Henkels & McCoy adds Corrosion Control and other Engineering services, having acquired F.W. Ringer Associates, an engineering firm... To handle the company’s growing needs, Henkels & McCoy Equipment Company, a wholly owned leasing operation is established... Arthur C. (Buck) Faust, a long time associate, partner and friend passes away. Jack Henkels met Buck when Faust was a college student and, recognizing his enormous talent, hired him on the spot. Buck rose to the position of Vice President.
Photo (above): The next generation of Henkels & McCoy draftsmen and engineers pose for posterity.

January 2
At the hamlet of Ap Bac, the Vietcong 514th Battalion and local guerrilla forces ambush the South Vietnamese Army's 7th division. For the first time, the Vietcong stand their ground against American machinery and South Vietnamese soldiers. Almost 400 South Vietnamese are killed or wounded. Three American advisors are slain.

April 10
The USS Thresher, a nuclear powered submarine, sinks off the coast of Cape Cod, killing all 129 onboard.

June 3
Pope John XXIII (right) dies and is succeeded June 21 by Cardinal Montini, who becomes Pope Paul VI.

June 26
During a visit to West Berlin, President Kennedy tells his audience, who are quite literally on the front line against communism that if the world wants to see freedom in action, let them come to Berlin. He ends the speech by exclaiming, "And, therefore, as a free man, I take pride in the words "Ich bin ein Berliner" (I am a Berliner).

June 16
Soviet cosmonaut Valentina Tereshkova, aboard the Vostok 6, becomes the first woman to visit outer space, although Jackie Gleason’s Ralph Kramden promised to send screen-wife Alice (Audrey Meadows) "to the moon" many times in the 1950s.

British Secretary of War (a post similar to Secretary of Defense) John Profumo resigns in the wake of a sex and national security scandal following an illicit affair with Christine Keeler, a teenaged model and showgirl who was simultaneously involved in a dalliance with the London-based Soviet naval attache.

September 7
A federal judge upholds the legality of NFL TV blackouts within a 75-mile radius of host city during home games.

October 6 SWEEP!
The Yankees are in the World Series once again; but this year they lose to the Dodgers in four straight.

November 22
President Kennedy is assassinated while riding in a motorcade, in Dallas, Texas. Lyndon Baines Johnson is sworn in as president aboard Air Force One as preparations are made to return the body of JFK to Washington. Witnessing the macabre ceremony is Jacqueline Kennedy, still wearing the blood spattered pink suit in which she accompanied her husband in the fateful motorcade. Americans sit transfixed as the unbelievable events of that awful weekend unfold before their eyes over live TV feeds. The nation's military is on full alert around the world, amid anxious rumors over who really killed Kennedy... and just what might happen next.

November 23
Lee Harvey Oswald, prime murder suspect and employee at the Texas School Book Depositary (a building from where shots were fired on November 22) insists to reporters that he was a "Patsy," set up to take the fall for the killing.

November 24
During a transfer to county jail, and while being escorted by several US Marshals and scores of Dallas police, Oswald is himself killed after being shot inside the basement garage of Dallas police headquarters by local club owner (and reputed low level mobster) Jack Ruby.

November 25
The former First Lady, Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy requests that her husband's funeral should be based on the ceremony for Abraham Lincoln, following his assassination, the nation's first, in April of 1865. The body of John Fitzgerald Kennedy is laid to rest on the crest of a hill in Arlington National Cemetery overlooking Washington DC.

PHOTO: CORBIS
November 29
A week after the assassination, Jacqueline Kennedy, in a four-hour interview with Life magazine journalist Theodore H. White, lays the foundation of the Kennedy legend, stating that the title song of the musical "Camelot" had become "an obsession with me" lately. She said that at night before bedtime, her husband had often played it, or asked her to play it, on an old Victrola in their bedroom. Mr. White quoted her as saying:  "And the song he loved most came at the very end of this record, the last side of Camelot, sad Camelot... 'Don't let it be forgot, that once there was a spot, for one brief shining moment that was known as Camelot.' The myth of Kennedy's Camelot became a magic moment in American history, when gallant men danced with beautiful women, when great deeds were done, when artists, writers and poets met at the White House and the barbarians beyond the walls were held back."

November 27
Addressing the Congress and the nation for the first time as president, Lyndon B. Johnson calls for passage of the civil rights bill as a monument to the slain Kennedy.
 

What's On TV
Apart from the actual assassination, the events of the weekend of November 22-25 are televised live from Dallas, New York and Washington without commercial interruption. There are non-stop reports and rumors and trivia and presidential anecdotes and fond memories as well as newly discovered assassination facts. There are man-in-the-street interviews with ordinary Americans, and citizen reaction from the capitals of Europe, Latin America and the world. Other highlights include suspect Lee Harvey Oswald's criminal arraignment on November 22, his televised press conference at Dallas Police headquarters on November 23, and the actual murder of Oswald by Dallas club owner Jack Ruby on November 24 during a routine transfer to county jail. The state funeral of President Kennedy provides the emotional, gut wrenching finale on November 25. John F. Kennedy Jr., three years old, salutes the catafalque bearing the body of this father (above, left). Viewers watch the events unfold with numbed nerves and cried-out eyes... Network offerings this year include The Beverly Hillbillies at numero uno, followed by Bonanza, The Dick Van Dyke Show, Petticoat Junction and The Andy Griffith Show.

ALSO IN 1963:
At the 1963 Grammys, Record of the Year is I Left My Heart in San Francisco by Tony Bennett... Album of the Year is, ironically, The First Family by Vaughn Meader, a comedy record made in 1962 which gently lampoons the Kennedy clan (The Grammys were awarded prior to November 22)... Song of the Year is What Kind of Fool Am I, by songwriters Leslie Bricusse and Anthony Newley.

In Britain...The Rolling Stones emerge as the anti-Beatles, with an aggressive, blues-derived style.

PLUS:
Disk storage for computers invented.

Home video recorder is developed.

First tape cassette audio recorder is marketed.

US Postal rates go up to five cents for the first ounce.

AT&T introduces touch-tone telephones. Beep-Bap-Bip-Bop.

Dr. Michael DeBakey uses an artificial heart to take over the functions of the heart during surgery.

The Supreme Court rules that reading the Bible in public schools is unconstitutional.

New York renames its Idlewild Airport in memory of the assassinated president. Henceforth, the facility will be known as John F. Kennedy International Airport, or simply JFK.

Congress votes to guarantee women equal pay for equal work.

New Hampshire runs the first state lottery in the United States.

The Best Picture Oscar goes to Tom Jones, a tale of lusty 18th century England, with Albert Finney in the title role.

Sports
Defending NBA Champs Boston Celtics beat the LA Lakers again (4-2)... In the Stanley Cup it's Toronto over Detroit (4-1)... In the NCAA Basketball Championship, it's white knuckles all around as Loyola beat Cincinnati 60-58 in overtime... The NCAA Football Champs are Texas (11-0-0).

Books
include James Baldwin, The Fire Next Time, e e cummings, 73 Poems, Sylvia Plath, The Bell Jar, Charles M. Schulz, Happiness is a Warm Puppy, John Updike, The Centaur, and Kurt Vonnegut, Cat's Cradle...The Feminine Mystique by Betty Friedan marks the beginning of the feminist movement.

Deaths
Literature loses writer W.E.B. Du Bois, poet Robert Frost, and novelist Aldous Huxley.