Voyeuristic Thriller: Director Alfred Hitchcock scores a box office success with the chilling "Psycho." In the movie's most terrifying scene, a young woman played by Janet Leigh is stabbed to death in a shower by motel keeper Norman Bates, portrayed by Anthony Perkins.
The 60-second sequence involves 70 shots. After seeing the movie, taking a shower will never be the same.

Lunch Counter Protest (Feb. 1): Four black college students in Greensboro, N.C., make purchases in Woolworth's and then sit at the "whites only" counter and order coffee. Upon being refused service, they remain seated. Their "sit-in" inspires similar actions across the South.

	Lucille Ball, Desi Jr. and Desi Arnez

Lost Love (March 3): "I Love Lucy" stars and real-life couple Lucille Ball and Desi Arnez announce their separation and plans for divorce.

Apartheid Anger (March 21): In white-ruled South Africa, police open fire on black demonstrators in the Johannesburg suburb of Sharpeville. The fusillade kills 56 demonstrators and wounds 162, including 16 who die later. The Sharpeville Massacre will become a watershed in the black majority's struggle against white-minority rule.

Cold-Blooded Killers (March 29): A jury sentences Richard Hickock and Perry Smith to death for the killings of Herbert Clutter, wife Bonnie, daughter Nancy and son Kenyon. The family died from shotgun blasts in their home in Holcomb, Kan., on Nov. 15, 1959. The murders and trial will become the subject of Truman Capote's "In Cold Blood."

Soviet Trial (May 1): A Soviet missile brings down a Lockheed U-2 piloted by Francis Gary Powers for the CIA as the spy plane cruises above the Soviet Union. In a trial broadcast worldwide, the Soviets convict Powers of espionage. He is sentenced to 10 years' "deprivation of freedom" but is exchanged for Soviet spy Rudolph Abel in 1962.

	Eichmann

Nazi Trap (May 11): Israeli secret agents seize Ricardo Clement in Argentina, spirit him to Israel and later identify him as Nazi Gestapo bureaucrat Adolf Eichmann, who coordinated the so-called "Final Solution of the Jewish question." Eichmann will be found guilty and hanged May 31, 1962. His last words: "I was just following orders."

Televised Debate (Sept. 26): In the first televised presidential debate, a tired, underprepared Vice President Richard M. Nixon appears wan and combative next to the calm, telegenic Sen. John Fitzgerald Kennedy. Three debates later, the Nov. 8 election is razor-close: Kennedy wins with 49.7 percent of the popular vote to Nixon's 49.6 percent.

Banging Away (Oct. 12): While listening to a speech by a Filipino delegate at the United Nations, Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev removes one of his shoes and begins to slam it down it on the desk. He had become incensed by the delegate's suggestion that a decolonization resolution proposed by the Soviets should also extend to Eastern Europe.