January
Main article: January 1963
January 1
Osamu Tezuka's Tetsuwan Atomu (Astro Boy), Japan's first serialized animated series based on the popular manga, debuts on Japanese television station Fuji Television.
Bogle-Chandler case: Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation scientist Dr. Gilbert Bogle and Mrs. Margaret Chandler are found dead (presumed poisoned), in bushland near the Lane Cove River, Sydney, Australia.
January 8: Mona Lisa in Washington, D.C.
January 2 – Vietnam War: The Viet Cong win their first major victory in the Battle of Ap Bac.
January 8 – Leonardo da Vinci's Mona Lisa is exhibited in the United States for the first time, at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C.
January 14
George Wallace becomes governor of Alabama. In his inaugural speech, he defiantly proclaims "segregation now, segregation tomorrow, and segregation forever!"[1][2]
The steam locomotive Flying Scotsman (British Railways No. 60103) makes its last scheduled run, before going into the hands of Alan Pegler for preservation.
January 18 – Due to severe winter conditions the twelfth elfstedentocht skating tour in the Netherlands turns into an almost total disaster. Of the 9,294 participants only 69 manage to finish, making this the heaviest elfstedentocht ever held.
January 22 – France and West Germany sign the Élysée Treaty.
January 26 – The Australia Day shootings rock Perth; 2 people are shot dead and 3 others injured by Eric Edgar Cooke.
January 28 – African-American 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 European Economic Community.
February
Main article: February 1963
February 5 – The European Court of Justice's ruling in Van Gend en Loos v Nederlandse Administratie der Belastingen establishes the principle of direct effect, one of the basic tenets of European Union law.
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 11
The Central Intelligence Agency's Domestic Operations Division is created in the United States.
The Beatles record their debut album Please Please Me in a single day at the Abbey Road Studios in London.
American-born poet Sylvia Plath commits suicide in London.
February 12 – Northwest Airlines Flight 705 crashes in the Florida Everglades, killing all 43 aboard.
February 14 – Harold Wilson becomes leader of the opposition Labour Party in the United Kingdom,[3] and could be within 18 months of becoming prime minister with a general election due in that time.
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 21 – An earthquake destroys the village of Marj, Libya, killing 900.
February 27
Juan Bosch takes office as the 41st president of the Dominican Republic.
Female suffrage is enacted in Iran.
February 28 – Dorothy Schiff resigns from the New York Newspaper Publishers' Association, feeling that the city needs at least one paper as New York's 83-day newspayer strike ensued. Her paper, the New York Post, resumes publication on March 4.
March
Main article: March 1963
March
The divorce case of The Duke and Duchess of Argyll causes scandal in the United Kingdom.
March 21: Alcatraz closes
March 4 – In Paris, six people are sentenced to death for conspiring to assassinate President Charles de Gaulle. De Gaulle pardons five, but the other conspirator, Jean Bastien-Thiry, is executed by firing squad several 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 17 – Mount Agung erupts on Bali, killing approximately 1,500.
March 18 – Gideon v. Wainwright: The Supreme Court of the United States 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 United States Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy.
March 22 – The Beatles release their first album, Please Please Me, in the United Kingdom.
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: British Rail network, as it would have become, if "Beeching axe" plans had been fully implemented (only bolded rail lines would have remained).
March 27 – In Britain, Dr. Richard Beeching issues a report, The Reshaping of British Railways, calling for huge cuts to the country's rail network.
March 28 – Director Alfred Hitchcock's film The Birds is released in the United States.
March 30 – Indigenous Australians are legally allowed to drink alcohol in New South Wales.[4]
March 31 – The 1962–63 New York City newspaper strike ends after 114 days.
April
Main article: April 1963
April 1 – The longrunning soap opera General Hospital debuts on ABC Television in the United States.
April 3 – Southern Christian Leadership Conference volunteers kick off the Birmingham campaign (Birmingham, Alabama) against racial segregation in the United States 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. Lawrence of Arabia wins Best Picture.
April 9 – British statesman Sir Winston Churchill becomes an honorary citizen of the United States.
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, Alabama protest for "parading without a permit".
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 14 – The Institute of Mental Health (Belgrade) is established.
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–April 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.
May
Main article: May 1963
May 1 – The Coca-Cola Company introduces 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.
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.
Huế Phật Đản shootings: The Army of the Republic of Vietnam opens fire on Buddhists who defy a ban on the flying of the Buddhist flag on Vesak, the birthday of Gautama Buddha, killing 9. (Earlier, President Ngô Đình Diệm allowed the flying of the Vatican flag in honour of his brother, Archbishop Ngô Đình Thục.) Start of Buddhist crisis in South Vietnam.
CVS Pharmacy opens in Lowell, Massachusetts.
May 12 – The Shanty is established in New Castle, Indiana,
May 13 – A smallpox outbreak hits Stockholm, Sweden, lasting until July.
May 14 – Kuwait becomes the 111th member of the United Nations.
May 15 – Project Mercury: NASA launches Gordon Cooper on Mercury-Atlas 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, opening with the song "Blowin' in the Wind", released by Columbia Records.
June
Main article: June 1963
June 3 – Huế chemical attacks: The Army of the Republic of Vietnam rains liquid chemicals on the heads of Buddhist protestors, injuring 67 people. The United States threatens to cut off aid to the regime of Ngô Đình Diệm.
June 4 – President John F. Kennedy signs Executive Order 11110, authorizing the Secretary of the Treasury to issue silver certificates.
June 5 – The first annual National Hockey League Entry Draft is held in Montreal.
June 10 – President John F. Kennedy delivers his American University speech, "A Strategy of Peace", in Washington, D.C.
June 10 – The University of Central Florida is established by the Florida legislature.
June 11
In Saigon, Buddhist monk Thích Quảng Đức commits self-immolation to protest the oppression of Buddhists by the Ngô Đình Diệm administration.
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 broadcasts 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 murdered in Jackson, Mississippi. (His killer, Byron De La Beckwith, is convicted in 1994.)
The film Cleopatra is released.
June 13
The cancellation of Mercury-Atlas 10 effectively ends the United States' manned spaceflight Project Mercury.
The New York Commodity Exchange begins trading silver futures contracts.
June 15– The AC Cobra makes its first appearance at the 24 Hours of Le Mans. It would go on to win its class the following year.
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 19 – Valentina Tereshkova the first woman in space, returns to Earth.
June 20
Establishment of the Moscow–Washington hotline (officially, the Direct Communications Link or DCL; unofficially, the "red telephone"; and in fact a teleprinter link) is authorized by signing of a Memorandum of Understanding in Geneva by representatives of the Soviet Union and the United States.[5][6]
Swedish Air Force Colonel Stig Wennerström is arrested as a spy for the Soviet Union.
June 21 – Pope Paul VI (Giovanni Battista Montini) succeeds Pope John XXIII as the 262nd pope.
June 26 – John F. Kennedy gives his "Ich bin ein Berliner" speech in West Berlin, East Germany.
July
Main article: July 1963
July 1 – ZIP codes are introduced by the United States Postal Service.
July 5
Diplomatic relations between the Israeli and the Japanese governments are raised to embassy level.
The Roman Catholic Church accepts cremation as a funeral practice.
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 in South Vietnam.
July 11 – South Africa: police raid Liliesleaf Farm to the north of Johannesburg, arresting a group of ANC leaders.
July 12 – Pauline Reade (16) is abducted by Myra Hindley and Ian Brady in Manchester, England, the first victim of the Moors murders; her remains are located in July 1987.
July 19 – American test pilot Joe Walker, flying the X-15, reaches an altitude of 65.8 miles (105.9 kilometers), making it a sub-orbital spaceflight by recognized international standards.
July 26
An earthquake in Skopje, Yugoslavia (present-day Republic of Macedonia) leaves 1,800 dead.
NASA launches Syncom 2, the world's first geostationary (synchronous) satellite.
July 30 – The Soviet newspaper Izvestia reports that British diplomat and double agent Kim Philby has been given asylum in Moscow.
August
August 28: March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom
Main article: August 1963
August 5 – The United States, United Kingdom, and Soviet Union sign the Partial Nuclear Test Ban Treaty.
August 8 – The Great Train Robbery takes place in Buckinghamshire, England.
August 15 – Trois Glorieuses: President Fulbert Youlou is overthrown in the Republic of Congo after a three-day uprising in the capital, Brazzaville.
August 18 – American civil rights movement: James Meredith becomes the first black person to graduate from the University of Mississippi.
August 21 – Xá Lợi Pagoda raids: The Army of the Republic of Vietnam Special Forces loyal to Ngô Đình Nhu, brother of President Ngô Đình Diệm, vandalise Buddhist pagodas across South Vietnam, arresting thousands and leaving an estimated hundreds dead. In the wake of the raids, the Kennedy administration by Cable 243 orders the United States Embassy, Saigon to explore alternative leadership in the country, opening the way towards a coup against Diệm.
August 22 – American test pilot Joe Walker again achieves a sub-orbital spaceflight according to international standards, this time by piloting the X-15 to an altitude of 67.0 miles (107.8 kilometers).
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.
September
Main article: September 1963
September 1 – The language border in Belgium is fixed. This will become the foundation for the further federalization of the county.
September 5 – British prostitute Christine Keeler is arrested for perjury for her part in the Profumo Affair. On December 6 she is sentenced to 9 months in prison.
September 6 – The Centre for International Intellectual 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 18 – Rioters burn down the British Embassy in Jakarta, to protest the formation of Malaysia.
September 23 – King Fahd University of Petroleum and Minerals is established by a Saudi Royal Decree as the College of Petroleum and Minerals.
September 24 – The United States Senate ratifies the Partial Nuclear Test Ban Treaty.
September 25
The Denning Report on the Profumo affair is published in Great Britain.
In the Dominican Republic, Juan Bosch is deposed by a coup d'état led by the military with civilian support.
September 29
The second period of the Second Vatican Council in Rome opens.
The University of East Anglia is established in Norwich, England.
October
Main article: October 1963
October 1
Nigeria becomes a republic; The 1st Republican Constitution is established.
In the U.S., the President's Commission on the Status of Women issues its final reports to President Kennedy.
October 3 – 1963 Honduran coup d'état: A violent coup in Honduras pre-empts the October 13 election, ends a period of reform under President Ramón Villeda Morales and begins two decades of military rule under General Oswaldo López Arellano.
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 are arrested after trying to register at a "whites only" motel in Louisiana. In the months following, he records the song "A Change Is Gonna Come".
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 Partial Nuclear Test Ban Treaty, signed on August 5, takes effect.
The second James Bond film, From Russia with Love, opens in the UK.
October 14 – A revolution starts in Radfan, South Yemen, against British colonial rule.
October 16 – The thousandth day of John F. Kennedy's presidency.
October 19 – Alec Douglas-Home succeeds Harold Macmillan as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom.
October 28 – Demolition of the 1910 Pennsylvania Station begins in New York City, continuing until 1966.
October 30 – The car manufacturing firm Lamborghini is founded in Italy.
October 31 – 74 die in a gas explosion during a Holiday on Ice show at the Indiana State Fair Coliseum in Indianapolis.
November
Main article: November 1963
November 1 – Arecibo Observatory, a radio telescope, officially begins operation in Puerto Rico.
November 2 – 1963 South Vietnamese coup: Arrest and assassination of Ngo Dinh Diem, the South Vietnamese President.
November 6 – 1963 South Vietnamese coup: Coup leader General Dương Văn Minh takes over as leader of South Vietnam.
November 7 – 11 German miners are rescued from a collapsed mine after 14 days in what became known as the "Wunder von Lengede" ("miracle of Lengede").
November 8 – Finnair aircraft OH-LCA crashes before landing at Mariehamn Airport on the Åland Islands.
November 9 – Two disasters in Japan:
Miike coal mine explosion: A coal mine explosion kills 458 and sends 839 carbon monoxide poisoning victims to hospital.
Tsurumi rail accident: A triple train disaster in Yokohama kills 161.
November 10 – Malcolm X makes an historic speech in Detroit, Michigan ("Message to the Grass Roots").
November 14 – A volcanic eruption under the sea near Iceland creates a new island, Surtsey.
November 16 – A newspaper strike begins in Toledo, Ohio.
November 18
The Dartford Tunnel opens in England.
The first push-button telephone is made available to AT&T customers.
November 22: Lyndon Baines Johnson is sworn in as U.S. President after assassination of John F. Kennedy.
November 22
Assassination of John F. Kennedy: In a motorcade in Dallas, Texas, United States President John F. Kennedy is shot by Lee Harvey Oswald, and Governor of Texas John Connally is seriously wounded. A few hours later Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson is sworn in as the 36th President aboard Air Force One, as Kennedy's body is flown back to Washington, D.C. All television coverage for the next 4 days is devoted to the assassination and its aftermath, the November 24 procession of the horsedrawn casket to the United States Capitol rotunda, and the funeral. Stores and businesses shut down for the entire weekend and Monday, in tribute.
Author of Brave New World, Aldous Huxley, dies.
C. S. Lewis, theologian and author of several works, including The Chronicles of Narnia, The Screwtape Letters, and Mere Christianity, dies of renal failure at his home.
Phil Spector's A Christmas Gift for You from Phil Spector is released.
The Beatles' second UK album, With the Beatles, is released.
November 23
Moors murders: John Kilbride (12) is abducted by Myra Hindley and Ian Brady in England.
The first episode of the BBC television series Doctor Who is broadcast in the United Kingdom.
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, an event seen 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: New U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson confirms that the United States intends to continue supporting South Vietnam militarily and economically.
November 25 – State funeral of John F. Kennedy: President Kennedy is buried at Arlington National Cemetery. Schools around the nation cancel classes 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 John F. Kennedy.
Trans-Canada Air Lines Flight 831, a Douglas DC-8 crashes into a wooded hillside after taking-off from Dorval International Airport near Montreal, killing all 118 on board, the worst air disaster for many years in Canada's history.
Foundation stone for Mirzapur Cadet College is laid in East Pakistan (present-day Bangladesh).
December
Main article: December 1963
December 3 – The Warren Commission begins its investigation into the assassination of John F. Kennedy.
December 4 – The second period of the 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 7 – Tony Verna, a CBS-TV director, debuts an improved version of instant replay during his direction of a live televised sporting event, the Army–Navy Game of college football played in Philadelphia. This instance is notable as it was the first instant replay system to use videotape instead of film.
December 8
A lightning strike causes the crashing of Pan Am Flight 214 near Elkton, Maryland, killing 81 people.
Frank Sinatra, Jr. is kidnapped at Harrah's Lake Tahoe.
December 10
In the United States, the X-20 Dyna-Soar spaceplane program is cancelled.
Chuck Yeager narrowly escapes death while testing an NF-104A rocket-augmented aerospace trainer when his aircraft goes out of control at 108,700 feet (nearly 21 miles up) and crashes. He parachutes to safety at 8,500 feet after vainly battling to gain control of the powerless, rapidly falling craft. In this incident he becomes the first pilot to make an emergency ejection in the full pressure suit needed for high altitude flights.
December 12 – Kenya gains independence from the United Kingdom, with Jomo Kenyatta as prime minister.
December 19 – Zanzibar gains independence from the United Kingdom, as a constitutional monarchy under Sultan Jamshid bin Abdullah.
December 21 – Cyprus Emergency: Inter-communal fighting erupts between Greek and Turkish Cypriots.
December 22 – The cruise ship Lakonia burns 180 miles (290 km) 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 penultimate animated film personally supervised by Disney.
İsmet İnönü of the Republican People's Party (CHP) forms the new government of Turkey (28th government, coalition partners; independents, İnönü has served 10 ten times as a prime minister, this is his last government).
December 26 – The Beatles' "I Want to Hold Your Hand" and "I Saw Her Standing There" are released in the United States, marking the beginning of Beatlemania on an international level.
Main article: January 1963
January 1
Osamu Tezuka's Tetsuwan Atomu (Astro Boy), Japan's first serialized animated series based on the popular manga, debuts on Japanese television station Fuji Television.
Bogle-Chandler case: Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation scientist Dr. Gilbert Bogle and Mrs. Margaret Chandler are found dead (presumed poisoned), in bushland near the Lane Cove River, Sydney, Australia.
January 8: Mona Lisa in Washington, D.C.
January 2 – Vietnam War: The Viet Cong win their first major victory in the Battle of Ap Bac.
January 8 – Leonardo da Vinci's Mona Lisa is exhibited in the United States for the first time, at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C.
January 14
George Wallace becomes governor of Alabama. In his inaugural speech, he defiantly proclaims "segregation now, segregation tomorrow, and segregation forever!"[1][2]
The steam locomotive Flying Scotsman (British Railways No. 60103) makes its last scheduled run, before going into the hands of Alan Pegler for preservation.
January 18 – Due to severe winter conditions the twelfth elfstedentocht skating tour in the Netherlands turns into an almost total disaster. Of the 9,294 participants only 69 manage to finish, making this the heaviest elfstedentocht ever held.
January 22 – France and West Germany sign the Élysée Treaty.
January 26 – The Australia Day shootings rock Perth; 2 people are shot dead and 3 others injured by Eric Edgar Cooke.
January 28 – African-American 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 European Economic Community.
February
Main article: February 1963
February 5 – The European Court of Justice's ruling in Van Gend en Loos v Nederlandse Administratie der Belastingen establishes the principle of direct effect, one of the basic tenets of European Union law.
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 11
The Central Intelligence Agency's Domestic Operations Division is created in the United States.
The Beatles record their debut album Please Please Me in a single day at the Abbey Road Studios in London.
American-born poet Sylvia Plath commits suicide in London.
February 12 – Northwest Airlines Flight 705 crashes in the Florida Everglades, killing all 43 aboard.
February 14 – Harold Wilson becomes leader of the opposition Labour Party in the United Kingdom,[3] and could be within 18 months of becoming prime minister with a general election due in that time.
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 21 – An earthquake destroys the village of Marj, Libya, killing 900.
February 27
Juan Bosch takes office as the 41st president of the Dominican Republic.
Female suffrage is enacted in Iran.
February 28 – Dorothy Schiff resigns from the New York Newspaper Publishers' Association, feeling that the city needs at least one paper as New York's 83-day newspayer strike ensued. Her paper, the New York Post, resumes publication on March 4.
March
Main article: March 1963
March
The divorce case of The Duke and Duchess of Argyll causes scandal in the United Kingdom.
March 21: Alcatraz closes
March 4 – In Paris, six people are sentenced to death for conspiring to assassinate President Charles de Gaulle. De Gaulle pardons five, but the other conspirator, Jean Bastien-Thiry, is executed by firing squad several 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 17 – Mount Agung erupts on Bali, killing approximately 1,500.
March 18 – Gideon v. Wainwright: The Supreme Court of the United States 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 United States Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy.
March 22 – The Beatles release their first album, Please Please Me, in the United Kingdom.
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: British Rail network, as it would have become, if "Beeching axe" plans had been fully implemented (only bolded rail lines would have remained).
March 27 – In Britain, Dr. Richard Beeching issues a report, The Reshaping of British Railways, calling for huge cuts to the country's rail network.
March 28 – Director Alfred Hitchcock's film The Birds is released in the United States.
March 30 – Indigenous Australians are legally allowed to drink alcohol in New South Wales.[4]
March 31 – The 1962–63 New York City newspaper strike ends after 114 days.
April
Main article: April 1963
April 1 – The longrunning soap opera General Hospital debuts on ABC Television in the United States.
April 3 – Southern Christian Leadership Conference volunteers kick off the Birmingham campaign (Birmingham, Alabama) against racial segregation in the United States 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. Lawrence of Arabia wins Best Picture.
April 9 – British statesman Sir Winston Churchill becomes an honorary citizen of the United States.
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, Alabama protest for "parading without a permit".
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 14 – The Institute of Mental Health (Belgrade) is established.
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–April 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.
May
Main article: May 1963
May 1 – The Coca-Cola Company introduces 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.
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.
Huế Phật Đản shootings: The Army of the Republic of Vietnam opens fire on Buddhists who defy a ban on the flying of the Buddhist flag on Vesak, the birthday of Gautama Buddha, killing 9. (Earlier, President Ngô Đình Diệm allowed the flying of the Vatican flag in honour of his brother, Archbishop Ngô Đình Thục.) Start of Buddhist crisis in South Vietnam.
CVS Pharmacy opens in Lowell, Massachusetts.
May 12 – The Shanty is established in New Castle, Indiana,
May 13 – A smallpox outbreak hits Stockholm, Sweden, lasting until July.
May 14 – Kuwait becomes the 111th member of the United Nations.
May 15 – Project Mercury: NASA launches Gordon Cooper on Mercury-Atlas 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, opening with the song "Blowin' in the Wind", released by Columbia Records.
June
Main article: June 1963
June 3 – Huế chemical attacks: The Army of the Republic of Vietnam rains liquid chemicals on the heads of Buddhist protestors, injuring 67 people. The United States threatens to cut off aid to the regime of Ngô Đình Diệm.
June 4 – President John F. Kennedy signs Executive Order 11110, authorizing the Secretary of the Treasury to issue silver certificates.
June 5 – The first annual National Hockey League Entry Draft is held in Montreal.
June 10 – President John F. Kennedy delivers his American University speech, "A Strategy of Peace", in Washington, D.C.
June 10 – The University of Central Florida is established by the Florida legislature.
June 11
In Saigon, Buddhist monk Thích Quảng Đức commits self-immolation to protest the oppression of Buddhists by the Ngô Đình Diệm administration.
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 broadcasts 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 murdered in Jackson, Mississippi. (His killer, Byron De La Beckwith, is convicted in 1994.)
The film Cleopatra is released.
June 13
The cancellation of Mercury-Atlas 10 effectively ends the United States' manned spaceflight Project Mercury.
The New York Commodity Exchange begins trading silver futures contracts.
June 15– The AC Cobra makes its first appearance at the 24 Hours of Le Mans. It would go on to win its class the following year.
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 19 – Valentina Tereshkova the first woman in space, returns to Earth.
June 20
Establishment of the Moscow–Washington hotline (officially, the Direct Communications Link or DCL; unofficially, the "red telephone"; and in fact a teleprinter link) is authorized by signing of a Memorandum of Understanding in Geneva by representatives of the Soviet Union and the United States.[5][6]
Swedish Air Force Colonel Stig Wennerström is arrested as a spy for the Soviet Union.
June 21 – Pope Paul VI (Giovanni Battista Montini) succeeds Pope John XXIII as the 262nd pope.
June 26 – John F. Kennedy gives his "Ich bin ein Berliner" speech in West Berlin, East Germany.
July
Main article: July 1963
July 1 – ZIP codes are introduced by the United States Postal Service.
July 5
Diplomatic relations between the Israeli and the Japanese governments are raised to embassy level.
The Roman Catholic Church accepts cremation as a funeral practice.
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 in South Vietnam.
July 11 – South Africa: police raid Liliesleaf Farm to the north of Johannesburg, arresting a group of ANC leaders.
July 12 – Pauline Reade (16) is abducted by Myra Hindley and Ian Brady in Manchester, England, the first victim of the Moors murders; her remains are located in July 1987.
July 19 – American test pilot Joe Walker, flying the X-15, reaches an altitude of 65.8 miles (105.9 kilometers), making it a sub-orbital spaceflight by recognized international standards.
July 26
An earthquake in Skopje, Yugoslavia (present-day Republic of Macedonia) leaves 1,800 dead.
NASA launches Syncom 2, the world's first geostationary (synchronous) satellite.
July 30 – The Soviet newspaper Izvestia reports that British diplomat and double agent Kim Philby has been given asylum in Moscow.
August
August 28: March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom
Main article: August 1963
August 5 – The United States, United Kingdom, and Soviet Union sign the Partial Nuclear Test Ban Treaty.
August 8 – The Great Train Robbery takes place in Buckinghamshire, England.
August 15 – Trois Glorieuses: President Fulbert Youlou is overthrown in the Republic of Congo after a three-day uprising in the capital, Brazzaville.
August 18 – American civil rights movement: James Meredith becomes the first black person to graduate from the University of Mississippi.
August 21 – Xá Lợi Pagoda raids: The Army of the Republic of Vietnam Special Forces loyal to Ngô Đình Nhu, brother of President Ngô Đình Diệm, vandalise Buddhist pagodas across South Vietnam, arresting thousands and leaving an estimated hundreds dead. In the wake of the raids, the Kennedy administration by Cable 243 orders the United States Embassy, Saigon to explore alternative leadership in the country, opening the way towards a coup against Diệm.
August 22 – American test pilot Joe Walker again achieves a sub-orbital spaceflight according to international standards, this time by piloting the X-15 to an altitude of 67.0 miles (107.8 kilometers).
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.
September
Main article: September 1963
September 1 – The language border in Belgium is fixed. This will become the foundation for the further federalization of the county.
September 5 – British prostitute Christine Keeler is arrested for perjury for her part in the Profumo Affair. On December 6 she is sentenced to 9 months in prison.
September 6 – The Centre for International Intellectual 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 18 – Rioters burn down the British Embassy in Jakarta, to protest the formation of Malaysia.
September 23 – King Fahd University of Petroleum and Minerals is established by a Saudi Royal Decree as the College of Petroleum and Minerals.
September 24 – The United States Senate ratifies the Partial Nuclear Test Ban Treaty.
September 25
The Denning Report on the Profumo affair is published in Great Britain.
In the Dominican Republic, Juan Bosch is deposed by a coup d'état led by the military with civilian support.
September 29
The second period of the Second Vatican Council in Rome opens.
The University of East Anglia is established in Norwich, England.
October
Main article: October 1963
October 1
Nigeria becomes a republic; The 1st Republican Constitution is established.
In the U.S., the President's Commission on the Status of Women issues its final reports to President Kennedy.
October 3 – 1963 Honduran coup d'état: A violent coup in Honduras pre-empts the October 13 election, ends a period of reform under President Ramón Villeda Morales and begins two decades of military rule under General Oswaldo López Arellano.
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 are arrested after trying to register at a "whites only" motel in Louisiana. In the months following, he records the song "A Change Is Gonna Come".
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 Partial Nuclear Test Ban Treaty, signed on August 5, takes effect.
The second James Bond film, From Russia with Love, opens in the UK.
October 14 – A revolution starts in Radfan, South Yemen, against British colonial rule.
October 16 – The thousandth day of John F. Kennedy's presidency.
October 19 – Alec Douglas-Home succeeds Harold Macmillan as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom.
October 28 – Demolition of the 1910 Pennsylvania Station begins in New York City, continuing until 1966.
October 30 – The car manufacturing firm Lamborghini is founded in Italy.
October 31 – 74 die in a gas explosion during a Holiday on Ice show at the Indiana State Fair Coliseum in Indianapolis.
November
Main article: November 1963
November 1 – Arecibo Observatory, a radio telescope, officially begins operation in Puerto Rico.
November 2 – 1963 South Vietnamese coup: Arrest and assassination of Ngo Dinh Diem, the South Vietnamese President.
November 6 – 1963 South Vietnamese coup: Coup leader General Dương Văn Minh takes over as leader of South Vietnam.
November 7 – 11 German miners are rescued from a collapsed mine after 14 days in what became known as the "Wunder von Lengede" ("miracle of Lengede").
November 8 – Finnair aircraft OH-LCA crashes before landing at Mariehamn Airport on the Åland Islands.
November 9 – Two disasters in Japan:
Miike coal mine explosion: A coal mine explosion kills 458 and sends 839 carbon monoxide poisoning victims to hospital.
Tsurumi rail accident: A triple train disaster in Yokohama kills 161.
November 10 – Malcolm X makes an historic speech in Detroit, Michigan ("Message to the Grass Roots").
November 14 – A volcanic eruption under the sea near Iceland creates a new island, Surtsey.
November 16 – A newspaper strike begins in Toledo, Ohio.
November 18
The Dartford Tunnel opens in England.
The first push-button telephone is made available to AT&T customers.
November 22: Lyndon Baines Johnson is sworn in as U.S. President after assassination of John F. Kennedy.
November 22
Assassination of John F. Kennedy: In a motorcade in Dallas, Texas, United States President John F. Kennedy is shot by Lee Harvey Oswald, and Governor of Texas John Connally is seriously wounded. A few hours later Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson is sworn in as the 36th President aboard Air Force One, as Kennedy's body is flown back to Washington, D.C. All television coverage for the next 4 days is devoted to the assassination and its aftermath, the November 24 procession of the horsedrawn casket to the United States Capitol rotunda, and the funeral. Stores and businesses shut down for the entire weekend and Monday, in tribute.
Author of Brave New World, Aldous Huxley, dies.
C. S. Lewis, theologian and author of several works, including The Chronicles of Narnia, The Screwtape Letters, and Mere Christianity, dies of renal failure at his home.
Phil Spector's A Christmas Gift for You from Phil Spector is released.
The Beatles' second UK album, With the Beatles, is released.
November 23
Moors murders: John Kilbride (12) is abducted by Myra Hindley and Ian Brady in England.
The first episode of the BBC television series Doctor Who is broadcast in the United Kingdom.
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, an event seen 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: New U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson confirms that the United States intends to continue supporting South Vietnam militarily and economically.
November 25 – State funeral of John F. Kennedy: President Kennedy is buried at Arlington National Cemetery. Schools around the nation cancel classes 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 John F. Kennedy.
Trans-Canada Air Lines Flight 831, a Douglas DC-8 crashes into a wooded hillside after taking-off from Dorval International Airport near Montreal, killing all 118 on board, the worst air disaster for many years in Canada's history.
Foundation stone for Mirzapur Cadet College is laid in East Pakistan (present-day Bangladesh).
December
Main article: December 1963
December 3 – The Warren Commission begins its investigation into the assassination of John F. Kennedy.
December 4 – The second period of the 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 7 – Tony Verna, a CBS-TV director, debuts an improved version of instant replay during his direction of a live televised sporting event, the Army–Navy Game of college football played in Philadelphia. This instance is notable as it was the first instant replay system to use videotape instead of film.
December 8
A lightning strike causes the crashing of Pan Am Flight 214 near Elkton, Maryland, killing 81 people.
Frank Sinatra, Jr. is kidnapped at Harrah's Lake Tahoe.
December 10
In the United States, the X-20 Dyna-Soar spaceplane program is cancelled.
Chuck Yeager narrowly escapes death while testing an NF-104A rocket-augmented aerospace trainer when his aircraft goes out of control at 108,700 feet (nearly 21 miles up) and crashes. He parachutes to safety at 8,500 feet after vainly battling to gain control of the powerless, rapidly falling craft. In this incident he becomes the first pilot to make an emergency ejection in the full pressure suit needed for high altitude flights.
December 12 – Kenya gains independence from the United Kingdom, with Jomo Kenyatta as prime minister.
December 19 – Zanzibar gains independence from the United Kingdom, as a constitutional monarchy under Sultan Jamshid bin Abdullah.
December 21 – Cyprus Emergency: Inter-communal fighting erupts between Greek and Turkish Cypriots.
December 22 – The cruise ship Lakonia burns 180 miles (290 km) 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 penultimate animated film personally supervised by Disney.
İsmet İnönü of the Republican People's Party (CHP) forms the new government of Turkey (28th government, coalition partners; independents, İnönü has served 10 ten times as a prime minister, this is his last government).
December 26 – The Beatles' "I Want to Hold Your Hand" and "I Saw Her Standing There" are released in the United States, marking the beginning of Beatlemania on an international level.