page_title: 1964
section_title: April
hierarchical_section_title: 1964 / Events / April
caption_attribution_description: English: Gemini/Titan-II launch vehicle #1 liftoff at Cape Kennedy, Florida.
context_page_description: 1964 was a leap year starting on Wednesday of the Gregorian calendar, the 1964th year of the Common Era and Anno Domini designations, the 964th year of the 2nd millennium, the 64th year of the 20th century, and the 5th year of the 1960s decade.
context_section_description: April 1 – Deployed military rule in Brazil ends the government of democratically elected president, João Goulart.
  April 2 – Mrs. Malcolm Peabody, 72, mother of Massachusetts Governor Endicott Peabody, is released on $450 bond after spending two 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. 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 6 – Jigme Palden Dorji, premier of the Himalayan kingdom of Bhutan, is shot dead by an unidentified assassin in Puncholing, near the Indian border.
  April 7 – IBM announces the System/360.
  April 8
  Four of 5 railroad operating unions in the United States strike against the Illinois Central Railroad without warning, bringing to a head a 5-year dispute over railroad work rules.
  Gemini 1 is launched, the first unmanned test of the 2-man spacecraft.
  From Russia with Love premiers in U.S. movie theaters.
  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 have been reported killed.
  April 10 – Demolition of the Polo Grounds sports stadium commences in New York City.
  April 11 – The Brazilian Congress elects Field Marshal Humberto de Alencar Castelo Branco as President of Brazil.
  April 12 – In Detroit, Malcolm X delivers a speech entitled "The Ballot or the Bullet"
  April 13
  The 36th Academy Awards ceremony is held.
  Sidney Poitier is the first African-American to win an Academy Award in the category Best Actor in a Leading Role in Lilies of the Field.
  April 14 – A Delta rocket's third-stage motor ignites prematurely in an assembly room at Cape Canaveral, killing 3.
  April 16
  The Rolling Stones release their debut album, The Rolling Stones.
  Sentences totaling 307 years are passed on twelve men who stole £2,600,000 in used bank notes, after holding up the night train traveling from Glasgow to London in August 1963 – a heist that becomes known as the Great Train Robbery.
  April 17
  In the United States, the Ford Mustang is officially unveiled to the public.
  Shea Stadium opens in Flushing, New York.
  April 19 – In Laos, the coalition government of Prince Souvanna Phouma is deposed by a right-wing military group, led by Brig. Gen. Kouprasith Abhay. Not supported by the United States, the coup is ultimately unsuccessful, and Souvanna Phouma is reinstated, remaining as Prime Minister until 1975.
  April 20
  U.S. President Lyndon Johnson in New York, and Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev in Moscow, simultaneously announce plans to cut back production of materials for making nuclear weapons.
  Nelson Mandela makes his "I Am Prepared to Die" speech at the opening of the Rivonia Trial, a key event for the anti-apartheid movement.
  In the UK, BBC Two television starts broadcasting for the first time.
  April 22
  British businessman Greville Wynne, imprisoned in Moscow since 1963 for spying, is exchanged for Soviet spy Gordon Lonsdale.
  The 1964 New York World's Fair opens to celebrate the 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 October 18, 1964, and reopens April 21, 1965, finally closing October 17, 1965. Although not internationally sanctioned, due to being within ten years of the Seattle World's Fair in 1962, so that some countries decline to attend, many have pavilions with exotic crafts, art and food.)
  April 25 – Thieves steal the head of the Little Mermaid statue in Copenhagen, Denmark (Henrik Bruun confesses in 1997).
  April 26 – Tanganyika and Zanzibar merge to form Tanzania.
caption: April 8: Gemini 1 launched.
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