During the 902nd Plenary Meeting of the United Nations General Assembly held in New York City on 12 October 1960, Nikita Khrushchev, First Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, was alleged to have pounded his shoe on his delegate-desk in protest at a speech by Philippine delegate Lorenzo Sumulong.

In 2003, American scholar William Taubman reported that he had interviewed some eyewitnesses who said that Khrushchev had brandished his shoe but not banged it. He also reported that no photographic or video records of the shoe-banging had been found. However, in his biography of Khrushchev, he wrote that he accepted that the shoe-banging had occurred.

On 12 October 1960, head of the Filipino delegation Lorenzo Sumulong referred to "the peoples of Eastern Europe and elsewhere which have been deprived of the free exercise of their civil and political rights and which have been swallowed up, so to speak, by the Soviet Union". Upon hearing this, Khrushchev quickly came to the rostrum, being recognized on a point of order. There he demonstratively, in a theatrical manner, brushed Sumulong aside, with an upward motion of his right arm—without physically touching him—and began a lengthy denunciation of Sumulong, branding him (among other things) as "a jerk, a stooge, and a lackey", and a "toady of American imperialism" and demanded Assembly President Frederick Boland (Ireland) call Sumulong to order. Boland did caution Sumulong to "avoid wandering out into an argument which is certain to provoke further interventions", but permitted him to continue speaking and sent Khrushchev back to his seat.

According to some sources, Khrushchev pounded his fists on his desk in protest as Sumulong continued to speak, and at one point picked up his shoe and banged the desk with it. Some other sources report a different order of events: Khrushchev first banged the shoe then went to the rostrum to protest. Sumulong's speech was again interrupted. Another point of order was raised by the highly agitated Romanian Foreign Vice-minister Eduard Mezincescu [ro], a member of the Eastern Bloc. Mezincescu gave his own angry denunciation of Sumulong and then turned his anger on Boland, his provoking, insulting, and ignoring of the Assembly President leading to his microphone being eventually shut off. This prompted a chorus of shouts and jeers from the Eastern Bloc delegations. The chaotic scene finally ended when Boland abruptly declared the meeting adjourned and slammed his gavel, named Thor's gavel, down so hard he broke it, sending the head flying.

This incident was reported at the time by a number of newspapers, including The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Guardian, The Times, and Le Monde. The New York Times had a photograph that pictured Khrushchev and Andrei Gromyko, with a shoe on Khrushchev's desk.

This incident should not be confused with an earlier one at the General Assembly, on 29 September, when Khrushchev angrily interrupted Harold Macmillan, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, banging the desk and shouting in Russian, at which Macmillan drily said "I should like that to be translated, if I may".

Khrushchev was reported to be delighted with his performance, but other members of Eastern Bloc delegations to the UN were embarrassed or displeased. Khrushchev was removed as leader in 1964, and he was criticized for the incident: "a shameful episode that he still presents as an act of valor".

In 1961, Marxist philosopher Frantz Fanon commented: "And when Mr. Khrushchev brandishes his shoe at the United Nations and hammers the table with it, no colonized individual, no representative of the underdeveloped countries laughs. For what Mr. Khrushchev is showing the colonized countries who are watching is that he, the missile-wielding muzhik, is treating these wretched capitalists the way they deserve."