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Year 1964 (MCMLXIV) was a leap year starting on Wednesday (link will display full calendar) of the 1964 Gregorian calendar.
[edit] Events of 1964
[edit] January
- January 11 - United States Surgeon General Luther Leonidas Terry reports that smoking may be hazardous to one's health (the first such statement from the U.S. government).
- January 12
- The predominantly Arab government of Zanzibar is overthrown by African nationalist rebels; a U.S. destroyer evacuates 61 U.S. citizens.
- Routine U.S. naval patrols of the South China Sea begin.
- January 13 - In Manchester, NH 14-year-old Pamela Mason is murdered. Edward Coolidge is tried and convicted of the crime, but the conviction is set aside by the landmark 4th Amendment Case "Coolidge vs. New Hamphire (1971)."
- January 16
- January 17 - John Glenn announces that he will seek the Democratic nomination for U.S. Senator from Ohio.
- January 18 - Plans to build the New York World Trade Center are announced.
- January 20 - Meet the Beatles, the first Beatles album in the United States, is released.
- January 22 - Kenneth Kaunda is inaugurated as the first President of Northern Rhodesia.
- January 23 - Thirteen years after its proposal and nearly 2 years after its passage by the United States Senate, the 24th Amendment to the United States Constitution, prohibiting the use of poll taxes in national elections, is ratified.
- January 23 - Arthur Miller's After the Fall opens on Broadway. A semi-autobiographical work, it arouses controversy over his portrayal of late ex-wife Marilyn Monroe.
- January 27
- January 28 - A U.S. Air Force jet training plane that strays into East Germany, is shot down by Soviet fighters near Erfurt; all 3 crew men are killed.
- January 29-February 9 - The 1964 Winter Olympics are held in Innsbruck, Austria.
- January 29
- January 30 - General Nguyen Khanh leads a bloodless military coup d'etat, replacing Duong Van Minh as Prime Minister of South Vietnam.
[edit] February
- February 1 - The Beatles vault to the #1 spot on the U.S. singles charts for the first time, with "I Want to Hold Your Hand," forever changing the way rock-and-roll music sounds.
- February 3 - Protesting against alleged de-facto school racial segregation, Black and Puerto Rican groups in New York City boycott public school.
- February 4 - The Government of the United States authorized the Twenty-fourth Amendment outlawing the poll tax.
- February 6 - Cuba cuts off the normal water supply to the United States Guantanamo Bay Naval Base, in reprisal for the U.S. seizure 4 days earlier of 4 Cuban fishing boats off the coast of Florida.
- February 7
- February 9 - The Beatles appear on The Ed Sullivan Show, marking their first live performance on American television. Seen by an estimated 73 million viewers, the appearance becomes the catalyst for the mid-1960s "British Invasion" of American popular music.
- February 11
- February 17 - Wesberry v. Sanders (376 US 1 1964): The Supreme Court of the United States rules that congressional districts have to be approximately equal in population.
- February 25 - Cassius Clay beats Sonny Liston in Miami Beach, Florida, and is crowned the heavyweight champion of the world.
- February 26 - U.S. politician John Glenn slips on a bathroom rug in his Columbus, Ohio apartment and hits his head on the bathtub, injuring his left inner ear, and prompting him (later that week) to withdraw from the race for the Democratic Party Senate nomination.
- February 27 - The government of Italy asks for help to keep the Leaning Tower of Pisa from toppling over.
- February 29 - U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson announces that the United States has developed a jet airplane (the A-11), capable of sustained flight at more than 2,000 miles per hour and of altitudes of more than 70,000 feet.
- March 4 - Teamsters President Jimmy Hoffa is convicted by a Federal jury of tampering with a Federal jury in 1962.
- March 6 - Constantine II becomes King of Greece, upon the death of his father King Paul .
- March 8 - Malcolm X, suspended from the Nation of Islam, says in New York City that he is forming a black nationalist party.
- March 9
- March 10
- March 12 - Malcolm X leaves the Nation of Islam.
- March 13 - In a notorious incident, 38 of her neighbors in Queens, New York City fail to respond to the cries of Kitty Genovese, 28, as she is being stabbed to death.
- March 14 - A Dallas, Texas jury finds Jack Ruby guilty of killing John F. Kennedy assassin Lee Harvey Oswald.
- March 20 - The precursor of the European Space Agency, ESRO (European Space Research Organization) is established per an agreement signed on June 14, 1962.
- March 21 - Non ho l'età by Gigliola Cinquetti (music by Nicola Salerno, text by Mario Panzeri) wins the Eurovision Song Contest 1964 for Italy.
- March 26 - U.S. Defense Secretary Robert McNamara delivers an address that reiterates American determination to give South Vietnam increased military and economic aid, in its war against the Communist insurgency.
- March 27 - The Good Friday Earthquake, the most powerful earthquake in U.S. history at a magnitude of 9.2, strikes South Central Alaska, killing 125 people and inflicting massive damage to the city of Anchorage, Alaska.
- March 29 - Radio Caroline becomes England's first pirate radio station from a ship anchored just outside UK territorial waters.
- March 30 - Merv Griffin's game show Jeopardy! debuts on NBC; Art Fleming is its first host.
- March 31 - The military, backed by the USA, overthrow Brazilian President João Goulart in a coup, starting 21 years of dictatorship in Brazil.
- April 2 - Mrs. Malcolm Peabody, 72, mother of Massachusetts Governor Endicott Peabody, is released on $450 bond after spending 2 days in a St. Augustine, Florida jail, for participating in an anti-segregation demonstration there.
- April 4
- The Beatles hold the top 5 positions in the Billboard Top 40 singles in America, an unprecedented achievement. The top songs in America as listed on April 4, in order, are: "Can't Buy Me Love," "Twist and Shout," "She Loves You," "I Want to Hold Your Hand," and "Please Please Me."
- Three high school friends in Hoboken, N.J., open the first BLIMPIE on Washington St.
- May 1 - At 4:00 a.m., John George Kemeny and Thomas Eugene Kurtz run the first program written in BASIC (Beginners' All-purpose Symbolic Instruction Code), an easy to learn high level programming language which they have created. BASIC will eventually be included on many computers and even some games consoles.
- May 2
- Senator Barry Goldwater receives more than 75% of the votes in the Texas Republican Presidential primary.
- Some 400-1,000 students march through Times Square, New York and another 700 in San Francisco, in the first major student demonstration against the Vietnam War. Smaller marches also occur in Boston, Seattle, and Madison, Wisconsin.
- Henry Hezekiah Dee and Charles Eddie Moore, hitchhiking in Meadville, Mississippi, are kidnapped and beaten by members of the Ku Klux Klan. Their badly decomposed bodies are found by chance two months later in July, during the search for three civil rights workers - Chaney, Goodman, and Schwerner.
- May 7
- May 9 - South Korean President Chung Hee Park reshuffles his Cabinet, after a series of student demonstrations against his efforts to restore diplomatic and trade relations with Japan.
- May 11 - Terence Conran opens the first Habitat store on London's Fulham Road.
- May 19 - The United States State Department says that more than 40 hidden microphones have been found embedded in the walls of the U.S. Embassy in Moscow.
- May 23
- Mrs. Madeline Dassault, 63, wife of a French plane manufacturer and politician, is kidnapped while leaving her car in front of her Paris home; she is found unharmed the next day in a farmhouse 27 miles from Paris.
- Pablo Picasso paints his fourth 'Head of a Bearded Man'.
- May 24-May 25 - The crowd at a football match in Lima, Peru riots over a referee's decision in the Peru-Argentina game (319 dead, 500 injured).
- May 26 - Nelson Rockefeller defeats Barry Goldwater in the Oregon Republican primary, slowing but not stalling Goldwater's drive toward the nomination.
- May 27 - Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru of India dies; he is succeeded by Lal Shastri.
- June 2
- Senator Barry Goldwater wins the California Republican Presidential primary, making him the overwhelming favorite for the nomination.
- Five million shares of stock in the Communications Satellite Corporation (Comsat) are offered for sale at $20 a share, and the issue is quickly sold out.
- June 3 - South Korean President Park Chung Hee declares martial law in Seoul, after 10,000 student demonstrators overpower police.
- June 6 - With a temporary order, the rocket launches at Cuxhaven are terminated.
- June 7 - The Beatles travel the canals of Amsterdam.
- June 9 - In Federal Court in Kansas City, Kansas, army deserter George John Gessner, 28, is convicted of passing United States secrets to the Soviet Union.
- June 10 - The U.S. Senate votes cloture of the Civil Rights Bill after a 75-day filibuster.
- June 11
- June 12
- June 16 - 12-year-old Keith Bennett is abducted by Myra Hindley and Ian Brady
- June 19 - U.S. Senator Edward Kennedy, 32, is seriously injured in a private plane crash at Southampton, Massachusetts; the pilot is killed.
- June 21
- June 25 - The Vatican condemns the female combined oral contraceptive pill.
- June 26 - Moise Tshombe returns to Congo from exile in Spain.
[edit] August
- August 1 - The Final Looney Tune, "Senorella and the Glass Huarache", is released before the Warner Bros. Cartoon Division is shut down by Jack Warner.
- August 4
- August 5
- August 7 - Vietnam War: The United States Congress passes the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, giving U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson broad war powers to deal with North Vietnamese attacks on U.S. forces.
- August 8 - A Rolling Stones gig in Scheveningen gets out of control. Riot police end the gig after about 15 minutes, upon which spectators start to fight the riot police.
- August 13 - Murderers Gwynne Owen Evans and Peter Anthony Allen become the last people to be executed in the United Kingdom.
- August 16 - Vietnam War: In a coup, General Nguyen Khanh replaces Duong Van Minh as South Vietnam's chief of state and establishes a new constitution, drafted partly by the U.S. Embassy.
- August 22 - Fannie Lou Hamer, civil rights activist and Vice Chair of the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party, addresses the Credentials Committee of the Democratic National Convention, challenging the all-white Mississippi delegation.
- August 24-August 27 - The Democratic National Convention in Atlantic City nominates incumbent President Lyndon B. Johnson for a full term, and U.S. Senator Hubert Humphrey of Minnesota as his running mate.
- August 27 - Walt Disney's Mary Poppins has its world premiere in Los Angeles. It will go on to become Disney's biggest moneymaker, and winner of five Academy Awards, including a Best Actress award for Julie Andrews, who accepted the part after she was passed over by Jack L. Warner for the leading role of Eliza Dolittle in the film version of My Fair Lady. Mary Poppins is the first Disney film to be nominated for Best Picture.
- August 28 - Bob Dylan turns The Beatles on to cannabis for the first time[1]
- August 28-August 30 - Philadelphia 1964 race riot: Tensions between African American residents and police lead to 341 injuries and 774 arrests.
[edit] September
[edit] October
- October - In Photoplay magazine, Hedda Hopper announces that Sophia Loren and Paul Newman will star in the film version of Arthur Miller's play, After the Fall, with Loren in the role that was written about Marilyn Monroe. The film was never made.
- October 1
- October 2 - The Kinks release their first album, The Kinks (album).
- October 5
- October 10-October 24 - The 1964 Summer Olympics are held in Tokyo.
- October 12 - The Soviet Union launches Voskhod 1 into Earth orbit as the first spacecraft with a multi-person crew and the first flight without space suits. The flight is cut short and lands again on October 13 after sixteen orbits.
- October 14 - American civil rights movement leader Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. becomes the youngest recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize, which was awarded to him for leading non-violent resistance to end racial prejudice in the United States.
- October 14-October 15 - Nikita Khrushchev is deposed as leader of the Soviet Union; Leonid Brezhnev and Alexei Kosygin assume power.
- October 15
- The Labour Party wins the parliamentary elections in the United Kingdom, ending 13 years of Conservative Party rule.
- Craig Breedlove's jet-powered car Spirit of America goes out of control in Bonneville Salt Flats in Utah and makes skid marks 9.6 km long.
- The St. Louis Cardinals defeat the visiting New York Yankees, 7-5 to win the World Series in seven games (4-3), ending a long run of 29 World Series appearances in 44 seasons for the Bronx Bombers (also known as the Yankee Dynasty).
- October 16
- October 18 - The NY World's Fair closes for the year (it will reopen April 21, 1965).
- October 20 - Former United States President Herbert Hoover dies in New York City.
- October 21 - The film version of the hit Broadway stage musical My Fair Lady premieres in New York City. The movie stars Audrey Hepburn in the role of Eliza Dolittle and Rex Harrison repeating his stage performance as Professor Henry Higgins, and which will win him his only Academy Award for Best Actor. The film will win seven other Academy Awards, including Best Picture, but Audrey Hepburn will not be nominated. Critics interpret this as a rebuke to Jack L. Warner for choosing Ms Hepburn over Julie Andrews.
- October 22 - Canada: A Federal Multi-Party Parliamentary Committee selects a design to become the new official Flag of Canada.
- October 24 - Northern Rhodesia, a former British protectorate, becomes the independent Republic of Zambia, ending 73 years of British rule.
- October 27 - In Congo, rebel leader Christopher Gbenye takes 60 Americans and 800 Belgians hostage.
- October 29 - A collection of irreplaceable gemstones, including the 565 carat (113 g) Star of India, is stolen from the American Museum of Natural History in New York City.
- October 31 - Campaigning at Madison Square Garden, New York, U.S. President Lyndon Johnson pledges the creation of the Great Society.
[edit] November
- November 1 - Mortar fire from North Vietnamese forces rains on the USAF base at Bien Hoa, South Vietnam, killing 4 U.S. servicemen, wounding 72, and destroying 5 B-57 jet bombers and other planes.
- November 3
- November 5 - Mariner program: Mariner 3, a U.S. space probe intended for Mars, is launched from Cape Kennedy but fails.
- November 9 - The British House of Commons votes to abolish the death penalty for murder in Britain.
- November 10 - Australia partially reintroduces compulsory military service due to the Indonesian Confrontation.
- November 13 - Bob Pettit (St. Louis Hawks) becomes the first NBA player to score 20,000 points.
- November 19 - The United States Department of Defense announces the closing of 95 military bases and facilities, including the Brooklyn Navy Yard, the Brooklyn Army Terminal, and Fort Jay, New York.
- November 21
- November 24 - Belgian paratroopers and mercenaries capture Stanleyville, but a number of hostages die in the fighting, among them Evangelical Covenant Church missionary Dr. Paul Carlson.
- November 28
[edit] December
- December 1 - Vietnam War: U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson and his top-ranking advisers meet to discuss plans to bomb North Vietnam (after some debate, they agree to enact a two-phase bombing plan).
- December 3 - Berkeley Free Speech Movement: Police arrest over 800 students at the University of California, Berkeley, following their takeover and massive sit-in at the administration building, protesting the U.C. Regents' decision to forbid Vietnam War protests on U.C. property.
- December 6 - The one-hour stop-motion animated special Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, based on the popular Christmas song, premieres on NBC. It will become a beloved Christmas tradition, still being shown on television more than 40 years later.
- December 10 - Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. is awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in Oslo, Norway.
- December 11 - Che Guevara addresses the UN General Assembly.[2]
- December 14 - Heart of Atlanta Motel v. United States (379 US 241 1964): The U.S. Supreme Court rules that, in accordance with the Civil Rights Act of 1964, establishments providing public accommodations must refrain from racial discrimination.
- December 15 - The Washington Post publishes an article about James Hampton, who had built a glittering religious throne out of recycled materials.
- December 18 - In the wake of deadly riots in January over control of the Panama Canal, the U.S. offers to negotiate a new canal treaty.
- December 21 - The James Bond film Goldfinger begins its run in US theaters. It will become one of the most successful and popular Bond films ever made.
- December 22 - Comedian Lenny Bruce is sentenced to four months in prison, concluding a six-month obscenity trial.
- December 23 - Wonderful Radio London commences transmissions with American top 40 format broadcasting, from a ship anchored off the south coast of England.
- December 26 - 10-year-old Lesley Ann Downey is abducted by Myra Hindley and Ian Brady.
- December 27 - Cleveland Browns defeat Baltimore Colts in
