The following events occurred inFebruary 1962:

• U.S. PresidentJohn F. Kennedy delivered "the first presidential message entirely devoted topublic welfare",^[1] proposing that federal aid to the poor be extended to include job training programs and day care for children of working parents.^[2]
• NASA Headquarters announced that John Glenn'sMercury 6 mission would be launched no earlier than February 13, and that repair of theAtlas launch vehicle fuel tank leak would be completed well before that time.^[3]
• TheSoviet Union andGhana ratified a $42,000,000,000 trade pact, with Soviet engineers to assist in the construction of new industries and railroad lines in the West African nation.^[4]
• Born:Takashi Murakami, Japanese contemporary artist; inTokyo
• Died:Westropp Bennett, 95, Irish politician^{[citation needed]}

• John Uelses became the first person to surpass 16 feet (4.88m) in thepole vault, clearing the mark by 0.25 inches (6.4 mm) at theMillrose Games in New York City. Uelses was assisted by use of a pole made offiberglass.^[5] Prior to 1930, existing techniques limited the maximum height of vaulting to 14 feet (4.3 m). AfterCornelius Warmerdam cleared 15 feet (4.6 m) in 1942, the 16-foot (4.9 m) barrier had been pursued for more than twenty years.^[6][7]
• ThreeU.S. Air Force officers were killed when theirFairchild C-123 Provider became the first USAF plane to be lost in Vietnam, as the U.S. carried outOperation Ranch Hand. The cause of the crash was not determined, although the concern, that it was shot down by Communist insurgents, led to orders that thedefoliant spraying aircraft receive a fighter escort.^[8]
• The Soviet Union conducted its very first underground nuclear test. Previously, the Soviets had conducted all of their atomic and hydrogen bomb explosions in the atmosphere, including more than fifty since ending amoratorium on testing.^[9]
• Pope John XXIII announced the date for "Vatican II", the first worldwide conclave of the Roman Catholic Church in almost 100 years, to begin in Rome on October 11.^[10]
• The last underground shift was worked at the colliery inRadcliffe, Northumberland, England.^[11]
• Died:Alexander Lion, 91, co-founder of the German scout movement^[12]

• At 7:05 a.m.Indian Standard Time (0135 UTC), a "doomsday period" (as predicted by Hinduastrologers) began. It was reported that the astrologers had predicted that on Saturday, Sunday and Monday, the earth would be "bathed in the blood of thousands of kings" because of the alignment of six planets, the Earth, the Sun and the Moon.^[13] In Britain, Aetherias Society director Keith Robertson spent the next day awaiting disaster, along with many of the society's members. He had forecast that "very soon the world will do a 'big flip' when the poles will change places with the equator... 75 percent of the world's population will be killed", but the alignment and eclipse ended without any notable disaster.^[14]
• TheUnited States embargo against Cuba was announced by President Kennedy, prohibiting "the importation into the United States of all goods of Cuban origin and all goods imported from or through Cuba".^[15]Presidential Proclamation 3447 was made pursuant to theForeign Assistance Act of 1961, "effective 12:01 a.m., Eastern Standard Time, February 7, 1962".^[16]
• American wrestlersLuther Lindsay & Ricky Waldo defeatedToyonobori &Rikidōzan in Tokyo to win theAll Asia Tag Team Championship.^[17]
• Born:Michelle Maenza, last victim of theAlphabet murders (d. 1973); inRochester, New York^[18]

• TheSt. Jude Children's Research Hospital opened inMemphis, Tennessee. American comedianDanny Thomas, the hospital's founder, told a crowd of 9,000 that "If I were to die this minute, I would know why I was born... Anyone may dream, but few have realized a dream as gargantuan as this one." Thomas said that he had made a vow in 1937, when he was unemployed and penniless, that he would build a shrine toSaint Jude Thaddaeus (patron saint of the lost and helpless) "if I made good". After becoming successful, he began raising funds in 1951. Fifty years later, the hospital was treating 7,800 children per year at no cost, and funding cancer research worldwide.^[19][20]
• The Sunday Times became the first paper in theUnited Kingdom to print a colour supplement. At the time that theColour Section was introduced, such supplements "were already commonplace in North America".^[21]
• Gnostic PhilosopherSamael Aun Weor declared February 4, 1962, to be the beginning of the "Age of Aquarius", heralded by the alignment of the first six planets, the Sun, the Moon, and the constellationAquarius.^[22]
• Born:Clint Black, American country music singer; inLong Branch, New Jersey^[23]
• Died:Jacob Kramer, 69, UK-based Ukrainian painter^[24]

• Hours beforethe Beatles were scheduled to play at the Cavern Club, drummerPete Best told his fellow musicians that he was ill and would be unable to appear. Determined not to cancel the show, the group called around for a replacement andRingo Starr, whose group had the day off, appeared in Best's place.^[25]
• During asolar eclipse, an extremely raregrand conjunction of theclassical planets occurred, for the first time since1821. It included all 5 of thenaked-eye planets plus the Sun and Moon), all of them within 16° of one another on theecliptic. Saturn, Jupiter, Mars and Venus were on one side of the Sun, while Mercury and Earth were on the opposite side. When the Moon crossed between the Earth and the Sun, the eclipse was visible over India, where predictions of the world's end had been made.
• According to famous psychicJeane Dixon, a child was born "somewhere in the Middle East", who would "revolutionize the world and eventually unite all warring creeds and sects into one all-embracing faiths", and who would bring peace on Earth by 1999. The prediction, which did not come true as scheduled, was published inA Gift of Prophecy, the 1965 biography of Dixon byRuth Montgomery.^[26]
• French PresidentCharles de Gaulle informed the nation that he was negotiating with theFLN for the independence ofAlgeria, conditional on a guarantee of the rights of "the minority of European origin in Algerian activities", and "an effective association" between Algeria and France.^[27]
• In theFive Nations rugby union championship, England defeated Ireland 16–0 at Twickenham.Willie John McBride made his international debut in the match.
• Born:Jennifer Jason Leigh, American actress and daughter of actorVic Morrow and screenwriterBarbara Turner; as Jennifer Leigh Morrow inHollywood^[28]
• Died:Jacques Ibert, 71, French composer^[29]

• The Warner Brothers studio outbid MGM for the movie rights to produce the Broadway hit musical,My Fair Lady, for the unprecedented price of USD$5,500,000. The deal included an agreement to pay the play's owners 47.5% of any gross revenues over $20,000,000 and a 5% of the distributors' gross to the estate ofGeorge Bernard Shaw, upon whose playPygmalion, the Lerner & Loewe musical had been based. The bid was more than twice the old record, $2,270,000 paid by 20th Century Fox in 1958 for the rights toSouth Pacific.^[30]
• Spain selected its entry for the Eurovision Song Contest 1962; the winner wasVíctor Balaguer with the song "Llámame", selected by representatives of regional radio stations.
• The city ofMemphis, Tennessee, ordered the desegregation of its lunch counters, formerly limited to white customers only.^[31]
• Negotiations betweenU.S. Steel and theUnited States Department of Commerce began.
• Born:Axl Rose, American rock musician and lead vocalist forGuns N' Roses; as William Bruce Rose Jr. inLafayette, Indiana^[32]
• Died:Candido Portinari, 58, Brazilian painter, died of lead poisoning from the paints he used.^[33]

• TheUnited States Air Force announced that in the first 15 years of itsProject Blue Book investigation ofU.F.O. sightings, there was no evidence that any of the 7,369 unidentified flying object reports indicated a threat to national security, any technological advances "beyond the range of our present day scientific knowledge", and no sign of "extraterrestrial vehicles under intelligent controls".^[34]
• Sam Snead won theRoyal Poinciana Plaza Invitational, a tournament sponsored by the Ladies Professional Golf Association, where he was the lone man competing against 14 women pros. Snead, who had lost the tournament the year before toLouise Suggs, finished five strokes ahead ofMary Kathryn "Mickey" Wright.^[35] Snead is the only man to ever win an officialLPGA Tour event.^[36]
• TheUnited States government ban against all U.S.-relatedCuban imports (and nearly all exports) went into effect at one minute after midnight. The next day, the Supreme Soviet of the USSR approved a $133 million program of military aid to Cuba, after having delayed action on it for four months.^[37]
• A coal mine explosion inSaarland,West Germany, killed 299 people. The blast occurred at the coal mine, located nearVölklingen, at around 9:00 a.m.^[38]
• Born:Garth Brooks, American country singer and songwriter; inTulsa, Oklahoma^[39]

• A demonstration against theOrganisation armée secrète (OAS), called for by the PCF (Communist Party), was repressed at theCharonne metro station. Nine members of theConfédération Générale du Travail trade union were crushed to death after police chased a crowd down into the gates that closed off the subway station, in an event later called the "Charonne massacre".^[40][41]
• The United States and the United Kingdom announced an agreement between the two nations to allow the U.S. to test nuclear weapons atChristmas Island, a British possession in the Pacific Ocean.^[42]
• The British government announced that it would grant independence toJamaica effective August 6, 1962.^[43]
• Born:Malorie Blackman, English author of Barbadian parentage; inClapham,London^[44]

• TheTaiwan Stock Exchange began trading, with shares of 18 companies available for purchase and sale. Within 40 years, the number had increased to 584.^[45]
• Spain requested admission to theEuropean Economic Community. Its membership would not be approved until 1986.^[46]

• At 8:52 a.m. local time, captured American spy pilotFrancis Gary Powers was exchanged for captured Soviet spyRudolf Abel inBerlin, at theGlienicke Bridge betweenWannsee andPotsdam. Powers had been shot down over Russia onMay 1, 1960 while flying a U-2 spyplane. Abel had been arrested in New York on June 21, 1957. Frederic L. Pryor, a 28-year-old American student who had been arrested in East Berlin on August 25, was released as part of the deal as well.^[47][48][49]
• Born:Cliff Burton, American bass guitarist forMetallica; inCastro Valley, California (died in bus crash, 1986)

• Negotiations, between the government of France and Algerian independence leaders, opened atLes Rousses, a remote village in the French Alps, leading to a preliminary agreement on a transitional government.^[50]
• ComedianJune Carter became a permanent part of the tour of country music singerJohnny Cash, starting with a stop atDes Moines. The two would marry in 1968.^[51]
• TheUK selected its entry for the 1962 Eurovision Song Contest from a shortlist of 12. The winner was "Ring-a-ding Girl" sung byRonnie Carroll.
• Born:
  • Tammy Baldwin, the first openly LGBT person elected to the United States Congress and the first female U.S. Representative from Wisconsin; inMadison, Wisconsin^[52]
  • Sheryl Crow, American singer-songwriter known for "All I Wanna Do", "Everyday Is a Winding Road" and "Soak Up the Sun"; inKennett, Missouri^[53]

• The body of British aviatorBill Lancaster was discovered almost 29 years after he had disappeared over theSahara in theSouthern Cross Minor. Lancaster had last been seen on April 12, 1933, when he took off fromReggane inFrench Algeria.^[54]
• The largest air search effort ever made inNew Zealand commenced with the disappearance of five people on a scenic flight fromChristchurch toMilford Sound. No trace of the aircraft, a Dragonfly ZK-AFB, has ever been found.^[55]
• Communist China created its first militaryaerobatics team of nineShenyang J-5 airplanes of thePeople's Liberation Army Air Force, now referred to as the "August 1 Team" in honor of the founding of the PLAAF.
• Six members of theCommittee of 100 of theCampaign for Nuclear Disarmament were found guilty of a breach of theOfficial Secrets Act.
• Spike Milligan's andJohn Antrobus's play,The Bed-Sitting Room, premiered at theMarlowe Theatre inCanterbury.

• A crowd of at least 150,000 people, and perhaps as many as 500,000 marched in Paris in the first massive protest against the continuingAlgerian War, which had gone into its eighth year. The occasion was the funeral ceremony for five of the nine people who had been killed by police in theCharonne metro station the previous Thursday. With many of the participants walking off of their jobs to protest, business in Paris and much of France was brought to a halt.^[56]
• Born:May Sweet, Myanmar singer and actress; in Rangoon, Burma (nowYangon,Myanmar)
• Died:Hugh Dalton, 74, Welsh politician and former BritishChancellor of the Exchequer

• A Tour of the White House with Mrs. John F. Kennedy, produced by CBS News and hosted by American First LadyJacqueline Kennedy and CBS reporterCharles Collingwood, was broadcast on television by CBS and on NBC at 10:00 p.m. Eastern time. Attracting 46,000,000 TV viewers, or three out of every four households in America, it was the highest rated television program up to that time. ABC television, which did not wish to share the $100,000 production cost for the commercial-free special, showedNaked City instead, and ran the program the following Sunday.^[57][58][59]
• Unfavorable weather conditions caused John Glenn's space launch to be postponed.^[3]

• The Soviet Union restored thedeath penalty, forrape and for "attacks on police and public order volunteers". Capital punishment had been officially abolished nationwide on May 26, 1947, but gradually reintroduced for various crimes beginning in 1950.^[60]
• Urho Kekkonen was re-elected president ofFinland. Kekkonen received 199 of 300 electoral votes, after winning the popular vote on January 15. Communist Party candidate was second, with 62 votes, and Social Democratic candidate Rafael Paasio got 37.^[61]
• In Elisabethville (nowLubumbashi), the legislature for the Republic ofKatanga voted to ratify PresidentMoise Tshombe's declaration that the breakaway state should end its secession and return to theRepublic of the Congo.^[62][63]
• TheSpace Systems Division of the U.S. Air Force issued a Technical Operating Plan toAerospace Corporation for support of theGemini Launch Vehicle Program. Under a contract signed on March 15, Aerospace was responsible for general systems engineering and technical direction of the development of the launch vehicle and its associated subsystems.^[64]
• Born:
  • Milo Đukanović, firstPresident of Montenegro from 1998 to 2002, and Prime Minister of Montenegro on multiple occasions between 1991 and 2010; inNikšić,SR Montenegro,Yugoslavia
  • June Marina Oswald, daughter ofLee Harvey Oswald andMarina Oswald; inMinsk
• Died:Menen Asfaw, 72, wife of EmperorHaile Selassie of Ethiopia

• Voting inIndia'snational parliamentary election commenced, with 210 million voters going to the polls. There were 14,744 candidates for the 494 seats in theLok Sabha and the 2,930 seats in the legislatures of 13 Indian states.^[65] The final result was that 119,904,284 eligible voters participated, and theIndian National Congress, led by Prime MinisterJawaharlal Nehru, won 361 (or about 73%) of the seats. TheCommunist Party of India was a distant second with 29 seats (6%).^[66]
• U.S. President Kennedy issued nineExecutive Orders, numbered 10095 to 11105, delegating "emergency preparedness functions" for various federal agencies and departments, to be implemented in the event of a national emergency that required a declaration ofmartial law.^[67][68]
• Walter C. Williams,Project Mercury Operations Director, announced that because of weather conditions February 20 would be the earliest date that the Mercury-Atlas 6 mission could be launched.^[3]
• Rioters inBritish Guiana (nowGuyana) set fire to much of the capital city ofGeorgetown, as Guianans of African descent attacked those of Indian descent. British troops were sent in to restore order.^[69][70]

• After being rejected by both her lover,Richard Burton, and her husband,Eddie Fisher, actressElizabeth Taylor attempted suicide by taking an overdose ofSeconal sleeping pills. She was saved after being rushed to the Salvator Mundi Hospital in Rome, where she and Burton were filmingCleopatra. The 20th Century Fox studio invented a cover story that Taylor had become seriously ill from food poisoning.^[71]
• U.S. Secretary of DefenseRobert S. McNamara outlined the doctrine offlexible response, thenuclear strategy of the Kennedy administration, in an address to theAmerican Bar Foundation in Chicago. The plan called for building a large enough nuclear arsenal that the United States would have the ability to launch a second strike of nuclear missiles against the Soviets even after an initial exchange of destruction.^[72]
• Floods killed 345 people in West Germany and left 500,000 people homeless, as hurricane-force winds and heavy rains swept across West Germany'sNorth Sea coast and sent the waters flooding over the seawall. Most of the casualties were inHamburg where 281 died when theElbe River overflowed."^[73][74]
• Richard Helms replacedRichard M. Bissell, Jr., asDirector of the National Clandestine Service, a department of the U.S.Central Intelligence Agency. Helms would, in 1966, become theDirector of Central Intelligence.^[75]
• Born:
  • Lou Diamond Phillips, American actor and director; as Lou Diamond Upchurch at theU.S. Naval Base Subic Bay inZambales,Philippines
  • David McComb, Australian rock musician forThe Triffids (d. 1999); inPerth
• Died:
  • Joseph Kearns, 55, an American actor who portrayed "Mr. Wilson" on theDennis the Menace TV series, died after collapsing from acerebral hemorrhage the previous Sunday. Ironically, the plot for that Sunday evening's episode, "Where There's a Will", dealt with Kearns's character convinced that he had only a short time to live.^[76]
  • Bruno Walter, 85, German orchestral conductor^[77]

• Two pilots of theFrench Air Force, described as "renegades", defied orders, broke away from a routine mission overFrench Algeria, flew their planes across the border intoMorocco, and then attacked a rebel camp in the city ofOujda with rockets and machine gun fire. The two, believed to be members of theOrganisation armée secrète, then flew their planes toSaïda, Algeria, landed, and deserted.^[78]
• At the1962 NHRA Winternationals,Carol Cox became the first woman allowed to race at aNational Hot Rod Association (NHRA) event in the United States. She won one of the featured drag race competitions, theSuper Stock, automatic transmission (S/SA) event.^[79]

• Rock musicianChuck Berry reported to theFederal Penitentiary inTerre Haute, Indiana, after his conviction for violating theMann Act (in 1959) was affirmed. After serving 20 months of his three-year sentence, he would be released on October 18, 1963, and revive his career.^[80]
• AiResearch Manufacturing Company, a division of the Garrett Corporation, received a $15 million subcontract to manufacture theenvironmental control system (ECS) for theGemini spacecraft. The Gemini ECS consisted of suit, cabin, and coolant circuits, and anoxygen supply, all designed to be manually controlled whenever possible during all phases of flight. Primary functions of the ECS were controlling suit and cabin atmosphere, controlling suit and equipment temperatures, and providing drinking water for the crew and storage or disposal of waste water.^[64]
• Howard W. Tindall, Jr. of NASA's Flight Operations Division requested consolidation of allProject Geminicomputer programming and operation atManned Spacecraft Center inHouston, with no further Gemini work to be done at theGoddard Space Flight Center (which handled the Mercury program) inGreenbelt, Maryland. Tindall also recommended a single-source contract withInternational Business Machines Corporation to equip the facility.^[64]
• The initial coordination meeting between Gemini Project Office and McDonnell Aircraft was held at Manned Spacecraft Center (MSC) in Houston. After five introduction sessions, regular three-day-a-week business meetings would begin on March 5.^[64]
• CIA DirectorJohn A. McCone established theDirectorate of Science & Technology as theDirectorate of Research, part of McCone's reorganization of theCentral Intelligence Agency.^[81]
• The town ofHoughton, Iowa, United States, was incorporated.^[82]
• Apenumbral lunar eclipse took place.^[83]
• Born:
  • Hana Mandlíková, Czech-born Australian tennis player, winner of Australian Open (1980 and 1987), French Open (1981) and U.S. Open singles (1985) and doubles (1989); inPrague,Czechoslovakia
  • Germán Vargas Lleras, 10thVice President of Colombia from 2014 to 2017; inBogotá
• Died:Edouard Dethier, 76, Belgian violinist and teacher^[84]

• John Glenn became the first U.S. astronaut to be launched into orbit, asMercury 6 lifted off fromCape Canaveral at 9:47 a.m. local time (1447 UTC) and attained orbit at 9:59 (1459 UTC). An estimated 60 million persons viewed the launch on live television. After three circuits of the Earth, Glenn's spacecraft left orbit at 2:20 p.m. (1920 UTC), landed in theAtlantic Ocean at 2:43 (1943 UTC) about 800 miles (1,300 km) southeast ofBermuda, and was recovered by thedestroyerUSS Noa (DD-841) at 3:04 (2004 UTC), after being in the water for 21 minutes.^[85] Glenn would return to outer space more than 35 years later, on October 29, 1998, at the age of 77, becoming the oldest human to orbit the Earth.^[86]
• During the flight two major problems were encountered. A yawattitude control jet apparently clogged, forcing the Glenn to abandon the automatic control system and to use the manual "fly-by-wire" controls, and a faulty switch in theheat shield circuit indicated, incorrectly, that the clamp holding the shield had been prematurely released. Duringreentry, however, the retropack was not jettisoned but retained as a safety measure to hold the heat shield in place in the event it had loosened.^[3]
• The basic objectives ofProject Mercury had been to place a human being intoEarth orbit, to observe his reactions tospace environment, and to safely return him to Earth to a point where he could be readily found. While there had been concern before the flight about the psychological effects of prolongedweightlessness, Glenn was neither harmed nor debilitated, and reported that zero gravity conditions were handy in performing his tasks. He said he felt exhilarated during his four and a half hours of weightlessness. One of the interesting sidelights of the Glenn flight was his report of "fire flies" when he entered the sunrise portion of an orbit. For several months, the phenomenon remained a mystery, until the May 24Mercury 7 mission whenScott Carpenter accidentally tapped the spacecraft wall with his hand, releasing many of the so-called "fire flies." The source was determined to be frost from thereaction control jets.^[3]
• Five days after making both rape and attacks on police subject to capital punishment, the Soviet Union restored the death penalty for persons convicted of accepting bribes. Females were exempt from the death penalty under any circumstances, as were men who had reached the age of 60 by the time of their sentencing.^[60]

• Margot Fonteyn andRudolf Nureyev first danced together, in aRoyal Ballet performance ofGiselle atCovent Garden inLondon, creating one of the greatest partnerships in the history of dance. Nureyev had defected from the USSR almost eight months earlier onJune 16, 1961. He and Fonteyn received 23curtain calls from the audience.^[87]
• On the day after John Glenn's historic flight, Soviet Premier Khrushchev sent a telegram to U.S. President Kennedy, proposing that the two nations co-operate on their space program. The first joint venture would take place in 1975.^[88][89]
• A metal fragment, identified by numbers stamped on it as a part of the Atlas that boosted Mercury-Atlas 6 (MA-6) into orbit, landed on a farm inSouth Africa after about 8 hours in orbit.^[3]
• Former Soviet Foreign MinisterDmitri Shepilov was expelled from the Soviet Communist Party, in retaliation for his role in a 1957 attempt to oustNikita Khrushchev from power.^[90]
• The firstSamos-F satellite, also referred to as a "ferret satellite" because of its purpose of monitoring Soviet missiles and seeking out information, was launched fromCape Canaveral.^[91]

• Pope John XXIII signedVeterum sapientia ("Ancient Wisdom") as anapostolic constitution, the highest possible papal decree. The declaration, published the next day, directed that Roman Catholic seminary students should not only be instructed on the use of theLatin language, but that lectures should be given in Latin, "a bond of unity between the Christian peoples of Europe". The Pope also prohibited priests from arguing against the use of Latin, and created an institute to create new words inContemporary Latin to keep it apace of modern developments.^[92] In 1963,the second Vatican council would approve an order retaining Latin for specific rituals, but native languages for most other purposes.^[93]
• InColombia, 40 train passengers were killed and 67 injured in a collision with a freight trainnearCali.^[94]
• Martin-Baltimore submitted its initial proposal for the redesign of theGemini rocket.^[64]
• Pope John XXIII madeSant'Atanasio in Rome atitular church as a seat forCardinals.^[95]
• Born:Steve Irwin, Australian naturalist and broadcaster; inEssendon, Victoria (killed by stingray, 2006)^[96]

• AstronautJohn Glenn arrived inCape Canaveral to a hero's welcome and was reunited with his family for the first time since before going into space. U.S. PresidentJohn F. Kennedy, for whom Cape Canaveral would be renamed temporarily during the 1960s and early 1970s, greeted Glenn and personally awarded theNASA Distinguished Service Medal to Glenn andRobert R. Gilruth.^[3][97] Kennedy praised Glenn for "professional skill, unflinching courage and extraordinary ability to perform a most difficult task under physical stress."^[97] It was then that Glenn revealed in an interview that the heat shield on his capsule began to break up upon re-entry, the loss of which would have been fatal. Glenn calmly said, "it could have been a bad day for everybody".^[98]
• Born:Lise Haavik, Norwegian singer; inNarvik
• Died:James Halliday McDunnough, 84, Canadian entomologist who identified almost 1,500 different species of butterflies in North America^[99]

• The United States government began its first telephone and television transmissions viasatellite, bouncing signals offEcho 1, which had been launched onAugust 12, 1960.^[100]

• North American Aviation'sRocketdyne Division was awarded a $32 million subcontract to build two separateliquid propulsion systems for the Gemini spacecraft, theorbit attitude and maneuvering system (OAMS) and thereentry control system (RCS).^[64]
• Born:Michelle Shocked (stage name for Karen Michelle Johnston), American singer-songwriter; inDallas^[101]
• Died:
  • Henrik Sørensen, 80, Norwegian expressionist painter^[102]
  • Hu Shih, 70, Chinese philosopher^[103]

• The Judy Garland Show, a one-off special, appeared on the United States TV channel CBS and received a 49.5 rating, the highest rating CBS had for a variety show to that time. The success of the special led to a weekly series in 1963, which CBS cancelled after a year because of low ratings.^[104]
• Inspection of Atlas launch vehicle 107-D, designated for the May 24Mercury 7 mission of Scott Carpenter, was conducted at theConvair Division ofGeneral Dynamics inSan Diego.^[3]
• Born:Birgit Fischer, German kayaker; Olympic gold medalist in 1980 and 1988, and world champion in 1978–79, 1981–83, 1985 and 1987 forEast Germany; Olympic gold medalist in 1992, 1996, 2000 and 2004 and world champion in 1993–95, 1997–98 for unitedGermany; inBrandenburg an der Havel^[105]

• John Glenn Day inWashington, D.C., featured the reception of the astronaut at theWhite House, a parade, and his address to ajoint session of the United States Congress.^[3]
• TheIrish Republican Army officially called off its five-yearBorder Campaign inNorthern Ireland. In press releases dropped off at newspapers there as well as in Ireland, the IRA publicity bureau wrote, "The Leadership of the Resistance Movement has ordered the termination of 'The Campaign of Resistance to British Occupation'... all arms and other materials have been dumped and all full-time active service volunteers have been withdrawn." With the exception of a series of 17 bank robberies to finance the organization, the IRA violence halted until 1969.^[106][107]
• Born:Etienne Ys,Prime Minister of the Netherlands Antilles from 2002 to 2003 and again from 2004 to 2006; inCuraçao
• Died:Chic Johnson, 70, American comedian who had been half of the popular vaudeville act ofOlsen and Johnson and creator of the musical revueHellzapoppin (musical).^[108]

• SublieutenantNguyễn Văn Cử and Lt.Phạm Phú Quốc, two South Vietnamese members of the Republic of Vietnam Air Force, diverted from their combat mission south ofSaigon anddropped bombs upon the presidential palace in an attempt to assassinate South Vietnamese PresidentNgô Đình Diệm. One of the 500-pound (230 kg) bombs landed in the room where the President and his advisers were but failed to detonate because it had been dropped from too low an altitude to arm itself. Quốc was arrested after being forced to land, while Cử fled to neighboring Cambodia. Both men would be reinstated to the Air Force after Diem's assassination in 1963.^[109][110]
• After getting word that U.S. Attorney GeneralRobert F. Kennedy was preparing to fire him from his job as Director of the FBI,J. Edgar Hoover gave the Attorney General a memorandum of an FBI investigation ofJudith Exner, noting that she had made phone calls to the private line of Robert's brother, U.S. President John F. Kennedy. Hoover remained FBI Director until his death in 1972.^[111]
• The United Kingdom's House of Commons voted 277–170 in favor of theCommonwealth Immigrants Act 1962, designed to limit the immigration into Great Britain by residents of India, Pakistan, and the West Indies.^[112]
• An explosion at the Tito Coal Mine inBanovici, in theBosnia republic ofYugoslavia, trapped 177 miners underground. Rescuers were able to save 123 of the men, but 54 were trapped inside and died.^[113]

• A group of 15 AmericanJupiter missiles, with nuclear warheads, became operational at theIzmir U.S. Air Force Base atÇiğli, within range to strike the Soviet Union 1,000 miles (1,600 km) away. The presence of American nuclear missiles in a nation bordering the USSR became an issue eight months later during theCuban Missile Crisis, when Soviet nuclear missiles were brought to Cuba, within striking distance of the United States. The missiles would be withdrawn from both Turkey and Cuba following the crisis.^[114]
• ProfessorClaudio Sánchez-Albornoz y Menduiña of theUniversity of Buenos Aires was given the honorary title of Prime Minister of theSpanish Republican government in Exile. He would hold the position for nine years.^[115]
• The Beatles appeared at theCavern Club in Liverpool on a triple bill withGerry and the Pacemakers and Johnny Sandon and the Searchers.^[116]

• February 1962
• February by year
• Months in the 1960s

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