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1960 in the United States
Centuries:	19th century – 20th century – 21st century
Decades:	1940s  1950s  – 1960s –  1970s  1980s
Years:	1957 1958 1959 – 1960 – 1961 1962 1963
Flag:	50 stars (1960 – present)

Events from the year 1960 in the United States.

Events

January–March

• January 2 – U.S. Senator John F. Kennedy (D-MA) announces his candidacy for the Democratic presidential nomination.
• January 19 – The Treaty of Mutual Cooperation and Security between the United States and Japan is signed in Washington, DC.
• January 23 – Jacques Piccard and Don Walsh descend into the Marianas Trench in the bathyscaphe Trieste, reaching the depth of 10,916 meters.
• January 25 – In Washington, DC, the National Association of Broadcasters reacts to the payola scandal by threatening fines for any disc jockeys who accepted money for playing particular records.
• February 1 – In Greensboro, North Carolina, four black students from North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University begin a sit-in at a segregated Woolworth's lunch counter. Although they are refused service, they are allowed to stay at the counter. The event triggers many similar nonviolent protests throughout the Southern United States, and 6 months later the original 4 protesters are served lunch at the same counter.
• February 9 – Adolph Coors III, chairman of the board of the Coors Brewing Company, is kidnapped and captors demand $500,000. Coors is later found dead and Joseph Corbett, Jr. is indicted.
• February 9 – Joanne Woodward receives the first star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
• February 11 – The airship ZPG-3W is destroyed in a storm in Massachusetts.
• February 18 – The 1960 Winter Olympics open in Squaw Valley, California.
• March 3 – Elvis Presley returns home from Germany, after being away on duty for 2 years.
• March 6 – Vietnam War: The United States announces that 3,500 American soldiers will be sent to Vietnam.
• March 17 – Northwest Airlines Flight 710 crashes near Tell City, Indiana, killing all 63 on board.
• March 22 – Arthur Leonard Schawlow and Charles Hard Townes receive the first patent for a laser.

April–June

• April 1 – The United States launches the first weather satellite, TIROS-1.
• April 4 – The 32nd Academy Awards ceremony is held, Ben Hur wins Best Picture.
• April 13 – The United States launches navigation satellite Transit I-b.
• April 17 – Russwood Park, a baseball stadium in Memphis, Tennessee, burns to the ground from a fire shortly after a Chicago White Sox versus Cleveland Indians game.
• May 1 – A Soviet missile shoots down an American Lockheed U2 spy plane; the pilot Francis Gary Powers is captured.
• May 6 – President Dwight Eisenhower signs the Civil Rights Act of 1960 into law.
• May 9 – The U.S. Food and Drug Administration announces that it will approve birth control as an additional indication for Searle's Enovid, making it the world's first approved oral contraceptive pill.
• May 10 – The nuclear submarine USS Triton, under the command of Captain Edward L. Beach, Jr., completes the first underwater circumnavigation of the Earth.
• May 16 – Theodore Maiman operates the first laser.
• May 16 – Nikita Khrushchev demands an apology from U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower for U-2 spy plane flights over the Soviet Union, thus ending the 1960 Paris summit.
• May 20 – In Japan, police carry away Socialist members of the Diet who are protesting the Treaty of Mutual Cooperation and Security between the United States and Japan; the Japanese House of Representatives then approves the treaty.
• June 7 – U.S. Senator John F. Kennedy wins the California Democratic primary.

July–September

July 4: The 50-star U.S. flag is adopted

• July 1 – A Soviet MiG fighter north of Murmansk in the Barents Sea shoots down a 6-man RB-47. Two United States Air Force officers survive and are imprisoned in Moscow's dreaded Lubyanka prison.
• July 4 – Following the admission of Hawaii as the 50th U.S. state the previous year, the 50-star flag of the United States debuts in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
• July 11 – Harper Lee releases her critically acclaimed novel To Kill a Mockingbird.
• July 13 – U.S. Senator John F. Kennedy is nominated for President at the Democratic National Convention in Los Angeles, California.
• July 21 – Francis Chichester, English navigator and yachtsman, arrives in New York aboard Gypsy Moth II, having made a record solo Atlantic crossing in 40 days.
• July 25 – The Woolworth's counter in Greensboro, North Carolina, the subject of a sit-in which sparked sit-ins and pickets across the southern United States in February 1960, serves its first black customer.
• July 25–28 – In Chicago, the Republican National Convention nominates U.S. Vice President Richard M. Nixon for President and Henry Cabot Lodge, Jr. for Vice President.
• August 6 – Cuban Revolution: In response to a United States embargo against Cuba, Fidel Castro nationalizes American and foreign-owned property in the nation.
• August 16 – Joseph Kittinger parachutes from a balloon over New Mexico at 102,800 feet (31,333 m). He sets unbeaten (as of 2005) world records for: high-altitude jump; free-fall by falling 16 miles (25.7 km) before opening his parachute; and fastest speed by a human without motorized assistance, 982 km/h (614 mi/h).
• August 17 – The trial of U-2 pilot Francis Gary Powers begins in Moscow.
• August 19 – Cold War: In Moscow, downed American U-2 pilot Francis Gary Powers is sentenced to 10 years imprisonment by the Soviet Union for espionage.
• August 25 – The USS Seadragon surfaces at the North Pole, where the crew plays softball.
• August 29 – Hurricane Donna kills 50 in Florida and New England.
• September 1 – Disgruntled railroad workers effectively halt operations of the Pennsylvania Railroad, marking the first shutdown in the company's history (the event lasts two days).
• September 5 – 1960 Summer Olympics: Cassius Clay wins the gold medal in boxing.
• September 8 – In Huntsville, Alabama, U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower formally dedicates the Marshall Space Flight Center (activated by NASA on July 1).

September 26: The first televised U.S. presidential election debate

• September 26 – The two leading U.S. presidential candidates, Richard Nixon and John F. Kennedy, participate in the first televised presidential election debate.

October–December

• October 14 – U.S. presidential candidate John F. Kennedy first suggests the idea for the Peace Corps.
• October 26 – Robert F. Kennedy calls Coretta Scott King, wife of Martin Luther King, Jr., and secures his release from jail on a traffic violation in Atlanta, Georgia.
• October 29 – In Louisville, Kentucky, Cassius Clay (later Muhammad Ali) wins his first professional fight.
• November 8 – United States presidential election, 1960: In a close race, John F. Kennedy is elected over Richard M. Nixon, becoming (at 43) the youngest man elected President.
• November 13 – Sammy Davis, Jr. marries Swedish actress May Britt.
• November 15 – The Polaris missile is test-launched.
• November 24 – Basketball player Wilt Chamberlain grabs 55 rebounds in a single game, the all-time record in the NBA.
• December 2 – U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower authorizes the use of $1 million for the relief and resettlement of Cuban refugees, who have been arriving in Florida at the rate of 1,000 a week.
• December 5 – Boynton v. Virginia: The U.S. Supreme Court declares segregation in public transit to be illegal.
• December 12 – The U.S. Supreme Court upholds a Federal Court ruling that Louisiana's segregation laws are unconstitutional.
• December 13 – Navy Commander Leroy Heath (Pilot) and Lieutenant Larry Monroe (Bombardier/Navigator) establish a world altitude record of 91,450.8 feet (27,874.2 metres) in an A3J Vigilante carrying a 1,000 kilogram payload, besting the previous record by over 4 miles.
• December 16 – U.S. Secretary of State Christian Herter announces that the United States will commit 5 atomic submarines and 80 Polaris missiles to NATO by the end of 1963.
• December 16 – 1960 New York air disaster: United Airlines DC-8 collides with a TWA Lockheed Constellation over Staten Island, New York City. All 128 passengers and crew on both planes are killed, as are 6 persons on the ground.
• December 19 – Fire sweeps through the USS Constellation, the largest U.S. aircraft carrier, while it is under construction at a Brooklyn Navy Yard pier, killing 50 and injuring 150.
• December 20 – Discoverer 19 is launched into polar orbit from Vandenberg Air Force Base, to measure radiation.

Undated

• The US census lists all people from Latin America as white, including blacks from the Dominican Republic, European whites from Argentina and Mexicans who resemble Native Americans.

External links

• Media related to 1960 in the United States at Wikimedia Commons