1964
1964 was a leap year.
Events
January
January 30 — In the USSR, for the first time in the history of cosmonautics, 2 satellites — "Elektron 1" and "Elektron 2" — were launched into different orbits with the help of a single rocket
February
February 9 — The Beatles make their first appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show, performing to a record 73 million viewers.
February 10 — The destroyer Voyager sinks in a collision between two Australian warships in Jervis Bay, killing more than 80 sailors.
March
March 31 — The Brazilian military staged a coup d'état, ousting President Joao Goulart and establishing a military dictatorship that would last for 21 years.
April
June
June 12 — Nelson Mandela, Walter Sisulu and six other leaders of the anti-racist movement in South Africa are sentenced to life imprisonment.
June 12 — The US Supreme Court rules in Loving v. Virginia, declaring unconstitutional laws that criminalized interracial marriage.
July
July 2 — US President Lyndon Johnson signs the Civil Rights Act, which outlaws racial discrimination.
July 6 — The British protectorate in Africa, Waysland, under the name of Malawi, became an independent country within the British Commonwealth.
July 31 — The U.S. unmanned space probe Ranger 7 broadcasts the first images of the dark side of the moon.
August
August 2 — North Vietnamese patrol boats reportedly open fire on the US destroyer Maddox.
October
October 16 — China detonates the first atomic bomb and becomes the fifth country in the world to possess nuclear weapons.
Harold Wilson becomes British Prime Minister after leading the Labor Party to a narrow election victory over Sir Alec Douglas-Home's Conservative government, which had been in power for 13 years and had four different leaders during that time.
October 19 — In the crash of the Soviet plane Ilyushin Il-18, which crashed on Avala, all the passengers died, including a six-member delegation of the Soviet army led by Marshal Sergei Biryuzov.
October 22 — French writer Jean-Paul Sartre refused the Nobel Prize for Literature.
October 29 — The United Republic of Tanganyika, Zanzibar and Pemba changes its name to Tanzania.
December
December 14
