The Nation 1963

John F. Kennedy gives his "Ich bin ein Berliner" (I am a Berliner) speech in Berlin in June.

November 22, 1963 became the event day of the year, so much so, that most everything else happening in 1963 is mostly forgotten.

Much like September 11th, 2001 the day changed us as a nation. Those who experienced it will always remember where they were when they heard the awful news. It was a time of sadness rather than anger, a time of confusion rather than vengeance. We were at the time a more innocent, kinder, and gentler nation

November 22 - 12pm - Texan Lee Harvey Oswald shoots President John F Kennedy and Texan John Connerly in a motorcade in Dallas Texas. 1pm - President Kennedy is pronounced dead at Dallas Texas Hospital, John Connerly will survive a rifle wound to the leg. 9pm - Texan Lyndon Baines Johnson is sworn in as the 31 President on Air Force One.

November 23rd - Texan nightclub owner Jack Ruby shoots Lee Harvey Oswald in Dallas, Texas.

1963 Lesser News

Alcatraz Closes - After 29 years Federal maximum security prison in San Francisco Bay closes due to excessive expense of keeping 300 inmates.

Governor George Wallace stands at the door of the University of Alabama to keep negro students out.

Alabama becomes the center of Civil Rights fight - President Kennedy sends troops to Alabama

Medgar Evers assassinated - On June 12th 1963 Medgar Evers is shot down in his driveway in Jackson, Mississippi. Byron De La Beckwith was not convicted until 1994.

Gideon v. Wainwright - A unanimous Supreme Court ruled that state courts are required under the Sixth Amendment to provide counsel for defendants unable to afford their own attorneys.

Nobel Prizes 1963

Physics - Eugene Paul Wigner, Maria Goeppert-Mayer, J. Hans D. Jensen
Chemistry - Karl Ziegler, Giulio Natta
Physiology or Medicine - Sir John Carew Eccles, Alan Lloyd Hodgkin, Andrew Fielding Huxley
Literature - Giorgos Seferis
Peace - International Committee of the Red Cross, League of Red Cross Societies

Class of 1963

On August 28th 1963 Martin Luther King Jr. addressed over 250,000 people from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial in what has become known as the I Have A Dream speech. It became the catalyst for both the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965 which ended apartheid in the American South.

Martin Luther King's "I have a dream" speech

The World 1963

The Profumo Crisis - British war minister John Profumo resigns over an affair with Christine Keeler who was also involved with a Soviet Navy officer.

Pope Paul VI is elected by College of Cardinals after good Pope John XXIII dies after only a five year papal reign.

Valentina Vladimirovna Tereshkova - Russian Cosmonaut first woman in space.

The Great Train Robbery takes place in Buckinghamshire, England. Greatest train robbery of all time with 5 million in cash and jewels taken In 15 minutes. 

Buddhist Monk Thich Quang Duc burns himself to protest Vietnam's Catholic President Ngo Dinh Diem's discrimination against Buddhists. Later in the year, with the direct help of the United States, Diem was assassinated during a coup. North Vietnam leader Ho Chi Minh at the time stated the now infamous words , "I can scarcely believe the Americans would be so stupid." And indeed, for the next 10 years 58,000 American and 2 million Vietnam stupidly died.

USS Thresher Sinks - American nuclear submarine sinks in Atlantic with 129 sailors aboard. Leakage from seawater cooling pipes stopped the reactor on a deep dive test.

Nuclear Test Ban - United States and the Soviet Union ratify above-ground testing of nuclear weapons.