August 1, 1943 - Japanese destroyer rams an American PT (patrol torpedo) boat, No. 109, slicing it in two. The destruction is so massive other American PT boats in the area assume the crew is dead. Two crewmen were, in fact, killed, but 11 survived, including Lt. John F. Kennedy. After five hours of clinging to debris from the decimated PT boat, the crew made it to a coral island. Kennedy decided to swim out to sea again, hoping to flag down a passing American boat. None came. Kennedy began to swim back to shore, but strong currents, and his chronic back condition, made his return difficult. Upon reaching the island again, he fell ill. After he recovered, the PT-109 crew swam to a larger island, what they believed was Nauru Island, but was in fact Cross Island. They met up with two natives from the island, who agreed to take a message south. Kennedy carved the distress message into a coconut shell: "Nauru Is. Native knows posit. He can pilot. 11 alive need small boat." The message reached Lieutenant Arthur Evans, who was watching the coast of Gomu Island, located next to an island occupied by the Japanese. Kennedy and his crew were paddled to Gomu. A PT boat then took them back to Rendova. Kennedy was ultimately awarded the Navy and Marine Corps Medal, for gallantry in action. The coconut shell used to deliver his message found a place in history-and in the Oval Office.

June 12, 1944 - Lieutenant John F. Kennedy receives the Navy’s highest honor for gallantry for his heroic actions as a gunboat pilot during World War II; also received a Purple Heart for wounds received during battle.

January 20, 1961 - John F. Kennedy was sworn in as the 35th president of the United States. Oath was administered the oath of office by Chief Justice Earl Warren. During his famous inauguration address, Kennedy, the youngest candidate ever elected to the presidency and the country's first Catholic president, declared that "the torch has been passed to a new generation of Americans" and appealed to Americans to "ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country."

April 7, 1961 - President John F. Kennedy sends a letter to Congress in which he recommends the U.S. participate in an international campaign to preserve ancient temples and historic monuments in the Nile Valley of Egypt. The campaign, initiated by UNESCO, was designed to save sites threatened by the construction of the Aswan High Dam; total cost of preserving Egypt’s historic sites was estimated at $100 million; the U.S. contributed a total of $16 million toward the effort, which was used to help protect ruins from water re-routed for the dam or to relocate antiquities; 1965 - Jackie Kennedy helped arrange to have Eqypt’s Temple of Dendur brought to New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art; remains a centerpiece of the museum’s collections.

April 12, 1961 - Walt W. Rostow, senior White House specialist on Southeast Asia and a principal architect of U.S. counterinsurgency doctrine, delivers a memorandum to President John F. Kennedy asserting that the time has come for "gearing up the whole Vietnam operation." Rostow's proposals, almost all of which eventually became policy, included: a visit to Vietnam by the vice president; increasing the number of American Special Forces; increasing funds for South Vietnamese President Ngo Dinh Diem; and "persuading Diem to move more rapidly to broaden the base of his government, as well as to decrease its centralization and improve its efficiency."

April 18, 1961 - President John F. Kennedy heats up Cold War rhetoric in a letter responding to Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev’s claim that the U.S. was engaging in "armed aggression" against the communist regime in Cuba. Kennedy denied the allegations, told Kruschev he was under a "serious misapprehension" and stated that the U.S. "intends no military intervention in Cuba" (night before Kennedy wrote this letter, approximately 1,200 Cuban exiles, supplied and trained by the CIA, landed in Cuba’s Bay of Pigs with plans to overthrow Castro). However, Kennedy insisted that he would support Cubans "who wish to see a democratic system in an independent Cuba" and that the U.S. would "take no action to stifle the spirit of liberty.".

May 5, 1961 - Astronaut Alan B. Shepard Jr. became America's first space traveler as he made a 15-minute suborbital flight in a capsule launched from Cape Canaveral, FL; landed safely 302 miles out at sea fifteen minutes after the launching; United States' first major step in the race to explore space with manned space craft; suborbital flight, which lasted 15 minutes and reached a height of 116 miles into the atmosphere, was a major triumph for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA).

May 12, 1961 - Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson meets with South Vietnamese President Ngo Dinh Diem in Saigon during his tour of Asian countries. Calling Diem the "Churchill of Asia," he encouraged the South Vietnamese president to view himself as indispensable to the United States and promised additional military aid to assist his government in fighting the communists.

May 20, 1961 - A white mob attacked a busload of "Freedom Riders" in Montgomery, AL, prompted the federal government to send 400 United States marshals to restore order. Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy announced the Federal action in a telegram to Alabama officials. He said it was necessary to "guarantee safe passage in interstate commerce."

May 25, 1961 - John F. Kennedy sets goal of putting a man on Moon before the end of decade.

May 31, 1961 - South Africa became an independent republic.

June 1961 - President Kennedy read first PICL (President's Intelligence Check List developed by Richard Lehman, high-ranking CIA analyst) after Kennedy complained of being overwhelmed by intelligence memoranda which duplicated some material and excluded other vital information; became a CIA institution - handed to presidents each morning for 45 years.

June 4, 1961 - President John F. Kennedy and Premier Nikita Khrushchev of the Soviet Union, meeting in Vienna, strike a bargain to support a neutral and independent Laos (had been the scene of an ongoing communist insurgency by the Pathet Lao guerrillas). 1960 - Pathet Lao was threatening the survival of the Royal Lao government. January 19, 1961 - President Eisenhower told Kennedy that Laos "was the key to the entire area of Southeast Asia." July 1962 -agreement was signed at 14-nation conference  convened in Geneva proclaiming Laos neutral (communists and the United States soon ignored the declared neutrality of the area).

June 16, 1961 - Rudolf Nureyev, the young star of the Soviet Union's Kirov Opera Ballet Company, defects during a stopover in Paris. The high-profile defection was a blow to Soviet prestige and generated international interest. Double blow to the Soviet Union. First, it detracted from the quality of the Kirov Company, which had featured the young prodigy prominently in its performances throughout the world. Second, it severely damaged Soviet propaganda that touted the political and artistic freedom in Russia. During the next 30 years he danced with England's Royal Ballet and the American Ballet Theatre.

June 19, 1961 - The Supreme Court struck down a provision in Maryland's constitution requiring state officeholders to profess a belief in God.

June 23, 1961 - The International Treaty of Scientific Cooperation and Peaceful Use of Antarctica was signed.

July 7, 1961 - James R. Hoffa elected chairman of Teamsters.

July 21, 1961 - Capt. Virgil ''Gus'' Grissom became the second American to rocket into a sub-orbital pattern around the Earth, flying on the Liberty Bell 7.

August 9, 1961 - James B. Parsons is first black appointed to Federal District Court.

August 10, 1961 - England applies for membership in European Common Market.

August 13, 1961 - Berlin was divided with barbed wire as East Germany sealed off the border between the city's eastern and western sectors in order to halt the flight of refugees. Declaration by the Communist Warsaw Pact states that effective controls must be put into force on the borders of West Berlin because of a "perfidious agitation campaign" by the West. The declaration made it clear these measures were directed at stopping the flow of refugees from East to West through West Berlin. The flow of refugees had recently been reaching 1,700 daily. From 4 P.M. Friday, to 6 P.M. on August 12, 2,662 new arrivals registered in West Berlin's reception camp. Warsaw Pact states are the Soviet Union, East Germany, Poland, Czechoslovakia, Rumania, Bulgaria, Hungary and Albania; August 15 - East German authorities begin building a wall--the Berlin Wall--to permanently close off access to the West; August 31, 1961 - A concrete wall replaced the barbed wire fence that separated East Germany and West Germany.

September 4, 1961 - U.S. authorizes Agency for International Development.

September 18, 1961 - United Nations Secretary-General Dag Hammarskjold was killed in a plane crash in northern Rhodesia.

September 22, 1961 - President Kennedy signs Peace Corps legislation establishing the Peace Corps as a permanent government agency; believed it could provide a new and unique weapon in the war against communism; budget of $40 million for the next fiscal year was approved. 

October 6, 1961 - U.S. president John F. Kennedy, advised Americans to build or buy a bomb shelter to protect them from atomic fallout in the event of a nuclear exchange with the Soviet Union.

October 11, 1961 - National Security Council advisers ask President John F. Kennedy to accept "as our real and ultimate objective the defeat of the Vietcong"; Joint Chiefs of Staff estimated that 40,000 U.S. troops could clean up "the Vietcong threat" and another 120,000 could cope with possible North Vietnamese or Chinese Communist intervention; sent General Maxwell Taylor to Vietnam to study the situation; ultimately, sends advisers, helicopters, and other military support to South Vietnam to aid President Ngo Dinh Diem in his fight against the Viet Cong.

October 17, 1961 - Paris police massacre more than 200 Algerians marching in the city in support of peace talks to end their country's war of independence against France. Paris police chief Maurice Papon ordered a crackdown on Paris' Algerian community, explaining to his officers that they would be protected against any charges of excessive violence. Police searched the Algerian ghettos for terrorists, killing a number of innocent Algerians before turning their guns on a group of 30,000 protesters who defied a curfew and gathered near the Seine River. The next day, the police released an official death toll of three dead and 67 wounded, a figure generally disregarded by witnesses who observed bodies littering the area and floating in the Seine. In 1981 - it was revealed that Maurice Papon had collaborated with the Nazis during the German occupation of France, and he was forced to resign his three-year-old position as budget minister in the cabinet. Papon, a former official in France's Vichy regime, was suspected of aiding in the deportation of hundreds of French Jews to the Nazi death camps. After avoiding a trial for 17 years, Papon was found guilty of ''complicity in crimes against humanity'' in 1998 - sentenced to 10 years in prison. During his trial, documents about the 1961 massacre in Paris surfaced, acknowledging that Papon's policemen had killed many more Algerians than previously admitted.

October 30, 1961 - U.N. unanimously elects U Thant acting secretary general of the U.N.

October 30, 1961 - Soviet Party Congress unanimously approved a resolution ordering the removal of Josef Stalin's body from Lenin's tomb. Nikita Khrushchev ordered the de-Stalinization of the USSR.

October 30, 1961 - Soviet Union tested a 58 megaton hydrogen bomb over Novaya Zemlya, which is still the largest nuclear device to ever be detonated.

November 16, 1961 - President John F. Kennedy increases military aid to South Vietnam without committing U.S. combat troops; concerned at the advances being made by the communist Viet Cong, but did not want to become involved in a land war in Vietnam; hoped that the military aid would be sufficient to strengthen the Saigon government and its armed forces against the Viet Cong; November 1963 - 16,000 U.S. soldiers in South Vietnam.

December 2, 1961 - Fidel Castro declared himself a Marxist-Leninist who would lead Cuba to Communism.

December 11, 1961 - President John F. Kennedy ordered helicopter crewmen to South Vietnam to provide training and support for the South Vietnamese forces.

December 14, 1961 - In a public exchange of letters with South Vietnamese President Ngo Dinh Diem, President John F. Kennedy formally announces that the United States will increase aid to South Vietnam, which would include the expansion of the U.S. troop commitment. Kennedy, concerned with the recent advances made by the communist insurgency movement in South Vietnam wrote, "We shall promptly increase our assistance to your defense effort." Kennedy's chief military adviser, Gen. Maxwell D. Taylor, and Special Assistant for National Security Affairs Walt W. Rostow had just returned from a fact-finding trip to Saigon and urged the president to increase U.S. economic and military advisory support to Diem. The military support was to include intensive training of local self-defense troops by American military advisers. Additionally, Taylor and Rostow advocated a significant increase in airplanes, helicopters, and support personnel. In return for the support, Kennedy requested that Diem liberalize his regime and institute land reform and other measures to win the support of his people. Diem initially refused, but consented when he was threatened with a reduction in the promised aid. In the long run, however, his reforms did not go far enough and the increased American aid proved insufficient in stemming the tide of the insurgency. Diem was murdered during a coup by his own generals in November 1963.

December 31, 1961 - The Marshall Plan expired after distributing more than $12 billion in foreign aid.

December 31, 1961 - President John F. Kennedy issued a statement extending his "sincere wishes" and those of the American people to Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev and the people of the Soviet Union for a peaceful and prosperous New Year. It was the height of the Cold War and the United States and Soviet Union were locked in a nuclear arms race. Kennedy’s message came in response to a December 29 message from Khrushchev that carried his hope that 1962 would be a "threshold" year for taking "efficient steps in the cause of liquidation of centers of military danger." Khrushchev was likely referring to tensions over the ongoing division of the city of Berlin into democratic and communist sectors.

February 3, 1962 - President Kennedy bans all trade with Cuba except for food and drugs; February 7, 1962 - begins blockade of Cuba.

February 10, 1962 - Pierre Salinger, the President's press secretary, announced that Francis Gary Powers has been released by the Soviet Union in exchange for the release of Col. Rudolf Abel, a convicted Soviet spy; May 1960 - Powers was downed in a U-2 plane while making a high-altitude reconnaissance flight over the Soviet Union, he pleaded guilty to espionage charges at a Moscow trial   and was sentenced to ten years - three in prison and seven in a prison colony; 1957 - Colonel Abel was convicted in the United States of espionage charges, given a thirty-year sentence (commuted by President Kennedy); prisoners exchanged in the middle of the Glienicker Bridge between Wansee and Potsdam. The border between East Germany and West Berlin runs through the middle of the bridge.

February 14, 1962 - First lady Jacqueline Kennedy conducted a televised tour of the White House.

February 20, 1962 - John Glenn piloted the Mercury-Atlas 6 Friendship 7 spacecraft on the first U.S. manned orbital mission; first American to orbit Earth. Launched from Kennedy Space Center, Florida, he completed three-orbits around the earth, at a maximum altitude of approx. 162 miles and an orbital velocity of approx. 17,500 mph; October 29, 1998 - Glenn returned to space, made 134 orbits as a crew member of the space shuttle Discovery for investigations on space flight and the aging process.

March 18, 1962 - France and the leaders of the Front de Liberation Nationale (FLN), established in October 1954 by a faction of young Algerian Muslims, sign a peace agreement to end the seven-year Algerian War, signaling the end of 130 years of colonial French rule in Algeria.

March 23, 1962 - President Kennedy signed the Manpower Development and Training Act of 1962 into law; initiated a new era in federal manpower programs.

April 10, 1962 - President John F. Kennedy sharply chided the steel industry for its recent decision to jack up prices which he deemed a "wholly unjustified and irresponsible" move; few days later, steel leaders rolled back the price hikes.

June 25, 1962 - The Supreme Court ruled that the use of an unofficial, nondenominational prayer in New York public schools was unconstitutional.

July 3, 1962 - Algeria became independent after 132 years of French rule.

July 23, 1962 - United States and the Soviet Union sign an agreement in Geneva guaranteeing a free and neutral Laos (French colony since 1893, granted conditional independence in 1949). While the agreement ended the "official" roles of both nations in the Laotian civil war, covert assistance from both Russia and the United States continued to exacerbate the conflict in Laos for the next decade. Agreement accomplished very little. In a matter of months, more than 30,000 Laotians, mostly from remote hill tribes, were being used to carry out guerrilla operations against the Pathet Lao. The U.S. operation was unsuccessful, however. 1975 - shortly after victory of communist North Vietnam over South Vietnam, the Pathet Lao took control in Laos, where a communist government continues to be in power to this day.

August 6, 1962 - Jamaica became an independent dominion within the British Commonwealth.

August 13, 1962 - President John F. Kennedy promised an "across-the-board, top-to-bottom" cut in corporate and personal taxes, due to take effect on January 1, 1963; Rooted in conservative economic theory - interpreted theories of John Maynard Keynes as a dictate to use tax policy as a means to induce demand and trigger growth without the attendant evil of inflation (downside to the policy was the ripe potential for piling up a budget deficit, but Keynes and his acolytes viewed debt as an acceptable by-product of an otherwise healthy economy). Legislation passed through the House with relatively little fuss. When the cut came down in 1963, it slashed individual taxes by about 1/5 (from a top individual rate of 91% to 65%) and corporate taxes by 1/10 (from a top corporate tax rate of 52% to 47%). Measure pumped $12 billion into the economy.

August 31, 1962 - The Caribbean nation of Trinidad and Tobago became independent within the British Commonwealth.

September 12, 1962 - President John F. Kennedy delivered perhaps the most famous space speech ever given, at the stadium of Rice University. Text of his speech included these memorable lines, "We choose to go to the moon. We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard, because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one which we intend to win, and the others, too. It is for these reasons that I regard the decision last year to shift our efforts in space from low to high gear as among the most important decisions that will be made during my incumbency in the office of the Presidency."

September 20, 1962 - James Meredith, a black man, was blocked from enrolling at the University of Mississippi (Oxford, MS) by Gov. Ross R. Barnett. September 30, 1962 - escorted onto the University of Mississippi campus by U.S. Marshals, setting off a deadly riot. Two men were killed before the racial violence was quelled by more than 3,000 federal soldiers. The next day, Meredith successfully enrolled and began to attend classes amid continuing disruption.

October 14, 1962 - Cuban Missile Crisis begins; brings the United States and the Soviet Union to the brink of nuclear conflict. Photographs taken by a high-altitude U-2 spy plane offered incontrovertible evidence that Soviet-made medium-range missiles in Cuba--capable of carrying nuclear warheads--were now stationed 90 miles off the American coastline. During the next two weeks, the United States and the Soviet Union would come as close to nuclear war as they ever had, and a fearful world awaited the outcome. 

October 15, 1962 - U.S. intelligence personnel analyzing U-2 spy plane data discovered that the Soviets were building medium-range missile sites in Cuba.

October 15, 1962 - Byron R White appointed to Supreme Court.

October 16, 1962 - The Cuban missile crisis began as President John F. Kennedy was informed that reconnaissance photographs had revealed the presence of missile bases in Cuba.

October 20, 1962 - The White House press corps is told that President John F. Kennedy has a cold; in reality, he is holding secret meetings with advisors on the eve of ordering a blockade of Cuba. Kennedy was in Seattle and scheduled to attend the Seattle Century 21 World’s Fair when his press secretary announced that he had contracted an "upper respiratory infection." The president then flew back to Washington, where he supposedly went to bed to recover from his cold. Four days earlier, Kennedy had seen photographic proof that the Soviets were building 40 ballistic missile sites on the island of Cuba--within striking distance of the United States. Kennedy’s supposed bed rest was actually a marathon secret session with advisors to decide upon a response to the Soviet action. The group believed that Kennedy had three choices: to negotiate with the Russians to remove the missiles; to bomb the missile sites in Cuba; or implement a naval blockade of the island. Kennedy chose to blockade Cuba, deciding to bomb the missile sites only if further action proved necessary.

October 22, 1962 - President Kennedy announced an air and naval blockade of Cuba, following the discovery of Soviet missile bases on the island; These missile sites--under construction but nearing completion--housed medium-range missiles capable of striking a number of major cities in the United States, including Washington, D.C. Kennedy announced that he was ordering a naval "quarantine" of Cuba to prevent Soviet ships from transporting any more offensive weapons to the island and explained that the United States would not tolerate the existence of the missile sites currently in place. The president made it clear that America would not stop short of military action to end what he called a "clandestine, reckless, and provocative threat to world peace."

October 24, 1962 - The U.S. blockade of Cuba during the missile crisis began under a proclamation signed by President John F. Kennedy; U.S. military forces went to DEFCON 2, the highest military alert ever reached in the postwar era, as military commanders prepared for full-scale war with the Soviet Union.

October 25, 1962 - U.S. ambassador Adlai E. Stevenson presented photographic evidence of Soviet missile bases in Cuba to the U.N. Security Council.

October 26, 1962 - Soviets transmitted a proposal for ending the crisis: The missile bases would be removed and Cuban leader Fidel Castro would accept a pledge to accept no more offensive weapons in exchange for a U.S. pledge not to invade Cuba. The next day, however, Khrushchev, under pressure from Soviet military commanders, publicly called for the dismantling of U.S. missile bases in Turkey.

October 26, 1962 - In one of the most dramatic verbal confrontations of the Cold War, American U.N. Ambassador Adlai Stevenson asked his Soviet counterpart during a Security Council debate whether the USSR had placed missiles in Cuba.

October 27, 1962 - Two-week-old Cuban Missile Crisis comes to an end.

October 28, 1962 - Khrushchev announced his government's intent to dismantle and remove all offensive Soviet weapons in Cuba in exchange for a promise from the United States to respect Cuba's territorial sovereignty. With the airing of the public message on Radio Moscow, the USSR confirmed its willingness to proceed with the solution secretly proposed by the Americans the day before. Less than a year after the crisis ended, the United States and Soviet Union signed an agreement to end aboveground testing; in 1968, both nations signed a non-proliferation treaty.

November 6, 1962 - The United Nations General Assembly adopts a resolution condemning South Africa's racist apartheid policies (government-sanctioned racial segregation and political and economic discrimination against South Africa's non-white majority in effect from 1948 to 1993) and calling on all its members to end economic and military relations with the country.

November 20, 1962 - President John F. Kennedy issues Executive Order 11063, which mandates an end to discrimination in housing. The order, which came during the burgeoning Civil Rights movement, prohibited federally funded housing agencies from denying housing or funding for housing to anyone based on their race, color, creed or national origin. Although Kennedy’s order was a symbolic landmark for ending de facto segregation in housing, the policy was never enforced. The order left it up to the individual housing and funding agencies to police themselves, leaving much room for non-compliance from state to state. After his assassination in 1963, civil rights activists continued to lobby for integrated neighborhoods. It took Kennedy’s successor, Lyndon B. Johnson, until 1968, however, to get a majority of Congress to support a fair housing law.

November 30, 1962 - U Thant of Burma was elected secretary-general of the United Nations, succeeded the late Dag Hammarskjold.

December 2, 1962 - Following a trip to Vietnam at President John F. Kennedy's request, Senate Majority Leader Mike Mansfield (D-Montana) becomes the first U.S. official to refuse to make an optimistic public comment on the progress of the war. He claimed that the $2 billion the United States had poured into Vietnam during the previous seven years had accomplished nothing. He placed blame squarely on the Diem regime for its failure to share power and win support from the South Vietnamese people. He suggested that Americans, despite being motivated by a sincere desire to stop the spread of communism, had simply taken the place formerly occupied by the French colonial power in the minds of many Vietnamese.

January 14, 1963 - George C. Wallace was sworn in as governor of Alabama with a pledge of 'Segregation now, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever!" His inauguration speech was written by Ku Klux Klan leader Asa Carter, who later reformed his white supremacist beliefs and wrote The Education of Little Tree under the pseudonym of Forrest Carter.  

February 19, 1963 - U.S.S.R. informs John F. Kennedy it's withdrawing several thousand troops from Cuba.

February 19, 1963 - Manpower Administration established; 1975 - renamed Employment and Training Administration.

April 7, 1963 - A new Yugoslav constitution proclaims Tito (Josip Broz) the president for life of the newly named Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. 1953 - Tito was elected Yugoslav president and was repeatedly re-elected until 1963, when his term was made unlimited. Although he used his secret police to purge political opponents, the average Yugoslavian enjoyed more freedoms than the inhabitants of any other communist country in Eastern Europe.

May 15, 1963 - Gordon Cooper completed 22 orbits of the earth and spent 34 hours in space aboard Faith 7, part of the Mercury program.

June 10, 1963 - Equal Pay Act passed - illegal to pay women lower rates for the same job strictly on the basis of their sex. Demonstrable differences in seniority, merit, the quality or quantity of work, or other considerations might merit different pay, but gender could no longer be viewed as a drawback on one's resumé.

June 11, 1963 - Gov. George Wallace confronted federal troops at the University of Alabama in an effort to defy a federal court order to allow two blacks to enroll at the school; President Kennedy issues presidential proclamation 3542, forcing Alabama Governor George Wallace to comply with federal court orders allowing two African-American students to register for the summer session at the University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa. The proclamation ordered Wallace and "all persons acting in concert with him" to "cease and desist" from obstructing justice. Wallace ends his blockade of the University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa and allows two African American students to enroll; June 10, 1963 - President John F. Kennedy federalized National Guard troops and deployed them to the University of Alabama to force its desegregation.

June 16, 1963 - - Soviet Cosmonaut Valentina Tereshkova became the first woman in space, aboard Vostok 6. After 48
orbits and 71 hours, she returned to earth, having spent more time in space than all U.S. astronauts combined to that date.

June 17, 1963 - The Supreme Court struck down rules requiring the recitation of the Lord's Prayer or the reading of Biblical verses in public schools.

June 20, 1963 - The United States and Soviet Union signed an agreement to set up a hot line communication link between the two superpowers.

June 21, 1963 - French government shocks its allies by announcing that it is withdrawing its navy from the North Atlantic fleet of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). The French action was viewed in the West as evidence that France would be pursuing an independent policy regarding its nuclear arsenal. French announcement came just as President John F. Kennedy was preparing to go to Europe for a series of talks with America's allies. Privately, some Kennedy advisors were quite vocal in condemning de Gaulle's highly nationalistic independence in moving away from his nation's NATO commitments, thereby threatening the security of France's European allies. And, although the French withdrawal from the NATO North Atlantic fleet did not drastically affect the fleet's military effectiveness, the United States worried that France's action might set a disturbing precedent. NATO was still considered by U.S. officials as the first line of defense against communist aggression in Europe, and France's "defection" was distressing. Kennedy, during his European sojourn, attempted to persuade the French to rethink their position, but de Gaulle stood firm in his decision. America's fears were unrealized, however, as no other nations followed France's example. French naval forces never rejoined the NATO fleet.

June 26, 1963 - President John Kennedy gives his famous "Ich bin ein Berliner" speech to 150,000 West Berliners crowded before the City Hall

June 27, 1963 - John F. Kennedy, an Irish-American and the first Catholic to become president of the United States, arrives in Ireland for a visit; made a special visit to his ancestral home in Dunganstown, County Wexford; predominantly Catholic Irish Republic had been an independent nation for 41 years. June 28 - in Dublin, Kennedy spoke before the Irish parliament, where he openly condemned Britain’s history of persecuting Irish Catholics. Two days later, he traveled to England, America’s oldest ally, to meet with British Prime Minister Harold MacMillan and his cabinet to discuss setting up a pro-democratic regime in British Guyana.

June 27, 1963 - President John F. Kennedy appoints Henry Cabot Lodge, his former Republican political opponent, to succeed Frederick E. Nolting as ambassador to Vietnam; signaled a change in U.S. policy in South Vietnam. Lodge was a firm believer in the "domino theory," and when he became convinced that the United States could not defeat the communists in Vietnam with President Ngo Dinh Diem in office, he became very critical of Diem's regime in his dispatches back to Washington. Diem was ultimately removed from office and assassinated during a coup by opposition South Vietnamese generals that began on November 1, 1963. On orders from the Kennedy administration, Lodge had conveyed to the coup plotters that the United States would not thwart any proposed coup.

July 1, 1963 - The U.S. Post Office introduced five-digit ZIP codes.

July 8, 1963 - U.S. bans all monetary transactions with Cuba.

July 30, 1963 - British spy Kim Philby found in Moscow.

August 4, 1963 - Britain, America and Russia signed a Limited Nuclear Test Ban Treaty at Moscow to prohibit nuclear weapons tests "or any other nuclear explosion" in the atmosphere, in outer space, and under water. Underground nuclear explosions must not cause "radioactive debris to be present outside the territorial limits" their own country. The nuclear powers thus demonstrated a common goal to "an end to the contamination of man's environment by radioactive substances." The treaty was the result of over eight years of negotiations resolving issues of verification and deep-seated differences in attitudes to arms control and security. October 10, 1963 - A total of 108 countries had signed before the LNTB Treaty entered into force.

August 7, 1963 - Jacqueline Kennedy becomes first first lady to give birth since Mrs. Cleveland.

August 28, 1963 - 200,000 people participated in a peaceful civil rights rally in Washington, DC for a full and speedy program of civil rights and equal job opportunities. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, delivered his "I Have a Dream" speech in front of the Lincoln Memorial. The emphasis was on "freedom" and "now." At the same time the leaders emphasized, paradoxically but realistically, that the struggle was just beginning. The main target of the demonstration was Congress, where committees are now considering the Kennedy Administration's civil rights bill.

August 30, 1963 - The "Hot Line" communications link between the White House, Washington DC and the Kremlin, Moscow, went into operation to provide a direct two-way communications channel between the American and Soviet governments in the event of an international crisis. Consisted of one full-time duplex wire telegraph circuit, routed Washington- London- Copenhagen- Stockholm- Helsinki- Moscow, used for the transmission of messages and one full-time duplex radiotelegraph circuit, routed Washington- Tangier- Moscow used for service communications and for coordination of operations between the two terminal points.

September 2, 1963 - Alabama Gov. George C. Wallace prevented the integration of Tuskegee High School by encircling the building with state troopers.

September 10, 1963 - Twenty black students entered public schools in Birmingham, Tuskegee and Mobile, AL, following a standoff between federal authorities and Gov. George C. Wallace, who resisted integration.

September 15, 1963 - Four black girls were killed when a bomb went off during Sunday services at a Baptist church in Birmingham, Alabama, in the deadliest act of the civil rights era.

September 16, 1963 - Malaysia formed from Malaya, Singapore, Br No Borneo and Sarawak.

September 24, 1963 - Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara and Gen. Maxwell Taylor, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, arrive in Vietnam, at President John F. Kennedy's request, to determine whether South Vietnam's military situation had deteriorated as a result of the continuing clash between the Ngo Dinh Diem government and the Buddhists over Diem's refusal to institute internal political reform; met with Diem and he rejected any discussion of meaningful political reforms that might have quieted the growing unrest among the Buddhists; United States made clear its dissatisfaction with Diem's refusal to change his domestic policies, giving, in effect the green light to a coup by opposition military officers; coup was staged on November 1, 1963 - Diem and his brother, Ngo Dinh Nhu, were murdered by South Vietnamese officers.

October 7, 1963 - President John F. Kennedy signed the documents of ratification for a nuclear test ban treaty with Britain and the Soviet Union.

October 10, 1963 - Limited Nuclear Test Ban Treaty (LTBT) becomes effective; official title was the Treaty Banning Nuclear Weapon Tests in the Atmosphere, in Outer Space, and Under Water (but not underground); signed by Britain, America and the Soviet Union.

November 2, 1963 - South Vietnamese President Ngo Dihn Diem and his brother were assassinated in a military coup.The death of Diem caused celebration among many people in South Vietnam, but also lead to political chaos in the nation. The United States subsequently became more heavily involved in Vietnam as it tried to stabilize the South Vietnamese government and beat back the communist rebels that were becoming an increasingly powerful threat. While the United States publicly disclaimed any knowledge of or participation in the planning of the coup that overthrew Diem, it was later revealed that American officials met with the generals who organized the plot and gave them encouragement to go through with their plans. Quite simply, Diem was perceived as an impediment to the accomplishment of U.S. goals in Southeast Asia. His increasingly dictatorial rule only succeeded in alienating most of the South Vietnamese people, and his brutal repression of protests led by Buddhist monks during the summer of 1963 convinced many American officials that the time had come for Diem to go.

November 6, 1963 - Gen. Duong Van Minh, leading the Revolutionary Military Committee of the dissident generals who had conducted the November 1 coup that resulted in the murder of President Ngo Dinh Diem, takes over leadership of South Vietnam. The new government earned U.S. approval in part by pledging not to become a dictatorship and announcing, "The best weapon to fight communism is democracy and liberty." However, Minh was unable to form a viable government and he himself was overthrown in a bloodless coup led by Gen. Nguyen Khanh in January 1964.

November 22, 1963 - President Kennedy was assassinated while riding in a motorcade in Dallas. Texas Governor John B. Connally was seriously wounded. President Kennedy was shot at 12:30 P.M., Central standard time (1:30 P.M., New York time). Mr. Kennedy apparently was hit by the first of what witnesses believed were three shots. He was driven at high speed to Dallas's Parkland Hospital. There, in an emergency operating room, with only physicians and nurses in attendance, he died without regaining consciousness. Two priests administered last rites to Mr. Kennedy, a Roman Catholic. They were the Very rev. Oscar Huber, the pastor of Holy Trinity Church in Dallas, and the Rev. James Thompson. He was pronounced dead at 1 P.M. and Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson was sworn in as the 36th President of the United States at 2:39 P.M.   A suspect, Lee Harvey Oswald, was arrested. 

March 14, 1964 - A jury in Dallas found Jack Ruby guilty of murdering Lee Harvey Oswald, the accused assassin of President John F. Kennedy; sentenced to die in the electric chair; first courtroom verdict to be televised in U.S. history.

March 14, 1967 - The body of President John F. Kennedy was moved from a temporary grave to a permanent memorial site at Arlington National Cemetery. William Taft is the only other president besides JFK interred at Arlington.

October 30, 1968 - Jaqueline Kennedy marries Aristotle Onassis on the island of Scorpios.

June 12, 1977 - Ground-breaking ceremonies for President Kennedy library; October 20, 1979 - The John F Kennedy library opens in Boston, Massachusetts.

July 10, 2002 - U.S. Navy officials confirmed that marine archaeologist Robert D. Ballard had likely found PT 109, the patrol torpedo boat commanded by John F. Kennedy, in the Solomon Islands; the vessel was sunk by a Japanese destroyer in 1943.