1960

Events in 1960 71

• 1872 – 1960 Emily Post (1872-1960) Died 25 September 1960, aged 87 American author whose 1922 book Etiquette made her name synonymous with social manners and civility in the United States. She continued writing and broadcasting on etiquette until shortly before her death.
• 1880 – 1960 Mack Sennett (1880-1960) Died 5 November 1960, aged 80 Film producer and director known as the "King of Comedy," who pioneered slapstick filmmaking and launched the Keystone Kops. He helped shape the early Hollywood studio system.
• 1880 – 1960 Otto Frederick Rohwedder Inventor of the bread slicer, 1880-1960 An Iowa jeweller who spent sixteen years, one factory fire and every penny he had on a machine to slice a loaf of bread.
• 1882 – 1960 Sylvia Pankhurst (1882-1960) Died 27 September 1960, aged 78 British suffragette and activist who campaigned for women's votes and later for Ethiopian independence and anti-fascist causes. She died in Addis Ababa, where she had lived since 1956.
• 1890 – 1960 Boris Pasternak (1890-1960) Died 30 May 1960, aged 70 Russian poet and novelist best known for Doctor Zhivago, for which he was awarded and then forced to decline the Nobel Prize in Literature. He died at his home in Peredelkino near Moscow.
• 1891 – 1960 Zora Neale Hurston (1891-1960) Died 28 January 1960, aged 69 American author and anthropologist celebrated for Their Eyes Were Watching God and her documentation of African American folklore. She died in poverty in Florida and was later recognized as a major figure of the Harlem Renaissance.
• 1897 – 1960 Aneurin Bevan (1897-1960) Died 6 July 1960, aged 62 Welsh Labour politician who, as Minister of Health, founded Britain's National Health Service in 1948. He died of cancer at his farm in Buckinghamshire.
• 1901 – 1960 Clark Gable (1901-1960) Died 16 November 1960, aged 59 American film actor known as "The King of Hollywood," celebrated for his role as Rhett Butler in Gone with the Wind. He died of a heart attack shortly after completing filming of The Misfits.
• 1903 – 1960 Ward Bond (1903-1960) American actor, part of John Ford's stock company and star of Wagon Train.
• 1908 – 1960 Richard Wright (1908-1960) Died 28 November 1960, aged 52 American author of Native Son and Black Boy, whose work exposed the brutal realities of racism in the United States. He died in Paris, where he had lived as an expatriate since 1946.
• 1909 – 1960 Margaret Sullavan (1909-1960) American actress with a distinctive husky voice, star of The Shop Around the Corner.
• 1913 – 1960 Albert Camus French-Algerian writer Camus wrote The Stranger and The Myth of Sisyphus, exploring absurdism and the meaning of life.
• 1919 – 1960 Fausto Coppi Il Campionissimo The dominant force post-WWII; revolutionized training and diet. Winner: 2x Tour de France, 5x Giro d'Italia.
• 1960 "Apache" reaches #1 First chart-topper Their recording of Jerry Lordan's composition "Apache" reached number one on the UK Singles Chart in 1960 and stayed there for several weeks — transforming The Shadows from a backing band into stars in their own right and establishing the four-piece instrumental rock format.
• 1960 – present "Apache" — enduring influence A genre-defining instrumental "Apache" has been covered by hundreds of artists across genres — from surf rock to hip-hop — and is widely regarded as one of the most influential instrumental recordings of all time, inspiring countless guitarists to pick up a Fender Stratocaster.
• 1960 – 1961 Botvinnik loses and regains title vs Tal Defeats the Magician from Riga Mikhail Tal defeated Botvinnik in 1960, but Botvinnik reclaimed the title in the 1961 rematch with a dominant performance, exploiting Tal's health problems.
• 1960 – 1963 Dominate British pop before the Beatles In the years before the Beatles, Cliff Richard and the Shadows dominated British popular music — a period now seen as the prelude to the British Invasion that The Shadows themselves had helped make possible.
• 1960 – 2024 Fernando Valenzuela (1960-2024) Died 22 October 2024, aged 63 Mexican pitcher whose 1981 rookie season with the Los Angeles Dodgers set off Fernandomania.
• 1960 First weather satellite First weather satellite TIROS-1 was launched on 1 April 1960 and returned the first television pictures of cloud cover from orbit, proving that weather could be observed from space. It operated for only 78 days. Satellite imagery became the backbone of forecasting and of hurricane and storm warning.
• 1960 – 2026 Franco Baresi (1960–2026) Franco Baresi (born Franchino Baresi, 8 May 1960, Travagliato, Brescia – 31 July 2026) was an Italian footballer who spent his entire 20-year professional career at AC Milan, making 719 appearances and captaining the club for 15 seasons. Widely regarded as one of the greatest defenders in the history of the game, he combined extraordinary positional intelligence, anticipation and the ability to read play with the authority of a natural leader. He won six Serie A titles, three European Cups/Champions Leagues and the 1982 FIFA World Cup with Italy. His number 6 shirt was retired by AC Milan upon his retirement in 1997 -- the first player in the clubs history to receive that honour. He died on 31 July 2026, aged 66; AC Milan announced his passing with the words "The entire history of AC Milan is in tears."
• 1960 – 1962 Hamburg residencies Over 10,000 hours of live performance The Beatles made five visits to Hamburg between 1960 and 1962, playing brutal multi-hour sets in clubs like the Kaiserkeller and Star-Club. The experience forged them into a formidable live act, accumulating over 10,000 hours of performance that Malcolm Gladwell later cited as the key to their mastery.
• 1960 – present Hank Marvin's guitar style — global influence Hank Marvin's clean, reverb-drenched Stratocaster tone and melodic lead lines influenced a generation of guitarists worldwide — from Brian May and David Gilmour to countless instrumental and surf-rock bands across Europe and beyond.
• 1960 John Coltrane releases Giant Steps Sheets of sound Its title track is a test for every jazz musician since.
• 1960 Nokia enters electronics The Finnish Cable Works establishes an electronics department in 1960, beginning work on radio telephones and computers. Nokia's first electronic product is a pulse analyser for nuclear power plants. The electronics division grows steadily through the 1960s, eventually producing Finland's first desktop computer in 1965. These early electronics efforts are the embryo from which Nokia's mobile phone business will eventually grow.
• 1960 – 1968 Pioneers of the Fender/Vox sound Equipment that defined British rock The Shadows were among the first British groups to use Fender Stratocaster guitars paired with Vox amplifiers and Meazzi Echomatic/Binson echo units — an equipment combination that became foundational to British rock guitar sound for decades.
• 1960 – 2026 Rod Liddle (1960–2026) Rod Liddle (born 1 April 1960, Sidcup, Kent – 2 August 2026, Middlesbrough) was an English journalist, broadcaster and author who served as editor of BBC Radio 4s Today programme (1998-2002) and spent 24 years as associate editor and columnist at The Spectator. He also wrote weekly columns for The Sunday Times and The Sun and presented a Saturday morning show on Times Radio. A provocateur who delighted and infuriated in equal measure, he was one of the most widely read opinion writers in British journalism -- a sharp, funny, frequently inflammatory voice from the political tradition he described as old Labour: socially conservative, economically interventionist, instinctively suspicious of metropolitan liberalism. He died on 2 August 2026 at the James Cook University Hospital in Middlesbrough, aged 66, following a short illness.
• 1960 – 1969 The Beatles Global music revolution The Beatles from Liverpool became the most influential band in history, pioneering the British Invasion and changing popular music permanently.
• 1960 The Laser Coherent Light The invention of focused light beams used in communication and surgery.
• 1960 – present The Temptations American soul vocal group Motown's greatest vocal group — My Girl, Ain't Too Proud to Beg, Cloud Nine and Papa Was a Rollin' Stone.
• 1960 The inscriptions turn out to be history Washington, United States Tatiana Proskouriakoff showed that the date patterns on Piedras Negras stelae tracked human lifespans — births, accessions, deaths. The monuments were not astronomy. They were royal biography.
• 1960 – 2009 Third most successful UK chart act Behind Elvis & Cliff only With 69 UK chart singles between 1959 and the 2000s — 35 as The Shadows and 34 as Cliff Richard & The Shadows — the band became the third most successful act in UK Singles Chart history, behind only Elvis Presley and Cliff Richard.
• 1960 Year of Africa Seventeen African nations gain independence Seventeen African territories, including Nigeria, Senegal, Mali, Madagascar, Somalia and Cameroon, gain independence from Britain, France and Belgium over the course of the year. The wave of decolonization permanently reshapes the continent's political map.
• 1960 – present Dominique Wilkins The Human Highlight Film One of the greatest dunkers and scorers in NBA history.
• 1960 – 1997 Michael Hutchence (1960-1997) Died 22 November 1997, aged 37 Michael Hutchence was the lead singer of the Australian rock band INXS, known for hits including Need You Tonight and Never Tear Us Apart. He was found dead in a Sydney hotel room; a coroner ruled the death a suicide. His death shocked fans worldwide and led to years of speculation about its circumstances.
• 1960 Trieste reaches the Challenger Deep Deepest dive to the bottom of the Mariana Trench The bathyscaphe Trieste, crewed by Jacques Piccard and Don Walsh, descends nearly 11,000 metres to the floor of the Mariana Trench. It is the first crewed vessel to reach the deepest known point in Earth's oceans.
• 1960 Greensboro sit-ins begin Student protest against segregated lunch counters spreads Four Black college students stage a sit-in at a segregated Woolworth's lunch counter in Greensboro, North Carolina. The protest sparks a wave of similar sit-ins across the American South and energizes the civil rights movement.
• 1960 – 1996 Jonathan Larson (1960-1996) Died 25 January 1996, aged 35 Jonathan Larson was an American composer and playwright who wrote the rock musical "Rent," a reimagining of "La Bohème" set among artists in New York's East Village. He died suddenly of an aortic dissection the night before the show's first Off-Broadway preview. "Rent" went on to win the Pulitzer Prize for Drama and the Tony Award for Best Musical.
• 1960 France conducts its first nuclear test Gerboise Bleue detonated in the Algerian desert France detonates its first atomic bomb, code-named Gerboise Bleue, in the Sahara desert near Reggane, Algeria. France becomes the world's fourth nuclear power.
• 1960 1960 Winter Olympics VIII Winter Games - Squaw Valley The only time bobsleigh was not included because the track was too expensive. Winner: Soviet Union.
• 1960 – present Ivan Lendl The Terminator Eight-time major winner who pioneered the heavy-topspin baseline game.
• 1960 – 1994 Ayrton Senna Magic Senna Three-time World Champion; widely regarded as the most naturally gifted and intense driver in F1 history.
• 1960 Sharpeville Massacre Police kill 69 anti-pass-law protesters in South Africa South African police open fire on demonstrators protesting the pass laws in Sharpeville, killing 69 people and wounding many more. The massacre draws international condemnation and accelerates the global anti-apartheid movement.
• 1960 Brasília inaugurated as Brazil's capital Purpose-built city replaces Rio de Janeiro Brazil inaugurates Brasília as its new capital, replacing Rio de Janeiro. Designed by Oscar Niemeyer and Lúcio Costa, the city embodies modernist urban planning ideals.
• 1960 Roy Orbison releases Only the Lonely Monument Records His breakthrough, with his operatic falsetto.
• 1960 U-2 spy plane shot down over Soviet Union Gary Powers captured, Paris summit collapses Soviet forces shoot down an American U-2 spy plane over Sverdlovsk and capture its pilot, Francis Gary Powers. The incident derails a planned Paris summit between Eisenhower and Khrushchev and deepens Cold War tensions.
• 1960 FDA approves the birth control pill Enovid becomes the first approved oral contraceptive The US Food and Drug Administration approves Enovid, the first oral contraceptive pill, for general use. Its introduction transforms reproductive choices for women in the United States and, later, worldwide.
• 1960 Adolf Eichmann captured in Argentina Mossad agents seize former Nazi official in Buenos Aires Israeli Mossad agents capture former Nazi official Adolf Eichmann in Buenos Aires, Argentina, where he had been living under a false identity. He is smuggled to Israel to stand trial for his role in organizing the Holocaust.
• 1960 First working laser demonstrated Theodore Maiman builds a ruby laser Physicist Theodore Maiman operates the first working laser at Hughes Research Laboratories in California, using a synthetic ruby crystal. The invention opens the way for technologies ranging from fiber optics to surgery.
• 1960 Valdivia earthquake strikes Chile Most powerful earthquake ever recorded A magnitude 9.5 earthquake strikes southern Chile near Valdivia, the most powerful earthquake ever recorded. The quake and resulting tsunamis kill thousands and cause damage as far away as Hawaii and Japan.
• 1960 Psycho premieres Alfred Hitchcock's thriller shocks audiences Alfred Hitchcock's thriller Psycho, starring Janet Leigh and Anthony Perkins, opens in American theaters. Its shower scene becomes one of the most famous and influential sequences in film history.
• 1960 Congo gains independence from Belgium Patrice Lumumba becomes first prime minister The Belgian Congo becomes independent as the Republic of the Congo, ending decades of colonial rule marked by exploitation and violence. Patrice Lumumba takes office as prime minister, but crisis erupts within days.
• 1960 Congo Crisis erupts Katanga secedes and Lumumba is ousted Days after independence, the mineral-rich province of Katanga secedes under Moise Tshombe, and army mutinies plunge the new Congolese state into chaos. Prime Minister Patrice Lumumba is dismissed in September amid the turmoil, drawing in UN peacekeepers and Cold War rivalries.
• 1960 To Kill a Mockingbird published Harper Lee's novel wins the Pulitzer Prize Harper Lee publishes To Kill a Mockingbird, a novel about racial injustice in the American South seen through a child's eyes. The book wins the Pulitzer Prize and becomes a landmark of American literature.
• 1960 Cuba nationalizes US-owned businesses Havana seizes American oil, sugar and utility firms Cuba's revolutionary government nationalizes American-owned oil refineries, sugar mills and other enterprises without compensation. The move sharply escalates hostility between Havana and Washington in the months before the Bay of Pigs invasion.
• 1960 Cyprus becomes independent Archbishop Makarios III becomes first president Cyprus becomes an independent republic after British colonial rule, with Archbishop Makarios III as its first president. The Zurich and London Agreements establish the island's new constitutional framework.
• 1960 1960 Summer Olympics XVII Olympiad - Rome Muhammad Ali won gold in light heavyweight. Winner: Soviet Union.
• 1960 – 2024 Hassan Nasrallah (1960-2024) Died 27 September 2024, aged 64 Lebanese secretary-general of Hezbollah for over three decades, killed by an Israeli air strike on Beirut.
• 1960 OPEC founded in Baghdad Oil-producing nations form a coordinating cartel Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and Venezuela establish the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries in Baghdad. OPEC is formed to coordinate oil production and pricing policy among member states.
• 1960 – present Damon Hill The Son of a Legend 1996 World Champion; the first son of a champion to win the title himself.
• 1960 First televised US presidential debate Kennedy and Nixon face off on television John F. Kennedy and Richard Nixon face off in the first televised US presidential debate. Kennedy's composed television appearance is widely credited with boosting his candidacy over the more experienced Nixon.
• 1960 The Drifters top the charts with Save the Last Dance for Me Number one Their only US number one.
• 1960 The Miracles release Shop Around Motown's first million-seller Number one R&B, number two pop.
• 1960 Nigeria gains independence Britain's most populous African colony becomes self-governing Nigeria becomes independent from British colonial rule, emerging as Africa's most populous nation. Nnamdi Azikiwe becomes the country's first head of state.
• 1960 – 2020 Diego Maradona Footballer, manager, 1960-2020 Diego Armando Maradona (1960-2020) — widely regarded as the greatest footballer who ever lived. The Hand of God and the Goal of the Century in a single match; two World Cup finals; two Serie A titles with Napoli; a life of extraordinary brilliance, devastating addiction, improbable comebacks and unconditional love from the people of Argentina and Naples. He died aged 60 on 25 November 2020.
• 1960 Lady Chatterley's Lover obscenity trial Penguin Books acquitted over D.H. Lawrence novel Penguin Books is acquitted of obscenity charges for publishing D.H. Lawrence's Lady Chatterley's Lover in an unexpurgated edition. The verdict marks a turning point in British censorship law and publishing freedom.
• 1960 Kennedy elected US president Youngest person elected to the presidency John F. Kennedy narrowly defeats Richard Nixon in the US presidential election. At 43, he becomes the youngest person ever elected to the presidency.
• 1960 Ray Charles tops the charts with Georgia on My Mind Number one His first pop number one.
• 1960 – 1999 John F. Kennedy Jr. (1960-1999) Died 16 July 1999, aged 38 John F. Kennedy Jr., son of President John F. Kennedy, died when the small plane he was piloting crashed into the Atlantic Ocean off Martha's Vineyard. His wife Carolyn Bessette Kennedy and her sister Lauren also died in the crash. The loss received extensive international media coverage.
• 1960 – 2024 Ebrahim Raisi (1960-2024) Died 19 May 2024, aged 63 President of Iran from 2021 until his death in a helicopter crash. His tenure was marked by mass protests following the death of Mahsa Amini.
• 1960 National Liberation Front founded in South Vietnam Communist-led group becomes known as the Viet Cong South Vietnamese communists and other opponents of the Diem government form the National Liberation Front, known to its opponents as the Viet Cong. The organization becomes the main insurgent force fighting the South Vietnamese government and, later, the United States.
• 1960 – 1988 Jean-Michel Basquiat Neo-Expressionism · USA Jean-Michel Basquiat (December 22, 1960 – August 12, 1988) was an American Neo-Expressionist painter who rose from graffiti artist to art world star. He died of a heroin overdose at 27. His work now sells for over $100 million.