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SNCC formed
The Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) was founded in April 1960 by young people dedicated to nonviolent, direct action tactics. Although Martin Luther King, Jr. -
Berlin Wall is constructed
The Berlin Wall was a barrier that divided Germany from 1961 to 1989. Constructed by the German Democratic Republic (GDR, East Germany) starting on August 13, 1961, the Wall completely cut off West Berlin from surrounding East Germany and from East Berlin until government officials opened it in November 1989. -
First televised Presidential debate
Which presidential campaign produced the first nationally televised debate? The typical answer to that question is 1960, Kennedy v. Nixon. -
First airing of “The Flintstones”
It was originally broadcast on ABC from September 30, 1960, to April 1, 1966, and was the first animated series to hold a prime-time slot on television. -
President Kennedy is elected
It was held on Tuesday, November 8, 1960. In a closely contested election, Democratic United States Senator John F. Kennedy defeated incumbent Vice President Richard Nixon, the Republican Party nominee. ... This made it the only presidential election where the threshold for victory was 269 electoral votes. -
Russians send the first man into space
Khrushchev's answer came 60 years ago, on April 12, 1961, when Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin circled the Earth aboard a spacecraft called Vostok 1. ... On April 12, 1961, Gagarin was launched into orbit by a Vostok rocket and became the first man in space. -
Marilyn Monroe dies
Marilyn Monroe died at age 36 of a barbiturate overdose late in the evening of Saturday, August 4, 1962, at her 12305 Fifth Helena Drive home in Los Angeles, California. -
Roger Maris of the Yankees breaks Babe Ruth’s single season home run record
On October 1, 1961, in New York's final game of the regular season, Yankees slugger Roger Maris hits his 61st home run, becoming the first player in Major. -
The Beatles arrive in the United States
he Beatles arrived at John F Kennedy airport in New York, greeted by thousands of screaming fans. This Daily Mirror article documents Beatlemania crossing the Atlantic, as the band dubbed the Fab Four arrived to play their first concerts in America. -
SDS releases its Port Huron statement
The Port Huron Statement is a 1962 political manifesto of the American student activist movement Students for a Democratic Society (SDS). ... Under Walter Reuther's leadership, the UAW paid for a range of expenses for the 1962 convention, including use of the UAW summer retreat in Port Huron. -
James Meredith registers at Ole Miss
Ole Miss, the all-white public university. This was no accidental decision. Meredith wanted to take a stand against segregation and white supremacy, and Ole Miss was the place to do it. As he'd later state, ''It was the Ivy League of the Southern way of life' -
Cuban Missile Crisis
The Cuban Missile Crisis of October 1962 was a direct and dangerous confrontation between the United States and the Soviet Union during the Cold War and was the moment when the two superpowers came closest to nuclear conflict. -
“Dr. No” the first James Bond movie premiers
the release of Dr. No, North American moviegoers get their first look–down the barrel of a gun–at the super-spy James Bond (codename: 007), the immortal character created by Ian Fleming in his now-famous series of novels and portrayed onscreen by the relatively unknown Scottish actor Sean Connery. -
Dr. King’s “I Have A Dream” Speech
"I Have a Dream" is a public speech that was delivered by American civil rights activist and Baptist minister, Martin Luther King Jr., during the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom on August 28, 1963. In the speech, King called for civil and economic rights and an end to racism in the United States. -
John F Kennedy is assassinated
November 22, 1963 – U.S. President John F. Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas, Texas, by Lee Harvey Oswald. ... However, in 1979, the United States House Select Committee on Assassinations (HSCA) concluded that the assassination was the result of a conspiracy and that Oswald did not act alone. -
The Beatles appear on Ed Sullivan
Sullivan and his producers swiftly recognized that The Beatles were something monumental by the end of 1963. He made sure that their first live televised performance in the US would be on his show, and, on February 9th, 1964, the Beatles performed on The Ed Sullivan Show. -
New York World’s Fair begins
The 1939 New York World's Fair opened on April 30, 1939, which was the 150th anniversary of the inauguration of George Washington in New York City, the nation's first capitol. While some of the pavilions were still under construction and not yet open, that first day of the Fair was attended by 206,000 visitors. -
Watts race riots
The Watts riots, sometimes referred to as the Watts Rebellion or Watts Uprising, took place in the Watts neighborhood and its surrounding areas of Los Angeles from August 11 to 16, 1965. On August 11, 1965, Marquette Frye, a 21-year-old African American man, was pulled over for drunken driving. -
Lyndon B Johnson defeats Barry Goldwater
It was held on Tuesday, November 3, 1964. Incumbent Democratic United States President Lyndon B. Johnson defeated Barry Goldwater, the Republican nominee. -
Malcolm X assassinated
Malcolm X was an African-American Muslim minister and human rights activist who was a prominent figure during the civil rights movement. A spokesman for the Nation of Islam until 1964, he was a vocal advocate for Black empowerment and the promotion of Islam within the Black community. -
LSD declared illegal by the U.S. government
By the mid-1960s the backlash against the use of LSD and its perceived corrosive effects on cultural values resulted in governmental action to restrict the availability of the drug by making use of it illegal. -
“Star Trek” TV show airs
Star Trek is an American science-fiction television series created by Gene Roddenberry that follows the adventures of the starship USS Enterprise -
San Francisco “Summer of Love” begins
The Summer of Love began on June 14, 1967, when some 30,000 people gathered in San Francisco's Golden Gate Park. They came to take part in counterculture poet Allen Ginsberg and writer Gary Synder's "Human Be-In" initiative, part of the duo's call for a collective expansion of consciousness -
First NFL Football Super Bowl
The Super Bowl is the annual championship game of the National Football League. It has served as the final game of every NFL season since 1966, replacing the NFL Championship Game. Since 2004, the game has been played on the first Sunday in February. -
Boxer Muhammed Ali refuses military service
When Ali arrived to be inducted in the United States Armed Forces, however, he refused, citing his religion forbade him from serving. The cost for his refusal would prove to be drastic: the stripping of his heavyweight title, a suspension from boxing, a $10,000 fine, and a five-year prison sentence. -
Beatles release Sgt. Pepper’s album
Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band is the eighth studio album by the English rock band the Beatles. Released on 26 May 1967, it spent 27 weeks at number one on the Record Retailer chart in the United Kingdom and 15 weeks at number one on the Billboard Top LPs chart in the United States. -
Thurgood Marshall nominated to the Supreme Court
President Johnson nominated Marshall in June 1967 to replace the retiring Justice Tom Clark, who left the Court after his son, Ramsey Clark, became Attorney General. -
Tet Offensive
The Tet Offensive was a coordinated series of North Vietnamese attacks on more than 100 cities and outposts in South Vietnam. The offensive was an attempt to foment rebellion among the South Vietnamese population and encourage the United States to scale back its involvement in the Vietnam War. -
Martin Luther King Jr. assassinated
Martin Luther King Jr. was an American Baptist minister and activist who became the most visible spokesman and leader in the American civil rights movement from 1955 until his assassination in 1968. -
Robert Kennedy is assassinated
On June 5, 1968, presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy was mortally wounded shortly after midnight at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles. Earlier that evening, the 42-year-old junior senator from New York was declared the winner in the South Dakota and California 1968 Democratic Party presidential primaries during the 1968 United States presidential election. He was pronounced dead at 1:44 a.m. PDT on June 6, about 26 hours after he had been shot. -
Woodstock concert
Woodstock Music and Art Fair, commonly referred to simply as Woodstock, was a music festival held August 15–18, 1969, on Max Yasgur's dairy farm in Bethel, New York, 40 miles southwest of the town of Woodstock -
Protests at the 1968 Democratic National Convention
Protest activity against the Vietnam War took place prior to and during the 1968 Democratic National Convention. In 1968, counterculture and anti-Vietnam War protest groups began planning protests and demonstrations in response to the convention, and the city promised to maintain law and order. -
Stonewall riots
The Stonewall riots were a series of spontaneous demonstrations by members of the gay community in response to a police raid that began in the early morning hours of June 28, 1969, at the Stonewall Inn in the Greenwich Village neighborhood of New York City, New York, United States of America. -
American astronauts land on the moon
On July 20, 1969, American astronauts Neil Armstrong (1930-2012) and Edwin "Buzz" Aldrin (1930-) became the first humans ever to land on the moon. About six-and-a-half hours later, Armstrong became the first person to walk on the moon. As he took his first step, Armstrong famously said, "That's one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind." The Apollo 11 mission occurred eight years after President John F. Kennedy -
Richard Nixon is elected
He unsuccessfully ran for president in 1960, narrowly losing to John F. Kennedy. Nixon then lost a race for governor of California to Pat Brown in 1962. In 1968, he ran for the presidency again and was elected, defeating Hubert Humphrey and George Wallace in a close election. -
The Rolling Stones host the Altamont music festival
Scores were injured, numerous cars were stolen and then abandoned, and there was extensive property damage. The concert featured (in order of appearance): Santana, Jefferson Airplane, The Flying Burrito Brothers and Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young, with the Rolling Stones taking the stage as the final act.