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1st televised presidential debate
On Sept. 26, 1960, 70 million American viewers watched the first of four televised presidential debates between candidates Richard Nixon and John F. Kennedy. -
SNCC formed
The Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC, often pronounced /snɪk/ SNIK) was one of the major Civil Rights Movement organizations of the 1960s. It emerged from the first wave of student sit-ins and formed at an April 1960 meeting organized by Ella Baker at Shaw University. -
First Airing of "The Flintstones"
It was originally broadcast from September 30, 1960, to April 1, 1966, in a prime time schedule, the first such instance for an animated series. -
Kennedy is elected
In the 1960 presidential election, Kennedy narrowly defeated Republican opponent Richard Nixon, who was the incumbent Vice President. -
Russians send first man into space
On 12 April 1961, Russian cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin became the first human to travel into space when he launched into orbit on the Vostok 3KA-3 spacecraft (Vostok 1). -
Berlin Wall is Constructed
Constructed by the German Democratic Republic (GDR, East Germany), starting on 13 August 1961, the Wall cut off (by land) West Berlin from virtually all of surrounding East Germany and East Berlin until government officials opened it in November 1989. -
Roger Maris breaks Babe Ruths 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 North American student activist movement Students for a Democratic Society (SDS). -
marilyn monroe died
The latest one to emerge — courtesy of Gizmodo — is probably the strangest and least probable. Dr. Steven Greer, who is the subject of the documentary “Unacknowledged,” claims that Monroe was killed by the government because she was threatening to leak classified information about extraterrestrials. Cool story. -
James Meredith registers at ole Miss
The Ole Miss riot of 1962, or Battle of Oxford, was fought between Southern segregationists and federal and state forces beginning the night of September 30, 1962 -
Cuban Missile Crisis
The Cuban Missile Crisis of October 1962 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. No
In the film that launched the James Bond saga, Agent 007 (Sean Connery) battles mysterious Dr. No, a scientific genius bent on destroying the U.S. space program. -
MLK Speech
Martin Luther King, Jr. On August 28, 1963, Martin Luther King Jr., delivered a speech to a massive group of civil rights marchers gathered around the Lincoln memorial in Washington DC -
John Kennedy is assassinated
John Fitzgerald "Jack" Kennedy, commonly referred to by his initials JFK, was an American politician who served as the 35th President of the United States from January 1961 until his assassination in November 1963. -
NYC worlds fair begins
The 1964/1965 New York World's Fair held over 140 pavilions, 110 restaurants, for 80 nations, 24 US states, and over 45 corporations to build exhibits or attractions at Flushing Meadows Park in Queens, NY. -
Beatles appear in the Ed Sullivan show
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. -
Beatles in the USA
An estimated four thousand Beatles' fans were present on 7 February 1964 as Pan Am Flight 101 left Heathrow Airport. Among the passengers were the Beatles, on their first trip to the United States as a band, with their entourage of photographers and journalists, and Phil Spector. -
The Gulf of Tonkin
In early August 1964, two U.S. destroyers stationed in the Gulf of Tonkin in Vietnam radioed that they had been fired upon by North Vietnamese forces. In response to these reported incidents, President Lyndon B. Johnson requested permission from the U.S. Congress to increase the U.S. military presence in Indochina. -
LBJ beats Barry Goldwater
United States presidential election of 1964, American presidential election held on November 3, 1964, in which Democratic Pres. Lyndon B. Johnson defeated Republican Barry Goldwater in one of the largest landslides in U.S. history. -
watts race riots
Watts 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. -
Malcolm X assassinated
Malcolm X was an African-American Muslim minister and human rights activist. -
SF "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. -
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. -
1st NFL Football Super Bowl
The first AFL-NFL World Championship Game in professional American football, known retroactively as Super Bowl I -
muhammad ali refuses military service
On April 28, 1967, boxing champion Muhammad Ali refuses to be inducted into the U.S. Army and is immediately stripped of his heavyweight title. Ali, a Muslim, cited religious reasons for his decision to forgo military service. -
Beatles release Sgt. Peppers album
Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band is the eighth studio album by English rock band the Beatles. Released on 26 May 1967 in the United Kingdom and 2 June 1967 in the United States, it was an immediate commercial and critical success, spending 27 weeks at the top of the UK albums chart and 15 weeks at number one in the US. -
Thurgood Marshall nominated to 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. -
Protests at the 1968 DNC
Protest activity took place prior to and during the 1968 Democratic National Convention. -
star trek first tv show
The series was produced from September 1966 to December 1967 by Norway Productions and Desilu Productions, and by Paramount Television from January 1968 to June 1969. -
Manson family murders Sharon Tate
On January 20, 1968, Tate married Roman Polanski, her director and co-star in 1967's The Fearless Vampire Killers. On August 9, 1969, Tate and four others were murdered by members of the Manson Family in the home she shared with Polanski. -
Tet offensive
In late January, 1968, during the lunar new year (or “Tet”) holiday, North Vietnamese and communist Viet Cong forces launched a coordinated attack against a number of targets in South Vietnam. -
MLK assassinated
Assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. Martin Luther King Jr., an American clergyman and civil rights leader, was shot at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennessee, on April 4, 1968. -
Robert Kennedy is assassinated
Robert Francis Kennedy was an American politician and lawyer who served as a United States Senator from New York from January 1965 until his assassination in June 1968. -
lsd declared illegal by government
These government acid experiments—which also involved dozens of universities, pharmaceutical companies and medical facilities—took place throughout the 1950s and 1960s, before LSD was deemed too unpredictable to use in the field. -
Nixon is elected
The United States presidential election of 1968 was the 46th quadrennial presidential election, held on Tuesday, November 5, 1968. -
Woodstock
The Woodstock Music & Art Fair—informally, the Woodstock Festival or simply Woodstock— was a music festival in the United States in 1969 which attracted an audience of more than 400,000. -
Stonewall Riots
The Stonewall riots were a series of spontaneous, violent demonstrations by members of the gay community against a police raid that took place in the early morning hours of June 28, 1969 -
American astronauts land on the moon
The United States' Apollo 11 was the first manned mission to land on the Moon, on 20 July 1969. -
Rolling Stones host the Altamont music festival
Altamont was the brainchild of the Rolling Stones, who hoped to cap off their U.S. tour in late 1969 with a concert that would be the West Coast equivalent of Woodstock, in both scale and spirit.
