At the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., Leonardo da Vinci’s masterpiece, the Mona Lisa, is exhibited for the first time in America. Over 2,000 dignitaries, including President John F. Kennedy, came out that evening to view the famous painting. The next day, the exhibit opened to the public, and during the next three weeks an estimated 500,000 people came to see it. The painting then traveled to New York City’s Metropolitan Museum of Art, where it was seen by another million people.

On January 14, 1963, George Wallace is inaugurated as the governor of Alabama, promising his followers, “Segregation now, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever!” His inauguration speech was written by Ku Klux Klan leader Asa Carter, who later reformed his white supremacist beliefs and wrote The Education of Little Tree under the pseudonym of Forrest Carter. (The book, which gives a fictitious account of Carter’s upbringing by a Scotch-Irish moonshiner and a Cherokee grandmother, poignantly describes the difficulties faced by Native Americans in American society.)

On February 11, 1963, Julia Child’s “The French Chef” debuts on public television in the U.S., introducing French cuisine to Americans and creating the cooking world’s first television star. The first episode kicks off with Child stirring the contents of a large steaming pot of boeuf bourguignon, intoning, “French beef stew in red wine… It’s a perfectly delicious dish.”

On February 19, 1963, Betty Friedan's book The Feminine Mystique is published, shaking the ground beneath an American society rooted in a myth of pleasant domesticity and supported by the physical and emotional labor of women.

March 5, 1963: the Hula Hoop, a hip-swiveling toy that became a huge fad across America when it was first marketed by Wham-O in 1958, is patented by the company’s co-founder, Arthur “Spud” Melin. An estimated 25 million Hula Hoops were sold in its first four months of production alone.

Alcatraz Prison in San Francisco's Bay closes down and transfers its last prisoners. At its peak period of use in 1950s, “The Rock," or "America’s Devil Island," housed over 200 inmates at the maximum-security facility. Alcatraz remains an icon of American prisons for its harsh conditions and record for being inescapable.

On April 1, 1963, the ABC television network airs the premiere episode of General Hospital, the daytime drama that will become the network’s most enduring soap opera and the longest-running serial program produced in Hollywood. On the same day, rival network NBC debuts its own medical-themed soap opera, The Doctors.

On April 7, 1963, a new Yugoslav constitution proclaims Tito the president for life of the newly named Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia.

On April 10, 1963, the USS Thresher, an atomic submarine, sinks in the Atlantic Ocean, killing the entire crew. One hundred and twenty-nine sailors and civilians were lost when the sub unexpectedly plunged to the sea floor roughly 300 miles off the coast of New England.

On April 12, 1963, Good Friday, the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., is arrested and jailed for a campaign of protests, marches and sit-ins against segregation in Birmingham, Alabama. The actions, orchestrated with his Southern Christian Leadership Conference and their partners in the Alabama Christian Movement for Human Rights, had begun a little over a week earlier, on April 3.

On April 16, 1963, days after being jailed in Birmingham, Alabama, for a series of anti-segregation protests, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. pens a response to his critics on some scraps of paper. This open letter, now known as his “Letter from a Birmingham Jail,” offered a forceful defense of the protest campaign. It is now regarded as one of the greatest texts of the American civil rights movement.

After enduring a brief but grueling stint as a Bunny in Manhattan's Playboy Club, feminist writer Gloria Steinem publishes the first half of her landmark account, "A Bunny's Tale," in SHOW magazine on May 1, 1963. Steinem's undercover reporting increased her profile and stripped back the glamorous facade of Hugh Hefner's empire to reveal a world of misogyny and exploitation.

On May 2, 1963, in Birmingham, Alabama, more than 1,000 Black school children march through the city in a demonstration against segregation. The goal of the non-violent demonstration, which became known as the "Children’s Crusade" and "Children’s March," was to provoke the city’s civic and business leaders to agree to desegregate.

On May 8, 1963, with the American release of Dr. No, North American moviegoers get their first look down the barrel of a gun—at the super-spy James Bond (codename: 007), the immortal character created by Ian Fleming in his now-famous series of novels and portrayed onscreen by the relatively unknown Scottish actor Sean Connery.

On May 12, 1963, the young and unknown Bob Dylan walked off the set of "The Ed Sullivan Show," the country’s highest-rated variety TV show, after network censors rejected the song he planned on performing.

On May 27, 1963, Bob Dylan releases his second album, The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan, which goes on to transform him from a popular local act to a global phenomenon.

On June 5, 1963, British Secretary of War John Profumo resigns his post following revelations that he had lied to the House of Commons about his sexual affair with Christine Keeler, an alleged prostitute. At the time of the affair, Keeler was also involved with Yevgeny “Eugene” Ivanov, a Soviet naval attache who some suspected was a spy. Although Profumo assured the government that he had not compromised national security in any way, the scandal threatened to topple Prime Minister Harold Macmillan’s government.

Two African American students, Vivian Malone and James A. Hood, register for classes at the University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa on June 11, 1963, after federalized Alabama National Guard troops force Alabama Governor George Wallace to halt his blockade and submit to a judge’s order ending segregation at the university.

Buddhist monk Thich Quang Duc publicly burns himself to death in a plea for President Ngo Dinh Diem to show “charity and compassion” to all religions. Diem, a Catholic who had been oppressing the Buddhist majority, remained stubborn despite continued Buddhist protests and repeated U.S. requests to liberalize his government’s policies. More Buddhist monks immolated themselves during ensuing weeks. Madame Nhu, the president’s sister-in-law, referred to the burnings as “barbecues” and offered to supply matches. In November 1963, South Vietnamese military officers assassinated Diem and his brother during a coup.

In the driveway outside his home in Jackson, Mississippi, African American civil rights leader Medgar Evers is shot to death by white supremacist Byron De La Beckwith.

On June 16, 1963, aboard Vostok 6, Soviet Cosmonaut Valentina Tereshkova becomes the first woman to travel into space. After 48 orbits and 71 hours, she returned to earth, having spent more time in space than all U.S. astronauts combined to that date.

To lessen the threat of an accidental nuclear war, the United States and the Soviet Union agree to establish a “hot line” communication system between the two nations. The agreement was a small step in reducing tensions between the United States and the USSR following the October 1962 Missile Crisis in Cuba, which had brought the two nations to the brink of nuclear war.

President John F. Kennedy expresses solidarity with democratic German citizens in a speech on June 26, 1963. In front of the Berlin Wall that separated the city into democratic and communist sectors, he declared to the crowd, “Ich bin ein Berliner” or “I am also a citizen of Berlin.”

On July 1, 1963, the United States Postal Service (USPS) introduces the Zone Improvement Plan as part of a plan to improve the speed of mail delivery, inaugurating the use of machine-readable ZIP codes to facilitate the efficient sorting of mail at a national level.

Sixteen-year-old Pauline Reade is abducted while on her way to a dance near her home in Gorton, England, by Ian Brady and Myra Hindley, the so-called “Moors Murderers,” launching a crime spree that will last for over two years. Reade’s body was not discovered until 1987, after Brady confessed to the murder during an interview with reporters while in a mental hospital. The teenager had been sexually assaulted and her throat had been slashed.

Relations between the Soviet Union and China reach the breaking point as the two governments engage in an angry ideological debate about the future of communism. The United States, for its part, was delighted to see a wedge being driven between the two communist superpowers.

On July 20, 1963, Jan and Dean’s song “Surf City,” reaches the top of the U.S. pop charts. Its immortal opening lyric “Two girls for every boy!” was a claim that wasn’t actually supported by the facts, but it helped create a popular image of California as a paradise of sun and sand and endless summers.

Representatives of the United States, the Soviet Union and Great Britain sign the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty, which prohibited the testing of nuclear weapons in outer space, underwater, or in the atmosphere. The treaty was hailed as an important first step toward the control of nuclear weapons.

On the steps of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C., the African American civil rights movement reaches its high-water mark when Martin Luther King Jr. delivers his "I Have a Dream" speech to about 250,000 people attending the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom. The demonstrators—Black and white, poor and rich—came together in the nation’s capital to demand voting rights and equal opportunity for African Americans and to appeal for an end to racial segregation and discrimination.

On August 28, 1963, legendary gospel vocalist Mahalia Jackson not only performs as the lead-in to Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and his “I Have a Dream” speech at the historic March on Washington, but she also plays a direct role in turning that speech into one of the most memorable and meaningful in American history.

On August 30, 1963, John F. Kennedy becomes the first U.S. president to have a direct phone line to the Kremlin in Moscow. The “hotline” was designed to facilitate communication between the president and Soviet premier.

On September 13, 1963, Texas-born entrepreneur Mary Kay Ash launches a cosmetic company in Dallas with her $5,000 life savings and the help of her 20-year-old son Richard Rogers. Mary Kay Inc. would become a cosmetic empire with revenue of more than $3.5 billion and salespeople in dozens of countries.

On September 15, 1963, a bomb explodes during Sunday morning services in the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama, killing four young girls: Addie Mae Collins (14), Cynthia Wesley (14), Carole Robertson (14) and Carol Denise McNair (11).

An optimistic and upbeat President John F. Kennedy suggests that the Soviet Union and the United States cooperate on a mission to mount an expedition to the moon. The proposal caught both the Soviets and many Americans off guard.

On October 9, 1963, a landslide in Italy leads to the deaths of more than 2,000 people when it causes a sudden and massive wave of water to overwhelm a dam.

It’s Halloween 1963 in Indianapolis, and hundreds of spectators are gathered at the Indiana State Fairgrounds Coliseum for the “Holiday on Ice” skating exhibition. Then, just after 11 pm, a propane gas explosion from the concession area rips through the Coliseum and shoots a 40-foot orange flame through the south-side seats.The explosion killed 54 people on site, and at least 20 more later died of their injuries. Nearly 400 additional people were injured.

On October 31, 1963, American television impresario Ed Sullivan, waiting for a flight at London's Heathrow Airport, happens to witness the pandemonium of Beatlemania—a pop-culture fever then raging in the U.K. and rapidly spreading across the European continent. Thinking the mass hysteria must be for a member for the British royal family, he was told it was actually for a popular rock 'n' roll band called the Beatles. His response: "Who the hell are the Beatles?"

Following the overthrow of his government by South Vietnamese military forces the day before, President Ngo Dinh Diem and his brother are captured and killed by a group of soldiers.

In the aftermath of the November 1 coup that resulted in the murder of President Ngo Dinh Diem, Gen. Duong Van Minh, leading the Revolutionary Military Committee of the dissident generals who had conducted the coup, takes over leadership of South Vietnam.

John Fitzgerald Kennedy, the 35th president of the United States, is assassinated in 1963 while traveling through Dallas, Texas, in an open-top convertible.

At 12:20 p.m. EST, in the basement of the Dallas police station, Lee Harvey Oswald, the alleged assassin of President John F. Kennedy, is shot to death by Jack Ruby, a Dallas nightclub owner.

Three days after his assassination in Dallas, Texas, John F. Kennedy is laid to rest with full military honors at Arlington National Cemetery in Virginia.

On November 29, 1963, President Lyndon B. Johnson appoints a special commission to investigate the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, which had occurred a week earlier, on November 22, 1963, in Dallas, Texas.

On December 11, kidnappers release Frank Sinatra, Jr., after abducting him in Lake Tahoe, California, three days earlier. The 19-year-old man, who was trying to follow in his father’s footsteps by pursuing a singing career, had been blindfolded and taken at gunpoint from his hotel room at Harrah’s Club Lodge and taken to Canoga Park, an area of Southern California’s San Fernando Valley. After allowing a brief phone conversation between father and son, the kidnappers demanded a ransom of $240,000.

On December 12, 1963, a vinyl long-playing record (“LP”) called John Fitzgerald Kennedy: A Memorial Album sets a record for album sales. A total of 4 million copies sold in the first six days of its release.

On December 12, 1963, Kenya declares its independence from Britain. The East African nation is freed from its colonial oppressors, but its struggle for democracy is far from over.

On December 17, 1963, one of the first major pieces of environmental legislation in the United States becomes law. The Clean Air Act empowers federal and state agencies to research and regulate air pollution, marking a major expansion of government efforts to fight back against the damage being done to the climate.

More than two years after the Berlin Wall was constructed by East Germany to prevent its citizens from fleeing its communist regime, nearly 4,000 West Berliners are allowed to cross into East Berlin to visit relatives. Under an agreement reached between East and West Berlin, more than 170,000 passes were eventually issued to West Berlin citizens, each pass allowing a one-day visit to communist East Berlin.