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1960
• On 3 February, British prime minister Harold Macmillan makes the 'wind of change' speech in South Africa, in which he recognises the demands of African nationalism. • On 21 March in the Sharpeville massacre, South African police fire on anti-apartheid protesters in a township south of Johannesburg, killing 69 and wounding 186. • On 1 May, an American U-2 spy plane, piloted by Gary Powers, is shot down over the Soviet Union. On 16 May, Nikita Khrushchev uses the incident as an excuse to break up a summit meeting in Paris with Macmillan, Eisenhower and De Gaulle. • On 23 May, Israel announces the arrest of Adolf Eichmann (following his abduction from Argentina). After a trial, he is found guilty for organising the Germans' mass extermination of the Jews during World War II and, on 31 May 1962, is executed. • Following its independence on 30 June, the civil war in former Belgian Congo (later Zaïre, now the Democratic Republic of the Congo) escalates into bitter fighting. • On 20 July in Ceylon (now Sri Lanka), Sirimavo Bandaranaike becomes the world's first female prime minister. She is the widow of prime minister Solomon Bandaranaike, who was assassinated by a Tamil militant in 1959. • On 1 October, Nigeria – Britain's largest African colony – becomes independent. • On 8 November, John F Kennedy is elected 35th president of the United States, against Richard Nixon. • In December, the National Front for the Liberation of South Vietnam and its military arm the Vietcong are formed. • On 9 May, the oral contraceptive 'pill' for women is introduced in the United States. • The first laser is built in Houston, Texas by T H Maiman. • After an obscenity trial, the ban on D H Lawrence's 1928 novel Lady Chatterley's Lover is lifted in Britain. • Films include Alfred Hitchcock's shocking Psycho and Federico Fellini's decadent La dolce vita (Life Is Sweet). |
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