| 1950–1980 | UK [television] | Watch With Mother, a series for young children featuring favourite characters such as Andy Pandy, the Flowerpot Men, Rag, Tag, and Bobtail, and the Woodentops, is shown on British television. |
| 1960–1969 | UK [popular music] | The Beatles' song ‘She Loves You’ is the best-selling single of the 1960s in Britain. The Beatles are responsible for five out of the top six singles in Britain in the 1960s. |
| 1962–1965 | Vatican [Catholicism] | The Second Vatican Council, a council of the Roman Catholic Church convened by Pope John XXIII, is held, its aim being to reform Catholic ministry and liturgy, and to seek reunion with other Christian denominations. |
| 1963 | USA [cinema and film] | The film The Great Escape, directed by John Sturges, is released in the USA. The star-filled cast includes Steve McQueen, James Garner, Richard Attenborough, and Charles Bronson. |
| 1963 | USA [astronomy] | An international team of astronomers discovers the first quasar (3C 273), an extraordinarily distant object brighter than the largest known galaxy yet with a star-like image. |
| 1963 | Germany [fiction] | The German writer Heinrich Böll publishes Ansichten eines Clowns/The Clown. |
| 1963 | USA [fiction] | The US writer Mary McCarthy publishes her novel The Group. |
| 1963 | USA [fiction] | The US writer Sylvia Plath publishes her novel The Bell Jar. |
| 1963 | USA [fiction] | The US writer Thomas Pynchon publishes his novel V. |
| 1963 | Japan [fiction] | The Japanese writer Yukio Mishima publishes his novel Gogo no eiko/The Sailor Who Fell From Grace With the Sea. |
| 1963 | USA [fiction] | The US writer Kurt Vonnegut publishes his novel Cat's Cradle. |
| 1963 | USA [orchestral music] | The US composer Leonard Bernstein completes his Symphony No. 3, Kaddish. |
| 1963 | Germany [philosophy] | The German philosopher Jürgen Habermas publishes Theorie und Praxis/Theory and Practice. |
| 1963 | USA [poetry] | The US writer Allen Ginsberg publishes his poetry collection Reality Sandwiches. |
| 1963 | UK [popular music] | The British rock group the Beatles release the singles ‘Please Please Me’, ‘She Loves You’, ‘Twist and Shout’, and ‘I Want to Hold Your Hand’, which will sell more than 12 million copies worldwide, and enters the US charts at No. 1. The album Please Please Me is also recorded in 12 hours at EMI's Abbey Road studios. |
| 1963 | UK [television] | Doctor Who, a science fiction series for about a time-traveller, starts on British television. The original doctor is William Hartnell; the role is subsequently played by Patrick Troughton, Jon Pertwee, Tom Baker, Peter Davison, Colin Baker, Sylvester McCoy, and Paul McGann. The series also features the Doctor's infamous enemies, the Daleks. |
| 1963 | USA [transport] | The USA has 6% of the world population and 66% of the world's cars. |
| 1963 | USA [literature and language] | The US writer James Baldwin publishes The Fire Next Time, two essays warning of the threat of racial violence in the USA. |
| 1963 | England [social theory] | The English political philosopher John Plamenatz publishes Man and Society: A Critical Examination of Some Important Social and Political Theories from Machiavelli to Marx. |
| 1963 | USA [songs] | The US composer George Crumb completes his work Night Music for soprano, piano, celesta, and percussion. |
| 1963 | USA [technology] | Emmett Leith and Juris Upatnieks of the University of Michigan develop the hologram. |
| 1963 | USA [technology] | The Polaroid Corporation develops colour polaroid film in the USA. |
| 11 January 1963 | USA [everyday life] | The first discotheque opens, the Whisky-A-Go-Go in Los Angeles, California, with the emphasis on youth and contemporary rock 'n' roll dance music. |
| 29 January 1963 | UK, France [international organizations] | Britain is refused entry to the European Economic Community (EEC) by a French veto. |
| 11 February 1963 | USA, England [births and deaths] | Sylvia Plath, US poet and novelist, commits suicide in London, England (30). |
| 22 May - 25 May 1963 | Africa [international organizations] | The Organization of African Unity (OAU; later African Union) is founded at a conference of African leaders in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia; it aims to maintain solidarity between African leaders and remove colonialism from the African continent. |
| 8 June 1963 | USA [public health] | The American Heart Association begins its first public campaign against smoking tobacco. |
| 16 June 1963 | USSR [space exploration] | Soviet cosmonaut Valentina Tereshkova, the first woman in space, is launched into a three-day orbital flight aboard Vostok 6, to study the problem of weightlessness. |
| 21 June 1963 | Italy [Catholicism] | After the death of Pope John XXIII on 3 June, the Italian clergyman Giovanni Battista Montini is elected Pope Paul VI. |
| 1 July 1963 | USA [media and communication] | The US postal service introduces five-digit Zone Improvement Plan (ZIP) codes for addresses. |
| 5 August 1963 | USA, USSR, UK, France, world [treaties] | The USA, USSR, and Britain sign a nuclear test-ban treaty, which is subsequently signed by 96 states, but not France, before coming into force on 1 October. |
| 28 August 1963 | USA [civil rights] | Over 200,000 Americans take part in the March on Washington, a peaceful demonstration for civil rights in Washington, DC. They are addressed by the civil-rights leader Martin Luther King, Jr, who proclaims, with the Lincoln Memorial as a backdrop, ‘I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the colour of their skin but by the content of their character’. |
| 1 October 1963 | Nigeria [decolonization] | Nigeria becomes a republic within the Commonwealth, with Nnamdi Azikiwe as president. |
| 18 October 1963 | UK [administration] | The British prime minister Harold Macmillan resigns for reasons of health, and on 19 October, is succeeded by the Scottish peer the Earl of Home, who later disclaims the peerage, is made a Knight of the Thistle, and becomes Sir Alec Douglas-Home. He is elected a member of the House of Commons, for Kinross, on 8 November. |
| 22 November 1963 | USA [political events] | Following the assassination of US president John F Kennedy in Dallas, Texas, Vice-President Lyndon B Johnson is immediately sworn in as president. |
| 22 November 1963 | USA [political events] | John F Kennedy, 35th president of the USA 1961–63, a Democrat, is assassinated in Dallas, Texas, as he is driven to make a speech at the Dallas World Trade Center (46). The shots appear to come from the 6th floor of the Texas Book Depository on Elm Street. Former marine and pro-communist Lee Harvey Oswald is arrested 80 minutes later on charges of killing a patrolman, and is subsequently identified as the assassin, although there is speculation as to whether he acted alone or as part of a conspiracy. |
| 24 November 1963 | USA [crime and punishment] | US nightclub owner Jack Ruby murders Lee Harvey Oswald, the alleged assassin of US president John F Kennedy two days previously, as police move Oswald from the city jail in Dallas, Texas. This adds fuel to speculations that Oswald acted as part of a much larger conspiracy. Millions of Americans watch the murder live on national television. |
| December 1963 | USA [health and medicine] | The muscle relaxant and antidepressant Valium, developed by Roche Laboratories as a more potent alternative to Librium, appears on the market in the USA. |
| 10 December 1963 | Zanzibar [decolonization] | Zanzibar gains independence within the British Commonwealth (now part of Tanzania). |
| 12 December 1963 | British East Africa, Kenya [decolonization] | Kenya becomes independent within the British Commonwealth. |
