America in the 60's

  • New York World’s Fair begins

    A very hot Sunday, the fair had its grand opening, with 206,000 people in attendance
  • SNCC formed

    was founded in April 1960 by young people dedicated to nonviolent, direct action tactics. Although Martin Luther King, Jr
  • First airing of “The Flintstones”

    The very first episode aired on September 30, 1960
  • President Kennedy is elected

    Democratic United States Senator John F. Kennedy defeated the Vice President Richard Nixon, the Republican Party nominee.
  • Russians send the first man into space

    aboard the spacecraft Vostok 1, Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Alekseyevich Gagarin becomes the first human being to travel into space. He also became the first man to orbit a planet.
  • Roger Maris of the Yankees breaks Babe Ruth’s single season home run record

    In the New York's final game of the regular season, Yankees slugger Roger Maris hits his 61st home run, becoming the first player in Major League Baseball to hit more than 60 in a season.
  • SDS releases its Port Huron statement

    It was written by SDS members, and completed on June 15, 1962, at a United Auto Workers retreat outside of Port Huron, Michigan for the group's first national convention.
  • Marilyn Monroe dies

    Marilyn Monroe died August 4, in what looked like a barbiturate overdose
  • Cuban Missile Crisis

    It 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. 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
  • The Beatles appear on Ed Sullivan

    At 8 o'clock on February 9th 1964, America tuned in to CBS and The Ed Sullivan Show. But this night was different. 73 million people gathered in front their TV sets to see The Beatles' first live performance on U.S. soil.
  • Lyndon B Johnson defeats Barry Goldwater

    President Lyndon B. Johnson defeated Barry Goldwater, the Republican nominee, in a landslide. With 61.1% of the popular vote, Johnson won the largest share of the popular vote of any candidate since the largely uncontested 1820 election.
  • Watts race riots

    It 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
  • San Francisco “Summer of Love” begins

    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 Green Bay Packers smash Kansas City Chiefs, 35-10, in the first-ever AFL-NFL World Championship, later known as Super Bowl I, at Memorial Coliseum in Los Angeles.
  • Beatles release Sgt. Pepper’s album

    A signed copy of The Beatles' album Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band has been bought at auction in the US for $290,500
  • Thurgood Marshall nominated to the Supreme Court

    President Lyndon B. Johnson nominated distinguished civil rights lawyer Thurgood Marshall to be the first African American justice to serve on the Supreme Court of the United States.
  • Tet Offensive

    The Tet Offensive was a coordinated series of North Vietnamese attacks on more than 100 cities and outposts in South Vietnam.
  • James Meredith registers at Ole Miss

    Izola Ware Curry, a 42-year-old mentally disturbed woman, stabbed Martin Luther King, Jr., while he signed copies of his book, Stride Toward Freedom, at Blumstein's Department Store in Harlem, New York.
  • Robert Kennedy is assassinated

    Shortly after leaving the podium and exiting through a kitchen hallway, he was mortally wounded by multiple shots fired from a handgun
  • LSD declared illegal by the U.S. government

    Possession of LSD was made illegal in the United States.
  • John F Kennedy is assassinated

    He was assassinated on Friday, November 22, 1963, at 12:30 p.m. in Dallas, Texas, while riding in a presidential motorcade through Dealey Plaza.
  • 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.
  • American astronauts land on the moon

    On July 20, 1969, American astronauts Neil Armstrong and Edwin Aldrin became the first humans ever to land on the moon.
  • Woodstock concert

    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.
  • The Rolling Stones host the Altamont music festival

    about 300,000 gathered at the Altamont Speedway in Tracy, California to see the Rolling Stones perform a free concert that was seen as a 'Woodstock West.
  • Berlin Wall is constructed

    East German soldiers laid down more than 30 miles of barbed wire barrier through the heart of Berlin. East Berlin citizens were forbidden to pass into West Berlin, and the number of checkpoints in which Westerners could cross the border was drastically reduced.