(1960) Cuba’s new leader pays a visit to the USLeftist revolutionary Fidel Castro, prime minister of Cuba after his forces ousted Batista’s government the year before, arrives in New York to meet with Americans sympathetic to his cause, and will later speak at the UN. His visit, at the height of Cold War, causes consternation in some and sparks celebration in others.
Fidel Castro arrives in New York City as the head of the Cuban delegation to the United Nations. Castro’s visit stirred indignation and admiration from various sectors of American society, and was climaxed by his speech to the United Nations on September 26.
By the time Castro arrived in New York City in September 1960, relations between the United States and Cuba were rapidly deteriorating. Since taking power in January 1959, Castro had infuriated the American government with his policies of nationalizing U.S. companies and investments in Cuba. Some American officials, such as Vice President Richard Nixon, believed that Castro was leaning perilously toward communism. (Castro did not publicly proclaim his adherence to communism until late-1961, when he declared that he was a “Marxist-Leninist”.) In March 1960, President Dwight D. Eisenhower ordered the CIA to begin training Cuban exiles to overthrow Castro’s regime. When the United States suspended the import of Cuban sugar in 1960, Castro’s government turned to the Soviet Union for economic assistance. The Russians were happy to oblige.
In September 1960, Castro led a delegation to New York City to address the United Nations General Assembly. He and his entourage caused an immediate sensation by deciding to stay at the Theresa Hotel in Harlem. While there, Castro met with a number of African-American leaders, including Malcolm X from the Nation of Islam and the poet Langston Hughes. On September 26, Castro delivered a blistering attack on what he termed American “aggression” and “imperialism.” For over four hours, Castro lambasted U.S. policy toward Cuba and other nations in Latin America, Asia, and Africa. The United States, he declared, had “decreed the destruction” of his revolutionary government.
Castro’s visit and lengthy public denunciation marked the final breaking point in relations between the U.S. and Cuba. In January 1961, the Eisenhower administration severed all diplomatic relations with Cuba. In April 1961, just a short time after taking office, President John F. Kennedy ordered the Bay of Pigs invasion, and the Cuban exile force, armed and trained by the CIA, landed in Cuba. The attack was a fiasco. Castro’s power in Cuba was solidified by his Bay of Pigs victory over the American “imperialists.” Castro remained the undisputed leader of the communist government in Cuba for over four decades; meanwhile, relations between the United States and Cuba remained strained. In late July 2006, an unwell Fidel Castro temporarily ceded power to his younger brother Raul. Fidel Castro officially stepped down in February 2008. In 2015, relations between the U.S. and Cuba were finally normalized, with the opening of embassies and diplomatic missions in both countries and the easing of travel restrictions. Castro died on November 25, 2016, at 90.
(1812) War erupts between the US and UK just 30 years after revolutionA British blockade of French trade, America’s desire for Canadian territory, American sailors forced to serve in Britain’s navy, and unresolved issues from the Revolutionary War all culminate in US President James Madison signing a declaration of war against Great Britain.The War of 1812 was a conflict fought between the United States and the United Kingdom and their respective allies. Historians in Britain often see it as a minor theatre of the Napoleonic Wars; however, in the United States and Canada, it is seen as a war in its own right.
Start date: Jun 18, 1812 End date: Feb 18, 1815
wiki/War_of_1812(1815) Napoleonic Era comes to a bloody end at WaterlooA once immensely powerful ruler and seemingly unstoppable military leader, France’s Napoleon Bonaparte fights his final battle at Waterloo, in the Netherlands. The coalition of forces arrayed against Napoleon, including the British and Prussian armies, prove insurmountable.The Battle of Waterloo was fought on Sunday, 18 June 1815, near Waterloo in present-day Belgium, then part of the United Kingdom of the Netherlands. A French army under the command of Napoleon Bonaparte was defeated by two of the armies of the Seventh Coalition: an Anglo-led Allied army under the command of the Duke of Wellington, and a Prussian army under the command of Gebhard Leberecht von Blücher, Prince of Wahlstatt.
Date: Jun 18, 1815
wiki/Battle_of_Waterloo(1960) Final US Open golf round cinches victory for PalmerRising star in golf Arnold Palmer wins the prestigious US Open in a record-breaking final round, besting legendary veteran Ben Hogan and talented newcomer Jack Nicklaus. Palmer will go on to be arguably the greatest golfer of his time, and one of the wealthiest athletes in history.The 1960 U.S. Open was the 60th U.S. Open, held June 16–18 at Cherry Hills Country Club in Englewood, Colorado, a suburb south of Denver. Arnold Palmer staged the greatest comeback in U.S. Open history, erasing a seven-stroke deficit during the final round to win his only U.S. Open title. It is remembered as a crossroads for the three primary contenders in the final round: Palmer, Ben Hogan, and amateur Jack Nicklaus, three of the greatest players in the history of golf.
Start date: Jun 16, 1960 End date: Jun 18, 1960
wiki/1960_U.S._Open_(golf)(1983) First American woman travels to spaceSally Ride boards the Space Shuttle Challenger and becomes the first American woman (and the youngest US astronaut) to travel to space. She will later contribute to investigations into the Challenger and Columbia shuttle disasters before passing away from pancreatic cancer in 2012.Sally Kristen Ride was an American physicist and astronaut. Born in Los Angeles, she joined NASA in 1978 and became the first American woman in space in 1983. Ride was the third woman in space overall, after USSR cosmonauts Valentina Tereshkova and Svetlana Savitskaya. Ride remains the youngest American astronaut to have traveled to space, having done so at the age of 32. After flying twice on the Orbiter Challenger, she left NASA in 1987. She worked for two years at Stanford University’s Center for International Security and Arms Control, then at the University of California, San Diego as a professor of physics, primarily researching nonlinear optics and Thomson scattering. She served on the committees that investigated the Challenger and Columbia space shuttle disasters, the only person to participate in both. Ride died of pancreatic cancer on July 23, 2012.
Lived: May 26, 1951 – Jul 23, 2012 (age 61) Height: 5′ 5″ (1.65 m) Partner: Tam O’Shaughnessy (1985 – 2012) Spouse: Steven Hawley (m. 1982 – 1987) Founded: Sally Ride Science Education: Stanford University · Swarthmore College · Gaspar De Portola Middle School · Harvard-Westlake School
Highlights
1982: In 1982, she married fellow NASA astronaut Steve Hawley.
1983: On June 18, 1983, she became the first American woman in space as a crew member on space shuttle Challenger for STS-7.
1987: In 1987, Ride left her position in Washington, D.C., to work at the Stanford University Center for International Security and Arms Control.
1989: In 1989, she became a professor of physics at the University of California, San Diego, and director of the California Space Institute.
2012: After Sally Ride’s death in 2012, General Donald Kutyna revealed that she had discreetly provided him with key information about O-rings (namely, that they become stiff at low temperatures) that eventually led to identification of the cause of the explosion.
2012: Ride died of pancreatic cancer on July 23, 2012.
(1843) The Great Emigration wagon trains head westSome 1,000 pioneers begin their journey to America’s West Coast via the Oregon Trail, a 2,200-mile wagon road spanning half a continent from the Missouri River to the Willamette Valley in the future state of Oregon. Upwards of 400,000 more emigrants will follow its wheel ruts west in the coming decades.The Oregon Trail is a 2,170-mile historic east–west, large-wheeled wagon route and emigrant trail that connected the Missouri River to valleys in Oregon. The eastern part of the Oregon Trail spanned part of the future state of Kansas, and nearly all of what are now the states of Nebraska and Wyoming. The western half of the trail spanned most of the future states of Idaho and Oregon.
Established: 1843 Managed by: National Park Service
wiki/Oregon_Trail(1960) Strongest earthquake ever recorded slams ChileA magnitude 9.5 earthquake, the most powerful in recorded history, rocks the southern coast of Chile for more than 10 minutes, killing thousands, causing massive landslides, triggering volcanic eruptions, and spawning tsunamis so enormous that they cause 61 deaths in Hawaii.The 1960 Valdivia earthquake or Great Chilean earthquake of 22 May is the most powerful earthquake ever recorded. Various studies have placed it at 9.4–9.6 on the moment magnitude scale. It occurred in the afternoon, and lasted approximately 10 minutes. The resulting tsunami affected southern Chile, Hawaii, Japan, the Philippines, eastern New Zealand, southeast Australia and the Aleutian Islands.
Fatalities: 5,700 Date: May 22, 1960
wiki/1960_Valdivia_earthquake(1980) A recreation revolution begins with a game that gobblesJapanese company Namco introduces ‘Puck Man,’ an arcade maze game based on the idea of eating. Introduced months later to the US and renamed ‘Pac-Man,’ it will grow in popularity to become the most famous, most profitable, and some say most influential, arcade video game ever released.Pac-Man, stylized as PAC-MAN, is an arcade game developed by Namco and first released in Japan in May 1980. It was created by Japanese video game designer Toru Iwatani. It was licensed for distribution in the United States by Midway and released in October 1980. Immensely popular from its original release to the present day, Pac-Man is considered one of the classics of the medium, and an icon of 1980s popular culture. Upon its release, the game—and, subsequently, Pac-Man derivatives—became a social phenomenon that yielded high sales of merchandise and inspired a legacy in other media, such as the Pac-Man animated television series and the top-ten hit single “Pac-Man Fever”. Pac-Man was popular in the 1980s and 1990s and is still played in the 2010s.
Release date: May 22, 1980 Developer: Namco Publishers: Namco · Midway Games · Bandai Namco Entertainment Designer: Toru Iwatani Platforms: Arcade game · Apple II ESRB rating: E for Everyone
wiki/Pac-Man(1992) Johnny Carson’s final ‘Tonight Show’Late-night legend Johnny Carson signs off after 30 years of hosting ‘The Tonight Show.’ His final show features no guests, focusing instead on clips and remembrances from Carson, sidekick Ed McMahon and bandleader Doc Severinsen. Jay Leno will take over the show, but not without some controversy.The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson is a talk show hosted by Johnny Carson under The Tonight Show franchise from October 1, 1962 through May 22, 1992. It originally aired during late-night. For its first decade, Johnny Carson’s The Tonight Show was based at 30 Rockefeller Plaza, New York City, with some episodes recorded at NBC-TV’s West Coast studios in Burbank, California; on May 1, 1972, the show moved to Burbank as its main venue and remained there exclusively after May 1973 until Carson’s retirement. In 2002, The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson was ranked No. 12 on TV Guide’s 50 Greatest TV Shows of All Time, and in 2013 it was ranked No. 22 on their list of 60 Best Series.
First episode: Oct 01, 1962 Episode duration: 105 minutes Creators: Steve Allen · Dwight Hemion · Sylvester Weaver · William O. Harbach Theme song: Johnny’s Theme Producers: Peter Lassally · Fred de Cordova Awards: Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Variety Series · Primetime Emmy Award for Individual Performance in a Variety or Music Program · Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Sound Mixing – Variety Series Or Special · People’s Choice Award for Favorite Talk Show Host · Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Achievement In Tape Sound Mixing
(1810) Poet Lord Byron takes a long swim across the HellespontInspired by the myth of Hero and Leander, George Gordon Byron, 22, swims across a turbulent Turkish strait dividing Europe from Asia. He will recount his aquatic adventure in the second canto of one of the most famous poems of the Romantic era, ‘Don Juan.’George Gordon Byron, 6th Baron Byron, FRS, commonly known simply as Lord Byron, was a British poet, peer, politician, and a leading figure in the Romantic movement. Among his best-known works are the lengthy narrative poems, Don Juan and Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage, and the short lyric poem, “She Walks in Beauty”.
Lived: Jan 22, 1788 – Apr 19, 1824 (age 36) Height: 5′ 9″ (1.74 m) Spouse: Anne Isabella Byron, Baroness Byron (m. 1815 – 1816) Children: Elizabeth Medora Leigh (Daughter) · Ada Lovelace (Daughter) · Allegra Byron (Daughter) Education: Trinity College, Cambridge (1805 – 1808) · Harrow School (1801 – 1805) · University of Cambridge · Aberdeen Grammar School Siblings: Augusta Leigh (Sister)
Highlights
1798: When Byron’s great-uncle, the “wicked” Lord Byron, died on 21 May 1798, the 10-year-old boy became the 6th Baron Byron of Rochdale and inherited the ancestral home, Newstead Abbey, in Nottinghamshire.
1815: The vessel was launched only a few miles south of Seaham Hall, where in 1815 Byron married Annabella Milbanke.
1817: He also had an illegitimate child in 1817, Clara Allegra Byron, with Claire Clairmont, stepsister of Mary Shelley and stepdaughter of William Godwin, writer of Political Justice and Caleb Williams.
1822: Upon the death of Byron’s mother-in-law Judith Noel, the Hon. Lady Milbanke, in 1822, her will required that he change his surname to “Noel” in order for him to inherit half of her estate.
1823: Whilst sailing from Genoa to Cephalonia in 1823, every day at noon, Byron and Trelawny, in calm weather, jumped overboard for a swim without fear of sharks, which were not unknown in those waters.
1824: He died in 1824 at the age of 36 from a fever contracted while in Missolonghi.
wiki/Lord_Byron(1855) William Walker sets off to conquer Nicaragua A self-styled colonial kingpin, William Walker departs San Francisco for Central America, where he plans to rule over as much territory as possible, an exploit known as filibustering. He will succeed briefly in Nicaragua, but will be executed in Honduras five years later.William Walker (May 8, 1824 – September 12, 1860) was an American physician, lawyer, journalist and mercenary who organized several private military expeditions into Latin America, with the intention of establishing English-speaking colonies under his personal control, an enterprise then known as “filibustering.” Walker usurped the presidency of the Republic of Nicaragua in 1856 and ruled until 1857, when he was defeated by a coalition of Central American armies. He was executed by the government of Honduras in 1860. wiki/William_Walker_(filibuster)(1948) CBS begins nightly newscast‘CBS Television News’ (later ‘CBS Evening News’) debuts as a 15-minute show anchored by Douglas Edwards. In 1963 it will become the first 30-minute weeknight network news broadcast. Future anchors will include Walter Cronkite, Dan Rather, Katie Couric, and Scott Pelley.The CBS Evening News is the flagship evening television news program of CBS News, the news division of the CBS television network in the United States. The program has been broadcast since May 3, 1948 under the original title CBS Television News, eventually adopting its current title in 1963. Since June 6, 2011, the weekday editions of the program have been anchored by Scott Pelley. Previous anchors have included Douglas Edwards, Walter Cronkite, Dan Rather, Connie Chung, Bob Schieffer, and Katie Couric.
First episode: May 03, 1948 Episode duration: 15 minutes Creator: Don Hewitt Producers: CBS News · Don Hewitt · Keith Summa · Rick Kaplan · Jim Murphy · Patricia Shevlin · Mary Walsh · Vinnie Malhotra · Michael Rey · Thomas Flynn · Heather Abbott · Max McClellan · Bill Piersol · Christopher Scholl · Beth Loyd Network: CBS Awards: Peabody Award · News & Documentary Emmy Award for Outstanding Continuing Coverage of a News Story in a Regularly Scheduled Newscast · News & Documentary Emmy Award for Outstanding Investigative Journalism – Segments · News & Documentary Emmy Award for Outstanding Business and Economic Reporting in a Regularly Scheduled Newscast
wiki/CBS_Evening_News(1960) World’s longest-running musical premieres‘The Fantasticks’ opens off-Broadway in New York’s Greenwich Village, featuring Jerry Orbach singing ‘Try to Remember,’ the musical’s signature song. It will run 42 years, longer than any other musical play in history, for 17,162 performances.The Fantasticks is a 1960 musical with music by Harvey Schmidt and lyrics by Tom Jones. It tells an allegorical story, loosely based on the play The Romancers by Edmond Rostand, concerning two neighboring fathers who trick their children, Luisa and Matt, into falling in love by pretending to feud. The fathers hire traveling actors to stage a mock abduction, so that Matt can heroically seem to save Luisa, ending the supposed feud. When the children discover the deception, they reject the arranged love match and separate. Each then gains disillusioning experiences of the real world, seen in parallel fantasy sequences. They return to each other bruised but enlightened, and they renew their vows with more maturity.
Author: Tom Jones First published: 1964 First performed: May 03, 1960 Adaptations: The Fantasticks (1995) Genre: Performing Arts
(1739) India’s ‘Peacock Throne’ stolen from DelhiSaid to cost more than the Taj Mahal, the Mughal emperor’s Peacock Throne is stolen by invading Persian forces. Incalculably valuable and made of solid gold, precious gemstones, and rare pearls, it will be lost ever since.The Peacock Throne was a famous jeweled throne that was the seat of the Mughal emperors of India. It was commissioned in the early 17th century by emperor Shah Jahan and was located in the Diwan-i-Khas (Hall of Private Audiences) in the Red Fort of Delhi. The original throne was subsequently captured and taken as a war trophy in 1739 by the Persian king Nadir Shah, and has been lost ever since. A replacement throne based on the original was commissioned afterwards and existed until the Indian war of Independence in 1857. wiki/Peacock_Throne(1895) First screening of a projected movieCinema is born in Paris, as 200 invited guests watch ‘Workers Leaving the Lumière Factory,’ a one-minute film made by Auguste and Louis Lumière with their new creation, the cinematograph film camera. The film, probably the first real motion picture ever made, is shown together with several short clips, one of which startles the audience with the image of an oncoming train.A man opens the big gates to the Lumière factory. Through the gateway and a smaller doorway beside it, workers are streaming out, turning either left or right. Most of them are women in long dresses and big hats, but some are men. Suddenly a man with a long apron rushes out through the crowd, followed by a big dog. At last some men on bikes leave the gateway. When all workers have left the factory, the doorkeeper starts closing the gates again.
Release date: Mar 22, 1895 (France) Director: Louis Lumière
wiki/Workers_Leaving_the_Lumière_Factory(1960) The laser is patentedPhysicists Arthur Schawlow and Charles Townes of Bell Labs are awarded a patent for the laser, or “light amplification by stimulated emission of radiation.” Some experts will contend that physicist grad student Gordon Gould should’ve received the patent.A laser is a device that emits light through a process of optical amplification based on the stimulated emission of electromagnetic radiation. The term “laser” originated as an acronym for “light amplification by stimulated emission of radiation”. The first laser was built in 1960 by Theodore H. Maiman at Hughes Research Laboratories, based on theoretical work by Charles Hard Townes and Arthur Leonard Schawlow. A laser differs from other sources of light in that it emits light coherently. Spatial coherence allows a laser to be focused to a tight spot, enabling applications such as laser cutting and lithography. Spatial coherence also allows a laser beam to stay narrow over great distances, enabling applications such as laser pointers. Lasers can also have high temporal coherence, which allows them to emit light with a very narrow spectrum, i.e., they can emit a single color of light. Temporal coherence can be used to produce pulses of light as short as a femtosecond.
Inventors: Charles H. Townes · Theodore Maiman · Gordon Gould · Alexander Prokhorov · Nikolay Basov May treat: Acne · Sebaceous cyst
wiki/Laser(1972) US Congress passes the Equal Rights Amendment Introduced to Congress in 1923, the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA), a proposed constitutional guarantee of women’s rights, passes and is sent to the states for ratification. Final ratification will fall short of the threshold needed by three states and the amendment will eventually die.
The Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) was a proposed amendment to the United States Constitution designed to guarantee equal rights for women. The ERA was originally written by Alice Paul and Crystal Eastman. In 1923, it was introduced in the Congress for the first time. The ERA has always been highly controversial regarding the meaning of equality for women. It was “feminist against feminist”, said historian Judith Sealander; the result was the eventual defeat of the ERA. Middle-class women generally were supportive. Those speaking for the working class were strongly opposed, arguing that employed women needed special protections regarding working conditions and hours. In 1972, it passed both houses of Congress and was submitted to the state legislatures for ratification. It seemed headed for quick approval until Phyllis Schlafly mobilized conservative women in opposition, arguing that the ERA would disadvantage housewives.
Congress had set a ratification deadline of March 22, 1979. Through 1977, the amendment received 35 of the necessary 38 state ratifications. Five states rescinded their ratifications before the 1979 deadline. In 1978, a joint resolution of Congress extended the ratification deadline to June 30, 1982, but no further states ratified the amendment and so it did not become part of the Constitution. Several organizations continue to work for the adoption of the ERA.
(1960) Cuba’s new leader pays a visit to the US
