What happened 50 years ago today feb 17 1962?

Answer 1

• North Sea flood of 1962: Hurricane force winds and heavy rains swept across West Germany's North Sea coast and sent the waters flooding over the seawalls. There were 345 deaths in West Germany, of which 281 died in Hamburg when the Elbe River overflowed. An estimated 500,000 people were left homeless. [43]
• Richard Helms replaced Richard M. Bissell, Jr., as Director of the National Clandestine Service, a department of the USA's Central Intelligence Agency. Helms would, in 1966, become the Director of Central Intelligence. [44]
• U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert S. McNamara outlined the doctrine of flexible response, the nuclear strategy of the Kennedy administration, in an address to the American Bar Foundation in Chicago. The plan called for building a large enough nuclear arsenal that the United States would have the ability to launch a second strike of nuclear missiles against the Soviets even after an initial exchange of destruction. [45]
• After being rejected by both her lover, Richard Burton, and her husband, Eddie Fisher, actress Elizabeth Taylor attempted suicide by taking an overdose of Seconal sleeping pills. She was saved after being rushed to the Salvator Mundi Hospital in Rome, where she and Burton were filming Cleopatra. The 20th Century Fox studio invented a cover story that Taylor had become seriously ill from food poisoning. [46]
• Born: David McComb, Australian rock musician (died 1999), in Perth
• Died: Joseph Kearns, an American actor who portrayed "Mr. Wilson" on the Dennis the Menace TV series, died at the age of 55 after collapsing from a cerebral hemorrhage the previous Sunday. Ironically, the plot for that Sunday evening's episode, "Where There's a Will", dealt with Kearns's character convinced that he had only a short time to live. [47]
• Died: Bruno Walter, 85, German orchestral conductor [48]