Important Historical Events of the year 1962, Year 1962 in History

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List of 1962 Major News Events in History, Most Important Historical Events in 1962

What happened in the year 1962?

Date	Event
January 1, 1962	Western Samoa achieves independence from New Zealand; its name is changed to the Independent State of Western Samoa.
January 3, 1962	Pope John XXIII excommunicates Fidel Castro.
January 9, 1962	Apollo program: NASA announces plans to build the C-5 rocket launch vehicle, then known as the "Advanced Saturn", to carry human beings to the Moon.
January 11, 1962	Cold War: While tied to its pier in Polyarny, the Soviet submarine B-37 is destroyed when fire breaks out in its torpedo compartment.
January 11, 1962	An avalanche on Huascarán in Peru causes around 4,000 deaths.
January 12, 1962	Vietnam War: Operation Chopper, the first American combat mission in the war, takes place.
January 15, 1962	The Derveni papyrus, Europe's oldest surviving manuscript dating to 340 BC, is found in northern Greece.
January 15, 1962	Netherlands New Guinea Conflict: Indonesian Navy fast patrol boat RI Macan Tutul commanded by Commodore Yos Sudarso sunk in Arafura Sea by the Dutch Navy.
January 26, 1962	Ranger 3 is launched to study the Moon. The space probe later misses the moon by 22,000 miles (35,400 km).
February 5, 1962	French President Charles de Gaulle calls for Algeria to be granted independence.
February 7, 1962	The United States bans all Cuban imports and exports.
February 8, 1962	Charonne massacre: Nine trade unionists are killed by French police at the instigation of Nazi collaborator Maurice Papon, then chief of the Paris Prefecture of Police.
February 10, 1962	Cold War: Captured American U2 spy-plane pilot Gary Powers is exchanged for captured Soviet spy Rudolf Abel.
February 16, 1962	The Great Sheffield Gale impacts the United Kingdom, killing nine people; the city of Sheffield is devastated, with 150,000 homes damaged.
February 16, 1962	Flooding in the coastal areas of West Germany kills 315 and destroys the homes of about 60,000 people.
February 20, 1962	Mercury program: While aboard Friendship 7, John Glenn becomes the first American to orbit the Earth, making three orbits in four hours, 55 minutes.
February 27, 1962	Vietnam War: Two dissident Republic of Vietnam Air Force pilots bomb the Independence Palace in Saigon in a failed attempt to assassinate South Vietnam President Ngô Đình Diệm.
March 1, 1962	American Airlines Flight 1 crashes into Jamaica Bay in New York, killing 95.
March 2, 1962	In Burma, the army led by General Ne Win seizes power in a coup d'état.
March 2, 1962	Wilt Chamberlain sets the single-game scoring record in the National Basketball Association by scoring 100 points.
March 4, 1962	A Caledonian Airways Douglas DC-7 crashes shortly after takeoff from Cameroon, killing 111
March 16, 1962	Flying Tiger Line Flight 739 disappears in the western Pacific Ocean with all 107 aboard missing and presumed dead.[9]
March 18, 1962	The Évian Accords end the Algerian War of Independence, which had begun in 1954.
March 19, 1962	The Algerian War of Independence ends.
March 29, 1962	Arturo Frondizi, the president of Argentina, is overthrown in a military coup by Argentina's armed forces, ending an 11.mw-parser-output .frac{white-space:nowrap}.mw-parser-output .frac .num,.mw-parser-output .frac .den{font-size:80%;line-height:0;vertical-align:super}.mw-parser-output .frac .den{vertical-align:sub}.mw-parser-output .sr-only{border:0;clip:rect(0,0,0,0);height:1px;margin:-1px;overf
April 21, 1962	The Seattle World's Fair (Century 21 Exposition) opens. It is the first World's Fair in the United States since World War II.
April 26, 1962	NASA's Ranger 4 spacecraft crashes into the Moon.
April 26, 1962	The British space programme launches its first satellite, the Ariel 1.
May 10, 1962	Marvel Comics publishes the first issue of The Incredible Hulk.
May 19, 1962	A birthday salute to U.S. President John F. Kennedy takes place at Madison Square Garden, New York City. The highlight is Marilyn Monroe's rendition of "Happy Birthday".
May 22, 1962	Continental Airlines Flight 11 crashes in Unionville, Missouri after bombs explode on board, killing 45.
May 24, 1962	Project Mercury: American astronaut Scott Carpenter orbits the Earth three times in the Aurora 7 space capsule.
May 27, 1962	The Centralia mine fire is ignited in the town's landfill above a coal mine.
May 31, 1962	The West Indies Federation dissolves.
June 1, 1962	Adolf Eichmann is hanged in Israel.
June 2, 1962	During the FIFA World Cup, police had to intervene multiple times in fights between Chilean and Italian players in one of the most violent games in football history.
June 3, 1962	At Paris Orly Airport, Air France Flight 007 overruns the runway and explodes when the crew attempts to abort takeoff, killing 130.
June 7, 1962	The Organisation Armée Secrète (OAS) sets fire to the University of Algiers library building, destroying about 500,000 books.
June 11, 1962	Frank Morris, John Anglin and Clarence Anglin allegedly become the only prisoners to escape from the prison on Alcatraz Island.
June 14, 1962	The European Space Research Organisation is established in Paris – later becoming the European Space Agency.
June 22, 1962	Air France Flight 117 crashes on approach to Pointe-à-Pitre International Airport in Guadeloupe, killing 112 people.
July 1, 1962	Independence of Rwanda and Burundi.
July 2, 1962	The first Walmart store, then known as Wal-Mart, opens for business in Rogers, Arkansas.
July 5, 1962	The official independence of Algeria is proclaimed after an eight-year-long war with France.
July 6, 1962	As a part of Operation Plowshare, the Sedan nuclear test takes place.
July 6, 1962	The Late Late Show, the world's longest-running chat show by the same broadcaster, airs on RTÉ One for the first time.
July 7, 1962	Alitalia Flight 771 crashes in Junnar, Maharashtra, India, killing 94 people.
July 8, 1962	Ne Win besieges and blows up the Rangoon University Student Union building to crush the Student Movement.
July 9, 1962	Starfish Prime tests the effects of a nuclear test at orbital altitudes.
July 10, 1962	Telstar, the world's first communications satellite, is launched into orbit.
July 11, 1962	First transatlantic satellite television transmission.
July 11, 1962	Project Apollo: At a press conference, NASA announces lunar orbit rendezvous as the means to land astronauts on the Moon, and return them to Earth.
July 12, 1962	The Rolling Stones perform for the first time at London's Marquee Club.
July 13, 1962	In an unprecedented action, British Prime Minister Harold Macmillan dismisses seven members of his Cabinet, marking the effective end of the National Liberals as a distinct force within British politics.
July 17, 1962	Nuclear weapons testing: The "Small Boy" test shot Little Feller I becomes the last atmospheric test detonation at the Nevada National Security Site.
July 22, 1962	Mariner program: Mariner 1 spacecraft flies erratically several minutes after launch and has to be destroyed.
July 23, 1962	Telstar relays the first publicly transmitted, live trans-Atlantic television program, featuring Walter Cronkite.
July 23, 1962	The International Agreement on the Neutrality of Laos is signed.
July 23, 1962	Jackie Robinson becomes the first African American to be inducted into the National Baseball Hall of Fame.
July 28, 1962	Beginning of the 8th World Festival of Youth and Students[10]
July 30, 1962	The Trans-Canada Highway, the then longest national highway in the world, is officially opened.
August 5, 1962	Apartheid: Nelson Mandela is jailed. He would not be released until 1990.
August 5, 1962	American actress Marilyn Monroe is found dead at her home from a drug overdose.
August 6, 1962	Jamaica becomes independent from the United Kingdom.
August 7, 1962	Canadian-born American pharmacologist Frances Oldham Kelsey is awarded the U.S. President's Award for Distinguished Federal Civilian Service for her refusal to authorize thalidomide.
August 11, 1962	Vostok 3 launches from the Baikonur Cosmodrome and cosmonaut Andrian Nikolayev becomes the first person to float in microgravity.
August 15, 1962	James Joseph Dresnok defects to North Korea after running across the Korean Demilitarized Zone. Dresnok died in 2016.
August 17, 1962	Peter Fechter is shot and bleeds to death while trying to cross the new Berlin Wall.
August 20, 1962	The NS Savannah, the world's first nuclear-powered civilian ship, embarks on its maiden voyage.
August 22, 1962	The OAS attempts to assassinate French president Charles de Gaulle.
August 27, 1962	The Mariner 2 unmanned space mission is launched to Venus by NASA.
August 30, 1962	Japan conducts a test of the NAMC YS-11, its first aircraft since World War II and its only successful commercial aircraft from before or after the war.
August 31, 1962	Trinidad and Tobago becomes independent.
September 6, 1962	The United States government begins the Exercise Spade Fork nuclear readiness drill.
September 6, 1962	Archaeologist Peter Marsden discovers the first of the Blackfriars Ships dating back to the second century AD in the Blackfriars area of the banks of the River Thames in London.
September 8, 1962	Last run of the famous Pines Express over the Somerset and Dorset Railway line (UK) fittingly using the last steam locomotive built by British Railways, BR Standard Class 9F 92220 Evening Star.
September 12, 1962	President John F. Kennedy delivers his "We choose to go to the Moon" speech at Rice University.
September 13, 1962	An appeals court orders the University of Mississippi to admit James Meredith, the first African-American student admitted to the segregated university.
September 15, 1962	The Soviet ship Poltava heads toward Cuba, one of the events that sets into motion the Cuban Missile Crisis.
September 18, 1962	Burundi, Jamaica, Rwanda and Trinidad and Tobago are admitted to the United Nations.
September 20, 1962	James Meredith, an African American, is temporarily barred from entering the University of Mississippi.
September 25, 1962	The People's Democratic Republic of Algeria is formally proclaimed. Ferhat Abbas is elected President of the provisional government.
September 25, 1962	The North Yemen Civil War begins when Abdullah al-Sallal dethrones the newly crowned Imam al-Badr and declares Yemen a republic under his presidency.
September 27, 1962	The Yemen Arab Republic is established.
September 27, 1962	Rachel Carson's book Silent Spring is published, inspiring an environmental movement and the creation of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
October 1, 1962	James Meredith enters the University of Mississippi, defying racial segregation rules.
October 3, 1962	Project Mercury: US astronaut Wally Schirra, in Sigma 7, is launched from Cape Canaveral for a six-orbit flight.
October 5, 1962	The first of the James Bond film series, based on the novels by Ian Fleming, Dr. No, is released in Britain.
October 5, 1962	The first Beatles single, Love Me Do is released in Britain.
October 8, 1962	Der Spiegel publishes an article disclosing the sorry state of the Bundeswehr, and is soon accused of treason.
October 9, 1962	Uganda becomes an independent Commonwealth realm.
October 11, 1962	The Second Vatican Council becomes the first ecumenical council of the Roman Catholic Church in 92 years.
October 12, 1962	The Columbus Day Storm strikes the U.S. Pacific Northwest with record wind velocities. There was at least U.S. $230 million in damages and 46 people died.
October 13, 1962	The Pacific Northwest experiences a cyclone the equal of a Category 3 hurricane, with winds above 150 mph. Forty-six people die.
October 14, 1962	The Cuban Missile Crisis begins when an American reconnaissance aircraft takes photographs of Soviet ballistic missiles being installed in Cuba.
October 16, 1962	Cuban Missile Crisis begins: U.S. President John F. Kennedy is informed of photos taken on October 14 by a U-2 showing nuclear missiles (the crisis will last for 13 days starting from this point).
October 20, 1962	China launches simultaneous offensives in Ladakh and across the McMahon Line, igniting the Sino-Indian War.
October 22, 1962	Cuban Missile Crisis: President Kennedy, after internal counsel from Dwight D. Eisenhower, announces that American reconnaissance planes have discovered Soviet nuclear weapons in Cuba, and that he has ordered a naval "quarantine" of the Communist nation.
October 25, 1962	Cuban Missile Crisis: Adlai Stevenson shows the United Nations Security Council reconnaissance photographs of Soviet ballistic missiles in Cuba.
October 27, 1962	Major Rudolf Anderson of the United States Air Force becomes the only direct human casualty of the Cuban Missile Crisis when his U-2 reconnaissance airplane is shot down over Cuba by a Soviet-supplied surface-to-air missile.
October 27, 1962	By refusing to agree to the firing of a nuclear torpedo at a US warship, Vasily Arkhipov averts nuclear war.
October 28, 1962	The Cuban Missile Crisis ends and Premier Nikita Khrushchev orders the removal of Soviet missiles from Cuba.
November 4, 1962	The United States concludes Operation Fishbowl, its final above-ground nuclear weapons testing series, in anticipation of the 1963 Partial Nuclear Test Ban Treaty.
November 11, 1962	Kuwait's National Assembly ratifies the Constitution of Kuwait.
November 17, 1962	President John F. Kennedy dedicates Washington Dulles International Airport, serving the Washington, D.C., region.
November 20, 1962	Cuban Missile Crisis ends: In response to the Soviet Union agreeing to remove its missiles from Cuba, U.S. President John F. Kennedy ends the quarantine of the Caribbean nation.
November 21, 1962	The Chinese People's Liberation Army declares a unilateral ceasefire in the Sino-Indian War.
November 24, 1962	Cold War: The West Berlin branch of the Socialist Unity Party of Germany forms a separate party, the Socialist Unity Party of West Berlin.
November 24, 1962	The influential British satirical television programme That Was the Week That Was is first broadcast.
November 30, 1962	Eastern Air Lines Flight 512 crashes at Idlewild Airport, killing 25 people.
December 2, 1962	Vietnam War: After a trip to Vietnam at the request of U.S. President John F. Kennedy, U.S. Senate Majority Leader Mike Mansfield becomes the first American official to comment adversely on the war's progress.
December 7, 1962	Prince Rainier III of Monaco revises the principality's constitution, devolving some of his power to advisory and legislative councils.
December 8, 1962	Workers at four New York City newspapers (this later increases to nine) go on strike for 114 days.
December 11, 1962	Arthur Lucas, convicted of murder, is the last person to be executed in Canada.
December 13, 1962	NASA launches Relay 1, the first active repeater communications satellite in orbit.
December 14, 1962	NASA's Mariner 2 becomes the first spacecraft to fly by Venus.
December 25, 1962	The Soviet Union conducts its final above-ground nuclear weapon test, in anticipation of the 1963 Partial Nuclear Test Ban Treaty.