The following events occurred in January 1960:
January 1, 1960 (Friday) The Republic of Cameroun became independent at midnight local time (2300 12/31/59 GMT) with the lowering of the French tricolor, and the raising of a new tricolor (red, yellow and green) flag at Yaoundé. The former French Cameroons colony had been under a U.N. Trusteeship during a transition period, and Prime Minister Ahmadou Ahidjo headed the government pending the adoption of a constitution. United Nations Secretary-General Dag Hammarskjöld, along with Henry Cabot Lodge Jr., the American Ambassador to the U.N., were present, along with the Soviet First Deputy Premier, Frol Kozlov, who announced that the Soviets would recognize the new government. Marxist Félix-Roland Moumié, who had previously been supported by the Soviet Union, continued to wage a campaign of terrorism against the Ahidjo government, and thirty people were killed on the Republic's first day. The peaceful New Year's Day March, a civil rights march at the airport of Greenville, South Carolina, took place with 250 African-American people protesting racial segregation. On October 25, a delegation of NAACP members had been waiting for the arrival of baseball great Jackie Robinson when they were told to move to a colored waiting room at the airport. Led by the chairman of the local Congress of Racial Equality (CORE), the Reverend J.S. Hall, the march concluded with the reading of a resolution by Rev. Matthew D. McCullough while a crowd of 200 White people listened. The symbolic "Doomsday Clock" on the cover of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists was moved back five minutes, from "two minutes to midnight" (where it had been since 1953) to "seven minutes to midnight".Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists Three municipalities in Norway were created through mergers— Smøla Municipality (created from merging Edøy Municipality, Brattvær Municipality, and Hopen Municipality); Evje og Hornnes Municipality (created from merging Evje Municipality and Hornnes Municipality); and Sirdal Municipality (created from merging Tonstad Municipality and Øvre Sirdal Municipality). Midnight, January 1, 1960, is the point from which dates are measured under SAS System, Stata and R computer programming software. Three men— 22-year-old steelworker Mick McFarlane, 27-year-old soldier Thomas Owen, and 30-year-old Fred Morris— were killed and two wounded by a Somali national in a mass shooting in England at The East House, a pub at Spital Hill in Sheffield, South Yorkshire."Triple Capital Murder Charge: —Labourer is accused of pub shooting", Grimsby Evening Telegraph, January 2, 1960, p.1 The shooter, Maohamed Ismail, 30, would subsequently be determined to be insane. Born: James O'Barr, American comics artist, graphic artist, and writer, best known as the creator of the comic book series The Crow; in Detroit Died: Margaret Sullavan, 50, American film actress, was killed by an accidental overdose of barbiturates. Gianni Franciolini, 49, Italian film director and screenwriter, died in a hospital the day after undergoing surgery.
January 2, 1960 (Saturday) At the Senate Caucus room in Washington, U.S. Senator John F. Kennedy of Massachusetts formally announced that he would seek the Democratic nomination for President of the United States. Addressing a question about whether being a Roman Catholic would affect his chances of winning, Senator Kennedy told them "I would think that there is really only one issue involved in the whole question of a candidate's religion, that is, does a candidate believe in the separation of church and state?"The World Almanac and Book of Facts, 1961, p155; "Hat Thrown Into Ring By Kennedy", Oakland Tribune, January 2, 1960, p1 The temperature in Oodnadatta, South Australia, reached 50.7 °C (123.3 °F) in the shade, for what remains the highest temperature ever recorded in Australia.2006 Year Book Australia (Australian Bureau of Statistics, 2005), p53 Born: Naoki Urasawa, Japanese manga author; in Tokyo Died: Friedrich Adler, 80, Austrian assassin who had killed Austrian Prime Minister Karl von Stürgkh in 1916
January 3, 1960 (Sunday) The CBS Sports Spectacular made its debut at 3:00 EST, with Bud Palmer, with the aim of showing "sports you seldom see". The first show featured a complete game between basketball's Harlem Globetrotters and their foils at that time, the Baltimore Rockets."Dramatic Specials Top TV Fare For The Week", The Times Recorder (Zanesville, OH), January 3, 1960, pB-7
January 4, 1960 (Monday)
The Bank of France issued the first bills for the nouveau franc worth one hundred ancients francs, and brought back the centime coin, replacing the old franc. The new franc, at roughly five to U.S. dollar, had become legal tender on January 1. To prepare the French for the changeover, the old-style bills had been overstamped with new value and the initials "N.F.""France Starts Year With A New Franc", Winnipeg Free Press, January 2, 1960, p14 The EFTA Treaty was signed in Stockholm by Austria, Denmark, Norway, Portugal, Sweden, Switzerland and the United Kingdom, to form the European Free Trade Association, a 7-member alternative for nations that could not be, or did not want to be, in the six-nation European Economic Community. The treaty took effect on May 3, 1960.J.A.S. Grenville and Bernard Wasserstein, The Major International Treaties of the Twentieth Century: A History and Guide with Texts (Taylor and Francis, 2001) p524 The steel strike of 1959 was settled, three weeks before an injunction under the Taft-Hartley Act was set to expire, as Labor Secretary James P. Mitchell and Vice-President Richard M. Nixon mediated the dispute between the United Steelworkers Association and eleven steel manufacturers."Steel Dispute Settled; 39-Cent Hike Reported – Nixon Given Praise for Major Coup", Oakland Tribune, January 4, 1960, p1 Died: Albert Camus, 46, French writer, was killed in a car accident while riding in a Facel-Vega sports car driven by his publisher, Michel Gallimard. At local time, near Villeneuve-la-Guyard, Yonne département, the car left the road and struck a tree. An unfinished, 144-page manuscript of Camus' latest novel was found near the wreckage. The First Man would finally be published 35 years later.
January 5, 1960 (Tuesday) The Massachusetts Supreme Court ruled that a trust fund, set up by Benjamin Franklin's will in 1791 to assist "young married artificers", could not be divided before its 1991 maturity date, despite the fact that there were no more artificers who would benefit. Started by Franklin with the deposit of 1,000 pounds sterling, the fund had grown to $1,578,098 by 1960. By the time the monies were split between Massachusetts and Pennsylvania in 1991, the Fund was worth more than $6.5 million. British Prime Minister Harold Macmillan began a six-week, tour of Britain's current and former African colonies, not returning to London until February 15.World Almanac 1961, p154 Le Monde broke the news of a confidential report, made to the French government by the International Red Cross, documenting the French Army's torture in Algeria.
January 6, 1960 (Wednesday) At Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, an emergency room intern, Dr. Henry Thomas, became the first person to save a life following CPR training. The technique of "closed chest compression" had been shown to Dr. Thomas and other physicians by Dr. James Jude whom developed it, but CPR had previously only been attempted during surgery. The patient, 45-year-old Eugene Barnes, had collapsed while removing his shirt for an examination. Dr. Thomas applied cardiopulmonary resuscitation and kept Barnes alive during a 22-minute wait for a defibrillator, and Barnes went on to a full recovery. The rest of the world would learn about CPR in the July 9, 1960, issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association. National Airlines Flight 2511 exploded in mid-flight at and crashed into a swamp at near Bolivia, North Carolina, killing all 34 on board. The 29 passengers had been put on the Douglas DC-B for their Miami to New York flight, after their flight on a Boeing 707 had been cancelled. Killed in the crash was attorney Julian Frank, whose life had been insured by Dr. Robert Spears, listed as one of the dead from the 1959 crash of National Airlines Flight 967. Investigators concluded that Frank had unwittingly carried a bomb on board the plane inside his carry-on luggage. Dr. Spears was found and arrested in Arizona. The Associations Law officially came into force in Iraq (coinciding with Army Day), allowing the legal registration of political parties. Prior to the adoption of this law, political parties had been banned in Iraq since 1954. Scent of Mystery, presented by Mike Todd Jr. in "Smell-O-Vision", made its debut, at Chicago's Cinestage Theater, with a system that provided, then cleared, different aromas consistent with the scenes in the film.Avery N. Gilbert, What the Nose Knows: The Science of Scent in Everyday Life (Crown Publishers, ©2008), pp162–163 The Project Mercury data reduction plan was approved. Born: Howie Long, American NFL football player, Hall of Fame inductee and commentator; in Somerville, Massachusetts Miriam O'Callaghan, Irish media personality; in Foxrock Nigella Lawson, British chef and writer; in London Kari Jalonen, Finnish ice hockey player; in Oulu Died: Edward Orrick McDonnell, 68, United States Navy vice admiral and Medal of Honor recipient, was killed in the bombing of National Airlines Flight 2511.
January 7, 1960 (Thursday) For the first time, a Polaris missile reached its target using its own inertial guidance system, rather than being directed from a ground station. The shot from Cape Canaveral came a few hours after President Eisenhower's final State of the Union speech, describing the new era of nuclear submarines armed with the Polaris missiles. "Impossible to destroy by surprise attack," said Ike, "they will become one of our most effective sentinels for peace." The Soviet Union announced that it would be testing a long-range rocket over an area in the North Pacific Ocean, and warned other nations not to send ships through a designated by area between January 15 and February 15. Representatives of NASA's Engineering and Contracts Division and Flight Systems Division (FSD) met to discuss future wind tunnel test needs for advanced Mercury projects. Died: Prince Ferdinand Pius, Duke of Calabria, 90, pretender to throne of Kingdom of Two Sicilies
January 8, 1960 (Friday) David Cooper Nelson became the first convict to be executed in New Mexico's gas chamber, and the last. The legislature had replaced the electric chair with gas, and would later adopt lethal injection as its mode of capital punishment.Robert J. Tórrez, Myth of the Hanging Tree: Stories of Crime and Punishment in Territorial New Mexico (University of New Mexico Press, 2008), p52; "State Gas Chamber Works-- Nelson's Life Snuffed Out", Clovis (NM) News-Journal, January 8, 1960, p1 Lee Harvey Oswald, an American defector to the Soviet Union, was personally welcomed by the Mayor of Minsk, given a free apartment, and then set up in a new job as a metal worker in the Byelorussian Radio and Television factory.Dick Russell, The Man Who Knew Too Much (Carroll & Graf Publishers, 2003), p117 The Los Angeles Rams sued the new American Football League and the Houston Oilers over the rights to Heisman Trophy winner Billy Cannon, who had signed with both teams."Rams File Suit to Keep Cannon From AFL", San Antonio Express, January 12, 1960, p12-A Born: Mohammed Javad Zarif, Iranian diplomat and politician, Minister of Foreign Affairs (2013-2021), Vice President for Strategic Affairs, in Tehran
January 9, 1960 (Saturday)