1960 History, Trivia and Fun Facts

• Politics: College students in Greensboro, North Carolina, organized the first popularized sit-in for Civil Rights at a Woolworth's lunch counter.
• The Top Song was The Theme From "A Summer Place" by Percy Faith
• The Big Movies included Swiss Family Robinson, The Alamo and G.I. Blues
• Price of a Cord of Firewood, delivered in 1960: $32.00
  Price of a Kenmore washing machine: $158.00
• The World Population was ~ 3,030,000,000
• The "Hookman", an escaped lunatic or criminal, sneaking up to couples in a car, urbam legend begain in the alte 1940s, but entered the Pop Culture manistream after being referenced in a Dear Abby advice column.
• And... The Twist, by Chubby Checker was the biggest dance hit of all time. It was the first designed to be performed with or without a partner.

Chuck Berry got in some legal trouble when he took a 14-year-old girl from Arizona to Missouri to work at his Bandstand club. Her work didn't require clothes, apparently.

JFK was elected President of the United States with much help from the votes of dead Americans in Cook County, llinois and in Texas.

Racecar driver Alan Stacey died in 1960 when he crashed, after being hit in the face by a bird at 120 MPH.

In November 1960, several witnesses saw a phantom army on a road near Otterburn, Northumberland, the site of a 1388 battle between Kingdom of Scotland and the Kingdom of England. (Scotland won)

From 1960 to 1977, the nuclear trigger code given to the President of the US was 00000000.

During Mao's China in 1958, thousands of sparrows were killed to try and alleviate a 'pest' problem they posed. In 1960 a huge amount of locusts appeared in China and ate all the crops due to the fact that their natural predator had been destroyed. An estimated 20 million Chinese people died after due to this.

Japanese Socialist Party chairman Inejiro Asanuma was assinated during a televised debate, with a Samurai sword.

Israeli agents staked out a house in Argentina, suspecting Hitler henchman Adolph Eichmann and his family had relocated there. After watching him come and go for weeks, agents got their proof when he came home with a bouquet of flowers on March 21, Eichmann's 25th wedding anniversary.

Oliver Cromwell was disinterred in 1661 for a "posthumous execution." His decapitated head was passed around between collectors and museum owners until finally being re-buried in 1960.

The mysterious BLACK KNIGHT Satellite was seen by both Russian and American Air Defense unites. At 15 tons, was bigger than any country could have sent at that time. It 'disappeared' after about three weeks.

The main villains of Psycho (1960), The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974), and The Silence of the Lambs (1991) were all loosely based on the same person: Wisconsin serial killer Ed Gein.

Operation Acoustic Kitty: a 1960's CIA operation to implant a listening device in a cat to spy on the Soviets. In the first test, the cat was released in Washington DC. and promptly run over by a taxi.

In 1940 less then half of the adult US population belonged to a church. In 1960 over 65 percent of adults were official communicants.

President JFK was a huge James Bond fan. He first met the author of the series, Ian Fleming, at a dinner party in 1960. They allegedly bounced around ideas about how to get rid of Fidel Castro.

During the Great Chilean Earthquake of 1960, two men ritually sacrificed a 5 year old boy in order to calm the sea and earth. They were released after 2 years in prison with the judge ruling they "acted without free will, driven by an irresistible natural force of ancestral tradition."

Green Eggs and Ham by Dr. Seuss, Game of Life, Etch-A-Sketch, Barbie, Chatty Cathie, Mattel's Lie Detector Game, Mr. Machine, Play-Doh Fun Factory

Help! Magazine (1960-1965)

AARP Bulletin began publication

Golf Magazine began publication