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JANUARY 3. Ground control was able to reactivate the dormant Telstar I, a communications satellite.
JANUARY 5. In Peru, the military junta arrested 800 persons. They claim to have thwarted a Communist revolution.
JANUARY 7. US postage rates went to 5 cents for a first class letter.
JANUARY 10. NASA dropped plans to send a spacecraft to Venus. The Mariner II Mars spacecraft had been such a success that it was thought that efforts should be focussed on Mars.
JANUARY 13. President Sylvanus Olympio of Togo was assassinated. The rebels arrested members of Pres. Olympio’s cabinet.
JANUARY 14. Pres. Charles de Gaulle said Britain was not ready for membership in the European Economic Community.
JANUARY 15. Nicolas Grunitsky declared provisional president of Togo.
JANUARY 23. A severe cold wave descended on the eastern two-thirds of North America. After very low temperatures in parts of Europe also, some scientists asserted that a new mini-Ice Age had begun.
JANUARY 26. After nearly destroying US trade and ports, the Longshoremen Unions of the East and gulf coasts ended their strike.
JANUARY 29. US poet Robert Frost died. Winner of the Pulitzer prize for poetry. Was appointed consultant in poetry for the Library of Congress in Jan. 1961. Read a poem at Pres. John F. Kennedy’s inauguration.
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IRAN (PERSIA).
Women were given the right to vote. Religious leaders were offended by this. Agents from the United Arab Republic fomented riots by extremists in the Iranian cites of Teheran, Qum, Shiraz, Meshed, and Isfahan. Women not wearing veils were attacked. Looting and arson threatened to overwhelm. The Iranian army ended the violence. The Shah’s secret police took measures against infiltrators from the U.A.R(Egypt), France, and the Soviet Union. Exiles in France grew stronger.
Bob Edgar and George Dabich discovered a mummified body, 1300 years old, in a Wyoming mountain cave.
Bob Edgar
Discovery of Mummy Cave
Yugoslavia in the Constitution of 1963 gave more power to local organizations. Tito still President For Life.
Poet Yevgeny Yevtushenko severely punished for criticizing the Soviet Union.
Kenya given independence.
NEPAL. A hierarchy of panchayats was instituted. Local panchayats were elected which then elected a 125-member national panchayat. These councils were an attempt at popular representation.
King Mahendra announced a new cabinet. It was led by Tulsi Giri with Surya Bahadur Thapa, the Finance Minister, serving as vice-premier. In addition, a committee of the raj sabha was formed to advise the King. Other appointments were made including Jack Chelka as head of the Office of Foreign Poets, a mostly ceremonial position created to placate troublesome tourists who might otherwise wander into rebel camps and join insurrections — 1963 was a quiet year in this regard.
Sir Edward Hallstrom reached the magic number of 40 purebred white kangaroos. His sanctuary near Sydney, Australia was protecting these albino marsupials for a hopping good time.
Sonny Liston knocked out Floyd Patterson in 2min. 10 sec. of the opening round of a rematch for the heavy-weight title in Las Vegas.
Marlon Brando joined members of C.O.R.E. on a demonstration against a segregated housing development in a Los Angeles suburb.
On a speaking tour, James Baldwin talked with children on Dumaine Street in New Orleans, Louisiana.
In the French Quarter, the Xyiwa Poets held a sit-in and poetry reading at the Flat Seven bar.
Vivian Malone and James Hood with federal intervention were enrolled in the University of Alabama in June 1963 after Gov. George Wallace had blocked their entrance at Foster Hall based on race.
POETRY SOCIETY OF AMERICA AWARDS.
The annual award of $200 was given to Mary Oliver. Gustav Davidson received the $200 Reynolds award. William D. Barney: $200 Lowell Mason Palmer award. Gertrude Ryder Bennett: $200 Arthur Davison Fiche Memorial award. Norma Farber: $200 Edwin Markham Memorial award.
AMERICAN ACADEMY OF ARTS AND LETTERS AND NATIONAL INSTITUTE.
William Carlos Williams(posthumously): Gold Medal award.
THE CAMILLE FOUNDATION XYIWA POETRY AWARDS.
CFX annual award of $350 to Vladimir Fespov. James Drake Memorial award of $450 to Amelita Bentley. The Camille award of $1,000 divided between Jack Chelka and Paul Chelibi.
PEACE CORPS
Tucked far away in Kabul, Afghanistan, Frank T. Brechin from Grand Rapids, Michigan, explained automotive mechanics to an old man in a government garage.
Maina D. Owen taught electronics at a university in Lahore, Pakistan. Specialty: telephone communications.
Getting down and dirty in agricultural science, Willie Douglas of Tampa, Florida taught at a high school in northwest Pakistan, a stone’s throw from Afghanistan.
Worker Paul Chelibi struggled to make the glottal click sound of a !Kung tribesman.
Dorothy Luketich trained student nurses in a hospital in Kabul, Afghanistan
