It is also known as the "Year of Africa" because of major events—particularly the independence of seventeen African nations—that focused global attention on the continent and intensified feelings of Pan-Africanism. Events January January 9–11 – Aswan Dam construction begins in Egypt. January 10 – British Prime Minister Harold Macmillan makes the "Wind of Change" speech for the first time, to little publicity, in Accra, Gold Coast (modern-day Ghana). January 19 – A revised version of the U.S.-Japan Security Treaty, which allows U.S. troops to be based on Japanese soil, is signed in Washington, D.C. by Prime Minister Nobusuke Kishi and President Dwight D. Eisenhower. The new treaty is opposed by the massive Anpo protests in Japan. January 21 Coalbrook mining disaster: A coal mine collapses at Holly Country, South Africa, killing 435 miners. Avianca Flight 671 crashes and burns upon landing at Montego Bay, Jamaica killing 37, the worst air disaster in Jamaica's history and the first for Avianca. January 22 Charles de Gaulle, President of France, dismisses Jacques Massu as commander-in-chief of French troops in Algeria. Jacques Piccard and Don Walsh descend into the Mariana Trench in the bathyscaphe Trieste, reaching the depth of , and become the first human beings to reach the lowest spot on Earth. January 24 – A major insurrection occurs in Algiers against French colonial policy. February February 1 – Greensboro sit-ins: In Greensboro, North Carolina, four black students from North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University begin a sit-in at a segregated Woolworth's lunch counter. Although they are refused service, they are allowed to stay at the counter. The event triggers many similar non-violent protests throughout the Southern United States, and six months later, the original four protesters are served lunch at the same counter. February 3 – Prime Minister of the United Kingdom Harold Macmillan makes the Wind of Change speech to the South African Parliament in Cape Town (although he had first made the speech, to little publicity, in Accra, Gold Coast — modern-day Ghana — on January 10). February 5 – The first CERN particle accelerator becomes operational in Geneva, Switzerland. February 10 – A conference about the proposed independence of the Belgian Congo begins in Brussels, Belgium. February 11 – Twelve Indian soldiers die in clashes with Red Chinese troops along their small common border. February 13 – Gerboise Bleue: France tests its first atomic bomb, in the Sahara