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

[edit] Events of 1963

[edit] January

• January - Britain's "Big Freeze" begins, lasting into April.
• January 1 - 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 14 - George C. Wallace becomes governor of Alabama. In his inaugural speech, he defiantly proclaims "segregation now, segregation tomorrow, and segregation forever!"^[1][2]
• January 14 - The locomotive Flying Scotsman (British Railways No. 60103) makes its last scheduled run, before going into the hands of Sir 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 - Black 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 12 - Northwest Airlines flight 705 crashes in the Florida Everglades killing everyone aboard.
• February 11 - The CIA's Domestic Operations Division is created.
• February 21 - An earthquake destroys the village of Barce, Libya, killing 500.
• February 27 - Juan Bosch takes office as the 41st president of the Dominican Republic.
• February 27 - Female suffrage is enacted in Iran.

March 21: Alcatraz closes

[edit] March

• March - 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 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 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 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.

[edit] April

• April 3 - SCLC volunteers kick off the Birmingham campaign against segregation 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 10 - The U.S. nuclear submarine Thresher sinks 220 miles 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 protest for "parading without a permit".
• April 12 - 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 21–23 - 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 WWWF Champion.

[edit] May

• May 1 - The Coca-Cola Company debuts its first diet drink, TaB cola.
• May 2 - Thousands of African Americans, many of them children, are arrested while protesting segregation in Birmingham, Alabama. Sheriff Eugene "Bull" Connor later unleashes fire hoses and police dogs on the demonstrators.
• May 2 - 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.
• 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 - Pope John XXIII dies.
• 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.
• June 11 - 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.
• June 11 - President John F. Kennedy makes a historic civil rights speech, 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).
• 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 21 - Pope Paul VI (Giovanni Battista Montini) succeeds Pope John XXIII as the 262nd pope.

[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.
• July 5 - The Roman Catholic Church accepts cremation as a funeral practice.
• July 12 - Pauline Reade, 16, is abducted by Myra Hindley and Ian Brady in Manchester, England.
• July 26 - An earthquake in Skopje, Yugoslavia leaves 1,800 dead.
• July 26 - NASA launches Syncom, the world's first geostationary (synchronous) satellite.
• July 27 - Indonesian Confrontation: Indonesian president-for-life Sukarno declares that he will crush Malaysia.
• 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 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.
• 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 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.
• September 16 - 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 29 - The second period of Second Vatican Council in Rome opens.
• September 29 - The University of East Anglia is established in Norwich, England.

[edit] October

• October 1 - Nigeria becomes a republic; The 1st Republican Constitution is established
• 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 were arrested after trying to register at a "whites only" motel in Louisiana. In the months following, he records A Change Is Gonna Come (song).
• 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.
• October 14 - A revolution starts in Radfan, South Yemen against British colonial rule.
• October 19 - Alec Douglas-Home succeedes Harold Macmillan as British Prime Minister.
• October 31 - 74 die in a gas explosion at a coliseum in Indianapolis, Indiana.

[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.
• November 7 - Wunder von Lengede: In Germany, 11 miners are rescued from a collapsed mine after 14 days.
• November 9 - Miike Coal Mine explosion: In Japan, a coal mine explosion kills 458 and sends 839 carbon monoxide poisoning victims to the hospital.
• November 9 - A triple-train disaster in Yokohama, Japan kills 161.
• November 14 - A volcanic eruption under the sea near Iceland creates a new island, Surtsey.
• November 15 - Conductor Fritz Reiner dies. On his next Young People's Concert, scheduled to be telecast November 29, Leonard Bernstein, a former pupil of Reiner's, will pay tribute to him.
• November 16 - A newspaper strike begins in Toledo, Ohio.
• November 18 - The Dartford Tunnel opens in the U.K.

Nov.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
• November 22 - 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 - John Kilbride, 12, is abducted by Myra Hindley and Ian Brady in Great Britain.
• November 23 - The first episode of the BBC television series Doctor Who is broadcast in the United Kingdom. A reference to this date is later included in one episode of the spinoff Torchwood
• November 23 - 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.
• November 24 - 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.
• November 29 - 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).

[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 8 - A lightning strike causes the crashing of Pan Am Flight 214 near Elkton, Maryland, killing 81 people.
• 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 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 next-to-last animated film personally supervised by Disney, but it has not become one of his greatest hits.
• 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] Undated

This section may require cleanup to meet Wikipedia's quality standards. Please improve this article if you can. (February 2008)

• Heavy snow results in many houses and buildings collapsed by heavy snow on roofs in northwestern Japan. At least 231 reported died. (from January to February). An express train delayed 106 hours 30 minutes arrived at Tokyo, because of heavy snow and adverse weather.
• 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.
• 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.

[edit] Births

[edit] January–February

• January 2 - David Cone, American baseball player
• January 2 - Edgar Martínez, American baseball player
• January 4 - Till Lindemann, German rock musician (Rammstein)
• January 13 - Tim Kelly, American rock musician (Slaughter) (d. 1998)
• January 14 - Steven Soderbergh, American film director
• January 16 - James May, English motoring journalist and television show host
• January 18 - Ian Crook, English footballer
• January 20 - Firebreaker Chip, American professional wrestler
• January 21 - Hakeem Olajuwon, Nigerian basketball player
• January 21 - Detlef Schrempf, German basketball player
• January 23 - Gail O'Grady, American actress
• January 24 - Arnold Vanderlyde, Dutch boxer
• January 26 - José Mourinho, Portuguese football manager
• January 26 - Andrew Ridgely, English musician
• January 30 - Thomas Brezina, Austrian author
• February 2 - Eva Cassidy, American vocalist (d. 1996)
• February 4 - Pirmin Zurbriggen, Swiss alpine skier
• February 9 - Travis Tritt, American country singer
• February 10 - Tony Reno, Swedish rock drummer (Europe)
• February 11 - Diane Franklin, American actress
• February 17 - Michael Jordan, American basketball player
• February 17 - Larry the Cable Guy, American comedian
• February 18 - Rob Andrew, English rugby union footballer
• February 19 - Seal, English singer (Kiss From A Rose)
• February 20 - Charles Barkley, African-American basketball player
• February 21 - William Baldwin, American actor
• February 22 - Vijay Singh, Fiji golfer

[edit] March–April

• March 1 - Dan Michaels, American record producer and saxophonist (The Choir, The Swirling Eddies)
• March 2 - Tuff Hedeman, American PRCA World Champion Bull Rider
• March 3 - Martin Fiz, Spanish long-distance runner
• March 4 - Jason Newsted, American rock bassist (Voivod)
• March 4 - Daniel Roebuck, American actor
• March 4 - Janey Lee Grace, British singer, author, television presenter and radio disc jockey
• March 6 - Gary Stevens, American jockey
• March 12 - Joaquim Cruz, Brazilian runner
• March 13 - Fito Páez, Argentine musician
• March 14 - Bruce Reid, Australian cricketer
• March 15 - Bret Michaels, American rock singer (Poison)
• March 17 - Nick Peros, Canadian composer
• March 17 - Michael Ivins, American rock bassist (The Flaming Lips)
• March 18 - Vanessa L. Williams, African-American beauty queen, actress, and singer
• March 20 - Paul Annacone, American tennis player and coach
• March 20 - Kathy Ireland, American model and actress
• March 21 - Ronald Koeman, Dutch football player and manager
• March 21 - Shawn Lane, American guitar virtuoso (d. 2003)
• March 22 - Susan Ann Sulley, British musician
• March 26 - Natsuhiko Kyogoku, Japanese writer
• March 27 - Charly Alberti, Argentinian musician
• March 27 - Quentin Tarantino, American actor, director, writer, and producer
• March 27 - Xuxa, Brazilian television personality
• March 29 - Elle Macpherson, Australian supermodel
• March 30 - Eli-Eri Moura, Brazilian composer, conductor and music theorist
• April 3 - Criss Oliva, American metal guitarist (savatage)
• April 4 - Jack Del Rio, American football player and coach
• April 4 - Graham Norton, Irish comedian and talk show host
• April 4 - Frank Yallop, Canadian footballer
• April 6 - Andrew Weatherall, English disc jockey
• April 8 - Julian Lennon, British musician son of John Lennon
• April 9 - Joe Scarborough, American newscaster
• April 10 - Warren DeMartini, American rock guitarist (Ratt)
• April 10 - Doris Leuthard, Swiss Federal Councillor
• April 11 - Chris Ferguson, American poker player
• April 12 - Michael English, American Christian singer
• April 13 - Garry Kasparov, Russian chess player
• April 16 - Jimmy Osmond, American singer
• April 17 - Joel Murray, American actor
• April 18 - Eric McCormack, Canadian actor
• April 18 - Conan O'Brien, American television entertainer and talk show host
• April 21 - Ken Caminiti, American baseball player (d. 2004)
• April 21 - Roy Dupuis, Canadian actor
• April 24 - Tõnu Trubetsky, Estonian rock musician (Vennaskond)
• April 26 - Jet Li, Chinese martial artist and actor
• April 26 - Colin Scotts, Australian-born American football player
• April 27 - Cali Timmins, Canadian actress
• April 27 - Russell T Davies, Welsh television producer and writer
• April 30 - Michael Waltrip, American race car driver

[edit] May–June

• May 1 - Benjamin LaGuer, African-American inmate proclaiming innocence for more than two decades
• May 2 - Ray Traylor, American professional wrestler (Big Bossman) (d. 2004)
• May 5 - James LaBrie, Canadian vocalist (Dream Theater)
• May 9 - Barry Douglas Lamb, English musician, author, and preacher
• May 11 -