World Events
  • American U-2 spy plane, piloted by Francis Gary Powers, shot down over Russia (May 1).
  • Khrushchev kills Paris summit conference because of U-2 (May 16).
  • Top Nazi murderer of Jews, Adolf Eichmann, captured by Israelis in Argentina (May 23)—executed in Israel in 1962.
  • Communist China and Soviet Union split in conflict over Communist ideology.
  • Senegal, Ghana, Nigeria, Madagascar, and Zaire (Belgian Congo) gain independence.
  • There are 900 US military advisers in South Vietnam. Background: Vietnam War
    World Statistics

    Population: 3.039 billion

    Nobel Peace Prize:
    Albert John Luthuli (South Africa)
U.S. Events
  • John F. Kennedy defeats Richard Nixon in a closely-fought presidential race.
  • Black sit-in at Greensboro, N.C., diner receives national attention. Background: Civil Rights
  • U.S. Statistics

    President: Dwight D. Eisenhower
    Vice President: Richard M. Nixon
    Population: 180,671,158
    Life expectancy: 69.7 years
    Violent Crime Rate (per 1,000): 18.9
    Property Crime Rate (per 1,000): 17.3
    Homicide Rate (per 100,000): 4.7
Economics

US GDP (1998 dollars):   $526.6 billion
Federal spending:   $92.19 billion
Federal debt:   $290.5 billion
Consumer Price Index:   29.6
Unemployment:   5.5%
Cost of a first-class stamp:   $0.04

Sports

World Series
Pittsburgh d. NY Yankees (4-3)

NBA Championship
Boston d. St. Louis Hawks (4-3)

Stanley Cup
Montreal d. Toronto (4-0)

Wimbledon
Women: Maria Bueno d. S. Reynolds (8-6 6-0)
Men: Neale Fraser d. R. Laver (6-4 3-6 9-7 7-5)

Kentucky Derby Champion
Venetian Way

NCAA Basketball Championship
Ohio St. d. California (75-55)

NCAA Football Champions
Minnesota (AP, UPI, NFF) (8-2-0) & Mississippi (FW) (10-0-1)

1960 Summer Olympics

1960 Winter Olympics

Entertainment

Events

  • Seventy million people watch the presidential debate between Sen. John F. Kennedy and Vice President Richard Nixon.
  • John Coltrane forms his own quartet and becomes the voice of jazz’s New Wave movement.
  • Ninety percent of U.S. homes have a television set.
  • Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho terrifies movie-goers and becomes one of the year’s most successful films, as well as one of the most memorable psychological thrillers.

Movies

  • Psycho, The Apartment, The Sundowners, Sons and Lovers

Books

  • John Barth, The Sot-Weed Factor
  • Harper Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird
  • Flannery O’Connor, The Violent Bear It Away
  • Anne Sexton, To Bedlam and Part Way Back
  • William Styron, Set This House on Fire
  • John Updike, Rabbit, Run

Entertainment Awards

Pulitzer Prizes
Fiction: Advise and Consent, Allen Drury
Music: Second String Quartet, Elliott Carter
Drama: Fiorello! George Abbott, Jerome Weidman, Jerry Bock, and Sheldon Harnick

Oscars awarded in 1960
Academy Award, Best Picture: Ben-Hur, Sam Zimbalist, producer (MGM)

Nobel Prize for Literature: St. John Perse (Alexis St.-Léger Léger) (France)

1960 Emmy Awards

1960 Tony Awards

Grammys awarded in 1960
Record of the Year: “Mack the Knife,” Bobby Darin
Album of the Year: Come Dance With Me, Frank Sinatra (Capitol)
Song of the Year: “The Battle of New Orleans,” Jimmy Driftwood, songwriter

Miss America: Lynda Lee Mead (MS)

Science
  • The first working laser is built by T. H. Maiman (US).
  • Echo I, the first communications satellite, is launched.
  • NASA launches Tiros I, the first weather satellite. Background:

Nobel Prizes in Science

Chemistry: Willard F. Libby (US), for “atomic time clock” to measure age of objects by measuring their radioactivity

Physics: Donald A. Glaser (US), for invention of “”bubble chamber”” to study subatomic particles

Physiology or Medicine: Sir Macfarlane Burnet (Australia) and Peter Brian Medawar (UK), for discovery of acquired immunological tolerance

Deaths
  • Boris Pasternak
  • Emily Post
  • Lawrence Tibbett

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1960 – The movie Spartacus came out|
(Kirk Douglas)