Thursday, October 13: Pittsburgh Pirates win World Series

In what's considered the most dramatic ending to a World Series, second baseman Bill Mazeroski hits a home run in the bottom of the 9th inning to give the Pittsburgh Pirates the victory over the New York Yankees, 10-9. Pittsburgh wins the series, 4 games to 3. (While a few highlights exist, video of the entire game was long thought lost; however, complete footage was discovered in September 2010 in the home of entertainer Bing Crosby, a part-owner of the Pirates at the time.)

* Series summary: @

* Audio of home run and postgame interviews: @

* Sports Illustrated story (October 24, 1960): @

* Pittsburgh Post-Gazette commemorative website: @

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Thursday, October 13: Civil rights protests in Jackson, Tennessee

Several students from all-black Lane College are arrested when they sit in the front seats on Jackson City Lines buses. A bus boycott begins on October 14; the bus company relents on October 15. While that incident ended peacefully, efforts to desegregate the city's lunch counters did not. What happened in Jackson was largely untold until 2000, when The Jackson Sun newspaper published a series of stories on the events.

* Jackson Sun series: @

* Summary from "The Civil Rights Movement in Tennessee: A Narrative History" (book): @

* Article from The Student Voice (publication of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee): @

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September-October, 1960: Khrushchev and the U.N.

* Monday, September 19: Soviet premier Nikita Khrushchev arrives in New York for what will be a contentious session of the United Nations General Assembly. Also in New York is Cuba's leader, Fidel Castro, who had arrived the day before.

-- Footage of Khrushchev and Castro arriving in New York: @

* Tuesday, September 20: The General Assembly opens. Khrushchev and Castro meet for the first time. Afterward, Khrushchev likens Castro to "a young horse that hasn't been broken. He needs some training, but he's very spirited, so we'll have to be careful."
-- Footage of Khrushchev-Castro meeting: @

* Thursday, September 22: U.S. President Eisenhower expresses strong support for the U.N.'s role, particularly its peacekeeping activities in Africa. He also asks: "Will outer space be preserved for peaceful use and developed for the benefit of all mankind? Or will it become another focus for the arms race -- and thus an area of dangerous and sterile competition?"

-- Speech: Summary @ and text @

* Friday, September 23: Speaking for nearly two and a half hours, Khrushchev accuses the West of continuing to seek colonial rule in Africa. He also says the secretary-general's post should be abolished in favor of a three-person committee representing Communist, West and neutralist blocs. After Khrushchev's speech, a New York antiques dealer presents him with an American Indian peace pipe, saying "may the leaders of our two great powers, the USSR and the USA, see in this pipe a new age ... may you and the heads of other states symbolically smoke it together." (Click here for larger view.)

-- Portion of speech: @

* Monday, September 26: Castro speaks for more than four hours. He begins his speech by saying, "Although it has been said of us that we speak at great length, you may rest assured that we shall endeavor to be brief ..."

-- Text of speech: @ and @ (printed version)

* Thursday, September 29: Khrushchev interrupts a speech by British Prime Minister Harold MacMillan, pounding on his desk with his fists and shouting, "You send your planes over our territory, you are guilty of aggression!"

-- BBC summary: @

-- Life magazine coverage: @

-- Footage: @

* Monday, October 3: Khrushchev repeats his call for the removal of Secretary-General Dag Hammarskjold, who replies that by doing so he would "throw the organization to the winds."

-- Footage: @

* Sunday, October 9: Khrushchev is interviewed on the "Open End" TV program, hosted by David Susskind. The interview turns contentious, with Khrushchev at one point threatening to walk off the set. The most memorable exchange:

Khrushchev: ... Our land is sacred and sovereign, and it's only the peoples of the Soviet Union themselves that have the right to govern their land, and administer their affairs. ... Why should you try to poke your nose into our garden? Have you not enough things to do in your own country?

Susskind: You're baying at the moon. ... We believe with all our might that there are many subjugated peoples in Eastern Europe. We ask that a plebiscite be held, not in your home country, not in the Soviet Union, but in many of the countries of Eastern Europe, who are now within the Soviet orbit.

Khrushchev: Is such an expression as "baying at the moon" regarded as normal polite conversation in your country? We regard it as rude. After all, I'm old enough to be your father, and young man, it is unworthy to speak to me like this. You look pleasant enough but you do not express yourself quite courteously. I do not permit an attitude like that towards myself. I did not come here to "bark" -- I am the chairman of the Council of Ministers of the world's greatest socialist state. You will therefore please show respect for me. If you do not want to, then do not invite me for an interview. There must be courtesy, but you are accustomed to prod and knock everyone about. Ours is the kind of state which will not allow itself to be ordered about.

-- More about the near-departure: @

-- Time magazine account: @

-- Photo from interview: @

* Wednesday, October 12: Shoe-banging incident. See separate post below.

* Thursday, October 13: After a final, failed attempt to have the U.N. condemn the United States for its U-2 spy flights, Khrushchev boards a plane and departs from New York. "We are leaving in a good mood," he says.

Other resources:

* "Khrushchev in New York" (Text of speeches, appearances): @

* "Memoirs of Nikita Khrushchev": @

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Wednesday, October 12, 1960: Khrushchev's shoe

At the United Nations, Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev is said to have pounded his shoe on his desk after a Philippine delegate's remark about Soviet oppression of Eastern Europe. But did it really happen? The New York Times was unequivocal: "Premier Khrushchev waved his shoe today and banged it on his desk, adding to the lengthening list of antics with which he has been nettling the General Assembly." There are no photos or footage of the incident; the closest is a photo, taken by the Times, of Khrushchev seated at his desk with a shoe in front of him (click to enlarge).

-- Los Angeles Daily Mirror front page: @

-- 1988 New York Times story: @

-- 2003 New York Times story: @

-- Account by Khrushchev's granddaughter: @

-- Account from "Khrushchev: The Man and His Era" (book): @

-- Accounts from "Memoirs of Nikita Khrushchev": @ (Khrushchev) and @ (bodyguard) and @ (U.N. employee)

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Wednesday, October 12, 1960: Assassination in Japan

During a political debate in Tokyo among the leaders of the major parties, Inejiro Asanuma of the Socialist Party is fatally stabbed by a student with a samurai sword. The event is captured live on television and by photographers. The assassin, Otoya Yamaguchi, called Asanuma "a pro-Communist enemy of the people." Yamaguchi hangs himself in his jail cell less than three weeks later.

* Footage: @

* Longer summary: @

* Story, photos in Life magazine: @

* Stories in Time magazine: @ and @

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Monday-Friday, October 10-14, 1960: LBJ's whistle-stop tour

Sen. Lyndon B. Johnson, the Democratic candidate for vice president, begins a 5-day, 8-state, 3,500-mile campaign tour by train, starting in Culpeper, Virginia, and ending in New Orleans, Louisiana. He gives some 60 speeches along the way. (The photo at left was taken in Greenville, South Carolina; click to enlarge). The train, which the campaign called the "LBJ Victory Special," is dubbed "The Cornpone Special" by some reporters.

The day before, during an appearance on NBC's "Meet the Press," Johnson had shown a barbed sense of humor about his own running mate when talking about the Democrats' efforts to cut federal spending. He deadpans, "And I predict, if I know anything about Senator Kennedy, that he'll continue that policy. All you have to do is go to a drugstore with him and buy a sandwich and see how long he shuffles trying to get the money to pick up the check ... find out, if he handles the government's money like he handles his own, why, we're going to have a pretty good fiscal policy."

* Photos from Greensboro, North Carolina: @

* Johnson atop "The Big Chair" in Thomasville, North Carolina: @ and @ (photo courtesy of Thomasville Times)

* Article by only black reporter on the train: @

* Account from Time magazine: @

* More about presidential campaign trains from "Safire's Political Dictionary": @ and @ (origin of word "whistlestopping")

* "Meet the Press" footage: @

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Sunday, October 9, 1960: National Historic Landmarks

The U.S. government's National Park Service launches the program by recognizing 92 sites for their historical significance. Among the sites: the Erie Canal, representing the Advance of the Frontier, and Boston's Faneuil Hall (left), which, according to the official Statement of Significance, "served as a focal point of Colonial protest against British rule and later as a center of the abolition movement in Boston." The October 9 list was quickly expanded, first on December 12 and then again on January 20, 1961. The number of National Historic Landmarks (currently less than 2,500) is far fewer than the number of sites on the National Register of Historic Places (some 80,000).

* National Historic Landmarks website: @

* History: @

* Current list by state (as of June 2010): @

* National Register of Historic Places website: @

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Undated: Life in 1960 (as imagined in 1939)

The New York World's Fair of 1939-1940 included an exhibit/ride called Futurama, envisioning what the United States might look like in the year 1960. It was sponsored by General Motors and designed by Norman Bel Geddes (the father of actress Barbara Bel Geddes). The ride carried passengers past miniature landscapes laid out along a vast, sophisticated highway system (including 7-lane, one-way highways, with cars kept at a safe distance from one another by radio control).

* More about Futurama: @ and @

* Watch Futurama video "To New Horizons": @

* Futurama photos: @

* ExpoMuseum (website on world's fairs): @

* More about Norman Bel Geddes: @ and @

* "Magic Motorways" (book by Norman Bel Geddes): @

* "The Dream of an Automated Highway" (from Federal Highway Administration): @

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Undated: Disneyland

The theme park in Anaheim, California, is now 5 years old. Apart from the rides, the Tomorrowland exhibits (many of which were sponsored by corporations) include Crane's The Bathroom of Tomorrow.

* More about Bathroom of Tomorrow: @

* More about Tomorrowland: @

* Park photos from 1960: @

* Aerial views from 1955 and 1960: @

* 1960 souvenir program: @

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Undated: Josef Mengele

Called "The Angel of Death" of Nazi Germany, Josef Mengele flees Argentina after the arrest of Adolf Eichmann (see post of May 11). He will make his way to Brazil, where he lives until his drowning death in 1979. Mengele and other doctors performed grisly experiments on prisoners at the Auschwitz concentration camp.

* "Israeli ex-agent: We allowed Nazi doc to escape" (news report from 2008): @

* More about Mengele: @ and @

* Entry from United States Holocaust Memorial Museum: @

* Entry from www.trutv.com: @

* "Deadly Medicine: Creating the Master Race" exhibition: @

* "Auschwitz: A Doctor's Eyewitness Account" (book): @

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Monday, October 3, 1960: 'The Andy Griffith Show'

The comedy depicting small-town life in the American South debuts on CBS. The first episode has Aunt Bee coming to live as housekeeper for the widowed Sheriff Andy Taylor and his son, Opie. Much of Mayberry's look and feel was based on Griffith's hometown: Mount Airy, North Carolina.

* Show summary (from Museum of Broadcast Communications): @

* Show summary (from Learn NC): @

* Episode guide: @

* Fans' website: @

* Books: @ and @

* TV listings for October 3, 1960: @

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Saturday, October 1, 1960: The Climatron

The first geodesic dome to be built for use as a greenhouse, the Climatron opens as part of the Missouri Botanical Garden in St. Louis. The structure, covering a half-acre, incorporates the pioneering principles of inventor-engineer-futurist R. Buckminster Fuller.

* More about the Climatron: @ and @ and @

* Videos from Missouri Botanical Garden: @

* More about geodesic domes: @

* "The Birth of the Geodesic Dome": @

* More about domes in general: @

* More about R. Buckminster Fuller: @

* Buckminster Fuller Institute: @

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Undated: 'We Insist! Freedom Now Suite'

The powerful song cycle by jazz drummer and composer Max Roach centers on racial injustices throughout black history. The songs -- with Abbey Lincoln singing lyrics by Oscar Brown Jr. -- were recorded in August and September. The cover photo echoes the ongoing sit-ins of the civil rights movement (See posts of February 1, July 25 and August 27); its staged image of a white man serving three blacks was meant to be as provocative as the music within.

* The album and its political impact: @ and @ and @ and @ and @

* Performances from the album: @

* More about Max Roach: @ and @

* Roach discography: @

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Friday, September 30, 1960: 'The Flintstones'

The cartoon about a "modern Stone Age family" debuts in prime time on ABC. The main characters -- Fred, Wilma, Barney and Betty -- closely resemble those on "The Honeymooners," the popular comedy from the mid-'50s starring Jackie Gleason. The familiar theme song would not be part of the show until 1962. (This image is from the first episode; it's the moment when Fred says "Yabba-dabba-doo" for the first time.)

* Show summary (Museum of Broadcast Communications): @

* Watch the first episode, "The Flintstone Flyer": @ and @ and @

* More about the first episode: @

* Early reviews of show (most were not positive): @

* Flintstones and Hanna-Barbera website: @

* Watch ads for Winston cigarettes: @ and @

* Other new shows from fall 1960: @

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Wednesday, September 28, 1960: Ted Williams retires

One of the greatest hitters in baseball history hits a home run in his final at-bat for the Boston Red Sox. Williams missed nearly five seasons worth of playing time while serving in the military -- during World War II and again during the Korean War.

* Timeline: @

* Career statistics: @

* Boston Globe coverage: @

* "Hub Fans Bid Kid Adieu": (story by John Updike for The New Yorker): @

* Slideshow from Life magazine: @

* Official website: @

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