Monday, May 16, 1960: The first working laser

Thomas Maiman (left), working at Hughes Research Laboratory in Malibu, California, succeeds in "firing" a device that produces a very narrow, very powerful beam of light. The breakthrough takes place amid a "laser race," as scientists elsewhere were working along similar lines at the time. Laser stands for Light Amplification by Stimulated Emission of Radiation.

* Short summary: @

* How a laser works: @

* American Institute of Physics online exhibit: @

* History of Bell Labs' work: @

* 50 facts about lasers: @

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Monday, May 16, 1960: Paris summit falls apart

The mood of the meeting among the leaders of the United States, Soviet Union, USSR, Britain and France almost immediately turns hostile as Soviet leader Khrushchev, left, demands the U.S. apologize for the U-2 incident (see May 1, 5, 7, 11). Not only does U.S. President Eisenhower refuse to do so, he accuses Khrushchev of trying to sabotage the entire summit, which was to have taken up the issues of disarmament, East-West tensions and Berlin and the fate of Germany. Khrushchev withdraws his invitation for Eisenhower to visit the USSR.

* Short summary: @

* Newsreels: @ and @

* Khrushchev and Eisenhower statements, May 16: @

* Report from a CIA intelligence officer: @

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Friday, May 13, 1960: San Francisco sit-in

Hearings scheduled by the House Committee on Un-American Activities (HUAC) are disrupted by hundreds of protesters (many of them students) who occupy hallways inside San Francisco City Hall. Police push the crowd down a flight of stairs; several are injured and dozens are arrested. The hearings are suspended the next day after 3,500 people gather outside the building.

* More from Free Speech Movement archives: @

* More from protesters: @

* Live coverage from KPFA: @

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Wednesday, May 11, 1960: U-2 incident: Eisenhower defends U.S. actions

At the beginning of a news conference, President Eisenhower reads a prepared statement in which he says "we must have knowledge of military forces and preparations around the world, especially those capable of massive surprise attack," then goes on to call the U.S. spy missions "a distasteful but vital necessity." The next day, Eisenhower privately decides to suspend U-2 flights, but does not tell the Soviets nor the U.S. public; he hopes to announce it at the upcoming Paris summit, to be attended by the leaders of the United States, the Soviet Union, England and France.

* State Department statement, May 9: @

* Telegram from Soviet Union to U.S., May 10: @ and @

* Telegram from U.S. to Soviet Union, May 11: @

* Eisenhower's remarks, May 11: @ and @

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Wednesday, May 11, 1960: Israel abducts Adolf Eichmann

Adolf Eichmann, "the architect of the Holocaust," is captured by Israeli agents in Argentina, where he had been living since 1950. He was smuggled out of the country on May 21, and his capture was announced to the Israeli people on May 23. (His trial would begin in April 1961.) During World War II, Eichmann helped oversee the Nazi campaign to wipe out the Jewish population of Europe.

* More about Eichmann: @ and @

* More about the capture: @

* CIA files on Eichmann: @

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Tuesday, May 10, 1960: Around the world, underwater

The USS Triton, a new nuclear-powered submarine, completes the first submerged circumnavigation of the Earth. She had put to sea on February 15. The sub followed the 1519-1522 route of Portugese explorer Ferdinand Magellan.

* More about the Triton: @

* Website of former crew member: @

* Map of route: @

* Newsreel: @

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Tuesday, May 10, 1960: Kennedy wins West Virginia

Sen. John F. Kennedy (236,510 votes, 60.8%) defeats Sen. Hubert H. Humphrey (152,187, 39.2%) in West Virginia's Democratic presidential primary, putting to rest the notion that a Roman Catholic candidate was unelectable in Protestant strongholds of the United States. It is the latest in a series of primary victories for Kennedy over Humphrey, who gives up his candidacy. Reports of vote-buying were (and are) widespread. Kennedy himself would frequently tell variations of this joke on the campaign trail: "I have just received the following wire from my generous daddy -- 'Dear Jack: Don't buy a single vote more than is necessary. I'll be damned if I'm going to pay for a landslide.' " (Kennedy actually told the anecdote as far back as March 1958, in a speech to The Gridiron Club in Washington, D.C. The JFK Library has a transcript of that speech: @.)

* "Winning West Virginia" (from JFK Library): @

* Entries from The West Virginia Encyclopedia: @ and @
* "How the 1960 West Virginia Election Made History" (Washington Post, 2010): @

* "1960: LBJ Vs. JFK Vs. Nixon" (See Chapter Ten, "Committing a sin against God" (David Pietrusza, 2008): @

* "The Making of the President 1960" (See Chapter Four, "The Art of the Primary: Wisconsin and West Virginia" (Theodore H. White, 1961): @

* West Virginia Archives & History website: @ 

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Monday, May 9, 1960: The Pill

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration said it would approve as safe for birth control an oral contraceptive for women. (Formal approval would follow on June 23.) Made by G.D. Searle & Co., the drug -- marketed as Enovid -- was a synthetic combination of hormones that suppresses the release of eggs from a woman's ovaries.

* Short summary: @

* Birth control timeline: @

* Time magazine coverage from 2010: @

* Photo gallery from Life magazine: @

* 1957 interview with birth control pioneer Margaret Sanger: @

* "The Case for Birth Control," 1924 article by Sanger: @

* How the Pill changed the way the FDA operates: @

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Saturday, May 7, 1960: U-2 incident: The evidence

Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev, left, announces to the Supreme Soviet and the world that downed U.S. pilot Francis Gary Powers is, in fact, alive, and says his country has Powers and the wreckage of his spy plane to prove it. "Comrades, I must tell you a secret," Khrushchev said. "When I was making my report, I deliberately did not say that the pilot was alive and in good health and that we have got part of the plane. We did so deliberately, because had we told everything at once, the Americans would have invented another version." The U.S. then admits the spy mission, while at the same time trying to shield President Eisenhower's involvement: "... Insofar as the authorities in Washington are concerned there was no authorization for any such flight as described by Mr. Khrushchev. Nevertheless it appears that in endeavoring to obtain information now concealed behind the Iron Curtain a flight over Soviet territory was probably undertaken by an unarmed civilian U-2 plane."

* State Department statement, May 7: @

* "Operation Overflight" (Gary Francis Powers memoir): @

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Friday, May 6, 1960: Bob Newhart

The comedy record "The Button-Down Mind of Bob Newhart" is released. Newhart's deadpan humor, halting delivery and mock telephone coversations are a hit; the record would become the best-selling album in America and would win Album of the Year at the next year's Grammys. (Newhart would be named Best New Artist.) In 2006 the album was added to the National Recording Registry, a select list of "sound recordings that are culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant."

* Listen to "Abe Lincoln vs. Madison Avenue": @
* Appreciation of album: @

* Segment from NPR: @

* National Recording Registry: @

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Thursday, May 5, 1960: U-2 incident: Accusal and denial

In a speech to the Supreme Soviet, Nikita Khrushchev announces that a U.S. spyplane had been shot down on May 1. Khrushchev makes no mention of the pilot's fate; the U.S. assumes he was killed. In response, the U.S. issues a longer version of its initial cover story. Also, a U-2 plane is repainted with NASA markings and displayed the next day.

* NASA press release on missing plane, May 5: @

* State Department press release, May 6: @

* Repainted U-2 plane, photo and description: @ and @

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Tuesday, May 3, 1960: 'The Fantasticks'

The musical opens at the Sullivan Street Playhouse in New York, the first of what would turn into a record 17,162 performances. Its signature song is "Try to Remember."

* Official website: @

* Synopsis: @

* Assorted facts: @

* Listen to "Try to Remember": @

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Tuesday, May 3, 1960: Anne Frank

The Anne Frank House opens in Amsterdam, Netherlands, in the home where the Jewish teenager and her family hid from German occupation forces from July 6, 1942, to August 4, 1944. "The Diary of a Young Girl" was published in 1947.

* Anne Frank House website: @

* Anne Frank Center (New York): @

* Only existing footage of Anne Frank: @

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Sunday, May 1, 1960: U-2 incident

Francis Gary Powers, piloting a U-2 spy plane for the CIA, is shot down over Soviet airspace while taking pictures of missile sites. Powers survives after bailing out and is captured. Tensions quickly escalate between the United States and the Soviet Union as details of the mission come to light.

* More about the U-2 program (from Federation of American Scientists): @

* "The CIA and the U-2 Program, 1954-1974" (from www.cia.gov): @

* "May-July 1960: The U-2 Airplane Incident" (from U.S. State Department): @

* "The U-2 Program: A Russian Officer Remembers": @

* Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev's son writes about the downing (from American Heritage): @

* Initial cover story devised by U.S., May 2 (from Eisenhower Presidential Library & Museum): @

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Sunday, May 1, 1960: Silver Dollar City opens

The 1880s-themed park near Branson, Missouri, was built above Marvel Cave. 125,000 people visited in its first year.

* Official website and history: @ and @

* Timeline from fan website: @

* More about Marvel Cave: @

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