It was the year 1960 -Did you know?
• Squaw Valley, California, site of the 1960 Winter Olympics, had no snow as games time approached. A local Native American tribe, the Piute, performed an Indian snow dance and believe it or not, it worked. A snow storm ensued and the games went on as planned.
• Gold for the United States Olympic hockey team vs. Czechoslovakia in Squaw Valley, California. This gold medal was the first for the United States Olympic hockey team.
• Wilma Rudolph won 3 Olympic gold medals at the 1960 Summer Olympics in Rome. At the age of 20, she was also known as the fastest woman in the world. She surprisingly, had polio when she was a little girl and wore leg braces until she was 12 years old.
• The US Men’s Olympic Basketball Team won the gold medal at the Summer Games. They defeated the Soviet Union.
• Floyd Patterson regained the world heavyweight boxing title after losing it a year earlier. He was the first boxer to accomplish this feat. He did it by knocking out champion Ingemar Johansson of Sweden in the fifth round of his match in New York.
• The Pittsburgh Pirates of the National League defeated the New York Yankees of the American League in a seven-game World Series. In the bottom of the ninth inning, Bill Mazeroski, the Pirates’ second baseman, hit a home run off Yankees pitcher Ralph Terry to win the World Series for the Pirates.
• Johnny Unitas, the quarterback for the Baltimore Colts, extending his touchdown passing streak by passing for touchdowns in 47 straight games. The passing streak ended the next week at the Los Angeles Coliseum, the same place the streak began.
• Green Bay Packers running back Paul Hornung set an NFL single-season scoring record of 176 points. This record would stand for 46 years.
• Betsy Rawls won her fourth US Women’s Open golf championship in July by hitting Joyce Ziske at Worcester Country Club in Massachusetts. She had also won this event in 1951, 1953 and 1957.
• 1960 also saw the opening of the Charlotte Motor Speedway in North Carolina. The circuit was the host of the World 600 won by Joe Lee Johnson.