September 15, 1963: Killing of four children at church in Birmingham invokes protestsSeptember 16, 1963: Malaya merges with Singapore, Sabah and North Borneo...... to create Malaysia
An unidentified visitor toLenin's Mausoleum, in Moscow, entered the shrine with a bomb concealed under his coat, and then detonated the explosive, killing himself and causing an unspecified amount of damage and injuries. The event was not reported in the Soviet press and would not be revealed until after the breakup of the Soviet Union.[1]
TheCommonwealth Marriage Act 1961 took full effect in Australia, creating a national law regulating marriage, divorce and domestic relations and superseding individual state laws.[2]
About 100,000 people in two Japanese cities demonstrated against the presence of Americannuclear submarines.[3]
U.S. TV presenterWalter Cronkite introduced the first broadcast ofCBS Evening News with the statement, "Good evening from our CBS newsroom in New York, on this, the first broadcast of network television's first half-hour news program." The first show was aired at 6:30 p.m. local time and included a pre-recorded segment of Cronkite's interview with U.S. PresidentJohn F. Kennedy. Previously, the three U.S. networks had run their daily national news for fifteen minutes.[4]NBC would inaugurate its half-hour news program a week later, althoughABC would not follow suit until 1967.[5]
The United Statesfederal minimum wage was increased to $1.25 an hour ($12.84 in 2024 dollars).[7] Fifty years later, the minimum wage would be $7.25 an hour.
NASA's Mission Planning Coordination Group was established to review monthly activities in Gemini operations, network guidance and control, and trajectories and orbits, and to ensure the coordination of variousManned Spacecraft Center divisions concerned withProject Gemini mission planning.[8]
The Gemini Project Office suspended testing of the parachute recovery system until adrogue parachute could be added as a means of stabilizing thespacecraft during the last phase ofreentry, at altitudes between 50,000 feet (15,000 m) and 10,000 feet (3,000 m). Testing would resume in January.[8]
All 80 people aboardSwissair Flight 306, a jet airliner on its way to Rome, were killed when the aircraft crashed shortly after takeoff from Zurich. The plane, aSud Aviation Caravelle, caught fire and came down near the town ofDürrenäsch. Most of the 44 passengers were from the tiny village ofHumlikon, including the town's mayor and its entire city council, all of whom had planned to disembark at Geneva for a visit to an agricultural experiment station.[10]
For the first time ever, black students registered at white schools in the segregated U.S. state of Alabama;[11] in some places, they faced state troopers deployed by GovernorGeorge Wallace to prevent integration.[12][13] That night, the bombing of a black household in Birmingham triggered a riot, and a black 20-year-old was shot to death by police.[14]
TheU.S. Department of Defense approved theTitan II Augmented Engine Improvement Program.[8] The formal Combined Systems Acceptance Test (CSAT) of theTitan II GLV rocket No. 1 was conducted in the vertical test facility atMartin-Baltimore. and the rocket was presented to the Air Force for final acceptance five days later.[8]
The 16 Geminiastronaut candidates began training in water and land parachute landing techniques, necessary because in low level abort (under 70,000 feet (21,000 m)) the pilot would be ejected from theGemini spacecraft and would descend by personnel parachute. In the training, a towedparasail carried each astronaut to as high as 400 feet (120 m) before the towline was released and the astronaut glided to a landing.[8]
Félix Houphouët-Boigny, President ofCôte d'Ivoire, relinquished his additional post of Minister of Foreign Affairs, replacing it with the ministries of Defense, the Interior, and Agriculture.
NBC became the second U.S. television network to expand its evening news from 15 minutes to 30. As CBS did the week before,The Huntley–Brinkley Report included an interview with President Kennedy.[21]
U.S. President Kennedy issued an executive order that exempted married American men from being drafted.[25]
Italian Mafia bossBernardo Provenzano was indicted for murder. Eight days later, he would become a fugitive,[26] and would not be captured until 43 years later, on April 11, 2006.[27]
Inspection of theGemini 1 rocket began. The NASA team declared the rocket to be unacceptable because of severely contaminatedelectrical connectors and a lack of documents showing qualification of a number of major components.Martin engineers inspected all 350 of the electrical connectors and found that more than half (180) required cleaning or replacement.[8]
The Virginia Supreme Court ruled that a state law, requiring segregated seating in publicly owned ballparks, was unconstitutional.[28]
AnIndian Airlines Viscount turboprop, crashed while en route from Nagpur to New Delhi, killing all 18 people on board.[29]
All 36 passengers and four crew of a chartered airliner were killed when the twin-engineVC.1 Viking crashed into a French mountain peak during a thunderstorm. The passengers were all British vacationers who were on their way to the mountain resort town ofPerpignan after having departed fromLondon.[30][31] Shortly after midnight, the aircraft charted from the French company Airnautic, slammed into the 4,800 feet (1,500 m) high Roc de la Rouquette in the French Pyrenees mountains.[32]
TheAnkara Agreement was signed in the capital of Turkey, between representatives of theEuropean Economic Community (EEC) and Turkey, and provided for gradual entrance of Turkey into the European Community.[33]
Died:Modest Altschuler, 90, Belarusian cellist, orchestral conductor, and composer
TheWhite House confirmed in a press release that U.S. President Kennedy would bemaking a trip to Dallas, Texas later in the year, though the specific itinerary was not complete. TheDallas Times-Herald reported that Kennedy would have "a breakfast in Dallas, luncheon in Fort Worth, coffee in San Antonio and dinner in Houston."[34][35]
Mary Kay Cosmetics was incorporated by a Texas widow,Mary Kay Ash, who invested her life savings of $5,000. By the time of her death in 2001, the company had sales of $1.4 billion.[36]
Barbra Streisand married for the first time at the age of 21, in a wedding to film actorElliott Gould; they would divorce in 1971.[37]
TheGlen Canyon Dam, in the U.S. state ofArizona, was "topped out" with the pouring of the last concrete.[38]
TheTokyo Convention, officially the "Convention on Offences and Certain Other Acts Committed On Board Aircraft", was signed in Japan. Upon ratification by twelve nations, the treaty would enter into force onDecember 4, 1969.[40]
Born: TheFischer quintuplets (Mary Ann, Mary Catherine, Mary Margaret, Mary Magdalene and James Andrew Fischer), the first American born quintuplets to survive infancy, and only the third in world history; inAberdeen, South Dakota[43]
September 15, 1963: Aftermath of the Birmingham bombing
A time bomb exploded in the basement of the16th Street Baptist Church inBirmingham, Alabama, killing four African-American girls and injuring 22 other children who were attending aSunday school class.[44] The blast happened at 10:22 a.m., in a room with 80 children. Denise McNair was 11, and Carole Robertson, Cynthia Wesley and Addie Mae Collins were all 14.[45][46]Robert Edward Chambliss, a white member of racistUnited Klans of America who put the bomb together, would finally be convicted of the children's murder on November 18, 1977.[47] Thomas Blanton, Jr., who drove the group to the church, would be tried and convicted in 2001, and Bobby Frank Cherry, who planted the bomb, would finally be convicted of murder on May 22, 2002, almost 39 years after the killing.[48][49][50]
The science fictionanthology television show,The Outer Limits, premiered on the ABC television network at 7:30 p.m. in the United States, beginning with the episode "The Galaxy Being".[55]
InFort-Lamy,Chad, anti-government demonstrations were quelled with 300 people killed.
Near the town ofChualar, California,32 people died and 25 were injured when their makeshift bus (a flatbed truck with two long benches and a canopy) was struck by a train. The truck was carrying 56 migrant farm workers, mostly from Mexico, and was returning from a celery field at the end of the day. Twenty-two of the men died at the scene, and another 10 died of their injuries later.[56]
On television,David Janssen made his first appearance in the title role ofThe Fugitive, portraying Dr. Richard Kimble, a physician who had wrongfully been convicted of murder.Barry Morse portrayed Indiana detective Philip Gerard, whose relentless pursuit of Kimble would end with the series finale on August 29, 1967.[57]
The last sports event took place at thePolo Grounds in New York City, with baseball'sNew York Mets losing to thePhiladelphia Phillies, 5–1 before a crowd of only 1,752 people.[58] When the game ended, the fans ran onto the field, vandalizing the scoreboard and the sod on the field, as well as some of the seats in the stadium, which was scheduled to be torn down in 1964.[59]
The first flight of theASSET project, (Aerothermodynamic-elasticStructuralSystemsEnvironmentalTests), a winged space payload vehicle, was carried out, to develop a manned spacecraft which could return from orbit and land on a runway.[60]
The Patty Duke Show premiered on television, with actressPatty Duke playing two roles as "identical cousins". Camera tricks allowed Duke to appear as both Patty Lane and her look-alike cousin Cathy Lane.
At the United Nations, Soviet Foreign MinisterAndrei Gromyko announced that the USSR was prepared to negotiate and sign a treaty to prohibit the orbiting of nuclear weapons platforms inouter space. TheOuter Space Treaty would be signed in 1967.[64]
Iota Phi Theta, an African-American collegiate fraternity, was founded with the first chapter organized atMorgan State College. There are now 249 chapters of the fraternity.[65][66]
At the United Nations, U.S. President John F. Kennedy proposed a joint Moon mission between the U.S. and the Soviet Union.[67][68] The Soviet Communist Party newspaperPravda reported the speech but commented that the idea was "premature". Kennedy would die two months later, Soviet Chairman Khrushchev would be deposed within 13 months, and the United States would proceed alone in its lunar program.[69]
Joe Morgan, a second baseman formerly with theModesto Colts, made his Major League Baseball debut for theHouston Colt .45s and began a career that would lead to his induction in baseball's Hall of Fame.[73]
Haiti and theDominican Republic, on the west side and east side, respectively, of the Caribbean island of Hispaniola, prepared for war. Dominican president Juan Bosch threatened to drop bombs on the presidential palace of Haiti'sFrancois Duvalier, after artillery shells rained across the border on the Dominican Republic town ofDajabón.[78] Haiti, in turn, accused the Dominican Republic of firing weapons on the neighboring Haitian town ofOuanaminthe. The nations would later take their grievances to theOrganization of American States without going to war.
The U.S. Department of Defense issued a plan for 22 military research experiments for the Gemini program, with 13 for the U.S. Air Force and nine for theU.S. Navy, at an estimated cost of $22 million. Their inclusion was subject to Manned Spacecraft Center (MSC) review and depended on clarification of weight and volume of experiment equipment.[8]
The U.S. Senate voted 80 to 19 to ratify theNuclear Test Ban Treaty, 14 more than the two-thirds majority required by the U.S. Constitution.[80] President Kennedy felt that the ratification of the treaty, which would go into effect on October 11, to be the greatest achievement of his presidency, according to aideTheodore Sorensen.[81]
Yaakov Herzog, a deputy at the Foreign Ministry ofIsrael, secretly met in London with KingHussein of Jordan, beginning a dialogue between the two neighboring nations that were, officially, enemies. King Hussein had suggested the meeting, explaining later that "One had to break that barrier... whether it led anywhere or not."[82]
The rural-themed situation comedyPetticoat Junction began a seven season run on CBS television in the U.S., after producerPaul Henning's success withThe Beverly Hillbillies.Bea Benaderet, who had portrayed Pearl Bodine mother on the first episode, starred as Kate Bradley, as the operator of a hotel accessible only by train.[83]
An explosion killed 18 people and seriously injured 12 others at a fireworks factory at the Italian city ofCaserta. The factory owner, who was killed in the blast, had reportedly been asking the employees to rush to produce additional fireworks for the festival ofSaint Michael the Archangel.[84]
Dominican Republic PresidentJuan Bosch was overthrown in a military coup, only seven months after he had become the nation's first democratically elected leader.[85] Military leaders installed a group of three civilians, headed by Emilio de Los Santos as President, to preside over the nation.[86]
The U.S. House of Representatives voted 271–155 to approve the reduction of the federal income tax rate.[88] The bill would pass the U.S. Senate, and be signed into law on February 26, 1964.[89]
A panickedelephant was chased for 90 minutes through the streets ofLansing, Michigan, after running away from an outdoor circus at a shopping center, injuring one man and causing extensive damage to a department store. "Little Rajjee", a 16-year old elephant, was performing at the King Circus at the parking lot of South Logan Shopping Center when she got loose. Pursued by hundreds of curious people, Rajjee fractured the pelvis of a bystander, and rampaged through a residential south Lansing neighborhood, before crashing through the doors of Arlan's Department Store on Fenton Street.[91] Her handlers had her under control twice, but Rajje was panicked by a mob inside the store and by a burglar alarm before city police shot and killed her.[92]
A man fromWaynesville, North Carolina, crashed his pickup truck through the closed iron gates of theWhite House, stopping short of hitting the building. The unarmed man, who reportedly demanded to see President Kennedy and shouted that "the Communists are taking over in North Carolina", was taken to a hospital for observation. The President was out at the time.[93]
After only one day on theFBI's Ten Most Wanted Fugitives list, bank robber Carl Close was arrested by local authorities inAnderson, South Carolina. Close had just robbed a branch of the First National Bank in Anderson, and was stopped by a detective three minutes later while trying to commandeer another car.[94]
T. S. Eliot's bookCollected Poems 1909–1962, selected by the author, was published on his 75th birthday.
Lee Harvey Oswald arrived inMexico City and went to the consulate ofCuba, where he applied for atransit visa in an attempt to travel to Cuba and then back to the Soviet Union, where he had lived from 1959 to 1962. The Warren Commission would later conclude that Oswald, after being refused visas by the Cuban consulate and the Soviet embassy, returned to his home nearDallas.[96]
North American Aviation inspected the Gemini tow test vehicle (TTV) for the Paraglider Landing System Program, and its team set 24 modifications.[8] At the same time, North American stopped its retrofit of the full-scale test vehicle (FSTV) to theGemini prototype paraglider deployment hardware.[8]
Electro-Mechanical Research successfully tested the compatibility of airborne and ground stationPCM (pulse code modulated) telemetry equipment for Project Gemini.[8]
Parliamentary elections were held in South Vietnam. No political parties were represented, and all 123 seats were filled by independents.
Jim Morrison, a 19-year-old student atFlorida State University and future founder of the rock groupThe Doors, was arrested for the first of six times, after he and his friends stole items from a Tallahassee Police Department cruiser. Morrison spent a night in jail, then paid a fifty dollar fine and continued his studies at FSU.[98]
John F. Kennedy's speech at the Inauguration of the Whiskeytown Dam
Joseph Kasavubu, the President of theRepublic of the Congo (the former Belgian Congo, colloquially referred to as "Congo-Léopoldville"), dissolved that nation's parliament for the second time in less than four years, so that he and his allies could rule by decree.[101]
Chilean sport diver Crisologo Urizar Contreras was attacked and killed by a largeshark (probably agreat white shark) at Bahía el Panul, south ofCoquimbo,Chile. Urizar's remains were never recovered, although his damagedwetsuit jacket washed ashore.[102][103]
ThePantone Color Matching System, developed in the United States, was introduced and would become "a de facto international colour standard" for printing companies around the world.[105]
The U.S. Air Force contracted with Aerojet-General to develop a backup for the Titan II Gemini rocket's second stage engine
injectors, after development flights showed that the engine ahdcombustion instability. The redesign took 18 months.[8] On the same day, Manned Spacecraft Center awarded its first incentive-type contract toLing-Temco-Vought, Inc. (LTV), set for making a trainer to be used in the Gemini launch vehicle training program. The fixed-price-incentive-fee was $105,000.[8]
^Powell, Allan Kent (2003).The Utah Guide (3rd ed.). Fulcrum Publishing. p. 408.
^Evans, Malcolm; Murray, Rachel (2008).The African Charter on Human and Peoples' Rights: The System in Practice 1986–2006.Cambridge University Press. p. 2.
^McWhinney, Edward (1987).Aerial Piracy and International Terrorism: The Illegal Diversion of Aircraft and International Law.Martinus Nijhoff. p. 40.
^Seargent, David (1979).The Greatest Comets of History: Broom Stars and Celestial Scimitars. Springer. p. 206.
^Hampton, Henry; Fayer, Steve (2011).Voices of Freedom: An Oral History of the Civil Rights Movement from the 1950s Through the 1980s. Random House Digital.
^Martin, Gus, ed. (2011). "Sixteenth Street Baptist Church bombing".The SAGE Encyclopedia of Terrorism. SAGE. p. 545.
^"1963 church bomber sentenced to life in jail".Chicago Tribune. November 19, 1977.
^Brown, Tamara L.; et al. (February 17, 2012).African American Fraternities and Sororities: The Legacy and the Vision.University Press of Kentucky. p. 379.
^"Senate Ratifies Test Ban Pact By Vote of 80-19".Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. September 25, 1963. p. 1.
^Powaski, Ronald E. (1987).March to Armageddon: The United States and the Nuclear Arms Race, 1939 to the Present. Oxford University Press. pp. 111–112.
^Tim Brooks; Earle F. Marsh (2009).The Complete Directory to Prime Time Network and Cable TV Shows, 1946-Present. Random House. p. 1077.ISBN9780307483201.
^"Fireworks Blast Kills 18".Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. September 25, 1963. p. 1.
^"Army Overthrows Bosch",Miami News, September 25, 1963, p1
^"Dominicans Pick 3 To Lead Nation",Pittsburgh Press, September 26, 1963, p1
^"Macmillan Cleared In Sex Scandal",Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, September 26, 1963, p1
^"House Passes Income Tax Cut",Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, September 26, 1963, p1
^Michael Meagher and Larry D. Gragg,John F. Kennedy: A Biography: A Biography (ABC-CLIO, 2011) p119
^"Gerhardsen, Einar", inThe A to Z of Norway, Jan Sjåvik, ed. (Scarecrow Press, 2010) p86
^"Police Kill Berserk Elephant— Wide Havoc Caused by Big Beast",Lansing (MI) State Journal, September 27, 1963, p1
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This article incorporates text from this source, which is in thepublic domain.Grimwood, James M.; Hacker, Barton C.; Vorzimmer, Peter J."PART II (A) Development and Qualification January 1963 through December 1963".Project Gemini Technology and Operations - A Chronology. NASA Special Publication-4002.NASA. Retrieved24 February 2023.