1963 in the United States

Incumbents

Federal Government

• President: John F. Kennedy , Lyndon B. Johnson
• Vice President: Lyndon B. Johnson , vacant
• Chief Justice: Earl Warren
• Speaker of the House of Representatives: John William McCormack
• Senate Majority Leader: Mike Mansfield
• Congress: 87th, 88th

  Governors

Lieutenant Governors

Events

January

• January 8 - Leonardo da Vinci's Mona Lisa is exhibited in the United States for the only time, being unveiled at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C..
• January 14 - George Wallace becomes governor of Alabama. In his inaugural speech, he defiantly proclaims "segregation now, segregation tomorrow, and segregation forever!"
• January 28 - African American student Harvey Gantt enters Clemson University in South Carolina, the last U.S. state to hold out against racial integration.

  February

• February 8 - Travel, financial and commercial transactions by United States citizens to Cuba are made illegal by the John F. Kennedy Administration.
• February 12 - Northwest Airlines flight 705 crashes in the Florida Everglades, killing everyone aboard.
• February 11 - The CIA's Domestic Operations Division is created.
• February 19 - The publication of Betty Friedan's The Feminine Mystique launches the reawakening of the Women's Movement in the United States as women's organizations and consciousness-raising groups spread.
• February 28 - Dorothy Schiff resigns from the New York Newspaper Publisher's Association, feeling that the city needs at least one paper. Her paper, the New York Post, resumes publication on March 4.

  March

• March - Iron Man debuts in Marvel Comics's Tales of Suspense #39, cover-dated this month.
• March 5 - In Camden, Tennessee, country music star Patsy Cline is killed in a plane crash along with fellow performers Hawkshaw Hawkins, Cowboy Copas, and Cline's manager and pilot Randy Hughes, while returning from a benefit performance in Kansas City, Kansas for country radio disc jockey "Cactus" Jack Call.
• March 18 - Gideon v. Wainwright: The Supreme Court rules that state courts are required to provide counsel in criminal cases for defendants who cannot afford to pay their own attorneys.
• March 21 - The Alcatraz Federal Penitentiary on Alcatraz Island in San Francisco Bay closes; the last 27 prisoners are transferred elsewhere at the order of Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy.
• March 31 - The 1962–63 New York City newspaper strike ends after 114 days.

  April

• April 3 - Southern Christian Leadership Conference volunteers kick off the Birmingham campaign against racial segregation with a sit-in.
• April 8 - The 35th Academy Awards ceremony is held; Lawrence of Arabia wins Best Picture.
• April 10 - The U.S. nuclear submarine sinks east of Cape Cod; all 129 aboard die.
• April 12 - Martin Luther King Jr., Ralph Abernathy, Fred Shuttlesworth and others are arrested in a Birmingham protest for "parading without a permit".
• April 16 - Martin Luther King Jr. issues his Letter from Birmingham Jail.
• April 20 - Martin Luther King Jr. posts bail and begins to plan more demonstrations.

  May

• May 1 - The Coca-Cola Company debuts its first diet drink, TaB cola.
• May 2 - Thousands of African Americans, many of them children, are arrested while protesting segregation in Birmingham, Alabama. Public Safety Commissioner Eugene "Bull" Connor later unleashes fire hoses and police dogs on the demonstrators.
• May 8 - Dr. No, the first James Bond film, is shown in U.S. theaters.
• May 15 - Mercury program: NASA launches Gordon Cooper on Mercury 9, the last mission.
• May 27 - The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan is singer-songwriter Bob Dylan's second studio album, and most influential, released by Columbia Records.

  June

• June 3 - Huế chemical attacks: Members of the Army of the Republic of Vietnam pour chemicals on the heads of Buddhist protestors. The U.S. threatens to cut off aid to Ngo Dinh Diem's regime.
• June 4 - President John F. Kennedy signs Executive Order 11110.
• June 10 - The University of Central Florida is established by the Florida legislature.
• June 11
• *Alabama Governor George Wallace stands in the door of the University of Alabama to protest against integration, before stepping aside and allowing African Americans James Hood and Vivian Malone to enroll.
• *President John F. Kennedy delivers a historic Civil Rights Address, in which he promises a Civil Rights Bill, and asks for "the kind of equality of treatment that we would want for ourselves."
• June 12 - Medgar Evers is assassinated in Jackson, Mississippi. His killer, Byron De La Beckwith, is convicted in 1994.
• June 13 - The cancellation of Mercury 10 effectively ends the Mercury program of U.S. manned spaceflight.
• June 17 - Abington School District v. Schempp: The U.S. Supreme Court rules that state-mandated Bible reading in public schools is unconstitutional.
• June 23
• * Walt Disney's Enchanted Tiki Room opens at Disneyland, premiering the first Audio-Animatronics in the park.
• * Detroit Walk to Freedom occurs in Detroit drawing a crowd of roughly 125,000 people.
• June 26 - In a speech in West Berlin, President John F. Kennedy famously declares "Ich bin ein Berliner".

  July

• July 1 - ZIP codes are introduced in the U.S.
• July 7 - Double Seven Day scuffle: Secret police loyal to Ngô Đình Nhu, brother of President Ngô Đình Diệm, attack American journalists including Peter Arnett and David Halberstam at a demonstration during the Buddhist crisis.
• July 26 - NASA launches Syncom, the world's first geostationary satellite.

  August

• August 5 - The United States, United Kingdom, and Soviet Union sign a nuclear test ban treaty.
• August 18 - James Meredith becomes the first black person to graduate from the University of Mississippi.
• August 21 - Cable 243: In the wake of the Xá Lợi Pagoda raids, the Kennedy administration orders the US Embassy, Saigon to explore alternative leadership in South Vietnam, opening the way towards a coup against Diem.
• August 28 - Martin Luther King Jr. delivers his "I Have a Dream" speech on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial to an audience of at least 250,000, during the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom.

  September

• September 7 - The Pro Football Hall of Fame opens in Canton, Ohio with 17 charter members.
• September 15 - The 16th Street Baptist Church bombing in Birmingham, Alabama kills four children and injures 22.
• September 19 - Iota Phi Theta fraternity is founded.
• September 24 - The U.S. Senate ratifies the nuclear test ban treaty.

  October

• October 1 - The Presidential Commission on the Status of Women issues its final reports to President Kennedy.
• October 6 - The Los Angeles Dodgers defeat the New York Yankees, 4 games to 0, to win their 3rd World Series Title.
• October 8 - Sam Cooke and his band are arrested after trying to register at a "whites only" motel in Louisiana. In the months following, he records "A Change Is Gonna Come".
• October 22 - Chicago Public Schools Boycott.
• October 31 - 74 die in a gas explosion during a Holiday on Ice show at the Indiana State Fair Coliseum in Indianapolis.

  November

• November 2-4 - 1963 Freedom Ballot, a mock election organized to protest and combat the systematic disenfranchisement of blacks in Mississippi.
• November 10 - Malcolm X makes his "Message to the Grass Roots" speech in Detroit.
• November 16 - A newspaper strike begins in Toledo, Ohio.
• November 22 - John F. Kennedy assassination: In Dallas, President John F. Kennedy is shot to death, Texas Governor John B. Connally is seriously wounded, and Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson becomes the 36th President. All television coverage for the next three days is devoted to the assassination, its aftermath, the procession of the horsedrawn casket to the Capitol Rotunda, and the funeral of President Kennedy. Stores and businesses shut down for the entire weekend and Monday, in tribute.
• November 23 - The Golden Age Nursing Home fire kills 63 elderly people near Fitchville, Ohio.
• November 24
• *Lee Harvey Oswald, assassin of John F. Kennedy, is shot dead by Jack Ruby in Dallas on live national television. Later that night, a hastily arranged program, A Tribute to John F. Kennedy from the Arts, featuring actors, opera singers, and noted writers, all performing dramatic readings and/or music, is telecast on ABC-TV.
• *Vietnam War: President Johnson confirms that the United States intends to continue supporting South Vietnam militarily and economically.
• November 25 - President Kennedy is buried at Arlington National Cemetery. Schools around the nation do not have class on that day, and millions arounds the world watch the funeral on live television.
• November 29 - President Johnson establishes the Warren Commission to investigate the assassination of President Kennedy.

  December

• December 8
• *Frank Sinatra Jr. is kidnapped at Harrah's Lake Tahoe.
• *A lightning strike causes the crash of Pan Am Flight 214 near Elkton, Maryland, killing 81 people.
• December 10
• *The X-20 Dyna-Soar spaceplane program is cancelled.
• *Chuck Yeager becomes the first pilot to make an emergency ejection in the full pressure suit needed for high altitude flights.
• December 14 - Baldwin Hills Dam disaster floods South Los Angeles with 5 deaths.
• December 25 - Walt Disney releases his 18th feature-length animated motion picture The Sword in the Stone, about the boyhood of King Arthur.
• December 26 - The Beatles' songs "I Want to Hold Your Hand" and "I Saw Her Standing There" are released in the U.S., marking the beginning of full-scale Beatlemania.

  Undated

• David. H. Frisch and James H. Smith prove that the radioactive decay of mesons is slowed by their motion.

  Ongoing

• Cold War
• Space Race

  Births

• January 7 - Rand Paul, U.S. Senator from Kentucky from 2011
• January 10 - Mark Pryor, U.S. Senator from Arkansas from 2003 to 2014
• January 18 - Martin O'Malley, 61st Governor of Maryland and 47th Mayor of Baltimore
• January 31 - John Dye, actor
• February 17
• * Michael Jordan, basketball player
• * Rene Syler, television journalist
• March 4 - Jason Newsted, Metallica bassist from 1986 to 2001
• March 12 - Christine Falling, serial killer of six children
• March 27 - Quentin Tarantino, filmmaker, screenwriter and actor
• April 6 - Derrick May, electronic musician
• June 9 - Johnny Depp, actor, producer and musician
• June 20
• *Amir Derakh, guitarist
• *Don West, sportscaster
• July 7
• * Todd Burns, baseball player
• * Lance Johnson, baseball player
• July 18 - Mike Greenwell, baseball player and race car driver
• July 28 - Michael Ruhlman, author
• August 3 - James Hetfield, Metallica vocalist and backing guitarist
• August 6 - Gwendolyn Graham, serial killer
• August 9 - Whitney Houston, African American R&B vocalist, wife of Bobby Brown
• August 27 - Bobby Griffith, gay suicide victim
• September 9 - Chris Coons, U.S. Senator from Delaware from 2010
• September 10 - Randy Johnson, baseball player
• October 1 - Mark McGwire, baseball player
• November 1 - Josh Wicks, soccer player
• December 8 - Wendell Pierce, African American actor
• December 12 - Liz Claman, journalist
• December 18 - Brad Pitt, film actor and producer

  Deaths

• January 1 - Robert S. Kerr, businessman and politician
• January 2
• * Al Mamaux, baseball player and manager
• * Dick Powell, actor
• January 5 - Rogers Hornsby, baseball player
• January 6
• * Frank Tuttle, film director
• * Stark Young, teacher, playwright, novelist, painter, literary critic and essayist
• January 8
• * Boris Morros, film producer and FBI double agent
• * Jack Okey, art director
• * Kay Sage, poet
• January 9 - Enea Bossi Sr., aerospace engineer and aviation pioneer
• January 29 - Robert Frost, poet
• March 4 - William Carlos Williams, poet
• March 5 - plane crash
• * Patsy Cline, country music singer
• * Cowboy Copas, country music singer
• * Hawkshaw Hawkins, country music singer
• April 3 - Alma Richards, high jumper
• May 2 - Van Wyck Brooks, literary critic and writer
• May 6 - Monty Woolley, character actor
• May 11 - Herbert Spencer Gasser, physiologist, Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine laureate
• May 18 - Ernie Davis, American football player, first African American to win the Heisman Trophy
• May 19 - Walter Russell, polymath
• May 24 - Elmore James, African American blues guitarist
• June 7 - ZaSu Pitts, film actress
• June 10 - Anita King, actress and race-car driver
• June 12 - Medgar Evers, field secretary for the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, assassinated in Mississippi due to civil rights activity
• July 2 - Alicia Patterson, newspaper editor
• July 18 - Jack Solomon, restaurateur
• August 1 - Theodore Roethke, poet
• August 2 - Oliver La Farge, fiction writer and anthropologist
• August 4 - Tom Keene, Western film actor
• August 9 - Patrick Bouvier Kennedy, son of President and Mrs. Kennedy
• August 10 - Estes Kefauver, politician
• August 11 - Clem Bevans, character actor
• August 14 - Clifford Odets, playwright
• August 27 - W. E. B. Du Bois, leading African American sociologist, historian and co-founder of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People
• September 11 - Claude Fuess, 10th Headmaster of Phillips Academy, Andover, Massachusetts
• October 4
• * Lloyd Fredendall, U.S. Army general
• * Kate Gordon Moore, psychologist
• October 20 - Everett Warner, impressionist painter and printmaker
• October 24 - Douglas Croft, actor
• November 22
• * Aldous Huxley, writer
• * John F. Kennedy, 35th President of the United States from 1961 to 1963
• * J. D. Tippit, Dallas police officer
• November 24 - Lee Harvey Oswald, sniper, assassinated John F. Kennedy
• December 14 - Dinah Washington, African American blues singer
• December 26 - Gorgeous George, professional wrestler
• December 28
• * A. J. Liebling, journalist
• * Joseph Magliocco, mobster