August 1963

[August 1], 1963 (Thursday)

• The "Protocol to Amend the Convention for the Unification of Certain Rules Relating to International Carriage by Air signed at Warsaw on 12 October 1929", commonly known as the Hague Protocol, came into effect.
• The first Design Engineering Inspection of the full-scale test vehicle of the Gemini Paraglider Landing System Program was done by North American Aviation and resulted in 30 requests for alterations.
• The United States amended its Single Integrated Operational Plan for nuclear war for the first time, altering the original plan that had been in place since July 1, 1962.
• George Harrison and Paul McCartney sang a duet on a Beatles tape recording of the Goffin-King song "Don't Ever Change" for later broadcast on BBC radio.
• An explosion at a gas station in the town of Hanmer near Sudbury, Ontario, Canada kills 8 people, including 5 children.
• The 11th World Scout Jamboree began, in Marathon, Greece.
• The Banque du Liban was established in Lebanon.
• Born: Coolio American rapper ; in Monessen, Pennsylvania
• Died: Theodore Roethke, 55, American Pulitzer Prize-winning poet; of a heart attack

  [August 2], 1963 (Friday)

• The Sino-Soviet split widened as the People's Republic of China, in its strongest condemnation to that time of the Soviet Union, criticized the Soviets as being "freaks and monsters" for making "unconditional concessions and capitulation to the imperialists" after the USSR had agreed to a partial nuclear test ban treaty with the United States and the United Kingdom. The statement came in an editorial in the Chinese Communist Party newspaper, the People's Daily.
• The NFL champion Green Bay Packers were upset, 20–17, by the College All-Stars in the annual Chicago College All-Star Game. It would be the last time that the All-Stars would win the series, which would be discontinued after the 1976 contest.
• José de Jesús García Ayala was consecrated as Auxiliary Bishop of Campeche. He would go on to become the oldest bishop in the Mexican church, living beyond his 100th birthday.
• A tropical storm off Bermuda intensified and was classified as Hurricane Arlene, though it would degenerate into a tropical depression the following day.

  [August 3], 1963 (Saturday)

• The U.S.-launched Syncom 2, launched on July 26, was successfully lifted to an altitude of and achieved a speed of in order to keep pace with the Earth's equatorial rotational movement of, becoming the first Earth-made object to achieve geosynchronous orbit. Syncom 2 remained fixed at a point near the equator and over Brazil.
• The Beatles performed at The Cavern Club in Liverpool for the 275th, and final time, nearly 18 months after their first appearance on the club's stage on February 9, 1961.
• Born:
• *James Hetfield, American singer/songwriter and founder of the rock band Metallica; in Downey, California
• *Tasmin Archer, English singer; in Bradford, Yorkshire
• Died:
• *Stephen Ward, 50, English osteopath and a central figure in the Profumo affair, died three days after taking an overdose of barbiturates. In his suicide note, he wrote, "It's a wish not to let them get me. I'd rather get myself."
• *Phil Graham, 48, publisher of The Washington Post newspaper and Newsweek magazine; by suicide

  [August 4], 1963 (Sunday)

• At 5:00 in the morning, Haiti was invaded from the Dominican Republic by an army of 500 Haitian rebels seeking to overthrow the dictatorship of President Francois Duvalier, commonly referred to as "Papa Doc". The rebel forces crossed the border from the Dominican town of Dajabón to strike at Ouanaminthe, moving across the Rivière du Massacre/''Rio Dajabón''.
• The 1963 German Grand Prix was held at the Nürburgring and won by John Surtees, with Jim Clark finishing second. Clark remained well in first place in the world auto-driving championship standings, with 42 points, while Surtees was second at 22.
• The African Development Bank was created by agreement of the leaders of 33 African nations meeting in Khartoum, the capital of Sudan.
• Born: Keith Ellison, U.S. Representative for Minnesota from 2007 to 2019, the first Muslim to be elected to the United States Congress; in Detroit

  [August 5], 1963 (Monday)

• All members of NASA Astronaut Group 2 and two of the Mercury astronauts began a five-day desert survival course at Stead Air Force Base in Nevada. The course, oriented toward Project Gemini missions, had one and one-half days of academic presentations on characteristics of world desert areas and survival techniques; one day of field demonstrations on use and care of survival equipment and use of the parachute in construction of clothing, shelters, and signals; and two days of remote site training, when two-man teams were left alone in the desert to apply what they had learned from the academic and demonstration phases of the program.
• In Moscow, the United States, the United Kingdom, and the Soviet Union signed the first Nuclear Test Ban treaty. The ceremony took place at the Kremlin with U.S. Secretary of State Dean Rusk, British Foreign Secretary Alec Douglas-Home, and Soviet Foreign Minister Andrei Gromyko signing on behalf of their respective nations.
• Craig Breedlove set the record for fastest driver in the world, reaching "for a measured mile" in a jet-powered vehicle, Spirit of America, on the Bonneville Salt Flats in Utah. His average for two runs was.
• The trial of Stephen Ward was formally closed with no sentence pronounced, two days after Ward's suicide.
• Born: Mark Strong, English actor; in London
• Died: Salvador Bacarisse, 64, Spanish composer

  [August 6], 1963 (Tuesday)

• The United States Senate voted, 84 to 0, for a pay increase to nearly all members of the United States Armed Services, whether active or on reserve, three months after the House of Representatives had passed a "somewhat similar, but less generous bill".
• Died:
• *Lina Ruz González y Castro, 60, mother of Cuban leaders Fidel Castro and Raúl Castro
• *Sophus Nielsen, 75, Danish soccer player and manager

  [August 7], 1963 (Wednesday)

• A freak escalator accident at the Garden State Park Racetrack in Cherry Hill, New Jersey, killed a man and his daughter. John Patrick Sweeney and 8-year-old Peggy Sweeney, of Maple Shade, New Jersey, were touring the closed park with a friend when they stepped over a box of tools that had been blocking the moving stairway, unaware that a protective plate at the top had been removed for maintenance. The two fell into the moving machinery and were crushed to death.
• United Nations Security Council Resolution 181 was passed, calling for a voluntary arms embargo of South Africa because of its racial discrimination. The United States and the United Kingdom abstained from the vote.
• Test pilot Jim Eastham made the first flight of the Lockheed YF-12 jet fighter over Nevada's Groom Dry Lake.
• The beach party film genre began with the release of AIP's Beach Party.
• Born: Patrick Bouvier Kennedy, son of U.S. President John F. Kennedy and First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy, by emergency caesarean section, five and a half weeks early, at the Otis Air Force Base Hospital in Bourne, Massachusetts. He was quickly transferred to the Children's Hospital Boston, and would die 39 hours later of respiratory problems.
• Died: Ramon Vila Capdevila, 55, nicknamed Caraquemada, Spanish rebel who was killed in a gun battle with Spanish Civil Guards

  [August 8], 1963 (Thursday)

• The Great Train Robbery of 1963 took place at Ledburn, Buckinghamshire, England, when a gang of bandits halted a train ferrying mail between Glasgow and London. At 3:00 a.m., the group caused the train's engineer to stop by activating the red signal and covering the green signal. When the train came to a halt, engineer Jack Mills and his assistant were overpowered, while others in the group boarded the first two coaches hauling mail and tied up the four employees on board. The group then uncoupled the engine and two coaches from the other ten cars on the train, and forced the engineer and assistant to move one mile down the line to the Bridego Bridge, where the mail bags were dropped into automobiles waiting beneath. The haul was estimated at £2,600,000.
• Ndabaningi Sithole, future Zimbabwean prime minister Robert Mugabe, and other members of the Zimbabwe African People's Union formed the Zimbabwe African National Union after being dissatisfied with the leadership of Joshua Nkomo.
• Qualification testing of the Gemini parachute recovery system demonstrated water-impact accelerations low enough to make water landing safe.

  [August 9], 1963 (Friday)

• American dissident Lee Harvey Oswald was arrested in New Orleans while distributing leaflets for the Fair Play for Cuba Committee at the corner of Canal Street and Baronne Street, after getting into a scuffle with three Cuban men, who were also arrested. Oswald spent the night in jail, and was then released. A week later, on August 16, Oswald again passed out Fair Play for Cuba leaflets with two hired helpers, this time in front of the International Trade Mart.
• Representatives of Manned Spacecraft Center, Arnold Engineering Development Center, McDonnell Aircraft Corporation, and Thiokol met to analyze problems in the Gemini retrorocket abort system. Several components, including retrorocket nozzle exit cones and mounting structure, had failed in recent tests at Arnold. After improvements, a retesting in October was successful.
• Hurricane Arlene passed directly over Bermuda with winds of. The storm continued to intensify after passing the island, with a barometric pressure of and winds reaching. The hurricane weakened and was downgraded to an extratropical cyclone as it moved out to sea.
• The British rock music show Ready Steady Go! premiered on Associated-Rediffusion in London, part of Britain's ITV network, and would later be shown on the other ITV stations. It would run until December 7, 1966.
• Born: Whitney Houston, American pop singer ; in Newark, New Jersey
• Died: Patrick Bouvier Kennedy, two-day-old son of President John F. Kennedy, of infant respiratory distress syndrome. A funeral mass for the child was held the next day in the private chapel of Cardinal Richard Cushing in Boston.