The
year 1964 was an eventful time, including the Beatles & Rolling Stones
arrival in the USA and triggering of the Vietnam War.
The
following events took place in 1964.
Jan 10 --
Panama broke ties with the U.S. and demanded a revision of the canal treaty.
Jan 30 -- The
USA launched Ranger 6 from Cape Canaveral. It was an unmanned spacecraft carrying
six television cameras that was programmed to crash-land on the moon.
Feb 1 --
President Lyndon Johnson rejected Charles de Gaulle's plan for a neutral
Vietnam.
Feb 6 -- Cuba
blocked the water supply to Guantanamo Naval Base in retaliation of the USA seizure
of four Cuban fishing boats and fines on Cuban fishermen near Florida. In
response, the U.S. imposed water rationing and built desalination plants.
Feb 6 --
Paris and London agreed to build a rail tunnel under the English Channel.
Feb 7
-- The Beatles began their first American tour, arriving at New York's John F.
Kennedy International Airport, where they were greeted by 25,000 screaming
fans.
Feb 7 --
Baskin-Robbins introduced Beatle Nut ice cream.
Feb 9 -- The
Beatles made their first live American television appearance on "The Ed
Sullivan Show."
Feb 9 -- The
U.S. embassy in Moscow was stoned by Chinese and Vietnamese students.
Feb 25 --
Cassius Clay (later changed his name to Muhammad Ali) became world heavyweight
boxing champion by defeating Sonny Liston in Miami Beach.
Mar 4 --
Jimmy Hoffa was convicted of jury tampering.
Mar 9 -- Five
Lakota Sioux (Native Americans) occupied Alcatraz Island in a peaceful protest.
They declared that it should be a Native American cultural center and
university.
Mar 9 -- The first
Ford Mustang rolled off the Ford assembly line.
Mar 14 -- A
jury in Dallas found Jack Ruby guilty of murdering Lee Harvey Oswald, the
accused assassin of President Kenned.
Mar 15 --
Actress Elizabeth Taylor married actor Richard Burton in Montreal; it was her
fifth marriage.
Mar 15 --
President Johnson asked for a War on Poverty and for Congress to ensure voting
rights.
Mar 27 -- Valdez,
Alaska, was hit by an 8.6 earthquake, the largest ever recorded in North
America.
Apr 7 -- IBM
introduced its System/360, the company's first line of compatible mainframe
computers.
Apr 13 -- At
the annual Academy Awards "Tom Jones" won Best Movie, Sidney Poitier won
Best Actor and Patricia Neal won Best Actress.
May 19 -- The
U.S. State Department announced that the U.S. embassy in Moscow had been bugged
by a network of more than 40 microphones embedded in the walls.
Jun 1 -- The
Rolling Stones arrived in the USA for the first time, landing at Kennedy
Airport in New York.
Jun 12 -- In
South Africa, Nelson Mandela (convicted of treason) was moved to a prison on
Robben Island where he remained until Apr 1982.
Jun 20 --
General William Westmoreland succeeded General Paul Harkins as head of the U.S.
forces in Vietnam.
Jun 21 --
Three civil rights workers, Andrew Goodman 20, Michael Schwerner 24, and James
Chaney 21, disappeared near Meridian, Mississippi -- 40 days later their bodies
were found buried in an earthen dam near Philadelphia, Miss.
Jun 24 -- The
Federal Trade Commission announced that cigarette manufactures would be
required to include warnings on their packaging about the harmful effects of
smoking.
Jul 2 --
President Johnson signed into law a civil rights bill passed by Congress, .guaranteeing
voting rights and equal access to public accommodations and education.
Jul 11 --
Queen Elizabeth ordered The Beatles to her birthday party, whereby they
attended.
Jul 15 -- The
Republican National Convention was held at the Cow Palace in Daly City, Ca. It
elected Barry Goldwater as its presidential candidate. Goldwater proclaimed
"Extremism in defense of liberty is no vice, extremism in the defense of
liberty is no vice and moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue."
Jul 18 -- Race
riots erupted in the black areas of New York City and Rochester, NY, where 4
people were killed.
Jul 26 --
Teamster Union president Jimmy Hoffa and six others were convicted of fraud and
conspiracy in the handling of a union pension fund.
Jul 27 -- President
Lyndon Johnson sent an additional 5,000 "advisers" to South Vietnam.
Jul 28 --
American space probe Ranger 7 was launched toward the Moon, eventually sending
back 4,308 pictures.
Aug 1 --
Arthur Ashe became the first African-American to play on the U.S. Davis Cup
tennis team.
Aug 2 -- The
Pentagon reported the first of two attacks on U.S. destroyers by North
Vietnamese torpedo boats in the Gulf of Tonkin. Subsequent evidence supported
claims that the Tonkin Gulf incident was deliberately provoked by U.S. Forces
(thereby giving the USA a justification for escalating the conflict with North
Vietnam).
Aug 2 --
There was a race riot in Jersey City, NJ.
Aug 4 -- President
Johnson ordered an immediate retaliation for the Aug 2 attack on the U.S.
destroyer Maddox in the Gulf of Tonkin off North Vietnam.
Aug 4 -- The
U.S. Navy destroyers Maddox and Turner Joy allegedly exchanged fire with
supposed North Vietnamese patrol boats. NOTE: In 2005, it was reported that NSA
officials deliberately distorted the Aug 4 data to support the belief that
North Vietnamese ships had attacked American destroyers.
Aug 4 -- The
bodies of missing civil rights workers Michael H. Schwerner, Andrew Goodman and
James E. Chaney were found buried in an earthen dam in Nashoba County,
Mississippi. Schwerner and Goodman were Jewish-Americans from Pelham and New
York City respectively, and Chaney was a Black from Meridian, Mississippi.
Aug 5 -- The U.S.
began bombing North Vietnam.
Aug 7 -- The
U.S. Congress passed the Gulf of Tonkin resolution, giving President Johnson
broad powers to use unlimited military force to prevent attacks on U.S. forces.
Aug 11 --
There was a race riot in Paterson, NJ.
Aug 12 --
There was a race riot in Elizabeth, NJ.
Aug 15 -- There
was a race riot in Dixmoor, a suburb of Chicago, Ill.
Aug 18 --
South Africa was banned from Olympic Games because of apartheid policies.
Aug 26 --
President Lyndon Johnson was nominated for a full term of U.S. President at the
Democratic National Convention in Atlantic City, N.J.
Aug 28 -- There
was a race riot in Philadelphia.
Sep 3 -- U.S.
attorney general Robert Kennedy resigned.
Sep 12 --
Typhoon Gloria struck Taiwan killing 330, causing $17.5 million of damage.
Sep 27 -- The
Warren Commission, investigating the assassination of President John F.
Kennedy, announced that Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone.
Oct 12 --
Mary Meyer, one of John F. Kennedy's secret lovers up to his assassination, was
brutally murdered on a walking path by the Potomac River.
Oct 14 --
Civil rights leader Rev. Martin Luther King was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize
for advocating a policy of non-violence.
Oct 15 -- St.
Louis Cardinals beat the New York Yankees in seven games to win the World
Series.
Oct 15 --
Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev was removed from office, to be succeeded as
premier by Alexei Kosygin and as Communist Party secretary by Leonid Brezhnev.
Oct 16 -- The
New York Yankees fired manager Yogi Berra one day after their World Series loss
to the St. Louis Cardinals.
Oct 16 -- Red
China detonated its first atomic bomb to become the world's 4th nuclear power.
Oct 27 --
Singers Sonny and Cher were married.
Nov 2 --
Faisal ibn Abdul Aziz Al Saud succeeded his older brother Saud bin Abdul Aziz
as king of Saudi Arabia.
Nov 3 --
President Johnson defeated Republican challenger Barry Goldwater to win a White
House term as the 36th president by winning 486 electoral votes to Goldwater’s
52.
Nov 3 --
Robert Kennedy was elected senator from New York.
Nov 5 -- The
Mariner 3 was launched but failed to reach a trajectory around Mars and ended
up in distant orbit around the sun.
Nov 10 --
Australia began a draft to fulfill its commitment in Vietnam.
Nov 14 -- The
U.S. First Cavalry Division battled with the North Vietnamese Army in the Ia
Drang Valley, the first ground combat for American troops.
Nov 23 -- The
Vatican abolished Latin as the official language of Roman Catholic Church.
Nov 24 --
Residents of Washington DC were permitted to vote for the 1st time since 1800.
Nov 28 --
Willie Nelson made his debut performance at the Grand Ole Opry in Nashville.
Dec 3 --
Police arrested 824 students at the University of California at Berkeley, the
largest mass arrest in U.S. history, after the students stormed the
administration building and staged a massive sit-in as part of the Free Speech
Movement.
Dec 4 -- Some
10,000 people attended a protest rally at the University of California at
Berkeley
Dec 11 --
Frank Sinatra Jr. was released after being kidnapped for the ransom amount of
$240,000.
Dec 13 -- In
El Paso, Texas, President Johnson and Mexican President Gustavo Diaz Ordaz set
off an explosion that diverted the Rio Grande, reshaping the U.S. & Mexican
border, ending a century-old dispute.
Dec 24 -- The
U.S. Headquarters in Saigon, South Vietnam, was hit by a bomb. Two officers
were killed.
Dec 31 --
Syrian-based guerrillas of Yasser Arafat launched their first raid on Israel,
attempting to provoke an Arab war against Israel.
The Top Ten
songs in 1964:
1) I Want To
Hold Your Hand -- The Beatles
2) She Loves
You -- The Beatles
3) Hello
Dolly -- Louis Armstrong
4) Oh, Pretty
Woman -- Roy Orbison
5) I Get
Around -- The Beach Boys
6) Everybody
Loves Somebody -- Dean Martin
7) My Guy --
Mary Wells
8)
We'll Sing In The Sunshine -- Gail Garnett
9)
Last Kiss -- J. Frank Wilson and the Cavaliers
10)
Where Did Our Love Go -- The Supremes
In
the spring of 1964, I completed my sophomore year as a math major at the
University of Minnesota.
I
spent the summer working on a survey crew for the Minnesota Highway Department
where we were laying out marker stakes for the new Interstate Highway 494 around
Minneapolis.
In
August, on my 20th birthday, I headed down to Miami, Florida, in my 1953 Chevy
to enroll at Miami-Dade College in their computer science program. I spent one
full year in Miami -- it was the best 5 years of my life.
___________
Quote for the Day – "Those
who seek absolute power, even though they seek it to do what they regard as
good, are simply demanding the right to enforce their own version of heaven on
earth… A government big enough to give you everything you want is big enough to
take everything you have." Barry Goldwater
___________
Bret
Burquest is the author of 10 books. He lives in the Ozark Mountains with a dog
named Buddy Lee and where heaven on earth is a state of mind.
___________
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