December 1962

[December 1], 1962 (Saturday)

• Ipswich Town F.C. scored a 2–0 upset win over Sheffield Wednesday F.C. in an English soccer football match that would turn out to have been fixed. On April 12, 1965, The People, a London tabloid newspaper, would break the story that three of the Sheffield players, including a national team player, Peter Swan, had bet on their team to lose, and had made a £100 profit. Swan, along with Tony Kay and David "Bronco" Layne would be among 10 players sentenced to prison in 1965, and would serve four months' incarceration.
• The 1962 Grey Cup, championship of the Canadian Football League, was played at Toronto's Exhibition Stadium between the Winnipeg Blue Bombers and the Hamilton Tiger-Cats before a crowd of 32,644. As the game progressed, a thick fog rolled onto the field, making visibility increasingly difficult, and with 9:29 left to play, and Winnipeg leading 28–27, the game was halted. The remaining nine-and-one-half minutes were played the next day, with no further scoring and Winnipeg winning the crown.
• The 1963 American Football League draft took place, with Buck Buchanan of Grambling being the first selection, made by the Dallas Texans.
• The 1962 British Empire and Commonwealth Games came to an end, in Perth, Western Australia.
• Ron Ashman became manager of UK soccer club Norwich City F.C.
• Died: Joseph C. O'Mahoney, 78, U.S. Senator from Wyoming from 1934 to 1953 and again from 1954 to 1961

  [December 2], 1962 (Sunday)

• A week of severe smog began in London, killing at least 106 people over four days, and causing the hospitalization of over 1,000. Most of the people whose deaths were blamed on the fog had pre-existing heart and lung problems, with 66 dead in the first three days. In 1952, the combination of factory pollution and fog had killed at least 4,000 people over nine days.
• After a trip to Vietnam at the request of U.S. President John F. Kennedy, U.S. Senate Majority Leader Mike Mansfield became the first American official to make a non-optimistic public comment on the progress of the Vietnam War.
• In Japan, Toru Terasawa won the annual Fukuoka Marathon in a Japanese national record time of 2:16:18.4.

  [December 3], 1962 (Monday)

• The USC Trojans, unbeaten and untied at 10–0–0, were voted the #1 college football team in the final AP and UPI polls, with the Wisconsin Badgers second. At the time, no polls were taken after the post-season bowl games, making USC the champion listed in the NCAA Football Guide. USC proved the polls right during the Rose Bowl a month later, when it beat the #2 ranked Wisconsin Badgers, 42 to 37.
• A decree from the Roman Catholic Church confirmed that Saint Patrick was the patron saint of Ireland. Saint Brigid of Kildare was named as the second patron.
• In the NFL draft, quarterback and Heisman Trophy winner Terry Baker of Oregon State University was the number one overall pick, selected by the Los Angeles Rams.
• The Canadian cities of Ottawa and Toronto held municipal elections. Metro Toronto held two referendums on the same day.
• The French Chamber of Deputies approved the new government of Prime Minister Georges Pompidou, 268–116.
• Died: Mary Gilmore, 97, Australian poet and journalist

  [December 4], 1962 (Tuesday)

• Seven people, a majority of whom were with the Manned Spacecraft Center, were set to win monetary awards for inventions that were important in the development of Project Mercury. These were: Andre J. Meyer, Jr. for the vehicle parachute and equipment jettison equipment; Maxime Faget and Andre Meyer for the emergency ejection device; Maxime Faget, William Bland, and Jack Heberlig for the survival couch; and Maxime Faget, Andre Meyer, Robert Chilton, Williard Blanchard, Alan Kehlet, Jerome Hammack, and Caldwell Johnson for the Mercury spacecraft design. Formal presentation of these awards was made on December 10, 1962.
• The first Jacob's Awards ceremony was held in Dublin, marking the first awards for achievement in Irish television. Winners included Joe Lynch, Charles Mitchel and Proinsias Mac Aonghusa.
• Died: Pietro Tomasi Della Torretta, 89, former Foreign Minister of Italy, later the last President of the Senate of the Kingdom of Italy

  [December 5], 1962 (Wednesday)

• Former U.S. Secretary of State Dean Rusk "delivered a speech so brutally honest that he has never been forgiven for it", in the words of one commentator, declaring that "Great Britain has lost an empire and has not yet found a role... The attempt to play a separate power role... based on being the head of a 'Commonwealth' which has no political structure, unity or strength... this role is absolutely played out." Rusk delivered his criticism of the United Kingdom in a speech before cadets at the United States Military Academy at West Point.
• The body of 20-year-old Sophie Clark was found strangled in Boston's Back Bay, making her the seventh victim of the Boston Strangler.
• The first Test match of the 1962–63 Ashes series ended in a draw at Brisbane Cricket Ground.
• The Tasmanian blue gum was adopted as an official symbol of the Australian state of Tasmania.
• Born: José Cura, Argentine operatic tenor; in Rosario
• Died: Arthur Murray, 3rd Viscount Elibank, 83, British MP and the last of the Viscounts Elibank

  [December 6], 1962 (Thursday)

• The space program of the People's Republic of China suffered a setback when of a solid rocket fuel mixture exploded during preparation, killing four technicians.
• An explosion killed 37 coal miners at the U.S. Steel Corporation's Robena #3 mine near Carmichaels, Pennsylvania, most of them suffocating from carbon monoxide gas.
• A Tecader Airlines Douglas C-47 airplane crashed in the mountains near Barrancabermeja in Colombia, killing all but 2 of the 26 people on board.
• Bob Dylan recorded five tracks for his new album, The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan, at Columbia Records Studio A in New York City.
• Born: Claude Chirac, daughter, and later personal advisor, of French President Jacques Chirac; in Paris

  [December 7], 1962 (Friday)

• The Atlas supercomputer, the most powerful in the world up to that time, was dedicated at the University of Manchester. It was the first system ever designed for multiprogramming and would be used for the next decade.
• Rainier III, Prince of Monaco revised the principality's constitution, devolving some of his formerly autocratic power to several advisory and legislative councils.
• Bill Wyman was hired as bass player in The Rolling Stones.
• Born: Imad Mughniyah, Lebanese terrorist and the "security chief" of Hezbollah; in Tayr Dibba
• Died: Kirsten Flagstad, 67, Norwegian soprano; of bone marrow cancer

  [December 8], 1962 (Saturday)

• The 1962–63 New York City newspaper strike began with the walkout of International Typographical Union members from their printing jobs, halting the production of all of the city's major newspapers. At the time, there were nine daily papers. The Times and the Daily News, as well as the now-defunct Journal-American and the World-Telegram & Sun were all directly affected. The Post and the now-extinct Herald Tribune, the Daily Mirror and the Long Island Star-Journal shut down their operations voluntarily. The strike would last for 114 days.
• The North Kalimantan National Army revolted in Brunei, in the first stirrings of the Indonesian Confrontation. The attempted coup, led by A. M. Azhari, was suppressed by British troops flown in from Singapore, but achieved its goal of preventing Brunei from joining the Malaysian Federation.
• The first period of the Second Vatican Council closed, with the next session to begin on September 8, 1963.
• The late Queen Wilhelmina of the Netherlands was buried at the New Church in Delft.
• Born: Marty Friedman, American guitarist, best known for his tenure as the lead guitarist of thrash metal band Megadeth from 1990 to 2000; in Washington, D.C.

  [December 9], 1962 (Sunday)

• A year after it had become independent from the United Kingdom, Tanganyika became a republic within the Commonwealth, with Prime Minister Julius Nyerere becoming President, and Richard Gordon Turnbull ending his term as the only Governor-General of Tanganyika. Nyerere would continue as President after the nation's merger with Zanzibar, retiring on November 5, 1985.
• Peter Julian Eymard, the French priest who founded the Congregation of the Blessed Sacrament, was canonized as a saint in the Roman Catholic Church.

  [December 10], 1962 (Monday)

• David Lean's epic film Lawrence of Arabia, featuring Peter O' Toole, Omar Sharif, Alec Guinness, Jack Hawkins, and Anthony Quinn, had its worldwide premiere as a special showing for Queen Elizabeth II and invited guests in London.
• North American Aviation began deployment flight testing of the half-scale test vehicle for Project Gemini. The HSTV was carried aloft slung beneath a helicopter. The purpose was to investigate problems in the transition from release of the rendezvous and recovery canister to gliding with the ejection, inflation, and deployment of the Rogallo wing. In the second test on January 8, the sail would disintegrate, and in the third on March 11, the recovery canister would fail to separate.
• Scottish boxer Jackie Brown defeated Nigeria's Orizu Obilaso to win the Commonwealth flyweight title.

  [December 11], 1962 (Tuesday)

• The last execution in Canada took place at Don Jail, Toronto, when Ronald Turpin, 29, and Arthur Lucas, 54, convicted for separate murders, were hanged at the same time. Turpin had shot a constable in Toronto in February, while Lucas, an African-American from Detroit, had murdered two people in 1961. Years later, Chaplain Cyril Everitt would reveal in an interview that "The hanging was bungled. Turpin died clean, but Lucas' head was torn right off. It was hanging just by the sinews of the neck."; on July 14, 1976, Canada would abolish the death penalty by a vote of 131–124 in the House of Commons.
• In West Germany, a coalition government of Christian Democrats, Christian Socialists, and Free Democrats was formed. Hans Ehard stepped down as Minister-President of Bavaria, after a total of more than ten years in office, to be replaced by Alfons Goppel.