India and Pakistan began at Eden Gardens, Calcutta.
  • Died: Angelo Donati, 75, Italian banker, philanthropist and diplomat known for saving thousands of French Jews from extermination during World War II.

[December 31], 1960 (Saturday)