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Top Song(s)
• Elvis Presley - It's Now Or Never
• Chubby Checker - The Twist
• Percy Faith - Theme From 'A Summer Place'
• Rocco Granata - Marina
• The Everly Brothers - Cathy's Clown
Top Film(s)
• The Apartment
• Psycho
• La Dolce Vita
• Breathless
• The Magnificent Seven
Best Selling Book(s)
• To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee
• Green Eggs and Ham - Dr. Seuss
• Island of the Blue Dolphins - Scott O'Dell
• Are You My Mother? - P.D. Eastman
• The Cricket in Times Square - George Selden
Famous Deaths
• January 11 – Isabel Emslie Hutton, Scottish nurse in Serbia during World War I and psychiatrist
• March 11 - Roy Chapman Andrews, American explorer, adventurer and naturalist
• May 12 – Prince Aly Khan, Pakistani United Nations ambassador
• June 28 - Moric Esterhazy, Hungarian aristocrat and politician, 18th Prime Minister of Hungary
• July 27 – Georgi Kyoseivanov, 27th Prime Minister of Bulgaria
• August 5 – Arthur Meighen, 9th Prime Minister of Canada
• September 1 – Hisamuddin of Selangor, King of Malaysia
• October 25 – Harry Ferguson, Irish engineer and inventor
• November 23 – Allen Hobbs, 32nd Governor of American Samoa
• December 12 – Christopher Hornsrud, 11th Prime Minister of Norway
Medical/Science/Technology
• Max Perutz publishes the structure of hemoglobin.
• Robin Hill and Fay Bendall publish the 'Z scheme' of electron transport in photosynthesis.
• John Kendrew publishes the structure of myoglobin.
• Robert Burns Woodward publishes a total synthesis of chlorophyll.
• Jacques Ruffle invents blood typing.
• John McCarthy of MIT publishes the Lisp programming language.
• Harry Hammond Hess proposes the concept of seafloor spreading.
• William C. Chardack implants the first fixed-rate cardiac pacemaker with mercury battery.
• The American Heart Association announces an association between heavy cigarette smoking and coronary heart disease.
• First trials of measles vaccine carried out in Nigeria and elsewhere.
Political
• January 2 – U.S. Senator John F. Kennedy announces his candidacy for the Democratic presidential nomination.
• January 19 – The Treaty of Mutual Cooperation and Security between the U.S. and Japan is signed in Washington, D.C.
• March 6 – Vietnam War: The United States announces that 3,500 American soldiers will be sent to Vietnam.
• May 6 – President Dwight Eisenhower signs the Civil Rights Act of 1960 into law.
• May 9 – The U.S. Food and Drug Administration announces that it will approve birth control.
• May 16 - Nikita Khrushchev demands an apology from President Dwight D. Eisenhower for U-2 spy plane flights over the Soviet Union.
• June 7 – U.S. Senator John F. Kennedy wins the California Democratic primary.
• July 13 – U.S. Senator John F. Kennedy is nominated for president at the Democratic National Convention.
• July 25–28 – In Chicago, the Republican National Convention nominates U.S. Vice President Richard M. Nixon for president.
• August 18 – President Dwight Eisenhower is briefed on the Congo crisis at a meeting with the U.S. National Security Council.
National
• January 25 – In Washington, D.C., the National Association of Broadcasters reacts to the payola scandal.
• February 11 – The airship ZPG-3W is destroyed in a storm in Massachusetts.
• March 5 – Elvis Presley receives his honorable discharge from the U.S. Army.
• March 17 – Northwest Airlines Flight 710 crashes near Tell City, Indiana, killing all 61 on board.
• April 13 – The United States launches navigation satellite Transit I-b.
• June 16 – Psychological horror film Psycho is released, directed by Alfred Hitchcock.
• June 23 – Little Missouri National Grassland is established.
• August 29 – Hurricane Donna kills 50 in Florida and New England.
• September 26 – The two leading U.S. presidential candidates, participate in the first televised presidential election debate.
• October 14 – U.S. presidential candidate John F. Kennedy first suggests the idea for the Peace Corps.
Worldwide
• January 9–11 – Aswan Dam construction begins in Egypt.
• January 21 - Coalbrook mining disaster: A coal mine collapses at Holly Country, South Africa, killing 435 miners.
• March 6 - The Canton of Geneva in Switzerland gives women the right to vote.
• April 9 – White gunman David Pratt shoots South African Prime Minister Hendrik Verwoerd in Johannesburg, wounding him seriously.
• May 1 – A Soviet missile shoots down an American Lockheed U-2 spy plane; the pilot Gary Powers is captured.
• June 1 – New Zealand's first television station begins broadcasting, in the city of Auckland.
• July 3 – The French Grand Prix is won by Australian Jack Brabham driving a Cooper T53.
• August 16 - The Mediterranean island of Cyprus receives its independence from the United Kingdom.
• October 7 – Nigeria becomes the 99th member of the United Nations.
• November 14 - Belgium threatens to leave the United Nations over criticism of its policy concerning the Republic of the Congo.