July 1962

[July 1], 1962 (Sunday)

• Rwanda and Burundi, the northern and southern portions of Ruanda-Urundi, were both granted independence from Belgium on the same day. Grégoire Kayibanda of the Hutu tribe was sworn in as President of Rwanda at Kigali, and Mwambutsa IV, who had reigned as the titular leader of the Tutsi tribe since 1915, continued as King of Burundi.
• In Merritt Island, Florida, NASA formed the Launch Operations Center, now known as the Kennedy Space Center. Since December 1968, KSC has been NASA's primary launch center of human spaceflight including the launch operations for the Apollo, Skylab, and Space Shuttle programs.
• The first Canadian Medicare plan was launched in Saskatchewan, resulting in the Saskatchewan doctors' strike. Thousands of citizens joined the protests against compulsory health care ten days later.
• Bruce McLaren won the 1962 Reims Grand Prix. McClaren of New Zealand, a former rugby player turned race car driver, finished the course in 2 hours, 2 seconds.
• Julio Adalberto Rivera Carballo became President of El Salvador. He had been the only candidate in elections on April 30.
• Relocation of the Manned Spacecraft Center from Langley Field to Houston, Texas, was completed.
• The Treaty of Nordic Cooperation of Helsinki, signed on March 23, 1962, came into force.
• Supporters of Algerian independence won a 90% majority in a referendum.
• Born: Andre Braugher, American actor best known for his roles as Detective Frank Pembleton in Homicide: Life on the Street and Captain Raymond Holt in Brooklyn Nine-Nine; in Chicago, Illinois
• Died: Bidhan Chandra Roy, 80, Indian politician and Chief Minister of West Bengal since 1948

  [July 2], 1962 (Monday)

• Sam Walton opened the first Walmart store as Wal-Mart Discount City in Rogers, Arkansas, United States. By 1970, there would be 38 Walmart stores. After 50 years, there were more than 9,766 stores in 27 countries, and 11,766 by mid-2019.
• Off-the-pad Gemini ejection tests began at Naval Ordnance Test Station and were completed by the first week of August. The tests showed problems which led to two important design changes, adding a drogue-gun method of deploying the parachute and installing a three-point harness-release system similar to those used in military aircraft.

  [July 3], 1962 (Tuesday)

• France and its President, Charles de Gaulle, recognized the independence of Algeria, with the signing of the declaration at a meeting of the French Cabinet.
• The Chichester Festival Theatre, Britain's first large modern theatre with a thrust stage, opened. Laurence Olivier was the first artistic director.
• The 1962 World Artistic Gymnastics Championships opened in Prague and ran until July 8.
• Born:
• *Tom Cruise, American film actor known for Risky Business, Jerry Maguire and the Mission: Impossible film series; as Thomas Cruise Mapother IV in Syracuse, New York
• *Thomas Gibson, American TV actor known for Criminal Minds and Dharma and Greg;in Charleston, South Carolina

  [July 4], 1962 (Wednesday)

• The Burma Socialist Programme Party was established by Ne Win's military regime.
• Houston welcomed the Mercury astronauts with its Fourth of July parade, followed by a barbecue at the Sam Houston Coliseum featuring a performance by burlesque dancer Sally Rand. This event would form the basis of a major set piece in Tom Wolfe's 1979 book The Right Stuff.
• Born:
• *Pam Shriver, American tennis player, winner of multiple women's doubles championships with Martina Navratilova; in Baltimore
• *Neil Morrissey, English comedian and actor; in Stafford, Staffordshire

  [July 5], 1962 (Thursday)

• The French Assembly voted, 241 to 72 to end the immunity of former Prime Minister Georges Bidault against arrest and prosecution, which he had held in April 1961, when he had called for the overthrow of President Charles De Gaulle. The vote cleared the way for a treason indictment of Bidault, who had fled to Italy.
• After Algeria's independence was recognized by France, 20 French Algerians and 75 Algerians were killed in a massacre which took place at Oran, the section of Algiers where most French Algerians lived.

  [July 6], 1962 (Friday)

• Irish broadcaster Gay Byrne presented his first edition of The Late Late Show. Byrne would go on to present the talk show for 37 years, making him the longest-running TV talk show host in history.
• The deep Sedan Crater, measuring in diameter, was created in a split second in Nye County, Nevada, with an American underground nuclear test. The fallout exposed 13 million Americans to radiation; regular monthly tours are now given of the crater, which ceased being radioactive after less than a year.
• Martin Marietta presented its "piggyback plan" for flight testing the malfunction detection system for the Gemini launch vehicle. The plan required installing the detection system in engines on six Titan II flights to demonstrate its reliability.
• Died:
• *Archduke Joseph August of Austria, 89, a Feldmarschall of the Austro-Hungarian Army and for a short period head of state of Hungary
• *Roger Degueldre, 37, former French Army officer who rebelled to form the OAS Delta Commandos, was executed by a firing squad
• *William Faulkner, 64, American novelist and 1950 Nobel laureate

  [July 7], 1962 (Saturday)

• All 94 people aboard Alitalia Flight 771 were killed when the airliner crashed into a hill about north-east of Mumbai.
• In Burma, the government of General Ne Win forcibly broke up a demonstration at Rangoon University, killing 15 students and wounding 27.
• A Soviet Air Force pilot flying a Mikoyan-Gurevich Ye-152 set a new airspeed record of.

  [July 8], 1962 (Sunday)

• In the most important symbolic gesture of post-war French-German unity, President Charles de Gaulle of France and Chancellor Konrad Adenauer of West Germany, both devout Catholics, attended mass at the Reims Cathedral and prayed together. The Cathedral was where the Emperor common to both nations, Carolus Magnus — had been baptized at Reims.
• The 1962 French Grand Prix was held at Rouen-Les-Essarts and won by Dan Gurney of the United States.
• Born: Joan Osborne, American singer-songwriter; in Anchorage, Kentucky

  [July 9], 1962 (Monday)

• In the Starfish Prime test, the United States exploded a 1.4 megaton hydrogen bomb in outer space, sending the warhead on a Titan missile to an altitude of over Johnston Island. The first two attempts at exploding a nuclear missile above the Earth had failed. The flash was visible in Hawaii, away, and scientists discovered the destructive effects of the first major manmade electromagnetic pulse, as a surge of electrons burned out streetlights, blew fuses, and disrupted communications. Increasing radiation in some places one hundredfold, the EMP damaged at least ten orbiting satellites beyond repair.
• NASA scientists concluded that the layer of haze reported by astronauts John Glenn and Scott Carpenter was a phenomenon called "airglow". Using a photometer on his mission in May, Carpenter was able to measure the layer. Airglow accounts for much of the illumination in the night sky.
• American artist Andy Warhol first presented his Campbell's Soup Cans at the Ferus Gallery in Los Angeles.
• Died: Georges Bataille, 64, French philosopher and writer; of arteriosclerosis

  [July 10], 1962 (Tuesday)

• AT&T's Telstar, the world's first commercial communications satellite, was launched into orbit from Cape Canaveral at 3:35 a.m. local time, and activated that night. The first image transmitted between continents was a black-and-white photo of the American flag sent from the U.S. transmitter at Andover, Maine, to Pleumeur-Bodou in France.
• The All-Channel Television Receiver Bill was signed into law, requiring that all televisions made in the United States to be able to receive both VHF signals and UHF. The change encouraged the opening of hundreds of new U.S. television stations.
• One of the spans in the Kings Bridge in Melbourne, Australia, collapsed after a vehicle passed over it, only 15 months after the multi-lane highway bridge's opening on April 12, 1961. The collapse occurred immediately after the driver of the vehicle had passed over the span, and nobody was hurt.
• Francisco Brochado de Rocha was approved as the new Prime Minister of Brazil by a 215–58 vote of Parliament.
• Born: Christopher Martin, formerly known as Play, comedian, actor and rapper of the hip-hop duo Kid 'n Play; in Queens
• Died: Tommy Milton, 68, American race car driver and first to win the Indianapolis 500 twice, shot himself twice after making his own funeral arrangements.

  [July 11], 1962 (Wednesday)

• NASA officials decided to proceed with Project Apollo, the crewed lunar exploration program, to using lunar orbit rendezvous as the prime mission mode, rather than direct ascent or earth orbit rendezvous. The decision enabled immediate planning for the next phase of American space exploration to proceed.
• The first person to swim across the English Channel underwater, without surfacing, arrived in Sandwich Bay, Kent, England, 18 hours after departing from Calais, France. Fred Baldasare wore scuba gear and was assisted by a guiding ship and the use of oxygen tanks.
• Born: Pauline McLynn, Irish comedian and TV actress; in Sligo, County Sligo
• Died: Owen D. Young, 87, American businessman who founded Radio Corporation of America and co-founded the National Broadcasting Company

  [July 12], 1962 (Thursday)

• The Rolling Stones made their debut at London's Marquee Club, Number 165 Oxford Street, opening for the first time under that name, for Long John Baldry. Mick Jagger, Brian Jones, Keith Richards, Ian Stewart, Dick Taylor and Tony Chapman had played together for the group Blues Incorporated before creating a new name inspired by the Muddy Waters 1950 single "Rollin' Stone". The day before the concert, an ad in the July 11, 1962, edition of Jazz News, a London weekly jazz paper, had shown the drummer to be Mick Avory, who later played for The Kinks, rather than Chapman. Avory himself, however, would say in an interview that he did not play in the event.
• The first telephone signals carried by satellite were made by engineers between Goonhilly in the UK and Andover, Maine, in the U.S.
• Representatives of Gemini Project Office presented a list of minimum basic maneuvers of the Agena targeting and docking at a conference with the U.S. Air Force Space System Division, Marshall Space Flight Center, and Lockheed on coordination of the Atlas-Agena program for a linkup of vehicles in orbit above the Earth. The parties agreed to begin work immediately after the last Project Mercury flight.
• Born: Julio César Chávez, Mexican boxer, WBC champion at three levels between 1984 and 1996; in Ciudad Obregón
• Died: James T. Blair, Jr., 60, former Governor of Missouri ; along with his wife, from accidental carbon monoxide poisoning at his home, near Jefferson City, Missouri