Federal government

• President: Dwight D. Eisenhower (R-Kansas/Pennsylvania)
• Vice President: Richard Nixon (R-California)
• Chief Justice: Earl Warren (California)
• Speaker of the House of Representatives: Sam Rayburn (D-Texas)
• Senate Majority Leader: Lyndon B. Johnson (D-Texas)
• Congress: 86th

January

• January 2 – U.S. Senator John F. Kennedy (D-MA) announces his candidacy for the Democratic presidential nomination.
• January 19 – The Treaty of Mutual Cooperation and Security between the United States and Japan is signed in Washington, D.C.
• January 23 – Jacques Piccard and Don Walsh descend into the Mariana Trench in the bathyscaphe Trieste, reaching the depth of 10,916 meters.
• January 25 – In Washington, D.C., the National Association of Broadcasters reacts to the payola scandal by threatening fines for any disc jockeys accepting money for playing particular records.

A section of lunch counter from the Greensboro, North Carolina Woolworth's where the Greensboro sit-ins began on February 1 preserved in the Smithsonian Institution National Museum of American History

• January 28 – The National Football League announces expansion teams for Dallas to start in the 1960 NFL season, and Minneapolis–St. Paul for the 1961 NFL season.

February

• February 1 – Greensboro sit-ins: In Greensboro, North Carolina, four black students from North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University begin a sit-in at a segregated Woolworth's lunch counter. Although they are refused service, they are allowed to stay at the counter. The event triggers many similar nonviolent protests throughout the Southern United States, and six months later, the original four protesters are served lunch at the same counter.
• February 9
  • Adolph Coors III, the chairman of the board of the Coors Brewing Company, is kidnapped in the United States, and his captors demand a ransom of $500,000. Coors is later found murdered, and Joseph Corbett Jr. is indicted for the crime.
  • Joanne Woodward receives the first star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
• February 11 – The airship ZPG-3W is destroyed in a storm in Massachusetts.
• February 13 – Nashville sit-ins begin.
• February 18 – The 1960 Winter Olympics open in Squaw Valley, Placer County, California.
• February 29 – The first Playboy Club opens in Chicago.

March

• March 3 – Elvis Presley returns home from Germany to the United States, after being away on military duty for 2 years.
• March 5 – Elvis Presley receives his honorable discharge from the U.S. Army.
• March 6 – Vietnam War: The United States announces that 3,500 American soldiers will be sent to Vietnam.
• March 17 – Northwest Airlines Flight 710 crashes near Tell City, Indiana, killing all 61 on board.
• March 22 – Arthur Leonard Schawlow and Charles Hard Townes receive the first patent for a laser.
• March 28 – Director Stanley Kramer receives the first star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.^[1]

April

• April 4
  • The 32nd Academy Awards ceremony, hosted by Bob Hope, is held at RKO Pantages Theatre in Hollywood. William Wyler's Ben-Hur wins eleven awards (breaking the record set by Gigi the previous year), including Best Motion Picture and Wyler's third Best Director win (his first since 1946). The film also receives the most nominations with 12.
  • Elvis Presley's song "Are You Lonesome Tonight?" is recorded for the first time.
• April 13 – The United States launches navigation satellite Transit I-b.
• April 17 – Russwood Park, a baseball stadium in Memphis, Tennessee, burns to the ground shortly after a Chicago White Sox versus Cleveland Indians game.

May

• May 1 – A Soviet missile shoots down an American Lockheed U-2 spy plane; the pilot Gary Powers is captured.
• May 3 – The Fantasticks, the world's longest-running musical, opens at New York City's Sullivan Street Playhouse, where it will play for 42 years.
• May 4 – A. J. Liebling promulgates Liebling's Law in The New Yorker Magazine: "Freedom of the press is guaranteed only to those who own one."
• May 6 – President Dwight Eisenhower signs the Civil Rights Act of 1960 into law.
• May 9 – The U.S. Food and Drug Administration announces that it will approve birth control as an additional indication for Searle's Enovid, making it the world's first approved oral contraceptive pill.
• May 10 – The nuclear submarine USS Triton, under the command of Captain Edward L. Beach Jr., completes the first underwater circumnavigation of the Earth.
• May 16
  • Theodore Maiman operates the first laser.
  • Nikita Khrushchev demands an apology from U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower for U-2 spy plane flights over the Soviet Union, thus ending the 1960 Paris summit.
• May 20 – In Japan, police carry away Socialist members of the Diet who are protesting the Treaty of Mutual Cooperation and Security between the United States and Japan; the Japanese House of Representatives then approves the treaty.

June

• June 7 – U.S. Senator John F. Kennedy wins the California Democratic primary.
• June 16 – Psychological horror film Psycho is released, directed by Alfred Hitchcock.
• June 22 – The United States Naval Research Laboratory SOLRAD 1 Galactic Radiation and Background program satellite is successfully launched by a Thor-Ablestar rocket (along with navigation satellite Transit 2A), serving as the first successful U.S. reconnaissance satellite over the Soviet Union and returning the first real-time X-ray and ultraviolet observations of the Sun.
• June 23 – Little Missouri National Grassland is established.
• June 29 – Bhumibol Adulyadej becomes the first Thai monarch to address the United States Congress.

July

July 4: The 50-star U.S. flag is adopted

• July 1 – A Soviet MiG fighter north of Murmansk in the Barents Sea shoots down a 6-man RB-47. Two United States Air Force officers survive and are imprisoned in Moscow's dreaded Lubyanka prison.
• July 4 – Following the admission of Hawaii as the 50th U.S. state the previous year, the 50-star flag of the United States debuts in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
• July 11 – Harper Lee releases her critically acclaimed novel To Kill a Mockingbird.
• July 13 – U.S. Senator John F. Kennedy is nominated for president at the Democratic National Convention in Los Angeles, California.
• July 21 – Francis Chichester, English navigator and yachtsman, arrives in New York aboard Gypsy Moth II, having made a record solo Atlantic crossing in 40 days.
• July 25 – The Woolworth's counter in Greensboro, North Carolina, the subject of a sit-in which sparked sit-ins and pickets across the southern United States in February 1960, serves its first black customer.
• July 25–28 – In Chicago, the Republican National Convention nominates U.S. Vice President Richard M. Nixon for president and Henry Cabot Lodge Jr. for vice president.

August

• August 6 – Cuban Revolution: In response to a United States embargo against Cuba, Fidel Castro nationalizes American and foreign-owned property in the nation.
• August 16 – Joseph Kittinger parachutes from a balloon over New Mexico at 102,800 feet (31,300 m). He sets world records for: high-altitude jump; free-fall by falling 16 miles (26 km) before opening his parachute; and fastest speed by a human without motorized assistance, 982 km/h (614 mi/h). These records would stand unbeaten for over 60 years.
• August 17 – The trial of U-2 pilot Francis Gary Powers begins in Moscow.
• August 18 – United States president Dwight Eisenhower is briefed on the Congo crisis at a meeting with the U.S. National Security Council, and asks whether the U.S. "can't get rid of this guy" (Patrice Lumumba).^[2]
• August 19 – Cold War: In Moscow, downed American U-2 pilot Francis Gary Powers is sentenced to 10 years imprisonment by the Soviet Union for espionage.
• August 25 – The USS Seadragon surfaces at the North Pole, where the crew plays softball.
• August 29 – Hurricane Donna kills 50 in Florida and New England.

September

September 26: The first televised U.S. presidential election debate

• September 1 – Disgruntled railroad workers effectively halt operations of the Pennsylvania Railroad, marking the first shutdown in the company's history (the event lasts two days).
• September 5 – 1960 Summer Olympics: Cassius Clay wins the gold medal in boxing.
• September 8 – In Huntsville, Alabama, U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower formally dedicates the Marshall Space Flight Center (activated by NASA on July 1).
• September 26 – The two leading U.S. presidential candidates, Richard Nixon and John F. Kennedy, participate in the first televised presidential election debate.
• September 30 – Animated sitcom The Flintstones airs its first episode on the ABC network in the United States, becoming Hanna-Barbera’s first television series episode lasting half an hour.

October

• October 7 – Frank McGee hosts the second presidential debate.
• October 12 – John F. Kennedy speaks before the Ministerial Association of Houston, Texas, saying, in part, "I believe in an America where the separation of church and state is absolute; where no Catholic prelate would tell the American President, should he be Catholic, how to act; and where no Protestant minister would tell his parishioners for whom to vote."
• October 13
  • The third John F. Kennedy – Richard M. Nixon presidential debate takes place.^[3]
  • The Pittsburgh Pirates defeat the New York Yankees in the seventh game of the World Series in baseball on Bill Mazeroski's walk-off home run.
• October 14 – U.S. presidential candidate John F. Kennedy first suggests the idea for the Peace Corps.
• October 21 – Quincy Howe hosts the final debate of the 1960 election.
• October 26 – Robert F. Kennedy calls Coretta Scott King, wife of Martin Luther King Jr., and secures her husband's release from jail on a traffic violation in Atlanta, Georgia.
• October 29
  • In Louisville, Kentucky, Cassius Clay (later Muhammad Ali) wins his first professional fight.
  • California Polytechnic State University football team plane crash: A Curtiss C-46 carrying the Cal Poly Mustangs football team crashes during takeoff from Toledo Express Airport in Ohio, resulting in 22 deaths.

November

USS Oklahoma City (CLG-5) steams under Golden Gate Bridge, 16 November 1960.

• November 8 – 1960 United States presidential election: In a close race, Democratic U. S. Senator John F. Kennedy is elected over Republican U.S. Vice President Richard M. Nixon, becoming (at 43) the youngest man elected president.
• November 13 – Sammy Davis Jr. marries Swedish actress May Britt.
• November 14 – New Orleans school desegregation crisis: Ruby Bridges and the McDonogh Three become the first black children to attend an all-white elementary school in Louisiana.
• November 15 – The Polaris missile is test-launched.
• November 24 – Basketball player Wilt Chamberlain grabs 55 rebounds in a single game, the all-time record in the NBA.

December

The Texas Zephyr in Dallas, December 26

• December 2 – U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower authorizes the use of $1 million for the relief and resettlement of Cuban refugees, who have been arriving in Florida at the rate of 1,000 a week.
• December 5 – Boynton v. Virginia: The U.S. Supreme Court declares segregation in public transit to be illegal.
• December 9 – The first Domino's Pizza location opens in Ypsilanti, Michigan.
• December 11 – MGM's The Wizard of Oz is rerun on CBS only a year after its previous telecast, thus beginning the tradition of annual telecasts of the film in the United States.
• December 12 – The U.S. Supreme Court upholds a Federal Court ruling that Louisiana's segregation laws are unconstitutional.
• December 13 – Navy Commander Leroy Heath (Pilot) and Lieutenant Larry Monroe (Bombardier/Navigator) establish a world altitude record of 91,450.8 feet (27,874.2 metres) in an A3J Vigilante carrying a 1,000-kilogram payload, besting the previous record by over 4 miles.
• December 16
  • U.S. Secretary of State Christian Herter announces that the United States will commit five atomic submarines and eighty Polaris missiles to NATO by the end of 1963.
  • 1960 New York air disaster: United Airlines DC-8 collides with a TWA Lockheed Constellation over Staten Island, New York City. All 128 passengers and crew on both planes are killed, as are 6 persons on the ground.
• December 19 – Fire sweeps through the USS Constellation, the largest U.S. aircraft carrier, while it is under construction at a Brooklyn Navy Yard pier, killing 50 and injuring 150.
• December 20 – Discoverer 19 is launched into polar orbit from Vandenberg Air Force Base, to measure radiation.

Ongoing

• Cold War (1947–1991)
• Space Race (1957–1975)

January–June

• January 1 – Margaret Sullavan, film actress (b. 1909)
• January 4 – Dudley Nichols, screenwriter (b. 1895)
• January 10 – Arthur S. Carpender, admiral (b. 1884)
• January 12 – William Adams Delano, architect (b. 1874)
• January 16 – Rudulph Evans, sculptor (b. 1878)
• January 24
  • John Miljan, film actor (b. 1892)
  • Matt Moore, Irish-American film actor (b. 1888)
• January 25 – Diana Barrymore, stage & film actress (b. 1921)
• January 28 – Zora Neale Hurston, African-American folklorist and author (b. 1891)
• February 6 – Jesse Belvin, R&B singer (b. 1932)
• February 12 – Bobby Clark, comedian and singer (b. 1888)
• February 29
  • Melvin Purvis, law officer (b. 1903)
  • Walter Yust, encyclopedia editor (b. 1894)
• March 4 – Leonard Warren, operatic baritone (b. 1911)
• March 11
  • Roy Chapman Andrews, explorer, adventurer and naturalist (b. 1884)
  • Takuma Kajiwara, Japanese-born photographer (b. 1876)
• March 26 – Ian Keith, actor (b. 1899)
• April 5 – Alma Kruger, actress (b. 1868)
• April 17 – Eddie Cochran, rock singer (b. 1938)
• April 19 – Beardsley Ruml, economist (b. 1894)
• April 25 – Hope Emerson, actress (b. 1897)
• May 2 – Caryl Chessman, criminal (b. 1921)
• May 11 – John D. Rockefeller Jr., financier and philanthropist, son of John D. Rockefeller (b. 1874)
• May 22 – Claire Phillips, spy (b. 1907)
• May 27
  • Edward Brophy, actor (b. 1895)
  • James Montgomery Flagg, artist and illustrator (b. 1877)
• June 4 – Lucien Littlefield, actor (b. 1895)
• June 6 – Ernest L. Blumenschein, painter, member of Taos art colony (b. 1874)
• June 20 – John B. Kelly Sr., Olympic rower (father of Grace Kelly) (b. 1889)
• June 25 – Tommy Corcoran, baseball player (b. 1869)

July–December

• July 12 – Buddy Adler, film producer (b. 1906)
• July 15 – Lawrence Tibbett, operatic baritone (b. 1896)
• July 16 – John P. Marquand, novelist (b. 1893)
• July 26 – Cedric Gibbons, Irish-American art director (b. 1893)
• August 7 – Walden L. Ainsworth, admiral (b. 1886)
• August 9 – Richard Cramer, actor (b. 1889)
• August 10 – Frank Lloyd, film director (b. 1886)
• August 14 – Fred Clarke, baseball player (Pittsburgh Pirates), member of MLB Hall of Fame (b. 1872)
• August 23 – Oscar Hammerstein II, librettist (b. 1895)
• August 27 – Stanley Clifford Weyman, impostor (b. 1890)
• September 1 – Aunt Molly Jackson, folk singer and union activist (b. 1880)
• September 8 – Oscar Pettiford, African-American jazz bassist and composer (b. 1922)
• September 11 – Edwin Justus Mayer, screenwriter (b. 1896)
• September 20 – David Park, painter (b. 1911)
• September 23 – Kathlyn Williams, actress (b. 1879)
• October 11 – Richard Cromwell, actor (b. 1910)
• October 15 – Clara Kimball Young, actress (b. 1890)
• October 22 – Morgan Dennis, painter and illustrator (b. 1892)
• October 31 – H. L. Davis, author (b. 1894)
• November 3
  • Bobby Wallace, baseball player (St. Louis Browns), member of MLB Hall of Fame (b. 1873)
  • Paul Willis, silent film actor (b. 1901)
• November 5
  • Ward Bond, film actor (b. 1903)
  • Johnny Horton, country singer (b. 1925)
• November 7 – A. P. Carter, singer and songwriter (b. 1891)
• November 12 – Lord Buckley, monologist (b. 1906)
• November 14 – Walter Catlett, actor (b. 1889)
• November 16 – Clark Gable, film actor (b. 1901)^[23]
• November 17 – Gene Ahern, comic-strip artist (b. 1895)
• November 19 – Phyllis Haver, film actress (b. 1899)
• November 28
  • James Bert Garner, chemical engineer and inventor (b. 1870)
  • Richard Wright, African-American novelist (b. 1908)
• November 5 – Johnny Horton, country singer, in automobile accident (b. 1925)
• December 8 – Ross T. McIntire, naval surgeon (b. 1889)
• December 13 – John Charles Thomas, operatic baritone (b. 1891)
• December 26 – Giuseppe Bellanca, Italian-American aircraft designer and company founder (b. 1886)