1st January » Samoa e.g Western Samoa achieves independence from New Zealand; its name is changed to the Independent State of Western Samoa.
1st January » United States Navy SEALs established.
3rd January » Pope John XXIII excommunicates Fidel Castro.
8th January » The Harmelen train disaster killed 93 people in the Netherlands.
10th January » Apollo program: NASA announces plans to build the C-5 rocket launch vehicle. It became better known as the Saturn V Moon rocket, which launched every Apollo Moon mission.
11th January » Cold War: While tied to its pier in Russian Shipyard Number 10 called Polyarny, the Soviet submarine B-37 is destroyed when fire breaks out in its torpedo compartment.
11th January » An avalanche on Huascarán in Peru causes 4,000 deaths.
12th January » Vietnam War: Operation Chopper (Vietnam) named Operation Chopper, the first American combat mission in the war, takes place.
26th January » Ranger program: Ranger 3 is launched to study the moon. The space probe later misses the moon by 22,000 miles (35,400 km).
5th February » President of the French Republic named French President Charles de Gaulle calls for Algeria to be granted independence.
7th February » The United States United States embargo against Cuba named bans all Cuban imports and exports.
8th February » Paris massacre of 1961 8 February 1962 Charonne massacre e.g Charonne massacre. Nine trade unionists are killed by French police at the instigation of Nazi collaborator Maurice Papon, then chief of the Paris Prefecture of Police.
10th February » Captured United States American Lockheed U-2 U2 spy-plane pilot Gary Powers is exchanged for captured Soviet Union Soviet spy Rudolf Abel.
14th February » First Lady of the United States known as First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy takes television viewers on a tour of the White House.
16th February » North Sea flood of 1962 or Flooding in the coastal areas of West Germany kills 315 and destroys the homes of about 60,000 people.
20th February » Mercury program: While aboard Mercury Atlas 6 called Friendship 7, John Glenn becomes the first American to orbit the earth, making three orbits in 4 hours, 55 minutes.
27th February » Two dissident Vietnam Air Force pilots 1962 South Vietnamese Independence Palace bombing named bomb the Independence Palace in Saigon in a failed attempt to assassinate South Vietnam President Ngo Dinh Diem.
1st March » American Airlines Flight 1 crashes on take off in New York.
4th March » A Caledonian Airways Douglas DC-7 Caledonian Airways Flight 153 named crashes shortly after takeoff from Cameroon, killing 111 - the worst crash of a DC-7.
6th March » Ash Wednesday Storm of 1962 begins on the mid-Atlantic coast of the United States.
13th March » Lyman Lemnitzer, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, delivers a proposal, called Operation Northwoods, regarding performing terrorist attacks upon Guantánamo Bay Naval Base, to Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara. The proposal is scrapped and Presiden
16th March » A Flying Tiger Line Lockheed Constellation e.g Super Constellation Flying Tiger Line Flight 739 e.g disappears in the western Pacific Ocean, with all 107 aboard missing and presumed dead.
18th March » The Evian Accords end the Algerian War of Independence, which had begun in 1954.
19th March » Highly influential artist, Bob Dylan releases his first album, Bob Dylan (album) e.g Bob Dylan, on Columbia Records label.
19th March » The Algerian War of Independence against the French ends.
2nd April » The first official panda crossing is opened outside London Waterloo station.
16th April » Walter Cronkite takes over as the lead news anchor of the 'CBS Evening News', during which time he would become "the most trusted man in America".
6th May » St. Martín de Porres is canonized by Pope John XXIII.
10th May » Marvel Comics publishes the first issue of Hulk (comics) or The Incredible Hulk.
22nd May » Continental Airlines Flight 11 crashes after bombs explode on board.
24th May » Project Mercury: American astronaut Scott Carpenter orbits the Earth three times in the 'Aurora 7' space capsule.
25th May » The Old Bay Line, the last overnight steamboat service in the United States, goes out of business.
1st June » The Pilkington Committee on Broadcasting concludes, among other things, that the British public did not want commercial radio broadcasting.
2nd June » During the 1962 FIFA World Cup, police had to intervene multiple times in fights between Chile national football team Chilean and Italy national football team Italian players in Battle of Santiago (1962 FIFA World Cup) one of the most violent games in ass
3rd June » At Paris Orly Airport, an Air France Boeing 707 Air France Flight 007 named overruns the runway and explodes when the crew attempts to abort takeoff, killing 130.
11th June » Frank Morris (prisoner) named Frank Morris, John Anglin and Clarence Anglin allegedly become the only prisoners to June 1962 Alcatraz escape called escape from the prison on Alcatraz Island.
14th June » The European Space Research Organisation is established in Paris – later becoming the European Space Agency.
2nd July » The first Wal-Mart store opens for business in Rogers, Arkansas.
5th July » Algeria becomes independent from France.
6th July » As a part of Operation Plowshare, the Sedan (nuclear test) known as Sedan nuclear test takes place.
8th July » Ne Win besieges and dynamites the University of Yangon e.g Rangoon University Student Union building to crush the Student activism named Student Movement.
9th July » The Starfish Prime High-altitude nuclear explosion e.g high-altitude nuclear test is conducted by the United States.
11th July » First transatlantic satellite television transmission.
11th July » Project Apollo: At a press conference, NASA announces lunar orbit rendezvous as the means to land astronauts on the Moon, and return them to Earth.
12th July » The Rolling Stones perform their first concert, at the Marquee Club in London called London, England, United Kingdom.
13th July » In an unprecedented action, British Prime Minister Harold Macmillan Night of the Long Knives (1962) known as dismisses seven members of his Cabinet, marking the effective end of the National Liberal Party (UK, 1931) e.g National Liberals as a distinct for
17th July » Nuclear weapons testing: The "Small Boy" test shot Little Feller (nuclear tests) named Little Feller I becomes the last atmospheric test detonation at the Nevada National Security Site.
22nd July » Mariner program: 'Mariner 1' spacecraft flies erratically several minutes after launch and has to be destroyed.
23rd July » Telstar relays the first publicly transmitted, live trans-Atlantic Ocean known as Atlantic television program, featuring Walter Cronkite.
23rd July » The International Agreement on the Neutrality of Laos is signed.
30th July » The Trans-Canada Highway, the largest national highway in the world, is officially opened.
5th August » Apartheid in South Africa: Nelson Mandela is jailed. He would not be released until 1990.
6th August » Jamaica becomes independent from the United Kingdom.
11th August » Vostok 3 launches from the Baikonur Cosmodrome and cosmonaut Andrian Nikolayev becomes the first person to float in Micro-g environment known as microgravity.
15th August » James Joseph Dresnok defects to North Korea after running across the Korean Demilitarized Zone. Dresnok still resides in the capital, Pyongyang.
16th August » Eight years after the remaining French India territories were handed to India, the ratifications of the treaty are exchanged to make the transfer official.
17th August » East Germany or East German border guards Killing of Peter Fechter or kill Peter Fechter, 18, as he attempts to cross the Berlin Wall into West Berlin becoming one of the first victims of the wall.
22nd August » An attempt to assassinate French president Charles de Gaulle fails.
27th August » The Mariner 2 unmanned space mission is launched to Venus by NASA.
30th August » Japan conducts a test of the NAMC YS-11, its first aircraft since World War II and its only successful commercial aircraft from before or after the war.
31st August » Trinidad and Tobago becomes independent.
6th September » Archaeologist Peter Marsden discovers the first of the Blackfriars Ships dating back to the 2nd century AD in the Blackfriars, London e.g Blackfriars area of the banks of the River Thames in London.
8th September » Newly independent Algeria, by referendum, adopts a Constitution of Algeria or constitution.
8th September » Last run of the famous Pines Express over the Somerset and Dorset Railway line (UK) fittingly using the last steam locomotive built by British Railways, 9F locomotive 92220 'Evening Star'.
15th September » The Soviet Union or Soviet ship 'Poltava (ship) or Poltava' heads toward Cuba, one of the events that sets into motion the Cuban missile crisis.
18th September » Burundi, Jamaica, Rwanda and Trinidad and Tobago are admitted to the United Nations.
20th September » James Meredith, an African American, is temporarily barred from entering the University of Mississippi.
23rd September » The Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts opens in New York City.
24th September » United States court of appeals orders the University of Mississippi to admit James Meredith.
25th September » The North Yemen Civil War begins when Abdullah as-Sallal dethrones the newly crowned Muhammad al-Badr or Imam al-Badr and declares Yemen Yemen Arab Republic e.g a republic under his presidency.
27th September » The Yemen Arab Republic is established.
28th September » The Paddington tram depot fire destroys 65 trams in Brisbane, Australia.
29th September » 'Alouette 1,' the first Canadian satellite, is launched.
30th September » Mexican-American labor leader César Chávez founds the National Farm Workers Association, which later becomes United Farm Workers.
30th September » James Meredith enters the University of Mississippi, defying Racial segregation called segregation.
1st October » First broadcast of 'The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson'.
3rd October » Project Mercury: Mercury-Atlas 8 named Sigma 7 is launched from Cape Canaveral, with astronaut Wally Schirra aboard, for a six-orbit, nine-hour flight.
5th October » 'Dr. No (film) called Dr. No', the first in the James Bond in film named James Bond film series, is released.
9th October » Uganda becomes an independent Commonwealth realm.
11th October » Second Vatican Council: Pope John XXIII convenes the first ecumenical council of the Roman Catholic Church in 92 years.
12th October » Infamous Columbus Day Storm strikes the U.S. Pacific Northwest with record wind velocities; 46 dead and at least U.S. $230 million in damages
13th October » The Pacific Northwest experiences Columbus Day Storm of 1962 named a cyclone the equal of a Cat 3 hurricane. Winds measured above 150 mph at several locations; 46 people died.
14th October » The Cuban Missile Crisis begins: A U.S. Air Force Lockheed U-2 U-2 reconnaissance plane and its aviator pilot fly over the island of Cuba and take photographs of Soviet Union Soviet missiles capable of carrying nuclear warheads being installed and erected
16th October » The Cuban missile crisis between the United States, Cuba, and the Soviet Union begins when US President John F. Kennedy is shown photographs of missile sites in Cuba.
22nd October » Cuban Missile Crisis: US President John F. Kennedy, after internal counsel from Dwight D. Eisenhower, announces that American reconnaissance planes have discovered Soviet nuclear weapons in Cuba, and that he has ordered a naval "quarantine" of the Communi
25th October » Cuban missile crisis: Adlai Stevenson II Adlai Stevenson shows photos at a meeting of the United Nations United Nations Security Council Security Council proving that Soviet Union Soviet missiles are installed in Cuba.
25th October » Uganda joins the United Nations.
25th October » Nelson Mandela is sentenced to five years in prison.
27th October » Major Rudolf Anderson of the United States Air Force becomes the only direct human casualty of the Cuban Missile Crisis when his Lockheed U-2 known as U-2 reconnaissance airplane is shot down in Cuba by a Soviet-supplied SA-2 Guideline surface-to-air miss
27th October » A plane carrying Enrico Mattei, post-war Italian administrator, crashes in mysterious circumstances.
28th October » End of Cuban missile crisis: Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev orders the removal of Soviet missiles from Cuba.
4th November » In a test of the Nike-Hercules air defense missile, Shot Dominic-Tightrope is successfully detonated 69,000 feet above Johnston Island. It would also be the last atmospheric nuclear test conducted by the United States.
17th November » President of the United States named President John F. Kennedy dedicates Washington Dulles International Airport, serving the Washington, D.C., region.
20th November » Cuban missile crisis ends: In response to the Soviet Union agreeing to remove its missiles from Cuba, U.S. President John F. Kennedy ends the quarantine of the Caribbean nation.
24th November » The West Berlin branch of the Socialist Unity Party of Germany forms a separate party, the Socialist Unity Party of West Berlin.
24th November » The influential British satirical television programme 'That Was the Week That Was' is first broadcast.
8th December » Workers at four New York City newspapers (this later increases to nine) 1962–63 New York City newspaper strike known as go on strike for 114 days.
9th December » The Petrified Forest National Park is established in Arizona.
11th December » Arthur Lucas, convicted of murder, is the last person to be executed in Canada.
13th December » NASA launches 'Relay program Relay 1 e.g Relay 1', the first active repeater communications satellite in orbit.