April 1963


The following events occurred in April 1963:

[April 1], 1963 (Monday)

  • The long-running American TV soap opera General Hospital made its debut on the ABC network. On the same afternoon, the first episode of NBC's hospital soap opera, The Doctors, premiered. General Hospital, set in the fictional town of Port Charles, New York, would begin its 60th year in 2022, while The Doctors, set in the fictional New England town of Madison, would end on December 31, 1982.
  • The Titan II-Gemini Coordination Committee was established to direct efforts to reduce longitudinal vibration in the Titan II and to improve engine reliability.
  • On Her Majesty's Secret Service, Ian Fleming's eleventh James Bond novel, was first published by Jonathan Cape.
  • Died: Quinim Pholsena, 47, the Foreign Minister of Laos, was assassinated by a soldier assigned to guard him. Quinim and his wife had returned home from a reception with the King, when Lance Corporal Chy Kong fired a machine gun at the couple. Minister Quinim was hit by 18 bullets, after which the guard "finished him off with a shot through the head".

[April 2], 1963 (Tuesday)

[April 3], 1963 (Wednesday)

[April 4], 1963 (Thursday)

  • The cost of making a long-distance telephone call was lowered throughout the continental United States, with a maximum charge of one dollar for three-minute "station-to-station" calls made between 9:00 p.m. and 4:30 a.m. The equivalent 60 years later for the three-minute call would be $10.50.
  • Network Ten, the third television network in Australia, began with the granting of a corporate operating license to United Telecasters Sydney Limited. Broadcasting would begin on ATV-0 in Melbourne on April 1, 1964, and on Channel Ten in Sydney on April 5, 1965.
  • All 67 people on board Aeroflot Flight 25 were killed, one hour after the Ilyushin-18 plane had taken off from Moscow's Sheremetyevo Airport, bound for Krasnoyarsk.
  • The Beatles performed at Stowe School in Buckinghamshire, UK, for a fee of £100, having accepted a personal request from schoolboy David Moores, a fellow Liverpudlian.
  • The Henry Miller novel Tropic of Cancer went on sale legally in the United Kingdom for the first time, after having been banned for thirty years because it had been deemed obscene.
  • Died: Gaetano Catanoso, 84, Italian parish priest canonized by Pope Benedict XVI in 2005

[April 5], 1963 (Friday)

[April 6], 1963 (Saturday)

[April 7], 1963 (Sunday)

[April 8], 1963 (Monday)

[April 9], 1963 (Tuesday)

[April 10], 1963 (Wednesday)

  • All 129 people on the U.S. Navy nuclear submarine Thresher were killed when the vessel sank during sea trials east of Cape Cod, the dead included 17 civilians in addition to the 112 U.S. Navy personnel on board. The wreckage of Thresher would be located on October 1, 1964.
  • An unknown gunman narrowly missed killing former U.S. Army General Edwin A. Walker, who had been working on his taxes at his home in Dallas, Texas. The would-be killer would later be claimed to have been Lee Harvey Oswald, who would allegedly use the same rifle to assassinate U.S. President John F. Kennedy in November.
  • The owners and passengers of the yacht Cythera became the first modern victims of piracy when their boat was stolen by two crew members. The yacht was salvaged over a month later, and the incident would result in various legal complications, including prosecution of the pirates under an act of 1858.
  • Frol Kozlov, the 54-year-old Second Secretary of the Soviet Communist Party and Deputy Prime Minister, considered the likely successor to Nikita Khrushchev, had a stroke and was forced to retire. Kozlov would die on January 30, 1965.

[April 11], 1963 (Thursday)

[April 12], 1963 (Friday)

[April 13], 1963 (Saturday)

[April 14], 1963 (Sunday)

[April 15], 1963 (Monday)

  • A White House press release announced that First Lady Jackie Kennedy was pregnant and that her baby would be delivered by Caesarean section in September. Mrs. Kennedy, who had a history of miscarriages, had delayed announcement of her pregnancy. She had been delivered of stillborn children in 1955 and 1956, and had two living children, Caroline and John Jr.. The child, Patrick Bouvier Kennedy, would be born prematurely on August 7, and would survive for only two days.
  • The Manned Spacecraft Center published a detailed flight plan for May's Mercury 9 mission. Due to the extended duration of the flight, an 8-hour sleep period was scheduled with a 2-hour option for when the astronaut would begin his rest period. In addition to the general guidelines, the astronaut had a minute-to-minute schedule of tasks to accomplish.
  • An unidentified 58-year-old man, with lung cancer, was admitted to the University of Mississippi hospital. On June 11, 1963, he would become the first person to receive a lung transplant.
  • A group of 70,000 marchers arrived in London from Aldermaston, to demonstrate against nuclear weapons. The breakaway group Spies for Peace set up a picket at RSG-6.
  • British driver Innes Ireland won the 1963 Glover Trophy motor race, held at Goodwood Circuit, while British driver Jim Clark won the 1963 Pau Grand Prix motor race, held at Pau Circuit.
  • Died: "Colossus", the largest snake ever kept in captivity, at the Highland Park Zoo in Pittsburgh. A reticulated Python, she measured 28 1⁄2 feet long and at one time weighed 320 pounds.

[April 16], 1963 (Tuesday)

[April 17], 1963 (Wednesday)

[April 18], 1963 (Thursday)

[April 19], 1963 (Friday)

  • Under pressure from the United States, South Korea's President Park Chung Hee returned to his pledge to return to civilian rule, and announced that multiparty elections for the presidency and the National Assembly would take place before the end of the year. Park had promised a return to democracy in 1963 when he had taken power in a coup on August 12, 1961, but on March 16, 1963, proposed to extend military rule for another four years. The voting would be held on October 15.
  • A new dam was inaugurated on the Chubut River west of Trelew, Argentina, removing the risk of flooding in the Lower Chubut Valley.

[April 20], 1963 (Saturday)

  • The caves at Lascaux were closed to the general public after fifteen years, in order to protect cave paintings dating from more than 17,000 years ago. The paintings had been rediscovered on September 12, 1940, in the caverns in southwestern France. After the complex was opened to the public in 1948, the works began to erode from carbonic acid produced by the exhalations of the visitors. The Department of Dordogne would create a replica of the paintings in another cave hall, opened as "Lascaux II" in 1983.
  • In Montreal, the terrorist campaign of the Front de libération du Québec claimed its first fatality. William Vincent O'Neill, a 65-year-old night watchman and janitor, died in the explosion of a bomb at a Canadian Army recruitment center. O'Neill, who was planning to retire at the end of May, had been scheduled to start his shift at midnight, but had arrived at 11:30 to allow a co-worker to go home, and was killed when the bomb exploded at 11:45 p.m.
  • Italy created its first space agency, the Istituto Nazionale per le Richerche Spaziali .
  • The 1963 Pan American Games opened in São Paulo, Brazil.
  • The final water condensate tank was installed in Mercury spacecraft 20 for the Mercury 9 mission. The system had a, built-in tank, a auxiliary tank located under the couch head, and six auxiliary plastic containers. The total capacity for condensate water storage was. In operation, the astronaut hand-pumped the fluid to the 3.6-pound tank to avoid spilling moisture inside the cabin during weightlessness.
  • Died: Julián Grimau, 41, Spanish Communist leader, was executed by a firing squad despite pleas to Spanish dictator Francisco Franco for clemency.

[April 21], 1963 (Sunday)

[April 22], 1963 (Monday)

[April 23], 1963 (Tuesday)

[April 24], 1963 (Wednesday)

[April 25], 1963 (Thursday)

[April 26], 1963 (Friday)

[April 27], 1963 (Saturday)

  • Bob Hayes became the first person to run the 100-meter dash in less than ten seconds, in 9.9 seconds at a meet in Los Angeles. However, the accomplishment could not be recognized as a world record because the wind was faster than 5 meters per second ; the barrier would be broken on October 14, 1968, by Jim Hines at 9.95 seconds.
  • The U.S. Marine Corps lost its first aircraft to enemy action in Vietnam, when Viet Cong ground fire shot down a UH-34D transport helicopter near Do Xa, South Vietnam.
  • Born: Russell T Davies, Welsh television producer and screenwriter; in Swansea

[April 28], 1963 (Sunday)

[April 29], 1963 (Monday)

  • NASA Headquarters rescheduled the Gemini flight program due to late delivery of the spacecraft. While Gemini 1 was still set for a December launch without a crew, the craft would be put in orbit to flight-qualify the Titan II GLV subsystems and demonstrate the compatibility of the launch vehicle and spacecraft. Gemini 2, originally set to carry the first Gemini astronauts, was set for July 1964 as an uncrewed suborbital flight to test spacecraft reentry under maximum heating-rate reentry conditions. Gemini 3, formerly an orbital rendezvous mission, was set for October 1964 would be the first U.S. flight with a pair of astronauts. Gemini 4 would be a 7-day mission using a rendezvous pod. Gemini 6 was to be a 14-day mission to rendezvous with the Agena D target vehicle. Water landing by parachute was planned for the first six flights and land, while landing by paraglider was planned for Gemini 7 onward.
  • Five Latin American nations— Mexico, Brazil, Bolivia, Chile and Ecuador— announced their agreement to a proposal by Mexican President Adolfo López Mateos to prohibit the placement of nuclear weapons in their territory.
  • Andrew Loog Oldham, 19, signed a contract with The Rolling Stones, becoming their manager. Oldham had seen the band in concert the previous day at the Crawdaddy Club in London.

[April 30], 1963 (Tuesday)

  • New Hampshire became the first of the United States to legalize a state lottery in the 20th century. The first drawing in the New Hampshire Sweepstakes would take place on March 12, 1964.
  • After U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara implied that the U.S. Air Force would take over Project Gemini, NASA Associate Administrator Robert C. Seamans, Jr. stressed that although the U.S. Department of Defense had a vital role in Gemini management and operations, NASA had the final and overall responsibility for program success.
  • NASA its improvements to the Mercury pressure suit to be worn in the upcoming Mercury 9 flight. These included a mechanical seal for the helmet, new gloves with an improved inner-liner and link netting between the inner and outer fabrics at the wrist, and increased mobility torso section. The boots were integrated with the suit to be more comfortable for the longer mission, to reduce weight, and to be easier to put on and to remove.
  • Born: Michael Waltrip, American race car driver, winner of Daytona 500 in 2001 and 2003; in Owensboro, Kentucky