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1960
21 March
South African police kill 69 black protestors in the Sharpeville massacre
30 June
Independence from Belgium starts a long civil war in the Congo
31 July
Malayan government declares the state of emergency is over, as the communist forces are defeated
26 September
The first of four televised Nixon V Kennedy presidential debates
8 November
US voters choose John F. Kennedy, youngest elected president in history
1961
15 March
South Africa withdraws from the Commonwealth
12 April
Yuri Gagarin becomes the first person in space and to orbit the earth
17 April
CIA-funded invasion of Cuba at the Bay of Pigs fails
5 May
Alan Shepard becomes the first American to travel in space
13 August
Construction of Berlin Wall begins
1962
19 March
Bob Dylan releases his first album, Bob Dylan, in the US
3 July
France recognises Algerian independence
10 July
Launch of Telstar, the world’s first communications satellite, enables live TV pictures to be transmitted from the USA to France
5 August
Marilyn Monroe found dead from an overdose of sleeping pills
5 August
Nelson Mandela arrested
1 October
Escorted by federal marshalls, James Meredith becomes the first black student to register at the University of Mississippi
14 October
Cuban missile crisis begins
1963
19 February
Publication of The Feminine Mystique by Betty Friedan, a milestone in the US Women’s Movement
21 June
Pope Paul VI succeeds Pope John XXIII
8 August
England’s Great Train Robbery
28 August
Martin Luther King’s ‘I have a dream speech’, a defining moment in the US Civil Rights movement
September
Formation of the Federation of Malaysia ignites the Indonesia/Malaysia Confrontation
22 November
President Kennedy assassinated
23 November
First episode of Doctor Who is screen on BBC TV
1964
25 February
Cassius Clay (Muhammad Ali) defeats Sonny Liston to become world heavyweight boxing champion
19 June
US Senate passes President Johnson’s Civil Rights Bill
August
The Gulf of Tonkin incident, in which the North Vietnamese are provoked into firing upon the American destroyer Maddox, leads to the escalation of American military commitment in Vietnam
5 August
President Johnson orders the US Air Force to bomb North Vietnam, after reports that the Maddox and Turner Joyhave been attacked
10 October
The 18th Olympic Games begin in Tokyo
15 October
Martin Luther King awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for his campaign of racial equality
15 October
Harold Wilson’s Labour Party elected to government in UK
15 October
Nikita Kruschev’s fall from power in USSR
3 November
Johnson defeats Goldwater in US presidential election
1965
24 January
Death of Sir Winston Churchill
8 March
President Johnson sends the first US ground troops to Vietnam, starting a dramatic increase in US troop commitment
8 July
Great Train Robber Ronald Biggs escapes from London’s Wandsworth Prison
28 July
President Johnson announces an increase in American troops in Vietnam from 75,000 to 125,000
9 August
Singapore officially withdraws from the Federation of Malaysia
11 August
Race riots in the predominantly black Los Angeles neighbourhood of Watts; after six days at least 34 people are dead
9 November
Power failure blacks out New York, parts of New England and Canada
11 November
Ian Smith, head of the white minority government in Rhodesia, makes a unilateral declaration of independence from Britain, provoking economic sanctions
1966
19 January
Indira Gandhi elected Prime Minister of India
31 March
UK general election sees Harold Wilson’s Labour Party returned with an increased majority
29 April
US troops in Vietnam total 250,000
May
Mao’s Cultural Revolution begins in China; millions will be persecuted as he asserts his authority
29 July
Bob Dylan injured in a motorcycle accident; ceases touring for eight years
15 October
Huey Newton and Bobby Seale form the Black Panther Party in USA
1967
14 January
Hippies attend the first ‘Human Be-In’ at Golden Gate Park in San Francisco
4 March
South Africa rejects the idea of a cricket series against the West Indies because it would involve ‘non-whites’
24 April
Muhammad Ali is stripped of the world heavyweight boxing title for refusing to enter the US army
5 June
Israel attacks Egypt to start the Six Day War
16-18 June
Monterey Pop Festival in California
6 July
Civil war breaks out in Nigeria
23 July
Detroit race riot begins; after four days 43 people are dead
9 October
Che Guevara killed in Bolivia
9 November
Rolling Stone magazine first published in San Francisco
2 December
Launch of full colour TV service on Britain’s BBC2
3 December
Dr Christian Barnaard conducts world’s first heart transplant operation in Capetown
10 December
Death of soul singer Otis Redding in a plane crash
1968
22 January
Rowan & Martin’s Laugh-In brings topical humour to TV screens
16 March
My Lai massacre in Vietnam
4 April
Assassination of Martin Luther King
May
Student protests and general strike in France
6 June
Assassination of US presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy
20 August
Czechoslovakia’s experiments in democracy end as Soviet tanks enter
26-29 August
Riots outside Democratic Party convention in Chicago
5 November
Election of President Nixon in USA
1969
2 January
Rupert Murdoch buys Britain’s largest selling Sunday newspaper, News of the World
4 February
Yasser Arafat becomes leader of Palestine Liberation Organisation
17 March
Golda Meir becomes first female Prime Minister of Israel
20 April
British troops arrive in Northern Ireland
15 June
Georges Pompidou elected president of France
28 June
Stonewall riots in New York mark the beginning of the Gay Rights movement
4 July
Release of John Lennon’s ‘Give Peace a Chance’ by his Plastic Ono Band
21 July
Apollo 11’s Neil Armstrong walks on the moon
15-18 August
Woodstock music festival in New York state
20 September
John Lennon tells the other Beatles he is leaving the group
5 October
Monty Python’s Flying Circus first screened on BBC TV
21 October
Willy Brandt becomes chancellor of West Germany
6 December
Violence at Rolling Stones Altamont concert symbolises the end of the 1960s
1970
10 April
Paul McCartney announces his departure from The Beatles
29 April
US invades Cambodia
4 May
Four students are shot dead by the National Guard at Kent State University in Ohio
18 June
Election of Edward Heath’s Conservative government in UK
31 December
Paul McCartney files a suit for the dissolution of The Beatles’ contractual partnership
