1963

Years: 1960 1961 1962 - 1963 - 1964 1965 1966
Decades: 1930s 1940s 1950s - 1960s - 1970s 1980s 1990s
Centuries: 19th century - 20th century - 21st century 1963 in art 1963 in aviation 1963 in film 1963 in literature 1963 in music 1963 in radio 1963 in science 1963 in sports 1963 in television 1963 in Canada

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Events

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January-March

January 11 - The Whisky A Go-Go night club in Los Angeles, the first disco in the USA, is opened.
January 14 - George Wallace becomes governor of Alabama.
January 22 - Elysée treaty between France and Germany
January 28 - Black student Harvey Gantt enters Clemson College in South Carolina, the last US state to hold out against racial integration
January 29 - Charles De Gaulle vetos United Kingdom's entry into the EEC
February 8 - Travel, financial and commercial transactions by United States citizens to Cuba are made illegal by the John F. Kennedy administration.
February 11 - CIA Domestic Operations Division is created.
February 21 - An earthquake in Libya destroys the village of Barce - 500 dead
February 27 - Female suffrage in Iran
March 1 - Yoko Ono's marriage to American Christian fundamentalist filmmaker Tony Cox is annulled
March 4 - In Paris six people are sentenced to death for conspiring to assassinate President Charles de Gaulle.
March 16 - Mount Agung erupts on Bali - 11.000 dead
March 18 - Court decides poor must have lawyers (Gideon vs. Wainwright Supreme Court trial)
March 21 - Alcatraz, a federal penitentiary on an island in San Francisco Bay, closes; the last 27 prisoners are transferred elsewhere
March 27 - In Britain Dr Beeching issues report calling for huge cuts to the UK's rail network; See Beeching axe

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April-July

April 7 - Yugoslavia is proclaimed to be a Socialist republic and Josip Broz Tito is named President for life
April 10 - The US nuclear submarine Thresher sinks on the Mediterranean with all hands - 129 dead
April 15 - 70,000 marchers arrive in London from Aldermarston to demonstrate against nuclear weapons
April 22 - Lester B. Pearson becomes Canada's fourteenth prime minister.
May 15 - Mercury program: NASA launches the last mission of the program, Mercury 9 (on June 12 NASA Administrator James E. Webb told Congress the program was complete)
May 23 - Fidel Castro visits the Soviet Union
May 25 - The Organisation of African Unity is established in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia
June 1 - Kenya gains independence
June 2 - Slavery declared illegal in Saudi Arabia
June 5 - Profumo Affair - British Secretary of State for War John Profumo resigns in a sex scandal
June 11 ? Buddhist monk Thich Quang Duc publicly sets himself on fire in Saigon, Vietnam, to protest against Ngo Dihn Diem's policies
June 11 - Prime Minister of Greece Constantine Karamanlis resigns in protest of king's visit to Britain
June 12 - Civil rights leader Medgar Evers is fatally shot in front of his home in Jackson, Mississippi.
June 16 - Valentina Tereshkova (USSR) becomes the first woman in space.
June 17 - The United States Supreme Court ruled 8 to 1 in Abington School District v. Schempp against allowing the reciting of Bible verses and the Lord's Prayer in public schools.
June 21 - Pope Paul VI is elected by College of Cardinals.
June 30 - Ciaculli Massacre - mafia car bomb explodes in Ciaculli, Sicily, killing 7 police officers
July 1 - Zip codes introduced in the USA
July 5 - Diplomatic relations between the Israeli and the Japanese governments are raised to embassies' level.
July 26 - Earthquake in Skopje, Yugoslavia - 1800 dead
July 27 ? Indonesian president-for-life Sukarno declares that he will crush Malaysia ? official start of Indonesian Confrontation
July 30 - Soviet newspaper Izvestia reports that Kim Philby has been given asylum in Moscow

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August-October

August 5 - United States, United Kingdom, and Soviet Union sign a nuclear test ban treaty.
August 8 - The Great Train Robbery takes place in Buckinghamshire, England
August 18 - American civil rights movement: James Meredith becomes the first black person to graduate from the University of Mississippi
August 28 - Martin Luther King delivers his "I have a dream" speech on the steps at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington D.C.
September 5 - Christine Keeler arrested for perjury. On December 6 she is sentenced to nine months in prison
September 15 - American civil rights movement: The 16th Street Baptist Church bombing results in 4 deaths and 22 injuries.
September 16 ? Federation of Malaysia formed
September 18 ? Rioters burn down British embassy in Jakarta to protest formation of Malaysia
September 25 - Denning Report on Profumo affair
September 29 - Opening of second period of Second Vatican Council in Rome.
October 9 - Uganda becomes a republic.
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.

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November

November 2 - South Vietnamese President Ngo Dihn Diem is assassinated following a military coup
November 6 - Vietnam War: Coup leader General Duong Van Minh takes over leadership of South Vietnam
November 7 - Wunder von Lengede: In Germany, 11 miners are rescued from a collapsed mine after 14 days
November 9 - Japan, a coal mine explosion kills 458 and sends 839 carbon monoxide poisoning victims to the hospital
November 14 - A volcanic eruption under the sea near Iceland creates a new island, Surtsey
November 16 - Newspaper strike begins in Toledo, Ohio
November 18 - Dartford Tunnel opens
November 22 - John F. Kennedy assassination: In Dallas, Texas, US President John F. Kennedy is assassinated, Texas Governor John B. Connally is seriously wounded, and US Vice-President Lyndon B. Johnson is sworn-in as the 36th President of the United States
November 23 - The first episode of the BBC television series Doctor Who is broadcast in the United Kingdom.
November 24 - John F. Kennedy assassination: Alleged assassin Lee Harvey Oswald is mortally shot by Jack Ruby in Dallas, Texas on live national television
November 24 - Vietnam War: Newly sworn in US President Lyndon B. Johnson confirms that the United States intends to continue supporting South Vietnam militarily and economically
November 25 - John F. Kennedy assassination: The late US President John F. Kennedy is buried at Arlington National Cemetery
November 29 - John F. Kennedy assassination: US President Lyndon B. Johnson establishes the Warren Commission to investigate the assassination of President John F. Kennedy.
November 29 - A Douglas DC-8 carrying Trans-Canada Airlines Flight 831 crashes into a wooded hillside after taking-off from Dorval Airport near Montreal, killing all 118 on board (for many years this was the worst air disaster in Canada's history).

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December

December 4 - Closing of second period of Second Vatican Council.
End of the Mercury program of United States manned spaceflight
December 12 ? Kenya becomes independent with Jomo Kenyatta as a prime minister
December 24 - Cyprus Emergency - A brief civil war in Cyprus between Greek and Turkish Cypriots erupts
December 31 - Central African Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland formally dissolved

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unknown date

D. H. Frisch and J. H. Smith prove radioactive decay of mesons is slowed by their motion. (See Einstein's special relativity and general relativity).
Syncom, the world's first geostationary (synchronous) satellite is orbited by NASA
Full deployment of SAGE, the semi-automated ground environment.
TAT-3 cable goes into operation.
Geneticist J. B. S. Haldane coins the word "clone".
Arecibo Observatory officially begins operation.
Ostankino Tower in Moscow begins construction.
The divorce case of the Duke and Duchess of Argyll causes scandal in the United Kingdom

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Fiction

March 1 - First appearance of John Rockerduck (a character in the Scrooge McDuck Universe) in Italian story Zio Paperone e il kiwi volante ("Uncle Scrooge and the flying kiwi") by Giampaolo Barosso and Philip Larkin.

1963 in film
- Tom Jones
- Alfred Hitchcock's The Birds
- Charade starring Cary Grant and Audrey Hepburn
- McLintock! starring John Wayne
1963 in literature
1963 in music
- February 11 - The Beatles tape 10 tracks for their 1st album, including Please, Please Me (released on March 2).
1963 in sports
- January 29 - First inductees into the "Pro Football" Hall of Fame are announced
1963 in television
- May 15 - First television pictures transmitted from a U.S. manned space capsule ("Faith 7.") Due to the poor picture quality, only NBC carries the transmission, and on tape-delay, not live
- September 2 ? CBS becomes first network to expand its evening network news from 15 to 30 minutes.
- September 9 - NBC expands its evening network news program to 30 minutes
- November 22 - regular television programming is suspended following news of John F. Kennedy's assassination
- November 23 - first episode of Dr Who is broadcast in the UK.
- November 24 - Jack Ruby murders John F. Kennedy's suspected assassin Lee Harvey Oswald live on television.
- The television remote control is authorized by the FCC.