1961 1962 1963 1964 1965 1966 1967 1968 1969 1970
The Tonkin Gulf Resolution approved by Congress August 7 authorizes President Johnson to "take all necessary measures to repel any armed attack against forces of the United States and to prevent further aggression" (see 1963). Three North Vietnamese PT boats have allegedly fired torpedoes August 2 at a U.S. destroyer in the international waters of Tonkin Gulf 30 miles off the coast of North Vietnam, I. F. Stone has been the only journalist to challenge the president's account of the incident, Johnson has ordered retaliatory action after a second such alleged attack, U.S. aircraft have bombed North Vietnamese bases August 5, and the resolution has been approved 88 to 2 in the Senate and 416 to 0 in the House of Representatives. Gen. Nguyen Khanh has led a countercoup against Gen. Duong Van Minh in January and heads the government of South Vietnam until October despite several other countercoup attempts (see 1965).
Hostilities resume in Laos, where the French-controlled monarchy comes under renewed attack from the revolutionary movement that has become known as the Pathet Lao. Communist leader Kaysone Phomvihan, 43, moves his guerrilla forces into caves in the northern mountains, where they are relatively safe from U.S. carpet bombing.
Former Austrian chancellor Julius Raab dies at Vienna January 8 at age 72; Italian communist leader Palmiro Togliatti of a cerebral hemorrhage at Yalta April 21 at age 71; dowager Viscountess Lady Astor in Lincolnshire May 2 at age 84, having said, "The main dangers in this life are the people who want to change everything—or nothing"; former German foreign minister Heinrich von Brentano dies at Darmstadt November 14 at age 60.
Former Greek premier Sophocles Venizelos dies February 6 at age 69 aboard a cruise ship en route from Crete to the Athenian port of Piraeus. Greece's Paul I dies at his native Athens March 6 after a 17-year reign. His 23-year-old son succeeds to the throne and will reign until 1967 as Constantine II, but George Papandreou becomes premier, fighting breaks out between Greeks and Turks in Cyprus, Archbishop Makarios abrogates a 1960 treaty April 4, heavy fighting follows in northwestern Cyprus, Athens rejects direct talks with Ankara June 11, Turkish planes attack Greek Cypriot positions August 8, the UN orders a cease-fire August 9, Greece withdraws her units from NATO August 17, and the UN extends its mandate for force in Cyprus December 18 (see 1967).
Malta gains independence September 21 after 140 years of British colonial rule. She will become a republic in December 1974.
A Soviet coup d'état October 13 strips Nikita Khrushchev, now 70, of all power. Leonid Ilych Brezhnev, 57, becomes party leader, Aleksei Nikolaevich Kosygin, 60, becomes premier October 14.
Britain's Labour Party wins the general elections in October, Prime Minister Douglas-Home resigns, and Harold Wilson, now 48, begins a ministry that will continue until 1970. Richard H. S. Crossman is minister of housing and local government, and former Labour Party chair Barbara Anne Castle (née Betts), 53, minister of overseas development. A member of Parliament since 1945, Castle will become minister of transport next year and in 1968 will become the first secretary of state for employment and productivity. Former Supreme Allied commander in the Mediterranean Gen. Henry Maitland "Jumbo" Wilson, 1st Baron Wilson, dies at Chilton, Aylesbury, Buckinghamshire December 31 at age 83.
The Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) is organized to represent some 2 million refugees from the former Palestine mandate, who are scattered about in various Arab countries (see Israel, 1948). Its leadership is split between old families whose authority dates to Ottoman times and young middle-class (fedayeen) factions who favor the use of terrorism to put pressure on Israel and the West (see 1965).
Saudi Arabia's king Saud ibn Abdul Aziz is formally deposed in November at age 62 after a 12-year reign in which his extravagant spending and mismanagement of the $300 million per year Aramco oil royalties has led to an economic crisis. All powers have been transferred in March to his brother Faisal, who has served as viceroy and is proclaimed king November 2, beginning a reign that will continue until 1975.
Afghanistan adopts a new constitution that prohibits royal relatives from holding office (see 1933). Now 49, Mohammad Zahir Shah has been content to sit back and permit his relatives to run the country, but he now begins to take a more active role under a constitutional monarchy (see 1973).
Jawaharlal Nehru dies suddenly at New Delhi May 27 at age 74 after nearly 17 years as prime minister of India. The "Lion of Kashmir" Sheik Mohammed Abdullah has been released from prison April 8 after 6 years' confinement and has denounced India's policy toward Kashmir, which is claimed by Pakistan, but that policy continues under Pandit Nehru's 60-year-old successor Lal Bahadur Shastri (see 1965).
Onetime Filipino rebel Emilio Aguinaldo dies at Manila February 6 at age 94; former Japanese ambassador to the United States Admiral Kichisaburo Nomura at Tokyo May 8 at age 86; former Thai field marshal and premier Luang Phibunsongkhram at Tokyo June 12 at age 66, having fled his country in 1957.
Japan's prime minister Hayato Ikeda resigns for reasons of health in October after a 4-year ministry (and a longer career as minister of finance) in which he has helped the country produce spectacular economic growth. Ikeda is succeeded in December by former minister of finance Eisaku Sato, 63, who becomes president of the Liberal Democratic Party and will serve as prime minister until June 1972.
Rhodesian finance minister Ian D. Smith, 45, succeeds white-supremacy extremist Winston J. Field as prime minister April 13 following dissolution of the Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland. A onetime RAF pilot who flew Spitfires in World War II, Smith has a 4,000 acre farm 220 miles southwest of Salisbury (later Harare). Authorities arrest former Southern Rhodesian African National Congress leader Joshua Nkomo, now 44, who left his party last year and will be incarcerated for the next 10 years at the Buffalo Range prison camp (see 1965).
Malawi gains independence July 6 after 66 years of British colonial rule. Formerly Nyasaland, she has broken her ties with Rhodesia, adopted a red, black, and green flag with a rising sun, and named U.S.- and British-educated physician Hastings Kamuzu Banda, 57 (University of Chicago '31), prime minister. Banda has told white settlers to accept majority rule or "pack up" (see 1966).
Zambia is created October 24 out of Northern Rhodesia and Barotseland with Kenneth David Kaunda, 40, as president of the new independent state. The British South African Co. has released mineral rights in the area on the promise of compensation from London and from the new Zambian government.
The United Republic of Tanzania takes that name October 29 with Julius K. Nyerere as president. African nationalists in Zanzibar have overthrown the predominantly Arab government January 12, thousands of Arabs have fled the island following the massacre of thousands by about 600 armed men under the leadership of communist-trained military leader John Okello. Okello has set up a People's Republic with Sheik Abeid Amani Karume as president and three Communist-trained cabinet members, Zanzibar has merged with Tanganyika April 26 at the suggestion of President Nyerere, and the new republic is communist-oriented.
Brazil's president Joao Goulart is overthrown April 1 and flees to Uruguay after a military coup that followed a presidential order distributing federal lands to landless peasants, doubling the minimum wage, and expropriating lands adjacent to federal highways. A U.S. naval force assembles in the Caribbean and heads south as President Johnson prepares to intervene to prevent a leftist takeover. An anticommunist purge follows the military coup, U.S. ambassador to Brazil Lincoln Gordon requests the recall of U.S. naval forces before they reach Brazilian waters, and Brazil's congress elects Army chief of staff Gen. Humberto Castelo Branco April 11 to serve out the balance of President Goulart's term.
Venezuela's president Rómulo Betancourt retires after 6 years in office, having spurred industrial development to make the country less dependent on oil revenues, put through an agrarian law that expropriated large estates, and initiated a widescale program of public works. Now 58, he will live in self-imposed exile in Switzerland until 1972.
Haiti's president François "Papa Doc" Duvalier turns 57 April 14 and is declared president for life (see 1963). Excommunicated by the Vatican for harassing the clergy, he has been almost completely cut off from diplomatic relations with other countries, but his thuggish regime has given the country new political stability and he will retain power until his death in 1971.
British authorities in British Guiana revise the constitution that was introduced in 1953 and then suspended after the election of Cheddi Jagan as prime minister (see 1961); the CIA has covertly fomented social unrest in an effort to depose Jagan, and he is ousted for alleged communist connections. The constitutional change provides for proportional representation to reflect the relative voting strengths of blacks and East Indians, and it permits London-educated People's National Congress Party founder Forbes Burnham to join with a small, right-wing party and defeat the ruling People's Progressive Party. Burnham's new coalition government will halt the leftist program pursued by Jagan (see independence, 1966).
Canada adopts the Maple Leaf flag October 22. Queen Elizabeth will make it official early next year.
Gen. Douglas MacArthur (ret.) dies at Washington, D.C., April 5 at age 84; World War I hero Alvin C. York at Nashville, Tenn., December 2 at age 76.
U.S. Communist Party chairman Elizabeth Gurley Flynn dies of acute gastroenterocolitis and a pulmonary aneurism at Moscow September 5 at age 74. After a state funeral in Red Square her remains are flown to Chicago for burial near the graves of Eugene Dennis, Bill Haywood, and the Haymarket martyrs of 1886.
The Warren Commission Report issued September 27 finds that Lee Harvey Oswald alone was responsible for last year's assassination of President Kennedy and that no conspiracy was involved. Chief Justice Earl Warren has headed the presidential commission, but its report meets with skepticism in many quarters as various lawyers and publicists come out with books that seek to discredit the commission's findings.
Former president Herbert C. Hoover dies at New York October 20 at age 90.
Sen. Margaret Chase Smith, (R. Me.) makes an unsuccessful bid for the Republican presidential nomination. Now 66, she has served in the Senate since 1948 and will continue until 1972. Self-styled "conservative" Sen. Barry M. Goldwater, now 55, of Arizona narrowly defeats the more liberal New York governor Nelson A. Rockefeller, 56, in the California primary June 2 (the margin is 48,953 out of more than 2 million votes cast) and is chosen to lead the Republican ticket after electrifying the party's right wing July 16 at San Francisco's Cow Palace, saying, "I would remind you that extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice. And . . . moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue." Pittsburgh millionaire Richard Mellon Scaife, 32, has escorted the nominee in his family plane to California for the annual Bohemian Grove retreat (an alternate delegate to the convention, Scaife will be a major contributor to right-wing causes for more than 40 years).
President Johnson wins election in his own right with the largest popular vote plurality in U.S. history, receiving 61 percent of the popular vote and 486 electoral votes in a landslide victory over Sen. Goldwater, who has attacked Democrats for their interference in the life of the individual and their "big government" competition with private industry. Goldwater has opposed Medicare, but it is his convention speech and his suggestions of escalating the Vietnam war that have raised wide fears and he receives just 38 percent of the popular vote, 52 electoral votes (only Arizona and five Deep South states go Republican, with Southerners deserting the Democrats for the first time, largely because of racial issues).
Hawaiian voters elect Patsy Mink (née Takemoto), 36, to Congress; she is the first congresswoman of Japanese descent.
Suppression of a student protest at the University of California, Berkeley, in the fall begins a long period of U.S. campus unrest that will develop into an antiwar movement.
President Johnson announces a vast increase in U.S. aid to South Vietnam December 11 "to restrain the mounting infiltration of men and equipment by the Hanoi regime in support of the Vietcong"; a military coup December 19 overthrows South Vietnam's High National Council.
The American Conservative Union holds its first board meeting December 18 at Washington's Statler Hilton Hotel. Organized after Sen. Goldwater's crushing defeat in the presidential election, its purpose is to mobilize forces against repeal of the Taft-Hartley Act and oppose other liberal actions at a time when most Americans are proud to call themselves "liberal." Founders include William F. Buckley Jr., Newark, N.J.-born National Review senior editor Frank S. (Straus) Meyer, 55, Brooklyn, N.Y.-born Indianapolis Star editor Jameson G. (Gilbert) Campaigne, 50, and author John Chamberlain, now 61. The lobbying group will embrace Religious Right causes, including some (like opposition to legalized abortion) that Goldwater ("Mr. Conservative") stoutly opposes (see communications [Viguerie], 1965).
The Lockheed Blackbird surveillance plane tested by a Lockheed Aircraft pilot at Burbank, Calif., December 22 is far more advanced than the U-2A shot down in 1960. Designed as was the U-2 by Clarence "Kelly" Johnson, it has a deep blue fuselage made entirely of titanium alloy that dissipates heat and absorbs radar, can reach an altitude of more than 100,000 feet at a speed of Mach 3.5, can cruise at three times the speed of sound, and has a range of 4,000 miles.
South Africa expands her apartheid racial segregation laws May 6 with a Bantu Laws amendment bill that empowers the country's minister of Bantu administration to declare "prescribed" areas in which the number of Bantus (Africans) to be employed can be specified (see 1963). Nelson R. Mandela, Walter Sisulu, Wilton Mkwayi, and others go on trial for sabotage (the 41-year-old Mkwayi has allegedly helped organize the armed Umkhonto We Sizwe [Spear of the Nation]). Mandela denies engaging in guerrilla warfare, and he delivers a statement of more than 10,000 words, explaining the objectives of the African National Congress (ANC) and concluding, "During my lifetime I have dedicated myself to this struggle of the African people. I have fought against white domination, and I have fought against black domination. I have cherished the ideal of a democratic and free society in which all persons live together in harmony and with equal opportunities. It is an ideal which I hope to live for and to achieve. But if needs be, it is an ideal for which I am prepared to die." Mandela is among eight native leaders sentenced to life imprisonment June 12 for sabotage and subversion, and in July the police make massive arrests under the General Laws Amendment Act, which allows them to hold suspects for up to 6 months without reporting their arrests. Mandela will be confined for years in a six-by-ten-foot cell on Robben's Island off Cape Town (see politics, 1966).
The Twenty-Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution makes poll taxes unconstitutional. Says President Johnson, "There can be no one too poor to vote," but the amendment ratified January 23 applies only to federal elections (see Supreme Court decision, 1966).
A 75-day filibuster by southern senators opposed to civil-rights legislation ends June 10 when the Senate invokes cloture. Supported by minority leader Sen. Everett M. Dirksen (R. Ill.), the bill wins approval June 19 by a vote of 73 to 27 and goes back to the House; President Johnson signs the measure into law July 2 over the objections of the American Farm Bureau Federation and other right-wing groups (see 1944). Title I of the new Civil Rights Act guarantees equal voting rights by removing registration requirements and other procedures that have been used to bar blacks from the polls (but see 1965); Title II prohibits segregation or discrimination in places of public accommodation involved in interstate commerce; Title IV requires desegregation of public schools (see Supreme Court decision, 1954); Title V broadens the duties of the Civil Rights Commission; Title VI bars discrimination in the distribution of funds under federally-assisted programs; Title VII bans discrimination by labor unions, schools, or employers who do business with the federal government or are involved in interstate commerce, and it establishes the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) to investigate claims of discrimination in the workplace and, if mediation is impossible, to sue offending companies to "ensure equality of opportunity by vigorously enforcing federal legislation prohibiting discrimination in employment"—particularly discrimination on the basis of color, race, religion, national origin, age, disability, or sex (see 1971).
Racial discrimination by a labor union constitutes an unfair labor practice, the National Labor Relations Board rules by a 3-to-2 vote July 2.
Atlanta restaurateur Lester (Garfield) Maddox, 48, waves a pistol July 3 and uses an axe handle to bash in the roof of a black minister's car. He has closed his Pickrick Restaurant rather than submit to federal government orders that he serve blacks as well as whites. His opposition to integration will propel Maddox into the governorship of Georgia in 1967, and when he is unable to succeed himself he will continue as lieutenant governor (Maddox has passed out pickax handles on the street in front of his restaurant to partisans who will cudgel blacks who try to enter). Like-minded opponents of racial integration immediately challenge the Civil Rights Act, whose provisions give federal law-enforcement agencies power to prevent racial discrimination in employment, use of public facilities, and voting, but the U.S. Supreme Court upholds the act December 15 in the test case Heart of Atlanta Motel v. United States, overturning its 1883 decision with regard to the 1875 Civil Rights Act by ruling that Congress did not exceed its Commerce Clause powers in depriving motels to choose their own customers. The high court sustains the act again the same day in Katzenbach v. McClurg, a case involving Ollie's Barbecue of Birmingham, Ala., whose owner has refused to serve blacks.
The United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth District at New Orleans upholds the tradition of revealing the race of each candidate for public office on ballots; Judge John Minor Wisdom dissents, and the U.S. Supreme Court will subsequently sustain his opinion.
Philadelphia, Miss., makes headlines in early August with the discovery of the bodies of three civil-rights workers killed by white supremacists. James E. Chaney, 21; Michael H. Schwerner, 24; and Andrew Goodman, 20, have been missing since June 21. President Johnson has ordered J. Edgar Hoover to investigate their disappearance, 153 FBI agents have poured into the area and infiltrated the White Knights supremacist hate group, some 400 sailors have dredged a swamp, but an informant leads federal agents to an earthen dam on a remote farm, and it turns out that the local sheriff and other law-enforcement officials have been involved in the young men's murder. The search for the three missing civil rights workers turns up the decomposed bodies of two other missing civil rights workers in a Louisiana swamp. Charles Eddie Moore, 20, and Henry Hezekiah, 19, disappeared from Natchez, Miss., May 2, and although police arrest James Ford Seale and Charles Marcus Edwards no indictments are handed up.
Harlem has a race riot July 18; Philadelphia has race riots beginning August 28.
Mississippi civil-rights worker Fannie Lou Hamer enlists northern college students in a summer project to boost voter registration (see 1963). She attends the Democratic Convention at Atlantic City in August, and when the Convention's credentials committee holds televised hearings on whether to seat the integrated Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party (MCDP) launched by Ella Baker and other SNCC leaders or the all-white delegation of party regulars, she delivers a speech describing her beating last year. The MCDP is not seated, but President Johnson hears Hamer's speech and tries to divert attention from her by calling a sudden press conference. By 1972 more than 62 percent of Mississippi's eligible black voters will be registered, up from about 6 percent this year, and much of the credit will go to Ella Baker and Fannie Lou Hamer.
The legal status of Québecois women improves with passage of an Equal Rights Bill after campaigning by Liberal Party legislator Claire Kirkland Casgrain (see voting rights, 1940). Women in Quebec gain the right to be legal guardians of their children, a reform that the other provinces adopted before 1923; women may sign leases and enter into business transactions without their husbands' consent.
President Johnson calls for "total victory" in a "national war on poverty" March 16. He signs an Economic Opportunity Act August 20 and appoints former Peace Corps director Sargent Shriver, now 48, to head the new Office of Economic Opportunity (OEO). Shriver will coordinate such agencies as the Job Corps, the Neighborhood Youth Corps, Volunteers in Service to America (VISTA), community action programs, and a Head Start program designed to help preschool children achieve higher levels of health, nutrition, and preparedness for school.
Negotiations begin at Geneva November 16 to reduce world trade tariffs in the so-called first Kennedy Round of discussions (see 1963).
Iraq nationalizes all banks and insurance companies. The 17-year-old Central Bank of Iraq receives sole rights to issue currency.
The largest iron-ore contract in world history guarantees Japan's major steel firms 65.5 million tons of ore in the next 16 years from Hamersley Range deposits discovered by Lang Hancock in Australia in 1952. The deposits have been acquired by Australia's Conzinc Rio Tinto owned jointly by Kaiser Industries of the United States with backing from French financier Baron Guy de Rothschild, Joseph Hirschhorn's Rio Tinto Mining Co. of Canada, and Consolidated Zinc. Nearly 6 million tons of the ore will have been shipped to Japan by the end of 1967, and the iron will permit a major expansion of the Japanese steel industry that will help make Japan an industrial superpower.
Wall Street's Dow Jones Industrial Average closes December 31 at 874.13, up from 762.95 at the end of 1963.
U.S. sales through retail vending machines total $3.5 billion as Americans drop 83 million coins into the machines every 24 hours.
Marks & Spencer retailing pioneer Simon Marks, Baron Marks of Broughton, dies at London December 8 at age 76.
The U.S. Federal Power Commission relaxes its rule that natural gas pipeline companies must have 12 years' reserve before accepting new customers. The FPC acts in response to huge surpluses that have resulted from newly discovered sources and its action produces wide-scale promotion by utility companies of natural gas for heating and appliances.
U.S. gasoline prices in October are 30.3¢ per gallon, up from 29¢ in 1954.
Aviation pioneer Maurice Farman dies at his native Paris February 25 at age 86.
The Boeing 727 trijet delivered to United Airlines October 6 by the Seattle-based company will be the world's best-selling airliner into the 1990s. Eastern Airlines and United each placed orders for 40 of the planes when production was announced in December 1960, and its low-speed landing and takeoff performance quickly attracts other buyers. The 727-100's fuselage is as wide as that of the 707 but 153 feet long. The plane has a range of 3,000 miles, and it can carry 70 passengers at a cruising speed of 622 miles per hour; the 727-200 that Boeing will introduce in December 1967 will be 20 feet longer and able to carry 189 passengers. Further modifications will follow. Boeing will have orders for more than 1,831 727s from 101 different customers by January 1983; 727s will carry nearly 3.7 billion passengers by July 1991; and more than 1,521 will remain in service at least through the end of June 1996. Design work begins in November on the 737 twin-engine jet that will eventually become even more popular (see 1967).
Jimmy Hoffa achieves his goal of bringing all U.S. truckers under a single Teamsters Union contract and raises fears that he may paralyze the country with a nationwide strike (see 1957). Hoffa has made the Teamsters the most powerful union in America and heightened his power potential by pursuing efforts to unite railway, airline, canal boat, and merchant marine workers with his Teamsters. Attorney General Kennedy has made Hoffa his chief target since 1962, a Senate investigating committee has found him hard to question, but he is found guilty of having tampered with the jury in a 1962 trial.
Connecticut lawyer Ralph Nader, 30, submits a report on what the government should do about auto safety. Nader has come to Washington, D.C., to work as a consultant to the Department of Labor (see 1965).
Studebaker-Packard breaks with the majors, becomes the first U.S. maker to offer seat belts as standard equipment (see Nash, 1949; Volvo, 1959), but quits the auto industry by year's end (see 1954).
The '64½ Mustang introduced at the New York World's Fair in April by Ford Motor Company is a sporty, rear-drive compact that is essentially a Falcon with different exterior sheet metal (see 1959). Priced at $2,368 (power steering is $80 extra), it will be wildly successful (various models will be introduced and some 7 million of the "pony cars" will be sold in the next 35 years).
Washington's Capitol Beltway opens April 11 with 66 miles of six-lane highway designed to handle 49,000 vehicles per day through suburban Maryland and Virginia.
The Chesapeake Bay Bridge-Tunnel opens April 15 to carry traffic over and under 17.6 miles of ocean in 23 minutes, saving motorists a 2-hour ferry crossing and closing the last water gap on the coastal highway between Canada and Florida.
Rome imposes a law April 27 that bans or severely limits parking in a 3.1-square-mile area comprising most of the ancient city from the Colosseum to the Piazza del Popolo and from the Tiber to the railway station inside the old walls, but public transportation remains totally inadequate; wheeled traffic has increased by 600 percent since 1961, and many drivers make two round-trips per day between home and office, creating monumental snarls. Most drivers will shrug off the 1,000-lira fine and continue to park where they please even at the risk of having their cars towed away and being forced to ransom them at steep rates. Cartoonists suggest that SPQR now stands for Solo Pedoni quia Roma (Only Pedestrians in Rome).
The Volga-Baltic Ship Canal opens in the summer to connect the Caspian Sea with Leningrad on the Baltic 224 miles away. It replaces the Mariinsk canal system originally built in the 18th century.
The Friendship Bridge (Puente de la Amistad) opens between Brazil and Paraguay, spanning the Upper Paraná River near the 7-year-old town of Ciudad del Este (originally Puerto Presidente Stroessner). The bridge will help Ciudad de Este become a Paraguayan metropolis second in size only to Asunción (see energy [Itaipu Dam], 1982).
Scotland's Forth Road Bridge—1,006 meters long—opens to traffic at Queensferry September 4.
New York's Verrazano Narrows Bridge opens across the harbor November 21 to link Brooklyn with Staten Island (see Brooklyn Bridge, 1883; George Washington Bridge, 1931). Designed by engineer Othmar H. Ammans, now 85, and built at a cost of $325 million (including the cost of land acquisition), the double-decked, 4,260-foot (1,298-meter) bridge carries a six-lane roadway as much as 228 feet above the harbor's mean high point; its four cables weigh nearly 10,000 tons each, they hang from towers that rise 690 feet into the air, and this single-span suspension bridge will remain the world's largest until 1981.
A Portuguese train derails July 26 en route to Oporto, killing 94 people.
Japan's Tokaido Shin Kansu (New Tokaido Line) begins service October 1 with "bullet" trains that average 102 miles per hour and cut the 320-mile trip between Tokyo and Osaka from 390 minutes to 190 minutes. Emperor Hirohito and Empress Nagako attend the opening ceremonies; notably absent is Osaka-born engineer Hideo Shima, 63, who resigned under pressure last year along with the state-owned Japanese National Railways president Shinji Soga because of huge cost overruns. Building the line has entailed construction of 3,000 bridges and 87 tunnels to permit laying 5,000-foot welded pieces of steel on a raised concrete roadbed that is almost totally without curves. The new Shinkansen trains will bring a sharp decrease in air travel between the two cities, as businessmen flock to board the 60 trains per day that operate on the new line, with each car air conditioned and driven by its own electric motor. A second line will open in March 1972 between Osaka and Okayama; the line will be extended 3 years later to Hakata on the island of Kyushu, 668 miles from Tokyo; and by the 1990s Shinkansen trains will be traveling at speeds that exceed 185 miles per hour on some routes, linking most of the nation's major cities.
IBM introduces its System/360, an advance over previous computer systems (see FORTRAN, 1957). Designed by South Dakota-born engineer Gene M. (Myron) Amdahl, 41, who joined IBM in 1952, its concept of compatibility across a family of systems and peripheral equipment redefines business computing (see DRAM, 1966).
The Beginner's All-Purpose Symbolic Instruction Code (BASIC) introduced May 1 by Budapest-born Dartmouth mathematician John G. (George) Kemeny, 37, and his Oak Park, Ill.-born colleague Thomas E. (Eugene) Kurtz, 36, will largely supersede the COBOL and FORTRAN computer languages developed earlier except for numerical analysis programs. The two have developed a time-sharing scheme to make computers available to the college's students, the easily-mastered code they have devised runs on a GE 225 computer, and although it is not intended for public use it will quickly become the most popular computer language yet.
The plasma display panel invented at the University of Illinois will be refined for use on computer screens; computer makers will later replace it with liquid crystal display (LCD; see 1962), and by the late 1990s plasma will be widely employed on flat-panel high-definition television (HDTV) screens. East St. Louis-born university engineering faculty member Donald L. (Lester) Bitzer, 30, and his colleague H. Gene Slottow have devised the one-cell display panel as an alternative to the cathode-ray tube for teaching purposes.
The subatomic particle omega minus whose existence was predicted by Murray Gell-Man 2 years ago is observed in a bubble-chamber experiment conducted at the Brookhaven National Laboratory on Long Island, N.Y., by Nebraska-born particle physicist Val Logsdon Fitch, 41, and his Chicago-born colleague James Watson Cronin, 32, who show that the decay of subatomic particles called K mesons may violate CP symmetry—the general conservation law for weak interactions (see Yang, Lee, 1956). Their findings suggests that reversing the direction of time does not precisely reverse the course of certain reactions of subatomic particles and forces physicists to five up the long-held principle of time-reversal invariance. Fitch, Cronin, and physicists elsewhere draw up tables of the particles in the hope that they can create a counterpart to the periodic table of chemical elements (see Mendeléev, 1870). Gell-Mann and U.S. physicist George Zweig suggest independently that all subatomic particles can be constructed from two or three basic constituents; Gell-Mann calls the subatomic particle a quark, adapting a term from the 1939 James Joyce novel Finnegan's Wake (see Feynman, 1968).
Mathematician Norbert Wiener dies at Stockholm March 18 at age 59 (he coined the term cybernetics); nuclear physicist Leo Szilard dies of a heart attack at La Jolla, Calif., May 30 at age 66; Nobel biochemist Hans von Euler-Chelpin at Stockholm November 7 at age 91; geneticist J. B. S. Haldane of cancer at Bjhubaneswar, India, December 1 at age 72; Nobel physicist Victor F. Hess at Mount Vernon, N.Y., December 17 at age 81.
"Smoking and Health" (The Surgeon General's Report) issued January 11 by Alabama-born Luther L. (Leonidas) Terry, M.D., 52, links cigarette smoking to lung cancer and other diseases (see 1954; 1963). The lung cancer rate among U.S. men will increase in the next decade from 30 per 100,000 to 50 per 100,000 and will more than double among women to 10 per 100,000 as young people increase cigarette smoking despite warnings (see FTC, 1968). R. J. Reynolds Co. executive R. J. Reynolds dies of a lung ailment at Lucerne, Switzerland, December 14 at age 58.
Methadone helps rehabilitate heroin addicts (see Bayer, 1898). Chicago-born Rockefeller University researcher Vincent P. (Paul) Dole, 51, and psychiatrist Marie Nyswander use the synthetic opiate developed by German chemists during World War II; it is comparable in potency to morphine but less addictive, and some 1,000 addicts will be enrolled in methadone maintenance programs by 1968 (see crime, 1969).
The Medicare Act signed by President Johnson July 30 at Independence, Mo., sets up the first government-operated health insurance program for Americans age 65 and over (see AARP, 1958). Harry Truman, now 84, urged such coverage in 1949, and former president Dwight D. Eisenhower proposed a federal "reinsurance" program in 1954, but the American Medical Association has opposed the amendments to the Social Security Act of 1935 (Medicare is Title XVIII of that act, Medicaid Title XIX). Funded by payroll deductions, federal subsidies, and (initially) $3 per month in individual premiums, Medicare covers 20 million seniors (mostly women, since they outlive men); Medicaid covers low-income persons under age 65 and older persons who have exhausted their Medicare benefits. Both programs will go into effect next year.
Canada's Royal Commission on Health Services proposes a universal health insurance (see Saskatchewan, 1962). Quebec-born Supreme Court justice Emmet M. (Matthew) Hall, 65, moved with his family to Saskatchewan when he was age 12. Hall has seen the benefits of single-payer health insurance and has headed the commission. When its two-volume report appears next year it will recommend publicly funded insurance not only for physicians' services but also for home care and prescription drugs, plus dental and optical services for some groups (see 1968).
A pandemic of rubella (German measles) begins to cause birth defects in infants worldwide. In the next 2 years it will affect 12 million people in the United States alone, causing about 20,000 children to be born deaf or otherwise disabled. The National Institutes of Health begins a crash program under the direction of Auburn, N.Y.-born Viral Immunology Laboratory head Paul D. (Douglas) Parkman, 34, to find a vaccine, and Parkman calls in Texas-born virologist Harry Martin "Hank" Meyer Jr., 37, to help him (see 1966).
Games People Play by Canadian-born U.S. psychiatrist Eric Berne (originally Eric Lennard Bernstein), 54, pioneers non-Freudian "transactional analysis."
Sulfa drug pioneer Gerhard Domagk dies of a heart attack at Burgberg, outside Königsfeld, West Germany, April 24 at age 68; pathologist Nikolai Anichkov July 12 at age 79, having been vindicated in his 1913 suggestion that dietary fats cause atherosclerosis.
The Roman Catholic liturgy in the United States changes November 29 to include use of English in some prayers; the entire Mass will be in English by Easter 1970 but some priests will defy the Vatican and stick to Latin.
U.S. parochial-school enrollment reaches an all-time high of 5.6 million pupils. The figure will fall to below 3.5 million within 10 years.
Title VI of the new U.S. Civil Rights Act forbids ethnic, racial, or religious discrimination in public schools (but see 1995).
The Canadian Student Loan Program (CSLP) instituted by Parliament guarantees loans from financial institutions, reimbursing them in the event of defaults. Enacted at the initiative of Prime Minister Pearson to help low-income families obtain college educations for their children, the CSLP helps needy applicants, but as tuitions rise in the 1990s the default rate will increase and the government will take steps to make ex-students repay their loans on time.
Canada's University of Guelph is created by a merger of the 90-year-old Ontario Agricultural College and the 102-year-old Ontario Veterinary College with a newly-created liberal arts college.
Former Harvard University Law School dean Roscoe Pound dies at Cambridge, Mass., July 1 at age 93. Born in Nebraska, he has pioneered the concept of "sociological jurisprudence," adjusting inherited legal codes and traditions to contemporary social conditions.
University of California, Berkeley, undergraduate Mario Savio, 21, mounts the steps of Sproul Hall in late autumn and denounces the university for bending over backwards to "serve the need of American industry." Leader of the Berkeley Free Speech Movement, Savio says that instead of serving as the conscience and a critic of society the university functions as "a factory that turns out a certain product needed by industry." Berkeley has 3 months of protest over rules limiting the activities of civil-rights groups and other political organizations on campus (see politics, 1969). Bettina Aptheker and Jack Weinberg support Savio. The university's president Clark Kerr says many of the "rabble rousers" are communist-dominated outsiders and dismisses the movement as "a ritual of hackneyed complaints." The movement climaxes in a takeover of Sproul Hall (the administration building), and the occupation ends December 3 when police use nausea gas and billy clubs to haul more than 800 people out of Sproul Hall on orders from Governor Edmund G. "Pat" Brown, arresting some 732 sit-in demonstrators in the largest mass-arrest thus far in U.S. history. Now 53, Kerr backs down December 8 and grants students the right to unrestricted political protest on campus.
Former first lady Jacqueline Kennedy goes on national television January 14 to thank Americans for their expressions of sympathy over the loss of her husband last November.
BBC-2 begins broadcasting April 30. The second British Broadcasting Corporation television channel transmits on 625 lines to provide high-definition pictures for sets equipped to pick up 625-line signals.
Radio Manx begins broadcasting November 23 to give Britain her first commercial television.
Sony Corp. begins selling a video tape recorder for home use, but its $550 CV-2000 is far too costly for most households (see 1975).
Shanghai-born electrical engineer Charles K. Kao, 31, at ITT in England identifies a critical specification for possible use of fiber optics in long-range communication (see Snitzer, 1961). He suggests a standard in which only 10 to 20 decibels of light are lost per kilometer but illustrates the need for a purer form of glass to help reduce light loss (see Corning, 1970).
The U.S. Supreme Court rules unanimously May 9 that a public official cannot recover libel damages for criticism of his public performance without proving deliberate malice (see 1960). An all-white jury at Montgomery, Ala., has found in favor of the city commissioner L. B. Sullivan, who was in charge of the police in 1960, and awarded him the $500,000 (the highest such award in Alabama history) that he sought in libel damages from a group of black ministers and from the New York Times, which has been sued for more than $5 million in 11 pending cases (other news organizations have also been sued, making it difficult for out-of-state media to cover the civil-rights movement without being bankrupted). New York-born constitutional lawyer Herbert Wechsler, 54, has treated the case as a question of sedition and persuaded the High Court that the press cannot meet the need for vigorous debate of issues if it has to prove the factual accuracy of every statement about a public official; former U.S. attorney general William P. Rogers has also written a brief opposing Sullivan. While "erroneous statement is inevitable in free debate," the right to criticize public officials is "the central meaning of the First Amendment," says Justice William J. Brennan, 61, in the majority opinion, and the decision in New York Times v. Sullivan bolsters press freedom in America.
Press Lord Maxwell Aitken, Lord Beaverbrook, dies near Leatherneck in Surrey June 9 at age 85.
The Australian begins publication at Canberra in July to give Australia its first new daily paper in 20 years. Rupert Murdoch has started the paper.
The Daily Herald that began publication at London in 1911 becomes the tabloid Sun September 15 (see Murdoch, 1969).
Cartoonist Fontaine Fox of "Toonerville Trolley" fame dies at Greenwich, Conn., August 9 at age 80; publisher Roy W. Howard following a heart attack at his Park Avenue, New York, apartment November 20 at age 81; cartoonist Percy Crosby of "Skippy" fame at his native New York December 8 on his 73rd birthday, having retired for reasons of health in 1952.
Nonfiction: Anti-Intellectualism in American Life by Columbia University history professor Richard Hofstadter, now 48; The New Abolitionists by New York-born historian Howard Zinn, 42, who has been teaching at Spelman College in Atlanta and now accepts a position at Boston University; One-Dimensional Man by German-born Brandeis University philosophy professor Herbert Marcuse, 66, tries to explain the repressive nature of American society and its potential for totalitarianism (many students will use the Marcuse book to justify abandoning democratic processes in order to achieve radical goals); USA/USSR by Warsaw-born Columbia University political scientist Zbigniew K. (Kazimierz) Brzezinski, 38, and New York-born Harvard political scientist Samuel P. (Phillips) Huntington, 37; The Agony of the GOP by Joliet, Ill.-born political columnist Robert D. (David) Novak, 33; Gideon's Trumpet by New York-born New York Times Washington correspondent (Joseph) Anthony Lewis, 37, is about last year's Supreme Court decision in Gideon v. Wainwright. Lewis will head the paper's London bureau until 1972; Understanding Media by Marshall McLuhan; Second Look by C. P. Snow, who follows up on his 1959 book with a fresh warning that members of the literary and scientific communities know little or nothing about each other's disciplines; Science: The Glorious Entertainment by Jacques Barzun, who says that scientific thought is overestimated; The English Reformation by London University historian A. G. (Arthur Geoffrey) Dickens, 54, who states that the rise of Protestantism "demands to be considered within a long temporal and wide geographic context" extending far beyond Pope Clement VII's refusal to grant Henry VIII a divorce; A Time to Speak by Cincinnati-born Alabama lawyer Charles Morgan Jr., 34, who has supported the civil rights movement in the face of opposition from other whites; A Choice, Not an Echo by St. Louis-born lawyer and political activist Phyllis Schlafly, 40, maintains that the Republican Party is run by an elite group. Schlafly will be a leading right-wing opponent of feminist causes; Claremont Essays by the Nation magazine literary critic Diana Trilling (née Rubin), 59; The Oysters of Locmariaquer by Los Angeles-born, Connecticut-raised writer Eleanor Clark, 51; Cow People by J. Frank Dobie.
Biologist-author Rachel Carson dies of breast cancer at Silver Spring, Md., April 14 at age 56; humorist Frank Scully at Desert Springs, Calif., June 23 at age 72, having lost a leg and a lung and spent time in 40 hospitals in seven countries; historian-novelist J. Frank Dobie dies at Austin, Texas, September 18 at age 75; naturalist-author Donald Culross Peattie of diabetes and liver disease at Santa Barbara, Calif., November 18 at age 66; Carl Van Vechten at New York December 21 at age 84.
Fiction: Herzog by Saul Bellow; Last Exit to Brooklyn by Brooklyn, N.Y.-born novelist Hubert Selby Jr., 38, who came down with tuberculosis while serving in the merchant marine, got hooked on morphine during his hospitalization, and describes the raw side of life in Brooklyn's Red Hook waterfront section (a London court next year will convict Selby's publisher of obscenity, but the publisher will win a reversal on appeal); A Personal Matter (Kojinteki-na taiken) by Kenzaburo Oe; Arrow of God by Chinua Achebe; Once a Great Notion by Ken Kesey, who takes his title from a line in the old Leadbelly song "Good Night, Irene"; The Snow Ball by Irish novelist Brigid Brophy, 33; The Spire by William Golding; The Stone Angel by Canadian novelist Margaret Laurence (née Jean Margaret Wemyss), 38, begins the Manawaka series based on her Manitoba prairie hometown of Neepawa; The Keepers of the House by New Orleans novelist Shirley Ann Grau, 35; The Children at the Gate by the late Edward Lewis Wallant; Little Big Man by Thomas Berger; The Horse Knows the Way (stories) by John O'Hara; Come Back, Dr. Caligari (stories) by Philadelphia-born short-story writer Donald Barthelme, 33; Julian by Gore Vidal, whose novel purports to be the autobiographical memoir of the Roman emperor; The Wapshot Scandal by John Cheever; Corridors of Power by C. P. Snow; The Old Boys by Irish-born London advertising copywriter-novelist William Trevor (William Trevor Cox), 36; Girls in Their Married Bliss by Edna O'Brien; The Garrick Year by Margaret Drabble; Shadow of the Sun by Drabble's sister A. S. (Antonia Susan) Byatt, 28; With Shuddering Fall by Lockport, N.Y.-born novelist Joyce Carol Oates, 26; Reuben, Reuben by Peter De Vries; The Single Eye by English novelist-poet Maureen Duffy, 31; This Rough Magic by Mary Stewart; A Hall of Mirrors by New York novelist Robert Stone, 26, whose story is set in New Orleans; The Cincinnati Kid by U.S. merchant seaman-turned-novelist Richard Jessup, 39, is about poker playing; Up the Down Staircase by Russian-born New York schoolteacher-humorist Bel Kaufman, 53; Friday the Rabbi Slept Late by Boston-born mystery writer Harry Kemelman, 55, begins a series featuring Rabbi David Small; From Dune to Death by English mystery novelist Ruth (Barbara) Rendell (née Kruse), 34.
Novelist-social historian T. H. White dies of a heart attack aboard ship at Piraeus January 17 at age 57 while returning from a lecture tour in America; story writer Clarence Budington Kelland dies at Scottsdale, Ariz., February 18 at age 82; novelist Grace Metalious of chronic liver disease at Boston February 25 at age 39; Nella Larsen at New York March 30 at age 72, having worked since 1941 as a nurse at a Brooklyn hospital; Hamilton Basso dies of cancer at New Haven May 13 at age 59; Nobel novelist Frans Eemil Sillanpää at Helsinki June 3 at age 75; Flannery O'Connor of a rare bone ailment at Milledgeville, Ga., August 3 age 39; Ian Fleming of a heart attack at Canterbury, Kent, August 12 at age 56.
Poetry: For the Union Dead by Robert Lowell; The Far Field by the late Theodore Roethke; The Bourgeois Poet by Karl Shapiro; 77 Dream Songs by John Berryman; The Whitsun Wedding by Philip Larkin; Rediscoveries by Elizabeth Jennings; A Time of Bees by Mona Van Duyn; The Circle Game by Margaret Atwood; Distance, Mister Blue, and Two Poems by Robert Creeley; The Mutation of the Spirit by Gregory Corso.
Poet Oscar Williams dies at New York October 10 at age 63; Dame Edith Sitwell of a heart attack at London December 9 at age 77.
Juvenile: Harriet the Spy by Memphis-born author Louise (Perkins) Fitzhugh, 35; Tituba of Salem Village by Old Saybrook, Conn.-born author Ann Petry (née Lane), 55; The Giving Tree by Chicago-born writer-cartoonist Shelby "Shel" Silverstein, 32.
Painting: Retroactive I by Robert Rauschenberg; The Man in the Bowler Hat, The Great War, and The Sin of Man by René Magritte; According to What (oil on canvas with objects) by Jasper Johns, who creates Numbers, 1964 for the New York State Theater at Lincoln Center; Fez by Frank Stella; Rising Moon by Hans Hofmann; Brillo Boxes, Elvis I and II, Jackies (acrylic and enamel on canvas), and Shot Orange Marilyn (silkscreen) by Andy Warhol; The Dove and Mysteries (photomontage) by Romare Bearden; The Problem We All Live With by Norman Rockwell, who depicts a lone black child being escorted to school by white federal marshals. Lumber executive and modern art collector Anson Conger Goodyear dies at Old Westbury, L.I., April 23 at age 86; painter Giorgio Morandi at his native Bologna June 18 at age 73; Stuart Davis at New York June 24 at age 69.
Sculpture: Classic Figure by Jean Arp, now 77; Cubi by David Smith; Homage to the 6,000,000 by Louise Nevelson; Walnut Box (walnut wood, walnuts, plate glass) by H. C. Westermann; Three Monoliths (marble) by Barbara Hepworth. Alexander Archipenko dies at New York February 25 at age 76.
Mexico City's Museum of Modern Art (Museo de Arte Moderne) opens in a circular building with large domes and wedge-shaped exhibition areas. A branch of the National Institute of Fine Arts, it initially arranges its paintings, sculptures, and other works according to historical periods.
Fort Worth, Texas, art collector Kay Kimbell dies at Forth Worth April 13 at age 77, leaving the bulk of his fortune to an art foundation he started in 1935 to manage the vast collection he and his wife, Velma (née Fuller), have amassed in their home and loaned to area colleges, universities, libraries, and churches (see museum, 1972).
Photographer August Sander dies at Cologne April 20 at age 87, having created a comprehensive documentation of his fellow Germans.
Theater: After the Fall by Arthur Miller 1/23 at New York's ANTA Theater-Washington Square, with Jason Robards Jr., Barbara Loden, David Wayne, Hal Holbrook, Salome Jens, Ruth Attaway, Florida-born actress Faye Dunaway, 23, Zohra Lampert, Ralph Meeker, 208 perfs.; Any Wednesday U.S. playwright Muriel Resnik 2/18 at New York's Music Box Theater, with Sandy Dennis, San Bernardino, Calif.-born actor Gene Hackman, 34, Rosemary Murphy, 982 perfs.; But for Whom Charlie by S. N. Behrman 3/12 at New York's ANTA Theater-Washington Square, with Salome Jens, Jason Robards Jr., Barbara Loden, Ralph Meeker, David Wayne, 39 perfs.; Dutchman by Newark, N.J.-born playwright LeRoi Jones (Imanu Amiri Baraka), 29, 3/24 at New York's Cherry Lane Theater; Benito Cereno by Robert Lowell 4/1 at New York's American Place Theater in St. Clements Church; Blues for Mr. Charlie by James Baldwin 4/23 at New York's ANTA Theater, with Pat Hingle, Rip Torn, Diana Sands, 148 perfs.; The Persecution and Assassination of Marat as Performed by the Inmates of the Asylum of Charenton under the Direction of the Marquis de Sade (Die Verfolgung und Ermordung Jean-Paul Marats, dargestelt durch die Schauspielgruppe des Hospizes a Charenton unter Auleiting der Herrn de Sade) by German playwright-novelist-painter Peter (Ulrich) Weiss, 47, 4/29 at Berlin's Schiller Theater; The Entertaining Mr. Sloan by English playwright Joe Orton, 31, 5/6 at London's New Arts Theatre (to Wyndham's 6/29), with Dudley Sutton, Madge Ryan, Charles Lamb, Peter Vaughan; The Subject Was Roses by Bronx, N.Y.-born playwright Frank D. (Daniel) Gilroy, 39, 5/25 at New York's Royale Theater, with Dayton, Ohio-born actor Martin Sheen (originally Ramon Estevez), 22, Jack Albertson, Irene Dailey, 832 perfs.; Inadmissable Evidence by John Osborne 9/9 at London's Royal Court Theatre (to Wyndham's 3/17/1965), with Nicol Williamson, 252 perfs.; The Plebeians Rehearse the Uprising (Die Plebem proben den Aufstrand) by Günter Grass 9/20 at West Berlin deals with the June 17, 1953, revolt in East Berlin; Philadelphia, Here I Come by Irish playwright Brian Friel, 35, 9/28 at Dublin's Gate Theatre as part of the Dublin Theatre Festival; In the Matter of J. Robert Oppenheimer (In der Sache J. Robert Oppenheimer) by German playwright Heiner Kipphardt 10/11 at West Berlin's Freie Volksbühe and Munich's Kammerspiele; The Black Swan (Der Schwarze Schwan) by Martin Walser 10/14 at Stuttgart's Staatstheater; The Sign in Sidney Brustein's Window by Lorraine Hansberry 10/15 at New York's Longacre Theater, with Gabriel Dell, Rita Moreno, Alice Ghostley, Dolph Sweet, 101 perfs.; Slow Dance on the Killing Ground by Ohio-born playwright William Hanley, 33, 11/3 at New York's Plymouth Theater, with George Rose, Clarence Williams III, Carolan Daniels, 88 perfs.; Luv by Brooklyn, N.Y.-born playwright Murray (Joseph) Schisgal, 37, 11/11 at New York's Booth Theater, with Alan Arkin, Eli Wallach, Pennsylvania-born actress Anne Jackson, 28, 901 perfs.; Incident at Vichy by Arthur Miller 12/3 at New York's ANTA-Washington Square Theater (in repertory), with Hal Holbrook, David Wayne, Joseph Wiseman, 32 perfs.; The Royal Hunt of the Sun by Peter Shaffer 12/8 at London's National (Old Vic) Theatre, with Robert Stephen as Atahualpa, Colin Blakeley as Francisco Pizarro, Robert Law, Derek Jacobi; Hunger and Thirst (La soif et La faim) by Eugène Ionesco 12/30 at Düsseldorf's Schauspielhaus; Tiny Alice by Edward Albee 12/30 at New York's Billy Rose Theater, with John Gielgud, Irene Worth, 167 perfs.
New York State Theater opens in New York's Lincoln Center April 23 with 2,729 seats. Philip Johnson has designed the house.
Actor Joseph Schildkraut dies at New York January 21 at age 68; Frank Conroy of a heart attack at Paramus, N.J., February 24 at age 73; playwright Brendan Behan of liver disease and diabetes aggravated by excessive drinking at his native Dublin March 20 at age 41; actress Georgia Caine at Hollywood, Calif., April 4 at age 87; playwright Ben Hecht of a heart attack at his New York apartment April 18 at age 70; actress Diana Wynward at London May 13 at age 58; Winifred Lenihan of a heart attack at Sea Cliff, N.Y., July 7 at age 65; playwright Sean O'Casey of a heart attack at Torquay, England, September 18 at age 84.
Television: Jeopardy! 3/3 on NBC with Art (Fazzin) Fleming, 39, as host of a quiz show in which contestants are given answers and must devise the questions, an idea developed by Merv Griffin from a suggestion by his wife (to 1/3/1975; it will be revived from 1978 to 1979 and be syndicated in September 1984 with Alex Trebek as host); Another World 5/4 on NBC (daytime) with Vera Allen, Sarah Cunningham, Shepperd Strudwick, Jacquie Courtney, Liza Chapman in a soap opera, set in the fictional town of Bay City, Ill. Created by Irna Phillips (with help from her protégé William J. Bell), it will be taken over by Phillips's protégée Agnes Nixon in 1967 (to 6/25/1999); I Spy 9/15 on NBC with California-born actor Robert Culp, 34, Philadelphia-born actor Bill Cosby, 27 (to 9/2/1968); Peyton Place 9/15 on ABC with Mia Farrow, Ryan O'Neal, Gena Rowlands (to 6/2/1969); Bewitched 9/17 on ABC with Los Angeles-born actress Elizabeth Montgomery, 31, as Samantha Stevens, Agnes Moorehead as Endora, Maurice Evans (to 7/1/1972, 254 episodes); The Addams Family 9/18 on ABC with John Astin, Carolyn Jones, Jackie Coogan in a series based on the macabre humor of New Yorker magazine cartoonist Charles Addams (to 4/8/1966); The Man from U.N.C.L.E. 9/22 on NBC with New York-born actor Robert Vaughn, 30, as Napoleon Solo, Glasgow-born actor David McCallum, 30, as Illya Kuryakin in a cold-war spy series created by Norman Felton (to 1/15/1968); The Munsters 9/24 on CBS with Fred Gwynne, Yvonne de Carlo, now 40, Al Lewis (to 5/12/1966); Daniel Boone 9/24 on NBC with Fess Parker, Patricia Blair, Albert Salmi, Ed Ames (to 8/24/70); Gomer Pyle 9/25 on CBS with Alabama-born actor Jim Nabors, 31 (to 9/19/1969); Gilligan's Island 9/26 on CBS with Alan Hale Jr., Bob Denver, Jim Backus, Tina Louise, Dawn Wells (to 9/4/1967); Crossroads on British television with veteran actress Noele Gordon, 44, as the owner of a motel (to 1981); Play of the Week 10/19 on BBC-1 with John Osborne's 1961 drama Luther starring Alec McCowan, Patrick McGee, and Jeffrey Bayldon in a 90-minute show that will continue until 1979 (and from 1982 to 1983).
Films: Peter Glenville's Becket with Richard Burton, Peter O'Toole, John Gielgud; Stanley Kubrick's Dr. Strangelove, or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb with Peter Sellers, George C. Scott, Sterling Hayden, Keenan Wynn; Robert Stevenson's Mary Poppins with Julie Andrews, Dick Van Dyke, 38, Hermione Baddeley; Bryan Forbes's Seance on a Wet Afternoon with Kim Stanley, Richard Attenborough; Blake Edwards's A Shot in the Dark with Peter Sellers, Elke Sommer (originally Schletz), 22; Jules Dassin's Topkapi with Melina Mercouri, Robert Morley, Peter Ustinov; John Frankenheimer's The Train with Burt Lancaster, Paul Scofield, Jeanne Moreau; Jacques Cousteau's documentary World Without Sun; Vittorio De Sica's Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow with Sophia Loren, Marcello Mastroianni. Also: Arthur Hiller's The Americanization of Emily with James Garner, Julie Andrews; Philippe de Broca's Cartouche with Jean-Paul Belmondo, 31, Claudia Cardinale; Jean-Luc Godard's Contempt (Le Mépris) with Brigitte Bardot, Fritz Lang, now 72, Michel Piccoli; Sidney Lumet's Fail-Safe with Henry Fonda, Walter Matthau; Anthony Mann's The Fall of the Roman Empire with Sophia Loren, Stephen Boyd, James Mason; Guy Hamilton's Goldfinger with Scottish actor Sean (originally Thomas) Connery, 34, Gert Frobe, Harold Sakata; Mikhail Kalatozov's I Am Cuba with Segio Corrieri, Salvador Vud; Shohei Imamura's Intentions of Murder; Joseph Losey's King and Country with Dirk Bogarde, Tom Courtenay; Masaki Kobayashi's Kwaidan with Rentaro Mikuni, Michiyo Aratma, Keiko Kishi, Tatsuya Nakadai, Takashi Shimura (four tales of the supernatural based on works by Lafcadio Hearn); George Pollock's Murder Ahoy with Margaret Rutherford; Clive Donner's Nothing but the Best with Alan Bates, Denholm Elliott; Larry Peerce's One Potato, Two Potato with Barbara Barrie, Bernie Hamilton; Blake Edwards's The Pink Panther with Peter Sellers, David Niven; Pietro Germi's Seduced and Abandoned with Stafania Sandrelli, Saro Urzi; J. Lee Thompson's What a Way to Go with Shirley MacLaine in a script by Betty Comden and Adolph Green from a story by Gwen Davis; Hiroshi Teshigahara's Woman in the Dunes with Eiji Okada, Kyoko Kishida; George Roy Hill's The World of Henry Orient with Peter Sellers, Tippy Walker, Angela Lansbury; Michael Cocoyannis's Zorba the Greek with Anthony Quinn, Alan Bates.
Director Norman Z. McLeod dies of cancer at Hollywood January 27 at age 68; Alan Ladd of medications and alcohol at his Palm Springs, Calif., home January 29 at age 50; Frank Albertson at Santa Monica February 29 at age 55; Peter Lorre of a stroke at Hollywood March 23 at age 59; director Clarence Badger following surgery at Sydney, Australia, June 17 at age 84; director William A. Seiter of a heart attack at his Beverly Hills home July 26 at age 72; Sir Cedric Hardwicke of emphysema at New York August 6 at age 71; Gracie Allen of a heart attack at Hollywood August 27 at age 58; Harpo Marx following heart surgery at Hollywood September 28 at age 75; Eddie Cantor of coronary occlusion at Hollywood October 10 at age 72; character actor Percy Kilbride at Los Angeles December 11 at age 76; William Bendix of lobar pneumonia and malnutrition (due to a stomach ailment) at Los Angeles December 14 at age 58.
Screen musicals: George Cukor's My Fair Lady with Audrey Hepburn, Rex Harrison, Stanley Holloway, now 74, costumes by English photographer-designer Cecil Beaton, 60, sets by Gene Allen; Jacques Demy's The Umbrellas of Cherbourg (Les Parapluies de Cherbourg) with French beauty Cathérine Deneuve (originally Dorleac), 20, music by Michel Legrand, lyrics by Demy; Richard Lester's A Hard Day's Night with the Beatles; Charles Walters's The Unsinkable Molly Brown with Debbie Reynolds, Ed Begley, Hermione Baddeley.
Broadway musicals: Hello, Dolly! 1/16 at the St. James Theater with Carol Channing, music and lyrics by Jerry Herman, 2,844 perfs.; Funny Girl 3/26 at the Winter Garden Theater, with Barbra Streisand, now 21, as the late Fanny Brice, Kay Medford, music by Jule Styne, lyrics by Bob Merrill, songs that include "People," "Don't Rain on My Parade," 1,348 perfs.; Fiddler on the Roof 9/22 at the Imperial Theater, with Zero Mostel, Maria Karnilova, Ohio-born Austin Pendleton, 24, music by Jerry Bock, lyrics by Sheldon Harnick, songs that include "If I Were a Rich Man," "Tradition," "Matchmaker, Matchmaker," "Sunrise, Sunset," 3,242 perfs.; Bajour 11/23 at the Shubert Theater, with Herschel Bernardi, Nancy Dussault, Chita Rivera, music and lyrics by Walter Marks, choreographed by Peter Gennaro, book based on New Yorker magazine stories by Joseph Mitchell, 232 perfs.
Dancer and choreographer Carol Haney dies of bronchial pneumonia and diabetes complications at New York May 10 at age 39; composer Cole Porter following kidney-stone surgery at Santa Monica October 16 at age 71.
Opera: Montezuma 4/19 in West Berlin, with music by Roger Sessions; Downers Grove, Ill.-born baritone Sherill (Eustace) Milnes, 29, makes his European debut 9/23 at Milan's Teatro Nuova singing the role of Figaro in the 1816 Rossini opera Il Barbieri di Siviglia and his New York City opera debut 10/18 as Valentin in the 1859 Gounod opera Faust; baritone Cornell MacNeil takes exception to the audience's behavior, walks off the stage 12/27 at Parma during the third act of a performance of the 1859 Verdi opera Un Ballo in Maschera in protest, and has a fistfight with the opera house manager.
Composer Marc Blitzstein is beaten to death by holdup men in Martinique, French West Indies, January 22 at age 58.
First performances: Symphony No. 5 by Roger Sessions 2/7 at the Philadelphia Academy of Music; Curlew River (church parable) by Benjamin Britten in July at Aldeburgh, with text by William Plower inspired by a 15th-century Japanese Nō drama.
French conductor Pierre Monteux dies at Hancock, Me., July 1 at age 89.
Nagoya-born violinist and teacher Shinichi Suzuki gains worldwide attention by bringing 10 of his students to the United States to perform for the Music Educators National Conference and the American String Teachers' Association. Now 65, Suzuki introduced a new method of teaching about 10 years ago, encouraging children to learn through example and imitation rather than by sight-reading scores, coaching toddlers to memorize "Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star" and (later) Mozart concertos, requiring parents to attend lessons and performances on a regular basis, and emphasizing family nurture and support. Music teachers in more than 40 countries will adopt his "Suzuki Method," and millions of children will learn to play through his technique.
The Moog synthesizer designed by New York-born Cornell University physics doctoral candidate Robert (Arthur) Moog, 30, revolutionizes music. An improvement on the theremin of 1920, it will enable musicians to imitate acoustic instruments or create purely electronic sounds.
The Dorothy Chandler Pavilion opens December 6 with 3,250 seats to give the Los Angeles Philharmonic a concert hall that it will use until 2003 and give the city the start of a new cultural center. It will be augmented in the next 3 years by the 2,100-seat Ahmanson Theater and the 750-seat Mark Taper Forum.
Popular songs: "I Feel Fine," "Love Me, Do," "Please, Please Me," and "She Loves You" by John Lennon and Paul McCartney of the Beatles, whose single "I Want to Hold Your Hand" tops the hit list in early February and who appear on the Ed Sullivan Show February 9, attracting a huge crowd of fans to the street outside CBS's Studio 50 at New York; "Glad All Over" by the 3-year-old Dave Clark Five, championed briefly by the British press as the most serious rival to the Beatles; the Who is founded by London rock musicians who include drummer Keith Moon, 18, guitarist-songwriter Pete Townshend, 19, bass player John Entwistle, 19, and lead singer Roger Daltry, 20. Moon often upends his drums on stage after a loud and furious show, Townshend destroys his guitar, and their antics gain them a quick following, as do their songs "Anyway, Anyhow, Anywhere" and "The Kids Are Alright"; the Birmingham, England, rock band Moody Blues pioneers classical rock with its single "Go Now" (members of the band include Mike Pinder, 22; Ray Thomas, 22; Grame Edge, 23; Denny Laine [originally Brian Hines], 19; and Clint Warwick [originally Clinton Eccles], 25); the five-piece English rock group the Animals releases its first single, a version of Eric von Schmidt's folk-blues song "Baby Let Me Follow You Down" (members of the group include Eric Burdon, 23; Alan Price, 22; Hilton Valentine, 21, Chas [né Bryan] Chandler, 25, and John Steel, 23); "Downtown" by English songwriter-arranger Tony Hatch, 25; "Keep on Pushing" by Curtis Mayfield, now 22, whose civil-rights song is the first of its kind to reach the pop charts; "You've Lost That Lovin' Feelin'" by Phil Spector, Barry Mann, and Cynthia Weil, whose song is recorded by the Righteous Brothers (Wisconsin-born California tenor Robert Lee "Bobby" Hatfield, 24, and Los Angeles-born William Thomas "Bill" Medley, 23); "No Particular Place to Go" by Chuck Berry, who has been released from federal prison after being convicted of violating the Mann Act in trials that had racial overtones; "My Girl" by Smokey Robinson for the Temptations; "It Ain't Me, Babe" and "Mr. Tambourine Man" by Bob Dylan, whose first album included the Eric von Schmidt song and who next year will follow the Animals' example and begin working with musicians playing electric instruments; "I Get Around" by Brian Wilson of the Beach Boys; "My Kind of Town" by Jimmy Van Heusen, lyrics by Sammy Cahn (for the film Robin and the Seven Hoods); "Oh, Pretty Woman" and "It's Over" by Roy Orbison and William Dees; "Look of Love" by Jeff Barry and Elbe Greenwich; "King of the Road" by Texas-born country music singer-songwriter Roger Miller, 29; "I Will Wait for You" by French composer Michel Legrand, lyrics by Jacques Demy (English lyrics by Norman Gimbel) (for the film The Umbrellas of Cherbourg); "Pass Me By" by Cy Coleman, lyrics by Carolyn Leigh (for the film Father Goose); "It's My Way" by Canadian Amerind folksinger-songwriter Buffy Sainte-Marie, 23; In Concert (album) by Judy Collins includes Tom Paxton's song "The Last Thing On My Mind"; Mary Wells records "My Guy" by Smokey Robinson plus "Once Upon a Time" and "What's the Matter with You Baby," both written with Marvin Gaye, and tours England with the Beatles in the fall; mod British model and singer Marianne Faithfull, 18, records Mick Jagger and Keith Richards's "As Tears Go By"; Lesley Gore records "You Don't Own Me," written with John Maera and Dave White; "Leader of the Pack" by the Shangri-Las is about a boy killed in a motorcycle accident; "Second Fiddle (To an Old Guitar)" by Jean Shepard, whom a French critic has called "the Edith Piaf of country America."
Jazz trombonist Jack Teagarden dies of pneumonia at his New Orleans motel January 15 at age 58; songwriter Johnny Burke at New York February 25 at age 55; bandleader Lindley Armstrong "Spike" Jones of emphysema at his Bel-Air home outside Los Angeles May 1 at age 53; boogie-woogie jazz pianist Meade Lux Lewis is killed in an auto accident outside Minneapolis June 6 at age 58; songwriter Nacio Herb Brown dies of cancer at San Francisco September 28 at age 68; a Los Angeles motel manager shoots singer-songwriter Sam Cooke to death December 11 at age 33.
Louisville, Ky.-born Olympic gold medalist Cassius Marcellus Clay, 22, knocks out world heavyweight champion Sonny Liston February 25 at Miami to win the title he will hold until 1967.
Former world light-heavyweight champion Gus Lesnevitch dies of a heart attack at Cliffside Park, N.J., February 29 at age 49.
Louisiana-born Grambling State basketball player Willis Reed, 22, joins the New York Knickerbockers as a second-round draft choice, averages 19.5 points per game in his first season, is named NBA Rookie of the Year, and will be a Knick star for 10 years.
Kelso wins the Washington, D.C., International at age 7 to cap a 5-year racing career in which the big gelding has won 39 victories in 83 starts to earn an all-time record of nearly $2 million. His rider in most of his stakes races was jockey Eddie Arcaro, now 48, who retired in 1961 to become a television sports commentator.
A football stadium riot at Lima, Peru, May 24 ends with 300 dead after a soccer match between Peru and Argentina.
Roy Emerson wins in men's singles at Wimbledon and Forest Hills, Maria Bueno in women's singles.
Golfer Arnold Palmer wins his fourth Masters Tournament.
The U.S. America's Cup defender Constellation defeats Britain's Sovereign 4 to 0 in the 16th British effort to regain the cup.
The Olympic Games open October 1 at Tokyo and attract 5,541 contestants from 94 nations. Soviet athletes collect 41 gold medals, U.S. athletes, 37. North Carolina-born swimmer Donald Arthur "Don" Schollander, 18, is the first swimmer to win four gold medals in a single Olympiad, setting an Olympic record of 53.4 seconds in the 100-meter freestyle event.
The St. Louis Cardinals win the World Series, defeating the New York Yankees 4 games to 3.
Vogue magazine gives the miniskirt its imprimatur by showing it in its March issue (see 1963).
The topless bathing suit introduced by California designer Rudi Gernreich will lead to a general abandonment of brassieres by young women.
San Francisco's Condor Night Club introduces topless dancers June 19; Carol Doda, the star attraction, has had 20 weeks of silicone injections to inflate her breast size to 44 inches. Doda and her fellow entertainers will be arrested next year for "lewd conduct," they will be acquitted, and she will continue at the Condor until 1985. The dancers will be bottomless beginning September 3, 1969, California will enact a law that year permitting local communities to ban topless dancing and close establishments that permit such dancing. The Condor Club will halt both topless and bottomless shows in 1988.
A British court finds three women guilty of indecent exposure August 21 for wearing topless dresses.
The Birkenstock sandal introduced by German shoemaker Karl Birkenstock is based on the contoured arch support developed by his grandfather in 1902 (see 1897). California tourist Margot Fraser will bring the concept home with her in 1966 after suffering the effects of walking all day on hard pavements and learning at a German spa about Birkenstock's sandals. She will begin importing the sandals, expand her business in 1971 with a San Rafael warehouse, and work with the German manufacturer to add more style/color combinations.
Dynel is introduced by Union Carbide, whose new synthetic fiber will be used in textiles, fake furs, and hairpieces.
G.I. Joe is introduced by the U.S. toy maker Hasbro. Designed by cartoonist Dave Breger, 55, the doll for boys has been created to help promote a short-lived television series, The Lieutenant, but will be popular for decades.
Society ball organizer Elsa Maxwell dies at New York November 1 at age 80; socialite Consuelo Vanderbilt (Mrs. Jacques Balsan) at Southampton, N.Y., December 6 at age 88.
U.S. cigarette consumption reaches 524 billion—more than 4,300 smokes for every American over age 18.
The tobacco industry halts advertising in college newspapers, magazines, sports programs, and on college radio stations in response to public pressure (see Banzhaf, 1966).
Carlton cigarettes are introduced by American Tobacco Co., but low-tar cigarettes will not begin to gain popularity until 1970.
"The Boston Strangler" makes his final attack in January. He has broken into a dozen apartments since mid-1962 to rob, violate, and kill women (not always by strangling them). Cambridge police take Albert Henry DeSalvo, 32, into custody November 4 but do not say he is the "strangler." DeSalvo was sentenced to prison on robbery counts in 1961, was paroled after 11 months, claims to have raped at least 1,000 women, and will boast to inmates at Bridgewater State Hospital that he has killed 13 women.
The Kitty Genovese case raises alarms about America's growing isolation, callousness, and inhumanity (see architecture [Jacobs book on cities], 1961). An attacker stalks Queens, N.Y., bar manager Catherine Genovese early in the morning of March 13; 38 of her Kew Gardens neighbors hear her wild calls for help; nobody interferes for fear of "getting involved," the neighbors watch from windows while Genovese is stabbed to death; nobody phones the police until half an hour later.
Former New York bootlegger and nightclub owner Owen "Owney" Madden dies at Hot Springs, Ark., April 24 at age 72, having prospered from a local gambling casino and engaged in Arkansas politics.
Boston's Prudential Tower is completed for the Newark-based Prudential Insurance Co. Twice the height of the John Hancock building completed in 1949, the 52-story Prudential Tower spurs John Hancock management to proceed with plans for an even taller structure (see 1968).
The Washington Cathedral in the nation's capital gets a new tower that makes it visible from 30 miles away (see 1907). Soaring 301 feet above the ground, the Gothic tower has spires that make it taller than the Washington Monument completed in 1888.
Chicago's Marina City apartment houses and offices are completed on the Chicago River. Designed by Bertrand Goldberg, the 60-story round twin towers are of concrete construction with weight loads carried chiefly by cylindrical cores, the pie-shaped rooms extend into rings of semicircular balconies, and the first 18 floors are taken up by parking space.
The Mauna Kea Beach Hotel opens on a tract leased from the 117-year-old Parker Ranch at the foot of 13,796-foot Mauna Kea on the island of Hawaii. The $15 million, 154-room resort hotel has been built by Laurance Rockefeller.
More than $1 billion in U.S. federal aid for housing and urban renewal is authorized through September 30 of next year by a bill signed into law by President Johnson September 2 (see HUD, 1965).
The worst earthquake felt anywhere in the world since 1960 rocks Alaska March 28. The quake measures 8.4 on the Richter scale (which will be revised in 1977 to give the quake a rating of 9.2), it creates a seismic "tidal" wave (tsunami) in the southwest part of the state, and the 220-foot-high wave is the largest such wave ever recorded (it kills nearly 100 at Hilo on Hawaii's Big Island).
The Wilderness Act signed into law by President Johnson September 3 protects the country's last remaining wild lands from development (see California Wildland Research Center, 1961). Wilderness Society executive director Howard Zahniser, 58, has exhorted the congressmen to do something. Their act provides for immediate protection of 9.1 million acres classified as wilderness by the U.S. Forest Service; it establishes a procedure to review every 10 years some 5.4 million acres in the national forests that are classed as "primitive" and gives Congress sole power to designate a national wilderness or declassify an established one.
Canyonlands National Park is created by act of Congress, embracing 257,640 acres of Utah mesas and rock spires.
High waters in the Adriatic Sea in November cause the Venetian Lagoon to rise 6 feet above normal levels. Disastrous floods wash out the foundations of many buildings, ruin ground-floor frescoes, cause some structures to collapse, and hasten the deterioration of the once powerful city of Venice.
Danish fishermen discover the major feeding grounds of the Atlantic salmon off the southwest coast of Greenland. They begin to take large catches of the fish, which average only seven pounds each, sharply reducing spawning runs up the rivers of Canada, England, France, Iceland, Ireland, Norway, Russia, Scotland, Wales, and the U.S. state of Maine (see 1950; 1969).
Continental Grain begins shipment of wheat to the Soviet Union January 28, despite a longshoreman's boycott against such shipments unless U.S. merchants ships are allotted the same amount of cargo assigned to foreign vessels (see 1963). Moscow has bought 400 million bushels; only 65.5 million have come from the United States because of the steep premium on freight charges for grain sent in U.S. bottoms, but Continental and Cargill nevertheless profit handsomely from their $134 million in grain sales to the Soviet Union (see 1972).
Soviet Premier Khrushchev says in September, "If you feed people just with revolutionary slogans they will listen today, they will listen tomorrow, they will listen the day after tomorrow, but on the fourth day they will say, 'To hell with you.'" (see 1965).
High-yielding dwarf strains of indica rice are introduced on an experimental basis under the names IR5 and IR8 by the International Rice Research Institute at Los Baños in the Philippines (see 1962). The new "miracle" rice for tropical cultivation has been developed by crossing ordinary indica rice with Japan's high-yielding japonica variety (see 1965).
The U.S. food-stamp program conducted at Rochester, N.Y., from 1939 to 1943 is reactivated on a broad scale by the U.S. Department of Agriculture to help feed needy Americans (see 1959; 1967).
Awake is introduced by General Foods, whose advertising promotes the synthetic orange juice with a budget of $5 million—more than is spent to promote pure orange juice, whether frozen, chilled, or fresh.
Maxim is introduced by General Foods, whose management has spent huge sums to develop the freeze-dried instant coffee (see 1940; Instant Maxwell House, 1942; Taster's Choice, 1966).
Carnation Co. introduces Carnation Instant Breakfast in West Coast markets (see 1963; FTC, 1970; Nestlé, 1985).
Kellogg introduces Pop-Tarts toaster pastries.
General Mills introduces Lucky Charms, a breakfast food consisting in large part of marshmallow bits (initially pink hearts, yellow moons, orange stars, green clovers); the chief ingredient (50.4 percent) is sugar (see 1961; 1966).
U.S. October food prices: round steak $1.07/lb., up from 92¢ in 1954; sugar 59¢ per five-pound bag, up from 52¢; coffee 82¢/lb., down from $1.10; bread 21¢ per pound loaf, up from 17¢; eggs 57¢/doz., down from 60¢; milk 48¢/½-gal., up from 45¢; butter 76¢/lb., up from 72¢; lettuce 25¢ per head, up from 19¢.
Sean Connery as British agent James Bond (007) in the film Goldfinger popularizes the vodka martini ("shaken, not stirred").
The U.S. Government defines bourbon as whiskey that contains at least 51 percent corn liquor and is aged in new charred-oak barrels (see Bottled-in-Bond Act, 1897). Kentucky's Bourbon County has long since become "dry" by local option and has no legal distilleries.
Benihana of Tokyo opens in New York at 61 West 56th Street. The teppinyaki-hibachi-style steak-shrimp and mushroom-bean sprouts restaurant operated by Japanese-born U.S. entrepreneur Hiroaki "Rocky" Aoki, 25, meets with instant success and will be followed by Benihana (Red Flower) restaurants in other U.S. cities (see Benihana Palace, 1970). Aoki stopped in New York en route to Rome 4 years ago as a member of Japan's Olympic wrestling team, ate at short-order hamburger grills, was struck with the idea that table-top cooking as practiced in Tokyo's sukiyaki restaurants might appeal to Americans, obtained a degree in restaurant management at one of the city's community colleges, and has earned part of his initial investment by driving an ice-cream truck.
The first Arby's fast-food restaurant opens July 23 at Boardman, Ohio, south of Youngstown, serving 69¢ roast beef sandwiches, potato chips, and Texas-sized iced tea. Founder Forrest Raffel and his brother Leroy are graduates of Cornell's School of Hotel and Restaurant Administration and the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School of Finance, respectively, who in the 1950s bought an uncle's restaurant-equipment business and started Raffel Brothers (RB). It became a leading food-service consulting firm, designing and installing food-service facilities for clients who included the Pittsburgh International Airport, six Ohio Turnpike restaurants, and Standard Oil of Ohio's Hospitality Inn motel chain. They will franchise their operation (the first franchise restaurant will open next year at Akron), come close to bankruptcy a few years later during a shakeout in the fast-food industry, and by 1975 will have a chain of 500 outlets (see 1978).
Colonel Sanders has more than 600 licensees offering his "finger-lickin' good" Kentucky Fried Chicken (see 1955). Now 74, Harland Sanders sells the franchise business for $2 million, plus a guaranteed salary of $75,000 per year for life to act as a goodwill ambassador (see 1976).
The Time Has Come by Boston Catholic physician John Rock rejects the Church's position against artificial contraceptive methods. Now 74, Rock helped develop the progesterone contraceptive pill.
Mary S. Calderone convinces trustees of the American Medical Association that the AMA should disseminate information on reproduction and birth control, endorsing the prescription of birth-control measures to all patients who need them. Now 60, she helps to found the Sex Information and Education Council of the United States. There are 450 public birth-control clinics in the nation, and a dozen states have tax-supported birth control programs, most of them in the South, where Catholic influence is weak and whites try to hold down black birth rates (see 1965).
1961 1962 1963 1964 1965 1966 1967 1968 1969 1970
