January 3 - Senator Barry Goldwater announces that he will seek the Republican nomination for President.
January 5 - In the first meeting between leaders of the Roman Catholic and Orthodox churches since the 15th century, Pope Paul VI and Patriarch Athenagoras I meet in Jerusalem.
January 7 - A British firm, the Leyland Motor Corp., announces the sale of 450 buses to the Cuban government, challenging the United States blockade of Cuba.
January 9 - Armed clashes between United States troops and Panamanian mobs in the Canal Zone precipitate a major international crisis and result in the deaths of 21 Panamanians and 4 U.S. soldiers.]]
January 16 - John Glenn, the first American to orbit the earth, resigns from the space program and announces the next day that he will seek the Democratic nomination for U.S. Senator from Ohio.
January 18 - Esther Armstrong Scottish Landscape Artist born in Dingwall,Scotland. Plans to build the World Trade Center announced.
January 23 - Arthur Miller's After the Fall opens on Broadway. A semi-autobiographical work, it will arouse controversy over his portrayal of late ex-wife Marilyn Monroe.
January 27 - Senator Margaret Chase Smith (R-Me.), 66, announces her candidacy for the Republican nomination for President.
January 28 - A U.S. Air Force jet training plane that strayes into East Germany is shot down by Soviet fighters near Erfurt. All three crew men are killed.
January 30 - The junta ruling South Vietnam since the overthrow of President Ngo Dinh Diem is itself toppled from power in a bloodless coup led by Maj. Gen. Nguyen Khanh.
February 6 - Cuba cuts off the normal water supply to the United States naval base at Guantanamo Bay in reprisal for U.S. seizure 4 days earlier of 4 Cuban fishing boats off the coast of Florida.
February 26 - John Glenn slips on a bathroom rug in his Columbus, Ohio apartment and hits his head on the bathtub, injuring his left inner ear, and prompting him (later that week) to withdraw from the race for the Senate nomination.
February 29 - President Johnson announces that the United States had developed a jet airplane (the A-11), capable of sustained flight at more than 2,000 MPH and of altitudes of more than 70,000 feet.
March 8 - Malcolm X, suspended from the Nation of Islam, says in New York City that he was forming a black nationalist party.
March 9 - In New York Times Co. v Sullivan 376 US 254 1964, the Supreme Court of the United States rules that under the First Amendment, speech criticizing political figures cannot be censored
March 10 - Soviet Union military forces shoot down an unarmed reconnaissance bomber that had strayed into East Germany; the three U.S. flyers parachute to safety.
March 13 - 38 residents of a neighborhood in Queens, New York City fail to respond to the cries of Kitty Genovese, 28, as she is being stabbed to death. The incident will become notorious.
March 26 - Defense Secretary Robert McNamara delivers an address that reiterated the United States determination to give South Vietnam increased military and economic aid in its war against Communist insurgency.
April 2 - Mrs. Malcolm Peabody, 72, mother of Governor Endicott Peabody of Massachusetts, is released on $450 bond after spending two days in jail in St. Augustine, Florida, because of her participation in an anti-segregation demonstration there.
April 5 - Jigme Dorfi, Premier of the Himalayan kingdom of Bhutan is shot dead by an unidentified assassin in Puncholing, near the Indian border.
April 8 - Four of five railroad operating unions strike against the Illinois Central Railroad without warning to bring to a head the five-year dispute over railroad work rules.
April 9 - The United NationsSecurity Council adopts by a 9-0 vote a resolution deploring a British air attack on a fort in Yemen 12 days earlier in which 25 persons were reported killed.
April 20 - President Lyndon Johnson in New York and Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev in Moscow announce simultaneously plans to cut back production of materials for making nuclear weapons.
April 22 - British businessman Greville Wynn, who had been imprisoned in Moscow since 1963 accused of spying, is exchanged for Soviet spy Gordon Lonsdale
April 25 - Thieves steal the head of the Little Mermaid statue in Copenhagen (Henrik Bruun confesses in 1997)
May 2 - Senator Barry Goldwater receives more than 75% of the votes in the Texas Republican Presidential primary.
May 7 - A Pacific Airlines Fokker F27 crashes near Dublin, California, killing all 44 aboard; the FBI later reports that a recorded tape indicated that the pilot had been shot.
May 9 - South Korean President Chung Hee Park reshuffles his Cabinet after a series of student demonstrations against his efforts to restore diplomatic and trade relations with Japan.
May 23 - Mrs. Madeline Dassault, 63, wife of a French plane manufacturer and politician, is kidnapped while leaving her car in front of her Paris home; she is found unharmed the next day in a farmhouse 27 miles from Paris.
May 24 - The crowd at a football match in Lima, Peru riot over a referee's decision. 300 spectators crushed to death in a riot
May 27 - Prime Minister Nehru of India dies; he is succeeded by Lal Shastri
June 2 - Senator Barry Goldwater wins the California Republican Presidential primary, making him the overwhelming favorite for the nomination.
June 2 - Five million shares of stock in the Communications Satellite Corp. (Comsat) are offered for sale at $20 a share, and the issue is quickly sold out.
June 9 - In Federal Court in Kansas City, Kansas, army deserter George John Gessner, 28, is convicted of passing United States secrets to the Soviet Union.
June 12Pennsylvania Governor William Scranton announces his candidacy for the Republican Presidential nomination, as part of a 'stop-Goldwater' movement.
July 20 - Vietnam War - Viet Cong forces attack the capital of Dinh Tuong Province, Cai Be, killing 11 South Vietnamese military personnel and 40 civilians (30 of which are children)
July 27 - Vietnam War: 5,000 more US military advisers are sent to South Vietnam bringing the total number of United States forces in Vietnam to 21,000
July 31 - Ranger program: Ranger 7 sends back the first close-up photographs of the moon (images are 1,000 times clearer than anything ever seen from earth-bound telescopes).
August 7 - Vietnam War: The United States Congress passes the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution giving US President Lyndon B. Johnson broad war powers to deal with North Vietnamese attacks on US forces
October 12 - The Soviet Union launches the Voskhod 1 into Earth orbit as the first spacecraft with a multi-person crew and the first flight without space suits
November 1 - Mortar fire from North Vietnamese forces rains on the USAF base at Bein Hoa, South Vietnam, killing 4 US servicemen and wounding 72, and destroying five B-57 jet bombers and other planes.
November 3 - The Bolivian government of President Victor Paz Estenssoro is overthrown by a military rebellion led by General Alfredo Obando Candia, commander-in-chief of the armed forces.
December 1 - Vietnam War: U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson and his top-ranking advisers meet to discuss plans to bomb North Vietnam (after some debate, they agreed to enact a two-phase bombing plan)
