See:
Wikipedia.
Events:
January 1 - The farthing coin, used since the 13th century, ceases to be legal tender in
the United Kingdom.
January 3 - President Dwight Eisenhower announced that the United States had severed
diplomatic and consular relations with Cuba.
January 3 - SL-1, an atomic reactor, exploded at National Reactor Testing Station in
Idaho Falls, Idaho, killing 3 military technicians.
January 7 - Following a four-day conference conference in Casablanca, five African chiefs
of state announced plans for a NATO-type African organization to insure common defense.
The Charter of Casablanca involved were Morocco, the United Arab Republic, Ghana,
Guinea, and Mali.
January 12 - President Dwight Eisenhower gave his final State of the Union Address
to Congress.
January 20 - John F. Kennedy becomes President of the United States.
January 25 - In Washington, DC John F. Kennedy delivers the first live presidential news
conference. In it, he announces that the Soviet Union had freed the two surviving crewmen
of a USAF RB-47 reconnaissance plan shot down by Soviet flyers over the Barents Sea
July 1, 1960.
January 25 - Acting to halt 'leftist excesses,' a junta comprised of two army officers and 4
civilians took over the rule of El Salvador, ousting another junta that had ruled for three
months.
January 26 - John F. Kennedy appoints Janet G. Travell to be his physician. This is the
first time a woman held this appointment.
January 30 - President John F. Kennedy delivered his first State of the Union Address.
January 31 - Ham, a 37 pound male chimpanzee, was rocketed into space in a test of the
Project Mercury capsule designed to carry U.S. astronauts into space.
February 5 - The Sunday Telegraph publishes its first issue.
February 11 - Trial of Adolf Eichmann begins in Jerusalem.
February 14 - Discovery of the chemical elements: Element 103, Lawrencium, is first
synthesized (Berkeley, California).
February 15 - A Boeing 707 crashes in Belgium killing 73, including the entire United
States figure skating team and several coaches.
March 1 - President of the United States John F. Kennedy establishes the Peace Corps.
March 1 - first elections held in Uganda and it becomes self-governing.
March 3 - Hassan II becomes King of Morocco.
March 8 - Max Conrad circumnavigates the earth in eight days, 18 hours and 49 minutes
setting a new world record.
March 15 - South Africa withdraws from the British Commonwealth.
March 29 - The Twenty-third Amendment to the United States Constitution is ratified,
allowing residents of Washington, DC to vote in presidential elections.
April 12 - Yuri Gagarin is the first human in space.
April 17 - Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba begins, ending in failure April 19.
April 25 - Robert Noyce is granted the first patent for an integrated circuit.
April 27 - Sierra Leone is granted its independence from the United Kingdom.
May 5 - Alan B. Shepard: is first American in space.
May 14 - American civil rights movement: A Freedom Riders bus is fire-bombed near
Anniston, Alabama and the civil rights protestors are beaten by an angry mob.
May 19 - Venera program: Venera 1 becomes the first manmade object to fly-by
another planet by passing Venus (however the probe had lost contact with earth
a month earlier and did not send back any data).
May 21 - American civil rights movement: Alabama Governor John Patterson declares
martial law in an attempt to restore order after race riots break out.
May 24 - American civil rights movement: Freedom Riders are arrested in Jackson,
Mississippi for "disturbing the peace" after disembarking from their bus.
May 25 - Apollo program: President Kennedy announces before a special joint session
of Congress his goal to initiate a project to put a "man on the moon" before the
end of the decade.
May 28 - Peter Benenson's article "The Forgotten Prisoners" is published in several
internationally read newspapers. This will later be thought of as the founding of the
human rights organization Amnesty International.
June 17 - The New Democratic Party of Canada is founded with the merger of the
Cooperative Commonwealth Federation (CCF) and the Canadian Labour Congress.
July 21 - Mercury program: Gus Grissom piloting the Mercury 4 capsule "Liberty Bell 7"
becomes the second American to go into orbit around the Earth.
July 31 - At Fenway Park in Boston, Massachusetts, the first All-Star Game tie in major
league baseball history occurs when the game is stopped in the 9th inning due to rain.
August 13 - Construction of the Berlin Wall begins. Movement between East Berlin
and West Berlin remains restricted for the next 28 years, until November 9, 1989.
October 17 - "Battle of Paris": French police attack in Paris about 30,000 protesting a
curfew applied solely to Algerians, about 200 are killed.
October 30 - Nuclear testing: The Soviet Union detonates a 58 megaton yield hydrogen
bomb over Novaya Zemlya (this is still the largest nuclear device to ever be detonated).
October 31 - In the Soviet Union, Joseph Stalin's body is removed from Lenin's Tomb.
November 13 - Vladimir Yefimovich Semichastny succeeds Aleksandr Nikolayevich
Shelepin as head of the KGB.
November 29 - Mercury program: Mercury-Atlas 5 is launched with Enos the chimp aboard
(the spacecraft orbited the Earth twice and splashed-down off the coast of Puerto Rico).
December 2 - Cold War: In a nationally broadcast speech, Cuban leader Fidel Castro
declares that he is a Marxist-Leninist and that Cuba was going to adopt Communism.
December 11 - Vietnam War officially begins as the first American helicopters arrive in
Saigon along with 400 U.S. personnel.
December 15 - An Israeli war crimes tribunal sentences Adolph Eichmann to die for
his part in the Jewish holocaust.
December 31 - The Marshall Plan expires after having distributed more than $12 billion
in foreign aid to rebuild Europe.
December 31 - Ireland's first national telvision station, Teilifís Éireann, (later RTÉ)
begins broadcasting.
Change of US presidency from Dwight D. Eisenhower (1953-1961) to John F. Kennedy (1961-1963).
John F. Kennedy begins the Apollo program of U.S. manned spaceflight.
The first quasar is discovered by Allan Sandage at Mt Palomar, California.
South Africa withdraws from the British Commonwealth and declares itself an
independent republic on May 31.
Births:
January 1 -
Sara Stewart, British actress.
January 5 -
Suzy Amis, actress.
January 8 -
Calvin Smith, American athlete.
January 13 -
Julia Louis-Dreyfus, actress.
January 18 -
Mark Messier, hockey star.
January 21 -
Blaise Cendrars, writer.
January 26 -
Wayne Gretzky, Hockey Hall of Famer.
January 27 -
Eric Johan van den Houten.
February 9 -
John Kruk, baseball player, commentator.
February 10 -
George Stephanopoulos, political consultant, commentator.
February 11 -
Mary Docter, American speed skater.
February 11 -
Becky LeBeau, vocalist.
February 11 -
Carey Lowell, actress.
February 13 -
Henry Rollins, musician.
February 19 -
Cornelis (Cor) van den Houten.
February 19 -
Wouter Adriaan van den Houten.
February 25 -
Davey Allison, automobile racer (d. 1993).
March 4 -
Ray Mancini, boxer.
March 8 -
Camryn Manheim, actress (The Practice).
March 14 -
Kirby Puckett, Baseball Hall of Famer.
March 15 -
Fabio, model.
March 21 -
Lothar Matthäus, German footballer.
April 3 -
Eddie Murphy, actor and comedian.
April 6 -
Gene Eugene, actor, lead singer of Adam Again.
April 18 -
Jane Leeves, actress.
April 20 -
Don Mattingly, baseball player.
April 23 -
George Lopez, actor, comedian.
April 26 -
Joan Chen, actress.
April 30 -
Isiah Thomas, basketball player, coach, owner.
May 6 -
George Clooney, actor.
May 13 -
Dennis Rodman, basketball player, actor.
May 14 -
Tim Roth, actor.
May 17 -
Enya, singer, songwriter.
May 27 -
Peri Gilpin, actress.
May 29 -
Melissa Etheridge, rock musician.
June 1 -
Paul Coffey, hockey star.
June 26 -
Greg LeMond, cyclist, three-time Tour de France winner.
July 1 -
Diana, Princess of Wales (d. 1997).
July 1 -
Carl Lewis, athletics legend.
August 8 -
The Edge, U2 guitarist.
August 14 -
Susan Olsen, actress, The Brady Bunch.
September 2 -
Carlos Valderrama, footballer.
September 13 -
Dave Mustaine, musician (Metallica/Megadeth).
September 15 -
Dan Marino, football player.
September 22 -
Scott Baio, actor.
September 25 -
Heather Locklear, actress.
October 8 -
Antje Vera (Anja) van den Houten.
October 11 -
Steve Young, football player.
October 18 -
Wynton Marsalis, musician.
October 25 -
Dingeman Douwe van den Houten.
October 26 -
Dylan McDermott, actor (The Practice).
October 29 -
Randy Jackson, American musician.
October 31 -
Peter Jackson, director.
October 31 -
Larry Mullen, Jr., U2 drummer.
October 31 -
Alonzo Babers, American runner.
November 2 -
K.D. Lang, singer, songwriter.
November 19 -
Meg Ryan, actress.
November 22 -
Mariel Hemingway, actress.
November 22 -
Randal L. Schwartz, computer professional.
November 24 -
Anna Aletta (Anneke) van den Houten.
December 8 -
Ann Coulter, author, political commentator, attorney.
December 19 -
Reggie White, football player.
December 25 -
Ingrid Betancourt, Colombian senator.
December 30 -
Douglas Coupland, author.
December 30 -
Sean Hannity, talk radio host, political commentator.
December 30 -
Ben Johnson, Canadian athlete.
Deaths:
January 4 -
Erwin Schrödinger, physicist.
January 10 -
Dashiell Hammett, writer.
January 17 -
Patrice Lumumba, Prime Minister of the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
January 21 -
Blaise Cendrars, writer.
January 24 -
Alfred Carlton Gilbert, gold medal winner at 1908 Summer Olympics,
inventor of Erector Set (b. 1884).
January 27 -
Adriana Pieternella van den Houten.
February 10 -
Jacob Izak Hage.
February 11 -
Eduard R Verkade, Dutch actor/director.
February 11 -
Patrice Lumumba, 1st premier of Congo (Kinshasa).
February 22 -
Nick LaRocca, jazz musician (b. 1889).
February 26 -
King Mohammed V of Morocco.
March 3 -
Paul Wittgenstein, pianist.
April 9 -
Ahmet Zog, King of Albania.
May 13 -
Gary Cooper, actor.
May 19 -
Anton Willem Johan Jochems.
May 30 -
Rafael Leónidas Trujillo, dictator of the Dominican Republic.
June 1 -
Melvin Jones, founder of Lions Clubs International.
June 16 -
Frans Maarten van den Houten.
June 16 -
Adriaan van Graafeiland.
June 30 -
Lee DeForest - inventor.
July 1 -
Lambertus Troast Sr.
July 2 -
Ernest Hemingway, writer.
July 17 -
Ty Cobb, Baseball Hall of Famer (b. 1886).
September 18 -
Dag Hammarskjöld, Secretary General of the United Nations.
October 11 -
Chico Marx, member of the Marx Brothers (b. 1887).
November 28 -
Marinus van den Houten.
December 20 -
Earle Page, eleventh Prime Minister of Australia.
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