WHAT ALL HAPPENED JANUARY TO APRIL 1960
Find out what all happened January to April 1960

Four black students stage the first of the Greensboro sit-ins at a lunch counter in Greensboro, North Carolina. (1. February 1960)

The bathyscaphe USS Trieste breaks a depth record by descending to 10,911 metres (35,797 ft) in the Pacific Ocean. (23. January 1960)

China successfully launches the T-7, its first sounding rocket. (19. February 1960)

British Prime Minister Harold Macmillan speaks of "a wind of change", an increasing national consciousness blowing through colonial Africa, signalling that his Government is likely to support decolonisation. (3. February 1960)

The U.S. Navy submarine USS Triton completes the first submerged circumnavigation of the globe. (25. April 1960)

Apartheid in South Africa: Massacre in Sharpeville, South Africa: Police open fire on a group of unarmed black South African demonstrators, killing 69 and wounding 180. (21. March 1960)

Arthur Leonard Schawlow and Charles Hard Townes receive the first patent for a laser (22. March 1960)

Hendrik Verwoerd announces a plebiscite on whether South Africa should become a Republic. (20. January 1960)

Avianca Flight 671 crashes and burns upon landing at Montego Bay, Jamaica, killing 37. It is the worst air disaster in Jamaica's history and the first for Avianca. (21. January 1960)

With the success of a nuclear test codenamed "Gerboise Bleue", France becomes the fourth country to possess nuclear weapons. (13. February 1960)

The Associations Law comes into force in Iraq, allowing registration of political parties. (6. January 1960)

Brasília, Brazil's capital, is officially inaugurated. At 09:30, the Three Powers of the Republic are simultaneously transferred from the old capital, Rio de Janeiro. (21. April 1960)

The Reserve Bank of Australia, the country's central bank and banknote issuing authority, is established. (14. January 1960)

The Polaris missile is test launched. (7. January 1960)

The Netherlands and West Germany sign an agreement to negotiate the return of German land annexed by the Dutch in return for 280 million German marks as Wiedergutmachung. (8. April 1960)

Little Joe 1B, a Mercury spacecraft, lifts off from Wallops Island, Virginia with Miss Sam, a female rhesus monkey on board. (21. January 1960)

National Airlines Flight 2511 is destroyed in mid-air by a bomb, while en route from New York City to Miami, Florida. (6. January 1960)

Queen Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom issues an Order-in-Council, stating that she and her family would be known as the House of Windsor, and that her descendants will take the name "Mountbatten-Windsor". (8. February 1960)

The National Football League announced expansion teams for Dallas to start in the 1960 NFL season and Minneapolis-St. Paul for 1961 NFL season. (28. January 1960)

France agrees to grant independence to the Mali Federation, a union of Senegal and French Sudan. (4. April 1960)