January 8 – Leonardo da Vinci's Mona Lisa is exhibited in the United States for the first time, at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C.
January 14 - George Wallace becomes governor of Alabama. His inaugural speech includes the statement "segregation now, segregation tomorrow, and segregation forever!"
February 8 – Travel, financial and commercial transactions by United States citizens to Cuba are made illegal by the John F. Kennedy Administration.
February 11 - The Beatles record their debut album Please Please Me in a single day at the Abbey Road Studios in London, and American-born poet Sylvia Plath commits suicide in London.
February 19 – The publication of Betty Friedan's The Feminine Mystique launches the reawakening of the Women's Movement in the United States as women's organizations and consciousness raising groups spread.
March 4 – In Paris, six people are sentenced to death for conspiring to assassinate President Charles de Gaulle. De Gaulle pardons five, but the other conspirator, Jean Bastien-Thiry, is executed by firing squad.
March 5 – In Camden, Tennessee, country music superstar Patsy Cline (Virginia Patterson Hensley) is killed in a plane crash along with fellow performers Hawkshaw Hawkins, Cowboy Copas and Cline's manager and pilot Randy Hughes, while returning from a benefit performance in Kansas City, Kansas, for country radio disc jockey "Cactus" Jack Call.
March 18 – Gideon v. Wainwright: The Supreme Court of the United States rules that state courts are required to provide counsel in criminal cases for defendants who cannot afford to pay their own attorneys.
March 21 – The Alcatraz Federal Penitentiary on Alcatraz Island in San Francisco Bay closes; the last 27 prisoners are transferred elsewhere at the order of United States Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy.
March 22 – The Beatles release their first album, Please Please Me, in the United Kingdom.
March 28 – Director Alfred Hitchcock's film The Birds is released in the United States.
April 1 – The soap opera General Hospital debuts on ABC Television in the United States.
April 3 – Southern Christian Leadership Conference volunteers kick off the Birmingham campaign (Birmingham, Alabama) against racial segregation in the United States with a sit-in.
April 8 – Lawrence of Arabia wins Best Picture.
April 10 – The U.S. nuclear submarine Thresher sinks 220 mi (190 nmi; 350 km) east of Cape Cod; all 129 aboard (112 crewmen plus yard personnel) die.
April 12 - Martin Luther King Jr., Ralph Abernathy, Fred Shuttlesworth and others are arrested in a Birmingham, Alabama protest for "parading without a permit".
April 15 – 70,000 marchers arrive in London from Aldermaston, to demonstrate against nuclear weapons.
April 16 – Martin Luther King, Jr. issues his "Letter from Birmingham Jail".
April 20 – In Quebec, Canada, members of the terrorist group Front de libération du Québec bomb a Canadian Army recruitment center, killing night watchman Wilfred V. O'Neill.
May 1 – The Coca-Cola Company introduces its first diet drink, Tab.
May 2 - Thousands of blacks, many of them children, are arrested while protesting segregation in Birmingham, Alabama. Public Safety Commissioner Eugene "Bull" Connor later unleashes fire hoses and police dogs on the demonstrators.
May 8 - Dr. No, the first James Bond film, is shown in U.S. theaters.
May 8 - The Army of the Republic of Vietnam opens fire on Buddhists who defy a ban on the flying of the Buddhist flag on Vesak, the birthday of Gautama Buddha, killing 9.
May 8 - CVS Pharmacy opens in Lowell, Massachusetts.
May 27 – The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan is singer-songwriter Bob Dylan's second studio album, and most influential, opening with the song "Blowin' in the Wind", released by Columbia Records.
June 3 - The Army of the Republic of Vietnam rains liquid chemicals on the heads of Buddhist protestors in Hue, injuring 67 people. The United States threatens to cut off aid to the regime of Ngô Đình Diệm.
June 5 – The first annual National Hockey League Entry Draft is held in Montreal.
June 11 - In Saigon, Buddhist monk Thích Quảng Đức commits self-immolation to protest the oppression of Buddhists by the Ngô Đình Diệm administration.
June 11 - Alabama Governor George Wallace stands in the door of the University of Alabama to protest against integration, before stepping aside and allowing blacks James Hood and Vivian Malone to enroll.
June 11 - President John F. Kennedy broadcasts a historic Civil Rights Address, in which he promises a Civil Rights Bill, and asks for "the kind of equality of treatment that we would want for ourselves".
June 12 - Medgar Evers is murdered in Jackson, Mississippi.
June 16 – Vostok 6 carries Soviet cosmonaut Valentina Tereshkova, the first woman into space.
June 17 – Abington School District v. Schempp: The U.S. Supreme Court rules that state-mandated Bible reading in public schools is unconstitutional.
June 19 – Valentina Tereshkova the first woman in space, returns to Earth.
June 20 - Establishment of the Moscow–Washington hotline (officially, the Direct Communications Link or DCL; unofficially, the "red telephone"
June 26 – John F. Kennedy gives his "Ich bin ein Berliner" speech in West Berlin, East Germany.
July 1 – ZIP codes are introduced by the United States Postal Service.
July 5 - Diplomatic relations between the Israeli and the Japanese governments are raised to embassy level.
July 5 - The Roman Catholic Church accepts cremation as a funeral practice.
July 7 – Double Seven Day scuffle: Secret police loyal to Ngô Đình Nhu, brother of President Ngô Đình Diệm, attack American journalists including Peter Arnett and David Halberstam at a demonstration during the Buddhist crisis in South Vietnam.
August 5 – The United States, United Kingdom, and Soviet Union sign the Partial Nuclear Test Ban Treaty.
August 8 – The Great Train Robbery takes place in Buckinghamshire, England.
August 18 – American civil rights movement: James Meredith becomes the first black person to graduate from the University of Mississippi.
August 21 – Xá Lợi Pagoda raids: The Army of the Republic of Vietnam Special Forces loyal to Ngô Đình Nhu, brother of President Ngô Đình Diệm, vandalise Buddhist pagodas across South Vietnam, arresting thousands and leaving an estimated hundreds dead. In the wake of the raids, the Kennedy administration by Cable 243 orders the United States Embassy, Saigon to explore alternative leadership in the country, opening the way towards a coup against Diệm.
August 28 – Martin Luther King Jr. delivers his "I Have a Dream" speech on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial to an audience of at least 250,000, during the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom.
September 7 – The Pro Football Hall of Fame opens in Canton, Ohio with 17 charter members.
September 15 – The 16th Street Baptist Church bombing, in Birmingham, Alabama, kills 4 and injures 22.
October 2 - The President's Commission on the Status of Women issues its final reports to President Kennedy.
October 8 – Sam Cooke and his band are arrested after trying to register at a "whites only" motel in Louisiana.
October 10 - The second James Bond film, From Russia with Love, opens in the UK.
October 30 – The car manufacturing firm Lamborghini is founded in Italy.
October 31 – 74 die in a gas explosion during a Holiday on Ice show at the Indiana State Fair Coliseum in Indianapolis.
November 2 – 1963 South Vietnamese coup: Arrest and assassination of Ngo Dinh Diem, the South Vietnamese President.
November 22 - Assassination of John F. Kennedy in Dallas, Texas
English-born writer Aldous Huxley, author of Brave New World, dies of cancer
C. S. Lewis, author of works including The Chronicles of Narnia, The Screwtape Letters and Mere Christianity, dies of renal failure at his home in Oxford (England).
Phil Spector's A Christmas Gift for You from Phil Spector is released.
The Beatles' second UK album, With the Beatles, is released.
November 24 - Lee Harvey Oswald is killed by Jack Ruby
November 29 - U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson establishes the Warren Commission to investigate the assassination of John F. Kennedy.
December 8 - Frank Sinatra, Jr. is kidnapped at Harrah's Lake Tahoe.
December 26 – The Beatles' "I Want to Hold Your Hand" and "I Saw Her Standing There" are released in the United States, marking the beginning of Beatlemania.
January 14 - George Wallace becomes governor of Alabama. His inaugural speech includes the statement "segregation now, segregation tomorrow, and segregation forever!"
February 8 – Travel, financial and commercial transactions by United States citizens to Cuba are made illegal by the John F. Kennedy Administration.
February 11 - The Beatles record their debut album Please Please Me in a single day at the Abbey Road Studios in London, and American-born poet Sylvia Plath commits suicide in London.
February 19 – The publication of Betty Friedan's The Feminine Mystique launches the reawakening of the Women's Movement in the United States as women's organizations and consciousness raising groups spread.
March 4 – In Paris, six people are sentenced to death for conspiring to assassinate President Charles de Gaulle. De Gaulle pardons five, but the other conspirator, Jean Bastien-Thiry, is executed by firing squad.
March 5 – In Camden, Tennessee, country music superstar Patsy Cline (Virginia Patterson Hensley) is killed in a plane crash along with fellow performers Hawkshaw Hawkins, Cowboy Copas and Cline's manager and pilot Randy Hughes, while returning from a benefit performance in Kansas City, Kansas, for country radio disc jockey "Cactus" Jack Call.
March 18 – Gideon v. Wainwright: The Supreme Court of the United States rules that state courts are required to provide counsel in criminal cases for defendants who cannot afford to pay their own attorneys.
March 21 – The Alcatraz Federal Penitentiary on Alcatraz Island in San Francisco Bay closes; the last 27 prisoners are transferred elsewhere at the order of United States Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy.
March 22 – The Beatles release their first album, Please Please Me, in the United Kingdom.
March 28 – Director Alfred Hitchcock's film The Birds is released in the United States.
April 1 – The soap opera General Hospital debuts on ABC Television in the United States.
April 3 – Southern Christian Leadership Conference volunteers kick off the Birmingham campaign (Birmingham, Alabama) against racial segregation in the United States with a sit-in.
April 8 – Lawrence of Arabia wins Best Picture.
April 10 – The U.S. nuclear submarine Thresher sinks 220 mi (190 nmi; 350 km) east of Cape Cod; all 129 aboard (112 crewmen plus yard personnel) die.
April 12 - Martin Luther King Jr., Ralph Abernathy, Fred Shuttlesworth and others are arrested in a Birmingham, Alabama protest for "parading without a permit".
April 15 – 70,000 marchers arrive in London from Aldermaston, to demonstrate against nuclear weapons.
April 16 – Martin Luther King, Jr. issues his "Letter from Birmingham Jail".
April 20 – In Quebec, Canada, members of the terrorist group Front de libération du Québec bomb a Canadian Army recruitment center, killing night watchman Wilfred V. O'Neill.
May 1 – The Coca-Cola Company introduces its first diet drink, Tab.
May 2 - Thousands of blacks, many of them children, are arrested while protesting segregation in Birmingham, Alabama. Public Safety Commissioner Eugene "Bull" Connor later unleashes fire hoses and police dogs on the demonstrators.
May 8 - Dr. No, the first James Bond film, is shown in U.S. theaters.
May 8 - The Army of the Republic of Vietnam opens fire on Buddhists who defy a ban on the flying of the Buddhist flag on Vesak, the birthday of Gautama Buddha, killing 9.
May 8 - CVS Pharmacy opens in Lowell, Massachusetts.
May 27 – The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan is singer-songwriter Bob Dylan's second studio album, and most influential, opening with the song "Blowin' in the Wind", released by Columbia Records.
June 3 - The Army of the Republic of Vietnam rains liquid chemicals on the heads of Buddhist protestors in Hue, injuring 67 people. The United States threatens to cut off aid to the regime of Ngô Đình Diệm.
June 5 – The first annual National Hockey League Entry Draft is held in Montreal.
June 11 - In Saigon, Buddhist monk Thích Quảng Đức commits self-immolation to protest the oppression of Buddhists by the Ngô Đình Diệm administration.
June 11 - Alabama Governor George Wallace stands in the door of the University of Alabama to protest against integration, before stepping aside and allowing blacks James Hood and Vivian Malone to enroll.
June 11 - President John F. Kennedy broadcasts a historic Civil Rights Address, in which he promises a Civil Rights Bill, and asks for "the kind of equality of treatment that we would want for ourselves".
June 12 - Medgar Evers is murdered in Jackson, Mississippi.
June 16 – Vostok 6 carries Soviet cosmonaut Valentina Tereshkova, the first woman into space.
June 17 – Abington School District v. Schempp: The U.S. Supreme Court rules that state-mandated Bible reading in public schools is unconstitutional.
June 19 – Valentina Tereshkova the first woman in space, returns to Earth.
June 20 - Establishment of the Moscow–Washington hotline (officially, the Direct Communications Link or DCL; unofficially, the "red telephone"
June 26 – John F. Kennedy gives his "Ich bin ein Berliner" speech in West Berlin, East Germany.
July 1 – ZIP codes are introduced by the United States Postal Service.
July 5 - Diplomatic relations between the Israeli and the Japanese governments are raised to embassy level.
July 5 - The Roman Catholic Church accepts cremation as a funeral practice.
July 7 – Double Seven Day scuffle: Secret police loyal to Ngô Đình Nhu, brother of President Ngô Đình Diệm, attack American journalists including Peter Arnett and David Halberstam at a demonstration during the Buddhist crisis in South Vietnam.
August 5 – The United States, United Kingdom, and Soviet Union sign the Partial Nuclear Test Ban Treaty.
August 8 – The Great Train Robbery takes place in Buckinghamshire, England.
August 18 – American civil rights movement: James Meredith becomes the first black person to graduate from the University of Mississippi.
August 21 – Xá Lợi Pagoda raids: The Army of the Republic of Vietnam Special Forces loyal to Ngô Đình Nhu, brother of President Ngô Đình Diệm, vandalise Buddhist pagodas across South Vietnam, arresting thousands and leaving an estimated hundreds dead. In the wake of the raids, the Kennedy administration by Cable 243 orders the United States Embassy, Saigon to explore alternative leadership in the country, opening the way towards a coup against Diệm.
August 28 – Martin Luther King Jr. delivers his "I Have a Dream" speech on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial to an audience of at least 250,000, during the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom.
September 7 – The Pro Football Hall of Fame opens in Canton, Ohio with 17 charter members.
September 15 – The 16th Street Baptist Church bombing, in Birmingham, Alabama, kills 4 and injures 22.
October 2 - The President's Commission on the Status of Women issues its final reports to President Kennedy.
October 8 – Sam Cooke and his band are arrested after trying to register at a "whites only" motel in Louisiana.
October 10 - The second James Bond film, From Russia with Love, opens in the UK.
October 30 – The car manufacturing firm Lamborghini is founded in Italy.
October 31 – 74 die in a gas explosion during a Holiday on Ice show at the Indiana State Fair Coliseum in Indianapolis.
November 2 – 1963 South Vietnamese coup: Arrest and assassination of Ngo Dinh Diem, the South Vietnamese President.
November 22 - Assassination of John F. Kennedy in Dallas, Texas
English-born writer Aldous Huxley, author of Brave New World, dies of cancer
C. S. Lewis, author of works including The Chronicles of Narnia, The Screwtape Letters and Mere Christianity, dies of renal failure at his home in Oxford (England).
Phil Spector's A Christmas Gift for You from Phil Spector is released.
The Beatles' second UK album, With the Beatles, is released.
November 24 - Lee Harvey Oswald is killed by Jack Ruby
November 29 - U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson establishes the Warren Commission to investigate the assassination of John F. Kennedy.
December 8 - Frank Sinatra, Jr. is kidnapped at Harrah's Lake Tahoe.
December 26 – The Beatles' "I Want to Hold Your Hand" and "I Saw Her Standing There" are released in the United States, marking the beginning of Beatlemania.
