WHAT ALL HAPPENED JANUARY TO AUGUST 1963
Find out what all happened January to August 1963

Berthold Seliger launches a rocket with three stages and a maximum flight altitude of more than 100 kilometres near Cuxhaven. It is the only sounding rocket developed in Germany. (2. May 1963)

The Elysée treaty of cooperation between France and Germany is signed by Charles de Gaulle and Konrad Adenauer. (22. January 1963)

Buddhist monk Thich Quang Duc burns himself with gasoline in a busy Saigon intersection to protest the lack of religious freedom in South Vietnam. (11. June 1963)

Kuwait joins the United Nations. (14. May 1963)

The Beatles' first album, Please Please Me, is released in the United Kingdom. (22. March 1963)

The United States, the United Kingdom, and the Soviet Union sign a nuclear test ban treaty. (5. August 1963)

The United States Supreme Court rules 8 to 1 in Abington School District v. Schempp against requiring the reciting of Bible verses and the Lord's Prayer in public schools. (17. June 1963)

John F. Kennedy addresses Americans from the Oval Office proposing the Civil Rights Act of 1964 that would revolutionist American society. Proposing equal access to public facilities, end segregation in education and guarantee federal protection for voting rights. (11. June 1963)

March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom: the Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr. gives his I Have a Dream speech (28. August 1963)

A day after South Vietnamese President Ngo Dinh Diem announced the Joint Communique to end the Buddhist crisis, a riot involving around 2,000 people breaks out. One person is killed. (17. June 1963)

Joe Walker flies a North American X-15 to a record altitude of 106,010 meters (347,800 feet) on X-15 Flight 90. Exceeding an altitude of 100 km, this flight qualifies as a human spaceflight under international convention. (19. July 1963)

President Fulbert Youlou is overthrown in the Republic of the Congo, after a three-day uprising in the capital. (15. August 1963)

The Guinea-Bissau War of Independence officially begins when PAIGC guerrilla fighters attack the Portuguese army stationed in Tite. (23. January 1963)

Equal Pay Act of 1963 aimed at abolishing wage disparity based on sex (see Gender pay gap). It was signed into law on June 10, 1963 by John F. Kennedy as part of his New Frontier Program (10. June 1963)

Police in Phoenix, Arizona arrest Ernesto Miranda and charge him with kidnap and rape. His conviction is ultimately set aside by the United States Supreme Court in Miranda v. Arizona (13. March 1963)

A protest against pro-Catholic discrimination during the Buddhist crisis is held outside South Vietnam's National Assembly, the first open demonstration during the eight-year rule of Ngo Dinh Diem. (30. May 1963)

The European Court of Justice's ruling in Van Gend en Loos v Nederlandse Administratie der Belastingen establishes the principle of direct effect, one of the most important, if not the most important, decisions in the development of European Union law. (5. February 1963)

Civil rights leader Medgar Evers is murdered in front of his home in Jackson, Mississippi by Ku Klux Klan member Byron De La Beckwith. (12. June 1963)

Pope John XXIII issues Pacem in Terris, the first encyclical addressed to all instead of to Catholics alone. (11. April 1963)

Alcatraz, a federal penitentiary on an island in San Francisco Bay, closes. (21. March 1963)