May 1962

[May 1], 1962 (Tuesday)

• The Dayton Hudson Corporation opened the first of its Target discount stores. The store is located at 1515 West County Road B in Roseville, Minnesota, a suburb of Minneapolis–Saint Paul.
• Norwich City F.C. won the English Football League Cup, beating Rochdale F.C. 1 to 0 in the second leg of the two-game final after having defeated them 3 to 0 at Rochdale on April 26, for an aggregate score of 4 to 0.
• The U.S. Air Force awarded a contract to Lockheed for to build eight Gemini Agena target vehicles, to be designed to provide a stable target for docking spacecraft, and able to respond to commands from ground stations or spacecraft. NASA and Lockheed agreed on a full pulse-code-modulation for the Gemini program. Ten sites were selected for the installation of PCM equipment.
• Died: Sir Sydney Cockerell, 94, English curator and art collector

  [May 2], 1962 (Wednesday)

• The value of the Canadian dollar was put at a fixed exchange rate at 92.5 United States cents after having had a fluctuating value since September 30, 1950. The Canadian Exchange Fund would purchase U.S. dollars in order to keep the Canadian dollar from going more than one percent above ¢ American, until May 30, 1970.
• Benfica, champion of Portugal's Primeira Divisão league, won the European Cup for the second time in a row, beating Real Madrid, 5 to 3, before a crowd of 61,257 at Amsterdam's Olympisch Stadion.
• An OAS car bomb killed 96 people when it exploded at the docks of Algiers. The deaths of 14 other people and the injury of 147 overall made the occasion "the bloodiest single day in the modern history of Algeria's capital".
• Born:
• *Ty Herndon, American country music singer; in Meridian, Mississippi
• *Elizabeth Berridge, American actress; in New Rochelle, New York
• *Jimmy "Whirlwind" White, English snooker player; in Tooting, London
• Died: Clairvius Narcisse, 40, Haitian peasant who would attain media attention in 1980 as being the identity of a zombie after his death.

  [May 3], 1962 (Thursday)

• A railway crash involving three separate trains killed 160 people in Japan near the Mikawashima Station at Arkawawa, a ward of Tokyo. Engineer Norifumi Minakami drove a freight train through a red signal and sideswiped a commuter train. As surviving passengers climbed out of that train, a third train ran through them, then plunged over an embankment.
• British supermarket executive Alan Sainsbury, CEO of the Sainsbury's Supermarkets chain of grocery stores, was created a life peer in the House of Lords, with the title Baron Sainsbury.

  [May 4], 1962 (Friday)

• U.S. Ambassador to Canada Livingston Merchant, in his final month as envoy, made a final visit to Prime Minister John Diefenbaker in Ottawa. At the meeting Diefenbaker angrily brought out an American memorandum that had been left behind during President Kennedy's visit in May 1961. The President's handwritten notes in the margin included the letters "OAS", "but Diefenbaker read Kennedy's handwriting as 'SOB'," and threatened to use the memo in the upcoming June 18 elections. After conferring with his superiors, the ambassador later told Diefenbaker that he was personally reluctant to report "anything which could be construed as a threat" and that publication of the memo would "make difficult future relations". The memo was never used, but Kennedy and Diefenbaker never trusted each other again.
• Dr. Masaki Watanabe of Japan performed the very first arthroscopic surgery to repair a meniscus tear, a common injury for athletes. The first patient to receive the procedure was a 17-year-old basketball player, who was returned to playing six weeks after the meniscectomy and resection of his right knee by Dr. Watanabe.
• During the El Carupanazo revolt against Venezuelan President Rómulo Betancourt, Venezuelan Air Force aircraft began a two-day attack on rebel positions at Carúpano.
• Scott Carpenter, designated as the primary pilot for the Mercury-Atlas 7 crewed orbital flight, completed a simulated MA-7 mission exercise.

  [May 5], 1962 (Saturday)

• Seattle businessman Stanley McDonald inaugurated a cruise ship service that would eventually become Princess Cruises, starting with the departure of the Canadian steamer SS Yarmouth from San Francisco for the first of 17 ten-day cruises to the 1962 Seattle World's Fair and back. After a successful six-month lease of the Yarmouth, McDonald would spend more than three years in making plans for the Princess Cruise line on a regular series of winter tours from Los Angeles to Acapulco, starting at the end of 1965.
• Tottenham Hotspur F.C. retained the FA Cup with a 3–1 win over Burnley F.C. in front of 100,000 fans at Wembley Stadium, and became only the second team in Football League history to win the Cup two years in a row. Goals were scored for the Spurs by Jimmy Greaves, Bobby Smith and captain Danny Blanchflower, with the Clarets' sole score coming from Jimmy Robson.

  [May 6], 1962 (Sunday)

• Antonio Segni was elected President of the Italian Republic on the ninth round of balloting by the combined houses of Italian Parliament, and after four days of voting. In the first round, Segni of the Democrazia Cristiana party was pitted against three other candidates, Giuseppe Saragat ; Umberto Terracini of the Italian Communist Party ; and Sandro Pertini of the Partito Socialista Italiano, with no candidate receiving at least two-thirds of the vote in on the first three ballots. After Terracini and Pertini dropped out, and a 50 percent rather than two-thirds majority determined the choice, Segni defeated Saragat, 443 votes to 334.
• The first nuclear explosion to be caused by an American ballistic missile, rather than by a bomb dropped from an aircraft or at a fixed site, was accomplished at Christmas Island, from its launch site. Previous ICBM tests had been done without a nuclear warhead. The USS Ethan Allen fired the armed Polaris A-2 missile, from underwater, to its target.
• Martin de Porres of Peru was canonized as the first mixed-race Roman Catholic saint, 125 years after his beatification. The son of a Spanish nobleman father and a freed slave mother of African and Indian descent, Porres was designated as the patron saint of mixed-race individuals, barbers, innkeepers, and public health workers.
• The National Bowling League rolled its last game, with the Detroit Thunderbirds defeating the Twin Cities Skippers, 27–15, to sweep the best 3-of-five "World Series of Bowling" for the first, and only, NBL championship.
• Born: N. J. Burkett, American correspondent for WABC-TV since 1989, best known for his coverage on the 9/11 terrorist attacks; in Orange, New Jersey
• Died: Thomas Gilcrease, 72, American philanthropist and collector of indigenous artifacts of the Americas

  [May 7], 1962 (Monday)

• Three officials of the Central Intelligence Agency met with U.S. Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy and implored him to stop investigation of Mafia crime boss Sam Giancana. For the first time, the CIA revealed that it had offered $150,000 to several organized criminals to carry out a "hit" against Cuba's Prime Minister, Fidel Castro. The secret meeting would become public in 1975, with the release of the Rockefeller Commission's report on an investigation of the CIA.
• The six-member township council of Centralia, Pennsylvania, voted in favor of improving the new landfill at the edge of town, in time for Memorial Day ceremonies. Every year, the contents of the city dump would be set afire, despite a state law prohibiting the practice, and the May 27 burning would prove to be the end of Centralia.
• Detroit became the first city in the United States to use traffic cameras and electronic signs to regulate the flow of traffic. The pilot program began with 14 television cameras along a stretch of the John C. Lodge Freeway, between the Davison Expressway and Interstate 94.
• NASA announced that the Mercury 7 flight would be delayed several days due to problems with the Atlas rocket. Scott Carpenter would be launched on May 24.
• The 1962 Cannes Film Festival opened.

  [May 8], 1962 (Tuesday)

• The Broadway musical A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, with music and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim, had the first of 964 performances. Set in ancient Rome, and inspired by the comedies of Titus Maccius Plautus, it would close on August 29, 1964, and be adapted as a film as well.
• J. Paul Austin became the new President of The Coca-Cola Company. During his 19-year tenure, Coca-Cola's annual worldwide sales would grow ten-fold, from $567 million to $5.9 billion.
• Brian Epstein visited the HMV store at 363 Oxford Street, London, to have The Beatles' Decca audition tape transferred to 78 rpm acetates.
• Francisco Orlich Bolmarcich was inaugurated for a four-year term as the 36th President of Costa Rica, succeeding Mario Echandi Jiménez.
• Died: Alfred Madsen, 74, Norwegian engineer, newspaper editor, trade unionist and politician

  [May 9], 1962 (Wednesday)

• At the request of the U.S. Department of State, the Immigration and Naturalization Service agreed to issue a United States visa to Marina Prusakova Oswald so that she could accompany her husband, Lee Harvey Oswald, on his return to the United States.
• The lunar crater Albategnius became the first area of the moon to be illuminated by a laser beam from Earth. Scientists Louis Smullin and Giorgio Fiocco of MIT aimed the beam and then observed it.
• The Beatles signed their first recording contract, with Parlophone, after Brian Epstein persuaded George Martin to sign them, sight unseen.
• The Sikorsky S-64 Skycrane helicopter, capable of lifting 20,000 pounds, made its first flight.
• Princess Marie-Christine of Belgium was confirmed by Bishop Fulton Sheen.
• Born: Dave Gahan, English singer-songwriter and lead singer of electronic band Depeche Mode; in North Weald, Essex