January 1964

[January 1], 1964 (Wednesday)

• The Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland dissolved and was split into Northern Rhodesia, Southern Rhodesia and Nyasaland.
• In the second matchup in as many years between the top two college football teams in the United States, the #1 Texas Longhorns defeated the #2 Navy Midshipmen, 28–6, in the Cotton Bowl game at Dallas. Texas had already been awarded the then-mythical national college football championship because the last AP and UPI polls had been taken at the end of the 1963 regular season.
• The British music chart television program, Top of the Pops, made its debut on the BBC network. The program would later become one of the world's longest-running weekly music show in television history.
• Idlewild Airport in New York City officially became John F. Kennedy International Airport after midnight. Baggage tags that had carried the code "IDL" would thenceforth be designated "JFK".
• The rural municipality of Glemmen was merged into the city of Fredrikstad, Norway.
• NASA ordered removal of the radar and rendezvous evaluation pod from the Gemini 3 and Gemini 4 missions for use in Gemini 5, thus delaying the first planned docking with a separate spacecraft.
• Born: Captain Moussa Dadis Camara, President of Guinea from 2008 to 2010; in Koulé

  [January 2], 1964 (Thursday)

• Major General Victor H. Krulak of the U.S. Marines, along with a committee of experts asked to advise on the Vietnam War, submitted a recommendation to U.S. President Johnson for a three phase series of covert actions against North Vietnam. Phase I, for February to May, called for propaganda dissemination and "20 destructive undertakings... designed to result in substantial destruction, economic loss and harassment", and a second and third phase of increasing magnitude.
• A police constable on guard outside the residence of Ghana's president, Kwame Nkrumah, fired five gunshots at him in an assassination attempt. Seth Ametwee invaded The Flagstaff House in Accra and missed with his first shot. Nkrumah's bodyguard, Salifu Dagarti, shielded the President with his body and was mortally wounded. It marked the sixth attempt on Nkrumah's life since he came to power in 1957.
• A U.S. Air Force C-124 Globemaster cargo plane with nine people on board disappeared while flying over the Pacific Ocean, on its way to Hickam Air Force Base in Honolulu from Wake Island. Another pilot, flying on the same route, said that he had heard a distinct S.O.S. signal that would have transmitted automatically from the plane and the rafts.
• Born: Pernell Whitaker, American professional boxer, undisputed world lightweight ; in Norfolk, Virginia

  [January 3], 1964 (Friday)

• U.S. Senator Barry Goldwater of Arizona announced that he would seek the Republican nomination for President of the United States. Goldwater said in a statement that "I have not heard from any announced Republican candidate a declaration of conscience or of political position that could possibly offer to the American people a clear choice in the next presidential election," and added that "I will not change my beliefs to win votes. I will offer a choice, not an echo."
• A U.S. Air Force B-57 jet bomber narrowly missed crashing into Beavercreek High School in Beavercreek, Ohio, United States, while school was in session with 1,000 students, and the wreckage came down a few feet away from the building. The pilot had safely ejected after the bomber exploded in mid-air while en route to Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Dayton, Ohio.
• Holden Roberto, leader of National Liberation Front of Angola that was fighting for the liberation of the Portuguese colony of Angola, announced that he would accept an offer of military aid from Communist China and declared, "Only the Communists can give us what we need."
• Millions of Americans got their first view of The Beatles and heard their new song, "She Loves You", as they watched film footage on The Jack Paar Program.
• The Irish soap opera Tolka Row was broadcast for the first time, by Telefís Éireann.

  [January 4], 1964 (Saturday)

• Ivan Asen Christof Georgiev, a 56-year-old Bulgarian diplomat who had once been the Eastern European nation's delegate to the United Nations, was executed by firing squad after pleading guilty to spying for the United States. Georgiev had testified at his trial on December 26 that he had sold military secrets to the CIA between 1956 and 1961, although the United States denied being aware of any connection to Georgiev. Prosecutors charged that he had received $200,000; that he had spent most of the money "to support mistresses"; and that "the CIA was so satisfied with Georgiev's work that he was given a diploma commending his services."
• A commuter train pulling into the station at Jajinci, south of the Yugoslavian capital, Belgrade, crashed into the back of another train that was awaiting departure. Sixty-six people were killed, and 157 were injured. Both trains were filled with passengers who were returning to work after the New Year holiday; the commuter train was on its way from Belgrade to Pozarevac and traveling in the fog before dawn, and the engineer on board said that he had seen no signal to indicate that the track was blocked. The impact was severe enough to crush eight of the coaches on the train at the station.
• The Mo-e-Muqaddas, an important Islamic holy relic which had been stolen on December 27, 1963 from the Hazratbal Shrine in Srinagar, was recovered seven days after it disappeared. The disappearance of the item, a 600-year-old strand of hair from the beard of Muhammad, had led to riots in the Jammu & Kashmir state because it was sacred to India's Kashmiri Muslims and a symbol of their faith, and one author would note that it "was somewhat miraculously recovered and returned to its original site." The authenticity of the returned Mo-e-Muqaddas would be verified in a ceremony on February 3.
• Pope Paul VI became the first Roman Catholic pontiff to fly in an airplane, the first to visit the Holy Land, and the first to venture outside Italy since Pius VII in 1809. Pope Paul departed from Rome on a chartered Alitalia DC-8 jet to Amman, Jordan, and was welcomed in the Muslim kingdom by King Hussein. Afterward, the Pope and his party traveled by motorcade to the border crossing at Jenin and into Nazareth in Israel, followed by a welcome by over 100,000 at Jerusalem.
• İsmet İnönü, the Prime Minister of Turkey, won a vote of confidence in the Turkish National Assembly. The vote in the İnönü government's favor was 225 to 175, but not without the help of 46 votes from an opposition group, the New Turkey Party, raising the question of whether the Premier's Republicans and Independents coalition could remain in power without the New Turkey party support.
• Mary Sullivan, a 19-year-old clerk at a finance company in Boston, became the 13th and last victim of the Boston Strangler. Her two roommates found her nude body after they returned from work to their apartment on Charles Street at Beacon Hill. As with other victims, Sullivan had been raped, and then strangled with a scarf.
• Harold A. Franklin became the first African-American student to be enrolled at Auburn University in Alabama. A team of three United States marshals was parked across the street to protect Franklin from violence and intimidation by the crowd and by 100 Alabama state policemen.
• Born: Dot-Marie Jones, American TV actress, 15-time world women's arm-wrestling champion, and women's shot-put record holder; in Turlock, California

  [January 5], 1964 (Sunday)

• In the first meeting between leaders of the Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox churches since the 15th century, Pope Paul VI and Patriarch Athenagoras I of Constantinople greeted each other in Jerusalem at 8:30 in the evening. The last meeting between the Rome and Constantinople churches had taken place in 1538, when Pope Eugene IV and Patriarch Joseph II had conferred at Ferrara starting on March 8. Pope Paul traveled the next day to Bethlehem and visited the Church of the Nativity, followed by a second meeting with the Patriarch.
• Quotations from Chairman Mao Tse-tung, commonly known as "The Little Red Book", was first published in the People's Republic of China, initially for review by participants at a conference of China's Political Department, which approved it for distribution within the People's Liberation Army starting on May 16. The first edition had 200 quotes selected by editor Tang Pinzhu. By 1966, an update with 366 quotes would be distributed nationwide to all of China's citizens.
• The first presidential election in the Central African Republic was held. President David Dacko, who had banned all political parties except for his own MESAN was the only candidate on the ballot.
• French psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan began the first of his popular seminars at the École pratique des hautes études in Paris. "Lacan's seminars or 'shows'... were also part of the Parisian society calendar," an author would note later, "thereby integrating a part of the bourgeois public."
• The San Diego Chargers beat the visiting Boston Patriots to win the American Football League championship.
• Died: William Bartholomae Jr., 70, American multimillionaire and yachtsman, as well as an oil, mining and ranching executive, was stabbed to death in his kitchen in Newport Beach, California by his sister-in-law, Carmen Gallardo.

  [January 6], 1964 (Monday)

• British vehicle manufacturer Leyland Motors signed a contract with the Communist government of Fidel Castro for the sale of buses to the Cuban government, challenging the United States blockade of Cuba. Under the deal, negotiated with the Cuban state trading organization Transimport, 400 Leyland-MCW Olympic buses and spare parts would be delivered to Cuba within 12 months at a cost of £3.7 million and Cuba had a five-year option to buy 1,000 more vehicles at a similar price.
• Sir Kenneth Maddocks was replaced as Governor of Fiji by Sir Derek Jakeway.
• Born: Henry Maske, German professional boxer and IBF world light heavyweight champion from 1993 to 1996, as well as Olympic gold medalist middleweight champion in 1988; in Treuenbrietzen, East Germany