WHAT ALL HAPPENED FEBRUARY TO SEPTEMBER 1963
Find out what all happened February to September 1963

Buddhist crisis: As a result of the Xá Lợi Pagoda raids, the US State Department cables the United States Embassy, Saigon to encourage Army of the Republic of Vietnam generals to launch a coup against President Ngo Dinh Diem if he did not remove his brother Ngo Dinh Nhu. (24. August 1963)

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

U.S. President John F. Kennedy gave his "Ich bin ein Berliner" speech, underlining the support of the United States for democratic West Germany shortly after Soviet-supported East Germany erected the Berlin Wall. (26. June 1963)

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

The Universal House of Justice of the Bahá'í Faith is elected for the first time. (21. April 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)

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

Racist bombings in Birmingham, Alabama disrupt nonviolence in the Birmingham campaign and precipitate a crisis involving federal troops. (11. May 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)

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)

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)

The Pro Football Hall of Fame opens in Canton, Ohio with 17 charter members. (7. September 1963)

The Centre for International Industrial Property Studies (CEIPI) is founded. (6. September 1963)

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

Ciaculli massacre: a car bomb, intended for Mafia boss Salvatore Greco, kills seven police officers and military personnel near Palermo. (30. June 1963)

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

In Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, the Organisation of African Unity is established. (25. May 1963)

The New York Post Sunday Magazine publishes Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.'s Letter from a Birmingham Jail, drafted shortly after his arrest on April 12th during the Birmingham Campaign advocating for civil rights and an end to segregation in Birmingham, Alabama. The letter was in response to "A Call for Unity": a statement made by eight white Alabama clergymen against King and his methods, following his arrest, and became one of the most-anthologized statements of the civil rights movement. (19. May 1963)

American civil rights movement: James Meredith becomes the first black person to graduate from the University of Mississippi. (18. August 1963)

Syncom 2, the world's first geosynchronous satellite, is launched from Cape Canaveral on a Delta B booster. (26. July 1963)