March 1960


The following events occurred in March 1960:

[March 1], 1960 (Tuesday)

  • NASA established an Office of Life Sciences to work on exobiology, based on Dr. Joshua Lederberg's ideas that space vehicles should be sterilized before and after their missions in order to prevent the possibility of contamination of outer space or of the Earth by microbes.

[March 2], 1960 (Wednesday)

[March 3], 1960 (Thursday)

  • Pope John XXIII elevated seven bishops to the College of Cardinals of the Roman Catholic Church, bringing the number of members to a record high of 85. Laurean Rugambwa of Tanganyika became the first Black cardinal, while Peter Tatsuo Doi and Rufino Santos were the first cardinals from Japan and the Philippines, respectively.
  • Lucille Ball filed for a divorce from Desi Arnaz. Television's Lucy and Ricky had filmed their last show together three weeks earlier. While I Love Lucy had ended in 1957, the couple had appeared later in 13 one-hour specials airing under the title The Lucy–Desi Comedy Hour. The final episode would air on April 1.
  • After 28 years as a nationally known radio political commentator, Walter Winchell left the airwaves, making his final broadcast on the Mutual network.

[March 4], 1960 (Friday)

  • Opera singer Leonard Warren died of a massive cerebral hemorrhage while performing before a live audience at the Metropolitan Opera in New York. Warren, who was only 48, was singing the role of Don Carlo in a presentation of Giuseppe Verdi's La Forza del Destino and had just finished the last line of the aria "Urna fatale del mio destino", then fell to his knees.
  • The explosion of the French cargo ship La Coubre in Havana Harbor in Cuba killed 76 people, all but six of whom were bystanders. At 3:10 p.m., the ship, carrying 70 tons of munitions from Belgium, was being unloaded when the blast happened.
  • Born: John Mugabi, Ugandan boxer, and WBC World Junior Middleweight champion from 1989 to 1990; in Kampala

[March 5], 1960 (Saturday)

  • The iconic image of Che Guevara was taken by photographer Alberto Korda, who was on assignment from the Cuban government newspaper Revolucion to cover a protest rally the day after the explosion of the freighter La Coubre. The photo attained worldwide popularity in 1968 after Korda gave a copy to Italian publisher Giangiacomo Feltrinelli.
  • Staff Sergeant Elvis Presley was honorably discharged from active service in the United States Army, nearly two years after being drafted into the service on March 24, 1958. After departing from Fort Dix in New Jersey, Presley remained in the U.S. Army reserve for four additional years until completing his military obligations.
  • The Gao-Guenie meteorite, weighing more than one ton, landed near the village of Gao in the African nation of Upper Volta. The sound of the impact was heard away.
  • President Sukarno of Indonesia dissolved the House of Representatives from the 1955 election because the House only approved a budget of 36 billion rupiah out of the government-proposed 44 billion rupiah. It becomes one of defining moments of the Guided Democracy era in Indonesia.

[March 6], 1960 (Sunday)

  • The Food Additives Amendment to the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act took effect. Prior to the amendment, there was no requirement for government approval of additives to food sold in the United States.
  • President Eisenhower announced that 3,500 American troops would be posted to South Vietnam.

[March 7], 1960 (Monday)

[March 8], 1960 (Tuesday)

  • The New Hampshire primary, first of the nominating primary elections, saw U.S. Senator John F. Kennedy win the state's Democratic Party delegates, and U.S. Vice-President Richard M. Nixon win on the Republican ticket, each with a record number of registered voters from their parties. Other major candidates had declined to participate in New Hampshire. Kennedy defeated Chicago businessman Paul Fisher, 42,969 to 6,784 and Nixon's 65,077 votes were matched by write-ins for four candidates, including 8,428 for New Hampshire governor Wesley Powell.

[March 9], 1960 (Wednesday)

  • The Scribner shunt, a flexible Teflon tube that could be permanently implanted to connect an artery to a vein, was first implanted into a human patient. For the first time, persons with kidney failure could receive dialysis on a regular basis. Prior to the shunt's invention by Dr. Belding H. Scribner, glass tubes had to be inserted into blood vessels every time that dialysis was given. As one observer noted, "Scribner took something that was 100% fatal and overnight turned it into a condition with a 90% survival." The historic operation took place at the University of Washington hospital, and 39-year-old machinist Clyde Shields was the first beneficiary. At the same time, a new issue in bioethics was created, since decisions had to be made about which patients would be selected to receive the lifesaving treatment.
  • The journal Physical Review Letters received the paper "Apparent Weight of Photons" from physicists Robert V. Pound and Glen A. Rebka, Jr., reporting the first successful laboratory measurement of the gravitational redshift of light, described later as a key event in proving the theory of general relativity.
  • Position titles for Project Mercury operational flights were issued. During the flights, 15 major positions were assigned to Mercury Control Center, 15 in the blockhouse and 2 at the launch pad area. The document also specified the duties and responsibilities of each position.
  • Died:
  • *U.S. Senator Richard L. Neuberger, 47, a Democrat representing Oregon, died of a cerebral hemorrhage one day after having a stroke at his home. On the day of his fatal stroke, a newspaper columnist had noted that he apparently had no challenger for the upcoming general election and "may get a virtually free pass for another six-year term." His widow, Maurine Neuberger, had only two days to file as a candidate in the Democratic primary, and would be elected as U.S. Senator in 1960, serving until 1967.
  • *Jack Beattie, 75, Northern Ireland Labour Party leader, 1929–1933 and 1942–2943

[March 10], 1960 (Thursday)

  • The first mitral valve replacement was performed on a 16-year-old girl, who had implanted in her a prosthesis, made of polyurethane and Dacron, and designed by Drs. Nina Braunwald and Andrew Morrow. The girl survived the operation, but died 60 hours later. The next day, a 44-year-old woman received the valve and made a full recovery eight weeks later.
  • The first implantation of the caged ball heart valve, developed by Drs. Dwight E. Harken and William C. Birtwell, was made on Mary Richardson, who survived for 30 years after the surgery.
  • Eight people were pulled alive from the rubble of Agadir, ten days after the deadly earthquake that had killed 12,000 people in Morocco.

[March 11], 1960 (Friday)

  • At five seconds after 8:00 a.m., EST, Pioneer V was launched from Cape Canaveral as the third man-made object to become a "planetoid" in solar orbit. Unlike the Soviet and American probes launched previously, Pioneer V would orbit between the Earth and Venus. The probe began to provide invaluable information on solar flare effects, particle energies and distributions and magnetic phenomena. Pioneer V continued to transmit such data until on June 26, 1960, when at a distance of 22.5 million miles from Earth, it established a new communications record.
  • The initial payment was made to the Australian Government by the Chase National Bank, New York City, on behalf of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration for support of the Mercury network.
  • Died: Roy Chapman Andrews, 76, American explorer, adventurer and naturalist

[March 12], 1960 (Saturday)

  • At the age of 21, Prince Constantine Bereng Seeiso of Basutoland formally became the Paramount Chief, and, upon the African nation's independence from the United Kingdom in 1966, King Moshoeshoe II of Lesotho. He reigned until his death in an auto accident in 1996.

[March 13], 1960 (Sunday)

[March 14], 1960 (Monday)

[March 15], 1960 (Tuesday)

  • Government forces in Masan, South Korea, arrested students protesting against rigged elections. Although President Syngman Rhee's re-election to a fourth term had been ensured when his opponent died of an illness, separate elections for vice-president would determine the 85-year-old Rhee's successor. With the aid of government measures, including the stuffing of ballot boxes, Rhee's running mate, Lee Ki Poong, officially received 79.2% of the votes in what was expected to be a close race against opponent Chang Myun. Over the next weeks, students in other cities followed the example of Masan, and Rhee was forced to resign.
  • Police in Orangeburg, South Carolina arrested 389 African-American protesters who had converged upon the town's lunch counters at the noon hour. Meanwhile, in Atlanta, 77 students were arrested after beginning sit-ins at government offices.
  • West German Chancellor Konrad Adenauer met at the White House with U.S. President Eisenhower to discuss the Berlin crisis.
  • In Geneva, the first session of the Ten Nation Committee on Disarmament was held.

[March 16], 1960 (Wednesday)

[March 17], 1960 (Thursday)

  • Northwest Orient Airlines Flight 710 crashed, killing all 63 people on board. The wings fell off the Lockheed L-188 Electra turboprop airplane at an altitude of while the flight was en route from Chicago to Miami, and crashed into a soybean field near Cannelton, Indiana at, leaving a crater.
  • Following a 2:30 meeting at the White House with Allen Dulles and Richard Bissell of the CIA, U.S. President Eisenhower authorized the agency to train and equip Cuban exiles to overthrow the regime of Fidel Castro, an operation which would become, in 1961, the Bay of Pigs Invasion.
  • Sculptor Jean Tinguely introduced the first piece of "autodestructive art" at New York's Museum of Modern Art. Homage to New York, composed of bicycle wheels and motors, was activated at and destroyed itself within an hour.
  • Gina Lollobrigida declared to the press that she and her husband Milko Skofic would leave Italy for Canada. They meant to solve the legal situation of their son Andrea Milko, considered stateless by the Italian bureaucracy.
  • Born: Pietro Scalia, Italian-born American film editor and Academy Award winner known for JFK and Black Hawk Down; in Catania

[March 18], 1960 (Friday)

[March 19], 1960 (Saturday)

[March 20], 1960 (Sunday)

  • LeRoy Collins, the Governor of Florida, surprised the state and the rest of the world in a televised speech. Though he had been a defender of Florida's segregation laws, Governor Collins endorsed the goal of sit-in demonstrations to allow African-Americans to eat at lunch counters. "People have told me that our racial strife could be eliminated if the colored people would just stay in their place," said the Governor, "but friends, we can never stop Americans from struggling to be free."
  • The Soviet Union's Council of Ministers adopted Resolution 241, directing urgent government funding for the oil exploration in western Siberia.
  • Born: Norm Magnusson, American artist, founder of "funism"

[March 21], 1960 (Monday)

  • The Sharpeville Massacre began at 1:20 p.m. when white police at the South African township of Sharpeville fired their guns into a crowd of unarmed black protesters, killing 69 people and wounding 180. Subsequent investigations would determine that two policemen had fired their guns, and that 50 others then began shooting into the crowd as they fled. Within 40 seconds, 705 rounds were fired. Of 155 bullets extracted from the dead and wounded, only 30 were frontal entry wounds. Most of the victims had been shot in the back as they ran. Of the dead, 31 were women, and 19 were children. Since the end of white minority rule, South Africa observes Human Rights Day annually on March 21.
  • In Buenos Aires, Ricardo Klement brought a bouquet of flowers to his wife at their home at 16 Garibaldi Street, confirming to Mossad agents that the Argentine businessman was, as they suspected, Nazi war criminal Adolf Eichmann. The Israeli intelligence service was aware that Eichmann had married on March 21, 1935, while Eichmann was unaware that he had been found after 15 years on the run. The architect of Germany's "Final Solution" genocide, Eichmann eluded capture after the end of World War II. In May, he would be abducted and brought to Israel to stand trial.
  • Born: Ayrton Senna, Brazilian race car driver, three time Formula One champion; in São Paulo
  • Died: Polly Thomson, 75, American therapist who served as the interpreter for Helen Keller after the death of Anne Sullivan in 1936.

[March 22], 1960 (Tuesday)

[March 23], 1960 (Wednesday)

[March 24], 1960 (Thursday)

[March 25], 1960 (Friday)

[March 26], 1960 (Saturday)

  • In Brazil, the Oros Dam on the Jaguaribe River in the state of Ceará, nearing completion, collapsed because of torrential rains and inundated the city of Jaguaribe and the village of Mapua, both of which had been evacuated earlier. The Brazilian Army had evacuated 100,000 people from the river valley starting on March 22. While thousands of people were left homeless, the death toll from the damburst was 32 people.
  • At the 12-hour endurance event at Sebring, Florida, race car driver Jim Hughes lost control of his car 23 minutes after the start, and his car rolled over onto George Thompson, a photographer for the Tampa Tribune. Both men were killed. Olivier Gendebien, who had alternated with Hans Hermann, won the race.
  • The Minneapolis Lakers played their last NBA game, losing in Game 7 of the Western Conference playoffs, 97–86, to the St. Louis Hawks. The Lakers would move to Los Angeles during the off-season.
  • Various Ku Klux Klan groups burned crosses along highways in Alabama and South Carolina, apparently in retaliation for sit-ins by African-Americans at lunch counters.
  • Born:
  • *Jennifer Grey, American film and television actress, known for Ferris Bueller's Day Off and Dirty Dancing, and later for Dancing with the Stars; in Manhattan
  • *Jon Huntsman Jr., 16th Governor of Utah from 2005 to 2009, 9th U.S. Ambassador to Russia from 2017 to 2019; in Redwood City
  • *Marcus Allen, American NFL player and Hall of Famer; in San Diego
  • Died:
  • *Dr. Emil Grubbe, 85, the first person to be injured by radiation. After following Roentgen's work in x-rays in 1895, Grubbe underwent 93 operations for radiation-induced cancer on his hands and face.
  • *Ian Keith, 61, American film actor

[March 27], 1960 (Sunday)

[March 28], 1960 (Monday)

[March 29], 1960 (Tuesday)

[March 30], 1960 (Wednesday)

  • A state of emergency was proclaimed in South Africa by Prime Minister Hendrik Verwoerd at, nine days after the Sharpeville Massacre, and the government began arresting dissidents. On the same day, thirty thousand black South Africans marched through Cape Town in protest of the internal passport law required for non-white South Africans, as well as the massacre, and the arrest of black leaders.
  • In the United States, 5,000 black Americans marched through Baton Rouge, the state capital of Louisiana, in protest against discrimination at lunch counters and arrests of protesters by the police.
  • Died: Jamil Mardam Bey, 65, Prime Minister of Syria from 1936 to 1939 and from 1946 to 1958

[March 31], 1960 (Thursday)