September 1964

September 2, 1964 (Wednesday)

• Hubert H. Humphrey, despite the state Democratic Party's failure to file certification papers before the midnight deadline on August 31.^[8] "The placing of the names of national candidates before the voters on equal footing is of primary importance to the voters of the nation," said Synhorst, adding that "The people of Iowa and the country should not be penalized by an oversight on the part of others or for a lack of courage on my part."^[9]
  Johnson and Humphrey would win Iowa's nine electoral votes in November.
• At the request of President Johnson,
  hate groups. "The purpose of this program", Hoover wrote in a memorandum to the FBI field offices, "is to expose, disrupt and otherwise neutralize the activities of the various klans and hate organizations, their leadership and adherents."^[10]
• The murder of a
  Geylang Serai section of Singapore, believed to have been committed by Singaporean Chinese assailants, triggered rioting within the Malay community. Before the violence abated, 36 people would be killed and more than 500 injured.^[11]
• Having caused considerable damage and deaths in the United States, Cuba, Haiti, the Dominican Republic and Guadeloupe during late August, Hurricane Cleo, now over the Atlantic, intensified to hurricane force again, before dissipating three days later.^[12][13]
• Born: Keanu Reeves, Canadian film actor best known for playing Neo in The Matrix and the titular assassin in the John Wick franchise; in Beirut, Lebanon
• Died:
  • Alvin York, 76, American war hero and Medal of Honor winner whose life was commemorated in the popular film Sergeant York in 1941
  • Francisco Craveiro Lopes, 70, President of Portugal from 1951 to 1958
  • Glenn A. Black
    , 64, American archaeologist

September 3, 1964 (Thursday)

• Because the Democratic Party was a day late on filing the necessary papers to place incumbent President Johnson and his running mate, Hubert H. Humphrey, on the ballot in South Dakota for the November general election. Secretary of State of South Dakota, Essie Wiedenman, refused to certify the candidates because the party had missed the deadline that had expired at midnight the day before. In place of the required forms, she said, she had been handed "a piece of paper" that was typed up and signed by state Democratic Party leaders to attest that Johnson and Humphrey were the party nominees. South Dakota's Attorney General (and future Governor) Frank Farrar voiced his opinion that the required paper, which was put in the mail and didn't arrive until the morning after the deadline, "arrived too late too be certified," raising the possibility that Johnson and Humphrey would not be eligible for the state's four electoral votes.^[14][15] However, Farrar ruled the next day that South Dakota law was ambiguous about certifying presidential candidates for the ballot, and cleared the way for President Johnson to be on the ballot in all 50 states.^[16]
• The Wilderness Act was signed into law in the United States, protecting 9,139,721 acres^[17] (14,280 square miles or 36,987 km²) of federal land in 54 areas and providing a legal definition of "wilderness" as "an area where the earth and its community of life are untrammeled by man, where man himself is a visitor who does not remain", and creating the National Wilderness Preservation System. The act had passed, 374 to 1 in the U.S. House of Representatives and 73 to 12 in the U.S. Senate.^[18] Fifty years later, the protected wilderness would have added almost exactly 100 million more acres and would cover 109,138,248 acres (171,000 mi² or 443,000 km²) in 801 protected sites.^[19]
• Prime Minister Tunku Abdul Rahman of Malaysia proclaimed a state of emergency in a nationwide radio and television broadcast, after concluding that Indonesia was preparing to stage a massive attack on the Malaysian mainland. The day before, Indonesian paratroopers had landed in the Malaysian state of Johore.^[20][21]
• Prime Minister Nikita Khrushchev of the Soviet Union accepted an invitation from Chancellor Ludwig Erhard to visit West Germany, to take place in November or December after the U.S. presidential election.^[22] Khrushchev, however, would be deposed in October, before the state visit could take place.
• Two days after his nomination for U.S. Senate, Robert F. Kennedy announced his resignation as United States Attorney General.^[23]

September 4, 1964 (Friday)

• Richard Sorge, a Soviet spy who had been hanged in Japan in 1944 after the Soviets had refused to exchange their own prisoners for him, received posthumous recognition from the Communist Party with the publication of an article in Pravda, celebrating the bravery and achievements of "Comrade Sorge". The campaign marked a change in state policy not to acknowledge its espionage operations to the Soviet public. Twenty years after his death, Sorge would be awarded the nation's highest honor, Hero of the Soviet Union; his likeness would appear on a postage stamp; a Moscow street would be renamed in his honor; and a tanker ship would be named for him.^[24]
• Aerojet-General all felt GLV-2 should fly, and NASA accepted their recommendation.^[25]
• In
  presidential election.^[26][27] The American CIA "became involved in extensive covert actions to ensure Allende would not win," an author would note later, contributing almost four million dollars to Frei's campaign to finance direct mail, radio advertisements, posters, leaflets and counterpropaganda.^[28] Frei received 1,409,012 votes, Allende had 977,902 and a third candidate, Julio Duran, had 125,233.^[29] Allende would defeat Frei in the 1970 presidential election, and would die in 1973 during a violent coup d'état.^[30]
• The shortest session in the history of the United States Senate — two seconds — took place in Washington after the
  president pro tempore, Senator Lee Metcalf of Montana, had called the Senate to order. He quickly said, "Under the previous order the Senate stands adjourned until Tuesday noon next," and struck the gavel.^[31]
• All 39 people aboard VASP Flight 141 were killed when the airliner crashed into the side of the Pico de Caledonia, a mountain in Brazil, while on its way from Recife to São Paulo. The plane had departed from Vitória and was off course when it collided into the slope at an elevation of about 6,400 feet (2,000 m).^[32]
• An all-white jury in
  Lemuel Penn. Joseph Howard Sims and Cecil William Myers remained under indictment on federal civil rights violations.^[33]
• At 8:23 in the evening, the United States successfully launched the 1,000-pound (450 kg)
  Cape Kennedy.^[34][35] OGO 1 would still be in orbit around the Earth 50 years after its launch.^[36]
• The Forth Road Bridge, spanning 8,241 feet (2,512 m) over Scotland's Firth of Forth, opened for highway and pedestrian traffic. Connecting Fife with Edinburgh, the bridge replaced a ferry service that had existed for centuries.
• Died:
  James Coburn, 38, American criminal; by electrocution in Alabama for robbery, the last person in the United States to be executed for a crime other than murder^[37]

September 5, 1964 (Saturday)

• The Panamanian cargo ship Dorar, with a crew of 57, sank in the harbor at Hong Kong after being battered by Typhoon Ruby. Only 30 of the crew were rescued, and the other 27 were missing and presumed dead.^[38]
• In the final of the
  1964 Gillette Cup cricket competition, a one-day cricket competition where the matches could be completed in a single visit, Sussex defeated Warwickshire by 8 wickets at Lord's.^[39]
• In the second annual
  United States in the championship match, held in Philadelphia.^[40]
• At Stanleyville, rebels who had seized control of the city proclaimed the "People's Republic of the Congo", with Christophe Gbenye as its President.^[41][42]
• Died:
  CPUSA, passed away during a visit to Moscow. The Soviet government would accord to her a full state funeral.^[43]

September 6, 1964 (Sunday)

• After seven seasons, the lead human characters were written off the television series Lassie. In the story line, Timmy Martin (Jon Provost) and his adoptive parents Ruth (June Lockhart) and Paul (Hugh Reilly departed for Australia, but Lassie could not go with them because of quarantine laws. In 1957, Tommy Rettig (as Jeff Miller) had departed after four seasons and Provost had become the collie's new owner. The shows with Provost would be syndicated under the title Timmy and Lassie, while those with Rettig were shown as Jeff's Collie.^[44]
• political asylum in the United States.^[45] Barwich's wife crossed into West Germany the same day, using forged identity papers, but two of their children were arrested while trying to cross at another checkpoint.^[46]
• A ceasefire went into effect in the state of Nagaland between India and the secession leaders of the Federal Government of Nagaland, after being brokered by the Nagaland Baptist Church Council and signed on August 10.^[47][48]
• Died:
  Richard M. Nixon when he was defending himself against accusations of receiving illegal contributions. As part of his speech, Nixon denied receiving anything except for a gift to the family from an admirer who had heard "that our two youngsters would like to have a dog... And our little girl— Tricia, the 6-year-old— named it Checkers. And you know, the kids, like all kids, love the dog and I just want to say this right now, that regardless of what they say about it, we're gonna keep it."^[49]

September 7, 1964 (Monday)

• "The Daisy Ad", a television commercial and one of the most controversial political advertisements in the history of American presidential campaigns, was aired for the first and last time. U.S. President Johnson had formally opened his campaign for election to a full term, and the one-minute spot appeared during a break from NBC's showing of the 1951 film David and Bathsheba.^[50] The TV spot began with a little girl counting the petals on a daisy; after she had counted to nine, a voiceover gave a countdown from ten and, at zero, the picture of the girl faded and was replaced by a mushroom cloud from a nuclear blast. President Johnson's voice then closed the ad with the warning "These are the stakes. To make a world in which all of God's children can live, or to go into the dark. We must either love each other or we must die."^[51] Dean Burch, the Chairman of the Republican National Committee charged that, "The only innuendo that can be drawn is that President Johnson is a careful man and that Barry Goldwater is careless and reckless. It is libel per se. It is a violent political lie. It implies that Goldwater is toying with the American people."^[52] At the end of the week, U.S. Senator Everett Dirksen complained to the National Association of Broadcasters that the commercial "is in violation of your widely-heralded code of ethics" and that broadcasters who aired it should face sanctions.^[53] One author would later note 50 years later that "it could be argued that today's gotcha culture, using innuendo-based TV attack ads, began with this ad",^[54] while another would comment that "The year 1964 witnessed the fusion of political strategy and political advertising, and every subsequent race has relied on essentially the same model."^[55]
• Edward du Cann of the British Board of Trade announced the signing of the largest trade deal in the history of British relations with the Soviet Union, with the Soviet purchasing agency Techmashimport and the British conglomerate Polyspinners, Ltd. agreeing for the supply of British textile machinery to a polyester fiber plant being constructed in Krasnoyarsk in Siberia.^[56] In all, the United Kingdom agreed to advanced $67 million of credit over a 15-year period.^[57]
• The National Defense Council of East Germany began a program "unique among the Warsaw Pact countries" allied with the Soviet Union to create a branch of national service composed of "unarmed labor units that required neither military ranks nor oaths of allegiance to the flag" as a response to the resistance of many of the younger males who had refused to participate in compulsory military service.^[58]
• Construction began at the
  Mururoa atoll in the south Pacific Ocean as the first civilian workers arrived to convert the French Polynesian island into a nuclear test site for France's Centre d'Experimentations du Pacifique; in all, 57,750 people would work at the Mururoa site between 1964 and 1996.^[59]
• Born:
  • Eazy-E (stage name for Eric Lynn Wright), American rapper, founder of Ruthless Records, and co-founder of the gangsta rap group N.W.A (d. 1995); in Compton^[60]
  • Andy Hug, Switzerland-born martial artist, 1992 karate World Cup champion and 1996 World Kickboxing Association champion (d. 2000); in Zürich
• Died:
  • Walter A. Brown, 59, American sports executive who founded the Boston Celtics and co-founded the Basketball Association of America and helped in the merger that created the National Basketball Association; since 1951, Brown had been owner of both the NBA Celtics and the NHL's Boston Bruins.
  • Georges Thierry d'Argenlieu, 75, French priest, diplomat, naval officer and admiral

September 8, 1964 (Tuesday)

• With the day after Labor Day being the opener at the time for most schools in the United States, the first school opening since the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 marked the end of prohibiting American children from attending a particular public school because of their race, although school systems were allowed a time to develop plans for full integration. Desegregation proceeded peacefully in places where it had been fiercely opposed, including Montgomery, Alabama; Gadsden, Alabama; Albany, Georgia; Columbus, Georgia; and Mount Sterling, Kentucky. However, officials in Canton, Mississippi, turned away 13 black students from the town's all-white high school, and announced they would not allow integration until receiving a formal court order.^[61]
• Public schools reopened in Prince Edward County, Virginia, for the first time in five years, after the county was ordered by a federal court to comply with the desegregation requirements of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.^[62] Since 1959, county school officials had taken the unusual step of keeping the white and black schools closed rather than to obey an order to desegregate. On the first day of classes, only seven of the nearly 1,400 students were white, with the rest of the county's 1,200 white children continuing classes at the county's private all-white high school.^[63]
• The
  International Red Cross.^[64]
• Todor Zhivkov, leader of the Bulgarian Communist Party and the government of the People's Republic of Bulgaria, issued the Amnesty Act to provide for amnesty for nearly all political prisoners who had been arrested between 1944 and 1951 during the early days of the Communist takeover. The act had been "passed to coincide with the 20th anniversary of the 'socialist revolution' on 9 September 1944."^[65]
• The
  Tran Thien Khiem.^[66]
• Chief Minister of the Indian state of Kerala, after state legislators in the capital at Thiruvananthapuram voted 72 to 50 in favor of a motion of no confidence in Sankar's government.^[67]
• Born:
  • Scott Levy, American professional wrestler and multiple WWE Hardcore Championship titlist, known by his ring name, Raven; in Philadelphia
  • Mitchell Whitfield, American film and TV actor; in Brooklyn

September 9, 1964 (Wednesday)

• President Johnson held his first meeting since the Gulf of Tonkin incident with his ambassador to South Vietnam, Maxwell D. Taylor and with national security advisers and raised the question of "whether anyone doubted Vietnam was worth the effort" of going to war; at the time, everyone present agreed that it was necessary to fight in order to protect the credibility of the United States worldwide.^[68] According to notes taken of the meeting, Taylor said that the U.S. "could not afford to let Hanoi win, in terms of our overall position in the area and in the world". General Earle Wheeler, the new Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said that the joint chiefs agreed "that if we should lose in South Vietnam, we would lose Southeast Asia", after which "country after country on the periphery would give way and look toward Communist China as the rising power of the area."
• chairman Kim Il Sung spoke at a rally in Sinuiju
  and announced that "From now on, all new major plants must be built underground instead of on the surface" in order to protect the Communist nation's industry from aerial bombardment. Over the next ten years, strategically important industries (such as munitions and chemicals) would have "a redundant set of more critical components constructed underground" to supplement the factories on the surface; decades later, an author would opine that North Korea "is probably the world's most heavily fortified country."
• Born: Aleksandar Hemon, Bosnian-American author, essayist, critic, television writer, and screenwriter; in Sarajevo, SR Bosnia and Herzegovina^[69]
• Died:
  • Sakari Tuomioja, 53, former Prime Minister of Finland (1953—54) and the United Nations mediator in the Cyprus dispute, died 24 days after suffering a stroke while in Geneva.
  • H. N. Sanyal, 62, the Solicitor General of India, was strangled in his bedroom in New Delhi. Sanyal was the apparent victim of a burglary.^[70]

September 10, 1964 (Thursday)

• John G. Diefenbaker, "was elated at what he believed was the end of the 'Pearson pennant," and "bound himself to accept the committee's recommendation if it was 'virtually' unanimous" p186; on October 29, the committee would recommend a design of red vertical bars and a single maple leaf, which would ultimately become Canada's flag.^[72]
• Three international agreements were signed at Paris by the 10 members of Europe's International Commission on Civil Status (ICCS), with the ICCS member governments agreeing on conventions "to facilitate the celebration of marriages abroad"; "the exchange of information relating to acquisition of nationality"; and "decisions concerning the rectification of civil status records".^[73] At the time, the ICCS was composed of the 10 EEC nations (Belgium, France, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, and West Germany) as well as Switzerland, Turkey, Greece and Austria.
• The African Development Bank (AfDB) was founded under the leadership of the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (ECA). On August 4, 1963, an agreement was signed in Khartoum in the Sudan by governors of the central banks of 23 African nations. The majority of the AfDB's initial capital (65 percent) was subscribed by 20 of the African nations.^[74]
• The Convention on the Territorial Sea and the Contiguous Zone, signed at the United Nations on April 29, 1958, went into effect after ratification of the required number of nations.^[75]
• Hurricane Dora made landfall near St. Augustine, Florida, with winds of 110 mph (175 km/h), becoming the first tropical cyclone on record to make landfall in the region.^[76]
• Born: Jack Ma, Chinese business magnate and billionaire who founded the Alibaba Group of internet businesses; as Ma Yun in Hangzhou, Zhejiang^[77]

September 11, 1964 (Friday)

September 18, 1964 (Friday)

• The
  Gerald R. Ford, Allen Dulles and John J. McCloy endorsed the conclusion, while Hale Boggs, John Sherman Cooper and Richard Russell Jr. "thought it improbable".^[121]
• Bronx.^[122] A researcher would note later that Helen Dettwiler, a champion golfer, had appeared on baseball broadcasts for the General Mills sports network during the 1940s.^{[123][non sequitur}
  ]
• At least 38 members of the United States Senate chose to stay away from a vote on a remapping of congressional districts. On the first roll call, fewer than 40 members answered the roll call, and the Senate's Sergeant at Arms, Joseph C. Duke, was ordered to search Washington for missing Senators and, if necessary, arrest them so that a quorum of 51 could be present for a vote to take place. After an hour, Duke was able to bring the number present up to 49, still short of a quorum. At the time, 22 of the U.S. Senators who were campaigning for re-election were believed to have a good reason to be out of town but, as one report noted, "The other 29 absentees had no such excuse."^[124]
• On American TV, the ABC network introduced two new shows that would become popular in syndication. Jonny Quest, an animated cartoon about a boy who accompanies his scientist father on adventures, made its debut, in color, at 7:30 p.m. Eastern time. Although it would only run one season, its 26 episodes would be seen in reruns for decades. At 8:30, The Addams Family, a sitcom based on the macabre cartoons of Charles Addams in the magazine The New Yorker, began the first of two seasons and 64 episodes.^[125]
• In a matter similar to the second Gulf of Tonkin incident with the USS Turner Joy, two other destroyers, the USS Morton and the USS Richard S. Edwards detected radar signals and concluded that an attack from North Vietnamese patrol boats was imminent. The destroyers fired multiple shells, but, as with the Turner Joy incident, were ultimately unable to locate any enemy vessels.^[126][127]
• Dr.
  Roman Catholic Church, Pope Paul VI, at the Vatican. The two religious leaders spoke for 25 minutes.^[128]
• In
  Princess Anne-Marie of Denmark in the last royal wedding in Greece. Only nine days after her 18th birthday, Anne-Marie became Europe's youngest queen. Guests at the ceremony included eight reigning monarchs.^[129]
• Died: Seán O'Casey, 84, Irish dramatist^[130]

September 19, 1964 (Saturday)

• The Danish dredging ship Kaptajn Nielsen capsized in Moreton Bay off the coast of Queensland, Australia, killing nine crew and trapping 13 more, who had to rely upon the limited air provided by a trapped air pocket. One crew member, 21-year-old Erik Paulsen, succeeded in swimming his way from the air pocket down and out of the hull and subsequently swam for three hours to reach Moreton Island and alert authorities. The other twelve crew remained trapped for twelve hours in rapidly fouling air before a team of divers was eventually able to locate and rescue them from the capsized hull.^[131][132]
• Cult leader and survivalist John Robert Harrell, who had created the Christian-Patriots Defense League, was arrested after 17 months as a fugitive.^[133][134] In arresting Harrell, the sheriff of Lawrence County, Arkansas, discovered two teenage girls who had been missing for nearly a year. A meter reader had reported his suspicion that someone was being held captive in the house, prompting Sheriff Kenneth Guthrie to investigate Harrell's home.^[135]
• At the
  Last Night of the Proms, Sir Malcolm Sargent conducted the BBC Symphony Orchestra in works by Hector Berlioz, Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, Alan Rawsthorne, Felix Mendelssohn and Richard Strauss.^[136]
• Flipper, a television adventure series starring a dolphin and the family that has befriended him, began the first of three seasons on the NBC network. The show was based on a 1963 film of the same name.^[137]
• Born:
  • Yvonne Vera, Zimbabwean novelist (d. 2005); in Bulawayo, Southern Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe)^[138]
  • Kim Richards, American actress, socialite, and television personality; in Mineola, New York^[139]

September 20, 1964 (Sunday)

• Steeplechase Park, a United States amusement park that had operated on Brooklyn's Coney Island for 68 summers, closed permanently at 7:35 in the evening. The farewell was marked with a band playing Auld Lang Syne and a bell tolling 68 times, marking the end of its 68th year. One author present would recount that "Thousands of lights were switched off slowly, row after row on each toll of the bell. As it turned out, the park went dark for the last time."^[140] Four days earlier, the Bronx's amusement park, Freedomland U.S.A., had closed its doors and filed for bankruptcy after five-seasons as "The World's Largest Entertainment Center".^[141]
• The only political party allowed in
  Algerian parliamentary election. Official figures showed that 671,430 voters (13%) out of the 5,177,631 cast disapproved of the slate of candidates for the 138 seat National Assembly.^[142]
• The 339-ton Japanese tanker Nikka Maru sank immediately, drowning all nine of its crewmen, moments after colliding with the much larger (11,223 tons) British freighter Eastern Take off Nagoya, Japan.^[143]
• Born: Maggie Cheung, Hong Kong film actress; as Cheung Man-yuk in British Hong Kong^[144]

September 21, 1964 (Monday)

• The Philadelphia Phillies baseball team, in first place in the National League and 6+1⁄2 games ahead of its opponents with only 12 games left in the season, began a losing streak that would later be referred to in Phillies lore as "The Curse of Chico Ruiz". Ruiz, a rookie for the Cincinnati Reds was on third base with two men out in the sixth inning, and "stole home" in what a reporter would refer to the next day as a "dumb, dumb baseball play",^[145] and scoring the lone run in a 1–0 loss for Philadelphia.^[146] The loss was the first of ten in a row for the Phils, which would conclude with a loss to the eventual pennant-winner, the St. Louis Cardinals, on September 30.^[147]
• The island nation of
  Giorgio Borġ Olivier continued as Prime Minister. The State of Malta would become a presidential republic on December 13, 1974.^[149]
• The
  U.S. Air Force Colonel Joseph F. Cotton. It departed the runway at North American's test facility at Palmdale, California, at 8:38 in the morning and, though capable of flying more than 2,000 miles per hour (3,200 km/h) at high altitudes, did not exceed 280 knots (about 322 mph or 519 km/h).^[150][151]
• The United States kept yachting's America's Cup for the 20th consecutive time since the competition began in 1851, as the 12-metre (39 ft) Constellation, owned by the New York Yacht Club and skippered by Eric Ridder and Bob Bavier, won the fourth race in a sweep of the best-of-seven series against the Royal Thames Yacht Club and its boat, Sovereign, captained by Paul Anderson.
• Born: Dr. Jorge Drexler, Urugayan ear, nose and throat specialist and Academy Award-winning songwriter; in Montevideo
• Died:
  • Chairman of the Council of Ministers and head of government since the nation's founding in 1949.^[152] Communist Party Secretary Walter Ulbricht appointed Willi Stoph to replace Grotewohl.^[153]
  • Raymond Brutinel, 82, French-born Canadian entrepreneur and pioneer in mechanized warfare

September 22, 1964 (Tuesday)

• The NBC network introduced The Man from U.N.C.L.E., an adventure show created in the wake of the popularity of spy films. Starring Robert Vaughn and David McCallum, the series about the fictitious "United Network Command for Law and Enforcement" would have 105 episodes in four seasons. Critics were generally negative, with comments like "Plagiarism isn't quite the word for this; Bond and his opposite number, Napoleon Solo, are more like killing cousins,"^[154] and "it just doesn't prove very entertaining",^[155] while UPI critic Rick DuBrow, noting that Vaughn was "looking forward to the day when he can quit acting", said, "There's no time like the present."^[156]
• Fiddler on the Roof opened at the Imperial Theatre on Broadway for the first of 3,242 performances. The musical, with music by Jerry Bock and lyrics by Sheldon Harnick, was based on the stories of Sholem Aleichem.^[157] Actor Zero Mostel starred in the lead role of Tevye, father of five daughters. Before opening on Broadway, the play had been perfected during the summer in performances in Washington, D.C. and in Detroit.^[158] The final performance of the original production would take place on July 2, 1972.^[159]
• The Coyote Canyon Fire broke out near Santa Barbara, California, after being initially caused by a car's faulty exhaust.^[160] It would rage for several days, burning 67,000 acres (105 mi² or 271 km²) of backcountry, along with 106 homes.
• An Triail (The Trial), a play written by Máiréad Ní Ghráda and performed entirely in the Irish language, was given its first performance.^[161]
• Died:
  Grand National Series
  of NASCAR races, which still had eight events left.

September 23, 1964 (Wednesday)

• In Saudi Arabia, the new College of Petroleum and Minerals held its first classes, with 67 young men enrolling at its campus in Dhahran. By 1975, it had become a public university and, in 1986, would be renamed for the reigning monarch as King Fahd University of Petroleum and Minerals. It now^[when?] has an enrollment of 10,000 students.^[162]
• In the United States, the new University of South Alabama held its first classes, becoming the first state-supported college institution in the 20th century in Alabama. Initial enrollment for the university, located in Mobile, was 750 students.^[163] Fifty years later, it would have almost 17,000 students.
• Charles Helou, the former Education Minister and a former editor of a French-language newspaper, was inaugurated as President of Lebanon.^[164]
• Peace negotiations between the government of India and the Naga National Council began in the village of Chedema.^[165]
• At the autumnal equinox, the Order of Bards, Ovates and Druids (OBOD) was founded in the UK.^[166]
• Died: Fred M. Wilcox, 56, American motion picture director best known for Forbidden Planet and for Lassie Come Home

September 24, 1964 (Thursday)

• At 7:30 p.m. Eastern time, the CBS television network debuted The Munsters, a family comedy that, like ABC's new show The Addams Family, was created in the wake of the popularity of monster movies. Both shows would appear for two seasons, and both would be popular in syndication. Acknowledging the similar themes of the two shows, UPI critic Rick Du Brow would note that "'The Munsters, for instance, are almost lovable" and "perhaps wiser than the Addamses in playing their abnormality with more absolute normality",^[167] and another critic would comment that "to say the show won't be a hit would take more courage than facing up to Frankenstein inside a graveyard fence."^[168]
• In
  Whitsuntide period in the late spring.^[169]
• In Washington, the Warren Commission presented President Johnson with an 888-page summary of its investigation into the assassination of John F. Kennedy, with a pledge that the summary would be released to the public at 6:30 p.m. Eastern time on Sunday, September 27.^[170] The report was supplemented with "26 volumes of supporting documents, testimony, or depositions of 552 witnesses and more than 3,100 exhibits."^[171]
• A background briefing for the press regarding NASA astronomy programs was held in Washington. Nancy Roman, who directed the agency's astronomy activities, disclosed that NASA was studying the feasibility of a crewed orbiting telescope. Although the telescope would be designed to operate automatically, astronauts would adjust its focus, collect film packets, and make any necessary repairs.^[172]
• Born:
  • That Vegan Teacher (Kadie Karen Diekmeyer), controversial Canadian animal rights activist and former educator, mainly known for promoting veganism; in Montreal, Quebec^[173]
  • Rafael Palmeiro, Cuban-born American major league baseball player who had 3,020 hits and 569 home runs in his career; in Havana

September 25, 1964 (Friday)

• President
  Ciudad Juarez, Chihuahua, to commemorate the two nations' agreement to settle the Chamizal dispute. Johnson and López then traveled to a ceremony in El Paso, followed by a visit to El Chamizal to unveil a marker for the new boundary marker for the 0.5-mile (0.80 km) northward shifting of the border.^[174]
• Later in the day, President Johnson flew to Oklahoma for the dedication of the new Eufaula Dam and spoke about national issues and the Vietnam War. In words not noted until after his escalation of the war, Johnson said "There are those that say you ought to go north and drop bombs, to try to wipe out the supply lines, and they think that would escalate the war. We don't want our American boys to do the fighting for Asian boys."^{[175][176][177]}
• U.S. presidential adviser
  People's Republic of China from becoming the fifth nation (after the U.S., the USSR, the UK and France) to develop nuclear weapons. President Johnson had already ruled out taking unilateral action on September 15; Dobrynin told Bundy that the Chinese nuclear capability was not a great concern and, according to Bundy's memorandum of the conversation, "gently remarked on the continued existence of the treaty" between the USSR and China.^[178]
  China would have its first successful nuclear bomb three weeks later, on October 16.
• FRELIMO, the Frente de Libertação de Moçambique (Mozambique Liberation Front), a nationalist group led by Dr. Eduardo Mondlane and dedicated to making the colony of Portuguese East Africa independent, launched the Mozambican War of Independence against the colonial armies of Portugal, in a battle that would continue for more than a decade. The first attack was on the Portuguese Army outpost at Chai, in the Cabo Delgado Province near the border with Tanzania;^[179] FRELIMO would later claim "simultaneous attacks on ten military outposts 'covering a vast area of the country'".^[180]
• At a meeting of the
  Queen Elizabeth II signed a proclamation dissolving "the longest peacetime parliament of modern time" and "the first to run its full five-year term since the term was reduced from seven years before World War I".^[181]
  The dissolution of the House of Commons marked the beginning of campaigning for the October 15 elections called by Prime Minister Douglas-Home.
• CBS introduced Gomer Pyle, U.S.M.C., a popular situation comedy starring Jim Nabors as a naive recruit to the United States Marine Corps and Frank Sutton as the boot camp's drill sergeant. Nabors continued the role that he had originated on The Andy Griffith Show. The show would be among the Top Ten most popular U.S. television programs in all five of its seasons.
• A cure for
  acute lymphocytic leukemia by the end of 1967 was forecast by the President of the American Cancer Society, Dr. Wendell G. Scott, who told delegates to the Society's 18th annual conference, "I predict that within the next three years, acute leukemia will be stricken from the list of human diseases."^[182]
• Born: Marc Benioff, American Internet entrepreneur and philanthropist; in San Francisco^[183][184]

September 26, 1964 (Saturday)

• Gilligan's Island, a situation comedy starring Bob Denver as one of seven people marooned on a deserted island, made its debut on CBS at 8:30 in the evening. UPI critic Rick Dubrow commented afterward that "It is impossible that a more inept, moronic or humorless show has ever appeared on the home tube."^[185] After three seasons and 98 episodes, CBS would cancel the show, which would become extremely popular in syndication.
• At Stanleyville, seized by rebels on August 5 and proclaimed as the capital of the "People's Republic of the Congo" on September 5, President Christophe Gbenye ordered the rounding up of all foreigners trapped in Stanleyville and Paulis. Most of the hostages— 525— were Belgians, and about 200 were Greek or Italian; 63 Americans, 33 Canadians and 25 British people were also taken captive and held at hotels within the city; the rest were citizens from 12 other nations. Gbenye, whose forces had killed hundreds of Congolese nationals, threatened to kill the hostages. The crisis would force a rescue mission by Belgian and American troops on November 24.^[186]
• The "
  Phan Khac Suu as the Council's chairman. He would become the new head of state on October 26.^[187]
• The explosion of two large natural gas storage tanks injured more than 400 residents of the Copenhagen suburb of Valby, and at least four of the most critically hurt died in the blast.^[188]

September 27, 1964 (Sunday)

• At 6:30 p.m., the Warren Commission Report of the investigation of the assassination of President
  Edwin A. Walker, who had been shot at by Oswald seven months before Kennedy's death, was among the first to criticize the report, commenting that "The Warren Commission from the beginning had the full intent... to show that Oswald was a 'Lone Ranger'."^[192]
• Without bloodshed, U.S. Army troops rescued 60 Vietnamese hostages and seized the main camp of Montagnard rebels operating at Buon Sar Pa near South Vietnam's frontier with Cambodia. The Americans flew in on 50 helicopters from the Ban Me Thuot East Airfield and picked up the hostages, then aided in placing the 470 rebels on a convoy of trucks.^[193]
• The
  Boscombe Down in Wiltshire with Roland Beamont as the test pilot.^[195]
• In the
  1964 All-Ireland Senior Football Championship Final, Galway defeated Kerry. It was the first of three All-Ireland football titles won by Galway in the 1960s. Galway and Down would both win three titles during the 1960s, sharing the role of "team of the decade".^[196]
• Born: Stephan Jenkins, American musician and lead singer, songwriter and guitarist for Third Eye Blind; in Indio, California
• Died: Adib Shishakli, 55, former President of Syria who had been forced to flee into exile after eight months of brutal rule, was shot to death by a man who had been orphaned by Shishakli's bombing of Druze Muslim settlements. Nawaf Ghazaleh traced Shishakli to Brazil, located him in the small city of Ceres, and had lunch with him at a downtown restaurant. As they walked out, Ghazaleh drew a pistol and shot the former president twice, then jumped into his car and drove out of town.^[197][198]

September 28, 1964 (Monday)

• Republican presidential nominee
  Robert Galvin for Secretary of Commerce; and Clare Boothe Luce for Secretary of Health, Education and Welfare. No names were under consideration at the time for Secretary of Labor.^[199]
• Australia (represented by Roy Emerson and Fred Stolle) won the 1964 Davis Cup international tennis tournament, taking back the Cup from the United States team (Chuck McKinley and Dennis Ralston) in the fifth match of five. With the meeting in Cleveland tied at two matches apiece, Emerson lost the first set, 3–6, then beat McKinly 6–2, 6–4 and 6–4.^[200]
• Born: Janeane Garofalo, American comedienne and film actress; in Newton, New Jersey
• Died:
  • Harpo Marx, 75, American comedian and the second oldest of the Marx Brothers team. Born as Arthur Marx, Harpo was the one member of the group who did not speak during his performances.^[201]
  • Nacio Herb Brown, 68, American composer best known for the melody of "Singin' in the Rain" in the film of the same name.
  • George Dyson, 81, British composer

September 29, 1964 (Tuesday)

• The
  Fort Worth Press, a newspaper in Fort Worth, Texas, revealed that a young man named Donald Wayne House had been jailed on November 22, 1963, on suspicion of the assassination of President Kennedy. House, a 22-year-old truck driver, had gone to Dallas earlier in the day and watched the presidential motorcade, and had stopped at the town of Grand Prairie to get gasoline. A woman at the station asked House "whether he had heard what the killer looked like" and, after he repeated "the description he had heard on the radio without realizing at the time it also fitted him", the woman called the police. She called the police, and House's car was pulled over when he arrived in Fort Worth, where he was told "You are being arrested for the assassination of President Kennedy." House was not booked, nor was his mug shot picture taken, but he was interrogated for three hours and then put in a jail cell. Hours later, after 24-year old Lee Harvey Oswald was arrested, House was released.^[202]
• Pope Paul VI hosted a group of 72 representatives of non-Catholic Christian denominations at the Sistine Chapel and, after praying with them, told them of his plans for an "interfaith study center". "This shows you, gentlemen and brothers, that the Catholic Church, while unable to abandon certain doctrinal exigencies to which she has the duty in Christ to remain faithful," the Pope said, "is nevertheless disposed to study how difficulties can be removed, misunderstandings dissipated, and the authentic treasures of truth and spirituality which you possess can be respected."^[203]
• In India, at least 200 residents of the town of Macherla were drowned by a 10-foot (3.0 m) high wall of water that swept through the municipality in the Indian state of Andhra Pradesh, following the bursting of the dam that held back the town's reservoir.^[204] According to reports from the area, the Chandravanka River was swollen by heavy rains; many of the dead had been patients in the local hospital who were drowned when the waters swept their beds away.^[205]
• Gemini Program Manager Charles W. Mathews presented the Gemini Management Panel with the new flight schedule resulting from the lightning strike and hurricane conditions. The schedule was as follows: Gemini 2, November 17; GT-3, January 30, 1965; and Gemini 4, April 12. For GT-4 through Gemini 7, three-month launch intervals were planned; for the remainder of the program, these intervals would be reduced to two-and-one-half months.^[25]
• The popular comic strip Mafalda, created in Buenos Aires by Joaquín Salvador Lavado (who went by the pen name Quino), made its first appearance, as a feature of the weekly magazine Primera Plana.^[206] The strip itself would run for less than nine years, ending on June 25, 1973, but would continue to be reprinted worldwide half a century later.^[207][208]
• U.S. Secretary of State Dean Rusk told reporters that he expected that China would explode a nuclear weapon "in the near future",^[209] a prediction that would be borne out on October 16.
• The LTV XC-142 VTOL experimental aircraft made its first flight.^[210]
• Died: Fred Tootell, American athlete and 1924 Olympic gold medalist for the hammer throw

September 30, 1964 (Wednesday)

• Crewed at-sea tests of the
  Gemini spacecraft, using static article No. 5, began. During the two days of tests, spacecraft postlanding systems functioned satisfactorily, but the two crew members were uncomfortable while wearing their pressure suits. The comfort level was improved by removing the suits, but cabin heat and humidity levels were high. The test was stopped after 17 hours by the approach of Hurricane Hilda. A test to determine if opening the hatch would alleviate the heat and humidity problem was conducted November 13; temperature did fall, enhancing comfort of the test subjects. Three days later an at-sea test demonstrated water egress procedure. The astronauts left the spacecraft and were able to close and latch the hatch behind them, indicating that the reentry vehicle could be recovered even if the astronauts had to leave it.^[25]
• The Fishery Limits Act 1964 went into effect, as the United Kingdom followed the trend of most nations in the north Atlantic Ocean and extended the limits of its exclusive zone for fishing rights from three nautical miles to 12 nmi (13.8 miles or 22.2 km) from its shores. The 12-nmi limit followed a "six plus six" pattern, with the first six nmi being exclusively for British fishing vessels, and the second six to include vessels for nations approved by the UK government.^[211] In 1976, Britain and the other European Economic Community members would extend their limits to 200 nautical miles (230 mi or 370 km).^[212]
• The U.S. Air Force gave its first public demonstration of "the world's fastest military aircraft", the
  Lockheed YF-12A, at a press conference at Edwards Air Force Base in California.^[213]
• Born:
  • Trey Anastasio, American guitarist, vocalist and songwriter for the band Phish; as Ernest Anastasio III in Fort Worth, Texas^[214]
  • Attorney General of Illinois since 2019; in Chicago^[215]
  • Monica Bellucci, Italian actress and model; in Città di Castello

References