March 18, 1963

Gas cost $0.30 a gallon in the spring of 1963, and the Dow Jones stood at 762 — a Soviet agreement to establish a direct communications link between Washington and Moscow marked the first formal accord of the Cold War era aimed specifically at preventing accidental nuclear conflict. On newsstands and screens, Charles M. Schulz's "Happiness Is a Warm Puppy" sat atop the nonfiction bestseller list while Alfred Hitchcock's thriller "The Birds" packed theaters across the country. The Boston Celtics claimed the NBA championship by defeating the Los Angeles Lakers, the same spring that NASA sent Gordon Cooper into orbit aboard "Mercury-Atlas 9" — the final flight of the Mercury program and America's last solo crewed mission before the Gemini era began.