Thursday, November 7, 1963: Deep Underground Command Center

To be built 3,500 feet below the Pentagon and connected to the White House by tunnels, this "logical, survivable node" would be built to withstand "multiple direct hits of 200 to 300 (megaton) weapons bursting at the surface or 100 MT weapons pentrating to depths of 70 to 100 feet." The DUCC was never built, with the Joint Chiefs of Staff concluding that it "would be too small, and its communications too uncertain, to serve as a military command center."
     -- From "Every Nuclear-Tipped Missile is an 'Accident Waiting to Happen' " (summary of "Command and Control," Eric Schlosser, 2013): @

* "Memorandum for the President" (Robert McNamara, November 7, 1963): @

* "Memorandum From the Joint Chiefs of Staff to Secretary of Defense McNamara" (January 10, 1964): @
* "Editorial Note" (summary, from "Foreign Relations of the United States, 1964-1968"): @
* Documents (from cryptome.org): @
* "The Worldwide Military Command and Control System: A Historical Perspective, 1960-1977" (Joint Chiefs of Staff, 1980): @
* "Command and Control": @
* "The Nation's Cockpit: The DUCC and Decision-Making Under Nuclear Attack" (from Atomic Skies blog): @ 

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Monday, November 4, 1963: Easy-Bake Oven

The baking toy, made by Kenner Products, goes on sale. 

From the packaging: "Bake your cake and eat it too! It's quick! It's easy! Simply add water and bake these delicious treats ... 'Cook Book' tells how to Easy Bake. You can get Kenner refill mixes or use Mom's ingredients."

From the patent (linked below): "This invention relates to toys and it is directed particularly to a toy oven in which a child may bake many varieties of foods 'just like mother's' but on a much reduced scale. ... (T)he oven is heated by ordinary light bulbs. The temperature generated by these bulbs is found to be adequate for baking purposes, but it is not so great that it cannot be effectively baffled, insulated and vented so that there is no danger of a child being burned by touching any of the exposed parts of the oven, even though it be small in size. ... (I)t is found that the average child can turn out excellent baked products with very little instruction using the oven of this invention."

* Short history (from Hasbro, current owner of Kenner): @

* Entry from National Toy Hall of Fame: @

* Early television ad: @

* Patent (from U.S. Patent and Trademark Office): @

* "The Evolution of the Easy-Bake Oven" (from Sociological Images blog): @

* "UC alum Ronald Howes creates Easy-Bake Oven" (from University of Cincinnati): @

* "The Passing of Mr. 'Easy-Bake Oven' " (from Super Chef blog, 2005): @

* "Light Bulb Baking" (Todd Coopee, 2013): @ (book) and @ (website) 

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Saturday-Monday, November 2-4, 1963: Freedom Vote in Mississippi

The "freedom vote" was a mock statewide general election to parallel the Mississippi gubernatorial election of 1963. It was organized by the Council of Federated Organizations (COFO), a coalition of civil rights organizations. Aaron Henry, a black pharmacist from Clarksdale, was on the mock ballot for governor and the Rev. Edwin King, a white chaplain at Tougaloo College in Jackson (and a native of Vicksburg), was on the ballot for lieutenant governor. Ballot boxes were placed in churches, businesses and homes across the state, and voting took place over the weekend. Henry and King "won" the mock election in which more than 80,000 black Mississippians voted. This event showed the country that African Americans would vote if given the chance.
-- Text from Aaron Henry biography, Mississippi Historical Society: @

-- Image from Freedom Summer Digital Collection, Wisconsin Historical Society
* Summary from Civil Rights Movement Veterans: @

* Summary from SNCC Project Group: @

* Photos from rally for Aaron Henry (Hattiesburg, October 29; from Mississippi Department of Archives and History): @
* Election flier (from Amistad Research Center): @ and @

* Pamphlets: Freedom Ballot and Freedom Registration (from Wisconsin Historical Society): @ 

* Freedom Registration pamphlet (from Civil Rights Movement Veterans): @
* "No Small Thing: Visual Rhetoric and the 1963 Mississippi Freedom Vote" (William Lawson, 2008): @

* "Aaron Henry: The Fire Ever Burning" (Aaron Henry and Constance Curry, 2000): @
* Edwin King entry from Civil Rights Digital Library: @
* COFO summary (from Martin Luther King Research and Education Institute): @

* "The Washington Merry-Go-Round" (Drew Pearson, November 4): @

* "Local People: The Struggle for Civil Rights in Mississippi" (John Dittmer, 1994; see Chapter 9, "Conflicting Strategies"): @ 

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Friday-Saturday, November 1-2, 1963: Coup in South Vietnam

Ngo Dinh Diem, the president of South Vietnam, is shot and killed on November 2, the day after a military overthrow of the government began.

Clutched by searing flames, a Buddhist monk martyrs himself on a Saigon sidewalk. A few days later, joyous hands hoist a Vietnamese soldier in a victory that belongs both to him and the suicidal monk. Opposition to the regime of South Vietnam's President Ngo Dinh Diem had been gathering force like a thunderhead, overshadowing the U.S.-backed war against the Communist Viet Cong. First Buddhists, then students and other dissidents joined against Diem's government -- and the government had no answer but repressive brutality. Then Diem's own generals and the armies they command rose in revolt.

-- Life magazine, November 15, 1963 (link: @) 

-- Photo from Corbis Images. Original caption: In photo just obtained by UPI, the bodies of South Vietnamese President Ngo Dinh Diem (right) and his brother, Ngo Dinh Nhu, disguised as priests, lie in armored personnel carrier, November 2, shortly after they were slain in revolution. They were reportedly being taken to Army staff headquarters at Tan Son Nhut Airfield. Note bindings on Nhu's hands.

* Short summaries from history.com: @ and @

* Summary from "Vietnam War Almanac" (James H. Willbanks, 2009): @ 
* "Walkthrough: Vietnam in Late 1963" (from Mary Ferrell Foundation): @
* "South Vietnam 1963" (from "U.S. Foreign Policy in Perspective," David Sylvan and Stephen Majeski, 2009): @
* "JFK and the Diem Coup" (from National Security Archive): @
* "The Coup Against the Diem Government" (from "Foreign Relations of the United States," U.S. Department of State): @
* "Vietnam, August-December 1963" (from FRUS): @
* "The Overthrow of Ngo Dinh Diem, May-November, 1963" (from the Pentagon Papers, U.S. Department of Defense): @
* "The Vietnam Revolt" (newsreel): @
* "Death of a Regime" (CBS News): @
* "Vietnam Climax" (Life magazine, October 11): @ 

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Monday, October 28, 1963: Penn Station

NEW YORK -- With not a pause for sentiment, wreckers Monday began demolishing lofty, drafty Pennsylvania Station to make way for a giant new Madison Square Garden.
     But the trains ran as usual, and they will continue to run during the wrecking, the construction and afterward. All the tracks are below ground.
     For 53 years, nine-acre Penn Station has stood, a monument of neoclassic architecture in which untold millions of travelers have moved.

     Leading New York architects fought to save the stately structure, designed after the Roman baths of Caracalla by Stanford White's noted architectural firm and built with tons of imported Italian marble.

     -- Associated Press. Full story: @

     -- 1962 photo from Library of Congress.

* "Farewell to Penn Station" (New York Times editorial, October 30): @

* Entry from New York Preservation Archive Project: @

* Entry from www.greatbuildings.com: @

* Entry from www.nyc-architecture.com: @

* Photos (from Business Insider): @

* Videos (from Gothamist): @

* "Conquering Gotham -- A Gilded Age Epic: The Construction of Penn Station and Its Tunnels" (Jill Jonnes, 2007): @

* "The Late, Great Pennsylvania Station" (Lorraine B. Diehl, 1985): @ and @

* "The Destruction of Penn Station" (photos by Peter Moore, 2000): @ 

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October-November 1963: Beatlemania

While there are differing accounts as to just who coined the term and when, a November 2 article in The Daily Mirror helped trigger its widespread use. The article was headlined "BEATLEMANIA! It's happening everywhere ... even in sedate Cheltenham / The with-it bug bites so hard ..." (120 years earlier, a similarly named phenomenon -- Lisztomania -- had swept Europe.)
* 13 October 1963 -- Beatlemania begins: Sunday night at the London Palladium (from The Beatles Bible): @

* 1 November 1963 -- Live: Odeon Cinema, Cheltenham (The Beatles Bible): @

* "Beatlemania bugs Britain's bobbies" (Associated Press, October 30): @
* "Beatlemania" (Newsweek, November 18): @

* "Britons Succumb To 'Beatlemania' " (The New York Times Magazine, December 1): @

* " 'BEATLEMANIA' Is Born" (Slate, October 2013): @
* "50 Years of Beatles: Ladies and Gentlemen, Beatlemania!" (Kenneth Womack, Penn State Altoona, 2013): @ 

* More about Lisztomania: @ and @ 

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Friday, October 18, 1963: 'Chaos in the Brickyard'

In 1963, Bernard K. Forscher of the Mayo Clinic complained in a now famous letter printed in the prestigious journal Science that scientists were generating too many facts. Titled "Chaos in the Brickyard," the letter warned that the new generation of scientists was too busy churning out bricks -- facts -- without regard to how they go together. Brickmaking, Forscher feared, had become an end in itself. "And so it happened that the land became flooded with bricks. ... It became difficult to find the proper bricks for a task because one had to hunt among so many. ... It became difficult to complete a useful edifice because, as soon as the foundations were discernible, they were buried under an avalanche of random bricks."
     -- "To Know, but Not Understand" (David Weinberger, The Atlantic magazine, January 2012)
* Text of "Chaos in the Brickyard": @

* "Too Big to Know: Rethinking Knowledge Now That the Facts Aren't the Facts, Experts are Everywhere, and the Smartest Person in the Room Is the Room" (Weinberger, 2011): @
* "Building a Metaphor: Another Brick in the Wall" (Douglas G. Altman, British Medical Journal, December 2012): @

* "The Structure of Scientific Revolutions" (Thomas S. Kuhn, 1962): @
* " 'The Structure of Scientific Revolutions' at Fifty" (Matthew C. Rees, The New Atlantis, 2012): @ 

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October 1963: Fred Rogers

Fred Rogers first appears as the on-camera host of "Misterogers," a 15-minute daily show for children that ran on the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. The show was the successor to "Children's Corner" (1954-1961) and the forerunner to "Mister Rogers' Neighborhood" (1968-2001). From the episode list at The Neighborhood Archive Blog, it appears Rogers' first on-camera appearance was in mid-October, 1963.

Photo from CBC; note the spelling of the word "neighbourhood."

* Biography (from Fred Rogers Center): @

* Biography (from The Fred Rogers Company): @

* Interview (from the Archive of American Television): @

* "Mister Rogers: A Biography of the Wonderful Life of Fred Rogers" (Jennifer Warner, 2013): @

* "Fred Rogers and His Legacy" (chapter from "Pittsburgh Film History: On Set in the Steel City," John Tiech, 2012): @ 

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Friday, October 11, 1963: 'Nightmare at 20,000 Feet'

Mr. Wilson believes he sees a gremlin on the wing of the commercial aircraft he is taking back home ... from the sanitarium, where he has been committed for six months after a mental breakdown during a similar flight.

     -- TV.com

The "Twilight Zone" episode was based on a 1961 short story by Richard Matheson.

* Watch the episode (from imdb.com): @ 

* Interviews with actor William Shatner, writer Richard Matheson, director Richard Donner (from Archive of American Television): @ 

* Excerpt from "Up Till Now: The Autobiography" (Shatner, 2009): @ 

* "Ride the Nightmare: Richard Matheson's 'Nightmare at 20,000 Feet' " (from tor.com): @ 

* "Nightmare at 20,000 feet: Horror Stories by Richard Matheson": @ 

* "Spaceships and Politics: The Political Theory of Rod Serling" (Leslie Dale Felman, 2010): @ 

* Earlier post on "To Serve Man" (March 2, 1962; includes "Twilight Zone" links): @ 

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Friday, October 11, 1963: 'Report of the President's Commission on the Status of Women'

President Kennedy was handed an 86-page report Friday crammed with statistics to argue that women still are not getting an equal break with men, despite laws saying they should.
     The 13 women and 11 men -- including five cabinet officers -- who worked 22 months as the Commission on the Status of Women said women especially are not getting a fair break with men in matters and jobs and equal pay.
     They attributed this to foot-dragging by federal and state governments and failure of women to plug hard enough for full equality -- and to vote.
     The president said the report represents a legacy of the late Eleanor Roosevelt, the commission's first chairman. This was the 79th anniversary of Mrs. Roosevelt's birth.
     Kennedy said something must be done to make it easier for working women to "use their powers and develop their talent" while maintaining a home and protecting the welfare of their children.
     The unanimous report contained 24 major recommendations and many minor ones, most of which were not new. Included was a recommendation that federal tax deductions for child-care expenses of working mothers be increased.
     Telling the women they are not blameless in the matter, the commission said they outnumber men in the U.S. by about 3,750,000. Yet their failure to vote makes them a political minority.
     -- The Associated Press
     -- Photo of Kennedy and Mrs. Roosevelt from February 12, 1962, during president's meeting with commission members (from JFK Library)
* Full text of report (from Hathi Trust Digital Library): @

* Summary from Encyclopedia Britannica: @
* "The President's Commission on the Status of Women" (from the book "On Account of Sex: The Politics of Women's Issues, 1945-1968," Cynthia Harrison, 1988): @
* Audio of Kennedy's remarks at presentation of final report (from JFK Library): @

* Kennedy-Roosevelt audio (April 18, 1962): @
* Related materials from JFK Library: @
* Executive order establishing the commission (December 14, 1961; from American Presidency Project): @

* "Equality for Women Urged in US Report" (Milwaukee Journal, October 11): @
* "Women to Work for Equal Break" (Milwaukee Sentinel, October 12 -- on World of Women page): @ 
* "Whatever Happened to Women's Rights" (The Atlantic magazine, March 1964): @ 

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Thursday, October 10, 1963: FBI surveillance of Martin Luther King

With the FBI increasingly concerned about possible Communist involvement in the civil rights movement, Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy authorizes the bureau to wiretap the Atlanta home of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., as well as the New York offices of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (of which King was president). The FBI's investigation into King's life, activities and associates began in 1955 and lasted until his death in 1968.

Photo from June 22, 1963, following a meeting at the White House between civil rights leaders and administration officials to discuss pending legislation and the planned March on Washington. From left are King, Kennedy, the NAACP's Roy Wilkins and Vice President Johnson.

* JPEG of request and authorization (Kennedy's signature is in lower left-hand corner): @ 
* Text of FBI memo, October 10 (from "From the Secret Files of J. Edgar Hoover," 1991): @ 
* PDF of August 30 FBI memo calling King "the most dangerous Negro of the future in this nation": @ 
* FBI files on "Surreptitious Entries (Black Bag Jobs)": @  
* "Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Case Study" (from "Supplementary Detailed Staff Reports on  Intelligence Activities and the Rights of Americans," 1976, United States Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations of with Respect to Intelligence Activities -- aka the Church Committee): @

* Department of Justice review of FBI's activities (1977; go to Part 2 of 2, page 113, "FBI Surveillance and Harassment of Dr. King"): @

* "The National Security Agency versus Martin Luther King, Muhammad Ali, Art Buchwald,  Frank Church, et al." (National Security Archive, 2013): @

* FBI entry from MLK Research and Education Institute: @

* "The FBI's War on King" (American RadioWorks): @ 

* "King Address That Stirred World Led to FBI Surveillance" (Bloomberg BusinessWeek, August 2013): @ 

* "The FBI and Martin Luther King" (David J. Garrow, The Atlantic magazine, July 2002): @ 

* "The FBI and Martin Luther King, Jr.: From 'Solo' to Memphis" (Garrow, 2001): @ Author's website: @

* "The Pursuit of Justice: Martin Luther King" (chapter from "Robert Kennedy and His Times," Arthur M. Schlesinger, 1978): @ 

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Thursday, October 10, 1963: Limited Nuclear Test Ban Treaty

WASHINGTON -- The nuclear test ban treaty banning all but underground explosions formally went into effect today with ratification ceremonies in Washington, London and Moscow.
     Secretary of State Dean Rusk, Soviet Ambassador Anatoly F. Dobrynin and British Ambassador Sir David Ormsby Gore exchanged ratification documents and expressed hope for further measures to ease the cold war.
     Similar ceremonies took place in Moscow and London.
-- United Press International

Photo from August 5 signing in Moscow. Original caption: "Seated to sign three-nation nuclear test ban in the Kremlin's St. Catherine's Hall on August 5th are (left to right): US Secretary of State Dean Rusk; Soviet Foreign Minister Andrei Gromyko; and British Foreign Secretary Lord Home. To right behind Gromyko is Soviet Premier Nikita Khruschev; then (right to left) United Nations Secretary General U Thant; Adlai Stevenson, US ambassador to the UN; Senator Hubert Humphrey (D-Minn.); unidentified man with glasses; Senator William Fulbright (D-Ark.); and Senator George Aiken (R-Vt.)." Photo from Corbis Images.

* PDF of treaty (from National Archives): @ 
* Summary and text (from U.S. Department of State): @ 
* President Kennedy's address to nation (July 26): @ 
* Summary from JFK Library: @ 
* Summary from Office of the Historian, U.S. Department of State: @ 
* Summary from atomicarchive.com: @ 
* Summary from history.com: @ 
* "The Limited Test Ban Treaty -- 50 years Later" (from National Security Archive): @ 
* "Ending Nuclear Testing" (from United Nations): @ 
* "Test Ban Treaty Signed in Moscow; Leaders Rejoice" (New York Times, August 6, 1963): @ 
* Newsreel (Moscow signing): @ 
* Newsreel (Kennedy signing): @  

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Thursday, October 10, 1963: Linus Pauling wins Nobel Peace Prize

OSLO -- Dr. Linus C. Pauling, noted biochemist whose opposition to nuclear tests mas made him a controversial figure in the United States, yesterday was awarded the 1962 Nobel Peace Prize.

     In addition to announcing the belated award, the Norwegian Nobel Prize Committee announced it had divided the 1963 Peace Prize between the International Red Cross Committee and the Red Cross League.

     The award made Pauling the first man in the 62-year history of the Nobel prizes to be honored twice. He won the Nobel Prize for chemistry in 1959. Mme. Marie Curie, co-discoverer of radium, won one prize and shared another.

     While the committee did not disclose why it named Pauling ... it generally was believed he was honored for his efforts to outlaw nuclear testing.

     Announcement of the award to Pauling came on the day that the partial nuclear test ban agreement by the United States, Great Britain and the Soviet Union formally went into effect.

     Pauling long has been in the forefront of movements to ban the bomb. Only last year, he went almost directly from a picket line in front of the White House to President Kennedy's dinner for Nobel Prize winners inside.

     -- United Press International, October 11

     -- Photo from Corbis Images, April 29, 1962

* Entry from Nobel Prize website: @

* Linus Pauling Online (Oregon State University): @

* Linus Pauling and the International Peace Movement (Oregon State): @

* Earlier post on Pauling's White House protest (April 29, 1962): @ 

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Monday, October 7, 1963: Lear Jet

Bill Lear wasn't an aeronautical engineer when he started the Lear Jet project at age 61; he was an inventor and entrepreneur, having created the 8-track stereo, a variety of car radios, and the first jet autopilot.
     In the early 1960s, Lear saw the potential need for a small executive transport, and founded the Swiss American Aviation Corporation (SAAC) to produce the Learjet 23. The Learjet 23 was inspired by the FFA P-16, a proposed fighter jet for Switzerland designed by Hans-Luzius Studer. Production of the Learjet 23 began in Wichita, Kansas, in February 1962, and the first flight took place on October 7, 1963. The Learjet 23 revolutionized the business transport world and created a new market for fast and efficient small jet transports.
     -- From Museum of Flight (Seattle, Washington)
* "Learjet: A Brief History" (from Bombadier Inc., now the owner of Learjet): @

* "History of Learjet" (from jonathanstrickland.com): @
* "Lear Jet 23" (Flying magazine, 1978; from WilliamPLear.com): @
* Specifications (from airliners.net): @
* "The Lear Jet Turns 50 -- But It Almost Didn't Make It Off the Ground" (wired.com, 2013): @
* "Learjet Turns 50" (from Aviation International News): @
* Lear Jet 23 at Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum: @ 

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Saturday, October 5, 1963: Vietnam

President Kennedy approves the withdrawal of 1,000 military advisers from Vietnam, where some 16,000 are serving. (The decision has since generated considerable speculation about what policy Kennedy might have pursued in Vietnam had he not been assassinated.)

* Summary from World History Project: @

* Summary from Mary Ferrell Foundation: @

* Memorandum from the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (Taylor) and the Secretary of Defense (McNamara) to the President (October 2, 1963, from "Foreign Relations of the United States, 1961-1963," U.S. State Department): @

* Record of Action No. 2472, Taken at the 519th Meeting of the National Security Council (October 2, from FRUS): @

* Memorandum for the Files of a Conference With the President (October 5, from FRUS): @

* National Security Action Memorandum No. 263 (October 11, from FRUS): @

* White House tapes of withdrawal discussions (from Miller Center, University of Virginia): @

* "Mac Finds Out What's Gone Wrong: Big U.S. Team Probes the Climactic Mess in Vietnam" (Life magazine, October 11, 1963, page 22): @

* "Going to Withdraw from Vietnam?" (from mcadams.posc.mu.edu): @

* "Lessons in Disaster: McGeorge Bundy and the Path to War in Vietnam" (Gordon M. Goldstein, 2008): @ 

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