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)

• During a visit to Montevideo, the President of the United States was among the people who fell victim to tear gas, used by the Uruguayan police to disperse rioting university students. Dwight D. Eisenhower and his host, newly inaugurated Uruguayan President Benito Nardone, could be seen rubbing their eyes as their motorcade passed shortly after the gas was used.
• Lufthansa, the German national airline, entered the jet age with the flight of its first.
• Born: Hector Calma, Filipino basketball player; in Manila
• Died: Stanisław Taczak, 85, Polish General

  [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)

• The first simulation of weightlessness for the Mercury astronauts, using reduced-gravity aircraft flying, was made in three days of an indoctrination for at the Wright Air Development Center in Dayton, Ohio. In order to create an environment of free-floating during weightless flight, a modified C-131B Samaritan aircraft repeatedly flew a parabolic course, during which the astronauts were floating each time from 12 to 15 seconds. In all, 90 parabolic flights were made, during which the practiced using tools and moving weights while in a weightless condition.
• Four Russian soldiers who had been adrift in the Pacific Ocean since January 17 were rescued after a 49-day drift in the ocean. The American aircraft carrier USS Kearsarge picked up the four — Sgt. Askhat 'Victor' Ziganshin and his men, Filipp Poplavsky, Anatoly Kryuchkovsky, and Ivan Fedotov — who had survived seven weeks.
• The 14,000-member Screen Actors Guild called a strike for the first time in its history, bringing to a halt the filming of eight major motion pictures and several minor ones.
• The first 20 Soviet cosmonauts were selected in preparation for crewed spaceflight.
• Born:
• *Ivan Lendl, Czech pro tennis player ; in Ostrava, Czechoslovakia
• *Joe Carter, American MLB outfielder; in Oklahoma City

  [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.