January 3, 1961. President Dwight Eisenhower announces the severing of diplomatic and consular relations with Cuba.

January 17, 1961. Imprisoned former prime minister Patrice Lumumba of Republic of Congo is executed by firing squad. The CIA, the Belgian authorities in Congo, and the president of Congo, President Tshombe, may all have been involved in Lumumba’s death. “We are not Communists, Catholics, Socialists. We are African nationalists.” ~Patrice Lumumba.

January 31, 1961. The United States sends a monkey named Ham 150 miles into space in a Mercury capsule. Ham safely splashes down and receives an apple as a reward for his performance as the first monkey astronaut.

April 12, 1961. Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin orbits the earth and becomes the first human in space.

April 19, 1961. The United States sponsors and funds 1500 Cuban exiles in an invasion of Cuba at The Bay of Pigs. The invasion fails, and President Kennedy and Soviet premier Krushchev warn one another not to interfere in the internal affairs of Cuba.

June 16, 1961. The United Kingdom ends its protectorate over the tiny sheikdom of Kuwait, and Iraq claims the territory as part of Iraq. Kuwait successfully resists Iraq and remains independent.

August 13-31, 1961. East German authorities build a huge wall of concrete blocks and electric fences and barbed wire separating East and West Berlin. Since the post World War II partition of Germany, more than two million Germans have fled East Germany into the West.

September 28, 1961. A military coup in Damascus, Syria effectively ends the United Arab Republic, the union between Egypt and Syria.

October 1, 1961. The formerly British Southern Cameroons unites with French Cameroun to form the Federal Republic of Cameroon.

November 18, 1961. U.S. President John F. Kennedy sends 18,000 military advisors to South Vietnam.

December 9, 1961. Tanganyika gains independence and declares itself a republic, with Julius Nyerere as its first President.

January 1, 1960. French Cameroon becomes an independent country.

January 9, 1960. President Nasser lays the foundation stone of the Aswan High Dam as work begins on the engineering marvel on the Nile River in Egypt.

March 21, 1960. In the black township of Sharpeville in Transvaal, South Africa, local white police officers open fire on demonstrators who are protesting apartheid laws in South Africa. Sixty-nine people are killed and 186 are left wounded. Police Commander D.H. Pienaar is quoted: “If the natives do these things, they must learn their lesson the hard way.”

April 19, 1960. Labor and student groups overthrow the autocratic First Republic of South Korea under Syngman Rhee. This revolution leads to the peaceful resignation of Rhee and the transition to the Second Republic.

April 21, 1960. The planned futuristic city of Brasilia becomes the capital of Brazil. The picture above is central Brasilia in 1986.

April 27, 1960. Togo gains independence from France.

May 1, 1960. Several Soviet surface-to-air missiles shoot down an American Lockheed U-2 spy plane. Its pilot, CIA agent Francis Gary Powers, is captured.

May 11, 1960. In Buenos Aires, four Israeli Mossad agents abduct the fugitive Nazi war criminal, Adolf Eichmann, in order that he could be taken to Israel and put on trial. Eichmann is later convicted and executed.

July 1, 1960. The UK- and Italian-ruled territories of Somaliland gain their independence and unite to form the nation of Somalia.

October 1, 1960. Nigeria declares their independence from the United Kingdom and becomes a member of the British Commonwealth.

January 31, 1958. The first successful American satellite, Explorer 1, is launched into orbit from Cape Canaveral in Florida.

February 1, 1958. Egypt and Syria unite to form the United Arab Republic. Egyptian president Gamal Abdel Nasser will be president of the U.A.R. until Syria secedes in 1961.

May, 1958. In Algeria, 40,000 French settlers riot in protest against the French government’s agreement to give Algeria its independence.

June 16, 1958. Two years after the Hungarian uprising against Soviet control of their country, former Hungarian Prime Minister Imre Nagy, who sympathized with the rebels, is hanged for treason. Hungarians are angry but powerless to resist the Soviet-influenced Communists who control the country.

July 14, 1958. King Faisal of Iraq and Jordan, his son the crown prince and the prime minister of Iraq are all murdered n a military coup, and a republic is established.

July 29, 1958. The U.S. Congress formally creates the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA).

October, 1958. The USSR agrees to loan money to Egypt to build the Aswan High Dam across the Nile River in Aswan, Egypt.

November 28, 1958. Chad, the Republic of the Congo, and Gabon become autonomous republics within the French Community.

December 21, 1958. General Charles de Gaulle is elected president of France for a term of seven years. The major issue facing his government is whether or not to grant Algerian independence. French settlers in Algeria want the colony to remain under French rule, but Algerian nationalists are fighting for independence.

December 29, 1958. Rebel troops under Che Guevara begin to invade Santa Clara, Cuba. President Fulgencio Batista resigns two days later, on the night of the 31st.

January 3, 1957. Hamilton Watch Company introduces the first electric watch.

January 20, 1957. Israel withdraws from the Sinai Peninsula (captured from Egypt on October 29, 1956).

March 14, 1957. President Sukarno declares martial law in Indonesia. Sukarno continues to consolidate his power in Indonesia until he is made President for Life in 1963.

March 25, 1957. Six nations—France, West Germany, Italy, Belgium, Holland, and Luxembourg–set up the European Common Market or European Economic Community.

July 25, 1957. Tunisia becomes a republic, with Habib Bourguiba its first president.

August, 1957. Malaya receives its independence from the United Kingdom and elects its first president, Abdul Rahman.

September 22, 1957. Dr. François Duvalier (Papa Doc) comes to power in an election in Haiti. He later declares himself president for life, and rules until his death in 1971.

October 4, 1957. The Soviet Union launches Sputnik 1, the first artificial satellite to orbit the earth.

November 3, 1957. The Soviet Union launches Sputnik 2, with a dog called Laika on board, the first animal sent into orbit.

December 20, 1957. The Boeing 707 airliner flies for the first time.

January 1, 1956. The Sudan becomes an independent republic, gaining its independence from Egypt and Britain.

January 8, 1956. Operation Auca: Five U.S. missionaries Nate Saint, Roger Youderian, Ed McCully, Jim Elliot and Pete Fleming are killed by the Waodani of Ecuador shortly after making contact with them.

March 2, 1956. Morocco declares its independence from France.

May, 1956. In France, Teflon Co. markets a non-stick frying pan, the first non-stick kitchenware.

July 26, 1956. Colonel Gamal Abdel Nasser, president of Egypt, seizes control of the Suez Canal. His plan is to build a dam on the Nile at Aswan with the money the canal generates. In October Anglo-French forces bomb the canal, and in November they take the canal back from the Egyptians. The United Nations sends troops to take control of the canal.

September 13, 1956. The hard disk drive is invented by an IBM team led by Reynold B. Johnson.

September 21, 1956. Nicaraguan dictator Anastasio Somoza García is assassinated. His sons, Luis Somoza and Anastasio Somoza Debayle, rule the country of Nicaragua for the next twenty-three years.

October 17, 1956. 13-year-old Bobby Fischer beats Grand Master Donald Byrne in the NY Rosenwald chess tournament.

October 26, 1956. Rebels against the Communist government and the Soviet presence in Hungary destroy a huge bronze statue of Stalin in Budapest and face off with Soviet troops stationed in Hungary. Prime Minister Imre Nagy sympathizes with the rebels, but more Soviet troops are being sent to quell the uprising.

Back-to-school fashions in 1956-57