October 1963

[October 1], 1963 (Tuesday)

• The Sand War began when troops from Morocco invaded Algeria and seized control of two oases that had served as border stations on the road to Tindouf. Algeria retook the oases a week later, but Morocco took them back the week after that, and then expand its control of territory in western Algeria until a peace treaty could be brokered.
• On its third anniversary as an independent nation, Nigeria became a republic, as Governor-General Nnamdi Azikiwe assumed office as the first president of Nigeria.
• McDonnell Aircraft Corporation began a study of using batteries instead of fuel cells in all Gemini spacecraft scheduled for two-day rendezvous missions. While fuel cells previously could last 600 hours, the Gemini coolant system reduced fuel cell life by two-thirds to 200 hours.
• Born: Mark McGwire, American baseball player who broke the record of Roger Maris of 61 for most home runs hit in a season, ending 1998 with 70, but later admitted to having used performance-enhancing drugs; in Pomona, California

  [October 2], 1963 (Wednesday)

• The White House announced that withdrawal of American troops from South Vietnam could be completed by December 31, 1965, following a report to President Kennedy by U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert S. McNamara and General Maxwell D. Taylor, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. The first 1,000 of 15,000 troops were to be withdrawn before the end of 1963. However, Kennedy's successor, Lyndon Johnson, reversed the withdrawal and there were eventually 550,000 American troops in the Vietnam War.
• A husband and wife in Kalamazoo, Michigan, became the first two of seven food poisoning deaths from botulism, caused by a single shipment of smoked whitefish that had been poorly refrigerated during its transport from the Dornbos Brothers Fisheries in Grand Rapids, Michigan, to various supermarkets in Tennessee and Michigan. Chester and Blanche Mitchell had bought the "ready to eat" whitefish during a vacation trip. Six days later, a man and his 10-year-old daughter in Knoxville, Tennessee, David and Amy Beth Cohen, died after eating the packaged fish. In all, 21 people were poisoned ; nearly three years later, the Kroger supermarket chain sued four trucking companies for $4,600,000 to recover for damages that it had to pay out to victims.
• Los Angeles Dodgers left-handed pitcher Sandy Koufax set a World Series record by striking out 15 New York Yankees in a 5–2 victory in Game 1 at Yankee Stadium. The record stood for exactly five years, before Bob Gibson's 17 player strikeout on October 2, 1968.

  [October 3], 1963 (Thursday)

• Ten days before the elections scheduled for October 13, Ramón Villeda Morales was overthrown as the president of Honduras by a military coup, and deported to neighboring Costa Rica. At least 120 people were killed in fighting at Tegucigalpa and at San Pedro Sula. The leader of the coup, Colonel Oswaldo López Arellano, pledged to reschedule elections for a later date. Lopez would continue in office until 1971, after Ramon Ernesto Cruz Ucles won a presidential election, but would overthrow the Cruz government on December 4, 1972. Lopez himself would be toppled in another coup on April 22, 1975.
• Hurricane Flora reached its highest wind speed, with winds of, and made landfall at Haiti, where it took its highest toll. Over the next three days, of rain fell, 5,000 Haitians were killed and 100,000 people were left homeless. Although the storm had been spotted seven days earlier, Haitian Red Cross Director Jacques Fourcand and President Francois Duvalier had prohibited the radio broadcast of any warnings, as a measure to "reduce panic". The hurricane would "spend five days crossing and recrossing Cuba" and killed 1,000 people there.

  [October 4], 1963 (Friday)

• The U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff coordinated with the U.S. Department of State and the Department of Defense in updating OPLAN 380-63, a plan for the invasion of Cuba that would take place during John F. Kennedy's campaign for re-election in 1964. Under the plan, Cuban exiles would infiltrate Cuba in January, American forces would follow on July 15, American air strikes would start on August 3, and "a full-scale invasion, with a goal of the installation of a government friendly to the U.S." would be launched on October 1, 1964. On the same day, Texas governor John Connally met with President Kennedy to agree upon plans for President Kennedy's trip to Texas for fundraising events and motorcades in Houston, San Antonio, Fort Worth, Dallas and Austin on November 21 and 22, 1963.
• Iraq's new prime minister, Ahmed Hassan al-Bakr, and Kuwait's prime minister, Sheikh Sabah Al-Salim Al-Sabah, signed a treaty in Baghdad. Iraq renounced territorial claims to Kuwait and the two nations agreed to establish diplomatic relations immediately. Eight days later, Kuwait would make a loan of £30 million British pounds which Iraq would not repay.
• U.S. First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy arrived for a visit in Greece as the guest of shipping magnate Aristotle Onassis. Following the assassination of President Kennedy, the former First Lady would marry Onassis as her second husband.
• The Vienna police force suspended Inspector Karl Silberbauer, a month after he admitted to internal investigators that he had been an officer with the Gestapo, who had personally arrested Anne Frank on August 4, 1944.
• The United Kingdom granted Gambia limited self-government, and Sir Dawda Jawara was made the chief minister. Full independence would be granted on February 18, 1965.

  [October 5], 1963 (Saturday)

• Following a meeting with his National Security Council advisers, U.S. president Kennedy decided to withhold further American aid to the regime of South Vietnam President Ngo Dinh Diem and his brother, Ngo Dinh Nhu unless they implemented political reforms. With the withdrawal of U.S. support to the regime, the way was cleared for a military coup that took place on November 2.
• Before a crowd of 101,209 fans at the Melbourne Cricket Ground, the Geelong Cats defeated the Hawthorn Hawks, 109–60, to win the 67th annual Grand Final of the Victorian Football League.
• In college football, Milton College defeated visiting Lakeland College, 6–0, in the second of two experimental games, the day after Lakeland College had beaten visiting Milton College, 25–13 at its homecoming. The arrangement had been made after the two small Wisconsin colleges had discovered a mixup in their football schedules, with each set to host the other for their annual homecoming. Both games were played with 11-minute quarters instead of the regular 15, and individual player statistics were adjusted using an arithmetical formula that took the time adjustment into account, and it was agreed that if the teams split their wins, the result would be considered a tie. Thus, despite being outscored, 25–19, the Milton-Lakeland game was counted as a tie game in the Gateway Conference standings.
• At the site of the Battle of the Thames, in Chatham, Ontario, on the 150th anniversary of the death in battle of Shawnee Nation Chief Tecumseh, a monument was erected in his honor.
• Kīlauea, a volcano on Hawaii, erupted on its upper east rift zone. The eruption was observed and reported on by the Hawaiian Volcano Observatory.
• Born: Nick Robinson, British TV journalist; in Macclesfield, Cheshire

  [October 6], 1963 (Sunday)

• Surf music, performed primarily in Southern California, received its first nationwide American television exposure, when Dick Dale and the Del-Tones appeared on The Ed Sullivan Show.
• The team of Bob Jane and Harry Firth won Australia's premier motorsport competition, the Armstrong 500 touring car race at the Mount Panorama Circuit, near Bathurst, Australia.
• The Los Angeles Dodgers swept the 1963 World Series in four straight victories over the New York Yankees, with Sandy Koufax pitching a 2–1 win at Dodger Stadium.
• Born:
• *Vasile Tarlev, 6th Prime Minister of Moldova from 2001 to 2008; in Başcalia, Moldavian SSR, Soviet Union
• *Elisabeth Shue, American film and television actress; in Wilmington, Delaware

  [October 7], 1963 (Monday)

• The very first Learjet, the Learjet 23, took off from an airport in Wichita, Kansas, with test pilots Bob Hagan and Hank Beaird at the controls. The prototype jet, the product of the investment of William P. Lear, inaugurated an era of private jet airplanes, marketed to the wealthiest of individuals.
• Amid worsening relations between the U.S. and South Vietnam over violence against the nation's Buddhist majority, outspoken South Vietnamese First Lady Madame Ngo Dinh Nhu arrived in America for a speaking tour, continuing a flurry of attacks on the Kennedy administration.
• U.S. president Kennedy signed the ratification of the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty, which went into effect on October 10 after the completion of the deposit of the signed instruments by the United States, the Soviet Union and the United Kingdom.
• Died:
• *Ivan Schmalhausen, 79, Russian zoologist and evolutionist known for postulating Schmalhausen's law, which states that a population at its limit of tolerance in one aspect is vulnerable to small differences in any other aspect, and proposed the theory of stabilizing selection.
• *Gustaf Gründgens, 63, controversial German actor and film director popular during the Nazi Era, died of an internal hemorrhage after leaving a note that said "I believe that I took too many sleeping pills. I feel a little strange. Let me sleep long."
• *Oking Jaya Atmaja, 44-45, Indonesian freedom fighter and military officer, died of an undisclosed illness.

  [October 8], 1963 (Tuesday)

• Black artist Sam Cooke, his wife, and two members of his band were arrested after trying to register at a "whites only" motel in Shreveport, Louisiana. The charge of disturbing the peace came after the clerk told police that Cooke had continuously blown his car horn after being told that the motel was closed. That incident, and the tragic drowning of his 18-month-old son earlier in the year, led Cooke to record the classic song, "A Change Is Gonna Come". Cooke would be shot and killed at another motel in Los Angeles on December 11, 1964.
• The nations of Syria and Iraq signed the Military Unity Charter, an agreement to merge the armed forces of both countries under the command of Iraqi Defense Minister Salih Mahdi Ammash, who headed the Higher Military Council, with headquarters in Syria at Damascus. However, the agreement would not develop into a political merger between the two nations.