Important Historical Events of the year 1964, Year 1964 in History

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List of 1964 Major News Events in History, Most Important Historical Events in 1964

What happened in the year 1964?

Date	Event
January 1, 1964	The Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland is divided into the independent republics of Zambia and Malawi, and the British-controlled Rhodesia.
January 8, 1964	President Lyndon B. Johnson declares a "War on Poverty" in the United States.
January 9, 1964	Martyrs' Day: Several Panamanian youths try to raise the Panamanian flag in the U.S.-controlled Panama Canal Zone, leading to fighting between U.S. military and Panamanian civilians.
January 11, 1964	Surgeon General of the United States Dr. Luther Terry, M.D., publishes the landmark report Smoking and Health: Report of the Advisory Committee to the Surgeon General of the United States saying that smoking may be hazardous to health, sparking national and worldwide anti-smoking efforts.
January 12, 1964	Rebels in Zanzibar begin a revolt known as the Zanzibar Revolution and proclaim a republic.
January 13, 1964	Anti-Muslim riots break out in Calcutta, in response to anti-Hindu riots in East Pakistan. About one hundred people are killed.
January 13, 1964	In Manchester, New Hampshire, fourteen-year-old Pamela Mason is murdered. Edward Coolidge is tried and convicted of the crime, but the conviction is set aside by the landmark Fourth Amendment case Coolidge v. New Hampshire (1971).
January 23, 1964	The 24th Amendment to the United States Constitution, prohibiting the use of poll taxes in national elections, is ratified.
January 25, 1964	Blue Ribbon Sports, which would later become Nike, is founded by University of Oregon track and field athletes.
January 28, 1964	An unarmed United States Air Force T-39 Sabreliner on a training mission is shot down over Erfurt, East Germany, by a Soviet MiG-19.
January 30, 1964	In a bloodless coup, General Nguyễn Khánh overthrows General Dương Văn Minh's military junta in South Vietnam.
February 1, 1964	The Beatles have their first number one hit in the United States with "I Want to Hold Your Hand".
February 9, 1964	The Beatles make their first appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show, performing before a record-setting audience of 73 million viewers across the United States.
February 10, 1964	Melbourne–Voyager collision: The aircraft carrier HMAS Melbourne collides with and sinks the destroyer HMAS Voyager off the south coast of New South Wales, Australia, killing 82.
February 17, 1964	In Wesberry v. Sanders the Supreme Court of the United States rules that congressional districts have to be approximately equal in population.
February 17, 1964	Gabonese president Léon M'ba is toppled by a coup and his rival, Jean-Hilaire Aubame, is installed in his place.
February 27, 1964	The Government of Italy asks for help to keep the Leaning Tower of Pisa from toppling over.
March 1, 1964	Villarrica Volcano begins a strombolian eruption causing lahars that destroy half of the town of Coñaripe.
March 6, 1964	Nation of Islam leader Elijah Muhammad officially gives boxing champion Cassius Clay the name Muhammad Ali.
March 6, 1964	Constantine II becomes the last King of Greece.
March 14, 1964	Jack Ruby is convicted of killing Lee Harvey Oswald, the assumed assassin of John F. Kennedy.
March 19, 1964	Over 500,000 Brazilians attend the March of the Family with God for Liberty, in protest against the government of João Goulart and against communism.
March 20, 1964	The precursor of the European Space Agency, ESRO (European Space Research Organisation) is established per an agreement signed on June 14, 1962.
March 27, 1964	The Good Friday earthquake, the most powerful earthquake recorded in North American history at a magnitude of 9.2 strikes Southcentral Alaska, killing 125 people and inflicting massive damage to the city of Anchorage.
March 31, 1964	Brazilian General Olímpio Mourão Filho orders his troops to move towards Rio de Janeiro, beginning the coup d'état and 21 years of military dictatorship.
April 1, 1964	The British Admiralty, War Office and Air Ministry are replaced by a unified Defence Council of the United Kingdom.
April 2, 1964	The Soviet Union launches Zond 1.
April 4, 1964	The Beatles occupy the top five positions on the Billboard Hot 100 pop chart.
April 7, 1964	IBM announces the System/360.
April 11, 1964	Brazilian Marshal Humberto de Alencar Castelo Branco is elected president by the National Congress.
April 13, 1964	At the Academy Awards, Sidney Poitier becomes the first African-American male to win the Best Actor award for the 1963 film Lilies of the Field.
April 21, 1964	A Transit-5bn satellite fails to reach orbit after launch; as it re-enters the atmosphere, 2.1 pounds (0.95 kg) of radioactive plutonium in its SNAP RTG power source is widely dispersed.
April 26, 1964	Tanganyika and Zanzibar merge to form the United Republic of Tanzania.
May 2, 1964	Vietnam War: An explosion sinks the American aircraft carrier USNS Card while it is docked at Saigon. Two Viet Cong combat swimmers had placed explosives on the ship's hull. She is raised and returned to service less than seven months later.
May 2, 1964	First ascent of Shishapangma, the fourteenth highest mountain in the world and the lowest of the Eight-thousanders.
May 5, 1964	The Council of Europe declares May 5 as Europe Day.
May 20, 1964	Discovery of the cosmic microwave background radiation by Robert Woodrow Wilson and Arno Penzias.
May 22, 1964	U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson launches his Great Society program.
May 28, 1964	The Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) is founded, with Yasser Arafat elected as its first leader.
May 29, 1964	The Arab League meets in East Jerusalem to discuss the Palestinian question, leading to the formation of the Palestine Liberation Organization.
May 29, 1964	Having deposed them in a January coup South Vietnamese leader Nguyễn Khánh had rival Generals Tran Van Don and Le Van Kim convicted of "lax morality".[9]
June 1, 1964	Kenya becomes a republic with Jomo Kenyatta as its first President.
June 2, 1964	The Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) is formed.
June 5, 1964	DSV Alvin is commissioned.
June 10, 1964	United States Senate breaks a 75-day filibuster against the Civil Rights Act of 1964, leading to the bill's passage.
June 11, 1964	World War II veteran Walter Seifert attacks an elementary school in Cologne, Germany, killing at least eight children and two teachers and seriously injuring several more with a home-made flamethrower and a lance.
June 12, 1964	Anti-apartheid activist and ANC leader Nelson Mandela is sentenced to life in prison for sabotage in South Africa.
June 19, 1964	The Civil Rights Act of 1964 is approved after surviving an 83-day filibuster in the United States Senate.
June 20, 1964	A Curtiss C-46 Commando crashes in the Shengang District of Taiwan, killing 57 people.
June 21, 1964	Three civil rights workers, Andrew Goodman, James Chaney and Michael Schwerner, are murdered in Neshoba County, Mississippi, United States, by members of the Ku Klux Klan.
June 28, 1964	Malcolm X forms the Organization of Afro-American Unity.
July 2, 1964	Civil rights movement: U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson signs the Civil Rights Act of 1964 meant to prohibit segregation in public places.
July 6, 1964	Malawi declares its independence from the United Kingdom.
July 19, 1964	Vietnam War: At a rally in Saigon, South Vietnamese Prime Minister Nguyễn Khánh calls for expanding the war into North Vietnam.
July 20, 1964	Vietnam War: Viet Cong forces attack the capital of Định Tường Province, Cái Bè, killing 11 South Vietnamese military personnel and 40 civilians (30 of whom are children).
July 21, 1964	A series of racial riots break out in Singapore. In the next six weeks, 23 die with 454 others injured.
July 27, 1964	Vietnam War: Five thousand more American military advisers are sent to South Vietnam bringing the total number of United States forces in Vietnam to 21,000.
July 31, 1964	Ranger program: Ranger 7 sends back the first close-up photographs of the moon, with images 1,000 times clearer than anything ever seen from earth-bound telescopes.
August 1, 1964	The former Belgian Congo is renamed the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
August 4, 1964	Civil rights movement: Civil rights workers Michael Schwerner, Andrew Goodman and James Chaney are found dead in Mississippi after disappearing on June 21.
August 4, 1964	Second Gulf of Tonkin Incident: U.S. destroyers USS Maddox and USS Turner Joy mistakenly report coming under attack in the Gulf of Tonkin.
August 5, 1964	Vietnam War: Operation Pierce Arrow: American aircraft from carriers USS Ticonderoga and USS Constellation bomb North Vietnam in retaliation for strikes against U.S. destroyers in the Gulf of Tonkin.
August 7, 1964	Vietnam War: The U.S. Congress passes the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution giving U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson broad war powers to deal with North Vietnamese attacks on American forces.[31]
August 12, 1964	South Africa is banned from the Olympic Games due to the country's racist policies.
August 13, 1964	Peter Allen and Gwynne Evans are hanged for the murder of John Alan West becoming the last people executed in the United Kingdom.
August 16, 1964	Vietnam War: A coup d'état replaces Dương Văn Minh with General Nguyễn Khánh as President of South Vietnam. A new constitution is established with aid from the U.S. Embassy.
August 19, 1964	Syncom 3, the first geostationary communication satellite, is launched. Two months later, it would enable live coverage of the 1964 Summer Olympics.
August 27, 1964	South Vietnamese junta leader Nguyễn Khánh enters into a triumvirate power-sharing arrangement with rival generals Trần Thiện Khiêm and Dương Văn Minh, who had both been involved in plots to unseat Khánh.
August 28, 1964	The Philadelphia race riot begins.
September 4, 1964	Scotland's Forth Road Bridge near Edinburgh officially opens.
September 13, 1964	South Vietnamese Generals Lâm Văn Phát and Dương Văn Đức fail in a coup attempt against General Nguyễn Khánh.
September 13, 1964	Martin Luther King Jr. addresses a crowd of 20,000 West Berliners on Sunday, in Waldbühne.
September 21, 1964	Malta gains independence from the United Kingdom, but remains in the Commonwealth.
September 21, 1964	The North American XB-70 Valkyrie, the world's fastest bomber, makes its maiden flight from Palmdale, California.
September 25, 1964	The Mozambican War of Independence against Portugal begins.
September 27, 1964	The British TSR-2 aircraft XR219 makes its maiden flight.
October 1, 1964	The Free Speech Movement is launched on the campus of the University of California, Berkeley.
October 1, 1964	Japanese Shinkansen ("bullet trains") begin high-speed rail service from Tokyo to Osaka.
October 10, 1964	The Tokyo Summer Olympics opening ceremony is the first to be relayed live by satellites.
October 12, 1964	The Soviet Union launches the Voskhod 1 into Earth orbit as the first spacecraft with a multi-person crew, and the first flight without pressure suits.
October 14, 1964	Martin Luther King Jr. receives the Nobel Peace Prize for combating racial inequality through nonviolence.
October 14, 1964	The Soviet Presidium and the Communist Party Central Committee each vote to accept Nikita Khrushchev's "voluntary" request to retire from his offices.
October 16, 1964	China detonates its first nuclear weapon.
October 16, 1964	Leonid Brezhnev becomes leader of the Soviet Communist Party, while Alexei Kosygin becomes the head of government.
October 22, 1964	Jean-Paul Sartre is awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature, but turns down the honor.
October 22, 1964	An all-party Parliamentary Committee selects the design which will become the new official flag of Canada.
October 24, 1964	Northern Rhodesia gains independence from the United Kingdom and becomes Zambia.
October 27, 1964	Ronald Reagan delivers a speech on behalf of the Republican candidate for president, Barry Goldwater. The speech launches his political career and comes to be known as "A Time for Choosing".
October 29, 1964	The United Republic of Tanganyika and Zanzibar is renamed to the United Republic of Tanzania.
October 29, 1964	Biggest jewel heist; involving the Star of India (gem) in the American Museum of Natural History in New York City by Murph the Surf and gang.
November 2, 1964	King Saud of Saudi Arabia is deposed by a family coup, and replaced by his half-brother Faisal.
November 3, 1964	Lyndon B. Johnson is elected to a full term as U.S. president, winning 61% of the vote and 44 states, while Washington D.C. residents are able to vote in a presidential election for the first time, casting the majority of their votes for Lyndon Johnson.
November 21, 1964	The Verrazano-Narrows Bridge opens to traffic. At the time it is the world's longest bridge span.
November 21, 1964	Second Vatican Council: The third session of the Roman Catholic Church's ecumenical council closes.
November 28, 1964	Mariner program: NASA launches the Mariner 4 probe toward Mars.
November 28, 1964	Vietnam War: National Security Council members agree to recommend that U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson adopt a plan for a two-stage escalation of bombing in North Vietnam.
December 1, 1964	Vietnam War: U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson and his top-ranking advisers meet to discuss plans to bomb North Vietnam.
December 4, 1964	Free Speech Movement: Police arrest over 800 students at the University of California, Berkeley, following their takeover and sit-in at the administration building in protest of the UC Regents' decision to forbid protests on UC property.
December 5, 1964	Vietnam War: For his heroism in battle earlier in the year, Captain Roger Donlon is awarded the first Medal of Honor of the war.
December 5, 1964	Lloyd J. Old discovers the first linkage between the major histocompatibility complex (MHC) and disease—mouse leukemia—opening the way for the recognition of the importance of the MHC in the immune response.
December 11, 1964	Che Guevara speaks at the United Nations General Assembly in New York City.
December 14, 1964	American Civil Rights Movement: Heart of Atlanta Motel v. United States: The Supreme Court of the United States rules that Congress can use the Constitution's Commerce Clause to fight discrimination.
December 22, 1964	The first test flight of the SR-71 (Blackbird) takes place at Air Force Plant 42 in Palmdale, California, United States.
December 24, 1964	Vietnam War: Viet Cong operatives bomb the Brinks Hotel in Saigon, South Vietnam to demonstrate they can strike an American installation in the heavily guarded capital.
December 24, 1964	Flying Tiger Line Flight 282 crashes after takeoff from San Francisco International Airport, killing three.