WHAT ALL HAPPENED APRIL TO AUGUST 1963
Find out what all happened April to August 1963

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. pens his Letter from Birmingham Jail while incarcerated in Birmingham, Alabama for protesting against segregation. (16. April 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)

The iconic Bluenose II was launched in Lunenburg, Nova Scotia. The schooner is a major Canadian symbol. (24. July 1963)

The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development votes to admit Japan. (26. July 1963)

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

The so-called "red telephone" is established between the Soviet Union and the United States following the Cuban Missile Crisis. (20. June 1963)

The British Secretary of State for War, John Profumo, resigns in a sex scandal known as the Profumo affair. (5. June 1963)

Kenya gains internal self-rule (Madaraka Day). (1. June 1963)

129 American sailors die when the submarine USS Thresher sinks at sea. (10. April 1963)

North Borneo (now Sabah) achieve a self governance. (31. August 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)

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 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)

Sarawak achieve independence. (22. July 1963)

The Bristol Bus Boycott is held in Bristol to protest the Bristol Omnibus Company's refusal to employ Black or Asian bus crews, drawing national attention to racial discrimination in the United Kingdom. (30. April 1963)

ZIP codes are introduced for United States mail. (1. July 1963)

Kuwait joins the United Nations. (14. May 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)

16-year-old Pauline Reade disappears on her way to a dance at the British Railways Club in Gorton, England, the first victim in the Moors murders. (12. July 1963)

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