1960s facts for kids

Top, L-R: A soldier crawls on the ground in the Vietnam War; The Beatles, part of the British Invasion, change music in the United States and around the world.
Centre, L-R: John F. Kennedy is assassinated in 1963, after serving as President for three years; Martin Luther King Jr. makes his famous I Have a Dream Speech to a crowd of over a million; millions participate in the Woodstock Festival of 1969.
Bottom, L-R: China's Mao Zedong puts forward the Great Leap Forward plan; the Stonewall Inn, site of major demonstrations for gay and lesbian rights; for the first time in history, a human being sets foot on the Moon, in the Moon landing of July 1969

The 1960s was the decade that started on January 1, 1960 and ended on December 31, 1969. Many things happened in the sixties, including the Space Race, the Civil Rights movement, and the Vietnam War.

The 1960s term also refers to an era more often called the Sixties. This was a set of cultural and political trends around the globe. This "cultural decade" is loosely defined as beginning around 1963 and ending around 1974.

Millennium:	2nd millennium
Centuries:	19th century – 20th century – 21st century
Decades:	1930s 1940s 1950s – 1960s – 1970s 1980s 1990s
Years:	1960 1961 1962 1963 1964 1965 1966 1967 1968 1969
Categories:	Births – Deaths – Architecture Establishments – Disestablishments

Events

• Decolonization of much of Africa
• 1961 – Berlin Wall built
• 1961 – Bay of Pigs invasion
• 1962 – Cuban Missile Crisis
• 1963 – Assassination of John F. Kennedy on November 22
• 1965 – India invades Pakistan on September 6
• 1969 – Under the Apollo 11 program Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin become the first humans on the Moon
• Unix created.

Important people

• Stanley Kubrick, director
• Orson Welles, director
• The Rolling Stones, English rock band
• Muhammad Ali, boxer
• The Beatles, British rock band
• Fidel Castro, president of Cuba
• Sean Connery, actor
• Bob Dylan, singer, songwriter, artist
• Joan Baez, American Folk Singer
• Yuri Gagarin, astronaut
• Alfred Hitchcock, filmmaker
• Pope John XXIII, Pope until 1963
• Lyndon Johnson, President of the United States until 1968
• John F. Kennedy, President of the United States until 1963
• Martin Luther King Jr., American Civil Rights Movement leader
• Nikita Khruschev, Soviet leader
• Pope Paul VI since 1963
• Mao Zedong, leader of the People's Republic of China
• Elvis Presley, American singer
• Mary Quant, fashion designer