IT HAPPENED THIS WEEK … IN 1962
SUNDAY, AUGUST 5
Actress Norma Jeane Mortensen, better known as ‘Marilyn Monroe’ (36), was found dead in her Los Angeles, California home. Her death was ruled a ‘probable suicide’ from overdosing on sleeping pills. She is remembered for hit movies such as Some Like it Hot, which was released in 1959, and How
to Marry a Millionaire, released 1953.
Nelson Mandela was arrested at Howick, KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa. He was charged with leaving the country without a passport and inciting workers to strike. This would be the beginning of 27 years of imprisonment for Mandela.
TUESDAY, AUGUST 7
Dr Guillermo Leon Valencia was inaugurated as president of Colombia.
The USSR (Union of Soviet Socialist Republics) performed a nuclear test at Semipalatinsk, Eastern Kazakhstan.
WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 8
Elizabeth Ann Duncan, also known as Ma Duncan (about 1904-August 8, 1962), became the last woman executed in California before the United States Supreme Court suspended the death penalty under a 1972 ruling. She was convicted of planning the murder of her daughter-in-law in 1958. Elizabeth Duncan was convicted of hiring 28-yearold Augustine Baldonado and 23-year-old Luis Moya to murder her daughter-in-law, who was pregnant at the time. The three prisoners were executed the same day in the gas chamber at San Quentin State Prison.
FRIDAY, AUGUST 10
Civil rights activist Martin Luther King Jr was released from jail after being granted a reduced sentenced for his participation in a prayer vigil outside of City Hall in Albany, Georgia.
SATURDAY, AUGUST 11
Vostok 3 launches on a 94-hour flight from the Baikonur Cosmodrome (Kazakhstan) and cosmonaut Andriyan Nikolayev becomes the first person to float in Micro-g environment known as microgravity.