1963

**1963 in other calendars**
Gregorian calendar	1963; MCMLXIII
Ab urbe condita	2716
Armenian calendar	1412; ԹՎ ՌՆԺԲ
Bahá'í calendar	119 – 120
Bengali calendar	1370
Berber calendar	2913
British Regnal year	11 Eliz. 2 – 12 Eliz. 2
Buddhist calendar	2507
Burmese calendar	1325
Byzantine calendar	7471 – 7472
Chinese calendar	壬寅年十二月初六日; (4599/4659-12-6) — to — 癸卯年十一月十六日; (4600/4660-11-16)
Coptic calendar	1679 – 1680
Ethiopian calendar	1955 – 1956
Hebrew calendar	5723 – 5724
Hindu calendars
- Bikram Samwat	2019 – 2020
- Shaka Samvat	1885 – 1886
- Kali Yuga	5064 – 5065
Holocene calendar	11963
Iranian calendar	1341 – 1342
Islamic calendar	1382 – 1383
Japanese calendar	Shōwa 38; (昭和38年)
Korean calendar	4296
Minguo calendar	ROC 52; 民國52年
Thai solar calendar	2506
	v · d · e

	1963 by topic:
	Subject
	Archaeology – Architecture – Art – Aviation – Awards – Comics – Film – Literature (Poetry) – Meteorology – Music (Country) – Rail transport – Radio – Science – Spaceflight – Sports – Television
	By country
	Australia – Canada – People's Republic of China – Ecuador – France – Germany – Greece – India – Ireland – Israel – Italy – Japan – Luxembourg – Malaysia – Mexico – New Zealand – Norway – Pakistan – Philippines – Singapore – South Africa– Soviet Union – UK – USA
	Leaders
	Sovereign states – State leaders – Religious leaders – Law
	Birth and death categories
	Births – Deaths
	Establishments and disestablishments categories
	Establishments – Disestablishments
	Works and introductions categories
	Works – Introductions
	v · d · e

Millennium:	2nd millennium
Centuries:	19th century – 20th century – 21st century
Decades:	1930s 1940s 1950s – 1960s – 1970s 1980s 1990s
Years:	1960 1961 1962 – 1963 – 1964 1965 1966

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This article is about the year 1963. For other uses, see 1963 (disambiguation).

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Year 1963 (MCMLXIII) was a common year starting on Tuesday (link will display the full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar.

[edit] Events

[edit] January

January–February – Heavy snowfall causes many houses and buildings to collapse in northwestern Japan, with at least 231 reported dead from January through February. An express train delayed 106 hours 30 minutes arrived at Tokyo, because of heavy snow and adverse weather.
January 1
- Osamu Tezuka's Tetsuwan Atomu (Astro Boy), Japan's first serialized animated series based on the popular manga, debuts on Japanese television station Fuji TV.
- Bogle-Chandler case: CSIRO scientist Dr. Gilbert Bogle and Mrs. Margaret Chandler are found dead (presumed poisoned), in bushland near the Lane Cove River, Sydney.

January 8: Mona Lisa in Washington, D.C.

January 8 – Leonardo da Vinci's Mona Lisa is exhibited in the United States for the first time, at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C..
January 14
- George C. Wallace becomes governor of Alabama. In his inaugural speech, he defiantly proclaims "segregation now, segregation tomorrow, and segregation forever!"^[1]^[2]
- The locomotive Flying Scotsman (British Railways No. 60103) makes its last scheduled run, before going into the hands of Alan Pegler for preservation.
January 22 – France and Germany sign the Elysée Treaty.
January 26 – The Australia Day shootings rock Perth, Western Australia; 2 people are shot dead and 3 others injured by Eric Edgar Cooke.
January 28 – African American student Harvey Gantt enters Clemson University in South Carolina, the last U.S. state to hold out against racial integration.
January 29 – French President Charles de Gaulle vetoes the United Kingdom's entry into the EEC.

[edit] February

February 8 – Travel, financial and commercial transactions by United States citizens to Cuba are made illegal by the John F. Kennedy Administration.
February 10 – Five Japanese cities located on the northernmost part of Kyūshū are merged and become the city of Kitakyūshū, with a population of more than 1 million.
February 11 – The CIA's Domestic Operations Division is created.
- The Beatles record their debut album Please Please Me in a single session.
February 12 – Northwest Orient Airlines Flight 705 crashes in the Florida Everglades killing all 43 persons aboard.
February 19 – The publication of Betty Friedan's The Feminine Mystique launches the reawakening of the Women's Movement in the United States as women's organizations and consciousness-raising groups spread.
February 21 – An earthquake destroys the village of Barce, Libya, killing 900.
February 27
- Juan Bosch takes office as the 41st president of the Dominican Republic.
- Female suffrage is enacted in Iran.
February 28 – Dorothy Schiff resigns from the New York Newspaper Publisher's Association, feeling that the city needs at least one paper. Her paper, the New York Post, resumes publication on March 4.

[edit] March

March
- Iron Man debuts in Marvel Comics's Tales of Suspense #39.
- The divorce case of the Duke and Duchess of Argyll causes scandal in the United Kingdom.
March 4 – In Paris, 6 people are sentenced to death for conspiring to assassinate 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 – In Camden, Tennessee, country music superstar Patsy Cline (Virginia Patterson Hensley) is killed in a plane crash along with fellow performers Hawkshaw Hawkins, Cowboy Copas and Cline's manager and pilot Randy Hughes, while returning from a benefit performance in Kansas City, Kansas for country radio disc jockey "Cactus" Jack Call.

March 27: British Rail network, as it would have become, if "Beeching axe" plans had been fully implemented (only bolded rail lines would have remained).

March 16 – Mount Agung erupts on Bali, killing 11,000.
March 18 – Gideon v. Wainwright: The U.S. Supreme Court rules that the poor must have lawyers.
March 21 – The Alcatraz Island federal penitentiary in San Francisco Bay closes; the last 27 prisoners are transferred elsewhere at the order of Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy.
March 22 – The Beatles release their first album Please Please Me.
March 23 – Dansevise by Grethe & Jørgen Ingmann (music by Otto Francker, text by Sejr Volmer-Sørensen) wins the Eurovision Song Contest 1963 for Denmark.
March 27 – In Britain, Dr. Beeching issues a report calling for huge cuts to the UK's rail network.
March 31 – The 1962 New York City newspaper strike ends after 114 days.

March 21: Alcatraz closes

[edit] April

April 1 – The longrunning soap opera General Hospital debuted on ABC.
April 3 – SCLC volunteers kick off the Birmingham campaign (Birmingham, Alabama) against racial segregation in the United States with a sit-in.
April 7 – Yugoslavia is proclaimed to be a socialist republic, and Josip Broz Tito is named President for Life.
April 8 – The 35th Academy Awards ceremony is held.
April 9 – Winston Churchill becomes honary citizen of the United States
April 10 – The U.S. nuclear submarine Thresher sinks 220 miles (350 km) east of Cape Cod; all 129 crewmen die.
April 12
- Martin Luther King, Jr., Ralph Abernathy, Fred Shuttlesworth and others are arrested in a Birmingham, Alabama protest for "parading without a permit".
- 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 – 70,000 marchers arrive in London from Aldermaston, to demonstrate against nuclear weapons.
April 16 – Martin Luther King, Jr. issues his Letter from Birmingham Jail.
April 20 – 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.
April 21–April 23 – The first election of the Supreme Institution of the Bahá'í Faith (known as the Universal House of Justice, whose seat is at the Bahá'í World Centre on Mount Carmel in Haifa, Israel) is held.
April 22 – Lester Bowles Pearson becomes the 14th Prime Minister of Canada.
April 28 – A general election is held in Italy.
April 29 – Buddy Rogers becomes the first WWF Champion.

[edit] May

May 1 – The Coca-Cola Company introduces its first diet drink, TaB cola.
May 2
- 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.
- Berthold Seliger launches near Cuxhaven a 3 stage rocket with a maximum flight altitude of more than 62 miles (the only sounding rocket developed in Germany).
May 4 – The Le Monde Theater fire in Dioirbel, Senegal kills 64.
May 8
- Dr. No, the first James Bond film, is shown in U.S. theaters.
- 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, Archbishop Ngo Dinh Thuc.
May 13 – A smallpox outbreak hits Stockholm, Sweden, lasting until July.
May 15 – Mercury program: NASA launches Gordon Cooper on Mercury 9, the last mission (on June 12 NASA Administrator James E. Webb tells Congress the program is complete).
May 23 – Fidel Castro visits the Soviet Union.
May 25 – The Organisation of African Unity is established in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.
May 27 – The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan is singer-songwriter Bob Dylan's second studio album, and most influential, released by Columbia Records.

[edit] June

June 3 – 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
June 4 – President John F. Kennedy signs Executive Order 11110.
June 5 – The first annual NHL draft is held in Montreal, Quebec.
June 10 – The University of Central Florida is established by the Florida legislature.
June 11
- In Saigon, Buddhist monk Thích Quảng Ðức commits self-immolation to protest the oppression of Buddhists by the Ngo Dinh Diem administration.
- 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.
- 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
- Medgar Evers is murdered in Jackson, Mississippi (his killer is convicted in 1994).
- Release of the film Cleopatra.
June 13 – The cancellation of Mercury 10 effectively ends the Mercury program of United States manned spaceflight.
June 16 – Vostok 6 carries Soviet cosmonaut Valentina Tereshkova, the first woman, into space.
June 17 – Abington School District v. Schempp: The U.S. Supreme Court rules that state-mandated Bible reading in public schools is unconstitutional.
June 19 – Valentina Tereshkova the first woman in space, returns to Earth.
June 21 – Pope Paul VI (Giovanni Battista Montini) succeeds Pope John XXIII as the 262nd pope.
June 26 – John F. Kennedy gives his 'Ich bin ein Berliner' speech in West Berlin.

[edit] July

July 1 – ZIP Codes are introduced in the U.S.
July 5
- Diplomatic relations between the Israeli and the Japanese governments are raised to embassy level.
- The Roman Catholic Church accepts cremation as a funeral practice.
July 7 – Double Seven Day scuffle: Secret police loyal to Ngo Dinh Nhu, brother of President Ngo Dinh Diem, attack American journalists including Peter Arnett and David Halberstam at a demonstration during the Buddhist crisis.
July 12 – Pauline Reade, 16, is abducted by Myra Hindley and Ian Brady in Manchester, England. Her remains would be found in July 1987.
July 19 – American test pilot Joe Walker, flying the X-15, reaches an altutude of 65.8 miles (105.9 kilometers), making it a sub-orbital spaceflight by recognized international standards.
July 26
- An earthquake in Skopje, Yugoslavia leaves 1,800 dead.
- NASA launches Syncom, the world's first geostationary (synchronous) satellite.
July 30 – The Soviet newspaper Izvestia reports that Kim Philby has been given asylum in Moscow.

[edit] August

August 5 – The United States, United Kingdom, and Soviet Union sign a nuclear test ban treaty.
August 8 – The Great Train Robbery of 1963 takes place in Buckinghamshire, England.
August 15 – President Fulbert Youlou is overthrown in the Republic of Congo, after a three-day uprising in the capital.
August 18 – American civil rights movement: James Meredith becomes the first black person to graduate from the University of Mississippi.
August 21
- 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.
- Cable 243: In the wake of the Xa Loi Pagoda raids, the Kennedy administration orders the US Embassy, Saigon to explore alternative leadership in South Vietnam, opening the way towards a coup against Diem.
August 22 – American test pilot Joe Walker again achieves a sub-orbital spaceflight according to international standards, this time by piloting the X-15 to an altutude of 67.0 miles (107.8 kilometers).
August 28 – 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.

[edit] September

September – Marvel Comics releases the first-ever X-Men comic book
September 5 – British prostitute Christine Keeler is arrested for perjury. On December 6 she is sentenced to 9 months in prison.
September 6 – The Centre for International Industrial Property Studies (CEIPI) is founded.
September 7 – The Pro Football Hall of Fame opens in Canton, Ohio with 17 charter members.
September 10 – Mafia boss Bernardo Provenzano is indicted for murder (he is captured 43 years later, on April 11, 2006).
September 15 – American civil rights movement: The 16th Street Baptist Church bombing, in Birmingham, Alabama, kills 4 and injures 22.
September 16
- Malaysia is formed through the merging of the Federation of Malaya and the British crown colony of Singapore, North Borneo (renamed Sabah) and Sarawak.
- In Fort-Lamy, Chad, demonstrations are quelled with 300 dead.
September 18 – Rioters burn down the British Embassy in Jakarta, to protest the formation of Malaysia.
September 23 – King Fahd University for Petroleum and Minerals is established by a Saudi Royal Decree as the College of Petroleum and Minerals.
September 24 – The U.S. Senate ratifies the nuclear test ban treaty.
September 25 – The Denning Report on the Profumo affair is published in Great Britain.
September 27– The Littlest Hobo debuts on TV across North America with the first episode entitled "Blue Water Sailor".
September 29
- The second period of the Second Vatican Council in Rome opens.
- The University of East Anglia is established in Norwich, England.

[edit] October

October 1
- Nigeria becomes a republic; The 1st Republican Constitution is established
- In the U.S., the President's Commission on the Status of Women issues its final reports to President Kennedy.
October 2 – Los Angeles Dodgers left-handed pitcher Sandy Koufax sets a World Series record by striking out 15 New York Yankees in a 5-2 victory in Game 1 at Yankee Stadium. The Dodgers sweep the series in four straight, with Koufax defeating the Yankees 2-1 in Game 4 at Dodger Stadium.
October 4 – Hurricane Flora, one of the worst Atlantic storms in history, hits Hispaniola and Cuba killing nearly 7,000 people.
October 8 – Sam Cooke and his band are arrested after trying to register at a "whites only" motel in Louisiana. In the months following, he records the song "A Change Is Gonna Come".
October 9 – 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
- The nuclear test ban treaty, signed on August 5, takes effect.
- The second James Bond film, From Russia with Love, opens in the UK.
October 14 – A revolution starts in Radfan, South Yemen against British colonial rule.
October 16 – The thousandth day of John F. Kennedy's presidency.
October 19 – Alec Douglas-Home succeeds Harold Macmillan as British Prime Minister.
October 28 – Demolition of the 1910 Pennsylvania Station begins in New York City. Demolition continues until 1966.
October 30 – Car manufacturing firm Lamborghini is founded.
October 31 – 74 die in a gas explosion during a Holiday on Ice show at the Indiana State Fair Coliseum in Indianapolis.

[edit] November

November 1 – Arecibo Observatory officially begins operation.
November 2 – 1963 South Vietnamese coup: South Vietnamese President Ngo Dinh Diem is assassinated following a military coup.
November 6
- Vietnam War: Coup leader General Duong Van Minh takes over as leader of South Vietnam.
- Laura Welch (later Bush) causes a car accident that results in the death of Michael Dutton Douglas in her hometown of Midland, Texas.
November 7 – Wunder von Lengede: In Germany, 11 miners are rescued from a collapsed mine after 14 days.
November 8 – Finnair flight OH-LCA crashes before landing at Mariehamn airport on the Åland islands.
November 9
- Miike Coal Mine explosion: In Japan, a coal mine explosion kills 458 and sends 839 carbon monoxide poisoning victims to the hospital.
- A triple-train disaster in Yokohama, Japan kills 161.
November 10 – Malcolm X makes a historic speech in Detroit, Michigan: Message to the Grass Roots
November 14 – A volcanic eruption under the sea near Iceland creates a new island, Surtsey.
November 16 – A newspaper strike begins in Toledo, Ohio.
November 18
- The Dartford Tunnel opens in the U.K.
- The first push-button telephone is made available to AT&T customers.

November 22: Lyndon Baines Johnson is sworn in as U.S. President after assassination of John F. Kennedy.

November 22
- The Beatles' second U.K. album, With The Beatles, is released
- John F. Kennedy assassination: In Dallas, Texas, United States President John F. Kennedy is assassinated, Texas Governor John B. Connally is seriously wounded, and Vice President Lyndon Baines Johnson becomes the 36th President. All television coverage for the next four 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
- John Kilbride, 12, is abducted by Myra Hindley and Ian Brady in Great Britain.
- The first episode of the BBC television series Doctor Who is broadcast in the United Kingdom.
- The Golden Age Nursing Home fire kills 63 elderly people near Fitchville, Ohio.
November 24
- 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.
- 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 – 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
- U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson establishes the Warren Commission to investigate the assassination of President Kennedy.
- 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).
- Foundation stone for Mirzapur Cadet College is led in East Pakistan (now Bangladesh).

[edit] December

December 3 – The Warren Commission begins its investigation.
December 4 – The second period of Second Vatican Council closes.
December 5 – 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 7 – Tony Verna, a CBS-TV director, invented Instant Replay and aired it during his direction of a live, televised sporting event, the 1963 Army-Navy Game played in Philadelphia.
December 8
- A lightning strike causes the crashing of Pan Am Flight 214 near Elkton, Maryland, killing 81 people.
- Frank Sinatra Jr. is kidnapped at Harrah's Lake Tahoe.
December 10 – In the United States, the X-20 Dyna-Soar spaceplane program is cancelled. Also on this date: Chuck Yeager "while testing an NF-104A rocket-augmented aerospace trainer, he narrowly escaped death when his aircraft went out of control at 108,700 feet (nearly 21 miles up) and crashed. He parachuted to safety at 8,500 feet after vainly battling to gain control of the powerless, rapidly falling craft. In this incident he became the first pilot to make an emergency ejection in the full pressure suit needed for high altitude flights.”
December 12 – Kenya becomes independent, with Jomo Kenyatta as prime minister.
December 19 – Zanzibar gains independence from Great Britain as a constitutional monarchy, under Sultan Jamshid bin Abdullah.
December 21 – Cyprus Emergency: Inter-communal fighting erupts between Greek Cypriots and Turkish Cypriots.
December 22 – The cruise ship Lakonia burns 180 miles (290 km) north of Madeira, with the loss of 128 lives.
December 25
- Walt Disney releases his 18th feature-length animated motion picture The Sword in the Stone, about the boyhood of King Arthur. It is the penultimate animated film personally supervised by Disney.
- İsmet İnönü of CHP forms the new government of Turkey (28th government, coalition partners; independents, İnönü has served 10 ten times as a prime minister, this is his last government)
December 26 – "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.

[edit] Date unknown

The 1955 film Oklahoma!, an adaptation of the famed Rodgers and Hammerstein musical, is re-released nationally for the first time.
David. H. Frisch and J. H. Smith prove that the radioactive decay of mesons is slowed by their motion (see Einstein's special relativity and general relativity).
The Semi Automatic Ground Environment is fully deployed.
TAT-3 cable goes into operation.
Ivan Sutherland writes the revolutionary Sketchpad program and runs it on the Lincoln TX-2 computer at MIT.
Construction of Moscow's Ostankino Tower begins.
Harvey Ball invents the ubiquitous smiley face symbol.
The Reformed Druids of North America (RDNA) is founded.
The IEEE Computer Society is founded.
The Urdu typewriter keyboard is standardised by the Central Language Board in Pakistan.
For the first time in four consecutive years, the film The Wizard of Oz is not telecast. Reasons for this remain unknown to this day, but because the film at that time was telecast during the second week of December and the nation was still in mourning over the Kennedy assassination then, it could be that CBS executives decided it would be inappropriate to show it less than three weeks after such a tragic event.