Explore 5816 historical events from 1960–1969.
Kosmos 5, also known as 2MS #2 and occasionally in the West as Sputnik 15 was a scientific research and technology demonstration satellite launched by the Soviet Union in 1962. It …
The Soviet Kosmos 5 satellite is launched
Air France Flight 117 was a multi-leg international scheduled flight from Paris-Orly Airport via Lisbon, the Azores, Guadeloupe and Peru to Santiago, Chile, which crashed on 22 Jun…
Air France Flight 117 crashes on approach to Pointe-à-Pitre International Airport in Guadeloupe, killing 112 people
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration is an independent agency of the U.S. federal government responsible for the United States' civil space program and for research in…
NASA's Ranger 4 spacecraft crashes into the Moon
Independence Day, observed annually on 5 July, is a National Holiday in Algeria commemorating colonial Algerian independence from France on 5 July 1962.
The official independence of Algeria is proclaimed after an eight-year-long war with France.
Alitalia Flight 771 was a multi-leg Douglas DC-8-43 international scheduled flight from Sydney via Darwin, Bangkok, Bombay, Karachi, and Tehran to Rome with 94 on board. On 7 July …
Alitalia Flight 771 crashes in Junnar, Maharashtra, India, killing 94 people.
Marvel Comics is an American comic book publisher, a property of the Walt Disney Company since December 31, 2009, and a subsidiary of Disney Publishing Worldwide since March 2023. …
Marvel Comics publishes the first issue of The Incredible Hulk
John Fitzgerald Kennedy, also known as JFK, was the 35th president of the United States, serving from 1961 until his assassination in 1963. He was the youngest person elected presi…
A birthday salute to U
Continental Airlines Flight 11, registration N70775, was a Boeing 707 aircraft which exploded in the vicinity of Centerville, Iowa, United States, while en route from O'Hare Airpor…
Continental Airlines Flight 11 crashes in Unionville, Missouri after bombs explode on board, killing 45
Project Mercury was the first human spaceflight program of the United States, running from 1958 through 1963. An early highlight of the Space Race, its goal was to put a man into E…
Project Mercury: American astronaut Scott Carpenter orbits the Earth three times in the Aurora 7 space capsule
The Centralia mine fire is a coal-seam fire that has been burning in the labyrinth of abandoned coal mines underneath the borough of Centralia, Pennsylvania, United States, since a…
The Centralia mine fire is ignited in the town's landfill above a coal mine
Ne Win was a Burmese general and politician who served as Burma's head of government from 1958 to 1960 and again from 1962 to 1974; and also as head of state from 1962 to 1981. Ne …
Ne Win besieges and blows up the Rangoon University Student Union building to crush the Student Movement.
Starfish Prime was a high-altitude nuclear test conducted by the United States, a joint effort of the Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) and the Defense Atomic Support Agency. It was l…
Starfish Prime tests the effects of a nuclear explosion at orbital altitudes.
Satellite television is a service that delivers television programming to viewers by relaying it from a communications satellite orbiting the Earth directly to the viewer's locatio…
First transatlantic satellite television transmission.
The Yi–Ta incident was a mass exodus of people from China to the Soviet Union in early 1962. At least 60,000 Chinese citizens migrated to the Soviet Union by crossing the border be…
Chinese police open fire on protesters in Yining, Xinjiang, killing at least five people and wounding a dozen others
The West Indies Federation, also known as the West Indies, the Federation of the West Indies or the West Indian Federation, was a short-lived political union that existed from 3 Ja…
The West Indies Federation dissolves
Otto Adolf Eichmann was a German-Austrian official of the Nazi Party, an officer of the Schutzstaffel (SS), a convicted war criminal, and one of the major organizers of the Holocau…
Adolf Eichmann, former SS officer in Nazi Germany, is hanged in Israel for having committed crimes against humanity, war
The 1962 FIFA World Cup was the seventh edition of the FIFA World Cup, the quadrennial international football championship for senior men's national teams. It was held from 30 May …
During the FIFA World Cup, police had to intervene multiple times in fights between Chilean and Italian players in one o
The International Agreement on the Neutrality of Laos was an international agreement signed in Geneva on July 23, 1962, between 14 states, including Laos, as a result of the Intern…
The International Agreement on the Neutrality of Laos is signed.
The 8th World Festival of Youth and Students (WFYS) was held in 1962 in Helsinki, capital city of Finland.
Beginning of the 8th World Festival of Youth and Students.
Marilyn Monroe was an American actress and model. Known for playing comic "Blonde bombshell" characters, she became one of the most popular sex symbols of the 1950s and early 1960s…
American actress Marilyn Monroe is found dead at her home from a drug overdose.
James Joseph Dresnok was an American defector to North Korea, one of seven U.S. soldiers to defect after the Korean War.
James Joseph Dresnok defects to North Korea after running across the Korean Demilitarized Zone. Dresnok died in 2016.
Paris Orly Airport is one of two international airports serving Paris, France, the other one being Charles de Gaulle Airport (CDG). It is located partially in Orly and partially in…
At Paris Orly Airport, Air France Flight 007 overruns the runway and explodes when the crew attempts to abort takeoff, k
The Organisation armée secrète was a far-right dissident French paramilitary organisation during the Algerian War, founded in 1961 by Raoul Salan, Pierre Lagaillarde and Jean-Jacqu…
The Organisation Armée Secrète (OAS) sets fire to the University of Algiers library building, destroying about 500,000 b
On the night of June 11, 1962, inmates Frank Morris and brothers John and Clarence Anglin escaped from Alcatraz Federal Penitentiary, the maximum-security prison on Alcatraz Island…
Frank Morris, John Anglin and Clarence Anglin allegedly become the only prisoners to escape from the prison on Alcatraz