1967
1961 1962 1963 1964 1965 1966 1967 1968 1969 1970
The Twenty-Fifth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution ratified February 10 provides for presidential succession in the event that the president dies, resigns, or is unable to discharge the power and duties of his office (see Presidential Succession Act, 1947). President Kennedy's death in 1963 and the accession of a vice president who had had a heart attack has raised concern that the Constitution makes no provision for a president being incapacitated. The new amendment allows a disabled president to turn over power on his own volition to the vice president; it also lets a vice president obtain approval from a majority of the cabinet's leading members to make himself acting president on a temporary basis. Approved by Congress July 6, 1965, the amendment says, "Whenever there is a vacancy in the office of the Vice President, the President shall nominate a Vice President who shall take office upon confirmation by a majority vote of both Houses of Congress." If the president is incapacitated and there is no vice president the speaker of the House is to serve as acting chief executive until the president can resume office or Congress can resolve the issue.
U.S. popular sentiment turns increasingly against the war in Vietnam as more troops are shipped overseas and casualties mount (see 1966). Martin Luther King Jr. speaks out against the war in February; 5,000 scientists petition for a bombing halt; University of Wisconsin students push Dow Chemical recruiters off the campus to protest Dow's production of napalm; a Women's Strike for Peace demonstrates outside the Pentagon February 15, demanding to see "the generals who send our sons to die" and about 2,500 women storm the Pentagon. Sen. Robert F. Kennedy proposes that bombing of North Vietnam be halted so that troop withdrawal may be negotiated.
The lightweight M16 assault rifle adopted by the U.S. Army February 28 was designed in the 1950s by Armalite Corp. engineer Eugene Stoner, now 44, to replace the M14 adopted in 1957 and give an infantryman fire superiority by enabling him to get off 650 to 700 5.56-millimeter rounds per minute, although having to change magazines every 19 rounds will keep the rate much lower (men in a squad take turns loading and firing). Colt Manufacturing Co. has purchased rights from Armalite to make the weapon, but Stoner has specified that new, cleaner-burning powder be used in its small but powerful .223 cartridge. The army has opted instead to use older "ball" powders. Colt has warned that the rifle does not pass some key evaluations, the army has not followed usual testing procedures, and although hot gases from the barrel will get into its bolt area and cause it to jam, the M16 will remain in use with some variations into the next century, longer than any other rifle in U.S. history.
President Ho Chi Minh responds March 15 to President Johnson's proposal for direct U.S.-North Vietnam peace talks by demanding that bombing be ceased and U.S. troops withdrawn from South Vietnam before the start of any talks. U.S. officials announce March 22 that Bangkok has given permission to use Thai bases for B-52 bombers formerly based on Guam.
The U.S. Government is "the greatest purveyor of violence in the world," says Martin Luther King Jr. April 4 in a talk at New York's Riverside Church. He attacks U.S. sales of weapons to foreign countries, encourages draft evasion, and proposes a merger between the antiwar and civil-rights movements. Antiwar demonstrations April 15 at New York and San Francisco bring out upwards of 100,000 at New York, 50,000 at San Francisco.
U.S. bombers pound targets around Hanoi, trying to break the Ho Chi Minh supply route that maintains North Vietnam's guerrillas south of the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ). North Vietnamese forces are outnumbered by more than 1 million South Vietnamese, U.S., and allied troops, but they are well supplied with arms from the Soviet Union and the People's Republic of China, their long-range artillery is superior to anything in the U.S. arsenal, and some 50,000 Chinese advisers and engineers work to repair damage done by the U.S. air attacks.
CIA director Richard Helms initiates Operation Chaos August 15, setting up a Special Operations Group headed by former OSS counter-intelligence operative Richard Ober, 45, to infiltrate domestic antiwar and civil rights organizations in violation of the agency's 1947 statutory authority. Former president Eisenhower began the practice in 1959 when he ordered that refugees from Cuba be debriefed to obtain information. Helms has responded to a presidential request that the CIA unearth any ties between antiwar groups and foreign interests; by the time Operation Chaos ends in 1974, the CIA and National Security Agency will have indexed 300,000 names, tapped the telephones of antiwar activists such as Jane Fonda and Benjamin Spock, and intercepted large numbers of letters and cables to spy on the domestic activities of more than 13,000 subjects, including more than 7,000 U.S. citizens, with no public outcry and no objection from Congress (see 1974).
South Vietnam holds national elections September 3 under terms of a new constitution promulgated by the puppet government, Nguyen Van Thieu is elected president, Washington crows that 83 percent of the country's registered voters have participated, President Johnson says the South Vietnamese have expressed their democratic will "and deserve our support."
Protests against the Vietnam war and the draft continue in the United States. Minnesota-born Roman Catholic priest Philip F. (Francis) Berrigan, 44, and three friends walk into the Baltimore Customs House October 17, distract the draft-board clerks, and methodically spatter Selective Service records with a red liquid made partly of their own blood (see 1968). Antiwar demonstrators march on the Pentagon October 21; police arrest 647 of the 50,000 to 150,000 involved, and similar demonstrations occur at Chicago, Philadelphia, Los Angeles, and Oakland (where police arrest 125, including folk singer Joan Baez at the Oakland Draft Induction Center). Baez serves 45 days in jail for disturbing the peace. College students arrested in antiwar demonstrations will lose their draft deferments, Selective Service director Lewis B. Hershey announces November 7. Among the 260 demonstrators arrested at New York December 5 are physician Benjamin Spock, who was arrested earlier at Washington, D.C., and poet Allen Ginsberg (see 1968).
The Saigon government threatens December 26 to pursue communist troops into Cambodia if that country is used as a base for infiltration into South Vietnam (see Cambodia, 1954). Beijing (Peking) replies 3 days later by promising support to Cambodia if U.S. operations are extended there. Cambodian communists known as the Khmer Rouge take up arms to support a peasant uprising in the northwestern Battambang Province against a government rice tax; their Paris-educated leader is Pol Pot (originally Saloth Sar), 42, but the army will suppress their revolt next year.
Former Hungarian premier Miklós Kállay dies in self-imposed exile at New York January 14 at age 79; Chancellor Adenauer of West Germany of bronchitis and influenza at his home in Rhöndorf April 19 at age 91.
Greece has a bloodless right-wing coup April 21 as colonels led by George Papadopoulos, 48, and Brig. Gen. Styliano Patakos begin a 7-year military dictatorship. They arrest leftist leaders, including George Papandreou, 79, and his son Andreas, 48, releasing the elder Papandreou October 7. Constantine II fails to overthrow the junta and restore Greece's democratic institutions, the king and his family flee to Rome December 14. A Christmas amnesty frees Andreas Papandreou, who calls on the world's democracies to help overthrow Premier Papadopoulos (see 1974).
Former French Army leader Marshal Alphonse-Pierre Juin dies of a heart attack at Paris January 27 at age 78; British air marshal Sir Arthur W. Tedder, 1st Baron Tedder of Glenguin, at Banstead, Surrey, June 3 at age 76; British peace advocate and 1939 Nobel Peace Prize winner Sir Norman Angell in Surrey October 7 at age 94; former prime minister Clement Attlee of pneumonia at London October 8 at age 84.
Gen. Holland McT. "Howlin' Mad" Smith, U.S. Marine Corps (ret.), dies at San Diego January 12 at age 84; lawyer and peace advocate Grenville Clark at his Dublin, N.H., home January 13 at age 84, having espoused plans to limit national sovereignty; former U.S. ambassador William C. Bullitt dies of leukemia at Neuilly, outside Paris, February 15 at age 76; former Sixth Army commander Gen. Walter Krueger (ret.) at Valley Forge, Pa., August 20 at age 86; former U.S. Navy Pacific fleet commander-in-chief Admiral Claude C. Bloch (ret.) at Washington, D.C., October 6 at age 89; former U.S. vice president John Nance "Texas Jack" Garner at Uvalde November 7 just 2 weeks shy of his 99th birthday.
Former Iranian premier Mohammed Mossadegh dies of intestinal bleeding at his native Teheran March 5 at age 86.
A Six-Day Arab-Israeli War begins June 5 following months of conflict that have seen Israeli tanks cross into Syria and Israeli Mirage fighters shoot down six Soviet-built Syrian MiG-21 fighters (Arab equipment has been supplied largely by Moscow). Tel Aviv-born RAF veteran Ezer Weizman, 42, has built up Israel's air force and as chief of military operations launches a preemptive strike; Israel's jets and armor abort an Arab invasion, Egyptian and Syrian air forces are wiped out, and the Israelis take Arab Jerusalem June 7. Their UN delegate Abba Eban, now 52, speaks to the General Assembly at New York June 19, saying, "The threat to Israel was a menace to the very foundations of the international order. The state thus threatened bore a name which stirred the deepest memories of civilized mankind, and the people of the threatened state were the surviving remnants of millions, who in living memory had been wiped out by a dictatorship more powerful, though scarcely more malicious, than Nasser's Egypt."
Israel incorporates Arab Jerusalem with the rest of the city June 27 but guarantees freedom of access to the Holy Places for people of all faiths. The UN asks July 4 that the action be rescinded, Moscow severs diplomatic relations with Tel Aviv June 10, and Tel Aviv rejects the UN request July 14, retaining the strategic Golan Heights in Syria and the West Bank of the Jordan River, territory that along with Arab Jerusalem contains half the population of Jordan and half her economic resources. Israeli general Ariel Sharon, 39, recaptures the Mitla Pass that he took on the Sinai Peninsula in 1956; President Nasser is persuaded not to resign, he begins a purge of the Egyptian army and air force, and he receives Soviet president Podgorny, who promises military and economic assistance to help rebuild Egyptian power, but Egypt's Suez Canal is closed.
The defeat of Egyptian and Syrian forces by Israel fuels rage among Islamic fundamentalists against secular governments throughout the Arab world; they demand a return to strict observance of Muslim principles as a means of ridding the Middle East of what they consider colonial occupation, and some of them will soon adopt violent means to achieve their ends (see Arafat, 1968).
Resolution 242 wins unanimous approval from the UN Security Council November 22; it calls for "withdrawal of Israeli armed forces from territories occupied," an end to belligerency, and recognition that every state in the area has a "right to live in peace within secure and recognized boundaries" (but see 1970).
British forces leave South Yemen November 30 after 128 years of occupation. The port of Aden becomes an Arab facility.
Puerto Ricans vote in a plebiscite July 23 to keep the commonwealth status enjoyed since 1952. About 60 percent support the Estado Libre Asociado ("free associated state"), 39 percent favor statehood, only .06 percent vote for independence.
"Vive le Quebec libre," says President de Gaulle July 25 on a state visit to Canada, whose people are celebrating the nation's centennial as a dominion with a great world exposition (Expo 67) at Montreal. De Gaulle openly promises French support for an independent Quebec, Prime Minister Lester B. Pearson rebukes him, De Gaulle cancels a projected visit to Ottawa and returns home, but his remarks encourage Québecois separatist leader René Levesque, who has the outspoken support of Journal de Montréal publisher Pierre Péladeau, now 42. Former Canadian governor general Vincent Massey dies at London December 40 at age 80.
Former Peruvian president Manuel Prado Ugarteche dies at Paris August 15 at age 78.
Rwanda and Burundi effect a reconciliation March 20; disarmed Tutsi refugees return to Rwanda after nearly 4 years of attacks on the nation from Burundi. The council of the Organization of African Unity (OAU) meeting from February 27 to March 4 has urged use of force to end South Africa's mandate over South-West Africa (Namibia) and topple Rhodesia's oppressive Ian Smith regime. OAU ministers meet in September at Kinshasa and demand the departure of white mercenaries from the Congo.
Former Congo premier Moise Tshombe is sentenced to death March 13 by a military court that has convicted him in absentia of inciting to rebellion, Tshombe's plane is hijacked June 30 over the Mediterranean, he is flown to Algeria and held captive, pro-Tshombe European mercenaries revolt in July at Kisangani, and the rebels are driven across the Rwanda border in early November with support from U.S. transport planes.
The Republic of Biafra is proclaimed May 30 by Nigerian general Odumegwu Ojukwu, who leads the Ibo tribespeople out of the 13-year-old Nigerian Federation. The territory of the new republic comprises much of the Niger River Delta oil-producing region, the Lagos government calls the secession a rebellion, Lagos is supported by all other African states and buys arms from Britain, the Ibos buy arms and supplies from France, Nigerian troops take the Biafran capital Enugu October 4, but hostilities will continue until 1970 between the Ibos and the Muslim Hansa-Fulani conservatives to the north and the Yorubas to the west.
Gabon's president Léon Mba dies of a tropical disease at Paris November 28 at age 65.
The Treaty of Tlatelolco opened for signature at Mexico City February 14 commits 22 Latin American nations to bar nuclear weapons from their territories. Mexican diplomat Alfonso García Robles, 55, has worked since the 1962 Cuban missile crisis to obtain agreement on the measure. Belize, Bolivia, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Haiti, Honduras, Mexico, Panama, Peru, Uruguay, and Venezuela sign February 14, Nicaragua February 15, Paraguay April 26, Trinidad and Tobago June 27, Brazil May 9, Dominican Republic July 28, Argentina September 27, Jamaica October 26; others will sign in years to come.
The Caribbean islands of Saint Kitts, Nevis, and Anguilla gain self-government February 27 in association with the United Kingdom (London retains responsibility for their defense and foreign affairs). The islands have been united since 1882, but Anguillans complain that they are being dominated by administrators from Saint Kitts, expel the Saint Kitts police in May, set up their own council, and proclaim their independence in July (see 1971).
Brazil's president Umberto Castelo Branco leaves office March 15 and is killed at age 66 July 18 along with his poet brother and an army officer when his Piper plane crashes into a Hercules jet training plane near Forteleza.
Bolivian troops wound communist theoretician and guerrilla warfare tactician Che Guevara, capture him October 8, and execute him October 9 at age 39. He resigned his Cuban cabinet post 2 years ago and last year traveled incognito to Bolivia, where he has led guerrilla revolutionists in the Santa Cruz region. A Bolivian military tribunal finds French-born intellectual and Castro confidante (Jules) Regis Debray, 27, guilty of murder and sentences him November 17 to 30 years in prison.
Uruguay's president Gen. Oscar Daniel Gestido dies of a heart attack at Montevideo December 6; Vice President Jorge Pachiko Arrigo, 47, is sworn in as president.
The People's Republic of China explodes her first hydrogen bomb June 17, increasing Soviet fears of a nuclear confrontation with Beijing (Peking). Former Hiroshima mayor Shinzo Hamai has died of a heart attack at Hiroshima February 26 at age 62 (he pressed for reconstruction of the city after the 1945 U.S. nuclear attack); China's final Manchu (Qin dynasty) emperor (and Manchuria's first emperor) Pu Yi dies of cancer at Beijing (Peking) October 17 at age 61; former Japanese prime minister Shigero Yoshida of a heart attack at Osai October 20 at age 89.
Indonesia's Gen. Suharto assumes executive power after 3 weeks of unrest, orders the mass arrest and internment of alleged communists, and begins a dictatorial rule that will continue until 1998 (see 1965). Sukarno, now 65, becomes president in name only, Suharto will make himself president next year, and by 1970 he will have succeeded in stabilizing the nation's currency and increasing its oil output and agricultural yield.
The Nizam of Hyderabad Osman Ali dies at Hyderabad, India, February 24 at age 80 (he has been enormously rich, but investigators find his strong rooms filled with bank notes that have been eaten through by rats); Pakistan's founding mother Fatima Jinnah dies of a heart attack at Karachi July 8 at age 74.
Australia's prime minister Harold Holt drowns December 17 at age 59 while swimming off Cheviot Beach in Bass Strait near Portsea, Victoria. Reelected in December of last year by an increased majority, he has supported U.S. policy in Vietnam and sponsored the visit of President Johnson to Australia. Liberal Party leader John (Grey) Gorton, 56, will succeed Holt as prime minister beginning next year and hold office in a coalition government until 1971, maintaining Australian troop strength in Vietnam (if less resolutely than his predecessor) while sponsoring legislation that expands the role of the federal government in science, taxation, and education, extending employment opportunities and education for aborigines.
Lurleen Wallace, 40, is sworn in as governor of Alabama January 16 (state law has prevented the reelection of her husband, George) and announces that she will continue his fight against racial integration and "Federal bureaucracy" while he seeks the presidency. A float sponsored by the Daughters of the Confederacy bears the legend, "Lest We Forget," and Mrs. Wallace takes the oath of office symbolically on the same spot where Jefferson Davis was sworn in as president of the Confederate States of America in 1861. Mother of four, Gov. Wallace is the third woman to become a state governor.
Former child film star Shirley Temple (Mrs. Charles A. Black), now 40, loses a bid for election November 13 to California's 11th Congressional District. Some of her 10 male rivals for the seat have labeled her a "hawk" on Vietnam; another Republican, Korean war veteran Paul N. McCloskey, wins the special election, having campaigned as a "dove" on Vietnam.
A car bomb kills Natchez, Miss., NAACP treasurer Wharlest Jackson, 37, at Natchez February 27. Father of five, Jackson has just been promoted to a position as chemical mixer at a local factory—a higher-paying job usually reserved for white men; nobody will be arrested for his murder.
Heavyweight champion Muhammad Ali (Cassius Clay) refuses induction into the U.S. Army after being denied conscientious objector status and is arrested April 28. North Carolina-born sportscaster Howard Cosell (Howard William Cohen), 49, supports Ali's decision.
Police in Mississippi open fire May 12 on a women's dormitory at Jackson State College, where students are staging a protest demonstration. Senior Benjamin Brown, 22, has not participated in the demonstration but is killed along with a local high school senior (both are blacks). A dozen others are wounded; no action is taken against the police officers.
The U.S. Supreme Court overturns Virginia's anti-miscegenation marriage law (and similar laws on the books of 15 other states) in a unanimous decision handed down June 12 in the case of Loving v. Virginia (seePerez v. Sharp, 1948). Mildred Loving (née Jeter), 25, who is of black and Native American ancestry, and her white husband, Richard, were indicted in October 1958 after getting married at Washington, D.C.; they pleaded guilty, were sentenced to 1 year's imprisonment, received suspended sentences on condition that they leave Virginia, moved to the District of Columbia, but returned to challenge their convictions and fight to have the statutes repealed. South Carolina will not repeal its anti-miscegenation marriage law until 1999, and homosexual couples will push for legal recognition of their unions (see Massachusetts, 2003).
Race riots rock 127 U.S. cities, killing at least 77 and injuring at least 4,000. Atlanta, Boston, Buffalo, Cincinnati, and Tampa have riots in June; riots in July disrupt Birmingham, Chicago, Detroit, New York, Milwaukee, Minneapolis, New Britain, Conn., Plainfield, N.J., and Rochester, N.Y.; but the worst are in Newark and Detroit. The Newark riots follow the beating of a black man after a traffic arrest July 12; it continues for 5 days over an area of 10 square miles; police and National Guardsmen shoot indiscriminately at blacks; 24 of the 26 killed are blacks; more than 1,500 are injured, and 1,397 are arrested; property damage amounts to some $10 million. A Black Power Conference at Newark July 23 adopts antiwhite, anti-Christian, and antidraft resolutions.
The Detroit riots from July 23 to 30 follow a raid on an after-hours drinking and gambling club at the corner of 12th and Clairmount streets; police make 73 arrests, enraging the black community. Whites as well as blacks loot 1,700 stores; rioters set 1,142 fires that destroy or damage 683 buildings; 5,000 are left homeless, 36 of the 43 killed are black, and more than 2,000 are injured; police arrest 5,000, and the disturbances end only after Detroit summons federal troops who come in with tanks—the first use of federal troops to quell a civil disturbance since 1942; the city's downtown area will not regain its prosperity in this century.
"Burn this town down," cries black militant H. "Rap" Brown (Hubert Gerold Brown) of the Student National Coordinating Committee (SNCC) July 25 at Cambridge, Md. Police arrest him for inciting to riot.
A black ghetto section in Washington, D.C., has an episode of arson and rock-throwing August 1.
Martin Luther King Jr. calls August 15 for a campaign of massive disobedience to bring pressure on Washington to meet black demands (see 1968).
SNCC militant leader Stokely Carmichael urges blacks August 17 to arm for "total revolution." Martin Luther King Jr. has rejected Carmichael's "Black Power" separatist movement.
President Johnson names Thurgood Marshall to the Supreme Court seat resigned by Justice Thomas C. Clark following appointment of Clark's son Ramsey, 39, to the post of U.S. Attorney General. Now 59, Marshall represented the plaintiff in the 1954 Brown v. Board of Education case and is the first black Supreme Court justice; he is sworn in October 2.
Urban Coalitions are organized in 48 U.S. metropolitan areas late in the year following an appeal by Health, Education and Welfare Secretary John W. Gardner. He has become head of the National Urban Coalition that will mobilize the private sector to join in social-action projects with representatives of the cities' dispossessed minorities. The only Republican in President Johnson's cabinet, Gardner will resign in March 1968 (see politics [Common Cause], 1970).
"If we don't give the Negro of this country some measure of hope," says Mobil Oil vice president Christian A. Herter Jr., "the people at the extreme left of the Negro community will ultimately gain control and we won't have a chance ever to do this job again." Herter has helped found the New York Urban Coalition.
Washington, D.C., gets its first mayor in November as Georgia-born factory worker's son Harold E. (Edward) Washington, 52, is sworn into office. The great-grandson of a slave, Washington earned a law degree in 1948 by attending night school, President Johnson asked him last year to head the board of commissioners that runs the city government, he refused when he learned that he would not have control of the police and fire departments, Johnson has pressed a proposal in Congress to increase the city's self government with congressional budget oversight and a single commissioner to be called "mayor," some powerful Washingtonians have pressed for a white mayor, longtime NAACP head Bayard Rustin has declined the $28,500-per-year job, and Mayor Washington has given up his $35,000 position as chairman of the New York City Housing Authority to accept the post he will occupy until 1978 (see 1974; riots, 1968).
The National Organization for Women (NOW) holds its first national conference at Washington and adopts a bill of rights calling for 1) an Equal Rights constitutional Amendment, 2) enforcement of a law banning sex discrimination in employment, 3) maternity leave rights in employment and in Social Security benefits, 4) tax deduction for home and childcare expenses for working parents, 5) child daycare centers, 6) equal and unsegregated education, 7) equal job-training opportunities and allowances for women in poverty, and 8) the right of women to control their reproductive lives.
Australia grants women the right to vote on the same basis as men (see New Zealand, 1898).
African National Congress president Albert J. Luthuli dies July 21 at age 69 after being struck by a train as he crossed a track near Groutville. He was banished to his 25-acre farm in the area in 1959 and awarded the 1960 Nobel Peace Prize for his nonviolent opposition to apartheid, but a stroke had left him partially blind and deaf. Nelson Mandela in his prison cell succeeds Luthuli as ANC president, Oliver Tambo as acting president.
Former Buchenwald concentration camp commandant's wife Ilsa Koch hangs herself in prison at Aichach, West Germany, the night of September 1 at age 61, using bedsheets tied to the bars of her cell; Holocaust refugee saver Varian M. Fry dies at Easton, Conn., September 13 at age 59.
The U.S. Apollo 1 space capsule bursts into flame January 27, killing astronauts Virgil I. "Gus" Grissom, Edward H. White II, and Roger Chaffee; the Soviet space capsule Soyuz I crashes on re-entry April 24, killing cosmonaut Vladimir Komarov.
The Iron and Steel Act passed by Parliament March 22 abolishes the 33-year-old British Iron and Steel Federation and creates the government-owned British Steel Corp. PLC, which assumes ownership of 14 major UK steel companies with some 200 wholly or partly owned subsidiaries in Australia, New Zealand, Canada, Africa, South Asia, and South America. A 1969 act will dissolve the individual companies in the new corporation and divide it into six divisions (general steels, specialty steels, strip mills, tubes, constructional engineering, and chemicals) (see 1988).
Britain devalues the pound November 18 from $2.80 to $2.40 in an effort to check inflation and improve the nation's trade deficit (see 1965).
French workers strike France's largest and most profitable shipyard. Squeezed by inflation, the strikers at Saint-Azaire in Brittany win support from other workers and from students (see 1968).
The United Auto Workers union quits the AFL-CIO April 22, charging a lack of democratic leadership and organizing effort that affects its 1.6 million members.
The United States contributes one-seventh of 1 percent of her Gross National Product (GNP) to foreign aid, down from a full 1 percent in 1965 (see 1961).
South Korea's Daewoo Group conglomerate (chaebol) has its beginnings in a small textile-trading company founded by entrepreneur Kim Woo Choong, 30, who has borrowed the equivalent of $10,000 to start the venture (see 1976).
President Johnson issues an executive order April 1 transferring control of the Coast Guard from the Treasury Department to the newly-created Department of Transportation.
The United States has 2,975 corporate mergers, up from 2,377 last year.
A Census Bureau report in December shows that 41 percent of nonwhite families in the United States make less than $3,300 per year versus 12 percent of white families, that 7.3 percent of nonwhites are unemployed versus 3.4 percent of whites, and that 29 percent of blacks live in substandard housing versus 8 percent of whites.
U.S. wage rates will rise by 92 percent in the next 10 years, buying power by only 8 percent.
Former U.S. treasury secretary Henry Morgenthau Jr. dies at Poughkeepsie, N.Y., February 6 at age 75; economist Edward H. Chamberlin at Cambridge, Mass., July 16 at age 68; industrialist Henry J. Kaiser at Honolulu August 24 at age 85.
Wall Street's Dow Jones Industrial Average closes December 29 at 905.11, up from 785.69 at the end of 1966.
L. L. Bean dies at his Miami Shores, Fla., winter home February 5 at age 94, leaving a family mail-order and retail-store business at Freeport, Me. Annual sales have reached $3.5 million (see 1951), they will reach $121 million in 1980, the company will move that year into a new factory and distribution center on the outskirts of town with a payroll of 1,472 people, and it will grow to have more than $1 billion in sales.
Master Charge card holders number 5.7 million and charge $312 million worth of purchases (see 1966). By 1976 there will be 40 million Master Charge card holders and they will run up bills of $13.5 billion.
Mining of the Athabasca tar sands begins in northern Alberta. The field contains some 300 billion barrels of recoverable petroleum, but development of the oil-extraction project will be slow and costly.
Swedish astrophysicist Hannes Alfvén quits Stockholm's Royal Institute of Technology and gives up his position as a national science adviser in protest against the government's plans to build nuclear power plants.
The Krasnoyarsk Dam on the Yenisei River in Siberia begins producing electricity November 3. Built by Soviet engineers, the world's largest and most powerful hydroelectric project initially generates 508,000 kilowatts and—when all 12 of its generators are completed—will produce 6 million kilowatts. The largest U.S. hydroelectric facilities have capacities of no more than 400,000 kilowatts.
The Boeing 737 that makes its first flight April 9 at Seattle is a twin-engined jet that carries 115 passengers sitting six abreast in a 94-foot-long fuselage (see 1964). Boeing engineers have designed it to have the cargo capacity of a freighter and cut costs by retaining doors, cockpit layout, leading-edge devices, galleys, toilets, and other fittings used earlier in the 707 and 727. The 737 will go through some design changes and eventually become the most popular plane in Boeing history.
McDonnell-Douglas Corp. is created April 28 in a takeover of Douglas Aircraft by the 39-year-old McDonnell Aircraft Corp., now a major producer of military aircraft. Douglas lost $27.6 million last year on sales of more than $1 billion and its working capital has shrunk to $34 million from $187 million in 1958 when the Boeing 707 was introduced.
Greyhound Bus Lines cofounder Edwin Carl Ekstrom dies at Corpus Christi, Texas, May 7 at age 78.
The closing of Egypt's Suez Canal by scuttled ships and by mines in the Six-Day War deprives the nation of some $250 million per year in revenues. Roughly 70 percent of the world's tankers have been able to use the Suez fully laden and all but 1 percent of tankers have been able to go through it in ballast, but shipbuilders in the next 7 years will concentrate on building supertankers and by the mid-1970s only 35 percent of the world's tanker fleet will be able to go through the Suez fully laden (see 1968).
Naval architect-marine engineer William F. Gibbs dies at New York September 6 at age 81.
The 31-year-old Cunard liner S.S. Queen Mary leaves New York for England October 31 on her final transatlantic voyage. Her owners will move her to Long Beach, Calif., and turn her into a hotel-conference center.
The Pennsylvania Railroad sends a $1 million experimental train down its tracks May 24 at 156 miles per hour in a public test, but the New York Central discontinues its crack Twentieth Century Limited December 2 after 65 years on the Chicago run. Both railroads are in deep financial trouble and have received authorization to merge (see 1968).
U.S. mass transit rides fall to 8 billion, down from 23 billion in 1945, as prosperous Americans rely at an ever-growing rate on private cars to reach suburban homes and shopping centers.
Automobile pioneer James Franklin Duryea dies at Saybrook, Conn., February 15 at age 98.
A new Chevrolet sells for less than $2,500 in the United States.
New York State's Adirondack Northway opens from Albany north to the Canadian border.
Canada's 335-meter steel arch bridge across the St. Lawrence opens at Trois Rivieres, Quebec.
Venezuela's 712-meter Angostura Bridge opens at Ciudad Bolivar.
Czechoslovakia's 330-meter steel arch Zdakov Bridge opens to span the Vitava River.
FIAT auto production surpasses that of Volkswagen (see 1899; 1966). The great Italian industrial colossus has been managed for the past year by Giovanni "Gianni" Agnelli, 46, grandson and namesake of FIAT's founder.
Sweden switches from driving on the left side of the road to driving on the right, but British and Japanese drivers continue to drive on the left, as do drivers in many British colonies.
Hyundai Motor Co. is founded by South Korean industrialist Chung Ju Yung, now 51 (see Thai road, 1965; ships, 1973).
The electronic quartz wristwatch announced in December by the Swiss Horological Electronic Center has a tiny rod of quartz crystal that vibrates 8,192 times per second when activated by a battery (see microchip, 1959; Accutron, 1960). An integrated circuit counts the oscillations and every 1/256th of a second sends power to the micromotor that then drives gears that move the watch hands. Thirty-one Swiss firms pooled $7 million in 1962 to develop the watch that retails at $550 and up. The Geneva-based Patek Philippe company will introduce its first quartz watch in 1970 but will make only about 50 watches per day, continue making timepieces with mechanical movements, and always use watch hands to display the time (see Pulsar digital watch, 1972).
A pulsar (pulsating star) is discovered by Cambridge University astronomical research student (Susan) Jocelyn Bell, 24, working with Anthony Hewish, 43, and using a giant 4.5-acre radarlike dish to detect electromagnetic waves from outside the earth's atmosphere. The radio dish produces weekly data amounting to some 400 feet of recorder chart paper. Bell is looking for "interstellar scintillation"—pulsating celestial radio sources that have previously been observed—when she begins in August to notice odd signals coming in during the small hours of the morning when scintillation is usually the weakest. The signals disappear and reappear until November, when Bell learns from a high-speed recorder that the signals are pulsating at a regular interval of just over a second. Celestial radio signals previously recorded have been emitted on a constant basis. Bell's finding will be published next year.
Geneticist Reginald C. Punnett dies at Bilbrook, Somerset, January 3 at age 91; nuclear physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer of throat cancer at Princeton, N.J., February 18 at age 62; Nobel geneticist Hermann J. Muller of a heart ailment at Indianapolis April 5 at age 76; physicist Sir John D. Cockcroft at Cambridge, Cambridgeshire, September 18 at age 70.
Parkinson's disease victims obtain relief from cryogenic surgery developed by Atlantic City, N.J.-born New York neurosurgeon Irving S. (Spencer) Cooper, 45, and from levodopa therapy developed by Greek-born neurologist George C. (Constantin) Cotzias, 49 (see 1817). Cooper freezes affected areas of the brain to relieve symptoms; L-dopa counters the deficiency of dopamine in the brain and will be introduced into medical practice in 1970. Asked by the World Health Organization to help investigate chronic manganese poisoning among miners in Chile, Cotzias has found their symptoms—rigid facial expression, clenched hands, speech and balance difficulties—similar to those seen in Parkinson's disease. He succeeds in treating patients with L-dopa where others have failed because he uses much larger doses for longer periods of time.
Simplified cataract surgery clears up clouded vision for patients without removal of the entire eye lens. Brooklyn, N.Y.-born opthalmologist Charles D. Kelman, 37, got the idea for phacoemulsification when he saw his dentist use an ultrasonic probe on his teeth and reasoned that it could be used to break up cataracts and suction out their remains without damaging adjacent tissue; by requiring only a tiny incision, Kelman's revolutionary procedure spares patients 10-day hospital stays, lengthy recovery periods, and ultra-thick glasses. He will develop artificial lenses for implantation in the 1970s and teach his procedure to thousands of doctors worldwide who will use it on an out-patient basis. Kelman will promote it on television talk shows, more than a million patients will have it done each year, and the technique will be applied to other areas of medicine, including neurosurgery.
Cicely Saunders founds St. Christopher's Hospice, Sydenham, for terminally ill patients and promotes the ideas she first expressed in her 1960 book Care of the Dying: e.g., that dying is a natural part of living rather than a failure of medicine, that people should be allowed to die with dignity, and that effective pain control and sensitive nursing can enhance the quality of death (see 1969).
New York's Phoenix House opens on the fifth floor of a West 85th Street tenement as a rehabilitation center for drug addicts. Its founders are five former patients of the Morris Bernstein Institute, one of the few city hospitals that admits addicts. The detoxified former drug addicts are joined in July by psychiatrist Mitchell S. Rosenthal, who has come from California full of enthusiasm for the 9-year-old Syanon program. By 1970 Phoenix House will have returned 150 graduates to society and established seminar rap-session techniques that other rehabilitation centers will follow.
Smoking-withdrawal clinics proliferate across the country but Americans buy 572.6 billion cigarettes—210 packs per adult (see 1966; 1969).
Argentine-born Cleveland Clinic surgeon René G. (Gerónimo) Favoloro, 44, performs the first planned bypass surgery procedure for coronary disease November 30 on a patient with a potentially fatal artery blockage. Duke University surgeon David C. Sabiston Jr. performed the first such procedure in 1962 in response to deteriorating conditions on the operating table, and Texas surgeon H. Edward Garrett performed one 2 years later, but Favoloro's is the first to be planned and the first to be reported in a medical journal. After stopping the heart, Favoloro takes a section of vein from the patient's leg and sews one end to his aorta, attaching the other end to the blocked artery at a point beyond the blockage. Within a year the clinic will have performed 171 bypass operations; Favoloro will return to Argentina in 1971 (see angioplasty, 1977).
Cape Town, South Africa, surgeon Christiaan (Neethling) Barnard, 45, performs the world's first heart transplant December 3, taking the healthy heart of a 25-year-old brain-dead accident victim at Groote Schuur Hospital (at a time when U.S. district attorneys have threatened to arrest surgeons who took organs from brain-dead individuals); Barnard's patient (grocer Louis Washkansky) lives for 18 days. The first U.S. heart transplant is performed 4 days later by New York surgeon Adrian Kantrowitz, 49, whose patient survives for only a few hours. Surgeons will attempt some 260 operations in the next 7 years, some heart recipients will live for more than 6 years with hearts obtained from donors killed in accidents, but only 20 percent of the recipients will survive for more than 1 year (see 1968).
Japanese researchers identify what will be called Kawasaki disease, a clinical illness of unknown origin that occurs most frequently in children between 18 and 24 months. Beginning with fever and progressing to pus in the urine, red eyes, intensely red tongue, dry fissured lips, rash, swollen hands and feet, enlarged lymph nodes, and abnormal liver function, it will surpass rheumatic fever to become the leading cause of acquired heart disease in U.S. children.
AARP founder Ethel Percy Andrus dies at Long Beach, Calif., July 13 at age 82, having seen her health insurance program become a supplement to the Medicare program introduced 2 years ago (the organization she started in 1958 will lower the minimum age of members to 55 and then to 50, changing its name from American Association of Retired Persons simply to AARP); sulfonamide drug pioneer Leonard Colebrook dies at Farnham Common, Buckinghamshire, September 29 at age 84; scarlet fever test co-developer George F. Dick at Palo Alto, Calif., October 10 at age 86; diphtheria-test co-developer Béla Schick of pleurisy at New York December 6 at age 90.
The Jeryl Lynn mumps vaccine licensed in December has been developed by Montana-born Merck researcher Maurice R. (Ralph) Hilleman, 48, who also helped develop the first rubella vaccine (see 1966; MMR, 1979). His daughter's salivary glands began to swell 4 years ago, Hilleman swabbed her throat, isolated the virus, and went on to create a vaccine based on attenuated (weakened) live virus. His work in the 1950s led to the discovery of adenoviruses and an effective influenza vaccine; he will be credited with developing eight of the 14 vaccines routinely recommended, including those for chickenpox, measles, hepatitis, biological meningitis, and pneumonia.
Joseph Elmer Cardinal Ritter dies of a heart attack at St. Louis June 10 at age 74. He has championed civil rights and supported progressive changes in the Church; Francis Cardinal Spellman dies of a stroke at New York December 2 at age 78.
Ronald Reagan takes office as governor and cuts the University of California's budget by 10 percent (see 1964; politics, 1966). He proposes charging tuition. The university's enrollment has doubled to 87,000 under the leadership of Clark Kerr, but Kerr freezes admissions temporarily. The Regents dismisses him 3 weeks after Reagan takes office, and he will tell a reporter 20 years hence, "All that effort, all that passion, all that turmoil was mostly for nought."
Sarah Lawrence College at Bronxville, N.Y., admits six men February 5 after 41 years as a women's college (female students number 579).
North Korea makes education compulsory for children aged 7 to 16 in order to indoctrinate youngsters in communist ideology and produce skilled workers, technicians, and scientists. The requirement will later be changed to oblige parents of 5- and 6-year-olds to attend school in a system that begins with 1 year of preschool, 4 of primary school, and 6 of secondary school, with an emphasis on science and technology and all students having to perform productive labor along with their studies.
Ireland's minister for education Donagh O'Malley announces in September that the government will introduce free secondary schooling and free school transport, reforms that will enable working-class students to get high school or technical degrees and create an educated work force that will help make Ireland one of Europe's two richest countries.
Motorola introduces an all-transistor color television set.
Britain's first color TV broadcasting begins July 1 as BBC-2 transmits 7 hours of programming, most of it coverage of lawn tennis from Wimbledon.
The Public Broadcasting Act signed into law by President Johnson November 7 creates the Corporation for Public Broadcasting to broaden the scope of noncommercial radio and TV beyond its educational role. Federal grants (plus funds from foundations, business, and private contributions) will within 3 years rival NBC, CBS, and ABC with National Public Radio and Public Broadcasting Service (TV) networks (see Pacifica listener-sponsored radio, 1957; Nixon, 1973).
The Federal Communications Commission notifies CBS that its programs dealing with the effects of smoking on health are not sufficient to offset the influence of the 5 to 10 minutes of cigarette commercials the network's New York television station is broadcasting each day. The FCC acts in response to a formal complaint against WCBS-TV filed by John Banzhaf (see 1966). While the FCC does not agree with Banzhaf's request for equal time, it does order that all radio and TV cigarette commercials carry a notice of possible danger in cigarette smoking, and it asks WCBS-TV to provide free each week "a significant amount of time for the other viewpoint . . . This requirement will not preclude or curtail presentation by stations of cigarette advertising which they choose to carry . . . We hold that the fairness doctrine is applicable to such advertisements" (see 1969).
Greece's military government censors the antiwar Aristophanes play Lysistrata.
Congress creates the U.S. Commission on Obscenity and Pornography (see Supreme Court decisions, 1966). The commission will conclude that pornography does not contribute to crime or sexual deviation and will recommend repeal of all federal, state, and local laws that "interfere with the right of adults who wish to do so to read, obtain, or view explicit sexual materials" (but see 1968).
The New York World-Journal & Tribune closes May 5 after less than 8 months. The company has had 18 work stoppages (management says the unions have forced it to employ 500 more people than necessary); the combined circulation has been 700,000 daily and 900,000 Sundays. Although the New York Times and Washington Post will continue the Paris edition of the Herald Tribune, New York is left with only three regular dailies—the Times, News, and Post.
Seven Arts magazine cofounder Waldo Frank dies at White Plains, N.Y., January 9 at age 77; publisher Henry Luce of a heart attack at Phoenix, Ariz., February 28 at age 68; advertising executive-author Bruce Barton at New York July 5 at age 80; Amazing Stories publisher-inventor Hugo Gernsback at New York August 19 at age 83. His writings anticipated the inventions of artificial fabrics, fluorescent lighting, microfilm, radar, and other advances.
The American Spectator magazine has its beginnings in The Alternative founded at Bloomington, Ind., by Chicago-born student satirist R. (Robert) Emmett Tyrrell, Jr., 23, who will rename his monthly in 1977 as it moves to embrace increasingly right-wing views.
Rolling Stone magazine begins publication in November. San Francisco entrepreneur Jann Wenner, 21, has started the rock 'n' roll record publication with an initial investment of $7,500, most of it borrowed; his first edition sells 6,000 copies, and circulation will grow to 400,000 in 8 years as Rolling Stone's volunteer staff grows to a paid staff of 80 and the magazine becomes a journal of the counterculture.
Nonfiction: Children of Crisis by Boston-born Harvard psychiatrist-humanist Robert (Martin) Coles, 37, who will write 25 books and nearly 400 articles in the next 10 years, observing socio-ethical problems affecting U.S. life, destroying one-dimensional stereotypes about blacks, white Southerners, police officers, farm workers, and American youth; Death at an Early Age: The Destruction of the Hearts and Minds of Negro Children in the Boston Public Schools by Boston teacher Jonathan Kozol, 30; The Conspiracy Against Childhood by New York educator Eda J. (Joan) LeShan (née Grossman), 45, who will appear on a television show beginning next year and go on to have her own radio and TV shows; Division Street: America by New York-born Chicago journalist Louis "Studs" Terkel, 55; The New Industrial State and How to Get Out of Vietnam: A Workable Solution to the Worst Problem of Our Time by John Kenneth Galbraith; The Death of a President: November 20-November 25, 1963 by William Manchester (whose work has been serialized in Look magazine); Nicholas and Alexander by Lexington, Ky.-born New York biographer Robert K. (Kinloch) Massie, 38; Gods, Graves, and Scholars by C. W. Ceram (Kurt W. Marek), now 52, is a popular work on archaeological discoveries; Delano: The Story of the California Grape Strike by Hartford, Conn.-born California journalist John Gregory Dunne, 35; The Road to Jerusalem: The Origins of the Arab-Israeli Conflict by Walter Laqueur; The Murderers Among Us by Nazi-hunter Simon Wiesenthal; "Our Crowd"—The Great Jewish Families of New York by Connecticut-born advertising copywriter-novelist Stephen Birmingham, 35; The Joys of Yiddish by novelist-language expert Leo Rosten; At Wit's End by Dayton, Ohio-born housewife-newspaper columnist Erma Bombeck, 40.
Alice B. Toklas dies at Paris March 7 at age 89; historian Sidney B. Fay at Lexington, Mass., August 29 at age 91; psychologist Gordon W. Allport at Cambridge, Mass., October 9 at age 69.
Fiction: One Hundred Years of Solitude (Cien anos de soledad) by Colombian novelist Gabriel García Márquez, 39; The Confessions of Nat Turner by William Styron (see human rights, 1831); Why Are We in Vietnam? by Norman Mailer; The FreeLance Pallbearers by Chattanooga-born New York novelist-poet Ishmael Reed, 29, who cofounded the East Village Other 2 years ago; The Chosen by New York novelist Chaim Potok, 38; Up Above the World by Paul Bowles; Snow White by Donald Barthelme; The Lieutenant by Louisiana-born novelist Andre Dubus, 31, who has served 6 years in the Marine Corps; Singing from the Well (Celestine antes del alba) by Cuban novelist Reinaldo Arenas, 24; The Joke (Zert) by Milan Kundera; Washington, D.C. by Gore Vidal; Rosemary's Baby by Ira Levin; The Eighth Day by Thornton Wilder, now 70; Tower of Babel by Morris West; People in Glass Houses by Shirley Hazzard, who satirizes the United Nations (that employed her for 10 years in the 1950s); Topaz by Leon Uris; A Garden of Earthly Delights by Joyce Carol Oates; Jerusalem the Golden by Margaret Drabble; The Greeks Have a Word for It by Barry Unsworth; A Weekend with Claud by English actress-novelist Beryl Bainbridge, 33; The Fat Woman's Joke by English novelist Fay Weldon, 34; The Diary of a Mad Housewife by New York novelist Sue Kaufman, 40; Imaginary Friends by Alison Lurie; In God We Trust: All Others Pay Cash by radio raconteur Jean Shepherd; Murder Against the Grain by Emma Lathen; Roseanna by Swedish police novelist Maj Sjöwall, 32, and her husband, Per Wahlöo; Unnatural Causes by P. D. James.
Ilya Ehrenburg dies of a heart attack at his native Moscow September 1 at age 76; historian-novelist Esther Forbes at Worcester, Mass., August 12 at age 76; Carson McCullers at Nyack, N.Y., September 29 at age 50 (she has been severely crippled by strokes for 10 to 12 years); André Maurois of lung complications after undergoing abdominal surgery at Neuilly October 9 at age 82.
Poetry: The Light Around the Body by Robert Bly; The Hard Hours by Anthony Hecht; After the Cries of the Birds and Moscow in the Wilderness, Segovia in the Snow by Lawrence Ferlinghetti; Words (84 poems) by Robert Creeley; Outer Banks by Muriel Rukeyser; The Lice by W. S. Merwin; Black Feeling, Black Talk by Knoxville, Tenn.-born poet Nikki (née Yolande Cornelia) Giovanni, 24, whose poem "The True Import of Present Dialogue, Black vs. Negro" begins, "nigger/ Can you kill/ Can you kill/ Can a nigger kill/ Can a nigger kill a honkie?;" The Dainty Monsters by Ceylon-born poet-novelist (Philip) Michael Ondaatje, 24; Listen to the Warm by Rod McKuen.
Britain's poet laureate John Masefield dies in Berkshire May 12 at age 88 (he will be succeeded next year by C. Day Lewis); Langston Hughes dies of congestive heart failure at New York May 22 at age 65; Carl Sandburg of a heart attack at Flat Rock, N.C., July 22 at age 89; Siegfried Sassoon at Heytesbury House, near Warmister, in Wiltshire September 1 at age 80; Patrick Kavanagh at Dublin November 30 at age 62.
Juvenile: From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler by New York author E. L. Konigsburg (née Elaine Lobl), 37; The Outsiders by Tulsa-born author S. E. (Susan Eloise) Hinton, 17; The Black Pearl by Scott O'Dell; The Tale of a Pig: A Caucasian Folktale by Boston-born author-illustrator Wallace (Whitney) Tripp, 28; The Owl Service by Alan Garner.
Author Arthur Ransome dies at Manchester, Lancashire, June 3 at age 83.
Painting: The Blue Village by Marc Chagall; Big Electric Chair (synthetic polymer and silkscreen ink on canvas) by Andy Warhol; Three Folk Musicians (collage) by Romare Bearden; Smoker, 1 by Tom Wesselman; Who's Afraid of Red, Yellow and Blue III by Barnett Newman; Olive Sandwich by Wayne Thiebaud; Thanksgiving by Alice Neel. Washington, D.C.-painter Gene Davis, 47, gains prominence with "micro" canvases employing hard-edge, free-hand, or "bleed" stripes and broad, narrow, or pin-striped bands. Charles Burchfield dies of a heart attack while having lunch at Buffalo, N.Y., restaurant January 10 at age 73; Edward Hopper of a heart attack at his New York studio May 15 at age 84; René Magritte of a heart attack at Brussels August 15 at age 68; Ad Reinhardt of a heart attack at New York August 30 at age 53.
Sculpture: Scatter Piece (rubber latex) and Rosa Esman's Piece (vulcanized rubber) by San Francisco-born sculptor Richard Serra, 27; Shift by Passaic, N.J.-born sculptor Robert Smithson, 29; Broken Obelisk by Barnett Newman; Homage to Bernini by Louise Bourgeois; Henry Moore Bound to Fail by Bruce Nauman; The Laundromat (plaster of paris) by George Segal; Motorcycle Accident by Minnesota-born Florida figurative sculptor Duane Hanson, 42; Borne au logos VII (cast urethane) by Jean Dubuffet; Untitled by Pablo Picasso is unveiled by Mayor Richard Daley in downtown Chicago August 15 to mixed reactions.
Theater: Marat/Sade 1/3 at London's Majestic Theatre, with Douglas Wilson as Jean Paul Marat, William Roerich as the marquis de Sade, Vera Bloom as Charlotte Corday in an English translation by Geoffrey Skelton of the 1964 Peter Weiss play; MacBird by Brooklyn-born playwright Barbara Garson, 25, 2/22 at New York's off-Broadway Village Gate Theater, with Stacy Keach, 386 perfs.; Fortune and Men's Eyes by Toronto-born dancer-playwright John Herbert (Brundage), 40, 2/23 at New York's off-Broadway Actor's Playhouse, with Robert Christian, Victor Arnold, 382 perfs.; You Know I Can't Hear You When the Water's Running by Robert Anderson 3/13 at New York's Ambassador Theater, with George Grizzard, Eileen Heckart, Martin Balsam, 755 perfs.; Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead by Czech-born British playwright Tom Stoppard (Tomas Straussler), 29, 4/11 at London's Old Vic Theatre, with John Stride, Edward Petheridge, John McEnery; Little Murders by New York cartoonist-playwright Jules Feiffer, 38, 4/25 at New York's Broadhurst Theater, with Elliott Gould, Heywood Hale Broun, Barbara Cook, 7 perfs.; Let Sleeping Wives Lie by English playwrights Harold Brooke, 56, and Kay Bannerman, 47, 7/19 at London's Garrick Theatre, with Derek Farr, 55; Elspet Gray, 38; Leslie Crowther, 44; Leo Franklyn, 70, 647 perfs.; A Day in the Death of Joe Egg by English playwright Peter Nichols, 39, 7/20 at London's Comedy Theatre, with Joe Melia, Zena Walker, 148 perfs.; Dream on Monkey Mountain by St. Lucia-born poet-playwright Derek Walcott, 37, 8/12 at Toronto's Central Library Theater; Soldaten by Rolf Hochhuth 10/7 at West Berlin's Freie Volksbuhre; Borstal Boy by Brendan Behan 10/10 at Dublin's Abbey Theatre; More Stately Mansions by the late Eugene O'Neill 10/31 at New York's Broadhurst Theater, with Ingrid Bergman, Colleen Dewhurst, Arthur Hill, Helen Craig, Ojai, Calif.-born ingénu Lawrence Linville, 28, 142 perfs.; Dingo by English playwright Charles Wood 11/15 at London's Royal Court Theatre, with Tom Kempinksi, Henry Woolf, Leon Lissek, 19 perfs.; Home Front (Cimmerschlecht) by Martin Walser 12/7 at Munich's Werkramm Theater der Kammerspiele; Spofford by Colorado-born Broadway producer Herman Shumlin, now 69 (based on Peter DeVries's novel Reuben, Reuben) 12/14 at New York's ANTA Playhouse, with Melvyn Douglas, Barbara Britton, sets by Donald Oenslager, 202 perfs.
Onetime stage beauty Evelyn Nesbit (Thaw) dies at a Santa Monica convalescent home January 18 at age 81; Broadway set designer Lee Simonson at Yonkers, N.Y., January 23 at age 78; Montana-born Australian vaudeville comedian Will Mahoney (William James Fitzpatrick) at Melbourne February 8 at age 73; actress Judith Evelyn of cancer at New York May 7 at age 54; playwright Elmer Rice of pneumonia at Southampton, England, May 8 at age 74; actor Philip Coolidge of lung cancer at Los Angeles May 28 at age 58; playwright-wit Dorothy Parker of a heart attack in her Volney Hotel suite at New York June 7 at age 73; playwright Joe Orton is murdered by his roommate lover (who then commits suicide) at London August 9 at age 34; playwright Joseph Kesselring dies at Kingston, N.Y., November 5 at age 65; actress Florence Reed at East Islip, N.Y., November 21 at age 84; comedian Bert Lahr of an internal hemorrhage at New York December 4 at age 72.
Television: The Forsyte Saga 1/7 on BBC with Eric Porter as Soames Forsyte, Kenneth More as his cousin, Susan Hampshire, 25, as his daughter Fleur in a serialized dramatization of the John Galsworthy novels (U.S. Public Broadcasting stations pick up the series and show episodes on Masterpiece Theater); The World About Us in July on BBC-2 with naturalist David Attenborough in a weekly show that will continue to 1986; The Flying Nun 9/7 on ABC with Sally Field, Madeleine Sehrwood, Marge Rettmann, Vito Scotti (to 9/18/1970); The High Chapparal 9/10 on NBC with Cameron Mitchell, Leif Erickson, Linda Cristal, Frank Silvera (to 3/12/1971); The Carol Burnett Show 9/11 on CBS with Burnett, Vickie Lawrence, Tom Conway, Harvey Corwin (to 3/20/1978); Ironside 9/14 on NBC with Raymond Burr as a wheelchair-bound police chief, Elizabeth Baur, Barbara Anderson (to 1/16/1975); Mannix 9/16 on CBS with Fresno, Calif.-born actor Mike Connors (Krekor Ohamian), 42, as private detective Joe Mannix, Gail Fisher as his assistant (to 8/27/1975); Phil Donahue 11/6 on a Dayton, Ohio, Multimedia station with Cleveland-born host Donahue, 31, interviewing atheist activist Madalyn Murray O'Hair in the first audience-participation talk show. It will go national in 1970, appearing afternoons daily on 221 U.S. stations, stations in 10 foreign countries, and the Armed Forces TV Network, emphasizing sensationalism and continuing to 1/1996.
TV puppeteer Cora Baird dies of cancer at New York December 6 at age 54.
Films: Luis Buñuel's Belle de Jour with Catherine Deneuve; Arthur Penn's Bonnie and Clyde with Warren Beatty, Faye Dunaway; Mike Nichols's The Graduate with Los Angeles-born actor Dustin Hoffman, 30, Katharine Ross, Anne Bancroft; Richard Brooks's semidocumentary In Cold Blood with Robert Blake, Scott Wilson; Norman Jewison's In the Heat of the Night with Rod Steiger, Sidney Poitier; Peter Brook's Marat/Sade with the Royal Shakespeare Company; Theodore J. Flicker's The President's Analyst with James Coburn, New York-born comedian Godfrey Cambridge, 34; Sergei Bondarchuk's War and Peace with Ludmila Savelyeva, Vyacheslav Tihonov. Also: Joseph Losey's Accident with Dirk Bogarde; Ralph Nelson's Charly with La Jolla, Calif.-born actor Cliff Robertson, 42, Claire Bloom; Stuart Rosenberg's Cool Hand Luke with Paul Newman, Jo Van Fleet, George Kennedy; Robert Aldrich's The Dirty Dozen with New York-born actor John Cassavetes, 37, New York-born actor Lee Marvin, 43, Ernest Borgnine, Donald Sutherland, Georgia-born former Cleveland Browns fullback Jim Brown, 31; D. A. Pennebaker's documentary Don't Look Back with Bob Dylan, Joan Baez, Donovan Leitch, Allen Ginsberg; John Schlesinger's Far from the Madding Crowd with Julie Christie, Peter Finch, Alan Bates, Terence Stamp, 27; Gene Kelly's A Guide for the Married Man with Walter Matthau, Swedish-born actress Inger Stevens, 33; Michael Winner's I'll Never Forget What's 'is Name with Orson Welles, (Robert) Oliver Reed, 29; Larry Peerce's The Incident with Bridgeport, Conn.-born actor Tony Musante, 21, Martin Sheen, Hollywood, Calif.-born actor Beau Bridges, 25, Jack Gilford, Thelma Ritter, Gary Merrill; Ingmar Bergman's Persona with Bibi (originally Berit) Andersson, 31, Liv (Johann) Ullmann, 27; John Boorman's Point Blank with Lee Marvin, North Dakota-born actress Angie Dickinson (Angeline Brown), 35; Luchino Visconti's The Stranger with Marcello Mastroianni; Franco Zefferelli's The Taming of the Shrew with Elizabeth Taylor, Richard Burton; Fred Wiseman's documentary The Titicut Follies; James Clavell's To Sir with Love with Sidney Poitier, Judy Geeson; Buzz Kulik's Warning Shot with Nebraska-born actor David Janssen (David Meyer), 37; Vittorio De Sica's Woman Times Seven with Shirley MacLaine, Rome-born actress Elsa Martinelli, 35, Adrienne Cori, Anita Ekberg, Philippe Noirette, Peter Sellers, Vittorio Gassman, Rossano Brazzi.
Actress Ann Sheridan dies of cancer at her San Fernando Valley home January 21 at age 51; Martine Carol of a heart attack in her Hotel de Paris suite at Monte Carlo February 6 at age 46; comedian Toto (Antonio de Curtis Gagliadi Griffo Focas) at Rome April 15 at age 68; director Anthony Mann of a heart attack at Berlin April 29 at age 60; director G. W. Pabst at Vienna May 29 at age 82; actor Claude Rains of an intestinal hemorrhage at Sandwich, N.H., May 30 at age 77; Spencer Tracy of a heart attack at Beverly Hills June 10 at age 67; Reginald Denny of a stroke while visiting his sister at Surrey, England, June 16 at age 75; Françoise Dorleac in a car accident near Nice June 26 at age 25; Jayne Mansfield in a car crash near New Orleans June 29 at age 34; Vivien Leigh of tuberculosis at London July 8 at age 53; Basil Rathbone of a heart attack at New York July 21 at age 75; actor-director Anton Walbrook of a heart attack at Starnberg, West Germany, August 9 at age 66; Jane Darwell of a heart attack at Hollywood August 13 at age 87; Paul Muni of heart disease at Santa Barbara August 25 at age 71; director Julien Duvivier of a heart attack at Paris October 24 at age 71; Albert Warner of Warner Brothers at Miami Beach November 26 at age 84.
Broadway and off-Broadway musicals: You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown 3/7 at the Theater 80 St. Marks, with Gary Burghoff, Reva Rose, book based on Charles Schultz's 17-year-old comic strip Peanuts, music and lyrics by Clark Gesner, 1,579 perfs.; Hair 10/29 at the off-Broadway Public Theater, with Gerome Ragni as Bezar, music by Galt MacDermot, lyrics by Ragni and James Rado, songs that include "Hare Krishna" and "Aquarius," 94 perfs. (plus 1,742 beginning 4/29/68 at the Biltmore Theater with some nudity).
Opera: Mourning Becomes Electra 3/17 at the Metropolitan Opera with Evelyn Lear, now 39, in her Met debut, music by New Jersey-born composer Marvin David Levy, 34, libretto from the 1931 Eugene O'Neill play.
The Opera Orchestra of New York is founded as a training group/workshop for apprentice orchestra musicians by local conductor Eve Queler (née Rabin), 31, who made her operatic conducting debut last year with an outdoor performance of the 1890 Mascagni opera Cavalleria Rusticana at Fairlawn, N.J. (see 1969).
Soprano Mary Garden dies at her native Aberdeen, Scotland, January 3 at age 92; soprano Geraldine Farrar of a heart attack at Ridgefield, Conn., March 11 at age 85; former Metropolitan Opera bass Emanuel List at Vienna June 21 at age 79.
Little Rock-born cellist (Madeline) Charlotte Moorman, 33, of the American Symphony Orchestra plays topless 2/9 in a performance of the avant-garde Opera Sextronique by Korean-born U.S. composer Nam June Peik, 33, that calls for her to be unclothed above the waist. She is arrested by New York police and convicted on charges of indecent exposure after a 3-month trial.
Composer Zoltán Kodály dies of a heart ailment at Budapest March 6 at age 84; concert violinist Mischa Elman of a heart attack at New York April 5 at age 76; conductor Sir Malcolm Sargent at London October 3 at age 72.
Cairo singer Umm Kulthum Ibrahim tours the Arab world on Egypt's behalf following her country's defeat in the Six-Day War with Israel, raises some $2 million with her concerts, and gives the proceeds to the Egyptian government.
The Ballet Folklórico de Mexico founded by choreographer Amalia Hernández, now 50, uses adaptations of village street fiestas and Indian religious rituals from the Aztec, Maya, Yaqui, and other cultures. Hernández began with an eight-person group in 1952 and now stages performances at Mexico City's national theater, the Palacio de Bellas Artes, where it will go on at least three times per week for more than 30 years as it develops a company of more than 300 dancers, sending groups to cities worldwide.
The Monterey Pop Festival, held at Monterey, Calif., is the first large rock gathering. Participating rock stars include the Grateful Dead and Janis Joplin's Big Brother and the Holding Company.
Popular songs: Surrealistic Pillow (album) by The Jefferson Airplane, whose single "Somebody to Love" makes the San Francisco rock group the first to gain wide acclaim; "Ruby Tuesday" by Mick Jagger and Keith Richards of The Rolling Stones; "All You Need is Love" and "Penny Lane" by John Lennon and Paul McCartney of The Beatles; Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band (album) by The Beatles reflects the growing drug culture in the song "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds"; Magical Mystery Tour (album) by The Beatles is similarly drug-oriented (positive references to drugs or drug use occur in 16 of the top 40 U.S. phonograph records); "Comme d'habitude" ("As Usual") by French songwriters Claude "Clo Clo" François, 27, Jacques Revaux, Giles Thibaut (Frank Sinatra will record the song and make it a hit next year under the title "My Way" with English lyrics by Paul Anka; "Ode to Billy Joe" by country singer-songwriter Bobbie Gentry (Roberta Streeter), 23; "Up, Up and Away" by Oklahoma songwriter Jimmy Webb, 21; "Mr. Bojangles" by Oneonta, N.Y.-born guitarist-songwriter Jerry Jeff Walker (originally Ronald Clyde Crosby), 25; "Gentle on My Mind" by John Hartford; "Can't Take My Eyes Off of You" by Bob Crewe and Bob Gandio; "Chelsea Morning" by Canadian-born New York singer-guitarist-songwriter Joni Mitchell (originally Roberta Joan Anderson), 24; "Buffalo Springfield Again" by Winnipeg-born guitarist-singer-songwriter Neil Young, 21; "Light My Fire" by Robert Krieger, Jim Morrison, Raymond Manzarek, and John Densmore of The Doors; "Release Me" by Eddie Miller and W. S. Stevenson; "Don't Sleep in the Subway" by English songwriter Jackie Trent; "New York Mining Disaster" by the English rock group The Bee Gees (composer Barry Gibb, 20, and his fraternal twin brothers Robin and Maurice, 17); "This Is My Song" by Charlie Chaplin, now 78 (for his film A Countess from Hong Kong); "A Man and a Woman" by French composer Francis Lai, lyrics by Jerry Keck (title song for film); "The Beat Goes On" by singer-songwriter Sonny Bono, who is married to Cher; "The Great Mandela" by Peter Paul and Mary is an antiwar song; Wildflowers (album) by Judy Collins, who records the songs "Suzanne" and "Dress Rehearsal Rag" by Montreal-born songwriter Leonard (Norman) Cohen, 32 (he appears at the Newport Folk Festival and begins recording on his own with "Hey, That's No Way to Say Goodbye"); "Funky Broadway" by Wilson Pickett; Arizona-born country singer Linda Ronstadt, 21, records "Different Drummer" and begins her climb to the heights; Tennessee-born country singer Dolly Parton, 21, records "Dumb Blonde"; Tammy Wynette (album) by Mississippi-born country singer Wynette (née Virginia Wynette Pugh), 25, who has hits with "Your Good Girl's Going To Go Bad," "I Don't Wanna Play House," and "Elusive Dreams" (a duet with David Houston); East Orange, N.J.-born singer Dionne Warwick, 25, records "Valley of the Dolls" (theme song for film) by Dory Previn (whose marriage broke up 2 years ago).
Songwriter Geoffrey O'Hara dies at St. Petersburg, Fla., January 31 at age 84; Dixieland cornetist Francis Joseph "Muggsy" Spanier in his sleep at Sausalito, Calif., February 12 at age 64 (he suffered a heart attack at the Newport Jazz Festival in 1964 and has not worked since); pianist-songwriter Dave Dreyer dies at New York March 2 at age 72; singer Nelson Eddie at Miami March 6 at age 66 after suffering a stroke while performing in the dining room of Miami Beach's Sans Souci Hotel; Italian songwriter-comedian Toto (Antonio de Curtis) of a heart attack at Rome April 15 at age 69; Dixieland jazz trumpeter Henry "Red" Allen of cancer at New York April 17 at age 60; LaVerne Andrews of the Andrews Sisters at Brentwood, Calif., of cancer May 8 at age 51; jazz composer Billy Strayhorn of cancer at New York May 31 at age 51; jazz saxophonist John Coltrane of liver cancer at Huntington, Long Island, N.Y., July 17 at age 41; songwriter Irving King (Jimmy Campbell) at London August 19 at age 64; Beatles impresario Brian Epstein of a sleeping-pill overdose at London August 27 at age 32; jazz cornetist Rex Stewart at Los Angeles September 7 at age 60; folk singer-composer Woody Guthrie of Huntington's chorea at New York October 4 at age 55; Otis Redding dies December 10 at age 26 along with four younger members of his troupe when his plane crashes into an icy Wisconsin lake; bandleader and onetime "king of jazz" Paul "Pops" Whiteman dies of a heart attack at Doylestown, Pa., December 29 at age 77.
The Green Bay Packers of the National Football League defeat the Kansas City Chiefs of the American League 35 to 10 January 15 at Los Angeles in Super Bowl I. The brainchild of NFL commissioner Pete Rozelle, the event will grow to have even more TV viewers than baseball's World Series.
Olympic sprinter Eddie "The Midnight Express" Tolan dies at Detroit January 30 at age 57, having become a schoolteacher in his later years.
The Boston Marathon April 19 includes a runner who has registered under the name K. Switzer and turns out to be Katherine Switzer. Race officials try to remove her number, creating an uproar. The American Athletic Union issues a ruling that forbids women to compete in the same events with men on pain of losing their rights to compete anywhere. Switzer will fight the ruling, and beginning in 1972 the Marathon will be open to women.
Muhammad Ali refuses induction into the U.S. Army April 28 on grounds that he is a full-time Black Muslim minister, the World Boxing Association strips him of his world heavyweight title, and he is convicted by a federal jury at Houston June 20 of violating the Selective Service laws; now 25, he is given the maximum penalty of 5 years in prison and a $10,000 fine but is released on a $5,000 bond (see 1968).
Former light-heavyweight and welterweight boxing champion Barnett "Barney Ross" David Rosofsky dies of throat cancer at Chicago January 18 at age 57; former heavyweight champion Primo Carnera at his native Sequals, Udine, Italy, June 29 at age 60.
British yachtsman Francis Chichester, 65, sails his 53-foot ketch Gipsy Moth into Plymouth harbor May 28 to complete a 28,500-mile, 220-day one-man voyage round the world.
Australia's Dame Pattie loses 4 to 0 to the U.S. defender Intrepid in the America's Cup yacht races.
John Newcombe, 23, (Australia) wins in men's singles at Wimbledon and Forest Hills, Billie Jean King in women's singles.
Golfer Jack Nicklaus wins his second U.S. Open title. Former amateur golf champion Francis Ouimet dies at Newton, Mass., September 2 at age 84.
Mickey Mantle of the New York Yankees hits his 500th home run in league competition May 14.
Baseball legend Jimmy Foxx dies at Miami, Fla., July 21 at age 59.
A patent on a synthetic "monofilament ribbon file product" issued July 25 to Monsanto Industries researchers James M. Faria and Robert T. Wright covers the Astroturf used since last year on the field of Houston's AstroDome. Indiana State University at Terre Haute becomes the first outdoor stadium to have a field surfaced in Astroturf, and although competitors will put more than 20 other synthetic turfs on the market none will survive.
The St. Louis Cardinals win the World Series, defeating the Boston Red Sox 4 games to 3.
Vince Lombardi's Green Bay Packers beat Tom Landry's Dallas Cowboys December 31 at Lambeau Field in what will be remembered as the "Ice Bowl." With the temperature at -13° F. and a wind-chill factor of -46° at Green Bay, Wis., the turf is frozen as hard as concrete, but all 50,861 seats are filled and Green Bay has a 14-0 lead early in the second quarter; Dallas goes ahead 17 to 14, but Alabama-born Packers quarterback Bart Starr, 33, scores from the one-yard line with 13 seconds left on the clock to win Super Bowl II.
Fashion designer Jacques Heim dies at his native Paris January 7 at age 67.
U.S. and British pantyhose sales climb as women adopt the miniskirt (see 1959, 1969; Quant, 1965).
Laura Ashley's husband sets her up in her own London shop (see 1953). Now 42, she has designed elegant dresses, combining Victorian-style prints with comfortable natural fabrics that find wide acceptance. By the time of her death in 1985 she will have factories in the Netherlands and stores on several continents selling not only clothing but also bed and table linens.
The water bed has its beginnings in a water-filled vinyl chair designed by San Francisco graduate student Charles P. Hall, who has earlier filled the chair with starch, then with Jell-O. Finding water a more comfortable filler, he creates a water-filled vinyl mattress.
The stackable, molded plastic chair (Panton chair) designed by Danish architect-designer Verner Panton, 41, goes into production in Switzerland and quickly gains widespread popularity.
Thai "silk king" Jim Thompson disappears in the jungle March 6; his older sister Katherine Thompson Wood, 74, is found beaten to death in her mansion near Wilmington, Del., August 30.
Organized crime leader Thomas Gaetano "Three-Finger Brown" Luchese dies at Lido Beach, N.Y., July 13 at age 67.
Montreal's Bonaventure complex is completed beside Place Ville Marie by Boston-born planner Vincent Ponte, 48, who has pushed for a multilayer plan to avoid congestion by having cars on one level, pedestrians on a level below (where they are protected from the elements), trains and trucks on a lower level still (see 1963).
Habitat is completed for Montreal's Expo 67 to designs by Israeli-born architect Moshe Safde, 28, whose idea of an apartment house runs counter to the regimentation of modern apartment blocks. Safde creates what he calls a "sense of house" with private outdoor space for each family in an arrangement that represents a radical departure from prevailing apartment house design.
Sheraton Hotel cofounder Ernest Henderson dies of a heart attack at Boston September 6 at age 70.
The most severe blizzard since 1940 hits the Midwest January 26 following a tornado. Winds of 50 miles per hour roar up from New Mexico to the Ohio Valley, burying central and northern Illinois, northern Indiana, lower Michigan, Missouri, and Kansas in 15-foot snowdrifts. At least 75 people die in the Chicago area.
The Torrey Canyon wreck at Easter in the English Channel off the coast of Cornwall in southern England creates the biggest oil