February 1962

[February 1], 1962 (Thursday)

• U.S. President John F. Kennedy delivered "the first presidential message entirely devoted to public welfare", proposing that federal aid to the poor be extended to include job training programs and day care for children of working parents.
• NASA Headquarters announced that John Glenn's Mercury 6 mission would be launched no earlier than February 13, and that repair of the Atlas launch vehicle fuel tank leak would be completed well before that time.
• The Soviet Union and Ghana ratified a $42,000,000,000 trade pact, with Soviet engineers to assist in the construction of new industries and railroad lines in the West African nation.
• Born: Takashi Murakami, Japanese contemporary artist; in Tokyo
• Died: Westropp Bennett, 95, Irish politician

  [February 2], 1962 (Friday)

• John Uelses became the first person to surpass 16 feet in the pole vault, clearing the mark by at the Millrose Games in New York City. Uelses was assisted by use of a pole made of fiberglass. Prior to 1930, existing techniques limited the maximum height of vaulting to. After Cornelius Warmerdam cleared in 1942, the barrier had been pursued for more than twenty years.
• Three U.S. Air Force officers were killed when their Fairchild C-123 Provider became the first USAF plane to be lost in Vietnam, as the U.S. carried out Operation Ranch Hand. The cause of the crash was not determined, although the concern, that it was shot down by Communist insurgents, led to orders that the defoliant spraying aircraft receive a fighter escort.
• The Soviet Union conducted its very first underground nuclear test. Previously, the Soviets had conducted all of their atomic and hydrogen bomb explosions in the atmosphere, including more than fifty since ending a moratorium on testing.
• Pope John XXIII announced the date for "Vatican II", the first worldwide conclave of the Roman Catholic Church in almost 100 years, to begin in Rome on October 11.
• The last underground shift was worked at the colliery in Radcliffe, Northumberland, England.
• Died: Alexander Lion, 91, co-founder of the German scout movement

  [February 3], 1962 (Saturday)

• At 7:05 a.m. Indian Standard Time, a "doomsday period" began. It was reported that the astrologers had predicted that on Saturday, Sunday and Monday, the earth would be "bathed in the blood of thousands of kings" because of the alignment of six planets, the Earth, the Sun and the Moon. In Britain, Aetherias Society director Keith Robertson spent the next day awaiting disaster, along with many of the society's members. He had forecast that "very soon the world will do a 'big flip' when the poles will change places with the equator... 75 percent of the world's population will be killed", but the alignment and eclipse ended without any notable disaster.
• The United States embargo against Cuba was announced by President Kennedy, prohibiting "the importation into the United States of all goods of Cuban origin and all goods imported from or through Cuba". Presidential Proclamation 3447 was made pursuant to the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961, "effective 12:01 a.m., Eastern Standard Time, February 7, 1962".
• American wrestlers Luther Lindsay & Ricky Waldo defeated Toyonobori & Rikidōzan in Tokyo to win the All Asia Tag Team Championship.
• Born: Michelle Maenza, last victim of the Alphabet murders ; in Rochester, New York

  [February 4], 1962 (Sunday)

• The St. Jude Children's Research Hospital opened in Memphis, Tennessee. American comedian Danny Thomas, the hospital's founder, told a crowd of 9,000 that "If I were to die this minute, I would know why I was born... Anyone may dream, but few have realized a dream as gargantuan as this one." Thomas said that he had made a vow in 1937, when he was unemployed and penniless, that he would build a shrine to Saint Jude Thaddaeus "if I made good". After becoming successful, he began raising funds in 1951. Fifty years later, the hospital was treating 7,800 children per year at no cost, and funding cancer research worldwide.
• The Sunday Times became the first paper in the United Kingdom to print a colour supplement. At the time that the Colour Section was introduced, such supplements "were already commonplace in North America".
• Gnostic Philosopher Samael Aun Weor declared February 4, 1962, to be the beginning of the "Age of Aquarius", heralded by the alignment of the first six planets, the Sun, the Moon, and the constellation Aquarius.
• Born: Clint Black, American country music singer; in Long Branch, New Jersey
• Died: Jacob Kramer, 69, UK-based Ukrainian painter

  [February 5], 1962 (Monday)

• Hours before the Beatles were scheduled to play at the Cavern Club, drummer Pete Best told his fellow musicians that he was ill and would be unable to appear. Determined not to cancel the show, the group called around for a replacement and Ringo Starr, whose group had the day off, appeared in Best's place.
• During a solar eclipse, an extremely rare grand conjunction of the classical planets occurred, for the first time since 1821. It included all 5 of the naked-eye planets plus the Sun and Moon), all of them within 16° of one another on the ecliptic. Saturn, Jupiter, Mars and Venus were on one side of the Sun, while Mercury and Earth were on the opposite side. When the Moon crossed between the Earth and the Sun, the eclipse was visible over India, where predictions of the world's end had been made.
• According to famous psychic Jeane Dixon, a child was born "somewhere in the Middle East", who would "revolutionize the world and eventually unite all warring creeds and sects into one all-embracing faiths", and who would bring peace on Earth by 1999. The prediction, which did not come true as scheduled, was published in A Gift of Prophecy, the 1965 biography of Dixon by Ruth Montgomery.
• French President Charles de Gaulle informed the nation that he was negotiating with the FLN for the independence of Algeria, conditional on a guarantee of the rights of "the minority of European origin in Algerian activities", and "an effective association" between Algeria and France.
• In the Five Nations rugby union championship, England defeated Ireland 16–0 at Twickenham. Willie John McBride made his international debut in the match.
• Born: Jennifer Jason Leigh, American actress and daughter of actor Vic Morrow and screenwriter Barbara Turner; as Jennifer Leigh Morrow in Hollywood
• Died: Jacques Ibert, 71, French composer

  [February 6], 1962 (Tuesday)

• The Warner Brothers studio outbid MGM for the movie rights to produce the Broadway hit musical, My Fair Lady, for the unprecedented price of USD$5,500,000. The deal included an agreement to pay the play's owners 47.5% of any gross revenues over $20,000,000 and a 5% of the distributors' gross to the estate of George Bernard Shaw, upon whose play Pygmalion, the Lerner & Loewe musical had been based. The bid was more than twice the old record, $2,270,000 paid by 20th Century Fox in 1958 for the rights to South Pacific.
• Spain selected its entry for the Eurovision Song Contest 1962; the winner was Víctor Balaguer with the song "Llámame", selected by representatives of regional radio stations.
• The city of Memphis, Tennessee, ordered the desegregation of its lunch counters, formerly limited to white customers only.
• Negotiations between U.S. Steel and the United States Department of Commerce began.
• Born: Axl Rose, American rock musician and lead vocalist for Guns N' Roses; as William Bruce Rose Jr. in Lafayette, Indiana
• Died: Candido Portinari, 58, Brazilian painter, died of lead poisoning from the paints he used.

  [February 7], 1962 (Wednesday)

• The United States Air Force announced that in the first 15 years of its Project Blue Book investigation of U.F.O. sightings, there was no evidence that any of the 7,369 unidentified flying object reports indicated a threat to national security, any technological advances "beyond the range of our present day scientific knowledge", and no sign of "extraterrestrial vehicles under intelligent controls".
• Sam Snead won the Royal Poinciana Plaza Invitational, a tournament sponsored by the Ladies Professional Golf Association, where he was the lone man competing against 14 women pros. Snead, who had lost the tournament the year before to Louise Suggs, finished five strokes ahead of Mary Kathryn "Mickey" Wright. Snead is the only man to ever win an official LPGA Tour event.
• The United States government ban against all U.S.-related Cuban imports went into effect at one minute after midnight. The next day, the Supreme Soviet of the USSR approved a $133 million program of military aid to Cuba, after having delayed action on it for four months.
• A coal mine explosion in Saarland, West Germany, killed 299 people. The blast occurred at the coal mine, located near Völklingen, at around 9:00 a.m.
• Born: Garth Brooks, American country singer and songwriter; in Tulsa, Oklahoma

  [February 8], 1962 (Thursday)

• A demonstration against the Organisation armée secrète, called for by the PCF, was repressed at the Charonne metro station. Nine members of the Confédération Générale du Travail trade union were crushed to death after police chased a crowd down into the gates that closed off the subway station, in an event later called the "Charonne massacre".
• The United States and the United Kingdom announced an agreement between the two nations to allow the U.S. to test nuclear weapons at Christmas Island, a British possession in the Pacific Ocean.
• The British government announced that it would grant independence to Jamaica effective August 6, 1962.
• Born: Malorie Blackman, English author of Barbadian parentage; in Clapham, London