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The Newport Jazz Festival, founded in 1954 in Rhode Island, is an iconic annual summer event regarded as the "grandfather" of American jazz festivals. Held at Fort Adams State Park, it features diverse jazz, RB, and soul performances across multiple stages in a scenic, coastal setting.
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The first televised U.S. presidential debate, held September 26, 1960, in Chicago, featured John F. Kennedy and Richard Nixon, drawing ~70-77 million viewers. Kennedy’s poised, telegenic appearance contrasted sharply with a tired, sweaty, and makeup-free Nixon.
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Operation Rolling Thunder was a sustained U.S. bombing campaign against North Vietnam from 1965 to 1968, intended to weaken their will to fight and interdict supplies to the Viet Cong in the South, but it ultimately failed to achieve its strategic goals due to strict political limitations, North Vietnam's resilience, and reliance on Soviet/Chinese aid, marking a major escalation of the Vietnam War.
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President John F. Kennedy was fatally shot while riding in an open-top motorcade through Dealey Plaza in Dallas, Texas. He was struck by two shots fired from the nearby Texas School Book Depository and pronounced dead at Parkland Memorial Hospital at 1:00 p.m..
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The Beatles made their historic first live U.S. television appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show, viewed by over 73 million people—a record at the time. Introduced by Ed Sullivan, the band performed a set of hits that launched "Beatlemania" in America and marked the start of the British Invasion.
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The Gulf of Tonkin Resolution was a joint congressional resolution passed in response to alleged attacks on U.S. destroyers by North Vietnam. It authorized President Lyndon B. Johnson to use conventional military force in Southeast Asia without a formal declaration of war, serving as the legal basis for the rapid escalation of the Vietnam War.
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The 1967 March on the Pentagon was a massive, seminal anti-Vietnam War protest held on October 21, 1967, where tens of thousands of demonstrators, organized by the National Mobilization Committee to End the War in Vietnam, marched from the Lincoln Memorial to the Pentagon to confront military leadership.
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The Mỹ Lai Massacre was a mass murder of unarmed South Vietnamese civilians by U.S. Army troops on March 16, 1968, during the Vietnam War. Over the course of a few hours,350 to 500 unarmed men, women, children, and infants were killed in the hamlet of Mỹ Lai in the Quang Ngai province.
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The 1968 Democratic National Convention, held from August 26–29 in Chicago, Illinois, is remembered for the violent, televised clashes between anti-war protesters and law enforcement, which were later described by an official investigation as a "police riot".
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The Chicago 8 Trial (1969–1970) was a landmark federal case in which eight anti-war activists were charged with conspiracy to incite riots at the 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago. It became a cultural flashpoint, pitting radical leaders against a conservative establishment, with chaotic courtroom antics, charges of bias against Judge Julius Hoffman, and a 1972 reversal of all convictions.
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Roe v. Wade was a landmark 1973 U.S. Supreme Court decision that established a woman's constitutional right to an abortion, based on the right to privacy under the Fourteenth Amendment, legalizing abortion nationwide by striking down many state laws.
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The Beatles' breakup was a prolonged, complex, and informal process stretching from 1968 to 1970, driven by immense artistic exhaustion, management disputes, and personal, creative, and financial frictions. While John Lennon privately resigned in September 1969, the band was officially disbanded following Paul McCartney's public announcement on April 10, 1970, with legal dissolution finalized in 1974.
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Ohio National Guardsmen fired 67 rounds into a crowd of unarmed students protesting the Vietnam War expansion into Cambodia at Kent State University. The incident resulted in four student deaths, nine wounded, and a national outcry, serving as a defining, violent turning point in American anti-war sentiment.