60s Era Timeline

  • Newport Jazz Festival

    Newport Jazz Festival
    The Newport Jazz Festival is an annual American multi-day jazz music festival held every summer in Newport, Rhode Island. Elaine Lorillard established the festival in 1954, and she and husband Louis Lorillard financed it for many years.
  • Nixon-Kennedy Debates (1st on Television)

    Nixon-Kennedy Debates (1st on Television)
    The 1960 United States presidential debates were a series of debates held during the 1960 presidential election among Democratic nominee John F. Kennedy and Republican nominee Richard Nixon. The four presidential debates were the first series of debates conducted for any presidential election.
  • The Gulf of Tonkin Resolution

    The Gulf of Tonkin Resolution
    The Gulf of Tonkin Resolution or the Southeast Asia Resolution, Pub.L. 88–408, 78 Stat. 384, enacted August 10, 1964, was a joint resolution that the United States Congress passed on August 7, 1964, in response to the Gulf of Tonkin incident.
  • The Assassination of John F. Kennedy

    The Assassination of John F. Kennedy
    John Fitzgerald Kennedy, the 35th president of the United States, is assassinated by Lee Harvey Oswald while traveling through Dallas, Texas.
  • The Beatles Appear for the first time on the Ed Sullivan Show

    The Beatles Appear for the first time on the Ed Sullivan Show
    9 February 1964 was the date of The Beatles' record-breaking first live appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show, at Studio 50 in New York City.
  • March on the Pentagon

    March on the Pentagon
    The March on the Pentagon was a massive demonstration against the Vietnam War on October 21, 1967. The protest involved more than 100,000 attendees at a rally by the Lincoln Memorial. Later about 50,000 people marched across the Potomac River to The Pentagon and sparked a confrontation with paratroopers on guard.
  • Chicago 8 Trial

    Chicago 8 Trial
    The trial for eight antiwar activists charged with inciting violent demonstrations at the August 1968 Democratic National Convention opens in Chicago
  • Mai Lai Massacre

    Mai Lai Massacre
    The Mỹ Lai massacre was the mass murder of unarmed South Vietnamese civilians by United States troops in Sơn Tịnh district, South Vietnam, on 16 March 1968 during the Vietnam War.
  • Kent State Protest

    Kent State Protest
    On May 4, 1970, members of the Ohio National Guard fired into a crowd of Kent State University demonstrators, killing four and wounding nine Kent State students
  • Riots at the Chicago Democratic Convention

    Riots at the Chicago Democratic Convention
    During the evening of August 28, 1968, with the police riot in full swing on Michigan Avenue in front of the Democratic party's convention headquarters, the Conrad Hilton hotel, television networks broadcast live as the anti-war protesters began the now-iconic chant "The whole world is watching".
  • Operation Rolling Thunder

    Operation Rolling Thunder
    Operation Rolling Thunder was a gradual and sustained aerial bombardment campaign conducted by the United States 2nd Air Division, U.S. Navy, and Republic of Vietnam Air Force against the Democratic Republic of Vietnam from 2 March 1965 until 2 November 1968, during the Vietnam War.
  • Woodstock

    Woodstock
    Woodstock Music and Art Fair, commonly referred to as Woodstock, was a music festival held during August 15–18, 1969, on Max Yasgur's dairy farm in Bethel, New York, United States, 40 miles southwest of the town of Woodstock.
  • The Beatles Break Up

    The Beatles Break Up
    That all changed on April 10, 1970, when an ambiguous Paul McCartney “self-interview” was seized upon by the international media as an official announcement of a Beatles breakup.
  • Roe vs. Wade

    Roe vs. Wade
    Roe v. Wade, 410 U.S. 113, was a landmark decision of the U.S. Supreme Court in which the Court ruled that the Constitution of the United States conferred the right to choose to have an abortion.