1963: Origin of chicken nuggets

In 1963, (Cornell University professor Robert C.) Baker and his colleague Joseph Marshall proposed a first-ever "chicken stick," made of ground, blended and frozen chicken. Keeping the stick together without a sausage-like skin, and keeping the breading on through freezing and frying, were major advances.

     -- From "The Lost History and Unintended Consequences of the Chicken Nugget" (Maryn McKenna, wired.com, 2012; full story: @)

* "The Father of the Chicken Nugget" (Slate, 2012): @

* "The invention of the Chicken McNugget" (www.marketplace.org, 2013): @
* Baker obituary (New York Times, 2006): @

* "How 'Barbecue Bob' Baker Transformed Chicken" (Cornell University, 2012): @

* "Generations & Innovations, Robert C. Baker '43" (Cornell, 2013): @ 

---

Wednesday, June 26, 1963: JFK in West Berlin

     

     Police lines buckled, ecstatic women swooned and the old streets shook to endless chants of "KEN-NAH-DEE." Storming into West Germany last week to begin a tour that would take him to Ireland to visit Irish kin, and then to England and Italy, the President looked like a campaigner -- and it was on purpose.
     With the racial crisis bloodily evident on its front pages, the press of America had advised him to stay at home. But he went -- to speak out against the damage inflicted on the Atlantic alliance by France's disruptive President Charles de Gaulle, and to assure Europe of America's steadfastness as an ally in peace or war.
     From the start there was no doubt about how the German people felt. Millions jammed the streets to wave American flags at his motorcade and cheer his speeches. In Berlin he even attracted a pathetic group of handkerchief-waving East Berliners. The measure of the success of the visit lay in Kennedy's quick and warm accord with the hard-bitten old German chancellor, Konrad Adenauer.
     In a forceful statement of principles, the President hammered on the need for constant transatlantic partnership and trust between the United States and a "fully cohesive Europe." He pledged to lay American cities on the line in defense of those in Europe, and the roar of approval in Germany was matched only by the silence from France.
    -- Life magazine, July 5, 1963. Complete magazine: @

The index card at top shows the phonetic pronunciations Kennedy wrote down for three of the phrases in his June 26 speech: "Ich bin ein Berliner" (I am a Berliner), "civis Romanus sum" (I am a Roman citizen) and "Lass' sic nach Berlin kommen" (Let them come to Berlin). Photo from Corbis Images.

* Summary (from www.findingdulcinea.com): @
* Transcript and video (from Miller Center, University of Virginia): @

* Links to more footage (from www.criticalpast.com): @
* Audio (from JFK Library): @
* "Remarks at Free University of West Berlin" (materials from JFK Library): @
* "One Day in Berlin" (video from JFK Library): @
* "The Cold War in Berlin" (summary from JFK Library): @
* New York Times story: @ 
* "Kennedy in Berlin" (Andreas W. Daum, 2007): @

* "Kennedy and the Berlin Wall" (W.R. Smyser, 2009): @ 

---

Monday, June 24, 1963: 'The Negro and the American Promise'

The special one-hour program was a brilliantly conceived examination of racial crisis in America, illustrated through interviews with powerful Negro leaders of widely varying viewpoints. Brought together, in separate interviews, were the Rev. Martin Luther King, author James Baldwin, and Black Muslim leader Malcolm X. Under quiet, penetrating and perceptive probing by Dr. Kenneth Clark, a professor of psychology at City College of New York, these three seethed with emotions and ideas that were communicated with force and immediacy.
-- From WGBH in Boston, which produced the show that was carried on educational television stations

* Introduction and interviews (from PBS): @

* "King, Malcolm X Differ" (United Press International, June 25, 1963): @

* Excerpt from "The Expanding Vista: American Television in the Kennedy Years" (Mary Ann Watson, 1990): @

* "The Negro Protest" (Kenneth B. Clark, 1963): @

---

Monday, June 17, 1963: ASCII

Associating numbers with specific characters has proved necessary to allow automated telegraph printers (teleprinters) and then computers to represent text. The most widely used mapping between numbers and letters was that approved on June 17, 1963, by the American Standards Association. It is the American Standard Code for Information Interchange, better known as ASCII.
-- From "What is ASCII?" (The Economist, 2013). Full story: @
* American Standards Association document (from www.wps.com): @
* "1963: The debut of ASCII" (CNN, 1999): @
* www.asciitable.com: @
* www.ascii-code.com: @

* Entry from www.cryptomuseum.com: @
* Bob Bemer's website (Bemer helped create and standardize ASCII): @

* American National Standards Institute: @ 

---

Monday, June 17, 1963: Abington School District v. Schempp

     The Supreme Court barred Bible-reading and the recital of the Lord's Prayer in public schools as part of required classroom exercises.
     Such a practice is unconstitutional, it said in an 8-1 ruling on cases from Maryland and Pennsylvania. The decision would apply also is many other states where such customs are followed as part of schoolday opening classes.
     The court did not specify whether such observances would be possible on a permissive, rather than a required basis but did bar the establishment of any such exercises by majority rule.
     -- Associated Press. Full story: @

* Summary, oral arguments (from oyez.com): @

* Text of ruling (from FindLaw): @

*"Ellery's Protest: How One Young Man Defied Tradition and Sparked the Battle Over School Prayer" (Stephen D. Solomon, 2007): @
* Earlier post on Engel v. Vitale (June 1962): @

* Earlier post on Madalyn Murray O'Hair (December 1960): @ 

---

Sunday, June 16, 1963: First woman in space

From June 16 to 19, Valentina Vladimiorvna Tereshkova became the first woman to fly in space. Tereshkova was born on March 6, 1937, in the Soviet village of Masslenikovo. Her parents worked on a collective farm, but her father was killed during World War II. While working at a textile mill at the age of 18, she took correspondence courses from an industrial school and joined a club for parachutists, making over 150 jumps. Shortly after the flight of cosmonaut Gherman Titov in September 1961 she wrote a letter to the space center volunteering for the cosmonaut team. Unknown to her, Soviet space officials were considering the selection of a group of women parachutists. In December 1961 Tereshkova was invited to Moscow for an interview and medical examination. The following March she reported with three other women to the Soviet Space Center at Star City. In May 1963, Tereshkova and Tatyana Torchillova were chosen to train for the Vostok 6 flight. On June 16, 1963, Tereshkova was launched into orbit and made 48 revolutions around the earth in a 70-hour 50-minute spaceflight. Tereshkova parachuted from the Vostok 6 after re-entering the Earth's atmosphere and landed about 612 km (380 miles) northeast of Karaganda, Kazakhstan, in central Asia.
-- Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum

* Entry from history.com: @

* Biography from Russiapedia (from RT.com): @

* Timeline (from RT.com): @
* Infographic (from space.com): @
* "Valentina Tereshkova: The Greta Garbo of space" (from BBC, June 2013): @

* "On the Edge: The Legacy of Valentina Tereshkova" (from americaspace.com): @
* "The Girl From Space" (newsreel): @

* Other footage: @

---

Wednesday, June 12, 1963: The death of Medgar Evers

Medgar Evers, the NAACP's field secretary in Mississippi and a leading figure in the civil rights movement, is shot and killed outside his home in Jackson. Within days, Byron De La Beckwith is arrested and charged with the killing. Beckwith is tried twice in 1964, both trials ending in hung juries; he is eventually convicted in 1994.

The bullet that killed Evers then went through a window in his house. Photo by Flip Schulke.

Evers' casket at the train station in Meridian, Mississippi. His casket was taken to Washington, where Evers, an Army veteran who fought in World War II, was buried in Arlington National Cemetery. Photo by Flip Schulke.

Resources
* A Tribute to Medgar Evers (Mississippi Public Broadcasting): @

* "Mississippi Negro Leader Slain" (Miami News, June 12): @

* Civil Rights Leader Medgar Evers Was Killed 40 Years Ago Today" (Associated Press, 2003): @

* "The Legacy of Medgar Evers" (Clarion-Ledger, Jackson): @

* Entry from NAACP: @

* Entry from Mississippi Writers Page (University of Mississippi): @

* Entry from Martin Luther King Jr. Research and Education Institute (Stanford University): @
* Entry from PBS: @
* "Fifty Years: Remembering Medgar Evers" (John R. Salter Jr.): @
* FBI files on Evers: @
* Speakers at funeral service and coverage of procession (June 15, Jackson; from archive.org): @
* Medgar & Myrlie Evers Institute: @

Books
* "Ghosts of Mississippi: The Murder of Medgar Evers, the Trials of Byron De La Beckwith, and the Haunting of the New South" (Maryanne Vollers, 1995): @

* The Ghosts of Medgar Evers" (Willie Morris, 1998): @

* "Of Long Memory: Mississippi and the Murder of Medgar Evers" (Adam Nossiter, 1994): @

* "The Autobiography of Medgar Evers" (2005): @
* "Mississippi Martyr" (Michael Vinson Williams, 2011): @

* "Remembering Medgar Evers: Writing the Long Civil Rights Movement" (Minrose Gwin, 2013): @. Video of Gwin reading from book: @
* "We Shall Not Be Moved: The Jackson Woolworth's Sit-in and the Movement it Inspired" (M.J. O'Brien, 2013): @

Magazines
* Life, June 21 ("A Trail of Blood -- A Negro Dies"): @
* Life, June 28 (cover story): @
* Jet, June 27: @
* The Crisis, June-July, 1973: @
* "Where Is The Voice Coming From?" (Eudora Welty, July 1963, The New Yorker): @
* Draft of Welty's story (Clarion-Ledger): @

Video
* "Justice Delayed" (Martin Kent Films): @ and @

Photos
* Slideshow (CBS News): @

Songs
* "Ballad of Medgar Evers" (SNCC Freedom Singers): @

* "Only a Pawn in Their Game" (Bob Dylan): @
* "Too Many Martyrs" (Phil Ochs): @

* "Medgar Evers Lullaby" (Judy Collins): @ 

---

Wednesday, June 12, 1963: 'Cleopatra'

The most expensive movie of its time (costing $44 million, or $330 million in 2013 dollars), the four-hour film premieres in New York. It was notable not only for its production length (more than two years) and costs (said to have nearly bankrupted 20th Century-Fox), but also for the off-screen affair between stars Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton, both married at the time. The film would be nominated for nine Academy Awards, winning four.
* Trailers: @
* Entry from Turner Classic Movies: @

* New York Times review (June 13, 1963): @

* Premiere (newsreel): @
* "When Liz Met Dick" (Vanity Fair, 1998): @

* "Cleopatra by the Numbers" (National Post, 2013): @
* Entry from www.in70mm.com: @

---

Tuesday-Wednesday, June 11-12, 1963: First lung transplant

     A 58-year-old man was reported doing well after undergoing what is believed to be the first lung transplant of its kind in medical history.
     A team of surgeons at the University Medical Center in Jackson, Mississippi, replaced his cancerous left lung with a healthy lung from an unrelated donor in a three-hour operation.
     Names of both the donor and the recipient were withheld by medical authorities.
     A spokesman for the medical center said the Mississippi team of surgeons made detailed studies in more than 500 experimental animals over a period of seven years prior to attempting the transplant.
     Funds for the project were supplied by the office of the Army surgeon general.
-- United Press International

Notes: The lung recipient, John Richard Russell, lived for 18 days. It later emerged that he was a convicted murderer who was serving a life sentence at the state penitentiary at Parchman. (Gov. Ross Barnett commuted his sentence after the operation.)
     This post is dated June 11-12 based on the duration of the operation, as noted by lead surgeon Dr. James Hardy, linked below.

* "The First Lung Transplant in Man (1963) and the First Heart Transplant in Man (1964)" (Hardy, Transplantation Proceedings, 1999): @
* "Transplantation of the Lung" (Hardy et al, American Surgical Association, 1964): @
* "The First Lung Transplantation" (Dr. Martin L. Dalton, Annals of Thoracic Surgery, 1995): @
* Entry on Hardy from University of Mississippi Medical Center: @
* "Medical Center marks 50th anniversary of momentous surgical achievement" (from UMMC): @ 

---

Tuesday, June 11, 1963: The Stand in the Schoolhouse Door

ALABAMA ADMITS NEGRO STUDENTS;

WALLACE BOWS TO FEDERAL FORCE;

KENNEDY SEES 'MORAL CRISIS' IN U.S.

From The New York Times (link to full text below):

     TUSCALOOSA, Ala., June 11 -- Gov. George C. Wallace stepped aside today when confronted by federalized National Guard troops and permitted two Negroes to enroll in the University of Alabama. There was no violence.

     The Governor, flanked by state troopers, had staged a carefully planned show of defying a Federal Court desegregation order.

     Mr. Wallace refused four requests this morning from a Justice Department official that he allow Miss Vivian Malone and James A. Hood, both 20 years old to enter Foster Auditorium and register.

     This was in keeping with a campaign pledge that he would "stand in the schoolhouse door" to prevent a resumption of desegregation in Alabama's educational system.

     The official, Nicholas deB. Katzenbach, Deputy Attorney General, did not press the issue by bringing the students from a waiting car to face the Governor. Instead, they were taken to their dormitories.

     However, the outcome was foreshadowed even then. Mr. Katzenbach told Mr. Wallace during the confrontation:

     "From the outset, Governor, all of us have known that the final chapter of this history will be the admission of those students."

     Units of the 31st (Dixie) Division, federalized on orders from President Kennedy, arrived on the campus four and a half hours later under the command of Brig. Gen. Henry V. Graham.

     In a voice that was scarcely audible, General Graham said that it was his "sad duty" to order the Governor to step aside.

     Mr. Wallace then read the second of two statements challenging the constituionality of court-ordered desegregation and left the auditorium with his aides for Montgomery.

     Three minutes after their departure, Mr. Hood walked into the auditorium with Federal officials to register. Miss Malone followed a minute later.

Scowling, Gov. Wallace peers through the bars of an auditorium window as he stands like a sentinel awaiting pair's arrival. (Photo and caption from Jet magazine, June 27, 1963)

Malone and Hood enroll for classes.

* Summary from Encyclopedia of Alabama: @

* New York Times story: @
* "Alabama Story: Negroes Enrolled As Governor Yields" (newsreel, from criticalpast.com): @
* NBC footage: @
* "Wallace in the Schoolhouse Door" (NPR, 2003): @

* "Statement and Proclamation of Governor George C. Wallace" (signed by Wallace; from Alabama Department of Archives and History): @

* Separate copy of speech (from Samford University Library): @
* Telegrams to and from Wallace (from Alabama Department of Archives and History): @
* "Through the Doors: Courage. Change. Progress." (from University of Alabama): @

* "A Sleight of History: University of Alabama's Foster Auditorium" (from southernspaces.org): @

* "The Schoolhouse Door: Segregation's Last Stand at the University of Alabama" (E. Culpepper Clark, 1993): @
* "A Civil Rights Milestone, June 11, 1963" (C-SPAN video, 2008): @
* Resources from Civil Rights Digital Library: @

Note: On the night of June 11, President Kennedy spoke on TV and radio about the situation in Alabama and outlined his intention to press for civil rights legislation.
* Transcript and video (from Miller Center, University of Virginia): @
* Links to draft of speech and final version (from National Archives): @
* Telegram from the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. to Kennedy after speech (from JFK Library): @ 

---

Tuesday, June 11, 1963: Thich Quang Duc

     
     Tension rose in Saigon today as an aged Buddhist monk burned himself to death before thousands of onlookers.
     The Rev. Quang Duc calmly put a match to his gasoline-soaked yellow robes at a main Saigon street intersection to protest alleged persecution of Buddhists by President Ngo Dinh Diem's government.
     The 300 monks surrounding him let out a wail. The burning man did not cry out. He remained sitting upright for several minutes before dying.
     Monks lay in front of the wheel of nearby fire trucks to prevent them from moving.'
     The sacrifice capped a wave of Buddhist demonstrations against the government demanding religious freedom and social justice.
     -- From The Associated Press. Full story: @. Photo by the AP's Malcolm Browne, whose picture of Quang Duc won World Press Photo of the Year in 1963 and whose reporting from Vietnam won a Pulitzer Prize in 1964.

* Summary (from "Historical Dictionary of Ho Chi Minh City," Justin Corfield, 2013): @

* "Malcolm Browne: The Story Behind the Burning Monk" (from time.com): @

* "The Burning Monk" (from AP.org): @
* "Vietnam Burning Monk Photographer Malcolm Browne Dies" (Associated Press, 2012): @
* "An Angry Buddhist Burns Himself Alive" (Life magazine, June 21, 1963, page 24): @

* "The Immolation of Quang Duc" (from iconicphotos.wordpress.com): @
* "The Self-Immolation of Quang Duc" (from Russell T. McCutcheon in "Manufacturing Religion," 1997, reprinted in Buddhism Today): @

* "TWE Remembers: Thich Quang Duc's Self-Immolation" (James M. Lindsay, Council on Foreign Relations): @

* "Ultimate Sacrifice" (Foreign Policy, December 2012): @

* "The Making of a Quagmire: America and Vietnam During the Kennedy Era:" (David Halberstam, 1988, Chapter Eight, "The Buddhist Revolt Begins"): @

* "Death of a Generation: How the Assassinations of Diem and Kennedy Prolonged the Vietnam War" (Howard Jones, 2003, Chapter 12, "The Fire This Time"): @
* Quang Duc Monastery (Broadmeadows, Australia): @

---

Monday, June 10, 1963: JFK's 'Peace' speech

"President Kennedy announced Monday that the United States, the Soviet Union and Britain have agreed to send high-level negotiators to Moscow next month in a fresh start at hammering out a nuclear test-ban treaty. In the meantime, the President announced, the United States will not conduct any nuclear tests in the atmosphere -- so long as the Soviet Union and other nations hold back on their tests, too. ... The President chose an unusual setting for his announcements, and he embellished them with an eloquent plea for world peace. Standing under the broiling sun in an outdoor amphitheater, Kennedy put the significant announcements into a commencement address to American University's graduating class."
* From The Associated Press. Full story: @

"The United States will seek to increase communications with Russia, to avoid unnecessary irritants, to search for areas of agreement and to avoid pushing to Kremlin into a choice between 'humiliating retreat or a nuclear war.' This fundamental philosophy of how to deal with Russians in a nuclear age, stated Monday by President Kennedy in a major speech, is expected by diplomats to be more prominently recorded in history than his announcements on nuclear testing."
* From United Press International. Full story: @
* Transcript and video (from JFK Library): @

* "JFK at AU: Building Peace For All Time" (American University website): @

* "John F. Kennedy Speaks of Peace" (from Nuclear Age Peace Foundation): @

* "To Move the World: JFK's Quest for Peace" (Jeffrey D. Sachs, 2013): @ 

---

Monday, June 10, 1963: Equal Pay Act

President Kennedy signs into law the Equal Pay Act of 1963, "to prohibit discrimination on account of sex in the payment of wages by employers engaged in commerce or in the production of goods for commerce."

About this image: Although not passed by Congress, this bill, introduced by Rep. Winifred Stanley, R-N.Y., on June 19, 1944, was the first to propose that employers be required to pay women equal pay for equal work. (From National Archives)

* Original text of act (from Equal Employment Opportunity Commission): @

* With amendments (from EEOC): @

* "Facts About Equal Pay and Compensation Discrimination" (from EEOC): @

* Kennedy's remarks (from The American Presidency Project): @

* "Kennedy Signs Women's Equal Pay Measure" (Associated Press): @

* "The Wage Gap Over Time" (1960-2011, from National Committee on Pay Equity): @ 

* "April 9 is Equal Pay Day" (from National Women's History Museum): @

---

Wednesday, June 5, 1963: Profumo Affair

From The Associated Press (link to full story below):
     LONDON -- The British conservative party's chances for re-election reached a new low today as a result of a personal scandal involving a cabinet minister.
     John Profumo, prime minister Harold Macmillan's 48-year-old war minister, quit his cabinet post and his seat in parliament last night after confessing he had lied in denying an "improper association" with a notorious model, Christine Keeler.
     Profumo's disgrace was a political bombshell for Macmillan and his conservative party, who had believed the minister's denial in the house of commons March 22 of persistent rumors that he had illicit relations with the 22-year-old model, a redheaded beauty who numbered two Jamaican Negroes among her lovers.

* "Tory Fortunes to New Low" (June 6, 1963): @

* "Temptress Rocks the Empire" (Life magazine, June 21, 1963): @
* Short summary (from Encyclopedia Britannica): @

* John Profumo biography (from Oxford Dictionary of National Biography): @
* From BBC: March 22 - @; June 5 - @
* "The Profumo Affair" (from BBC America): @

* "The Profumo Scandal" (from iconicphotos.wordpress.com): @
* "1963: The Profumo scandal lays bare the sex revolution" (Stuart Jeffries, The Guardian, 2013): @
* "Clouds of Scandal" (Christine Keeler, Vanity Fair, 2001): @
* "An English Affair: Sex, Class and Power in the Age of Profumo" (Richard Davenport-Hines, 2012): @ 

---