WHAT ALL HAPPENED FEBRUARY TO JULY 1960
Find out what all happened February to July 1960

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

Jane Goodall arrives at the Gombe Stream Reserve in present-day Tanzania to begin her famous study of chimpanzees in the wild. (14. July 1960)

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

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

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)

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

The U.S. Navy submarine USS Triton begins Operation Sandblast, setting sail from New London, Connecticut, to begin the first submerged circumnavigation of the globe. (16. February 1960)

The former British Protectorate of British Somaliland gains its independence as Somaliland. (26. June 1960)

USS George Washington a modified Skipjack class submarine successfully test fires the first ballistic missile while submerged. (16. July 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)

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

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

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

The TIROS-1 satellite transmits the first television picture from space. (1. April 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)

In Turkey, a military coup removes President Celal Bayar and the rest of the democratic government from office. (27. May 1960)