1963

This page lists news articles and events for the year 1963.

Events that happen on the specified date are listed under Events: entries. News articles that were published on the specified date are listed under News: entries. Events that only happened in fiction on the specified date are listed under Fiction: entries and are written in italics.

Centuries:	19th century		20th century			21st century
Decades:	1930s	1940s	1950s	1960s	1970s	1980s	1990s
Years:	1960	1961	1962	1963	1964	1965	1966

Undated

• The 1962 New York City newspaper strike is in progress when 1963 starts, and lasts till March.
• The Aerojet-Dade Rocket Facility is commissioned.
• The Civil Rights Movement organizes a lot of protests (and makes a lot of progress) in 1963.
• Heavy snow results in 231 deaths in Japan in the first few months of the year. An express train to Tokyo is delayed 106 hours 30 minutes.
• David. H. Frisch and J. H. Smith prove that the radioactive decay of mesons is slowed by their motion (see Albert Einstein's special relativity and general relativity).
• The Semi Automatic Ground Environment is fully deployed.
• TAT-3 cable goes into operation.
• Construction of Moscow's Ostankino Tower begins.
• Harvey Ball invents the ubiquitous smiley face symbol.
• The Reformed Druids of North America is founded.
• In various Marvel comics, this year sees the debut of Iron Man and The X-Men.

January

• January 1
  • Event: Bogle-Chandler case murders, poisonings near Sydney, Australia

• January 14
  • Event: George C. Wallace becomes governor of Alabama. In his inaugural speech, he defiantly proclaims "segregation now, segregation tomorrow, and segregation forever!" (See events of June 11, below)

• January 22
  • France and Germany sign the Elysée Treaty.

• January 26
  • Eric Edgar Cooke shoots 5 people (2 die) in Perth, Western Australia

• January 29
  • Event: French President Charles de Gaulle vetoes the United Kingdom's entry into the EEC.

February

• February 8
  • Event: Travel, financial and commercial transactions by United States citizens to Cuba are made illegal by the John F. Kennedy Administration.

• February 12
  • Event: Northwest Airlines flight 705 crashes in the Florida Everglades killing everyone aboard.

• February 11
  • Event: The CIA's Domestic Operations Division is created.

• February 21
  • Event: An earthquake destroys the village of Barce, Libya, killing 900.

• February 27
  • Event: Female suffrage is enacted in Iran.

March

• March 4
  • Event: 6 people are sentenced to death for conspiring to assassinate French President Charles de Gaulle. De Gaulle pardons 5 of them but the other conspirator is executed by firing squad a few days later.

• March 5
  • Event: Patsy Cline dies in an airplane crash.

• March 16
  • Event: Mount Agung erupts on Bali, killing 11,000.

• March 18
  • Event: Gideon v. Wainwright: The U.S. Supreme Court rules that the poor must have lawyers.

• March 21
  • Event: The Alcatraz Island federal penitentiary in San Francisco Bay closes; the last 27 prisoners are transferred elsewhere at the order of U.S. Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy.

• March 22
  • Event: The Beatles release their first album Please Please Me.

• March 31
  • Event: The 1962 New York City newspaper strike ends after 114 days.

April

• April 3
  • Event: SCLC volunteers kick off the Birmingham campaign against segregation with a sit-in.

• April 7
  • Event: Yugoslavia is proclaimed to be a socialist republic, and Josip Broz Tito is named President for Life.

• April 10
  • Event: The U.S. nuclear submarine USS Thresher (SSN-593) sinks 220 miles east of Cape Cod; all 129 crewmen die.

• April 12
  • Event: Martin Luther King, Jr. and others arrested in a Birmingham protest for "parading without a permit".
  • Event: The Soviet nuclear powered submarine K-33 collides with the Finnish merchant vessel M/S Finnclipper in the Danish Straits. Although severely damaged, both vessels make it to port.

• April 15
  • Event: 70,000 marchers arrive in London from Aldermaston, to demonstrate against nuclear weapons.

• April 16
  • Event: Martin Luther King, Jr. issues his Letter from Birmingham Jail.

• April 20
  • Event: In Quebec, Canada, members of the terrorist group Front de libération du Québec, bomb a Canadian Army recruitment center, killing night watchman Wilfred V. O'Neill.

May

• May 2
  • Event: Thousands of African Americans, many of them children, are arrested while protesting segregation in Birmingham, Alabama. Public Safety Commissioner Eugene "Bull" Connor later unleashes fire hoses and police dogs on the demonstrators.
  • Event: Berthold Seliger launches, near Cuxhaven, a 3 stage rocket with a maximum flight altitude of more than 62 miles .

• May 4
  • Event: The Le Monde Theater fire in Dioirbel, Senegal kills 64.

• May 8
  • Event: Dr. No, the first James Bond film, is shown in U.S. theaters.

• May 8
  • Event: Hue Vesak shootings: The Army of the Republic of Vietnam opens fire on Buddhists who defy a ban on the flying of the Buddhist flag on Vesak, the birthday of Gautama Buddha, killing nine. Earlier, President Ngo Dinh Diem allowed the flying of the Vatican flag in honour of his brother, Archibishop Ngo Dinh Thuc.

• May 13
  • Event: A smallpox outbreak hits Stockholm, Sweden, lasting until July.

• May 15
  • Event: Mercury program: NASA launches Gordon Cooper on Mercury 9

• May 23
  • Event: Fidel Castro visits the Soviet Union.

June

• June 3
  • Event: Hue chemical attacks: The Army of the Republic of Vietnam pours chemicals on the heads of Buddhist protestors. The United States threatens to cut off aid to Ngo Dinh Diem's regime
  • Event: Pope John XXIII dies.

• June 4
  • Event: President John F. Kennedy signs Executive Order 11110.

• June 11
  • Event: In Saigon, Buddhist monk Thích Quảng Ðức commits self-immolation to protest the oppression of Buddhists by the Ngo Dinh Diem administration.
  • Event: Alabama Governor George C. Wallace stands in the door of the University of Alabama to protest against integration, before stepping aside and allowing African Americans James Hood and Vivian Malone to enroll.
  • Event: President John F. Kennedy delivered a historic Civil Rights Address, in which he promises a Civil Rights Bill, and asks for "the kind of equality of treatment that we would want for ourselves."

• June 12
  • Event: Medgar Evers is murdered in Jackson, Mississippi (his killer is convicted in 1994).

• June 16
  • Event: Vostok 6 carries Soviet cosmonaut Valentina Tereshkova, the first woman, into space.

• June 17
  • Event: Abington School District v. Schempp: The U.S. Supreme Court rules that state-mandated Bible reading in public schools is unconstitutional.

• June 19
  • Event: Valentina Tereshkova, the first woman in space, returns to Earth.

• June 21
  • Event: Pope Paul VI (Giovanni Battista Montini) succeeds Pope John XXIII as the 262nd pope.

July

• July 7
  • Event: Double Seven Day scuffle: Secret police loyal to Ngo Dinh Nhu, brother of South Vietnamese President Ngo Dinh Diem, attack American journalists including Peter Arnett and David Halberstam at a demonstration during the Buddhist crisis.

• July 12
  • Event: Pauline Reade is abducted by Myra Hindley and Ian Brady in Manchester, England.

• July 26
  • Event: An earthquake in Skopje, Yugoslavia leaves 1,800 dead.

• July 26
  • Event: NASA launches Syncom, the world's first geostationary (synchronous) satellite.

• July 30
  • News/Event: The Soviet newspaper Izvestia reports that Kim Philby has been given asylum in Moscow.

August

• August 5
  • Event: The United States, United Kingdom, and Soviet Union sign a nuclear test ban treaty.

• August 8
  • Event: The Great Train Robbery of 1963 takes place in Buckinghamshire, England.

• August 21
  • Event: Xa Loi Pagoda raids: The Army of the Republic of Vietnam Special Forces loyal to Ngo Dinh Nhu, brother of President Ngo Dinh Diem, vandalise Buddhist pagodas across the country, arresting thousands and leaving an estimated hundreds dead.
  • Event: Cable 243: In the wake of the Xa Loi Pagoda raids, the Kennedy administration orders the US embassy in Saigon to explore alternative leadership in South Vietnam, opening the way towards a coup against Diem.

• August 28
  • Event: Martin Luther King, Jr. delivers his I Have A Dream speech on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial to an audience of at least 250,000, during the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom.

September

• September 10
  • Event: Mafia boss Bernardo Provenzano is indicted for murder (he is captured 43 years later, on April 11, 2006).

• September 15
  • Event: American civil rights movement: The 16th Street Baptist Church bombing, in Birmingham, Alabama, kills 4 and injures 22.

• September 16
  • Event: Malaysia is formed.
  • Event: In Fort-Lamy, Chad, demonstrations are quelled with 300 dead.

• September 18
  • Event: Rioters burn down the British Embassy in Jakarta, to protest the formation of Malaysia.

• September 25
  • Event: The Denning Report on the Profumo affair is published in Great Britain.

• September 29
  • Event: The second period of Second Vatican Council in Rome opens.

October

• October 1
  • Event: Nigeria becomes a republic; The 1st Republican Constitution is established
  • Event: In the U.S., the President's Commission on the Status of Women issues its final reports to President Kennedy.

• October 4
  • Event: Hurricane Flora, one of the worst Atlantic storms in history, hits Hispaniola and Cuba killing nearly 7,000 people.

• October 8
  • Event: Sam Cooke and his band were arrested after trying to register at a "whites only" motel in [[[Louisiana]].

• October 9
  • Event: In northeast Italy, over 2,000 people are killed when a large landslide behind the Vajont Dam causes a giant wave of water to overtop it.

• October 10
  • Event: The nuclear test ban treaty, signed on August 5, takes effect.

• October 14
  • Event: A revolution starts in Radfan, South Yemen against British colonial rule.

• October 31
  • Event: 74 die in a gas explosion at a coliseum in Indianapolis, Indiana.

November

• November 1
  • Event: Arecibo Observatory officially begins operation.

• November 2
  • Event: 1963 South Vietnamese coup: South Vietnamese President Ngo Dinh Diem is assassinated following a military coup.

• November 6
  • Event: Vietnam War: Coup leader General Duong Van Minh takes over as leader of South Vietnam.

• November 7
  • Event: Wunder von Lengede: In Germany, 11 miners are rescued from a collapsed mine after 14 days.

• November 9
  • Event: Miike Coal Mine explosion: In Japan, a coal mine explosion kills 458 and sends 839 carbon monoxide poisoning victims to the hospital.
  • Event: A triple-train disaster in Yokohama, Japan kills 161.

• November 14:
  • Event: The volcanic island Surtsey rises from the ocean off the coast of Iceland.

• November 22:
  • Event: John F. Kennedy assassination: In Dallas, Texas, United States President John F. Kennedy is shot to death, Texas Governor John B. Connally is seriously wounded, and Vice President Lyndon Baines Johnson becomes the 36th President. All television coverage for the next three days is devoted to the assassination, its aftermath, the procession of the horsedrawn casket to the Capitol Rotunda, and the funeral of President Kennedy. Stores and businesses shut down for the entire weekend and Monday, in tribute.

• November 23:
  • Event: The first episode of the BBC television series Doctor Who is broadcast in the United Kingdom.
  • Event: John Kilbride, age 12, is abducted by Myra Hindley and Ian Brady in Great Britain.
  • Event: The Golden Age Nursing Home Fire kills 63 elderly people near Fitchville, Ohio.

• November 24
  • Event: Lee Harvey Oswald, alleged assassin of John F. Kennedy, is shot dead by Jack Ruby in Dallas, Texas on live national television. Later that night, a hastily arranged program, A Tribute to John F. Kennedy from the Arts, featuring actors, opera singers, and noted writers, all performing dramatic readings and/or music, is telecast on ABC-TV.
  • Event: Vietnam War: New U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson confirms that the United States intends to continue supporting South Vietnam militarily and economically.

• November 25
  • Event: U.S. President Kennedy is buried at Arlington National Cemetery. Schools around the nation do not have class on that day, millions watch the funeral on live international television.

• November 29
  • Event: U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson establishes the Warren Commission to investigate the assassination of President Kennedy.
  • Event: Trans-Canada Airlines Flight 831, a Douglas DC-8 carrying 118, crashes into a wooded hillside after taking-off from Dorval International Airport near Montreal, killing all on board (the worst air disaster for many years in Canada's history).

December

• December 3
• * Event: The Warren Commission begins its investigation.

• December 4
  • Event: The second period of Second Vatican Council closes.

• December 5
  • Event: The Seliger Forschungs-und-Entwicklungsgesellschaft mbH demonstrates rockets for military use to military representatives of non-NATO-countries near Cuxhaven. Although these rockets land via parachute at the end of their flight and no allied laws are violated, the Soviet Union protests this action.

• December 8
  • Event: A lightning strike causes the crashing of Pan Am Flight 214 near Elkton, Maryland, killing 81 people.
  • Event: Frank Sinatra Jr. is kidnapped at Harrah's Lake Tahoe.

• December 10
  • Event: In the United States, the X-20 Dyna-Soar spaceplane program is cancelled.
  • Event: Chuck Yeager has to bail out at 8,500 feet from his NF-104A rocket-augmented aerospace trainer. The plane went out of control nearly 21 miles up.

• December 12
  • Event: Kenya becomes independent
• December 19
  • Event: Zanzibar gains independence from Great Britain

• December 21
  • Event: Cyprus Emergency: Inter-communal fighting erupts between Greek Cypriots and Turkish Cypriots.

• December 22
  • Event: The cruise ship Lakonia burns 180 miles north of Madeira, with the loss of 128 lives.

• December 25
  • Event: Walt Disney releases his 18th feature-length animated motion picture The Sword in the Stone, about the boyhood of King Arthur.

• December 26
  • Event: I Want to Hold Your Hand and I Saw Her Standing There are released in the U.S., marking the beginning of full-scale Beatlemania.

Sources

Wikipedia