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It is hard to imagine a decade that had so much packed into it as did the 1960s. From the first man in space to a presidential assas- sination, to the start of a 10-year war to the birth of the countercul- ture and hippie movements to nationwide protests over that war and civil rights, to the passage of national civil rights and voting rights legislation, to the assassination of the country’s preeminent civil rights leader to the first man from Earth landing on the moon, the 1960s had it all. This timeline lays out the most significant of these events. 1960 A group of students stages a sit-in against segregation at the Woolworths lunch counter in Greensboro, North Carolina, on February 1. The event triggers national interest in the evolving civil rights movement. An American U2 spy plane, piloted by Francis Gary Powers, is shot down over Russia on May 1 by the Soviet Union, and Powers is detained for what would be two years. Cold War tensions increase. The September 26 debate between presidential candidates Richard M. Nixon and John F. Kennedy becomes the first televised presidential debate in history. TIMELINE OF EVENTS