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LSD declared illegal by the U.S. government
Over time, the drug became a symbol of the 1960s counterculture, eventually joining other hallucinogenic and recreational drugs at rave parties. -
SNCC formed
The Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee was one of the major American Civil Rights Movement organizations of the 1960s. It emerged from the first wave of student sit-ins and formed at a May 1960 meeting organized by Ella Baker at Shaw University. -
First televised Presidential debate
The first general election presidential debate was held on September 26, 1960, between U.S. Senator John F. Kennedy, the Democratic nominee, and Vice President Richard Nixon, the Republican nominee, in Chicago at the studios of CBS's WBBM-TV. -
First airing of "The Flintstones"
The very first episode aired on September 30, 1960. Titled "The Flintstone Flyer" (P-2), it was actually the second Flintstones episode produced (after The Swimming Pool, P-1), but the first to air. Fred and Barney want to go bowling instead of being dragged to the opera by Wilma and Betty. -
President Kennedy is elected
The 1960 United States presidential election was the 44th quadrennial presidential election. It was held on Tuesday, November 8, 1960. In a closely contested election, Democrat United States Senator John F. Kennedy defeated incumbent Vice President Richard Nixon, the Republican Party nominee. -
Russians send the first man into space
Yuri Alekseyevich Gagarin (9 March 1934 – 27 March 1968) was a Soviet Air Forces pilot and cosmonaut who became the first human to journey into outer space, achieving a major milestone in the Space Race; his capsule Vostok 1 completed one orbit of Earth on 12 April 1961. -
Roger Maris of the Yankees breaks Babe Ruth's single season home run record
On October 1, 1961, New York Yankee Roger Maris becomes the first-ever major-league baseball player to hit more than 60 home runs in a single season. The great Babe Ruth set the record in 1927; Maris and his teammate Mickey Mantle spent 1961 trying to break it. -
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). It was written by SDS members, and completed on June 15, 1962, at a United Auto Workers retreat in Port Huron, Michigan (now Lakeport State Park), for the group's first national convention. -
Marilyn Monroe dies
Marilyn Monroe died of a barbiturate overdose late in the evening of Saturday, August 4, 1962, at her 12305 Fifth Helena Drive home in Los Angeles, California. Her body was discovered before dawn on Sunday, August 5. -
James Meredith registers at Ole Miss
James Meredith, an African American man, attempted to enroll at the all-white University of Mississippi in 1962. Chaos soon broke out on the Ole Miss campus, with riots ending in two dead, hundreds wounded and many others arrested, after the Kennedy administration called out some 31,000 National Guardsmen and other federal forces to enforce order. -
Cuban Missile Crisis
The Cuban Missile Crisis, also known as the October Crisis of 1962, the Caribbean Crisis, or the Missile Scare, was a 13-day confrontation between the United States and the Soviet Union initiated by the American discovery of Soviet ballistic missile deployment in Cuba. -
"Dr. No" the first James Bond movie premiers
Dr. No is a 1962 British spy film based on the 1958 novel of the same name by Ian Fleming. Starring Sean Connery, Ursula Andress, Joseph Wiseman, and Jack Lord, it is the first film in the James Bond franchise, and was adapted by Richard Maibaum, Johanna Harwood, and Berkely Mather, and directed by Terence Young. -
Dr. King's "I Have A Dream" speech
"I Have a Dream" is a public speech that was delivered by American civil rights activist Martin Luther King Jr. during the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom on August 28, 1963, in which he called for civil and economic rights and an end to racism in the United States. -
John F Kennedy is assassinated
Shortly after noon on November 22, 1963, President John F. Kennedy was assassinated as he rode in a motorcade through Dealey Plaza in downtown Dallas, Texas. -
The Beatles arrive in the U.S.
On February 7, 1964, Pan Am Yankee Clipper flight 101 from London Heathrow lands at New York’s Kennedy Airport–and “Beatlemania” arrives. It was the first visit to the United States by the Beatles, a British rock-and-roll quartet that had just scored its first No. 1 U.S. hit six days before with “I Want to Hold Your Hand.” -
The Beatles appear on Ed Sullivan
On February 9th, 1964, The Beatles, with their Edwardian suits and mop top haircuts, made their first American television appearance—LIVE—on The Ed Sullivan Show. -
New York World's Fair begins
It was 50 years ago today that the 1964–'65 World's Fair opened in New York City, bringing a plethora of innovative exhibits to Flushing Meadows–Corona Park in Queens. But by the time it closed in October 1965, it was considered a massive money pit, losing millions of dollars for New York City -
Gulf of Tonkin Incident
Also known as the USS Maddox incident, it was an international confrontation that led to the United States engaging more directly in the Vietnam War. -
Lyndon B Johnson defeats Barry Goldwater
The 1964 United States presidential election was the 45th quadrennial American presidential election. 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
In New York City, Malcolm X, an African American nationalist and religious leader, is assassinated by rival Black Muslims while addressing his Organization of Afro-American Unity at the Audubon Ballroom in Washington Heights. -
Watts race riots
The Watts riots, sometimes referred to as the Watts Rebellion, took place in the Watts neighborhood of Los Angeles from August 11 to 16, 1965. On August 11, 1965, Marquette Frye, an African-American motorist on parole for robbery, was pulled over for reckless driving. -
"Star Trek" TV show airs
The iconic series "Star Trek" follows the crew of the starship USS Enterprise as it completes its missions in space in the 23rd century. -
San Francisco "Summer of Love" begins
The Summer of Love began on January 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 first AFL-NFL World Championship Game in professional American football, known retroactively as Super Bowl I and referred to in some contemporaneous reports, including the game's radio broadcast, as the Super Bowl, was played on January 15, 1967 at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum in Los Angeles, California. -
Boxer Muhammad Ali refuses military services
Clay v. United States, 403 U.S. 698 (1971), was Muhammad Ali's appeal of his conviction in 1967 for refusing to report for induction into the United States military forces during the Vietnam War. -
The Beatles release Sgt. Pepper's album
Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band is the eighth studio album by the English rock band the Beatles. Released on 26 May 1967 in the United Kingdom and 2 June 1967 in the United States, it spent 27 weeks at number one on the UK Albums Chart and 15 weeks at number one on the Billboard Top LPs chart in the US -
Monterrey Music Festival held
The Monterey International Pop Music Festival was a three-day concert event held June 16 to June 18, 1967, at the Monterey County Fairgrounds in Monterey, California. -
Thurgood Marshall nominated to the Supreme Court
President Lyndon Johnson appoints U.S. Court of Appeals Judge Thurgood Marshall to fill the seat of retiring Supreme Court Associate Justice Tom C. Clark. On August 30, after a heated debate, the Senate confirmed Marshall's nomination by a vote of 69 to 11. -
Tet offensive
A series of surprise attacks by the Vietcong (rebel forces sponsored by North Vietnam) and North Vietnamese forces, on scores of cities, towns, and hamlets throughout South Vietnam. It was considered to be a turning point in the Vietnam War. -
Martin Luther King Jr. assassinated
Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated in Memphis, Tennessee, on April 4, 1968, an event that sent shock waves reverberating around the world. -
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 presidential primaries in the 1968 election. He was pronounced dead at 1:44 a.m. PDT on June 6, about 26 hours after he had been shot. -
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 1967, counterculture and anti-Vietnam War protest groups had been promising to come to Chicago and disrupt the convention, and the city promised to maintain law and order -
Richard Nixon is elected
The 1968 United States presidential election was the 46th quadrennial U.S. presidential election. It was held on Tuesday, November 5, 1968. The Republican nominee, former Vice President Richard Nixon, defeated the Democratic nominee, incumbent Vice President Hubert Humphrey. -
Stonewall riots
The Stonewall riots were a series of spontaneous, violent demonstrations by members of the gay community against a police raid that began in the early morning hours of June 28, 1969, at the Stonewall Inn in the Greenwich Village neighborhood of Manhattan, New York City. -
American astronauts land on the moon
Apollo 11 blasted off on July 16, 1969. Neil Armstrong, Edwin "Buzz" Aldrin and Michael Collins were the astronauts on Apollo 11. Four days later, Armstrong and Aldrin landed on the moon. They landed on the moon in the Lunar Module. -
Manson family murders Sharon Tate
The Tate–LaBianca murders were perpetrated by members of the Charles Manson "Family" in Los Angeles, California. They murdered five people on August 8–9, 1969, and two more the following evening. -
Woodstock concert
Woodstock was a music festival held August 15–18, 1969, on Max Yasgur's dairy farm in Bethel, New York, 40 miles southwest of Woodstock. Billed as "an Aquarian Exposition: 3 Days of Peace & Music" and alternatively referred to as the Bethel Rock Festival, it attracted an audience of more than 400,000 -
The Rolling Stones host the Altamont music festival
The Altamont Speedway Free Festival was a counterculture rock concert held on Saturday, December 6, 1969 at the Altamont Speedway, northern California, United States. The event is best known for considerable violence, including the stabbing death of Meredith Hunter and three accidental deaths: two caused by a hit-and-run car accident, and one by LSD-induced drowning in an irrigation canal. -
Berlin Wall is constructed
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. Its demolition officially began on June 13, 1990 and was completed in 1992.
