Year of Africa
Seventeen nations win independence in a single year
In 1960 seventeen African countries gained independence, including Nigeria, Congo and most of France's colonies. The year marked the climax of the continent's decolonisation and sharply changed the make-up of the United Nations.
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Did you know
In 1960, 17 African countries gained independence — more than in any other single year in history.
Meanwhile around the world (±25 years)
Whole world
- 1939–1945 World War II — 21 years earlier
- 1947–1991 Cold War — 13 years earlier
- 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights — 12 years earlier
- 1949 Founding of NATO — 11 years earlier
- 1980 Smallpox declared eradicated — 20 years later
Europe
- 1936–1939 Spanish Civil War — 24 years earlier
- 1941–1945 The Holocaust — 19 years earlier
- 1953 Discovery of the DNA double helix — 7 years earlier
- 1957 Treaty of Rome — 3 years earlier
- 1961 Berlin Wall built — 1 year later
Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1941–1944 Siege of Leningrad — 19 years earlier
- 1942–1943 Battle of Stalingrad — 18 years earlier
- 1945 German surrender and Victory Day — 15 years earlier
- 1957 Sputnik 1, the first satellite — 3 years earlier
- 1961 Gagarin's flight — 1 year later
Middle East
- 1948 Founding of the State of Israel — 12 years earlier
- 1979 Iranian Revolution — 19 years later
- 1980–1988 Iran–Iraq War — 20 years later
Asia
- 1945 Atomic bombing of Hiroshima — 15 years earlier
- 1953 First ascent of Everest — 7 years earlier
- 1958–1962 Great Leap Forward — 2 years earlier
- 1964 First Shinkansen high-speed railway — 4 years later
- 1975–1979 The Khmer Rouge and the Cambodian genocide — 15 years later
Americas
- 1959 Cuban Revolution — 1 year earlier
- 1960 Great Chilean earthquake — same year
- 1969 Moon landing — 9 years later
- c. 1970 Mass deforestation of the Amazon begins — 10 years later
- 1983 Birth of the Internet: ARPANET adopts TCP/IP — 23 years later
Oceania
- 1936 Death of the last thylacine — 24 years earlier
- 1941 Attack on Pearl Harbor — 19 years earlier
- 1942 The Battle of Midway — 18 years earlier
- 1954 The Castle Bravo test at Bikini — 6 years earlier
- 1959 The Antarctic Treaty — 1 year earlier
Alive at the time
- Winston Churchill (aged 86)
- Pablo Picasso (aged 79)
- Charlie Chaplin (aged 71)
- Mao Zedong (aged 67)
- Nelson Mandela (aged 42)
- Martin Luther King Jr. (aged 31)
- Neil Armstrong (aged 30)
- Yuri Gagarin (aged 26)
- Harry S. Truman (aged 76)
- Anna Akhmatova (aged 71)