WHAT ALL HAPPENED FEBRUARY TO MAY 1960
Find out what all happened February to May 1960

Cuban photographer Alberto Korda takes his iconic photograph of Marxist revolutionary Ernesto "Che" Guevara. (5. March 1960)

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

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

Cold War: U-2 Crisis of 1960 – Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev announces that his nation is holding American U-2 pilot Gary Powers. (7. May 1960)

Black college students stage the first of the Nashville sit-ins at three lunch counters in Nashville, Tennessee. (13. February 1960)

The French freighter La Coubre explodes in Havana, Cuba killing 100. (4. March 1960)

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

Dr. Belding Hibbard Scribner implants for the first time a shunt he invented into a patient, which allows the patient to receive hemodialysis on a regular basis. (9. March 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)

Formation of the western Indian states of Gujarat and Maharashtra. Also known as "Maharashtra Day" (1. May 1960)

An earthquake measuring 9.5 on the moment magnitude scale, now known as the Great Chilean Earthquake, hits southern Chile. It is the most powerful earthquake ever recorded. (22. May 1960)

The first eight brass star plaques are installed in the Hollywood Walk of Fame. (8. February 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)

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)

An earthquake in Morocco kills over 3,000 people and nearly destroys Agadir in the southern part of the country. (29. February 1960)

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

U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower signs the National Security Council directive on the anti-Cuban covert action program that will ultimately lead to the Bay of Pigs Invasion. (17. March 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)

Forced out by the April Revolution, President of South Korea Syngman Rhee resigns after twelve years of dictatorial rule. (26. April 1960)

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