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US spy plane shot down in soviet union. Francis Gary Powers captured but later released
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Fifty star flag debuted in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
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The entire US Figure Skating Team was killed in a plane crash going to world championships. 73 people died.
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Attempt by Cuban exiles under the direction of the United States government to overthrow the regime of Fidel Castro.
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A Mercury capsule was launched 116.5 miles above the earth from Cape Canaveral, Florida
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Berlin Wall is built by the soviets
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In response to the Soviet Union building offensive missiles in Cuba, President John F. Kennedy orders a naval and air blockade of military equipment to the island. An agreement is eventually reached with Soviet Premier Khrushchev on the removal of the missiles, ending the potential conflict after thirty-eight days, in what many think was the closest the Cold War came to breaking into armed conflict.
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The last twenty-seven prisoners of Alcatraz, the island prison in San Francisco Bay, are ordered removed by Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy, and the federal penitentiary is closed.
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The United States, Soviet Union, and Great Britain agree to a limited nuclear test-ban treaty, barring all nuclear testing above ground.
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President Kennedy was fatally shot and killed by Lee Harvey Oswald
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1960 Olympic champion Cassius Clay (Muhammad Ali) wins the World Heavyweight Championship in Boxing from current champ Sonny Liston.
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President Lyndon B. Johnson orders the continuous bombing of North Vietnam below the 20th parallel.
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Medicare, the government medical program for citizens over the age of 65, begins.
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The first black United States Senator in eighty-five years, Edward Brooke, is elected to Congress.
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The Outer Space Treaty is signed into force by the United States, Great Britain, and the Soviet Union, to take effect on October 10, 1967.
