* 1962 – East German border guards kill 18-year-old Peter Fechter as he attempts to cross the Berlin Wall into West Berlin becoming one of the first victims of the wall.

* 1962 – The first official Panda crossing is opened outside Waterloo station, London.

* 1962 – Japan conducts a test of the NAMC YS-11, its first aircraft since World War II and its only successful commercial aircraft from before or after the war.

The first batch of herbicides was unloaded at Tan Son Nhut Air Base in South Vietnam, on January 9, 1962.

The show was first announced in The New York Times on October 5, 1961: " For the winter of 1962, Laurents is nurturing another musical project, The Natives Are Restless.

He received tenure at Berkeley in 1962 and was given his first sabbatical in 1964.

The lyrics were written in honor of Green Beret James Gabriel, Jr., the first Native Hawaiian who died in Vietnam, who was executed by the Viet Cong while on a training mission on April 8, 1962.

The first, classified, edition of Factbook was published in August 1962, and the first unclassified version in June 1971.

The first international convention for coin collectors was held 15 – 18 August 1962, in Detroit, Michigan, and was sponsored by the American Numismatic Association and the Royal Canadian Numismatic Association.

The first of the three laws, previously termed Clarke's Law, was proposed by Arthur C. Clarke in the essay " Hazards of Prophecy: The Failure of Imagination ", in Profiles of the Future ( 1962 ).

In February 1962, the United States launched an embargo against Cuba, and Lansdale presented a 26-page, top-secret timetable for implementation of the overthrow of the Cuban Government, mandating that guerrilla operations begin in August and September, and in the first two weeks of October: " Open revolt and overthrow of the Communist regime ".

In April 1961, Jed Stone made his first appearance and returned the following year in 1962.

Carbamazepine was first marketed as a drug to treat trigeminal neuralgia ( formerly known as tic douloureux ) in 1962.

East-West tensions increased during the first term of U. S. President Ronald Reagan ( 1981 – 1985 ), reaching levels not seen since the 1962 Cuban missile crisis as Reagan increased US military spending to 7 % of the GDP.

His book, The Chaos of Cults, which was first published in 1938, became a classic in the field as it was repeatedly revised and updated until 1962.

Dallas logged its first win in the series on October 29, 1961 and New York's first was on November 11, 1962.

Time Out was followed by several albums with a similar approach, including Time Further Out: Miro Reflections ( 1961 ), using more 5 / 4, 6 / 4, and 9 / 8, plus the first attempt at 7 / 4 ; Countdown: Time in Outer Space ( dedicated to John Glenn ) ( 1962 ), featuring 11 / 4 and more 7 / 4 ; Time Changes ( 1963 ), with much 3 / 4, 10 / 4 ( which was really 5 + 5 ), and 13 / 4 ; and Time In ( 1966 ).

* 1962 – Vietnam War: After a trip to Vietnam at the request of US President John F. Kennedy, US Senate Majority Leader Mike Mansfield becomes the first American official not to make an optimistic public comment on the war's progress.

The Oxford English dictionary cites a 1962 technical report as the first to use the term " data-base.

The Commission on Restructure, chaired by Granville T. Walker, held its first meeting on October 30 & November 1, 1962.

A sporting 2 + 2 seater version was also available as the Auto-Union 1000 SP from 1957 to 1964, the first years only as a coupé and from 1962 also as a convertible.

Graduating from his plastic saxophone to a real instrument in 1962, Bowie formed his first band at the age of 15.

* 1962 – Rondane National Park is established as Norway's first national park.

The AVL tree is named after its two Soviet inventors, G. M. Adelson-Velskii and E. M. Landis, who published it in their 1962 paper " An algorithm for the organization of information.

* Soviet agent John Vassall working for Minister Tam Galbraith ( 1962 )

The Cuban Missile Crisis in the Autumn of 1962, in which the United States blockaded a Soviet attempt to put nuclear missiles on Cuba, created some anxiety about the possibility of imminent nuclear war and CND organised demonstrations on the issue.

The Cuban missile crisis — known as the October crisis in Cuba and the Caribbean crisis () in the USSR — was a 13-day confrontation between the Soviet Union and Cuba on one side and the United States on the other ; the crisis occurred in October 1962, during the Cold War.

In August 1962, after some unsuccessful operations by the US to overthrow the Cuban regime ( Bay of Pigs, Operation Mongoose ), the Cuban and Soviet governments secretly began to build bases in Cuba for a number of medium-range and intermediate-range ballistic nuclear missiles ( MRBMs and IRBMs ) with the ability to strike most of the continental United States.

On October 14, 1962, a United States Air Force U-2 plane on a photoreconnaissance mission captured photographic proof of Soviet missile bases under construction in Cuba.

In May 1962, Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev was persuaded by the idea of countering the United States ' growing lead in developing and deploying strategic missiles by placing Soviet intermediate-range nuclear missiles in Cuba.

In 1962, the Soviets had only 20 ICBMs capable of delivering nuclear warheads to the United States from inside the Soviet Union.

Therefore, Soviet nuclear capability in 1962 placed less emphasis on ICBMs than on medium and intermediate-range ballistic missiles ( MRBMs and IRBMs ).

In early 1962, a group of Soviet military and missile construction specialists accompanied an agricultural delegation to Havana.

President Kennedy meets with Soviet Foreign Minister Andrei Gromyko in the Oval Office ( October 18, 1962 )

* 1962 – Captured American U2 spy-plane pilot Gary Powers is exchanged for captured Soviet spy Rudolf Abel.

Vasiliy rose through the ranks of the Soviet air force, officially dying of alcoholism in 1962 ; however, this is still in question.

A former U. S. Marine who had defected to the Soviet Union between October 1959 and June 1962, Oswald was initially arrested for the murder of police officer J. D. Tippit, on a Dallas street approximately 40 minutes after Kennedy was shot.

* 1962 – Cuban Missile Crisis ends: In response to the Soviet Union agreeing to remove its missiles from Cuba, U. S. President John F. Kennedy ends the quarantine of the Caribbean nation.

* 1962 – Cuban missile crisis: Adlai Stevenson shows photos at the UN proving Soviet missiles are installed in Cuba.

* 1962 – Cuban Missile Crisis: Soviet Union leader Nikita Khrushchev announces that he had ordered the removal of Soviet missile bases in Cuba.

* 1962 – The Cuban Missile Crisis begins: A U. S. Air Force U-2 reconnaissance plane and its pilot fly over the island of Cuba and take photographs of Soviet missiles capable of carrying nuclear warheads being installed and erected in Cuba.

* 1962 – Cuban Missile Crisis: US President John F. Kennedy, after internal counsel from Dwight D. Eisenhower, announces that American reconnaissance planes have discovered Soviet nuclear weapons in Cuba, and that he has ordered a naval " quarantine " of the Communist nation.

The Soviet High Command – A Military-Political History 1918 – 41, MacMillan, London, 1962,

The Soviet Union established diplomatic relations with Senegal on June 14, 1962

* 1962 – The Soviet ship Poltava heads toward Cuba, one of the events that sets into motion the Cuban Missile Crisis.