June 1962

[June 1], 1962 (Friday)

• The Soviet Union raised the price of consumer goods by more than 25 percent in order to cover higher operating expenses for the USSR's collective farm program. Butter was up 25%, and pork and beef by 30%. In protest, workers walked off of the job at the Novocherkassk Electric Locomotive Factory and the strike soon turned into an uprising.
• A list of the aerospace ground equipment required to handle and check out the Gemini spacecraft before flight was presented at the first spacecraft operations coordination meeting.
• Died:
• *Adolf Eichmann, 56, German SS officer and war criminal, was hanged at Israel's Ramlah prison, after his conviction for war crimes
• *Josef Ospelt, 81, first Prime Minister of Liechtenstein

  [June 2], 1962 (Saturday)

• The day after price rises took effect in the Soviet Union, protests in the city of Novocherkassk were brutally suppressed in what is remembered as the Novocherkassk massacre of 23 demonstrators. Strikers marched to the center of town, where they were joined by other protesters. After word spread that some of the strike leaders had been arrested, the local Communist party headquarters was invaded, after which the group marched into the police station and at 1:10 p.m., after firing a warning volley of shots, one of the units of soldiers fired into the crowd. It would be revealed 30 years later that 23 people were killed, and 116 arrested. Of those arrested, seven were convicted of sedition and executed, while others received prison terms ranging from 10 to 15 years. The news was kept out of the Soviet press. Months later, unofficial reports in the West referred to "hundreds" of deaths and in 1976, Alexander Solzhenitsyn's book The Gulag Archipelago would report that there had been more than 70 deaths. The Soviet government would finally confirm the killings on June 3, 1989, in an article in Komsomolskaya Pravda.
• El Porteñazo, a military rebellion, was launched in Venezuela.
• Born: Paula Newby-Fraser, Zimbabwean triathlete and eight time gold medalist in women's Ironman World Championship; in Salisbury, Southern Rhodesia
• Died: Vita Sackville-West, 70, English poet, novelist and landscape gardener died from cancer.

  [June 3], 1962 (Sunday)

• All 122 passengers on Air France Flight 007 were killed, along with 8 of 10 crew members, overran the runway on takeoff from Orly Airport in Paris, at 12:29 p.m. local time. Two flight attendants survived. Most of the passengers were cultural and civic leaders of the Atlanta Art Association, returning home from a tour of Europe. The Boeing 707, nicknamed the Chateau de Sully, crashed through an airport fence and into the woods near the village of Villeneuve-le-Roi.
• The 1954 peace agreement between India and China, which had taken effect on June 4, 1959, expired pursuant to its Article 6, "This Agreement shall remain in force for eight years". The two most populous nations in the world would fight the Sino-Indian War beginning on October 20.
• The Albanian parliamentary election was won by candidates of the only party on the ballot, the Communist Democratic Front, which officially received 889,868 of the 889,875 votes cast. The other seven were "no" votes against the slate of candidates.
• The 1962 Six Hour Le Mans was run at the Caversham Airfield circuit in Western Australia and won by Derek Jolly and John Roxburgh.
• The 1962 Monaco Grand Prix was won by Bruce McLaren.

  [June 4], 1962 (Monday)

• Plans to detonate an American nuclear weapon, above the Earth, were halted one minute and 40 seconds before the scheduled explosion. Failure of the tracking system in the Thor missile led to the decision to blow the warhead apart without an atomic blast.
• The first atomic energy was generated in Canada as the Nuclear Power Demonstration went online at Rolphton, Ontario.
• In the Bolivian legislative election, a new National Congress was elected for one-third of the seats.
• The U.S. Air Force School of Aviation Medicine at Brooks Air Force Base in Texas, began a simulated long-duration Project Gemini mission. Two men were to live for 14 days in a 100-percent-oxygen atmosphere maintained at a pressure of, the proposed spacecraft environment.
• The 1962 Isle of Man TT races were held at the Snaefell Mountain Course. Winners included Luigi Taveri, Derek Minter and Ernst Degner.
• Died:
• *Bela Lapusnyik, 26, Hungarian intelligence officer, died four weeks after defecting to Austria and four days after suddenly becoming ill, apparently from poisoning. Lapusnyik had provided secrets to Western investigators until his unexpected illness.
• *Clem McCarthy, 79, American sportscaster
• *William Beebe, 84, American ornithologist

  [June 5], 1962 (Tuesday)

• Spider-Man, created by Stan Lee and Steve Ditko, was introduced by Marvel Comics with the publication of Amazing Fantasy#15, with a cover date of August 1962. The issue was placed on newsstands on June 5, 1962, according to the copyright renewal filed in 1990.
• Hendrik Meijer and Frederik Meijer opened the first Thrifty Acres hypermarket in the United States. It combined a grocery store and a large department store, in Grand Rapids, Michigan, inaugurating the "supercenter" concept in groceries.
• Former U.S. Vice-President Richard M. Nixon won the Republican Party nomination for Governor of California, to challenge the Democratic nominee, Governor Pat Brown.
• The Honda S360 was unveiled at the 11th National Honda Meeting General Assembly, held at Suzuka Circuit.
• William Philbin was appointed Bishop of Down and Connor in Ireland.
• Born:
• *Princess Astrid of Belgium, Archduchess of Austria-Este, former President of the Belgian Red Cross; in Laeken
• *Jeff Garlin, American actor and comedian; in Chicago
• Died:
• *Sandra Tewkesbury, 20, Canadian Olympic figure skater was killed in a car accident in Guelph, Ontario.
• *Jacques Gréber, 79, French architect

  [June 6], 1962 (Wednesday)

• Helicopter pilot Ron Boyd led Canadian searchers to the wreckage of a Fairchild 24 single-engine plane that had been missing since August 28, 1951, along with the skeletons of Toronto Maple Leafs star Bill Barilko and pilot Henry Hudson. Another helicopter pilot, Cary Fields, had spotted signs of the wrecked plane on May 31. The crash site was found about north of Cochrane, Ontario, about off course.
• Whirlpool Corporation Research Laboratories received a contract to provide the Project Gemini food and waste management system, comprising water dispenser, food storage, and waste storage components. Food and zero-gravity feeding devices were to be provided by the U.S. Army Quartermaster Corps Food and Container Institute. MSC's Life Systems Division was responsible for directing the development program.
• McDonnell Aircraft Corporation was authorized to procure an additional boilerplate Gemini spacecraft for parachute landing system tests. McDonnell estimated that installing a new boilerplate would cost less than modifying the existing boilerplate for at least $17,000.
• Woolco, the attempt by the F.W. Woolworth Company to enter the discount department store market, opened its first store, in Columbus, Ohio.
• U.S. President John F. Kennedy gave the commencement address at the United States Military Academy at West Point in New York.
• The Beatles first auditioned for record producer George Martin at the Abbey Road Studios, London.
• Sir Henry Josiah Lightfoot Boston became the first indigenous Governor-General of Sierra Leone.
• France's Colonial Medal was renamed the Médaille d'Outre-Mer for the outlying departments of France.
• Born: Albita Rodríguez, Cuban singer, producer and composer; in Havana
• Died:
• *Joe Profaci, 64, Italian-American Cosa Nostra boss who was the founder of the Colombo crime family of New York City, died of liver cancer
• *Abba Ahimeir, 64, Jewish journalist, historian and political activist
• *Yves Klein, 34, French artist suffered a fatal heart attack

  [June 7], 1962 (Thursday)

• President Kennedy announced in a press conference that he would seek "an across-the-board reduction in personal and corporate income taxes", commenting that "Our tax structure, as presently weighted, exerts too heavy a drain on a prospering economy." At the time, earnings of more than $200,000 were in a 91% federal tax bracket. On the same day, he presented a Congressional gold medal to the mother of Thomas Anthony Dooley III at a White House ceremony.
• Born:
• *Thierry Hazard

  [June 8], 1962 (Friday)

• Pakistan's new constitution took effect, giving President Muhammad Ayub Khan veto power over a new, single-chamber National Assembly, elected by a group of 80,000 "basic democrats". The document would remain in effect until 1969.
• Marilyn Monroe was fired by 20th Century Fox because of her frequent absences from the filming of the movie Something's Got to Give. Over a course of seven weeks of shooting, she had only appeared on five days.
• Soviet authorities gave the go-ahead for the construction of the Ust-Ilimsk Hydroelectric Power Station.
• Sir Alfred Dudley Ward became Governor of Gibraltar.
• Bob Hope received the U.S. Congressional Gold Medal.
• The city of Villa Hills, Kentucky, was incorporated.
• Born: Bogusław Pawłowski, Polish biologist; in Prudnik
• Died: William Stanley Braithwaite, 82, American writer and poet

  [June 9], 1962 (Saturday)

• South Korea's military leader Park Chung Hee ordered a surprise currency reform, freezing all bank accounts and ordering that the South Korean hwan be exchanged by the end of Monday in favor of the new South Korean won, at the rate of 10 hwan for each new won. On June 16, a decree was issued to take individual bank account money, above a set limit, for a required purchase of stock in the government-owned Korean Industrial Development Corporation, and Park would later be forced to rescind both emergency measures under pressure from the United States.
• Spain's dictator Francisco Franco announced a two-year suspension of the constitutional right of Spanish citizens to live elsewhere in the country. Franco limited the privilege to supporters of his government, in response to strikes that had halted activity in the nation.
• The best-selling live album Tony Bennett at Carnegie Hall was recorded. New York radio personality Jonathan Schwartz would later comment, "That was the night that Tony Bennett became Tony Bennett", as the singer performed 44 songs.
• As part of its immigration reform, Canada granted amnesty to Chinese persons who had entered the nation illegally prior to July 1, 1960.
• Died: Polly Adler, 62, Russian-born American bordello operator