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presidential hopeful Richard Nixon as their candidate. A third candidate, Governor George Wallace of Alabama, decided to run in 1968 as an independent.
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When the first U.S. combat troops arrived in Vietnam in the spring. about 66 percent of Americans approved of U.S. policy in Vietnam. As the war dragged on, however, public support began to wane.
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a group of faculty members and students at the University of Michigan joined together in a teach-in. They discussed the issues surrounding the war and reaffirmed their reasons for opposing it. -
during Tet, the Vietnamese New Year, the Vietcong and North Vietnamese launched a massive surprise attack. After about a month of fighting, U.S. and South Vietnamese soldiers repelled the enemy troops, inflicting heavy losses on them. But less tangible damage had been done.
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Both Johnson and the war had become increasingly unpopular. With the presidential election of 1968 on the horizon, some Democratic politicians made surprising moves. In November 1967, Eugene McCarthy—a little-known liberal senator from Minnesota—declared that he would challenge Johnson for the Democratic presidential nomination -
With both the country and his own party deeply divided, Johnson appeared on television on March 31, 1968. He announced, “I have concluded that I should not permit the presidency to become involved in the partisan divisions that are developing in this political year.
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his increasingly antiwar stance and strong campaigning helped turn his numbers around -
culminated with a chaotic and well-publicized clash between antiwar protesters and police at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago. Thousands of young activists surrounded the convention center to protest the war. -
college students could often defer military service until after graduation. Young people from working-class families unable to afford college were more likely to be drafted. -
The Twenty-sixth Amendment to the Constitution was ratified, giving all citizens age 18 and older the right to vote in all state and federal elections.