1963

Events

Doctor Who Universe

March

• 28 - Lizzie Lewis is murdered by Ed Morgan. (TW: Ghost Machine)
• Late March - The TARDIS materializes 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 Doctor attempts repairs and works out a plan for safely disposing of the Hand on Earth, Susan, against his wishes, registers at the nearby Coal Hill School. Britain, meanwhile, is in the grip of an unusual cold wave. (TN: Time and Relative)
• Whilst out at a bar Susan witnesses an human mutate into an alien, she and the Doctor follow a trial that leads to Raldonn an alien attempting to mutate humans in order to use as pilots for his spacecraft. (DWM: Operation Proteus)

April

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

October

• The TARDIS lands on the Queen Mary, a ship the Doctor finds full of ghosts. (TN: Ghost Ship)
• Late October - The Doctor has made arrangements with a local funeral parlor to bury the Hand of Omega in a nearby churchyard. (DW: Remembrance of the Daleks)

November

• Sometime before the 22nd - The Spacefleet fighter Tisiphone, which had fallen into a temporal rift in 2547 during a battle with Daleks, exits the temporal rift near Earth space. Its crew manages to escape to England. (NA: Return of the Living Dad)
• 22 - The Kennedy assassination takes place, witnessed by the Ninth Doctor. At roughly the same time in the Shoreditch area of London, Coal Hill School teachers Ian Chesterton and Barbara Wright, following Susan Foreman home from the school, discover the TARDIS in 76 Totters Lane. Fearing the consequences, the Doctor abducts them. (DW: An Unearthly Child) By this time the Imperial Dalek faction has a presence in London in this time zone. (DWM: Time & Time Again)
• 29-30 - The Doctor returns to finish incomplete business and collect the Hand of Omega and aid the ICMG, the British Army's predecessor to UNIT. ICMG sets up the evacuation of civilians out of three miles radius of a fight between Renegade and Imperial Dalek factions as they fight over the Hand, an event which sees activity in 76 Totter's Lane and Coal Hill School. Humans in the know will later call this event the Shoreditch Incident. (DW: Remembrance of the Daleks, MA: Who Killed Kennedy)

Journalist David Bishop 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 approaches Earth before the Kennedy assassination and, the Doctor, implied, influenced it to happen. (DW: Silver Nemesis)

Alternate timelines

• The TARDIS materializes on a picturesque Pacific island and the Doctor settles in for a lazy spell of resting and fishing, or so he thinks. In reality, the TARDIS has landed in a parallel Earth in which World War II never ended, and the Doctor gets drawn into the conflict. (DWM: Lunar Lagoon) With a native of this, timeline, Angus Goodman, he departs. (DWM: 4-Dimensional Vistas)

See also

• Stories set in 1963

Real World

April

• 27 - Russell T Davies, Head writer and executive producer of Doctor Who from 2005-2009 and writer of Damaged Goods is born in Swansea, Wales.

September

• 19 - Filming of Doctor Who commences with a one day shoot at Ealing for episode one of An Unearthly Child. This version of the first episode is beset by technical problems, and the BBC subsequently rejects it for broadcast, authorizing a rare "do-over" for later in the year. This version, dubbed The Pilot Episode later, would be finally broadcast in the 1990s.
• 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 audios and current a member of the Doctor Who script editing team is born Berkshire, England.

October

• 09 - Filming resumes at Ealing for An Unearthly Child.
• 11 - Filming ends at Ealing for An Unearthly Child
• 11 - One day studio filming at Lime Grove Studio D for An Unearthly Child.
• 25 - One day studio filming at Lime Grove Studio D for An Unearthly Child. Margot Maxine, an extra hired as a member of the tribe, walks out at 3:00 after refusing to have her teeth blackened

November

• 01 - One day studio filming at Lime Grove Studio D for An Unearthly Child.
• 08 - One day studio filming at Lime Grove Studio D for An Unearthly Child.
• 22 - Filming of an episode of The Daleks is interrupted by the news of the Kennedy assassination, but resumes later the same day.
• 23 - Doctor Who debuts on UK television with the first broadcast of An Unearthly Child. A few parts of the UK are unable to view the episode due to a power cut.
• 30 - "An Unearthly Child" is broadcast for the second time as many viewers missed the original screening as a result of a power cut. The rebroadcast is followed by the first broadcast of "The Cave of Skulls" (An Unearthly Child Episode 2)

December

• 07 - First broadcast of "The Forest of Fear" (An Unearthly Child Episode 3).
• 14 - First broadcast of "The Firemaker" (An Unearthly Child Episode 4).
• 21 - First broadcast of "The Dead Planet" (The Daleks Episode 1).
• 28 - "The Survivors" First Broadcast (The Daleks Episode 2)

Unknown Date

• Julian Bleach, who plays the Ghostmaker in the Torchwood episode From Out of the Rain and Davros in the Doctor Who story The Stolen Earth/Journey's End is born in Bournemouth.

Footnotes

1962

20th century 1960s

1964