Where were you 50 years ago this month?

If you’re younger than 50 — or if you were around but not paying attention — you missed a lot.

In 1960 — amazingly, half a century ago (yikes!) — July itself was an amazing month in pop culture — and the whole year offered many historic firsts, big and small, and momentous events.

Here’s a time capsule look at some of them, starting with three “landmark” July “cultural events.” In that month alone:

• Harper Lee released her only novel, “To Kill a Mockingbird,” a Pulitzer Prize winner  and one of the most revered books in American literature.

--The Ohio Art Co.’s Etch A Sketch, an “unforgiving” artistic medium where one shaky mistake can disrupt your masterpiece, made its debut. If it won’t depress you to see what a real “pro” can do at the touchy controls, click on this slide show to check out some of these incredible masterpieces. 

--And Chubby Checker, rock ’n’ roll’s undisputed dance king (also the hucklebuck, the pony, the limbo, the fly, the mess around) introduced his signature dance: The twist “reinvented” modern dancing by popularizing dance-floor moves in which the partners never — or seldom — touch. “The Twist,” his version of Hank Ballard & the Midnighters’ modest 1960 hit, is the only song of the modern era to hit No. 1 in separate chart runs in separate years (September 1960 and January 1962).

Here are a few other 1960 developments — many of them life-altering or prompting social change — that may bring back a memory or two:

Nation/World
• John Fitzgerald Kennedy is elected president, the first Catholic to serve, in a squeaker election over Richard Nixon following pivotal TV debates.

• The first nuclear-powered aircraft carrier, the U.S.S. Enterprise, was launched and christened.

• With 160,000 East Germans fleeing to West Germany, Nikita Khrushchev orders the construction of the Berlin Wall.   

• U-2 pilot Francis Gary Powers is brought down over Soviet airspace and captured, eventually forcing the United States to admit to aerial spying.

• OPEC — the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries — is created.

• Fifteen African countries gain their independence from colonial rule.

• The Chile earthquake, considered the most powerful in recorded history, and the accompanying tsunami produce death tolls estimated as high as 6,000.

• Sirimavo Bandaranaike of Ceylon (Sri Lanka) becomes the world’s first woman to serve as prime minister.

Health and Science
• The first oral contraceptives are made available to the public.

• The American Heart Association links smoking (PDF) to heart disease.

Technology, Inventions and Innovation
• The first Teflon cookware makes it debut — for sale at Macy’s in New York.

• Xerox introduces the first commercial copy machine.

• The first telephone answering machine is introduced in the United States.

• Several “first” satellites are launched, including Tiros-1, the first weather satellite; Echo I, the first experimental communications satellite; Transit I-B, the first navigational satellite; and Corona, the first spy satellite.

• Theodore Maiman builds the first working laser.

• Wilson Greatbatch’s implantable pacemakers are used on humans for the first time.

 Arts and Entertainment
• Movies: “Ben-Hur” wins the Best Picture Oscar, and  Billy Wilder’s “The Apartment” — the 1961 winner — is released. The chariot race in “Ben-Hur” is still one of the most amazing — and exciting — “action scenes” in film history.

• Other big books: John Updike’s "Rabbit, Run," and William L. Shirer’s “The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich.” Also, Allen Drury wins the Pulitzer Prize for fiction with “Advise and Consent.”

• Year’s top song: Percy Faith’s “Theme From ‘A Summer Place,’ ” stays at No. 1 for nine weeks.

• Censorship: “Lady Chatterley’s Lover” goes on sale in England for the first time after a 32-year ban.

• Nightlife: The first Playboy Club opens —- in Chicago.

• Television: Animated cartoon favorites “The Flintstones” debut in prime time.

• Suspense: Alfred Hitchcock’s “Pyscho” scares the nation’s film audiences.

Sports
• Cassius Clay wins his first professional fight after taking the Gold Medal at the Summer Olympics in Rome.

• The Winter Olympics are held in Squaw Valley, Calif.

• The Pittsburgh Pirates upset perennial champs the New York Yankees in a seven-game World Series.

Milestones
• Births: U2 singer Bono, and actors Antonio Banderas and Hugh Grant.

• Deaths: Actor Clark Gable, author Boris Pasternak and etiquette expert Emily Post.