1962

Years: 1959 1960 1961 - 1962 - 1963 1964 1965
Decades: 1930s 1940s 1950s - 1960s - 1970s 1980s 1990s
Centuries: 19th century - 20th century - 21st century 1962 in art 1962 in aviation 1962 in film 1962 in literature 1962 in music 1962 in radio 1962 in science 1962 in sports 1962 in television 1962 in Canada

Events

January

January 1 - Western Samoa becomes independent from New Zealand
January 3 - Pope John XXIII excommunicates Fidel Castro
January 4 - New York City introduces a train that operates without a crew on-board
January 8 - Leonardo da Vinci's Mona Lisa is exhibited in the United States for the first time (National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC)
January 9 - Trade pact between Cuba and the Soviet Union
January 10 - Avalanche on Nevado Huascarán in Peru; 4000 deaths
January 13 - Albania allies itself with the People's Republic of China
January 22 - The Organization of American States (OAS) suspends Cuba's membership
January 26 - Ranger 3 is launched to study the moon. The space probe later missed the moon by 22,000 miles
January 30 - Two of the high-wire "Flying Wallendas" are killed when their famous seven-person pyramid collapsed during a performance in Detroit, Michigan

February-April

February 3 - US announces its trade embargo with Cuba
February 4 - The Sunday Times becomes the first paper to print a colour supplement
February 7 - The United States Government bans all US-related Cuban imports and exports
February 14 - First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy takes television viewers on a tour of the White House
February 2 - For the first time in 400 years Neptune and Pluto align
February 5 - French President Charles De Gaulle calls for allowing Algeria to be an independent nation
February 9 - Taiwan Stock Exchange Corporation opened
February 10 - Captured American spy pilot Francis Gary Powers is exchanged for captured Soviet spy Rudolf Abel
February 12 - Six members of the Committee of 100 of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament are found guilty of a breach of the Official Secrets Act
February 20 - Mercury program: While aboard Friendship 7, John Glenn orbits the Earth three times in 4 hours, 55 minutes becoming the first American to orbit the Earth
March 1 - An American Airlines Boeing 707 crashes on takeoff at New York International Airport after its rudder separates from the tail, with loss of all life on board
March 2 - Military coup in Burma
March 8 - In Geneva, France and Algerian FLN begin negotiations
March 18 - France and Algeria sign an agreement in Evian ending the Algerian War
March 19 - Armistice in Algeria - however, OAS continues its attacks against Algerians
March 23 - Scandinavian States of Nordic Council sign Helsinki Convention on Nordic Co-operation
April 4 - James Hanratty is hanged in Bedford Gaol for A6 murder - many believe he was innocent
April 26 - The Ranger 4 spacecraft crashes into the Moon

May-June

May 2 - Bomb explodes in Algeria - 110 dead
May 5 - 12 East Germans escape via a tunnel under the Berlin Wall
May 14 - Juan Carlos marries the Greek Princess Sophia in Athens
May 14 - Milovan Djilas, former vice-president of Yugoslavia, is given further sentence for publishing Conversations with Stalin
May 23 - Drilling for new Montreal, Quebec subway commences
May 23 - Founder of the OAS, Raoul Salan, is sentenced to life imprisonment in France
May 24 - Scott Carpenter orbits the Earth three times in the Aurora 7 space capsule
May 25 - Consecration of the new Coventry cathedral
May 31 - Adolf Eichmann hanged in Israel
June 3 - An air crash at Orly Airport in Paris - 130 dead, two stewardesses survive
June 15 - Students for a Democratic Society complete the Port Huron Statement
June 17 – OAS signs a truce with FLN in Algeria
June 25 - The Supreme Court rules in Engel v. Vitale that prayers in public schools are unconstitutional

July-September

July 1 - Independence of Rwanda and Burundi
July 1 – Supporters of Algerian independence win in referendum
July 1 - Another heavy smog over London
July 5 - Algeria becomes independent from France.
July 6 - Irish broadcaster, Gay Byrne, presents his first edition of The Late Late Show. Byrne would go on to present the show for 37 years making it the longest running chat show in the world
July 10 - Telstar, the world's first active communications satellite, is launched into orbit
July 17 - Nuclear testing: The "Small Boy" test shot Little Feller I becomes the last atmospheric test detonation at the Nevada Test Site
July 22 - Mariner program: Mariner 1 spacecraft flies erratically several minutes after launch and has to be destroyed
July 23 - Telstar relays the first live trans-Atlantic television signal
July 28 - Locust swarm threatens Delhi
July 31 - Algeria proclaims independence; Ahmed Ben Bella is the first President
August 5 - Film actress and sex icon, Marilyn Monroe is found dead in her Los Angeles, California home after apparently overdosing on sleeping pills
August 6 - Jamaica becomes independent
August 17 - East German border guards kill 18-year-old Peter Fechter as he attempts to cross the Berlin Wall into West Berlin
August 23 - John Lennon secretly marries Cynthia Powell
August 27 - NASA launches the Mariner 2 space probe
August 31 - Trinidad and Tobago become independent
September 2 - Soviet Union agrees to send arms to Cuba
September 12 - President John F. Kennedy declares the USA will get a man on the moon by the end of the decade
September 26 - Civil war erupts in Yemen
September 29 - Alouette 1, the first Canadian satlite is launched

October

October 1 - The first black student James Meredith registers in University of Mississippi escorted by Federal marshals
October 5 - French National Assembly censures the proposed referendum to sanction presidential elections by popular mandate; prime minister Georges Pompidou resigns, but President de Gaulle asks him to stay in office
October 8 - German Der Spiegel magazine publishes an article about Bundeswehr's bad preparedness - Spiegel scandal erupts
October 9 - Uganda becomes independent within the Commonwealth
October 10 - Der Spiegel publishes an article on a NATO exercise criticizing the weakness of the West German army (the offices of the paper are occupied by the police on the 16th)
October 11 - Second Vatican Council: Pope John XXIII convenes the first ecumenical council of the Roman Catholic Church in 92 years
October 12 - Infamous Columbus Day Storm strikes the U. S. Pacific Northwest with wind gusts up to 170 mph; 46 dead, 11 billion board feet of timber blown down, $230 million U.S. in damages
October 13 - Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? opens on Broadway.
October 14 - Cuban Missile Crisis begins: A U-2 flight over Cuba takes photos of Soviet nuclear weapons being installed. A stand-off then ensues the next day between the United States and the Soviet Union, putting the entire world under threat of a nuclear war
October 26 - Spiegel scandal - German police occupies Der Spiegel offices in Hamburg
October 28 - Cuban Missile Crisis: Soviet Union leader Nikita Khrushchev announces that he had ordered the removal of Soviet missile bases in Cuba
October 28 - a referendum in France favours the election of the president by universal suffrage
October 31 - the UN General Assembly requests the United Kingdom to suspend enforcement of the new constitution in Southern Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe), but the constitution comes into effect on November 1

November

November 1 – Soviets begins dismantling their missiles in Cuba
November 5 - Franz Josef Strauß, the West German defence minister, is relieved of his duties over the Spiegel affair because it is alleged that he was involved in police action against the magazine
November 5 - Saudi Arabia breaks off diplomatic relations with Egypt following a period of unrest partly caused by the defection of several Saudi princes to Egypt
November 5 - A coal mining disaster in Ny-Ålesund kills 21 people. The Norwegian government is forced to resign in the aftermath of this accident in August, 1963
November 6 - Apartheid: The United Nations General Assembly passes a resolution condemning South Africa's racist apartheid policies and calls for all UN member states to cease military and economic relations with the nation
November 7 - Richard M. Nixon loses the California governor's race. In his concession speech, he states that this is his "last press conference" and that "you won't have Dick Nixon to kick around any more"
November 17 - In Washington, DC, US President John F. Kennedy dedicates Dulles International Airport
November 20 - Cuban Missile Crisis ends: In response to the Soviet Union agreeing to remove its missiles from Cuba, US President John F. Kennedy ends the quarantine of the Caribbean nation.
November 26 - Spiegel scandal - German police ends its occupation of Der Spiegel offices
November 29 - An agreement is signed between Britain and France to develop the Concorde supersonic airliner
November 30 - The United Nations General Assembly elects U Thant of Burma as the new UN Secretary-General

December

December 2 - Vietnam War: After a trip to Vietnam at the request of US President John F. Kennedy, US Senate Majority Leader Mike Mansfield becomes the first American official to not make an optimistic public comment on the war's progress
December 8 - Closing of first period of Second Vatican Council
December 8 - North Kalimantan National Army revolts in Brunei – first stirrings of Indonesian Confrontation
December 9 - Tanganyika (now Tanzania) becomes a republic within the Commonwealth, with Julius Nyerere as president
December 11 - Formation in West Germany of coalition government of Christian Democrats, Christian Socialists, and Free Democrats
December 19 - Britain acknowledges the right of Nyasaland (now Malawi) to secede from the Central African Federation - The last foreign occupied territories of India, Daman and Diu and Goa are freed from the Portuguese by the Indian Army
December 22 - "Big Freeze" in Britain - no frost-free nights until March 5 1963

unknown date

Rachel Carson's book Silent Spring released, giving rise to the modern environmentalist movement
Pantyhose becomes available for sale in U.S. department stores
American ad man Martin K. Speckter invents the interrobang, a new English-language punctuation mark
Sino-Indian War border dispute involving two of the world's largest nations (between India and the People's Republic of China)

Year in topic

1962 in film
- Lawrence of Arabia
- The Longest Day
- To Kill a Mockingbird, starring Gregory Peck
- The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance starring Jimmy Stewart and John Wayne
- How the West Was Won, starring Jimmy Stewart, Gregory Peck, John Wayne, George Peppard, Debbie Reynolds
- Hatari! starring John Wayne
1962 in literature
- Wise Blood by Flannery O'Connor
- Stranger in a Strange Land by Robert A. Heinlein
- One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest by Ken Kesey
1962 in music
- Release of first Beatles recording: the single "Love Me Do"/"P.S. I Love You" on October 5 (in the United Kingdom only)
1962 in sports
1962 in television
- March 16 - Walter Cronkite succeeds Douglas Edwards as anchorman of the CBS Evening News.
- Les Crane and Regis Philbin host The Tonight Show for a short time, until Johnny Carson took over later in the year

Births

Deaths

January-June

January 13 - Ernie Kovacs, comedian (b. 1919)
January 20 - Robinson Jeffers, poet (b. 1887)
January 24 - André Lhote, French painter (b. 1885)
January 26 - Lucky Luciano, American mobster (b. 1897)
January 29 - Fritz Kreisler, Austrian violinist (b. 1875)
February 10 - Eduard von Steiger, former president of Switzerland (b. 1881)
February 17 - Bruno Walter, conductor (b. 1876)
February 19 - Georgios Papanikolaou, inventor of the Pap smear (b. 1883)
March 24 - Jean Goldkette, jazz musician (b. 1899)
March 24 - Auguste Piccard, physicist and explorer (b. 1884)
April 10 - Michael Curtiz, film director (b. 1886)
April 13 - Culbert Olson, 29th Governor of California (b. 1876).
May 27 - Egon Petri, classical pianist (b. 1881)
May 31 - Adolf Eichmann, Nazi official (executed) (b. 1906)
June 2 - Vita Sackville-West, landscape gardener (b. 1892)
June 4 - Charles William Beebe, American oceanic pioneer (b. 1877)
June 6 - Yves Klein, French painter (b. 1928)
June 12 - John Ireland, English composer (b. 1879)
June 13 - Eugène Aynsley Goossens, English composer (b. 1893)
June 15 - Alfred Cortot, Swiss pianist (b. 1877)
June 28 - Mickey Cochrane, Baseball Hall of Famer (b. 1903)

July

July 6 - William Faulkner, American novelist (b. 1897)
July 9 - Georges Bataille, French writer (b. 1897)
July 12 - Roger Wolfe Kahn, band leader (b. 1907)
July 20 - George Macaulay Trevelyan, English historian (b. 1876)

August

August 5 - Marilyn Monroe, American actress (b. 1926)
August 9 - Hermann Hesse, author (b. 1877)
August 15 - Lei Feng, eminent PLA soldier (b. 1940)

September

September 3 - E. E. Cummings, poet (b. 1894)
September 6 - Hanns Eisler, composer (b. 1898)
September 7 - Kirstin Flagstad, Norwegian soprano, (b. 1895)
September 7 - Isak Dinesen, Danish writer (b. 1885)

October

October 6 - Tod Browning, director (b. 1882)
October 9 - Milan Vidmar, Slovene electrical engineer and chess player (b. 1885)
October 27 - Enrico Mattei, Italian politician (b. 1906)

November

November 7 - Eleanor Roosevelt, first lady (b. 1884)
November 18 - Niels Bohr, Danish physicist (b. 1885)
November 28 - Queen Wilhelmina of the Netherlands (b. 1880)
November 29 - Erik Scavenius, Prime Minister of Denmark (b. 1877)

December

December 15 - Charles Laughton, actor and director (b. 1899)
December 20 - Emil Artin, mathematician (b. 1898)
December 24 - Wilhelm Ackermann, mathematician (b. 1896)

Nobel Prizes

Heads of state in 1962

Events

January

February-April

May-June

July-September

October

November

December

unknown date

Year in topic

Births

January-February

March-April

May-August

September-October

November-December

Deaths

January-June

July

August

September

October

November

December

Nobel Prizes

Heads of state in 1962