60's Timeline Project

By searsc
  • SNCC formed

    SNCC formed
    Some 200 students attended the conference at Shaw University from April 16-18, 1960, during which the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC, pronounced “snick”) was born.
  • First televised Presidential debate

    First televised Presidential debate
    Nixon and Democratic Senator John F. Kennedy. The first-ever televised debate between presidential candidates was held on September 26, 1960. An estimated total of sixty to seventy million viewers watched the first and the successive debates, which came to be known as “the Great Debates.”
  • First airing of “The Flintstones”

    First airing of “The Flintstones”
    The Flintstones premiered on September 30, 1960, at 8:30 pm Eastern time, and quickly became a hit.
  • President Kennedy is Elected

    President Kennedy is Elected
    President John F Kennedy is wins the 1960 election becoming the 35th US president.
  • Russians send the first man into space

    Russians send the first man into space
    Yuri Gagarin from the Soviet Union was the first human in space. His vehicle, Vostok 1 circled Earth at a speed of 27,400 kilometers per hour with the flight lasting 108 minutes.
  • Berlin Wall Constructed

    Berlin Wall Constructed
    The Berlin Wall was built by the German Democratic Republic during the Cold War to prevent its population from escaping Soviet-controlled East Berlin to West Berlin, which was controlled by the major Western Allies. It divided the city of Berlin into two physically and ideologically contrasting zones.
  • Roger Maris of the Yankees breaks Babe Ruth’s single season home run record

    Roger Maris of the Yankees breaks Babe Ruth’s single season home run record
    Maris hit 61 home runs during the 1961 season breaking Babe Ruth's MLB single season home run record of 60 home runs at the time.
  • SDS releases its Port Huron statement

    SDS releases its Port Huron statement
    The Port Huron Statement was a 1962 manifesto by the Students for a Democratic Society (SDS), written primarily by student activist Tom Hayden, that proposed a new form of “participatory democracy” to rescue modern society from destructive militarism and cultural alienation.
  • Marilyn Monroe dies

    Marilyn Monroe dies
    Her death was officially ruled a probable suicide by the Los Angeles County coroner's office, based on information about her overdosing and being prone to mood swings and suicidal ideation.
  • James Meredith registers at Ole Miss

    James Meredith registers at Ole Miss
    James Meredith officially became the first African American student at the University of Mississippi on October 2, 1962. He was guarded twenty-four hours a day by reserve U.S. deputy marshals and army troops, and he endured constant verbal harassment from a minority of students.
  • Cuban Missle Crisis

    Cuban Missle Crisis
    The Cuban Missile Crisis, also known as the October Crisis in Cuba, or the Caribbean Crisis, was a 13-day confrontation between the governments of the United States and the Soviet Union, when American deployments of nuclear missiles in Italy and Turkey were matched by Soviet deployments of nuclear missiles in Cuba.
  • “Dr. No” the first James Bond movie premiers

     “Dr. No” the first James Bond movie premiers
    First James Bond Film
  • Dr. King’s “I Have A Dream” Speech

    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

    John F Kennedy is Assassinated
    Died in the hospital Parkland Health, Dallas, TX
  • The Beatles arrive in the United States

    The Beatles arrive in the United States
    The Beatles landed at the newly named JFK Airport in NYC and the world started to turn in a different direction. A music, entertainment and cultural explosion that had never been seen before. And it was just the beginning.
  • The Beatles appear on Ed Sullivan

    The Beatles appear on Ed Sullivan
    The Beatles made their first live American television appearance on “The Ed Sullivan Show,” broadcast from New York on CBS.
  • New York World’s Fair begins

    New York World’s Fair begins
    The fair ran for two six-month seasons, April 22 – October 18, 1964, and April 21 – October 17, 1965. Admission price for adults (13 and older) was $2.00 in 1964 (equivalent to $19.65 in 2023 after calculating for inflation)
  • Lyndon B Johnson defeats Barry Goldwater

    Lyndon B Johnson defeats Barry Goldwater
    The 1964 United States presidential election was the 45th quadrennial presidential election. It was held on Tuesday, November 3, 1964. Incumbent Democratic President Lyndon B. Johnson defeated Republican Senator Barry Goldwater in a landslide victory.
  • Malcolm X assassinated

    Malcolm X assassinated
    Malcolm X, an African American Muslim minister and human rights activist who was a popular figure during the civil rights movement, was shot multiple times and died from his wounds in Manhattan, New York City on February 21, 1965, at age 39.
  • Watts race riots

    Watts race riots
    Watts Riots of 1965, series of violent confrontations between Los Angeles police and residents of Watts and other predominantly African American neighbourhoods of South-Central Los Angeles that began August 11, 1965, and lasted for six days.
  • “Star Trek” TV show airs

    “Star Trek” TV show airs
    NBC ordered 16 episodes of Star Trek, besides "Where No Man Has Gone Before". The first regular episode of Star Trek, "The Man Trap", aired on Thursday, September 8, 1966, from 8:30 to 9:30 as part of an NBC "sneak preview" block.
  • First NFL Football Super Bowl

    First NFL Football Super Bowl
    It was played on January 15, 1967 in front of a star-studded Hollywood crowd at the Los Angeles Coliseum and in front of a TV audience of 65 million. The two conferences did not play head-to-head in the regular season and this first game between the two leagues wasn't close.
  • Boxer Muhammed Ali refuses military service

    Boxer Muhammed Ali refuses military service
    On April 28, 1967, with the United States at war in Vietnam, Ali refused to be inducted into the armed forces, saying “I ain't got no quarrel with those Vietcong.” On June 20, 1967, Ali was convicted of draft evasion, sentenced to five years in prison, fined $10,000 and banned from boxing for three years.
  • Beatles release Sgt. Pepper’s album

    Beatles release Sgt. Pepper’s album
    Released on 26 May 1967, Sgt. Pepper is regarded by musicologists as an early concept album that advanced the roles of sound composition, extended form, psychedelic imagery, record sleeves, and the producer in popular music.
  • San Francisco “Summer of Love” begins

    San Francisco “Summer of Love” begins
    The Summer of Love was a social phenomenon that occurred during the summer of 1967, when as many as 100,000 people, mostly young people sporting hippie fashions of dress and behavior, converged in San Francisco's neighborhood of Haight-Ashbury.
  • Thurgood Marshall nominated to the Supreme Court

    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.
  • LSD declared illegal by the U.S. government

    LSD declared illegal by the U.S. government
    This resulted in LSD being viewed as a cultural threat to American values and the Vietnam war effort, and it was designated as a Schedule I (illegal for medical as well as recreational use) substance in 1968.
  • Tet Offensive

    Tet Offensive
    North Vietnamese and communist Viet Cong forces launched a coordinated attack against a number of targets in South Vietnam.
  • Martin Luther King Jr. assassinated

    Martin Luther King Jr. assassinated
    Martin Luther King Jr. was an American Christian minister, activist, and political philosopher who was one of the most prominent leaders in the civil rights movement from 1955 until his assassination in 1968.
  • Robert Kennedy is assassinated

    Robert Kennedy is assassinated
    Robert Francis Kennedy, also known by his initials RFK, was an American politician and lawyer. He served as the 64th United States attorney general from January 1961 to September 1964
  • Protests at the 1968 Democratic National Convention

    Protests at the 1968 Democratic National Convention
    The 1968 Democratic National Convention protests were a series of protests against the United States' involvement in the Vietnam War that took place prior to and during the 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago, Illinois. The protests lasted approximately seven days, from August 23 to August 29, 1968.
  • Richard Nixon Is Elected

    Richard Nixon Is Elected
    Richard Milhous Nixon (January 9, 1913 – April 22, 1994) was the 37th president of the United States, serving from 1969 to 1974. A member of the Republican Party, he previously served as a representative and senator from California and as the 36th vice president from 1953 to 1961 under President Dwight D. Eisenhower.
  • Stonewall riots

    Stonewall riots
    On June 28, 1969, the Stonewall Inn, a gay bar in New York's Greenwich Village, was raided by police. But instead of responding with the routine compliance the NYPD expected, patrons and a growing crowd decided to fight back.
  • American Astronauts Land On The Moon

    American Astronauts Land On The Moon
    Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin are the first people to walk on the moon.
  • Woodstock concert

    Woodstock concert
    Woodstock Music and Art Fair, commonly referred to as Woodstock, was a music festival held from August 15 to 18, 1969
  • The Rolling Stones host the Altamont music festival

    The Rolling Stones host the Altamont music festival
    The Altamont Speedway Free Festival was a counterculture rock concert in the United States, held on Saturday, December 6, 1969, at the Altamont Speedway outside of Tracy, California. Approximately 300,000 attended the concert, with some anticipating that it would be a "Woodstock West".