The Lucy Show,
Lucille Ball's follow-up to I Love Lucy, premiered on American TV on
CBS at 8:30 p.m. with the episode "Lucy Waits Up for Chris". Based on the
Irene Kampen's novel Life Without George, the show placed I Love Lucy stars Ball and
Vivian Vance in the roles of widow Lucy Carmichael and divorcee Vivian Bagley, along with children. The show would run for 6 seasons before ending its run on March 11, 1968.[4][5]
James Meredith, the first black student to enroll at the all-white
University of Mississippi, registered for classes while escorted by U.S. Marshals. Meredith's first class was in Colonial History, and only 12 of the 19 students registered attended.[7]
Four Soviet
Foxtrot submarines, armed with nuclear torpedoes, departed bases on the Kola Peninsula in anticipation of a confrontation with the United States over Cuba.[9]
A twin-engined
Saudi Air ForceFairchild C-123 Provider, said to have been sent by Prince Hassan to Royal supporters in Yemen, and laden with American-made arms and ammunition, defected to Egypt. Its three crew members were granted political asylum.[13]
Mercury-Atlas 8 (MA-8), designated Sigma 7, was launched from
Cape Canaveral with
astronautWally Schirra as the pilot for a scheduled six-orbit flight. Two major modifications had been made to the
Mercury spacecraft to eliminate difficulties that had occurred during the
John Glenn and
Scott Carpenter flights. The
reaction control system was modified to disarm the high-thrust jets and allow the use of low-thrust jets only in the manual operational mode to conserve fuel. A second modification involved the addition of two high frequency antennas mounted onto the retro package to assist and maintain
spacecraft and ground communication throughout this flight. Schirra termed his six-orbit mission a "textbook flight". About the only difficulty experienced was attaining the correct
pressure suit temperature adjustment. The astronaut became quite warm during the early orbits, but at a subsequent press conference he reported there had been many days at Cape Canaveral when he had been much hotter sitting under a tent on the beach. To study fuel conservation methods, a considerable amount of drifting was programed during the MA-8 mission. This included 118 minutes during the fourth and fifth orbits and 18 minutes during the third orbit. Since drift error was slight, attitude fuel consumption was no problem. At the start of the reentry operation there was a 78 percent supply in both the automatic and manual tanks, enabling Schirra to use the automatic mode during reentry. After a 9 hour and 13 minute
orbital flight, the MA-8 landed 275 miles (443 km) northeast of
Midway Island, 9,000 yards (8,200 m) from the prime recovery ship, the
USS Kearsarge (CV-33). Schirra stated that he and the spacecraft could have continued for much longer. The flight was the most successful to that time. Besides the camera experiment, nine ablative material samples were laminated onto the cylindrical neck of the spacecraft, and radiation-sensitive
emulsion packs were placed on each side of the astronaut's couch. The MA-8 launch was relayed via the
Telstar 1satellite to television audiences in Western Europe. Schirra was the fifth American astronaut, and ninth person, to travel into outer space.[8][17]
At a mechanical systems coordination meeting,
McDonnell presented its final evaluation of the feasibility of substituting straight tube brazed connections for threaded joints as the external connections on all components of the
Gemini spacecraft propulsion systems. McDonnell had begun testing the brazing process on June 26, 1962. Following its presentation, McDonnell was directed to make the change, which had the advantages of reducing leak paths and decreasing the total weight of propulsion systems.[6]
Manned Spacecraft Center (MSC) published the Gemini Program Instrumentation Requirements Document (PIRD), the basis for integrating the world-wide
Manned Space Flight Network to support the
Gemini program. In compiling PIRD, MSC had received the assistance of other
NASA installations and
Department of Defense components responsible for constructing, maintaining, and operating the network.[6]
In the United States, a
steam boiler explosion at a New York Telephone Company building in Manhattan killed twenty-one people and injured 70. The blast happened at 12:07 p.m. while employees were dining in the building's cafeteria, sending the boiler from the basement into the cafeteria, then out through a wall.[18]
U.S. baseball team the
San Francisco Giants beat the
Los Angeles Dodgers, 6–4, to win the deciding game of a best-of-three playoff for the
National League pennant. The Dodgers had a 4–2 lead going into the final inning, before the Giants tied the game and then went ahead, gaining the trip to the World Series.[19]
The National Assembly of France voted to censure Prime Minister
Georges Pompidou for his support of the direct election of the President, with 280 in favor in the 480 member body.[21] Pompidou resigned the next day, but would stay on while new elections were scheduled. The vote marked the only occasion, in the more than 50-year history of the Fifth Republic, that a government was brought down by a vote in Parliament.[22][23]
Two Saudi Arabian pilots landed an air force training plane in upper Egypt and were granted political asylum, the second such defection in two days.[24]
The first nuclear missile in Cuba was installed by the Soviet Union, as a warhead was attached to an R-12 rocket.[25]
McDonnell and
Lockheed reported on radiation hazards and constraints for Gemini missions at a Trajectories and Orbits Coordination meeting. McDonnell's preliminary findings indicated no radiation hazard for normal Gemini operations with some shielding; with no shielding the only constraint was on the 14-day mission, which would have to be limited to an altitude of 115 nautical miles (213 km; 132 mi). Lockheed warned that
solar flares would pose a problem at higher altitudes. Lockheed also recommended limiting operations to under 300 miles (480 km) pending more data on the new radiation belts created by the
Atomic Energy Commission's
Project Dominic in
July 1962.[6]
A
U.S. Air Force spokesman, Lt. Colonel Albert C. Trakowski, announced that special instruments on unidentified military test satellites had confirmed the danger that astronaut Walter M. Schirra, Jr., could have been killed if his MA-8 space flight had taken him above a 400-mile (640 km) altitude. The artificial radiation belt, created by the
U.S. high altitude nuclear test in July, sharply increases in density above 400-miles altitude at the
geomagnetic equator and reaches peak intensities of 100 to 1,000 times normal levels at altitudes above 1,000 miles (1,600 km).[8]
Dr.
Charles A. Berry, Chief of Aerospace Medical Operations, Manned Spacecraft Center, reported that preliminary
dosimeter readings indicated that astronaut Schirra had received a much smaller radiation dosage than expected.[8]
The first James Bond film, Dr. No, held its world premiere at the
London Pavilion, with
Sean Connery as Agent 007. The film premiered to the rest of the UK three days later, and would reach cinemas in the United States on
May 8, 1963.[29]
Mercury spacecraft No. 16, Sigma 7, was returned to Hangar S at Cape Canaveral for postflight work and inspection. It was planned to retain the Sigma 7 at Cape Canaveral for permanent display.[8]
A battalion of Special Forces (Saaqah), sent by Egypt to act as personal guards for new Yemeni leader
Abdullah as-Sallal, arrived at Hodeida during the
North Yemen Civil War.
The Chinese leadership convened to hear a report from
Lin Biao that PLA intelligence units had determined that Indian units might assault Chinese positions at Thag La on 10 October (
Operation Leghorn).[32] The Chinese leaders, on recommendation of the Central Military Council decided to launch a large-scale attack to punish perceived military aggression from India, resulting in the
Sino-Indian War.
The U.S. Committee on Overhead Reconnaissance pointed out that high-altitude photographs of Cuba had not been taken of the western end of the island since August 29, and recommended to the
White House that
U-2 overflights be made there to determine whether Soviet missiles were being put in place. Flights over west Cuba on October 14 would confirm the presence of offensive missiles.[33]
The
U.S. Marine Corps and
U.S. Navy suffered their first helicopter fatalities in Vietnam when a Marine Corps
UH-34 Seahorse crashed 15 miles (24 km) from
Tam Ky, South Vietnam, killing five Marines and two Navy personnel.[34]
The last foreign military personnel, including advisers of the U.S. Special Forces, left
Laos in accordance with the 75-day period specified in the July 23 "Declaration on the Neutrality of Laos".[35]
The Mercury-Atlas 8 (MA-8) press conference was held at the
Rice University in
Houston, Texas. Astronaut Wally Schirra expressed his belief that the spacecraft was ready for the 1-day mission, that he experienced absolutely no difficulties with his better than 9 hours of
weightlessness, and that the flight was of the "textbook" variety.[8]
The cabinet of Iran approved the "Law of Regional and State Associations", extending voting for, and service on, local councils to non-Muslims and females, with the only requirement being that a voter or officeholder believe in one of the "revealed religions". After protests by the Shi'ite Ayatollahs, the law was annulled on November 29.[38]
Venezuela's President
Romulo Betancourt issued Resolution #9, suspending constitutional rights and restricting freedom of the press.[39]
Died:
Clem Miller, 45, U.S. Representative from California, was killed along with two other people when his airplane crashed in bad weather near
Crescent City, California. Miller was on a trip as part of his campaign for re-election and died along with his 13-year-old son and the pilot.[40] Since it was too late to name a new candidate, Miller's name remained on the ballot and received the most votes.[41]
Henri Oreiller, 36, French alpine ski racer, killed when his Ferrari crashed at the Linas-Montlhéry autodrome[42]
In
North Korea, voters
went to the polls to vote "yes" or "no" on the 383 candidates for the 383 seats in the
Supreme People's Assembly. The Pyongyang government announced a 100 percent turnout (breaking the 1957 record of 99.99%) and 100 percent approval of the candidates (beating 99.92% in 1957); the 100% turnout and approval reports would follow the 1967, 1972, 1977, 1982 and 1986 votes, though in 1992, reported turnout was only 99.85%, albeit still with the 100% approval.[43]
The October 10 edition of the West German magazine Der Spiegel reached newsstands, with the article "Bedingt abwehrbereit" by Conrad Ahlers, about the
Bundeswehr's poor preparedness, causing the so-called
Spiegel affair.[44]
The wreck of the
Bremen cog, a ship built in 1380 when the area was ruled by the
Hanseatic League, was discovered in the Weser River during dredging operations.[45]
The nation of
Uganda became independent within the
Commonwealth of Nations, with
Milton Obote as the first Prime Minister, and the white British colonial administrator, Sir
Walter Coutts, as the first Governor-General. The following year, Uganda would become a republic, and Coutts would be replaced by a President, the former Bugandan King
Edward Mutesa II.[46][47]
Twenty-eight people were killed, and 62 injured, when the southbound Moscow-Vienna-Rome "Chopin Express" train collided with the northbound Budapest-Warsaw train that had derailed near Warsaw.[48]
At a
military parade in the Polish city of
Szczecin, a T-54 tank of the Polish People's Army hit a crowd of bystanders, killing seven children and injuring others.[49]
Mercury spacecraft No. 20 was delivered to Cape Canaveral for the
Mercury 9 (
Gordon Cooper) one-day mission, which would be launched on May 15, 1963.[8]
The
Sino-Indian War began as Chinese troops opened fire on Indian troops and a battle on the border of the world's two largest nations began.[50] India reported its losses at six dead and seven missing from the first day of fighting, with 11 wounded, while China reported more than 30 casualties.[51]
Anaasa won the 4.30, the last race ever to be run at
Hurst Park Racecourse, Surrey, before the course was sold and re-developed.
Died:Edmund H. Hansen, 67, American Academy Award-winning sound engineer
The
Second Vatican Council opened, under
Pope John XXIII.[52] The 2,500 bishops in attendance walked in a procession through St. Peter's Square and into the Basilica as part of the opening ceremonies.[53] Pope John would pass away the following year, and the last session of the Council would be closed by
Pope Paul VI on December 8, 1965.[54]
On his way from
Chennai to a visit to
Sri Lanka, India's Prime Minister
Jawaharlal Nehru remarked to reporters that his government had directed the Indian Army "to free our territory in the Northeast frontier", implying, incorrectly, that India had decided to engage China in a full-scale war.[55] On October 14, China's paper People's Daily would quote Nehru and tell its readers to expect an invasion of China by India.[50] One author would later write, "Nehru's casual statement only served to precipitate the Chinese attack on India."[56]
In what would be called the
Columbus Day Storm,
Typhoon Freda hit
Victoria, British Columbia, and other locations on the west coast of North America. At Oregon's Cape Blanco, an anemometer (minus one of its cups) registered wind gusts in excess of 145 mph (233 km/h); some reports put the peak velocity at 179 mph (288 km/h). The resultant damage was estimated at around $230 million to $280 million for California, Oregon and Washington combined.[57]
The
Bridge of the Americas opened in
Panama, exactly three years after construction began. With clearance of over 200 feet (61 m), it was the first to allow traffic to cross uninterrupted between Central America and South America because the bridge did not need to be moved. October 12 was chosen for the start and finish of construction in honor of the October 12, 1492, landfall of Christopher Columbus.[58]
Jazz bassist/composer
Charles Mingus gave a disastrous concert at Town Hall, New York City. Earlier in the day, Mingus had punched
Jimmy Knepper in the mouth while the two men were working together at Mingus's apartment, with the result that Knepper was unable to perform.
A treaty between
France and the tiny principality of
Monaco took effect, to stop wealthy French citizens from moving their residence to Monaco to avoid high taxes. Under Article 7, any French person who had not been "habitually resident in Monaco for five years" would be required to pay French taxes.[59]
The
Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) debuted a new children's television program on its nationwide affiliates, Misterogers, described initially in CBC's fall schedule preview as "a 15-minute puppet show" shown three days a week.[62] Hosted by
Fred Rogers, the show would soon be described as "one of the freshest, most intelligent puppet shows to come along in quite a while."[63] The host had appeared on
Pittsburgh as a local offering when educational television station
WQED went on the air on April 1, 1954, with Children's Corner and had continued until 1957 as "the community-educational station's most original and popular show".[64]
The National Committee of Liberation, an anti-apartheid paramilitary organization in
South Africa, destroyed an electrical transformer to cause a blackout in
Johannesburg in the most effective sabotage act by the NCL up to that time.[65]
At the National Photographic Interpretation Center (NPIC), analysis of the 928 images, taken the day before by the U-2 over flight, showed that offensive missiles and launchers had been placed in Cuba.[66]
Arthur C. Lundahl, the director of the United States imagery intelligence agency, NPIC, informed CIA Director
John McCone of the results of Mission 3101, reporting the discovery of
medium-range ballistic missile (MRBM) sites, discovering that photographs had "revealed an MRBM Launch Site and two new military encampments located along the southern edge of the
Sierra del Rosario in west central
Cuba".[68] National Security Adviser
McGeorge Bundy then woke up President Kennedy to advise him that missiles were in Cuba but were not yet operational. Kennedy ordered 17 military, political and diplomatic advisers, the ExComm, to assemble at the White House at 11:50 a.m.[69][70]
Nick Holonyak Jr., and S. F. Bevacqua, both engineers with the
General Electric Company, announced their discovery of the physical process that would make the
light emitting diode— the LED — practical, by submitting their paper "Coherent (Visible) Light Emission from Ga(As1−xPx) Junctions" to the weekly journal Applied Physics Letters, which would publish the work in its December 1 issue.[74] Although silicon diodes had been able to generate light on the infrared spectrum, it took a specific alloy of
gallium (Ga),
arsenic (As) and
phosphorus (P) to generate visible light; initially, LEDs were limited to red light, but the GaAsP system would later be perfected with nitrates to produce other primary colors, making it possible to generate the full spectrum.[75][76]
Joseph F. Shea of the Office of Manned Space Flight solicited suggestions from each of the
NASA Headquarters' Program Offices and the various NASA Centers on the potential uses and experiments for a crewed
space station. He said that a station was technologically feasible and could be placed in
Earth orbit as early as
1967.[77]
The Soviet Union increased its spying capability with the launch of the
Kosmos 10 satellite. For the first time, satellites had four cameras that were capable of being moved in order to obtain three-dimensional images.[78]
U.S. President Kennedy and Secretary of State
Dean Rusk met at the White House with Soviet Foreign Minister
Andrei Gromyko and Soviet Ambassador to the U.S.
Anatoly Dobrynin. Gromyko told Kennedy that Soviet operations in Cuba were purely defensive, and Kennedy did not tell Gromyko that the U.S. had discovered that the Soviets had nuclear missiles in Cuba.[69]
The Politburo of the Chinese Communist Party approved plans for General
Zhang Guohua to lead the
People's Liberation Army to launch a large self-defensive counterattack on India, to take place on October 20.[80]
Born:Min Ko Naing, Burmese student leader and political dissident; in
Yangon
Wesley L. Hjornevik, MSC Assistant Director for Administration, told MSC senior staff that the cut of $27,000,000 for MSC's FY 1963 budget for the Gemini program (from $687 million to $660 million) meant that the
paraglider,
Agena, and all
rendezvous equipment would have to be dropped from the program. The uncrewed
first Gemini flight was rescheduled for
December 1963, with the second two-man mission to follow three months later, and subsequent flights at two-month intervals. The first Agena targeting mission would happen no sooner than
August 1964. This four-month delay required a large-scale reprogramming of Gemini development work.[6]
U.S. President Kennedy met with the
Joint Chiefs of Staff to discuss the military options for responding to the missiles in Cuba. USAF Chief of Staff General
Curtis LeMay advocated bombing of the missile sites in Cuba, while Defense Secretary
Robert McNamara recommended a blockade of ships approaching the island.[81] Ultimately, Kennedy, who would spend the day at scheduled speeches in Ohio and Illinois, would opt to blockade Cuba rather than to start a war.[70]
McDonnell Aircraft Corporation reported that all tests had been completed for spacecraft 20, allocated for the Mercury 9 orbital mission.[8]
Born:Evander Holyfield, American boxer, undisputed World Heavyweight champion between 1990 and 1992, World Boxing Association champion three times between 1993 and 2001; in
Atmore, Alabama
In the
Sino-Indian War, a force of 30,000 Chinese troops stopped Indian troops' invasion and overran the outnumbered Indian force that had been ordered into the disputed area. Within days the Chinese Army had gained control of five bridges over the Namkha Chu River and by October 28 were 10 miles (16 km) inside India's territory.[82][83] The first wave of attacks began at 5:00 a.m.
Indian Standard Time, thirty minutes after Chinese radio broadcast an announcement of the victory.[84] The populations of the two nations (670 million for
China and 450 million for
India) represented one-third of the world's three billion people in 1962, prompting Newsweek magazine to headline an article in its October 29 edition, "A Third of the World at War". During the week that followed, it appeared that the number might increase to half of the world at war, with the
Soviet Union (210 million) and the
United States (180 million) in a showdown over Cuba, potentially bringing the total to 1.5 billion people at war in the world's four largest nations.
Both the United States and the Soviet Union conducted high-altitude nuclear tests, already scheduled, even as U.S. President Kennedy was deciding on a confrontation between the two nations over the missiles in Cuba. The U.S. exploded a weapon 91 miles (146 km) over the Pacific Ocean, and the USSR followed two days later with a blast 93 miles (150 km) over Kazakhstan. The Joint Chiefs of Staff raised the nuclear alert status to DEFCON 3.[85]
Ranger 5, a spacecraft designed to transmit pictures of the lunar surface to Earth stations during a period of 10 minutes of flight prior to impacting on the Moon, malfunctioned, ran out of power and ceased operation, after passing within 725 kilometres (450 mi) of the Moon.[86][87]
The sinking of the Norwegian passenger ship MV Sanct Svithun killed 33 of the 79 people on board. The ship had run aground off the Vikna Islands and was refloated, then sank as it got back underway.[88]
The
1962 Seattle World's Fair (officially, the "Century 21 Exposition") closed in Seattle after a six-month run.[89]
At 7:00 p.m. Washington time, U.S. President John F. Kennedy announced in a nationally broadcast address that "unmistakable evidence has established the fact that a series of offensive missile sites" had been established in Cuba by the Soviet Union "to provide a nuclear strike capability against the Western Hemisphere". He announced "a strict quarantine on offensive military equipment under shipment to Cuba" and warned that any launch of a nuclear missile from Cuba would require "a full retaliatory response upon the Soviet Union". Kennedy implored, "I call upon Chairman Khrushchev to halt and eliminate this clandestine, reckless and provocative threat to world peace and to stable relations between our nations."[90][91][92]
Colonel
Oleg Penkovsky, who had secretly been passing Soviet secrets to the United Kingdom, was arrested by the KGB. He would be convicted of treason and executed on May 16, 1963.[93]
The city of
Eden Prairie, Minnesota, a suburb in the Minneapolis-St. Paul metropolitan area, was incorporated.[94]
In the "
Spiegel affair", publisher
Rudolf Augstein of the West German news magazine Der Spiegel, was arrested along with Assistant Chief Editor Conrad Ahlers on charges of treason after the magazine's October 10 issue had published information about the NATO maneuver "Fallex 62". Der Spiegel had reported that the West German military was poorly prepared to defend against an invasion from the East.[44] Other arrests followed, leading to protests by West Germans against the suppression of freedom of the press. Augstein and Ahlers would be released on February 7, 1963.[96]
As the American blockade of Cuba from Soviet ships was set, the 450 ships of the U.S. Atlantic Fleet and 200,000 personnel prepared for a confrontation, including defense if the Soviets tried an airlift over the blockade.[97] The Soviet freighter Polotavia was identified as the first ship that would reach the quarantine line.[98]
Major General
Leighton Davis,
Department of Defense representative for Project Mercury Support Operations, reported that support operation planning was underway for the Mercury 1-day mission.[8]
Art Blakey began recording Caravan at the Plaza Sound Studio in New York City, his first album for Riverside Records, with whom he had signed earlier in the month.
Mars 2MV-4 No.1 (or Sputnik 22) was launched by the Soviet Union, with the intention of making a flyby of the planet
Mars and transmitting back images to the earth.[99] When the engines were reignited in order to take the probe from parking orbit toward Mars, the satellite exploded, and debris fell to earth for the next four months.[100]
The U.S. Navy blockade against Soviet ships began at 10:00 a.m. Washington, D.C. time (1500 hrs UTC and 6:00 p.m. in Moscow). Some of the Cuban-bound Soviet freighters altered their courses to avoid the confrontation, while others proceeded.[101][102]
At a meeting of the
United Nations Security Council, American Ambassador
Adlai Stevenson confronted Soviet Ambassador
Valerian Zorin with photographs of missile sites in Cuba and angrily asked, "Do you, Ambassador Zorin, deny that the USSR has placed and is placing medium and intermediate range missiles and sites in Cuba? Yes or no? Don't wait for the translation. Yes or no?" Zorin laughed and then said, "I am not in an American courtroom, sir, and therefore I do not wish to answer a question that is put to me in the fashion in which a prosecutor puts questions. In due course, you will have your reply."[104]
At 6:50 a.m., the American
destroyersUSS Joseph P. Kennedy, Jr. (DD-850) and the
USS John R. Pierce (DD-753) made the first enforcement of the blockade, stopping and boarding the Soviet-chartered ship Marcula, 400 miles (640 km) from Cuba. After spending two hours searching the Marcula and determining that its cargo of trucks, paper, sulfur and auto parts provided no threat, the Navy allowed the ship to proceed with its cargo.[105]
Abdul Monem Khan was appointed as the
Governor of East Pakistan by Pakistan's President,
Muhammad Ayub Khan. During his rule from 1962 to 1968, Governor Monem Khan's strict rule of the more than 60,000,000 East Pakistan residents eventually led to the province separating from the rest of Pakistan as the nation of
Bangladesh.[106]
Tropical Storm Harriet was first observed by the Joint Typhoon Warning Center, just off the east coast of
Thailand. It crossed into the Indian Ocean, and, during landfall its
storm surge, flooded the Laem Talumphuk peninsula in
Nakhon Si Thammarat Province. Typhoon Harriet killed 769 people, with another 142 missing and 252 seriously injured.[107]
The first ever proclamation of a
state of emergency in
India was made by President
Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan as Chinese troops continued their invasion. The emergency would not be rescinded until January 10, 1968. A state of emergency would be proclaimed two other times in the 20th century, on December 3, 1971, and on June 25, 1975.[109]
At 11:19 a.m. Washington time, USAF Major
Rudolf Anderson became the only combatant fatality of the
Cuban Missile Crisis when his U-2 airplane was shot down by a surface-to-air missile while he was flying over Cuba. Soviet Army Major Ivan Gerchenov had been ordered to fire missiles, from a station near the city of
Banes, at "Target Number 33".[110] On the other hand, Fidel Castro would say in 1964 that the Cubans, not the Soviets, had fired the missile, and a former Castro aide,
Carlos Franqui, would write in 1984 that Castro himself had pushed the button to launch the missile.[111] The Joint Chiefs recommended to President John F. Kennedy that the U.S. should attack Cuba within 36 hours to destroy the Soviet missiles. At Washington, General Taylor recommended an air attack on the Banes site, but immediate action was not taken.[112][113]
Hours later, the Soviet
submarine B-59 was detected by U.S. Navy destroyers in the Atlantic Ocean, and one of the ships began dropping explosive
depth charges to force the sub to surface. Thirty years later, a communications intelligence officer on the B-59 would report that Captain Valentin Savitsky ordered a nuclear-armed torpedo to be armed for firing at the U.S. ships, and that the second-in-command,
Vasily Arkhipov, persuaded Savitsky to surface instead.[114]
The
Cuban Missile Crisis came to an end when, at 5:00 p.m. Moscow time (10:00 a.m. in Washington),
Radio Moscow broadcast the text of the message from Soviet Prime Minister
Nikita Khrushchev to U.S. President
John F. Kennedy. "Dear Mr. President," Khrushchev's letter began, "I have received your message of October 27. I express my satisfaction and thank you for the sense of proportion you have displayed and for realization of the responsibility which now devolves on you for the preservation of the peace of the world." Khrushchev went on to say, "I regard with great understanding your concern and the concern of the United States people in connection with the fact that the weapons you describe as offensive are formidable weapons indeed. Both you and we understand what kind of weapons these are. In order to eliminate as rapidly as possible the conflict which endangers the cause of peace, to give an assurance to all people who crave peace, and to reassure the American people, who, I am certain, also want peace, as do the people of the Soviet Union, the Soviet Government, in addition to earlier instructions on the discontinuation of further work on weapons construction sites, has given a new order to dismantle the arms which you described as offensive, and to crate and return them to the Soviet Union."[115] In an agreement worked out by Khrushchev and Kennedy with the assistance of U.N. Secretary-General
U Thant, the U.S. pledged not to invade Cuba, and to remove Jupiter missiles that had been placed in
Turkey near its border with the USSR.[116]
In France, a
referendum was held to decide on whether the election of the President of France should be done directly through universal suffrage. The proposal for constitutional change was approved by 62.25% of those voting.[117]
The bodies of Lt. Günther Mollenhauer, and several other Germans shot down over the UK during the
Second World War, were disinterred from a local cemetery for re-burial at
Cannock Chase German war cemetery.
The British airline East Anglian Flying Services was renamed
Channel Airways.
Died:
Einar Gundersen, 66, Norwegian footballer who scored 26 goals for the Norway national team
On the eve of Halloween, Deputy U.S. Attorney General
Nicholas Katzenbach arrived at the
University of Mississippi in
Oxford and told students that anyone caught harassing
James Meredith would be subject to arrest and an appearance in federal court for
contempt of court. The unusual action came the day after "a firecracker barrage" was made on the dormitory where Meredith, the only African-American student to be enrolled at Ole Miss. Earlier, someone had smashed the window of a car in which Meredith was riding with four United States Marshals.[118]
United Nations Secretary-GeneralU Thant arrived in Havana for a two-day visit to meet with
Fidel Castro, and the two conferred the same day for more than two hours in order to pursue the UN's goal of defusing the
Cuban Missile Crisis.[119] At U Thant's request, the United States lifted its blockade of Cuba for 48 hours and discontinued overflights for the same period.[120]
The
apogee of the basic Gemini spacecraft orbit model was set at 167 nautical miles (192 mi) and the
perigee of the
elliptical orbit at 87 nautical miles (100 mi). The altitude of the
circular orbit of the
Agena target vehicle was to be 161 nautical miles (185 mi).[6]
^Block, Alex Ben; Wilson, Lucy Autrey (2010). George Lucas's Blockbusting: A Decade-by-Decade Survey of Timeless Movies Including Untold Secrets of Their Financial and Cultural Success.
HarperCollins. p. 428.
ISBN978-0-06-177889-6.
^Herzogenrath, Bernd. 2006. The Monstrous Body/Politics of Freaks in The Films of Tod Browning, in The Films of Tod Browning, editor Bernd Black Dog Publishing. London. p.11.
ISBN1-904772-51-X
^Crisp, Brian F. (2000). Democratic Institutional Design: The Powers and Incentives of Venezuelan Politicians and Interest Groups. Stanford University Press. p. 86.
^"Congressman's Plane Missing". Miami News. October 8, 1962. p. 1.
^"United States Congressional Serial Set, Serial No. 14939, Senate Documents Nos. 10-12". Government Printing Office. 2007. p. 301.
^Marsters, Jack (June 13, 1962). "Dial Turns". Montreal Gazette. p. 14.
^Gardiner, Bob (October 30, 1962). "Televiews". Ottawa Citizen. p. 21.
^Remington, Fred (April 10, 1963). "Fred Rogers Continues Unique TV Ministry— 'Children's Corner' Originator Seen Daily in Canada". Pittsburgh Press. p. 58.
^Verma, J.; et al. (2014). "Nitride LEDs based on quantum wells and quantum dots". In Huang, Jian-Jang (ed.). Nitride Semiconductor Light-Emitting Diodes (LEDs): Materials, Technologies and Applications.
Woodhead Publishing. p. 378.
^Elleman, Bruce (2001). Modern Chinese Warfare. Routledge. pp. 261–262.
^Prabhakar, Peter Wilson (2003). Wars, Proxy-wars and Terrorism: Post Independent India.
Mittal Publications. p. 55.
^Moltz, James (2011). The Politics of Space Security: Strategic Restraint and the Pursuit of National Interests. Stanford University Press. pp. 134–135.
^"Ranger 5 So Near, Yet So Far". Miami News. October 20, 1962. p. 3A.
The Lucy Show,
Lucille Ball's follow-up to I Love Lucy, premiered on American TV on
CBS at 8:30 p.m. with the episode "Lucy Waits Up for Chris". Based on the
Irene Kampen's novel Life Without George, the show placed I Love Lucy stars Ball and
Vivian Vance in the roles of widow Lucy Carmichael and divorcee Vivian Bagley, along with children. The show would run for 6 seasons before ending its run on March 11, 1968.[4][5]
James Meredith, the first black student to enroll at the all-white
University of Mississippi, registered for classes while escorted by U.S. Marshals. Meredith's first class was in Colonial History, and only 12 of the 19 students registered attended.[7]
Four Soviet
Foxtrot submarines, armed with nuclear torpedoes, departed bases on the Kola Peninsula in anticipation of a confrontation with the United States over Cuba.[9]
A twin-engined
Saudi Air ForceFairchild C-123 Provider, said to have been sent by Prince Hassan to Royal supporters in Yemen, and laden with American-made arms and ammunition, defected to Egypt. Its three crew members were granted political asylum.[13]
Mercury-Atlas 8 (MA-8), designated Sigma 7, was launched from
Cape Canaveral with
astronautWally Schirra as the pilot for a scheduled six-orbit flight. Two major modifications had been made to the
Mercury spacecraft to eliminate difficulties that had occurred during the
John Glenn and
Scott Carpenter flights. The
reaction control system was modified to disarm the high-thrust jets and allow the use of low-thrust jets only in the manual operational mode to conserve fuel. A second modification involved the addition of two high frequency antennas mounted onto the retro package to assist and maintain
spacecraft and ground communication throughout this flight. Schirra termed his six-orbit mission a "textbook flight". About the only difficulty experienced was attaining the correct
pressure suit temperature adjustment. The astronaut became quite warm during the early orbits, but at a subsequent press conference he reported there had been many days at Cape Canaveral when he had been much hotter sitting under a tent on the beach. To study fuel conservation methods, a considerable amount of drifting was programed during the MA-8 mission. This included 118 minutes during the fourth and fifth orbits and 18 minutes during the third orbit. Since drift error was slight, attitude fuel consumption was no problem. At the start of the reentry operation there was a 78 percent supply in both the automatic and manual tanks, enabling Schirra to use the automatic mode during reentry. After a 9 hour and 13 minute
orbital flight, the MA-8 landed 275 miles (443 km) northeast of
Midway Island, 9,000 yards (8,200 m) from the prime recovery ship, the
USS Kearsarge (CV-33). Schirra stated that he and the spacecraft could have continued for much longer. The flight was the most successful to that time. Besides the camera experiment, nine ablative material samples were laminated onto the cylindrical neck of the spacecraft, and radiation-sensitive
emulsion packs were placed on each side of the astronaut's couch. The MA-8 launch was relayed via the
Telstar 1satellite to television audiences in Western Europe. Schirra was the fifth American astronaut, and ninth person, to travel into outer space.[8][17]
At a mechanical systems coordination meeting,
McDonnell presented its final evaluation of the feasibility of substituting straight tube brazed connections for threaded joints as the external connections on all components of the
Gemini spacecraft propulsion systems. McDonnell had begun testing the brazing process on June 26, 1962. Following its presentation, McDonnell was directed to make the change, which had the advantages of reducing leak paths and decreasing the total weight of propulsion systems.[6]
Manned Spacecraft Center (MSC) published the Gemini Program Instrumentation Requirements Document (PIRD), the basis for integrating the world-wide
Manned Space Flight Network to support the
Gemini program. In compiling PIRD, MSC had received the assistance of other
NASA installations and
Department of Defense components responsible for constructing, maintaining, and operating the network.[6]
In the United States, a
steam boiler explosion at a New York Telephone Company building in Manhattan killed twenty-one people and injured 70. The blast happened at 12:07 p.m. while employees were dining in the building's cafeteria, sending the boiler from the basement into the cafeteria, then out through a wall.[18]
U.S. baseball team the
San Francisco Giants beat the
Los Angeles Dodgers, 6–4, to win the deciding game of a best-of-three playoff for the
National League pennant. The Dodgers had a 4–2 lead going into the final inning, before the Giants tied the game and then went ahead, gaining the trip to the World Series.[19]
The National Assembly of France voted to censure Prime Minister
Georges Pompidou for his support of the direct election of the President, with 280 in favor in the 480 member body.[21] Pompidou resigned the next day, but would stay on while new elections were scheduled. The vote marked the only occasion, in the more than 50-year history of the Fifth Republic, that a government was brought down by a vote in Parliament.[22][23]
Two Saudi Arabian pilots landed an air force training plane in upper Egypt and were granted political asylum, the second such defection in two days.[24]
The first nuclear missile in Cuba was installed by the Soviet Union, as a warhead was attached to an R-12 rocket.[25]
McDonnell and
Lockheed reported on radiation hazards and constraints for Gemini missions at a Trajectories and Orbits Coordination meeting. McDonnell's preliminary findings indicated no radiation hazard for normal Gemini operations with some shielding; with no shielding the only constraint was on the 14-day mission, which would have to be limited to an altitude of 115 nautical miles (213 km; 132 mi). Lockheed warned that
solar flares would pose a problem at higher altitudes. Lockheed also recommended limiting operations to under 300 miles (480 km) pending more data on the new radiation belts created by the
Atomic Energy Commission's
Project Dominic in
July 1962.[6]
A
U.S. Air Force spokesman, Lt. Colonel Albert C. Trakowski, announced that special instruments on unidentified military test satellites had confirmed the danger that astronaut Walter M. Schirra, Jr., could have been killed if his MA-8 space flight had taken him above a 400-mile (640 km) altitude. The artificial radiation belt, created by the
U.S. high altitude nuclear test in July, sharply increases in density above 400-miles altitude at the
geomagnetic equator and reaches peak intensities of 100 to 1,000 times normal levels at altitudes above 1,000 miles (1,600 km).[8]
Dr.
Charles A. Berry, Chief of Aerospace Medical Operations, Manned Spacecraft Center, reported that preliminary
dosimeter readings indicated that astronaut Schirra had received a much smaller radiation dosage than expected.[8]
The first James Bond film, Dr. No, held its world premiere at the
London Pavilion, with
Sean Connery as Agent 007. The film premiered to the rest of the UK three days later, and would reach cinemas in the United States on
May 8, 1963.[29]
Mercury spacecraft No. 16, Sigma 7, was returned to Hangar S at Cape Canaveral for postflight work and inspection. It was planned to retain the Sigma 7 at Cape Canaveral for permanent display.[8]
A battalion of Special Forces (Saaqah), sent by Egypt to act as personal guards for new Yemeni leader
Abdullah as-Sallal, arrived at Hodeida during the
North Yemen Civil War.
The Chinese leadership convened to hear a report from
Lin Biao that PLA intelligence units had determined that Indian units might assault Chinese positions at Thag La on 10 October (
Operation Leghorn).[32] The Chinese leaders, on recommendation of the Central Military Council decided to launch a large-scale attack to punish perceived military aggression from India, resulting in the
Sino-Indian War.
The U.S. Committee on Overhead Reconnaissance pointed out that high-altitude photographs of Cuba had not been taken of the western end of the island since August 29, and recommended to the
White House that
U-2 overflights be made there to determine whether Soviet missiles were being put in place. Flights over west Cuba on October 14 would confirm the presence of offensive missiles.[33]
The
U.S. Marine Corps and
U.S. Navy suffered their first helicopter fatalities in Vietnam when a Marine Corps
UH-34 Seahorse crashed 15 miles (24 km) from
Tam Ky, South Vietnam, killing five Marines and two Navy personnel.[34]
The last foreign military personnel, including advisers of the U.S. Special Forces, left
Laos in accordance with the 75-day period specified in the July 23 "Declaration on the Neutrality of Laos".[35]
The Mercury-Atlas 8 (MA-8) press conference was held at the
Rice University in
Houston, Texas. Astronaut Wally Schirra expressed his belief that the spacecraft was ready for the 1-day mission, that he experienced absolutely no difficulties with his better than 9 hours of
weightlessness, and that the flight was of the "textbook" variety.[8]
The cabinet of Iran approved the "Law of Regional and State Associations", extending voting for, and service on, local councils to non-Muslims and females, with the only requirement being that a voter or officeholder believe in one of the "revealed religions". After protests by the Shi'ite Ayatollahs, the law was annulled on November 29.[38]
Venezuela's President
Romulo Betancourt issued Resolution #9, suspending constitutional rights and restricting freedom of the press.[39]
Died:
Clem Miller, 45, U.S. Representative from California, was killed along with two other people when his airplane crashed in bad weather near
Crescent City, California. Miller was on a trip as part of his campaign for re-election and died along with his 13-year-old son and the pilot.[40] Since it was too late to name a new candidate, Miller's name remained on the ballot and received the most votes.[41]
Henri Oreiller, 36, French alpine ski racer, killed when his Ferrari crashed at the Linas-Montlhéry autodrome[42]
In
North Korea, voters
went to the polls to vote "yes" or "no" on the 383 candidates for the 383 seats in the
Supreme People's Assembly. The Pyongyang government announced a 100 percent turnout (breaking the 1957 record of 99.99%) and 100 percent approval of the candidates (beating 99.92% in 1957); the 100% turnout and approval reports would follow the 1967, 1972, 1977, 1982 and 1986 votes, though in 1992, reported turnout was only 99.85%, albeit still with the 100% approval.[43]
The October 10 edition of the West German magazine Der Spiegel reached newsstands, with the article "Bedingt abwehrbereit" by Conrad Ahlers, about the
Bundeswehr's poor preparedness, causing the so-called
Spiegel affair.[44]
The wreck of the
Bremen cog, a ship built in 1380 when the area was ruled by the
Hanseatic League, was discovered in the Weser River during dredging operations.[45]
The nation of
Uganda became independent within the
Commonwealth of Nations, with
Milton Obote as the first Prime Minister, and the white British colonial administrator, Sir
Walter Coutts, as the first Governor-General. The following year, Uganda would become a republic, and Coutts would be replaced by a President, the former Bugandan King
Edward Mutesa II.[46][47]
Twenty-eight people were killed, and 62 injured, when the southbound Moscow-Vienna-Rome "Chopin Express" train collided with the northbound Budapest-Warsaw train that had derailed near Warsaw.[48]
At a
military parade in the Polish city of
Szczecin, a T-54 tank of the Polish People's Army hit a crowd of bystanders, killing seven children and injuring others.[49]
Mercury spacecraft No. 20 was delivered to Cape Canaveral for the
Mercury 9 (
Gordon Cooper) one-day mission, which would be launched on May 15, 1963.[8]
The
Sino-Indian War began as Chinese troops opened fire on Indian troops and a battle on the border of the world's two largest nations began.[50] India reported its losses at six dead and seven missing from the first day of fighting, with 11 wounded, while China reported more than 30 casualties.[51]
Anaasa won the 4.30, the last race ever to be run at
Hurst Park Racecourse, Surrey, before the course was sold and re-developed.
Died:Edmund H. Hansen, 67, American Academy Award-winning sound engineer
The
Second Vatican Council opened, under
Pope John XXIII.[52] The 2,500 bishops in attendance walked in a procession through St. Peter's Square and into the Basilica as part of the opening ceremonies.[53] Pope John would pass away the following year, and the last session of the Council would be closed by
Pope Paul VI on December 8, 1965.[54]
On his way from
Chennai to a visit to
Sri Lanka, India's Prime Minister
Jawaharlal Nehru remarked to reporters that his government had directed the Indian Army "to free our territory in the Northeast frontier", implying, incorrectly, that India had decided to engage China in a full-scale war.[55] On October 14, China's paper People's Daily would quote Nehru and tell its readers to expect an invasion of China by India.[50] One author would later write, "Nehru's casual statement only served to precipitate the Chinese attack on India."[56]
In what would be called the
Columbus Day Storm,
Typhoon Freda hit
Victoria, British Columbia, and other locations on the west coast of North America. At Oregon's Cape Blanco, an anemometer (minus one of its cups) registered wind gusts in excess of 145 mph (233 km/h); some reports put the peak velocity at 179 mph (288 km/h). The resultant damage was estimated at around $230 million to $280 million for California, Oregon and Washington combined.[57]
The
Bridge of the Americas opened in
Panama, exactly three years after construction began. With clearance of over 200 feet (61 m), it was the first to allow traffic to cross uninterrupted between Central America and South America because the bridge did not need to be moved. October 12 was chosen for the start and finish of construction in honor of the October 12, 1492, landfall of Christopher Columbus.[58]
Jazz bassist/composer
Charles Mingus gave a disastrous concert at Town Hall, New York City. Earlier in the day, Mingus had punched
Jimmy Knepper in the mouth while the two men were working together at Mingus's apartment, with the result that Knepper was unable to perform.
A treaty between
France and the tiny principality of
Monaco took effect, to stop wealthy French citizens from moving their residence to Monaco to avoid high taxes. Under Article 7, any French person who had not been "habitually resident in Monaco for five years" would be required to pay French taxes.[59]
The
Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) debuted a new children's television program on its nationwide affiliates, Misterogers, described initially in CBC's fall schedule preview as "a 15-minute puppet show" shown three days a week.[62] Hosted by
Fred Rogers, the show would soon be described as "one of the freshest, most intelligent puppet shows to come along in quite a while."[63] The host had appeared on
Pittsburgh as a local offering when educational television station
WQED went on the air on April 1, 1954, with Children's Corner and had continued until 1957 as "the community-educational station's most original and popular show".[64]
The National Committee of Liberation, an anti-apartheid paramilitary organization in
South Africa, destroyed an electrical transformer to cause a blackout in
Johannesburg in the most effective sabotage act by the NCL up to that time.[65]
At the National Photographic Interpretation Center (NPIC), analysis of the 928 images, taken the day before by the U-2 over flight, showed that offensive missiles and launchers had been placed in Cuba.[66]
Arthur C. Lundahl, the director of the United States imagery intelligence agency, NPIC, informed CIA Director
John McCone of the results of Mission 3101, reporting the discovery of
medium-range ballistic missile (MRBM) sites, discovering that photographs had "revealed an MRBM Launch Site and two new military encampments located along the southern edge of the
Sierra del Rosario in west central
Cuba".[68] National Security Adviser
McGeorge Bundy then woke up President Kennedy to advise him that missiles were in Cuba but were not yet operational. Kennedy ordered 17 military, political and diplomatic advisers, the ExComm, to assemble at the White House at 11:50 a.m.[69][70]
Nick Holonyak Jr., and S. F. Bevacqua, both engineers with the
General Electric Company, announced their discovery of the physical process that would make the
light emitting diode— the LED — practical, by submitting their paper "Coherent (Visible) Light Emission from Ga(As1−xPx) Junctions" to the weekly journal Applied Physics Letters, which would publish the work in its December 1 issue.[74] Although silicon diodes had been able to generate light on the infrared spectrum, it took a specific alloy of
gallium (Ga),
arsenic (As) and
phosphorus (P) to generate visible light; initially, LEDs were limited to red light, but the GaAsP system would later be perfected with nitrates to produce other primary colors, making it possible to generate the full spectrum.[75][76]
Joseph F. Shea of the Office of Manned Space Flight solicited suggestions from each of the
NASA Headquarters' Program Offices and the various NASA Centers on the potential uses and experiments for a crewed
space station. He said that a station was technologically feasible and could be placed in
Earth orbit as early as
1967.[77]
The Soviet Union increased its spying capability with the launch of the
Kosmos 10 satellite. For the first time, satellites had four cameras that were capable of being moved in order to obtain three-dimensional images.[78]
U.S. President Kennedy and Secretary of State
Dean Rusk met at the White House with Soviet Foreign Minister
Andrei Gromyko and Soviet Ambassador to the U.S.
Anatoly Dobrynin. Gromyko told Kennedy that Soviet operations in Cuba were purely defensive, and Kennedy did not tell Gromyko that the U.S. had discovered that the Soviets had nuclear missiles in Cuba.[69]
The Politburo of the Chinese Communist Party approved plans for General
Zhang Guohua to lead the
People's Liberation Army to launch a large self-defensive counterattack on India, to take place on October 20.[80]
Born:Min Ko Naing, Burmese student leader and political dissident; in
Yangon
Wesley L. Hjornevik, MSC Assistant Director for Administration, told MSC senior staff that the cut of $27,000,000 for MSC's FY 1963 budget for the Gemini program (from $687 million to $660 million) meant that the
paraglider,
Agena, and all
rendezvous equipment would have to be dropped from the program. The uncrewed
first Gemini flight was rescheduled for
December 1963, with the second two-man mission to follow three months later, and subsequent flights at two-month intervals. The first Agena targeting mission would happen no sooner than
August 1964. This four-month delay required a large-scale reprogramming of Gemini development work.[6]
U.S. President Kennedy met with the
Joint Chiefs of Staff to discuss the military options for responding to the missiles in Cuba. USAF Chief of Staff General
Curtis LeMay advocated bombing of the missile sites in Cuba, while Defense Secretary
Robert McNamara recommended a blockade of ships approaching the island.[81] Ultimately, Kennedy, who would spend the day at scheduled speeches in Ohio and Illinois, would opt to blockade Cuba rather than to start a war.[70]
McDonnell Aircraft Corporation reported that all tests had been completed for spacecraft 20, allocated for the Mercury 9 orbital mission.[8]
Born:Evander Holyfield, American boxer, undisputed World Heavyweight champion between 1990 and 1992, World Boxing Association champion three times between 1993 and 2001; in
Atmore, Alabama
In the
Sino-Indian War, a force of 30,000 Chinese troops stopped Indian troops' invasion and overran the outnumbered Indian force that had been ordered into the disputed area. Within days the Chinese Army had gained control of five bridges over the Namkha Chu River and by October 28 were 10 miles (16 km) inside India's territory.[82][83] The first wave of attacks began at 5:00 a.m.
Indian Standard Time, thirty minutes after Chinese radio broadcast an announcement of the victory.[84] The populations of the two nations (670 million for
China and 450 million for
India) represented one-third of the world's three billion people in 1962, prompting Newsweek magazine to headline an article in its October 29 edition, "A Third of the World at War". During the week that followed, it appeared that the number might increase to half of the world at war, with the
Soviet Union (210 million) and the
United States (180 million) in a showdown over Cuba, potentially bringing the total to 1.5 billion people at war in the world's four largest nations.
Both the United States and the Soviet Union conducted high-altitude nuclear tests, already scheduled, even as U.S. President Kennedy was deciding on a confrontation between the two nations over the missiles in Cuba. The U.S. exploded a weapon 91 miles (146 km) over the Pacific Ocean, and the USSR followed two days later with a blast 93 miles (150 km) over Kazakhstan. The Joint Chiefs of Staff raised the nuclear alert status to DEFCON 3.[85]
Ranger 5, a spacecraft designed to transmit pictures of the lunar surface to Earth stations during a period of 10 minutes of flight prior to impacting on the Moon, malfunctioned, ran out of power and ceased operation, after passing within 725 kilometres (450 mi) of the Moon.[86][87]
The sinking of the Norwegian passenger ship MV Sanct Svithun killed 33 of the 79 people on board. The ship had run aground off the Vikna Islands and was refloated, then sank as it got back underway.[88]
The
1962 Seattle World's Fair (officially, the "Century 21 Exposition") closed in Seattle after a six-month run.[89]
At 7:00 p.m. Washington time, U.S. President John F. Kennedy announced in a nationally broadcast address that "unmistakable evidence has established the fact that a series of offensive missile sites" had been established in Cuba by the Soviet Union "to provide a nuclear strike capability against the Western Hemisphere". He announced "a strict quarantine on offensive military equipment under shipment to Cuba" and warned that any launch of a nuclear missile from Cuba would require "a full retaliatory response upon the Soviet Union". Kennedy implored, "I call upon Chairman Khrushchev to halt and eliminate this clandestine, reckless and provocative threat to world peace and to stable relations between our nations."[90][91][92]
Colonel
Oleg Penkovsky, who had secretly been passing Soviet secrets to the United Kingdom, was arrested by the KGB. He would be convicted of treason and executed on May 16, 1963.[93]
The city of
Eden Prairie, Minnesota, a suburb in the Minneapolis-St. Paul metropolitan area, was incorporated.[94]
In the "
Spiegel affair", publisher
Rudolf Augstein of the West German news magazine Der Spiegel, was arrested along with Assistant Chief Editor Conrad Ahlers on charges of treason after the magazine's October 10 issue had published information about the NATO maneuver "Fallex 62". Der Spiegel had reported that the West German military was poorly prepared to defend against an invasion from the East.[44] Other arrests followed, leading to protests by West Germans against the suppression of freedom of the press. Augstein and Ahlers would be released on February 7, 1963.[96]
As the American blockade of Cuba from Soviet ships was set, the 450 ships of the U.S. Atlantic Fleet and 200,000 personnel prepared for a confrontation, including defense if the Soviets tried an airlift over the blockade.[97] The Soviet freighter Polotavia was identified as the first ship that would reach the quarantine line.[98]
Major General
Leighton Davis,
Department of Defense representative for Project Mercury Support Operations, reported that support operation planning was underway for the Mercury 1-day mission.[8]
Art Blakey began recording Caravan at the Plaza Sound Studio in New York City, his first album for Riverside Records, with whom he had signed earlier in the month.
Mars 2MV-4 No.1 (or Sputnik 22) was launched by the Soviet Union, with the intention of making a flyby of the planet
Mars and transmitting back images to the earth.[99] When the engines were reignited in order to take the probe from parking orbit toward Mars, the satellite exploded, and debris fell to earth for the next four months.[100]
The U.S. Navy blockade against Soviet ships began at 10:00 a.m. Washington, D.C. time (1500 hrs UTC and 6:00 p.m. in Moscow). Some of the Cuban-bound Soviet freighters altered their courses to avoid the confrontation, while others proceeded.[101][102]
At a meeting of the
United Nations Security Council, American Ambassador
Adlai Stevenson confronted Soviet Ambassador
Valerian Zorin with photographs of missile sites in Cuba and angrily asked, "Do you, Ambassador Zorin, deny that the USSR has placed and is placing medium and intermediate range missiles and sites in Cuba? Yes or no? Don't wait for the translation. Yes or no?" Zorin laughed and then said, "I am not in an American courtroom, sir, and therefore I do not wish to answer a question that is put to me in the fashion in which a prosecutor puts questions. In due course, you will have your reply."[104]
At 6:50 a.m., the American
destroyersUSS Joseph P. Kennedy, Jr. (DD-850) and the
USS John R. Pierce (DD-753) made the first enforcement of the blockade, stopping and boarding the Soviet-chartered ship Marcula, 400 miles (640 km) from Cuba. After spending two hours searching the Marcula and determining that its cargo of trucks, paper, sulfur and auto parts provided no threat, the Navy allowed the ship to proceed with its cargo.[105]
Abdul Monem Khan was appointed as the
Governor of East Pakistan by Pakistan's President,
Muhammad Ayub Khan. During his rule from 1962 to 1968, Governor Monem Khan's strict rule of the more than 60,000,000 East Pakistan residents eventually led to the province separating from the rest of Pakistan as the nation of
Bangladesh.[106]
Tropical Storm Harriet was first observed by the Joint Typhoon Warning Center, just off the east coast of
Thailand. It crossed into the Indian Ocean, and, during landfall its
storm surge, flooded the Laem Talumphuk peninsula in
Nakhon Si Thammarat Province. Typhoon Harriet killed 769 people, with another 142 missing and 252 seriously injured.[107]
The first ever proclamation of a
state of emergency in
India was made by President
Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan as Chinese troops continued their invasion. The emergency would not be rescinded until January 10, 1968. A state of emergency would be proclaimed two other times in the 20th century, on December 3, 1971, and on June 25, 1975.[109]
At 11:19 a.m. Washington time, USAF Major
Rudolf Anderson became the only combatant fatality of the
Cuban Missile Crisis when his U-2 airplane was shot down by a surface-to-air missile while he was flying over Cuba. Soviet Army Major Ivan Gerchenov had been ordered to fire missiles, from a station near the city of
Banes, at "Target Number 33".[110] On the other hand, Fidel Castro would say in 1964 that the Cubans, not the Soviets, had fired the missile, and a former Castro aide,
Carlos Franqui, would write in 1984 that Castro himself had pushed the button to launch the missile.[111] The Joint Chiefs recommended to President John F. Kennedy that the U.S. should attack Cuba within 36 hours to destroy the Soviet missiles. At Washington, General Taylor recommended an air attack on the Banes site, but immediate action was not taken.[112][113]
Hours later, the Soviet
submarine B-59 was detected by U.S. Navy destroyers in the Atlantic Ocean, and one of the ships began dropping explosive
depth charges to force the sub to surface. Thirty years later, a communications intelligence officer on the B-59 would report that Captain Valentin Savitsky ordered a nuclear-armed torpedo to be armed for firing at the U.S. ships, and that the second-in-command,
Vasily Arkhipov, persuaded Savitsky to surface instead.[114]
The
Cuban Missile Crisis came to an end when, at 5:00 p.m. Moscow time (10:00 a.m. in Washington),
Radio Moscow broadcast the text of the message from Soviet Prime Minister
Nikita Khrushchev to U.S. President
John F. Kennedy. "Dear Mr. President," Khrushchev's letter began, "I have received your message of October 27. I express my satisfaction and thank you for the sense of proportion you have displayed and for realization of the responsibility which now devolves on you for the preservation of the peace of the world." Khrushchev went on to say, "I regard with great understanding your concern and the concern of the United States people in connection with the fact that the weapons you describe as offensive are formidable weapons indeed. Both you and we understand what kind of weapons these are. In order to eliminate as rapidly as possible the conflict which endangers the cause of peace, to give an assurance to all people who crave peace, and to reassure the American people, who, I am certain, also want peace, as do the people of the Soviet Union, the Soviet Government, in addition to earlier instructions on the discontinuation of further work on weapons construction sites, has given a new order to dismantle the arms which you described as offensive, and to crate and return them to the Soviet Union."[115] In an agreement worked out by Khrushchev and Kennedy with the assistance of U.N. Secretary-General
U Thant, the U.S. pledged not to invade Cuba, and to remove Jupiter missiles that had been placed in
Turkey near its border with the USSR.[116]
In France, a
referendum was held to decide on whether the election of the President of France should be done directly through universal suffrage. The proposal for constitutional change was approved by 62.25% of those voting.[117]
The bodies of Lt. Günther Mollenhauer, and several other Germans shot down over the UK during the
Second World War, were disinterred from a local cemetery for re-burial at
Cannock Chase German war cemetery.
The British airline East Anglian Flying Services was renamed
Channel Airways.
Died:
Einar Gundersen, 66, Norwegian footballer who scored 26 goals for the Norway national team
On the eve of Halloween, Deputy U.S. Attorney General
Nicholas Katzenbach arrived at the
University of Mississippi in
Oxford and told students that anyone caught harassing
James Meredith would be subject to arrest and an appearance in federal court for
contempt of court. The unusual action came the day after "a firecracker barrage" was made on the dormitory where Meredith, the only African-American student to be enrolled at Ole Miss. Earlier, someone had smashed the window of a car in which Meredith was riding with four United States Marshals.[118]
United Nations Secretary-GeneralU Thant arrived in Havana for a two-day visit to meet with
Fidel Castro, and the two conferred the same day for more than two hours in order to pursue the UN's goal of defusing the
Cuban Missile Crisis.[119] At U Thant's request, the United States lifted its blockade of Cuba for 48 hours and discontinued overflights for the same period.[120]
The
apogee of the basic Gemini spacecraft orbit model was set at 167 nautical miles (192 mi) and the
perigee of the
elliptical orbit at 87 nautical miles (100 mi). The altitude of the
circular orbit of the
Agena target vehicle was to be 161 nautical miles (185 mi).[6]
^Block, Alex Ben; Wilson, Lucy Autrey (2010). George Lucas's Blockbusting: A Decade-by-Decade Survey of Timeless Movies Including Untold Secrets of Their Financial and Cultural Success.
HarperCollins. p. 428.
ISBN978-0-06-177889-6.
^Herzogenrath, Bernd. 2006. The Monstrous Body/Politics of Freaks in The Films of Tod Browning, in The Films of Tod Browning, editor Bernd Black Dog Publishing. London. p.11.
ISBN1-904772-51-X
^Crisp, Brian F. (2000). Democratic Institutional Design: The Powers and Incentives of Venezuelan Politicians and Interest Groups. Stanford University Press. p. 86.
^"Congressman's Plane Missing". Miami News. October 8, 1962. p. 1.
^"United States Congressional Serial Set, Serial No. 14939, Senate Documents Nos. 10-12". Government Printing Office. 2007. p. 301.
^Marsters, Jack (June 13, 1962). "Dial Turns". Montreal Gazette. p. 14.
^Gardiner, Bob (October 30, 1962). "Televiews". Ottawa Citizen. p. 21.
^Remington, Fred (April 10, 1963). "Fred Rogers Continues Unique TV Ministry— 'Children's Corner' Originator Seen Daily in Canada". Pittsburgh Press. p. 58.
^Verma, J.; et al. (2014). "Nitride LEDs based on quantum wells and quantum dots". In Huang, Jian-Jang (ed.). Nitride Semiconductor Light-Emitting Diodes (LEDs): Materials, Technologies and Applications.
Woodhead Publishing. p. 378.
^Elleman, Bruce (2001). Modern Chinese Warfare. Routledge. pp. 261–262.
^Prabhakar, Peter Wilson (2003). Wars, Proxy-wars and Terrorism: Post Independent India.
Mittal Publications. p. 55.
^Moltz, James (2011). The Politics of Space Security: Strategic Restraint and the Pursuit of National Interests. Stanford University Press. pp. 134–135.
^"Ranger 5 So Near, Yet So Far". Miami News. October 20, 1962. p. 3A.