Part 2
June 15 β Port Huron Statement completed.
June 25 β United States Supreme Court rulings:
Engel v. Vitale: the court rules that mandatory prayers in public schools are unconstitutional.
MANual Enterprises v. Day: the court rules that photographs of nude men are not obscene, decriminalizing nude male pornographic magazines.
June 28 β The United Lutheran Church in America, the Finnish Evangelical Lutheran Church of America, the American Evangelical Lutheran Church and the Augustana Evangelical Lutheran Church merge to form the Lutheran Church in America.
July[edit]
July 2 β The first Wal-Mart store opens for business in Rogers, Arkansas.
July 10 β AT&T's Telstar, the world's first commercial communications satellite, is launched into orbit, and activated the next day.
July 17 β Nuclear testing: the "Small Boy" test shot Little Feller I becomes the last atmospheric test detonation at the Nevada Test Site.
July 22 β Mariner program: the Mariner 1 spacecraft flies erratically several minutes after launch and has to be destroyed.
August[edit]
August 5 β Marilyn Monroe is found dead at age 36 from "acute barbiturate poisoning".
August 15 β The New York Agreement is signed trading the West New Guinea colony to Indonesia.
August 27 β NASA launches the Mariner 2 space probe.
September[edit]
September 12 β President John F. Kennedy, at a speech at Rice University, reaffirms that the U.S. will put a man on the moon by the end of the decade.
September 22 β 21-year-old Bob Dylan premieres his song "A Hard Rain's a-Gonna Fall".
September 23 β The animated sitcom The Jetsons premieres on ABC.
September 25 β Sonny Liston knocks out Floyd Patterson two minutes into the first round of his fight for the boxing world title at Comiskey Park in Chicago.
September 29 β The Canadian Alouette 1, the first satellite built outside the United States and the Soviet Union, is launched from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California.
September 30 β CBS broadcasts the final episodes of Suspense and Yours Truly, Johnny Dollar, marking the end of the Golden Age of Radio.
October[edit]
October 14β28: Cuban Missile Crisis
October 1
The first black student, James Meredith, registers at the University of Mississippi, escorted by Federal Marshals.
Johnny Carson takes over as permanent host of NBC's The Tonight Show, a post he would hold for 30 years.
October 12
Groove Phi Groove Social Fellowship Incorporated was founded at Morgan State College
The infamous Columbus Day Storm strikes the U.S. Pacific Northwest with wind gusts up to 170 mph (270 km/h); 46 are killed, 11 billion board feet (26 million mΒ³) of timber is blown down, with $230 million U.S. in damages.
Jazz bassist/composer Charles Mingus presents a disastrous concert at Town Hall in New York City. It will gain a reputation as the worst moment of his career.
October 13 β Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? opens on Broadway.
October 14 β Cuban Missile Crisis begins: a U-2 flight over Cuba takes photos of Soviet nuclear weapons being installed. A stand-off then ensues the next day between the United States and the Soviet Union, threatening the world with nuclear war.
October 22 β In a televised address, U.S. President John F. Kennedy announces to the nation the existence of Soviet missiles in Cuba.
October 27 β The British revue play Beyond the Fringe makes its Broadway debut.
October 28 β Cuban Missile Crisis: Soviet Union leader Nikita Khrushchev announces that he has ordered the removal of Soviet missile bases in Cuba. In a secret deal between Kennedy and Khrushchev, Kennedy agrees to the withdrawal of U.S. missiles from Turkey. The fact that this deal is not made public makes it look like the Soviets have backed down.