Saint-John Perse awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature "for the soaring flight and the evocative imagery of his poetry which in a visionary fashion reflects the conditions of our time".

The US flag is modified to have fifty stars, reflecting the addition of one new state: Hawaii.

The Civil Rights Act of 1960 is signed into law by Pres. Dwight D. Eisenhower on May 6. The act establishes federal inspection of local voter registration rolls and introduces penalties for anyone who obstructs a citizens attempt to register to vote or to cast a ballot.

DEC released its first mini computer: PDP-1

Alister Hardy promotes his Homo aquaticus or "aquatic ape" hypothesis to the British Sub Aqua Club. He will follow up this announcement with several magazine articles.

The Apartment wins Academy Award for best picture. After Lost Weekend, Billy Wilder again found himself in the winner's circle, taking home Oscars as producer, director, and co-writer (with I.A.L. Diamond) for this wry look at corporate America.

Ivo Andric awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature "for the epic force with which he has traced themes and depicted human destinies drawn from the history of his country".

The Congress of Racial Equality organizes Freedom Rides through the Deep South.

Clive Sinclair founds Sinclair Radionics

Computerized spreadsheets for use in business accounting developed

LEO III completed in 1961

Minivac 601 Computer Launched

Robert Noyce Awarded Patent for "Integrated Circuit"

John F. Kennedy becomes thirty-fifth president of the United States.

Gene Shoemaker and E.C.T. Chao publish a paper characterizing the Ries Basin in Bavaria as the result of a meteorite impact. This will help pave the way for eventual acceptance of asteroid and comet impacts as potential causes of mass extinction.

F. Jacob and J. Monod publish "Genetic regulatory mechanisms in the synthesis of proteins," a paper in which the theory of the OPERON is developed.

Martin Glaessner determines fossils in the Ediacara Hills of South Australia (Ediacaran fauna) to be Precambrian in age (approximately 600 million years old), making them the oldest-known multicelled organisms.

West Side Story wins Academy Award for best picture. The musical was co-directed by Jerome Robbins (who had staged the Broadway musical) and Robert Wise, the first time a team directed a best picture winner. The film won 10 Oscars, remaining in the record books as the sole runner-up to the trio of movies that won 11.

John Steinbeck awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature "for his realistic and imaginative writings, combining as they do sympathetic humour and keen social perception".

On October 1, James Meredith becomes the first black student to enroll at the University of Mississippi.

"Music from Mathematics" LP was created using an IBM 7090 computer

The first commercial Modem manufactured

The Machester Atlas was inaugurated on 7th December 1962

Human geneticist James Neel develops the "thrifty genotype" hypothesis that human ancestors endured feast-famine cycles that made the human body very effective in storing fat for lean times.

James Watson, Francis Crick, and Maurice Wilkins share a Nobel Prize in Medicine for their work in elucidating the structure of DNA.

Lawrence of Arabia wins Academy Award for best picture. At three hours and 48 minutes, it's the longest-running best picture winner (one minute longer than Gone With the Wind ). The tale of T.E. Lawrence marked the second best picture win for David Lean in five years.

Martin Luther King Jr. writes his "Letter from Birmingham Jail" on April 16.

Kennedy assassinated.

Lyndon Johnson becomes thirty-sixth president of the United States.

Giorgos Seferis awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature "for his eminent lyrical writing, inspired by a deep feeling for the Hellenic world of culture".

Martin Luther King Jr. is named Time magazine's Man of the Year.

On June 12, Mississippi NAACP field secretary Medgar Evers is assassinated outside his home in Jackson.

Douglas Engelbart Invents the Mouse

First edition of the ASCII standard was published.

Theodore H (Ted) Nelson coins the word Hypertext

Lantian Man, a 500,000-year-old Homo erectus specimen, is found in Lantian County, China, just north of Xi'an.

Fred Vine and Drum Matthews publish a paper describing magnetic stripes formed at ocean ridges. Their findings will pave the way for the acceptance of continental drift over the next decade.

Tom Jones wins Academy Award for best picture. For decades, Hollywood's Hays Code dictated what couldn t be depicted onscreen. This comedy, directed by Tony Richardson and written by John Osborne adapting Henry Fielding, helped break that code by depicting the radical idea that sex could be fun.

Jean-Paul Sartre awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature "for his work which, rich in ideas and filled with the spirit of freedom and the quest for truth, has exerted a far-reaching influence on our age".

painting by Roy Lichtenstein: Oh, Jeff...I Love You, Too...But... (sometimes Oh, Jeff). Like many of Lichtenstein's works its title comes from the speech balloon in the painting. Although many sources, such as the Encyclopedia of Art, describe Whaam! and Drowning Girl as Lichtenstein's most famous works, artist Vian Shamounki Borchert believes it is this piece, calling it his Mona Lisa. The Daily Mail listed it along with Whaam! and Drowning Girl as one of his most famous at the time of its 2013 Retrospective at the Tate Modern. Borchert notes that this painting captures "the magic" of its "anguished and yes [sic] beautiful blue eyed, blond hair, full lips" female subject while presenting "sad eyes that seem to give in to what seems to be a doomed love affair". Lichtenstein in 1967 Measuring 48 in × 48 inches, Oh, Jeff...I Love You, Too...But... is among the most famous of his early romance comic derivative works from the period when he was adapting cartoons and advertisements into his style via Ben-Day dots.

An art exhibit is held at Stanford University, featuring Brancusi's Bird in Space (loaned by student Richard Holkar) as its major piece. Another work entitled Soul in Flight — a "sculpture" consisting of two bent coat hangers — is surreptitiously added to the exhibit by D. Heskett and R. Robbins (student colleagues of Holkar), without the bother of going through the submission process. The coat-hanger piece remains as part of the exhibit for several days, until it is accidentally bumped and comes apart during an evening cleaning of the displays.

Congress passes the Civil Rights Act of 1964. The act and this discrimination in all public accommodations and by employers. It also establishes the Equal Opportunity Employment Commission (EEOC) to monitor compliance with the law.

On June 21, civil rights workers James Chaney, Andrew Goodman, and Michael Schwerner are abducted and killed by terrorists in Mississippi.

The 24th amendment to the Constitution, which abolishes the poll tax, is ratified.

BASIC language developed

First operation of BASIC

First operation of Ferranti Atlas

Graphic tablet developed

IBM releases the System 360 range of commercial computers

Introduction of CDC 6600

Introduction of DEC PDP-7 18-bits minicomputer

Louis Leakey describes Homo habilis, meaning "handy." The new species designation is not well received by the scientific community.

Two deciduous molars, roughly 44,000 years old, are collected at Grotta del Cavallo in southeastern Italy. After an initial classification as Neanderthal, they will be assigned to modern humans in a 2011 study.

Vincent Dethier publishes "Microscopic Brains," an article on insect behavior, in Science. He calls for a more empathetic approach to animal subjects, even tiny invertebrates.

W. Brian Harland and Martin J. S. Rudwick publish a theory that the Earth experienced a great ice age in the Neoproterozoic (late Precambrian). Rudwick suggests that the climate's return to moderate conditions paved the way for the evolution of multicelluar life.

My Fair Lady wins Academy Award for best picture. It was one of the most-anticipated films in years, since it was based on the Broadway mega-hit. The winner of eight Academy Awards, it's also notable as the last best pic winner to be filmed entirely on Hollywood soundstages.

Mikhail Aleksandrovich Sholokhov awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature "for the artistic power and integrity with which, in his epic of the Don, he has given expression to a historic phase in the life of the Russian people".

Malcolm X is assassinated at the Audubon Ballroom in Harlem on February 21.

The Watts Uprising occurs on August 11-16th. Thirty-four people are killed and 1000 are injured in the five-day confrontation.

Commodore Business Machines (CBM) is founded.

DEC unveils the PDP-8,

Introduction of Wang 300 electronic calculator

Moore's Law coined

François Jacob, André Lwoff, and Jacques Monod share a Nobel Prize in Medicine for their discoveries concerning genetic control of enzyme and virus synthesis.

N.H. Field publishes "Fossil sea-echinoids from a Romano-British site" describing the centuries-long occupation of a Romano-British settlement in Dorset. Newer buildings have been built upon older ones, with fossil urchins in each.

The Sound of Music wins Academy Award for best picture. A few years after the urban grittiness of West Side Story, Robert Wise directed this wholesome Rodgers & Hammerstein musical. It won five Oscars and was an enormous hit; it also rescued the financially strapped 20th Century Fox, which was recovering from the mega-expensive Cleopatra.

Nelly Sachs awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature "for her outstanding lyrical and dramatic writing, which interprets Israel's destiny with touching strength".

Shmuel Yosef Agnon awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature "for his profoundly characteristic narrative art with motifs from the life of the Jewish people".

On June 5, James Meredith begins a solitary March Against Fear for 220 miles from Memphis, Tennessee, to Jackson, Mississippi, to protest racial discrimination. Meredith is shot by a sniper soon after crossing into Mississippi.

On November 8, Edward Brooke of Massachusetts becomes the first African-American to be elected to the United States Senate since Reconstruction.

On September 15, the Black Panther Party is formed in Oakland, California, by Bobby Seale and Huey P. Newton.

Introduction of DEC PDP-9

The hand-held pocket calculator was invented at Texas Instruments in 1966

Willi Hennig works on a new approach to assessing evolutionary relationships, known as cladistics. Although it will be hotly debated, this technique will eventually become standard practice in paleontology, botany and zoology.

Harry Whittington begins reexamining Burgess Shale fossils originally identified by Charles Walcott starting in 1909. Over the next two decades, Whittington (with the assistance of his graduate students Simon Conway Morris and Derek Briggs), will eventually overturn some of Walcott's theories and propose that most of the animals left no living relatives.

A Man for All Seasons wins Academy Award for best picture. Robert Bolt's thoughtful play, about Sir Thomas More's battles with King Henry VIII, concerned religion, principles, and morality. Bolt adapted his play, which was directed by Fred Zinnemann ( From Here to Eternity ).

Miguel Angel Asturias awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature "for his vivid literary achievement, deep-rooted in the national traits and traditions of Indian peoples of Latin America".

On July 13, Thurgood Marshall takes his seat as the first African-American justice on the United States Supreme Court.

On June 12, the United States Supreme Court, in Loving vs Virginia, strikes down state interracial marriage bans.

The six-day Newark Riot begins on July 12.

Barclays Bank in the UK claims to have installed the first cash dispenser

Elliott Automation merged with English Electric

Introduction of DEC PDP-10

Lynn Sagan (later Lynn Margulis) hypothesizes that chloroplasts originated as cyanobacteria, and that mitochondria originated as bacteria. She suggests that both were engulfed by other cells and began functioning as symbionts.

Graduate student S.B. Misra discovers a well-preserved sea floor with numerous fossils dating from the late Precambrian (later to be dubbed the Ediacaran Period) at Mistaken Point, Newfoundland.

P. S. Martin suggests that fast-moving bands of human hunters caused the extinctions of Pleistocene big-game species.

Richard Leakey finds two fossil skulls, Omo I and Omo II, in Ethiopia. Though initially dated at 130,000 years, the fossils will later be dated (using argon decay) at 195,000 years, and designated as the oldest examples so far found of Homo sapiens.

Daniel Janzen argues that, because they live under "easy" conditions, tropical plants cannot likely survive a wide range of temperature, light, or hydrologic conditions.

Surgeon General definitively links smoking to lung cancer and presents evidence that it is causing heart problems.

In the Heat of the Night wins Academy Award for best picture. The competition was intense in 1967, including The Graduate and Bonnie & Clyde. But only three years after passage of the Civil Rights Act, this mystery was a look at race relations, exploding prejudices, and offering smart insights. Sidney Poitier and Rod Steiger (best actor winner) led a strong cast.

On April 4, Martin Luther King, Jr., is assassinated in Memphis, Tennessee. In the wake of the assassination, 125 cities in 29 states experience uprisings.

On June 5, New York Senator and presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy is assassinated in Los Angeles.

Yasunari Kawabata awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature "for his narrative mastery, which with great sensibility expresses the essence of the Japanese mind".

CDC Introduces the 7600 Supercomputer

Douglas C. Engelbart publicly demonstrates the mouse

IBM tests a 8in floppy disc

Integrated Circuits First Used in Apollo Moon shot

Introduction of HP-9100 desk calculator

Robert Noyce and Gordon Moore found Intel Corporation

T J Watson and IBM granted patent for the DRAM

A.G. Cairns-Smith publishes a paper suggesting that the first life on Earth might have been fine-grained clay crystals. He will publish on this topic several more times before his death, but the experimental evidence will remain scant, perhaps in part because sufficient technology doesn't yet exist to test the hypothesis.

Robert W. Holley, Har Gobind Khorana, and Marshall W. Nirenberg share a Nobel Prize in Medicine for their interpretation of the genetic code and its function in protein synthesis.

Richard Fox describes a Paleocene mammal, Prothryptacodon albertensis, retrieved from a well dug in Alberta, Canada. This find eerily resembles that of another Paleocene mammal recovered from a Louisiana oil well and described in 1932 by George Gaylord Simpson.

Teenaged fossil enthusiast Tadashi Suzuki finds a plesiosaur fossil in his hometown of Iwaki City, Japan. The fossil turns out to be a new species, but it won't be identified as such for nearly 40 years.

Oliver! wins Academy Award for best picture. The 1960s were NOT the heyday of Hollywood musicals, but you wouldn t know it by looking at Oscar: Oliver! became the fourth musical in eight years to take the best-picture win.

Samuel Beckett awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature "for his writing, which — in new forms for the novel and drama — in the destitution of modern man acquires its elevation".

AMD Advanced Micro Devices is founded

ARPANET launch the world's first successful packet-switched wide area computer network

DEC PDP-15 Introduced

First flight to Moon of Apollo XI with Raytheon Apollo Guidance Computer

Honeywell releases the H316 "Kitchen Computer",

Intel announces a 1 kilobit RAM chip

Plessey buys out Ferranti's numerical Control Interests

Richard M. Nixon becomes thirty-seventh president of the United States.

R. H. Whittaker proposes to divide all living things into five kingdoms: Animalia, Plantae, Fungi, Protista and Monera.

Max Delbrück, Alfred D. Hershey, and Salvador E. Luria share a Nobel Prize in Medicine for their discoveries concerning the replication mechanism and the genetic structure of viruses.

Archaeologist Joachim Hahn pieces together the fragments of the lion- headed man found 30 years earlier the Hohlenstein-Stadel Cave in Germany.

John Ostrom publishes Osteology of Deinonychus antirrhopus, an Unusual Theropod from the Lower Cretaceous of Montana — a description of Deinonychus with a frontispiece illustration by Bob Bakker, suggesting that the dinosaur is alert, agile and intelligent.

Americans land the first man on the moon.

Midnight Cowboy wins Academy Award for best picture. The film, directed by John Schlesinger and starring Jon Voight and Dustin Hoffman, became the first X-rated movie to win the Oscar. When it was re-released two years later, it was re-rated as an R, without any cuts. The script was by Waldo Salt, based on the novel by James Leo Herlihy.