November 1962: 'Happiness is a Warm Puppy'

"Peanuts" creator Charles M. Schulz's small book of gentle joys is published by Determined Productions. It took its title and concept from the last panel of his daily comic strip of April 25, 1960. The book quickly became a best-seller. 

* "Special Report on Happiness" (Life magazine, December 14, page 23): @

* "Schulz and Peanuts" (David Michaelis, 2008): @
* Charles M. Schulz Museum: @ 

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Tuesday, November 27, 1962: 'I Have a Dream'

Speaking in Rocky Mount, North Carolina, the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. gives a speech using the "I Have a Dream" construction, nine months before his famous speech at the March on Washington on August 28, 1963. (King is also said to have used the phrase even earlier, including in a speech in Albany, Georgia, on November 16, but the Rocky Mount speech is the earliest known recording, thanks to the efforts of W. Jason Miller, whose book is linked below.) News accounts of the speech did not mention "I Have a Dream"; it quoted King as saying: "Old Man Segregation is on his death bed. The only thing now is how costly the South will make his funeral."

-- Photo from www.waymarking.com

* Audio excerpts from speech:  @
* "King Urges 'Nonviolence' " (Associated Press, November 28): @
* Marker description from North Carolina Highway Historical Marker Program: @

* "Origins of the Dream: Hughes's Poetry and King's Rhetoric" (W. Jason Miller, 2015): @

* "Making a Way Out of No Way" (Wolfgang Mieder, 2010): @

* "The Dream: Martin Luther King, Jr., and the Speech that Inspired a Nation" (Drew D. Hansen, 2005): @

* "A Call to Conscience: The Landmark Speeches of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr." (edited by Clayborne Carson and Kris Shepard, 2001): @ 

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Undated: Hawks and doves

Writing in the December 8, 1962, issue of The Saturday Evening Post, Stewart Alsop and Charles Bartlett recount the meetings and decision-making in Washington during the Cuban Missile Crisis. The article helps popularize the political/military labels "hawks" and "doves" with the following passage:

"The hawks favored an air strike to eliminate the Cuban missile bases, either with or without warning. ... The doves opposed the air strike and favored a blockade."

"Hawk" was a shortened version of "war hawk," which dates to at least 1792.

The article also quotes Secretary of State Dean Rusk as saying, "We're eyeball to eyeball, and I think the other fellow just blinked."

* Saturday Evening Post article (PDF): @

* "War Hawks, Uncle Sam, and The White House: Tracing the Use of Three Phrases in Early American Newspapers" (Donald R. Hickey, Wayne State University, via Readex): @

* "Safire's Political Dictionary" (William Safire, first published in 1968; search for "doves" and "war hawks"): @

* "Of Hawks, Doves -- and Now, Owls" (Graham Allison, Joseph S. Nye and Albert Carnesale, The New York Times, 1985): @  

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Saturday, November 10, 1962: Thalidomide acquittal

Vandeput

From The Associated Press (November 11):

   LIEGE, Belgium -- Three women and two men tried for the killing of a malformed thalidomide baby girl were acquitted yesterday by a 12-man jury.

   The accused were: Suzanne Vandeput, 24, accused of the homicide of her daughter, Corinne, by administering barbiturate drugs in the baby's food; her husband, Jean Vandeput, 35; her sister, Monique de la Marck, 26, the child's grandmother, Fernande Yerna, 50, and the family doctor, Jacques Casters, 33, all accused of complicity,

   The trial lasted five days. The prosecution had demanded convictions for the death of the 8-day-old baby.

   Applause and shouts from the huge crowd packed into every inch of the court greeted the verdict. Women fainted and were held up by the pressure of the crowd.

   Mrs. Vandeput was given thalidomide during her pregnancy by Dr. Casters. In May, she gave birth to a girl without arms, without shoulders, with completely deformed feet, and other gruesome deformities.

   A family council with her husband, who is a municipal clerk, her mother, and her sister, decided that the deformed baby should be humanely killed.

   Dr. Casters, who felt himself responsible for the tragedy, prescribed the barbiturate which Suzanne mixed into the baby's milk -- with the full knowledge and support of her husband, her mother and her sister. Corinne died painlessly in her sleep at the age of 7 days.

* Newsreel: @

* Life magazine (August 10): @

* "All 5 Freed In Death of Thal Baby" (Miami News, November 11): @

* "Cheers, Tears Support Thal Trial Acquittal Verdict" (Miami News, November 15): @

* thalidomide50.blogspot.com: @

Previous posts:

* 1962 (Thalidomide in the U.S.): @

* 1961 (Letter in The Lancet): @

* 1960 (Drug application): @ 

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November 1962: Peel P50

The Peel P50, a three-wheeled microcar, is introduced at the International Cycle and Motor Cycle Show, held November 10-17 at Earls Court in London. The one-person car was just over 4 feet long, about 3 feet wide and weighed 130 pounds, with one door and one headlight. It had no reverse gear.

* Summary from BBC: @

* Entry from Microcar Museum: @

* More about the car: @

* More photos: @
* Auto show newsreels: @ and @ and @

* Peel Engineering: @ 

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Tuesday, November 6, 1962: U.S. elections

Richard Nixon's defeat in California would get most of the headlines, but the elections would also see victories by several politicians who would rise to national prominence in the coming years -- George Wallace, Ted Kennedy and George McGovern among them.
* "Statistics of the Congressional Election of November 6, 1962" (U.S. Goverment Printing Office): @

* Miami News, November 7: @

* Life magazine, November 16: @

* Nixon -- Two years after narrowly losing the presidency to John F. Kennedy, Nixon is defeated by incumbent Democrat Pat Brown in the race for California's governorship. In conceding the race on November 7, Nixon holds what he calls his "last press conference," telling the media that "you don't have Nixon to kick around anymore."

* Audio of press conference (from www.history.com): @
* Video of closing words: @
* "Media Bias in Presidential Election Coverage, 1948-2008" (David W. D'Alessio, 2012; see Chapter 1): @
* Entry on exact wording (from Language Log, blog at University of Pennsylvania): @

* See earlier posts by clicking on "Nixon" label below. 

(Photo from November 7 press conference; from Corbis Images)

* Wallace -- In his second bid for the Alabama governorship, the former circuit judge was assured of victory when he won the Democratic runoff in May; the Republican Party did not field a candidate for the general election.
* Entry from Encyclopedia of Alabama: @

* Entry from Alabama Department of Archives and History: @

* Timeline of Wallace's Life (from PBS.org): @

* "George Wallace: American Populist" (Stephen Lesher, 1995): @
* Earlier entry on Wallace comic book: @

(Campaign poster from www.legacyamericana.com)

* Kennedy -- The younger brother of President Kennedy wins a U.S. Senate seat in Massachusetts. JFK, who had been re-elected to the Senate in 1958, had resigned the seat in 1960 after he won the presidency. The seat was filled by Benjamin Smith until the special election in 1962.

* tedkennedy.org: @

* Edward M. Kennedy Institute for the United States Senate: @
* Photo gallery of Senate campaign from Time.com: @

(Photo taken after the September Democratic primary; from Corbis Images)

* McGovern -- The former director of the Food for Peace program was elected senator from South Dakota; he would be the Democratic nominee for president in 1972.
* Entry from Biographical Directory of the United States Congress: @
* Food for Peace website: @

(1962 photo from John F. Kennedy Presidential Library)

* John Connally -- elected governor of Texas; he would be shot and wounded when President Kennedy was assassinated in November 1963.

* Entry from Texas State Historical Association: @


* George Romney -- elected governor of Michigan; he would seek the Republican nomination for president in 1968.
* "Romney's Way: A Man and an Idea" (T. George Harris, 1967): @

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November 1962: 'Personal computer'

From a November 2 story by The Associated Press:

   WASHINGTON -- Pocket-size computers may eliminate the housewife's weekly shopping list. Electronic communication would tell the store in advance what she needed. She would simply pick up the bundles.
   This was envisioned today by Dr. John W. Mauchly, inventor of some of the original room-size computers, who has developed one the size of a suitcase and is now working on a pocket variety.
   Dr. Mauchly, here to address a meeting of the American Institute of Industrial Engineers, said that in a decade or so everyone would have his own computer. Data pertinent to the individual and his problems would be stored in the computers' wafer-thin memory cells. ...
   The inventor's original computers weighed nearly 30 tons and occupied 15,000 feet of floor space. His latest is a portable 50-pound one of suitcase size.
   The present emphasis on miniaturizing components of missile and spacecraft will inevitably result in developing small, inexpensive computers within the financial reach of almost everyone, Dr. Mauchly said.
   "There is no reason to suppose the average boy or girl cannot be master of a personal computer," he said.
* Mauchly entry from National Inventors Hall of Fame: @

* "John W. Mauchly and the Development of the ENIAC computer" (University of Pennsylvania): @

* Mauchly biography (University of St. Andrews, Scotland): @

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