WHAT ALL HAPPENED MARCH TO JUNE 1960
Find out what all happened March to June 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)

Congo gains independence from Belgium. (30. June 1960)

The nuclear submarine USS Triton completes Operation Sandblast, the first underwater circumnavigation of the earth. (10. May 1960)

The United States Food and Drug Administration declares Enovid to be the first officially approved combined oral contraceptive pill in the world. (23. June 1960)

Cold War: U-2 incident – Francis Gary Powers, in a Lockheed U-2 spyplane, is shot down over the Soviet Union, sparking a diplomatic crisis. (1. May 1960)

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

Dr. Hendrik Verwoerd, Prime Minister of South Africa and architect of apartheid, narrowly survives an assassination attempt by a white farmer called David Pratt in Johannesburg. (9. April 1960)

The Mali Federation gains independence from France (it later splits into Mali and Senegal). (20. June 1960)

Following the 1960 Valdivia earthquake, the largest ever recorded earthquake, Cordón Caulle begins to erupt. (24. May 1960)

Madagascar gains its independence from France. (26. June 1960)

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

Togo gains independence from French-administered UN trusteeship. (27. April 1960)

At Shaw University in Raleigh, North Carolina, Ella Baker leads a conference that results in the creation of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, one of the principal organizations of the African-American Civil Rights Movement in the 1960s. (15. April 1960)

Theodore Maiman operates the first optical laser (a ruby laser), at Hughes Research Laboratories in Malibu, California. (16. May 1960)

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

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

More than 20 million viewers watch the first televised royal wedding when Princess Margaret marries Anthony Armstrong-Jones at Westminster Abbey. (6. May 1960)

New Zealand's first official television broadcast commences at 7.30 pm from Auckland. (1. June 1960)

The Soviet Union launches Sputnik 4. (15. May 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)