April 1962

[April 1], 1962 (Sunday)

• The New Zealand Broadcasting Corporation was established.
• Born: Phillip Schofield, English broadcaster; in Oldham
• Died: Michel de Ghelderode, 63, Belgian playwright

  [April 2], 1962 (Monday)

• The 3rd Lok Sabha began its five-year session in the Parliament of India, with 494 legislators. It would last until March 3, 1967. Jawaharlal Nehru became Prime Minister of India for the fourth time, though with a reduced majority.
• Born: Clark Gregg, American actor, director and screenwriter; in Boston

  [April 3], 1962 (Tuesday)

• Hawaii's Governor, William F. Quinn, declared a "state of food emergency" after a strike of American shipworkers entered its third week. Since March 16, longshoremen had refused to unload food from eight ships in Honolulu harbor. Governor Quinn estimated that Hawaii had only two weeks' supply of staple foods left. Two weeks later, a federal judge in California would invoke the Taft–Hartley Act to halt the strike temporarily.
• As the Algerian War for Independence came to an end, European OAS gunmen near Algiers carried out a terrorist attack against a Muslim hospital in the suburb of Beau-Fraisier, killing nine. The 15 former French Army soldiers, armed with sub-machine guns, rushed past hospital employees and targeted bedridden patients, then exited. Most of the victims had been hospitalized for months, due to ailments unrelated to the war.
• U.S. District Judge J. Skelly Wright ordered the desegregation of elementary schools in New Orleans, with African-American and White students to attend first through sixth grade together. Wright's order came one week after Roman Catholic private schools in New Orleans were ordered integrated by Archbishop Joseph Rummel.
• Representatives of Manned Spacecraft Center, Ames Research Center, Martin, and McDonnell began the Project Gemini wind tunnel testing to investigate the effect of hatches on launch stability; the effect of large angles of attach, Reynolds number, and retrorocket jet effects on booster tumbling; exit characteristics of the spacecraft; and characteristics of the reentry module.
• Born: Jaya Prada, Indian film actress and member of parliament; in Rajahmundry, Andhra Pradesh state

  [April 4], 1962 (Wednesday)

• John Kenneth Galbraith, at the time the U.S. Ambassador to India, wrote a letter to President Kennedy proposing a negotiated peace between North Vietnam and South Vietnam, before the American presence escalated further. Kennedy felt the plan was feasible and instructed Assistant U.S. Secretary of State Averell Harriman to reply favorably to Galbraith's idea. Years later, researcher Gareth Porter would locate Harriman's alteration of the telegram to Galbraith, replacing the President's approval of mutual de-escalation talks with instructions to threaten further escalation if North Vietnam did not withdraw.
• The Manned Spacecraft Center awarded a contract to B.F. Goodrich Company for $209,701 to develop and make prototype pressure suits for Project Gemini. Related contracts went to Federal-Mogul Corporation and Protection, Inc. Goodrich was required to produce four successively improved prototypes of an advanced full-pressure suit, and two prototypes of a partial-wear, quick-assembly, full-pressure suit.
• Died: James Hanratty, 25, English criminal, hanged in Bedford Gaol for the 1961 A6 murder. Afterward, witnesses claimed that they had seen him in another town at the time. In 1997, a police committee would conclude that he had been wrongfully convicted, but the decision was reversed by the Criminal Cases Review Commission and upheld by a court of appeal in 2002.

  [April 5], 1962 (Thursday)

• A federal grand jury indicted Billie Sol Estes, a major supporter of then U.S. Vice-President Lyndon B. Johnson, along with three of Estes's assistants, for charges of conspiracy to plot a $24,000,000 fraud of investors.
• U.S. Supreme Court Justice Felix Frankfurter suffered a stroke while in his office, and was never able to return to hearing cases. He would resign on August 28.
• Born:
• *Kirsan Ilyumzhinov, Kalmyk multimillionaire politician, former President of the FIDE, and leader of the Russian Republic of Kalmykia from 1993 to 2010; in Elista, Kalmyk ASSR, Russian SFSR
• *Sara Danius, Swedish literary critic and philosopher ; in Täby

  [April 6], 1962 (Friday)

• The United Steel Workers of America and steel manufacturers agreed to a new contract, brokered by the U.S. Department of Labor, in which the union reduced its demands for a wage increase from 17 cents to 10 cents an hour, based upon the White House's determination to hold down prices. Four days later, the steel makers raised their prices anyway. A furious President Kennedy forced U.S. Steel and other companies to rescind the increase on April 13.
• American conductor Leonard Bernstein of the New York Philharmonic orchestra caused controversy with his remarks before a concert featuring pianist Glenn Gould. Bernstein stated that, although he disagreed with Gould's style of playing Brahms' Piano Concerto No. 1, he found Gould's ideas fascinating and would conduct the piece anyway. Bernstein's action received a withering review from music critic Harold C. Schonberg of The New York Times.

  [April 7], 1962 (Saturday)

• Author Milovan Djilas, at one time a vice-president of Yugoslavia and a possible successor to President Tito, was returned to prison after violating a new Yugoslavian law that made it a crime to write about "confidential subjects that may harm Yugoslavia". Djilas had been in prison from 1957 to 1961 after criticizing communism in his book The New Class. The new charges stemmed from a January magazine article in the Italian magazine Tempo Presente, and an upcoming book, Conversations With Stalin.
• A five-man military tribunal in Cuba convicted the 1,179 surviving attackers of the Bay of Pigs Invasion of an attempt to overthrow the government a year earlier, with a sentence of 30 years' incarceration for each prisoner. The tribunal levied "fines" totaling $62 million for the release of the prisoners. The United States would negotiate release of the men by year's end with the delivery of $53,000,000 worth of medicine and food.
• At the Ealing Jazz Club in London, Brian Jones was introduced to Mick Jagger and Keith Richards. The three would become the heart of The Rolling Stones, formed later that year.
• ACF Industries, Inc., received a $1,000,000 subcontract to provide C-band and S-band radar beacons for the Gemini spacecraft tracking system. Their function was to provide tracking responses to interrogation signals from ground stations.
• Died: Jaroslav Durych, 75, Czech writer

  [April 8], 1962 (Sunday)

• In France, the Évian Accords were ratified in a referendum, with 9 out of every 10 French voters in favor of letting French Algeria become its own independent nation. The final result was 17,866,423 in favor of Algerian independence, and 1,809,074 against.
• Born: Izzy Stradlin, American rock guitarist for the hard rock band Guns N' Roses; in Lafayette, Indiana
• Died: Juan Belmonte, 69, Spanish bullfighter who revolutionized the sport

  [April 9], 1962 (Monday)

• The Cleveland Pipers defeated the Kansas City Steers, 106–102, to win the first and only championship series in the American Basketball League. Cleveland had lost the first two games of the best-of-5 series, then won the next two 116–114 and 100–98, to force the final game, which took place at the small gymnasium at Kansas City's Rockhurst College because the city's arena was unavailable. The Steers would be declared the champions of the 1962–63 ABL season based on having the best record when the league disbanded on December 31, 1962.
• Arnold Palmer won a three-way playoff for his third Masters Tournament title, beating defending champion Gary Player and Dow Finsterwald. All three of the golfers had finished the first 72 holes the day before in 280 strokes, after Palmer shot 75, Finsterwald 73 and Player 71. In the playoff, Palmer's 68 was followed by Player's 71 and Finsterwald's 77.
• A two-day conference opened in Washington, D.C., between representatives of four of the largest American church organizations. The Methodist Church, the Episcopal Church, the United Presbyterian Church and the United Church of Christ discussed a possible merger of the denominations to create "United Protestantism in America".
• Police in Marseille recovered eight Paul Cézanne paintings that had been stolen on August 13 while on loan to a museum in Aix-en-Provence. The value of the works, which included The Card Players, was $2,000,000.
• The National Geographic Society awarded the Hubbard Medal to John Glenn. Glenn joined such recipients as Admiral Robert E. Peary, Charles A. Lindbergh, Roald Amundsen, and Admiral Richard E. Byrd.
• The Cosmonautics Day holiday was established in the Soviet Union, a year after the first human spaceflight. It remains a holiday and is now designated International Day of Human Space Flight.
• The United States Marine Corps' involvement in the Vietnam War began when HMM-362 arrived at Sóc Trăng south of Saigon.

  [April 10], 1962 (Tuesday)

• U.S. Steel Chairman Roger Blough informed President Kennedy, at a 5:45 p.m. meeting at the White House, that the largest steel manufacturer in the world was planning to raise its prices by six dollars per ton at 12:01 a.m. Kennedy reportedly told Blough, "You've made a terrible mistake." As Blough's press release reached American newspapers, the President announced that he would have a special press conference on Thursday.
• Jamaica held its first parliamentary elections, in preparation for its independence from the United Kingdom. The Jamaica Labour Party won 26 of 45 parliamentary seats, making Alexander Bustamante the new Prime Minister. Losing its legislative majority was the People's National Party, led by colonial Chief Minister Norman Manley.
• The Houston Colt.45s, later renamed the Houston Astros, played their very first game, defeating the visiting Chicago Cubs, 11–2, and in Los Angeles, the first MLB game was played at Dodger Stadium, where 52,564 fans watched the home team lose, 6–3, to the Cincinnati Reds.
• Died:
• *Michael Curtiz, 75, Hungarian-American director of multiple films, including Casablanca, for which he won an Academy Award
• *Stu Sutcliffe, 21, original bass player for The Beatles until being replaced by Paul McCartney, died from a cerebral hemorrhage