1963 (MCMLXIII) was .

Events 

 January 5 – The Beach Boys record one of their trademark songs, "Surfin' USA"
 February 11 – The Beatles record 10 songs for the album "Please Please Me"
 June 1 – Jomo Kenyatta becomes the first Prime Minister of Kenya
 September 15 – "Birmingham Sunday" when a bomb killed 4 black girls in a church in Birmingham, Alabama
 September – The X-Men make their debut
 November 22 – John F. Kennedy assassinated, Lyndon Johnson sworn in as President
 November 23 – Doctor Who airs for the first time in the United Kingdom
 December 12 - Kenya is officially independent from the United Kingdom
 December 31 – The Central African Federation breaks apart. It eventually became Zambia, Malawi and Rhodesia
 The cassette tape was invented

Births 

 January 2 - Edgar Martínez, American baseball player
 March 9 - Jean-Marc Vallée, Canadian director (d. 2021)
 March 21 – Shawn Lane, American musician
 May 8 – Helena Blagne Zaman, Slovene singer
 May 8 - Anthony Field, Australian musician (The Wiggles)
 May 9 – Barry Douglas Lamb, rock musician, writer, Christian preacher
 May 11 – Natasha Richardson, actress
 May 12 – Vanessa A. Williams, actress
 May 24 – Joe Dumars, basketball star
 May 25 – Mike Myers, actor, comedian
 June 6 – Jason Isaacs, actor
 June 9 – Johnny Depp, actor
 June 13 – Bettina Bunge, tennis player.
 June 17 – Greg Kinnear, TV host and actor
 June 18 – Bruce Smith, American football player
 June 23 – Colin Montgomerie, golfer.
 June 25 – George Michael, singer
 June 27 – Meera Syal, comedian, writer, playwright, singer, journalist and actress
 July 9 – Johnny Depp, American actor
 July 16 – Phoebe Cates, actress
 July 17 - Regina Belle, American singer
 July 24 – Karl Malone, basketball
 July 30 – Lisa Kudrow, American actress
 August 3 – James Hetfield, Metallica frontman and co-founder
 August 6 – Kevin Mitnick, computer cracker
 August 19 – Joey Tempest, Europe frontman
 August 19 – John Stamos, actor
 August 23 – Kenny Wallace, NASCAR race car driver
 August 24 – Hideo Kojima, video game director
 August 30 – Paul Oakenfold, DJ
 September 7 – Eazy-E, American rapper
 September 10 – Randy Johnson, baseball pitcher, five-time Cy Young Award winner
 September 21 – Cecil Fielder, baseball player
 September 29 – Dave Andreychuk, NHL player
 October 1 – Mark McGwire, baseball star
 October 4 – Mark Powley, English actor
 October 10 – Daniel Pearl, journalist (d. 2002)
 October 22 – Brian Boitano, figure skater
 October 26 – Natalie Merchant, singer/songwriter/musician
 October 31 – Fred McGriff, baseball player
 November 13 – Vinny Testaverde, American football quarterback
 November 18 – Dante Bichette, baseball player
 November 19 – Terry Farrell, actress
 November 21 – Nicolette Sheridan, actress
 November 24 – Iris Erlingsdottir, OMD, writer, journalist
 December 2 – John Kennedy Morrisey, entertainer/athlete/storyteller
 December 13 – Ilkka Remes, writer
 December 16 – Benjamin Bratt, actor
 December 18 – Brad Pitt, actor
 December 23 – Jim Harbaugh, American football player

Deaths 

 January 2 – Dick Powell, American actor (b. 1904)
 January 2 – Jack Carson, American actor (b. 1910)
 January 5 – Rogers Hornsby, Baseball Hall of Famer (b. 1896)
 January 18 – Edward Charles Titchmarsh, British mathematician (b. 1899)
 January 29 – Robert Frost, American poet (b. 1874)
 January 30 – Francis Poulenc, French composer (b. 1899)
 February 11 – Sylvia Plath, American poet and novelist (suicide) (b. 1932)
 February 28 – Eppa Rixey, Baseball Hall of Famer (b. 1891)
 March 4 – William Carlos Williams, American writer (b. 1883)
 March 5 – Patsy Cline, singer (Cowboy Copas) (b. 1932)
 April 6 – Otto Struve, astronomer (b. 1897)
 April 9 – Eddie Edwards, jazz musician (b. 1891)
 May 12 – Bobby Kerr, Canadian runner (b. 1882)
 May 31 – Edith Hamilton, educator and writer (b. 1867)
 June 3 – Pope John XXIII (b. 1881)
 June 11 – Thích Quảng Đức, Vietnamese Bhuddist monk (suicide)(b. 1897)
 June 18 – Pedro Armendariz, Mexican actor (suicide)(b. 1912)
 August 5 – Theodore Roethke, American poet (b. 1908)
 August 23 – Glen Gray, saxophonist and conductor (b. 1906)
 August 31 – Georges Braque, French painter (b. 1882)
 September 11 – Suzanne Duchamp, French painter (b. 1889)
 October 11
 Édith Piaf, French singer (b. 1915)
 Jean Cocteau, French writer (b. 1889)
 November 1 – Ngo Dinh Diem, President of South Vietnam (b. 1901)
 November 15 – Fritz Reiner, Hungarian conductor (b. 1888)
 November 22
 John F. Kennedy, 35th President of the United States (b. 1917)
 J. D. Tippit, Police officer (b. 1924)
 Aldous Huxley, English novelist (b. 1894)
 C. S. Lewis, English novelist and Christian apologist (b. 1898)
 November 24 – Lee Harvey Oswald, John F. Kennedy alleged assassin (shot) (b. 1939)
 November – Luis Cernuda, Spanish writer (b. 1902)
 December 1 – Amy Elizabeth Thorpe, American spy in World War II
 December 2 – Thomas Hicks, American marathon runner (b. 1875)
 December 5 – Sri Deep Narayan Mahaprabhuji, Hindu saint (b. 1828)
 December 5 – Karl Amadeus Hartmann, German composer (b. 1905)
 December 28 – Paul Hindemith, German composer (b. 1895)

Nobel Prizes 
 Nobel Prize in Physics – Eugene Paul Wigner, Maria Goeppert-Mayer, J. Hans D. Jensen
 Chemistry – Karl Ziegler, Giulio Natta
 Medicine – Sir John Carew Eccles, Alan Lloyd Hodgkin, Andrew Fielding Huxley
 Literature – Giorgos Seferis
 Peace – International Committee of the Red Cross, League of Red Cross Societies

Movies released 

 8½, an Italian movie directed by Federico Fellini
 An Actor's Revenge
 La Baie des anges
 The Birds,  directed by Alfred Hitchcock
 Blood Feast
 Bye Bye Birdie, a musical comedy
 Charade
 Cleopatra, starring Elizabeth Taylor, Rex Harrison, and Richard Burton
 From Russia With Love, the second James Bond movie
 Fun in Acapulco
 The Great Escape
 How the West Was Won
 Hud, winning Academy Award for Best Actress for Patricia Neal and Best Supporting Actor for Melvyn Douglas
 Irma La Douce
 It Happened at the World's Fair
 It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World
 Lawrence of Arabia starring Peter O'Toole
 The Longest Day
 The Mask
 Mépris, Le
 The Nutty Professor
 Son of Flubber
 The Sword in the Stone, an animated movie by Walt Disney Productions
 Tom Jones, winning both Academy Award for Best Picture and Academy Award for Best Director
 The V.I.P.s, winning Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for Margaret Rutherford
 Zuo ye meng hun zhong

Hit songs 

 "Dominique" – The Singing Nun
 "Please Please Me" – The Beatles
 "She Loves You" – The Beatles
 "Love Me Do" – The Beatles
 "I Want To Hold Your Hand" – The Beatles
 "From Me To You" – The Beatles
 "In Dreams" – Roy Orbison
 "Blue Bayou" – Roy Orbison
 "Mean Woman Blues" – Roy Orbison
 "Pretty Paper" – Roy Orbison
 "Hey Paula" – Paul & Paula
 "He's So Fine" – The Chiffons
 "Bo Diddley" – Buddy Holly
 "Brown Eyed Handsome Man" – Buddy Holly
 "Surf City" – Jan & Dean
 "It's My Party" – Lesley Gore
 "Twenty Four Hours From Tulsa" – Gene Pitney
 "Be My Baby" – The Ronettes
 "Wipe Out" – The Surfaris
 "If I Had A Hammer" – Trini Lopez
 "Da Doo Ron Ron" – The Crystals
 "Pipeline" – The Chantays
 "Walk Like A Man" – Frankie Valli & The Four Seasons
 "Heat Wave" – Martha & the Vandellas
 "Up On The Roof" – The Drifters
 "I Can't Stay Mad At You" – Skeeter Davis
 "Only In America" – Jay & the Americans
 "Who Stole The Keeshka?" – Matys Brothers
 "Wonderful Summer" – Robin Ward
 "I Only Want to Be With You" – Dusty Springfield
 "The Folk Singer" – Tommy Roe
 "Guilty" – Jim Reeves
 "Is This Me" – Jim Reeves

New books 

 The Bell Jar – Sylvia Plath
 Benefactor – Susan Sontag
 Caravans – James A. Michener
 Cat's Cradle – Kurt Vonnegut
 City of Night – John Rechy
 The Collector – John Fowles
 Elizabeth Appleton – John O'Hara
 False Colours – Georgette Heyer
 John Cleland's Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure – John Cleland
 The Glass-Blowers – Daphne du Maurier
 Gradmother and the Priests – Taylor Caldwell
 The Group – Mary McCarthy
 Happiness Is a Warm Puppy – Charles M. Schulz
 The Making of the English Working Class – E. P. Thompson
 On Her Majesty's Secret Service – Ian Fleming
 Planet of the Apes (La Planète des Singes) – Pierre Boulle
 The Rise of the West – William H. McNeill
 The Sand Pebbles – Richard McKenna
 Second Skin – John Hawkes
 The Shoes of the Fisherman – Morris West
 Six Easy Pieces – Richard P. Feynman
 The Spy who Came in from the Cold – John le Carré
 That Summer in Paris – Morley Callaghan