December 1960

The following events occurred in December 1960:

<< December 1960 >>
Su Mo Tu We Th Fr Sa
010203
04050607080910
11121314151617
18192021222324
25262728293031
December 7, 1960: A new weapon in war, the remote-controlled flying drone passes its first test
December 15, 1960: Belgium's King Baudouin of Belgium marries Doña Fabiola
December 19, 1960: Fire on the USS Constellation while it is docked in Brooklyn Navy Yard kills 46 workers
December 20, 1960: Viet Cong established by South Vietnam's Communists

December 1, 1960 (Thursday)
  • The Congolese Army arrested Patrice Lumumba, deposed premier of the Congo, while he was on his way to Stanleyville to meet his supporters.[1] Lumumba would be moved around the country and then shot to death on January 17, 1961.[2]
  • The Soviet Union launched Sputnik 6, a 5-ton satellite, into orbit with two dogs, Pchelka ("Little Bee") and Mushka ("Little Fly"), plus mice, insects and plants. The next day, the capsule was reported to have burned up on re-entry into the atmosphere at too steep an angle.[3] According to later reports, a self-destruct system had been built to destroy the satellite if it did not re-enter at the correct time, in order to prevent it from landing outside the Soviet Union.[4]

December 2, 1960 (Friday)

December 3, 1960 (Saturday)
Julie Andrews and Richard Burton in Camelot

December 4, 1960 (Sunday)

December 5, 1960 (Monday)
  • In the case of Boynton v. Virginia, the U.S. Supreme Court declared, by a 7 to 2 vote, that a law requiring permitting bus stations to exclude patrons on the basis of race, was unconstitutional under the Equal Protection Clause. The case had arisen when a law student at Howard University, Bruce Boynton, was fined for refusing to leave a "whites only" restaurant at the Trailways bus terminal in Richmond, Virginia.[12]
  • Born: Sarika, Indian film actress (as Sarika Thakur), in New Delhi

December 6, 1960 (Tuesday)
  • U.S. Secretary of the Interior Fred A. Seaton issued Public Land Order 2214, reserving 9,500,000 acres (38,000 km2) of land as the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.[13]
  • Public Land Order 2216 established the 498,000-acre (2,020 km2) Izembek National Wildlife Range, which included Izembek Lagoon and its entire watershed near the tip of the Alaska Peninsula as "a refuge, breeding ground, and management area for all forms of wildlife."[14]

December 7, 1960 (Wednesday)
  • The United Nations Security Council was called into session by the Soviet Union, to consider Soviet demands that the U.N. seek the immediate release of former Congolese Premier Patrice Lumumba.[15]
  • The QH-50 DASH (Drone Anti-Submarine Helicopter), a drone that could be guided by remote control, made its first successful unmanned landing, descending upon the USS Hazelwood.[16]
  • At the request of the government of Dade County, Florida, the U.S. government opened the first federal Cuban Refugee Center, located in Miami, with a staff of 14. By the end of 1961, the center had 300 employees.[17]
  • Died: Clara Haskil, 65, Romanian classical pianist

December 8, 1960 (Thursday)

December 9, 1960 (Friday)
  • French President Charles de Gaulle's visit to French Algeria was marked by bloody European and Muslim mob riots in Algeria's largest cities, resulting in 127 deaths.[19][20]
  • The first episode of the long-running ITV soap opera Coronation Street aired in Britain. It was originally planned to be a 16-part series but became such a success that, running five times or more per week,[21] it continued past its 10,000th episode in its 60th anniversary year. William Roache who played Ken Barlow in the first episode would still be in the show to this day.
  • Spacecraft No. 7 was delivered to Cape Canaveral for the Mercury-Redstone 3 mission (Alan Shepard).[7]
  • Entrepreneur Tom Monaghan and his brother James took over the operation of "DomiNick's Pizza" store at 301 West Cross Street in Ypsilanti, Michigan. In 1965, after the original owner declined to allow the use of his name for other locations, Tom Monaghan renamed his restaurant Domino's Pizza.[22]
Hyperion (1930–1960)
  • Died: Hyperion, 30, British thoroughbred racehorse who won the British Triple Crown (2,000 Guineas Stakes, Epsom Derby and St Leger Stakes) in 1943 and later a champion sire.

December 10, 1960 (Saturday)
  • The first underwater park within the United States, the John Pennekamp Coral Reef State Park, was formally dedicated. The park covers 178 square miles (460 km2) and protects coral reefs, seagrass, and mangroves inside its boundaries.[23]
  • Born: Kenneth Branagh, Northern Irish actor and film director, in Belfast

December 11, 1960 (Sunday)
  • Richard Paul Pavlick, a 73-year-old postal clerk from New Hampshire, loaded his car with dynamite and then parked outside the Kennedy family estate in Palm Beach, Florida, and prepared to kill President-elect John F. Kennedy, waiting for Kennedy to depart for Sunday mass. Pavlick changed his mind after seeing that Kennedy was accompanied by his wife and two small children.[24] Pavlick was arrested four days later by Palm Beach city police.[25]

December 12, 1960 (Monday)
  • The revision of the most commonly used Spanish-language version of the Holy Bible, the Reina-Valera, was released, and would soon outsell the o. The original version had been published in 1569. A more recent, but not as popular, revision would be released in 1995.[26]
  • Television came to the South American nation of Ecuador as Red Telesistema de Ecuador (RTS) began regular broadcasting at 5:00 in the afternoon on Channel 4 in Guayaquil. José Rosenbaum, a German-born radio station owner in Ecuador, had purchased three cameras and other TV equipment while visiting a trade fair in West Germany and then spent more than a year with engineers in setting up the station. [27]

December 13, 1960 (Tuesday)

December 14, 1960 (Wednesday)
  • The first "Tied Test" in the history of Test cricket took place at the end of the match in Brisbane between the West Indies and Australia. At the end of the First Innings on December 10, Australia had a 505–453 lead. In the Second Innings, however, the West Indies had outscored Australia 284 to 232. When Australia's last batter, Lindsay Kline, came up for the 7th and final ball, the score had closed to 737 to 737. Kline hit the ball bowled by Wes Hall, and Ian Meckiff dashed toward the wicket for what would have been the winning run, but Joe Solomon fielded the ball and hit the stumps for the last out. "Until today," Percy Beames wrote in Melbourne's newspaper The Age, "there had not been a tie in Test cricket."[32]
  • In Stanleyville, Congo, Antoine Gizenga proclaimed himself to be the successor to Patrice Lumumba. For four months, Gizenga's forces controlled the Orientale and Kivu provinces, called Free Republic of the Congo, but on April 17, he surrendered in return for a post as a vice premier in the central government.[33]
  • The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) was created by the signing of an international convention by 18 European nations and the United States and Canada.[34]
  • By a vote of 89–0, the UN General Assembly Resolution 1514, the "Declaration on the Granting of Independence to Colonial Countries and Peoples" was adopted by the UN member nations. The United States, the United Kingdom, Australia, France, and five other nations abstained.[35]
  • The five-member electoral board of Illinois, with a majority of Republican members, unanimously certified the results of the November 6 popular balloting in the U.S. presidential election and awarded Democrat John F. Kennedy the state's 27 electoral votes. The board had considered Republican charges of voter fraud in Cook County and denied a request for a further election recount. Before the award of the Illinois block, Kennedy had 273, three more than the necessary 270 needed to win.[36]

December 15, 1960 (Thursday)
December 15, 1960: Royal wedding in Brussels.

December 16, 1960 (Friday)
  • In the collision of two airliners over New York City, 136 people were killed, including eight people on the ground who were struck by falling debris. United Airlines Flight 826 from Chicago, with 77 passengers and seven crew, was outside its designated holding pattern for circling New York's Idlewild Airport, and collided with TWA Flight 266 5,200 feet (1,600 m) over Staten Island at 10:37am.[39] The United DC-8 jet crashed in Brooklyn at the intersection of 7th Avenue and Sterling Place. Stephen Baltz, 11, was pulled conscious from the wreckage, but died the next day. The TWA plane, a Lockheed Super-Constellation with 39 passengers and five crew, had been on its way from Columbus, Ohio, to New York's La Guardia airport, and crashed on a vacant area at the Miller Field U.S. Army base on Staten Island. In addition to the 128 passengers and crew on both planes, eight more people on the streets of Brooklyn were killed by the falling debris.[40][41]

December 17, 1960 (Saturday)
  • At 2:10 in the afternoon, a U.S. Air Force plane crashed into a crowded street in Munich, West Germany, killing 32 people on the ground and all 20 people on board the airplane. The plane, whose 13 passengers were American college students returning home, lost power after takeoff and clipped the steeple at the St. Paul's Church, then fell onto a streetcar on Martin Greif Straße, near the intersection with Bayerstraße.[42]
  • Died: Abebe Aregai, 57, Prime Minister of Ethiopia, killed by machine-gun fire as the army stormed the Genetta Leul palace where he was being held hostage by rebels.

December 18, 1960 (Sunday)

December 19, 1960 (Monday)
December 19, 1960: Launch of Mercury-Redstone 1A.
  • Mercury-Redstone 1A was launched from Cape Canaveral in a repeat of the November 21, 1960, mission (Mercury-Redstone 1) and was completely successful. Objectives of the MR-1A flight were to qualify the spacecraft for spaceflight and to qualify the flight system for a primate flight scheduled shortly thereafter. Close attention was given to the spacecraft-launch vehicle combination as it went through the various flight sequences: powered flight; acceleration and deceleration; performance of the posigrade rockets; performance of the recovery system; performance of the launch, tracking, and recovery phases of the operation; other events of the flight including retrorocket operation in a space environment; and operation of instrumentation. Except that the launch vehicle cut-off velocity was slightly higher than normal, all flight sequences were satisfactory. The spacecraft reached a maximum altitude of 130.68 statute miles, a range of 234.8 statute miles, and a speed of 4,909.1 miles per hour (7,900.4 km/h).[7]

December 20, 1960 (Tuesday)
  • Major Richard Baer, commandant of the Auschwitz concentration camp, was arrested after 15 years on the run. Baer had been posing as "Karl Neuman", a gardener on the estate of Otto Von Bismarck, since 1945.[48]
  • The National Liberation Front (NLF) was created as a Communist political organization in South Vietnam, to oppose the government of President Ngo Dinh Diem, who gave the group the nickname "Viet Cong". As the NLF gained adherents, it began carrying out military attacks against the South Vietnamese Army, and against U.S. forces during the Vietnam War.[49]
  • Redstone launch vehicle No. 2 was delivered to Cape Canaveral for the Mercury-Redstone 2 mission (chimpanzee "Ham" flight).[7]
  • Born: Pedro Abrunhosa, Portuguese singer-songwriter, in Oporto

December 21, 1960 (Wednesday)

December 22, 1960 (Thursday)

December 23, 1960 (Friday)
  • After the news came out that Israel was building a nuclear reactor (with assistance from France), Egypt's President Gamal Abdel Nasser warned in a nationwide speech that the United Arab Republic would go to war "if we become sure that Israel is building an atom bomb". Nasser added "We shall take every step in order to preserve our country and to destroy our enemy."[53] Nasser later pledged to send Egypts army to destroy the Dimona Nuclear Centre.[54]
  • Born: Miyuki Miyabe, Japanese author, in Tokyo

December 24, 1960 (Saturday)
  • The Boston Celtics set an NBA record for most rebounds by a team, 109 rebounds, in a 150–106 win over the visiting Detroit Pistons. Only 2,046 people turned out to Boston Garden to watch the Christmas Eve game.[55]
  • Born: Carol Vorderman, English television presenter, in Bedford

December 25, 1960 (Sunday)
  • An earthquake occurred at Cape Otway, Victoria, Australia, magnitude 5.3, waking residents on Christmas morning at 2:42 am. Earthquakes of this size are fairly common in Victoria.

December 26, 1960 (Monday)

December 27, 1960 (Tuesday)
  • After being forced to leave West Germany, The Beatles made a triumphant return to Liverpool, playing at the ballroom at the Litherland Town Hall. Author Hunter Davies, who wrote the authorized biography of the band, commented that "If it is possible to say that any date was the watershed, this was it. All their development, all their new sounds and new songs, suddenly hit Liverpool that evening. From then on, as far as a devoted fanatical following was concerned, they never looked back."[57]

December 28, 1960 (Wednesday)
  • Rebels in the Congo attacked a train that was transporting 300 passengers from Elisabethville to their homes in Katanga Province, many of them schoolchildren and their mothers. Although the train was guarded by UN soldiers from Sweden, it was besieged by hundreds of Baluba tribesmen at Luena, then again at Bukima. At least 20 passengers were killed, and others raped and kidnapped.[58]
  • Yakov Zarobyan became first secretary of the Communist Party of Armenia.
  • Born: Dev Benegal, Indian film director, in New Delhi.

December 29, 1960 (Thursday)
  • A former U.S. Defense Department employee was arrested by the FBI after taking almost 200 classified documents from the Weapons Systems Evaluation Group division at the Pentagon.[59] Arthur Rogers Roddey, a mathematician who had top secret clearance, was sentenced to eight years in prison on March 22, 1961.[60]
  • Born:

December 30, 1960 (Friday)
  • The Third Test match of the series between India and Pakistan began at Eden Gardens, Calcutta.[61]
  • Born: Katoucha Niane, Guinean-born French model, in Conakry (drowned 2008)
  • Died: Angelo Donati, 75, Italian banker, philanthropist and diplomat known for saving thousands of French Jews from extermination during World War II

December 31, 1960 (Saturday)

References
  1. "Congo Ex-Premier Nabbed in Escape". Oakland Tribune. December 2, 1960. p. 1.
  2. de Witte, Ludo (2002). The Assassination of Lumumba. Verso. p. 54.
  3. "Red Sputnik Burns Up". Arizona Republic. Phoenix, Arizona. 3 December 1960.
  4. Hall, Rex; Shayler, David (2001). The rocket men: Vostok & Voskhod, the first Soviet manned spaceflights. Springer. pp. 128–129.
  5. "Pope John XXIII Receives Archbishop of Canterbury". Oakland Tribune. December 2, 1960. p. 1.
  6. Carpenter, Edward; Hastings, Adrian (1997). Cantuar: the archbishops in their office. Continuum International. pp. 501–502.
  7. Public Domain This article incorporates text from this source, which is in the public domain. Grimwood, James M. "PART II (B) Research and Development Phase of Project Mercury January 1960 through May 5, 1961". Project Mercury – A Chronology. NASA Special Publication-4001. NASA. Retrieved 8 February 2023.
  8. Mordden, Ethan (2002). Open a New Window: The Broadway Musical in the 1960s. Palgrave Macmillan. pp. 26–27.
  9. Sweet Home Cook County (PDF). Cook County Clerk. p. 9. Archived from the original (PDF) on 28 May 2016. Retrieved 31 May 2023.
  10. "Africans Demand U.N. Admit Nation", Daytona Beach Morning News, December 19, 1960, p5
  11. UN website Archived 2009-05-27 at the Wayback Machine UN website Archived 2014-07-12 at the Wayback Machine
  12. "Negroes Win Right to Eat in Bus Depots", Chicago Daily Tribune, December 6, 1960, p10
  13. "Arctic Refuge's 50th Anniversary", U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service
  14. "Alaska – Izembek National Wildlife Refuge". Archived from the original on 27 February 2010.
  15. "Appeal of Soviet to Aid Lumumba Up in U.N. Today", New York Times, December 7, 1960, p1
  16. "The DASH Weapon System", GyrodyneHelicopters.com
  17. Roger Daniels, Guarding the golden door: American immigration policy and immigrants since 1882 (Macmillan, 2005) p195
  18. NDSU History Archived 2009-08-28 at the Wayback Machine
  19. "Screaming Algerian Mob Blasted by Tanks". Pasadena Star-News. December 10, 1960. p. 1.
  20. "Troops in Algiers Kill 61 in Rioting". The New York Times. December 12, 1960. p. 1.
  21. Gallagher, William (December 8, 2000). "40 Years on the Street". BBC News.
  22. Leonard, James (2012). Living the Faith: A Life of Tom Monaghan. University of Michigan Press. pp. 41–55.
  23. "Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary site". Archived from the original on 2010-10-17. Retrieved 2010-04-11.
  24. "JFK: the assassin who failed", by Philip Kerr, New Statesman, November 27, 2000
  25. "Man Accused of Plotting to Assassinate Kennedy", Spartanburg (SC) Herald-Journal, December 17, 1960, p1
  26. Calvin George, The History of the Reina-Valera 1960 Spanish Bible (Literatura Bautista, 2004) p35
  27. " "RTS: 50 años Sintonia" (RTS: 50 Years of Broadcasting), El Universio (Guayaquil), December 5, 2010
  28. "Texas Recount is Denied; 24 Kennedy Electors OK'd", San Antonio Express, December 13, 1960, p1
  29. Saheed A. Adejumobi, The History of Ethiopia (Greenwood Press, 2006) p102
  30. SICA History
  31. (70,310 feet in 1957) by over 4 miles (6 km). HistoryCentral.com Archived 2007-08-12 at archive.today
  32. "TEST ENDS IN TIE ON SECOND-LAST BALL". The Age. Melbourne. December 15, 1960. p. 24.
  33. Jessup, John E. (1998). An Encyclopedic Dictionary of Conflict and Conflict Resolution, 1945–1996. Greenwood Publishing Group. p. 239.
  34. OECD website
  35. UnitedNations.org
  36. "Kennedy Illinois Win OK'd". San Mateo Times. San Mateo, California. December 14, 1960. p. 1.
  37. U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights
  38. "Baudoin Weds in 2 Ceremonies". The New York Times. December 16, 1960. p. 1.
  39. Aviation Safety Database.
  40. "WORST AIR CRASH KILLS 133; 19 FROM CHICAGO AREA DIE— O'Hare Jet Collides with Liner Over N.Y.", Chicago Daily Tribune, December 17, 1960, p1
  41. "On This Day in History", Brooklyn Daily Eagle online
  42. "U.S. Plane Falls in Munich; 50 Die". Reading Eagle. Reading, Pennsylvania. December 17, 1960. p. 1.
  43. National Museum, New Delhi History Archived March 28, 2010, at the Wayback Machine
  44. Peaslee, Amos J.; Xydis, Dorothy Peaslee, eds. (1974). International Governmental Organizations: Constitutional Documents. Vol. 1. Brill Archive. p. 1162.
  45. "Blazing Ship Traps Dozens", Pasadena Star-News, December 19, 1960, p1; "Carrier Death Toll 46", December 20, 1960, p1
  46. "Casualties: US Navy and Marine Corps Personnel Killed and Injured in Selected Accidents and Other Incidents Not Directly the Result of Enemy Action". Naval History and Heritage Command. 7 December 2022. Retrieved 8 February 2023.
  47. "Electors Certify Kennedy Victory". The New York Times. December 20, 1960. p. 1.
  48. "Nazi Death Camp Chief Captured". Pasadena Star-News. December 21, 1960. p. 1.
  49. DeFronzo, James (2007). Revolutions and Revolutionary Movements (3d. ed.). Westview Press. pp. 165–166.
  50. "Soyuz Chronology" Archived 2010-01-07 at the Wayback Machine, Astronautix.com
  51. "Kennedy Resigns His Senate Seat", New York Times, December 23, 1960, p1
  52. Bishop, Greg (2012-11-05). "Luther Campbell Has a New Gig, and a New Rap for His Players". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2019-02-26.
  53. "Nasser Threatens Israel on A-Bomb", New York Times, December 24, 1960, p1
  54. Maria Rost Rublee, Nonproliferation Norms: Why States Choose Nuclear Restraint (University of Georgia Press, 2009) p109
  55. NBA Regular Season Records Archived 2014-07-05 at the Wayback Machine, NBA.com
  56. "EAGLES WIN NFL TITLE: Clock Stops Packers in 17 to 13 Tilt", Milwaukee Sentinel, December 27, 1960, p1
  57. Hunter Davies, The Beatles (1968, W. W. Norton & Company, 1996) p92
  58. "Rebel Tribesmen in Congo Massacre 20 Aboard Train", San Antonio Express, December 29, 1960, p1
  59. "200 Secret Papers Stolen From Pentagon", San Antonio Express, December 30, 1960, p1
  60. "Ex-Pentagon Aide Sentenced to 8 Years for Document Theft", New York Times, March 23, 1961, p1
  61. "Full Scorecard of Pakistan vs India 3rd Test 1960/61 – Score Report". ESPNcricinfo.com.
  62. "The last recruits report for their National Service duty", ThisIsExeter.co.uk, July 12, 2008
  63. "Andorra— Heads of State", in Heads of States and Governments Since 1945, by Harris M. Lentz (Routledge, 2014) p31
This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.