January
14th	George C. Wallace becomes governor of Alabama. In his inaugural speech, he defiantly proclaims "segregation now, segregation tomorrow, and segregation forever!"
14th	The Flying Scotsman in its British Railways guise as No. 60103 makes its last scheduled run before going into the hands of Sir Alan Pegler for preservation
22nd	France and Germany sign the Elysée Treaty
26th	The Australia Day shootings rocks Perth, Western Australia. Two people are shot dead and three others are injured by Eric Edgar Cooke
28th	Black student Harvey Gantt enters Clemson University in South Carolina, the last U.S. state to hold out against racial integration
29th	French President Charles de Gaulle vetoes the United Kingdom's entry into the EEC

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February
8th	Travel, financial and commercial transactions by United States citizens to Cuba are made illegal by the John F. Kennedy Administration
10th	Five Japanese cities located on the northernmost part of Kyūshū are merged and became the city of Kitakyūshū, with a population of more than one million
12th	Northwest Airlines flight 705 crashes in the Florida Everglades killing everyone aboard
11th	The CIA's Domestic Operations Division is created
21st	An earthquake destroys the village of Barce, Libya, killing 500
27th	Juan Bosch takes office as the 41st president of the Dominican Republic
27th	Female suffrage is enacted in Iran

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March
4th	In Paris, 6 people are sentenced to death for conspiring to assassinate President Charles de Gaulle. De Gaulle pardons 5 of them but the other conspirator is executed by firing squad few days later
5th	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
16th	Mount Agung erupts on Bali, killing 11,000
21st	The Alcatraz Island federal penitentiary in San Francisco Bay closes; the last 27 prisoners are transferred elsewhere at the order of Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy
22nd	The Beatles release the album Please Please Me
23rd	Dansevise by Grethe & Jørgen Ingmann (music by Otto Francker, text by Sejr Volmer-Sørensen) wins the Eurovision Song Contest 1963 for Denmark
27th	In Britain, Dr. Beeching issues a report calling for huge cuts to the UK's rail network

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April
3rd	SCLC volunteers kick off the Birmingham campaign against segregation with a sit-in
7th	Yugoslavia is proclaimed to be a Socialist republic, and Josip Broz Tito is named President for Life
8th	35th Academy Awards ceremony takes place in Los Angeles, California
10th	The U.S. nuclear submarine Thresher sinks 220 miles east of Cape Cod with all hands (129 dead)
12th	Martin Luther King, Jr., Ralph Abernathy, Fred Shuttlesworth and others are arrested in a Birmingham protest for "parading without a permit"
12th	The Soviet nuclear powered submarine K-33 collides with the Finnish merchant vessel M/S Finnclipper in the Danish straits. Although both vessels are severely damaged both can make it to port
15th	70,000 marchers arrive in London from Aldermaston, to demonstrate against nuclear weapons
16th	Martin Luther King, Jr. issues his "Letter from Birmingham Jail"
20th	In Quebec, Canada, members of the Quebec terrorist group, the Front de libération du Québec, bomb a Canadian Army recruitment center, killing night watchman Wilfred V. O'Neill
21st	First election of the Supreme Institution of the Bahá'í Faith, known as the Universal House of Justice whose Seat is at the Bahá'í World Centre on Mount Carmel in Haifa, Israel
22nd	Lester B. Pearson becomes Canada's 14th prime minister
28th	A general election is held in Italy

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May
1st	The Coca-Cola Company debuts its first diet drink, TaB cola
2nd	Thousands of African Americans, many of them children, are arrested while protesting segregation in Birmingham, Alabama. Sheriff Eugene "Bull" Connor later unleashes fire hoses and police dogs on the demonstrators
2nd	Berthold Seliger launches near Cuxhaven a 3 stage rocket with a maximum flight altitude of more than 62 miles (the only sounding rocket developed in Germany)
4th	Le Monde Theatre fire, Dioirbel, Senegal, 64 killed
8th	Dr. No, the first James Bond film, was shown in U.S. movie theatres
10th	Manchester United win the FA Cup
13th	A smallpox outbreak was recognised at Stockholm, Sweden, lasting until July that year
15th	NASA launches Gordon Cooper on Mercury 9, the last mission (on June 12 NASA Administrator James E. Webb tells Congress the program is complete)
23rd	Fidel Castro visits the Soviet Union
25th	The Organisation of African Unity is established in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia
27th	The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan is singer-songwriter Bob Dylan's second studio album, and most influential, released by Columbia Records

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June
3rd	Pope John XXIII dies
10th	University of Central Florida established by Florida legislature
11th	In Saigon, Buddhist monk Thích Quảng Ðức commits self-immolation to protest the oppression of Buddhists by the Ngo Dinh Diem administration
11th	Alabama Governor George C. Wallace stands in the door of the University of Alabama to protest against integration, before stepping aside and allowing African Americans James Hood and Vivian Malone to enroll
11th	President John F. Kennedy makes a historic civil rights speech, in which he promises a Civil Rights Bill, and asks for "the kind of equality of treatment that we would want for ourselves."
12th	Medgar Evers is murdered in Jackson, Mississippi (his killer is convicted in 1994)
13th	Cancellation of Mercury 10 effectively ends the Mercury program of United States manned spaceflight
16th	Vostok 6 carries Soviet cosmonaut Valentina Tereshkova, the first woman, into space
21st	Pope Paul VI (Giovanni Battista Montini) succeeds Pope John XXIII as the 262nd pope

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July
1st	ZIP Codes are introduced in the U.S
5th	Diplomatic relations between the Israeli and the Japanese governments are raised to embassy level
5th	The Roman Catholic Church accepts cremation as a funeral practice
12th	16-year-old Pauline Reade is abducted by Myra Hindley and Ian Brady in Manchester, England
26th	An earthquake in Skopje, Yugoslavia leaves 1,800 dead
26th	NASA launches Syncom, the world's first geostationary (synchronous) satellite
27th	Indonesian president-for-life Sukarno declares that he will crush Malaysia
30th	The Soviet newspaper Izvestia reports that Kim Philby has been given asylum in Moscow

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August
5th	The United States, United Kingdom, and Soviet Union sign a nuclear test ban treaty
8th	The Great Train Robbery of 1963 takes place in Buckinghamshire, England
18th	James Meredith becomes the first black person to graduate from the University of Mississippi
21st	The Army of the Republic of Vietnam Special Forces loyal to Ngo Dinh Nhu, brother of President Ngo Dinh Diem, vandalises Buddhist pagodas across the country, arresting thousands and leaving an estimated hundreds dead
28th	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

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September
5th	British prostitute Christine Keeler is arrested for perjury. On December 6 she is sentenced to 9 months in prison
10th	Mafia boss Bernardo Provenzano is indicted for murder (he is captured 43 years later, on April 11, 2006)
15th	The 16th Street Baptist Church bombing, in Birmingham, Alabama, kills 4 and injures 22
16th	Malaysia is formed through the merging of the Federation of Malaya and the British crown colony of Singapore, North Borneo (renamed Sabah) and Sarawak
16th	In Fort-Lamy, Chad, demonstrations are quelled with 300 dead
18th	Rioters burn down the British Embassy in Jakarta, to protest the formation of Malaysia
24th	The U.S. Senate ratifies the nuclear test ban treaty
25th	The Denning Report on the Profumo affair is published in Great Britain

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October
1st	Nigeria becomes a republic; The 1st Republican Constitution is established
4th	Hurricane Flora, one of the worst Atlantic storms in history, hits Hispaniola and Cuba killing nearly 7,000 people
8th	Sam Cooke and his band were arrested after trying to register at a "whites only" motel in Louisiana. In the months following, he recorded A Change Is Gonna Come (song)
9th	In northeast Italy, over 2,000 people are killed when a large landslide behind the Vajont Dam causes a giant wave of water to overtop it
10th	The nuclear test ban treaty, signed on August 5, takes effect
19th	Alec Douglas-Home succeeded Harold Macmillan as British Prime Minister
31st	74 die in a gas explosion at a coliseum in Indianapolis, United States

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November
1st	Arecibo Observatory officially begins operation
2nd	South Vietnamese President Ngo Dinh Diem is assassinated following a military coup
6th	Coup leader General Duong Van Minh takes over as leader of South Vietnam
7th	In Germany, 11 miners are rescued from a collapsed mine after 14 days
9th	In Japan, a coal mine explosion kills 458 and sends 839 carbon monoxide poisoning victims to the hospital
9th	A triple-train disaster in Yokohama, Japan kills 161
14th	A volcanic eruption under the sea near Iceland creates a new island, Surtsey
15th	Conductor Fritz Reiner dies. On his next Young People's Concert, scheduled to be telecast November 29, Leonard Bernstein, a former pupil of Reiner's, will pay tribute to him
18th	The Dartford Tunnel opens in the U.K.
22nd	In Dallas, Texas, United States President John F. Kennedy is assassinated, Texas Governor John B. Connally is seriously wounded, and Vice President Lyndon Baines Johnson becomes the 36th President. All television coverage for the next three days is devoted to the assassination, its aftermath, the procession of the horsedrawn casket to the Capitol Rotunda, and the funeral of President Kennedy. Stores and businesses shut down for the entire weekend and Monday, in tribute
23rd	12-year-old John Kilbride is abducted by Myra Hindley and Ian Brady
23rd	The first episode of the BBC television series Doctor Who is broadcast in the United Kingdom. A reference to this date was later included in one episode of the spinoff Torchwood
23rd	The Golden Age Nursing Home Fire kills 63 elderly people near Fitchville, Ohio
24th	Alleged assassin of John F. Kennedy, Lee Harvey Oswald, is shot dead by Jack Ruby in Dallas, Texas on live national television. Later that night, a hastily arranged program, A Tribute to John F. Kennedy from the Arts, featuring actors, opera singers, and noted writers, all performing dramatic readings and/or music, is telecast on ABC-TV
24th	New U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson confirms that the United States intends to continue supporting South Vietnam militarily and economically
25th	U.S. President Kennedy is buried at Arlington National Cemetery. Schools around the nation do not have class on that day, millions watch the funeral on live international television
29th	U.S. President Lyndon Baines Johnson establishes the Warren Commission to investigate the assassination of President Kennedy
29th	Trans-Canada Airlines Flight 831, a Douglas DC-8 carrying 118, crashes into a wooded hillside after taking-off from Dorval International Airport near Montreal, killing all on board (the worst air disaster for many years in Canada's history)

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December
3rd	The Warren Commission begins its investigation into the Assassination of President Kennedy
5th	The Seliger Forschungs-und-Entwicklungsgesellschaft mbH demonstrates rockets for military use to military representatives of non-NATO-countries near Cuxhaven. Although these rockets land via parachute at the end of their flight and no allied laws are violated, the Soviet Union protests this action
8th	A lightning strike causes the crashing of Pan Am Flight 214 near Elkton, Maryland, killing 81 people
10th	In the United States, the X-20 Dyna-Soar spaceplane program is cancelled
12th	Kenya becomes independent, with Jomo Kenyatta as prime minister
19th	Zanzibar gains independence from Great Britain as a constitutional monarchy, under Sultan Jamshid bin Abdullah
21st	Inter-communal fighting erupts between Greek Cypriots and Turkish Cypriots in Cyprus
22nd	The cruise ship Lakonia burns 180 miles north of Madeira, with the loss of 128 lives
25th	Walt Disney releases his 18th feature-length animated motion picture The Sword in the Stone, about the boyhood of King Arthur. It is the next-to-last animated film personally supervised by Disney, but it has not become one of his greatest hits
26th	I Want to Hold Your Hand and I Saw Her Standing There are released in the U.S., as Beatlemania goes stateside