February 1962

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February 20, 1962: John Glenn becomes first American in orbit
February 14, 1962: Jackie Kennedy gives American TV viewers White House tour
February 17, 1962: 345 West Germans die in North Sea floods
February 4, 1962: St. Jude's hospital established

The following events occurred in February 1962:

February 1, 1962 (Thursday)

February 2, 1962 (Friday)

  • John Uelses became the first person to surpass 16 feet in the pole vault, clearing the mark by a quarter inch at the Millrose Games in New York City. Uelses was assisted by use of a pole made of fiberglass.[4] Prior to 1930, existing techniques limited the maximum height of vaulting to 14 feet. After Cornelius Warmerdam cleared 15 feet in 1942, the 16 foot barrier had been pursued for more than twenty years.[5]
  • Three U.S. Air Force officers were killed when their Fairchild C-123 Provider became the first USAF plane to be lost in Vietnam, as the U.S. carried out Operation 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 the defoliant spraying aircraft receive a fighter escort.[6]
  • 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.[7]
  • The last underground shift was worked at the colliery in Radcliffe, Northumberland.[8]
  • The Soviet Union conducted its very first underground nuclear test. Previously, the Soviets had conducted all of its atomic and hydrogen bomb explosions in the atmosphere, including more than fifty since ending a moratorium on testing.[9]
  • Died: Alexander Lion, 91, co-founder of the German scout movement

February 3, 1962 (Saturday)

  • The United 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".[10] Presidential Proclamation 3447 was made pursuant to the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961, "effective 12:01 A.M., Eastern Standard Time, February 7, 1962".[11]
  • At 7:05 am Indian Standard Time (0135 UTC), a "doomsday period" (as predicted by Hindu astrologers, 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.[12] In Britain, Aetherias Society director Keith Robertson would spend February 4th 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.[13]
  • Luther Lindsay & Ricky Waldo won the All Asia Tag Team Championship in Tokyo.

February 4, 1962 (Sunday)

  • The St. Jude Children's Research Hospital opened in Memphis, Tennessee. American comedian Danny 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 to Saint 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.[14]
  • Gnostic Philosopher Samael 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 constellation Aquarius.[15]
  • The Sunday Times became the first paper in the United Kingdom to print a colour supplement. At the time that Colour Section was introduced, such supplements "were already commonplace in North America".[16]
  • Born: Clint Black, American country music singer, in Long Branch, New Jersey[17]
  • Died: Jacob Kramer, 69, UK-based Ukrainian painter[18]

February 5, 1962 (Monday)

  • During a solar eclipse, an extremely rare grand conjunction of the classical planets occurred, for the first time since 1821. It included all 5 of the naked-eye planets plus the Sun and Moon), all of them within 16° of one another on the ecliptic. 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 psychic Jeane 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 in A Gift of Prophecy, the 1965 biography of Dixon by Ruth Montgomery.[19]
  • French President Charles de Gaulle informed the nation that he was negotiating with the FLN for the independence of Algeria, conditional on a guarantee of the rights of "the minority of European origin in Algerian activities", and "an effective association" between Algeria and France.[20]
Ringo Starr

February 6, 1962 (Tuesday)

  • 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 of George Bernard Shaw, upon whose play Pygmalion, 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 to South Pacific.[22]
  • Spain selected its entry for the Eurovision Song Contest 1962; the winner was Víctor Balaguer with the song "Llámame", selected by representatives of regional radio stations.
  • The city of Memphis, Tennessee, ordered the desegregation of its lunch counters, formerly limited to white customers only.[23]
  • Negotiations between U.S. Steel and the United States Department of Commerce began.
  • Born: Axl Rose, American rock musician, as William Bruce Rose, Jr., later William Bruce Bailey, in Lafayette, Indiana
  • Died: Candido Portinari, 58, Brazilian painter, of lead poisoning from paint

February 7, 1962 (Wednesday)

February 8, 1962 (Thursday)

  • A demonstration against the Organisation armée secrète, called for by the PCF (Communist Party), was repressed at the Charonne metro station. Nine members of the Confédération 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".[29]
  • The United States and the United Kingdom announced an agreement between the two nations to allow the U.S. to test nuclear weapons at Christmas Island, a British possession in the Pacific Ocean. "[30]
  • The British government announced that it would grant independence to Jamaica effective August 6, 1962.[31]
  • Born: George Widener, American mathematical prodigy and artist, in Cincinnati

February 9, 1962 (Friday)

February 10, 1962 (Saturday)

Powers
Abel

February 11, 1962 (Sunday)

February 12, 1962 (Monday)

February 13, 1962 (Tuesday)

  • A crowd of between 150,000 and 500,000 people marched in Paris in the first massive protest against the continuing Algerian 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 the Charonne 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.[39]
  • Born: May Sweet, Myanmar singer and actress, in Rangoon, Burma (now Yangon, Myanmar)
  • Died: Hugh Dalton, 74, Welsh politician and former British Chancellor of the Exchequer

February 14, 1962 (Wednesday)

  • "A Tour of the White House with Mrs. John F. Kennedy", produced by CBS News and hosted by American First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy and CBS reporter Charles Collingwood, was broadcast on television by CBS and on NBC at 10:00 pm 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, showed Naked City instead, and ran the program the following Sunday.[40]

February 15, 1962 (Thursday)

February 16, 1962 (Friday)

  • Voting in India's national parliamentary election commenced, with 210 million voters going to the polls. There were 14,744 candidates for the 494 seats in the Lok Sabha and the 2,930 seats in the legislatures of 13 Indian states.[44] The final result was that 119,904,284 eligible voters participated, and the Indian National Congress, led by Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru, won 361 (or about 73%) of the seats. The Communist Party of India was a distant second with 29 seats (6%).[45]
  • U.S. President Kennedy issued nine Executive 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 of martial law.[46]
  • Rioters in British Guiana (now Guyana set fire to much of the capital city of Georgetown, as Guianans of African descent attacked those of Indian descent. British troops were sent in to restore order.[47]
  • Died: Frank Prewett, 68, Canadian poet

February 17, 1962 (Saturday)

281 dead in Hamburg

February 18, 1962 (Sunday)

February 19, 1962 (Monday)

February 20, 1962 (Tuesday)

  • The United States placed an astronaut into orbit for the first time, as John Glenn was sent aloft from Cape Canaveral aboard on third Project Mercury mission, in the space capsule Friendship 7. Glenn was launched at 9:47 a.m. local time and attained orbit 12 minutes later. After three circuits of the Earth, Glenn left orbit at 2:20 p.m., landed in the Atlantic Ocean at 2:43, and was recovered by the destroyer U.S.S. Noa at 3:04.[59] Glenn, the first American astronaut, would return to outer space on October 29, 1998, at the age of 77, becoming the oldest man to orbit the Earth.[60]
  • 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.[43]
  • Died: Martin Lewis, 80, Australian-American artist

February 21, 1962 (Wednesday)

February 22, 1962 (Thursday)

February 23, 1962 (Friday)

  • Astronaut John Glenn arrived in Cape Canaveral to a hero's welcome and was reunited with his family for the first time since before going into space. U.S. President John F. Kennedy, for whom Cape Canaveral would be renamed during the 1960s, greeted Glenn and personally awarded him the NASA Special Services Medal. Kennedy praised Glenn for "professional skill, unflinching courage and extraordinary ability to perform a most difficult task under physical stress."[69] 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".[70]
  • Born: Lise Haavik, Norwegian singer, in Narvik
  • Died: James Halliday McDunnough, 84, Canadian entomologist who identified almost 1,500 different species of butterflies in North America

February 24, 1962 (Saturday)

February 25, 1962 (Sunday)

  • The Judy Garland Show, a one-time special, appeared on CBS and received a 49.5 rating, the highest rating CBS had had for a variety show to that time. The success of the special led to a weekly series in 1963, which was cancelled after a year because of low ratings.[72]
  • Born: Birgit Fischer, German kayaker; Olympic gold medalist in 1980 and 1988, and world champion 1978-79, 1981–83, 1985 and 1987 for East Germany; Olympic gold medalist 1992, 1996, 2000 and 2004 and world champion 1993-95, 1997-98 for united Germany; in Brandenburg an der Havel, East Germany

February 26, 1962 (Monday)

  • The Irish Republican Army officially called off its five-year Border Campaign in Northern 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.[73]
  • Born: Etienne Ys, Netherlands Antilles politician, in Curaçao
  • Died: Chic Johnson, 70, American comedian who had been half of the popular vaudeville act of Olsen and Johnson and creator of the musical revue Hellzapoppin (musical)[74]

February 27, 1962 (Tuesday)

  • Sublieutenant Nguyễn Văn Cử and Lt. Phạm Phú Quốc, two South Vietnamese members of the Republic of Vietnam Air Force, diverted from their combat mission south of Saigon and dropped bombs upon the presidential palace in an attempt to assassinate South Vietnamese President Ngô Đình Diệm. One of the 500 pound 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.[75]
  • After getting word that U.S. Attorney General Robert 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 of Judith 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.[76]
  • An explosion at the Tito Coal Mine in Banovici, in the Bosnia republic of Yugoslavia, trapped 177 miners underground. Rescuers were able to save 123 of the men, but 54 were trapped inside and died.[77]
  • The United Kingdom's House of Commons voted 277-170 in favor of the Commonwealth Immigrants Act 1962, designed to limit the immigration into Great Britain by residents of India, Pakistan, and the West Indies.[78]
  • Born: Adam Baldwin, American actor, in Chicago
  • Died: Willie Best, 45, African-American actor

February 28, 1962 (Wednesday)

References

  1. Lisa M. Gring-Pemble, Grim Fairy Tales: The Rhetorical Construction of American Welfare Policy (Greenwood Publishing, 2003) p59
  2. "Money to Train Jobless Sought", Spokane Spokesman-Review, February 2, 1962, p1
  3. "Ghana And Soviets Sign Pact", Miami News, February 2, 1962, p2A
  4. "History's Highest Vault- Uelses Off To Boston After Record Showing", Miami News, February 3, 1962, p1C
  5. "Coach Certain of Foot Gain in Pole Vault", Painesville (OH) Telegraph, October 12, 1938, p9; "Uelses To Improve, Says Warmerdam", Miami News, February 3, 1962, p1C
  6. Philip D. Chinnery, Air Commando: Fifty Years of the USAF Air Commando and Special Operations Forces, 1944-1994 (Macmillan, 1997) p79
  7. "Pope Sets Date for Historic Council", Miami News, February 2, 1962, p1
  8. Stewart, E. (2001), The Three Villages, The Amble Social History Group
  9. "Soviets Go Underground In Latest Nuclear Test", Miami News, February 3, 1962, p3A
  10. "U.S. SLAPS EMBARGO ON CUBAN IMPORTS", Miami News, February 4, 1962, p1
  11. UCSB American Presidency Project
  12. "India Quakes as Doomsday Period Starts", Miami News, February 4, 1962, p2A;
  13. "Well, What Do You Know! We Survived Doomsday", Miami News, February 5, 1962, p1
  14. "Quick Facts about St. Jude"; "St. Jude Hospital Opens Fulfilling Comic's Vow", Youngstown (OH) Vindicator, February 5, 1962, p2
  15. Andrew Dawson, New Era, New Religions: Religious Transformation in Contemporary Brazil (Ashgate Publishing, 2007) p56
  16. Bob Franklin, Pulling Newspapers Apart: Analysing Print Journalism (Taylor & Francis, 2008) p189
  17. Patricia Romanowski; Holly George-Warren; Jon Pareles (1995). The New Rolling Stone Encyclopedia of Rock & Roll. Fireside. p. 1992. ISBN 978-0-684-81044-7.
  18. William D. Rubinstein; Michael Jolles; Hilary L. Rubinstein (22 February 2011). The Palgrave Dictionary of Anglo-Jewish History. Palgrave Macmillan. p. 535. ISBN 978-1-4039-3910-4.
  19. H. L. Willmington, Willmington's Guide to the Bible (Tyndale House Publishers, 1981) p565
  20. Phillip C. Naylor, France and Algeria: A History of Decolonization and Transformation (University Press of Florida, 2000) pp33-34
  21. Bob Spitz, Yeah! Yeah! Yeah!: The Beatles, Beatlemania, and the Music that Changed the World (Hachette Digital, 2007)
  22. "Movies Buy A Lady For $5 12 Million", Miami News, February 7, 1962, p1
  23. Sharon D. Wright, Race, Power, and Political Emergence in Memphis (Taylor & Francis, 2000)
  24. "400 COAL MINERS TRAPPED", Miami News, February 7, 1962, p1; "Saar Mine Toll Now 279", Miami News, February 8, 1962, p1
  25. "Flying Saucers? AF Says You're Seeing Things", Miami News, February 7, 1962, p1
  26. Volker Skierka, Fidel Castro: A Biography (Wiley-Blackwell, 2004) p126
  27. "It's Sam In Rally By Five: 2-Down At 54, Steady Snead Overhauls Gals", Palm Beach (FL) Post, February 8, 1962
  28. "Slammin' Sam the only man with LPGA victory" Archived 2013-05-02 at the Wayback Machine, by Jason Sobel, golfchannel.com, February 8, 2012
  29. Kristin Ross, May 1968 and Its Afterlives (University of Chicago Press, May 15, 2002) p41; "Wild Paris Riot Brings France Near Anarchy", St. Petersburg (FL) Times, February 9, 1962, p1
  30. We Can Blast At Christmas", Miami News, February 8, 1962, p9A
  31. "Jamaica To Get Freedom", Miami News, February 9, 1962, p4A
  32. "Introduction to the Taiwan Stock Exchange"
  33. Juan Díez Medrano, Framing Europe: Attitudes to European Integration in Germany, Spain, and the United Kingdom (Princeton University Press, 2003) pp149-152
  34. "U-2 PILOT POWERS FREED IN SWAP FOR RED SPY", Miami News, February 10, 1962, p1 Giles Whittell, Bridge of Spies: A True Story of the Cold War (Random House Digital, 2010); Christopher Andrew and Vasili Mitrokhin, The Sword and the Shield: The Mitrokhin Archive and the Secret History of the KGB (Basic Books, 2000)
  35. Martin Evans, Algeria: France’s Undeclared War (Oxford University Press, 2011) p310
  36. Johnny Cash, with Patrick Carr, Cash: The Autobiography (Harper Collins, 2003) p157
  37. "Bill Lancaster: Lost in the Sahara After Attempting to Break the England-Cape Town Flight Speed Record", Historynet.com, June 12, 2006
  38. "Dragonfly Peak, 2156m"
  39. Jim House and Neil MacMaster, Paris 1961: Algerians, State Terror, and Memory (Oxford University Press, 2006) p251
  40. John B. Roberts, Rating the First Ladies: The Women Who Influenced the Presidency (Citadel Press, 2004) p279; "TV Tours White House With First Lady Tonight", Youngstown Vindicator, February 14, 1962, p25; "Mrs. Kennedy TV Hostess to Nation; Tells of Restoration of Interior of the White House", New York Times, February 15, 1962, p1
  41. "Kekkonen Re-Elected In Finnish Vote", Sarasota (FL) Herald-Tribune, February 16, 1962, p14
  42. Michael Brecher and Jonathan Wilkenfeld, A Study of Crisis (University of Michigan Press, 1997) p435; "Secession End Voted By Katanga", Milwaukee Sentinel, February 15, 1962, p2
  43. Chris Cook and John Paxton, European Political Facts of the Twentieth Century (Palgrave Macmillan, 2000) p393
  44. "210 Million Go To Indian Polls, Vote For 14,744", Miami News, February 16, 1962, p3A
  45. 1962 Report of India Election
  46. Dianne Marshall, Sly Foxes, Wolves, and Men: Is Marxism Growing in America? (Tate Publishing, 2010) pp56-57; Executive Orders And Laws relating to National Emergencies Laws
  47. Stephen G. Rabe, U.S. Intervention in British Guiana: A Cold War Story (University of North Carolina Press, 2005) p89; "Troops Sent To Guiana", Ottawa Citizen, February 16, 1962
  48. "EUROPEAN STORMS FATAL TO 67", Windsor (ON) Star, February 17, 1962, p1; Lee Davis, Natural Disasters (Infobase Publishing, 2008) p162
  49. Joseph M. Siracusa, The Kennedy years (Infobase Publishing, 2004) p33
  50. Desmond Ball, Politics and Force Levels: The Strategic Missile Program of the Kennedy Administration (University of California Press, 1980) p196
  51. Ellis Amburn, The Most Beautiful Woman in the World: The Obsessions, Passions, and Courage of Elizabeth Taylor (HarperCollins, 2011); The Dispatch (Lexington, NC), February 19, 1962, p6
  52. "'Mr. Wilson' Of 'Dennis' TV Series Dies", Miami News, February 17, 1962, p1
  53. "Music's Bruno Walter Is Dead at 85", Miami News, February 18, 1962, p1
  54. "Renegade Pilots Strafe Algerian Rebels", St. Petersburg (FL) Times, February 19, 1962, p31; Nicholas M. Poulantzas, The Right of Hot Pursuit in International Law (Martinus Nijhoff Publishers, 2002) p330
  55. Michael A. Turner, Historical Dictionary of United States Intelligence (Scarecrow Press, 2006) p120
  56. Scott Schinder and Andy Schwartz, Icons of Rock (Greenwood Publishing, 2008) p66
  57. Hermit Eclipse: Saros cycle 142
  58. Tom Savage, A Dictionary of Iowa Place-Names (University of Iowa Press, 2007) p111
  59. "GLENN LANDS SAFELY IN SEA AFTER THREE EARTH ORBITS", Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, February 21, 1962, p1
  60. Buzz Aldrin and Ken Abraham, Magnificent Desolation: The Long Journey Home from the Moon (Random House Digital, 2010) p251
  61. David Caute, The Dancer Defects: The Struggle for Cultural Supremacy during the Cold War (Oxford University Press, 2005) p488
  62. Glenn P. Hastedt and Steven W. Guerrier, Spies, Wiretaps, and Secret Operations (ABC-CLIO, 2010) p292
  63. Dmitrii Shepilov, The Kremlin's Scholar: A Memoir of Soviet Politics under Stalin and Khrushchev (Yale University Press, 2007)
  64. Yuri Y. Karash, The Superpower Odyssey: A Russian Perspective on Space Cooperation (American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, 1999) p32; "NIK LIKES WAY WE DO IT", Miami Herald, February 21, 1962, p1
  65. "Pope Bars Attack On Latin Inside Catholic Church", Toledo Blade, February 24, 1962, p7
  66. Françoise Waquet, Latin, or, The Empire of a Sign (Verso, 2002) p73
  67. Cardinal Title S. Atanasio GCatholic.org
  68. "Colombia Train Crash Kills 40", St. Petersburg Times, February 23, 1962, p2
  69. "RETURN OF THE HERO", Miami News, February 23, 1962, p1
  70. "I Saw Heat Shield Might Break", Miami News, February 23, 1962, p1
  71. Julie K. Petersen, The Telecommunications Illustrated Dictionary (CRC Press, 2002)
  72. Sam Irvin, Kay Thompson: From Funny Face to Eloise (Simon and Schuster, 2010) p313
  73. Tim Pat Coogan, The Troubles: Ireland's Ordeal, 1966-1996, and the Search for Peace (Palgrave Macmillan, 2002) p66, 84; "Irish Army Pledge: No More Terrorism", Miami News, February 26, 1962, p6A
  74. "Vaudeville Funnyman Harold Chic Johnson Died Monday", Lexington (NC) Dispatch, February 27, 1962, p5
  75. Spencer Tucker, The Encyclopedia of the Vietnam War: A Political, Social, and Military History, Volume 1 (ABC-CLIO, 2011) p838; "Viet Airmen Bomb Palace Of President", Miami News, February 27, 1962, p6A
  76. Lamar Waldron, Ultimate Sacrifice: John and Robert Kennedy, the Plan for a Coup in Cuba, and the Murder of JFK (Basic Books, 2008)
  77. "52 Killed in Yugoslav Mine Blasts", Calgary Herald, February 28, 1962
  78. "British Vote To Restrict Immigration", Eugene (OR) Register-Guard, February 28, 1962, p2
  79. Air Force Missileers (Turner Publishing, 1998) p23
  80. Harry, Bill (2000). The Beatles Encyclopedia: Revised and Updated. London: Virgin Publishing. ISBN 0-7535-0481-2.
  81. Henry Kamen, The Disinherited: Exile and the Making of Spanish Culture, 1492-1975 (HarperCollins, 2008)
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