The following events occurred in February 1963:
February 1, 1963 (Friday) At Ulus Square in Ankara, 87 people were killed and 200 injured when a Vickers 754D Viscount airliner fell into a crowd in the Turkish city. Middle East Airlines Flight 265, with 14 people on board, was descending for a landing at Ankara after departing from Nicosia in Cyprus. At the same time, a Turkish Air Force C-47 airplane with a crew of three was approaching the same airport after a training flight. The two collided at , and all 17 people on both aircraft were killed. The wreckage of the Vickers Viscount fell into the crowd below, 20 seconds later.Flight Safety Network database The collapse of a school chapel killed 104 people, mostly schoolgirls, during prayer services in the town of Biblián, in Ecuador. There were 450 people inside when the roof fell under heavy rains. The Mercury Project Office canceled a peroxide expulsion experiment for the April Mercury 9 mission, but kept the planned zodiacal light experiment.
February 2, 1963 (Saturday) Pentti Nikula of Finland broke the world record for the pole vault, which had been held by a succession of Americans for almost 35 years. Nikula cleared the bar at 4.94 meters (16 feet, inches) using a fiberglass pole. Kim Jong-pil founded South Korea's Democratic Republican Party. Kim would be forced into exile three weeks later, on February 24. General Ivan Serov was dismissed from his job as Director of the GRU and replaced by Pyotr Ivashutin. The Beatles went on tour at the bottom of an eight-act bill headed by 16-year-old singer Helen Shapiro. Born: Eva Cassidy, American singer (d. 1996); in Washington, D.C. Died: Patrick Kerwin, 73, Chief Justice of Canada since 1954
February 3, 1963 (Sunday) Elections were held in Nicaragua for the President, the 42-member Chamber of Deputies, and the 16 member Senate. Evidence of massive impending fraud caused the Traditional Conservative Party, led by Fernando Agüero Rocha, to abandon its loyalist stance and to call for a boycott of the 1963 elections.Booth, John A. (1985) The End and the Beginning: The Nicaraguan Revolution. Westview Press, p. 99. "Four Killed In Nicaragua Vote Riot",Miami News, February 4, 1963, p. 2A René Schick Gutiérrez of the Nationalist Liberal Party, considered a puppet of Luis Somoza and the Somoza family that had ruled since 1932, officially won 90 percent of the vote over the Conservatives Diego Manuel Chamorro. Somoza's party also won two-thirds of the seats in the Chamber and 75% of the Senate seats. On orders from Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew, Operation Coldstore was carried out in Singapore, with the arrest of more than 150 journalists, labor and student leaders, and members of political parties that opposed Lee's People's Action Party (PAP). The detainees were kept at the Outram Road Prison for three months; with the leaders of the Barisan Sosialis and other parties forced out of campaigning, the PAP would capture rds of the seats in the parliamentary elections, and maintain control thereafter.Trocki, Carl (2005) Singapore Wealth, Power and the Culture of Control. Routledge. p. 110. Canadian Minister of National Defence Douglas Harkness resigned in disagreement over the nuclear policies of Prime Minister Diefenbaker, triggering the collapse of the rest of the ministry.Donaghy, Greg (2003) Tolerant Allies: Canada and the United States, 1963–1968. McGill-Queen's University Press. p. 7.
February 4, 1963 (Monday) The SS Marine Sulphur Queen, a tanker with a crew of 39 and a cargo of molten sulphur, was heard from for the last time, two days after its departure from Beaumont, Texas, en route to Norfolk, Virginia. Contact between the ship and its owner, Marine Transport Lines, Inc., was lost and the ship was reported missing two days later."Search Widens For Lost Tanker With 39 Aboard", Miami News, February 9, 1963, p Debris from the tanker washed ashore in Florida, but a search by U.S. Coast Guard and U.S. Navy airplanes did not locate the ship."'Sulphur Queen a Risky Ship'", Pacific Stars And Stripes, February 25, 1963, p. 1 The story of the disappearance of the tanker would first be described as a casualty of the "Bermuda Triangle" in the Argosy magazine article (by Vincent Gaddis in its February 1964 issue) "The Deadly Bermuda Triangle", although an investigating panel concluded that the ship, structurally unsound and burdened by its heavy cargo, broke in half during a storm.Parker, Bruce (2012) The Power of the Sea: Tsunamis, Storm Surges, Rogue Waves, and Our Quest to Predict Disasters. Macmillan. p. 126. The UK Football Association decided to postpone the fifth and sixth rounds of the 1962–63 FA Cup because of delays caused by the severe winter.
February 5, 1963 (Tuesday) The Canadian House of Commons voted 142–111 in favor of a resolution of no confidence in the government of Prime Minister John Diefenbaker. Parliament was dissolved the next day by Governor-General George Vanier, and elections were scheduled for April 8. The U.S. Department of State outlawed travel to Cuba by U.S. citizens following a directive by President John F. Kennedy. The State Department also banned financial and commercial transactions with the Communist nation in the Caribbean. The Manned Spacecraft Center (MSC) postponed the Mercury 9 mission, scheduled for April, because of damaged electrical wiring in the Atlas rocket. The Gemini Project Office perfected plans for the first U.S. "walk in space". McDonnell Aircraft Corporation studied requirements for crew maneuverability in a closed cabin, allowing an astronaut to stand in an open hatch without leaving the cabin, and allowing a crew member to venture out of the capsule and into space. Died: Barnum Brown, 90, American paleontologist who discovered the first documented Tyrannosaurus rex remains in 1902
February 6, 1963 (Wednesday) U.S. Defense Secretary Robert McNamara appeared at a nationally televised press conference from the White House to show proof, with photographs from U-2 spy planes, that all offensive missiles had been removed from Cuba. Titan II development flight N-16 was launched from Cape Canaveral. The prospective Gemini astronauts concluded their training on orbital mechanics and flight dynamics and familiarization with the Gemini spacecraft and Titan launch vehicle. Died: Abd el-Krim, 77, Moroccan nationalist who fought for independence against France and Britain after Morocco had become a French protectorate in 1911 Piero Manzoni, 29, Italian artist, died of a heart attack.
February 7, 1963 (Thursday) In one of New Zealand's worst road accidents ever, a bus crash killed 15 of the 35 people on board after the vehicle's brakes failed nearing the top of the southern descent of the Brynderwyn Range. The bus, bringing back a group of Māori people from a welcome for Queen Elizabeth's visit to Waitangi, plunged over a embankment, and evoked memories of a December 24, 1953 train crash that killed 151 people who were on their way to Auckland to welcome the Queen to New Zealand. In the first ballot to select the new leader of Britain's opposition Labour Party, Harold Wilson received 115 votes, George Brown 88, and James Callaghan 41. Since no candidate received a majority of MP votes, a second round would be held on February 14 between Wilson and Brown.
The first test of the "ballute" system for the Gemini ejection seat was conducted at the U.S. Naval Ordnance Test Station, using two dummies. The ballute (a portmanteau for "balloon" and "parachute") was a device to stabilize the astronaut after ejection at high altitude. In the first test, the ballute failed to inflate or release properly on either dummy. After redesign, five consecutive dummy drops in March succeeded.
February 8, 1963 (Friday) A military coup by the Ba'ath Party's Iraqi-wing overthrew the Prime Minister of Iraq, Abd al-Karim Qasim. General Ahmed Hassan al-Bakr became the new Prime Minister and Colonel Abdul Salam Arif became President. Britain's Royal Navy conducted the worlds first experimental trials of a vertical take-off and landing fixed-wing aircraft aboard an aircraft carrier, testing the Hawker Siddeley P.1127 prototype aboard HMS Ark Royal. Northrop Corporation completed the drop tests in developing the parachute recovery system for Project Gemini.
February 9, 1963 (Saturday) The Metropolitan Josyf Slipyj, Archbishop and leader of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church and a Roman Catholic cardinal, was allowed to leave Ukraine by the Soviet Union, departing Lviv by train. He would never return, dying in 1984.Luxmoore, Jonathan and Babiuch, Jolanta (1998) The Vatican and the Red Flag: The Struggle for the Soul of Eastern Europe. Continuum International. pp. 116–117. The Boeing 727 made its first flight.Lawrence, Philip K. and Thornton, David W. (2005) Deep Stall: The Turbulent Story of Boeing Commercial Airplanes. Ashgate Publishing. p. 46. Pilot S. L. Wallick, copilot R. L. Loesch and flight engineer M. K. Schulenberger took the plane aloft from the company's airfield at Renton, Washington."3 Jet Airliner Tested", Spokane (WA) Daily Chronicle, February 9, 1963, p. 2 Died: Abd al-Karim Qasim, 48, former Prime Minister of Iraq, was executed by a firing squad, one day after being overthrown and only hours after a brief court-martial."Kassem Executed: Iraq to 'Annihilate' Reds", Miami News, February 10, 1963, p. 1
February 10, 1963 (Sunday) U.S. Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy, taking up a challenge made by his brother, the President, for U.S. Marines to meet Theodore Roosevelt's standard for hiking within three days, completed the distance in 17 hours and 50 minutes. Five cities in Japan, on the northernmost part of the island of Kyūshū, were merged to become the city of Kitakyūshū, with a population of more than one million. Born: Smiley Culture (stage name for David Victor Emmanuel), British reggae singer and DJ; in South London (committed suicide, 2011) Lenny Dykstra, American baseball player and 1993 Silver Slugger Award winner; in Santa Ana, California
February 11, 1963 (Monday)
The French Chef, one of the most well-known American cooking shows on television, premiered on Boston public television station WGBH in Boston and was hosted by Julia Child, co-author of the book Mastering the Art of French Cooking."Monday, Feb. 11", "TV Week" in Boston Globe Magazine supplement (p. 9) to Boston Sunday Globe, February 10, 1963 The show ran for nine seasons and 206 episodes until 1973. The Beatles recorded the ten songs of their debut album Please Please Me in a single, 13-hour session at the Abbey Road Studios.Elborough, Travis (2009) The Vinyl Countdown: The Album from LP to iPod and Back Again. Counterpoint Press. p. 178. Died: Sylvia Plath, 30, American poet, novelist and short story writer and author of The Bell Jar, committed suicide at her apartment in London by inhaling carbon monoxide fumes from her gas oven.Kirk, Connie Ann (2004) Sylvia Plath: A Biography. Greenwood. pp. 103–104. Alvarez, A. (February 17, 1963) "A Poet's Epitaph", The Observer (London) Weekend Review, p. 23
February 12, 1963 (Tuesday) All 43 people on Northwest Orient Airlines Flight 705 were killed when the Boeing 720 broke up in mid-air during a severe thunderstorm shortly after takeoff from Miami International Airport and crashed into the Florida Everglades. The plane departed from Miami at 1:35 p.m. local time, bound for Chicago, and was cleared to climb to a higher altitude to avoid a thunderstorm. At 1:48 p.m., the plane was broken apart by downdrafts at an altitude of and crashed.Flight Safety Network