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The 1962 Tour de France was the 49th edition of the Tour de France, one of cycling's Grand Tours. The 4,274-kilometre (2,656 mi) race consisted of 22 stages, including two split stages, starting in Nancy on 24 June and finishing at the Parc des Princes in Paris on 15 July. There were four time trial stages and no rest days. After more than 30 years, the Tour was again contested by trade teams instead of national teams. Jacques Anquetil of the Saint-Raphaël–Helyett–Hutchinson team won the overall general classification, defending his title to win his third Tour de France. Jef Planckaert (Flandria–Faema–Clément) placed second, 4 min 59 s in arrears, and Raymond Poulidor (Mercier–BP–Hutchinson) was third, over ten minutes behind Anquetil.

Anquetil's teammate Rudi Altig took the first general classification leader's yellow jersey after winning the first stage. He lost it the following day to André Darrigade of Gitane–Leroux–Dunlop–R. Geminiani, who won stage 2a, before regaining it after winning stage three. The lead was taken by Saint-Raphaël rider Albertus Geldermans after stage six. He held it for two stages, before Darrigade took it back for the next two. Flandria rider Willy Schroeders then led the race between the end of stage nine to the end of eleven, at which point Schroeders' teammate Rik Van Looy, a major pre-race favourite, abandoned the race with an injury. The following day, British rider Tom Simpson (Gitane–Leroux) became the first rider from outside mainland Europe in history to wear the yellow jersey. He lost it to Planckaert after stage thirteen's individual time trial to Superbagnères in the Pyrenees. He held the lead for seven stages, which included the Alps. Anquetil's victory in the individual time trial of stage twenty put him in the yellow jersey, which he held until the conclusion of the race. (Full article...)

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The Indiana State Fairgrounds Coliseum gas explosion took place in Indianapolis, Indiana, United States, on October 31, 1963; 81 people died and about 400 others were injured. It was one of the worst disasters in the history of the state.

On the night of October 31, over 4,000 people were in the Indiana State Fairgrounds Coliseum to watch a Holiday on Ice performance. While this was happening, liquefied petroleum gas was leaking from a tank that was stored with several others in a supply room underneath a part of the grandstands. Shortly after 11 p.m. ET, the gas came into contact with an electrical heating element from the concessions area, causing a major explosion that killed many seated above the room and caused significant damage to the stands. After the initial blast, while people were evacuating, a second blast caused by the remaining, unexploded tanks caused further destruction. Firefighters and other emergency responders were at the site within minutes and survivors were transported via ambulance to various hospitals in the area. The gas tanks were discovered by firefighters during cleanup operations and later testing revealed that they were the cause of the explosion. (Full article...)

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• ... that Jacqueline Kennedy wore her pink Chanel suit (pictured) at the inauguration of President Lyndon B. Johnson, even though it was stained with her husband's blood?
• ... that the black Givenchy dress worn by Audrey Hepburn in the 1961 film Breakfast at Tiffany's has been called "perhaps the most famous little black dress of all time"?
• ... that Bo Schembechler praised Pete Newell for traveling to Iowa with the 1969 Michigan football team rather than to a large antiwar rally "with the damn hippies where he really wanted to be"?

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Frank Vincent Zappa (/ˈzæpə/ ZAP-ə; December 21, 1940 – December 4, 1993) was an American musician, composer, and bandleader. In a career spanning more than 30 years, Zappa composed rock, pop, jazz, jazz fusion, orchestral and musique concrète works; he also produced almost all of the 60-plus albums that he released with his band the Mothers of Invention and as a solo artist. His work is characterized by nonconformity, improvisation sound experimentation, musical virtuosity and satire of American culture. Zappa also directed feature-length films and music videos, and designed album covers. He is considered one of the most innovative and stylistically diverse musicians of his generation.

As a mostly self-taught composer and performer, Zappa had diverse musical influences that led him to create music that was sometimes difficult to categorize. While in his teens, he acquired a taste for 20th-century classical modernism, African-American rhythm and blues, and doo-wop music. He began writing classical music in high school, while simultaneously playing drums in rhythm and blues bands, later switching to electric guitar. His debut studio album with the Mothers of Invention, Freak Out! (1966), combined satirical songs in seemingly conventional rock and roll format with collective improvisations and studio-generated sound collages. He continued this eclectic and experimental approach whether the fundamental format was rock, jazz, or classical. (Full article...)

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Leonid Ilyich Brezhnev^[a] (19 December 1906 – 10 November 1982) was a Soviet politician who served as General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union from 1964 until his death in 1982, and Chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet (head of state) from 1960 to 1964 and again from 1977 to 1982. His 18-year term as General Secretary was second only to Joseph Stalin's in duration. To this day, the value of Brezhnev's tenure as General Secretary remains debated by historians.

Brezhnev was born to a working-class family in Kamenskoye (now Kamianske, Ukraine) within the Yekaterinoslav Governorate of the Russian Empire. After the results of the October Revolution were finalized with the creation of the Soviet Union, Brezhnev joined the Communist party's youth league in 1923 before becoming an official party member in 1929. When Nazi Germany invaded the Soviet Union in June 1941, he joined the Red Army as a commissar and rose rapidly through the ranks to become a major general during World War II. Following the war's end, Brezhnev was promoted to the party's Central Committee in 1952 and rose to become a full member of the Politburo by 1957. In 1964, he garnered enough power to replace Nikita Khrushchev as First Secretary of the CPSU, the most powerful position in the country. (Full article...)

The Sharpeville massacre occurred on 21 March 1960 at the police station in the township of Sharpeville in the then Transvaal Province of the then Union of South Africa (today part of Gauteng). After demonstrating against anti-black pass laws, a crowd of about 7,000 black protesters went to the police station. Sources disagree as to the behaviour of the crowd: some state that the crowd was peaceful, while others state that the crowd had been hurling stones at the police and that the mood had turned "ugly". The South African Police (SAP) opened fire on the crowd when the crowd started advancing toward the fence around the police station; tear-gas had proved ineffectual. There were 249 victims in total, including 29 children, with 69 people killed and 180 injured. Some were shot in the back as they fled.

The massacre was photographed by photographer Ian Berry, who initially thought the police were firing blanks. In present-day South Africa, 21 March is commemorated as a public holiday in honour of human rights and to commemorate the Sharpeville massacre. (Full article...)

• ... that Indian women's hockey player Elvera Britto and her sisters would stitch their own team uniforms while playing in the 1960s?
• ... that in the 1960s one could have tea and toast served to your changing room at the Carlisle Turkish baths in England?
• ... that Japanese actress Junko Ikeuchi was known as the "Queen of TV Dramas" from the 1960s to the 1980s?
• ... that the Konzerthalle in Bad Salzuflen, an example of spa architecture in the 1960s, is one of the regular venues of the Nordwestdeutsche Philharmonie?
• ... that in the 1960s Tennessee had a radio station named after the "Wonderful Gay Way"?
• ... that in the 1960s, the Centers for Disease Control's Wellbee encouraged Americans to get vaccinated against polio and diphtheria?