1963

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Events

March

• 28 - Seventeen-year-old Lizzie Lewis was murdered by Ed Morgan. The crime was not solved until 2007. (TW: Ghost Machine)
• Late March - The TARDIS materialised in the junkyard at 76 Totter's Lane, owned by I.M. Foreman, in the Shoreditch area of London, disguised incongruously as a police box. While the First Doctor attempted repairs and worked out a plan for safely disposing of the Hand of Omega on Earth, his granddaughter Susan Foreman registered at the nearby Coal Hill School against his wishes. Britain, meanwhile, was in the grip of an unusual cold wave. (TN: Time and Relative)

April

• 1 - The First Doctor fought off an invasion by the Cold. (TN: Time and Relative)

October

• 22 - Whilst at a bar, Susan witnessed a human mutate into an alien. She and the Doctor followed a trail that led to Raldonn, an alien trying to mutate humans to use as pilots for his spacecraft. (DWM: Operation Proteus) Susan was abducted by the Threshold. (DWM: Ground Zero, DWM: Operation Proteus)
• The TARDIS landed on the Queen Mary, a ship the Fourth Doctor found was full of ghosts. (TN: Ghost Ship)
• Late October - The First Doctor made arrangements with a Shoreditch funeral parlour to bury the Hand of Omega in a nearby churchyard. (DW: Remembrance of the Daleks)

November

• Some time before 22 November - The Spacefleet fighter Tisiphone, which had fallen into a temporal rift in 2547 during a battle with Daleks, exited the temporal rift near Earth space. Its crew escaped to England. (NA: Return of the Living Dad)
• 22 - The Kennedy assassination took place, witnessed by the Ninth Doctor. (DW: Rose) The Master attempted to prevent the assassination to change history, but was prevented from doing so by James Stevens, who witnessed his future self carry out the murder. (MA: Who Killed Kennedy)
• 22 - At roughly the same time, in the Shoreditch area of London, Coal Hill School teachers Ian Chesterton and Barbara Wright followed Susan Foreman home from the school. They discovered his TARDIS in 76 Totter's Lane. Fearing the consequences, the First Doctor abducted them. (DW: An Unearthly Child)

The abduction of Ian and Barbara likely occurred on an earlier date, possibly the 21st, due to the fact Susan indicates that she will return a borrowed book to the school "tomorrow"; as 22nd November 1963 was a Friday, this makes it unlikely that these events occurred just before the weekend break.

• 22 - By this time the Imperial Dalek faction had a presence in London in this time zone. (DWM: Time & Time Again)
• After 22 November - The disappearance of two teachers was noticed, but all thought Ian and Barbara had eloped. (PDA: The Face of the Enemy)
• After the departure of Ian and Barbara - The Fourth Doctor arrived to deal with a Heshrax insect that he had been tracking the day he left. (ST: Those Left Behind)
• 23 - In London, a man was stabbed in an alleyway with a flick knife. His murderer was never found. Elsewhere in the city, a baby boy was born and named John Fitzgerald after the recently deceased U.S. President. (ST: 1963)
• 23 - Jorjie Turner was sent from 2050 to 1963. She was retrieved by K9 Mark 2 and Starkey; together they saved William Pike from being arrested by Barker, preventing Darius Pike from being erased from history. (K9TV: The Cambridge Spy)
• 29-30 - The Doctor returned to Shoreditch in his seventh body to finish incomplete business and collect the Hand of Omega and aid the ICMG, the British Army's predecessor to UNIT. ICMG set up the evacuation of civilians from a three-mile radius of a fight between Renegade and Imperial Dalek factions over the Hand, an event which saw activity in 76 Totter's Lane and Coal Hill School. Humans in the know later called this event the Shoreditch Incident. (DW: Remembrance of the Daleks, MA: Who Killed Kennedy)

Journalist James Stevens established the dates of Ian and Barbara's abduction and the Shoreditch Incident. (MA: Who Killed Kennedy)

December

• 6 - Burial of British Army sergeant Mike Smith. (DW: Remembrance of the Daleks)

Dates unknown

• Nemesis approached Earth before the Kennedy assassination and, the Seventh Doctor implied, influenced it to happen. (DW: Silver Nemesis)
• In Liverpool, the Tenth Doctor took Martha Jones to watch the Beatles perform. Whilst they were returning to the TARDIS, Martha was teleported to an alien planet. (DWA: Signs of Life)

Alternate timelines

• The TARDIS landed in a parallel Earth in which World War II never ended, and the Fifth Doctor was drawn into the conflict. (DWM: Lunar Lagoon) With a native of this timeline, Angus Goodman, he departed. (DWM: 4-Dimensional Vistas)
• The Daleks, using the Eye of Time to change history, exterminated humanity, ravaging and conquering Earth. This timeline was averted by the Eleventh Doctor and Amy Pond. (VG: City of the Daleks)

Other timelines

• In John Smith's possible future, he died, leaving behind Joan, his children and their children, all safe. (NA: Human Nature)

See also

• Stories set in 1963

Behind the scenes

January

• 11 - Jason Connery was born; his father is Sean Connery.
• 30 - Daphne Ashbrook was born.

March

• 29 - C. E. Webber submitted to Donald Wilson an outline for a proposed family-oriented science fiction series to be called The Troubleshooters. Some of the earliest concepts of what was to become Doctor Who appeared in the document, which exists in the BBC Archives with notations from Sydney Newman.
  • At some point after this, Webber and Newman submitted a revised outline which was now for a series to be entitled Dr. Who (sic).

April

• 11 - Terry Weaver was born.
• 17 - Russell T Davies, Head writer and executive producer of Doctor Who from 2005-2009 and author of NA: Damaged Goods, was born in Swansea, Wales.

May

• 2 - Esther Freud (Threst in DW: Attack of the Cyberman) was born.
• 20 - Jenny Funnell (Veronica Buchman in BFA: Wirrn Isle) was born.

August

• 20 - Production of Doctor Who began with a filming session at Ealing Studios for the first episode of DW: An Unearthly Child; the session involved the creation of the opening credits. This version of the first episode was beset by technical problems, and the BBC subsequently rejected it for broadcast, authorising a rare "do-over" for later in the year. This version, dubbed The Pilot Episode later, would be finally broadcast in the 1990s. This is the earliest known production session related to Doctor Who. (Source: The Television Companion by Howe and Walker)
• 31 - A filming session was held at the BBC for DW: An Unearthly Child (aka The Pilot Episode).

September

• 18 - Gary Russell, author of several Doctor Who fiction and non-fiction works, former editor of Doctor Who Magazine, former Producer of the Big Finish Productions audios and current a member of the Doctor Who script editing team, was born in Berkshire, England.
• 19 - A one day filming session at Ealing Studios was held for episode one of DW: An Unearthly Child (aka The Pilot Episode).
• 27 - The formal studio recording session for the later rejected version of the first episode of DW: An Unearthly Child, aka The Pilot Episode, was conducted at Lime Grove Studios.
• 30 - After viewing the pilot episode, Sydney Newman officially rejected The Pilot Episode in a lunch meeting with Verity Lambert and Waris Hussein and authorisesd a remounting of the episode. According to Howe and Walker, this was a contingency that had been planned for. Over the next couple of weeks numerous revisions to the script and changes to costuming and characterisation were undertaken.

October

• 09 - Filming resumed at Ealing Studios for DW: An Unearthly Child, as Episode 1 was re-mounted following September's false start.
• 11 - Filming ended at Ealing for DW: An Unearthly Child
• 18 - One day studio recording at Lime Grove Studio D for the remounted first episode of DW: An Unearthly Child (also entitled "An Unearthly Child") took place.
• 25 - One day studio recording at Lime Grove Studio D for DW: An Unearthly Child episode 2, "The Cave of Skulls" took place. Margot Maxine, an extra hired as a member of the tribe, walked out at 3:00 after refusing to have her teeth blackened.
• 26 - Keith Topping, the author of several Doctor Who novels, was born.
• 28 - Initial filming began at Ealing Studios for elements to be used in the upcoming DW: The Daleks.
• 31 - Sanjeev Bhaskar was born.

November

• 01 - One day studio recording at Lime Grove Studio D for DW: An Unearthly Child episode 3, "The Forest of Fear" took place.
• 08 - One day studio recording at Lime Grove Studio D for DW: An Unearthly Child episode 4, "The Firemaker" took place, concluding the first Doctor Who serial.
• 11 - One day studio recording at Lime Grove Studio D for DW: The Daleks episode 1, "The Dead Planet" took place. According to Howe and Walker's The Television Companion, this version was not transmitted and was remounted a month later.
• 22 - Recording of "The Survivors", episode 2 of DW: The Daleks, was interrupted by the news of the Kennedy assassination, but resumed later the same day.
• 23 - Doctor Who debuted on UK television with the first broadcast of episode 1 of DW: An Unearthly Child (which was also entitled "An Unearthly Child"). A few parts of the UK were unable to view the episode due to a power cut. Due to the events of the previous day, however, a franchise legend later emerged suggesting that news coverage of the assassination of Kennedy and/or subsequent killing of suspect Lee Harvey Oswald was the reason for the broadcast disruption; this was not the case. The first episode aired between a sports broadcast and a puppet series called The Telegoons. "The Medicine Men", an episode of The Avengers – also created by Sydney Newman – aired the same day.
  • Likely the earliest Radio Times reference to the series occurred in the issue dated 23rd November.
  • Joe Ahearne was born.
• 30 - "An Unearthly Child" (DW: An Unearthly Child Episode 1) was broadcast for the second time as many viewers had missed the original screening as a result of a power cut; this was the first and for many years the only rebroadcast of a Doctor Who episode. The rebroadcast was followed by the first broadcast of "The Cave of Skulls". (DW: An Unearthly Child Episode 2)

December

• 06 - Recording of Episode 1 of DW: The Daleks, "The Dead Planet", was remounted following a false start in November.
• 07 - "The Forest of Fear" (DW: An Unearthly Child Episode 3) was first broadcast.
• 14 - "The Firemaker" (DW: An Unearthly Child Episode 4) was first broadcast, concluding the series' first serial.
• 21 - "The Dead Planet" (DW: The Daleks Episode 1) was first broadcast. The episode ended with the series' first great cliffhanger, featuring the first-ever glimpse of a Dalek.
• 28 - "The Survivors" (DW: The Daleks Episode 2) was first broadcast.
• 30 - Audience Research Report on the first episode of Doctor Who was filed with the BBC.