January: Jacques Piccard and Don Walsh aboard Trieste descend into the Mariana Trench reaching the lowest spot on Earth

February: The 1960 Winter Olympic Games begin at the Squaw Valley Ski Resort, in Placer County, California

March: Alberto Korda takes his now iconic photograph of Che Guevara, which he titled 'Guerrillero Heroico', in Havana, Cuba

April: The United States launches the world's first successful weather satellite, TIROS-1 from Cape Canaveral, Florida

May: An American Lockheed U-2 spy plane is shot down over the Soviet Union. Its pilot, Francis Gary Powers, is captured

June: Civil unrest and the postponement of Eisenhower's visit leads to the resignation of Japanese prime minister, Nobusuke Kishi

July: Ceylon elects Mrs Sirimavo Bandaranaike as its Prime Minister, the world's first elected female head of government

August: Joseph Kittinger jumps from a balloon over New Mexico at an altitude of about 102,800 feet (31,333 meters)

September: Muhammad Ali (Cassius Clay) wins the gold medal in light-heavyweight boxing, at the 1960 Summer Olympic Games

October: Soviet premier Nikita Khrushchev pounds his shoe on a table at a meeting of the United Nations General Assembly

November: Another Polaris missile is test-launched from Cape Canaveral, Florida. It will become a symbol of the Cold War

December: The farthing, a coin which was first minted in England in the 13th century, is no longer legal tender in the United Kingdom