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1964 (MCMLXIV) was a leap year starting on Wednesday (the link is to a full 1964 calendar).
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January
January 7 - A British firm, the Leyland Motor Corp., announces the sale of 450 buses to the Cuban government, challenging the United States blockade of Cuba.
January 9 - Martyr's Day: Armed clashes between United States troops and Panamanian civilians in the Canal Zone precipitate a major international crisis and result in the deaths of 21 Panamanians and 4 U.S. soldiers.
January 12 - The predominantly Arab government of Zanzibar is overthrown by African nationalist rebels. A U.S. destroyer evacuates 61 U.S. citizens.
January 16 - John Glenn, the first American to orbit the earth, resigns from the space program and announces the next day that he will seek the Democratic nomination for U.S. Senator from Ohio.
January 23 - Arthur Miller's After the Fall opens on Broadway. A semi-autobiographical work, it will arouse controversy over his portrayal of late ex-wife Marilyn Monroe.
January 28 - A U.S. Air Force jet training plane that strays into East Germany, is shot down by Soviet fighters near Erfurt. All 3 crew men are killed.
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February
February 6 - Cuba cuts off the normal water supply to the United States naval base at Guantanamo Bay, in reprisal for the U.S. seizure 4 days earlier of 4 Cuban fishing boats off the coast of Florida.
February 26 - John Glenn slips on a bathroom rug in his Columbus, Ohio apartment and hits his head on the bathtub, injuring his left inner ear, and prompting him (later that week) to withdraw from the race for the Senate nomination.
February 29 - President Johnson announces that the United States has developed a jet airplane (the A-11), capable of sustained flight at more than 2,000 MPH and of altitudes of more than 70,000 feet.
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March
March 13 - Thirty-eight residents of a neighborhood in Queens, New York City, fail to respond to the cries of Kitty Genovese, 28, as she is being stabbed to death. The incident will become notorious.
March 26 - Defense Secretary Robert McNamara delivers an address that reiterates the United States' determination to give South Vietnam increased military and economic aid, in its war against the Communist insurgency.
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April
April 2 - Mrs. Malcolm Peabody, 72, mother of Governor Endicott Peabody of Massachusetts, is released on $450 bond after spending two days in jail in St. Augustine, Florida, because of her participation in an anti-segregation demonstration there.
April 4 - The Beatles hold the top five positions in the Billboard Top 40 singles in America, an unprecedented accomplishment. Owing mostly to the explosive growth, fragmentation, and marketing of popular music since, this is certain to never happen again. The top songs in America as listed on April 4, in order, are: "Can't Buy Me Love," "Twist and Shout," "She Loves You," "I Want to Hold Your Hand," and "Please Please Me."
April 4 - Three high school friends in Hoboken, N.J., open the first BLIMPIE on Washington St.
April 5 - Jigme Dorfi, Premier of the Himalayan kingdom of Bhutan, is shot dead by an unidentified assassin in Puncholing, near the Indian border.
April 8 - Four of five railroad operating unions strike against the Illinois Central Railroad without warning, to bring to a head the five-year dispute over railroad work rules.
April 8 - Gemini 1 is launched on the first unmanned test of the 2-man spacecraft.
April 16 - Sentences totalling 307 years are passed on 12 men who stole £2.6m in used bank notes, after holding up the night mail train travelling from Glasgow to London in August of 1963 - a heist that became known as the Great Train Robbery.
April 22 - The NY World's Fair opens to celebrate the 300th anniversary of New Amsterdam being taken over by British forces under the command of the Duke of York (later King James II) and being renamed New York in 1664. It will run until Oct. 18, 1964 and will reopen April 21, 1965, finally closing Oct. 17 of that year. Because there can only be one official world's fair in any one country within 10 years, and the previous officially sanctioned World's Fair was held in Seattle in 1962, this fair was never officially recognized and many countries declined to be represented.
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May
May 2 - Four hundred to 1,000 students march through Times Square, New York and another 700 in San Francisco, in the first major student demonstration against the Vietnam War. Smaller numbers also march in Boston, Seattle, and Madison, Wisconsin.
May 7 - A Pacific Air Lines Fairchild F-27 crashes near San Ramon, California, killing all 44 aboard; the FBI later reports that a cockpit recorder tape indicates that the pilot and co-pilot had been shot by a suicidal passenger.
May 7 - At a demonstration of mail rockets by Gerhard Zucker on the Hasselkopf mountain near Braunlage (Lower Saxonia, Germany), 3 persons are killed by the explosion of a rocket.
May 9 - South Korean President Chung Hee Park reshuffles his Cabinet, after a series of student demonstrations against his efforts to restore diplomatic and trade relations with Japan.
May 23 - Mrs. Madeline Dassault, 63, wife of a French plane manufacturer and politician, is kidnapped while leaving her car in front of her Paris home; she is found unharmed the next day in a farmhouse 27 miles from Paris.
May 23 - Pablo Picasso paints his fourth Head of a Bearded Man.
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June
June 2 - Senator Barry Goldwater wins the California Republican Presidential primary, making him the overwhelming favorite for the nomination.
June 2 - Five million shares of stock in the Communications Satellite Corporation (Comsat) are offered for sale at $20 a share, and the issue is quickly sold out.
June 9 - In Federal Court in Kansas City, Kansas, army deserter George John Gessner, 28, is convicted of passing United States secrets to the Soviet Union.
June 19 - Senator Edward Kennedy, 32, is seriously injured in a private plane crash at Southampton, Massachusetts; the pilot is killed.
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July
July 8 - U.S. military personnel announces that U.S. casualties in Vietnam have risen to 1,387, including 399 dead and 17 MIA.
July 20 - Vietnam War - Viet Cong forces attack a provincial capital, killing 11 South Vietnamese military personnel and 40 civilians (30 of which are children).
July 27 - Vietnam War: 5,000 more U.S. military advisers are sent to South Vietnam, bringing the total number of United States forces in Vietnam to 21,000.
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August
August 1 - The Final Looney Tune, "Senorella and the Glass Huarache", is released before the Warner Bros. Cartoon Division is shut down by Jack Warner.
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September
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October
October 15 - Craig Breedlove's jet-powered car Spirit of America goes out of control in Bonneville Salt Flats in Utah and makes skid marks 9.6 km long.
October 24 - Northern Rhodesia, a former British protectorate, becomes the independent Republic of Zambia, ending 73 years of British rule.
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November
November 1 - Mortar fire from North Vietnamese forces rains on the USAF base at Bien Hoa, South Vietnam, killing 4 U.S. servicemen, wounding 72, and destroying 5 B-57 jet bombers and other planes.
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December
December 1 - Vietnam War: U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson and his top-ranking advisers meet to discuss plans to bomb North Vietnam (after some debate, they agreed to enact a two-phase bombing plan).
December 18 - In the wake of deadly riots in January over control of the Panama Canal, the U.S. offers to negotiate a new canal treaty.
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Date unknown
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January
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February
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March
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April
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May
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June
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July
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August
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September
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October
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November
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December
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Unknown date
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January-April
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May-August
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