1963

1963 (MCMLXIII) was a common year starting on Tuesday of the Gregorian calendar, the 1963rd year of the Common Era (CE) and Anno Domini (AD) designations, the 963rd year of the 2nd millennium, the 63rd year of the 20th century, and the 4th year of the 1960s decade.

Millennium:	2nd millennium
Centuries:	19th century – 20th century – 21st century
Decades:	1930s  1940s  1950s  – 1960s –  1970s  1980s  1990s
Years:	1960 1961 1962 – 1963 – 1964 1965 1966

Events

Doctor Who space-and-time-ship, the TARDIS

• January 5 – The Beach Boys record one of their trademark songs, "Surfin' USA"
• February 11 – The Beatles record 10 songs for the album "Please Please Me"
• June 1 – Jomo Kenyatta becomes the first Prime Minister of Kenya
• September 15 – "Birmingham Sunday" when a bomb killed 4 black girls in a church in Birmingham, Alabama
• September – The X-Men make their debut
• November 22 – John F. Kennedy assassinated, Lyndon Johnson sworn in as President
• November 23 – Doctor Who airs for the first time in the United Kingdom
• December 12 - Kenya is officially independent from the United Kingdom
• December 31 – The Central African Federation breaks apart. It eventually became Zambia, Malawi and Rhodesia
• The cassette tape was invented

Births

Colin Montgomerie at Austrian Open in 2006

• January 2 - Edgar Martínez, American baseball player
• March 9 - Jean-Marc Vallée, Canadian director (d. 2021)
• March 21 – Shawn Lane, American musician
• May 8 – Helena Blagne Zaman, Slovene singer
• May 8 - Anthony Field, Australian musician (The Wiggles)
• May 9 – Barry Douglas Lamb, rock musician, writer, Christian preacher
• May 11 – Natasha Richardson, actress (d. 2009)
• May 12 – Vanessa A. Williams, actress
• May 24 – Joe Dumars, basketball star
• May 25 – Mike Myers, actor, comedian
• May 30 - Tracey Childs, actress
• June 6 – Jason Isaacs, actor
• June 9 – Johnny Depp, actor
• June 13 – Bettina Bunge, tennis player.
• June 17 – Greg Kinnear, TV host and actor
• June 18 – Bruce Smith, American football player
• June 23 – Colin Montgomerie, golfer.
• June 25 – George Michael, singer
• June 27 – Meera Syal, comedian, writer, playwright, singer, journalist and actress
• July 9 – Johnny Depp, American actor
• July 16 – Phoebe Cates, actress
• July 17 - Regina Belle, American singer
• July 24 – Karl Malone, basketball
• July 30 – Lisa Kudrow, American actress
• August 3 – James Hetfield, Metallica frontman and co-founder
• August 6 – Kevin Mitnick, computer cracker
• August 19 – Joey Tempest, Europe frontman
• August 19 – John Stamos, actor
• August 23 – Kenny Wallace, NASCAR race car driver
• August 24 – Hideo Kojima, video game director
• August 30 – Paul Oakenfold, DJ
• September 7 – Eazy-E, American rapper
• September 10 – Randy Johnson, baseball pitcher, five-time Cy Young Award winner
• September 21 – Cecil Fielder, baseball player
• September 29 – Dave Andreychuk, NHL player
• October 1 – Mark McGwire, baseball star
• October 4 – Mark Powley, English actor
• October 10 – Daniel Pearl, journalist (d. 2002)
• October 22 – Brian Boitano, figure skater
• October 26 – Natalie Merchant, singer/songwriter/musician
• October 31 – Fred McGriff, baseball player
• November 13 – Vinny Testaverde, American football quarterback
• November 18 – Dante Bichette, baseball player
• November 19 – Terry Farrell, actress
• November 21 – Nicolette Sheridan, actress
• November 24 – Iris Erlingsdottir, OMD, writer, journalist
• December 2 – John Kennedy Morrisey, entertainer/athlete/storyteller
• December 13 – Ilkka Remes, writer
• December 16 – Benjamin Bratt, actor
• December 18 – Brad Pitt, actor
• December 23 – Jim Harbaugh, American football player

Deaths

January

Sylvanus Olympio

• January 2 – Dick Powell, American actor (b. 1904)
• January 2 – Al Mamaux, American baseball player (b. 1894)
• January 2 – Jack Carson, American actor (b. 1910)
• January 5 – Rogers Hornsby, American baseball manager (b. 1896)
• January 13 – Sylvanus Olympio, President of Togo (b. 1902)
• January 18 – Edward Charles Titchmarsh, British mathematician (b. 1899)
• January 22 – Alf Henry Andresen, Norwegian opera singer (b. 1891)
• January 23 – Muhammad Ali Bogra, Prime Minister of Pakistan (b. 1909)
• January 29 – Robert Frost, American poet (b. 1874)
• January 30 – Francis Poulenc, French composer (b. 1899)

February

Sylvia Plath

Rajendra Prasad

• February 11 – Sylvia Plath, American poet and novelist (suicide) (b. 1932)
• February 28 – Rajendra Prasad, 1st President of India (b. 1884)
• February 28 – Eppa Rixey, American baseball player (b. 1891)
• February 28 – Alba Chrétien-Vaguet, French singer (b. 1872)

March

Patsy Cline

• March 4 – William Carlos Williams, American writer (b. 1883)
• March 5 – Patsy Cline, American singer (b. 1932)
• March 11 – Alpha Brumage, American football player (b. 1880)
• March 18 – Wanda Hawley, American actress (b. 1895)

April

Yitzhak Ben-Zvi

• April 6 – Otto Struve, Russian-American astronomer (b. 1897)
• April 9 – Eddie Edwards, American jazz musician (b. 1891)
• April 23 – Yitzhak Ben-Zvi, President of Israel (b. 1884)

May

• May 12 – Bobby Kerr, Canadian runner (b. 1882)
• May 31 – Edith Hamilton, educator and writer (b. 1867)

June

Pope John XXIII

Thích Quảng Đức

• June 3 – Pope John XXIII head of the Catholic Church (b. 1881)
• June 11 – Thích Quảng Đức, Vietnamese Bhuddist monk (b. 1897)
• June 18 – Pedro Armendariz, Mexican actor (b. 1912)

July

• July 1 – Ezzel Dine Zulficar, Egyptian film director (b. 1919)

August

• August 5 – Theodore Roethke, American poet (b. 1908)
• August 6 – Gottfried Klaus, Swiss politician (b. 1899)
• August 23 – Glen Gray, American saxophonist (b. 1906)
• August 31 – Georges Braque, French painter (b. 1882)

September

• September 11 – Suzanne Duchamp, French painter (b. 1889)

October

Édith Piaf

• October 11 – Édith Piaf, French singer (b. 1915)
• October 11 – Jean Cocteau, French writer (b. 1889)

November

Ngo Dinh Diem

John F. Kennedy

Lee Harvey Oswald

• November 1 – Ngo Dinh Diem, President of South Vietnam (b. 1901)
• November 5 – Luis Cernuda, Spanish writer (b. 1902)
• November 15 – Fritz Reiner, Hungarian conductor (b. 1888)
• November 22 – John F. Kennedy, 35th President of the United States (b. 1917)
• November 22 – J. D. Tippit, Police officer (b. 1924)
• November 22 – Aldous Huxley, English novelist (b. 1894)
• November 22 – C. S. Lewis, English novelist (b. 1898)
• November 24 – Lee Harvey Oswald (b. 1939)
• November 27 – Kikuji Ishimoto, Japanese architect (b. 1894)
• November 28 – Tryambak Shankar Shejwalkar, Indian historian (b. 1895)

December

Huseyn Shaheed Suhrawardy

Sarit Thanarat

Theodor Heuss

Dinah Washington

• December 1 – Amy Elizabeth Thorpe, British-American spy (b. 1910)
• December 2 – Thomas Hicks, American marathon runner (b. 1875)
• December 5 – Huseyn Shaheed Suhrawardy, Prime Minister of Pakistan (b. 1892)
• December 5 – Karl Amadeus Hartmann, German composer (b. 1905)
• December 8 – Sarit Thanarat, Prime Minister of Thailand (b. 1908)
• December 12 – Theodor Heuss, President of Germany (b. 1884)
• December 14 – Dinah Washington, American singer (b. 1924)
• December 28 – Paul Hindemith, German composer (b. 1895)

Nobel Prizes

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

Movies released

Buddy Hackett in Its a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World

• 8½, an Italian movie directed by Federico Fellini
• An Actor's Revenge
• La Baie des anges
• The Birds, directed by Alfred Hitchcock
• Blood Feast
• Bye Bye Birdie, a musical comedy
• Charade
• Cleopatra, starring Elizabeth Taylor, Rex Harrison, and Richard Burton
• From Russia With Love, the second James Bond movie
• Fun in Acapulco
• The Great Escape
• How the West Was Won
• Hud, winning Academy Award for Best Actress for Patricia Neal and Best Supporting Actor for Melvyn Douglas
• Irma La Douce
• It Happened at the World's Fair
• It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World
• Lawrence of Arabia starring Peter O'Toole
• The Longest Day
• The Mask
• Mépris, Le
• The Nutty Professor
• Son of Flubber
• The Sword in the Stone, an animated movie by Walt Disney Productions
• Tom Jones, winning both Academy Award for Best Picture and Academy Award for Best Director
• The V.I.P.s, winning Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for Margaret Rutherford
• Zuo ye meng hun zhong

Hit songs

The Beatles in 1964

• "Dominique" – The Singing Nun
• "Please Please Me" – The Beatles
• "She Loves You" – The Beatles
• "Love Me Do" – The Beatles
• "I Want To Hold Your Hand" – The Beatles
• "From Me To You" – The Beatles
• "In Dreams" – Roy Orbison
• "Blue Bayou" – Roy Orbison
• "Mean Woman Blues" – Roy Orbison
• "Pretty Paper" – Roy Orbison
• "Hey Paula" – Paul & Paula
• "He's So Fine" – The Chiffons
• "Bo Diddley" – Buddy Holly
• "Brown Eyed Handsome Man" – Buddy Holly
• "Surf City" – Jan & Dean
• "It's My Party" – Lesley Gore
• "Twenty Four Hours From Tulsa" – Gene Pitney
• "Be My Baby" – The Ronettes
• "Wipe Out" – The Surfaris
• "If I Had A Hammer" – Trini Lopez
• "Da Doo Ron Ron" – The Crystals
• "Pipeline" – The Chantays
• "Walk Like A Man" – Frankie Valli & The Four Seasons
• "Heat Wave" – Martha & the Vandellas
• "Up On The Roof" – The Drifters
• "I Can't Stay Mad At You" – Skeeter Davis
• "Only In America" – Jay & the Americans
• "Who Stole The Keeshka?" – Matys Brothers
• "Wonderful Summer" – Robin Ward
• "I Only Want to Be With You" – Dusty Springfield
• "The Folk Singer" – Tommy Roe
• "Guilty" – Jim Reeves
• "Is This Me" – Jim Reeves

New books

Kurt Vonnegut in 1972

• The Bell Jar – Sylvia Plath
• Benefactor – Susan Sontag
• Caravans – James A. Michener
• Cat's Cradle – Kurt Vonnegut
• City of Night – John Rechy
• The Collector – John Fowles
• Elizabeth Appleton – John O'Hara
• False Colours – Georgette Heyer
• John Cleland's Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure – John Cleland
• The Glass-Blowers – Daphne du Maurier
• Gradmother and the Priests – Taylor Caldwell
• The Group – Mary McCarthy
• Happiness Is a Warm Puppy – Charles M. Schulz
• The Making of the English Working Class – E. P. Thompson
• On Her Majesty's Secret Service – Ian Fleming
• Planet of the Apes (La Planète des Singes) – Pierre Boulle
• The Rise of the West – William H. McNeill
• The Sand Pebbles – Richard McKenna
• Second Skin – John Hawkes
• The Shoes of the Fisherman – Morris West
• Six Easy Pieces – Richard P. Feynman
• The Spy who Came in from the Cold – John le Carré
• That Summer in Paris – Morley Callaghan