January 1962

[January 1], 1962 (Monday)

• Western Samoa became independent from New Zealand. The two fautua, Malietoa Tanumafili II and Tupua Tamasese Mea'ole, were named as the two heads of state.
• The Beatles auditioned unsuccessfully for Decca Records with John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and, at that time, drummer Pete Best. The first song of 15 performed between 11:00 a.m. and noon was "Like Dreamers Do". The audition tape was officially released in 1982. Decca opted instead to sign the other group that auditioned that day -- Brian Poole and the Tremeloes. Both groups would have a hit recording of the song "Twist and Shout", with the Tremeloes hitting #1 in the UK and the Beatles #4 in the U.S.
• The Alabama Crimson Tide, ranked No1 in the AP and UPI polls and crowned as the national college football champion, defeated the No. 9 Arkansas Razorbacks in the Sugar Bowl, 10–3, in New Orleans.
• The People's Revolutionary Party was founded as a Marxist–Leninist political party in South Vietnam, with its leaders receiving instruction directly from the Lao Dong Party of North Vietnam.
• The Anglican Church of Australia became autocephalous, separate from the Church of England, and was headed by its own primate, the Archbishop of Brisbane, Sir Reginald Halse.
• The University of New Zealand was broken up into four universities and two agricultural colleges at Canterbury and Massey.
• The far-right National Fellowship Party was founded in the United Kingdom.
• Illinois became the first U.S. state to decriminalize homosexual activity.
• Died:
• *Hans von Salmuth, 73, German World War II general later convicted of war crimes at Nuremberg
• *Diego Martínez Barrio, 78, former President of the Second Spanish Republic

  [January 2], 1962 (Tuesday)

• In his annual report to the NAACP, Executive Secretary Roy Wilkins praised U.S. President John F. Kennedy's "personal role" in advancing civil rights, but said that he was "sorely disappointed" by the President's failure to honor his promise to ban racial discrimination in federally assisted housing.
• Trevor Taylor won the 1962 Cape Grand Prix in South Africa, finishing 0.6 seconds ahead of Jim Clark.
• NBC launched its daytime panel game show, Your First Impression.
• Born: Iván Palazzese, Italian motorcycle racer; in Alba Adriatica
• Died: Joseph Edward Woodall, 65, English recipient of the Victoria Cross

  [January 3], 1962 (Wednesday)

• NASA's Mercury Mark II program was officially renamed "Project Gemini". The name for the second phase of the U.S. human spaceflight program, which would use a pair of astronauts in a spacecraft instead of one, had been suggested by Alex P. Nagy of NASA Headquarters based on the twin stars Castor and Pollux in the constellation Gemini, the Latin word for twins. Coincidentally, the astronomical symbol for Gemini, the third constellation of the zodiac, corresponded neatly to the Mark II designation.
• A spokesman for Pope John XXIII revealed that Cuban leader Fidel Castro and several other officials had received a decree of excommunication from the Roman Catholic Church in 1961 under two sections of canon law, for impeding bishops in their work and for violence against clergymen. In September, Cuban bishop Eduardo Boza Masvidal and 135 priests had been forced to leave Cuba.
• The Manned Spacecraft Center prepared its Statement of Work for the division of labor between NASA and the U.S. Air Force Space Systems Division, as approved in December 1961. The first purchase request was for $27,000,000 for 15 Titan launch vehicles.
• The Winemakers' Union of Graves de Vayres was founded.
• Born:
• *Jon Gibson, American contemporary Christian musician with nine No. 1 songs on the CCM charts; in San Francisco
• *Darren Daulton, American baseball player and 1992 National League RBI leader; in Arkansas City, Kansas
• *Gavin Hastings, Scottish rugby union fullback with 61 caps for the Scottish national team; in Edinburgh

  [January 4], 1962 (Thursday)

• Broadway producer David Merrick submitted a full-page advertisement to seven New York City newspapers, with the tagline "7 OUT OF 7 ARE ECSTATICALLY UNANIMOUS ABOUT SUBWAYS ARE FOR SLEEPING", his musical comedy that had opened on December 27 to poor reviews. The ad contained favorable quotes, citing the names of seven well-known theater critics. Merrick had found seven other men with the same names. Next to a photo of the other Howard Taubman was the line "One of the few great musical comedies of the last thirty years..." The New York Herald-Tribune ran the ad in its first edition before an editor spotted the hoax and alerted the other newspapers.
• The Transit Authority of New York City introduced a subway train that operated without a crew on board. The "zombie" train kept a motorman on board to deal with any problems.
• Born:
• *André Rouvoet, Dutch politician, Deputy Prime Minister of the Netherlands from 2007 to 2010; in Hilversum
• *Peter Steele, American metal musician, as Petrus Thomas Ratajczyk in Brooklyn, New York City
• Died: Hans Lammers, 82, Nazi leader and Chief of the Reich Chancellery from 1933 to 1945

  [January 5], 1962 (Friday)

• Prison inmate Clarence Gideon sent a letter, written in pencil, to the United States Supreme Court, asking them to reverse his conviction for burglary on the grounds that he had not been given the right to an attorney. The Supreme Court granted certiorari and, on March 18, 1963, issued the landmark decision of Gideon v. Wainwright, holding that the Sixth Amendment guarantee of the right to assistance of counsel required the appointment of a lawyer for any person unable to afford one.
• The Manned Spacecraft Center published its first analysis of the Gemini spacecraft schedule, adjusting launch dates for a first flight in late July or early August 1963, and with six-week launch intervals between the first three flights. Subsequent launches would occur at two-month intervals, with the last flight in late April or early May 1965. The first Agena mission targeting was scheduled for late February or early March 1964.
• The first recording on which The Beatles played, the 45 rpm record "My Bonnie", credited to "Tony Sheridan and the Beat Brothers", was released by Polydor in the United Kingdom; "The Saints" was on the B-side.
• Three crew members were killed in the crash of USAF B-47E-105-BW Stratojet 52-615, piloted by Major Clarence Weldon Garrett, at March AFB, California. This would be the last fatal crash at that base until October 19, 1978.

  [January 6], 1962 (Saturday)

• The Beany and Cecil show debuted its first episode on ABC, as part of the Matty's Funday Funnies series. Created by Bob Clampett, the cartoon was based on the television puppet show Time for Beany, which Clampett produced for Paramount Television Network from 1949 to 1955.
• The Los Angeles Mirror-News, which had been started in 1948 as an afternoon tabloid newspaper printed by the owners of the Los Angeles Times, published its final issue.
• Born:
• *Kim Weon-Kee, South Korean Olympic wrestler, gold medalist in 1984; in Hampyeong
• *Idrissa Djaló, Guinea-Bissau politician and one time presidential candidate
• Died: Marziyya Davudova, 60, Azerbaijani actress and People's Artist of the USSR

  [January 7], 1962 (Sunday)

• Soviet theoretical physicist Lev Landau, who would win the Nobel Prize later in the year, was seriously injured in an auto accident, leaving him in a coma for two months. Landau survived, but was never able to return to work, and died on April 1, 1968.
• A bomb exploded at the Paris apartment building where controversial existentialist author Jean-Paul Sartre lived. Sartre was not home at the time, and his mother was not injured, but the fire destroyed most of his unpublished manuscripts.
• An assassination attempt against Indonesia's President Sukarno failed, but the hand grenades thrown at his automobile killed three bystanders and injured 28 others in Ujung Pandang.
• The UK was blanketed with snow in an unusual winter storm. Overnight temperatures of were recorded during the morning at Benson, Oxfordshire and Woodford, Greater Manchester in Britain.
• Born: Aleksandr Dugin, Russian ideologist and advocate of reclaiming the former Russian Empire, and author of Foundations of Geopolitics; in Moscow

  [January 8], 1962 (Monday)

• In a closed session at the Presidium, Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev delivered what was later referred to as the "meniscus speech", using the analogy of a wineglass filled to the point that it could overflow at any time. In the speech, which was not revealed until 40 years later, Khrushchev told the ministers that the USSR was weaker militarily than the United States, and that the only way to compete against American superiority was to maintain the threat that world tensions could spill over. "Because if we don't have a meniscus," Khrushchev said, "we let the enemy live peacefully."
• The first two teams of the United States Navy SEALs were commissioned as the United States Navy's Sea, Air and Land teams, with an order backdated to January 1, in order to carry out President Kennedy's recommendation for the development of "unconventional warfare capability". SEAL Team One, based in Coronado, California, served the Pacific Fleet and SEAL Team Two served the Atlantic Fleet out of Little Creek, Virginia. Each team consisted of 50 men and ten officers.
• In the Harmelen train disaster, two trains collided, killing 91 people in the worst rail crash in Netherlands history. An express train running from Leeuwarden to Rotterdam and a slower moving commuter train from Rotterdam struck each other at the same switching point after 9:18 a.m. in a heavy fog.
• Personnel of the Manned Spacecraft and Marshall Space Flight Centers tested special hand tools for use in zero-gravity conditions. Experiments were conducted in simulated space environment to try out non-torque hand tools drawn from a number of industrial sources.
• The Yugoslavian freighter Sabac was cut in two by the British steamer Dorington Court in a collision in the English Channel. Only eight of the 33 men on the Sabac survived.
• Born: Anatoliy Serdyukov, Russian Minister of Defense from 2007 to 2012; in Krasnodar Krai
• Died: Maximilian, Duke of Hohenberg, 59, eldest son of Archduke Franz Ferdinand and Countess Sophie