HISTORY TIMELINE

 

 

1960

 

Jan 1  French Cameroon becomes the independent Cameroon Republic.

Jan 1  In the United States, African- Americans have been hearing a lot of talk about political change for black Africans, and they have been hearing Cold War talk about freedom in the United States, and they are wondering about their freedom.

Jan 5  The government of France seizes copies of four newspapers because of reports on conditions in prison camps in Algeria.

Jan 25  President de Gaulle is supporting autonomy for Algeria.  He has dismissed the military commander in Algeria, Jacques Massu. More than 2,500 defiant European settlers build barricades in the heart of Algiers.

Jan 25  In the wake of a scandal in the United States, the National Association of Broadcasters threatens to fine anyone who accepts money for playing on the radio any particular music recording.

Jan 29  In Paris most people have contempt for those who have been demonstrating for continued colonialism in Algeria.

Feb 1  Four well dressed young black men sit-in at a segregated lunch counter at the Woolworth Department Store in Greensboro, North Carolina. They are refused service.

Feb 3   Regarding resistance to President de Gaulle's policy regarding Algeria, France's National Assembly gives de Gaulle power to rule by decree. The vote is 441 to 75.

Feb 6  The sit-in at Woolworth's has been growing and has spread to the nearby Kress department store. With more than a thousand blacks seeking service, news people and observers, downtown Greensboro comes to a virtual standstill.

Feb 6  The Soviet Union agrees to buy  5 million tons of Cuba's sugar in the coming five-years and to supply Cuba with crude oil, petroleum products, wheat, iron, fertilizers and machinery, and it gives Cuba $100 million in credit at 2.5 percent interest.

Feb 11  Twelve Indian soldiers died in border clashes with the Chinese. 

Feb 14  General Alfredo Stroessner, the ruler in Paraguay, seeks cash assistance from the United States.  The US has been supplying the Stroessner regime with military equipment and training in counterintelligence and counterinsurgency.

Feb 27  The Soviet Union agrees to give Indonesia an additional $250,000,000 long-term credit.

Mar 2  Having been denied aid by the United States and in a border dispute with Pakistan, Prime Minister Daud has been seeking help from the Soviet Union. Premier Khrushchev of the Soviet Union is welcomed to Kabul in Afghanistan to inspect Soviet aid projects and confer with Daud.

Mar 4  A French ship carrying 76 tons of munitions from Belgium explodes in Havana harbor, killing dozens of workers and soldiers. Castro accuses the CIA of sabotage. The US denies the charge.

Mar 6  The Eisenhower administration announces that 3,500 US soldiers will be sent to Vietnam to support the Diem regime.

Mar 6  In the Canton of Geneva in Switzerland, women acquire the right to vote.

Mar 17  President Eisenhower approves a CIA plan to overthrow Castro, a plan his administration has initiated. The plan involves a budget of $13 million to train and equip "a paramilitary force" to invade Cuba.

Mar 21  In Sharpsville, South Africa, police open fire on unarmed blacks demonstrating against passing laws – which regulate movement within the country. Many are shot in the back. Sixty-nine died and 180 will be reported as wounded. 

Apr 1  The United States launches a weather satellite, Tiros-1.

Apr 4  After much wrangling over scripture, the Church of Sweden (Lutheran) ordains three women theologians as priests.

Apr 9  The Dalai Lama appeals to Asian and African countries to help "rescue" his "poor and unfortunate people."

Apr 13  The US military launches a navigation satellite, Transat l-b.

Apr 26  South Korea's Christian President Syngman Rhee, in a predominantly Buddhist nation, is disliked for his authoritarianism. After twelve years of rule, a student-led movement forces him to resign. 

Apr 28  A DC-4 belonging to the CIA, operated Civil Air Transport, saves Rhee from death by lynching.

Apr 30  In the southern half of Vietnam, eighteen well-known Vietnamese ask Ngo Dinh Diem to permit them to function as an opposition political group.

Apr 30  In Paraguay, the Stroessner regime announces that an invasion by armed rebels had been "completely smashed."

May 1  Eisenhower has wanted proof that the US was ahead of the Soviet Union militarily, for restraint on spending for weaponry. A U-2 aircraft, on a mission to photograph missile sites in and around Sverdlovsk and Plesetsk in the Soviet Union, is shot down by a Soviet rocket, and the pilot, Gary Powers, is captured.  

May 6  News of the downed aircraft in the Soviet Union is published in the United States. The Eisenhower administration claims that the plane was a weather craft.

May 7 The Eisenhower administration claims that one of its planes equipped for intelligence had "probably" flown over Soviet territory.

May 8  Embarrassment, concern and dismay are common reactions in Western Europe to the shooting down of a United States information-gathering plane in the Soviet Union.

May 8 Cuba and the Soviet Union establish formal diplomatic relations.

May 11 The funding that Margaret Sanger, now 80, needed to create her birth control pill had been provided back in 1953 by a friend, the wealthy widow Katherine McCormick. Today, the US government agency, the FDA, approves a pregnancy prevention pill. The Catholic Church and a few in the US Congress disapprove. 

May 14  Because of US flights over Russia, Khrushchev's leadership is being questioned inside the Soviet Union. He arrives in Paris for the "Big Four" summit meeting and is being chaperoned by his defense minister, Marshal Malinovksy. Khrushchev is later to say that from the time that the U-2 was shot down he "was never in full control. "

May 15  President Eisenhower arrives in Paris and is greeted warmly. He urges an end to "bickering."

May 16  Khrushchev demands an apology from Eisenhower for the U-2 intrusion into the Soviet Union. The apology is not forthcoming and the summit talks collapse. Khrushchev cancels the Soviet Union's invitation to Eisenhower to visit the Soviet Union. 

May 16  In Paraguay, police beatings and arrests of students disrupt the celebration of the 150th anniversary of independence.

May 23  Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion of Israel announces that Germany's wartime official responsible for transporting Jews, Adolf Eichmann, has been taken from Argentina and is in an Israeli prison. 

May 27  In Turkey the military overthrows the government of Prime Minister Adnan Menderes, who had been growing oppressive and was seen as threatening the tradition established by Ataturk.

Jun 7  US oil companies in Cuba refuse to refine Soviet oil.

Jun 10  Eisenhower's press secretary, James Haggerty, is rescued from irate students at Tokyo's Haneda airport. A scheduled visit to Japan by Eisenhower is canceled.

Jun 15  At Japan's most prestigious university, Tokyo University, 580,000 students demonstrate against the Security Treaty between Japan and the United States. The treaty does not allow Japan control over how the US military bases are to be used. Japan's police arrest 182 students.  589 are injured. One student is killed.

Jun 18  In South Vietnam, guerrillas kill one of Diem's provincial governors.

Jun 20  The Mali Federation, which includes Senegal, gains independence within the French Community.

Jun 20  In Algeria, the National Liberation Front agrees to peace talks in Paris – while the fighting goes on. 

Jun 26  British Somaliland acquires independence.

Jun 20-25  Khrushchev and China's Peng Zhen clash at a Party Congress in Romania. Khrushchev calls Mao Zedong a nationalist, an adventurous and a deviationist. The Chinese call Khrushchev a revisionist.

Jun 30   An independent Republic of the Congo, centered at Leopoldville, emerges from Belgian colonialism. Joseph Kasa-Vubu is President. Patrice Lumumba is Prime Minister.  Lumumba annoys the Belgians with a scathing description of their history in the Congo.

Jul 1  Newly independent Somaliland unites with the Italian Somaliland, creating the Somali Republic.

Jul 1  A Soviet MIG aircraft shoots down a six-man US RB-47 reconnaissance aircraft over Soviet Union waters in the Barents Sea north of Murmansk. Two US Air Force officers survive and are imprisoned in Moscow's Lubyanka prison.

Jul 5  Cuba nationalizes oil refineries owned by US companies after they refuse to process Soviet oil.

Jul 6  Eisenhower cancels the allowance of 700,000 tons of sugar imports from Cuba that remain for 1960.

Jul 8  The Soviet Union announces that it will purchase 700,000 tons of Cuban sugar.

Jul 9  Khrushchev threatens to use rockets to protect Cuba from US aggression.

Jul 11  The Belgian mining company, Union Miniere, and its investment partner, Societe Generale, have been concerned about the Congo's prime minister, Lumumba. With their help and 6,000 Belgian troops, Moise Tshombe, businessman and politician, declares his province independent – Katanga province, rich in cobalt, copper, tin, radium, uranium and diamonds.

Jul 14  Belgium's government announces that it suspects that the turmoil in its former colony, the Congo, is the result of a Communist plot. 

Jul 14  Jane Goodall, with her mother, is on her way to Gombe Stream National Park. Later this year she will discover champanzees using tools, challenging the belief that only humans used tools.

July 15 The United Nations begins a mission in the Congo, following a request for help from Lumumba's government. Its purpose: to prevent foreign intervention and preserve the Congo's territory. The mission begins with 10,000 troops and is to last four years.

Jul 20  The Congo government appeals to the Soviet Union or any other country of the African-Asian bloc to send troops to the Congo if the United Nations Security Council fails to take effective action in expelling Belgian troops. 

Jul 23  Iran recognizes Israel.

Jul 20 Ceylon has the world's first female head of government, Prime Minister Sirimavo Bandaranaike, the widow of the previous prime minister, Solomon Bandaranaike, who was assassinated by a Buddhist monk.

Jul 27  The Arab League is unhappy with Iran. Nasser shuts down his embassy in Iran.

Jul 27  Lumumba asks the US for men and money with which to keep alive his 27-day-old republic.

Jul 29  The United States promises aid for the Congo but declares that it will not help Lumumba keep Katanga Province from seceding.

Jul 31  Britain's twelve-year war against Communist guerrillas in Malaya is declared over, defeated by a Commonwealth force of 35,000. The revolt's leader, Chin Peng, a Malayan Chinese, is in exile in Thailand with remnants of his army.

Aug 1  The four blacks refused service at the Woolworth Department Store return and are served.

Aug 3  Jungle combat in eastern Paraguay has resulted in dead bodies floating down the Parana River.

Aug 5  The Republic of Upper Volta leaves the French-African Community, declaring itself fully independent, with the new name of Burkina Faso.

Aug 9  Singapore leaves the Commonwealth of Nations, becoming fully independent.

Aug 11  Chad acquires independence from France.

Aug 13  The Central African Republic acquires independence from France.

Aug 13  Parliamentary government begins in South Korea.

Aug 15  The Congo whose capital is Brazzaville (not to be confused with the Congo that acquired independence from Belgium) acquires independence from France. Its formal title will be Republic of the Congo and will also be known as Little Congo.

Aug 16  Cyprus acquires independence from Britain, except for the British retaining authority over two military bases.

Aug 17  Gabon acquires independence from France.

Aug 24  Senator John F. Kennedy, the Democratic Party's candidate for President, describes Vice President Nixon's foreign policy leadership as "weakness, retreat and defeat."

Sep 5  President Kasa-Vubu dismisses Prime Minister Lumumba, who questions the legality of the move and moves to dismiss Kasa-Vubu.

Sep 7  President Eisenhower states that the Soviet Union would create a serious state of affairs if it insisted on supplying the Congo, in other words Prime Minister Lumumba, with planes and equipment for military use.

Sep 14  Colonel Joseph Mobutu, supported by President Kasa-Vubu, takes power in a military coup.  Lumumba is put under house arrest. 

Sep 17  All US-owned banks in Cuba are nationalized. 

Sep 20  Seventeen states join the United Nations: Cyprus, Madagascar and eleven African states. These are: Benin, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Central African Republic, Chad, the two Congo states, Cote d'Ivoire, Gabon, Niger, Somalia, and Togo.

Sep 26  Senator John F. Kennedy and Vice President Nixon participate in the first televised presidential debate. They attract an audience of an unprecedented size: over sixty percent of the adult population. 

Sep 26  Speaking at the UN, Castro complains that the US is demanding immediate payment in dollars as compensation for lands that the Cuban government has confiscated. He states: "We were not 100 percent Communist yet. We were just becoming slightly pink. We did not confiscate land; we simply proposed to pay for it in twenty years, and in the only way in which we could pay for it: in bonds, which would mature in twenty years at 4 1/2 per cent, or amortized yearly."

Sep 28  As war continues in Algeria, France's government prohibits 140 French intellectuals, including writers, actors and teachers, from appearing on state-run radio or television or in state-run theaters.

Sep 28  Mali and Senegal join the United Nations. 

Sep 30  CIA officials have decided to recruit Mafia figures to kill Castro, knowing that the Mafia is unhappy with Castro for having closed down their profitable operations in Cuba. The CIA officials believe that if necessary they can successfully deny any association with the Mafia. 

Sep 30  The State Department advises all US travelers to stay away from Cuba "unless there are compelling reasons" for going there.

Oct 1  Nigeria acquires independence from Britain. Nigeria's government is a coalition of conservative parties, Muslims and Christians. 

Oct 6  Candidate Kennedy derides Eisenhower and Nixon for "neglect and indifference" in allowing Cuba to slip "behind the Iron Curtain."

Oct. 6  Cuba by now has neighborhood watch groups watching for anti-Castro activities, including sabotage and violence. In eastern Cuba a dozen or so men land and head for the mountains. They are caught and shot.

Oct. 7  Nigeria joins the United Nations.

Oct 12  At the United Nations, Khrushchev pounds his shoe on a table, protesting discussion of the Soviet Union's relations with East European states.  For some in the Soviet Union it is an embarrassment. 

Oct 14  The Urban Reform Act in Cuba goes into effect, commanding that rents be cut in half.

Oct 19  The Eisenhower administration places a partial trade embargo on Cuba.

Oct 20  Candidate Kennedy calls for US aid to those in exile and inside Cuba who are seeking to overthrow Castro's regime. He calls them "fighters for freedom."

Oct. 22  Candidate Nixon accuses Kennedy of having made "a shockingly reckless proposal" regarding Cuba that might lead to World War III.

Oct 24  The Cuban government seizes remaining property owned by US citizens.

Oct 26  The military ruler of El Salvador, José Maria Lemus Lopez, a member of the Party of Democratic Unification, is overthrown in a bloodless coup. Three army officers and three civilian professional men takeover the Government of El Salvador.

Nov 8  Candidate Kennedy barely wins an election victory over Vice President Nixon.

Nov 11  In Saigon, Lieutenant Colonel Vuong Van Dong, who fought with the French colonial forces against the Viet Minh, leads a coup against President Diem. The coup fails. A crackdown will follow with over 50,000 arrests. Thousands who fear arrest will flee to North Vietnam. The North will send many of them back to South Vietnam as part of his People's Liberation Armed Forces.

Nov 9  Suspicions exist that voter fraud in Illinois and Texas has robbed Nixon of the election. Nixon does not want to appear to be a sore loser and concedes shortly after midnight.

Nov 10  Eisenhower was disgusted by Kennedy's talk of a "missile gap." He knows that there is no such "missile gap," but Nixon obeyed security regulations and did not argue that fact.  According to historian David McCullough, Kennedy's victory is Eisenhower's biggest political disappointment and he has told his son: ''All I've been trying to do for eight years has gone down the drain.'' 

Nov 12  The Republican Party begins bids for election result recounts in eleven states.

Nov 13  Sammy Davis Jr. marries Swedish actress May Britt. Interracial marriage remains illegal in 31 of the 50 states.

Nov 13  An armed rebellion against the government of Miguel Ydigoras Fuentes erupts in Guatemala.

Nov 17  The Fuentes regime has been friendly with the United States, including allowing his country to be used as a training camp for an anti-Castro force.  The CIA has sent bombers against the insurgency, and it is crushed. Fuentes remains in power.

Nov 18  Mauritania becomes independent of France.

Dec 1  According to semi-official figures published in France, in five years of fighting in Algeria, France to date has lost 2,998 lives and 7,287 injured from attacks by Algerian rebels.

Dec 1  Mobutu of the Congo severs relations with Nasser's United Arab Republic. Nasser seizes Belgian assets in Egypt.  Patrice Lumumba has escaped from house arrest in Leopoldville and, while running to Stanleyville, which is controlled by his supporters, he is captured by troops loyal to Mobuto.

Dec 2  Lumumba is repeatedly beaten by soldiers. 

Dec 2  Cubans have been arriving in Florida at a rate of 1,000 per week. President Eisenhower authorizes $1,000,000 for their relief and resettlement.

Dec 4  Citing events in the Congo, Ghana servers ties with Belgium.

Dec 5  Eighty-one Communist parties side with Khrushchev's position of peaceful coexistence with the capitalist West – a rebuff of the Chinese Communist Party's view that war is inevitable. The 81 parties proclaim that Communism can succeed by peaceful means.

Dec 10  Charles de Gualle is visiting Algeria in an effort to persuade European colonists there to accept his plan for Algerian self-determination.

Dec 11  In Algeria, de Gualle walks alone into a crowd of cheering Muslims.

Dec 12  European colonists are rioting in Algeria's larger cities. More than a hundred people were killed.

Dec 16  In a snowstorm, two passenger airliners collide over New York City. One of the airliners crashes into a Brooklyn apartment building and into the Pillar of Fire Church.

Dec 25  Queen Elizabeth II starts recording her Christmas Messages. She appeals for increased mutual understanding among the peoples of the Commonwealth.

1961

 

Jan 1  President Sukarno swings a hoe at a ground-breaking ceremony launching an eight-year development program to achieve "Indonesian socialism."  He hopes that in eight years the income of Indonesians will have risen 11.6 percent.

Jan 3  President Eisenhower announces that a limit of endurance has been reached and has caused the US to sever relations with Cuba.

Jan 6  Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev speaks of  a mighty upsurge of anti-imperialist, national-liberation revolutions and says that "Communists fully and unreservedly support such just wars."

Jan 8  A referendum in France results in seventy-five percent favoring the granting of independence to Algeria.

Jan 17  In his final State of the Union address, Eisenhower expresses concern over military spending and an arms race, warning of the increasing power of a military-industrial complex.

Jan 17  The Belgian Minister for African Affairs has ordered the Congo to send Prime Minister Lumumba, a prisoner, to Katanga Province. In Katanga Province, Lumumba is beaten and taken by convoy into "the bush," where he is killed by a firing squad commanded by a Belgian.

Jan 20  John F. Kennedy is inaugurated President of the United States.

Jan 23  A  B-52 bomber breaks up in mid-air over North Carolina. Two hydrogen bombs, each 260 times more powerful than the Hiroshima atom bomb, fall to earth. According to a meticulous report in 2013 drawing from the Freedom of Information Act, trigger mechanisms engaged, and only one low-voltage switch prevented untold carnage and lethal carnage deposited over Washington, Baltimore, Philadelphia and as far north as New York city.

Jan 25  A  military coup in El Salvador ousts the military junta that had been ruling for the past three months. The new junta accuses the old junta of  "leftist excesses."

Feb 6  Kennedy's Secretary of State, Dean Rusk, announces that the US is ready to cooperate with other American states in ending tyranny in the Western Hemisphere whether that tyranny is of the Left or Right.

Feb 17  President Kennedy discusses with his advisors the invasion of Cuba planned during the Eisenhower administration. He considers claiming that the purpose of the invasion is to destroy fighter aircraft and rockets in Cuba because they are a danger to US security.

Mar 1  President Kennedy wants to counter notions of the "Ugly American" and so-called "Yankee imperialism." By executive order he creates the Peace Corps.

Mar 1  Britain is granting internal self-government to its colony in Uganda. Uganda's first elections are held.

Mar 3  Hassan II succeeds his father as King of Morocco. He proclaims his role as Commander of the Faithful and continues to rule Morocco as a theocracy.

Mar 4   Prime Minister Hendrik F. Verwoerd of South Africa says his government will not tolerate any effort by other members of the Commonwealth to force a change of his country's racial policies.

Mar 18  A ceasefire is established in Algeria.

Mar 20  During a Charter Day ceremony, Clark Kerr, President of the University of California, raises the issue of the speaker ban created by the university's conservative Board of Regents. He says, "The university is not engaged in making ideas safe for students. It is engaged in making students safe for ideas." The ban had excluded Henry Wallace from speaking at UCLA in 1947 and a British member of parliament, Harold Laski, als from speaking at UCLA. And in May this year Malcolm X will not be allowed to speak on the Berkeley campus on the grounds that he is a religious leader.

Apr 5  The Dutch are still in control over what had been called Dutch New Guinea – the western half of New Guinea. They have been preparing people there for full independence. A locally elected council takes office. The Dutch are looking forward to the continued presence of Dutch commercial interests there.  

Apr 12  Yuri Gagarin of the Soviet Union becomes the first human in space.

Apr 13  An English-language radio broadcast in Moscow announces that an invasion of Cuba will happen within a week.

Apr 15  Pursuing what he calls a guided democracy, President Sukarno signs regulations permitting only eight political parties, one of which is Indonesia's Communist Party.

Apr 17  The invasion of Cuba begins. Cuban exiles are deployed in swamp land at the Bay of Pigs and they are easily surrounded. Secretary of State Dean Rusk announces that "there is not and will not be any intervention there by United States forces."

Apr 18  The CIA chief, Richard Bissell, tells President Kennedy that the invasion force is trapped and encircled. He asks Kennedy to send in US forces. Kennedy replies that he still wants "minimum visibility."

Apr 20  The CIA's belief that grateful Cubans would join the invaders against Castro has not happened. Castro announces the invasion's total defeat. Sixty-eight of the invasion force are dead and the remaining 1,209 are captured.

Apr 21  A Soviet army newspaper announces that the Soviet rocket that has put Yuri Gagarin into space could be used for military purposes.

Apr 22  In Algeria, French military officers begin a coup against France's government.

Apr 26  Conscript soldiers have responded to a radio broadcast by President de Gaulle and have refused to follow the coup leaders. The coup is a failure.

Apr 30  In the United States, exiles from the Dominican Republic announce their appeal to the US government for "effective help" against the dictatorship of Trujillo.

May 1-31  In the California State Legislature complaints are made about leftist professors and free speech at University of California at Berkeley. State Senator Hugh Burns announces imminent publication of his committee's report on Communist activity on the Berkeley campus. "Most kitchens have their cockroaches," Burns says, "and most universities have their Communists."

May 4  "Freedom Riders," blacks and whites, leave Washington DC for a bus tour of the South. The trip is organized by the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) for the purpose of testing the Supreme Court's decision on segregation of interstate transportation. In South Carolina, John Lewis (a future Congressman), and another rider are beaten, and another rider is arrested for using a white restroom. The event is widely broadcast across the nation.

May 5  The US sends its first astronaut, Alan Shepard, into space.

May 14 At Anniston, Alabama, the Ku Klux Klan has been given permission to attack the Freedom Riders without fear of arrest. The bus arrives and is attacked by an angry crowd, with no police around. The bus moves on to Birmingham. There riders are beaten severely while police stand by. The leader of CORE, James Farmer, ends the tour and has the riders flown to the original destination: New Orleans.

May 14 Howard K. Smith, veteran journalist from World War II days, witnessed the Klan beatings. A television documentary that follows will lead to Smith leaving CBS. The Head of CBS News, William Paley, will object to Smith's lack of objectivity. Smith will reply: "They [CBS] said it was against the rules to take sides on a controversial issue. I said, I wish you had told me that during World War II, when I took sides against Hitler."

May 16  In South Korea people are tired of political chaos. Many welcome a military coup led by Major General Park Chung-hee. 

May 20  Some have decided to continue the "Freedom Rides." Attorney General Robert Kennedy has asked that Alabama state police protect the Freedom Riders. When the Freedom Riders enter Montgomery, Alabama, the police disappear. A crowd of about 300 attack the riders with baseball bats, pipes and sticks. One rider is covered with kerosene and set afire. Robert Kennedy sends federal marshals to the city.

May 21  In Montgomery, a crowd begins throwing stones through the windows of a church where Martin Luther King is to speak. Armed federal marshals with tear gas move against the crowd, joined by baton wielding local police. In his speech, King calls for a massive campaign to end segregation in Alabama.

May 23  Alabama's Governor John Patterson blames the violence against Freedom Riders on the Freedom Riders. He accuses them of intenteding "to inflame local people" and "to provoke violent reactions."

May 23  The US State Department accuses the Trujillo regime of persecuting Roman Catholic officials. 

May 25  The Kennedy administration, wanting a "cooling-off period," has asked civil rights leaders for a moratorium on Freedom Rides. The Freedom Rides continue, into Mississippi. Attorney General Kennedy has won an agreement from the Governor of Mississippi that the Freedom Riders will not be beaten – merely arrested.

May 25  President Kennedy tells his fellow Americans that he aims to have the US be the first to put a man on the moon.

May 29  The Kennedy administration announces that it has directed the Interstate Commerce Commission to ban segregation in all facilities under its jurisdiction. "Freedom Rides" are spreading to train stations and airports across the South. Students from across the US are buying bus tickets to the South and crowding Mississippi's jails.

May 30  In the Dominican Republic, after thirty-one years in power, on a lonely road to meet one of his mistresses, the dictator Trujillo is killed by officers of his private army. 

May 31  South Africa leaves the Commonwealth of Nations, becoming completely independent. 

Jun 1  In the Dominican Republic, nominal power resides with the vice president, Joaquín Balaguer. Real power is with the military. The search for the assassins of Trujillo is underway.  

Jun 3  Spain's dictator, Francisco Franco, condemns capitalism and the "liberalism" of other Western nations. He calls Spain's style of rule the "wave of the future."

Jun 4  In Vienna, President Kennedy meets with Khrushchev. Khrushchev concludes that Kennedy will be unwilling to negotiate meaningful concessions in the arms race. Khrushchev is concerned with the US having more nuclear missiles than the Soviet Union and that some US missiles are based in Turkey, near the Soviet Union's border.

Jun 13  The Soviet Union supports Sukarno's claim that Dutch New Guinea is a part of Indonesia.

Jun 17  Rudolf Nureyev, in France with the Kirov Ballet, requests asylum.

Jun 19   Kuwait gained independence from Britain.

Jun 26  President Kennedy arrives in Berlin and makes his "ich bin ein Berliner" speech. He says "And there are some who say in Europe and elsewhere we can work with the Communists. Let them come to Berlin."

Jun 27 Iraq's ruler, Kassem, believes that Kuwait belongs to Iraq. Kuwait has requested protection from Britain, and Britain sends troops.

Jul 2  President Kennedy's favorite author, Ernest Hemingway, has recently received electroshock treatment that he believes has damaged his memory.  At 61 and suffering ill-health, he commits suicide.

Jul 4  President Kennedy responds to a letter from Khrushchev: "I wish to thank you personally and on behalf of the American people for your greetings on the occasion of the 185th Anniversary of the Independence of the United States ... I am confident that given a sincere desire to achieve a peaceful settlement of the issues which still disturb the world's tranquility we can, in our time, reach that peaceful goal which all peoples so ardently desire."

Jul 8  Premier Khrushchev announces that he has ordered the suspension of projected reductions in the Soviet armed forces. It is to be said that he is challenged by the charge from within governing circles that he is too weak regarding threats from the capitalist West.  

Jul 10  East Germany announces that after it signs a peace treaty with the Soviet Union it will assume full control over Allied land and air access to Berlin.

Jul 12   West Germany's chancellor, Konrad Adenauer, proclaims Western rights regarding access to Berlin.

Jul 26  President Kennedy requests an increase in military spending. The Soviet Union accuses Kennedy of exploiting the Berlin dispute as a pretext for accelerating the arms race.

Jul 27  Governor Nelson Rockefeller of New York, a leading Republican, calls for public support of President Kennedy's military build-up. He says that Americans must "refuse to be bluffed, bullied or blackmailed."

Aug 1  In the past 24 hours, 1,322 have fled into West Berlin.

Aug 2  East German police confiscate identity cards from among the 50,000 residents of East Berlin who cross into West Berlin each day to work.

Aug 7  Khrushchev warns that Soviet divisions might mass on West Europe's frontiers as a defense measure. He calls for an international conference on Berlin.

Aug 13  East Germany begins constructing the Berlin Wall. Soldiers stand in front of the construction, on East German territory, with orders to shoot anyone who attempts to defect.

Aug 15  The United States, Britain and France formally protest against the closing of the border between East and West Berlin.

Aug 16  The Soviet Union warns Japan that the presence of United States military bases there makes it subject to an attack should war occur.

Aug 19  The East Germany newspaper, Leipziger Volkszeitung, claims that people criticizing the closing of the border were being "brought to reason by the hard fists of the workers."

Aug 21  In Kenya, the British release Jomo Kenyatta from prison.

Aug 24  In the US Congress it is said that Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru's support for the Soviet stand regarding Berlin has damaged relations between the US and India.

Aug 24  The Kennedy administration issues a "solemn warning" that interference with Allied access to West Berlin will be considered "an aggressive act" for which the Soviet government will bear full responsibility.

Sep 1 Turkey's former prime minister, Menderes, is hanged publicly. 

Sep 5  In Ghana, opposition to President Kwame Nkrumah erupts into strikes and demonstrations. Nkrumah orders strike leaders and opposition politicians arrested.

Sep 12  According to information received from physicians who work in East Berlin hospitals, the suicide rate has risen sharply.

Sep 12  In the Dominican Republic, tanks line streets following a day of disorders.

Sep 28  In Syria, nationalization of industries has enhanced opposition to Nasser's United Arab Republic. The military seizes power and proclaims Syria's independence. Egypt keeps the UAR name and Nasser chooses not to resist the break. 

Oct 11  In Vietnam, Viet Cong attacks have increased, and Diem's regime wants military aid but not US combat troops. In Washington D.C. the National Security Council (NSC) meets. An estimate by the Joint Chiefs of Staff is presented, claiming that  40,000 US troops would be required to "clean up the Viet Cong threat" and another 128,000 men would be needed to oppose North Vietnam's intervention. Secretary of Defense McNamara says that "it is really now or never if we are to arrest the gains being made by the Viet Cong."

Oct 12  Khrushchev calls for the disengagement of armed forces in Central Europe and a ban on supplying nuclear weapons to either East and West Germany.

Oct 17  In Paris, police attacked a demonstration against a curfew that applies only to Muslims. The official death toll is 3. Human rights groups claim 240 dead.

Oct 19  British protection of Kuwait passes to the Arab League (headquartered in Egypt). British troops leave. 

Oct 20  The Dominican police use semi-automatic rifles, water hoses and tear gas against demonstrators. 

Oct 27  Mongolia and Mauritania join the United Nations.

Oct 31 The 22nd Congress of the Soviet Union's Communist Party ends. Chairman Khrushchev has announced his plan to move the country to a communist society within twenty years and to surpass the United States in per capita production. 

Nov 1  In the United States, the federal order by the Interstate Commerce Commission banning segregation at all interstate public facilities officially comes into effect. Segregationists decide to test the train terminal in Albany, Georgia.

Nov 1  Kennedy has sent an advisor, retired General Maxwell Taylor, to Vietnam. Taylor concludes that "If Vietnam goes, it will be exceedingly difficult to hold Southeast Asia," His "eyes only" report to Kennedy is that Communist guerrillas are ""well on the way to success in Vietnam." He recommends more US support for Diem's regime. Appendices to the Taylor Report, written by others, speak of Diem's troops, the ARVN, lacking aggressiveness and that it would be a mistake for the US to make an irrevocable commitment to defeat the Communists in South Vietnam. It claims that foreign (US) troops cannot win battles at the village level, where the war must be fought, and that primary responsibility for saving Vietnam is with the Saigon regime.

Nov 2  The US Secretary of Defense, Robert McNamara, has relieved General Edwin Walker of his duties in Germany. Walker resigns from the army. He was accused of having distributed John Birch Society literature and of having described Harry Truman, Eleanor Roosevelt and Dean Acheson as "definitely pink."

Nov 2  China warns the United States against sending troops to Vietnam.

Nov 7  Albania's Communist leader, Enver Hoxha, celebrates the 44th anniversary of the Bolshevik Revolution.  He praises international solidarity but attacks "Soviet leaders" for considering Albanian Communists "anti-Marxist,"  "dogmatist," and "sectarian."  He describes the soviet leaders and the Yugoslavs as "revisionists."

Nov 11  A McNamara-Rusk memorandum to the US Ambassador to Vietnam, Frederick E. Nolting, mentions an increase in US military involvement and instructs Nolting to tell President Diem that "We would expect to share in the decision-making process in the political, economic and military fields as they affect the security situation."

Nov 15  Two of Trujillo's sons return to the Dominican Republic and attempt to seize power.

Nov 19  US Secretary of State Rusk warns that the United States is considering "further measures" to make sure the Trujillo family does not "reassert dictatorial domination." US warships with 4000 Marines appear off the coast of the Dominican Republic. A jet fighter flies overhead. Members of the Trujillo family flee the country, to live thereafter on savings from Swiss banks.

Dec 2  Fidel Castro declares that he is a Marxist-Leninist and that Cuba will adopt Communism.

Dec 9  Tanganyika becomes independent of Britain and a member of the Commonwealth of Nations.

Dec 10  The Soviet Union severs diplomatic relations with Albania.

Dec 11  Two US helicopter companies (33 H-2IC helicopters and 400 men) arrive in Vietnam to strengthen Saigon's faltering military efforts, giving Saigon an advantage in airpower and transport. 

Dec 16  In Albany, Georgia, a movement to desegregate the city has resulted in the arrest of hundreds, including Martin Luther King, accused of parading without a permit, disturbing the peace, and obstructing the sidewalk. Albany's sheriff, Pritchard, has ordered his officers to be as non-violent as possible and to prevent brutality. His strategy is to avoid federal intervention, and it works. People have been denied their constitutional rights of free speech and assembly, but there will be no federal intervention. Albany holds out against the slightest accommodation with desegregation.

Dec 17  Nehru's patience with Portugal has run out. He sends Indian troops into Goa to end its status as a Portuguese colony.

1962

 

Jan 1  Western Samoa becomes independent from New Zealand.

Jab 3  Pope John XXIII excommunicates Fidel Castro.

Jan 12  Indonesia's Army confirms that it has begun operations in Dutch New Guinea (West Irian).

Jan 18  The US tries to help the Saigon regime by spraying foliage with pesticide to reveal the whereabouts of Viet Cong guerrillas.

Jan 20  In Malaya it is announced that men with four wives will receive no tax relief.

Jan 23  The British spy Kim Philby defects to the Soviet Union.

Feb 7  Employing the Trading with the Enemy Act of 1917, President Kennedy bans trade with Cuba except for food and medicines.

Feb 10  In Berlin, former U-2 pilot Francis Gary Powers is exchanged for the Soviet spy, Rudolf Abel.

Feb 20  Lt. Colonel John Glenn becomes the first US citizen to orbit the earth. 

Mar 1  The Joint Chiefs of Staff and Deputy Defense Sec. Roswell Gilpatric have approved a plan to "lure or provoke Castro, or an uncontrollable subordinate, into an overt hostile reaction against the US."

Mar 2  In Burma General Ne Win ends democracy with a military coup. He announces the pursuit of the "Burmese way to socialism" and the creation of a military Revolutionary Council to be based on Buddhism.

Mar 10  The New York Times reports that Japan is sending skilled men and investment funds to most of the nations of Asia.

March 15  In a session of the United Nations Security Council the Soviet Union's representative asserts that the United States "is openly preparing within its own armed forces units of mercenaries to engage in a new intervention against Cuba."

Mar 17  The Soviet Union asks the United States to remove its military personnel from South Vietnam.

Mar 18  After seven and a half years of war, negotiations have produced a declared armistice in Algeria – the Évian Accords. Algerians are  permitted to continue freely circulating between their country and France for work. Europeans in Algeria remain French citizens, with guaranteed freedom of religion and property rights, but thousands are bitter toward de Gaulle and begin leaving Algeria for France.

Mar 22  FBI Director, J. Edgar Hoover, talks with President Kennedy about telephone calls between the President and Judith Exner, calls Exner had made to Kennedy from the home of mobster Sam Giancana. Kennedy ends phone conversations with Exner.

Mar 23  President Kennedy expands the ban against all imports from Cuba to include all goods made from or containing Cuban materials even if made in other countries.

Mar 25  Republican political strategists launch a campaign to label Democratic Party liberals in Congress as advocates of international surrender.

Apr 15  The Kennedy administration is afraid that opposition to Indonesia's demands concerning Dutch New Guinea might push Indonesia toward Communism. It urges the Dutch to negotiate a transfer of power in New Guinea to Indonesia.

Apr 16  Walter Cronkite succeeds Douglas Edwards at "The CBS Evening News."

Apr 16  Senator Barry Goldwater accuses the Kennedy Administration of attempting to "socialize the business of this country."

Apr 30  In the United States, Under Secretary of State George W. Ball predicts that the war against the Communists in South Vietnam will be  a "long, slow, arduous" struggle of a type that is not "congenial to the American temperament." Ball is older than Kennedy and his "whiz kids" and is not awed by them. And he has had a closer association with the French and understands their struggle in Vietnam better.

May 2  The Organisation Armée Secrète (OAS) continues its opposition to Algerian independence by a terrorist bomb attack in Algeria, which kills 110 and injures 147.

May 14  In Yugoslavia, President Tito's old comrade in arms and would be successor, Milovan Djilas,  in recent years a dissident but still describing himself as a Communist, has his prison term extended for having sneaked his book Conversations with Stalin to a publisher.   

May 23  In France, the founder of the OAS, a former general, Raoul Salan, is sentenced to life imprisonment.

May 24  In Lima, Peru, an unpopular ruling in a soccer match leads to a riot and panic that leaves 300 dead and over 500 injured.

May 30  Premier Cyrille Adoula of the Congo and President Moise Tshombe of Katanga Province announced an agreement on integrating the Katanga gendarmerie into the Congolese Army under the auspices of the United Nations.

May 31 The Israelis hang Adolf Eichmann.

Jun 1  Lee Harvey Oswald, his Russian wife and daughter, leave the Soviet Union for the United States.

Jun 25  The US Supreme Court decides a landmark case, Engel v. Vitale. Religious activity for children (including prayer) in public schools is judged to be in violation of the Establishment Clause in the First Amendment to the Constitution. Some devout Christians begin a campaign of threats, hate and harassment against the families that initiated the lawsuit.

Jun 30  The last of the French Foreign Legion leaves Algeria.

Jul 1   Rwanda and Burundi gain independence from Belgium.

Jul 1  In Algeria 99 percent vote in favor of independence. 

Jul 17  The last atomic bomb was tested above ground in Nevada.

Jul 21  President Moise Tshombe of Katanga denounces UN Secretary General U Thant describing him and his government as "a bunch of clowns."

Jul 31  Algeria becomes officially independent from France.

Aug 3  "Battle-hardened" Australian "jungle fighters" arrive in South Vietnam to teach anti-guerrilla tactics.

Aug 5  Actress Marilyn Monroe is found dead, apparently from an overdose of sleeping pills.

Aug 5  In South Africa, Nelson Mandela has been in hiding and politically active for seventeen months. He is found, arrested and charged with incitement to rebellion. 

Aug 6  Jamaica becomes independent of Britain.

Aug 15  Indonesian and Dutch negotiators have agreed on Indonesia control over Dutch New Guinea beginning in May, 1963. The agreement stipulates that within six years the Papuans will be free to decide between Indonesian control and independence. Papuans were expecting the independence that the Dutch had promised them, and they are angry.

Aug 20  Pakistan has been asked by the United Nations to provide a military force to keep order in Dutch New Guinea.

Aug 22  Members of the OAS attempt to assassinate President de Gaulle – to be portrayed in the book and film Day of the Jackal.

Aug 24  From a speedboat, Cuban refugees fire weapons at a Havana hotel.

Aug 24  The Fourth Asian Games start in Jakarta. Despite rules of the Asian Games Federation, Indonesia's government has refused visas for the Israeli and Taiwanese delegations, the government succumbing to pressure from Arab countries and the People's Republic of China.

Aug 31  The islands of Trinidad and Tobago became independent of Britain and together form a republic. 

Sep 2  The Soviet Union believes that the US intends to attack Cuba. It agrees with Cuba to send arms to deter an attack. 

Sep 3  The Fourth Asian Games end with Indonesians booing India's athletes, its flag and national anthem.

Sep 16  Britain is planning independence for the remainder of its empire in Southeast Asia. It creates Malaysia by combining Malaya, Singapore, Sarawak and North Borneo.

Sep 19  Yemen's monarch, Imam Ahmad, dies at the age of 71.

Sep 21  Border fighting erupts again between China and India.

Sep 26  In the US Congress, anger rises against the Soviet Union's plans to build a fishing port in Cuba.

Sep 26  In Yemen, the 35-year-old heir of Imam Ahmad is assassinated in his palace by a military faction, which proclaims a "free republic."

Sep 27  Rachel Carson's book Silent Spring is published. In June excerpts were published in New Yorker magazine. She is a marine biologist, a scientist who cites evidence for her claims. A storm of protest and hyperbole rises from chemical companies, including Monsanto, and a few scientists friendly with the chemical industry. This gives her book more publicity. The environmentalist movement is stimulated.

Sep 28   The new regime in Yemen executes ten former government officials.

Sep 29  Egypt (the United Arab Republic) recognizes the Republic of Yemen.

Sep 30  Khrushchev invites Kennedy to visit the Soviet Union.

Oct 1  Escorted by Federal Marshals, James Meredith becomes the first black to register at the University of Mississippi.

Oct. 7  According to Egyptian radio, Yemeni troops and planes are fighting a "pitched battle" against Saudi Arabian forces on Yemen's northern frontier.

Oct 8  Algeria becomes a member of the United Nations. 

Oct 9  Uganda becomes independent of Britain and chooses to be a member of the Commonwealth.

Oct 10  The New York Times correspondent, David Halberstam, reports that In a Vietnamese village, Communist guerrillas have thrown a party for local people and served food, tea and weapons.

Oct 11  Pope John XXIII convened the first ecumenical council in 92 years, called Vatican II.

Oct 14  The Soviet Union's long-range missiles are ineffective. There has been no missile-gap. Khrushchev has effective "medium range" missiles and has decided to put them in Cuba.  A U-2 flight over Cuba takes photos of Soviet nuclear weapons being installed.

Oct 16  President Kennedy is informed of the missiles in Cuba.

Oct 19  The Cuban Missile Crisis begins. Air Force chief of staff General Curtis LeMay argues that blocking Cuba and political talks without accompanying military action will lead to war, that the Soviet Union will not move against West Berlin if we act in Cuba but will move if we fail to act. He concludes, "I just don't see any other solution except direct military intervention right now."

Oct 22  Senate leaders have called for air strikes against Cuba. Kennedy has decided on an arms blockade. A broadcast from Moscow says that unusual activity in Washington indicates that the United States "once again [is] raising its armed fist over Cuba." Kennedy tells the public that "Within the past week, unmistakable evidence has established the fact that a series of offensive missile sites is now in preparation on that imprisoned island." In the Soviet Union and Cuba there is objection to the missile sites being described as offensive.

Oct 23  Khrushchev's quick response to the appeal by British philosopher Bertrand Russell is welcomed by the British government as a sign that the Soviet Union will back away from a showdown over Cuba.

Oct 24  Soviet ships on their way to Cuba receive radio orders to hold their position. Talking with his advisors, Kennedy says that if the US invades Cuba within the next ten days, some of the missiles in Cuba will likely be fired at US targets. He asks about evacuating people from cities a few days before the invasion. He is told that cities provide the best protection against radiation. Talking alone with his brother Robert, Kennedy entertains the idea that Khrushchev is trying to influence the Congressional Elections just a couple of weeks away. 

Oct 25  The US aircraft carrier Essex hails the Soviet tanker Bucharest. The tanker's hatches are too small to accommodate missiles and the ship claims that it is now carrying cargo quarantined by the US The Essex allows the Bucharest to proceed to Cuba, but it is shadowed by a US destroyer. 

Oct 26 Castro cables Khrushchev, urging a nuclear strike against the US in the event of an invasion of Cuba. Khrushchev sends a note to Kennedy offering to withdraw missiles from Cuba if the US closes its military bases in Turkey.

Oct 27  A SAM missile shoots down a U-2 aircraft over Cuba. The US pilot is killed. Kennedy decides against ordering an attack on the missile site but agrees to strike at all SAM missile sites if any more US airplanes are attacked. Discussing Khrushchev's proposal concerning Turkey, Kennedy complains that "last year we tried to get the missiles out of there because they were not militarily useful." General Taylor reports that the Joint Chiefs of Staff want an air strike against Cuba no later than the morning of the 29th unless there is irrefutable evidence that the missiles are being dismantled.

Oct 28  Kennedy promises Khrushchev not to invade Cuba and Khrushchev agrees to the removal of Soviet missiles in Cuba.

Oct 29  Many in the world are happy to be alive.

Oct 30  Khrushchev writes to Castro: "Had we, yielding to the sentiments prevailing among the people, allowed ourselves to be carried away by certain passionate sectors of the population and refused to come to a reasonable agreement with the US government, then a war could have broken out, in the course of which millions of people would have died and the survivors would have pinned the blame on the leaders for not having taken all the necessary measures to prevent that war of annihilation."

Nov 1  As promised, the Soviet Union begins dismantling their missiles in Cuba.

Nov 4  Halberstam reports that Communist guerrillas consider the mountainous territory north of Saigon as their own and that the Saigon regime's military officers tend to agree.

Nov 4  The kingdoms of Jordan and Saudi Arabia are supporting the royalist forces in Yemen. Egypt is assisting Yemen's republican forces.

Nov 5  Saudi Arabia breaks diplomatic relations with Egypt.

Nov 6  The U.N. General Assembly calls for member states to end military and economic ties with South Africa.

Nov 9  A fifth Saudi Arabian prince has joined his brothers in exile in Egypt. They have renounced their titles and have pledged to work for a "free Saudi Arabia."

Nov 11  Royalist forces in Yemen claim to have killed 250 Egyptian soldiers.

Nov 20  Fifty US helicopters carry Saigon troops on an operation against what has been regarded as a Communist sanctuary.

Nov 21  China agrees to a cease-fire on the India-China border. At the U.N. the Soviet Union agrees to withdraw bomber aircraft from Cuba. Kennedy ends the arms quarantine against Cuba.

Dec 2  On a trip to Vietnam at President Kennedy's request, Senator Mike Mansfield of Montana reports that US money poured into Vietnam in the last seven years has accomplished nothing. He blames the Diem regime for its failure to share power and win support from the South Vietnamese people. Mansfield's view surprises and irritates President Kennedy.

Dec 8  In Britain's colony Brunei an army backed by Indonesia rebels. The Sultan of Brunei escapes. The army seizes oil fields and takes European hostages. In the evening, British and Gurkha troops arrive from Singapore.

Dec 9  Tanganyika becomes independent of British rule and a republic within the Commonwealth.

Dec 16  In Brunei, the British claim to occupy all major rebel centers.

Dec 19  The United States recognizes the Republic of Yemen.

Dec 21  Juan Bosch, a 53-year-old novelist and political science professor, is elected president of the Dominican Republic by a vast margin.

Dec 24  Cuba exchanges 1,113 participants in the Bay of Pigs invasion for $53 million worth of food.

Dec 30  UN troops take over the last of the rebel positions in Katanga Province. Moise Tshombe, moves to South Rhodesia.

1963

 

Jan 11  In his inaugural speech as governor of Alabama, George Wallace proclaims "segregation now, segregation tomorrow, and segregation forever."

Feb 8  Iraq's ruler, General Kassem, is overthrown in a coup led by members of his military and the Ba'ath party. After a quick trial he is shot. Kassem had suppressed the Communist Party in Iraq, and now the killing of Communists, other leftist intellectuals and trade unionists begins. Saddam Hussein, a junior member and former hit man for the Ba'ath Party, returns to Iraq. 

Feb 8  President Kennedy makes travel to Cuba and financial and commercial transactions with Cuba illegal for US citizens.

Feb 27  The leftist former professor, Juan Bosch, takes office as President of the Dominican Republic.

Mar 22  In Britain a leading Conservative Party leader and Minister of War, John Profumo, denies to the House of Commons that back in 1961 he had been involved with Christine Keeler, who is known to have been involved with a Soviet attaché.

Mar 31  The last of the streetcars disappear in Los Angeles.

Apr 1  In Dallas, at his second job since returning from the Soviet Union,  Lee Harvey Oswald has been rude with his fellow workers and inefficient at his job – as a photoprint trainee. A supervisor finds him on his lunch break reading the Soviet Union's satirical magazine Krokodil – available in the United States as part of a cultural exchange agreement between the US and the Soviet union. Oswald is fired.

Apr 8  US advisors complain that Diem's forces in the Mekong Delta are hampering the war effort by their reluctance to take casualties.

Apr 10  In Dallas, Oswald fires his rifle into the home of the former general and outspoken anti-Communist, Edwin Walker, barely missing Walker. Oswald returns home with his rifle, undetected.

Apr 20  President Sukarno of Indonesia endorses Beijing's foreign policies in exchange for Beijing's support for Sukarno's opposition to the formation of the new state of Malaysia.

May 1  The UN hands control over what had been Dutch New Guinea to Indonesia.  

May 8  In Vietnam, Buddha's birthday is being celebrated. President Diem, a Roman Catholic, has a law against Buddhists displaying their flag. The Buddhists are aware of Papal flags having been flown, and they line streets defiantly flying their flag. Diem sends troops in armored vehicles against them. Nine Buddhists were killed.  Diem accuses the Buddhists of sympathizing with the Communists.

May 11  In a television interview, Fidel Castro, recently returned from red carpet treatment in the Soviet Union, says that the United States has "taken some steps in the way of peace" in its relations with Cuba and that these might be the basis of better relations.

May 22  In Greece, a popular member of parliament, Grigoris Lambrakis, is intentionally run down by a truck.  

May 27 Lambrakis dies. Unrest follows, with the government castigated as a moral accomplice in the death of Lambrakis.   

Jun 5  John Profumo confesses that he misled the House of Commons back in March. He resigns. 

Jun 10  In a speech at American University in West Virginia, President Kennedy says, "Some say that it is useless to speak of peace or world law or world disarmament – and that it will be useless until the leaders of the Soviet Union adopt a more enlightened attitude. I hope they do. I believe we can help them do it ... I am not referring to the absolute, infinite concepts of universal peace and goodwill of which some fantasies and fanatics dream ... No government or social system is so evil that its people must be considered as lacking in virtue ... Among the many traits the peoples of our two countries have in common, none is stronger than our mutual abhorrence of war."

Jun 12  The Field Director of the NAACP in Mississippi, Medgar Evers, is shot and killed in front of his home.

Jun 11   At a busy intersection in Saigon, a Buddhist Monk sets himself on fire – a scene televised across the world.  President Diem's sister in law, Madam Nhu, acting first lady of Diem's regime, says she would "clap hands at seeing another monk barbecue show."

Jun 11  In Alabama, federal troops force Governor George Wallace to allow black students to enter the University of Alabama.

Jun 16  The Soviet Union sends the first woman, Valentina Tereshkova, into space.

Jun 17 The US Supreme Court rules 8-1 to strike down rules requiring the recitation of the Lord's Prayer or reading of Biblical verses in public schools.

Jun 20 The United States and Soviet Union agree to a communications hot line between the two powers and sign a treaty limiting nuclear testing.

Jun 21 In California, the Board of Regents who govern the state's university system abolishes the speaker ban by a vote of 15 to 2 with one abstention. One of those opposed, Regent Jerd F. Sullivan Jr, expresses his opposition: " ... to allow an agent of the Communist Party to peddle his wares to students of an impressionable age is just as wrong, in my estimation as it would be to allow Satan himself to use the pulpit of one of our best cathedrals for the purpose of trying to proselyte new members... Communism ... is a foreign ideology; a subversive conspiracy dedicated to the overthrow of our form of government, by force if necessary. Their sales ability has been well demonstrated by the strides they have made in many parts of the world. Therefore, if we as a country feel that our ideology is superior, why leave our youth open to the narcotic influence of that salesmanship."

July 19  Since May, Lee Harvey Oswald has been working at the Reily Coffee Company. He is fired from this third job since having returned from the Soviet Union.

Aug 3  Madam Nhu accuses Buddhist leaders of treason, murder and describes them as "so-called holy men who use Communist tactics."

Aug 4  In Vietnam another Buddhist priest burns himself to death.

Aug 9  Buddhist leaders, fearing more suicide demonstrations, prohibit suicide by fire.

Aug 11  US intelligence becomes aware of "deep and smoldering" resentment against Diem in his army.

Aug 12  President Betancourt of Venezuela wants the former dictator Perez Jiminez back in Venezuela to face charges of embezzling 13 million dollars. After careful legal study the Kennedy administration extradites him.  

Aug 12  In Vietnam an 18-year-old Buddhist girl maims herself in protest against Diem's religious policies.

Aug 13  A 17-year-old Buddhist student priest burns himself to death.

Aug 15  A Buddhist nun, in her twenties, burns herself to death.

Aug 16  A 71-year-old Buddhist monk burns himself to death in the city of Hue.

Aug. 17  Forty-seven faculty members at the University of Hue resign to protest the Government's discharge of the Roman Catholic rector of the university and what they call government "indifference" toward settling a 14-week-old religious crisis.

Aug 18  At the Xa Loi pagoda in Saigon, about 15,000 Buddhists, most of them young people, sit-in and commit to a hunger strike.

Aug 21  Hundreds of heavily armed policemen and soldiers, firing pistols and using tear-gas bombs and hand grenades, swarm into the Xa Loi pagoda.

Aug 22 The US State Department criticizes Diem's government for violating its assurances that a reconciliation with Buddhists was being sought.

Aug 23  In Vietnam, David Halberstam of the New York Times reports growing anti-American feeling and student unrest.

Aug 25  In response to student unrest, Diem's regime announces the closure of all public and private secondary schools and Saigon's university.

Aug 28  At the Lincoln Memorial, Martin Luther King makes his "I have a dream" speech.

Sep 6  Senator Barry Goldwater urges postponing the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty.

Sep 16  Malaya, Singapore, Sarawak and North Borneo are united into the Federation of Malaysia.

Sep 21  The government of Indonesia announces the takeover of all British Companies.

Sep 23  During an interview by Walter Cronkite, President Kennedy says that South Vietnam's Government cannot win its war against the Communists unless it recovers popular support. He also expresses a domino theory: that "if we withdrew from Vietnam, the Communists would control Vietnam. Pretty soon, Thailand, Cambodia, Laos, Malaya, would go..."

Sep 25  The US Senate, by a vote of 80 to 19, ratifies the treaty outlawing nuclear tests – in the atmosphere, in space and in the waters of the earth.  President Kennedy sets out on an eleven-state tour to plead for support for his domestic program.

Sep 26  President Sukarno says that the new federation of Malaysia was created "to corner Indonesia" and that Indonesia will need to "fight and destroy" it.

Sep 26  In the Dominican Republic, some are opposed to the reforms of Juan Bosch. In a pre-dawn military coup, the government of Juan Bosch is overthrown. Coup leaders describe Bosch's government as having been "corrupt and pro Communist."

Sep 27 The United States halts all economic aid to the Dominican Republic and suspends diplomatic relations.

Sep 27  Lee Harvey Oswald has taken a bus to Mexico City where he visits the Cuban consulate, hoping to move to Cuba, which he believes has a socialism superior to that of the Soviet Union.

Sep 27  Madam Nhu announces that a number of Junior officers are plotting against her brother-in-law's government.

Oct 2  President Kennedy sends a message to Ambassador Lodge in Vietnam, declaring that "no initiative should now be taken to give any encouragement to a coup" against Diem but that Lodge should "identify and build contacts with possible leadership as and when it appears."

Oct 5  The rebel generals, led by Duong Van "Big" Minh, have asked for assurance that US aid to South Vietnam will continue after Diem's removal from office and assurance that the US will not interfere with their coup. President Kennedy gives his approval and the CIA passes it on to the rebel generals. 

Oct 7  President Kennedy ratifies a limited nuclear test ban treaty with Britain and the Soviet Union. Nuclear testing is outlawed in the atmosphere, underwater and in outer space.

Oct 9  Madame Nhu's father, Tran Van Chuong, who recently resigned as South Vietnamese Ambassador to the United States, has joined those opposed to the Diem regime. He calls for a selective cut in American aid to his country.

Oct 11  The US has 16,300 members of the military in Vietnam, increased from 800 by President Kennedy. Kennedy issued an order for the withdrawal from Vietnam of 1,000 military personnel by the end of 1963. According to Kennedy's Secretary of Defense, Robert McNamara, to be stated in the early 21st century, Kennedy is considering pulling US troops out of Vietnam after the 1964 election.

Oct 14  Madam Nhu accuses Washington of going soft on Communism and of basing its policies toward Vietnam on domestic political concerns.

Oct 15  Oswald is back from Mexico after having been denied a visa by Cuba. He has acquired a job at the Texas School Book Depository at $1.25 per hour filling customer orders for books.

Oct 16  In South Korea the leader of the ruling junta, Major General Park Chung-hee, is elected President.

Oct 18  In Britain the government of Harold Macmillan has lost credibility because of the Profumo affair, and Macmillan is suffering ill-health. He resigns.

Oct 24  This is U.N. Day, and the U.N. Ambassador, Adlai Stevenson, is in Dallas Texas, where he is jeered, pushed, hit by a sign and spat upon. 

Oct 25  Ambassador Lodge reports a coup is "imminent."  The White House tells Lodge to postpone the coup. Lodge says that the coup can be stopped only by betraying the conspirators to Diem.

Nov 1  The Diem regime is overthrown. Diem and his younger brother, Madam Nhu's husband, are said to have committed suicide. In fact they were assassinated. People in Saigon bedeck army tanks with flowers and parade joyously through the streets.

Nov 2  Madam Nhu accuses the United States of having stabbed the Diem government in the back.

Nov 4  In elections in Greece, former Premier George Papandreou and his Center Union party win over former Premier Constantine Caramanlis and his rightist National Radical Union.

Nov 6 In Greece, King Paul gives Papandreou a mandate to form a new government.

Nov 12  The Kennedy administration has hopes for better relations with Cuba and is arranging a meeting with Castro's regime, a meeting Kennedy does not want leaked to the press.

Nov 14  In Greece hundreds of political prisoners are freed.

Nov 16  In the United States the touch-tone telephone is introduced.

Nov 20  In the United States a handbill is being prepared for distribution during President Kennedy's visit to Dallas. It blames Kennedy for betraying the Constitution, for " turning the sovereignty of the US over to the communist controlled United Nations," for endangering the security of the US with "deals" with the Soviet Union, for being "lax in enforcing Communist Registration laws", giving "support and encouragement to the Communist inspired racial riots, and having "consistently appointed Anti-Christians to Federal office."

Nov 22  In Dallas, President Kennedy rides in an open limousine on a route of public knowledge. It passes in front of the building where Oswald works. Oswald takes his rifle to work with him and shoots the President. Vice President Johnson becomes President.

Nov 24  Jack Ruby, owner of a girly bar and friend of Dallas policemen, kills Oswald.

Nov 24  After walking in the procession from the White House behind the Kennedy cortege, President Johnson meets with Secretary of State Rusk, Secretary of Defense McNamara, CIA Director McCone and Ambassador Lodge. He expresses doubts that getting rid of Diem was the right course. He declares that he will not "lose Vietnam." He tells Lodge to tell Duong Van Minh and the other generals who made up the ruling Military Revolutionary Council that bickering among them must stop.

Nov 29  President Johnson appoints Chief Justice Earl Warren as head of a commission to investigate the Kennedy assassination.

Nov 30  In Cyprus, quarrels have erupted between Greeks and the Turkish minority. President Makarios hopes for better cooperation between the two communities and proposes thirteen amendments to the Constitution for consideration by leaders of the Turkish Cypriot community.

Dec 1  In the US, Malcolm X, a spokesperson for Elijah Muhammad of the Nation of Islam, describes the assassination of Kennedy as "the chickens coming home to roost."  This irritates Elijah Muhammad, who suspends Malcolm's right to speak for the movement for 90 days.

Dec 20  In a seventeen-day accord, East Germany allows West Berliners one-day to visit relatives in East Berlin.

Dec 21 In Cyprus, proposed constitutional amendments would eliminate most of the special rights of Turkish Cypriots in exchange for greater integration between the two communities, with some guarantees for Turkish rights. Among Turkish Cypriots, rioting erupts.

1964

 

Jan 8  President Johnson declares "War on Poverty."

Jan 9  US high school students in the Panama Canal Zone violate an order banning the flying of any flag. A scuffle between US and Panamanian students ensues and escalates. Anti-US rioting erupts in the zone. Twenty-one Panamanians and four US soldiers are killed.

Jan 10  Panama severs relations with the US and demands revision of the Canal Treaty.

Jan 17  A loose confederation of fourteen Arab countries – the Arab League – meets in Egypt and creates the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO). Its charter claims that Israel is an illegal state and pledges "the elimination of Zionism in Palestine."

Jan 30  In a bloodless coup, General Nguyen Khanh takes over as Saigon's ruler. He had been a military officer with the French, fighting for French colonialism against his countrymen's desire for independence. 

Feb 1  President Johnson says that he sees no chance of negotiating peace for Southeast Asia as proposed by President de Gaulle.

Feb 7  The Beatles land in New York, making their debut in the United States. Their record, "I Want to Hold Your Hand" is a best seller.

Feb 10  The US House of Representatives votes on and passes the Civil Rights Act that had been sent to Congress by President Kennedy in June 1963.

Feb 26  Saigon's forces (ARVN) surround the Viet Cong and keep their distance, hitting the Viet Cong instead with air strikes and artillery. The Viet Cong slips away. General Khanh is displeased and sacks five of his division commanders.

Mar 8  Malcolm X has broken with Elijah Mohammad's Nation of Islam. He believes in the separation of races and announces that he is forming a Black Nationalist Party.

Mar 13  In Queens, New York, residents fail to respond to the cries of Kitty Genovese, 28, as she is being stabbed to death.

Mar --  This month's issue of Playboy publishes an interview with Ayn Rand, who says, "I consider the Birch Society futile, because they are not for capitalism but merely against communism ... I gather they believe that the disastrous state of today's world is caused by a communist conspiracy. This is childishly naive and superficial. No country can be destroyed by a mere conspiracy, it can be destroyed only by ideas."

Apr 3  The US and Panama agree to resume diplomatic relations

Apr 4  In Brazil, landowners and industrialists have been unhappy with reformist President Joao Goulart. He is driven from power in a bloodless military coup, ending reforms called for by the Alliance for Progress and starting 21 years of dictatorship. US. Ambassador Lincoln Gordon will admit US encouragement to the plotters and that during the coup the US Navy stood off the coast. Aid will flow to the new government of Brazil that was denied to Goulart's government. 

Apr 19  Malcolm X is in Mecca meeting devout Muslims of different races. He has softened, believing that racial barriers can be overcome and that Islam is the religion that can do it. 

May 2  Four hundred to 1,000 students march through Times Square, New York, and another 700 in San Francisco, in the first major student demonstration against the Vietnam War. Smaller marches also occur in Boston, Seattle, and in Madison, Wisconsin.

May 14  In Egypt, Nikita Khrushchev joins President Nasser in setting off charges, diverting the Nile River from the site of the Aswan High Dam project.

May 22  President Johnson speaks to a graduating class and presents his idea for a "Great Society."

May 25  The Supreme Court rules that closing schools to avoid desegregation is unconstitutional.

May 27  The US has 16,000 military people in Vietnam, and so far 266 of its forces there have been killed. In a taped conversation, President Lyndon Johnson says to his national security advisor, McGeorge Bundy: "I don't think it's worth fighting for, and I don't think we can get out ... What in the hell is Vietnam worth to me? What is Laos worth to me? What is it worth to this country?"

Jun 2  Governor Nelson Rockefeller has been considered the front runner among Republicans for the presidency. In the California primary he has been attacking Goldwater as too dangerous, and Goldwater has attacked Rockefeller's morality. Social conservatives have been offended by Rockefeller's divorce and remarriage in 1963. Republican voters choose Goldwater by a margin of less than 3 percent, ensuring Goldwater's nomination at the upcoming Republican convention. 

Jun 3  In Seoul, Korea, an estimated 10,000 student demonstrators over-power the police. President Park Chung Hee declares martial law.

Jun 5  In Seoul, student demonstrations continue, and demonstrations erupt in eleven other cities. The students, it is said, are impatient and frustrated concerning the country's economic misery. President Chung Hee Park accepts the resignation of his right-hand man, Kim Chong Pil, to placate student opinion.

Jun 12  President Chung Hee Park's ruling Democratic Republican party and opposition politicians agree to form a 24-man committee to solve problems resulting from student demonstrations.

Jun 12  In South Africa, Nelson Mandela and seven others are sentenced to life imprisonment and sent to Robben Island prison.

Jun 15  The last of France's military leaves Algeria.

Jun 19  The Senate votes on and passes the Civil Rights Act. Senator Goldwater is one of only six Republican senators who votes against the bill.

Jun 20  General Westmoreland succeeds General Paul Harkins as head of the US forces in Vietnam.

Jun 21  A summer of civil rights activities are underway in the South. Three civil rights workers, Michael Schwerner, Andrew Goodman and James Chaney are murdered near Philadelphia, Mississippi, by law enforcement officials. The governor of Mississippi, Paul Johnson, offers little help and dismisses fears that the three have been murdered. He says, "Maybe they went to Cuba," suggesting the Communist tie that was commonly used to discredit the civil rights movement in the South. Johnson is moderate for a white Mississippian regarding race, but conformism involved in appealing to voters led him in a 1963 to criticize advocacy of civil rights for blacks and to identify the NAACP as standing for: "Niggers, alligators, apes, coons, and possums." (Time, August 16, 1963)

Jun 25  The Vatican condemns use of the contraceptive pill for females.

Jul 2  President Johnson signs the Civil Rights Act into Law.

Jul 6  Malawi declares its independence from Britain.

Jul 13  In San Francisco, the Republican Convention's party platform reads: "Humanity is tormented once again by an age-old issue – is man to live in dignity and freedom under God or be enslaved -- are men in government to serve, or are they to master their fellow men?" The platform accuses the Johnson Administration of seeking "accommodation with Communism without adequate safeguards and compensating gains for freedom." It describes the Democrats as having "collaborated with Indonesian imperialism by helping it to acquire territory belonging to the Netherlands and control over the Papuan people."  And it states that "This Administration has refused to take practical free enterprise measures to help the poor."

Jul 14  At the podium at the Republican convention, Governor Nelson Rockefeller of New York is booed extensively when he denounces extremism.

Jul 16  Senator Barry Goldwater wins the nomination for president on the first ballot.

Jul 18  In Harlem, New York, six days of rioting began. According to the New York Times, thousands of blacks "race through the center of Harlem shouting at policemen and white people, pulling fire alarms, breaking windows and looting stores." Whites had moved out of Harlem by 1950 and by 1960 middle class blacks had followed. 

Jul 19  In Harlem, Jesse Gray, leader of a rent strike, calls for "100 skilled black revolutionaries who are ready to die" to correct "the police brutality situation in Harlem."

Jul 21  Five days of race riots erupt in Singapore. It begins with Malays commemorating the Prophet Mohammad's birthday with a march.  A few marchers respond in anger to a policeman ordering some to return to the ranks of the marchers. Marchers attack Chinese passersby and spectators.  Retaliations against Muslims follow.

Jul 27  From the US, 5,000 more military "advisers" are sent to South Vietnam, bringing their total in Vietnam to 21,000.

Aug 1  The Republic of the Congo, formerly the Belgian Congo, changes its name to the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

Aug 2  North Vietnamese torpedo boats retaliate against ships involved in attacks on a radio transmitter on the island of Hon Ngu off the coast of North Vietnam, in the Tonkin Gulf. The torpedo boats approach the US destroyer Maddox, which sinks two of the torpedo boats and damages a third.

Aug 4  On the USS Maddox, in the dark of night, an "overeager sonar man," to be described as such by the ship's captain, mistakenly believes that his ship is under attack again. For two hours the Maddox and another destroyer, the USS Turner Joy, fire at imaginary targets. Air support from two US aircraft carriers are sent on a retaliatory mission against targets on Vietnam's coast. President Johnson speaks to the American public about "deliberate attacks on US naval vessels" and his retaliation and adds that "we must and shall honor our commitments."

Aug 6  In a meeting with US legislators, Defense Secretary McNamara gives a distorted description of  US naval activities in the Tonkin Gulf.  

Aug 7  US congressmen and senators vote in favor of the Tonkin Gulf Resolution, giving President Johnson powers in lieu of a declaration of war. The vote in the House of Representatives is 416 to 0, in the Senate 88 to 2.

Aug 11  Since the rioting in Harlem, trouble has been expected in Paterson, New Jersey. According to one report "carousing teenagers in the slum Fourth Ward began pelting passing police cars with bottles and rocks. Soon hundreds of Negroes were racing through the streets, smashing windows and hurling debris at police."

Aug 12  Twenty miles south of Paterson, in Elizabeth, New Jersey, rioting erupts. People pitch Molotov cocktails into three taverns, and soon, a report says, "hundreds of Negroes were flinging bottles and bricks from rooftops and street corners."

Aug 21  In Saigon, students and Buddhist militants begin a series of escalating protests against General Khanh's regime. General Khan brings in others to share power. People unhappy with the US backed regime are encouraged, and mob violence erupts.   

Aug 22   At the Democratic Party's convention, Fannie Lou Hammer, representing the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party, challenges the all-white Mississippi delegation. Johnson hurriedly calls a press conference to tell reporters things they already know, to get the television cameras off Ms Hamer, and this succeeds, but the networks will rebroadcast her speech repeatedly, with Hammer in an electrifying speech, asking that her delegation be seated to represent MIssissippi. Johnson calls Hamer an "ignorant woman." He needs to compromise with southern whites in order to get civil rights and other legislation passed. Humphrey and labor leader Walther Reuther help sway the Democrats to side with Johnson. There will be no seating of the Mississippi Freedom delegation.

Aug 28-30  In predominantly black neighborhoods on the northside of Philadelphia, well-publicized allegations of police brutality have created unrest. Two policemen, one white, one black, try to remove a black woman from her car after she refuses to cooperate with them. Rumors spread that a pregnant black woman has been beaten to death by white cops. Three days of rioting follow, with mobs looting and burning mostly white-owned stores. 341 are injured and 774 arrested.

Sep 1  "Freedom Summer" in Mississippi is drawing to a close. White Mississippians fear what will happen if civil rights including the right to vote are extended to blacks. They remain opposed to the freedom schools that have advanced literacy and delighted blacks. There have been 35 shootings incidents, 6 murders of activists, 80 beatings and 65 houses and churches burned.

Sep 4  At the University of California at Berkeley, students have returned from summer vacation, some of them from civil rights activities in the South. US Senator William Knowland's newspaper, the Oakland Tribune, is picketed by a civil rights group that organizes on campus.

Sep 14  On the Berkeley campus, Dean Katherine Towle bans posters, easels and tables on campus and reminds student groups of prohibitions against collecting funds or using university facilities in planning or implementing off-campus political and social action.

Sep 17  Some twenty student activist organizations form a coalition to oppose the regulations announced by Dean Towle. The "Free Speech Movement" was born.

Sep 21  Malta becomes independent from Britain.

Sep 27  The Warren Commission Report is released. It concludes that Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone in the assassination of President Kennedy.

Oct 1  Campaigning for the presidency in Hammond, Indiana, Senator Goldwater promises his audience that he will liberate Eastern Europe, and he tells them that only victory can end Communism.

Oct 1  A  Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) volunteer, Jack Weinberg, sitting at a table on the Berkeley campus, is put into a police car by campus police. A crowd growing to about 3,000 surrounded the police car.  Mario Savio, fresh from civil rights activities in the South, climbs on top of the police car after respectfully removing his shoes, and he makes a speech.

Oct 2  Approximately 450 policemen rescue the police car, book and then release Jack Weinberg. Student activists take up a collection to repair the police car's dented roof.

Oct 13  Nikita Khrushchev returns from a vacation and finds that members of the Presidium (formerly the Politburo) have called a special meeting. Its members vote to send him into retirement. Khrushchev will be given a pension and watched closely by the KGB. His successor as Premier will be Alexei Kosygin and as Communist Party First Secretary will be Leonid Brezhnev. 

Oct 13  The Soviet Union has spectacular success launching a three-man spacecraft that returns after 24 hours. N 

Oct 15  President Johnson says if he is elected he will take important new steps to reduce world tensions. 

Oct 16  China explodes an atomic bomb in Sinkiang province.

Oct 16  In his first major campaign speech on civil rights, Goldwater declares that "forced integration is just as wrong as forced segregation."

Oct 16  Former Vice President Richard M. Nixon says that a Johnson administration would be "a sitting duck" for the ruthless and tough-minded leaders who have replaced Nikita Khrushchev.

Oct. 20  Goldwater describes Johnson's foreign policy as a "policy of drift, deception and defeat."

Oct 21  Campaigning for re-election in Akron, Ohio, President Johnson says "[We] are not about to send American boys nine to ten thousand miles away from home to do what Asian boys ought to be doing for themselves."

Oct 22  Jean Paul Sartre, French philosopher and novelist, declines the Nobel Prize for Literature.

Oct 23  The Republic National Chairman, Dean Burch, says that a private Republican poll shows that Senator Goldwater leads President Johnson in electoral votes, 261 to 258.

Oct 24  Goldwater repudiates his campaign film, "Choice," which contends that social "rot" is undermining American society.

Oct 27 A speech by Ronald Reagan is broadcast on television for the Goldwater campaign. Reagan tells of switching from Democrat to "another course." He complains about tax burdens and he asks whether a "little intellectual elite in a far-distant capital can plan our lives for us better than we can plan them ourselves." The speech enhances his standing in the Republican Party.

Nov 1  A pre-dawn mortar assault by the Viet Cong at the Vien Hoa air base, 12 miles north of Saigon, kills five Americans, two South Vietnamese and wounds nearly one hundred others. President Johnson dismisses recommendations for a retaliatory air strike against North Vietnam.

Nov. 1  Senator Barry Goldwater says that the attack on Bien Hoa air base shows that the United States is involved in an undeclared war. He adds that it is "high time" for the president to speak frankly about it to the people.

Nov 2  A radio program titled "Goldwater's New World," creates a minor panic among listeners in the Netherlands.

Nov 3  It is election day. Goldwater carries only Arizona and five segregated states of the deep South,  from Louisiana east to South Carolina, excluding Florida. Johnson is re-elected with 61 percent of the vote. The Democrats win both the Senate and the House of Representatives. Robert Kennedy wins the race for US Senator from New York.  

Nov 4  Lenny Bruce, stand-up comic, is arrested in New York City for using "bad language" in one of his routines. 

Nov 9  In Britain, the House Commons abolishes the death penalty for murder. 

Nov 18  Martin Luther King has accused FBI agents in Georgia of failing to act on complaints filed by blacks. FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover retaliates, describing King as "the most notorious liar in the country."

Nov 24  In the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Belgian paratroopers liberate around 1,600 Europeans who had been taken hostage by a rebel army in early August.

Nov 29  In the US, the Catholic Church changes its liturgy, including the use of English rather than Latin.

Dec 2-3  The chancellor at U.C. Berkeley has refused to drop plans to discipline "Free Speech Movement" leaders. More than 500 students staged an overnight sit-in takeover of the campus administration building. California's governor, Pat Brown, a liberal Democrat, gives a deputy Alameda district attorney permission to bring in off-campus police: sheriff's deputies and officers from the Highway Patrol. Removing the students is a job made harder by the students refusing to cooperate and made easier by dragging them down flights of stairs, bumpety bumpety bumps, to waiting police vans. Students on their way to class that next morning are appalled by the site of fellow students being manhandled, and liberal faculty members are also appalled.

Dec 18  The University of California Regents affirm that university rules should follow the US Supreme Court decisions on free speech.

Dec 20-21  Another military coup occurs in Saigon, led by Nguyen Cao Ky and Nguyen Van Thieu, which keeps General Khanh as part of the new government. US Ambassador Taylor reacts with anger, summons the young officers to the US embassy and tells them he is "tired of coups." General Khanh retaliates, saying that the US is reverting to "colonialism" in its treatment of South Vietnam.