R. A. Long High School Class of 1963

What Happened in the World Our Senior Year?

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Note: Since facts without context are basically meaningless, you can see the corresponding Wikipedia entry by clicking on one of the links below.


September 1962

Saturday 01:
Channel Television launches to 54,000 households in the Channel Islands.

Saturday 08:
Newly independent, Algeria, by referendum, adopts a Constitution.

Tuesday 11:
The Beatles record their debut single, Love Me Do.

Wednesday 12:
President John F. Kennedy declares the USA will get a man on the moon, and bring him back, by the end of the decade.

Saturday 15:
The Soviet ship Poltava heads toward Cuba, one of the events that sets into motion the Cuban Missile Crisis.

Thursday 20:
James Meredith, an African-American, is barred from entering the University of Mississippi.

Sunday 23:
Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts in New York City opens with the first building completed, Philharmonic Hall, now Avery Fisher Hall home of the New York Philharmonic.

Monday 24:
United States Court of Appeals orders the University of Mississippi to admit James Meredith.

Tuesday 25:
The People's Democratic Republic of Algeria is formally proclaimed. Ferhat Abbas is elected President of the provisional government.

Wednesday 26:
Premiere of The Beverly Hillbillies on CBS.

Saturday 29:
Alouette 1, the first Canadian satellite is launched.

Sunday 30:
James Meredith enters the University of Mississippi, defying segregation.


October 1962

Tuesday 02:
Johnny Carson debuts as host of The Tonight Show.

Wednesday 03:
At Cape Canaveral the Mercury 8 blasts off with Astronaut Wally Schirra aboard for a nine-hour flight.

Friday 05:
The Beatles release their first hit, Love Me Do, in Britain.

Sunday 07:
U.S.S.R. performs nuclear test at Novaya Zemlya, U.S.S.R.

Monday 08:
Spiegel scandal: Der Spiegel publishes the article "Bedingt abwehrbereit" ("Conditionally prepared for defense") about a NATO manoeuver called "Fallex 62", which uncovered the sorry state of the Bundeswehr (Germany's army) facing the communist threat from the east at the time. The magazine was soon accused of treason.

Tuesday 09:
Uganda becomes a republic.

Thursday 11:
Second Vatican Council: Pope John XXIII convenes the first ecumenical council of the Roman Catholic Church in 92 years.

Friday 12:
Infamous Columbus Day Storm strikes the U.S. Pacific Northwest with record wind velocities; 46 dead and at least U.S. $230 million in damages

Saturday 13:
Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? opens on Broadway.

Sunday 14:
Cuban Missile Crisis begins: A U-2 flight over Cuba takes photos of Soviet nuclear weapons being installed.

Monday 15:
Cuban Missile Crisis: A stand-off ensues between the United States and the Soviet Union over Soviet nuclear weapons in Cuba.

Monday 22:
Cuban Missile Crisis: US President John F. Kennedy announces that American spy planes have discovered Soviet nuclear weapons in Cuba, and that he has ordered a naval "quarantine" of the island nation.

Thursday 25:
Cuban missile crisis: Adlai Stevenson shows photos at the UN proving Soviet missiles are installed in Cuba

Saturday 27:
The Cuban Missile Crisis ends peacefully.

Sunday 28:
Cuban Missile Crisis: Soviet Union leader Nikita Khrushchev announces that he had ordered the removal of Soviet missile bases in Cuba.


November 1962

Friday 02:
The Cuban Missile Crisis ends as President John F. Kennedy announces that Soviet nuclear missiles are to be withdrawn from Cuba.

Monday 05:
A mining accident kills 21 miners at the government-owned Kings Bay Coal Company on Svalbard, leading the Norweigian government to close the mine.

Tuesday 06:
Apartheid: The United Nations General Assembly passes a resolution condemning South Africa's racist apartheid policies and calls for all UN member states to cease military and economic relations with the nation.

Wednesday 07:
Richard M. Nixon loses the California governor's race. In his concession speech, he states that this is his "last press conference" and that "you won't have Dick Nixon to kick around any more".

Sunday 11:
Kuwait's National Assembly ratifies the Constitution of Kuwait.

Sunday 18:
Niels Bohr, Danish physicist, dies at the age of 77.

Tuesday 20:
Cuban Missile Crisis ends: In response to the Soviet Union agreeing to remove its missiles from Cuba, US President John F. Kennedy ends the quarantine of the Caribbean nation.

Wednesday 21:
The Chinese People's Liberation Army declared a unilateral cease-fire in the Sino-Indian War.

Saturday 24:
The West Berlin branch of the Socialist Unity Party of Germany forms a separate party, the Socialist Unity Party of West Berlin.

Friday 30:
The United Nations General Assembly elects U Thant of Burma as the new UN Secretary-General.


December 1962

Sunday 02:
Vietnam War: After a trip to Vietnam at the request of US President John F. Kennedy, US Senate Majority Leader Mike Mansfield becomes the first American official to not make an optimistic public comment on the war's progress.

Friday 07:
Prince Rainier III of Monaco revises the principality's constitution, devolving some of his power to advisory and legislative councils.

Sunday 09:
Tanganyika becomes a republic

Friday 14:
The Mona Lisa was assessed at US$100 million, the highest insurance valuance for a painting in history.

Wednesday 19:
Nyasaland secedes from Rhodesia and Nyasaland

Friday 21:
Rondane National Park, the first national park in Norway, was established.


January 1963

Friday 11:
The Whisky A Go-Go night club in Los Angeles, the first disco in the USA, is opened.

Monday 14:
George Wallace becomes governor of Alabama.

Tuesday 22:
Elysée treaty between France and Germany.

Tuesday 29:
First inductees into the Pro Football Hall of Fame are announced.


February 1963

Friday 08:
Travel, financial and commercial transactions by United States citizens to Cuba are made illegal by the John F. Kennedy administration.

Monday 11:
The Beatles tape 10 tracks for their first album, including Please, Please Me.


March 1963

Saturday 02:
Release of Please Please Me in the United Kingdom, the first LP from The Beatles.

Monday 04:
In Paris six people are sentenced to death for conspiring to assassinate President Charles de Gaulle.

Tuesday 05:
Country singer Patsy Cline dies in a plane crash.

Friday 15:
Victor Feguer, a Federal prisoner, is put to death at the Fort Madison, Iowa prison. This would be the last execution of a Federal prisoner until the execution of Timothy McVeigh in 2001.

Tuesday 19:
Saxophonist Stan Getz records Getz/Gilberto, including The Girl from Ipanema, sung by Astrud and João Gilberto.

Thursday 21:
Alcatraz, a federal penitentiary on an island in San Francisco Bay, closes.

Friday 22:
1963 Please Please Me, the first Beatles album, is released in the UK.

Saturday 23:
In London, United Kingdom, Grethe & Jørgen Ingmann win the eighth Eurovision Song Contest for Denmark singing Dansevise (Dancing tune).

Wednesday 27:
Dr Richard Beeching issues a report, known as the "Beeching Axe", calling for huge cuts to the United Kingdom's rail network.


April 1963

Sunday 07:
Yugoslavia is proclaimed to be a Socialist republic and Josip Broz Tito is named President for life.

Wednesday 24:
Marriage of Her Royal Highness Princess Alexandra of Kent to Angus James Bruce Ogilvy at Westminster Abbey in London.


May 1963

Thursday 02:
Berthold Seliger launches near Cuxhaven a rocket with three stages with a maximum flight altitude of more than 100 kilometres. It is the only sounding rocket developed in Germany.

Wednesday 15:
Mercury program: America launches the last mission of the program, Mercury 9 (on June 12 NASA Administrator James E. Webb told Congress the program was complete).

Saturday 25:
In Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, the Organisation of African Unity is established.

Monday 27:
Folk music singer Bob Dylan releases The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan album, which features Blowin' in the Wind and several other of his best-known songs.


June 1963

Monday 03:
A Northwest Airlines DC-7 crashes in the Pacific Ocean off the coast of British Columbia, killing 101.

Wednesday 05:
British Secretary of State for War John Profumo resigns in a sex scandal.

Tuesday 11:
Buddhist monk Thich Quang Duc burns himself with gasoline in a busy Saigon intersection to protest the lack of religious freedom in South Vietnam.

Wednesday 12:
Civil rights leader Medgar Evers is shot dead in front of his home in Jackson, Mississippi by Ku Klux Klan member Byron De La Beckwith.

Sunday 16:
Valentina Tereshkova becomes the first woman in space

Monday 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.

Thursday 20:
The so-called "red telephone" was established between Soviet Union and United States following the Cuban Missile Crisis.

Saturday 22:
Pope Paul VI elected by College of Cardinals.

Monday 24:
Zanzibar is granted internal self-government by the UK.

Wednesday 26:
John F. Kennedy speaks the famous words "Ich bin ein Berliner" on a visit to West Berlin.