Timeline 1968
Return to home
1968 Jan 1-1968
Dec 31, The year was marked by protest marches. In 1998 Tariq Ali and
Susan Watkins published: "1968: Marching in the Streets." In 2004 Mark
Kurlansky authored "1968: The Year That Rocked the World."
(SFC, 5/22/98, p.C12)(SSFC, 1/25/04, p.M1)
1968 Jan 5, The US Justice Dept.
indicted Dr. Benjamin Spock, Rev. William Coffin of Yale (1924-2006)
and 3 others for conspiring to violate draft law.
(SFC, 4/13/06, p.B7)
1968 Jan 5, A newspaper strike
shut down the SF Chronicle, the Examiner and the News-Call Bulletin for
53 days. Bill O'Brien (d.2004) became president of the SF-Oakland
Newspaper Guild the next day and supported the strike, which had
originated with Hearst papers in LA. Senior executives of the SF
Chronicle put out a special edition of the paper on a copy machine.
(SFC, 2/05/04, p.A27)(SSFC, 6/7/09,
p.W3)(http://tinyurl.com/nkszr8)
1968 Jan 5, Alexander Dubcek
(1921-1992) was elected First Secretary of the Communist Party in
Czechoslovakia.
(http://www.radio.cz/en/article/112505)(www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/COLDdubcek.htm)
1968 Jan 6, Dr. Norman E. Shumway
of Stanford performed the 1st US adult heart transplant. Mike Kasperak
(54) lived for 2 weeks before he died of massive bleeding from other
organs.
(www.britannica.com/eb/article-9067567)(SFC,
2/11/06, p.B5)
1968 Jan 8, Jacques Cousteau's 1st
undersea special aired on US network TV.
(www.imdb.com/title/tt0845400/)
1968 Jan 9, The TV show "It Takes
A Thief" with Robert Wagner began on ABC. It written and produced by
Leslie Stevens (d.1998) and ran to 1970.
(SFC, 8/13/97, Z1 p.3)(SFC, 4/29/98, p.C2)
1968 Jan 9, The Surveyor VII space
probe made a soft landing on the moon, marking the end of the American
series of unmanned explorations of the lunar surface.
(AP, 1/9/99)
1968 Jan 10, Lyle Menendez was
born in NY and grew up in Princeton, NJ. In 1989 he and his brother
Erik killed their parents.
(www.imdb.com/name/nm1062652/)
1968 Jan 13, Hester &
Appolinar's musical "Your Own Thing," premiered in NYC.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Your_Own_Thing)
1968 Jan 13, The U.S. reported
shifting most air targets from North Vietnam to Laos.
(HN, 1/13/99)
1968 Jan 14, The Green Bay Packers
under Vince Lombardi, after winning its third consecutive NFL
championship, won the 2nd Super Bowl Football game over the Oakland
Raiders. This was Lombardi's last game as coach of the Packers. The
game drew the first $3 million gate in football history. In 1999 David
Maraniss authored "When Pride Still Mattered: A Life of Vince Lombardi."
(WSJ, 1/28/97, p.A16)(SFEC, 1/9/00, BR
p.5)(Superbowl.com)
1968 Jan 14, US forces in Vietnam
launched Operation Niagara I to locate enemy units around the Marine
base at Khe Sanh.
(www.history.com/this-day-in-history.do?action=Article&id=1613)
1968 Jan 16, The UK announced that
it would end all "East of Suez" presence by 1971.
(WUD, 1994, p.1687)
1968 Jan 19, Cambodia charged that
the United States and South Vietnam had crossed the border and killed
three Cambodians.
(HN, 1/19/99)
1968 Jan 21, An American B-52
bomber carrying four hydrogen bombs crashed at North Star Bay,
Greenland, killing one crew member and scattering radioactive material.
Reports began to surface later and in 1995 the Danish government paid a
$15.5 million settlement to some 1,700 exposed workers.
(www.ens-newswire.com/ens/aug2004/2004-08-09-02.asp)(AP, 1/21/08)
1968 Jan 21, A group of 31 North
Korean commandos trudged undetected for about 40 miles from the border
to the presidential Blue House of South Korean President Park Chung-hee
in downtown Seoul. South Korean security forces repelled the assault.
28 North Koreans and 34 South Koreans were killed.
(SFC, 9/19/96, p.A8)(AP, 12/25/03)
1968 Jan 21, In Vietnam the Battle
of Khe Sahn began as North Vietnamese forces attacked a US Marine base;
the Americans were able to hold their position until the siege was
lifted 2 1/2 months later. It was the longest and bloodiest battle of
the Vietnam War. The Battle began at 0530 hours when North Vietnamese
Army forces hammered the Marine-occupied Khe Sanh Combat Base with
rocket, mortar, artillery, small arms, and automatic weapons fire.
Hundreds of 82-mm mortar rounds and 122-mm rockets slammed into the
combat base. Virtually all of the base's ammunition stock and a
substantial portion of the fuel supplies were destroyed.
(WSJ, 5/2/02, p.D7)(AP,
1/21/08)(www.vietnam-war.info/battles/siege_of_khe_sanh.php)
1968 Jan 22, The TV variety show
"Laugh In" began on NBC with comedians Dan Rowan and Dick Martin. It
continued running to May 14, 1973. It was the top ranking network show
on television for two seasons (1968-1969) with rankings of 31.8 and
26.3%.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rowan_&_Martin%27s_Laugh-In)(WSJ,
4/24/95, p.R-5)
1968 Jan 22, The off Broadway show
"Jacques Brel Is Alive and Well and Living in Paris" premiered at the
Village Gate Theater. A film version was produced in 1975. Brel
(1929-1978), a Belgian singer, was later buried in the Marquesas Island
of Hiva Oa, in the same cemetery as Paul Gauguin.
(www.talkinbroadway.com/regional/sfla/sfla176.html)
1968 Jan 22, Apollo 5 was launched
to the Moon; unmanned lunar module tests made.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollo_5)
1968 Jan 23, North Korea seized
the U.S. Navy intelligence ship Pueblo, charging it had intruded into
the communist nation's territorial waters on a spying mission. One
crewman was killed in the attack. Cmdr. Lloyd Bucher (d.2004 at 76) was
quickly separated from the 81-man crew. The crew was released 11 months
later.
(NG, 8/74, p.266)(AP, 1/23/98)(SFC, 10/2/01,
p.A15)(SFC, 1/30/04, p.A25)
1968 Jan 24, Mary Lou Retton,
gymnast (Oly-gold/2 silver/2 bronze-84), was born in Fairmont, WV.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Lou_Retton)
1968 Jan 24, An Israeli submarine,
the Dakar, a British-made submarine with a 69-man crew, was lost in the
Mediterranean Sea while enroute from England to Israel. The sunken ship
was found May 28, 1999, between Crete and Cyprus.
(SFC, 5/31/99,
p.A8)(www.geocities.com/CapitolHill/Lobby/9650/dakar.html)
1968 Jan 28, Vince Lombardi
resigned as coach of Wisconsin’s Green Bay Packers, two weeks after
winning Super Bowl II. He remained as general manager. On Feb 1 Phil
Bengtson was named coach of the Packers.
(www.packers.com/history/chronology/)(www.nfl.com/history/chronology/1961-1970)
1968 Jan 29, A court convened in
Vietnam for the murder of Cambodian, triple agent Inchin Lam, by
Special Forces Captain John J. McCarthy Jr. Murder charges were later
dropped due to exculpatory evidence and proven prosecutorial fraud on
the court. A civil action for $1.3 billion in US Federal District
Court, Washington D.C. against the CIA and associated agencies was
dismissed in 2003.
(www.copvcia.com/Mac.htm)(http://johnmccarthy90066.tripod.com/id299.html)
1968 Jan 29, Leonard Tsuguharu
Foujita (b.1886), painter and engraver born in Tokyo, Japan, died in
Zurich, Switz. He applied French oil techniques to Japanese-style
paintings. In 2006 Phyllis Birnbaum authored “Glory in a Line: A Life
of Foujita – The Artist Caught Between East and West.”
(SSFC, 11/26/06,
p.M1)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tsuguharu_Foujita)
1968 Jan 31, In Vietnam, the Tet
Offensive began as Viet Cong and North Vietnamese soldiers attacked
strategic and civilian locations throughout South Vietnam. The Viet
Cong, under General Vo Nguyen Giap (b.1911), seized part of the US
embassy in Saigon for 6 hours. They attacked more than 100 cities in
South Vietnam with many US casualties. Although the Communists were
beaten back, the offensive was seen as a major setback for the US and
its allies. During the Tet Offensive, the Communist troops who took
control of the ancient capital of Hue killed an estimated 6,000
civilians before they again lost control of the city.
(www.vwam.com/vets/tet/tet.html)(SFC, 2/3/00,
p.A25)(AP, 1/30/08)
Jan, Ralph Ginzburg (1929-2006),
American author and publisher, began publishing Avant Garde, a literary
and arts magazine in NYC. The magazine continued to July, 1971.
(SFC, 7/7/06,
p.B9)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ralph_Ginzburg)
1968 Feb 1, Richard M. Nixon
announced his bid for the Republican presidential nomination.
(AP, 2/1/08)
1968 Feb 1, Lisa Marie Presley,
daughter of Elvis and Priscilla Beaulieu Presley, was born. Lisa Marie
married ‘The Gloved One’, Michael Jackson, in the ‘90s.
(SFC, 8/11/97, p.A1)(440 Int'l, 2/1/1999)
1968 Feb 1, US troops drove the
North Vietnamese out of Tan Son Nhut airport in Saigon. South Vietnam
President Nguyen Van Thieu declared martial law. Saigon's police chief
Nguyen Ngoc Loan executed a Viet Cong officer with a pistol shot to the
head in a scene captured by Associated Press photographer Eddie Adams
and NBC News.
(HN, 2/1/99)(SFC, 7/16/98, p.B2)(AP, 2/1/08)
1968 Feb 1, The Pennsylvania
Railroad and NYC Central merged into Penn Central.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penn_Central)
1968 Feb 4, Neal Cassidy (b.1926),
friend of Jack Kerouac and one of the Merry Pranksters, died on a
Mexican highway.
(SFC, 7/2/97,
p.E5)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neal_Cassady)
1968 Feb 5, US troops divided Viet
Cong at Hue while the Saigon government claimed they would arm loyal
citizens. The main assaults at Khe Sanh started.
(HN,
2/5/99)(http://www.knowledgerush.com/kr/encyclopedia/Siege_of_Khe_Sanh/)
1968 Feb 6, Former president
Dwight Eisenhower hit a golfing hole-in-one.
(SFEC, 4/5/98, Z1 p.8)
1968 Feb 6, Charles de Gaulle
opened the 19th Winter Olympics in Grenoble, France.
(HN, 2/6/99)
1968 Feb 7, The Arthur
Miller play "Price" premiered in NYC.
(www.theatredatabase.com/20th_century/arthur_miller_timeline.html)
1968 Feb 7, North Vietnamese used
11 Soviet-built light tanks to overrun the U.S. Special Forces camp at
Lang Vei at the end of an 18-hour long siege.
(HN, 2/7/99)
1968 Feb 8, George Wallace, the
pro-segregation governor of Alabama, entered the US presidential race.
Wallace ran as a third-party candidate. He was mainly popular in the
deep south, but he was able to attract 14% of the popular vote in the
November election.
(HN, 2/7/97)(www.answers.com/topic/george-wallace)
1968 Feb 8, Robert F. Kennedy said
that the US cannot win the Vietnam War.
(HN, 2/8/98)
1968 Feb 8, At South Carolina
State 3 black students were killed in a confrontation with highway
patrolmen in Orangeburg, during a civil rights protest against a
whites-only bowling alley. Nearly 50 were injured in the Orangeburg
Massacre during confrontations with the National Guard. In 2001 Gov.
Jim Hodges voiced his regret over the massacre. In 1970 Jack Nelson
(1929-2009), LA Times reporter, authored “The Orangeburg Massacre.”
(SFEC, 2/22/98, BR p.8)(AP, 2/8/99)(SFC, 2/9/01,
p.A3)(SFC, 10/22/09, p.D6)
1968 Feb 8, In South Carolina Lee
Roy Martin, called the editor of a local newspaper, and told him where
to find the bodies of two women he'd dumped in the woods. He threatened
to kill even more women until he was "shot down like the dog I am."
Clues in the area led to Martin's arrest. Martin, dubbed the “Gaffney
Strangler,” was convicted of four murders and sentenced to four life
terms. In 1972, he was stabbed to death in his cell.
(AP, 7/4/09)
1968 Feb 10, Peggy Fleming of the
United States won the gold medal in women's figure skating at the
Winter Olympic Games in Grenoble, France.
(AP, 2/10/97)
1968 Feb 12, "Soul on Ice" by
Eldridge Cleaver (full name: Leroy Eldridge Cleaver), a militant
activist and Black Panther, was first published. Cleaver spent much of
his early life in and out of prison on charges ranging from drug
possession to assault. It was in prison that he began the essays that
would become Soul on Ice. Shortly after being paroled in 1966, Eldridge
Cleaver met Huey Newton and Bobby Seale, the founders of the Black
Panther party. Cleaver quickly became the party's minister of
information. Faced with further prison time after a shootout with
police in April 1968, Cleaver jumped bail and fled the country, first
to Cuba, then to Algeria. He returned voluntarily in 1975 having broken
with the Panthers and disillusioned with communism. His change in
thinking is reflected in his 1978 book Soul on Fire. He died on May 1,
1998, in Pomona, California.
(AP, 2/12/98)(HNQ, 2/2/01)
1968 Feb 13, The US sent 10,500
more combat troops to Vietnam.
(HN, 2/13/98)
1968 Feb 15, The Anaheim Amigos’
Les Selvage scored 10, 3-pt baskets in an ABA game vs. the Denver
Nuggets.
(www.islandnet.com/~kpolsson/sports/spor1968.htm)
1968 Feb 16, Beatles George
Harrison & John Lennon flew to India with their wives for
transcendental meditation with the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi.
(www.beatles.ws/1968.htm)
1968 Feb 16, America’s first 911
emergency telephone system was inaugurated in Haleyville, Ala.
(AP, 2/16/98)
1968 Feb 18, Three US pilots, who
had been held by the Vietnamese, arrived in Washington. The Vietnamese
people later pressured Hanoi to account for their own 300,000 MIAs.
(HN, 2/18/98)
1968 Feb 18, British adopted
year-round daylight savings time.
(www.nmm.ac.uk/explore/astronomy-and-time/time-facts/british-summer-time-(bst))
1968 Feb 18, Some 10,000 people in
West Berlin demonstrated against US in Vietnam War.
(www.dreamsville.net/?p=196)
1968 Feb 19, The children's
program Mister Rogers' Neighborhood, created by Fred Rogers
(1928-2003), premiered on NET (later PBS).
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mister_Rogers%27_Neighborhood)
1968 Feb 19, Mississippi state
troopers used tear gas to stop Alcorn A&M demonstrations.
(http://tinyurl.com/c5flal)
1968 Feb 20, A Hue, South Vietnam,
army chief ordered all looters to be shot on sight.
(HN, 2/20/98)
1968 Feb 26, Thirty-two African
nations agreed to boycott the Olympics because of the presence of South
Africa.
(HN, 2/26/98)
1968 Feb 26, Clandestine Radio
Voice of Iraqi People (Communist) made its final transmission.
(SC, 2/26/02)
1968 Feb 27, CBS News anchorman
Walter Cronkite‘s commentary on the progress of the Vietnam War
solidified President Lyndon B. Johnson‘s decision not to seek
re-election in 1968. Cronkite, who had been at Hue in the midst of the
Tet Offensive earlier in February, said: "Who won and who lost in the
great Tet Offensive against the cities? I‘m not sure." He concluded:
"It is increasingly clear to this reporter that the only rational way
out...will be to negotiate, not as victors but as an honorable people
who lived up to their pledge to defend democracy, and did the best they
could." Johnson called the commentary a "turning point," saying that if
he had "lost Cronkite," he‘d "lost Mr. Average Citizen." On March 31,
Johnson announced he would not seek re-election.
(HNQ, 10/30/00)
1968 Feb 27, Frankie Lymon
(b.1942), American singer died. He was an African-American rock and
roll/rhythm and blues singer, best known as the boy soprano lead singer
of a New York City-based early rock and roll group called the
Teenagers. Their first single, "Why Do Fools Fall in Love" (1956), was
also their biggest hit. The 1998 film "Why Do Fools Fall in Love" was a
musical comedy-drama with Halle Berry, Vivica A. Fox, Lela Rochon and
Little Richard. It was directed by Gregory Nava and set in the 1950s
based on the life of Frankie Lymon.
(SFC, 8/28/98, p.C1)(SFC, 9/2/98,
p.E1)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frankie_Lymon)
1968 Feb 29, At the Grammy Awards,
the Fifth Dimension's "Up, Up and Away" won record of the year for
1967, while album of the year honors went to the Beatles for "Sgt.
Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band."
(HN, 2/29/00)(AP, 2/29/04)
1968 Feb 29, President Johnson's
National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders (also known as the
Kerner Commission) warned that racism was causing America to move
"toward two societies, one black, one white -- separate and unequal."
(AP, 2/29/00)
1968 Feb 29, Robert McNamara
resigned as US Secretary of Defense as a result of the Tet disaster. He
was succeeded by Clark Clifford for 9 months who worked to reverse US
policy in Vietnam.
(WUD, 1994, p.1687)(SFEC, 10/11/98, p.A2)
1968 Feb 29, The discovery of the
first "pulsar," a star which emits regular radio waves, was announced
by Dr. Jocelyn Bell Burnell at Cambridge, England.
(AP, 2/29/00)(HN, 2/29/00)
1968 Feb, The Federal Hourly
Minimum Wage was set at $1.60 an hour.
(http://usgovinfo.about.com/library/blminwage.htm)
1968 Mar 1, Secretary of Defense
Robert McNamara was replaced by Clark Clifford.
(HN, 3/1/99)
1968 Mar 1, Singers Johnny Cash
(36) and June Carter (38) wed.
(SFC, 9/13/03, p.A12)
1968 Mar 1, The first 15-minute
version of the musical "Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat"
by Andrew Lloyd Weber was performed at Central Hall, Westminster,
London.
(www.thisistheatre.com/joseph/index.html)
1968 Mar 2, The Poor Peoples'
March on Washington, envisioned by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. as a
means of dramatizing the plight of the poor of all races, got under way.
(www.project1968.com/in-the-news-may-2-1968.html)
1968 Mar 2, In Switzerland the
World Ice Pairs Figure Skating Championship in Geneva was won by
Lyudmila Belousova and Oleg Protopopov (USSR). The Ladies Figure
Skating Championship was won by Peggy Fleming (USA). The Men's Figure
Skating Championship was won by Emmerich Danzer (Austria).
(SC,
3/2/02)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Figure_Skating_Championships)
1968 Mar 2, In Vietnam the siege
of Khe Sanh ended and the US Marines stationed there were still in
control of the mountain top. Gen. John J. Tolson presented a briefing
and laid out the concept of what became known as Operation Pegasus. The
siege of Khe Sanh was the longest and bloodiest battle of the Vietnam
War. During the siege Manny Babbit was wounded. Babbit in 1980 killed a
78-year-old woman in Sacramento, Ca., and was convicted and sentenced
to death. He was awarded his Purple Heart while on death row in 1998.
(HN,
3/2/99)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Khe_Sanh)(SFC, 3/20/98,
p.A1)
1968 Mar 2, The USSR launched
space probe Zond 4. It failed to leave Earth orbit.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zond_4)
1968 Mar 3, The musical "Here's
Where I Belong" opened and closed at Billy Rose Theater in NYC. The
book was by Alex Gordon and Terrence McNally, lyrics by Alfred Uhry,
and music by Robert Waldman.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Here%27s_Where_I_Belong)
1968 Mar 3, The embassies of
Greece, Portugal and Spain were bombed in the Hague.
(http://1968ineurope.sneakpeek.de/index.php/chronologies/index/42)
1968 Mar 3, The Tet offensive at
Hue, South Vietnam, ended with the crushing of the last Viet Cong
resistance. North Vietnamese troops had captured the imperial palace in
Hue, South Vietnam. US troops reconquered Hue, Vietnam.
(WUD, 1994, p.1687)(HN,
2/24/99)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Hue)
1968 Mar 4, Martin Luther King Jr.
announced plans for Poor People's Campaign. In late March and early
April 1968, Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr. devoted his organizing
talents to a drive to bring the nation's poor people to Washington,
D.C. for a series of massive nonviolent demonstrations. King's "Poor
People's Campaign" would attempt to unify African Americans, Latinos,
and lower-income whites in pressing the Johnson Administration and
Congress in an election year to enact a $30 billion-a-year domestic
"Marshall Plan" to alleviate poverty.
(SC, 3/4/02)(http://hnn.us/articles/49016.html)
1968 Mar 4, NASA launched its
Orbiting Geophysical Observatory 5.
(http://heasarc.gsfc.nasa.gov/docs/heasarc/missions/ogo.html)
1968 Mar 7, The First Battle of
Saigon, begun on Jan 30 as part of the Tet Offensive, ended.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Battle_of_Saigon)
1968 Mar 8, Some 1500 students
demonstrated in Warsaw following a government ban on the performance of
a play by Adam Mickiewicz, (Dziady), written in 1824). Within four
days, protests spread to Krakow, Lublin, Gliwice, Wroclaw, Gdansk,
Poznan, and Lodz.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1968_Polish_political_crisis)
1968 Mar 8, The Russian K-129, a
Golf-II class, diesel-electric submarine armed with nuclear missiles
and 98 seamen aboard, sank in 16,000 feet of water northwest of the
Hawaiian island of Oahu. Russian officials suspected that the K-129 was
struck by an American submarine, the USS Swordfish. The US Navy said
the vessel suffered a catastrophic internal explosion. A US sub, the
Halibut, found the Soviet vessel 6 months later and recovered 3
missiles with nuclear warheads, Soviet code books and an encryption
machine. In August 1974 the CIA recovered part of the sub. A 100 foot
section was pulled in by the Glomar Explorer with 2 nuclear tipped
torpedoes and the bodies of 6 Russian sailors.
(SFC, 7/15/96, p.A6)(SFC, 7/5/96, p.A19,21)(AP,
9/11/07)(AP, 2/13/10)
1968 Mar 9, General William
Westmoreland asked for 206,000 more troops in Vietnam.
(HN, 3/9/98)
1968 Mar 10, Robert Kennedy
visited Delano, Ca., in his bid for the presidency. He joined Cesar
Chavez in a chapel where Chavez broke his fast on behalf of organizing
farm workers.
(SFEM, 11/17/96, p.18)
1968 Mar 10-1968 Mar 11, The ultra
secret facility Lima Site 85 in Phou Phathi, Laos, was manned by USAF
personnel and 11 were KIA or MIA as it was overran. The event has been
characterized as the largest single day ground loss for the USAF.
(www.cia.gov/csi/studies/95unclass/Linder.html)(http://limasite85.us/)
1968 Mar 12, President Lyndon
Johnson won the New Hampshire Democratic primary, but a strong
second-place showing by anti-war Senator Eugene McCarthy of Minnesota
played a role in Johnson's decision not to seek re-election. Johnson
won over Eugene McCarthy 49.6 to 41.9%. Republican Richard Nixon won
the New Hampshire primary over Nelson Rockefeller 77.6 to 10.8%.
(SSFC, 1/25/04, p.A19)(AP, 3/12/08)
1968 Mar 12, A Miami-bound flight
was commandeered to Cuba.
(SFC, 3/14/03, p.E8)
1968 Mar 12, The British-ruled
African island of Mauritius became an independent country within the
Commonwealth of Nations and many Europeans left the country. GDP per
person was about $200. By 2008 it rose to $7,000 per person.
(SFC, 6/24/96, p.A8)(SFC, 7/1/97, p.A9)(SSFC,
12/9/01, p.C9)(AP, 3/12/08)(Econ, 10/18/08, p.58)
1968 Mar 13, Atlantic Richfield
Company (ARCO) and Humble Oil and Refining Company (now Exxon Company,
U.S.A.) announced the discovery of oil on Alaska’s North Slope (Prudhoe
Bay). The oil companies soon began efforts to construct a pipeline, but
work was suspended due to environmental concerns.
(AH, 2/05,
p.14)(www.alyeska-pipe.com/Pipelinefacts/Chronology.html)
1968 Mar 15, The U.S. mint halted
the practice of buying and selling gold.
(HN, 3/15/98)
1968 Mar 15, American intelligence
noted withdrawal of major NVA units from the Khe Sanh area.
(www.geocities.com/Pentagon/4867/timeline.html)
1968 Mar 16, Robert F. Kennedy
decided to join the presidential race.
(HN, 3/16/98)
1968 Mar 16, LBJ decided to send
35-50,000 more troops to Vietnam.
(HN, 3/16/98)
1968 Mar 16, In Vietnam Lt. Calley
led 105 men of Company C into My Lai and at least 347 of 700 Vietnamese
civilians were killed. Estimates of villagers massacred ranged from
347-504. Other killings by B company occurred nearby. Col. Oran K.
Henderson (d.1998 at 77) was on his first day as commanding officer of
the new 11th Infantry Brigade and watched from a command helicopter.
Hugh Thompson (d.2006), a helicopter pilot, observed the end of the
massacre. He landed between some remaining villagers and his fellow
soldiers and ordered his gunner to fire on American troops if
necessary. With 2 other gunships he airlifted to safety a dozen
villagers. He and his gunner were awarded the Soldier's Medal in 1998.
The atrocity was exposed by Ron Ridenhour (d.1998 at 52), a door gunner
on an observation helicopter, who flew over the village a few days
after the event. He waited several months until he was out of the
service before reporting the event to state and congressional
officials. The Army later charged 25 officers and enlisted men in the
massacre but only Lt. Calley was convicted. Gen. Samuel W. Koster
(d.2006) was charged with covering up the killings, but criminal
charges were eventually dismissed. Koster was censured, stripped of a
medal and demoted one rank to brigadier general. John Sack (d.2004),
war correspondent, later authored "Lieutenant Calley: His Own Story."
In 1999 Trent Angers authored "The Forgotten Hero of My Lai: The Hugh
Thompson Story."
(SFC, 3/5/98, p.A9)(SFC, 3/16/98, p.A8)(SFC,
5/11/98, p.A20)(SFC, 6/6/98, p.A23)(WSJ, 11/2/99, p.A24)(SFC, 3/31/04,
p.B7)(SFC, 1/6/06, p.B5) (SFC, 2/14/06, p.B7)(AP, 3/16/08)
1968 Mar 16, Mario
Castelnuovo-Tedesco (b.1895), Italian composer, died.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mario_Castelnuovo-Tedesco)
1968 Mar 17, A peaceful
anti-Vietnam War protest in London was followed by a riot outside the
US Embassy; more than 80 people were reported injured. Some 20,000
people at the Vietnam Solidarity Campaign in London were mowed down by
police on horses as they marched.
(AP, 3/17/08)(SFC, 5/22/98,
p.C12)(www.springerlink.com/content/qg812p1147300117/)
1968 Mar 18, Pres. Johnson signed
Public Law 90-269 removing gold backing from US paper money.
(www.peterdavidbeter.com/docs/txt/dbal33.txt)
1968 Mar 19, Howard University
students in Washington DC staged rallies, protests and a 5-day sit-in,
laying siege to the administration building, shutting down the
university in protest over its ROTC program, and demanding a more
Afrocentric curriculum.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1968)
1968 Mar 20, Pres. Lyndon Johnson
held talks with Paraguay’s Pres.-Gen. Alfredo Stroessner in Washington
DC.
(Econ, 2/14/04,
p.34)(www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=28747)
1968 Mar 21, Israeli forces
attacked a Palestinian base belonging to Fatah in the
village of Al-Karameh in Jordan. Israeli forces engage in a
battle with Palestinian fighters for the first time. On 24 March 1968,
the Security Council adopted resolution 248 (1968), condemning the
large scale and premeditated military actions by Israel against
Jordan. The Karameh mission failed. Muki Betser, Israeli commando, was
wounded. He later became commander of the Sayeret Matkal, Israel’s
elite counter-terrorist unit.
(SFC, 7/16/96,
p.E5)(www.un.int/palestine/chron60.shtml)
1968 Mar 22, Gen'l. William
Westmoreland (1914-2005) was relieved of his duties in the wake of the
Tet disaster. Troop strength under Westmoreland had reached over
500,000 and he wanted more. He was succeeded by Gen'l. Creighton
Abrams. Abrams reversed Westmoreland's strategy. He ended major "search
and destroy" missions and focused on protecting population centers.
William Colby took charge of the pacification campaign. President
Lyndon B. Johnson named Gen. William C. Westmoreland to be the Army's
new Chief of Staff.
(HN, 3/22/97)(WSJ, 6/23/99, p.A24)(Econ, 7/30/05,
p.79)(AP, 3/22/08)
1968 Mar 22, In southern Thailand
Tuanku Biyo Kodoniyo set up the Pattani United Liberation Organization
(PULO). It called for an independent Islamic country.
(www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/para/pulo.htm)
1968 Mar 23, Reverend Walter
Fauntroy became the 1st non-voting congressional delegate from
Washington DC, since Reconstruction.
(www.thehistorymakers.com/timeline/index.asp?string=1968)
1968 Mar 27, Suharto succeeded
Sukarno as president of Indonesia. Gen'l. Suharto thwarted a Communist
coup and gradually assumed power. Thousands of alleged communists were
executed amid widespread violence.
(WSJ, 5/22/98, p.A15)(SFC, 9/8/99, p.A17)(MC,
3/27/02)
1968 Mar 27, Yuri Gagarin (34),
Soviet cosmonaut (Vostok I) and the first man to orbit the Earth, died
in a plane crash.
(AP, 3/27/97)(MC, 3/27/02)
1968 Mar 28, The U.S. lost its
first aircraft in Vietnam. An F-111 vanished in a combat mission over
North Vietnam. Republic Aircraft's F-105 Thunderchief, better known as
the 'Thud,' was the Air Force's warhorse in Vietnam.
(HN, 3/28/98)
1968 Mar 28, In Memphis a riot
erupted during a protest march in support of striking sanitation
workers led by Martin Luther King. One African-American marcher was
killed and King urged calm as National Guard troops are called to
Memphis to restore order. King subsequently departed Memphis, but vowed
to return on April 4 to attend another march.
(SFC, 12/1/97, p.A3)(http://tinyurl.com/atrl3z)
1968 Mar 29, In SF Linda Harmon
(14) was raped and stabbed to death while babysitting for a neighbor in
Visitacion Valley. In lat 2003 police matched DNA evidence to William
Speer, who was undergoing therapy for sexually violent tendencies at an
Arizona mental hospital.
(SFC, 11/4/05, p.B1)
1968 Mar 29, Students seized a
building at Maryland’s Bowie State College.
(www.amoeba.com/blog/tags/baseball/page1.html)
1968 Mar 30, General Ludvik
Svoboda (1895-1979) was elected president of Czechoslovakia. He stayed
in office to 1975.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ludv%C3%ADk_Svoboda)
1968 Mar 31, Pres. Johnson
announced that he would not run for re-election and declared a partial
bombing halt in Vietnam. The stock market soared. Citing national
divisions over the war in Vietnam, Johnson declares that "I shall not
seek, and I will not accept, the nomination of my party for another
term as your president."
(WUD, 1994, p.1687)(TMC, 1994, p.1968)(SFC, 8/18/96,
Z1 p.4)(AP, 3/31/97)
1968 In Poland some 4,000 students
marched through Warsaw yelling: "Down with the dictatorship."
(SFC, 5/22/98, p.C12)
1968 Apr 1, In Vietnam the U.S.
Army launched Operation Pegasus to reopen a land route to the besieged
Khe Sanh Marine base.
(HN,
4/1/99)(www.geocities.com/Pentagon/4867/timeline.html)
1968 Apr 2, The influential
science-fiction film "2001: A Space Odyssey," produced and directed by
Stanley Kubrick, had its world premiere in Washington.
(AP, 4/2/08)
1968 Apr 2, Senator Eugene
McCarthy won the Democratic primaries in Wisconsin. In 2004 Dominic
Sandbrook authored "Eugene McCarthy: The Rise and Fall of Postwar
American Liberalism."
(http://news.minnesota.publicradio.org/features/2005/06/15_newsroom_mccarthytimeline/)(SSFC,
4/11/04, p.M6)
1968 Apr 2, In West Germany the
Baader-Meinhof gang was formed and named after its founders, Andreas
Baader (d.1977) and Ulrike Meinhof (d.1976). Both later committed
suicide in prison. The gang became known as the Red Army Faction and
led assassinations, bombings and bank robberies in West Germany through
the 1970s and 1980s. The RAF published a letter to Reuters in 1998 and
declared to have disbanded.
(SFC, 4/21/98,
p.A18)(www.baader-meinhof.com/timeline/1968.html)
1968 Apr 3, Less than 24 hours
before he was assassinated in Memphis, Tenn., civil rights leader
Martin Luther King Jr. delivered his "mountaintop" speech to a rally of
striking sanitation workers, "It really doesn't matter with me now,
because I've been to the mountain top, and I don't mind."
(AP, 4/3/98)
1968 Apr 3, North Vietnam agreed
to meet with US representatives to set up preliminary peace talks.
(AP, 4/3/97)
1968 Apr 4, Civil rights leader
Martin Luther King, 39, was assassinated while standing on the balcony
of the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tenn. James Earl Ray (d.1998)
confessed and pleaded guilty in Mar, 1969, but later tried to recant
and said he was a fall guy. In 1993 Lloyd Jowers (d.2000), a Memphis
businessman, said on ABC-TV that he had hired King's killer as a favor
to an underworld figure who was a friend. Jowers said he received
$100,000 from Memphis produce merchant Frank Liberto to arrange King’s
murder. In 1997 Ray identified an arms smuggler named "Raoul" as the
real killer. In 1998 a former FBI agent produced documents from Ray’s
car with the name Raul. In 1999 a civil trial jury in Memphis ruled
that the 1968 killing of Rev. Martin Luther King was a conspiracy. The
jury concluded that Lloyd Jowers, a former café owner, had
conspired with elements of the Memphis Police Dept., the federal
government and organized crime to kill King. In 2000 a Justice Dept.
report rejected allegations of conspiracy. In 2002 Rev. Ronald Denton
Wilson (61) said that his father, Henry Clay Wilson (d.1990), had shot
King. In 2003 Stewart Burns authored "To the Mountaintop: Martin Luther
King's Sacred Mission to Save America."
(SF E&C, 1/15/1995, A-15)(WUD, 1994,
p.1687)(SFC, 12/26/96, p.A3)(AP, 4/4/97)(SFC, 4/7/97, p.A10)(SFC,
3/25/98, p.A3)(SFC, 4/24/98, p.A1)(SFEC, 11/21/99, p.A12)(SFC,
11/23/99, p.A9)(SFC, 12/9/99, p.A1)(SFC, 12/10/99, p.A15)(SFC, 5/24/00,
p.C5)(SFC, 6/10/00, p.A3)(SFC, 4/4/02, p.A2)(SSFC, 1/11/04, p.M1)
1968 Apr 4, Bobby Kennedy spoke at
a black ghetto in Indianapolis just after hearing of the assassination
of Martin Luther King. His speech registered the enormity of the event
and began the work of healing. Riots over the next few days hit 76
American cities, but Indianapolis remained quiet.
(Econ, 4/22/06, p.79)
1968 Apr 5, Riots erupted across
the US following the King assassination.
(CL, 4/5/96)
1968 Apr 5, Robert F. Kennedy
assured the nation that "no martyr's cause had ever been stilled by an
assassin’s bullet."
(SFEC, 1/16/00, BR p.1)
1968 Apr 5, In Vietnam the siege
of Khe Sahn ended after 76 days.
(HN, 5/5/97)
1968 Apr 6, In Richmond, Indiana,
gunpowder stocks at a sporting-goods store exploded and at least 16
people were killed.
(www.gendisasters.com/data1/in/explosions/richmond-gasexplosion-apr1968.htm)
1968 Apr 6, Black Panther member
Bobby Hutton (17) was killed in a gun battle with police in West
Oakland, Ca., and Eldridge Cleaver was arrested.
(SFC,10/24/97, p.A15)(SFC, 4/25/98, p.A13)
1968 Apr 6, East German voters
approved a new socialist constitution by a 94.5% margin.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/East_German_Constitution)
1968 Apr 8, The Academy Awards and
Baseball's Opening Day were postponed because of the M.L. King
assassination.
(www.funtrivia.com/en/subtopics/The-Assassination-of-Martin-Luther-King-201065.html)
1968 Apr 8, Clay Felker
(1925-2008), former editor of the New York Herald’s Sunday magazine,
re-introduced New York magazine as a glossy after the paper folded.
(SFC, 7/2/08, p.A2)
1968 Apr 8, In Czechoslovakia a
new government was formed under Oldrich Cernik.
(http://archiv.radio.cz/history/history14.html)
1968 Apr 8, In Vietnam Khe Sanh
was officially relieved after 77 days by the US 2nd
Cavalry. US forces in Operation Pegasus finally retook
Route 9, ending the siege of Khe Sanh. Khe Sanh had been the biggest
single battle of the Vietnam War to that point. The official assessment
of the North Vietnamese Army dead was just over 1,600 killed, with two
divisions all but annihilated. Thousands more were probably killed by
American bombing.
(www.pbs.org/battlefieldvietnam/timeline/index2.html)
1968 Apr 10, In the 40th Academy
Awards "In the Heat of the Night" won as best film. Rod Steiger won as
best actor for his role in the film. Katherine Hepburn won as best
actress for her role in “Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner.”
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/40th_Academy_Awards)
1968 Apr 10, President Johnson
replaced General Westmoreland with General Creighton Abrams in Vietnam
[see Mar 22].
(HN, 4/10/98)
1968 Apr 10, A ferry boat sank in
harbor of Wellington, NZ, and 51 were killed.
(http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/april/10/newsid_2924000/2924897.stm)
1968 Apr 11, President Johnson
signed into law the Civil Rights Act of 1968, a week after the
assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. This included a Fair Housing
Act and the Indian Civil Rights Act, which limited sentences that
tribes could hand down on any charge to six months. In 1968 Congress
increased the maximum to one year. The Federal National Mortgage
Association (Fannie Mae - FNMA), established by the government in 1938,
became a private, shareholder-owned company as part of the Fair Housing
Act.
(http://tinyurl.com/2o3p2q)(AP, 4/11/98)(SFC,
2/20/98, p.A23)(http://tinyurl.com/ldx765)
1968 Apr 11, Riots erupted in West
Berlin after the shooting of student leader Rudi Dutschke (1940-1979).
He survived the assassination attempt by a right-wing extremist, living
for another twelve years until related health problems caused his death.
(WUD, 1994,
p.1687)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rudi_Dutschke)
1968 Apr 14, The gay-themed play,
"The Boys in the Band" by Mart Crowley, opened off Broadway at Theater
Four and set a new genre. A film version was released in 1970.
(AP, 4/14/08)(WSJ, 8/28/96,
p.A10)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Boys_in_the_Band)
1968 Apr 16, The Pentagon
announced the "Vietnamization" of the war; troops will begin coming
home.
(HN, 4/16/99)
1968 Apr 16, Edna Ferber (b.1885),
US author (Giant, Showboat), died. Her novels included “Show Boat”
(1926), which was produced on Broadway in 1927 and later adopted 4
times as a movie.
(www.apl.org/history/ferber/edna.bio.html)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edna_Ferber)
1968 Apr 18, Some 178,000
employees of US Bell Telephone System went on strike.
(www.project1968.com/in-the-news-april-14-apri.html)
1968 Apr 18, London Bridge was
sold to a US oil company. It was later erected in Arizona.
(www.londonbridgeresort.com/history/london_bridge.html)
1968 Apr 18, There was a coup in
Sierra Leone. A new government under Siaka Stevens was announced.
(WUD, 1994, p.1687)
1968 Apr 19, Ralph S. Plaisted
(1927- 2008), insurance salesman turned explorer, reached the North
Pole by snowmobile with 3 other men. This was the first expedition to
indisputably reach the North Pole.
(SFC, 9/11/08, p.B4)
1968 Apr 19, The Secretary of the
National Assembly in Czechoslovakia promised rehabilitation of
political prisoners and freedom of the press, assembly and religion.
(WUD, 1994, p.1687)
1968 Apr 20, Pierre Elliott
Trudeau was sworn in as Canada’s 15th Prime Minister. He succeeded
Lester B. Pierson and continued in office to 1979.
(CFA, '96, p.81)(AP,
4/20/97)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pierre_Trudeau)
1968 Apr 21, In the 22nd Tony
Awards: "Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead" and "Hallelujah Baby"
won.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/22nd_Tony_Awards)
1968 Apr 23, The Methodist Church
and the Evangelical United Brethren Church merged to form the United
Methodist Church.
(AP, 4/23/97)
1968 Apr 23, At Columbia Univ. in
NYC the SDS held a rally in support of the IDA Six. An 8-day student
sit-in began at Columbia Univ. to protest ties to the Defense Dept. and
plans to build a gym over neighborhood objections. Within 72 hours
students seized 5 buildings and 628 people were arrested. [see Apr 24]
In 2009 Mark Rudd, prominent student leader at Columbia, authored
“Underground: My Life With SDS and the Weathermen.”
(www.wikicu.com/1968_protests)(SFC, 9/1/03,
p.B4)(WSJ, 3/28/09, p.W8)
1968 Apr 24, Leftist students at
Columbia University in New York City began a weeklong occupation of
several campus buildings in protest over the Vietnam War [See Apr 23].
(WUD, 1994, p.1687)(AP, 4/24/97)(HN, 4/24/99)
1968 Apr 26, The US Social
Security Administration (SSA) convened an interagency meeting of
technical staff from Federal agencies with an interest in poverty. SSA
personnel presented to the group their proposal to use the revised food
plans to recalculate the poverty and low income thresholds, and the
group agreed to the proposal.
(www.ssa.gov/history/fisheronpoverty.html)
1968 Apr 26, Students seized
administration building at Ohio State University.
(HN, 4/26/98)
1968 Apr 26, The United States
exploded a 1.3 megaton nuclear device called "Boxcar" beneath the
Nevada desert.
(AP, 4/26/08)
1968 Apr 26, In Sierra Leone Pres.
Siaka Stevens (1905-1988) re-assumed the post of prime minister
following brief military rule. He led a one-party socialist state that
was later described as a “17-year plague of locusts.”
(WSJ, 5/31/00, p.A26)(Econ, 8/4/07,
p.42)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siaka_Stevens)
1968 Apr 27, In the Netherlands
part of a group of Catholic radicals left their own party and formed
the Political Party of Radicals (PPR). The party dissolved in 1991.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_Party_Radicals)
1968 Apr 28, In Baden-Wurttenburg,
West Germany, the far-right National Democratic Party gained 12 seats.
(WUD, 1994, p.1687)
1968 Apr 29, The counterculture
musical "Hair" opened on Broadway following limited engagements
off-Broadway.
(AP, 4/29/08)
1968 Apr 29, Dr. Ralph Abernathy
led The Poor People's Campaign in Washington D.C., less than a month
after the assassination of King. It concluded on June 23. The campaign
was for reforms in welfare, employment and housing policies. Abernathy
was the successor to Rev. Martin Luther King as head of the Southern
Christian Leadership conference.
(HNQ, 1/19/99)
1968 Apr 30, US Marines attacked a
division of North Vietnamese in the village of Dai Do.
(HN, 4/30/99)
1968 Apr, Simon & Garfunkel
released their song "Mrs. Robinson."
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mrs._Robinson)
1968 Apr, The South Korean Silmido
Unit was forged of misfits to "blast Kim Il Sung's palace in Pyongyang
and cut his throat."
(AP, 12/25/03)
1968 May 1, In a second day of
battle, US Marines, with the support of naval fire, continued their
attack on a North Vietnamese Division at Dai Do.
(HN, 5/1/99)
1968 May 2, The US Army attacked
Nhi Ha in South Vietnam and began a fourteen-day battle to wrestle it
away from Vietnamese Communists.
(HN, 5/2/99)
1968 May 3, A Black Student Sit-In
at the Bursar's Office began. It lasted for 38 hours, after the
Northwestern University refused to accede to the demands of For Members
Only, the black undergraduate student group.
(www.library.northwestern.edu/archives/onthisday/2009/05/)
1968 May 3, After three days of
battle, the US Marines retook Dai Do complex in Vietnam, only to find
the North Vietnamese had evacuated the area.
(HN, 5/3/99)
1968 May 3-1958 May 17, Student
riots and strikes hit France. 10 million workers went on strike.
Workers struck the Renault factory on Seguin Island for 33 days until
the government recognized their union.
(WUD, 1994, p.1687)(SFC, 5/22/98, p.C12)(WSJ,
3/31/99, p.B14)
1968 May 5, US Air Force planes
hit Nhi Ha, South Vietnam, in support of attacking infantrymen.
(HN, 5/5/99)
1968 May 5, Spain closed its
frontier with Gibraltar. This Followed a referendum in which
Gibraltar's voters were asked whether they wished to become part of
Spain and voted with a resounding no vote.
(www.thepeoplehistory.com/may5th.html)
1968 May 6, Astronaut Neil
Armstrong was nearly killed in a lunar module trainer accident.
(HNQ, 7/20/99)
1968 May 6, In Paris violent
fighting took place in the morning and then from 2 p.m. in the
afternoon to 1 a.m. the next morning on the Boulevard Saint-Michel and
Saint-Germain. Close to 600 students and police were wounded. Student
strikes spread to the provinces.
(http://marxists.anu.edu.au/history/etol/writers/frank/1968/may1968/chronology.htm)
1968 May 8, William Styron
(1925-2006), a white author, received the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction
for “The Confessions of Nat Turner.” The book was based on the true
story of an 1831 slave revolt in Virginia. Some black intellectuals,
including Cornell historian John Henrik Clarke, published a critical
response to the book.
(www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/rfk/sfeature/sf_1968_text_05.html)
1968 May 8, Catfish Hunter of the
Oakland Athletics pitched the first perfect game in the American League
in 47 years before a crowd of 5,000 at the Oakland Coliseum.
(SFEC, 3/1/98, p.W39)
1968 May 10, FBI director Hoover
sent all field offices an urgent memo escalating the FBI’s attack on
dissent. It authorized an operation called “Counterintelligence Program
– New Left.”
(SFCM, 10/10/04, p.23)
1968 May 10, Preliminary Vietnam
peace talks began in Paris.
(AP, 5/10/97)
1968 May 11, In France PM Georges
Pompidou made a speech conceding to the demand to reopen the
universities and implied the government would release arrested
students. The night of May 10-11 became known as the ``Night of the
Barricades.’ These events galvanized public support for the students.
(http://links.org.au/node/491)
1968 May 12, In Israel the Knesset
passed the Jerusalem Day Law, making the day a national holiday.
Israel’s government proclaimed Jerusalem Day, to be celebrated on the
28th of Iyar, the Hebrew date on which the divided city of Jerusalem
became one.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jerusalem_Day)
1968 May 13, Peace talks between
the US and North Vietnam began in Paris.
(WUD, 1994, p.1687)(HN, 5/13/98)
1968 May 13, In France a general
strike and monster demonstration took place in Paris. Some 1,000,000
French demonstrated in support of student protesters.
(http://marxists.anu.edu.au/history/etol/writers/frank/1968/may1968/chronology.htm)
1968 May 14, The Beatles in NYC
announced the formation of their Apple Corp.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_Corps)
1968 May 14, Adm. Husband Edward
Kimmel (b.1882), commandant US Ocean fleet WW II, died in Connecticut.
Some historians, such as submariner Captain Edward L. "Ned" Beach,
later believed Admiral Kimmel and Army Lieutenant General Walter Short
became scapegoats for the failures of their superiors prior to the
attack on Pearl Harbor and that their careers were effectively and
unfairly ruined.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Husband_Kimmel)
1968 May 15, US Marines relieved
army troops in Nhi Ha, South Vietnam, after a fourteen-day battle.
(HN, 5/15/99)
1968 May 15, A tornado at
Jonesboro, Arkansas, killed 34 people. Another near Anchorage, Alaska,
killed one person.
(SFC, 5/15/09, p.D8)
1968 May 17, In Maryland the
Catonsville Nine including Daniel and Phillip Berrigan (d.2002), a
Catholic priest, took hundreds of files from the draft board at the
Knights of Columbus building and set them on fire with gasoline and
soap chips.
(www.amazon.com/Trial-Catonsville-Nine-Daniel-Berrigan/dp/0823223310)(SFC,
12/7/02, p.A3)
1968 May 18, In Maryland’s 94th
Preakness Ismael Valenzuela aboard Forward Pass won in 1:56.8.
(http://gallery.pictopia.com/bloodhorse/gallery/6826/photo/1259538/)
1968 May 20, The US Supreme Court
(United States v. United Shoe Machinery Corp., 391 U.S. 244) ruled for
the breakup of United Shoe Machinery Company in Mass.
(http://supreme.justia.com/us/391/244/)(WSJ,
10/2/97, p.A16)
1968 May 22, The nuclear-powered
US submarine Scorpion, with 99 men aboard, sank in the Atlantic Ocean.
It was declared lost on June 5. Remains of the sub were found in
October on the ocean floor 400 miles southwest of the Azores.
(AP,
5/22/07)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Scorpion_(SSN-589))
1968 May 24, The Rolling Stones,
an English rock band, released "Jumping Jack Flash" in England. The US
release was on June 1.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jumpin%27_Jack_Flash)
1968 May 24, Pres. De Gaulle
proposed a referendum and students set fire to Paris. Rioters set fire
to the Paris Bourse.
(WUD, 1994, p.1687)(MC, 5/24/02)
1968 May 25, The Gateway Arch,
part of the Jefferson National Expansion Memorial in St. Louis, was
dedicated by Vice President Hubert Humphrey and Interior Secretary
Stewart Udall.
(AP, 5/25/08)
1968 May 25, Charles K. Feldman,
film producer, died. His film productions included Casino Royale (1967).
(www.imdb.com/name/nm0271012/)
1968 May 25, George KFW von
Kuchler (b.1881), German marshal, died. Kuchler’s forces had moved into
Belgium and occupied Antwerp on 18 May 1940.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georg_von_K%C3%BCchler)
1968 May 27, Memorial Day was
celebrated. The last Monday of the month was set aside in 1968 to
remember those who had died in the service of their country. Memorial
Day, which began in 1868 as Decoration Day, had been celebrated on May
30 for the first 100 years.
(HNPD, 5/31/99)
1968 May 28, Minnesota Senator
Eugene McCarthy beat Sen. Robert F. Kennedy in the Democratic primary
in Oregon.
(http://news.minnesota.publicradio.org/features/2005/06/15_newsroom_mccarthytimeline/)
1968 May 29, Pres. Johnson signed
the Truth in Lending Act into law.
(http://altlaw.org/v1/cases/552046)
1968 May 29, UN Resolution 253
resolved sanctions on white-minority-ruled Rhodesia.
(www.unhcr.org/refworld/country,,,RESOLUTION,ZWE,456d621e2,3b00f27434,0.html)
1968 May 30, French Pres. Charles
de Gaulle delivered a forceful televised address in order to regain
control of public opinion, thrown into confusion by the political
events resulting from a student protest.
(www.ena.lu/address_given_charles_gaulle_events_1968_paris_1968-022600052.html)
1968 May 30, Authorities blew up
the University Church in Leipzig, Germany, to make room for the
re¬construction of Karl-Marx-Platz, the city’s main square.
(http://www.churchtimes.co.uk/content.asp?id=61806)
1968 May, The Lawrence Hall of
Science opened in the Berkeley Hills. It was built in honor of Ernest
Orlando Lawrence, who developed the cyclotron. The octagonal shape
represented the 8 branches of physical science.
(LHS, 2/12/1998)
1968 May, Bill Hambrecht &
George Quist founded Hambrecht & Quist, an investment banking firm
in SF, California, that focused on hi-growth issues. In 1999 it was
acquired for $1.35B by Chase Manhattan Bank.
(SFC, 6/22/96,
p.D1)(www.nndb.com/company/084/000057910/)
1968 Jun 1, The British television
series "The Prisoner," starring Patrick McGoohan, had its American
premiere on CBS.
(AP, 6/1/08)
1968 Jun 1, Author-lecturer Helen
Keller (87), who earned a college degree despite being blind and deaf
most of her life, died in Westport, Conn. In 1980 Joseph Lash published
"Helen and Teacher," the story of Helen Keller and Annie Sullivan.
(AP, 6/1/97)(SFEC, 8/16/98, BR p.3)
1968 Jun 3, Valerie Solanas,
founder of the Society for Cutting Up Men (SCUM), and author of the
"SCUM Manifesto," shot Andy Warhol with a .32 automatic in his New York
film studio, known as The Factory. Warhol survived but Solanas was
judged insane and served three years in a psychiatric prison. She died
in 1989 at 52 in a welfare hotel in San Francisco of bronchial
pneumonia and emphysema. A film titled "I Shot Andy Warhol" opened in
1996 and featured Lili Taylor as Solanas.
(SFC, 5/15/96, p.E-1)(AP, 6/3/98)
1968 Jun 4, Robert Kennedy won the
California democratic Presidential Primary whose candidates included
Eugene McCarthy. Vice-Pres. Hubert Humphrey had declined to enter the
California primary. Kennedy was shot the next day in LA by Sirhan
Sirhan and died on June 6.
(SFEM, 11/17/96, p.26)
1968 Jun 4, Alexandre Kojeve
(b.1902), French-Russian philosopher, died in Brussels. He was
suspected of serving as a Soviet spy from 1938 to his death.
(WSJ, 10/11/01,
p.A20)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexandre_Koj%C3%A8ve)
1968 Jun 5, Sen. Robert F. Kennedy
was shot and mortally wounded at the Ambassador Hotel in LA just after
claiming victory in California's Democratic presidential primary.
Gunman Sirhan Bishara Sirhan was immediately arrested.
(HFA, '96, p.32)(WUD, 1994, p.1687)(AP, 6/5/97)
1968 Jun 6, Sen. Robert F. Kennedy
died at Good Samaritan Hospital in Los Angeles, a day after he was shot
by Sirhan Bishara Sirhan. In 2000 Ronald Steel authored "In Love With
Night: The American Romance With Robert Kennedy." In 1969 Jack Newfield
(d.2004) authored “Robert Kennedy: A Memoir.” In 2000 Evan Thomas
authored "Robert Kennedy: His Life."
(AP, 6/6/97)(SFEC, 1/16/00, BR p.1)(WSJ, 9/7/00,
p.A24)(SFC, 12/22/04, p.B5)
1968 Jun 7, Michael Robert Smith
(25) escaped from California’s Soledad prison while serving time for a
robbery conviction. He headed to Nevada, then New Jersey and into a
marriage that didn't work out. In 2001 Smith moved to a tiny trailer in
a heavily wooded area of Creek County, Okla., where he was recaptured
in 2006.
(AP, 5/20/06)
1968 Jun 7, Dan Duryea (b.1907),
film, stage and TV actor, died. His numerous films included “The Pride
of the Yankees” (1942) and “The Flight of the Phoenix” (1965).
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dan_Duryea)
1968 Jun 7, In South Vietnam the
week long Operation Swift Saber began. US Marines swept an area 10
miles northwest of Danang.
(www.chinfo.navy.mil/navpalib/ships/carriers/histories/cv45-valleyforge/cv45-valleyforge.html)
1968 Jun 7, In Spain ETA, a Basque
Homeland and Freedom separatist group, shot and killed Civil Guard Jose
Pardines Arcay at a checkpoint. This marked ETA’s 1st killing as it
began fighting for independence. Its political wing was Herri Batasuna.
(SFEC, 7/13/97, p.A11)(SFC, 7/21/97, p.A10)(AP,
3/22/06)
1968 Jun 8, Authorities announced
the capture in London of James Earl Ray, the suspected assassin of
civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr.
(AP, 6/8/97)(HN, 6/8/98)
1968 Jun 12, The UN General
Assembly adopted a Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons
effective as of Mar 5, 1970. It acknowledged that some countries had
nuclear weapons and charged them the obligation of negotiating their
elimination. This obligation was expressed in stronger terms in 1996 by
the Int’l. Court of Justice. It was opened for signatures on July 1,
1968.
(http://nuclearweaponarchive.org/Nwfaq/Nfaq7.html)(Econ, 8/20/05, p.14)
1968 Jun 13, Johnny Cash performed
a live concert at California’s Folsom Prison. Applause from the inmates
was dubbed into his "At Folsom Prison" album.
(WSJ, 11/26/97, p.CA4)(Econ, 9/18/04, p.88)
1968 Jun 13, US Supreme Court
Chief Justice Earl Warren (1891-1974) submitted his resignation to
Pres. Johnson.
(www.presidentialtimeline.org/html/record.php?id=1338)
1968 Jun 14, Four of the Boston
Five were convicted of conspiracy in their organized draft protest.
Mitchell Goodman (1924-1997) organized the protest that included the
burning of draft cards. Dr. Benjamin Spock (1903-1998), American
pediatrician, was one of the defendants and the trial came to be known
as the "Spock trial." The convictions were later overturned.
(SFC, 2/7/97,
p.A28)(www.stg.brown.edu/projects/1968/reference/timeline.html)
1968 Jun 17, The US Supreme Court
in Jones v. Mayer banned racial discrimination in the sale and rental
of housing.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jones_v._Mayer)
1968 Jun 17, The UK enacted
sanctions against Rhodesia.
(WUD, 1994, p.1687)
1968 Jun 19, Some 50,000 marched
on Washington, DC, to support the Poor People's Campaign. Rev. Jesse
Jackson preached “I Am Somebody” at Resurrection City, a tent city set
up in front of the White House. In 1971 he turned the speech into a
poem for Sesame Street.
(http://cheyannescampsite.blogspot.com/2008_06_15_archive.html)(SFC,
7/5/96, BR, p.6)(HN, 6/19/98)
1968 Jun 19, In SF newlywed
Officer Peter McElligott was fatally shot in a shootout with 2 robbery
suspects in Golden Gate Park. The 2 attackers were later convicted of
murder.
(SFC, 1/27/07, p.A8)
1968 Jun 24, "Resurrection City,"
a shantytown constructed as part of the Poor People's March on
Washington, D.C., was closed by authorities.
(AP, 6/24/97)
1968 Jun 24, The St. Jean Baptiste
parade in Montreal, an annual celebration of Quebec nationalism,
erupted in violence.
(WSJ, 10/3/00, p.A26)
1968 Jun 25, The Canadian federal
election was held to elect members of the Canadian House of Commons of
the 28th Parliament of Canada. The Liberal Party won a majority
government under its new leader, PM Pierre Trudeau.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canadian_federal_election,_1968)
1968 Jun 26, President Johnson
read and released Supreme Court Chief Justice Earl Warren's two June 13
letters, his June 26 reply, and announced that he had named Associate
Justice Abe Fortas to succeed Warren.
(AP, 6/26/98)(www.mdeansutton.com/warren.htm)
1968 Jun 27, The Czechoslovak
parliament abolished censorship and provided for rehabilitation of
political prisoners.
(WUD, 1994, p.1687)
1968 Jun 28, Pres. Johnson signed
the Uniform Monday Holiday Act. It moved official recognition of
Washington’s birthday and some other holidays to Mondays. Columbus Day,
previously celebrated on Oct. 12, was moved to the 2nd Monday of
October. In 2004 Pres. Bush set it to Oct 11.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uniform_Monday_Holiday_Act)(SFC, 2/21/05,
p.A7)
1968 Jun 29, "Tip-Toe Thru' The
Tulips With Me" by Tiny Tim (1932-1996), aka Herbert Khaury, peaked at
#17.
(SFC, 12/2/96,
p.A4)(www.dreamsville.net/index.php?paged=2)
1968 Jun 29, In Costa Rica the
Arenal volcano, dormant for 450 years, burst into life and killed 95
people. The village of Tabacon was wiped out.
(SFC, 5/9/98, p.A7)(SSFC, 4/1/01, p.T6)
1968 Jun 30, The Lockheed C-5A
Galaxy, a large US Air Force transport plane, made its first flight.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C-5_Galaxy)
1967 Jun, The theme song from the
film "The Good, The Bad, And The Ugly" by Hugo Montenegro (1925-1981)
reached No. 2 on the US record charts.
(http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0599359/bio)
1968 Jun, Ralph Nader formed his
first task force of crusading students, comprised of seven law student
volunteers. The group, later known as Nader’s Raiders, began looking
into the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), a sleepy bureaucracy entrusted
with protecting consumers from shoddy products, fraudulent business
practices and deceptive advertising.
(www.csrl.org/csrlhistory/index.html)
1968 Jun, In Quebec, Canada, the
summertime Festival d’Ete de Quebec was begun.
(www.thecanadianencyclopedia.com/index.cfm?PgNm=TCE&Params=U1ARTU0001201)
1968 Jul 1, The Band released
their "Music From Big Pink" album. It features one of their best-known
songs, "The Weight."
(WSJ, 12/15/99,
p.A20)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Music_from_Big_Pink)
1968 Jul 1, The United States,
Britain, the Soviet Union and 58 other nations signed the Nuclear
Non-Proliferation Treaty. India refused to sign.
(AP, 7/1/97)(SFC, 5/28/98,
p.A9)(http://tinyurl.com/d5cf45)
1968 Jul 1, Dominica’s left-wing
government brought in the Seditious and Undesirable Publications Act to
suppress dissent. Eugenia Charles led the opposition to get it
withdrawn and was made the leader of the Dominica Free Party.
(Econ, 9/17/05,
p.90)(http://tinyurl.com/l5lh6m)
1968 Jul 4, Arthur Kopit's
"Indians," premiered in London.
(www.enotes.com/indians)
1968 Jul 4, The radio astronomy
satellite Explorer 38 launched.
(www.n2yo.com/satellite/?s=28608)
1968 Jul 8, Golda Meir resigned
from her post as secretary of the Labor Party.
(www.jafi.org.il/education/jafi75/timeline5i.html)
1968 Jul 15, Commercial air travel
began between US & USSR.
(www.flightglobal.com/pdfarchive/view/1968/1968%20-%201275.html)
1968 Jul 15, Intel was founded.
Robert Noyce and Gordon Moore had left Fairchild Semiconductor to form
NM Electronics in Mountain View, Ca. In 1997 Tim Jackson published
"Inside Intel: Andrew Grove and the Rise of the World’s Most Powerful
Chip Company." Grove joined Intel in this year and became its president
in 1979. They bought the rights to the name Intel from Intelco fro
$15,000.
(SFEC,10/26/97, BR p.3)(SFEC,12/21/97, p.A2)(SFC,
10/11/00, p.A6)(SFC, 7/16/03, p.B1)
1968 Jul 17, Beatle's animated
film "Yellow Submarine" premiered in London. The US premiere was on
November 13.
(www.youtube.com/watch?v=mqUKJj0gGkM)(www.imdb.com/title/tt0063823/releaseinfo)
1968 Jul 17, The Arab Socialist
Baath Party staged a bloodless coup in Iraq and gained control as the
Revolution Command Council. Abdul Rahman Arif, brother of Abdul Salam
Arif (d.1966), was ousted in the Baathist coup and exiled to Istanbul.
Ahmed Hasan-al-Bakr became president of Iraq after the July 17 coup.
This became a national holiday until it was abolished in 2003. Saddam
Hussein soon became recognized as the strongman of the regime.
(NG, 5/88, p.653)(SFC, 9/24/02, p.A10)(AP,
7/13/03)(NW, 9/8/03, p.32)
1968 Jul 18, Intel was
incorporated as N M Electronics (the letters standing for Noyce and
Moore), but quickly changed its name to Intel, formed from the first
syllables of the words integrated and electronics.
(http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_gx5202/is_2004/ai_n19123399)
1968 Jul 18, The UK enacted
sanctions against Rhodesia for a 2nd time. The first time was on June
17.
(WUD, 1994, p.1687)(http://tinyurl.com/c5kcs9)
1968 Jul 20, Joseph Keilberth
(b.1908), German conductor (Bayreuth Festival), died.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Keilberth)
1968 Jul 25, H. Wroblewski
discovered asteroid #1993 Guacolda on exposures by G. Plouguin and I.
Belyaiev at the University of Chile, Cerro El Roble Station.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1993_Guacolda)
1968 Jul 26, Britain’s Theater Act
abolished censorship of the theatre and amended the law in respect of
theatres and theatrical performances. .
(www.opsi.gov.uk/RevisedStatutes/Acts/ukpga/1968/cukpga_19680054_en_1)
1968 Jul 27, A 3-day race riot
began in Gary, Indiana.
(www.project1968.com/july-28-august-3-1968.html)
1968 Jul 29, Pope Paul VI issued
the encyclical Humanae Vitae, which reaffirmed the Church’s opposition
to abortion and to all contraception except the rhythm method.
(WUD, 1994, p.1687)(AP, 7/29/98)(SSFC, 7/8/01, p.A4)
1968 Jul 30, In Gary, Indiana,
policemen took aim at snipers after the third night of racial unrest.
64 people were taken into custody. Mayor Richard G. Hatcher, the first
Negro mayor in a city with a Negro majority, said that he now believes
that gangs realize they will not be allowed to use violence to get what
they want.
(www.project1968.com/july-28-august-3-1968.html)
1968 Jul 30, Saddam Hussein took
charge of internal security services in Iraq.
(AP, 10/17/05)
1968 Jul 31, The Beatle's recorded
Hey Jude.
(http://oldies.about.com/od/thebeatlessongs/a/heyjude.htm)
1968 Jul 31, In Boston 4 men were
convicted for shooting Edward "Teddy" Deegan in a Chelsea, Mass., alley
in 1965. In 2007 a federal judge in Boston ordered the government to
pay a record nearly $102 million for the FBI's role in the wrongful
murder convictions of the 4 men. Two of the men convicted, Louis Greco
and Henry Tameleo, died behind bars. The others, Peter Limone (73) and
Joseph Salvati (74) spent three decades in prison.
(www.justicedenied.org/issue/issue_27/fbi%27s_legacy_of_shame.html)
1968 Aug 3, The Bratislava
statement conceded Czechoslovakia’s right to pursue its own path. The
conference was held in Bratislava, Slovakia, for representatives of the
communist and workers' parties of the People's Republic of Bulgaria,
the Hungarian People's Republic, the German Democratic Republic, the
Polish People's Republic, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, and
the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic.
(WUD, 1994,
p.1687)(http://library.thinkquest.org/C001155/documents/doc41.htm)
1968 Aug 5, The Republican
national convention convened in Miami Beach. Ronald Reagan announced
that he would seek the GOP nomination for president. He soon threw his
support to Nixon.
(AP, 8/5/08)(SSFC, 6/9/02, p.F6)(SSFC, 6/6/04, A16)
1968 Aug 8, Richard M. Nixon was
nominated for president at the Republican National Convention in Miami
Beach. Later that day, Nixon chose Maryland Gov. Spiro T. Agnew to be
his running mate.
(AP, 8/8/97)
1968 Aug 8, In Florida a riot
broke out in several neighborhoods of Miami, Florida, including one
community just 10 miles from the Republican Convention. 3 negroes were
killed by gunfire.
(www.project1968.com/august-4-10-1968.html)
1968 Aug 9, The 267-day Detroit
newspaper strike ended.
(www.loc.gov/rr/news/chronological/exception_report.html)
1968 Aug 10, In West Virginia 35
people were killed in the crash of a Piedmont Airlines Fairchild FH-227
at Kanawha County Airport.
(AP, 8/10/08)
1968 Aug 11, Eight US troops were
killed and 50 wounded when an Air Force F100 fighter accidentally
bombed a US unit near Ta Bat, northeast of Saigon. The fighter intended
on hitting Viet Cong who were located in front of the troops.
(www.project1968.com/august-11-17-1968.html)
1968 Aug 11, The USSR announced
new military maneuvers along the Czechoslovak border.
(WUD, 1994, p.1687)
1968 Aug 13, In Greece there was
an assassination attempt against Col. George Papadopoulos (1919-1999),
the right-wing military leader, organized by Alexandros Panagoulis
(1939-1976), Greek politician and poet.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexandros_Panagoulis)
1968 Aug 15, Pirate Radio Free
London began transmitting.
(http://radio.eric.tripod.com/in_breach_of_the_law.htm)
1968 Aug 19, George Gamow
(b.1904), physicist and writer, died. He popularized the idea of The
Big Bang.
(V.D.-H.K.p.335)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Gamow)
1968 Aug 20, Some 650,000 Soviet
Union and other Warsaw Pact troops began invading Czechoslovakia to
crush the "Prague Spring" liberalization drive of Alexander Dubcek's
regime.
(AP, 8/20/97)(SFC, 8/25/04, p.B7)
1968 Aug 21, William Dana reached
81.53 km. in the last high-altitude X-15 flight.
(http://pages.prodigy.net/pxkb94ars/Astro_X-15_Flights_9.htm)
1968 Aug 21, After 5 years Russia
once again jammed Voice of America radio.
(http://radio.about.com/library/history/blhistory0821.htm)
1968 Aug 21, The Soviet Union and
other Warsaw Pact nations invaded Czechoslovakia to crush the "Prague
Spring" liberalization drive led by Alexander Dubcek.
(AP, 8/21/08)
1968 Aug 22, Pope Paul VI arrived
in Bogota, Colombia, for the start of the first papal visit to Latin
America.
(AP, 8/22/98)
1968 Aug 22, In Czechoslovakia a
Soviet-led invasion crushed the Prague Spring reforms. In 1997 3
Communist Party leaders, Milos Jakes, Karel Hoffmann and Joseph
Lenart, were accused of conspiring with the Soviets.
(SFC, 5/3/97, p.A10)
1968 Aug 24, France became the
world's fifth thermonuclear power as it exploded a hydrogen bomb in the
South Pacific.
(AP, 8/24/97)
1968 Aug 25, Seven dissidents
(Larisa Bogoraz (d.2004), Pavel Litvinov, Konstantin Babitskii,
Nataliya Gorbanevskaya, Viktor Fainberg, Vadim Delone and Vladimir
Dremlyuga) came out in the Red Square to protest against the invasion
of the soviet troops in Czechoslovakia and paid for it with years of
lagers, exile and "special" mental hospitals.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1968_Red_Square_demonstration)(SFC,
4/8/04, p.B7)
1968 Aug 26, The Democratic
National Convention opened in Chicago. Thousands of antiwar
demonstrators took to Chicago's streets to protest the Vietnam War
during the Democratic National Convention.
(AP, 8/26/08)(SSFC, 6/9/02, p.F6)
1968 Aug 27, Tom Haden, anti-war
organizer, was beaten up, put in a paddy wagon and whisked off to a
Cook County Jail.
(SFC, 8/18/96, Z1 p1)
1968 Aug 28, In Chicago, Ill.,
Vice-President Hubert Horatio Humphrey was nominated by the Democrats
for US Presidency on the first ballot. Riots broke out outside the
Democratic National Convention as police and anti-war demonstrators
clashed in the streets. The 1969 film "Medium Cool" was set during the
Chicago Convention riots of 1968.
(WUD, 1994, p.1687)(TMC, 1994, p.1968)(Hem, 8/96,
p.86-88)(AP, 8/28/97)(SFEC, 9/6/98, DB p.52)
1968 Aug 28, Connecticut Senator
Abraham Ribicoff (1910-1998) nominated George McGovern for the US
Presidency and strongly criticized Chicago’s Mayor Daly for his
strong-arm tactics in controlling protestors at the Democratic National
Convention.
(SFC, 2/23/98,
p.A5)(www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/abrahamribicoff1968dnc.htm)
1968 Aug 29, Maine Sen. Edmund
Muskie was chosen to be the Democratic nominee for vice president at
the party's convention in Chicago.
(AP, 8/29/08)
1968 Aug 31, In northeast Iran
some 7-12 thousand people died in the 7.8 Dasht-e Bayaz earthquake,
which also destroyed 60,000 buildings.
(WUD, 1994,
p.1687)(www.bssaonline.org/cgi/content/abstract/59/5/1751)
1968 Aug, The play "You, Me and
the Next War," by Hanoch Levin (1943-1999), Israeli dramatist, was
produced.
(SFC, 8/19/99,
p.D2)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanoch_Levin)
1968 Sep 1, Pirate Radio Marina in
the Netherlands began transmitting.
(www.historyorb.com/entertainment/radio/pirate-radio)
1968 Sep 4, In the Republic of
Congo there was an army coup. Brazzaville deposed Pres. Masemba-Debat.
(WUD, 1994, p.1687)
1968 Sep 6, Feminists protesting
outside the Miss America pageant in Atlantic City, N.J., tossed
articles including cosmetics, girdles and bras into a trash can
ostensibly for burning, although nothing was actually set on fire. Miss
Illinois Judith Ford won the pageant.
(AP, 9/7/08)
1968 Sep 6, Swaziland in southern
Africa gained independence from Britain.
(http://janus.lib.cam.ac.uk/db/node.xsp?id=EAD%2FGBR%2F0115%2FMarnham%20Q)
1968 Sep 8, In Poland Ryszard
Siwiec (b.1909), accountant, teacher and anti-communist protester, self
immolated in front of some 10,000 spectators during the national
harvest festival at the Dziesieciolecia football stadium. He died 4
days later at a hospital.
(Econ, 10/10/09,
p.55)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ryszard_Siwiec)
1968 Sep 9, Arthur Ashe
(1943-1993) became the 1st black to win the US Open men’s tennis
singles championship.
(www.answers.com/topic/arthur-ashe)(http://tinyurl.com/d2xhty)
1968 Sep 11, The Soviet troops
started leaving Prague for the countryside. At the beginning of
October, the Czechoslovak leadership went to Moscow to negotiate
"normalization". As an outcome, the political leaders remained in
office and submitted to the Soviet demands.
(www.wien.gv.at/english/history/commemoration2008/prague-spring.html)
1968 Sep 13, Albania officially
withdrew from the Warsaw Pact. Albania had condemned the August
Soviet-led invasion of Czechoslovakia.
(http://countrystudies.us/albania/153.htm)
1968 Sep 14, Al Frueh (b.1880),
American caricature artist (New Yorker magazine), died.
(WSJ, 8/21/01,
p.A17)(www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/221010/Al-Frueh)
1968 Sep 15, Rev. Billy Graham
carried word to Pres. Johnson from Richard Nixon that Nixon would give
Johnson a share of the credit when the Vietnam war was settled. Johnson
later became convinced that Nixon was using Anna Chennault, widow of a
WW II general, to persuade Pres. Nguyen Van Thieu to sabotage the Paris
peace talks with the communists.
(SFC, 3/16/98, p.A2)
1968 Sep 15, The Organization of
African Unity condemned the secession of Biafra.
(WUD, 1994, p.1687)
1968 Sep 16, Republican
presidential nominee Richard Nixon exclaimed, "Sock it to ME?" in a
taped bit for the NBC-TV comedy program "Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In."
(AP, 9/16/08)
1968 Sep 18, The film "Funny Girl"
with Barbra Streisand premiered in NYC.
(http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0062994/releaseinfo)
1968 Sep 19, Marine Capt. Robert
A. Holt and Capt. John A. Lavoo were killed when their F-4B Phantom jet
crashed during combat a mission over Quang Binh Province. Their remains
were identified and returned to the US in 1999.
(SFC, 6/8/99, p.A9)
1968 Sep 19, Chester Carlson (62),
inventor of the photocopy machine (1960), died. In 2004 David Owen
authored “Copies In seconds.”
(WSJ, 8/6/04, p.A8)(ON, 11/04, p.9)
1968 Sep 20, The TV show "Name of
the Game" premiered with Gene Barry and Tony Franciosa. It was
written and produced by Leslie Stevens (d.1998) and ran to 1971.
(SFC, 4/29/98, p.C2)(www.imdb.com/title/tt0062591/)
1968 Sep 23, The TV western "The
Outcasts" premiered. The one season show featured Otis Young (d.2001 at
69) and Don Murray working together as post Civil War bounty hunters.
(SFC, 10/20/01, p.E2)(www.imdb.com/title/tt0062596/)
1968 Sep 24, The TV show "Mod
Squad" premiered on ABC and continued to 1973. It was about 3 hip young
cops who worked undercover in LA. A film version was begun in 1998.
(AP, 9/24/98)(SFC, 8/27/99,
p.C14)(www.imdb.com/title/tt0062589/)
1968 Sep 24, The CBS news magazine
"60 Minutes" premiered on CBS-TV on a Tuesday night. Don Hewitt created
and produced the TV news show "60 Minutes." He wrote his book "Minute
by Minute" in 1985.
(SFEM, 2/8/98, Par p.26)(AP, 9/24/98)
1968 Sep 26, Hawaii Five-O
premiered on CBS TV and continued to 1980. It starred Jack Lord (d.1998
at 77) and was the longest running police show in TV history. It’s
theme song was "Walk Don’t Run" by the Ventures. Lord (born as John
Joseph Patrick Ryan) was a painter off TV and his canvasses sold
privately for top dollar.
(SFC, 7/11/96, p.D4)(SFC, 1/22/98, p.D3)
1968 Sep 26, In Portugal Prof.
Marcello Caetano replaced Antonio Salazar as Prime Minister.
(WUD, 1994, p.1687)
1968 Sep 27, Portugal’s President
Americo Thomaz replaced PM Antonio de Oliveira Salazar with Marcelo
Caetano after Salazar suffered a major stroke, caused by his falling
from a chair in his summer house.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ant%C3%B3nio_de_Oliveira_Salazar)
1968 Sep 28, Beatles' "Hey Jude"
single went #1 and stayed #1 for 9 weeks.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hey_Jude)
1968 Sep 29, Piere Mulele
voluntarily returned from exile to Kinshasa, Congo.
(WUD, 1994, p.1687)
1968 Sep 29, A Greek plebiscite
was held by the then ruling dictatorial regime to endorse, by public
vote, the junta's new Constitution. Participation was made obligatory
and abstention punishable by imprisonment.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greek_plebiscite,_1968)
1968 Sep 30, The 1st Boeing 747
was rolled out of the Everett, Wa., assembly building.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_747)
1968 Sep, The Big Mac was created
by McDonald’s franchisee Jim Delligatti in Pittsburgh. It sold for 49
cents.
(SFC, 9/10/98, p.B2)
1968 Sep, The Plastic People of
the Universe band was founded by Milan Hlavsa (d.2001 at 49).
(WSJ, 7/22/98, p.A12)(SFC, 1/8/01, p.A19)
1968 Sep, The Soviet spacecraft
Zond ("Probe") 5 became the first to loop around the moon and return to
Earth. The L-1, given the name Zond, was a spacecraft designed to carry
two cosmonauts on a single loop around the moon. The L-1 suffered
repeated failure and never flew with a crew. The unmanned L-1s traveled
to the moon five times under the Zond name.
(HNQ, 4/27/99)
1968 Oct 1, The cult horror movie
"Night of the Living Dead" had its world premiere in Pittsburgh.
(AP, 10/1/98)
1968 Oct 1, The US Senate refused
to shut down a filibuster against President Lyndon B. Johnson's
nomination of Abe Fortas to be US chief justice. Fortas withdrew the
next day.
(AP, 10/1/08)
1968 Oct 1, The US Congress
created the Flaming Gorge National Recreation Area in Wyoming.
(www.utah.com/nationalsites/flaming_gorge.htm)
1968 Oct 2, Pres. Johnson
established Redwood National Park in northern California under Public
Law 90-545. Congress created the Redwood National Park in California at
a cost of $306 million. Large portions of the Arcata Redwood Corp.
lands were detached to form sections of Redwood National Park. The land
was initially assembled by Michigan timber baron Arthur Hill. His son,
Harry Hill, built the French Renaissance townhouse that is now the
Italian consulate.
(www.eoearth.org/article/Redwood_National_Park,_United_States)(SFC,
9/9/97, p.A19)(SFEC, 12/5/99, p.T1)
1968 Oct 2, Pres. Johnson signed a
bill establishing Washington state’s North Cascades National Park.
(SSFC, 7/18/04,
p.D7)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Cascades_National_Park)
1968 Oct 2, The 2,650-mile Pacific
Crest Trail, spanning Mexico to Canada, was designated a National
Scenic Trail as part of the US National Trails System Act.
(SFC, 7/16/08,
p.E2)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pacific_Crest_Trail)
1968 Oct 2, US Supreme Court
Justice Abe Fortas withdrew his nomination as chief justice. Six months
later, he resigned from the court, admitting he'd made a financial deal
with the Louis Wolfson Foundation.
(http://hnn.us/articles/11753.html)
1968 Oct 2, In Mexico soldiers
under Pres. Gustavo Diaz Ordaz used automatic weapons and killed some
300 students in the Mexico City Tlatelolco massacre prior to the start
of the summer Olympics. The government said only 50 students were
killed during gunfire that lasted 5 hours. Luis Echeverria, later
president, was the interior minister and the man in charge of public
security. He was called before a congressional committee in 1998.
Evidence in 1999 confirmed that pre-positioned soldiers fired on the
students. In 2002 a special prosecutor said he has found no evidence to
support historians' claims that some 300 people died when army troops
opened fire on demonstrators in 1968. He put the number killed at 38. A
judge dismissed other genocide charges against Echeverria in July 2005,
ruling that while he may have been responsible for a separate 1971
student massacre, he could not be tried because the statute of
limitations had expired in 1985.
(WUD, 1994, p.1687)(SFC, 9/1/96, p.A16)(SFEC,
4/6/97, p.C12)(WSJ, 8/13/97, p.A12)(SFC, 2/4/98, p.C2,14)(WSJ, 9/10/98,
p.A1)(SFC, 6/28/99, p.A10)(AP, 8/5/02)(AP, 3/27/09)
1968 Oct 2, Marcel Duchamp
(b.1887), French painter, died. He was known best for his 1915 "Nude
Descending a Staircase."
(V.D.-H.K.p.361)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marcel_Duchamp)
1968 Oct 3, The Howard Sackler
play, "Great White Hope," starring James Earl Jones and Jane Alexander,
opened on Broadway.
(AP, 10/3/08)
1968 Oct 3, American Independent
Party presidential candidate George Wallace tapped retired Air Force
Gen. Curtis E. LeMay to be his running mate.
(AP, 10/3/08)
1968 Oct 3, In Peru the military
seized power in a coup. Pres. Belaunde was overthrown by Gen. Juan
Velasco.
(SFC, 12/20/96, p.B4)(WUD, 1994, p.1687)(SFC,
6/5/02, p.A23)
1968 Oct 4, Cambodia admitted that
the Viet Cong used their country for sanctuary.
(www.nationalreview.com/robbins/robbins200408180835.asp)
1968 Oct 5, Catholic demonstrators
in Londonderry, Northern Ireland, clashed with police.
(SFC, 6/18/96, p.A8)(MC, 10/5/01)
1968 Oct 7, The Motion Picture
Association of America adopted its film-rating system (G,M,R,X),
ranging from "G" for "general" audiences to "X" for adult patrons only.
The system was fathered by Jack Valenti (1921-2007), head of the MPAA.
(AP, 10/7/97)(SFC, 1/21/04, p.D2)(SFC, 4/27/07, p.B9)
1968 Oct 8, US forces in Vietnam
launched Operation Sealord, an attack on North Vietnamese supply lines
and base areas.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Sealords)
1968 Oct 9, Pierre Mulele,
Congolese rebel leader, was publicly tortured and executed in the Congo
[some sources give October 3].
(WUD, 1994,
p.1687)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pierre_Mulele)
1968 Oct 9, The new military
government of Peru seized the country's oil fields.
(AP, 10/9/08)
1968 Oct 11, Apollo 7, The first
manned Apollo mission, was launched from Cape Kennedy with astronauts
Wally Schirra, Donn Fulton Eisele and R. Walter Cunningham aboard. It
made 163 orbits in 260 hours.
(AP,
10/11/97)(www.apollomissionphotos.com/index_AP7.html)
1968 Oct 11, In Panama Pres.
Arnulfo Arias was ousted in a coup by Gen’l. Omar Torrijos. Arias was
the founder of Panama's special security system and opened the vote to
women before he was ousted.
(WUD, 1994, p.1687)(SFC, 1/2/97, p.A20)(SFC,
4/29/99, p.D5)
1968 Oct 12, Eq. Guinea gained
Independence was from Spain. Eq. Guinea consists of two geographic
entities: the mainland of Rio Muni and the island of Bioko, formerly
Fernando Poo. Francisco Macias became the 1st president and proclaimed
himself God’s "unique miracle." He drove the economy into the ground
and over a third of the population went into exile.
(WP, 6/29/96, p.A15)(SFC, 5/15/01,
p.A10)(www.eia.doe.gov/emeu/cabs/eqguinea.html)
1968 Oct 12, The summer Games of
the 19th Olympiad were officially opened in Mexico City by Mexican
President Gustavo Diaz Ordaz.
(WUD, 1994, p.1687)(HN, 10/12/98)
1968 Oct 14, The Beatles "White
Album" was completed at the Abbey Road Studios.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Beatles_(album))
1968 Oct 14, The first live
telecast from a manned US spacecraft was sent from Apollo 7.
(AP, 10/14/98)
1968 Oct 16, American athletes
Tommie Smith and John Carlos sparked controversy at the Mexico City
Olympics by giving "black power" salutes during a victory ceremony
after they'd won gold and bronze medals in the 200-meter race.
(AP, 10/16/08)
1968 Oct 18, The US Olympic
Committee suspended two black athletes, Tommie Smith and John Carlos,
for giving a black power salute as a protest during a victory ceremony
in Mexico City. Bob Beamon soared 29 feet, 2 inches, to set a world
record in the long jump. In 1976 Dick Schaap authored “The Perfect
Jump.”
(AP, 10/18/98)(WSJ, 8/9/08, p.W8)
1968 Oct 19, Yasonari Kawabata
(1899-1972), Japanese novelist (Thousand Cranes) won the Nobel Prize in
Literature.
(http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/literature/laureates/1968/kawabata-docu.html)
1968 Oct 20, Former first lady
Jacqueline Kennedy married Greek shipping magnate Aristotle Onassis on
the island of Scorpios.
(AP, 10/20/97)(HN, 10/20/98)
1968 Oct 22, Pres. Johnson signed
the Gun Control Act of 1968. It regulated firearms above .50-caliber as
destructive devices and required registration and owner’s fingerprints.
Enforcement was up to the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms
(BATF). It barred the import of assault weapons even if they were
reconfigured if they were not found to have legitimate "sporting
purposes." In the wake of the Kennedy and King assassinations the US
Congress expanded gun ownership prohibitions to include dishonorably
discharged veterans and other groups.
(WSJ, 3/24/97, p.A12)(SFC,10/17/97,
p.A4)(http://tinyurl.com/p9lslc)(WSJ, 12/16/03, p.A4)
1968 Oct 22, Apollo 7 returned
safely, splashing down in the Atlantic Ocean.
(AP, 10/22/97)
1968 Oct 23, In Nicaragua the
Cerro Negro volcano began erupting again and continued to Dec 10. It
had first appeared in 1850.
(DD-EVTT,
Illustr.#9)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cerro_Negro)
1968 Oct 24, At the National Air
and Space Administration test pilot Bill Dana was at the controls of
the North American X-15 rocket-propelled research aircraft when it made
the 199th--and what turned out to be the final--flight of the X-15
program. He was flying the X-15-1, which had been the first of three
aircraft to participate in a series of tests that spanned a decade and
resulted in major advances for America's space flight program. In the
course of that research, the X-15s spent 18 hours flying above Mach 1,
12 hours above Mach 2, nearly 9 hours above Mach 3, almost 6 hours
above Mach 4, one hour above Mach 5 and a few short minutes above Mach
6. The X-15 was hailed by the scientific community as the most
successful research aircraft of all time.
(HNPD, 10/24/98)
1968 Oct 26, Illinois state and
the city of Chicago recognized Jean Baptiste Pointe de Sable
(1745-1818), a Haitian-born sea captain, as the founder of Chicago.
(www.usps.com/communications/community/_pdf/bhm06_poster.pdf)(http://tinyurl.com/cnt6tk)
1968 Oct 27, The 19th Olympic
games closed at Mexico City, Mexico.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1968_Summer_Olympics)
1968 Oct 27, In London there was a
massive anti-Vietnam war demonstration.
(WUD, 1994, p.1687)
1968 Oct 27, Lisa Meitner
(b.1878), Austrian-born Swedish physicist, died in England. During the
war while in hiding from Hitler in Sweden, she analyzed and understood
for its significance the work of Otto Hahn who in 1944 was awarded the
Nobel Prize in Physics for his work on nuclear fission.
(MT, 10/94, letters,
p.10)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lise_Meitner)
1968 Oct 28, Pres. Johnson named
Robert Komer (d.2000 at 78) as ambassador to Turkey. Komer had served
Johnson as head of the "pacification" program in Vietnam, which used
information and propaganda to gain political and social control of
south Vietnam.
(http://history.state.gov/departmenthistory/people/komer-robert-william)(SFC,
4/14/00, p.D5)
1968 Oct 28, In SF the first
eviction notices were served to the 196 tenants of the International
Hotel. This led to a 9-year struggle that resulted in their forced
eviction on Aug 4, 1977.
(http://aam1968.blogspot.com/2008/01/third-world-student-strikes-at-sfsu-ucb.html)(SSFC,
8/19/07, p.B1)
1968 Oct 30, Luis W. Alvarez
(1911-1988) of UC Berkeley won the Nobel Prize in Physics for his work
on the bubble chamber.
(SFC, 10/10/96,
p.A1)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luis_Walter_Alvarez)
1968 Oct 30, Ramon Samaniego
Novarro (b.1899), the 1st successful Latin star in Hollywood (Ben Hur),
was killed by 2 male hustlers. In 2002 Andres Soares authored "Beyond
Paradise: The Life of Ramon Novarro.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ramon_Novarro)(SSFC,
1/5/03, p.M4)
1968 Oct 31, President Johnson
announced a halt to all US bombing of North Vietnam, effective the next
morning, saying he hoped for fruitful peace negotiations.
(www.lbjlib.utexas.edu/johnson/archives.hom/speeches.hom/681031.asp)
1968 Oct 31, Liu Shaoqi
(1898-1968), president of China since 1959, was ousted.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liu_Shaoqi)
1968 Nov 1, Lyndon B. Johnson's
halt to bombing in Vietnam went into effect at 8 AM, Washington time.
(www.lbjlib.utexas.edu/johnson/archives.hom/speeches.hom/681031.asp)
1968 Nov 1, The Motion Picture
Association of America unveiled its new voluntary film rating system: G
for general audiences, M for mature audiences (later changed to GP,
then PG), R for restricted audiences, and X (later changed to NC-17)
for adults only.
(AP, 11/1/08)
1968 Nov 1, Georgios Papandreou
(b.1888), Greek minister and premier, died.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Papandreou,_senior)
1968 Nov 3, In Greece thousands of
people demonstrated against the fascist junta as ex-premier Georgios
Papandreou is buried.
(http://1968ineurope.sneakpeek.de/index.php/chronologies/index/6)
1968 Nov 5, Richard M. Nixon was
elected the 37th US President with Spiro Agnew as vice-president. He
defeated Vice President Hubert H. Humphrey and third-party candidate
George C. Wallace.
(WUD, 1994, p.1687)(TMC, 1994, p.1968)(AP,
11/5/97)(HN, 11/5/98)
1968 Nov 5, Barry Goldwater
(1909-1998), former Republican presidential candidate (1964), was
re-elected in Arizona to the US Senate.
(SFC, 5/30/98,
p.A3)(www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/USAgoldwater.htm)
1968 Nov 5, Alan Cranston
(1914-2000), former California state controller (12959-1967), was
elected for his 1st term as US Senator.
(SFC, 1/1/01,
p.A5)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_Cranston)
1968 Nov 5, Shirley Chisholm
(1924-2004) of Brooklyn, New York, became the first black woman elected
to serve in the US House of Representatives.
(HN, 11/5/98)(SFC, 1/3/05, p.A3)
1968 Nov 6, The play “The Ruling
Class” by Peter Barnes (1931-2004) opened in Nottingham, England. It
was a satirical attack on the church and British aristocracy. It was
made into a 1972 film for which Peter O'Toole received an Oscar
nomination.
(SFC, 7/3/04,
p.B6)(www.answers.com/topic/the-ruling-class-play-6)
1968 Nov 6, At SF State on the one
year anniversary of the Gator incident, the Black Students' Union and
the Third World Liberation Front issued a list of 10 "nonnegotiable"
demands and called for a one day strike. The strike lasted 167 days.
(http://userwww.sfsu.edu/~runamuck/PACEPAPER.htm)(SFEC, 3/1/98,
p.W3)(SFEC, 3/21/99, Z1 p.4)
1968 Nov 6, Charles Munch
(b.1891), French-US conductor, died. He directed the Boston Symphony
Orchestra from 1949-1962.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_M%C3%BCnch)
1968 Nov 11, The Maldives became a
republic for a 2nd time with Ibrahim Naseer (Nasir) as President.
(www.pjsymes.com.au/articles/Maldives(article).htm)(Econ, 12/23/06,
p.54)(AP, 11/11/08)
1968 Nov 12, Sammy Sosa, baseball
outfielder (Chicago Cubs), was born in the Dominican Republic.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sammy_Sosa)
1968 Nov 12, The US Supreme Court
in Epperson v. Arkansas voided an Arkansas law banning the teaching of
evolution in public schools.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epperson_v._Arkansas)
1968 Nov 14, In the US "National
Turn in Your Draft Card Day" featured draft card burning as the Vietnam
death toll approached 30,000 and US troop strength in Vietnam reached
its peak of 550,000.
(www.answers.com/topic/1968)
1968 Nov 14, Yale University
announced its plan to go co-ed.
(HN, 11/14/98)
1968 Nov 17, NBC outraged football
fans by cutting away from the final minutes of a New York Jets-Oakland
Raiders game to begin a TV special, "Heidi," on schedule. The jets led
32-29 with one minute remaining. Viewers were deprived of seeing the
Raiders come from behind to beat the Jets, 43-to-32.
(AP, 11/17/98)(SFC, 11/14/03, p.I8)
1968 Nov 18, Soviets recovered the
Zond 6 spacecraft after a flight around the moon.
(HN, 11/18/98)
1968 Nov 19, Gen'l. Moussa Traore
(b.1936) began serving as the 2nd president of Mali after leading the
military ouster of Pres. Modibo Keita (1915-1977. Traore then ruled for
23 years.
(SFC, 9/23/99,
p.A12)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moussa_Traor%C3%A9)
1968 Nov 22, Beatles released
their "Beatles," (White Album) their only double album.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Beatles_(album))
1968 Nov 23, Five Cubans hijacked
a US B-727 jet, from Chicago to Cuba.
(http://cuban-exile.com/doc_176-200/doc0180.html)
1968 Nov 24, Eldridge Cleaver fled
the US with his wife rather face assault charges from 1958. He returned
to the US in 1975.
(www.pbs.org/hueypnewton/people/people_cleaver.html)
1968 Nov 24, Three Latins hijacked
a US B-707 jet, from New York’s Kennedy Int’l. to Cuba. Pena Soltren, a
US citizen, and two accomplices used weapons hidden in a diaper bag to
hijack the Pan Am flight. In 2009 Luis Armando Pena Soltren (66)
voluntarily returned to the same airport to surrender and face
prosecution.
(http://cuban-exile.com/doc_176-200/doc0180.html)(AP, 10/12/09)
1968 Nov 25, Upton B. Sinclair
(b.1878), US novelist and social reformer (Jungle), died at age 90. His
work included almost 50 novels, over 20 nonfiction books, plays and
countless pieces of journalism. In 1975 Leon A. Harris Jr. (d.2000)
authored "Upton Sinclair, American Rebel." In 2006 Anthony Arthur
authored “Radical Innocent: Upton Sinclair.”
(www.americanwriters.org/writers/sinclair.asp)(WSJ,
2/23/06, p.D8)(WSJ, 6/10/06, p.P8)
1968 Nov 28, In London, England,
John Lennon and Yoko Ono appeared at the Marylebone Magistrates' Court.
John pleaded guilty to possession of cannabis resin and was fined 150
pounds plus 20 guineas costs.
(http://tinyurl.com/qjbdgb)
1968 Nov 30, Montesino Sanchez, a
Cuban, hijacked a Boeing 720 from Miami to Cuba.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Cuba-US_aircraft_hijackings)
1968 Nov, The album “Astral Weeks”
by Irish-born singer and song-writer Van Morrison was released. In 1999
it was given a Grammy Hall of Fame award.
(WSJ, 4/14/07, p.P14)
1968 Dec 1, Burt Bacharach and Hal
David's musical "Promises, Promises" opened at Shubert Theater in NYC
for 1281 performances.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Promises,_Promises)
1968 Dec 2, Pres Nixon named Henry
Kissinger (b.1923) security advisor.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Kissinger)
1968 Dec 4, The US stock market
began a 18 month decline of 44%.
(www.stockmarketcycles.com/sign_of_the_bear.htm)
1968 Dec 5, Football star O.J.
Simpson won a Heisman Trophy. In 1999 it was auctioned in LA for
$230,000 to help cover the $33.5 million judgment against him in the
wrongful death of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ron Goldman.
(SFC, 2/17/99, p.A3)
1968 Dec 5, Eduardo Castera, a
Latin successfully hijacked a B-727 from Tampa to Cuba.
(http://cuban-exile.com/doc_176-200/doc0180.html)
1968 Dec 6, The original Malian
constitution was abrogated after a military coup d’état and
replaced by a new fundamental law.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constitution_of_Mali)
1968 Dec 7, The Rolling Stones
released their album "Beggar’s Banquet" in the US, one day after it was
released in the UK. They soon filmed a concert performance right after
the Who’s performance of "A Quick One" that the Stones did not match
and the film was shelved. In 1996 it was planned to release the film
where Jethro Tull and Taj Mahal are also featured. The album included
the song "Sympathy for the Devil."
(SFC, 8/16/96, p.D11)(SFC, 10/23/00,
p.F3)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beggars_Banquet)
1968 Dec 7, The first orbiting
astronomical observatory, OAO-2, was launched.
(SFEC, 9/28/97, p.A14)
1968 Dec 8, South Vietnam’s vice
president Nguyen Cao Ky arrived in Paris for peace talks.
(HN, 12/8/98)
1968 Dec 9, Doug Engelbart and
researchers at Stanford Research Institute first demonstrated in SF the
computer mouse along with a graphical user interface (gui), display
editing, integrated text and graphics, hyper documents and 2-way
video-conferencing with shared work spaces. In 2001 Thierry Bardini
authored "Bootstrapping: Douglas Engelbart, Coevolution, and the
Origins of Personal Computing."
(SFC, 12/4/98, p.B2)(SSFC, 1/21/01, BR p.6)(SFC,
12/8/08, p.A1)
1968 Dec 10, Thomas Merton
(b.1915), American Trappist monk and writer, died in Bangkok, Thailand
from accidental electrocution. He had just finished his 7th journal
"The Other side of the Mountain." Merton was influenced by the Hindu
scholar Mahanambrata Brahmachari (d.1999). Merton's work also the
spiritual autobiography "The Seven Story Mountain." In 1978 Monica
Furlong (d.2003) authored a biography of Merton.
(SFC, 2/24/98, p.A22)(SFEC, 9/27/98, BR p.3)(SFC,
11/2/99, p.A26)(SFC, 2/3/03, p.B4)(WSJ, 3/26/03,
p.D8)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Merton)
1968 Dec 11, The Popular Front for
the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) was founded by Dr. George Habash,
founder of the pan-Arab nationalist movement.
(SFC, 12/13/96, p.B2,4)
1968 Dec 11, Two blacks
successfully hijacked a DC-8 from St. Louis to Cuba.
(http://cuban-exile.com/doc_176-200/doc0180.html)
1968 Dec 12, Tallulah Bankhead
(b.1903), American actress, died: "The only thing I regret about my
past is the length of it. If I had to live my life again, I'd make the
same mistakes, only sooner." In 2000 Tovah Feldshuh created "Tallulah
Hallelujah," a one-woman show in salute to Bankhead.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tallulah_Bankhead)(WSJ, 10/11/00,
p.A24)(SSFC, 1/14/01, DB p.34)
1968 Dec 18, Carolyn Olsen was
murdered during a robbery that netted $18 on a Santa Monica tennis
court. Black Panther leader Geronimo Pratt was accused of the murder
though he maintained that he was in Oakland on the night the 27-year
old teacher was shot to death. He was arrested in 1970 and convicted in
1972 and sentenced to a life term in prison. Julius "Buffo" Butler, a
police informant who spied on the Black Panther Party, told police that
he believed Pratt killed Olsen. In 1997 a judge ruled to reverse
Pratt’s conviction based on the credibility of Butler. He was released
on $25,000 bail on 6/10/97. In 2000 Pratt was awarded $4.5 million to
be paid by Los Angeles and the FBI.
(SFC, 4/18/96, C-1)(SFC, 6/7/97, p.A5)(SFC, 6/11/97,
p.C2)(SFC, 7/15/00, p.A3)
1968 Dec 19, Norman Thomas
(b.1884), founder of the ACLU and Socialist Party leader (1926-55),
died.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norman_Thomas)
1968 Dec 20, The first known
murder by the Zodiac killer took place. Two teenagers, David
Farraday and Betty Lou Jensen, were shot to death in a parked car on
Lake Herman Road outside Vallejo, Ca. The California Zodiac killer
later identified himself with a letter to the Times-Harold in Vallejo.
After that he claimed to have killed 37 people but the police connected
him to only five deaths.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zodiac_Killer)(SFEC,
3/1/98, p.W20)(SFC, 10/2/00, p.A19)(SFC, 4/7/04, p.A7)
1968 Dec 20, John Steinbeck
(b.1902), California-born author, died from a bad heart in New York
City at age 66. He won the Nobel Prize in 1940. In 1995 Jay Parini
published "John Steinbeck: A Biography."
(AP, 12/20/97)(SFEC, 6/21/98, DB
p.35)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Steinbeck)
1968 Dec 21, Apollo 8 with
astronauts Borman, Lovell & Anders was launched on the 1st mission
to orbit the moon.
(AP, 12/21/97)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollo_8)
1968 Dec 23, The 82 crew members
of the US intelligence ship Pueblo were released by North Korea, 11
months after they had been captured.
(AP, 12/23/97)
1968 Dec 24, The 3 Apollo 8
astronauts (James A. Lovell, William Anders and Frank Borman), orbiting
the moon, read passages from the Old Testament Book of Genesis during a
Christmas Eve television broadcast. The first pictures of an Earth-rise
over the Moon are seen as the crew of Apollo 8 orbits the moon.
(TL, 1988, p.117)(AP, 12/24/97)(HN, 12/24/99)
1968 Dec 26, Jay Allen's "Forty
Carats," premiered in NYC. It was adapted from the French original by
Pierre Barillet and Jean-Pierre Gredy. The 1973 film adaptation starred
Liv Ullman.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forty_Carats)
1968 Dec 26, A Palestinian
terrorist attack in Athens on an Israeli civilian airliner killed one
person. Mahmoud Mohammad (25) and Maher Suleiman (19) were later
captured by Greek officials, In 1970, a Greek court convicted Mahmoud
Mohammad for his role in the attack. In 1987 Mahmoud Mohammed Issa
Mohammed entered Canada, where he was ordered to be deported in 1988.
In 2007 he was still in Canada after some 30 appeals and reviews.
(http://tinyurl.com/35olct)(Econ, 9/15/07,
p.48)(www.skyjack.co.il/chronology.htm)
1968 Dec 27, The US agreed to sell
fifty F-4 Phantom jets to Israel.
(HN, 12/27/98)
1968 Dec 27, Apollo 8, the 1st
manned mission to the moon, and its three astronauts made a safe,
nighttime splashdown in the Pacific.
(AP, 12/27/97)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollo_8)
1968 Dec 28, The Beatles' "White
Album," went #1 in the US, beginning this week, and stayed at the top
for 9 weeks.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Beatles_(album))
1968 Dec 28, Israel attacked the
Beirut Int’l. Airport, destroying 13 civilian planes. This was in
response to an attack on an Israeli airliner in Athens by the Popular
Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP).
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1968_Israeli_raid_on_Lebanon)
1968 Dec, The pop song
"Israelites" by Desmond Dekker (1941-2006), Jamaican singer, was
released in Jamaica and soon became a worldwide hit. Dekker brought the
sound of Jamaican ska music to the world.
(SFC, 5/27/06, p.B5)
1968 Dec, The Cambridge company
Bolt Beranek and Newman won a Dept. of Defense ARPA (Advanced Research
Projects Agency) contract to develop packet switches called Interface
Message Processors (IMP). The project was led by Frank Heart and Robert
Kahn. The first internode was to installed at the Univ. of California
at Los Angeles.
(SFEC, 3/16/97, Z1 p.3)(SFC,10/24/97, p.E5)
1968 Edward Kienholz (1927-1994)
created his "Portable war memorial," a bizarre tableaux including a hot
dog stand and a coke dispenser.
(TL, 1988,
p.117)(http://artchive.com/artchive/K/kienholz/war_memorial.jpg.html)
1968 Yayoi Kusama (b.1929),
Japanese-born artist, staged her "Naked Event at the Statue of Liberty."
(WSJ, 8/4/98,
p.A16)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yayoi_Kusama)
1968 Architects Doug Michels
(1943-2003) and Chip Lord founded the Ant Farm in SF. In 1974 they
created "Cadillac Ranch," a sculpture of 10 planted Cadillacs, in
Amarillo, Texas. In 1975 they created the performance work "Media
Burn," in which Michels drove a Cadillac through a pyramid of burning
television sets. Ant Farm disbanded in 1978.
(SSFC, 6/22/03, p.A1)
1968 Cecile Nelken (1917-2009),
sculptor and publisher, founded Artweek, the first US West Coast weekly
art newspaper.
(SFC, 7/17/09, p.D5)
1968 Henry Moore, English artist
and sculptor, made his "Three Piece No. 3: Vertebrae."
(SFC, 10/26/96,
p.B1)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Moore)
1968 Roland Barthes (1915-1980),
French literary critic, published his essay “The Death of the Author.”
In his essay, Barthes criticizes the reader's tendency to consider
aspects of the author's identity—his political views, historical
context, religion, ethnicity, psychology, or other biographical or
personal attributes—to distill meaning from his work.
(WSJ, 8/2/08,
p.W9)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_of_the_author)
1968 Richard Bradford (1932-2002)
authored his novel "Red Sky at Morning." A film version was released in
1971.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Bradford)(SFC,
11/8/99, p.C2)(SFC, 3/27/02, p.A21)
1968 Herb Caen (1916-1997), SF
newspaper columnist, wrote his 7th book: "City of Golden Hills."
(SFEC, 2/2/97, p.A13)
1968 Carlos Castaneda (1925-1998)
published his thesis: "The Teachings of Don Juan: A Yaqui Way of
Knowledge," with the Univ. of Calif. Press. It became an int’l. best
seller. He went on to publish "A Separate Reality," "Journey to
Ixtlan," and others.
(SFC, 6/19/98,
p.A2)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carlos_Castaneda)
1968 Charles C.G. Chaplin and
James Bohlke co-authored “Fishes of the Bahamas and Adjacent Tropical
Waters.”
(Sm, 2/06, p.42)
1968 Marie Vieux-Chauvet
(1916-1973) published her Haitian trilogy “Love, Anger, Madness.” It
was withdrawn soon after publication France following a government
warning that it would endanger the author’s family. It was released
again in France in 2005 and in English in 2009.
(Econ, 8/15/09, p.78)
1968 "The Warrior Pharaohs" by
British author Leonard Cottrell (1913-1974) was published by Evans
Brothers Ltd, London.
(L.C.-W.P.,
1968)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leonard_Cottrell)
1968 Quentin Crisp (1908-1999),
English gay writer born as Denis Pratt, authored his autobiography:
"The Naked Civil Servant." In 1975 The Naked Civil Servant was
broadcast on British and American television and made both actor John
Hurt and Crisp himself into stars.
(SFC, 11/22/99, p.C4)(WSJ, 7/14/00,
p.W11)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quentin_Crisp)
1968 Nicky Cruz (b.1939 in Puerto
Rico), former NYC city gangster, wrote his autobiography "Run, Baby,
Run." He had converted to Christianity in 1958 and begun ministering to
inner city youth.
(WSJ, 10/23/98,
p.W13)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicky_Cruz)
1968 Mary Daly (1928-2009), Boston
College professor and feminist theologian, authored “The Church and the
Second Sex.”
(SSFC, 1/10/10, p.C10)
1968 Philip Dick (1928-1982)
authored his sci-fi novel "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep." In
1982 it was made into the film "Blade Runner."
(SFC, 6/25/02,
p.D1)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philip_K._Dick)
1968 Frederick Exley (1929-1992),
American novelist, published his book "A Fan’s Notes," a fictional
memoir of his failed life. In 1997 Jonathon Yardley published: "Misfit:
The Strange Life of Frederick Exley."
(SFEC, 8/17/97, BR
p.3)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frederick_Exley)
1968 Colin Fletcher (1922-2007),
Welsh-born pioneering backpacker and writer, authored "The Complete
Walker." It became a manifesto for backpackers.
(SSFC, 8/11/02,
p.C3)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colin_Fletcher)
1968 Don Freeman (1908-1978),
painter and children’s writer, authored "Corduroy," the story of a
teddy bear named Corduroy, who is bought in a department store by a
girl named Lisa.
(SFEC, 2/27/00, BR
p.12)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don_Freeman)
1968 Walter Galenson (1914-1999),
American labor economist, published "The C.I.O. Challenge to the
A.F.L." with Harvard Univ. Press.
(SFC, 1/8/00,
p.A19)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walter_Galenson)
1968 Graham Greene (1904-1991),
English author and playwright, wrote "Travels With My Aunt." In 1989 it
was adopted for stage by Giles Havergal, director of the Citizens’
Theater in Glasgow.
(SFEC, 1/5/97, DB
p.25)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graham_Greene)
1968 William Grier and Price Cobbs
authored "Black Rage," in which they argued that psychological
functioning is the same in all races, but that the experiences of Black
people make them different.
(SFEC, 7/20/97, BR p.3)
1968 Arthur Hailey (1920-2004)
author his best-selling novel ”Airport.”
(HN, 4/5/01)(SFC, 11/26/04, p.B3)
1968 Garrett Hardin (1915-2003),
ecologist, wrote his classic essay: "The Tragedy of the Commons." He
explained how herdsmen with an incentive to add animals will overgraze
common pastureland. It spawned the "save the whales" animal-protection
movement.
(WSJ, 9/9/97, p.A18)(Econ, 8/2/08,
p.76)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garrett_Hardin)
1968 Abbie Hoffman (1936-1989),
political activist and one of the co-founders of the Yippies, wrote
"Revolution for the Hell of It."
(SFC, 12/29/96, BR
p.5)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abbie_Hoffman)
1968 H. Richard Hornberger
(1924-1997), under the pseudonym of Richard Hooker, collaborated with
W.C. Heinz on the Korean War novel "MASH." It was made into a film in
1970 and a TV series (1972-1977).
(SFEC, 8/29/99, BR
p.3)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H._Richard_Hornberger)
1968 Chuang Hua (1931-2000), the
pen name of Stella Yang Copley, authored her novel “Crossings,” an
experimental novel on the life of a first generation Chinese-American
woman.
(www.ndpublishing.com/books/chuanghuacrossings.html)
1968 James Michener (1907-1997),
American author, wrote his travel book "Iberia," a detailed and
illustrated exploration of Spain at it was during the mid 1960s.
(SFC,10/17/97,
p.A17)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_A._Michener)
1968 Jerome Mintz (1930-1997), US
anthropologist, published "Legends of the Hasidim: an introduction to
Hasidic culture and oral tradition in the New World."
(www.mnsu.edu/emuseum/information/biography/klmno/mintz_jerome.html)
1968 Jerome Mintz (d.1997 at 67),
US anthropologist, published "The Anarchists of Casa Viejas," an
account and oral history of the 1933 Spanish uprising.
(SFC,12/20/97, p.A21)
1968 Anton Myrer (1922-1996),
American writer, authored "Once an Eagle," a story of the US Army from
WW I to Vietnam. It pitted an honorable officer against a self-serving
officer and sold millions of copies.
(SFC, 8/20/99,
p.D7)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anton_Myrer)
1968 William Safire (1929-2009),
conservative journalist and presidential speechwriter, authored
“Safire’s Political Dictionary.”
(Econ, 10/3/09, p.11)
1968 Charles Susskind (1922-2004),
professor at UC Berkeley, authored “Understanding Technology.” Susskind
was born in Prague, Czechoslovakia, and escaped to England in 1939.
(SFC, 6/17/04, p.B6)
1968 James Watson (b.1928),
American molecular biologist and Nobel Prize winner, published "The
Double Helix."
(SFC, 3/19/98, p.C4)(SFEM, 7/30/00,
p.9)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_D._Watson)
1968 Tom Wolfe (b.1931), American
writer and journalist, authored "The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test." It
was about the 1964 road trip by Ken Kesey and the Merry Pranksters to
the NY World’s Fair.
(SSFC, 11/11/01,
p.A16)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tom_Wolfe)
1968 Dom DeLuise (1933-2009),
actor, chef, comedian and author, hosted “The Dom DeLuise Show,” a
comedy variety summer series on CBS.
(SFC, 5/6/09,
p.A9)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dom_DeLuise)
1968 The TV series “The Name of
the Game” featured Gene Barry (1919-2009). The show continued to 1971.
(SFC, 12/15/09, p.C5)
1968 The "Rolling Stones Rock and
Roll Circus" was shot for home video but not released until 1996. The
62 minute TV special featured the Stones, John Lennon, Yoko Ono, Eric
Clapton, the Who, Marianne Faithfull, Taj Mahal and Jethro Tull.
(SFC, 10/15/96, p.B1)
1968 The Delfonics soul singing
group of Philadelphia recorded their hit "La-la Means I Love You."
(SFEC, 1/25/98, DB
p.45)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Delfonics)
1968 Edison Denisov (1929-1996),
Russian composer, composed his "Ode for Instrumental Ensemble," and
"Romantic Music for Oboe, Harp and String Trio."
(SFC, 11/27/96,
p.B2)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edison_Denisov)
1968 Alfred Schnittke (1934-1998),
Russian composer, composed his "2nd Violin Concerto." It marked a major
shift into eclecticism for the composer.
(SFC, 8/5/98,
p.A17)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfred_Schnittke)
1968 Edwin Hawkins recorded his
arrangement of “Oh Happy Day” on a 2-track tape machine for the
Northern California State Youth Choir. An album was made with Century
Records to help finance a trip to a church youth conference in
Washington DC. In 1969 Abe Kesh at KSAN-FM began playing the song,
which featured the voice of Dorothy Morrison. The album was soon
re-issued by Buddah Records.
(SFC, 10/23/09, p.F1)
1968 Graham Nash (b.1942) left the
Hollies to join David Crosby (b.1941) and Stephen Stills (b.1945). The
first Crosby, Stills & Nash album was released in 1969.
(www.rockhall.com/inductee/crosby-stills-and-nash)
1968 The song "Just Dropped In (to
See What Condition My Condition Was In) was the 1st charted single for
Kenny Rogers, who was with the First Edition. The song was written by
Texas songwriter Mickey Newbury (d.2002 at 62).
(SFC, 10/3/02, p.A20)
1968 Aretha Franklin (b.1942)
recorded "Since You’ve Been Gone" and “Think.”
(http://tinyurl.com/oe3cmp)(http://tinyurl.com/obhjaj)
1968 Marvin Gaye recorded "I Heard
It Through the Grapevine."
(SFC, 11/12/02,
p.D8)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_Heard_It_Through_the_Grapevine)
1968 The Iron Butterfly recorded
their 17-minute classic "In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida," with Erik Braunn (d.2003
at 52) on lead guitar. Doug Ingle, Ron Bushy and Lee Dorman completed
the band.
(SFC, 7/29/03, p.A17)
1968 Janis Joplin and Big Brother
and the Holding Company band recorded their album "Cheap Thrills" in
New York.
(SFC, 5/19/96, DB,
p.39)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cheap_Thrills)
1968 The Moody Blues released
their album "Days of Future Past” in the US. It had been released in
Britain in November 1967.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Days_of_Future_Passed)
1968 Laura Nyro (1947-1997)
released her song suite album "Eli and the Thirteenth Confession." her
biggest songs were "When I Die," "Stoned Soul Picnic," "Wedding Bell
Blues," "Sweet Blindness," and "Eli’s Coming."
(SFE, 4/10/97,
p.A23)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eli_and_the_Thirteenth_Confession)
1968 Itzhak Perlman and Pinchas
Zuckerman made their SF Symphony debuts.
(SFEC, 8/17/97, DB p.45)
1968 Astor Piazolla collaborated
with poet Horacio Ferrer on the work "Maria," a succession of tangos,
waltzes and a fugue, that tells the story of a prostitute in Buenos
Aires.
(WSJ, 10/27/98, p.A20)
1968 The song “Sittin’ on the Dock
of the Bay” by Otis Redding (1941-1967) became a smash hit. It was the
first posthumous single in US chart history.
(SFC, 4/25/06, p.B5)
1968 The singing group Sha Na Na
began singing together at Columbia Univ. as the Columbia Kingsmen.
Their first gig in Manhattan paid $50 for the 12 members. They sang
"Let’s Go to the Hop" at Woodstock and did a TV show from 1977-1980.
(SFC, 6/26/98, p.C13)
1968 The Supremes released their
album "Love Child."
(SFC, 11/12/02,
p.D8)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Love_Child_(The_Supremes_album))
1968 Johnnie Taylor (d.2000 at 62)
had his 1st No. 1 R&B hit with "Who’s Making Love."
(SFC, 6/2/00, p.D5)
1968 Stevie Wonder made a hit with
the song "For Once in My Life."
(SFC, 11/12/02,
p.D8)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/For_Once_in_My_Life)
1968 Tammy Wynette (1942-1998),
country singer, recorded her hit song "Stand by Your Man." In 2003 it
was rated the No. 1 top country song.
(SFC, 6/6/03,
p.D22)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stand_By_Your_Man)
1968 Iannis Xenakis (b.1922),
Greek architect and composer, composed "Kraanerg," an example of his
"stochastic" music in Paris. It combined taped electronic music and
live performance and was described as alien.
(WSJ, 11/19/96, p.A18)
1968 The Anchorage Museum of
History and Art opened.
(WSJ, 7/17/97, p.A20)
1968 Astor Piazolla collaborated
with poet Horacio Ferrer on the work "Maria," a succession of tangos,
waltzes and a fugue, that tells the story of a prostitute in Buenos
Aires.
(WSJ, 10/27/98, p.A20)
1968 Dr. Robert Schuller founded
New Hope, the first Christian 24-hour suicide prevention center.
(SFEC, 4/20/97, Par p.18)
1968 James Patrick Shannon
(d.2003), auxiliary bishop of St. Paul, Minn., resigned following
reprimands over his views over birth control and the Vietnam War. In
1999 he authored "Reluctant Dissenter."
(SSFC, 9/14/03, p.A27)
1968 Dennis Banks (b.1937), an
Anishinabe Indian from Minnesota, co-founded the American Indian
Movement (AIM). Vernon Bellecourt (1932-2007), an Ojibwe Indian from
Minnesota, also helped found the movement.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dennis_Banks)(SFC,
10/15/07, p.B6)
1968 Ari Onassis invited Jackie
Kennedy to Skorpios and later they married.
(TMC, 1994, p.1968)
1968 Debra Barnes of Pittsburgh,
Kansas, won the Miss America beauty pageant.
(SFEC, 9/15/96, p.A6)
1968 Stewart Brand published the
first Whole Earth Catalog. He had spent years in India on a campaign to
eradicate smallpox.
(Wired, 5/97, p.101)
1968 The Association of Black
Psychologists was founded.
(WSJ, 7/8/96, p.C1)(Civilization, July-Aug, 1995, p.
36)
1968 Ruth Whitney (1928-1999),
editor of Glamour Magazine, put a black model on the cover for the
first time in the magazine's history.
(SFC, 6/8/99, p.A22)(http://tinyurl.com/ov9m59)
1968 Calvin Klein founded Calvin
Klein Ltd. in NYC for $10,000.
(SSFC, 11/29/09,
p.N6)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calvin_Klein)
1968 Jay Chiat (1931-2002),
American advertising designer, founded the Chiat/Day advertising agency.
(Wired, 2/99,
p.78)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jay_Chiat)
1968 Kay Teer Crawford (d.2001 at
83) founded the Miss Drill Team USA pageant.
(SFC, 9/7/01, p.A26)
1968 The Kansas City Athletics
under owner Charlie Finley moved to Oakland and began playing in the
new Oakland Coliseum.
(SFEC, 3/1/98, p.W39)
1968 When the Raiders played in
their first Super Bowl in Miami, boss Al Davis got a call from mobster
Meyer Lansky asking him to speak to a group of funeral directors. Davis
tried to back out but Lansky said: "You will be there at 6 p.m." A
biography of Lansky was written by Hank Messick (d.1999).
(SFC, 6/21/96, p.A17)(SFC, 11/9/99, p.A23)
1968 J. Anthony Lukas (d.1997 at
64) won a Pulitzer Prize for his book "The Two Worlds of Linda
Fitzpatrick." It was about a teenage girl from an affluent Connecticut
family beaten to death with her hippie boyfriend after turning to a
life of drugs in the East Village.
(SFC, 6/7/97, p.A19)
1968 The Nobel Memorial Prize in
Economic Sciences was first endowed by Sweden’s central bank. It is the
only Nobel Prize that was not created by Alfred Nobel in 1901.
(WSJ, 10/11/95, p. A-16)(WSJ, 10/15/98, p.A22)
1968 Horace A. Barker (d.2000 at
93), a professor at UC Berkeley, was awarded the US National Medal of
Science by Pres. Johnson. His work helped in the discovery and
characterization of the active form of vitamin B12.
(SFC, 1/5/01, p.D5)
1968 The Kerner Commission of
Pres. Johnson concluded that America was moving toward 2 societies: one
black, one white, separate and unequal.
(SFC, 9/18/98, p.A1)
1968 The American Independent
Party candidate George Wallace named General Curtis LeMay as his
vice-presidential candidate.
(SFC, 6/12/96,
p.E5)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curtis_LeMay)
1968 Richard Nixon (1913-1994) was
given the mood-altering prescription drug Dilantin by Jack Dreyfus,
founder of the Dreyfus Fund.
(SFEC, 8/27/00, p.A6)(http://tinyurl.com/p365a3)
1968 The US Congress passed the
National Flood Insurance Act of 1968 creating the National Flood
Insurance Program
(www.seas.gwu.edu/~emse232/emse232book3)(WSJ,
8/31/98, p.A1)
1968 The Dept. of Defense ARPA
(Advanced Research Projects Agency) issued a request for proposals to
develop packet switches called Interface Message Processors (IMP).
(SFEC, 3/16/97, Z1 p.3)
1968 The A-12 Blackbird spy plane
was retired. Lockheed Martin had built 15 such planes, a forerunner to
the SR-71 Blackbird. It had originated as part of the CIA’s
“Oxcart” program.
(WSJ, 1/26/07, p.A1)
1968 The Library of Congress
finished its Machine Readable Cataloguing (Marc) pilot project, which
was under the direction of Henriette D. Avram (1919-2006). In 1969
bibliographic records were sent on magnetic tape to libraries around
the country. In 1971 Marc became the national standard fro electronic
cataloguing.
(SFC, 5/4/06, p.B7)
1968 Milton Friedman proposed the
doctrine of NAIRU, the non-accelerating inflation rate of unemployment.
It generally holds that there is nothing we can do to get the
unemployment rate below its natural rate. If somehow the unemployment
rate slips below its natural rate, than accelerating inflation would be
triggered. The natural unemployment rate has been placed variously
between 5 & 7%. Friedman won the 1976 Nobel Prize in economics and
retired to the Hoover Inst. at Stanford.
(www.washingtonmonthly.com/features/2004/0407.galbraith.html)(WSJ,
5/27/98, p.A20)
1968 Ted Stevens began
representing Alaska in the US Senate.
(SFC, 12/20/05, p.A1)
1968 In San Francisco construction
of the 4-part Embarcadero Center began. It was completed in 1983.
(SFEC, 1/23/00, p.B1)
1968 Japan Center opened in San
Francisco’s Japantown with a Peace Plaza and a 5-tiered pagoda. The
center included the new Miyako Mall, the Miyako Hotel and the Kintetsu
Mall.
(SFEC, 9/20/98, Z1 p.6)(SFC, 2/10/06, p.D1)
1968 Dr. Alejandro Zaffaroni
(b.1923), native of Montevideo, Uruguay, founded ALZA Corp. The SF Bay
Area company has grown to be one of the largest medical device
companies in the US specializing in drug delivery technologies. He
later helped to launch Affymax, a drug discovery company, and
Affymetrix, which did DNA research on semiconductor chips.
(BJSJ, 10/30/95,
p.8)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alejandro_Zaffaroni)
1968 The Berkeley Repertory
Theater was founded by Michael Leibert on College Ave.
(SFEC, 3/8/98, p.W29)(WSJ, 5/8/01, p.A24)
1968 The Hillbarn Theater,
co-founded by Robert Brauns (d.2001 at 87) opened on East Hillsdale
Blvd in Foster City. The original outdoor theater, had been in the
corral of the old Pingrey estate overlooking El Camino Real near the
Belmont city line.
(SFC, 3/31/01, p.A21)
1968 The Royal Chapel at Carmel,
Ca., became a cathedral for a second time as the Diocese of Monterey
was reorganized.
(SSFC, 1/4/09, p.B3)
1968 David “Moses” Berg of
Oakland, Ca., founded the Children of God. He combined the free love of
the sexual revolution with the fervor of the American evangelical
movement [see May, 2, 1978].
(SSFC, 2/27/05, p.A1)
1968 Yusuf Bey (d.2003) created
“Your Black Muslim Bakery” in Oakland, Ca.
(SFC, 11/30/05, p.A16)
1968 The Industrial Center
Building at 480 Gate Five Rd. in Sausalito, Ca., became a haven for
artists.
(SFEM,11/30/97, p.10)
1968 Mary Moore (d.2001 at 73)
founded Mandrake’s nightclub at University and 10th St. in Berkeley.
The club folded in 1974.
(SFC, 12/28/01, p.A34)
1968 Canãda College opened
in Redwood City, Ca.
(SFEC, 3/15/98, p.W20)
1968 William Hartman (d.1997 at
78) and Marilyn Fithian founded the Center for Marital and Sexual
Studies in Long Beach, Ca. They later published "Treatment of Sexual
Dysfunction" based on their studies.
(SFC, 10/14/97, p.A19)
1968 California governor Ronald
Reagan signed an Inmate Bill of Rights. It was amended in 1994 to limit
rights only to those guaranteed in the California and US constitutions.
It was again amended in 1996 to make personal visits a privilege, not a
right.
(SFC, 7/9/96, p.A17)(http://tiny.cc/kOk1t)
1968 US Federal agents raided the
Marin home of Frank Werber (1929-2007), the original manager of the
Kingston Trio, and seized 258 pounds of Mexican marijuana. He served a
6-month sentence in Marin County, Ca. In 1972 he retired on 160 acres
of wilderness in New Mexico.
(SFC, 6/8/07, p.B7)
1968 The California Air Resources
Board (ARB) was established to regulate the state’s ambient air quality.
(SFEC,11/10/97, p.A10)
1968 The California State Fair
moved to the 356-acre CalExpo grounds in Sacramento.
(SSFC, 8/7/05, p.F7)
1968 Myth has it that the Nuestra
Familia prison gang was organized after a stolen shoe incident at San
Quentin prison. It set the Mexican Mafia, a gang rooted in East Los
Angeles, against the Familia based in San Jose.
(SFEC, 6/29/97, Z1 p.1)
1968 Sidney W. Brossman (d.1999 at
76) became head of the new California Community Colleges and served to
1977.
(SFEC, 3/28/99, p.D6)
1968 Architect Henry Schubart
(d.1998 at 81) moved his family to Salt Spring Island in British
Columbia due to his opposition to the Vietnam War. He had designed the
campus buildings of the Dominican College in Marin, Ca., the St. Louis
Bertrand Church in Oakland and the Holy Names Church in SF among other
works. In BC he introduced the use of skylights.
(SFC, 2/20/98, p.A23)
1968 Myth has it that the Nuestra
Familia prison gang was organized after a stolen shoe incident at San
Quentin prison. It set the Mexican Mafia, a gang rooted in East Los
Angeles, against the Familia based in San Jose.
(SFEC, 6/29/97, Z1 p.1)
1968 Sears Point Raceway began
operating in Marin County, Ca.
(SFC, 12/15/99, p.A21)
1968 The Kansas City Athletics
under owner Charlie Finley moved to Oakland, Ca., and began playing in
the new Oakland Coliseum.
(SFEC, 3/1/98, p.W39)
1968 A newspaper strike shut down
the SF Chronicle, the Examiner and the News-Call Bulletin for 53 days.
Bill O'Brien (d.2004) became president of the SF-Oakland Newspaper
Guild the next day and supported the strike, which had originated with
Hearst papers in LA.
(SFC, 2/05/04, p.A27)
1968 Al Brounstein (d.2006 at 86)
purchased 80 acres on Diamond Mountain in Napa, Ca., for a little over
$100,000. He began developing a vineyard and later admitted to
smuggling cuttings from Bordeaux, France, by way of Tijuana. His first
crop from Diamond Creek Vineyards was produced in 1972.
(SFC, 6/28/06, p.B7)
1968 Robert Mondavi made a dry
wine from Sauvignon Blanc and renamed it Fume Blanc.
(SFC, 5/17/08, p.A7)
1968 The last of the hog farms in
Colma, Ca., closed. Some 10,000 garbage-eating pigs were raised along
the Hillside Blvd. farm
(Ind, 7/15/00,5A)
1968 T. Jack Foster, the developer
of Foster City, Ca., died. His sons continued his project and sold out
to Centex Corp. in 1970.
(Ind, 8/4/01, 5A)
1968 Actors from the Living
Theater were arrested in San Francisco for disrobing onstage.
(SFC, 7/14/96, DB p.30)
1968 Chet Helms, operating under
the name "Family Dog," lost his lease and permits for running shows at
the Avalon Ballroom at Sutter and Van Ness.
(SFC, 10/9/97, p.A17)
1968 Bill Graham opened the
Fillmore East in NYC and moved his SF operation to the former Carousel
Ballroom, renamed the Fillmore West.
(SFC,12/13/97, p.A15)
1968 San Francisco Mayor Alioto
greeted King Olav V of Norway with a grand reception at City Hall.
(SFEC, 2/1/98, p.A10)
1968 In San Francisco Andrew
McKinley and Bryan Bilby opened the Adobe Book Shop at 3166 16th St.
(SFC, 4/9/03, p.E1)
1968 Chronicle Books was founded
in San Francisco.
(SFC, 8/7/99, p.A8)
1968 The SF Police formed a
helicopter unit. The city went without police helicopters from 1975 to
1998, when the unit was revived.
(SFC, 1/13/00, p.A15)
1968 In San Francisco Richard
Simmons opened Specs Twelve Adler Museum Cafe just off of Columbus Ave.
and across the street from Vesuvio's.
(SFC, 1/26/04, p.B1)
1968 In San Francisco Walter
Shorenstein announced his plan to tear down the Int’l. Hotel at 848
Kearny and replace it with a parking lot. Stymied by public pressure he
sold the property in 1973.
(SFC, 6/8/01, WBa p.6)
1968 In San Francisco George
Whitney stopped operating Playland-at-the-Beach. It was closed and put
up for sale in 1972.
(SSFC, 7/3/05, p.F6)
1968 Linda Harmon (14) was raped,
beaten and stabbed to death in SF. In 2003 DNA evidence identified
William Speer (61), a convicted sexual predator, as the murderer.
(SFC, 12/24/03, p.A13)
1968 Donaldina Cameron (b.1869),
San Francisco social worker, died. She had worked to rescue Chinese
girls sold into prostitution in SF and founded the Donaldina Cameron
House on Sacramento St. for low income Asian immigrants.
(SFC, 6/18/04, p.F4)
1968-1976 Joseph L. Alioto served as mayor of San
Francisco.
(SFC, 12/19/96, p.A22)
1968 Detroit poet John Sinclair
was arrested and sentenced to 10 years in prison for possession of two
marijuana joints.
(SFEC, 7/21/96, DB p.35)
1968 In Grand Chute, Wis., a night
watchman was killed during a robbery at a car dealership. In 2005
police in Appleton, Wis., arrested Robert Mitchell (75) for the murder.
(SFC, 11/19/05, p.A3)
1968 Maurice “Hank” Greenberg took
over as head of American International Group (AIG). He stepped down in
2005 as AIG, the world’s largest insurer, faced regulatory troubles.
(Econ, 3/19/05, p.77)
1968 John Templeton (1912-2008)
American investment analyst, fled to the Bahamas and took British
citizenship in order to avoid American taxes.
(Econ, 7/19/08, p.95)
1968 In the US shoulder harnesses
became required items on all cars.
(WSJ, 6/19/96, Adv. Supl)
1968 The Chevrolet Blazer opened
up the Sports Utility Vehicle (SUV) market.
(SFEC, 10/10/99, Z1 p.6)
1968 ATT reserved 911 for
emergency calls after the 1967 recommendation by the President’s
Commission on Crime.
(WSJ, 1/9/97, p.A8)
1968 CBS established a 50-50 joint
venture with Sony Corp.
(WSJ, 3/7/05, p.A8)
1968 Denny’s bought Winchell’s
Donut Houses. Verne Winchell (d.2002 at 87) founded the business in the
1950s.
(SFC, 11/29/02, p.A27)
1968 The 4th Betty Crocker, a
General Mills advertising icon, made her appearance and continued to
1972.
(WSJ, 7/5/96,
p.A6)(http://chnm.gmu.edu/features/sidelights/crocker.html)
1968 The J.M. Smucker Co.
introduced Goober Grape, a single container with peanut butter and
grape jelly swirled together.
(SFC, 1/31/08, p.A13)
1968 Hewlett-Packard introduced
the world’s 1st programmable scientific desktop calculator.
(SFC, 1/13/01, p.A15)
1968 Hewlett-Packard introduced
the 1st commercially available light-emitting diode (LED) used for
displays and traffic lights.
(SFC, 2/22/06, p.C1)
1968 Newton Glekel (1913-2007),
NYC real estate lawyer and deal maker, purchased a controlling interest
in Detroit-based Hygrade Food Products Co., maker of Ball Park hot
dogs. He sold his stake to Britain’s Hanson Industries Inc. in 1976.
(WSJ, 8/4/07, p.A4)
1968 Montgomery Ward merged with
Container Corp. to become Marcor.
(WSJ, 12/29/00, p.A3)
1968 Tele-Communications Inc. was
founded by Bob Magness (1924-1996) when he merged Community Television
Inc. and Western Microwave Inc. in Denver. The company went public in
1970.
(SFEC, 11/17/96, p.C12)
1968 Wayne Huizenga and Dean
Buntrock established Waste Management Inc. in Chicago. It became a
public company in 1971.
(SFC, 7/19/07, p.A14)
1968 Charles P. Ball, a graduate
student at SF State Univ., designed the first water bed.
(SFEC, 6/1/97, Z1 p.5)
1968 Fred Mattson (d.1997 at 76)
and Dr. Robert Volpenhein, employed by Proctor & Gamble, created
olestra, a cocktail of fatty acids that enzymes left untouched.
(SFEC, 6/8/97,
p.D6)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olestra)
1968 The National Eye Institute at
the National Institutes of Health was founded with the assistance of
Dr. Alfred Maumenee Jr.
(SFC, 1/21/98, p.A20)
1968 Dr. Robert Good (d.2003 at
81) performed the 1st successful human bone marrow transplant.
(SFC, 6/19/03, p.A1)
1968 Scientists crossed the
Pacific oyster with the Kumamoto oyster and produced the Gigomoto
oyster. They had hoped for a cross that would have the best traits of
both oysters but instead produced a cross with the worst traits of both
oysters.
(WSJ, 4/4/96, A-12)
1968 Teacher Jane Elliot separated
her class into blue-eyed and brown-eyed students and treated one group
better that the other in a demonstration of discrimination.
(SFC, 8/30/96, p.D6)
1968 Barbara Liskov received a
doctorate from Stanford Univ. in computer science, the first such
degree ever awarded to a woman in the US. In 2009 she won the $250,000
Turing computing award from the Association for Computing Machinery for
her work in organizing complex programs and efforts to make software
more resistant to errors and hacking.
(SFC, 3/13/09, p.C3)
1968 In a move toward
decentralization it was planned to give community districts more
control over the NYC school system. The process was derailed when many
white teachers were fired in Brooklyn on account of race in districts
that came under control of black nationalists. In 2007 Richard D.
Kahlenberg authored “Tough Liberal,” a biography of Albert Shanker
(1928-1997), head of the NYC teacher’s union. Shanker led the series of
teacher strikes that fought total community control.
(WSJ, 12/31/97, p.A10)(WSJ, 8/28/07, p.D6)
1968 The U of M Institute for
Social Research (ISR) began its Panel Study of Income Dynamics, an
annual study of the wealth, health and behavior of American families.
(MT, Fall. ‘97, p.4)
1968 Milton Wexler (1909-2007),
Hollywood psychoanalyst, launched the Hereditary Disease Foundation,
after his wife, Leonore Wexler, got diagnosed with Huntington’s
disease. Scientists in 1983 found a genetic marker for Huntington’s
disease and in 1993 located the gene itself.
(SFC, 3/23/07, p.B9)
1968 Roy Jacuzzi invented the
first whirlpool bath.
(SFC, 6/12/99,
p.D1)(http://inventors.about.com/library/inventors/bljacuzzi.htm)
1968 A new medium priced home in
the US was priced at $24,700.
(WSJ, 6/14/96, p.B10)
1968 Floating fish-processing
factories took in a combined catch of 810,000 tons of cod off the
eastern banks of North America. During the next decade there was a
steady drop cod population.
(NH, 5/96, p.61)
1968 The Rogue River in southern
Oregon was named as one the country's first national wild and Scenic
rivers.
(SFEC, 3/19/00, p.T4)
1968 Dr. Kurt Freund (1914-1996),
psychiatrist, left Czechoslovakia after the failure of the revolt and
moved to Canada. He had developed a way to measure penile response to
erotic stimulation with a phallometric device.
(SFEC, 10/27/96, p.B8)
1968 Open air testing of chemical
weapons at the US Army Dugway Proving Grounds in the Utah desert caused
the deaths of some 3,600 [6,400] sheep in an adjacent valley.
(SFEC, 4/27/97, p.A18)(WSJ, 6/1/98, p.A1)
1968 World leaders proclaimed that
individuals have a basic human right to determine freely and
responsibly the number and timing of their children. This led to the
annual UN celebration of World Population Day.
(www.unfpa.org/wpd/)
1968 The Bahamas elected a
socialist leaning president. This led to the end of the Bahamas as a
major off-shore tax haven and the rise of the Cayman Islands as a tax
haven.
(SSFC, 7/10/05, p.E3)
1968 In Bhutan Michael Aris
(1946-1999), a graduate from Durham Univ., was invited about this time
to become the private tutor of the children of the royal family of
Bhutan. Aris spent 6 years in Bhutan. In 1972 he married Aung San Suu
Kyi of Burma.
(SFC, 3/30/99,
p.F4)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Aris)
1968 Bolivia’s Gen. Juan Jose
Torres selected economist Hugo Torresgoitia as vice president.
(SFC, 7/14/03, p.A2)
1968 The London Sunday Times
sponsored the 1st Golden Globe round-the-world sailboat race. Robin
Knox-Johnston was the only entrant to complete the race, becoming the
first person to sail single-handed and non-stop around the world. The
race gave birth to the French Vendee Globe race. In 1999 Derek Lundy
authored "Godforsaken Sea," an account of the 1996 Vendee Globe. In
2001 Peter Nichols authored "A Voyage for Madmen," an account of the
race and its 9 skippers.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sunday_Times_Golden_Globe_Race)(SFEC,
8/15/99, BR p.5)(WSJ, 6/22/01, p.W12)
1968 In Britain the literary
Booker Prize was founded by Sir Michael Caine (d.1999 at 71), an
executive for Booker PLC, which specialized in food distribution and
agribusiness. The prize was modeled after the French Prix Goncourt.
(SFC, 3/25/99, p.C3)
1968 British Leyland was put
together by Harold Wilson’s industrial planners. It was nationalized in
1975, and sold to British Aerospace in 1988.BMW picked up Rover in 1994.
(Econ, 4/16/05, p.15)
1968 Pierre Trudeau, PM of Canada,
published an admiring book about Mao Tse-Tung’s China.
(WSJ, 10/3/00, p.A26)
1968 China established a research
center to prepare for manned space flight, with 1973 target date for
launch. Program later canceled because of lack of money and political
support.
(AP, 10/15/03)
1968 In Denmark the original
Legoland was built in Billund.
(SFEC, 2/7/99, p.T3)
1968 A Danish geologist published
a paper on the Greenland Ice Cap that included melting threats to it.
The study used core samples that drilled down to bedrock.
(WSJ, 6/8/06, p.D8)
1968 The documentary film
“Czechoslovakia 1968” was a 20-minute production by the US Information
Agency.
(SFC,11/21/97, p.C17)
1968 Zinsou became premier
(1968-1969) of Dahomey (later Benin).
(http://tinyurl.com/9ryq5)
1968 In Germany the Gallery of the
Twentieth Century by architect Mies van der Rohe (1886-1969) was
dedicated in Berlin.
(TL, 1988,
p.117)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ludwig_Mies_van_der_Rohe)
1968 Jean Dominique (d.2000)
purchased the lease on Radio Haiti Inter and initiated broadcasts in
Creole. Dominique was forced in to exile in 1980, but returned in 1986.
(SFC, 4/30/04, p.E6)
1968 In India the Triennale-India
art show began in New Delhi with shows held every 3 years.
(SFC,12/27/97, p.C16)
1968 In India Tata Consultancy
Services (TCS) was founded. Public shares were offered in 2004 as sales
hit %1.5 billion and employees numbered 28,000.
(Econ, 7/24/04, p.61)
1968 Jews moved into Hebron
following its occupation in the wake of the 1967 6-Day War. They later
settled in the new suburb of Kiryat Arba.
(SFC, 12/4/08, p.A27)
1968 In Italy Michelangelo
Pistoletto, artist, rolled around Turin his giant ball of pulped
newspaper. The exploit was captured on film.
(SFC, 2/10/98, p.E4)
1968 The Sant’Egidio community was
started in Rome by a high school student with ideals of prayer, mission
and solidarity wit the poor. By 2008 it had 60,000 members in 70
countries and had become active in faith-based peacemaking.
(Econ, 7/5/08,
p.72)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Community_of_Sant'Egidio)
c1968 The Aral Sea between
Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan began shrinking after Soviet engineers
diverted water from its 2 feeder streams, the Amu Darya and the Syr
Darya. The water was diverted to a massive dam and irrigation system
for cotton production.
(SFC, 11/30/98, p.A11)(SFEC, 1/31/99, p.A20)
1968 In Mexico there was a rain of
hundreds of thousands of maggots on Acapulco.
(SFC, 5/30/98, p.E4)
1968 In the Netherlands the
Rembrandt Research Project was formed and funded by the government to
act as the gatekeepers of Rembrandt’s work.
(WSJ, 8/7/98, p.W12)
1968 Baba Hassan Din, English
convert to Sufism, died in Lahore, Pakistan. In the 1950’s he had
adopted a boy named Hafiz Iqbal, and raised him to be a scholar. Both
were later recognized as Sufi saints.
(Econ, 12/20/08, p.73)
1968 In Kosovo, Serbia, ethnic
Albanians staged their first pro-independence demonstrations.
(USAT, 3/24/99, p.4A)
1968 The Diuktai Cave, a rich
Palaeolithic site dating back to 35-10,000 BC, was discovered on the
Aldan, a tributary of the Lena in Siberia by Dr. Yuri Mochanov.
(NG, Oct. 1988, p.464)
1968 In South Korea POSCO was
founded to manufacture steel. By 2008 it was the world’s 4th largest
steelmaker. It was started by the state using $120 million in war
reparations from Japan. It was privatized after South Korea’s 1997
financial crises.
(Econ, 8/30/08, p.62)(Econ, 9/27/08, SR p.9)
1968 In Spain the ETA, Basque
Homeland and Freedom, a Basque separatist group, began fighting for
independence. Its political wing was Herri Batasuna.
(SFEC, 7/13/97, p.A11)(SFC, 7/21/97, p.A10)
1968 In Sweden the first gathering
of folk-musicians at Bingsjö was held.
(NH, 4/97, p.31)
1968 Julius K. Nyerere
(1922-1999), the first president of Tanzania (1964-1985), authored
Ujamaa: Essays on Socialism.” He coined the economic policy called
ujamaa, a Swahili word for togetherness or family and fused the
country’s 120 tribes into a cohesive state.
(www.nathanielturner.com/ujamaanyerere.htm)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julius_Nyerere)(WSJ,
12/10/96, p.A6)
1968 In Tanzania Campbell Bridges
(1937-2009), Scottish-born geologist, became the first to record the
discovery of the gemstone-quality tsavorite a green gem that shines
even before polishing. The gem was later mined in Kenya and Tanzania.
(AP, 8/13/09)
1968 In Venezuela researchers,
Napoleon Chagnon and James V. Neel, reportedly inoculated thousands of
Yanomami Indians with a measles vaccine. Chagnon published
"Yanomamö: The Fierce People," a summation of his 30 years in the
Amazon forest. In 2000 the controversial book "Darkness in El Dorado"
Patrick Tierney blamed the researchers for a major epidemic that killed
hundreds of Indians. At least 30 Indians died from a measles epidemic
that hit Yanomani villages at least one year before researchers
administered the Edmonston B vaccine [see 1967].
(SFC, 11/10/00, p.A4)(SFC, 11/16/00, p.A19)(NH, Jul,
p.28)(WSJ, 2/23/08, p.W8)
1968 The US military "Project
Urgency" returned some North Vietnamese prisoners with hidden
incriminating evidence, so they would appear as US agents.
(SFC, 11/5/99, p.D4)
1968 In Yugoslavia Tito purged
Serbian novelist Dobrica Cosic (b.1921) for nationalism. Cosic
developed a complex and paradoxical theory of Serbian national
persecution that later evolved into the Greater Serbian program of
Slobodan Milosevic. Cosic later became the first president of the
Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (1992 to 1993).
(WSJ, 5/7/99,
p.A18)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dobrica_%C4%86osi%C4%87)
1968-1969 The Hong Kong flu pandemic killed some
34,000 Americans. Each year an average of 20,000 Americans die of the
flu.
(WSJ, 1/14/98, p.A18)
1968-1969 The US Pentagon admitted in 1999 that it
had helped South Korea obtain Agent Orange to defoliate areas along the
demilitarized zone. Soldiers applied it by hand. In 2000 1,890 South
Korean soldiers and farmers had registered as victims. They sought $4.3
billion from Dow Chemical and Monsanto and $1 billion for the US
government.
(SFC, 11/17/99, p.A18)
1968-1969 Pres. Francisco Macias Nguema murdered a
6th of the population of Eq. Guinea.
(WSJ, 8/31/05, p.D10)
1968-1970 Chuck Mawhinney, one of the United States
Marine Corps’ most accomplished snipers, served a 13-month tour in
Vietnam and two six-month extensions. During that time he was credited
with 103 confirmed kills and 216 probables.
(HNQ, 12/16/02)
1968-1971 Farleigh S. Dickinson (1920-1996) served in
the New Jersey state senate. He sponsored the law that created the
Hackensack Meadowlands Development Commission, a 21,000 acres site that
covered 14 municipalities.
(SFC, 10/17/96, C2)
1968-1972 Edward Dorn (d.1999 at 70), poet and
educator, composed his 5-volume poem "Gunslinger."
(SFC, 12/15/99, p.B2)
1968-1973 In 1998 Allen J. Matusow published "Nixon’s
Economy," a look at Nixon’s economic record over this period.
(WSJ, 7/22/98, p.A12)
1968-1973 A severe famine hit the Sahel region of
North Africa. Mauritania, Mali, Upper Volta (Burkina Faso) and Niger
were most affected.
(Econ, 8/20/05, p.57)
1968-1975 The pro-Soviet Velasco Alvarado regime
ruled Peru. The military government expropriated the sugar estates on
the country’s north coast turning them into government-owned
cooperatives.
(WSJ, 12/27/96, p.A7)(Econ, 2/10/07, p.38)
1968-1979 Pierre E. Trudeau, Liberal Party, served as
the 15th Prime Minister of Canada.
(CFA, '96, p.81)
1968-1979 Robert W. Fleming was president of the
Univ. of Michigan. He succeeded Harlan Hatcher in Jan. His
autobiography was published in 1996: "Tempests Into Rainbows."
(MT, 3/96, p.16)
1968-1985 In Italy serial killings during this period
left 16 people dead in the Tuscan countryside. In 1994 Pietro Pacciani
(69) was convicted of 14 murders and sentenced to life in prison
following trial that was televised. He was cleared in 1996 and ordered
to face a retrial, but died in 1998. Pacciani's friend, Mario Vanni
(70) and Giancarlo Lotti (54) were convicted of their involvement in
five of the double murders. Vanni was given a life sentence and Lotti
received a sentence of 26 years in prison. In 2001 Florentine
authorities reopened the case amid speculation they were investigating
up to a dozen wealthy Italians who orchestrated the ritualistic
killings by manipulating a trio of voyeuristic peasants. In 2006 Mario
Spezi, a journalist who has worked with the American thriller author
Douglas Preston on a book about the killings, was arrested and accused
of slander and sidetracking the investigation.
(AP, 4/9/06)
1968-1998 American Engineer Jon Postel (1943-1998)
coordinated the Internet’s protocols and addressing system over this
period.
(Econ, 11/19/05,
p.68)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jon_Postel)
Go to 1969