In history, year 1960 has its own importance and known for many memorable events like famous birthdays, inventions, natural disaster, treaties, change of rulers, special days etc. Find below a list of important historical events which happened during the year 1960.
| Date/Month | Event / Incidence / Incident |
|---|
| 06 january | National Airlines Flight 2511, traveling from New York City to Miami, exploded in mid air due to a bomb placed by an unknown party,resulting in the deaths of all 34 people on board. |
| 14 january | The Reserve Bank of Australia, the country's central bank and bank note-issuing authority, was established. |
| 01 february | Four African American students staged the first Greensboro sit-ins at a lunch counter in Greensboro, North Carolina. |
| 08 february | The first eight brass star plaques were installed in the Hollywood Walk of Fame in Hollywood, Los Angeles, California. |
| 13 february | African American college students staged the first of theNashville sit-ins at three lunch counters in Nashville, Tennessee, partof a nonviolent direct action campaign to end racial segregation. |
| 29 february | Morocco's deadliest earthquake struck the city of Agadir, killing at least 12, 000 people. |
| 05 march | British marine biologist Alister Hardy introduced his aquaticape hypothesis, theorizing that swimming and diving for food exerted astrong evolutionary effect that was partly responsible for thedivergence between the common ancestors of humans and other great apes. |
| 05 march | Cuban photographer Alberto Korda took his iconic photograph ofMarxist revolutionary Che Guevara. |
| 10 april | 24th Golf Masters Championship: Arnold Palmer wins, shooting a 282. |
| 19 april | Students in South Korea held a nationwide pro-democracy protest against President Syngman Rhee, eventually forcing him to resign. |
| 21 april | Brasília, a planned city primarily designed by architect and urban planner Lúcio Costa, was officially inaugurated, replacing Rio de Janeiro as the capital of Brazil. |
| 25 april | The U.S. Navy submarine USS Triton (SSRN-586) completed the first submerged circumnavigation of the globe. |
| 03 may | The Off-Broadway musical The Fantasticks made its premiere, eventually becoming the world's longest-running musical. |
| 06 may | President Dwight D. Eisenhower signed Civil Right Act of 1960 on 6th May. This new United States federal law eliminated the loopholes left by the Civil Right Act 1957 and gave legal right to vote under which nobody will be deprived of the right on account of race or color. |
| 07 may | Cold War-Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev announced that his country was holding American pilot Francis Gary Powers, whose U-2 spyplane was shot down over the Soviet Union six days earlier. |
| 09 may | Nigeria became the member of the Commonwealth on May 9, 1960. In 1995, Nigeria was suspended from the membership for two year but its suspension was lifted on May 29, 1999 with the swearing in of the democratically elected civilian president. |
| 09 may | The United States Food and Drug Administration announced itwould approve the use of Searle's Enovid for birth control, making itthe first oral contraceptive pill. |
| 10 may | The United States Navy nuclear-powered radar picket submarine USS Triton completed Operation Sandblast on May 10, 1960. It was the very first submerged circumnavigation of the world in history. |
| 16 may | Ruby laser, the first working solid-state laser, was invented on May 16, 1960 by Theodore Maiman at Hughes Research Laboratories in Malibu, California. This device was built on the concept of optical maser. |
| 16 may | American physicist Theodore Maiman operated the first workinglaser at the Hughes Research Laboratories in Malibu, California. |
| 22 may | The Great Chilean Earthquake measuring 9.5 on the moment magnitude scale occurred on May 22, 1960, affecting Southern Chile, Hawaii, Japan, Philippines, eastern New Zealand, southeast Australia and the Aleutian Islands. It was the most powerful earthquake ever recorded in the world history. |
| 22 may | A magnitude 9.5 earthquake devastated Valdivia, Chile, andgenerated destructive tsunamis that reached Hawaii the following day. |
| 24 may | Cordón Caulle in the Andes in Chile, began to erupt, less thantwo days after the Valdivia earthquake struck the region. |
| 16 june | The thriller/horror film Psycho, directed by Alfred Hitchcockand based on a novel of the same name by Robert Bloch, was released. |
| 20 june | The Mali Federation gained independence from France. The Mali Federation was a country in West Africa linking the French colonies of Senegal and the Sudanese Republic for a period of only two months. It was founded as a territory with self-rule within the French Community and became independent after negotiations with France. It was later split into Mali and Senegal. |
| 20 june | The Mali Federation gained independence from France, but lastedonly two months before dividing into Senegal and Mali. |
| 25 june | Two cryptographers working for the United States NationalSecurity Agency left for vacation to Mexico, and from there defected tothe Soviet Union. |
| 26 june | Madagascar gained its independence from France. Madagascar is a semi-presidential representative democratic multi-party republic, wherein the popularly elected president is the head of state and selects a prime minister, who recommends candidates to the president to form his cabinet of ministers. |
| 01 july | Ghana became a republic with Kwame Nkrumah as its firstpresident. |
| 11 july | The state of Katanga broke apart from Congo during Congo crisis. It was a period comprised of a series of civil wars. This occurred just after the independence of Congo from Belgium. Opposite sides which were fighting in the war was supported by both US and Soviet Union in the period of Cold War. |
| Date/Month | Name / Profession / Country |
|---|
| 04 January | Art Paul Schlosser / Writer / United States of America |
| 05 November | René Froger / Singer / Netherlands |
| 07 March | Joe Carter / Baseball Player / United States of America |
| 09 April | Jaak Aab / Politician / Estonia |
| 09 November | Demetra Plakas / Drummer / United States of America |
| 10 November | Neil Gaiman / Author / United Kingdom |
| 11 November | Paquito Ochoa / Politician / Philippines |
| 12 May | Lisa Martin / Runner / Australia |
| 14 September | Ronald Lengkeek / Footballer / Netherlands |
| 17 November | Michael Hertwig / Footballer / Germany |
| 18 May | Yannick Noah / Tennis Player / France |
| 18 February | Andy Moog / Ice Hockey Player / Canada |
| 18 December | Naoko Yamano / Singer / Japan |
| 19 August | Ron Darling / Baseball Player / United States of America |
| 21 March | Raivo Puusepp / Architect / Estonia |
| 22 August | Holger Gehrke / Footballer / Germany |
| 25 June | Laurent Rodriguez / Rugby Player / France |
| 25 April | Robert Peston / Journalist / United Kingdom |
| 29 September | Kenneth Hansen / Race Car Driver / Sweden |
| 31 December | Steve Bruce / Footballer / United Kingdom |