-
SNCC formed
Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee was a civil-rights group formed to give younger blacks more of a voice in the civil rights movement. The SNCC soon became one of the movement’s more radical branches. -
First Televised Presidential debate
Debates have been broadcast live on television, radio, and in recent years, the web. The first debate for the 1960 election drew over 66 million viewers out of a population of 179 million, making it one of the most-watched broadcasts in U.S. television history. The 1980 debates drew 80 million viewers out of a population of 226 million. -
President Kennedy is elected
John Fitzgerald Kennedy captured the Democratic nomination despite his youth, a seeming lack of experience in foreign affairs, and his Catholic faith. On May 10, he won a solid victory in the Democratic primary in overwhelmingly Protestant West Virginia. -
Russians send the first man into space
Alekseyevich Gagarin becomes the first human being to travel into space. During the flight, the 27-year-old test pilot and industrial technician also became the first man to orbit the planet, a feat accomplished by his space capsule in 89 minutes. -
Berlin Wall is constructed
Before the Wall's erection, 3.5 million East Germans circumvented Eastern Bloc emigration restrictions and defected from the GDR, many by crossing over the border from East Berlin into West Berlin; from there they could then travel to West Germany and to other Western European countries. During this period, over 100,000 people attempted to escape, and over 5,000 people succeeded in escaping over the Wall, with an estimated death toll ranging from 136 to about 200 in and around Berlin. -
Roger Maris of the Yankees breaks Babe Ruth's single season home run record
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. -
First airing of "The Flintstones"
American animated sitcom produced by Hanna-Barbera. The series takes place in a romanticized Stone Age setting and follows the activities of the titular family, the Flintstones, and their next-door neighbors, the Rubbles (who are also their best friends). It was originally broadcast on ABC as the first animated series to hold a prime time slot. -
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
At Greenson's request, Murray stayed overnight to keep Monroe company. At approximately 3 a.m. on Sunday, August 5, she noticed that Monroe had locked herself in her bedroom and appeared unresponsive when she looked into the bedroom through a window. Murray alerted Greenson, who arrived soon after, entered the room by breaking a window, and found Monroe dead. -
James Meredith registers at Ole Miss
A Civil Rights Movement figure, writer, political adviser, and Air Force veteran. In 1962, he became the first African-American student admitted to the segregated University of Mississippi, after the intervention of the federal government, an event that was a flashpoint in the Civil Rights Movement. -
Cuban Missile Crisis
In response to the failed Bay of Pigs Invasion of 1961 and the presence of American Jupiter ballistic missiles in Italy and Turkey, Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev agreed to Cuba's request to place nuclear missiles on the island to deter a future invasion. An agreement was reached during a secret meeting between Khrushchev and Fidel Castro in July 1962, and the construction of a number of missile launch facilities started later that summer. -
"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 series and was adapted by Richard Maibaum, Johanna Harwood, and Berkely Mather, and directed by Terence Young. The film was produced by Harry Saltzman and Albert R. Broccoli, a partnership that continued until 1975. -
Dr. King's "I Have A Dream" Speech
He called for civil and economic rights and an end to racism in the United States. Delivered to over 250,000 civil rights supporters from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C., the speech was a defining moment of the civil rights movement and among the most iconic speeches in American history. -
John F Kennedy is assassinated
Kennedy was riding with his wife Jacqueline, Texas Governor John Connally, and Connally's wife Nellie when he was fatally shot by former U.S. Marine Lee Harvey Oswald firing in ambush from a nearby building. Governor Connally was seriously wounded in the attack. The motorcade rushed to Parkland Memorial Hospital where President Kennedy was pronounced dead about 30 minutes after the shooting. -
The Beatles arrive in the United States
The Beatles arrived in the United States and their televised performances on The Ed Sullivan Show were viewed by approximately 73 million people. It established the Beatles' international stature, changed attitudes to popular music in the US and sparked the British Invasion phenomenon. -
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. A record-setting 73 million people tuned in that evening making it one of the seminal moments in television history. -
New York World's fair begins
New York World's Fair was a world's fair that held over 140 pavilions, 110 restaurants, for 80 nations (hosted by 37), 24 US states, and over 45 corporations to build exhibits or attractions at Flushing Meadows–Corona Park in Queens, New York City. The immense fair covered 646 acres on half the park, with numerous pools or fountains, and an amusement park with rides near the lake. However, the fair did not receive official sanctioning from the Bureau of International Expositions (BIE). -
Gulf of Tonkin Incident
The Gulf of Tonkin Incident was an international confrontation that led to the United States engaging more directly in the Vietnam War. It involved one real and one falsely claimed confrontation between ships of North Vietnam and the United States in the waters of the Gulf of Tonkin. -
Lyndon B Johnson defeats Barry Goldwater
Incumbent Democratic United States President Lyndon B. Johnson defeated Barry Goldwater, the Republican nominee. Johnson championed his passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, and his campaign advocated a series of anti-poverty programs collectively known as the Great Society. -
Malcolm X assassinated
A man rushed forward and shot him once in the chest with a sawed-off shotgun and two other men charged the stage firing semi-automatic handguns. Malcolm X was pronounced dead at 3:30 pm, shortly after arriving at Columbia Presbyterian Hospital. The autopsy identified 21 gunshot wounds to the chest, left shoulder, arms and legs, including ten buckshot wounds from the initial shotgun blast. -
Watts race riots
Marquette Frye, an African-American motorist on parole for robbery, was pulled over for reckless driving. A minor roadside argument broke out and then escalated into a fight with police. Community members reported that the police had hurt a pregnant woman, and six days of civil unrest followed. -
LSD declared illegal by the U.S. government
LSD, or lysergic acid diethylamide, is a hallucinogenic drug that was first synthesized by a Swiss scientist in the 1930s. During the Cold War, the CIA conducted clandestine experiments with LSD (and other drugs) for mind control, information gathering and other purposes. -
"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 (NCC-1701) and its crew. It later acquired the retronym of Star Trek: The Original Series (TOS) to distinguish the show within the media franchise that it began. -
San Francisco "Summer of Love" begins
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. Although hippies also gathered in many other places in the U.S., Canada, and Europe, San Francisco was at that time the most publicized location for the hippie subculture. -
First NFL Football Super Bowl
It remains the only Super Bowl to have been simulcast in the United States by two networks. NBC had the rights to nationally televise AFL games, while CBS held the rights to broadcast NFL games; both were allowed to televise the game. -
Boxer Muhammad Ali refuses military service
Clay v. United States, 403 U.S. 698, 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. His local draft board had rejected his application for conscientious objector classification. -
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. 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. The festival is remembered for the first major American appearances by the Jimi Hendrix Experience, the Who and Ravi Shankar, the first large-scale public performance of Janis Joplin and the introduction of Otis Redding to a mass American audience. -
Thurgood Marshall nominated to the Supreme Court
President John F. Kennedy appointed Marshall to the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. Marshall was the Court's 96th justice and its first African-American justice. -
Tet Offensive
The Tet Offensive was 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
He was rushed to St. Joseph's Hospital, where he died at 7:05 p.m. He was a prominent leader of the Civil Rights Movement and a Nobel Peace Prize laureate who was known for his use of nonviolence and civil disobedience. -
Robert Kennedy is assassinated
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. -
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 Republican nominee, former Vice President Richard Nixon, defeated the Democratic nominee, incumbent Vice President Hubert Humphrey. Analysts have argued the election of 1968 was a major realigning election as it permanently disrupted the New Deal Coalition that had dominated presidential politics for 36 years. -
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.
Neil Armstrong became the first human to step on the moon. -
Stonewall riots
The last years of the 1960s were contentious, as many social/political movements were active, including the civil rights movement, the counterculture of the 1960s, and the anti-Vietnam War movement. These influences, along with the liberal environment of Greenwich Village, served as catalysts for the Stonewall riots. -
Manson family murders Sharon Tate
The murders were committed by Tex Watson, Susan Atkins, and Patricia Krenwinkel under the direction of Charles Manson. Watson drove Atkins, Krenwinkel, and Linda Kasabian from Spahn Ranch to the residence on Cielo Drive. Manson was a would-be musician who had tried to get a recording contract with record producer Terry Melcher, who was a previous renter of the house with musician Mark Lindsay and Melcher's girlfriend Candice Bergen. Melcher had snubbed Manson, leaving him disgruntled. -
Woodstock concert
Woodstock was a music festival held, on Max Yasgur's dairy farm in Bethel, New York, 40 miles (65 km) 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. Thirty-two acts performed outdoors despite sporadic rain. -
The Rolling Stones host the Altamont music festival
Approximately 300,000 attended the concert, and some anticipated that it would be a "Woodstock West". Woodstock was held in Bethel, New York, in mid-August, less than four months earlier. 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.
