1963

Chelsea Perkins

Dear Diary,

It’s so hard to believe that another year has come to an end. I guess it’s true what they say; the older you get, the faster time goes by! It seems like just yesterday the Treaty of Friendship was signed between Germany and France, but that was all the way in January. Germany and France had been at each other’s throats for so many years; it was great to hear that the rivalry was finally over. France was in the news again a few months later, when six people tried to assassinate their president, President Charles de Gaulle.

Martin Luther King, Jr. was in the news a lot too. First he was arrested on April 12th for “pardoning without a permit” in Birmingham, Alabama. A few days later, he issued his Letter from Birmingham Jail. It was all over the radio and newspapers. He gave another speech on August 28th in Washington, DC on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial. It was his “I Have a Dream” speech and I’ll never forget this because there were over 250,000 people there! I begged my parents to take me, but they said it was too far away. He really wanted equal rights for everyone, but a lot of people seemed to disagree with him.

John F. Kennedy, our president, seemed to be on his side though. He gave a speech on June 11th that promised a Civil Rights Bill, and said that we need to treat each other the way we wanted to be treated. Mom and dad made me listen to this speech and then we talked about it in the living room. They said I needed to be nice to everyone, which I really tried to do… but sometimes it was hard. On June 26th, Kennedy gave another speech, the “Ich bin ein Berliner.” I remember having to ask my teacher what it meant, and she laughed at me. Kennedy was trying to say “I am a citizen of Berlin” but actually said “I am a jelly-filled doughnut.” It still makes me laugh, just thinking about it! But then, a terrible event happened on November 22nd. Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas! No one ever saw it coming. My friends were mad it happened, because the televisions only showed the news and everything was shut down for the next three days. He was buried on November 25th – I remember because we didn’t have to go to class that day. Lyndon B. Johnson was made the new President and established the Warren Commission to investigate Kennedy’s death, and they began their investigation on December 3rd. I hope they can figure out who did it!

There were so many scary events that happened this year, diary. On February 21st, an earthquake happened in Libya that killed over 900 people. Another terrible earthquake happened on July 26th in Yugoslavia, and this one killed 1,800 people! Over 2,000 died in Italy on October 9th, when a landslide behind the Vajont dam caused a wave to overtop it. A coal mine explosion killed 458 and caused over 800 people to get carbon monoxide poisoning in Japan. A lot of terrible things happened this year! It really makes me sad thinking about all of the people who died.

Not everything was bad though; there were plenty of good things that happened this year. My mom found a new favorite show on April 1st, when General Hospital began on ABC. Marvel Comics released the first X-Men comic book in September, which really made my little brother happy. I’m not a big sports fan, but instant replay was invented recently and it aired for the first time on December 7th. I don’t ever remember seeing dad that excited about a stupid game! And of course, the Beatles released their first album “Please Please Me” on March 22nd, which was the hi-light on my year.

1963 was definitely an important year, diary. One for the books, that's for sure! I can't wait to see what the next year has in store for all of us.

Well, until next time…