 | (prior to 11/22/63) President: John F Kennedy, Vice President: Lyndon B Johnson (11/22/63 until 1/20/65) President: Lyndon B Johnson, Vice President: None |
 | The population of the United States is 188,483,000 |
| National Debt is 310.3 Billion |
| Unemployment is 5.5% |
| Life Expectancy: 70.1 years |
| Family median income = $6,200 (up $200. from 1962) |
| Academy Award : Lawrence of Arabia (click to buy)  (Best Picture) |
| Grammy Award : I Left My Heart in San Francisco (click to buy) (Album) What Kind of Fool Am I (click to buy)  (Song) |
| Pulitzer Prize : The Reivers (click to buy)  (Fiction) |
| President John F Kennedy is shot and killed on November 22, 1963 in Dallas, TX while riding in a Presidential motorcade(read more at: Kennedy Assassination pages) |
| President Kennedy’s assassin Lee Harvey Oswald is arrested several hours later hiding in a movie theater in Dallas (read more at: Lee Harvey Oswald page) |
| Oswald is murdered two days later by Jack Ruby on national TV during his transfer to the County Jail (read more at: Lee Harvey Oswald page 3) |
| Lyndon Johnson is hastily sworn in as the 36th President |
| The US has no Vice President until 1965 when Hubert Humphrey was elected |
| Patsy Cline, country music superstar, is killed in a plane crash along with fellow performers Hawkshaw Hawkins and Cowboy Copas |
| The U.S. Supreme Court rules that the poor must have lawyers, paving the way for the Public Defenders Office |
| The Alcatraz Island federal penitentiary in San Francisco Bay is ordered shut by Attorney General Robert Kennedy |
| The longest running soap opera General Hospital debuts |
| The Coca-Cola Company announces its first diet drink, TAB cola |
| George C. Wallace is elected Alabama Governor on a platform which promised racial segregation |
| ZIP Codes are used for the first time in the U.S. |
| The United States, United Kingdom, and Soviet Union sign a nuclear test ban treaty |
| The Pro Football Hall of Fame opens in Canton, Ohio |
| The BBC television series Doctor Who airs it’s first episode |
| Instant Replay was invented by Tony Verna, a CBS-TV director |
| The Warren Commission is established by President Johnson to investigate the assassination of President Kennedy |
| The first woman in space was Valentina Vladimirovna Tereshkova aboard the USSR’s Vostok 6 spacecraft |
| The Beatles release I Want to Hold Your Hand and I Saw Her Standing There, in the US |
| Harvey Ball draws the now iconic smiley face symbol for an advertising campaign |
| Debuting on television were: My Favorite Martian, The Fugitive and Petticoat Junction |
| In movies a new genre emerged, the beach movie, with Beach Party being the first of many |
See also Celebrity Birthdays 1963
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