Wilt Chamberlain of the Philadelphia Warriors becomes the first professional basketball player to score 100 points in a game, leading his team to a 169-147 regular season victory over the NY Knicks in Hershey, Pennsylvania. The combined score of 316 points is also an NBA record. Wilt the Stilt would go on to score a record-breaking 4000 points that season!

In Perth Amboy, New Jersey, Mr. & Mrs. James Bongiovi give birth to a son. Jon Bon Jovi was born.

Several hundred miles to the northeast in Southbridge, Massachusetts, at 12:07 PM, another son was born to Charles & Helen [last name removed for security purposes]. This is where my story begins.
 

February 20th: John Glenn makes his historic orbit of the earth on Friendship 7. He was the first American to accomplish this feat.

February 25th: James McGarrity, Secretary of the outlawed Irish Republican Army (IRA), signs a statement saying that the IRA has abandoned its campaign of violence against the British occupation of Northern Ireland.

February 28th: Returning from a goodwill world tour, US Attorney General Robert Kennedy reiterates that, "American troops are committed to Vietnam until the Viet Cong are beaten."

March 1st: President Kennedy asks Congress to establish a "Land Conservation Fund" to purchase areas for recreational use and create 9 National Parks. In October of that year, he would face the toughest challenge of his administration: the Cuban Missile Crisis.

March 8th: The Beatles make their first television appearance on the BBC-TV program "Teenagers Turn."

March 22nd: Barbra Streisand makes her Broadway debutin the play I Can Get It For Wholesale. She would go on to steal the show and win a N.Y. Critics Award.

On American TV on March 2nd, one could tune in new episodes of Route 66, The Twilight Zone, The Flintstones and Rawhide. NBC's Hallmark Hall of Fame presentation of Victoria Regina would win the Emmy for Program of the Year. Other shows winning Emmies include CBS's The Defenders and NBC's The Bob Newhart Show (his first one, not the later one you're thinking of).

Over in Sweden, the Nobel Prize committee was busy selecting this year's recipients. They would include Linus Pauling, American chemist, for Peace, John Steinbeck for Literature, and Wilkins, Watson and Crick for their pioneering research into DNA for Medicine.

Tony Award Winners for that year would be A Man For All Seasons as Best Play and How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying for Best Musical.

Tops at the box office were West Side Story (which would go on to win the Oscar for Best Picture), Judgment at Nuremberg, The Hustler, and Breakfast at Tiffany's.

The literate folk out there were reading The Edge of Sadness by Edwin O'Connor and The Making of the President 1960 by Theodore H. White, both would go on to win the Pulitzer Prize.

At dance halls around the nation, many are now doing new dances like the Watusi, the Twist and the Bossa Nova.