May 1962

January – February – March – April – May – June – July – August – September – October – November – December

May 24, 1962: Astronaut Scott Carpenter orbits Earth, overshoots landing zone by 250 miles

May 31, 1962: Adolf Eichmann hanged by Israel

The following events occurred in May, 1962

May 1, 1962 (Tuesday)

• The Dayton Hudson Corporation opened the first of its Target discount stores. The store (now a "SuperTarget") is located at 1515 West County Road B, in the St. Paul suburb of Roseville, Minnesota.^[1]
• Norwich City F.C. won the English Football League Cup, beating Rochdale F.C. in the final.
• Billy Wright replaced George Swindin as manager of Arsenal F.C..
• The National Bowling League rolled its last game, with the Detroit Thunderbirds defeating the Twin Cities Skippers in three straight matches.^[2]
• Died: Sir Sydney Cockerell, 94, English curator and art collector

May 2, 1962 (Wednesday)

• An OAS car bomb exploded at the docks of Algiers, killing 96 people. The deaths of 14 other people and the injury of 147 overall made the occasion "the bloodiest single day in the modern history of Algeria's capital".^[3]
• The value of the Canadian dollar was put at a fixed exchange rate at 92.5 United States cents (USD 0.925) after having had a fluctuating value since September 30, 1950. The Canadian Exchange Fund would purchase U.S. dollars in order to keep the Canadian dollar from going more than one percent above 92½¢ American, until May 30, 1970.^[4]
• The USA's Operation Dominic I and II continued at Kiritimati (Christmas Island).^[5]
• Born: Elizabeth Berridge, American actress, in New Rochelle, New York; Jimmy "Whirlwind" White, English snooker player, in Tooting; and Ty Herndon, American country music singer, in Meridian, Mississippi
• Died: Clairvius Narcisse, 40, Haitian peasant who attained media attention from 1980 onward as a zombie.^[6]

May 3, 1962 (Thursday)

• Mikawashima train crash: 160 people were killed in a triple-train disaster near Tokyo, Japan. Engineer Norifumi Minakami drove a freight train through a red signal and sideswiped a commuter train. As surviving passengers climbed out of that train, a third train ran through them, then plunged over an embankment.^[7]
• UK supermarket executive Alan Sainsbury was created a life peer.

May 4, 1962 (Friday)

• Dr. Masaki Watanabe of Japan performed the very first arthroscopic surgery to repair a meniscus tear, a common injury for athletes. The first patient to receive the procedure was a 17-year-old basketball player, who was returned to playing six weeks after the meniscectomy and resection of his right knee by Dr. Watanabe.^[8]
• U.S. Ambassador to Canada Livingston Merchant, in his final month as envoy, made a final visit to Prime Minister John Diefenbaker in Ottawa. At the meeting Diefenbaker angrily brought out an American memorandum that had been left behind during President Kennedy's visit in May 1961.^[9] The President's handwritten notes in the margin included the letters "OAS", the Organization of American States, "but Diefenbaker read Kennedy's handwriting as 'SOB'" ^[10] and threatened to use the memo (and the suggestion that Kennedy thought that Diefenbaker was a "son of a bitch") in the upcoming June 18 elections. After conferring with his superiors, the ambassador later told Diefenbaker that he was personally reluctant to report "anything which could be construed as a threat" and that publication of the memo would "make difficult future relations". The memo was never used, but Kennedy and Diefenbaker never trusted each other again.
• During the El Carupanazo revolt against Venezuelan President Rómulo Betancourt, Venezuelan Air Force aircraft began a two-day attack on rebel positions at Carúpano.^[11]
• U.S. President John F. Kennedy attended a firepower demonstration at Eglin Air Force Base in Florida.

May 5, 1962 (Saturday)

• Tottenham Hotspur F.C. retained the FA Cup with a 3–1 win over Burnley F.C. at Wembley Stadium. Goals were scored by Jimmy Greaves, Bobby Smith and Spurs captain Danny Blanchflower.^[12]
• Twelve East Germans escaped through a tunnel under the Berlin Wall.

May 6, 1962 (Sunday)

• The first nuclear explosion to be caused by an American ballistic missile, rather than by a bomb dropped from an aircraft or at a fixed site, was accomplished at Christmas Island, 1,200 miles from its launch site. Previous ICBM tests had been done without a nuclear warhead. The USS Ethan Allen fired the armed Polaris A-2 missile, from underwater, to its target.^[13]
• Antonio Segni was elected President of the Italian Republic on the 9th round of balloting in the combined houses of parliament, with 443 of the 856 votes Senators and Deputies present.^[14]
• Martin de Porres (1579-1639) was canonized as the first mulatto Roman Catholic saint, 125 years after his beatification.^[15]
• Died: Thomas Gilcrease, 72, American philanthropist and collector of indigenous artifacts of the Americas

May 7, 1962 (Monday)

• Three officials of the Central Intelligence Agency met with U.S. Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy, and implored him to stop investigation of Mafia crime boss Sam Giancana. For the first time, the CIA revealed that it had offered $150,000 to several organized criminals to carry out a "hit" against Cuban dictator Fidel Castro.^[16] The secret meeting would become public in 1975, with the release of the Rockefeller Commission's report on an investigation of the CIA.^[17]
• Detroit became the first city in the United States to use traffic cameras and electronic signs to regulate the flow of traffic. The pilot program began with 14 television cameras along a 3.2-mile stretch of the John C. Lodge Freeway, between the Davison Expressway and Interstate 94.^[18]
• The six-member township council of Centralia, Pennsylvania, voted in favor of improving the new landfill at the edge of town, in time for Memorial Day ceremonies. Every year, the contents of the city dump would be set afire, despite a state law prohibiting the practice, and the May 27 burning would prove to be the end of Centralia.^[19]
• The 1962 Cannes Film Festival opened.
• The USA's Operation Nougat nuclear testing program continued with a blast at the Nevada Test Site.
• The single-track Hooton to West Kirby branch of the Birkenhead Railway closed to all rail traffic.

May 8, 1962 (Tuesday)

• The Broadway musical A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, with music and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim, had the first of 964 performances. Set in ancient Rome, and inspired by the comedies of Titus Maccius Plautus (254 BC–184 BC), it would close on August 29, 1964, and be adapted as a film as well.^[20]
• Francisco Orlich Bolmarcich was inaugurated for a four-year term as the 36th President of Costa Rica, succeeding Mario Echandi Jiménez.^[21]
• J. Paul Austin became the new President of The Coca-Cola Company. During his 19-year tenure, Coca-Cola's annual worldwide sales would grow ten-fold, form $567 million to $5.9 billion.^[22]
• Brian Epstein visited the HMV (EMI) store at 363 Oxford Street, London, to have The Beatles' Decca audition tape transferred to 78 rpm acetates.
• Died: Alfred Madsen, 74, Norwegian engineer, newspaper editor, trade unionist and politician

May 9, 1962 (Wednesday)

• The Sikorsky S-64 Skycrane helicopter, capable of lifting 20,000 pounds (over 9,000 kg), made its first flight.^[23]
• The Beatles signed their first recording contract, with Parlophone, after Brian Epstein persuaded George Martin to sign them, sight unseen.^[24]
• At the request of the U.S. Department of State, the Immigration and Naturalization Service agreed to issue a United States visa to Marina Oswald so that her husband Lee Harvey Oswald could return to the U.S.^[25]
• Federico Fellini began shooting the film 8½.
• Princess Marie-Christine of Belgium was confirmed by Bishop Fulton Sheen.^[26]
• The lunar crater Albategnius became the first area of the moon to be illuminated by a laser beam from Earth. Scientists Louis Smullin and Giorgio Fiocco of MIT aimed the beam and then observed it.^[27]
• Born: Dave Gahan, English singer-songwriter, in North Weald, Essex

May 10, 1962 (Thursday)

• The Japanese monster film Mothra opened in the United States, after having premiered in Japan on July 30, 1961.^[28]
• Pravda, the official newspaper for the Soviet Communist Party, printed the official response to pleas to prevent the continued tearing down of Moscow's monasteries and churches. The plea had been in an editorial in the magazine Moskva about the urban renewal decisions of the Architectural Planning Administration. The editorials were unsigned, but apparently approved by First Secretary Khrushchev. The day before, three of the journalists from Moskva were informed that the article was anti-Soviet.^[29]
• Oliver Franks, Chancellor of the University of East Anglia, was made a life peer.
• Born: John Ngugi, Kenyan athlete, in Kigumo, Muranga District

May 11, 1962 (Friday)

• Students at Orange County State College (later California State University, Fullerton) staged what was billed as "The First Intercollegiate Elephant Race in Human History", with 15 elephants raced through different events in Fullerton, California. Winners in various weight ranges included "Kinney" of Long Beach State College and "Captain Hook" of Orange Coast College.^[30]
• In accepting the Sylvanus Thayer Award, retired General Douglas MacArthur delivered his memorable "Duty, Honor, Country" speech to West Point cadets. The 82-year-old MacArthur delivered the 30-minute address from memory and without notes, and a recording of the remarks would be released as a record album later.^[31]
• Radio Station Belarus began broadcasting.
• Died: Hans Luther, 83, German politician, Chancellor of Germany 1925–1926

May 12, 1962 (Saturday)

• Nine men, on a fishing trip, died in shark-infested waters after their boat sank off the coast of Newport Beach, California. Chester McMain of Norwalk was taking the Happy Jack on its first voyage when it ran into rough weather. Though they were wearing life jackets, the sharks apparently pulled them underwater. Searchers on the fishing boat Mardic located six bodies the next day, with sharks swimming around the group.^[32]
• The Philippines continued to distance itself from its past as an American protectorate, changing its name on postage and coinage to Pilipinas.^[33]
• Archie Moore gave up his world light heavyweight boxing title to move up to heavyweight. His successor was Harold Johnson.
• Born: Emilio Estévez, American actor, to Martin and Janet Sheen, in Staten Island, New York
• Died: Frank Jenks, 59, American film comedian

May 13, 1962 (Sunday)

• Vice-President Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan was sworn in as the second President of India, succeeding Rajendra Prasad.^[34] He would serve a full four-year term.^[35]
• Born: Paul McDermott, Australian comedian and television presenter, in Adelaide

May 14, 1962 (Monday)

• Prince Juan Carlos of Spain married Princess Sophie of Greece in Athens.^[36] The two would become King and Queen when the monarchy was restored in Spain in 1975.^[37]
• Milovan Djilas, former vice-president of Yugoslavia, was given a further sentence for publishing Conversations with Stalin.
• Died: Silpa Bhirasri, 69, Italian-born Thai sculptor

May 15, 1962 (Tuesday)

• American reconnaissance satellite FTV-1126 was launched from Vandenberg Air Force Base.^[38]
• The last execution of an American for armed robbery, without homicide, took place in Texas as an African-American man was given the electric chair.^[39]
• Born: Amit Chaudhuri, Indian author, in Kolkata; Julie Otsuka, American author, in Palo Alto, California
• Died: Michael Dillon, 47, English physician, the first female-to-male transsexual to undergo phalloplasty

May 16, 1962 (Wednesday)

• The first 1,800 United States Marines arrived at Bangkok to guard Thailand's border with Laos. The Thai government had given permission for 5,000 American troops to stay.^[40]
• Martin de Porres (1579–1639) of Peru was canonized as a saint of the Roman Catholic Church.^[41]
• László Papp won the European Boxing Union middleweight championship.^[42]
• The city of St. Francis, Minnesota, was incorporated.^[43]

May 17, 1962 (Thursday)

• Thalidomide was withdrawn from sale in Japan, bringing an end to the worldwide distribution of the morning sickness drug that had caused birth defects. Dainippon Pharmaceutical halted further shipments; about 1,200 "thalidomide babies" were born in Japan.^[44]
• José Águas made his last international appearance for the Portugal national football team, against Belgium. Belgium won the match 1-2.
• Plácido Domingo played the role of Maurizio in Cilea's Adriana Lecouvreur for the first time, at the Palacio de Bellas Artes, Mexico City.^[45]
• Born: Arturo Peniche, Mexican telenovela actor, in Mexico City
• Died: E. Franklin Frazier, 67, American sociologist

May 18, 1962 (Friday)

• British soldiers erected a barbed wire barricade along Hong Kong's 12-mile border with the People's Republic of China. The purpose was to block refugees from fleeing China into Hong Kong. At the time, as many as 4,000 people were attempting to flee Communist China into the British colony.^[46] The next day, British administrators imposed penalties on any Hong Kong resident attempting to assist a refugee's escape.^[47]
• The Panchen Lama, leader of the Tibetan people since the nation's conquest by Communist China, presented a 70,000-word petition to visiting Chinese Premier Zhou Enlai, pleading for relief for the suffering of Tibetans under Communist rule. Repression of Tibetan Buddhists eased to some extent after the Panchen Lama's bold move.^[48]
• Al Oerter became the first person to throw the discus more than 200 feet, setting a mark of 61.10 m (200'5") at Los Angeles.^[49]
• Born: Karel Roden, Czech actor, in České Budějovice

May 19, 1962 (Saturday)

• Marilyn Monroe made her last significant public appearance, singing "Happy Birthday, Mr. President" at a birthday party for President John F. Kennedy at Madison Square Garden. The event was part of a fundraiser to pay off the Democratic Party's four million-dollar debt remaining from Kennedy's 1960 presidential campaign.^[50] Monroe was stitched into a $12,000 dress "made of nothing but beads" and wore nothing underneath as she appeared at the request of Peter Lawford; President Kennedy thanked her afterward, joking, "I can now retire from politics after having had 'Happy Birthday' sung to me in such a sweet, wholesome way." ^[51]
• Typhoon Hope became the second typhoon of the season, peaking at 95 mph (153 km/h) winds on the following night.
• Died: Gabriele Münter, 85, German expressionist painter

May 20, 1962 (Sunday)

• The first specifically built coronary care unit in the world opened at the Bethany Hospital in Kansas City, Missouri, under the planning of cardiologist Dr. Hughes Day. Other CCUs followed in Toronto, Sydney, New York and Philadelphia, and by 1970, most major hospitals had units designed to treat heart attacks.^[52]
• The 1962 Dutch Grand Prix at Circuit Park Zandvoort opened the Formula One Championship season. It was won by Graham Hill. The non-championship 1962 Naples Grand Prix took place on the same day at the Posillipo Circuit, and was won by Willy Mairesse.
• The Conseil national de la Résistance was founded in Rome.
• Born: Aleksandr Dedyushko, Belarussian television actor, at Vawkavysk, Hrodna Voblast (died 2007); Christiane F. (real name Vera Christiane Felscherinow), German heroin addict who wrote a memoir of her drug abuse, in Hamburg.

May 21, 1962 (Monday)

• Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev accepted the recommendation from his Defense Council, to place nuclear missiles in Cuba.^[53]
• Egypt's President Gamel Abdel Nasser unveiled his "National Charter of the Arab Socialist Union", proclaiming that the "Arab Revolution" would win its "battle of destiny" by "enlightened thought", "free movement" and "clear perception" of the revolution's objectives.^[54]
• In Baltimore, federal district judge Roszel C. Thomsen dismissed the antitrust lawsuit by the American Football League against the National Football League. The suit arose from the NFL's action of placing franchises in Dallas and Minneapolis after the AFL had been founded with teams there.^[55]
• Born: Tina Landau, American playwright and theatre director, in New York City; and Hege Storhaug, Norwegian journalist and activist

May 22, 1962 (Tuesday)

• Continental Airlines Flight 11 crashed on a farm near Unionville, Missouri, after the in-flight detonation of a bomb near the rear lavatory. All 45 passengers and crew, on the Boeing 707 jet flight from Chicago to Kansas City, were killed.^[56] Contact was lost at 9:15 pm and the plane had disappeared from radar at 9:40 after leaving behind a 60-mile line of debris, including a briefcase with the initials "T.G.D."; Thomas G. Doty, one of the passengers, who had been on his way to Kansas City to face criminal charges for armed robbery, had taken out $300,000 in insurance payable to his wife, and had bought sticks of dynamite at a hardware store, before carrying out the murder-suicide.^[57]

May 23, 1962 (Wednesday)

• The first successful reattachment (replantation) of a severed limb was accomplished by Dr. Ronald A. Malt at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston. Everett Knowles, a 12-year-old boy, had had his right arm severed at the shoulder by a freight train. A year after the limb was saved, Everett could move all five fingers and bend his wrist, and by 1965, he was again playing baseball and tennis.^[58]
• U.S. President Kennedy signed a Presidential Directive waiving the quota against accepting immigrants from China. Since 1943, the quota for Chinese immigrants had been only 105 per year. Within three years, President Lyndon Johnson would put the quota for Asian nations at the same level as that for European nations.^[59]
• Drilling for the first subway in Montreal commenced at 8:00 am, as a crew began to bore a 1.2-mile-long tunnel under Berri Street, to run between Metropolitan Boulevard and Jean Talon Street.^[60]
• Raoul Salan, founder of the French terrorist Organisation armée secrète, was sentenced to life imprisonment, rather than death.^[61]
• Ernst Krenek's opera What Price Confidence? premièred at Saarbrücken, seventeen years after its composition.
• Died: Rubén Jaramillo, 61, Mexican activist for land reform, along with his wife and three of his four children, after being arrested by Mexican soldiers at his home in Xochicalco.^[62]

May 24, 1962 (Thursday)

Carpenter

• Project Mercury: Scott Carpenter orbited the Earth three times in the Aurora 7 space capsule, then splashed down 250 miles off course. He was located and rescued by the aircraft carrier USS Intrepid. Carpenter's rocket lifted off from Cape Canaveral at 7:45 am local time, went around the Earth three times, then began its return at 1:30. Instead of being tilted 34° toward the horizon, the capsule was inclined at 25° and overshot its mark, landing at 1:41 pm. Carpenter deployed a rubber raft and stayed afloat for another three hours before being spotted.^[63]
• The string quartet piece ST/10=1, 080262 was given its first performance. Greek composer Iannis Xenakis had created the work with the aid of an IBM 7090 computer.^[64]
• The U.S. Embassy in Moscow renewed the passport of Lee Harvey Oswald and approved the entry of his wife and daughter into the United States.^[25]

May 25, 1962 (Friday)

• The new Coventry Cathedral was consecrated.

May 26, 1962 (Saturday)

• Acker Bilk's "Stranger On The Shore" became the first British recording to reach number one in the US Billboard Hot 100.

May 27, 1962 (Sunday)

• Pursuant to the township council resolution of May 7, the contents of the new landfill in Centralia, Pennsylvania, were burned as part of a cleanup on the day before Memorial Day. As had been done in the past, the volunteer fire department then extinguished the blaze. The new landfill, however, had been placed above an abandoned coal mine and continued to burn underground.^[19]
• Born: Ravi Shastri, Indian cricketer, in Bombay
• Died: Egon Petri, 81, Dutch pianist

May 28, 1962 (Monday)

• The Soviet Union launched the Kosmos 5 scientific research and technology demonstration satellite, becoming the last satellite in the Kosmos programme to reach orbit successfully.
• Born: Monie Captan, Liberian politician; and Mary Portas, English retail adviser, journalist and television presenter, in Rickmansworth
• Died: Assar Gabrielsson, 70, Swedish industrialist

May 29, 1962 (Tuesday)

• In a runoff in the primary election for the Democratic Party nominee for Governor of Alabama, segregationist and circuit judge George C. Wallace defeated state senator Ryan DeGraffenried, Sr..^[65]
• Stock prices fell worldwide in the largest one-day decline since the Great Depression. Heavy sales were registered in New York, London, Tokyo, Paris, Frankfurt and Zurich.^[66]
• Negotiations between the OAS and the FLA led to a real armistice in Algeria.

May 30, 1962 (Wednesday)

• The 1962 FIFA World Cup began in Chile.
• Benjamin Britten's War Requiem was performed for the first time, in the arts festival held to celebrate the reconsecration of Coventry Cathedral.
• Born: Timo Soini, Finnish politician, in Rauma
• Died: Pierre Gilliard, 85, Swiss academic, former tutor to the Russian royal family

May 31, 1962 (Thursday)

• A speeding freight train crashed through the back of a passenger train near Voghera, Italy, killing 62 people. Most of the dead were vacationers on their way to the French Riviera.^[67]
• The Northern Ireland general election produced a large majority for the Ulster Unionist Party, which won 34 out of 51 seats. The Nationalist Party gains 2 seats to give it a total of 9.
• Born: Sebastian Koch, German actor, in Karlsruhe
• Died: Adolf Eichmann, 56, German Nazi and SS-Obersturmbannführer (Lieutenant Colonel) and one of the major organizers of the Holocaust, was hanged for his role in the extermination of 6,000,000 European Jews. The first execution in the history of modern Israel took place at 11:58 pm local time "on an improvised scaffold in a third story storeroom" at the Ramleh prison near Tel Aviv. The body was cremated soon afterward and Eichmann's ashes scattered over the Mediterranean Sea.^[68]

References