Cost of Living in 1964:

• Average cost of new house $13,050.00
  
• Average yearly income per year $6,000.00
  
• Gas per Gallon 30 cents
  
• Average Cost of a new car $3,500.00
  
• Loaf of bread 21 cents
  
• United States Postage Stamp 5 cents
  
• Average Monthly Rent $115.00
  
• Ticket to the movies $1.25
• Local call on a Payphone 10 cents

 

MAJOR WORLD EVENTS:

• After completing what would have been the final year of John F. Kennedy’s first term, President Johnson re-elected in a landslide over Barry Goldwater


• President Johnson declares "war on poverty," introduces a variety of federal welfare programs, including Medicare (initially proposed by Kennedy in 1960)


• Three civil rights workers murdered in Mississippi during "Freedom Summer"


• 24th Amendment to Constitution adopted, ensuring fair voting practices


• Race riots break out in Harlem and other U.S. cities


• Investigating the Kennedy assassination, the Warren Commission determines that "Oswald acted alone" in killing the president


• U.S. military forces launch attacks on North Vietnam in response to an alleged attack on a U.S. destroyer off the Vietnamese coast; Congress passes Gulf of Tonkin resolution that gives the President greater freedom to authorize combat actions in Vietnam


• Soviet leader Khrushchev falls from power, is ultimately replaced by Leonid Brezhnev


• Anchorage, Alaska hit by massive earthquake


• Turkey attacks Cyprus

   

SPORTS:

• High School Football: Sunnyvale Jets beat Fremont Indians for the first and only time in California history.  Sunnyvale High School scored the major upset of  the Santa Clara Valley Athletic League season by defeating Fremont 21-19.  Sunnyvale punched the winning touchdown with a drive of 69 yards.  With first and ten on the 35 yard line, John Figueroa broke off left tackle and went all the way to score. The win touched off a wild celebration for the Jets as they swarmed onto the field and carried off Coach Jack Carroll.  The coach singled out Figueroa, Frank Pak, and Tex Bondurant for defense and complimented Wayne Duncan and Marty Muir for offensive excellence.
  


• World Series: St. Louis wins over New York Yankees, 4-3


• Olympics Games was held in Tokyo, Japan


• Cassius Clay (the future Muhammad Ali) defeats Sonny Liston to win heavyweight boxing title

 

BUSINESS & ECONOMY:

• Yearly Inflation Rate USA 1.28%
• Yearly Inflation Rate UK 3.5%
• Year End Close Dow Jones Industrial Average 874
• Teamsters leader Jimmy Hoffa convicted of fraud, conspiracy and jury tampering
• The average hourly wage for blue collar workers has increased from between 50 and 75 percent since 1949

SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY:

• Space probe Mariner IV flies by Mars, transmitting pictures of the planet’s surface back to earth


• The world’s longest suspension bridge, the Verrazano Narrows Bridge in New York, opens


• Concern in Britain over "brain drain," or the mass emigration of British scientists to the U.S.


• World’s Fair held in New York


• First lung transplant


• BASIC(Beginners' All-purpose Symbolic Instruction Code), an easy to learn high level programming language is introduced.


• IBM announces the System/360.


• The worlds first high speed rail network opens in Japan
  
  
• First Ford Mustang is manufactured


• Sony introduces the first VCR Home Video Recorder


• The first driverless train runs on London Underground


• China explodes its first Nuclear bomb


• Inventions Invented by Inventors and Country (or attributed to First Use)
  • Computer Mouse USA by Douglas Engelbart
  • Bubble Wrap USA by Marc A Chavannes
    

ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT:

• Movies: Lord of the Flies, A Hard Day’s Night, My Fair Lady, Goldfinger, Zorba the Greek, Mary Poppins


• Songs: I Want to Hold Your Hand, Hello Dolly!, She Loves You, Can’t Buy Me Love, Do Wah Diuly Diuly, Oh Pretty Woman, Baby Love, My Guy


• TV Shows: The Munsters, The Virginian, Daniel Boone, Outer Limits, Gilligan’s Island, Man From UNCLE, Flipper, Dr. Kildare, Voyage the the Bottom of the Sea


• Books: A Moveable Feast, Ernest Hemmingway (posthumous publication); Herzog, Saul Bellow; In His Own Write, John Lennon


• Musicals: Hello Dolly, Fiddler on the Roof debut "Beatlemania" spreads as the Beatles become a global phenomenon


• "Beatlemania" spreads as the Beatles become a global phenomenon


• Elizabeth Taylor marries Richard Burton after divorcing Eulie Fisher 10 days before Cole Porter dies

 

FUN FACTS:

• According to some reports, not a single juvenile crime is reported in New York City the night of the Beatles’ first appearance on the Ed Sullivan Show in February 1964

 

____________________________Sources____________________________

http://www.babyboomers.com/1964/
http://www.thepeoplehistory.com/1964.html