Timeline -
1960-1969
1960
- January - An agreement was signed by the USA and Holland to station nuclear weapons in Holland, including Honest John and Nike missiles, plus nuclear capable F-104G Starfighters.
- 2nd January - John F. Kennedy announced his intention to run for the United States presidency in November.
- 10th January - British prime minister Harold MacMillan delivered his first "Winds of Change" speech in Accra. His speech hinted at a move towards de-colonisation of British possessions in Africa. He repeated fundamentally the same speech in Capetown, South Africa on the 3rd February.
- 19th January - The United States and Japan signed a Treaty of Mutual Cooperation and Security, a defence treaty allowing the US to maintain military bases in Japan.
- 1st February - Harold MacMillan delivered his second "Wind of Change" speech in Capetown, South Africa.
- 11th February - Skirmishes on the Chinese-Indian border caused the deaths of 12 Indian soldiers.
- 13th February - France became the world's fifth nuclear power, after testing its first nuclear weapon, code-named "Gerboise Bleue" (Blue Desert Rat), in northern Africa.
- 17th March - US president Dwight Eisenhower endorsed a CIA plan to overthrow the Castro regime in Cuba by supporting an invasion by Cuban exiles. This gave rise to the Bay of Pigs invasion in April 1961.
- April - The US deployed Jupiter missiles in Italy and Turkey. These missile bases gave the US the ability to launch a short-range nuclear strike on the Soviet Union.
- 25th April - South Korean leader Syngman Rhee was forced out of office and replaced by a democratic government.
- 1st May - Soviet ground defences shot down a U2 spy-plane and detained its US pilot, Capt. Francis Gary Powers. Five days later Soviet leaders unveiled evidence of American spying, embarrassing the US and sparking an international incident.
- 7th May - After previously claiming that Powers' U-2 was collecting weather information, the US government finally admitted that it was on a surveillance mission.
- 16th May - Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev demanded an American apology for the U2 incident (above). This led to the abandonment of a planned US-Soviet summit in Paris.
- June - Sino-Soviet split - The Chinese leadership, angered at being treated as the "junior partner" to the Soviet Union, declared its version of Communism superior and begin to compete with the Soviets for influence, thus adding a third dimension to the Cold War.
- 1st July - A Soviet fighter jet shot down an American RB47H ELINT reconnaissance aircraft over the Barents Sea. Four American crewmen were killed and two others taken prisoner by the Soviets.
- 28th July - Richard Nixon was affirmed as the Republican candidate for the US presidential election in November.
- 31st July - British and Commonwealth forces defeated communist guerrillas in Malaya.
- 6th August - Cuban leader Fidel Castro ordered the nationalisation of all American-owned property.
- 9th August - A Pathet Lao (communist) revolt in Laos began.
- 12th October - While addressing the United Nations, Nikita Khrushchev became agitated and threw a tantrum at criticisms of Soviet policies in eastern European.
- 19th October - The US placed a partial embargo on Cuba, banning the export of all items except food and medicine.
- 8th November - John F. Kennedy was elected US president, defeating Richard Nixon in one of the closest presidential elections in American history.
- 20th December - The National Liberation Front, a nationalist-communist insurgency, was formed in South Vietnam. The West came to know the NLF as the Viet Cong.
