1963 in the United States

Federal government

• President:

John F. Kennedy (D-Massachusetts) (until November 22)

Lyndon B. Johnson (D-Texas) (starting November 22)

• Vice President:

Lyndon B. Johnson (D-Texas) (until November 22)

vacant (starting November 22)

• Chief Justice: Earl Warren (California)
• Speaker of the House of Representatives: John William McCormack (D-Massachusetts)
• Senate Majority Leader: Mike Mansfield (D-Montana)
• Congress: 87th (until January 3), 88th (starting January 3)

January

• January 8 – Leonardo da Vinci's Mona Lisa is exhibited in the United States for the only time, being unveiled at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C.^[1]
• January 14 – George Wallace becomes governor of Alabama. In his inaugural speech, he defiantly proclaims "segregation now, segregation tomorrow, and segregation forever!"^[2]
• January 28 – African American student Harvey Gantt enters Clemson University in South Carolina, the last U.S. state to hold out against racial integration.

February

• February 8 – Travel, financial and commercial transactions by United States citizens to Cuba are made illegal by the John F. Kennedy Administration.
• February 11 – The CIA's Domestic Operations Division is created.
• February 12 – Northwest Orient Airlines Flight 705 crashes in the Florida Everglades, killing everyone 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 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.

March

• March – Iron Man debuts in Marvel Comics's Tales of Suspense #39, cover-dated this month.
• March 5 – In Camden, Tennessee, country music star 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 18 – Gideon v. Wainwright: The Supreme Court rules that state courts are required to provide counsel in criminal cases for defendants who cannot afford to pay their own attorneys.
• March 21 – The Alcatraz Federal Penitentiary on Alcatraz Island in San Francisco Bay closes; the last 27 prisoners are transferred elsewhere at the order of Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy.
• March 31 – The 1962–63 New York City newspaper strike ends after 114 days.

April

• April 1 – The long-running soap opera General Hospital debuts on ABC Televisions.
• April 3 – Southern Christian Leadership Conference volunteers kick off the Birmingham campaign against racial segregation with a sit-in.
• April 6 – The Kingsmen record their influential cover of "Louie Louie" in Portland, Oregon, released in June.^[3]
• April 8 – The 35th Academy Awards ceremony, hosted by Frank Sinatra, is held at Santa Monica Civic Auditorium. David Lean's Lawrence of Arabia wins and receives the most respective awards and nominations with seven and ten, winning Best Picture and Lean's second Best Director win.
• April 10 – The U.S. nuclear submarine Thresher sinks 220 mi (190 nmi; 350 km) east of Cape Cod; all 129 aboard (112 crewmen plus yard personnel) 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 16 – Martin Luther King Jr. issues his Letter from Birmingham Jail.
• April 20 – Martin Luther King Jr. posts bail and begins to plan more demonstrations (the Children's Crusade).

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. Public Safety Commissioner Eugene "Bull" Connor later unleashes fire hoses and police dogs on the demonstrators.
• May 8 – Dr. No, the first James Bond film, is shown in U.S. theaters.
• 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 27 – The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan, singer-songwriter Bob Dylan's second studio album, and most influential, is released by Columbia Records.

June

• June 3 – Huế chemical attacks: Members of the Army of the Republic of Vietnam pour chemicals on the heads of Buddhist protesters. The U.S. threatens to cut off aid to Ngo Dinh Diem's regime.
• June 4 – President John F. Kennedy signs Executive Order 11110.
• June 10
  • President John F. Kennedy delivers "A Strategy of Peace" speech at the American University in Washington, D.C., outlining a road map for the complete disarmament of nuclear weapons and world peace.
  • The University of Central Florida is established by the Florida legislature.
• June 11
  • Alabama Governor George 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 delivers 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 assassinated in Jackson, Mississippi. His killer, Byron De La Beckwith, is convicted in 1994.
  • The film Cleopatra, starring Elizabeth Taylor, Rex Harrison and Richard Burton, is released in the United States.
• June 13 – The cancellation of Mercury 10 effectively ends the Mercury program of U.S. crewed spaceflight.
• June 17 – Abington School District v. Schempp: The U.S. Supreme Court rules that state-mandated Bible reading in public schools is unconstitutional.
• June 23
  • Walt Disney's Enchanted Tiki Room opens at Disneyland, premiering the first Audio-Animatronics in the park.
  • Detroit Walk to Freedom occurs in Detroit drawing a crowd of roughly 125,000 people.
• June 26 – In a speech in West Berlin, President John F. Kennedy famously declares "Ich bin ein Berliner".

July

• July 1 – ZIP codes are introduced in the U.S.
• July 7 – Double Seven Day scuffle: Secret police loyal to Ngô Đình Nhu, brother of President Ngô Đình Diệm, attack American journalists including Peter Arnett and David Halberstam at a demonstration during the Buddhist crisis.
• July 26 – NASA launches Syncom, the world's first geostationary (synchronous) satellite.

August

• August 5 – The United States, United Kingdom, and Soviet Union sign a nuclear test ban treaty.
• August 18 – James Meredith becomes the first black person to graduate from the University of Mississippi.^[4]
• August 21 – Cable 243: In the wake of the Xá Lợi 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 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.
• August 30 – The Moscow–Washington hotline (a direct teleprinter link) is inaugurated by President Kennedy.^[5]

September

• September 7 – The Pro Football Hall of Fame opens in Canton, Ohio, with 17 charter members.
• September 15 – The 16th Street Baptist Church bombing in Birmingham, Alabama, kills four children and injures 22.
• September 19 – Iota Phi Theta fraternity is founded.
• September 24 – The U.S. Senate ratifies the nuclear test ban treaty.

October

• October 1 – The Presidential Commission on the Status of Women issues its final reports to President Kennedy.
• October 6 – The Los Angeles Dodgers defeat the New York Yankees, 4 games to 0, to win their third World Series title in baseball.
• 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 "A Change Is Gonna Come".
• October 22 – Chicago Public Schools Boycott.
• October 28 – Demolition of the 1910 Pennsylvania Station begins in New York City, continuing until 1966.
• October 31 – 1963 Indiana State Fairgrounds Coliseum gas explosion: 81 die in a gas explosion during a Holiday on Ice show at the Indiana State Fair Coliseum in Indianapolis.

November

• November 2–4 – 1963 Freedom Ballot, a mock election organized to protest and combat the systematic disenfranchisement of blacks in Mississippi.
• November 10 – Malcolm X makes his "Message to the Grass Roots" speech in Detroit.
• November 16 – A newspaper strike begins in Toledo, Ohio.
• November 18 – The first push-button telephone is made available to AT&T customers in the United States.

• November 22 – John F. Kennedy assassination: In Dallas, President John F. Kennedy is shot to death, Texas Governor John B. Connally is seriously wounded, and Vice President Lyndon B. 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 four days, in tribute.
• November 23 – The Golden Age Nursing Home fire kills 63 elderly people near Fitchville, Ohio.

• November 24
  • Lee Harvey Oswald, assassin of John F. Kennedy, is shot dead by Jack Ruby in Dallas 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: President Johnson confirms that the United States intends to continue supporting South Vietnam militarily and economically.
• November 25 – President Kennedy is buried at Arlington National Cemetery. Schools around the nation do not have class on that day, and millions around the world watch the funeral on live television.
• November 29 – President Johnson establishes the Warren Commission to investigate the assassination of President Kennedy.

December

• December 1 – Wendell Scott becomes the first African-American driver to win a NASCAR race at Speedway Park.
• December 8
  • Frank Sinatra Jr. is kidnapped at Harrah's Lake Tahoe.
  • A lightning strike causes the crash of Pan Am Flight 214 near Elkton, Maryland, killing 81 people.
• December 10
  • The X-20 Dyna-Soar spaceplane program is cancelled.
  • Chuck Yeager becomes the first pilot to make an emergency ejection in the full pressure suit needed for high altitude flights.
• December 14 – Baldwin Hills Dam disaster floods South Los Angeles, causing five deaths.
• 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 Disney's final animated film to be released during his lifetime, before his death in 1966.
• December 26 – The Beatles' songs "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.

Undated

• David. H. Frisch and James H. Smith prove that the radioactive decay of mesons is slowed by their motion (see Einstein's special relativity and general relativity).

Ongoing

• Cold War (1947–1991)
• Space Race (1957–75)
• Civil rights movement (1954–68)