January 3 - U.S. Senator Barry Goldwater announces that he will seek the Republican nomination for President.
January 5 - In the first meeting between leaders of the Roman Catholic and Orthodox churches since the 15th century, Pope Paul VI and Patriarch Athenagoras I meet in Jerusalem.
January 7 - A British firm, the Leyland Motor Corp., announces the sale of 450 buses to the Cuban government, challenging the United States blockade of Cuba.
January 9 - Martyr's Day: Armed clashes between United States troops and Panamanian civilians in the Panama Canal Zone precipitate a major international crisis, resulting in the deaths of 21 Panamanians and 4 U.S. soldiers.
January 16 - John Glenn, the first American to orbit the earth, resigns from the space program and announces the next day that he will seek the Democratic nomination for U.S. Senator from Ohio.
January 23 - Arthur Miller's After the Fall opens on Broadway. A semi-autobiographical work, it arouses controversy over his portrayal of late ex-wife Marilyn Monroe.
January 27 - U.S. Senator Margaret Chase Smith (R-ME), 66, announces her candidacy for the Republican presidential nomination.
January 28 - A U.S. Air Force jet training plane that strays into East Germany, is shot down by Soviet fighters near Erfurt; all 3 crew men are killed.
February 6 - Cuba cuts off the normal water supply to the United States Guantanamo Bay Naval Base, in reprisal for the U.S. seizure 4 days earlier of 4 Cuban fishing boats off the coast of Florida.
February 9 - The Beatles appear on The Ed Sullivan Show, marking their first live performance on American television. Seen by an estimated 73 million viewers, the appearance becomes the catalyst for the mid-1960s "British Invasion" of American popular music.
February 26 - U.S. politician John Glenn slips on a bathroom rug in his Columbus, Ohio apartment and hits his head on the bathtub, injuring his left inner ear, and prompting him (later that week) to withdraw from the race for the Democratic Party Senate nomination.
February 29 - President Lyndon Johnson announces that the United States has developed a jet airplane (the A-11), capable of sustained flight at more than 2,000 MPH and of altitudes of more than 70,000 feet.
March 10 - Soviet military forces shoot down an unarmed reconnaissance bomber that had strayed into East Germany; the 3 U.S. flyers parachute to safety.
March 13 - In a notorious incident, 38 of her neighbors in Queens, New York City fail to respond to the cries of Kitty Genovese, 28, as she is being stabbed to death.
March 26 - U.S. Defense Secretary Robert McNamara delivers an address that reiterates American determination to give South Vietnam increased military and economic aid, in its war against the Communist insurgency.
April 2 - Mrs. Malcolm Peabody, 72, mother of Massachusetts Governor Endicott Peabody, is released on $450 bond after spending 2 days in a St. Augustine, Florida jail, for participating in an anti-segregation demonstration there.
April 4 - The Beatles hold the top 5 positions in the Billboard Top 40 singles in America, an unprecedented achievement. Due mostly to the explosive growth, fragmentation, and marketing of popular music since, this is certain to never happen again. The top songs in America as listed on April 4, in order, are: "Can't Buy Me Love," "Twist and Shout," "She Loves You," "I Want to Hold Your Hand," and "Please Please Me."
April 4 - Three high school friends in Hoboken, N.J., open the first BLIMPIE on Washington St.
April 8 - Four of 5 railroad operating unions strike against the Illinois Central Railroad without warning, to bring to a head the 5-year dispute over railroad work rules.
April 8 - Gemini 1 is launched on the first unmanned test of the 2-man spacecraft.
April 9 - The United Nations Security Council adopts by a 9-0 vote a resolution deploring a British air attack on a fort in Yemen 12 days earlier, in which 25 persons were reported killed.
April 16 - Sentences totalling 307 years are passed on 12 men who stole £2.6m in used bank notes, after holding up the night mail train travelling from Glasgow to London in August of 1963 - a heist that became known as the Great Train Robbery.
April 22 - The 1964 New York World's Fair opens to celebrate 300th anniversary of New Amsterdam being taken over by British forces under the Duke of York (later King James II) and being renamed New York in 1664. The fair runs until Oct. 18, 1964 and reopens April 21, 1965, finally closing October 17, 1965. (Not sanctioned, due to being within 10 years of the Seattle fair in 1962, some countries declined, but many countries had pavillions with exotic crafts, art & food.)
May 1 - At 4:00 a.m., John George Kemeny and Thomas Eugene Kurtz run the first program written in BASIC (Beginners' All-purpose Symbolic Instruction Code), an easy to learn high level programming language which they have created. BASIC will eventually be included on many computers and even some games consoles.
May 2 - Senator Barry Goldwater receives more than 75% of the votes in the Texas Republican Presidential primary.
May 2 - Some 400-1,000 students march through Times Square, New York and another 700 in San Francisco, in the first major student demonstration against the Vietnam War. Smaller marches also occur in Boston, Seattle, and Madison, Wisconsin.
May 2 - Two young men named Henry Hezekiah Dee and Charles Eddie Moore were hitchhiking in Meadville, Mississippi when they were kidnapped and beaten by members of the Ku Klux Klan. Their badly decomposed bodies were found by chance two months later in July, during the search for three civil rights workers - Chaney, Goodman, and Schwerner.
May 7 - At a mail rockets demonstration by Gerhard Zucker on Hasselkopf Mountain near Braunlage (Lower Saxonia, Germany), 3 persons are killed by a rocket explosion.
May 9 - South Korean President Chung Hee Park reshuffles his Cabinet, after a series of student demonstrations against his efforts to restore diplomatic and trade relations with Japan.
May 23 - Mrs. Madeline Dassault, 63, wife of a French plane manufacturer and politician, is kidnapped while leaving her car in front of her Paris home; she is found unharmed the next day in a farmhouse 27 miles from Paris.
May 23 - Pablo Picasso paints his fourth 'Head of a Bearded Man'.
