May 1963

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May 15, 1963: L. Gordon Cooper becomes last Mercury astronaut to go into space
May 4, 1963: Civil rights protesters dispersed in Birmingham, Alabama
May 18, 1963: Sukarno named "President for Life" of Indonesia

The following events occurred in May 1963:

May 1, 1963 (Wednesday)

May 2, 1963 (Thursday)

May 3, 1963 (Friday)

May 4, 1963 (Saturday)

May 5, 1963 (Sunday)

May 6, 1963 (Monday)

May 7, 1963 (Tuesday)

May 8, 1963 (Wednesday)

May 9, 1963 (Thursday)

  • Testing of the Gemini parachute recovery system began at
    C-130 aircraft at 20,000 feet (6,100 m) to duplicate dynamic pressure and altitude at which actual spacecraft recovery would be initiated. The main problem, parachute tucking (which had appeared to be resolved earlier) recurred in two drops and the Gemini Project Office would suspend testing until the condition could be corrected. Qualification testing resumed August 8.[3]
  • After the first six attempts at a successful launch of the MIDAS (Missile Defense Alarm System) satellite failed, MIDAS 7 was successfully placed into a polar orbit. During the first three years of attempts, three satellites failed to reach orbit, while the other three suffered power failures. MIDAS 7 would operate for 47 days and would detect nine Soviet missile launches.[30]
  • The 1963 Cannes Film Festival opened.

May 10, 1963 (Friday)

  • A settlement was reached between the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) and the leading business owners of Birmingham, Alabama, with the SCLC agreeing to call off its boycott of local retailers, who in return "agreed to desegregate lunch counters, rest rooms, fitting rooms and drinking fountains" and to hire more African-Americans for sales and clerical jobs.[31]
  • Author Maurice Sendak, working on his first book for children, made the decision to abandon his original title, Where the Wild Horses Are, after concluding that horses were too difficult to draw, and changed the characters in the book to friendly monsters. The book, Where the Wild Things Are, would become a Caldecott Medal winning bestseller and launch Sendak's career.[32]
  • Born:
    plane crash
    , 2010)
  • Died:
    • Eugene "Big Daddy" Lipscomb
      , 31, American NFL player for the Pittsburgh Steelers; of a heroin overdose
    • Léonce Crenier, 74, French Catholic monk who promoted the theological/political concept of Precarity

May 11, 1963 (Saturday)

May 12, 1963 (Sunday)

May 13, 1963 (Monday)

  • The U.S. Supreme Court decided the case of Brady v. Maryland, setting the principle that in before trial in a criminal case, the prosecution disclose any exculpatory evidence (which might exonerate the defendant) to the defense team. Named for accused killer John Leo Brady, the "Brady disclosure" is now a requirement for prosecutors. Brady, who had been sentenced to death in the original 1958 case, would be afforded a new trial, resulting in a sentence of life imprisonment, from which he would eventually be paroled.[38]
  • A smallpox outbreak was first detected in Stockholm in Sweden and would not be under control until July.
  • The comic strip Modesty Blaise made its debut in England as part of the Evening Standard of London.[39]

May 14, 1963 (Tuesday)

  • The scheduled launch of Mercury 9 was halted after the countdown had reached T-60 minutes, because of difficulty in the fuel pump of the diesel engine that would pull the gantry away during liftoff. After a delay of more than two hours for repairs, countdown resumed but was halted again at T-13 minutes, when the Bermuda tracking station reported a failure of a computer converter important in the orbital insertion decision, forcing the launch to be scrubbed. At 6:00 p.m. local time, MSC's Walter C. Williams reported that the Bermuda equipment had been repaired, and the launch was rescheduled for the next day.[34]
  • In Denmark, the
    Frederick IX Bridge
    was officially opened, spanning the Guldborgsund strait between the islands of Falster and Lolland.
  • The Rolling Stones signed their first recording contract, after talent scout Dick Rowe asked them to audition for Decca Records.[40]
  • The new office of
    Parliamentary Secretary
    was created in the Canadian government.
  • Kuwait became the 111th member of the United Nations, over the objections of Iraq.
  • Died: Harold Stanley, 77, American businessman and one of the founders of Morgan Stanley in 1935[41]

May 15, 1963 (Wednesday)

May 15, 1963: Gordon Cooper leaves transfer van at launchpad
  • At 8:04 a.m. at (1304 UTC),
    Mercury program. Cooper entered the spacecraft at 5:33 a.m. (1033 UTC) for an 8:00 launch, and took a brief nap while awaiting liftoff. At T-minus 11 minutes and 30 seconds the countdown was halted for a problem in the guidance equipment, and another hold was called at T-0:19 to determine whether automatic sequencing was working. Liftoff happened four minutes after the original time, and visual tracking was possible for two minutes.[34][42] Five minutes after liftoff at 8:09 a.m., Faith 7 was inserted into an orbit that ranged from 100.2 miles (161.3 km) to 165.9 miles (267.0 km) above the Earth and reached a maximum orbital speed of 17,546.6 miles per hour (28,238.5 km/h). Temperatures inside the capsule ranged from 92 °F (33 °C) to 109 °F (43 °C), uncomfortable but tolerable, before cooling down. During his third orbit, Cooper became the first human to launch an object (the beacon) from an orbiting spacecraft. Cooper was able to see the flashing beacon on the night side of the fourth orbit.[34][42]
  • Housewife Jean Nidetch founded the Weight Watchers company, with the first meeting held at a loft above a movie theater in Little Neck, a neighborhood in the New York City borough of Queens.[43]

May 16, 1963 (Thursday)

May 16, 1963: Gordon Cooper inside Faith 7 aboard carrier USS Kearsarge
  • Astronaut Gordon Cooper returned to Earth safely after making 22 orbits and traveling 546,167 miles (878,971 km) in the
    space flight.[34][44][45]
  • Died: Oleg Penkovsky, 44, formerly a Soviet Army colonel and spy, was executed five days after being sentenced to death by a military tribunal for passing secrets to the United States and the United Kingdom.[46]

May 17, 1963 (Friday)

  • A U.S. Army OH-23 helicopter with two men on board, Captains Ben W. Stutts and Charleton W. Voltz, was shot down by North Korean ground forces after straying north of the Demilitarized Zone.[47] The two men would be freed, after 365 days of imprisonment, on May 16, 1964, following the United Nations Command agreeing to sign a statement that Stutts and Voltz had committed espionage. North Korea declined to return the helicopter.[48][49]
  • Challenger Bruno Sammartino faced champion Buddy Rogers of the World Wide Wrestling Federation (now WWE) in a professional wrestling match at New York's Madison Square Garden. Sammartino, using his signature move, "the Italian backbreaker", defeated Rogers in only 48 seconds, and would reign as the WWWF champion for the next eight years.[50]

May 18, 1963 (Saturday)

  • An accident killed 27 people, 12 of them children, who all drowned when their bus they were on was sideswiped by a passing pickup truck, and plunged into the 16-foot (4.9 m) deep Hillsboro Canal near Belle Glade, Florida.[51] Only the driver and 14 people survived. The victims were African-American farm laborers and their families, on their way home from a day of work of harvesting beans at the Kirchman Brothers Farm.[52]
  • Rocketdyne successfully tested a 25-pound-force (110 N) thrust chamber assembly (TCA) for the Gemini reentry control system. The development of a suitable ablative thrust chamber, however, remained a major problem, and testing was incomplete. Rocketdyne was already three months late in delivering TCA hardware to McDonnell, and completion of testing took three months longer than predicted.[3]
  • President for Life of Indonesia. Sukarno, who had ruled since 1945, would serve for another four years before being deposed, and would spend the rest of his life afterward under house arrest, dying on June 21, 1970.[53]
  • Died: Ernie Davis, 23, African-American football star who won the 1961 Heisman Trophy at Syracuse University; of leukemia. He had been diagnosed after signing with the NFL's Cleveland Browns.

May 19, 1963 (Sunday)

May 20, 1963 (Monday)

Petrosian
  • Tigran Petrosian won the World Chess Championship, defeating fellow Soviet grandmaster and world champion Mikhail Botvinnik, 12+12 to 9+12, to win the match after 22 games. Under the rules, Petrosian's five wins (worth one point each) and 15 draws (12 point each) brought him to 12+12 points first to win the series.[54]
  • African-American civil rights activist Medgar Evers went on the air on the WLBT-TV News in Jackson, Mississippi, to deliver an editorial in favor of integration and civil rights. WLBT allowed the unprecedented use of its airtime after pressure from the Federal Communications Commission to permit a response to segregationists. Evers would be murdered at his home three weeks later, on June 12.[55]
  • The members of
    KC-135 aircraft which carried the astronauts on two flights each. Each flight included 20 zero-gravity parabolas, each lasting 30 seconds.[3]
  • The Dutch Wonderland Family Amusement Park was opened by potato broker Earl Clark opened near Lancaster, Pennsylvania.[56]
  • Born: David Wells, American baseball player; in Torrance, California

May 21, 1963 (Tuesday)

President Shazar

May 22, 1963 (Wednesday)

May 23, 1963 (Thursday)

May 24, 1963 (Friday)

  • The
    Piotr Dolgov on October 11, 1960; Vassilievitch Zowodovsky in April 1961; and two persons, possibly a man and a woman, launched together on May 17, 1961.[62] Alexei Adzhubei, the editor of the newspaper Izvestia and the son-in-law of Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev, denied the reports of four of the five deaths in the newspaper's May 27 edition, saying that the people had been "technicians working on space equipment" and that two of them were still alive, although no denial was made about the alleged 1959 death of Siborin.[63]
  • U.S. Attorney General
    Black leaders to discuss race relations at his apartment in Manhattan. The turbulent meeting gained wide publicity and had a significant impact on Kennedy.[64][65]
  • Project Emily ended in the UK as the last squadron of Thor nuclear missile stations, located at RAF Hemswell, was disbanded.
  • Born: Michael Chabon, American novelist (The Mysteries of Pittsburgh); in Washington, D.C.
  • Died: Elmore James, 45, American blues musician; of a heart attack

May 25, 1963 (Saturday)

May 26, 1963 (Sunday)

May 27, 1963 (Monday)

  • North American began testing the half-scale two test vehicle (HSTTV) for the Paraglider Landing System Program to investigate paraglider liftoff characteristics, helicopter tow techniques, and the effects of wind-bending during high-speed tows.[3]
  • Columbia Records released The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan, singer-songwriter Bob Dylan's second and most influential studio album, which opened with the song "Blowin' in the Wind".
  • Died: Grigoris Lambrakis, 50, Greek politician, physician and Olympic athlete, died five days after being attacked.[60] More than 500,000 people attended his funeral the next day and marched in protest against Greece's right-wing government.[60]

May 28, 1963 (Tuesday)

  • A cyclone killed 22,000 people in and around the city of Comilla in East Pakistan (now Bangladesh).[74][75] Winds as high as 150 miles per hour (240 km/h) ripped the countryside, and "the many offshore islands were literally swept clean of people";[76] Chittagong and Cox's Bazar lost 5,000 people each, and waves were powerful enough to send ships 0.5 miles (0.80 km) inland, including four ocean liners.
  • Born: Gavin Harrison, British drummer; in Harrow
  • Died: Klaus Clusius, 60, German physical chemist

May 29, 1963 (Wednesday)

  • Titan II flight N-20, the 19th in the series of Air Force research and development flights, failed 55 seconds after liftoff from Cape Canaveral and yielded no data. The U.S. Air Force announced that no further Titan II development flights would carry the POGO fix, but the decision was reversed and POGO fix was flown again on Titan II flight N-25 and two later flights.[3]
  • The vertical test facility (VTF) at Martin-Baltimore was activated with a 165-foot (50 m) tower and an adjacent three-story blockhouse with ground equipment similar to that used at NASA's
    Complex 19. After systems tests concluded, the launch vehicle was presented to the U.S. Air Force for acceptance.[3]
  • On the 50th anniversary of its stormy première, The Rite of Spring was performed by the London Symphony Orchestra, conducted by 88-year-old Pierre Monteux at the Royal Albert Hall. The composer, 81-year-old Igor Stravinsky, was in the audience as an honored guest.
  • Jim Reeves was welcomed to Ireland by show band singers Maisie McDaniel and Dermot O'Brien, at the start of his tour of Ireland, and conducted a week-long tour of U.S. military bases in England.
  • The
    U.S. Department of Defense submitted its report on the Mercury 9 mission.[34]
  • Born:
  • Died: Vissarion Shebalin, 61, Soviet classical composer

May 30, 1963 (Thursday)

May 31, 1963 (Friday)

References

  1. ^ "Yank Team On Top Of The World". Miami News. May 2, 1963. p. 1.
  2. ^ "Conquest Of Everest Led By Sherpa Guide". Miami News. May 3, 1963. p. 1.
  3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n Public Domain This article incorporates text from this source, which is in the public domain. Grimwood, James M.; Hacker, Barton C.; Vorzimmer, Peter J. "PART II (A) Development and Qualification January 1963 through December 1963". Project Gemini Technology and Operations - A Chronology. NASA Special Publication-4002. NASA. Retrieved 22 February 2023.
  4. ^ "Indonesia Takes Over Half Island".
    Miami News
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  5. ^ "Nixon Moving To New York". Miami News. May 2, 1963. p. 1.
  6. ^ "Churchill Quitting Politics". Miami News. May 2, 1963. p. 1.
  7. ^ "Alabama Children Jam Jails". Miami News. May 7, 1963. p. 1 – via Google News.
  8. ^ Murray, Michael D., ed. (1999). "Civil Rights Coverage". The Encyclopedia of Television News. Greenwood Publishing Group. p. 45.
  9. ECM Publishers, Inc. Archived from the original
    on December 24, 2010. Retrieved March 29, 2024.
  10. ^ "31 Dead In Brazil Air Crash". Detroit Free Press. May 4, 1963. p. 1.
  11. ^ "Accident description PP-CDW." Aviation Safety Network.
  12. ^ "New Townsite — Condingup (per 484/60)". Western Australia Government Gazette. 3 May 1963. p. 1963:1182.
  13. ^ Aviation Safety Network
  14. ^ "54 Killed Die as African Plane Hits Mountain; Report U.S. Courier Survives Crash". Chicago Tribune. May 6, 1963. p. 2.
  15. ^ "Injuries Fatal To U.S. Courier". New York Daily News. May 11, 1963. p. 10.
  16. ^ "Rocky's Bridey Murphy!". Miami News. May 5, 1963. p. 1.
  17. ^ "Carol Burnett Marries". Miami News. May 5, 1963. p. 1.
  18. ^ "185 Drown In Nile As Boat Sinks". Miami News. May 5, 1963. p. 1.
  19. ^ "1,000 Negroes Defy Alabama Police In Wild Protest". Miami News. May 5, 1963. p. 1.
  20. UPI
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  21. .
  22. San Antonio Express
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  23. ^ Gray, Jeremy. "Dick Gregory among hundreds arrested; Bull Connor had jail built at state fairgrounds". The Birmingham News. Retrieved 30 November 2020.
  24. ^ Russin, Joseph M.; Weil, Andrew T. (January 24, 1973). "The Crimson Takes Leary, Alpert to Task". The Harvard Crimson.
  25. ^ Godara, Lal Chand (2001). Handbook of Antennas in Wireless Communications. CRC Press. p. 2-2.
  26. .
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  28. ^ imdb.com
  29. ^ "History of CVS Corporation". FundingUniverse. Retrieved September 5, 2013.
  30. ABC-CLIO
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  31. ^ James Waller, Prejudice Across America (University Press of Mississippi, 2000), p. 187.
  32. ^ Claudette Hegel, Newbery and Caldecott: Trivia and More for Every Day of the Year (Libraries Unlimited, 2000), p. 45.
  33. ^ "U.S., Canada Agree on A-Weapons", Miami News, May 12, 1963, p. 1.
  34. ^ a b c d e f g h Public Domain This article incorporates text from this source, which is in the public domain. Grimwood, James M. "PART III (B) Operational Phase of Project Mercury June 1962 through June 12, 1963". Project Mercury - A Chronology. NASA Special Publication-4001. NASA. Retrieved 17 February 2023.
  35. ^ "Television Is the 'American Timid Giant'". El Paso Herald Post. May 15, 1963. p. A10.
  36. ^ Epstein, Daniel Mark (2011). The Ballad of Bob Dylan: A Portrait. HarperCollins.
  37. IAAF
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  38. ^ "E. Clinton Bamberger Jr., lawyer who won 'Brady rule' for criminal defendants, dies at 90", by Emily Langer, The Washington Post, February 18, 2017
  39. ^ "O'Donnell, Peter", in Encyclopedia of Pulp Fiction Writers, Lee Server, ed. (Infobase Publishing, 2009) p. 201.
  40. Rosen Publishing Group
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  41. ^ "Harold Stanley, 77, is Dead". The New York Times. May 15, 1963. Retrieved 12 December 2015.
  42. ^ a b "We Fly Coop!". Miami News. May 15, 1963. p. 1 – via Google News.
  43. USA TODAY
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  44. ^ "Cooper Splashdown Perfect, Navigates Re-Entry Manually". Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. May 17, 1963. p. 1.
  45. Random House Digital
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  46. ^ Wallace, Robert; et al. (2008). Spycraft: The Secret History of the CIA's Spytechs from Communism to Al-Qaeda. Penguin. p. 31.
  47. ^ "Korean Reds Shoot Down U.S. Copter". Miami News. May 17, 1963. p. 1.
  48. Tucson Daily Citizen. Tucson, Arizona
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  49. ^ Downs, Chuck (1999). Over the Line: North Korea's Negotiating Strategy. American Enterprise Institute. pp. 112–113.
  50. ^ Sullivan, Kevin (2010). The WWE Championship: A Look Back at the Rich History of the WWE Championship. Simon & Schuster. p. 10.
  51. ^ Miller, Gene (May 19, 1963). "27 Die as Bus Skids Into Canal". Miami Herald. p. 1.
  52. ^ Tucker, William; MacLeese, Alan (May 19, 1963). "Bus Plunges Into Canal And 27 Die". Miami News. p. 1.
  53. ^ Jessup, John E., ed. (1998). "Sukarno, Achmed". An Encyclopedic Dictionary of Conflict and Conflict Resolution, 1945-1996. Greenwood Publishing Group. pp. 701–703.
  54. ^ "History of the World Chess Championship: Botvinnik vs Petrosian 1963". chessgames.com.
  55. Cengage Learning
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  56. ^ Futrell, Jim (2002). Amusement Parks of Pennsylvania. Stackpole Books. pp. 171–172.
  57. Tucson Daily Citizen. Tucson, Arizona
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  58. All Media Network
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  59. ^ Taylor, John (2010). Into the Heart of European Poetry. Transaction Publishers. p. 161.
  60. ^
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  61. Government Printing Office
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  62. ^ "Russian Deaths in Space". Miami News. May 24, 1963. p. 1.
  63. ^ "Reds Deny Four Died In Space". Miami News. May 28, 1963. p. 1.
  64. ProQuest 142063136. Retrieved May 21, 2013 – via ProQuest
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  65. ^ "Robert Kennedy Fails to Sway Negroes at Secret Talks Here". The New York Times. May 26, 1963. Retrieved May 21, 2013 – via ProQuest.
  66. ^ Daves, Jim; Porter, W. Thomas (2001). The Glory of Washington: The People and Events That Shaped Husky Athletic Tradition. Sports Publishing LLC. p. 189.
  67. ^ "The United States Of Africa — A Plan". Miami News. May 26, 1963. p. 1.
  68. ^ du Plessis, Max (2006). "The African Union". International Law: A South African Perspective. Kluwer. p. 546.
  69. ^ "Aldo Moro Next Chief Of Italy". Miami News. May 26, 1963. p. 1.
  70. ^ "Mike Myers Biography at". TV Guide. Retrieved October 16, 2013.
  71. ^ "Kenya: 1963 House of Representatives election results" Electoral Institute for the Sustainability of Democracy in Africa
  72. ^ Thomas P. Grazulis, The Tornado: Nature's Ultimate Windstorm (University of Oklahoma Press, 2003) pp. 33-34.
  73. ^ Rizwan Hussain, Pakistan And The Emergence Of Islamic Militancy In Afghanistan (Ashgate Publishing, 2005) p. 73.
  74. ^ "22,000 Dead After Cyclone". Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. June 3, 1963. p. 1.
  75. Infobase Publishing
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  76. ^ Nash, Jay Robert (1976). Darkest Hours. Rowman & Littlefield. pp. 162–163.
  77. ^ Williams, Brandt (May 2, 2002). "Minnesotan hailed as a hero of Sept. 11 buried at Fort Snelling ". Minnesota Public Radio.
  78. ^ "New Low Calorie Tab Goes on Market Soon", Thomasville (NC) Times Enterprise May 30, 1963, p. 8; Advertising began in the June 6 issues of some newspapers, including the Arlington Heights (IL) Herald, where the beverage was promoted as a substitute for cola in mixed drinks.
  79. ^ "Parnelli Jones Stunned, Dazed And Lot Richer", Miami News, May 31, 1963, p. 1C.