March 1963

The following events occurred in March 1963:

March 1, 1963 (Friday)

• Eurocontrol, the European Organisation for the Safety of Air Navigation, came into existence as an international treaty signed on December 13, 1960, by West Germany, France, the United Kingdom, Belgium, Netherlands and Luxembourg became effective.^[1]
• Died: Felice Casorati, 79, Italian painter, sculptor, and printmaker

March 2, 1963 (Saturday)

• The first attempt at liver transplantation in a human being was made by a team in Denver, led by Dr. Thomas Starzl. The patient, an unidentified 3-year-old child, died shortly after the surgery. On July 23, 1967, Dr. Starzl would perform the first liver transplant where a patient survived for longer than one year.^[2]
• At Beijing, Pakistan Foreign Minister (and future Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto signed a formal agreement with China's Foreign Minister, Chen Yi to confirm the boundary between the two nations. Pakistan gave up 2,700 square miles of Kashmir property that was also claimed by India, while gaining 750 square miles of land from China.^[3]
• Born: Tanyu Kiryakov, Bulgarian Olympic pistol shooting champion, in Ruse

March 3, 1963 (Sunday)

• General Ricardo Pérez Godoy, the President of Peru and leader of a four-man military junta that had taken power on July 18, 1962, was overthrown by the other three members of the junta, including his Defense Minister, General Nicolas Lindley Lopez. General Lindley pledged to organize new presidential elections and to return Peru to civilian rule.^[4]
• In a referendum in Senegal, voters agreed to abolish the office of Prime Minister of Senegal.^[5]
• The parliamentary election in Monaco was won by the National and Democratic Union, which captured 17 of the 18 seats on the National Council. There were 3,096 voters who participated in the tiny principality.^[6]
• Died: Brian O'Higgins, 80, Irish politician, leader of Sinn Féin, 1931–1933

March 4, 1963 (Monday)

• In Paris, six people were sentenced to death for conspiring to assassinate President Charles de Gaulle.^[7] Three of the men— Georges Watin, Serge Bernier and Lajos Marton— had eluded capture and were tried, convicted and sentenced in absentia. Lt. Col. Jean-Marie Bastien-Thiry, Lt. Alain de Bougernet, and Jacques Prevost were put on death row. De Gaulle would pardon all but Bastien-Thiry, who would be executed by firing squad on March 11.
• The Mona Lisa was displayed in the United States for the last time, when the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City closed at 9:00 pm. The painting was loaded on to a ship the next day for its return to Paris and the Louvre Museum.^[8]
• For the first time, the election for the office of Chairman of the Tribal Council of the Navajo Nation was contested among multiple candidates. Paul Jones, who had been the chief executive for the semi-sovereign Navajos since 1955, was defeated by Raymond Nakai, a radio announcer employed in Flagstaff, Arizona.
• A break in the nearly three-month-long New York City newspaper strike saw the New York Post become the first of nine daily papers to settle with striking printers and to resume publication.^[9]
• Kuwait was admitted to the United Nations by unanimous vote of the General Assembly, after the Soviet Union dropped its opposition to the emirate's membership.^[10]
• Born: Jason Newsted, American bass guitar player for Metallica, in Battle Creek, Michigan
• Died: William Carlos Williams, 79, American poet, of a stroke; and Édouard Belin, 86, French inventor of the wirephoto process that allowed photographs to be transmitted to newspapers for reprinting.

March 5, 1963 (Tuesday)

• In Camden, Tennessee, country music superstar Patsy Cline (Virginia Patterson Hensley) was killed in a plane crash along with fellow performers Hawkshaw Hawkins, Cowboy Copas and Cline's manager and pilot Randy Hughes, after returning from a benefit performance in Kansas City, Kansas, for country radio disc jockey "Cactus" Jack Call.^[11]
• In China, the "Learn from Lei Feng" campaign was instituted by Chairman Mao Zedong, making a hero of the 21-year-old soldier who had been accidentally killed on August 15, 1962.^[12]

March 6, 1963 (Wednesday)

• Prime Minister Robert Menzies of Australia opened the new Monaro Shopping Centre, one of the first shopping malls in Australia, in Canberra. In 1989, the structure would be expanded and become the Canberra Centre.^[13]
• Winter of 1962–1963 in the United Kingdom: Great Britain's longest, coldest winter in the 20th century finally came to an end after snow had been on the ground since a December 29 blizzard. For the first time since the start of the year, there was no frost anywhere in the United Kingdom, and temperatures rose above freezing and into the low 60s Fahrenheit (17 °C).^[14]
• Construction began of the Unisphere, a 120-foot diameter Earth globe and the symbol of the 1964 World's Fair in New York.^[15]

March 7, 1963 (Thursday)

• The 58-story tall Pan Am Building (now the MetLife Building opened at 200 Park Avenue in New York City. With more than three million square feet of floor space, it was the largest commercial office building in the world at the time of its completion.^[16]
• The Front de libération du Québec (FLQ), a militant organization seeking to make Quebec independent of the rest of Canada, made its first attack, firebombing a wooden building in Montreal at the Canadian National Railway.^[17]
• Winter of 1962–1963 in the United Kingdom: The first horse race meeting in England since 23 December 1962 took place, after scheduled races had been called off due to the severe cold.
• Born: Kim Ung-yong, South Korean engineer and former child prodigy listed by Guinness for "Highest IQ" (210); in Seoul

March 8, 1963 (Friday)

• 8 March Revolution: A military coup in Syria brought the Ba'ath party, under Salah al-Din al-Bitar to power, and deposed President Nazim al-Kudsi.^[18][19]
• For the first time in British history, the 25 members of the Scots Guards, personal protectors for Queen Elizabeth II, walked off of their jobs. The grievance, reportedly, was that there was "too much spit and polish".^[20]
• Angered by High Commissioner of the United States Civil Administration of the Ryukyu Islands Paul Caraway's speech suggesting that they are incompetent to run their own government, government workers began campaigning for his removal from office.^[21]
• Died: Jack Anglin, 46, American country music singer, was killed near Madison, Tennessee, while driving to Nashville to attend memorial services for Patsy Cline.

March 9, 1963 (Saturday)

• Mohammed Daoud Khan resigned after nine and a half years as Prime Minister of Afghanistan, at the request of his cousin, King Mohammed Zahir Shah, who instituted a constitutional monarchy.^[22] Daoud would overthow the King on July 17, 1973, and become the first President of Afghanistan, and would be assassinated on April 28, 1978.
• In what one author describes as "arguably the most infamous cop-killing of all time",^[23] because it became the basis for the novel (and later the film) The Onion Field, two Los Angeles policemen were kidnapped after pulling over a car driven by Gregory Powell. After their car was stopped at Gower Street and Carlos Avenue in Hollywood, Powell and his accomplice, Jimmy Lee Smith, disarmed the two policemen, Ian Campbell and Karl Hettinger, forced them into their car, then drove them to an onion field Kern County, California. Powell shot Campbell five times, but Hettinger escaped. Author Joseph Wambaugh would write a bestselling book about the kidnap and murder in 1973.^[24]
• An explosion at the Stepmann Metalworks in Belecke, West Germany, killed 16 employees and injured 40 others.^[25]
• The Église Saint-Germain, Royère-de-Vassivière, was designated a monument historique by the French government.

March 10, 1963 (Sunday)

• The first air show for the "Confederate Air Force", a group dedicated to preserving World War II aircraft, took place, in Texas. The organization was renamed the Commemorative Air Force in later years.^[26]
• The 1963 CONCACAF Champions' Cup football tournament began.

March 11, 1963 (Monday)

• An unidentified flying object, described as a "hazy white light" was seen by hundreds of residents of the "Big Island" of Hawaii, where it hovered for more than five minutes.^[27]
• Born: Alex Kingston, English actress, in Epsom, Surrey
• Died: Jean Bastien-Thiry, 35, French military officer and engineer, convicted of attempting to assassinate French President Charles de Gaulle on August 22, 1962, was executed by firing squad

March 12, 1963 (Tuesday)

• Lee Harvey Oswald, using the name of "A. Hidell", mailed a money order in the amount of $21.45 to Klein's Sporting Goods of Chicago, along with a coupon clipped from the February 1963 issue of American Rifleman magazine, to purchase a rifle that would be used eight months later to kill President John F. Kennedy.^[28]
• The 44th New Brunswick Legislative Assembly ended its session.
• Born: Randall Kenan, American author, in Brooklyn

March 13, 1963 (Wednesday)

• Ernesto Miranda, a 22-year-old warehouse employee, was arrested in Phoenix, Arizona, on suspicion of rape, and subsequently convicted based on statements that he made to the police without being advised of his constitutional right not to incriminate himself. He would fight the conviction to the United States Supreme Court, leading to the landmark 1966 decision in Miranda v. Arizona. His name lives on in the name of the instructions that all police are required to give to persons arrested, beginning with "You have the right to remain silent", referred to as the Miranda warning, and in the phrase "Miranda rights".^[29]
• The Soviet Union announced that the Chairman Mao Zedong, of the People's Republic of China, had invited Soviet Chairman Nikita Khrushchev to visit Beijing. Chairman Mao had made the proposal on February 23 to Soviet Ambassador Stepan Chervonenko, in an effort to close the growing rift between the world's two largest Communist nations.^[30]
• Up and coming heavyweight boxer Cassius Clay almost had his career derailed in a bout at New York City's Madison Square Garden, against Doug Jones. Although the future Muhammad Ali, had predicted he would defeat Jones in four rounds, Clay appeared to be losing the bout as it went into round 7. Scheduled for only ten rounds, the fight ended in a decision in favor of Clay, with many in the crowd protesting that it had been fixed. Clay would win the right to face Sonny Liston the following year, and win the title.^[31]
• Lake Powell began to form inside the Arizona's Glen Canyon, as construction of a dam of the Colorado River neared completion, though it would not be considered completely full until March 13, 1980; it is now the second largest man-made lake in the United States.^[32]
• Dmitriy Ustinov was appointed to the government of the USSR under Nikita Khrushchev.

March 14, 1963 (Thursday)

• In the UK courts, Ridge v Baldwin, a landmark case in the law of judicial review, was decided on appeal, holding that a public official cannot be dismissed without first being given notice of the grounds on which the decision was made, as well as an opportunity to be heard in his own defence.^[33]
• Mohammad Yusuf, Afghanistan's Minister of Mines and Industry, became the new Prime Minister of Afghanistan, as King Mohammed Zahir Shah appointed the first cabinet that did not include any members of the royal family, and the first to be dominated by technical experts.^[34]

March 15, 1963 (Friday)

• The first confirmed penetration of United States airspace by Soviet military aircraft took place with two violations on the same day over the state of Alaska. One Soviet reconnaissance plane flew over Nelson Island, while the other made a pass over Nunivak Island.^[35]
• Lloyd Aéreo Boliviano Flight 915 departed from the Chilean city of Arica at noon with 41 people on board for a one-hour flight to the Bolivian capital of La Paz, and never arrived.^[36] The wreckage of the Douglas DC-6 airplane was found at the Chachakumani Mountain in Bolivia, where impact had occurred in poor weather.^[37]
• The Saturday Evening Post magazine issued a statement that athletic director Wally Butts of Georgia, and college football coach Bear Bryant of Alabama, had "fixed" the September 22, 1962, game between the Georgia Bulldogs and the Alabama Crimson Tide. According to the Post, its upcoming issue on March 19 would give details of Butts supplying Georgia's plays to Bryant in advance of Alabama's 35-0 win in a game where the point spread was a 14 to 17 point win. Both Bryant and Butts denied the allegations.^[38] Butts would win a $3,000,000 libel judgment against the Post on August 20. ^[39]
• Died: Victor Feguer, 27, convicted murderer, the last federal inmate executed in the United States before the moratorium on the death penalty, by hanging.

March 16, 1963 (Saturday)

• The British scientific journal, Nature, published an article by Maarten Schmidt entitled "3C 273 : A Star-Like Object with Large Red-Shift", marking the first announcement of the discovery of a quasar (quasi-stellar radio source).^[40]
• Died: Sir William Beveridge, 61, British economist, social reformer, and architect of the post-war welfare state in the United Kingdom.

March 17, 1963 (Sunday)

• Mount Agung erupted on Bali, killing 1,150 people. On February 19, the volcano had killed 17 people after being dormant for more than a century, and then had a more violent eruption a month later.^[41][42]
• Elizabeth Ann Seton (1774–1821) was beatified in the Roman Catholic Church in a ceremony led by Pope John XXIII at Vatican City.^[43] On September 14, 1975, she would become the first American native to be canonized as a saint.^[44]
• Died: Adalberto Libera, 59, Italian architect

March 18, 1963 (Monday)

• Gideon v. Wainwright: The United States Supreme Court ruled that established the principle that any criminal defendant, unable to afford to pay for a lawyer, had an absolute right to have a public defender appointed for him or her, at government expense.^[45]
• Gray v. Sanders: On the same day, the U.S. Supreme Court issued its ruling striking down the county-unit system of voting in an 8-1 decision. Justice William O. Douglas wrote "The conception of political equality... can mean only one thing— one person, one vote." At the time of the ruling, only Georgia, Mississippi, and Maryland retained the system.^[46]
• Somalia broke diplomatic relations with the United Kingdom because of Britain's support for Kenya in a border dispute between the two African nations.^[47]
• Born: Vanessa L. Williams, American pop singer, and first African-American woman to be crowned Miss America; in Tarrytown, New York
• Died: Sir Hubert Gough, 92, British general

March 19, 1963 (Tuesday)

• The 89-year-old ship SS Arctic Bear, which had served in the United States Coast Guard and the navy of Canada, and had assisted the Antarctic exploration by Admiral Richard E. Byrd, was being towed from Nova Scotia to Philadelphia, where it was to be used as a floating restaurant. En route, the Bear ran into a storm and sank^[48][49]
• Born: Jake White, South African rugby player and coach, in Johannesburg, as Jacob Westerduin^[50])

March 20, 1963 (Wednesday)

• The United States and the Soviet Union signed an agreement in Rome to work jointly on a weather satellite program.^[51]
• Hope Cooke, a 22-year-old American student at Sarah Lawrence College had a royal wedding, marrying Palden Thondup Namgyal, the Crown Prince of the Himalayan Kingdom of Sikkim. For nearly ten years, she was the Queen of Sikkim, until the semi-independent monarchy was annexed into neighboring India in 1973. She later divorced Palden and returned to the United States.^[52]
• Born: David Thewlis, English actor, in Blackpool (as David Wheeler)

March 21, 1963 (Thursday)

Alcatraz

• The Alcatraz Island federal penitentiary in San Francisco Bay closed because it cost twice as much to operate as other units in the federal system.^[53] The last 27 prisoners were transferred elsewhere at the order of Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy. Frank P. Weatherman was the last of the 27 inmates to depart the prison.^[54]
• World featherweight boxing champion Davey Moore was fatally injured in a bout with challenger Sugar Ramos at Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles. In the 10th round, the fight was stopped after Moore had been knocked down twice and was slumped over the ropes of the boxing ring, and the Ramos was declared the new champion. Forty-five minutes later, after Moore told reporters, "I'd like to fight him again", the dethroned champion collapsed in his dressing room and never regained consciousness. Moore died four days later at a Los Angeles hospital.^[55]
• In the UK Parliament, Labour MP George Wigg asked the government to hold hearings on whether Secretary for War John Profumo had behaved inappropriately with missing 20-year-old call girl Christine Keeler.^[56]
• The United States Food and Drug Administration gave approval for the first vaccine against measles, produced by Merck Sharp & Dohme.^[57]
• At a conference of the Australian Labor Party, called to debate the building of a North-west Cape communications facility which would support the US nuclear submarine capability, Arthur Calwell and Gough Whitlam were photographed outside the venue at Kingston in Canberra. Although Calwell was the Leader of the Opposition, neither man was a member of the federal executive. Prime Minister Robert Menzies jibed that the Australian Labor Party was ruled by "36 faceless men".^[58]
• All communication was lost from the Soviet Union's Mars 1 spacecraft, which would become the first man-made object to reach Mars, because of a malfunction in its antenna. The probe would fly within 120,000 miles of Mars on June 19.^[59]

March 22, 1963 (Friday)

• The Beatles released their first album, Please Please Me.^[60]
• In response to the previous day's parliamentary question, John Profumo told the House of Commons that "there was no impropriety whatsoever in my acquaintanceship with Miss Keeler".^[61] Defence Minister Profumo, who actually had had an extramarital relationship with Christine Keeler, compounded the problem by telling his fellow Members of Parliament, "I shall not hesitate to issue writs for libel and slander if scandalous allegations are made or repeated outside the House."^[62]
• The Shah of Iran, who had already started a crackdown on the nation's Shi'ite Muslims, sent soldiers to arrest theology students of the Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini at the Fayziya Madrasa at Qom. Two of the students were beaten to death, and dozens other arrested, becoming the first martyrs of the Shah's campaign against the Shi'ites, and Khomeini would begin his defiance of the Shah in June.^[63]

March 23, 1963 (Saturday)

• The Ramblers of Loyola University won the NCAA college basketball championship, defeating the University of Cincinnati Bearcats, 60-58, in overtime. Loyola played all of regulation without ever taking the lead, and fought back from a 45-30 deficit to tie the game at 54-54 on a jump shot by Jerry Harkness, before upsetting the defending national champion Bearcats on a tip-in by Vic Rouse.^[64]
• Microbiologist Maurice Hilleman, who would develop nearly 40 vaccines, including eight of the 14 on the worldwide vaccination schedule, began the development of the Mumpsvax vaccine against the mumps virus, by harvesting the live virus from his five-year-old daughter. The strain of mumps virus that was used to develop the vaccine was given the name "Jeryl Lynn" after the little girl, Jeryl Lynn Hilleman.^[65]
• Dansevise by Grethe & Jørgen Ingmann (music by Otto Francker, text by Sejr Volmer-Sørensen) won the Eurovision Song Contest 1963 for Denmark.
• France defeated Wales 5–3 in the final match of the 1963 Five Nations Championship in rugby, although England was already assured of the championship.
• Died: Thoralf Skolem, 75, Norwegian mathematician

March 24, 1963 (Sunday)

• The influential animated film Wanpaku Ōji no Orochi Taiji was released in Japan. Based on folk tales first written down in the year 712, the film was given a title that literally translated to "The Bratty Prince and the Giant Snake". It would be redubbed in English by Columbia Pictures for release in the U.S. as The Little Prince and the Eight-Headed Dragon.^[66]
• Lord Brookeborough (Basil Brooke), who had served as Prime Minister of Northern Ireland since 1943, retired. The next day, the Home Secretary of the United Kingdom appointed Terence O' Neill as the new Prime Minister.^[67]

March 25, 1963 (Monday)

• Pilot Ralph Flores and his passenger, Helen Klaben, were rescued, 49 days after their plane crashed in northern British Columbia. On February 4, Flores and Klaben had disappeared on their way back to the United States, and survived in sub-zero temperatures with almost no food for seven weeks. The story was made into the film Hey, I'm Alive, with Edward Asner and Sally Struthers portraying the two survivors.^[68]
• Isser Harel was fired as Director of the Mossad, after his defiance of Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion on attempting to stop West German scientists from working on rockets in Egypt. In Harel's place, Major General Meir Amit was appointed.^[69]
• During an official visit to Australia, Queen Elizabeth II opened the Council House, Perth.
• Born: Robbie Fulks, American country singer, in York, Pennsylvania
• Died: Davey Moore, 29, American professional boxer; and Lyman Briggs, 88, American engineer

March 26, 1963 (Tuesday)

• Muhammetnazar Gapurow became Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the Turkmen Soviet Socialist Republic.
• Born: Connie Culp, the first American recipient of a face transplant (in 2008)

March 27, 1963 (Wednesday)

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).

• Chairman of British Railways Dr. Richard Beeching issued a report calling for huge cuts to the UK's rail network.^[70] This was expected to result in the closure of more than 2,000 railway stations as well as the scrapping of some 8,000 coaches and the loss of up to 68,000 jobs.^[71][72]
• Grigori Nelyubov, Ivan Anikeyev and Valentin Filatyev, three of the original 20 cosmonauts selected for the Soviet space program, ended their careers when they got drunk and then got into an argument with military guards at the Chkalovskaya subway station in Moscow. Rather than making it into outer space, all three were dismissed from the program.^[73]
• Born: Quentin Tarantino, American director, screenwriter, producer, cinematographer and actor, in Knoxville, Tennessee; and Xuxa (Maria da Graça Meneghel), Brazilian children's television personality, in Santa Rosa, Rio Grande do Sul

March 28, 1963 (Thursday)

• In northern Nigeria Muhammad Sanusi was forced to resign as the Emir of Kano, along with 14 other emirate officials, after a four-month investigation found irregularities in the areas finances.^[74]
• In Wales, Labour Party candidate Neil McBride won the Swansea East by-election caused by the death of Labour Member of Parliament (MP) David Mort.

March 29, 1963 (Friday)

• Died: Gaspard Fauteux, 64, Canadian parliamentarian, Speaker of the Canadian House of Commons 1945-1949 and the 19th Lieutenant Governor of Quebec (1950-1958); Siyarasharan Gupta, Hindi-language poet; and Texas Ruby (Ruby Owens), 54, American country singer, in a fire

March 30, 1963 (Saturday)

• The first direct dialed trans-Atlantic telephone calls were made between the United Kingdom and the United States, through switching stations at London and White Plains, New York.^[75]
• Graham Hill won the 1963 Lombank Trophy motor race.
• Quarter-final matches in the 1962–63 FA Cup football competition were played after a postponement of three weeks, resulting from other match delays caused by the severe winter in the UK.
• Born: Tsakhiagiin Elbegdorj, President of Mongolia since 2009, Prime Minister 1998 and 2004-2006; in Zereg

March 31, 1963 (Sunday)

• The 1962 New York City newspaper strike ended after 114 days. The New York Times and the New York Herald-Tribune printed and sold editions that night, at a new price (10 cents), twice as much as before the strike began on December 6.^[76]
• A military coup in Guatemala overthrew the government of President Miguel Ydígoras Fuentes, who was flown to exile in Nicaragua after the takeover by his Defense Minister, Colonel Enrique Peralta Azurdia. The coup took place after Juan José Arévalo, a Communist supporter and former President, returned to Guatemala and announced that he would run in the November presidential election. Ex-President Ydígoras, who had believed that Arévalo had a good chance of winning the race, told reporters the next day, "What is going on in Guatemala is for her own good and for the good of the rest of Central America."^[77] Peralta would remain in power until 1966.^[78]
• The 1963 South American Championship football competition was won by host country Bolivia.
• Walter Nash retired as Leader of the New Zealand Labour Party.
• Born: Samantha Geimer, American crime victim

References