1960: Information and Much More from Answers.com
- ️Fri Sep 02 1966
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France explodes her first atomic bomb February 13 over the Sahara Desert in southwestern Algeria, joining the "atomic club" of the United States, the USSR, and Britain (see Geneva Conference, 1958). Pacifist Sorbonne nuclear physicist Francis Perrin, 57, heads the atomic energy commission that has built the device and is developing nuclear power plants. France begins a series of atmospheric nuclear tests that will continue for some years in Africa and the Pacific.
The 447-foot-long U.S. Navy submarine U.S.S. Triton puts to sea for her shakedown cruise February 16 with a crew of 176 plus six scientists and arrives back at Groton, Conn., May 10, after completing the first submerged circumnavigation of the Earth. Commanded by Annapolis graduate Capt. Edward L. Beach, now 42 (see 1943), the world's largest submarine broke the surface only briefly March 5 to transfer a sick sailor to the heavy cruiser Macon off Montevideo, went around Cape Horn as Magellan did in 1519, traveled 30,708 miles, and beginning in August assumes her duties as a radar picket vessel.
A Soviet ground-to-air missile at Sverdlovsk downs an advanced-model U.S. supersonic U-2 spy plane flying at 60,000 feet May 1 (see U-2, 1956). The Russians capture Kentucky-born CIA agent pilot Francis Gary Powers, 30, with his electronic sensing equipment; Washington admits to having sent aerial reconnaissance flights over Soviet territory, and Premier Khrushchev cancels a Paris summit meeting with President Eisenhower.
Turkey has a military coup d'état May 27, leaders of the Democrat Party, including President Celâl Bayar, are arrested, but Bayar has twice been reelected by the parliament and although he will be convicted on questionable charges of crimes against the state and sentenced to death in September of next year, the sentence will be commuted to life imprisonment. He will be released for reasons of health in 1964 (he is now 77 or 78) and pardoned in 1966.
British Labour Party leader Aneurin Bevan dies of cancer at Chesham July 6 at age 62.
Former German Air Force field marshal Albert Kesselring dies of a heart ailment at Bad Nauheim July 16 at age 74; East German president Wilhelm Pieck of a heart attack at East Berlin September 7 at age 84. His position in the German Democratic Republic is abolished; former German naval commander Erich Raeder dies at Kiel November 6 at age 84. Sentenced to life imprisonment in 1946 for his role in planning a war of aggression, he was released in September 1955.
Cyprus gains independence August 16 after 88 years of British colonial rule. The new Cypriot republic elects Archbishop Makarios (Mikhail Khristodolou Mouskos, 47) president (he was deported in March 1956 after leading opposition to the British), but Greek and Turkish interests will vie for control of the Mediterranean island (see 1964).
Soviet first deputy premier Anastas I. Mikoyan, 64, arrives at Havana February 6 and signs an agreement with Fidel Castro February 13 providing $100 million in Soviet credit to Cuba and the Soviet purchase of 5 million tons of Cuban sugar over the course of 5 years, Castro threatens June 23 to seize all American-owned property and business interests to counter U.S. "economic aggression," President Eisenhower cuts Cuba's sugar quota by 95 percent July 6 and declares that the United States will never permit a regime "dominated by international communism" to exist in the Western Hemisphere. Khrushchev threatens July 9 at Moscow to use Soviet rockets to protect Cuba from U.S. military intervention. The Monroe Doctrine of 1823 has died a "natural death," says Premier Khrushchev at a news conference July 12. Washington reaffirms the doctrine July 14 and accuses Khrushchev of trying to set up a "Bolshevik doctrine" for worldwide communist expansion. Havana nationalizes all banks and large commercial and industrial enterprises October 14. Washington imposes an embargo October 19 on all exports to Cuba except medical supplies and most foodstuffs, and Washington sends a note to the Organization of American States October 28 charging that Cuba has received substantial arms shipments from the Soviet bloc (see 1961).
El Salvador's President Lemus uses repressive measures to counter unrest among workers and is deposed in October by a military coup (see 1956; 1961).
French and Belgian colonies in Africa gain independence: French Cameroun January 1, Togo April 27 (see 1963), the Malagasy Republic (Madagascar) June 26, Independent Congo Republic June 30, Somalia (French and Italian Somaliland) July 1, Ghana July 1, Dahomey August 1, Upper Volta in August, Ivory Coast August 7, Chad August 11, Central African Republic August 13 (see 1977), Gabon August 17, Mali August 20, Niger September 3, Senegal September 5, Nigeria October 11, the Islamic Republic of Mauritania November 28.
The new Independent Congo Republic quickly dissolves into chaos: President Joseph Kasavubu and Premier Patrice (Hemery) Lumumba, 35, face a challenge from separatist Moise Kapenda Tshombe, 40, who proclaims an independent Katanga, separatist Albert Kalonji proclaims an independent Kasai, Congolese troops mutiny, Premier Lumumba appeals to the UN for aid, the UN demands withdrawal of Belgian forces, the Security Council votes to send in UN troops, Secretary-General Dag Hammarskjöld leads UN forces into Katanga, President Kasavubu and Premier Lumumba dismiss each other, and the Congo army commander Col. Joseph Désiré Mobutu, 30, takes over (see 1961).
Former Afghan king Amanullah dies at Zürich April 25 at age 67, having lived in exile since his abdication in 1929.
Sinhalese parliamentarian Sirimavo Bandaranaike (née Sirimavo Ratwatte Dias), 44, takes office as prime minister of Ceylon July 21, becoming the world's first elected female head of state. Widow of the late prime minister S. W. R. D. Bandaranaike, she will serve until 1965 and then again from 1970 to 1977 (Ceylon will revert to her traditional name Sri Lanka—resplendent island—in 1972).
Pakistan's president Mohammad Ayub Khan introduces a system of "basic democracies" that include primary government units set up to administer local affairs, with members of each unit elected by constituencies of between 800 and 1,000 adults (see 1958). A national referendum confirms Ayub Khan as president (see 1965).
Arabist Harry St. John Philby dies of a heart attack at Beirut October 1 at age 75, saying to his son Kim, "God, I'm bored." A longtime friend and adviser of Saudi Arabia's late king ibn Saud, the elder Philby was ordered out of the kingdom 5 years ago for his outspoken criticism but was allowed to return the following year.
South Korea's president Synghman Rhee wins election to a fourth term March 15 (he ran unopposed), police fire on demonstrators at Seoul protesting the "rigged" elections April 19, 127 are reported killed, Rhee resigns April 27, and new elections are held July 29 (see 1961).
Japan's prime minister Nobosuke Kishi asks President Eisenhower June 16 to cancel a scheduled visit following 3 weeks of anti-American protest demonstrations by leftist groups. U.S. and Japanese diplomats have signed a treaty of mutual security and cooperation January 19 at Washington, the Japanese Diet approves the treaty June 19, and it takes effect June 23. Prime Minister Kishi resigns in July and is succeeded by former finance minister Hayato Ikeda, now 60, who sets a goal of doubling the national income in 10 years and launches a program based on increased spending in the public sector while keeping inflation at bay and interest rates low.
Japanese Socialist Party leader Inajiro Asanuma, 61, is assassinated on a public stage at Tokyo October 12 by a 17-year-old right-wing extremist with a foot-long sword. Asanuma has supported the U.S.-Japanese mutual-defense treaty.
Former Canadian prime minister Arthur Meighen dies at Toronto August 5 at age 86.
The U.S. Navy receives delivery of its first F-4 Phantom II fighter jet. Built by McDonell Aircraft and powered by two General Electric turbojet engines, the two-seat plane is 58 feet three inches long, has a wingspan of 38 feet five inches, can accelerate to more than twice the speed of sound, has an operating ceiling of more than 50,000 feet, will be used by the Air Force beginning in 1963, and will remain in production until 1979, by which time more than 5,000 will have been built. The Air Corps receives delivery of the delta-winged Convair B-58 Hustler, the first operational supersonic bomber (it has a huge, jettisonable pod beneath its fuselage in which to carry its nuclear weapon and most of its fuel).
Former Louisiana governor Earl K. Long wins election to Congress but dies at Alexandria September 5 at age 65, having been declared a paranoiac schizophrenic and placed in a mental hospital in May of last year at the request of his long-suffering wife, Blanche, held there forcibly with police assistance, but gained release by dismissing the hospital's superintendent and appointed politically favorable medical officers. "When I die—if I die—I want to be buried in Louisiana so I can stay active in politics," he has said; Boston lawyer Joseph N. Welch dies of heart disease at Hyannis, Mass., October 6 at age 69 less than 6 years after the U.S. Senate passed a resolution condemning the late Sen. Joseph McCarthy of misconduct.
Sen. John F. Kennedy (D. Mass.) gains the Democratic Party's presidential nomination at the convention in Chicago, beating out Adlai E. Stevenson, now 60, and Senate Majority Leader Lyndon B. Johnson, now 51, whom Kennedy selects as his running mate. Kennedy's father, Joseph P., is one of America's 12 richest men, he has spent liberally to win every primary election, and he uses his money to help the young senator beat Vice President Nixon in key election districts. Now 43, Kennedy wins election, but the first Roman Catholic president-elect squeaks in with a margin of only 113,057 popular votes out of more than 69 million cast; 502,773 votes go to minority party candidates, including Sen. Harry F. Byrd Jr., 45 (D. Va.), who captures 15 electoral votes. Nixon receives 219 electoral votes to Kennedy's 303, and although there are suggestions of fraud in the Chicago vote, Illinois has only 27 electoral votes and adding them to the Republican column would make no difference in the final result. Nixon announces that he will forego demanding a recount "for the good of the country"; President Eisenhower has refused to support any challenge, and Attorney General William P. Rogers has told Nixon that there was no realistic ground for a challenge since there were also irregularities in downstate Illinois voting precincts that went Republican.
South Vietnam's president Ngo Dinh Diem regains power November 12 following a coup by a paratroop brigade at Saigon (see 1955). Dissident groups meet secretly December 20 as Diem assumes dictatorial powers to combat a communist insurgency; collectively called the Vietcong (Vietnamese Communists), they organize the National Front for the Liberation of South Vietnam (see 1962).
Four black college freshmen stage a sit-in February 1 at a whites-only F. W. Woolworth lunch counter in Greensboro, N.C. North Carolina Agricultural and Technical College freshmen David Richmond, Joseph McNeil, Franklin McCain, and Ezell Blair Jr. occupy stools at the lunch counter, a white waitress refuses to take their order; white counter manager Clarence L. Harris, 55, gives orders that no other action be taken; and the youths sit for more than an hour before Harris closes for the day. Within 2 days 80 students have joined the protest, and by week's end some 200 men and women are spelling each other at the counter, refusing to be provoked by white youths who come in from outlying areas to incite violence. Some Bennett College students, including government president Gloria E. Brown, 21, participate in passive protest against discrimination, and Brown will later say, "I was scared. We knew what could happen to us. We knew it was a time when we were being watched very, very carefully." The sit-in spreads within 2 weeks to 11 cities in Alabama, Virginia, and three other states. The Congress of Racial Equality and NAACP call for a nationwide boycott of F. W. Woolworth in March. Atlanta civil rights activist Ruby (née Rubye) Doris Smith, 18, is arrested with others after a student lunch-counter sit-in protesting Jim Crow laws. She and three others (the "Rockville Four") refuse to be released on bail, preferring to serve jail sentences that will draw attention to their cause (see 1965). Ella Baker quits the SCLC to work in a YWCA regional student office, using it to recruit backers and student members of a new organization. Support groups for Greensboro's sit-in demonstrators organize at 21 northern schools, including Harvard, Yale, Princeton, the University of Chicago, City College of New York, and the University of California, Berkeley.
A race riot at Biloxi, Miss., April 25 is the worst in the state's history; it ends only after eight blacks and two whites have been shot dead.
A Civil Rights Act approved by Congress May 6 authorizes use of federal referees where patterns of discrimination against black voters exist (President Eisenhower appointed William P. Rogers attorney general in 1957 and Rogers has helped organize a civil rights division in the Department of Justice). Southern senators began a filibuster February 29 to block passage of civil rights legislation, and sessions continued round the clock until March 5 to set a filibuster record of 82 hours, 3 minutes. Greensboro, N.C., desegregates its lunch counters July 25 (demonstrations have cost the F. W. Woolworth lunch counter $150,000 in lost business), and the Department of Justice brings its first sweeping civil rights suit September 13, charging a plot to obstruct black voting in Tennessee.
The Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) is founded in October at the initiative of Ella Baker and others (see 1958). Based on Baker's ideas of democratic, decentralized leadership, it will use more aggressive action to challenge racism and vigilante violence in rural areas of the Deep South (see 1964).
A state may not change the boundaries of a city to exclude black voters, the U.S. Supreme Court rules November 14 in a Tuskegee, Ala., gerrymander case Gomillion v. Lightfoot (see 1812).
South Africa's Sharpeville massacre March 21 draws a sharp U.S. State Department protest. Some 20,000 blacks have besieged a police station in a Johannesburg suburb to demonstrate against a law requiring that all blacks carry papers. The police open fire, killing 56, wounding 162 (of whom 16 die). The pass law is suspended March 26 but violence continues. Whites arm themselves, and 30,000 blacks march on Cape Town March 30 to demand the release of their leaders (see 1961).
Japan's Society for Integration (Dōwakai) is founded as a rival to the Buraku Liberation League (Buraku Kaihō Dōmei), whose left-wing orientation has alienated conservative burakumin leaders (see 1946; 1976).
Switzerland's Parliament decides March 6 to grant women the right to vote in municipal elections.
A Canadian Bill of Rights wins assent August 10, guaranteeing women and men equal treatment before the law when they are in an equal situation, but few such situations will be judged to exist in actual litigation.
English suffragist Sylvia Pankhurst dies of a heart attack at Addis Ababa September 27 at age 79. An opponent of marriage, she became an unwed mother at age 45 and since 1956 has edited the Ethiopian Observer.
Zaire and Gabon grant women the right to vote on the same basis as men.
Japan's divorce rate falls to 0.74 percent, down from 1.39 percent in 1906 because women can now choose their husbands instead of being forced into marriage.
Philanthropist John D. Rockefeller Jr. dies at Tucson, Ariz., May 27 at age 83.
The 447-foot-long submarine U.S.S. Triton puts to sea for her shakedown cruise February 16 with a crew of 176 plus six scientists and arrives back at Groton, Conn. May 10 after completing the first submerged circumnavigation of the Earth. Commanded by Annapolis graduate Capt. Edward L. Beach, now 42 (see politics, 1943), the world's largest submarine broke the surface only briefly March 5 to transfer a sick sailor to the heavy cruiser Macon off Montevideo, went around Cape Horn as Magellan did in 1519, traveled 30,708 miles, and beginning in August assumes her duties as a radar picket vessel.
The official Soviet newspaper Izvestia announces January 30 that women outnumber men among Russian professional specialists, even though they make up only 45 percent of the nation's labor force. The USSR has 300,000 women physicians, 233,000 women engineers, and 110,000 women scientists, according to the report, and 1,283,000 of the nation's schoolteachers are women. So many men were lost in World War II that the country could not survive without encouraging women to prepare themselves for professional careers.
More than 34 percent of U.S. women over age 14 and 31 percent of all married women are in the labor force, up from 25 percent of women over age 14 in 1940. Only 10 percent of working women are farmhands or servants, down from 50 percent in 1900.
A treaty signed February 18 by representatives of Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Mexico, Paraguay, Peru, and Uruguay establishes the Latin American Free Trade Association (LAFTA) (see 1961); Ecuador, Colombia, Venezuela, and Bolivia will join by 1970. The General Treaty on Central American Economic Integration signed in December by Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, and El Salvador creates the Central American Common Market (Mercado Commun Centroamericano). Costa Rica will join in July 1962, and by 1968 the removal or reduction of trade barriers will have increased intra-regional trade sevenfold (see 1993).
South Africa has her worst ever mining disaster: 437 coal workers die in an accident south of Johannesburg. The National Union of Mineworkers has campaigned for years to get operators to increase safety measures, but accidents will continue to kill 600 to 900 miners each year and badly injure 15,000, most of them blacks.
Britain's richest 10 percent holds 83 percent of the nation's wealth, down from 88 percent in 1939.
West Germany's industrial production reaches 176 percent of Germany's 1936 level as an "economic miracle" progresses at Bremen, Cologne, Düsseldorf, Frankfurt, Hamburg, Leipzig, and Stuttgart.
More than 25 million Americans declare incomes of $5,000 or more, 5.3 million declare incomes of more than $10,000, more than 500,000 declare more than $25,000 (up from 42,500 in 1939). Some 32 million taxpayers pay 90 percent of all income taxes collected with more than 25 percent of the population paying some income tax.
Former Bethlehem Steel president Eugene G. Grace dies at his Bethlehem, Pa., home July 25 at age 83; physician-social reformer Francis E. Townsend of 1934 Townsend Plan fame at Los Angeles September 1 at age 93.
U.S. corporate mergers total 844, up from 219 in 1950 when Congress passed the Celler-Kefauver amendment to strengthen the Clayton Anti-Trust Act of 1914 (see 1966).
The U.S. Gross National Product (GNP) is $503 billion, up from $284 billion in 1950; government spending accounts for 27 percent of the total, up from 21 percent in 1950.
The International Development Association (IDA) established by the United Nations September 24 within the World Bank will make long-term interest-free loans to the poorest of the developing countries on terms far more lenient than those of the World Bank. Headquartered at Washington, D.C., it will lend more than $120 billion to more than 100 countries by the end of the century.
President Eisenhower acts to curb a rising deficit in the nation's balance of payments and a drain on U.S. gold reserves. He orders a reduction in government spending abroad November 16; the Defense Department 9 days later takes steps to limit sharply the number of dependents accompanying servicemen stationed abroad.
Wall Street's Dow Jones Industrial Average closes December 30 at 615.89, down from 679.36 at the end of 1959.
Harry Winston, Inc., moves into a handsome new six-story building on New York's Fifth Avenue at the southwest corner of 56th Street with a plant for cutting, polishing, and setting diamonds in addition to offices and showrooms (see 1932; Hope Diamond, 1958).
Former Montgomery Ward CEO Sewell Avery dies at Chicago October 31 at age 85, leaving a fortune of more than $20 million (more than half goes to pay estate taxes). Ward's was three-fourths as large as rival Sears, Roebuck 20 years ago, but the autocratic Avery has been so fearful of another Great Depression that he has banked money instead of investing in inventory, no new stores have opened since 1937, and Ward's is now barely one-fourth as large as Sears.
Construction on Egypt's Aswan High Dam begins January 19 near the country's southernmost tip. West German designers have drawn up plans for the project, which is intended to generate hydroelectric power, lift the nation out of poverty, and end the yearly floods in the Nile delta. Naysayers warn that a failure in the dam will send such a torrent of water down the valley that it will wipe out 65 million people and virtually destroy Egypt, but President Nasser has obtained financing from the Soviet Union. The dam project employs Soviet, West German, and Egyptian engineers, but the Soviet-built equipment has been designed for use in cold weather and will soon be replaced by British-built equipment (see 1970).
The first privately financed nuclear power plant opens at Dresden, Ill., just south of Chicago. Within 14 years Commonwealth Edison will be producing more than 30 percent of its power from nuclear reactors, but most utility companies will continue to use fossil fuels (see Consolidated Edison, 1962).
The Yankee Nuclear Power Station starts up August 22 at Rowe, Mass. The third such U.S. facility and the first in New England, it will continue until early 1992 to generate electricity for New England consumers.
Coal supplies 45 percent of U.S. energy needs, a figure that will decline in the next 15 years to less than 18 percent as power plants and homeowners switch to oil and natural gas.
Twenty-nine U.S. oil companies go on trial in a U.S. district court at Tulsa, Okla., February 1 on charges of conspiring to raise and fix crude oil and gasoline prices. Federal judge Royce H. Savage rules for the defendants February 13, saying, "The evidence does not rise above the level of suspicion."
The first shipment of Soviet oil arrives at Havana April 19, U.S. oil companies responding to State Department pressure refuse to refine the Soviet crude June 7 and refuse to sell oil to Cuba, Fidel Castro's government nationalizes the Texaco refinery June 29, and it nationalizes Esso and Shell refineries July 1.
The Organization of Petroleum Exporting Companies (OPEC) meets for the first time September 14 at Baghdad and forces a retraction of the decrease in oil prices by Standard Oil of New Jersey, which has unilaterally rolled back prices by 4¢ to 14¢ per barrel. The five charter OPEC members include Saudi Arabia, Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, and Qatar; the cartel will grow to include Abu Dhabi, Algeria, Gabon, Libya, Nigeria, Indonesia, Ecuador, and Venezuela.
Grand juries indict General Electric, Westinghouse, Allis-Chalmers, and 26 other U.S. producers of heavy electrical equipment for involvement in the largest conspiracy in restraint of trade in the 70-year history of the Sherman Act. The courts will levy fines totaling more than $1.92 million and hand down seven prison sentences plus 24 suspended sentences.
U.S. auto registration figures show one passenger car for every three Americans, a number that will increase in the next decade; 15 percent of families have more than one car, up from 7 percent in 1950. There are 74 million motorcars on the U.S. road, up from 32.6 million in 1941.
Chrysler halts production of the DeSoto, introduced in 1927 but used now mostly for taxicabs.
The United States has 2.17 million miles of surfaced road by year's end, up from 1.68 million in 1950, and 951,100 miles of dirt road, down from 1.31 million.
New York makes Third Avenue one-way northbound July 17 and Lexington Avenue one-way southbound, but merchants, the Fifth Avenue Coach Co., and the Transport Workers Union fight conversion of Fifth and Madison Avenues to one-way traffic (see 1957; 1966).
Harbor Freeway opens at Los Angeles, giving access to the west side of town.
The Datsun automobile introduced in the United States by Japan's Nissan Motors is underpowered, hard to start and stop, but will rank sixth among imported U.S. cars by 1966, third by 1970 (see 1912). Nissan will use the name Datsun in America until the early 1980s.
The Erie-Lackawanna Railroad created October 15 by a merger of the 99-year-old Erie and slightly younger Delaware, Lackawanna, and Western will retain the hyphen in its name until 1963. The purpose of the merger is to eliminate 1,600 jobs and transfer another 1,700 over a 5-year period, and although union members have received attractive severance packages they sue to block the merger; a court rules that the company cannot abolish any jobs or transfer workers without further hearings (see 1961). The DL&W extends its 11-year-old Phoebe Snow streamliner run to Chicago, but only 44 percent of intercity freight now goes by rail, down from 68 percent in 1944.
A model Mechanization and Modernization Agreement negotiated October 18 by International Longshoremen and Warehousemen Union leader Harry Bridges allows the introduction of automation in return for wage and pension guarantees (see container ships, 1956; 1958). Now nearly 60, Bridges draws the ire of many dockworkers, but he has seen the inevitability of automation and made the best of the situation.
A United Airlines DC-8 collides with a TWA Super Constellation in the fog over New York December 16, killing 134 persons in the air and on the ground. It is the world's worst aviation disaster to date.
British aircraft maker Richard Fairey Jr. dies of a heart attack at his Cannes villa July 27 at age 43. His ship was torpedoed in World War II and both of his legs had to be amputated for frostbite; aircraft designer and builder Giuseppe Bellanca dies at New York December 26 at age 74.
Some 2,000 electronic computers are delivered to U.S. business offices, universities, laboratories, and other buyers. The figure will more than double in the next 4 years and debate will rage as to whether computers wipe out jobs or create new ones (see commerce [Luddites], 1811; 1812; 1813). Computer programmers save memory by designating years with just two digits, making no provision for the fact that computers 40 years hence will read "00" to mean 1900 rather than 2000.
A laser (light amplification by stimulated emission of radiation) is operated for the first time May 16 at the Hughes Laboratory in Malibu, Calif. (see 1954). Perfected by Los Angeles-born research physicist Theodore H. Maiman, 32, it can cut metal quickly and will find wide use in delicate welding (including retinal eye operations). Charles H. Townes at New York's Columbia University has actually developed a kind of microwave, and his brother-in-law Arthur Schawlow has come up with the idea of building a "cavity" out of synthetic ruby that will serve as an echo chamber for amplifying light. The microwave amplification by stimulated emission of radiation (maser) perfected in 1957 by Townes will be used to test Albert Einstein's theory of relativity, obtain accurate measurements of the earth's rotation, check the oscillation frequency of atoms and molecules, and keep radio and television on precise frequencies; the laser perfected by Maiman will cut metal quickly and find wide use in delicate welding. Lasers will also be used for determining distances (e.g., to missile targets), relaying communications, projecting three-dimensional holograph pictures, exploring nuclear applications, computer printing, reading data on CD-ROMs, and in surgical procedures (including retinal eye operations).
Acetylene gas pioneer and neon light inventor Georges Claude dies at Saint-Cloud outside Paris May 23 at age 89. He proposed using liquid oxygen for smelting iron as early as 1910 but the suggestion has been implemented only since World War II (Claude supported the Vichy government during the war and was imprisoned as a German collaborator until 1949).
The Bulova Accutron tuning-fork watch introduced October 25 is the world's first electronic wristwatch. Its tuning fork vibrates 360 times per second—144 times as fast as the balance oscillators in a conventional hand-wound, automatic, or electric watch (see 1957; quartz, 1967).
A bathyscape designed by Auguste Piccard reaches a depth of 35,800 feet for marine research (see 1946).
Naturalist-explorer Roy Chapman Andrews dies at Carmel, Calif., March 11 at age 76; Nobel physicist Max von Laue in an automobile accident at Berlin April 23 at age 80, having pioneered solid-state physics with his work in the diffraction of X-rays in crystals.
Librium receives FDA approval February 24 (see Miltown, 1954). Polish-born research chemist Leo H. Sternbach, 52, and his associates at Roche Laboratories have developed the antianxiety drug by treating a quinazoline with methylamine. Sternbach has used a wooden paddle to stir up his concoction in kettles, taking care not to inhale too much of the potentially poisonous fumes, but after trying out one preliminary version he became disoriented, had trouble walking, and had to ask colleagues to have his wife take him home. Librium sales will far surpass those of the meprobamates (see Valium, 1963).
Chicago-born Seattle nephrologist Belding H. (Hibbard) Scribner, 39, improves on the kidney dialysis method devised by Dutch physician Willem J. Kolff in 1944 (see transplant, 1954). Kidney dialysis preserves the life of patients suffering temporary kidney failure, but the procedure requires inserting glass tubes into patients to connect them to machines, removing them when dialysis is completed, and can be performed only in a hospital operating room. Troubled by the death of a Spokane patient who had made a dramatic recovery while on dialysis, Scribner has awakened in the middle of the night with an idea: insert a Teflon tube into the patient's artery and a fat vein, keep access open by hooking the tubes together to create a high blood flow "shunt," and pull out the shunt during dialysis, replacing it with lines to the artificial kidney machine. Boeing machinist Clyde Shields, 39, receives the first shunt March 9 at the University of Washington Medical Center (he will live for 11 years on intermittent dialysis). Scribner's idea works, and it suddenly becomes possible to extend the lives of 90 percent of kidney patients who otherwise faced certain death. The lines can be left in place for months or even years, facilitating home treatment of renal failure with artificial kidneys of patients with permanently impaired organs (a minor operation will later create an internal shunt that allows veins to work like arteries). The world's first community dialysis unit will open in 1962 at Seattle's Swedish Hospital, but it will have only three beds with a capacity of only 12 patients; 60 patients will need dialysis, and until 1967 an anonymous committee composed of a minister, housewife, lawyer, banker, state official, labor leader, and surgeon will have to decide who gets treated (see 1979).
Canadian-born FDA researcher Frances Kelsey (née Oldham), 46, keeps thalidomide off the U.S. market by delaying approval of a Cincinnati firm's application to market the tranquilizer under the brand name Kevadon (see 1957). It is said to have no side effects, but Kelsey notes that it is not effective in making animals sleepy, observes that some British patients have complained of numbness in feet and fingers after using it, and points out that phocomelia is becoming endemic in West Germany, where 83 such birth defects appear at the clinics that saw 12 last year (see 1961).
The Sabin live-virus polio vaccine gets its first large-scale test on 180,000 Cincinnati schoolchildren (see 1954). Russia has had polio epidemics since the turn of the century, and Moscow last year invited Albert Sabin to test his live-virus in the Soviet Union; 77 million Russians took part in the test, and the Sabin vaccine also proved safe and effective in South American countries. Researchers inject the monkey virus SV-40 from Jonas Salk's vaccine into research animals and find that it produces brain cancer, but instead of recalling tainted vaccines the U.S. Government quietly orders manufacturers to find a monkey free of the virus (African green monkeys will replace rhesus monkeys by 1963). Surgeon General Leroy Burney has given approval to use of the vaccine after a long delay, saying that he had "no apologies to make for conservation, which is justified in an issue as important as this." Taken by mouth, the Sabin vaccine provides lifetime protection without booster shots, apparently "spreading" to safeguard people who have not even received what will eventually supplant the Salk vaccine (see 1961).
Indonesia begins a 10-year campaign against malaria, which kills an estimated 120,000 per year and accounts for between 10 and 15 percent of all infant mortalities. Equipment supplied by the World Health Organization, largely with U.S. funds, will drain mosquito-infested swamps, workers will go house-to-house spraying interior walls with DDT, and the country will adopt a program to detect and treat victims; by 1964 Java will be free of malaria except for a few isolated areas on the southern coast.
Pathologist E. W. Goodpasture dies at Nashville, Tenn., September 20 at age 73.
The 15,000-ton hospital ship HOPE leaves San Francisco September 22 for Indonesia (see Project HOPE, 1958). Physician William B. Walsh has raised $750,000 to refit a gray, mothballed ship loaned to his group by the U.S. Navy, and she stops at small islands where people in need of medical attention have gathered for weeks awaiting her arrival. By the time she is retired in 1974 because of age, rising fuel costs, and more requests for aid from landlocked countries, the ship will have traveled 250,000 miles, and Project Hope will grow to become a nonprofit operation providing health education, medical training, and humanitarian aid in more than 70 countries.
The 56-year-old National Lung Association launches an antismoking campaign with the message, "Kick the Habit." The Christmas seals it introduced in 1907 are bringing the organization millions of dollars per year, but while tuberculosis is no longer so high on the list as a cause of death in America the incidence of death from smoking-related lung disease has increased dramatically.
Care of the Dying by English nurse Cicely Mary Strode Saunders, 42, will lead to the founding of the modern hospice movement (see 1967).
The Christian Broadcasting Network is founded by Virginia-born evangelist-businessman Pat Robertson, 30, whose father, Absalom, has served in Congress for years. Young Robertson will be ordained a Southern Baptist minister next year and begin broadcasting from Portsmouth, Va., launching what will become a powerful cultural and political voice for the religious right (see Christian Coalition, 1989).
Presidential candidate John F. Kennedy addresses Southern Baptist leaders at Houston September 12 in an effort to allay fears that a Roman Catholic president would "take orders" from the Vatican: "Because I am a Catholic and no Catholic has ever been elected president, the real issues in this campaign have been obscured—perhaps deliberately, in some quarters less responsible than this. So it is apparently necessary for me to state once again—not what kind of church I believe in for that should be important only to me, but what kind of America I believe in. I believe in an America where the separation of church and state is absolute—where no Catholic prelate would tell the president (should he be a Catholic) how to act and no Protestant minister would tell his parishioners for whom to vote—where no church school is granted any public funds or political preference—and where no man is denied public office merely because his religion differs from the president who might appoint him or the people who might elect him."
The New York Times publishes an advertisement March 29 headlined, "Heed Their Rising Voices"; it asks for contributions to help the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and other civil rights leaders fight "a wave of terror." With only partial accuracy, the ad says racist Southerners have padlocked a dining room to starve students into submission, and Montgomery, Ala., city commissioner L. B. Sullivan files libel suits against the Times and four black ministers, although he has not been specifically named in the ad (see Supreme Court decision, 1964).
Engineers at Bell Telephone Laboratories invent the modem, a device that enables computers to communicate with each other over telephone lines using the binary code patented by the late Jean-Emile Baudot in 1874.
The Ansaphone created by engineer Kazuo Hashimoto is the first Japanese-made telephone answering machine to be sold in the United States (see Zimmermann, 1948; PhoneMate, 1971).
Echo 1 goes into orbit August 12 to become the world's first communications satellite. North Dakota-born inventor Gilmore T. (Tilmen) Schjeldahl, 47, has used an adhesive of his own creation to hold together a 100-foot sphere coated with the flexible new DuPont polymer Mylar and with vaporized aluminum to make it a radio-wave reflector; Des Moines-born Bell Laboratories engineer John R. (Robinson) Pierce, 50, has persuaded the 2-year-old National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) to launch it from Cape Canaveral, Fla., it makes possible the first direct coast-to-coast U.S. television transmissions (radio waves bounce off its surface and are reflected back to Earth), and NASA uses it to carry out experiments that will lead to the Telstar satellite (see COMSAT, 1962).
Eighty-seven million U.S. homes have television sets, up from 10 million in 1950.
ABC-TV airs the Olympic Games at Squaw Valley, Calif., and Rome—the first games to be televised (NBC and CBS have declined to make offers, and ABC has paid only $800,000 for TV rights).
Radar pioneer Sir Arthur P. M. Fleming dies on his native Isle of Wight September 14 at age 79.
A television debate October 7 gives Sen. John F. Kennedy the edge that enables him to defeat Vice President Richard M. Nixon more by his appearance and manner than anything he says (radio listeners believe Nixon won). TV debates will not be used in a presidential election again until 1976, but the high cost of television commercials in election campaigns will have profound political ramifications.
The Xerox 914 copier begins a revolution in paperwork reproduction (see 1950). The first production-line Xerox copier is called the 914 because it makes photocopies using ordinary nine-by-14 inch sheets of paper, turning out six plain-paper copies per minute at the push of a button, but the 650-pound machine costs $29,500 and is prone to break-downs (Haloid Xerox leases the copiers at $75 per month plus 5¢ per copy for every copy over 2,000). Xerox (it will drop the Haloid from its name next year) will have 97 percent of the world market until competitors such as Canon, Ricoh, and Savin produce lower-priced machines.
The Imperimerie National at Paris introduces typesetting by computer (see 1953; 1970).
Nonfiction: Presidential Power: The Politics of Leadership by Richard E. Neustadt, who has advised President-elect Kennedy; Necessity for Choice by Henry A. Kissinger, who warns of a "missile gap" between America and the USSR but modifies his 1957 book by limiting his concept of a "flexible response" to use of conventional forces, a view that will have a decided influence on the new Kennedy administration; The Politics of Upheaval by Arthur Schlesinger Jr., who has worked as a speechwriter for President-elect Kennedy and is appointed a special presidential assistant for Latin American affairs; The Making of the President by journalist Theodore H. White; The Conscience of a Conservative by Sen. Barry Goldwater, 51, (R. Ariz.). A former Phoenix-born department-store executive, Goldwater ran for city council on a nonpartisan reformist ticket in 1949, won by a landslide, and has been in politics ever since; Reflections of an Angry Middle-Aged Editor by retiring New York Post executive editor James Wechsler; Political Man by Seymour Martin Lipset; Crowds and Power (Masse und Macht) by Elias Canetti; East Asia: The Great Tradition by Tokyo-born Harvard historian Edwin O. (Oldfather) Reischauer, 49 (who will be appointed U.S. ambassador to Japan next year), his colleague John King Fairbank, now 53, and Albert M. Craig; The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich by William L. Shirer; The Arms Race by Philip J. Noel-Baker; Common Sense about Russia by British historian-poet-political writer Robert Conquest, 42, who praises the Soviet Union's scientific research and educational system; Growing Up Absurd by New York-born activist Paul Goodman, 49, is a study of youth and delinquency that uses materials from literature, psychology, and political theory; Born Free: The Lioness of Two Worlds by Czech-born author-painter Joy Adamson (née Joy Friedericke Victoria Gessner), 50, whose third husband is a Kenya game warden; Who Killed Society? by Cleveland Amory, who concludes that society is perennially evolving but is currently at a very low level of courtesy and morality.
Author and social arbiter Emily Post dies at New York September 15 at age 86.
Fiction: To Kill a Mockingbird by Alabama novelist (Nelle) Harper Lee, 34; Set This House on Fire by William Styron; Rabbit, Run by John Updike, who captures the tedium of small-town life; The Sotweed Factor by John Barth (see 1708); A Separate Peace by Chicago-born novelist John (Hilton) Knowles, 23; The Luck of Ginger Coffey by Brian Moore; The Trial Begins (Sud Idyot) by Russian novelist Andrei Sinyavsky, 25; Pornografia by Witold Gombrowicz; The Violent Bear It Away by Flannery O'Connor; This Sporting Life and Flight into Camden by Yorkshire-born novelist David (Malcolm) Storey, 27, who 10 years ago signed a 15-year contract to play for the Leeds Rugby League Club but also received a scholarship at London's Slade School of Fine Arts and returned most of the signing fee because rugby interfered with his painting (he has written seven previous novels but laid them aside); The Country Girls by Edna O'Brien; Casanova's Chinese Restaurant by Anthony Powell; Clea by Lawrence Durrell is the last of the Alexandria Quartet novels that first appeared 3 years ago; Kiss Kiss (stories) by Roald Dahl; The Magician of Lublin by Isaac Bashevis Singer; The Human Season by New Haven, Conn.-born novelist Edward Lewis Wallant, 34; The Chapman Report by Chicago-born novelist Irving Wallace (Irving Wallechinsky), 44; The Flanders Road (La Route des Flandres) by Claude Simon; In Peace and in War (Asi en la paz como en la guerra) (stories) by Cuban journalist-novelist Guillermo Cabrera Infante, 31, who has supported Fidel Castro but will soon become disenchanted with the Marxist revolution; The Key (Kagi) by Junichiro Tanizaki; Eyes of Stone (Ishi no me) by Kobo Abe; Mila 18 by Leon Uris; Passage of Arms by Eric Ambler; This Sweet Sickness by Patricia Highsmith; Decision at Delphi by Helen MacInnes; Death and the Joyful Woman by English mystery novelist Ellis Peters (Edith Mary Pargeter), 46; The Mercenaries by Brooklyn, N.Y.-born mystery novelist Donald E. (Edwin) Westlake, 27, who went to work last year as a reader for a literary agency, quit in April when his wife, Abby, announced that she was pregnant, and will turn out scores of mysteries, some under the pen name Richard Stark.
Novelist Zora Neale Hurston dies in poverty at Fort Pierce, Fla., January 28 at age 57; Joseph Pasternak at Peredelkino in the Soviet Union May 30 at age 70; John P. Marquand of a heart attack at his Kent's Island home near Newburyport, Mass., July 16 at age 66; Richard Wright at Paris November 28 at age 52, reportedly of a heart attack but possibly the victim of murder.
U.S. paperback book sales reach an annual rate of more than 300 million.
Poetry: Summoned by Bells by John Betjeman; Come Dance with Kitty Stobling by Patrick Kavanagh; What a Kingdom It Was by Providence, R.I.-born poet Galway Kinnell, 33; To Bedlam and Half Way Back by Newton, Mass.-born poet Anne Sexton (née Harvey), 32; The Colossus by Sexton's close friend Sylvia Plath, 27; Lupercal by Plath's husband, Ted Hughes; The Happy Birthday of Death by Gregory Corso; The Bean Eaters by Gwendolyn Brooks includes "We Real Cool" ("We real cool. We/ Left school. We/ Lurk Late. We/ Strike straight. We/ Sing sin. We/ Thin gin. We/ Jazz June. We/ Die soon."); Times Three: Selected Verse from Three Decades by New York poet Phyllis McGinley, 55, whose 1959 poem "The Honor of Being a Woman" included the line, "We have not owned our freedom long enough to know exactly how to use it."
Poet-short-story writer-playwright Jules Supervielle dies at Paris May 17 at age 76; Jean Charbonneau at Saint-Eustache, Quebec, October 25 at age 85.
Juvenile: Bedtime for Frances by Lansdale, Pa.-born author Russell (Conwell) Hoban, 35, illustrations by Garth Williams; Green Eggs and Ham by Dr. Seuss, who has won a $50 bet with publisher Bennett Cerf by writing a book with only 50 words; One Fish Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish by Dr. Seuss; Little Blue and Little Yellow by Dutch-born Fortune magazine art director Leo Lionni, 50, is the first of more than 30 children's books that Lionni will produce. In an effort to keep two grandchildren quiet on the train to his suburban Greenwich, Conn., home last year, Lionni took a copy of LIFE magazine from his briefcase, tore out small blue, green, and yellow circles from a page, made up a story about how "Little Blue" and "Little Yellow" hugged each other and became "Little Green." Noticing that other passengers had put down their newspapers and were listening, Lionni had "Little Green" go to the New York Stock Exchange, lose all his money, dissolve into yellow and blue tears, become "Little Blue" and "Little Yellow" once again, and recoup their money when their stock rises 12 points; The Cricket in Times Square by Hartford-born New York author George Selden (Thompson), 31, illustrations by Garth Williams; The Thinking Book by Birmingham, Ala.-born New York author Sandol Stoddard (Warburg), 32, illustrations by London-born New York designer Ivan Chermayeff, 28; Island of the Blue Dolphins by Los Angeles-born author Scott O'Dell (originally Odell Gabriel Scott), 62, who has worked as a Hollywood cameraman, edited and written for newspapers, had little success with his novels, but will have more than two dozen children's books published; Love Is a Special Way of Feeling by Joan Walsh Anglund; Now and at the Hour by Massachusetts journalist-author Robert E. Cormier, 35; Mystery of the Haunted Pool by Yokohama-born U.S. author Phyllis A. (Ayame) Whitney, 57; The Weirdstone of Brisingamen: A Tale of Alderley by English author Alan Garner, 26.
Painting: Door to the River by Willem de Kooning; Campbell's Soup Can (Tomato and Rice) and Dick Tracy by Andy Warhol; No. 14, 1960 by Mark Rothko; Block Island II by Ellsworth Kelly; Girl with Plant by Richard Diebenkorn; People in the Sun by Edward Hopper; The Plough by Georges Braque; The Postcard by René Magritte; Beta Lambda by Morris Louis; President Elect (oil on masonite) by South Dakota-born pop artist James Rosenquist, 26; Shoes Walking on My Brain by Cincinnati-born New York painter Jim Dine, 25, who affixes a pair of leather shoes to the forehead of a childlike painting of a face; Triple Self-Portrait by Norman Rockwell (cover illustration, Saturday Evening Post, February 13). Illustrator James Montgomery Flagg dies at New York May 27 at age 83.
The New York design firm Chermayeff & Geismar founded by Ivan Chermayeff and Glen Ridge, N.J.-born architect and graphic designer Thomas H. Geismar, both 28, will continue into the 21st century.
Sculpture: Bathtub by German artist Joseph Beuys, 39, who has covered the metal tub in which he was bathed as a child with sticking plaster and gauze soaked in fat (a Lüftwaffe pilot in 1943, Beuys was shot down over the Crimea and saved by Tatars, who wrapped him in fat to save his life); Walking Man (Homme qui marche) (bronze) by Albert Giacometti; Painted Bronze (Ale Cans) (oil on bronze) by Jasper Johns; Cassiopeia No. 3 by Joseph Cornell.
The Goto Art Museum opens at Tokyo and the Yamato Cultural Museum at Nara. Both have been designed by Tokyo-born architect Isoya Yoshida, 65, who concentrated on private residences and exclusive restaurants before the war, using handcrafted native woods, and has been applying traditional techniques to the design of grand public structures.
Polaroid introduces a new high-speed film with an ASA rating of 3,000—10 times faster than the average speed of previous Polaroid films (see 1950; color film, 1962).
Theater: Toys in the Attic by Lillian Hellman 2/25 at New York's Hudson Theater, with Maureen Stapleton, Jason Robards Jr., Irene Worth, 556 perfs.; The Room and Dumb Waiter by Harold Pinter 3/8 at London's Royal Court Theatre; The Best Man by Gore Vidal 3/31 at New York's Morosco Theater, with Melvyn Douglas, Lee Tracy, Frank Lovejoy, 520 perfs.; The Balcony (Le balcon) by Jean Genet 5/18 at the Théâtre du Gymnase, Paris; A Man for All Seasons by English playwright Robert (Oxdon) Bolt, 36, 9/1 at London's Globe Theatre; Period of Adjustment by Tennessee Williams 11/10 at New York's Helen Hayes Theater, with James Daly, Barbara Baxley, 132 perfs.; Advise and Consent by Loring Mandel (based on last year's Allen Drury novel) 11/17 at New York's Cort Theater, with Ed Begley, Richard Kiley, Chester Morris, Barnard Hughes, 212 perfs.; All the Way Home by Tad Mosel 11/30 at New York's Belasco Theater, with Canadian actress Colleen Dewhurst, 34, Arthur Hill, Aline MacMahon, Lillian Gish in a play based on the late James Agee's only novel, 334 perfs.
Margaret Sullavan dies at New Haven of an accidental sleeping-pill overdose January 1 at age 48; playwright-novelist-philosopher Albert Camus in a car accident near Sens, France, January 4 at age 56; playwright-lyricist Leon Gordon at Los Angeles January 4 at age 65; Yiddish Art Theater founder Maurice Schwartz of heart disease at Jerusalem May 10 at age 69; playwright Edwin Justus Mayer at New York September 11 at age 63; novelist-playwright Vicki Baum at Hollywood September 29 at age 72; Margaret Sullavan's daughter Bridget Hayward of a deliberate sleeping-pill overdose at New York October 8 at age 21; playwright Eden Phillpotts at Broadclyst, Devon, December 29 at age 98.
Back Stage begins publication from a small New York office in West 46th Street. New York-born Show Business advertising manager Ira Eaker, 38, has joined with Allen Zwerdling to start the theatrical newspaper that reports on forthcoming theater and film productions, reviews and previews for potential ticket buyers, and advice to actors on such matters as how to choose an agent. Eaker and Zwerdling will make their paper a must-read for actors seeking work and sell it to Billboard Publications in 1986.
Television: All Our Yesterdays on BBC with foreign correspondent James Cameron and documentary footage from newsreels of the same week 25 years ago (to 1973); talk-show host Jack Paar walks off the NBC Tonight Show set in tears February 11 after finding that the network's censors have removed a "water-closet" joke that he told the previous night because they thought it was in bad taste (see 1957). Along with interviews (guests who include Woody Allen, Carol Burnett, Richard Burton, Bill Cosby, Judy Garland, John F. Kennedy, Robert Kennedy, Jayne Mansfield, Bob Newhart, David Niven, and Jonathan Winters receive $320 each), jokes, and music, Paar has railed against former Cuban dictator Fulgencio Batista and praised Fidel Castro's revolution. Always emotional, he leaves the show for a month before resuming (see Carson, 1962); Danger Man 9/11 on Britain's ITV with U.S. actor Patrick McGoohan, 32; My Three Sons 9/29 on ABC with Fred MacMurray, William Frawley (who will be replaced by William Demarest; to 9/2/1966); The Flintstones 9/30 on ABC with Hanna-Barbera animation in a stone-age satire on U.S. suburban life, voice overs that include Alan Reed speaking for Fred Flintstone, Mel Blanc (to 9/2/1966; on NBC from 1/7/1967 to 9/5/1970); The Bugs Bunny Show (animated) 10/1 on ABC with the voices of Mel Blanc, Stan Freberg, and others, theme music by Jay Livingston and Mack David (to 9/25/1962); The Magic Land of Allakazam 10/1 (daytime) on CBS with magician-host Mark Wilson (to 9/22/1962); The Andy Griffith Show 10/3 on CBS with Griffith, now 34, as widower Andy Taylor, Ronny Howard, 6, as his son Opie, Don Knotts, 36, as Barney Fife, Elinor Donahue as Ellie Walker (to 9/16/68; 249 episodes); Coronation Street 12/8 on Britain's ITV with Violet Carson as Ena Sharples, Doris Speed as Annie Warvale, Arthur Leslie as Jack Walker in a 30-minute soap opera produced by Granada TV in Manchester featuring working-class people living on the same street in the industrial North and frequenting the same pub in a series that will continue for more than 40 years. Ventriloquist-puppeteer Shari Lewis, now 26, wins a Peabody Award for entertaining children.
Films: Billy Wilder's The Apartment with Jack Lemmon, Richmond, Va.-born actress Shirley MacLaine (Shirley Beatty), 26, Fred MacMurray, screenplay by I. A. L. Diamond; Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho with Janet Leigh, New York-born actor Anthony Perkins, 28; Fred Zinnemann's The Sundowners with Deborah Kerr, Robert Mitchum, Peter Ustinov; Ronald Neame's Tunes of Glory with Alec Guinness, John Mills. Also: Michelangelo Antonioni's L'Avventura with Monica Vitti (Monica Ceciarelli), 27; Federico Fellini's La Dolce Vita with Marcello Mastroianni, Swedish actress Anita Ekburg, 29, French actress Anouk Aimee (Françoise Sorya), 28 (script by Marguerite Duras); Richard Brooks's Elmer Gantry with Burt Lancaster, Jean Simmons; Tony Richardson's The Entertainer with Laurence Olivier; Roberto Rossellini's General Della Rovere with Vittorio De Sica, 59; Valerio Zurlini's Girl with a Suitcase with Claudia Cardinale, 21, Jacques Perrin; Alain Resnais's Hiroshima Mon Amour with Emmanuelle Riva, Eiji Okada (screenplay by Marguerite Duras); Roger Corman's House of Usher with Vincent Price; Stanley Kramer's Inherit the Wind with Spencer Tracy, Fredric March, Gene Kelly; Basil Dearden's The League of Gentlemen with Jack Hawkins, Nigel Patrick, Bryan Forbes, London-born actor Richard Attenborough, 37; Roger Corman's The Little Shop of Horrors with Jonathan Haze, Jackie Joseph; John Sturges's The Magnificent Seven with Yul Brynner, Indianapolis-born actor Steve McQueen, 30, Eli Wallach, German actor Horst Buchholz, 26, Nebraska-born actor James Coburn, 32, Pennsylvania-born actor Charles Bronson (Charles Buchinsky), 37; John and Faith Hubley's Moonbird (animated short); Jules Dassin's Never on Sunday with Melina (originally Maria Amalia) Mercouri, 34; Luchino Visconti's Rocco and His Brothers with Alain Delon, 24, Renato Salvatori, Claudia Cardinale; Karel Reisz's Saturday Night and Sunday Morning with Albert Finney, 24; Henry Hathaway's Seven Thieves with Edward G. Robinson, Rod Steiger, Joan Collins, Eli Wallach; Jack Cardiff's Sons and Lovers with Dean Stockwell, Trevor Howard, Wendy Hiller; Stanley Kubrick's Spartacus with Kirk Douglas, Laurence Olivier; Ken Annakin's The Swiss Family Robinson with John Mills, Dorothy McGuire, Sessue Hayakawa.
The Writers Guild of America ends a bitter strike against Hollywood studios by negotiating a contract which for the first time gives screenwriters residuals but only on films that appear this year and in the future.
Actor-director Victor Sjöström dies of cancer at Stockholm January 3 at age 80; director Frank Lloyd of heart and lung ailments at Santa Monica August 10 at age 73; director Alfred E. Green at Los Angeles September 4 at age 71; motion picture pioneer Mack Sennett following kidney surgery at Woodland Hills, Calif., November 5 at age 80; actor Ward Bond of a heart attack at Dallas November 5 at age 57; Clark Gable of a heart attack at Hollywood November 16 at age 59.
Stage musicals: Fings Ain't Wot They Used t'Be 2/4 at London's Garrick Theatre, with music and lyrics by Lionel Bart, 886 perfs.; Bye Bye Birdie 4/14 at New York's Martin Beck Theater, with Dick Van Dyke, Chita Rivera, Kay Medford, Tulsa, Olkla.-born singer Susan (originally Elizabeth) Watson, 21, music and lyrics by Charles Strouse and Lee Adams, songs that include "One Boy" and "Put on a Happy Face," 607 perfs.; The Fantasticks 5/3 at New York's 153-seat off-Broadway Sullivan Street Playhouse, with Bronx-born baritone Jerome Bernard "Jerry" Orbach, 24, music by Harvey Schmidt, lyrics by Tom Jones, songs that include "Try to Remember," 17,162 perfs. (to 1/13/2002); Oliver 6/30 at London's New Theatre, with Keith Hamshere as Oliver, music and lyrics by Lionel Bart, book based on the 1837 Charles Dickens novel, songs that include "Food, Glorious Food," "Consider Yourself," "You've Got to Pick a Pocket or Two," "As Long as He Needs Me," "I'd Do Anything," "Who Will Buy," "Reviewing the Situation," 2,618 perfs.; Tenderloin 10/17 at New York's 46th Street Theater, with Maurice Evans as the 1890s New York clergyman-reformer Charles H. Parkhurst, Barbara Harris, book by George Abbott and Jerome Weidman based on a work by Samuel Hopkins Adams, music by Jerry Bock, lyrics by Sheldon Harnick, songs that include "How the Money Changes Hands," "Little Old New York," "The Picture of Happiness," 217 perfs; The Unsinkable Molly Brown 11/3 at New York's Winter Garden Theater, with Lynn, Mass.-born actress Tammy (Lee) Grimes, 24, as the Titanic heroine (see transportation, 1912), choreography by Peter Gennaro, music and lyrics by Meredith Willson, songs that include "I Ain't Down Yet" and "Belly Up to the Bar, Boys," 532 perfs.; Camelot 12/3 at New York's Majestic Theater, with Richard Burton, Julie Andrews, Robert Goulet, Roddy McDowell, Inga Swenson, music by Frederick Loewe, lyrics by Alan Jay Lerner, songs that include "If Ever I Would Leave You," the title song, 873 perfs. (the new musical is based on Arthurian legend, President-elect Kennedy attends a performance, and his administration will be identified with the romance of Camelot); Wildcat 12/11 at New York's Alvin Theater, with Lucille Ball, Keith Andes, music by New York-born pianist-composer Cy Coleman (originally Seymour Kaufman), 31, lyrics by Carolyn Leigh, songs that include "Hey, Look Me Over," 171 perfs.; Do Re Mi 12/26 at New York's St. James Theater, with Phil Silvers, Nancy Walker, music by Jule Styne, lyrics by Betty Comden and Adolph Green, book by Garson Kanin, 400 perfs.
Comedian Bobby Clark dies at New York February 12 at age 71; Broadway composer Harry Archer at New York April 23 at age 74; Oscar Hammerstein II of stomach cancer at Doylestown, Pa., August 23 at age 65.
Opera: Canadian tenor Jon (originally Jonathan Stewart) Vickers, 33, makes his Metropolitan Opera debut 1/17 singing the role of Canio in the 1892 Leoncavallo opera Pagliacci; A Midsummer Night's Dream 6/11 at Aldeburgh's Jubilee Hall, with Peter Pears as Flute, music by Benjamin Britten, libretto from the 1595 Shakespeare comedy. Spanish soprano Montserrat Caballé, 27, makes her debut at La Scala as a flower girl in the 1882 Wagner opera Parsifal; Teresa Berganza her Covent Garden debut singing the role of Rosina in the 1816 Rossini opera Il Barbiere di Siviglia; St. Louis-born contralto-soprano Grace Melzia Bumbry, 23, her debut in a guest appearance at the Paris Opéra in the role of Almirez in the 1871 Verdi opera Aïda (she was a joint winner with Martina Arroyo, now 24, at the Metropolitan Opera auditions 2 years ago); Canadian soprano Teresa Stratas, 22, makes her Metropolitan Opera debut after having won last year's Met auditions; New York-born soprano Patricia Brooks, 22, makes her New York City Opera debut 10/12 as Marianne in the 1909 Strauss opera Der Rosenkavalier and soon graduates to the role of Sophie; Willimantic, Conn.-born soprano Eileen Farrell, 40, makes her Metropolitan Opera debut 12/6 singing the title role in Gluck's opera Alcestis (she has sung on radio and in films since 1940, made her operatic debut 4 years ago at Tampa, Fla., and has been singing with the Chicago and San Francisco opera companies); German baritone Hermann Prey, now 31, makes his Metropolitan Opera debut 12/16 singing the role of Wolfram von Eschenbach in the 1845 Wagner opera Tannhäuser.
Baritone Leonard Warren collapses on the stage of the Metropolitan Opera House March 4 while singing the aria "Urna fatale dal mino destino" as Don Carlo in the 1862 Verdi opera La Forza del Destino and dies offstage of a cerebral hemorrhage at age 48; soprano Lucrezia Bori dies of a cerebral hemorrhage at New York May 14 at age 72; tenor Jussi Björling of heart disease at Siarō, near Stockholm, September 9 at age 49.
Cantata: Carmen Baseliense, Cantata Academics by Benjamin Britten 7/1 at Basel University, for the university's 500th anniversary.
Ballerina Ida Rubinstein dies at Vence, France, September 20 at age 75.
Oratorio: The Manger (El Pesebrio) by Spanish cellist Pablo Casals, now nearly 84, 12/17 at Acapulco.
First performances: Symphony No. 4 by Roger Sessions 1/2 at Minneapolis; Lincoln, The Great Commoner by the late Charles Ives (who wrote it in 1912) 2/10 at New York's Carnegie Hall; Music for Amplified Toy Pianos by John Cage 2/25 at Wesleyan University, Middletown, Conn.; Sinfonietta in E major by Paul Hindemith 3/1 at Louisville; Symphony No. 9 by Darius Milhaud 3/29 at Fort Lauderdale, Fla.; San Francisco Suite by Ferde Grofé 4/23 at San Francisco; Missa pro Defunctis by Virgil Thomson 5/14 at Pottstown, N.Y.: Symphony No. 2 by Sir William Walton 9/2 at Edinburgh; Tocata Festive by Samuel Barber 9/30 at Philadelphia's Academy of Music; Dimensions of Time and Silence for chorus and instruments by Krzysztof Penderecki 9/18 at the Warsaw Autumn Festival; Concerto No. 2 for Violin and Orchestra by Walter Piston 10/14 at Pittsburgh; Symphony No. 7 by William Schuman 10/21 at Boston's Symphony Hall; Concerto No. 2 for Violin and Orchestra by Paul Creston 11/12 at Los Angeles; Piano e Forte by Elisabeth Lutyens at London's Wigmore Hall.
Havana-born singer Celia Cruz, 34, decides not to return to Cuba (she has been touring in Mexico) and will move next year to New York, where she will add Puerto Rican and Dominican elements to her music. Wearing tight, glittering dresses and towering wigs, dancing in high heels, and punctuating her delivery with shouts of "Azucar!" ("Sugar!"), the petite, raspy-voiced Cruz will gain renown as the queen of Latin music (see 1961).
Popular songs: "Take Five" by Dave Brubeck, now 39, and other members of his group, notably alto saxophonist Paul Desmond. Written in five-four time, the 45 rpm single sells out almost immediately and will survive as the best-selling jazz classic ever; Albany, Ga.-born pianist-singer Ray Charles (originally Ray Charles Robinson), 29, records the 1930 Hoagy Carmichael classic "Georgia on My Mind" and creates a sensation. Completely blind since age 7, Charles learned to write music in Braille, left school at age 15 after his mother died, moved to Seattle 3 years later, became a heroin addict (he will not kick the habit until 1965), recorded his first single in 1949, and has another hit with his recording of "Let the Good Times Roll"; "The Twist" by Hank Ballard is recorded by Ernest "Chubby Checker" Evans, 19, and launches an international dance craze. Checker performs at the small Peppermint Lounge bar off New York's Times Square, he moves on to the Copacabana night club, and discothèques blossom to cash in on the new teenage dance sensation, with patrons dancing to phonograph records; "Only the Lonely" by Texas songwriter Roy Orbison, 24, with Joe Melson; "Shop Around" by Detroit-born tenor-songwriter William "Smokey" Robinson, 20, who began writing for Berry Gordy while still in high school, has learned from Gordy, and 5 years ago formed The Miracles, a group that will help Motown Corp. gain success; "The Battle of New Orleans" by Arkansas-born folksinger-songwriter Jimmy Driftwood (James Corbett Morris), now 53, whose song is recorded by Johnny Horton and becomes a smash hit; Live at Newport (album) by Muddy Waters; "Never on Sunday (The Children of Piraeus)" by Greek songwriter Manos Hadjidakis, 35 (title song for film); "The Second Time Around" by Sammy Cahn, lyrics by Jimmy Van Heusen; "Itsy Bitsy Teenie Weenie Yellow Polka Dot Bikini" by Lee Pockriss and Paul Vance; "Cathy's Clown" by Don Everly and his brother Phil; "Green Fields" by Terry Gilkyson, Richard Dehr, and Frank Miller; "Teen Angel" by Mark Dinning is about a girl who is hit by a train while trying to retrieve her high-school ring from a car stalled on the tracks; "Tell Laura I Love Her" by Ray Peterson is about a boy killed in a stock-car race that he entered to raise money for a wedding ring; "The Faraway Part of Town" by Hollywood songwriter Dory Previn (née Langdon), 25, and her husband, André.
Tennessee choir singer Tina Turner (originally Annie Mae Bullock), 21, records "A Fool in Love" and has her first big rhythm-and-blues success; gospel singer-songwriter Margaret Allison has another big hit at age 46 with "My Sweet Home;" West Virginia-born country music singer Loretta Lynn (née Webb), 25, records "Honky Tonk Girl," makes her first guest appearance on Grand Ole Opry, and soon becomes an Opry regular.
The first Tower Records store opens at Sacramento, Calif., where merchant Russell Solomon, 35, began selling 78 rpm shellac records from his father's drugstore in 1941 and now begins a retail chain that will open its first East Coast store (in New York's Greenwich Village) in 1983 and grow in 40 years to have 250 company-owned and franchised stores, making it the largest such enterprise in America.
Jazz bassist Oscar Pettiford dies at Copenhagen September 8 at age 37; folk singer A. P. Carter of the Carter Family in Kentucky November 7 at age 69.
National Football League (NFL) owners meeting at Miami Beach end a 9-day deadlock January 26 by electing Los Angeles Rams general manager Alvin Ray "Pete" Rozelle, 33, to succeed the late Bert Bell as commissioner. Rozelle moves NFL headquarters from Philadelphia to New York, petitions Congress to legalize single-network television contracts for professional sports leagues, and begins a 29-year career (see 1963; CBS contract, 1961).
The New England Patriots professional football team is founded by entrepreneur William "Billy" Hallissey Sullivan Jr., 44, as a charter franchise of the incipient American Football League (AFL) (see 1959). Other startup teams in the league include the Denver Broncos (who will not have a winning season until 1973).
The Dallas Cowboys professional football team plays its first season. Coached by Texas-born former New York Giants coach Thomas Wade "Tom" Landry, 36, it loses 11 of its 12 games (the 12th ends in a tie), and will have losing seasons through 1964, after which it will have 20 consecutive winning seasons.
Floyd Patterson regains the world heavyweight boxing championship June 20 by knocking out Sweden's Ingemar Johansson in the fifth round of a title bout at New York.
Former Wimbledon champion Dorothea Lambert Chambers dies at London January 7 at age 81.
Neale Fraser wins in men's singles at Wimbledon and Forest Hills, Maria Bueno in women's singles at Wimbledon, Darlene Hard, 24, at Forest Hills.
The summer Olympic Games at Rome attract 5,396 contestants from 84 countries. Soviet athletes repeat their triumph of 1956. Clarksville, Tenn.-born sprinter Wilma (Glodean) Rudolph, 20, wins the 100-meter and 200-meter events, going on to run the anchor leg for the 4 x 100 relay team and becoming the first American woman to win three track-and-field gold medals in a single Olympiad (the 20th of 22 children, Rudolph was stricken with polio at age 4 and paralyzed in the left leg; she began physical therapy at age 6, traveling 50 miles by bus twice a week to Nashville with her mother, always sitting in the back because she was black, and in 5 years could walk without a leg brace. She is now called "the fastest woman on earth"). Queens, N.Y., figure skater Carol Heiss, 20, has won her event in the winter Olympics at Squaw Valley, Calif. (and gone on to win her fifth straight world title March 4 at Vancouver, B.C.).
Golfer Arnold Palmer wins the U.S. Open at Denver's Cherry Hills Country Club and wins his second Masters Tournament title.
The Pittsburgh Pirates win the World Series, defeating the New York Yankees 4 games to 3.
World chess champion Mikhail Botvinnik loses the title for the second time May 10, having held it from 1948 to 1957 and again from 1958 until now. The new champion is Latvian chess master Mikhail Nekhemyevich Tal, 23, who will hold the title for just over a year.
The Stardust hotel-casino at Las Vegas imports the Lido de Paris show to attract patrons (see Dunes, 1957). Unlike their counterparts at the Dunes, the women wear no pasties over their nipples in the new show, and it will run for 30 years.
Cotton fiber's share of the U.S. textile market falls to 44 percent, down from 80.5 percent in 1950, while man-made fabrics increase their share to 28 percent with polyesters commanding 11 percent of the market (see 1970).
Paris couturier Pierre Cardin signs his first menswear license (see 1957). He started a "design label" revolution last year by signing the first women's ready-to-wear license, his Cardin-label menswear will start a "peacock revolution"; he will begin making dresses of synthetic fabrics in 1968 and in 1970 will begin licensing use of his name for aircraft, automobiles, chocolates, furniture, and other products.
Shoe designer Salvatore Ferragamo dies at Finnetto, Italy, August 7 at age 62. His widow, Wanda, takes over the firm with help from her sons Ferruccio and Massimo. Her daughter Giovanna will start a women's ready-to-wear department, and her 19-year-old daughter Fiamma takes over the design department at Florence. Fiamma will show her first collection next year and will achieve international success with her women's shoes before her death in 1998.
The Etch A Sketch toy introduced in time for Christmas by the Ohio Art Co. of Bryan, Ohio, is based on The Magic Screen (L'Ecran Magique) shown in Nuremberg at last year's International Toy Exhibition by French inventor Arthur Granjean, who built the prototype in his basement. Its bright red 9½-inch square frame holds a glass screen whose back is coated with a mixture of aluminum powder and tiny plastic beads. A stylus controlled by two knobs moves horizontally and vertically through the powder, leaving behind a black trail on the screen, which is cleared simply by shaking the device. More than 100 million of the toys will be sold by the end of the century.
Brooklyn, N.Y., Mafia leaders Albert and Lawrence Gallo revolt from the Joseph Profaci organization and force Profaci to share more income with them.
Colorado brewing heir Adolph Coors III is carjacked en route to work and shot dead February 8 at age 44 by a would-be kidnapper. His body is found in September and police then arrest a 31-year-old Seattle-born prison escapee who will serve 17 years for the crime.
Former FBI special agent Melvin Purvis dies by his own hand at his Florence, S.C., home February 29, shooting himself in the jaw with his automatic at age 56.
Convicted kidnapper-rapist Caryl (originally Carol) Whittier Chessman dies in the gas chamber at San Quentin May 2 at age 38 after nine stays of execution since he was sent to Death Row July 3, 1948. He was arrested that year and convicted on 17 counts of robbery, kidnapping, sexual abuse, and attempted rape after a 3-day crime spree in lovers'-lane areas around Los Angeles.
Brasília becomes Brazil's federal capital by order of President Kubitshek. The new city in the uplands occupies a site that 3 years ago had only three non-Indian inhabitants, architect Lucio Costa, 58, has laid it out, Oscar Niemeyer has designed its buildings, and in 6 years it will have a population of 200,000, including 90,000 civil servants.
Boston's mayor John F. Collins invites urban planning expert Edward J. Logue, 38, to create and administer an ambitious program for the onetime "hub of the universe." Logue has masterminded a pioneering urban renewal program in New Haven, Conn., and in the next few years will transform shabby Scollay Square into Government Center, revitalize Roxbury, and modernize other parts of Boston, using somewhat ruthless measures that employ the powers of eminent domain to override local zoning and building codes, relocating residents without giving them any voice in the planning.
The Four Seasons hotel chain started by Canadian entrepreneur Isadore Sharp, 28, will grow in 34 years to operate 45 luxury hotels worldwide, some of them with outstanding chefs and restaurants.
An earthquake at shallow depth just under Agadir, Morocco, February 29 registers only 5.9 on the Richter scale but kills between 10,000 and 15,000; a quake near Concepción, Chile, May 22 registers 9.5 on the Richter scale and creates seismic waves (tsunamis) that shatter every coastal town between the 36th and 44th parallels. Traveling 442 miles per hour, the waves reach Hilo, Hawaii, after midnight and move on to Japan. The death toll is 4,000 to 5,000.
Aluminum cans are used commercially for the first time for food and beverages and will come to be the single largest use of aluminum. The cans are not biodegradable (tin-plated steel cans rust in time) and present environmental issues of litter; 95 percent of U.S. soft drinks and 50 percent of beer is sold in returnable bottles typically used 40 to 50 times each (half of all beer is still sold by the glass) (see food and drink, <a href="/topic/1962" class="ilnk" target="_top" on