February 3 – The United States embargo against Cuba is announced

February 10 – Captured American spy pilot Francis Gary Powers is exchanged for captured Soviet spy Rudolf Abel in Berlin.

February 14 – First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy takes television viewers on a tour of the White House.

February 20 – Project Mercury: while aboard Friendship 7, John Glenn becomes the first American to orbit the Earth, three times in 4 hours, 55 minutes

March 19 – Bob Dylan releases his debut album, Bob Dylan.

April 10 – In Los Angeles, California, the first MLB game is played at Dodger Stadium.

April 14 – A Cuban military tribunal convicts 1,179 Bay of Pigs attackers.

April 21 – The Century 21 Exposition World's Fair opens in Seattle, Washington, opening the Space Needle to the public for the first time.

June 25 – Engel v. Vitale: the court rules that mandatory prayers in public schools are unconstitutional.

July 10 – AT&T's Telstar, the world's first commercial communications satellite, is launched into orbit, and activated the next day

August 5 – Marilyn Monroe is found dead at age 36 from "acute barbiturate poisoning".

August 27 – NASA launches the Mariner 2 space probe.

September 12 – President John F. Kennedy, at a speech at Rice University, reaffirms that the U.S. will put a man on the moon by the end of the decade.

September 25 – Sonny Liston knocks out Floyd Patterson two minutes into the first round of his fight for the boxing world title at Comiskey Park in Chicago

September 30 – CBS broadcasts the final episodes of Suspense and Yours Truly, Johnny Dollar, marking the end of the Golden Age of Radio.

October 1 - The first black student, James Meredith, registers at the University of Mississippi, escorted by Federal Marshals.

October 1 - Johnny Carson takes over as permanent host of NBC's The Tonight Show, a post he would hold for 30 years

October 14 – Cuban Missile Crisis begins: a U-2 flight over Cuba takes photos of Soviet nuclear weapons being installed. A stand-off then ensues the next day between the United States and the Soviet Union, threatening the world with nuclear war.

October 22 – In a televised address, U.S. President John F. Kennedy announces to the nation the existence of Soviet missiles in Cuba.

October 28 – Cuban Missile Crisis: Soviet Union leader Nikita Khrushchev announces that he has ordered the removal of Soviet missile bases in Cuba. In a secret deal between Kennedy and Khrushchev, Kennedy agrees to the withdrawal of U.S. missiles from Turkey. The fact that this deal is not made public makes it look like the Soviets have backed down.

November 7 – Richard M. Nixon loses the California governor's race. In his concession speech, he states that this is his "last press conference" and that "you won't have Dick Nixon to kick around any more".

November 20 – The Cuban Missile Crisis ends: in response to the Soviet Union agreeing to remove its missiles from Cuba, U.S. President John F. Kennedy ends the quarantine of the Caribbean nation.

December 2 – Vietnam War: after a trip to Vietnam at the request of U.S. President John F. Kennedy, U.S. Senate Majority Leader Mike Mansfield becomes the first American official to make a non-optimistic public comment on the war's progress.

December 14 – U.S. spacecraft Mariner 2 flies by Venus, becoming the first probe to successfully transmit data from another planet.

December 24 – Cuba releases the last 1,113 participants in the Bay of Pigs Invasion to the U.S., in exchange for food worth $53 million.

 

Ongoing

• Cold War (1945–1991)

• Space Race (1957–1975)

• Vietnam War, U.S. involvement (1962–1973)

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