| 1960-08-24
A temperature of −88°C (−127°F) is measured in Vostok, Antarctica — a world-record low.
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| 1960-12-15
Richard Paul Pavlick is arrested for attempting to blow up and assassinate the U.S. President-Elect, John F. Kennedy only four days earlier.
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| 1960-05-22
An earthquake measuring 9.5 on the moment magnitude scale, now known as the Great Chilean Earthquake, hits southern Chile. It is the most powerful earthquake ever recorded.
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| 1960-04-24
A severe earthquake shakes Lar in Fars province, Iran and kills more than 200 people.
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| 1960-01-23
The bathyscaphe USS Trieste breaks a depth record by descending to 10,911 m (35,798 feet) in the Pacific Ocean.
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| 1960-09-26
In Chicago, the first televised debate takes place between presidential candidates Richard M. Nixon and John F. Kennedy.
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| 1960-09-22
The Sudanese Republic is renamed Mali after the withdrawal of Senegal from the Mali Federation.
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| 1960-08-19
Sputnik program: Sputnik 5 – the Soviet Union launches the satellite with the dogs Belka and Strelka, 40 mice, 2 rats and a variety of plants.
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| 1960-05-09
The FDA announces it will approve birth control as an additional indication for Searle's Enovid, making Enovid the world's first approved oral contraceptive pill.
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| 1960-09-02
The first election of the Parliament of the Central Tibetan Administration, in history of Tibet. The Tibetan community observes this date as the Democracy Day.
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| 1960-09-26
Fidel Castro announces Cuba's support for the U.S.S.R.
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| 1960-07-20
Belgium defends its intervention in the Congo to the United Nations Security Council while the government of the Congo appeals to the Soviet Union to send troops to push back the Belgians. The governments of the United States and France and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization warn the Soviets to stay out of the dispute.
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| 1960-08-12
Echo I, the first communications satellite, launched.
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| 1960-08-16
Joseph Kittinger parachutes from a balloon over New Mexico at 102,800 feet (31,330 m), setting three records that still stand today: High-altitude jump, free-fall, and highest speed by a human without an aircraft.
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| 1960-04-27
Togo gains independence from French-administered UN trusteeship.
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| 1960-02-03
British Prime Minister Harold Macmillan speaks of the "a wind of change" of increasing national consciousness blowing through colonial Africa, signalling that his Government was likely to support decolonisation.
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| 1960-11-25
The Mirabal sisters of the Dominican Republic are assassinated.
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| 1960-12-16
1960 New York air disaster: While approaching New York's Idlewild Airport, a United Airlines Douglas DC-8 collides with a TWA Lockheed Super Constellation in a blinding snowstorm over Staten Island, killing 134.
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| 1960-08-01
Islamabad declared as the federal capital of the Government of Pakistan.
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| 1960-09-28
Mali and Senegal join the United Nations.
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| 1960-02-01
Four black students stage the first of the Greensboro sit-ins at a lunch counter in Greensboro, North Carolina.
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| 1960-07-11
To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee is first published.
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| 1960-06-17
Nez Perce tribe is awarded $4 million for 7 million acres of land undervalued (4 cents/acre) in the 1863 treaty.
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| 1960-08-06
Cuban Revolution: in response to a United States embargo, Cuba nationalizes American and foreign-owned property in the nation.
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| 1960-05-11
In Buenos Aires, Argentina, four Israeli Mossad agents capture fugitive Nazi Adolf Eichmann who is living under the alias of Ricardo Klement.
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| 1960-02-29
Family Circus makes its debut.
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| 1960-09-14
The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) is founded.
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| 1960-05-07
Cold War: U-2 Crisis of 1960 – Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev announces that his nation is holding American U-2 pilot Gary Powers.
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| 1960-01-07
The Polaris missile is test launched.
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| 1960-05-03
The Off-Broadway musical comedy, The Fantasticks, opens in New York City's Greenwich Village, eventually becoming the longest-running musical of all time.
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| 1960-10-12
Inejiro Asanuma, Chair of the Japanese Socialist Party, is assassinated in Japan by Otoya Yamaguchi, a 17-year-old. The cameras were rolling at the time, so the moment was caught on film.
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| 1960-01-20
Hendrik Verwoerd announces a plebiscite on whether South Africa should become a Republic.
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| 1960-03-04
French freighter 'La Coubre' explodes in Havana, Cuba killing 100.
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| 1960-12-14
Ian Meckiff of Australia is run out by the West Indies, causing the first Tied Test in the history of cricket.
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| 1960-02-29
An earthquake in Morocco kills over 3,000 people and nearly destroys Agadir in the southern part of the country.
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| 1960-07-16
USS George Washington a modified Skipjack class submarine successfully test fires the first ballistic missile while submerged.
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| 1960-11-02
Penguin Books is found not guilty of obscenity in the Lady Chatterley's Lover case
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| 1960-07-01
Independence of Somalia.
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| 1960-05-06
More than 20 million viewers watch the first televised royal wedding when Princess Margaret marries Anthony Armstrong-Jones at Westminster Abbey.
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| 1960-07-20
Ceylon (now Sri Lanka) elects Sirimavo Bandaranaike Prime Minister, the world's first elected female head of government.
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| 1960-05-16
Theodore Maiman operates the first optical laser, at Hughes Research Laboratories in Malibu, California.
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| 1960-10-24
Nedelin catastrophe: An R-16 ballistic missile explodes on the launch pad at the Soviet Union's Baikonur Cosmodrome space facility, killing over 100. Among the dead is Field Marshal Mitrofan Nedelin, whose death is reported to have occurred in a plane crash
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| 1960-12-11
French forces crack down in a violent clash with protesters in French Algeria during a visit by French president Charles de Gaulle.
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| 1960-08-01
Communist Party of Independence and Work is banned in Senegal.
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| 1960-05-13
Hundreds of University of California, Berkeley students congregate for the first day of protest against a visit by the House Committee on Un-American Activities. Thirty-one students are arrested, and the Free Speech Movement is born.
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| 1960-07-08
Francis Gary Powers is charged with espionage resulting from his flight over the Soviet Union.
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| 1960-06-30
Congo gains independence from Belgium.
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| 1960-03-17
U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower signs the National Security Council directive on the anti-Cuban covert action program that will ultimately lead to the Bay of Pigs Invasion.
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| 1960-05-15
The Soviet Union launches Sputnik 4.
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| 1960-08-20
Senegal breaks from the Mali federation, declaring its independence.
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| 1960-10-22
Independence of Mali from France.
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| 1960-10-07
Nigeria joins the United Nations.
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| 1960-04-04
Senegal independence day.
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| 1960-07-12
Orlyonok, the main Young Pioneer camp of the Russian SFSR, is founded.
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| 1960-08-15
Republic of the Congo (Brazzaville) becomes independent from France.
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| 1960-02-09
Joanne Woodward receives the first star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
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| 1960-12-13
While Emperor Haile Selassie I of Ethiopia visits Brazil, his Imperial Bodyguard seizes the capital and proclaim him deposed and his son, Crown Prince Asfa Wossen, Emperor.
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| 1960-08-16
Cyprus gains its independence from the United Kingdom.
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| 1960-08-11
Chad declares independence.
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| 1960-10-30
Michael Woodruff performs the first successful kidney transplant in the United Kingdom at the Edinburgh Royal Infirmary.
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| 1960-10-29
In Louisville, Kentucky, Cassius Clay (who later takes the name Muhammad Ali) wins his first professional fight.
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| 1960-10-01
Nigeria gains independence from the United Kingdom.
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| 1960-07-21
Sirimavo Bandaranaike is elected Prime Minister of Sri Lanka and becomes the world's first woman prime minister.
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| 1960-09-08
In Huntsville, Alabama, US President Dwight D. Eisenhower formally dedicates the Marshall Space Flight Center (NASA had already activated the facility on July 1).
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| 1960-03-05
Alister Hardy publicly announces his idea that ape-human divergence may have been due to a coastal phase, giving rise to the Aquatic Ape Hypothesis.
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| 1960-01-01
The Republic of Cameroon achieves independence from France and the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.
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| 1960-11-01
While campaigning for President of the United States, John F. Kennedy announces his idea of the Peace Corps.
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| 1960-08-19
Cold War: in Moscow, downed American U-2 pilot Francis Gary Powers is sentenced to ten years imprisonment by the Soviet Union for espionage.
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| 1960-09-29
Nikita Khrushchev, leader of Soviet Union, disrupts a meeting of the United Nations General Assembly with a number of angry outbursts.
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| 1960-04-21
Brasília, Brazil's capital, is officially inaugurated. At 9:30 am the Three Powers of the Republic are simultaneously transferred from the old capital, Rio de Janeiro.
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| 1960-12-09
The first episode of Britain's longest running television soap opera Coronation Street is broadcast.
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| 1960-11-28
Mauritania becomes independent of France.
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| 1960-12-17
Troops loyal to Haile Selassie I in Ethiopia crush the coup that began December 13, returning power to their leader upon his return from Brazil. Haile Selassie absolves his son of any guilt.
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| 1960-08-05
Burkina Faso, then known as Upper Volta, becomes independent from France.
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| 1960-09-05
The poet Léopold Sédar Senghor is elected as the first President of Senegal.
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| 1960-06-26
The former British Protectorate of British Somaliland gains its independence as Somaliland .
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| 1960-05-01
Cold War: U-2 incident – Francis Gary Powers, in a Lockheed U-2 spyplane, is shot down over the Soviet Union, sparking a diplomatic crisis.
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| 1960-06-01
New Zealand's first official television broadcast commences at 7.30pm from Auckland.
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| 1960-12-31
The farthing coin ceases to be legal tender in the United Kingdom.
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| 1960-07-14
Jane Goodall arrives at the Gombe Stream Reserve in present-day Tanzania to begin her famous study of chimpanzees in the wild.
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| 1960-09-18
Fidel Castro arrives in New York City as the head of the Cuban delegation to the United Nations.
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| 1960-08-03
Niger gains independence from France.
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| 1960-04-19
Students in South Korea hold a nationwide pro-democracy protest against their president Syngman Rhee, eventually forcing him to resign.
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| 1960-02-13
Black college students stage the first of the Nashville sit-ins at three lunch counters in Nashville, Tennessee.
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| 1960-01-21
Little Joe 1B, a Mercury spacecraft, lifts off from Wallops Island, Virginia with Miss Sam, a female rhesus monkey on board.
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| 1960-01-25
The National Association of Broadcasters reacts to the Payola scandal by threatening fines for any disc jockeys who accept money for playing particular records.
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| 1960-07-04
Due to the post-Independence Day admission of Hawaii as the 50th U.S. state on August 21, 1959, the 50-star flag of the United States debuts in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania almost ten and a half months later (see Flag Act).
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| 1960-07-11
Independence of Benin, Burkina Faso and Niger.
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| 1960-12-01
Paul McCartney and Pete Best are arrested then deported from Hamburg, Germany, after accusations of attempted arson.
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| 1960-11-11
A military coup against President Ngo Dinh Diem of South Vietnam is crushed.
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| 1960-05-03
The Anne Frank House opens in Amsterdam, Netherlands.
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| 1960-07-20
The Polaris missile is successfully launched from a submarine, the USS George Washington, for the first time.
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| 1960-05-27
In Turkey, a military coup removes President Celal Bayar and the rest of the democratic government from office.
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| 1960-03-21
Apartheid: Massacre in Sharpeville, South Africa: Police open fire on a group of unarmed black South African demonstrators, killing 69 and wounding 180.
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| 1960-06-20
Independence of Mali and Senegal.
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| 1960-02-13
Nuclear weapons testing: France tests its first atomic bomb.
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| 1960-05-10
The nuclear submarine USS Triton completes Operation Sandblast, the first underwater circumnavigation of the earth.
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| 1960-05-01
Formation of the western Indian states of Gujarat and Maharashtra.
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| 1960-08-07
Côte d'Ivoire becomes independent.
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| 1960-11-09
Robert McNamara is named president of Ford Motor Co., the first non-Ford to serve in that post. A month later, he quit to join the newly-elected John F. Kennedy administration.
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| 1960-06-26
Madagascar gains its independence from France.
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| 1960-08-08
South Kasai secedes from the Congo.
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| 1960-01-30
The African National Party is founded in Chad, through the merger of traditionalist parties.
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| 1960-05-16
Nikita Khrushchev demands an apology from U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower for U-2 spy plane flights over the Soviet Union thus ending a Big Four summit in Paris.
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| 1960-12-20
National Front for the Liberation of Vietnam is formed.
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| 1960-08-13
The Central African Republic declares independence from France.
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| 1960-08-01
Dahomey (later renamed Benin) declares independence from France.
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| 1960-07-01
Ghana becomes a Republic and Kwame Nkrumah becomes its first President as Queen Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom ceases to be its Head of state.
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| 1960-07-20
The head of the Physics Department at the Israel Institute of Technology, Kurt Sitte, is arrested for espionage.
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| 1960-03-22
Arthur Leonard Schawlow and Charles Hard Townes receive the first patent for a laser.
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| 1960-02-08
Queen Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom issues an Order-in-Council, stating that she and her family would be known as the House of Windsor, and that her descendants will take the name "Mountbatten-Windsor".
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| 1960-05-24
Following the 1960 Valdivia earthquake, the largest ever recorded earthquake, Cordón Caulle begins to erupt.
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| 1960-10-12
Cold War: Nikita Khrushchev pounds his shoe on a desk at United Nations General Assembly meeting to protest a Philippine assertion of Soviet Union colonial policy being conducted in Eastern Europe
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| 1960-08-17
Decolonization: Gabon gains independence from France.
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| 1960-04-21
Founding of the Orthodox Bahá'í Faith in Washington, D.C.
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| 1960-10-04
Eastern Air Lines Flight 375, a Lockheed L-188 Electra, crashes after a bird strike on takeoff from Boston's Logan International Airport, killing 62 of 72 on board.
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