July 1963

The following events occurred in July 1963:

July 1, 1963 (Monday) ZIP Codes were introduced in the United States, as the U.S. Department of the Post Office kicked off a massive advertising campaign that included the cartoon character "Mr. ZIP", and the mailing that day of more than 72,000,000 postcards to every mailing address in the United States, in order to inform the addressees of their new five digit postal code. Postal zones had been used since 1943 in large cities, but the ZIP code was nationwide. Use became mandatory in 1967 for bulk mailers. The crash of a Varig DC-3 airliner in Brazil's Rio Grande do Sul state killed 15 of the 18 people on board. The flight was approaching the airport at Passo Fundo on the second-leg of a scheduled trip from Porto Alegre when it impacted trees.Aviation Safety Network Kim Philby was named by the Government of the United Kingdom as the 'Third Man' in the Burgess and Maclean Soviet spy ring. Died: Abdullah bin Khalifa, 53, Sultan of Zanzibar since 1960, died two days after undergoing emergency surgery. He was succeeded by his son, Jamshid bin Abdullah, the last to hold the title.

July 2, 1963 (Tuesday) In a speech while visiting East Berlin, Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev endorsed the idea for the first time of a treaty to ban atmospheric testing of nuclear weapons.James G. Blight, The Shattered Crystal Ball: Fear and Learning in the Cuban Missile Crisis (Rowman & Littlefield, 1992) p144"Khrushchev Links 2 Treaty Drives", by Arthur J. Olsen, The New York Times, July 3, 1963, p. 1 Khrushchev criticized the idea of sending inspectors to verify compliance, but said that "Since the Western powers obstruct the conclusion of an agreement banning all nuclear tests, the Soviet Government expresses its willingness to conclude an agreement banning nuclear tests in the atmosphere, in outer space and under water.""Excerpts From Khrushchev's Berlin Call for Two Agreements", The New York Times, July 3, 1963, p. 4 Mohawk Airlines Flight 121, a Martin 4-0-4, crashed on takeoff at Rochester, New York, in the United States, killing 7 of the 43 people on board and injuring all 36 survivors."7 Killed In Plane Crash", Miami News, July 3, 1963, p4A The plane was flying to White Plains, New York and, according to a witness "just as the craft began roaring down the runway for a take-off torrents of rain and hail pummeled it.""Plane Crashes; 7 Die, 36 Hurt", Chicago Tribune, July 3, 1963, p. 1 Baseball pitchers Juan Marichal of the San Francisco Giants, and Warren Spahn of the Milwaukee Braves faced off against each other in a National League baseball game that one author would later call "the greatest game ever pitched".Jim Kaplan, The Greatest Game Ever Pitched: Juan Marichal, Warren Spahn, and the Pitching Duel of the Century (Triumph Books, 2013) Tied 0–0 after nine innings, the game was won in the 16th by the Giants on a home run by Willie Mays.Warren N. Wilbert, What Makes an Elite Pitcher?: Young, Mathewson, Johnson, Alexander, Grove, Spahn, Seaver, Clemens, and Maddux (McFarland, 2003) p233 The 13th Berlin International Film Festival concluded. The Golden Bear was jointly awarded to Il diavolo by Gian Luigi Polidoro and Bushidô zankoku monogatari by Tadashi Imai. Brian Sternberg, the world record holder for the pole vault, broke his neck after falling from a trampoline, and was left a quadriplegic."Cruel Worlds: Forty years ago, promising UW track standouts fell from grace", by Dan Raley, Seattle Post-Intelligencer, May 22, 2003 Liberace and Barbra Streisand opened a run of shows at the Riviera in Las Vegas, Nevada."Welk, Herman Star at Harah's Tahoe", "Resort Report" column by John L. Scott, Los Angeles Times, July 3, 1963, p. IV-6 Died: Alicia Patterson, 56, American editor and publisher who founded the newspaper Newsday in 1940 for New York's Long Island; of complications following surgery for an ulcer"Alicia Patterson Of Newsday Dies", Daily News (New York), July 3, 1963, p. 2Robert F. Keeler, Newsday: A Candid History of the Respectable Tabloid (Morrow and Company, 1990) p. 317

July 3, 1963 (Wednesday) All 23 passengers and crew on New Zealand National Airways Corporation Flight 441 were killed when the Douglas DC-3, flew into a vertical rock face in New Zealand's Kaimai Ranges near Mount Ngatamahinerua.Aviation Safety Network The 100th anniversary of the Battle of Gettysburg, turning point of the American Civil War, was celebrated with a re-enactment of Pickett's Charge. Died: Povl Baumann, 74, Danish architect

July 4, 1963 (Thursday) The Constitution of Austria was amended to ease the 1919 act that had declared that "In the interest of the security of the Republic the former holders of the Crown and other members of the House of Habsburg-Lothringen are banished from the country", providing an exception for descendants of the former monarchs if they elected to "expressly renounce their membership of this House".Council of Europe, Yearbook of the European Convention on Human Rights, 1989 (Martinus Nijhoff Publishers, 1993) p117 Born: David Joyner, American "in-suit performer" known for physically portraying Barney the Dinosaur (voiced by Bob West) on the PBS children's TV series Barney & Friends from 1991 to 2001"This man played Barney the dinosaur for 10 years — here's what it was like", by Chris Snyder, Business Insider. June 2, 2017. Retrieved from https://www.businessinsider.com/meet-the-man-who-played-barney-the-purple-dinosaur-for-10-years-david-joyner-interview-2017-5 , January 24, 2018. and as the title character in Hip Hop Harry; in Decatur, Illinois Ute Lemper, German singer and actress, 1998 Olivier Award winner; in Münster, West Germany Jan Mølby, Danish footballer with 33 caps for the Denmark national team; in Kolding Christopher G. Kennedy, U.S. businessman and eighth child to Robert F. Kennedy and Ethel Skakel Kennedy; in Boston Died: Bernard Freyberg, 74, Governor-General of New Zealand from 1946 to 1952

July 5, 1963 (Friday) A delegation from the People's Republic of China, led by Prime Minister Zhou Enlai, departed from Beijing on a train bound for Moscow, to attend talks in an effort to repair the poor relations between the Chinese Communists and Communist Party of the Soviet Union. The talks, intended to mend the Sino-Soviet split, would break down on July 14 when the Soviets published a rebuttal to Chinese charges that the Soviets had departed from the Communist ideology. The U.S. Senate set a new record for briefest session by meeting at 9:00 a.m., and then adjourning three seconds later. There were only two Senators present for the meeting. The previous record for brevity had been a five-second meeting on September 4, 1951. The sale of liquor, by the drink, was legal in the U.S. state of Iowa for the first time in more than 40 years, with "a restaurant in the lakes resort area in northwest Iowa" becoming the site of the first legal drink. Italian Prime Minister Giovanni Leone won on a vote of confidence in the Italian Senate, 133–110. McDonnell Aircraft Corporation began the first phase of Spacecraft Systems Tests (SST) on the instrumentation pallets to be installed in Gemini spacecraft No. 1. Gemini's inertial guidance system computer was integrated with the rest of the control systems, and all spacecraft wiring was found to be compatible with the computer, and operating with complete accuracy.

July 6, 1963 (Saturday) The Roman Catholic Church relaxed itse ban on cremation as a funeral practice, when Pope Paul VI issued the Instruction that "the burning of the body, after all, has no effect on the soul, nor does it inhibit Almighty God from re-establishing the body", although the decision would not be revealed until May 2, 1964."Catholic Church", in Encyclopedia Of Cremation, Douglas J. Davies and Lewis H. Mates, eds. (Ashgate Publishing,, 2005) pp113-114, p141. Elections were held in Jordan for the 80 seats in the Chamber of Deputies of the National Assembly. All of the candidates were independent, in that political parties were banned at the time, and the results, as with most of the elections in Jordan to that time, were "poorly documented" and not officially published.Dieter Nohlen, et al., Elections in Asia and the Pacific: A Data Handbook (Oxford University Press, 2001) p147 Blood Feast first premiered at the Bellevue Drive-In in Bellevue (now Peoria), Illinois. Composed, shot, and directed by Herschell Gordon Lewis, the film is considered to be the first Splatter film, a sub-genre of horror noted for its graphic depictions of on-screen gore. The Vanoise National Park, located in the department of Savoie in the French Alps, was designated France's first National Park."Vanoise", in Best of France: Sights, hotels, Restaurants, Jean-Paul Labourdette and Dominique Auzias, eds. (Petit Futé, 2008) pp130–131 A partial lunar eclipse took place.Hermit Eclipse: Saros cycle 119 Died: George, Duke of Mecklenburg, 63, head of the House of Mecklenburg-Strelitz since 1934. He was succeeded by his son Georg Alexander.

July 7, 1963 (Sunday) In the first round of Argentina's presidential election, Dr. Arturo Illia won a 25 percent plurality of the popular votes (2,441,064) and 169 of the 476 Electoral College votes, seventy short of a majority. Another physician, Dr. Oscar Alende, finished with 16.4%, and former General Pedro Aramburu was third. On July 31, electors for several of the other parties would vote for Illia, giving him 270 electoral votes.Robert A. Potash, The Army & Politics in Argentina, 1962–1973: From Frondizi's Fall to the Peronist Restoration (Stanford University Press, 1969) p116 Dr. Illia's Radical Civic Union (UCR) Party (UCR) won only 72 of the 192 seats in the Chamber of Deputies, and Illia did not try to forge a coalition with the other parties.Paul H. Lewis, Guerrillas and Generals: The 'Dirty War' in Argentina (Greenwood Publishing Group, 2002) p10 Seven people, including four children, were killed, and 17 injured, when a pilotless FJ-4 Fury jet fighter crashed into gatherers at a family reunion at the Green Hills Day Camp in Willow Grove, Pennsylvania. The pilot had ejected after the plane malfunctioned while he was attempting to land at the nearby Willow Grove Naval Air Station, and the jet crashed into a baseball field, killing one man, then skidded into a bathhouse where 50 people had been swimming or standing around the pool."JET FALLS IN BOYS' CAMP, 7 DIE", Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, July 8, 1963, p1 In a fight between South Vietnamese government police and U.S. reporters, secret police loyal to Ngô Đình Nhu, brother of President Ngô Đình Diệm, attacked American journalists including Peter Arnett and David Halberstam at a demonstration during the Buddhist crisis."Police in Saigon Jostle Newsmen— U.S. Reporter Is Felled at Buddhist Demonstration Pushing Begins U.S. Complains to Saigon", by David Halberstam, The New York Times, July 8, 1963, p. 3 Died: Frank P. Lahm, 85, U.S. aviation pioneer who became, in 1909, the first military aviator after being selected by the U.S. Army to receive instruction on the Wright Flyer by Wilbur Wright.

July 8, 1963 (Monday) The British comic strip Fred Basset was introduced, starting with its first appearance in the Daily Mail.Toonhound.com Created by Scottish cartoonist Alex Graham, the strip, about the adventures of a Basset Hound, is syndicated worldwide. The British cargo ship Patrician sank off of Gibraltar after colliding with the U.S. ship Santa Emilia. Thirty-four of the 37 crew were rescued by Santa Emilia, but three men died.