1963

New action-adventure novel Saving Jackie K takes place in both 2013 and 1963. Perhaps surprisingly, the calendar days of the two years match exactly. November 22 was a Friday in 1963, and it will be a Friday again in 2013. What was life like in 1963, nearly a half a century ago?

In 1963, John F. Kennedy began the third and final year of his presidency, and the majority of Americans alive today had not yet been born. Median household income was $6200; a gallon of gas cost 29¢ and the price of a postage stamp was a nickel. Many nostalgically recall the early sixties as a more simple age, before the advent of war protests and the dawn of personal technology, but 1963 had its share of turbulence and breakthroughs

On February 20, John Glenn made history as the first American to orbit the earth aboard his Friendship 7 spacecraft, part of the Mercury Missions that were stepping stones to moon travel.

John, Paul, George, and Ringo released their first album, Please Please Me, on March 22, launching Beatlemania in the UK, a fan-frenzy epidemic that would spread worldwide.

In a West Berlin speech on June 26, Kennedy uttered his legendary phrase, "Ich bin ein Berliner" - "I am a Berliner" to a crowd of over one hundred thousand. His words were a reference to "all free men, wherever they may live" and underscored support for West Berliners, living in a democratic citadel surrounded by the Soviet's Berlin Wall - a barrier that divided them from the communism of Soviet-occupied East Germany, and the rest of the world.

In a watershed moment for the American Civil Rights Movement, activist Martin Luther King Jr. delivered his monumental "I have a dream" speech on August 28. From the steps of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington DC, King spoke to over two hundred thousand, rallying for racial equality and an end to discrimination.

November 22 marked the brutal assassination of John Kennedy, an event which catapulted Lyndon Johnson to the office of Commander in Chief. Upon LBJ's return to Andrews Air Force Base near DC, the new president remarked, "This is a sad time for all people. We have suffered a loss that cannot be weighed. For me, it is a deep personal tragedy. I know that the world shares the sorrow that Mrs. Kennedy and her family bear. I will do my best. That is all I can do. I ask for your help - and God's."