August 1964
The following events occurred in August 1964:
August 1, 1964 (Saturday)
- The final Looney Tune cartoon, "Señorella and the Glass Huarache", is released before the Warner Bros. Cartoon Division is shut down by Jack Warner.
- Emancipation Day in Barbados, Bermuda, Guyana, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, Trinidad and Tobago, Turks and Caicos Islands, and Jamaica – celebration of the end of slavery in these former and continuing British colonies in the Caribbean.
- Gulf of Tonkin incident: The destroyer USS Maddox, while performing a signals intelligence patrol as part of DESOTO operations, engages three North Vietnamese Navy torpedo boats of the 135th Torpedo Squadron. A sea battle results, in which the Maddox expends over two hundred and eighty 3-inch and 5-inch shells, and in which four USN F-8 Crusader jet fighter bombers strafe the torpedo boats. One US aircraft is damaged, one 14.5 mm round hits the destroyer, three North Vietnamese torpedo boats are damaged, and four North Vietnamese sailors were killed and six wounded.[1]
- The 1964 German Grand Prix is won by John Surtees.
- The wreckage of a plane piloted by popular singer Jim Reeves is found near Brentwood, Tennessee, 42 hours after it crashed. The bodies of Reeves and his manager Dean Manuel are found in the wreckage of the aircraft.
- Died: Namdeo Jadav, Indian VC recipient, 42
- Born: Lucky Dube, South African reggae musician, in Ermelo (died 2007)
August 5, 1964 (Wednesday)
- Vietnam War: Operation Pierce Arrow – Aircraft from carriers USS Ticonderoga and USS Constellation bomb North Vietnam in retaliation for strikes against U.S. destroyers in the Gulf of Tonkin.
- The Simba rebel army in the Democratic Republic of the Congo captures Stanleyville, and takes 1,000 Western hostages.
- Mel Brooks and Anne Bancroft marry at New York City Hall, with a passer-by as witness.
- Andrew Pixley breaks into a room at the Wort Motor Hotel[2] in Jackson, Wyoming, where Illinois Circuit Court Judge Robert McAuliffe and his family are staying. McAuliffe and his wife returned to their room in the early hours of the morning to find Pixley lying on the floor. Their older daughters, Debbie, 12, and Cindy, 8, had been sexually assaulted and murdered.[3] Pixley was later executed for the crime.
August 6, 1964 (Thursday)
- The first North Vietnamese Air Force jet fighter unit, Fighter Regiment No. 921 (the "Red Star Squadron"), arrives in North Vietnam after training in the People's Republic of China, bringing 36 MiG-17 and MiG-19 fighters to Phúc Yên Air Base near Hanoi.[4]
- Pope Paul VI issues the encyclical Ecclesiam suam, identifying the Catholic Church with the Body of Christ.
- The British coaster Guernsey Coast collides with Liberian ship SS Catcher 30 nautical miles (56 km) off Cherbourg, France, and sinks. One crewman is reported missing.[5]
August 8, 1964 (Saturday)
- A Rolling Stones gig in Scheveningen, Netherlands, gets out of control. Riot police end the gig after about 15 minutes, upon which spectators start to fight the riot police.
- Members of North Carolina’s congressional delegation approach Sargent Shriver, asking that civil rights campaigner Adam Yarmolinsky should not be appointed to a senior post in the Office of Economic Opportunity, due to be set up under the Economic Opportunity Act.[6]
- 32-year-old Charlie Wilson, serving a 30-year prison sentence for his role in the Great Train Robbery, escapes from Winson Green Prison in Birmingham, UK, apparently with the aid of three accomplices.[10]
- Died: Ian Fleming, British intelligence officer and "James Bond" novelist, 56 (heart attack)
- Murderers Gwynne Owen Evans and Peter Anthony Allen become the last people to be executed in the United Kingdom.
- Madam Margaret Kyeremaah of Dormaa-Ahenkro, Ghana was born.
- Muhammad Ali marries cocktail waitress Sonji Roi, a month after their first meeting.
- Vietnam War: In a coup, General Nguyen Khanh replaces Duong Van Minh as South Vietnam's chief of state and establishes a new constitution, drafted partly by the U.S. Embassy.
- Margaret Harshaw, Metropolitan Opera soprano, sings the title role in Puccini's opera Turandot at the New York World's Fair.
- Died: Keiji Sada, 37, Japanese actor (car accident)
President
Lyndon B. Johnson signs the Poverty Bill (also known as the Economic Opportunity Act) while press and supporters of the bill look on, August 20, 1964
- The British tug Kenya collides with the Dutch ship SS Maarshaven and sinks at Tilbury, Essex, United Kingdom. It is later raised and beached.[16]
References
- ↑
- Moïse, Edwin E. (1996). Tonkin Gulf and the Escalation of the Vietnam War. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press. pp. 78, 82, 92. ISBN 0-8078-2300-7. .
- ↑ "$250,000 suit filed against Wyoming hotel", The Bulletin (Bend, OR), 19 March 1966
- ↑ "Police Hold Youth in Killing of 2 Girls", The Pittsburgh Press, 8 August 1964
- ↑ Nichols, CDR John B., and Barret Tillman, On Yankee Station: The Naval Air War Over Vietnam, Annapolis, Maryland: United States Naval Institute, 1987, ISBN 978-0-87021-559-9, p. 152, which also claims that this event occurred on August 7.
- ↑ "Tomato Ship Sinks After Collision" The Times (London). Friday, 7 August 1964. (56084), col E, p. 10.
- ↑ The LCRM Project: Chapter 4. Accessed 23 March 2013
- ↑ Timothy W. Crawford, Pivotal Deterrence: Third-Party Statecraft and the Pursuit of Peace. Cornell UP, 2003.
- ↑ The Beatles Bible. Accessed 22 March 2013
- ↑ The Beatles Bible: 11 August 1964. Accessed 24 March 2013
- ↑ BBC - On This Day. Accessed 9 June 2013
- ↑ EBF"Dr Martin Luther King on his way to attend the EBF Congress in 1964". Accessed 9 June 2013
- ↑ BBC - On This Day. Accessed 9 June 2013
- ↑ ESPN Cricinfo: Australia tour of England, 1964. Accessed 23 March 2013
- ↑ Berlin Wall Memorial. Accessed 23 March 2013
- ↑ "Picture Gallery" The Times (London). Thursday, 27 August 1964. (56101), col D, p. 7.
- ↑ Margaret Garlake, ‘Lanyon, (George) Peter (1918–1964)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, Sept 2004