1963 History, Trivia and Fun Facts

1963 History, Trivia and Fun Facts

Quick Facts from 1963:

• World Changing Event: President John F. Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas, Texas, on Nov. 22, 1963.
• Another World-Changing Event: Thich Quang Duc’s self-immolation caused many Americans to question why we were in Vietnam.
• The Top Song was Sugar Shack by Jimmy Gilmore and the Fireballs
• The Movies to Watch include Cleopatra and Dr. No
• The Most Famous Person in America was probably Doris Day
• Notable books include: Where the Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak and The Feminine Mystique by Betty Friedan
• Soviet cosmonaut Valentina Tereshkova became the first woman to travel into space, giving them bonus points in The Space Race.
• Price of a postage stamp in 1963: 5 cents
  Turtle kit (bowl, food, ornament & gravel): 44 cents
  Turtle: 21-49 cents each
• The Funny Late Show Host: Steve Allen
  The Funny Lady was: Moms Mabley
• The Crazy Conspiracy: Bob Dylan stole Blowin’ in the Wind from New Jersey high-school student Lorre Wyatt.
• The Feminine Revolution: Betty Friedan’s The Feminine Mystique inaugurated the modern women’s rights movement.

Here are some significant events that took place in 1963:

• The United States, the United Kingdom, and the Soviet Union signed the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty, which prohibited nuclear weapons tests in the atmosphere, outer space, and underwater
• The Civil Rights Act of 1964 was introduced in the United States Congress. The act, which was eventually passed in 1964, prohibited discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex, or national origin in public places and in employment.
• The Beatles released their first album; Please Please Me, in the United Kingdom. The album was later released in the United States as Introducing… The Beatles.
• The assassination of President John F. Kennedy occurred on November 22, 1963, in Dallas, Texas.
• The first broadcast of Doctor Who, a British science fiction television program, aired on the BBC.

“The Quotes:”
“From Dallas, Texas, the flash, apparently official… President Kennedy died at 1 p.m. Central Standard Time, 2:00 Eastern Standard Time, some 38 minutes ago.”
– Walter Cronkite

In 1963, Hall of Fame pitcher Gaylord Perry remarked, “They’ll put a man on the moon before I hit a home run.” On July 20, 1969, a few hours after Neil Armstrong set foot on the moon, Perry hit his first and only home run.

“Oh, I wish I were an Oscar Meyer wiener. That is what I truly want to be.”
– Oscar Meyer Hot Dog Commercial

The Vajont Dam Disaster: after reporting numerous warning signs about the risks of a landslide, some journalists were sued by the Italian government for “undermining the social order.” A landslide eventually occurred, causing an overflow and killing between 1,900 and 2,500 people

Harvey Ross Ball invented the yellow Smiley Face in 1963. It was intended to be morale-boosting for insurance companies. He was paid $45 for 10 minutes of work.

June 17 – The Supreme Court ruled that laws requiring reciting The Lord’s Prayer or Bible verses in public schools were unconstitutional.

In 1963, the Bronx Zoo exhibited “The Most Dangerous Animal in the World.”
It was a mirror.

Sukiyaki by Kyu Sakamoto topped the Billboard Hot 100 chart in 1963, one of the few non-English songs to have done so and the first in a non-European language. It was the only single by an Asian artist to top the Hot 100 until the 2020 release of Dynamite by BTS.

The first American Artist to cover a Beatles song was Del Shannon with his 1963 cover of “From Me to You”. Del Shannon’s cover also became the first Lennon–McCartney composition to make the American charts when it entered the Billboard Hot 100 on June 29th, 1963.

The homecoming parade in the film,  Animal House was scripted as occurring on November 21, 1963, the day before JFK’s assassination. Producers regarded the film’s setting as “the last innocent year of America.”

Charade spans three genres: suspense, thriller, romance, and comedy. Because Universal Pictures published the movie with an invalid copyright notice, the film entered the public domain in the United States immediately upon its release.

Rowlf was the first known Muppet “star” as a recurring character on The Jimmy Dean Show, first appearing in a telecast on September 26, 1963.
Nope, it wasn’t Kermit!

Valentia Tereshkova was the first woman in space on the Vostok 6. She orbited Earth 48 times.

In 1963 the first message sent on the Moscow–Washington hotline was the test phrase “THE QUICK BROWN FOX JUMPED OVER THE LAZY DOG’S BACK 1234567890”. Later, the confused Russian translators responded, “What does it mean when your people say ‘The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog’?”

C.S. Lewis and Aldous Huxley both died on November 22nd, 1963. Their deaths weren’t as prominent in the news because of a more noteworthy death that occurred on that day: the assassination of John F. Kennedy.

JFK watched From Russia With Love at the White House on November 20, 1963, making it the last film he ever watched.

Psychic The Amazing Criswell predicted that Kennedy would not run in the 1964 election because of something that would happen in November 1963.

When Stephen Hawking was diagnosed with Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS) in 1963, doctors predicted he had about 2 and a half years to live. Fortunately, the disease progressed much slower than the doctors expected, and Hawking lived up to 76 years before dying in March 14, 2018.

Nebraska’s USPS abbreviation was originally “NB” but was changed to “NE” at the request of Canada to avoid confusion with New Brunswick in 1969. It is the only time a state/territory has changed its USPS abbreviation since the introduction of the system in 1963.

Kodak introduced the Instamatic camera.

Tab soda, Coca-Cola’s first brand of diet soda, was launched in 1963 and was discontinued in 2020.

‘Ma’ Bell Telephone introduced the push-button telephone.

7/11 was named after 7 am-11 pm hours, unprecedented in 1946, and they didn’t experiment with 24-hour stores until 1963.

Boxer Sonny Liston was the first to win a million dollars in a single bout when he beat Floyd Patterson in Chicago on September 25th.

In 1963, San Francisco Giants Manager Alvin Dark joked, “they’ll put a man on the moon before [Giants pitcher] Gaylord Perry hits a home run.” On July 20, 1969, less than an hour after Neil Armstrong’s historic moonwalk, Perry hit his first career homer.

Elizabeth Taylor was the first actress to earn $1,000,000 for a single film, Cleopatra.

Vietnamese Buddhist monk Thich Quang Duc publicly immolated himself on the street in Saigon to protest the anti-Buddhist policies of President Ngo Dinh Diem.

The ancient Egyptians developed the first recorded early pregnancy test, whereby a woman would urinate on a bag of wheat or barley and if the bag started sprouting, it indicated a pregnancy. In 1963, researchers measured the test as being 70% accurate.

Donald Currey cut down a tree to retrieve his drill bit after it got stuck when he tried to core it to study climate effects. After studying the tree’s core, he found that he’d just cut down the oldest known tree at that time (at least 4862 years old).

On October 18, 1963, French scientists launched a rocket into space containing a cat named Felicette. She orbited nearly 100 miles above the Earth, then descended safely to the ground via a specially designed parachute.

Mississippi physician James D. Hardy performed the first successful lung transplant.

On April 10, 1963, the USS Thresher submarine sank during deep-diving tests about 220 miles east of Boston, Massachusetts, killing all 129 crew and shipyard personnel aboard. It is the second-deadliest submarine incident on record.

1963 Billboard Number One Songs

December 22, 1962 – January 11, 1963:
Telstar – The Tornadoes

January 12 – January 25:
Go Away Little Girl – Steve Lawrence

January 26 – February 8:
Walk Right In – The Rooftop Singers

February 9 – March 1:
Hey Paula – Paul & Paula

March 2 – March 22:
Walk Like A Man – The Four Seasons

March 23 – March 29:
Our Day Will Come – Ruby & The Romantics

March 30 – April 26:
He’s So Fine – The Chiffons

April 27 – May 17:
I Will Follow Him – Little Peggy March

May 18 – May 30:
If You Wanna Be Happy – Jimmy Soul

June 1 – June 14:
It’s My Party – Lesley Gore

June 15 – July 5:
Sukiyaki – Kyu Sakamoto

July 6 – July 19:
Easier Said Than Done – The Essex

July 20 – August 2:
Surf City – Jan & Dean

August 3 – August 9:
So Much In Love – The Tymes

August 10 – August 30:
Fingertips – Pt 2 – Little Stevie Wonder

August 31 – September 20:
My Boyfriend’s Back – The Angels

September 21 – October 11:
Blue Velvet – Bobby Vinton

October 12 – November 15:
Sugar Shack – Jimmy Gilmer & The Fireballs

November 16 – November 22:
Deep Purple – Nino Tempo & April Stevens

November 23 – December 6:
I’m Leaving It Up To You – Dale & Grace

December 7, 1963 – January 3, 1964:
Dominique – The Singing Nun