July 1 - Ghana becomes a republic and Kwame Nkrumah becomes its first President. - Cold War: A Soviet Air Force MiG-19 fighter plane flying north of Murmansk, Russia, over the Barents Sea shoots down a six-man RB-47 Stratojet reconnaissance plane of the U.S. Air Force. Four of the U.S. Air Force officers are killed, and the two survivors are held prisoner in the Soviet Union - The Trust Territory of Somalia (the former Italian Somaliland) gains its independence from Italy. Concurrently, it unites as scheduled with the five day-old State of Somaliland (the former British Somaliland) to form the Somali Republic.

July 4 - Following the admission of the State of Hawaii as the 50th state in August 1959, the new 50-star Flag of the United States is first officially flown over Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

July 10 - The Soviet Union national football team defeats the Yugoslavian national football team 2-1 in Paris to win the first European Soccer Championship.

July 11 - Congo Crisis: Moise Tshombe declares the Congolese province of Katanga independent. He requests and receives help from Belgium. - Harper Lee publishes her novel To Kill a Mockingbird, which later wins the Pulitzer Prize for the best American novel of 1960.

July 13 - The U.S. Senator John F. Kennedy is nominated for President of the United States at the 1960 Democratic National Convention in Los Angeles.

July 14 - The United Nations Security Council decides to send troops to Katanga to oversee the withdrawal of Belgian troops.

July 20 - Ceylon elects Mrs Sirimavo Bandaranaike as its Prime Minister, the world's first elected female head of government. She takes office the following day.

July 21 - Francis Chichester, English navigator and yachtsman, arrives at New York City aboard his yacht, Gypsy Moth II, crossing the Atlantic Ocean solo in a new record of just forty days.

July 25 - The Woolworth Company's lunch counter in Greensboro, North Carolina, the location of a sit-in that had sparked demonstrations by Negroes across the Southern United States, serves a meal to its first black customer.

July 25-July 28 - In Chicago, the 1960 Republican National Convention nominates Vice-President Richard Nixon as its candidate for President of the United States, and Henry Cabot Lodge, Jr., as its candidate to become the new Vice-President. (source: Wikipedia)