1968

1961 1962 1963 1964 1965 1966 1967 1968 1969 1970

political events

The United States loses her 10,000th plane over Vietnam January 5 (see 1967). Former congresswoman Jeanette Rankin, now 87, leads 5,000 women of the Jeanette Rankin Brigade in a march on Capitol Hill at Washington, D.C., January 15 to protest U.S. involvement in the war. North Vietnamese artillery open up a barrage on the U.S. Marine base at Khe San January 21, hitting the main ammunition dump, killing 18 men, wounding 40, and destroying 90 percent of the Khe San arsenal as Gen. Vo Nguyen Giap, now 55, follows the strategy that he employed successfully against the French at Dien Bien Phu 14 years ago. The communists lay siege to Khe Sanh, a fortress that commands a major road junction and infiltration route south of the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ).

A great Tet offensive begins January 31 as Vietcong guerrillas attack the U.S. Embassy at Saigon and North Vietnamese forces attack some 30 South Vietnamese cities, including Hue and Saigon, in an effort to topple the regime of generals Nguyen Cao Ky and Nguyen Van Thieu, who are supported by the United States.

South Vietnamese forces recapture the ancient palace grounds at Hue February 24, but the success of the enemy leads Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara to resign; President Johnson replaces him with Clark Clifford.

A North Korean torpedo boat and subchaser seize the spy ship U.S.S. Pueblo off the port of Wonsan in January and her 83-man crew sustains one casualty. Crew members have tried frantically to shred documents and destroy espionage equipment before they could be seized; they are not totally successful, and the incident seriously compromises U.S. security. North Korea had broadcast warnings that she would not tolerate spy ships, but Idaho-born Pueblo commander Lloyd M. Bucher, 41, will deny that his ship came within 12 miles of the Korean coast and will be released with his surviving men after 11 months of captivity. A U.S. intelligence plane is shot down April 15 some 90 miles off the Korean coast.

My Lai village in South Vietnam is the scene of a massacre March 16. U.S. troops of C Company, First Battalion, Twentieth Infantry, Eleventh Brigade, American Division enter the village in Quang Ngai Province, gather hundreds of men, women, and children into groups, and "waste" them with automatic weapons fire. The Viet Cong has often used such villages as havens, and they have enraged the U.S. troops by killing a popular sergeant. Some of the soldiers refuse to fire on women and children; Louisiana-born warrant officer Hugh C. Thompson, Jr., 25, lands his reconnaissance helicopter to investigate. Told that it is none of his business, he takes off but then sees a ditch full of dead bodies with soldiers in the process of executing women, children, and old men. He lands again with his door gunner Lawrence Colburn and crew chief Glen Andreotta (who is killed 3 weeks later), they train their guns on the soldiers, and they help Thompson rescue nearly a dozen unarmed civilians, but the number of people killed will be reported at somewhere between 347 and 504. Soldiers who do participate in the massacre will later say that they acted on orders from Lieut. William L. Calley, Jr., 24; two soldiers write to their congressmen to complain of routine brutality, the army puts New York-born Major Colin L. (Luther) Powell, 31, in charge of an investigation, and he writes, "In direct refutation of this portrayal is the fact that relations between American soldiers and the Vietnamese people are excellent"; fellow officers ostracize Thompson for stopping the massacre, and news of the My Lai massacre will be suppressed for 20 months (see 1969).

Opposition to the Vietnam War enables Sen. Eugene McCarthy, 52, (D. Wis.) to make a strong showing in the New Hampshire primary; his success persuades President Johnson to announce March 31 that he will not be a candidate for reelection. New York civil-rights lawyer and anti-war activist Allard K. Lowenstein, 39, has led the opposition to another term for Johnson.

President Johnson announces cessation of U.S. air and naval bombardment north of the 20th parallel in Vietnam March 31 (advisers who include notably New York lawyer Arthur H. Dean, now 69, have persuaded the president to halt the bombing and not to run for reelection). South Carolina-born Gen. William (Childs) Westmoreland, 54, says, "The enemy has been defeated at every turn," but his statement has a hollow ring. Khe Sanh's garrison is successfully evacuated June 27; while it is true that the Americans have won every battle, the North Vietnamese have shown a willingness to sustain horrendous losses and continue fighting however long as it takes: their determination has impressed the world.

Nine Roman Catholic priests enter Selective Service offices at Catonsville, Md., in May, dump hundreds of 1-A classification records into trash baskets, take the records outside, burn them, and await arrest for their "symbolic act" protesting the Vietnam War. Jesuit priest-poet Daniel Berrigan, 47, his brother Philip, and their fellow priests will be sentenced to prison terms of from 2 to 3½ years each, but Daniel Berrigan will avoid apprehension after his conviction and exhaustion of appeals; he will continue speaking out against the war until rearrested in August 1970.

Rear Admiral Husband E. Kimmel (ret.) dies of a heart attack at Groton, Conn., May 14 at age 86.

Sen. Robert F. Kennedy (D. N.Y.) makes a bid for the presidency after seeing the success of Eugene McCarthy in New Hampshire. Now 42, "Bobby" captures 174 delegate votes (winning the Indiana, Nebraska, and California primaries, losing in Oregon), but is assassinated June 5 in a Los Angeles kitchen pantry after leaving a victory celebration at the Ambassador Hotel. Kennedy aides seize Jordanian-born Sirhan Bishara Sirhan, 24, as he empties his .22 caliber, eight-shot Ivor Johnson pistol, wounding five others (he has purchased the handgun for $29 from a local firearms dealer).

Cambodia's Prince Norodom Sihanouk, 45, warns American ships to stay out of his part of the Mekong River. His forces seize a U.S. patrol boat July 17.

Czechoslovakia's president Antonín Novotny resigns under pressure in January, communist hardliner Ludvík Svoboda, 72, wins election as president of the republic March 30 on the recommendation of the new Communist Party first secretary Alexander Dubcek, 46, but both Svoboda and Dubcek decline invitations to attend conferences at Warsaw or Moscow. Novotny is succeeded on Dubcek's recommendation by Moravian-born war hero Ludvík Svoboda, 72, who will hold office until 1975. Dubcek appoints miner's son and former minister of fuel Oldrich Cernik, 46, prime minister in April in hopes that Cernik's centrist position will mollify hardline communist critics of reform. Dubcek and Cernik receive support from presidents Tito and Ceausescu, but the "Prague Spring" that has seen a relaxation of oppression ends August 20 as some 200,000 Soviet and satellite troops invade Czechoslovakia on orders from Moscow (Romanian troops do not participate).

Popular demonstrations in Czechoslovakia raise a threat of revolution like the one in Hungary 12 years ago. Moscow increases the Soviet army of occupation to 650,000 and summons Czech leaders to the Kremlin (First Party Secretary Dubcek, Prime Minister Cernik, and some others are taken to Moscow in handcuffs). President Svoboda plays a major role in obtaining the release of Dubcek and his aides; they return to Prague August 27 and announce the annulment of several important reforms. Slovak communist Gustav Husák, 55, has been deputy premier since April, he favored caution before the Soviet invasion, has led the faction demanding a reversal of Dubcek's reforms, and is appointed leader of the Communist Party in Slovakia August 28. Soviet foreign minister Kuznetsov arrives at Prague, Party Secretary Dubcek bans political clubs September 6, Czech authorities introduce a censorship system September 13, and the foreign minister who presented the Czech case at the UN resigns under pressure September 19 (see 1969).

The 9-year-old nuclear submarine U.S.S Scorpion receives a top secret message shortly before midnight May 16 advising her skipper to change course in the Atlantic and head for the Canary Islands. She surfaces 33 minutes later at Rota, Spain, transfers two crewmen ashore via Navy tug for personal reasons, and disappears May 22, carrying all of the 99 men aboard to their deaths. Her wreckage is discovered two miles deep in November, the navy blames her loss on mechanical failure, but suspicions will persist that a Soviet ship sent her to the bottom.

The Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons) signed in triplicate July 1 at London, Moscow, and Washington, D.C., pledges Britain, the Soviet Union, and the United Nations to refrain from helping any country that does not yet possess nuclear explosives in obtaining or producing such explosives (see Test-Ban Treaty, 1963). Drafted with help from Mexican diplomat Alfonso García Robles, the treaty is to become effective in March 1970, 59 other nations soon sign it, France and the People's Republic of China will sign it in 1992, other nations (but not India, Pakistan, or Israel) will ratify it, and a consensus of 174 nations will vote at the United Nations in 1995 to extend it indefinitely.

Portuguese dictator Antonio de Oliveiro Salazar suffers a stroke and is replaced as prime minister September 21 by his former deputy Marcelo José das Neves Alves Catano, 61, who since 1959 has been rector of the University of Lisbon (see 1970).

French universities close down in May after widespread street fighting that began March 22 with violent student demonstrations at the University of Nanterre, outside Paris, and spread quickly to the Sorbonne and other schools. Police evacuate the Sorbonne May 3, arresting nearly 600 after more than 100 have been injured. Riots ensue in the Latin Quarter May 10 and 11 (the "night of the barricades") as students build cobblestone barricades and overturn 188 cars, burning many of them; nearly 1,000 are injured, including 251 police. Strikes in various industries from May 11 to May 27 bring an estimated 10 million workers off the job, President de Gaulle asks for restoration of order in a radio appeal broadcast May 24, French-born German student Daniel Cohn-Bendit ("Danny the Red"), 23, is exiled May 24 as a threat to public order (he took part initially in the revolt at Nanterre), trade unions sign major agreements on wages and working conditions May 27 and workers start returning to the job, de Gaulle dissolves Parlement May 30 and calls for elections, the movement loses steam by mid-June, the communists and other radical parties lose seats in the June elections, and the Gaullist Party wins a clear majority, having actually been strengthened by the disturbances.

Marshal Vasily Danilovich Sokolovsky dies at Moscow May 10 at age 70; Gen. Nikolaus von Falkenhorst at Hozminden, West Germany, June 18 at age 83 (he was condemned to death by the Nuremberg Tribunal in 1946 for ordering the execution of 40 British commandos and prisoners of war, his sentence was later commuted, and he was released from prison in 1953 because of a heart condition); Marshal Konstantin K. Rokossovsky dies at Moscow August 3 age 71; former Greek premier George Papandreou at Athens November 1 at age 80 after surgery for a bleeding ulcer; former United Nations secretary general Trygve Lie of a heart attack at Geilo, Norway, December 30 at age 72.

Iraq has a military coup d'état July 17 as the Arab Baath Socialist Party overthrows President Abd ar-Rahman Arif and replaces him with Gen. Ahmad Hassan al-Bakr, 54, who will share power with Baath leader Saddam Hussein, now 31 (see 1963; 1979; energy, 1972).

The Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) appoints a new leader as Arab hostility against Israel increases in the Middle East (see 1967): Yasir Arafat of the 12-year-old terrorist organization Al Fatah takes over, the major Arab nations agree to subsidize his activities, and he will head the PLO until his death in 2004 (see 1975).

Nauru in the South Pacific gains independence January 31. Once a German colony, the island with its rich phosphate deposits has been a British mandate and a United Nations Trust territory.

Mauritius in the Indian Ocean gains independence March 12 after more than 153 years of British colonial rule.

Former New Zealand prime minister Sir Walter Nash dies at Auckland June 4 at age 86.

President Marcos of the Philippines pardons former Huk leader Luis Taruc in September (see 1954). Now 55, Taruc resumes working for land reform. Manila lays claim to Saba on the island of Borneo and passes a law September 18 incorporating the territory into the Philippine Republic after talks at Bangkok with the Malaysian government have broken down. Communist guerrilla activity in northern Malaysia has resumed in June; Malaysia breaks relations with Manila.

Uganda's president Milton Obote promotes Brig. Gen. Idi Amin to major general, announces a turn to the left and tries to remove influential Bugandan officials from power, replacing them with members of his own ethnic Acholi and Langi tribes (see 1966; 1971).

Swaziland gains independence September 6 after 66 years of British rule.

Equatorial Guinea in West Africa gains independence October 12 after 124 years of Spanish colonial rule.

The African continent, which was completely white-controlled 10 years ago, is controlled south of the Sahara by black regimes in every country except Angola, Mozambique, Rhodesia, South Africa, South-West Africa (Namibia), and Equatorial Guinea. Within 6 years only Rhodesia, South Africa, and South-West Africa will remain white-controlled.

Canada's prime minister Lester B. Pearson announces in March that he will retire, and his minister of justice Pierre Elliott Trudeau campaigns for leadership of the Liberal Party; now 48, Trudeau has overcome widespread resistance to obtain passage of legislation calling for stricter gun control and reform of measures against abortion and homosexuality; his progressive ideas and colorful personality help him win out over 19 other candidates, he becomes party leader April 6, and he is elected prime minister April 20, assuming an office that he will hold until 1979 (and from 1980 to 1984).

Mexico City students gather in Tlatelolco Plaza (The Plaza of the Three Cultures) October 2 to protest an army takeover of the National University scarcely a week before the scheduled opening of the Olympic Games. President Gustavo Diaz Ordaz sends in riot police and federal troops to break up the demonstration, which has allegedly been instigated by writer Octavio Paz's wife and fellow writer Elena Garro, 47 (she goes into exile and will remain abroad for more than 20 years); at least 10 plainclothes snipers on rooftops of the surrounding Tlatelolco housing complex open fire with machine guns on tens of thousands of student demonstrators in the worst massacre since the 1910 revolution. Officials initially report 29 dead and later raise the figure to 37; a U.S. diplomat says "nearly 200" were killed, others count as many as 700 bodies. Some 2,000 young people are beaten and jailed, police ransack the office of a magazine that publishes dramatic photographs of the events, and the massacre brings demands for democracy and accountability that will grow in future years as survivors come to play leading roles in the nation's intellectual and political life (but see 1971).

Peru has a military coup d'état October 3 as a column of tanks under the command of Gen. Juan Velasco Alvarado, 58, rumbles into Lima's Plaza de Armas, arrests President Belaunde Terry, sends him into exile in the United States, and defies U.S. interests by seizing properties (see 1963). Velasco Alvarado has capitalized on public outrage over an agreement allowing a U.S. company to develop oil fields in northern Peru, and he will rule until his own overthrow in 1975, making sweeping changes in the nation's society by limiting U.S. influence; nationalizing electric power, transportation, and communications; and converting millions of acres of privately-owned farms into worker-managed cooperatives.

Puerto Rico's Popular Democratic Party divides into factions after having controlled the governorship for 20 years and dominated the legislature for 28. New Progressive Party founder Luis A. (Alberto) Ferré, 64, is elected governor and will serve until 1973, increasing workers' wages and benefits, constructing roads, an airport, and beaches, and developing the island's copper mines.

U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice Earl Warren advises President Johnson June 13 that he wishes to retire for reasons of age after 15 years; Johnson nominates Justice Abe Fortas, now 58, to succeed him (but see 1969).

Former House Speaker Joseph W. Martin Jr. (D. Mass.), dies of peritonitis from a ruptured appendix at Hollywood, Fla., March 6 at age 83; Alabama's governor Lurleen (Mrs. George) Wallace dies of cancer at Montgomery May 7 at age 41. She is succeeded by Albert Preston Brewer, 39.

The U.S. Supreme Court upholds the Selective Service Act May 27 in an opinion handed down in the case of United States v. O'Brien (draft resister David P. O'Brien and three companions burned their draft cards on the steps of the South Boston Courthouse at the end of March 1966 and O'Brien was indicted).

Bloody police confrontations mark the Democratic Party convention at Chicago in August, with demonstrators protesting U.S. military involvement in Southeast Asia and many domestic policies (see 1967). Some 10,000 militants protest the rising death toll in Vietnam with a "Festival of Life" in Grant and Lincoln parks that includes rock concerts, marijuana smoking, public lovemaking, beach nude-ins, and draft card burnings. Self-styled revolutionists have called for a mobilization of 500,000 at Chicago, but their forces are far outnumbered by 16,000 Chicago police officers, 4,000 state police officers, and 4,000 National Guardsmen armed with tear gas grenades, night sticks, and firearms, who act on orders from Chicago's Mayor Richard Daley and brutally crack heads to prevent demonstrators from remaining overnight in city parks. The police arrest 308, and although eight cops are indicted for use of excessive force all will be acquitted. Leaders of the protest include Worcester, Mass.-born activist Abbot H. "Abbie" Hoffman, 30, and Jerry C. Rubin, 29, of the "Yippies" (Youth International Party), Rennie Davis, 27, and Michigan-born Thomas E. Hayden, 27, of the Students for a Democratic Society (SDS), Dallas-born Black Panther leader Robert George "Bobby" Seale, 31, and civil rights advocate David Dellinger, 52 (see trial, 1969).

Democrats at Chicago nominate Vice President Hubert Horatio Humphrey, 57, to succeed President Johnson, who announces complete cessation of U.S. aerial, artillery, and naval bombardment of Vietnam north of the 20th parallel October 31 in a move to further the peace talks at Paris and help Humphrey's chances for the presidency, but the talks produce no results.

Former vice president Richard M. Nixon wins the Republican nomination on the first ballot, having actively campaigned for Republican candidates in 1966 and regained favor. He claims to have a "secret plan" for ending the war in Vietnam and wins election by the narrowest margin since his own defeat by John F. Kennedy in 1960—43.4 percent of the popular vote to Humphrey's 43 percent (but 302 electoral votes to Humphrey's 191). Former Alabama governor George C. Wallace carries five Southern states with a combined electoral vote of 45 (he has run as the candidate of the American Independent Party). Antiwar activist Benjamin Spock, M.D., has run as the People's Party candidate on a platform that called for free medical care, legalization of abortion and marijuana, a guaranteed minimum income, and immediate withdrawal of all U.S. troops from foreign countries.

Brooklyn's 12th Congressional District elects local activist Shirley (Anita St. Hill) Chisholm, 43, to the House of Representatives, where she will be the first elected black congresswoman. Chisholm will serve seven terms.

Los Angeles County superior court judge Shirley (Mount) Hufstedler, 43, is appointed to the U.S. Court of Appeals, becoming the first woman appellate justice (see education, 1979).

National Turn in Your Draft Card Day November 14 features burning of draft cards and war protest rallies at many U.S. campuses as the Vietnam death toll approaches 30,000 and U.S. troop strength in Vietnam reaches its peak of 550,000.

Longtime Socialist Party leader and pacifist Norman Thomas dies of a heart attack at Huntington, N.Y., December 19 at age 84.

human rights, social justice

The Kerner Report issued February 29 says, "Our nation is moving toward two societies, one black, one white, separate and unequal." The National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders headed by Gov. Otto Kerner Jr., 59, of Illinois charges white society with condoning the black ghetto it has created.

Martin Luther King Jr. is shot dead April 4 as he steps out on the balcony of his Memphis motel room. The civil-rights leader has for 6 years been under surveillance by the FBI, whose director J. Edgar Hoover has used wiretaps, electronic bugs, and paid informants to gain information on Rev. King's private life and circulated it in an effort to discredit him. A March 3 memo from Hoover has spelled out FBI goals in a "Counter-Intelligence Program" against "Black Nationalist Hate-Groups": "1. Prevent the coalition of militant black nationalist groups . . . [that] might be the first step toward a real 'Mau Mau' in America, the beginning of a true black revolution. 2. Prevent the rise of a 'messiah' who could unify and electrify the militant black nationalist movement . . . King could be a very real contender for this position should he abandon his supposed 'obedience' to 'white, liberal doctrines (nonviolence) and embrace black nationalism." Only 39 at his death, King has been picked off with one shot fired from a sniper's 30.06 Remington rifle. Fingerprints indicate that the assassin was ex-convict James Earl Ray, 39, who escaped last year from Mississippi State Penitentiary; he is indicted for murder and arrested June 8 by Scotland Yard detectives at a London airport (veteran detective Thomas M. J. Butler, now 55, has led the search for him). Extradited to stand trial, Ray will plead guilty and be sentenced next year to 99 years in prison, but he will later recant and doubts will remain as to whether he acted alone.

Race riots erupt at Baltimore, Boston, Chicago, Detroit, Kansas City, Newark, Washington, D.C., and scores of other cities following the King assassination. Chicago's Mayor Daley gives police "shoot to kill" orders to put down the rioting that produces nearly 3,000 arrests in that city, $11 million in property damage, nine dead, 500 injured. Baltimore suffers $14 million in property damage, 5,800 arrests, six dead, 900 injured. Washington, D.C. suffers $24 million in property damage, more than 8,000 arrests, 11 dead, more than 1,000 injured (the city's new mayor, Harold E. Washington, angers FBI director J. Edgar Hoover by giving orders that looters are not to be shot). A total of 46 deaths result across the country, 55,000 federal troops and National Guardsmen are called out, 21,270 arrests made.

A new U.S. Civil Rights bill signed into law by President Johnson April 11 stresses open housing.

A Poor People's March on Washington gets under way May 3, but while his Alabama-born chief aide Rev. Ralph (David) Abernathy, 42, has succeeded the late Martin Luther King Jr. as head of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference and continues its commitment to nonviolent social clubs, the SCLC will soon stop mounting giant demonstrations and limit its activities to smaller campaigns, mostly in the South.

Poland's communist government launches a campaign in March against dissident intellectuals and students, stripping 12,000 to 20,000 Jews and people of Jewish origin of their citizenship and forcing them to leave the country. Poland's president will invite the Jews to return in March 1998, calling the anti-Semitic episode a shameful page in Polish history.

German-born French fascism fighter Beate Klarsfeld (née Kunzel), 29, confronts West German Chancellor Kurt-George Kiesinger during the Christian Democratic Party convention at West Berlin and slaps him in the face, drawing attention to his Nazi past. She is arrested and will serve a 1-year prison sentence, but Kiesinger will not be reelected. Not herself Jewish, Kunzel first heard about the Holocaust in 1960 from fellow student Serge Klarsfeld, whose father was one of some 70,000 French Jews killed at Auschwitz. She later married Klarsfeld, now a lawyer, and together they will work for the next 20 years to track down and expose former Nazis, including Kurt Lischka (who headed the Gestapo in France), the infamous "Butcher of Lyon" Klaus Barbie, and Auschwitz death camp doctor Joseph Mengele, despite beatings, car bombings, and death threats from neo-Nazis (see 1984).

exploration, colonization

Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin dies in a plane crash near Moscow March 27 at age 34. (Another pilot is also killed in the crash of the two-seat jet.) Gagarin was the first man in space and in recent years has been demoted for using his position as a hero of the Soviet Union to speak out in support of dissidents, but his ashes are interred in a niche in the Kremlin wall and the town of Gzhatsk (he was born nearby) is renamed Gagarin.

The U.S. Apollo 7 mission from October 11 to 22 is the first manned flight of Apollo Command and Service modules. Astronauts on the mission include civilian physicist R. (Ronnie) Walter Cunningham, 36, who was a Marine Corps fighter pilot from 1953 to 1956 (see moon landing, 1969).

commerce

Half of all U.S. mothers of school-age children are in the workforce as of March, and seven out of 10 work full time (80 percent of these have no husbands). All but 10 percent say they need the money, either to support themselves and their families or to pay for medical care, save for a child's education, or buy a house.

The gap between rich nations and underdeveloped nations must be narrowed or "men and women will be impelled to revolt," warns India's prime minister Indira Gandhi at New Delhi.

U.S.-owned multinationals have been the chief beneficiaries of the European Common Market, says French economist Jean-Jacques Servan-Schreiber in his book The American Challenge.

Economic inflation continues to mount in much of the world. The United States and six West European nations agree March 18 to supply no more gold to private buyers.

Britain's Exchequer issues the nation's first 5- and 10-pence coins April 23 as the British shift to the decimal system after centuries of dealing with guineas, crowns, half-crowns, sovereigns, shillings, sixpences, and threepences (see 1971).

Japan's Gross National Product (GNP) climbs 12 percent to $140 billion and passes that of West Germany by $10 billion to make Japan the free world's second strongest economic power after the United States (whose GNP is $860 billion), but per capita income is $921, little more than that of Ireland.

The United States has 4,462 corporate business mergers, up from 2,975 last year (see 1969).

The Consumer Credit Protection Act approved by Congress May 29 will stand as landmark legislation; the so-called "Truth in Lending" Act requires banks and other lending institutions to disclose clearly the true annual rate of interest and other financing costs on most types of loans.

President Johnson signs a bill June 28 adding a 10 percent surcharge to income taxes and reducing government spending, but the war in Indochina is costing the United States millions of dollars per day.

The Pentagon announces August 1 that it will buy steel only from firms that have not raised prices, but wholesale steel prices beginning at the end of this year will climb in 15 of the next 18 months as American steelmakers negotiate agreements with European and Japanese mills to reduce their shipments to the United States and U.S. industry raises prices in anticipation of possible price controls.

First Philadelphia Bank installs a one-way cash dispenser imported from Britain; Canton, Ohio, safe manufacturer Deibold & Co. begins making automatic teller machines, patented in 1960 by inventor Luther Simjian, but, like cash dispensers, they require paper vouchers (see 1969).

Wall Street's Dow Jones Industrial Average closes November 29 at 985.08 and closes December 31 at 943.75, up from 905.11 at the end of 1967.

BankAmericard holders number 14 million by year's end, up from 2 million at the end of 1966, and 316,000 U.S. merchants accept the card, up from 64,000 at the end of 1966. By 1974 there will be more than 26 million BankAmericard holders and at least 33 million Master Charge card holders. Bank credit cards will be used to finance $13 billion worth of business per year in the United States (roughly 2.6 percent of all retail sales), 970,000 U.S. merchants will honor BankAmericard and more thousands will honor Master Charge, thousands of merchants in other countries will honor the cards, and approximately 3.8 percent of U.S. consumer debt will be in loans outstanding on bank credit cards, much of it at interest rates as high as 18 percent per year.

energy

U.S. natural gas consumption begins to exceed new gas discoveries and reserves for interstate pipelines begin falling (see 1964). The industry blames artificially low prices established by the Federal Power Commission for having discouraged exploration for new reserves at a time when FPC actions have increased demand for natural gas. Some independent economists agree.

Oil discovered on Alaska's North Slope proves to be the largest reserve north of the Mexican border; petroleum companies join forces to establish the Alyeska Pipeline Service Co. to bring the oil south to the ice-free port of Valdez, whose facilities have been rebuilt since the earthquake of 1964, making it favored as a port for shipment by tanker to world markets, but a debate begins as to the environmental impact of the pipeline (see 1969).

Peru's president Juan Velasco Alvarado seizes the International Petroleum Co.'s La Brea and Pariñas oil fields without compensating IPC's owner, Standard Oil Co. of New Jersey.

An explosion at a Consolidation Coal Co. mine along Buffalo Creek at Farmington, W. Va., November 20 kills 78 people. Three more are killed December 12 in a fire at a Buffalo Mining Co. mine at nearby Lyburn. Buffalo Mining is a subsidiary of Pittston Co. (see 1972).

transportation

Penn Central is created February 14 by a merger of the Pennsylvania Railroad with the New York Central. Pennsy president James M. Symes, 71, has promoted the idea of combining the two roads; both are in financial trouble as a result of competition from trucks and automobiles that use publicly financed highways and airlines that use publicly financed airports. The new $5 billion corporation will be bankrupt within 2 years.

A Delta Airlines jet carrying 169 passengers is hijacked February 21 over southern Florida, the hijacker holds a gun on the pilot and forces him to land in Cuba, similar episodes follow, and the hijackings will lead to airport searches of passengers and luggage.

Pan Am and Aeroflot begin direct service between New York and Moscow July 15 (see 1956). Aeroflot uses the four-jet 11-62 designed by Sergei V. Ilyushin, now 73, for the first direct air link between the two countries since the start of the Cold War in 1946.

A prototype of the Tu-144 demonstrated by Aeroflot December 31 is the first supersonic airliner.

The S.S. QE 2 launched by the Cunard line replaces the 83,673-ton Queen Elizabeth launched in 1940. The new 66,850-ton passenger liner is 963 feet in length overall, carries 1,815 passengers, 1,000 in crew, and has four swimming pools, 13 decks, 24 elevators, and a 531-seat theater.

A 326,000-ton supertanker goes into service on charter to Gulf Oil. She will be followed by five sister ships (see 1972).

British Leyland Motor Corp. Ltd. is created February 8 by a merger of the 2-year-old British Motor Holdings Ltd. and Leyland Motor Corp Ltd.

U.S. automobile production reaches 8.8 million; truck and bus production approaches 2 million.

Volkswagen chief Heinz Nordhoff dies of a heart attack at Wolfsburg, West Germany, April 12 at age 69. He is succeeded by his deputy director Kurt Lotz, and Volkswagen captures 57 percent of the U.S. import market, with U.S. sales peaking at 569,292 vehicles, up from 120,000 in 1959. Seventy percent of VWs sold are Beetle models priced at under $1,800 and VWs outsell many U.S. makes, including Pontiac, Chevrolet Chevelle, Ford Fairlane, Plymouth Fury, Buick, Ford Mustang, Oldsmobile, and Chrysler (see 1970).

West Germany produces 2.5 million cars and nearly 600,000 trucks; Japan 2.1 million cars, 2 million trucks; Britain 1.7 million cars, 400,000 trucks and buses; France 1.8 million cars, 243,000 trucks; Italy 1.5 million cars, 115,000 trucks.

The German NSU Ro 80 introduced in Britain is the first Wankel-engine automobile (see Wankel, 1957). Toyo Kogyo in Japan uses the Wankel engine for its new Mazda cars.

Former Ford Motor Co. chairman Ernest R. Breech dies of a heart attack at Royal Oak, Mich., July 3 at age 81; Ford assembly line designer Charles E. Sorensen at Bethesda, Md., August 13 at age 86; Fruehauf Trailer Co. cofounder Harvey C. Fruehauf of a heart attack at Detroit October 14 at age 74.

technology

Intel is cofounded in July by silicon microchip coinventor Robert Noyce (see 1959) and Gordon E. Moore, now 39, who leave Fairchild Semiconductor (following the departure of its chief executive Richard Hodgson to ITT), put up $250,000 each, recruit their Hungarian-born protégé Andrew Grove (originally Anders Graf), 32, and start a company to make memory chips, using a new metallic oxide semiconductor process. Building on work that has created two types of integrated circuits, one for logic and one for memory (both random access memory, or RAM, and read-only memory, or ROM), Intel will soon produce the world's first microprocessor (see Intel 4004, 1971).

Sperry-Rand founder James H. Rand dies at Freeport, Bahamas, June 3 at age 81.

The "mouse" demonstrated for the first time December 9 makes it easier to move a cursor around the screen of a computer. Invented at Menlo Park, Calif., 5 years ago by Stanford Research Institute engineer Douglas Engelbart, now 43, the graphical user interface device was originally a mechanical unit whose first prototype was a wheeled block carved from wood in the shape of a small brick with one button on top and two perpendicularly-placed wheels beneath it for detecting vertical and horizontal motion; an analog device attached to the two wheels plotted their position on an x-and-y axis, and the device was wired to an early workstation; it was awkward to maneuver, but the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) tested it in 1966 and found it superior to other pointing devices such as arrow keys on keyboards, light pens, and knee switches. Its two wheels have been replaced by a single ball (see 1973).

science

Theoretical physicist Richard P. Feynman comes up with a theory that will lead to a better understanding of quarks (see 1964). Now 50, Feynman has been working at Stanford University with the developers of the Stanford Linear Accelerator and bases his theory on partons—the hypothetical hard particles inside the nucleus of an atom.

Icthyologist J. L. B. Smith dies at Cape Town January 7 at age 70, having gained fame for identifying the supposedly extinct coelacanth; Nobel physicist Lev Davidovich Landau dies at Moscow April 1 at age 60 of injuries suffered in a January 1962 auto accident; Nobel physiologist Corneille Heymans dies at Knokke, Belgium, July 18 at age 76, having discovered the regulatory effect of various sensory organs on respiration; Nobel chemist Otto Hahn dies at Göttingen July 28 age 89; physicist Lise Meitner at London October 27 at age 89.

medicine

Christiaan Barnard performs the most successful heart transplant to date January 2, giving retired Cape Town dentist Philip Blaiberg, 58, the heart of a young man of mixed race and thereby creating a sensation throughout South Africa (see 1967); the heart continues to function for 19 months and 5 days, partly because Barnard's team has reduced the amount of antirejection drugs. Barnard will continue his practice until 1983, when arthritis will abort his career; heart transplants will become standard in the next 30 years through the introduction of more powerful antirejection drugs, the procedure will be employed an estimated 100,000 times worldwide by the end of the century, 85 to 90 percent of patients will survive for at least 1 year, 75 percent for 5 years or more.

Houston cardiovascular surgeon Denton (Arthur) Cooley, 47, performs the first successful U.S. heart transplant May 2, removing the damaged heart of a 47-year-old male patient and replacing it with the heart of a 15-year-old female who has died of a brain injury. Cooley performs four similar transplants within 4 weeks (two patients die subsequently of other causes); he will use the first artificial heart next year as a stopgap measure to keep a patient alive for 64 hours at the Texas Heart Institute until a natural donor heart can be found and transplanted (see Jarvik, 1982).

The Medical Care Act signed into law July 1 by Canada's prime minister Lester Pearson quickly becomes known as Medicare and will be completely universal by April 1, 1972 (see 1964; U.S. Medicare, 1964; Hall Commission Review, 1979).

The United States has only 22,231 reported cases of measles, down from 400,000 in 1962, as a result of the Enders vaccine (see 1962).

Aerobics by Ottawa-born U.S. Air Force major Kenneth H. Cooper, M.D., 37, launches Americans on a fitness exercise kick that will lead to a craze for jogging, swimming, bicycling, and aerobic dancing to stimulate heart and lung functions by forcing the body to consume up to 50 milliliters of oxygen in 12 minutes. Cooper's books will be translated into 39 languages and sell millions of copies (see 1971).

Johnson & Johnson chairman Robert Wood Johnson dies at New York January 30 at age 74; former U.S. surgeon general Thomas Parran Jr. at Pittsburgh February 16 at age 75; penicillin pioneer Howard Walter Florey (Lord Florey) of a heart attack at London February 21 at age 69; Dr. Scholl foot-product company founder William M. Scholl of pneumonia at Chicago March 3 at age 85.

religion

British authorities refuse entry to Scientology students and teachers on the grounds that Scientology is "socially harmful" and that its "authoritarian principles and practices are a potential menace to the well-being of those so deluded as to become followers" (see 1963). The ban will remain in effect until 1980 (see 1973).

Theologian Karl Barth dies at Basel, Switzerland, December 9 at age 82.

education

Ireland's minister for education Donagh O'Malley dies suddenly at his native Limerick March 10 at age 46, but the government will implement his vision for free secondary education (see 1967).

French universities have turbulent disorders; President de Gaulle appoints former agriculture minister Edgar (-Jean) Faure, 59, minister of education, Parlement enacts a new law to reform higher education, and Faure will transform the nation's university system within a year, whereupon he will be named minister of state for social affairs (see Lille, 1970).

U.S. universities shut down as students demonstrate against the Vietnam War.

Militant Columbia University students shut down the school to protest its involvement in the war and its construction of a gymnasium in an area needed for low-cost housing. The protesters include members of the radical Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) and black activists H. Rap Brown and Stokely Carmichael. Evanston, Ill.-born political scientist David (Bicknell) Truman, 54, has been provost since last year and has liberalized rules governing the 17,500-student campus, speaking out for civil rights, instituting a 2-week break between the end of classes and final exams, allowing men to close their doors when they had women in their rooms, and challenging his colleague Jacques Barzun's assertion that the liberal arts are "dead or dying." Gym construction is halted April 25, but students led by Mark Rudd, 20, of the SDS take over five buildings in a week-long sit-in, demanding amnesty for protesters; Truman calls in the police, they storm the buildings April 30 after wanton destruction of property and make 628 arrests; classes are formally suspended May 5, and a second occupation of Hamilton Hall ends with a police raid May 22, 17 officers are injured, 81 students. A commission appointed by the faculty reports later in the year that "the seizure of the buildings was not simply the work of a few radicals" but "involved a significant portion of the student body who had become disenchanted with the operation of their university."

San Francisco State College students strike November 6, demanding open admission and a Third World Studies Department. The college is closed November 19 following daily confrontations between students and police. Semanticist S. I. Hayakawa is named president of the college, reopens it December 2, then closes it early for the Christmas vacation to avoid having high school students join the protest. The strike will continue for 5 months.

Helen Keller dies after a mild stroke at Westport, Conn., June 1 at age 87, having had earlier diabetes-related strokes; educator Carleton W. Washburne of 1919 Winnetka Plan fame dies at Okemos, Mich., November 17 at age 78.

communications, media

The U.S. first class postal rate climbs to 6¢ January 7 (see 1963; 1971).

Polish editor Jerzy Turowicz of the weekly Tygodnik Powszechny defies the authorities who have launched an anti-Semitic purge and makes sure that articles by Jewish writers are published when no one else will publish them. He invites poet Anton Slonimsky to be a contributing editor (see 1956; 1982).

Soviet writer Vladimir Yemelyanovich Maksimov (originally Lev Alekseyvich Samsonov), 37, resigns as editor of the communist literary journal Oktyabr to protest the invasion of Czechslovakia.

Paris newspaper cartoonist Franklin Loufrani, 25, celebrates the end of the student riots by creating a bright yellow circle with stretched polka-dot eyes and a wide smile (see Ball, 1963). He will register the trademarked Smiley icon in France in October 1971, extend rights to its use in more than 80 countries, and earn substantial sums of money from it, but U.S. manufacturers will use the feel-good icon without Loufrani's permission, and although Loufrani will claim the dubious distinction of having created the smiley face and register a combination of the yellow logo and the word Smiley in America, he will not be allowed to claim rights to either one of them separately.

New Yorker magazine cartoonist Peter Arno of emphysema and lung cancer at Portchester, N.Y., February 22 at age 64; "Katzenjammer Kids" cartoonist Rudolf Dirks at New York April 25 at age 91; "Little Orphan Annie" cartoonist Harold L. Gray of cancer at La Jolla, Calif., May 9 at age 74 (others continue the strip); St. Petersburg Times and Congressional Quarterly publisher Nelson Poynter dies of a cerebral hemorrhage at St. Petersburg, Fla., June 15 at age 74; New York Times publisher Arthur Hays Sulzberger at New York December 11 at age 77 (he is succeeded by his son Arthur Ochs Sulzberger, 42).

A new Canadian Broadcasting Act passed in February takes effect April 1 designating the 32-year-old Canadian Broadcasting Corp. (CBC) as the agency providing "the national broadcasting service," with programming to be bilingual and predominantly Canadian in content, but the act provides also for some private ownership.

The U.S. television industry has advertising revenues of $2 billion, roughly twice the total of radio advertising revenues. Both industries derive strong revenues from cigarette commercials (see 1967; 1969).

Action for Children's Television is founded by Newton, Mass., mother Peggy Charren, 39, and three other women who are concerned about the violence and huckstering of unwholesome products on commercial programming directed at youngsters.

Sony Corp. introduces the Trinitron color television set.

World television set ownership nears 200 million with 78 million sets in the United States, 25 million in the Soviet Union, 20.5 million in Japan, 19 in Britain, 13.5 in West Germany, 10 in France.

60 Minutes debuts on CBS Television 9/24 with anchors Myron Leon "Mike" Wallace, 45, and Harry Reasoner in a magazine-style investigative reporting format devised by producer Don Hewitt, 45, that will continue for more than 30 years, with various other journalists (including Ed Bradley, Steve Croft, Dan Rather, Andy Rooney, Morley Safer, Bob Simon, and Lesley Stahl) replacing Reasoner and supplementing Wallace.

Radio announcer Westbrook van Voorhis dies of cancer at Milford, Conn., July 13 at age 64; former radio commentator Raymond Gram Swing of a heart attack at Washington, D.C. December 22 at age 81.

New York magazine carries an interview by Toledo, Ohio-born writer Gloria Steinem, 34, with the wife of former vice president Richard M. Nixon conducted aboard a plane on the campaign trail. Pat Nixon (née Thelma Catherine Ryan), 56, tells Steinem, "I haven't just sat back and thought of myself or my ideas or what I wanted to do. Oh, no, I've stayed interested in people. I've kept working . . . I don't have time to worry about who I admire or who I identify with. I've never had it easy. I'm not like all you—all those people who had it easy." "Pat doesn't have a mink coat," her husband told television audiences 16 years ago in his famous "Checkers" speech, and she tells Steinem that a "good Republican cloth coat" is still good enough.

President-elect Nixon calls the congressional Commission on Obscenity and Pornography created last year "morally bankrupt" and says that "so long as I am in the White House, there will be no relaxation of the national effort to control and eliminate smut from our national life."

The 911 emergency telephone number instituted in New York to summon emergency police, fire, or ambulance assistance is the first such system in the United States (see Britain, 1937). By 1977 some 600 U.S. localities with a total population of 38 million will have 911 systems.

Xerox inventor Chester F. Carlson dies at New York September 19 at age 62, having become a multi-millionaire from his royalties and appreciation of his Xerox Corp. stock. Determined to die poor, he has given away some $100 million to various philanthropies.

literature

Nonfiction: Toward a Rational Society by German philosopher and sociologist Jürgen Habermas, 39, who has a Kantian dedication to reason, ethics, and moral philosophy. A member of the "Frankfurt School" who has studied under Paul Adorno, Habermas will be condemned by some as a "Luddite"; Four Essays on Liberty by Sir Isaiah Berlin (he was knighted in 1957); Liberalism: Ancient and Modern by Leo Strauss; Soul on Ice by Arkansas-born Black Panther leader (Leroy) Eldridge Cleaver, 33, who wrote it in prison while serving 9 years for drug dealing and rape. The Panthers have run a free-lunch program at Oakland, Calif., and worked to help inner-city blacks help themselves, but Cleaver's faction has favored overthrowing the U.S. government by force and replacing it with a black socialist regime. Cleaver flees to Cuba in November to avoid going to prison for parole violations and begins a 7-year exile; Death in Life: Survivors of Hiroshima and Revolutionary Immortality: Mao Tse-Tung and the Chinese Revolution by Robert Jay Lifton; Chemical and Biological Warfare by Chicago-born journalist Seymour M. Hersh, 31; Slouching Towards Bethlehem (essays) by Sacramento-born California journalist-novelist Joan Didion, 33; Disobedience and History by Howard Zinn; Can We Win in Vietnam? by Herman Kahn; Les Nègres Blancs d'Amerique (White Niggers of America) by Quebec separatist Pierre Vallières, 30, who says, "To be a nigger in America is to be not a man but someone's slave." He calls upon Québcois to take up arms and use gasoline bombs in their campaign for independence, but critics say that being a black in the United States is incomparably more burdensome than being a French-Canadian; The Naked Civil Servant by English writer-raconteur-actor Quentin Crisp (originally Denis Pratt), 59, is an account of his openly homosexual life in London; Crisis Now by James M. Gavin, who criticizes the U.S. Army for over-reliance on nuclear weapons and other advanced hardware at the expense of conventional forces; The Whole Earth Catalog by Menlo Park, Calif., Truck Store operator Stewart Brand, 29; The Politics of Ecstasy by marijuana advocate Timothy Leary, who urges his readers to "turn on and drop out"; The Teachings of Don Juan: A Yaqui Way of Knowledge by Peruvian- (or Brazilian-) born California anthropologist Carlos Castaneda, 42 (or 36—he is secretive about his life), who has explored the jimson weed and peyote drug culture of Sonora, Mexico, where belief in the supernatural is widespread. Castaneda's book becomes an international bestseller, although doubts will be raised as to whether the Yaqui Indian shaman Juan Matus ever existed outside the author's fantasies. Castaneda will write nine other books and be credited not only with reviving interest in Indian and Southwest cultures but also with helping to usher in the "New Age" sensibility.

British diplomat-author-critic Sir Harold Nicolson dies of a heart attack in Kent May 1 at age 81; lecturer-journalist Randolph (Frederick Edward Spencer) Churchill at his country home in Stour June 6 at age 57, having completed two volumes of a projected five-volume biography of his late father, the prime minister; psychologist Edwin G. Boring dies at Cambridge, Mass., July 1 at age 81; historian Crane Brinton at Cambridge, Mass., September 7 at age 70; author Thomas Merton (Father M. Louis) while attending an ecumenical conference of Catholic and Buddhist monks at Bangkok December 9 at age 53 when he is accidentally electrocuted in his bathtub by an electric fan.

Fiction: The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test by Richmond, Va.-born novelist Tom Wolfe (Thomas Kennerly Wolfe Jr.), 37, whose term "radical chic" becomes a national catch phrase; The Armies of the Night: History as a Novel, The Novel as History by Norman Mailer; Welcome to the Monkey House (stories) by Kurt Vonnegut Jr.; Couples by John Updike; First Circle (V kruge pyervom) and Cancer Ward (Rakovy korpus) by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn; Enderby by Anthony Burgess; The Military Philosophers by Anthony Powell; Expensive People by Joyce Carol Oates; My Michael by Israeli novelist Amos Oz, 29; Over Against the Woods (Muol ha-ye'arot) (stories) by Jerusalem-born Israeli writer A. (Abraham) B. Yehoshua, 31; Myra Breckenridge by Gore Vidal; Cocksure by Mordecai Richler; The Universal Baseball Association, J. Harry Waugh, Prop. by Robert Coover; Dance of the Happy Shades (stories) by Canadian writer Alice Munro (née Laidlaw), 37; Tigers Are Better Looking (stories) by Jean Rhys; Star Quest by Pennsylvania-born novelist Dean R. (Ray) Koontz, 23; Outer Dark by Cormac McCarthy; Red Sky at Morning by Chicago-born, New Orleans-raised Santa Fe novelist Richard Bradford (son of Roark Bradford), 36; Airport by Arthur Hailey; The Salzburg Connection by Helen MacInnes.

The Booker Prize established by Britain's Publishers Association and the Booker food company rewards literary merit, publicizes little-known authors, and will increase sales of novels. Emulating the prix Goncourt established in France 65 years ago, the Booker will become Britain's most coveted literary award.

Salt Lake City-born writer Neal Cassady dies of alcohol and drugs beside a Mexican railroad track at San Miguel de Allende February 4 at age 41, having written long, spontaneous letters that inspired William S. Burroughs, Allen Ginsberg, Jack Kerouac, and other members of the Beat Generation; novelist Fannie Hurst dies at New York February 23 at age 78; Edwin O'Connor of a cerebral hemorrhage at Boston March 23 at age 49; Damon Runyon Jr. in a leap from a bridge at Washington, D.C., April 14 at age 50; novelist-playwright Edna Ferber dies at New York April 16 at age 82; Allan Seeger of cancer at Ann Arbor, Mich., May 10 at age 62; Dorothy Dodds Baker at Terra Bella, Calif., June 17 at age 61; Charles Jackson commits suicide at New York September 21 at age 65; mystery writer Cornell Woolrich dies at New York September 25 age 64; Conrad Richter of a heart ailment at Pottsville, Pa., October 30 at age 78; Rose Wilder Lane at her Danbury, Conn., home October 30 at age 80; novelist-politician Upton Sinclair at Bound Brook, N.J., November 25 age 90; John Steinbeck of a heart ailment at New York December 20 at age 66; Czech novelist Max Brod of a heart attack at Tel Aviv December 20 at age 84; James Kennaway at London December 21 at age 40 from injuries sustained in a motorcar accident.

Poetry: "August 1968" by W. H. Auden has been inspired by the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia; Of Being Numerous by George Oppen; White Haired Lover by Karl Shapiro; Bending the Bow by Oakland, Calif.-born poet Robert (Edward) Duncan, 49; Shall We Gather at the River by James Wright; The Speed of Darkness by Muriel Rukeyser; Windmill Country,The Hidden Journey, and Late Night Bulletin by Dorothy Hewett; His Toy, His Dream, His Rest by John Berryman; A Day for Anne Frank by Newark, N.J.-born poet C. K. (Charles Kenneth) Williams, 31; The World Saved by Little Children (Il mondo salvato dai ragazzini) by Elsa Morante; Firstborn by New York-born poet Louise (Elisabeth) Glück, 25; Black Judgement by Nikki Giovanni includes her poem "Nikki Rosa."

Poet-essayist Gunnar Ekelöf dies at Sigtuna, Sweden, March 16 at age 60; Arnulf Overland at Oslo March 25 at age 77 (after his liberation from a German concentration camp in 1945 the Norwegian government expressed its gratitude by giving him the old home of poet Hernik Wergeland); poet-art critic Herbert Read dies near Malton, England, June 10 at age 74; Salvatore Quasimodo of a brain hemorrhage at Naples June 14 at age 60.

Juvenile: Corduroy by California author-illustrator Don Freeman, 60; Tikki Tikki Tembo by Cleveland-born author Arlene Mosel (née Tichy), 47, illustrations by Blair Lent; CDB! and Roland the Minstrel Pig by New Yorker magazine cartoonist-author William Steig, now 60; Lagalag, the Wanderer by Carol Fenner.

Author-illustrator Virginia Lee Burton dies following lung cancer surgery at Boston October 15 at age 59; Enid Blyton at Hampstead, London, November 28 at age 71.

art

Painting: Townscape Madrid by German painter Gerhard Richter, 46; American Love by Robert Indiana; Untitled by Frank Stella; The Beatles (photo montage) by Richard Hamilton; Female Model on Oriental Rug with Mirror by Pittsburgh-born painter Philip Pearlstein, 44. German-born art historian Erwin Panofsky dies at Princeton, N.J., March 14 at age 75; painter Kees van Dongen of pneumonia at Monte Carlo May 28 at age 91; Marcel Duchamp at Neuilly, outside Paris, October 1 at age 81.

Sculpture: Orchestra of Rags by Italian artist Michelangelo Pistoletto, 35, of the "arte povera" movement is possessed of a minimalist aesthetic but employs found materials (earth, cloth, used industrial objects) in an unaltered state, whereas U.S. minimalists use rigorous industrial fabrications; the French sculptor César creates a sensation during a black-tie reception at London's Tate Gallery by mixing chemicals to produce a liquid-foam expansion onto the floor; La Fillette (latex) by Louise Bourgeois; Sans II (fiberglass) and Accession III (fiberglass and plastic tubing) by Eva Hesse; Thirty-five Feet of Lead Rolled Up, Prop (lead antimony) and Hand Catching Lead (16 mm. black-and-white film) by Richard Serra; The Last Ray of Hope by H. C. Westermann; Earthwork by Robert Morris; Montevideo-born New York sculptor Gonzalo Fonseca, 46, creates a 40-foot cast-concrete tower for the Olympic Games at Mexico City.

photography

A Viet Cong prisoner identified as a "terrorist" is shot in the head at point-blank range February 1 at Saigon by police chief Brig. Gen. Nguyen Ngoc Loan, 36, whose act is photographed by NBC cameraman Vo Suu and Associated Press photographer Eddie Adams, 34. Thousands of insurgents are killed during the week in an offensive that includes the beheading of women and children, and Gen. Loan says he has acted on orders and that the prisoner was the leader of a terrorist gang that had killed the family of one of his deputy commanders, but the photograph galvanizes world opinion against the South Vietnamese and their U.S. allies (see 1972).

theater, film

Theater: The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie by Jay Allen (who has adapted the novel by Muriel Spark) 1/16 at New York's Helen Hayes Theater, with Australian actress Zoë Caldwell, 34, 378 perfs.; The Indian Wants the Bronx by Wakefield, Mass.-born playwright Israel Horovitz, 28, 1/17 at New York's Astor Place Theater, with John Cazale, Al Pacino, Matthew Coles; I Never Sang for my Father by Robert Anderson 1/25 at New York's Longacre Theater, with Hal Holbrook, Lillian Gish, Matt Crowley, Teresa Wright, 124 perfs.; The Price by Arthur Miller 2/7 at New York's Morosco Theater, with Pat Hingle, Kate Reid, Arthur Kennedy, 429 perfs.; Plaza Suite by Neil Simon 2/14 at New York's Plymouth Theater, with George C. Scott, Maureen Stapleton, Elizabeth Wilson, 1,097 perfs.; Hadrian VII by English playwright Peter Luke, 48, (who has adapted the 1904 novel) 4/18 at London's Mermaid Theatre (to the Haymarket 3/18/1969), with Alec McCowen, 988 perfs.; The Boys in the Band by Mart Crowley 4/18 at New York's off-Broadway Theater Four, with Cliff Gorman, 1,000 perfs.; Kaspar by Austrian playwright Peter Handke, 25, 5/11 at Frankurt's Frankfurter Theatre am Turm and Stockholm's Städtischen Bühnen Obverghausen; The Man Most Likely To . . . by English playwright Joyce Rayburne 7/4 at London's Vaudeville Theatre, with Leslie Phillips, 44, Diane Hart, 41, 768 perfs.; Indians by Arthur Kopit 7/4 at London's Aldwych Theatre, with Barrie Ingham as "Buffalo Bill" Cody; The Sisters-in-law (Les Belles-Soeurs) by Canadian playwright Michel Tremblay, 26, 8/28 at Montreal's Théâtre du Rideau-Vert; The Great White Hope by New York-born playwright Howard (Oliver) Sackler, 39, 10/3 at New York's Alvin Theater, with Mississippi-born actor James Earl Jones, 37, Boston-born actress Jane Alexander (née Quigley), 28, 276 perfs.; The Death and Resurrection of Mister Roche by Irish playwright Thomas Kilroy 10/7 at Dublin's Olympia Theatre; Forty Years On by Leeds-born actor-playwright Alan Bennett, 34, 10/31 at London's Apollo Theatre, with John Gielgud, Paul Eddington, Bennett, 444 perfs.; The Ruling Class by English playwright Peter Barnes, 37, 11/6 at the Nottingham Playhouse. The comedy creates an uproar by flailing not only the upper classes but also the Church of England, Parliament, and the British Empire; Forty Carats by Jay Allen (who has adapted a French play) 12/26 at New York's Morosco Theater, with Julie Harris, Glenda Farrell, 780 perfs.

Playwright Howard Lindsay dies of leukemia at New York February 11 at age 78; Laurence Stallings of a heart attack at Los Angeles February 28 at age 73; Philip Dunning at Westport, Conn., July 20 at age 77; Paul Vincent Carroll at Bromley, England, October 20 at age 68; actress Mary Servoss of heart disease at Los Angeles November 20 at age 87; actor Philip Lord at Chicago November 25 at age 89.

The Theatres Act adopted by Parliament September 26 effectively abolishes the Lord Chamberlain's powers of censorship in Britain (see 1737).

Television: Rowan and Martin's Laugh-In 1/22 on NBC, replacing The Man From U.N.C.L.E. with stand-up comedians Dan Rowan, 45, and Dick Martin, 44, whose irreverent and ribald humor will ridicule the Ku Klux Klan, National Rifle Association, Pentagon, and other targets, celebrity cameos, regulars who will include Arte Johnson, Ruth Buzzi, Goldie Hawn, Judy Carne, and Jo Anne Worley, blackouts, sight gags, and lines that viewers will repeat ad infinitum (e.g., "Look that up in your Funk and Wagnalls," "Sock it to me," "Very interesting," "You bet your bippy," and "Heah come de judge") (to 3/12/1973, 130 shows); Mister Rogers' Neighborhood in February (daytime) on PBS, with TV veteran Fred Rogers, 40, who has consulted since the early 1960s with University of Pittsburgh psychologist Margaret McFarland and began the show 5/25/1967 on Pittsburgh's WQED (the first federally-funded public TV station). Starting each morning's show with the song, "It's a Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood," Rogers dons a sweater, interacts with his Land-of-Make-Believe puppets, and will continue for 33 years to entertain young children (in competition with cartoon shows); Dad's Army on BBC-1 with Arthur Lowe, Ian Lavendar, Clive Dunn in a 30-minute comedy series that makes fun of the Home Guard in the early years of World War II (64 episodes, to 1977); One Life to Live 7/15 (daytime) on ABC with an ethnically, socially, and racially mixed cast that includes Jacquie Courney, Amy Levitt, Anthony Ponzini, Michael Storm, Ernest Graves, Gillian Spencer, and others in a soap opera created by Philadelphia homemaker Agnes Nixon, 47, whose half-hour show will expand to 45 minutes and then (in 1976) to a full hour as she pushes the envelope to deal with subjects that include drug abuse, homophobia, S&M sex, and teenage homosexuality; Adam 12 9/21 on NBC with Martin Milner, Kent McCord (to 8/26/1975); The Ghost and Mrs. Muir 9/21 on NBC with Hope Lange, Edward Mulhare (to 9/19/1970); Mayberry R.F.D. 9/23 on CBS with Ken Berry, Arlene Golonka (to 9/6/1971); The Doris Day Show 9/24 on CBS with actress Day as widow Doris Martin (to 9/10/1973, 128 episodes); Mod Squad 9/25 on ABC with Michael Cole, Peggy Lipton as undercover agents for the Los Angeles Police Dept. (to 3/1/1973); Hawaii Five-O 9/26 on CBS with Brooklyn-born actor Jack Lord, 47, as Detective Steve McGarrett, Khigh Dhiegh (to 4/5/1980).

TV comedy writer Nat Hiken dies of a heart attack at Brentwood, Calif., December 7 at age 54.

Films: Anthony Harvey's The Lion in Winter with Peter O'Toole, Katharine Hepburn; Richard Lester's Petulia with Julie Christie, George C. Scott, Beverly Hills-born actor Richard Chamberlain, 33; Jacques Tati's Playtime with Tati; Roman Polanski's Rosemary's Baby with Mia Farrow, now 23, John Cassavetes; Ingmar Bergman's Shame with Liv Ullmann, Max von Sydow; François Truffaut's Stolen Kisses with Jean-Pierre Leaud; Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey with Keir Dullea in a plot based on Arthur C. Clarke's short story "The Sentinel." Also: François Truffaut's The Bride Wore Black with Jeanne Moreau, Claude Rich, Jean-Claude Brialy; Peter Yates's Bullitt with Steve McQueen, Robert (Francis) Vaughn, 35, English-born actress Jacqueline Bisset, 21; Robert Altman's Countdown with Robert Duvall, New York-born actor James Caan, 29; John Cassavetes's Faces with John Marley, Wisconsin-born actress Gena Rowlands, 32; Donald Siegel's Madigan with Richard Widmark, Henry Fonda, Harry Guardino, James Whitmore; George A. Romero's Night of the Living Dead with Duane Jones, Judith O'Dea; Jack Smight's No Way to Treat a Lady with Rod Steiger, George Segal, Lee Remick; Franklin J. Schaffner's Planet of the Apes with Charlton Heston, Roddy McDowall, Kim Hunter; Mel Brooks's The Producers with Zero Mostel, Milwaukee-born comedian Gene Wilder (originally Jerry Silberman), 33; Paul Newman's Rachel, Rachel with Newman's wife, Joanne Woodward (based on the 1966 Margaret Laurence novel A Jest of God); Franco Zefferelli's Romeo and Juliet with Leonard Whiting, Olivia Hussey; Joseph Losey's Secret Ceremony with Elizabeth Taylor, Mia Farrow, Robert Mitchum; Frank and Eleanor Perry's The Swimmer with Burt Lancaster, Janice Rule, Kim Hunter; Peter Bogdanovich's Targets with Boris Karloff; Jean-Luc Godard's Weekend with Mireille Dare; Tom Gries's Will Penny with Charlton Heston.

The American Cinema 1929-1968 by Brooklyn-born New York critic Andrew (George) Sarris, 39, is a comprehensive index and categorization of virtually every film director.

Actress Mae Marsh dies at Hermosa Beach, Calif., February 13 at age 72; director Anthony Asquith at London February 20 at age 65; director Carl Theodor Dreyer at Copenhagen March 9 at age 79; actress Helen Walker of cancer at Hollywood March 10 at age 47; pioneer silent-film director Alice Guy-Blaché at Mahwah, N.J., March 24 at age 94; Fay Bainter at Los Angeles April 13 at age 74; Albert Dekker at Hollywood May 5 at age 62 of suffocation by hanging; Finlay Currie at Gerrard's Cross, England, May 9 at age 90; Dorothy Gish of bronchial pneumonia at Rapallo, Italy, June 4 at age 70; Dan Duryea of cancer at Hollywood June 7 at age 61; director Alexander C. Hall at San Francisco July 30 at age 74; actress Kay Francis of cancer at her New York apartment August 26 at age 63; director Robert Z. Leonard of an aneurism at Beverly Hills August 27 at age 78; Franchot Tone of lung cancer at New York September 18 at age 62; Lee Tracy dies of cancer at Long Beach, Calif., October 18 at age 70; Ramon Novarro is found dead at his Hollywood Hills home October 31 at age 69, apparently a murder victim; Wendell Corey dies of a liver ailment at Woodland Hills, Calif., November 8 at age 54; producer Walter Wanger (originally Feuchtwanger) of a heart attack at New York November 18 at age 74; Tallulah Bankhead of pneumonia and emphysema at New York December 12 at age 66.

The Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) introduces a movie ratings code November 1. Theater owners agree to bar children under 17 from X-rated films and from R-rated films unless accompanied by a parent or guardian. G- and M- (later changed to PG-13-) rated films have no such restrictions. Jack Valenti, 47, left the Johnson White House 2 years ago to head the MPAA and has helped draw up the code to stave off government regulation; parents concerned about children's exposure to sex and violence generally applaud it, although some say that having the industry rate its own films is like letting the fox guard the henhouse, and some predict (accurately) that X-rated films will attract youngsters who would not otherwise be interested.

music

Film musicals: George Dunning's Yellow Submarine with animated drawings that show the Beatles trying to save Pepperland from the Blue Meanies, music and lyrics by John Lennon and Paul McCartney; Carol Reed's Oliver with Ron Moody, Mark Lester, Oliver Reed, Hugh Griffith; William Wyler's Funny Girl with Barbra Streisand as Fanny Brice.

Stage musicals: Your Own Thing 1/18 at New York's off-Broadway Orpheum Theater, with music and lyrics by Hal Hester and Danny Appolinar, 933 perfs.; The Happy Time 1/18 at New York's Broadway Theater, with Robert Goulet, David Wayne, music by John Kander, lyrics by Fred Ebb, book by N. Richard Nash from the 1950 stage play by Samuel Taylor, choreography by Gower Champion, 286 perfs.; Canterbury Tales 3/21 at London's Phoenix Theatre, with Jacques Ottaway, 59, as Geoffrey Chaucer, Jessie Evans, 49, as the Wife of Bath, music by Richard Hill and John Hawkins, lyrics by Nevill Coghill, 2,082 perfs.; George M! 4/10 at New York's Palace Theater, with Joel Grey, Jill O'Hara, Bernadette Peters, music and lyrics by the late George M. Cohan, 433 perfs.; Zorba 11/17 at New York's Imperial Theater, with Herschel Bernardi, music by John Kander, lyrics by Fred Ebb, 224 perfs.; Promises, Promises 12/1 at New York's Shubert Theater, with Jerry Orbach, Jill O'Hara, El Centro, Calif.-born ingénu Ken Howard, 24, choreography by Buffalo-born dancer-choreographer Michael Bennett (Michael Difiglia), 25, music and lyrics by Burt Bacharach and Hal David, songs that include "Whoever You Are," "I'll Never Fall in Love Again," 1,281 perfs.; How Now, Dow Jones 12/7 at New York's Lunt-Fontanne Theater, with Tommy Tune, Barnard Hughes, Brenda Vaccaro, Tony Roberts, music by Elmer Bernstein, book by Max Shulman, lyrics by Carolyn Leigh, 220 perfs.

Actress-singer Juanita Hall dies of diabetic complications at Bay Shore, N.Y., February 28 at age 66; former vaudeville comedian Gus Van of Van and Schenck after an auto accident at Miami Beach March 12 at age 80; writer-lyricist Paul Gerard Smith at San Diego April 4 at age 73; George White of leukemia at Hollywood October 10 at age 78.

Opera: Luciano Pavarotti, now 32, makes his Metropolitan Opera debut 4/23 singing the role of Rodolfo in the 1896 Puccini opera La Bohème; New Orleans-born soprano Shirley (Carter) Verrett, 37, makes her Metropolitan Opera debut 9/21 singing the title role in the 1875 Bizet opera Carmen; Spanish tenor Plácido Domingo, 27, makes his formal Metropolitan Opera debut 9/28 singing the role of Maurice de Saxe in the 1902 Cilea opera Adriana Lecouvrer; Elizabeth Harwood makes her Covent Garden debut 10/15 singing the role of Fiakermilli in the 1933 Strauss opera Arabella, going on to make her New York debut in an October Town Hall recital.

First performances: Symphony No. 11 by Roy Harris 2/8 at New York to mark the 125th anniversary of the New York Philharmonic; Symphony No. 6 by Howard Hanson 2/29 at New York's Philharmonic Hall; Symphony by Ulysses Kay 3/28 at Macomb, Ill., in a concert by the Chicago Symphony marking the sesquicentennial of Illinois; Symphony No. 8 by Roger Sessions 5/2 at New York's Philharmonic Hall; The Prodigal Son (church parable) by Benjamin Britten 6/10 at Orford, Suffolk.

Cantata: Stephen Crane by Ulysses Kay 2/4 at Chicago.

Modern dance pioneer Ruth St. Denis dies of a heart attack at Los Angeles July 21 at age 91; French-born conductor Charles Munch of a heart attack at Richmond, Va., November 6 at age 77.

The Bose 901 speaker introduced by Philadelphia-born MIT professor Amar Bose, 35, pioneers the use of "reflected sound" in an effort to bring concert-hall quality to home speaker systems. Bose set up a radio-repair business at age 14 to help support his family, he founded Bose Corp. 4 years ago, and his speaker bounces sound off walls and ceiling to surround the listener.

U.S. guitar sales reach $130 million, up from $35 million in 1960.

Prerecorded tapes enjoy U.S. sales of $247 million, and tape decks are found in more homes, but gramophone records still account for the lion's share of the multi-billion dollar music business.

Sony Corp. joins with CBS to start Sony/CBS Records.

Popular songs: "Hey, Jude" and "Lady Madonna" by John Lennon and Paul McCartney; "While My Guitar Gently Weeps" by George Harrison; "Jumpin' Jack Flash" by Mick Jagger and Keith Richards of The Rolling Stones; In Search of the Lost Chord (album) by the Moody Blues; Led Zeppelin No. 1 (album) by The Led Zeppelin, a new English rock group (Jimmy Page, 23, John Paul Jones, 22, John Bonham, 21, and Robert Plant, 21); "Harper Valley PTA" by Kentucky-born guitarist-songwriter Tom T. Hall, 32, who arrived at Nashville 4 years ago with $46 and a guitar (his song will be the basis of a film and a television sitcom); "Both Sides Now" by Joni Mitchell; "Mrs. Robinson" by Paul Simon (for the film The Graduate); "Galveston" by Jimmy Webb; "Spinning Wheel" by David Clayton Thomas; "Over You" by Jerry Filler; "Do Your Own Thing" by Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller; "Help Yourself" by Carlo Donida, Mongol Eng, and Jack Fishman; "Suzanne" by Leonard Cohen; "Hello, I Love You (Won't You Tell Me Your Name") by Robert Krieger, John Dunsmore, Jim Morrison, and Raymond Manzarek of The Doors; "John Wesley Harding" by Bob Dylan, who becomes a country singer after coming close to death in a motorcycle accident; Papas and the Mamas—Mamas and the Papas (album) with singer Cass Elliott; Dionne Warwick records "Do You Know the Way to San Jose"; Loretta Lynn records her song "This City"; "Rocky Top" by Boudleaux Bryant, lyrics by his wife, Felice, who in 10 minutes has written a number that will become the Tennessee state song in 1981; "Hurdy Gurdy Man" by Donovan Leitch; "Little Green Apples" by Bobby Russell; "The Windmills of Your Mind" by Michel Legrand, lyrics by Alan and Marilyn Bergman (for the film The Thomas Crown Affair); "Those Were the Days" by Gene Reskin.

The Czech rock band The Plastic People of the Universe founded at Prague in September by bass guitarist Milan Hlavsa, 17, will soon include saxophonist Vratislav Brabenec, guitarist Josef Janicek, drummer Jan Brabec, and viola player Jiri Kabes.

Jazz trumpeter Ziggy Elman (Harry Finkelman) dies of a liver ailment at Los Angeles June 26 at age 54; jazz guitarist Wes Montgomery of a heart attack at Indianapolis June 15 at age 45; country-and-western singer Clyde Foley of acute pulmonary edema at Fort Wayne, Ind., September 20 age 58.

sports

Green Bay beats Oakland 33 to 14 at Miami January 14 in Super Bowl II.

Former golf champion Lawson Little dies at Pebble Beach, Calif., February 1 at age 57; golfer Tommy Armour at Larchmont, N.Y. September 11 at age 72.

Joe Frazier wins the world heavyweight boxing crown March 24 at age 24 by knocking out Buster Mathis in the 11th round of a title bout at New York, nearly 10 months after the World Boxing Association (WBA) took the title away from Muhammad Ali for refusing to accept induction into the U.S. Army (see Cassius Clay, 1964). Jimmy Ellis, 28, wins an eight-man title tournament staged by the WBA, defeating Jerry Quarry, 22, in a 15-round decision April 27 at Oakland, but Frazier will gain undisputed right to the title early in 1970. Former world heavyweight champion Jess Willard dies of a cerebral hemorrhage at Los Angeles December 15 at age 86.

Rod Laver wins in men's singles at Wimbledon, Billy Jean King in women's singles; Arthur Ashe, 25, wins in men's singles at Forest Hills (the first black to do so), Margaret Smith Court in women's singles. Ashe wins the first U.S. Open men's singles, (Sarah) Virginia Wade, 22, (Brit), the women's singles.

Onetime Wimbledon singles champion (1907) Sir Norman Brookes dies at his native Melbourne September 28 at age 90.

The Olympic Games at Mexico City attract 6,082 contestants from 109 countries. Olympic swimming champion Duke Paoa Kahanamoku has died of a heart attack at Honolulu January 23 at age 77. U.S. athletes win the most gold medals, but sprinters John Carlos and Tommie Smith give black-power salutes when accepting their awards, winning condemnation from some but approval from sportscaster Howard Cosell. San Jose, Calif.-born figure skater Peggy Fleming, 19, has won the gold medal in the winter Olympics at Grenoble, France (and gone on to win the world title March 2 at Geneva).

Veteran jockey Earl Sande dies of arteriosclerosis at Jacksonville, Ore., August 18 at age 69 (he won three Kentucky Derbies).

The Kansas City Athletics become the Oakland As (Athletics).

The Detroit Tigers win the World Series, defeating the St. Louis Cardinals 4 games to 3.

Harvard faces Yale November 23 at Harvard Stadium, both teams being unbeaten and untied for the first time since 1909. Yale's backfield includes Calvin Hill, and Yale leads 29 to 13 in the fourth quarter with only 42 seconds remaining on the clock, but Harvard substitute quarterback Vic Champi passes to Vic Gatto for a touchdown that is followed by a two-point conversion to make the score 29 to 21. Harvard recovers an on-side kick, Champi passes to Pete Varney for a final touchdown as the clock runs out, and a two-point conversion ties the final score at 29-29.

everyday life

The Uniform Monday Holiday Act signed into law by President Johnson June 28 gives federal employees four 3-day weekends per year. Scheduled to take effect in 1971, it follows centuries-old European custom and orders that Washington's Birthday (Presidents' Day), Memorial Day, Columbus Day, and Veterans Day be observed on Mondays regardless of what day February 22, May 30, October 30, or November 11 may be (many states balk at changing the date of what used to be Armistice Day and it will be put back to November 11 in 1978).

Mattel introduces die-cast Hot Wheels to compete with the Matchbox Cars introduced by the English firm Lesney Products & Co. in 1953. Faster and more modern in design, they will soon come with accessories such as slick plastic tracks that can be assembled into race courses, and Hot Wheels will eventually be used for electric slot-car racing.

Legoland opens near the Lego factory on the Jutland peninsula at Billund, Denmark (see 1934). The new theme park has been built for visitors who have come to see the factory that produces the colorful plastic bricks, now sold all over the world. The factory and park will become a major Danish tourist attraction (see 1996).

Las Vegas begins to change its image as the $15 million Circus Circus hotel-casino opens with a huge, $1 million statue of Lucky the Clown and entertainment that features acrobats and such rather than music-hall stars and girly shows. Industrialist Howard Hughes Jr. arrived in town 2 years ago on a stretcher, occupies a large suite at the Desert Inn, will soon buy the Sands along with some other casinos, and lobbies the Nevada state legislature, whose members will enact a law next year permitting corporations such as Hilton Hotels and Holiday Inn to own casino-hotel properties in the city (see International Hotel, 1969).

The Jacuzzi Whirlpool bath introduced in June at California's Orange County Fair by the 53-year-old farm-pump maker Jacuzzi Bros. begins a fad only slightly related to hydrotherapy (see 1949). The $700 Jacuzzi "Roman Bath" will spawn a host of imitators.

Ralph Lauren is founded by New York fashion designer Ralph Lauren (originally Lifshitz), 29, whose "old money" and "old West" Polo brand looks will make him a fortune.

New York fashion designer Calvin Klein, 25, shows his first collection. A firm believer in functional simplicity, he eschews the theatrical ruffles of most other designers.

Anne Klein & Co. is founded by New York fashion designer Klein, now 45, and her second husband, Matthew "Chip" Rubenstein (see 1948); Klein patented a girdle last year to be worn under miniskirts. Her fashions will be sold in nearly 800 department stores and specialty shops, and she will continue to design until her death in 1974.

Sanforizing inventor Sanford L. Cluett of Cluett, Peabody dies at Palm Beach May 18 at age 93. Nearly 45 companies in 58 countries license his 40-year-old anti-shrink technology, now used to treat 3 billion yards of cloth per year.

Former first lady Jacqueline Kennedy, now 39, is remarried on the Greek island of Skorpios October 20 to shipping magnate Aristotle Onassis, now 68. Washington wit Alice Roosevelt Longworth, now 86, says, "Hasn't anyone ever warned Jacqueline Kennedy about Greeks bearing gifts?"

Sicilian rape victim Franca Viola, 20, is married December 4 to an accountant who defies the custom that says a raped woman is dishonored and cannot marry anyone except her rapist (in this case an admirer whom she has spurned).

President Nixon's younger daughter Julie, 20, is married at New York December 22 to former president Eisenhower's grandson, David, also 20.

tobacco

Virginia Slims cigarettes are introduced by Philip Morris, Inc., with the slogan, "You've come a long way, baby." The brand is targeted at women, with the word slims in the name intended to remind women that cigarettes are not fattening (see Lucky Strike, 1928; sports [tennis], 1970).

U.S. cigarette sales decline slightly to 571.1 billion as adults smoke an average of 205 packs, down from 210 last year. FTC studies show that while filter-tips dominate the market, most cigarettes yield more tars and nicotine in their smoke because tobacco companies are using tobacco leaf higher in tars and nicotine.

crime

Entertainer Eartha Kitt links America's crime rate to the escalation of the Vietnam War January 18 at a White House luncheon given by Mrs. Johnson for about 50 white and black women to discuss urban crime. "You send the best of this country off to be shot and maimed," she says. "They rebel in the street."

The Ohio State Penitentiary at Columbus has a riot of 350 prisoners August 28; five convicts are shot to death when 500 National Guardsmen and local police blast a hole in the prison wall and crash through to quell the uprising that began as a protest against "sadistic" guards.

A Tokyo bank van robbery December 10 nets the equivalent of $1 million for a motorcycle gang that intercepts an armored truck carrying cash (the perpetrators will not be caught). Japan's crime rate is low by U.S. and European standards and is declining thanks in part to family social structure, low availability of narcotics, effective gun control laws, and a police force that apprehends 96 percent of suspects in murder cases and 92 percent of suspects in other criminal assaults. Japan has as many murders per year as New York City (whose population is one-tenth that of Japan).

Florida heiress Barbara Jane Mackle is kidnapped December 17. Her Honduras-born abductor Ruth Eisemann-Schier, 26, becomes the first woman to be placed on the FBI's most-wanted list and is apprehended December 22 along with her confederate, Gary S. Krist, 23, an escaped convict.

architecture, real estate

The Kerner Report issued February 29 notes that some 400,000 housing units have been destroyed in the name of urban renewal but only about 10,000 new units have been built to replace them. The resulting shortages have helped fuel rage in black communities.

The Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corp. (Freddie Mac) chartered by Congress to supplement the Federal National Mortgage Association established in 1938 gives savings-and-loan associations access to secondary mortgage funds. Both entities will become stockholder-owned but government-supervised corporations, exempt from state and local taxes, and able to borrow money cheaply and offer what amount to government-subsidized loans to qualified home buyers; would-be borrowers who cannot meet Federal Housing Administration (FHA) standards will find any number of companies willing to offer "sub-prime" loans at higher rates of interest.

Construction begins in Boston's Copley Square of a 60-story John Hancock building that will dwarf the Prudential Tower of 1964. Designed by Henry Cobb of I. M. Pei & Partners, the Hancock Building will run into problems of falling glass panels and will not open until 1974.

Tokyo's 46-year-old Imperial Hotel comes down to make way for a new, 20-story hotel of the same name that will incorporate some of the public rooms designed by the late Frank Lloyd Wright.

The La Quinta Inns hotel chain has its beginnings in a San Antonio, Texas, hotel opened in April by Waco-born developer Samuel H. Barshop to provide basic accommodations for visitors to the city's HemisFair located next door; it has no restaurant, disco lounge, or large meeting hall, and room rates average only $13 per night. La Quinta will grow to own, operate, or franchise more than 590 hotels in 39 states.

environment

A Phantom fighter jet based at Utah's Dugway Proving Ground 85 miles southwest of Salt Lake City accidentally sprays about 20 pounds of VX nerve gas beyond its target grid March 13, winds carry the gas 30 miles away, and it kills birds, rabbits, and 6,400 sheep. Ranchers will report headaches, diarrhea, breathing difficulties, paranoia, even stillbirths, and although the army will initially try to cover up the incident it will wind up paying more than $1 million in compensation to victims (see politics [biological weapons ban], 1969).

North Cascades National Park is established by an act of Congress that sets aside 505,000 acres of Washington State glaciers, jagged peaks, and mountain lakes.

Redwood National Park is established by act of Congress along 40 miles of California's Pacific Coast. Embracing 58,000 acres, it contains forests with virgin groves that include a 369.2-foot redwood—the world's tallest tree.

Earthquakes measuring 7.8 and 6.8 on the Richter scale rattle Iran August 31 and September 1, killing an estimated 12,000 to 20,000 and injuring at least 15,000.

Enzyme detergents introduced by Procter & Gamble, Lever Brothers, and Colgate-Palmolive create problems in U.S. water and sewage systems.

The U.S. Coast Guard reports that 714 major oil spills have occurred during the year, up from 371 in 1966.

marine resources

The U.S. Department of the Interior estimates that water pollution kills 15 million fish each year, two-thirds of them commercial varieties.

The average American eats 11 pounds of fish per year, the highest since the mid-1950s; 58 percent of the fish is imported, up from 41.4 percent in 1966.

agriculture

Improved IR-8 rice strains from the IRRI in the Philippines produce record yields in Asia (see 1962; 1964). But the "miracle" rice requires more fertilizer and water than do such traditional strains as Bengawan, Intam, Peta, and Sigadio. IR-8 has little innate resistance to a virus carried by green leaf hoppers, and Filipinos do not like the cooking and eating qualities of the sticky new rice milled from IR-8.

India's wheat production is 50 percent above last year's level as a result of intensive aid by Ford Foundation workers, who have introduced new Pitic 62 and Penjamo 62 wheat strains from Mexico.

Desert locusts devastate crops in Saudi Arabia and other countries along the Red Sea in the first major locust plague since 1944.

The average U.S. farm acre can produce 70 bushels of corn, up from 25 in 1916, and some farmers get 200 bushels (see 1973).

U.S. crop acreage produces yields 80 percent above those in 1920; the output per breeding animal has roughly doubled since then.

U.S. farms have 5 million tractors, 900,000 grain combines, 780,000 hay balers, 660,000 corn pickers and shellers. Major crops are all harvested by machine.

Farm labor represents only 7 percent of the U.S. workforce, down from 10 percent in 1960, although another 32 percent of the workforce is engaged in supplying the farmer or handling his produce.

The average U.S. farm subsidy is nearly $1,000, up from $175 in 1960, as the number of U.S. farms continues to drop off substantially. Many farmers receive far in excess of the average subsidy (see 1967).

A nationwide boycott of table grapes organized by César Chavez of the United Farm Workers Organizing Committee gains support from much of the public (see 1962). Chavez dramatizes "La Causa" ("The Cause") with long fasts.

food availability

Thousands die of starvation in Biafra, whose Ibo tribespeople have seceded from Nigeria.

CBS airs Hunger in America May 21, documenting conditions of deficiency diseases in the world's most affluent nation. Infants on Navajo reservations are shown to be suffering from marasmus, a wasting away of flesh that may cause them to lose the fat pads in their cheeks to a point where they can no longer suck. Some infants shown weigh only five pounds at age 1—less than they weighed at birth; the CBS report observes that if they survive infancy they may well turn fat, even though malnourished, because their diets will be mostly starch.

A Poor People's March on Washington focuses its protest on U.S. hunger conditions. Originally planned by Martin Luther King Jr., the demonstration proceeds from May 3 to June 23 under the leadership of Ralph D. Abernathy Jr.

The Citizens Board of Inquiry into Hunger and Malnutrition in the United States observes that federal food-aid programs reach only 18 percent of the nation's poor.

The Department of Agriculture liberalizes its food stamp program (see 1967). It expands from two to 42 the number of counties where federal authorities will handle the program; local authorities in some areas resist its implementation (see 1969).

nutrition

India's food minister Chidambara Subramaniam relates malnutrition to brain damage: "On the basis of studies in my own state of Madras, where I was Minister of Education, it has been estimated that between 35 and 40 percent of the children of India have suffered permanent brain damage by the time they reach school age because of protein deficiency. This means that we are, in effect, producing subhuman beings at the rate of 35 million per year. By the time they reach school age they are unable to concentrate sufficiently to absorb and retain knowledge."

Malnutrition in some parts of the United States is as grim as any he has seen in India or any other country, reports U.S. nutrition investigator Arnold E. (Edward) Schaefer, 51, who at one school has found vitamin A deficiencies worse than those in children who have gone blind from keratomalacia. These Head Start Program children could go blind at any time, "five minutes from now or a year from now," says Schaefer.

A Senate Select Committee on Nutrition and Human Needs (McGovern Committee) established by Sen. George (Stanley) McGovern (D. S. Dak.), 46, focuses on hunger and malnutrition. McGovern served as director of the Food for Peace Program from 1960 to 1962 after serving a term in Congress (see nutrition, 1974).

The average U.S. diet provides an estimated 3,200 calories per day with 98 grams of protein, but millions of U.S. diets do not approach the average and even more millions exceed it.

The Society for Nutrition Education founded at San Francisco will work to counter misinformation about nutrition and disseminate accurate information.

Fundamentals of Normal Nutrition by former Drexel University nutritionist Corinne Robinson (née Hogden), 59, belittles the "charlatan" who distrusts commercial additives and, without evidence, berates American agriculture and food processors for a deficient food supply. The book receives relatively little attention, the lack of universal health insurance in the United States plays a role in encouraging trust in the promises of dietary supplements (and the books that promote them) at health-food stores (rarely found in countries such as Britain that do have universal health insurance), and the growing distrust of Americans in their government's Vietnam policy rubs off in many cases on their attitudes toward agribusiness and the food industry.

The Great Vitamin Hoax by Daniel Takton raises an outcry among many Americans, who give anecdotal testimony to the effectiveness of dietary supplements (or apple cider vinegar) in curing them of various maladies or keeping them healthy (even though double-blind tests have in many cases shown placebos to be equally effective). Takton quotes a Food and Drug Administration official as saying that a teenage girl can satisfy one-third to one-half her daily nutrition requirements, including vitamins, by eating for lunch one hamburger on a roll, together with onion, ketchup, and a piece of cheese, a chocolate bar, and a glass of fruit juice. The lunch does not provide significant amounts of vitamin A or iron, but even a poor diet by U.S. standards is a good diet when compared with what most of the world has to eat.

consumer protection

U.S. physicians study "Chinese Restaurant Syndrome" (Kwok's disease) and trace it to an overuse of monosodium glutamate (MSG) by Chinese chefs (see Ikeda, 1908; Ac'cent, 1947). Symptoms include burning sensations, chest pain, dizziness, facial pressure, headache, and numbness (see baby foods, 1969).

Britain's Ministry of Health rules that the newsprint used by fish-and-chips shops is not a hygienic container for foods and makes such use illegal (see 1902). Many shopkeepers continue to use newsprint, because it retains heat, soaks up excess vinegar, and provides a sort of napkin for wiping fingers, but they put the fish-and-chips in a white wrapper inside the newsprint or use unprinted paper stock. The National Union of Journalists continues to telegraph an annual greeting to the Federation of Fish Friers, saying, "Your trade is wrapped up in ours."

food and drink

Hershey Chocolate reduces the size of its 10¢ Hershey Bar in February from 1 3/4 oz. to 1 1/2 oz. and in May reduces its nickel Hershey Bar from 7/8 oz. to 3/4 oz. (see 1969) .

restaurants

The Red Lobster seafood restaurant chain has its beginnings in a place opened under that name at Lakeland, Fla., by veteran restaurateur William Darden, 55, who started his career at age 19 as manager, night cook, waiter, and counter server of a small lunch counter called The Green Frog at Waycross, Ga. Darden saved his money, acquired other restaurants in Georgia, South Carolina, and Florida, and 5 years ago joined with some partners to buy the landmark Orlando seafood house Gary's Duck Inn. His no-frills Red Lobster (an advertising agency has come up with the name) employs 30 to 40 people from the outset, its low prices quickly attract hordes of customers, the partners have to remodel it within a month to accommodate the crowds, and the chain will grow to have 350 restaurants nationwide.

Marriott Corp. creates Roy Rogers Family Restaurants in cooperation with cowboy singer Rogers, now 56, who will help develop it into an 800-store chain featuring roast-beef sandwiches (see Marriott, 1927).

population

Pope Paul VI condemns artificial measures for birth control in his encyclical Humanae Vitae. Laypersons and even some priests attack the condemnation.

Britain legalizes abortion April 27 as the Abortion Act that received Royal Assent late last year overturns an 1861 law making abortion a crime under all circumstances. The new law makes any abortion legal if two registered physicians find that "continuance of pregnancy would involve risks to the life or injury to the physical or mental health of the pregnant woman or the future well-being of herself or of the child or her children." Opponents of the new law predict that 400,000 abortions will be performed each year (but see 1969).

A British immigration act excludes thousands of Asians in Kenya from residency in Britain even though they have been offered and have accepted British nationality.

1961 1962 1963 1964 1965 1966 1967 1968 1969 1970

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Anthropology

John Desmond Clark [b. London, April 10, 1916, d. Oakland, California, February 14, 2002] proposes that stone tool industries be grouped into five "modes" that are descriptive rather than based on specific sites. The system names are Mode I (simple flakes and cores); Mode II (flakes produced by direct percussion); Mode III (wide use of prepared cores); Mode IV (in which blades and burins are dominant); and Mode V (microliths).

R. V. E. Lovelace, J. M. Sutton, and H. D. Craft find a pulsar with a period of 0.033 seconds in the center of the Crab Nebula in Taurus, the site of the supernova of July 4, 1054. They do not, however, observe the pulsar optically. See also 1934 Astronomy.

Michael Large, Alan Vaughan, and Bernard Mills identify the pulsar usually called the Vela pulsar because it is in the remnant of the Vela supernova, but officially PSR 0833-45. See also 1967 Astronomy; 1977 Astronomy.

George Clark, Gordon Garmire, and William Kraushaar report the discovery, using NASA's third Orbiting Solar Observatory, of a gamma-ray background coming from the Milky Way Galaxy, especially from its center. See also 1962 Astronomy.

Surveyor 7 becomes the first space vehicle to land undamaged on the Moon, coming down on the rim of Tycho crater January 9. From there it sends back 21,000 photographs of the lunar surface.

The Soviet spacecraft Zond 5 becomes the first human-created object to travel around the Moon and return to Earth.

Werner Arber [b. Granichen, Switzerland, June 3, 1929] discovers that bacteria defend themselves against viruses by producing enzymes that randomly cut the DNA of the virus. They are termed restriction enzymes. See also 1978 Biology.

David Zipser discovers the meaning of the only unknown codon of the 64 that make up the genetic code. It is the three-base codon UGA (for uracil, guanine, adenine) and Zipser discovers it to be a termination signal whose meaning is "stop making this protein." See also 1967 Biology.

Mark Ptashne and, independently, Walter Gilbert [b. Boston, Massachusetts, March 21, 1932] and their coworkers identify the first repressor proteins for genes, which prevent genes from operating. See also 1969 Biology.

David Hunter Hubel [b. Windsor, Ontario, Canada, February 27, 1926], and Torsten Nils Wiesel [b. Uppsala, Sweden, June 3, 1924] complete a program of ten years of research into the visual receptors of the brain (mainly working with cats). They discover that specific cells respond to specific stimuli, such as stationary light sources for some and motion for others. See also 1981 Biology.

Robert Holley, Har Gobind Khorana, and Marshall Nirenberg of the United States win the Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine for understanding and deciphering the genetic code that determines cell function. See also 1965 Biology; 1964 Biology; 1966 Biology.

Edward Feigenbaum [b. Weehawken, New Jersey, January 20, 1936] at Stanford and geneticist Joshua Lederberg develop DENDRAL, an expert system using artificial intelligence for the identification of chemical substances based on the results of spectrometric analysis. See also 1959 Communication; 1972 Communication.

Lars Onsager of the United States wins the Nobel Prize in chemistry for his work on the theoretical basis of diffusion of isotopes. See also 1944 Materials.

Stephen Benton [b. San Francisco, California, 1941] develops the rainbow hologram, a hologram that can be embossed on a credit card or a magazine and that shows a three-dimensional image in ordinary light. Its name comes from the rainbow effect observed when viewed at different angles perpendicular to the left-right axis of the image. See also 1964 Communication.

Carl Englemann, William Martin, and Joel Moses develop the original specifications for MACSYMA, a programming language that performs over 600 types of mathematical operations; it is accessible via the ARPA computer network. See also 1969 Communication.

Douglas Engelbart [b. Portland, Oregon, January 30, 1925] demonstrates during the autumn conference on computers in San Francisco the computer mouse, a device that moves the cursor (pointer) on a computer monitor and issues simple "execute" commands; the mouse is later adopted by Apple for the Lisa and Macintosh computers and then spreads throughout the industry. See also 1983 Computers.

Author Arthur Clarke writes 2001: A Space Odyssey; the science-fiction novel features the computer Hal that understands the human voice and can converse with its operators. See also 1971 Communication.

Terry Winograd at MIT develops a complex expert system that incorporates reasoning capabilities. See also 1965 Communication; 1970 Computers.

Burroughs introduces the B2500 and B3500, the first computers incorporating integrated circuits. See also 1958 Electronics.

The Control Data Corporation launches the CDC 7600 supercomputer, designed by Seymour Cray, which is, with a speed of about 40 megaflops, to be the most powerful computer until the appearance of the Cray supercomputer in 1976. See also 1964 Computers; 1970 Computers.

U.S. air force scientists show that radar can be used to detect wind shifts and precipitation.

The U.S. research ship Glomar Challenger begins drilling cores out of ocean floor -- long cylinders of ocean bottom whose sediments reveal the history of that part of the floor. The Glomar Challenger's Deep Sea Drilling Project will obtain over 19,000 cores from the ocean floor in 96 legs (drilling runs) over the next 15 years. See also 1961 Earth science; 1985 Earth science.

Elso Barghoorn and his coworkers report finding remains of amino acids in rocks that are as old as 3,000,000,000 years, indicating that life existed in that remote time. See also 1954 Earth science.

The U.S. Congress passes the Wild and Scenic Rivers Act, protecting parts of some rivers from commercial exploitation. See also 1967 Ecology & the environment; 1969 Ecology & the environment.

A report from the U.S. House of Representatives declares that Lake Erie is so polluted that it is essentially dead and that if all further pollution ceases it will take 500 years to restore it to its condition during World War II. See also 1960 Ecology & the environment.

Gordon Moore and Robert Noyce, both leaving Fairchild Semiconductor, found Intel Corporation with the intention of manufacturing integrated circuits. See also 1957 Electronics; 1970 Electronics.

The Soviet Union opens an 800-kw tidal power station near Murmansk. See also 1966 Energy.

The Nuclear Materials Equipment Corporation begins sterilizing bacon and potatoes with radiation from radioactive cobalt-60 as a means of preserving them. James L. Goddard [b. Alliance, Ohio, 1923], commissioner of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, refuses in April to permit canned ham that has been radioactively sterilized to be used for human consumption by the U.S. army. See also 1898 Food & agriculture; 1967 Food & agriculture.

A method for producing diamond from methane, later called chemical vapor deposition, is patented in the United States, but the diamond produced by the method is mixed with graphite, making it of limited use. See also 1954 Materials; 1981 Materials.

René Thom publishes the first paper describing catastrophe theory. See also 1972 Mathematics. (See biography.)

Godfrey Hounsfield uses medical X rays to reconstruct a three-dimensional image, the essential development of the CT (CAT) scan, a method previously discovered by Allan Cormack and William Oldendorf. At this time the method cannot be used on living organisms, however. Unlike Cormack and Oldendorf, Hounsfield finds medical personnel interested in pursuing the new method and continues to develop it. See also 1960 Medicine & health; 1971 Medicine & health.

English researchers report in April that oral contraceptives can cause blood clots in susceptible women. See also 1951 Medicine & health.

French-American physiologist Roger Guillemin [b. Dijon, France, January 11, 1924] and Polish-American biochemist Andrew Victor Schally [b. Vilna (Vilnius, Lithuania), November 30, 1926] discover in this year and the next a simple peptide (that is, a molecule consisting of amino acids, but too small to be called a protein), which they call CRF (corticotropin releasing factor). CRF is produced by the hypothalamus, a part of the brain, and it signals the pituitary gland to produce the hormone cortisol. See also 1930 Medicine & health; 1977 Medicine & health.

Christiaan Barnard performs a second human heart transplant; this time the patient, Philip Blaiberg, lives 563 days (nearly 19 months) with his new heart. See also 1967 Medicine & health; 1969 Medicine & health.

Dentists show that dental caries (tooth decay) is caused by a substance produced by streptococcal bacteria that normally live in the mouth when these bacteria metabolize sugar.

The U.S. government moves the people of Bikini island back to the atoll, claiming that radioactive contamination from the hydrogen bomb of 1956 has reached sufficiently low levels.

Doctors at the University of Minnesota perform the first successful bone marrow transplant to cure disease (other than radiation sickness) in a human being on a four-month-old boy suffering from an immune disorder, using marrow from his sister. See also 1956 Medicine & health.

French physicist Georges Charpak [b. Dabrovica, Poland, 1924] invents the multiwire proportional chamber, a particle detector that allows the determination of particle tracks in three dimensions with high precision. See also 1992 Physics.

Luis Alvarez of the United States wins the Nobel Prize in physics for his discovery of "resonance particles." See also 1960 Physics.

The Soviet Soyuz 3 mission is launched on October 26 with cosmonaut Georgi Beregovoi [b. Fedorovka, Ukraine, April 15, 1921, d. June 30, 1995]. It approaches the unpiloted Soyuz 2 to a distance of 200 m (650 ft) and completes 64 orbits before landing.

Walter Schirra, Donn F. Eisele [b. Columbus, Ohio, June 23, 1930, d. Tokyo, December 2, 1987], and Walter Cunningham [b. Creston, Iowa, March 16, 1932] begin the Apollo 7 mission on October 11. The mission lasts 260 hours and features live TV sessions with crew and a rendezvous with a stage from the Saturn launch vehicle.

On December 21 the Apollo 8 mission is launched with Frank Borman, James Lovell, and William A. Anders [b. Hong Kong, October 17, 1933] as its crew. It is the first flight to be propelled by the Saturn V launch vehicle and the first time that humans are placed in orbit about the Moon. Apollo 8 completes 10 lunar orbits and returns good lunar photography (including much of the far side of the Moon not previously known) as well as photos of Earth from space. The crew broadcasts a Christmas Eve message on live television in which they take turns reading passages from the beginning of the Book of Genesis.

The first supertankers for carrying petroleum are put into service.

Regular hovercraft service starts across the English Channel. See also 1959 Transportation.

The first supersonic airliner, the Soviet Tupolev TU-144, is demonstrated on December 31. See also 1947 Transportation.

Aerotechnik Entwicklung und Apparatebau of Germany builds the WGM2 one-person, cheap, easy-to-fly helicopter. With its open seat, flying it is rather like riding a bicycle. See also 1939 Transportation.

Drama and Theater

• Edward Albee: Box and Quotations from Chairman Mao Tse-Tung. Albee's interrelated one-act plays show his intention to apply "musical form to dramatic structure." In the first play, an offstage voice comments on the decline of Western civilization while a large cube is illuminated on stage. In the second, the cube becomes the deck of a cruise ship where Mao recites from his "Little Red Book," an elderly woman recites doggerel, and another woman offers a personal anecdote.
• Robert Anderson: I Never Sang for My Father. Anderson's autobiographical drama depicting a son's struggle to become reconciled with his dying father manages only a modest run of 124 performances. Anderson, however, would win an Academy Award for his screenplay for the 1976 film adaptation.
• Mart Crowley (b. 1935): The Boys in the Band. Reviewer Clive Barnes calls this play the "finest treatment of homosexuality I have ever seen on stage." It is one of the first plays to avoid many of the conventional gay stereotypes for a more complex psychological treatment of the play's various gay characters, brought together for a birthday party. Born in Vicksburg, Mississippi, Crowley became a television screenwriter.
• Bruce Jay Friedman: Scuba Duba. Friedman's first produced play wins the Obie Award for its comic deflation of a Jewish liberal intellectual whose wife is having an affair. It would be followed in 1970 by Steambath, in which God is portrayed by a Puerto Rican steamroom attendant.
• Israel Horovitz (b. 1939): The Indian Wants the Bronx. The playwright gains his first critical acclaim with this one-act play depicting senseless urban violence as a street tough (played by Al Pacino) torments a man from India on a Bronx street. Horovitz had been the resident playwright with the Royal Shakespeare Company in 1965. In 1979 he would found the Gloucester Stage Company in Massachusetts, where most of his subsequent plays, such as A Rosen by Any Other Name (1987) and The Chopin Playoffs (1988), would premier.
• Terrence McNally: Sweet Eros. McNally's play about a man who kidnaps a woman and ties her to a chair to tell her his maladjusted life story features a performance by Sally Kirkland as the captive; she becomes the first New York actress to appear nude throughout an entire play.
• Arthur Miller: The Price. Miller achieves a popular stage success in this powerful family drama depicting two brothers disposing of the family's possessions.
• Howard Sackler (1929-1982): The Great White Hope. Sackler's blank-verse drama portrays scenes in the life of the first black champion prizefighter, Jack Johnson, whose arrogance, assertiveness, and marriage to a white woman prompt a desire for a white champion to topple him. The play, featuring a powerful performance by James Earl Jones, wins both the Pulitzer Prize and the New York Drama Critics Circle Award. Born in New York, Sackler worked as a record director and screenwriter.
• Neil Simon: Plaza Suite. Simon's comedy links three one-act plays centered on the various goings-on in Suite 719 of New York's Plaza Hotel. They include a middle-aged couple's doomed second honeymoon, a producer's attempt to seduce his high school girlfriend, and the bickering of parents of a bride on her wedding day. Simon also supplies the book for the musical Promises, Promises, based on the film The Apartment.
• Tennessee Williams: The Seven Descents of Myrtle. Adapted from his short story "Kingdom of Earth," Williams's play about a white Mississippi farmer, his new wife, and his half-black half-brother manages only a brief New York run.

Fiction

• James Baldwin: Tell Me How Long the Train's Been Gone. In Baldwin's novel a successful black actor stricken by a heart attack surveys his youth in Harlem, his family, an affair with a white actress, and his current relationship with his black male lover.
• John Barth: Lost in the Funhouse: Fiction for Print, Tape, Live Voice. This collection of experimental short fiction shows Barth's search for alternatives to conventional writing and various exercises in literary self-reflexiveness, which explore the issues of a writer writing. Despite its unconventionality, the book sells twenty thousand copies in hardcover and is nominated for a National Book Award.
• Donald Barthelme: Unspeakable Practices, Unnatural Acts. Barthelme's second story collection contains some of his best-known work, including "The Indian Uprising," in which Comanches conquer a modern city, and "The President," about a forty-eight-inch-tall chief executive.
• Saul Bellow: Mosby's Memoirs, and Other Stories. The story collection brings together Bellow's short fiction from the 1950s and newer works, including the title story, about a diplomat's reflections on his life and career.
• Robert Coover: The Universal Baseball Association, Inc., J. Henry Waugh, Prop. Coover's inventive second novel treats an accountant's fantasy baseball league, which assumes a disturbing reality. The novel, like most of Coover's work, explores the relationship between myth and reality and the implications of creation and artifice.
• James Gould Cozzens: Morning, Noon, and Night. Cozzens's last novel, his first to employ a first-person point of view, contains the reflections of an upper-class man, representative of both his class and times, who tries to come to terms with his experiences and values.
• J. P. Donleavy: The Beastly Beatitudes of Balthazar B. This novel of education follows the career of a young French nobleman with Irish ancestry from innocence to experience. Many consider it one of Donleavy's finest efforts, mixing serious themes with his characteristic manic inventiveness. It would be followed by one of Donleavy's weakest efforts, The Onion Eaters (1971), a surrealistic fantasy featuring a hero with "three glands."
• Frederick Exley (1929-1992): A Fan's Notes. Rejected by fourteen publishers, Exley's "fictional memoir" of the desperate life of a man living vicariously through his love for the New York Giants and their star player, Frank Gifford, wins critical praise and the Faulkner Award for best novel of 1968. Born in Watertown, New York, Exley would follow it with two more autobiographically derived books featuring relentless self-examination, including his alcoholism and stays in mental hospitals, and reflections on contemporary American life: Pages from a Cold Island (1975) and Last Notes from Home (1988).
• William H. Gass: In the Heart of the Heart of the Country. Gass's short fiction collection explores small-town Midwestern life among isolated and alienated characters who often retreat into a fantasy world.
• Jack Kerouac: The Vanity of Duluoz. Kerouac continues his ongoing autobiographical saga with an account of his surrogate's coming of age in the 1930s and 1940s.
• Jerzy Kosinski: Steps. The sequel to The Painted Bird (1965) shows the unnamed boy of the earlier novel becoming an adult; his youthful suffering makes him unable to conform to accepted social norms. The novel wins the National Book Award.
• Ursula K. Le Guin (b. 1929): A Wizard of Earthsea. Le Guin launches her best-known fantasy series, following the life of Ged, who rises from goatherd to become a great wizard, fusing fantasy and magic with commonplace concerns. It would be followed by The Tombs of Atuan (1971), The Farthest Shore (1972), and Tehanu (1990). The daughter of the eminent anthropologist Alfred Louis Kroeber, Le Guin graduated from Radcliffe and lived for a time in France before settling in Portland, Oregon, where she began her career as a science fiction and fantasy writer.
• Reynolds Price: Love and Work. Price's highly regarded novel is a portrait of a writer and teacher struggling to cope with the death of his mother and assorted responsibilities.
• Lee Smith (b. 1944): The Day the Dogbushes Bloomed. The Virginia-born writer's first novel is a first-person narrative of Susan Toby, about the summer when she was nine. Its skill in rendering the language and preoccupations of preadolescence evokes comparison with Carson McCullers's The Member of the Wedding (1946). Fancy Strut (1973) and Black Mountain Breakdown (1980) would follow.
• Ronald Sukenick (b. 1932): Up. Sukenick's first novel, a treatment of a young man's growing up in Brooklyn, is the initial work in a series of experimental fictions designed to challenge conventional forms. Later books include The Death of the Novel and Other Stories (1969), Out (1973), and 98.6 (1975). Born in Brooklyn, Sukenick was educated at Cornell and Brandeis.
• John Updike: Couples. The novel stakes out classic Updike territory and times: affluent New England suburbs in the latter half of the twentieth century. Treating the theme of marital infidelity, Updike connects the novel's sexual and moral disruptions with American values in the 1960s. The book remains on the bestseller lists for thirty-six weeks.
• Gore Vidal: Myra Breckinridge. Vidal's satire about the campy escapades of a transsexual in Hollywood predictably creates a scandal and becomes a bestseller. A companion volume, Myron, would follow in 1974.
• Kurt Vonnegut Jr.: Welcome to the Monkey House. In the revision of his earlier book, Canary in a Cathouse (1962), Vonnegut collects stories and sketches written between 1950 and 1968.

Nonfiction

• Edward Abbey (1927-1989): Desert Solitaire: A Season in the Wilderness. Abbey's account of his work as road inspector for the Forest Service and as a ranger for the National Parks Service has been cited as a key source of inspiration for the modern environmentalist movement and by critic Grace Lichtenstein as "among the towering works of American nature writing."
• Eldridge Cleaver (1935-1998): Soul on Ice. This collection of essays, written during Cleaver's nine-year imprisonment for rape and drug dealing, recounts his involvement with Malcolm X and the Black Panther Party. Inspired by writers such as Thomas Paine, Karl Marx, and James Baldwin, Cleaver's work expresses "the profound alienation from America which black nationalists feel and the extreme political and cultural view of its future which they take," according to reviewer Jervis Anderson.
• Joan Didion: Slouching Towards Bethlehem. Didion borrows a phrase from "The Second Coming" by William Butler Yeats for the title of this volume of essays exploring a decadent modern world. The collection contains perhaps her most well known work, the title essay about hippie culture.
• René Dubos (1901-1982): So Human an Animal. The French-born microbiologist receives the Pulitzer Prize in science for this popular study of human development, which argues for careful environmental planning to support humanity's basic biological needs.
• John Hersey: The Algiers Motel Incident. Hersey reports on the killing of three African Americans in a gunfight with the police during the 1967 Detroit riots. In the author's view, the incident is symptomatic of America's racial divide.
• Winthrop D. Jordan (b. 1931): White over Black: American Attitudes Toward the Negro, 1550-1812. Jordan's study wins the Ralph Waldo Emerson Prize, the Francis Parkman Prize, the Bancroft Prize, and the National Book Award. Jordan has been a professor of history at the University of California at Berkeley.
• Leonard W. Levy (b. 1923): Origins of the Fifth Amendment. Levy, a professor of American constitutional history at Brandeis University, wins the Pulitzer Prize in history for this account of the roots of the U.S. Constitution's protection against self-incrimination.
• Robert Jay Lifton (b. 1926): Death in Life: Survivors of Hiroshima. Lifton, a Yale professor of psychiatry, wins the National Book Award for his study of psychoses and behavior patterns among Hiroshima survivors; it reports common feelings of guilt and a desire for death.
• Norman Mailer: The Armies of the Night. Mailer's recollections of his participation in the October 1967 antiwar march on the Pentagon showcase his mastery of the "nonfiction novel." The book wins the Pulitzer Prize. Mailer receives the National Book Award for his other 1968 publication, Miami and the Siege of Chicago, his account of the Republican and Democratic presidential conventions.
• Anne Moody (b. 1940): Coming of Age in Mississippi. The civil rights activist supplies an important account of life for a black woman in the South from the end of World War II through the civil rights struggles.
• B. L. Reid (1918-1990): The Man from New York: John Quinn and His Friends. Reid, an English professor at Mount Holyoke and Amherst, wins the Pulitzer Prize for his biography of the American attorney and patron of the arts who supported important artistic and literary figures during the 1920s, including T. S. Eliot and Ezra Pound.
• Leo Rosten: The Joys of Yiddish. Rosten's witty lexicon of Yiddish words and phrases becomes a bestseller, helping to popularize a wide assortment of Yiddish expressions.
• Rexford Guy Tugwell (1891-1979): The Brains Trust. An original member of Roosevelt's "Brains Trust" wins the Bancroft Prize for his account of the group's role in formulating New Deal policies.
• Tom Wolfe: The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test. Wolfe's first full-length book chronicles the counterculture moment through the antics of novelist Ken Kesey and his band of stoned-out mischief makers, the Merry Pranksters. Wolfe also publishes his second collection of articles, The Pump House Gang, dealing with various forms of American status seekers, including California surfers, topless dancers, pop art collectors, and Hugh Hefner.

Poetry

• John Berryman: His Toy, His Dream, His Rest. The volume continues Berryman's ambitious sequence begun with 77 Dream Songs (1964) and completed the following year with The Dream Songs. The collection provides additional incidents in the progress of the middle-aged character Henry, who reflects on his life and losses as well as on contemporary history.
• Gwendolyn Brooks: In the Mecca. The long title work describes a mother's search for her lost child, which leads her to an understanding of the tragic lives of her tenement neighbors. The collection marks a transition in Brooks's career to the more overtly political tone of her subsequent work. Included are poems commemorating Medgar Evers and Malcolm X.
• Allen Ginsberg: Planet News: 1961-1967. Ginsberg's most important work during the 1960s is collected in this volume, including impressionistic portraits of the era and the poet's reflections on his own aging and grief at the deaths of Neal Cassady and Jack Kerouac.
• Nikki Giovanni (b. 1943): Black Feeling, Black Talk. In Giovanni's self-published first book, the militancy of poems such as "The True Import of Present Dialogue, Black v. Negro," which asks "Nigger / Can you kill?" makes her a central, controversial figure of the black liberation movement. Subsequent works, however, would have a less strident tone, employing the language of blues and jazz and eventually focusing on her own domestic life.
• David Ignatow (1914-1997): Rescue the Dead. Many consider this collection Ignatow's finest. He explores various searches for meaning and personal redemption in poems such as "Walk There" and "The Inheritance." Ignatow, whose mentor was William Carlos Williams, became the coeditor of the literary journal Chelsea in 1967.
• Galway Kinnell: Body Rags. Kinnell's third collection, according to its author, "focuses on our painful attachment to the minimal shreds of our mortality, our 'body rags.' In our last moments and even in those instants when we have intuitions of harmony, peace, or transcendence, we are involved with decaying and desiring body."
• Etheridge Knight (1931-1991): Poems from Prison. Wounded in Korea, addicted to drugs and alcohol, and imprisoned for armed robbery in 1960, Knight is encouraged in his writing by a chance meeting with Gwendolyn Brooks in prison and produces this collection of explosive free verse.
• Howard Moss: Second Nature. Moss's collection displays a noticeable shift in approach in a series of conversational poems approximating free verse.
• George Oppen: Of Being Numerous. Oppen's Pulitzer Prize-winning collection contains two of his longest and most highly regarded poems, the title work, a meditation on city life, individuality, and community, and "Route," a contemplation of man's essential isolation.
• W. D. Snodgrass: After Experience. Snodgrass's second major collection continues to mine the poet's memories and personal experiences in typical works such as "Mementos 1" and "Mementos 2." Included as well are several satirical portraits of figures such as John Foster Dulles and Richard Nixon in "Exorcism."
• Gary Snyder: The Back Country. One of Snyder's best collections depicts various untamed regions of the West and Asia, associating them with the unconscious mind.
• Judith Viorst (b. 1931): It's Hard to Be Hip over Thirty and Other Tragedies of Married Life. Viorst initiates a popular series of witty, light verses on the vicissitudes of aging, to be followed by How Did I Get to Be Forty? (1976), When Did I Stop Being Twenty? (1987), Forever Fifty (1989), and Suddenly Sixty (2000).
• Diane Wakoski: Greed. Wakoski publishes the first two parts of an evolving sequence, with a subject that the poet defines as the failure to choose, the obstinate desire to "have it all." Wakoski writes in an immediate, personal, highly idiosyncratic style to meditate on what critic Alicia Ostriker calls the "All or Nothing syndrome in female romantic fantasies." The Collected Greed would be published in 1984.
• Robert Penn Warren: Incarnations: Poems, 1966-1968. The collection shows the poet's experiments with typography and poetic diction. The following year he would produce the verse ballad Audubon: A Vision (1969), chronicling the life of the ornithologist and painter John James Audubon.

This article is about the year 1968.

Millennium:	2nd millennium
Centuries:	19th century – 20th century – 21st century
Decades:	1930s  1940s  1950s  – 1960s –  1970s  1980s  1990s
Years:	1965 1966 1967 – 1968 – 1969 1970 1971

1968 by topic:

Subject

Archaeology Architecture Art Aviation Awards Comics Film Literature (Poetry) Meteorology Music (Country) Rail transport Radio Science Spaceflight Sports Television

By country

Australia Canada People's Republic of China Ecuador France Germany Greece India Ireland Israel Italy Japan Luxembourg Malaysia Mexico New Zealand Norway Pakistan Philippines Singapore South Africa Soviet Union UK USA

Leaders

Sovereign states State leaders Religious leaders Law

Birth and death categories

Births Deaths

Establishments and disestablishments categories

Establishments Disestablishments

Works and introductions categories

Works Introductions

v d e

1968 in other calendars

Gregorian calendar	1968 MCMLXVIII
Ab urbe condita	2721
Armenian calendar	1417 ԹՎ ՌՆԺԷ
Assyrian calendar	6718
Bahá'í calendar	124–125
Bengali calendar	1375
Berber calendar	2918
British Regnal year	16 Eliz. 2 – 17 Eliz. 2
Buddhist calendar	2512
Burmese calendar	1330
Byzantine calendar	7476–7477
Chinese calendar	丁未年十二月初二日 (4604/4664-12-2) — to — 戊申年十一月十二日 (4605/4665-11-12)
Coptic calendar	1684–1685
Ethiopian calendar	1960–1961
Hebrew calendar	5728–5729
Hindu calendars
- Vikram Samvat	2024–2025
- Shaka Samvat	1890–1891
- Kali Yuga	5069–5070
Holocene calendar	11968
Iranian calendar	1346–1347
Islamic calendar	1387–1388
Japanese calendar	Shōwa 43 (昭和43年)
Korean calendar	4301
Minguo calendar	ROC 57 民國57年
Thai solar calendar	2511
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Year 1968 (MCMLXVIII) was a leap year starting on Monday (link will display the full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar.

Events

January

January 30: Tet begins.

• January 5 – Prague Spring: Alexander Dubček is chosen as the leader of the Communist Party in Czechoslovakia.^[1]
• January 8 – British Prime Minister Harold Wilson endorses the 'I'm Backing Britain' campaign for working an additional half hour each day without pay.^[2]
• January 14 – The Green Bay Packers win Super Bowl II.^[3]
• January 15 – An earthquake in Sicily kills 380 and injures around 1,000.^[4][5]
• January 17 – Lyndon B. Johnson calls for the non-conversion of the U.S. dollar.
• January 21
  • Vietnam War – Battle of Khe Sanh: One of the most publicized and controversial battles of the war begins, ending on April 8.
  • A U.S. B-52 Stratofortress crashes in Greenland, discharging 4 nuclear bombs.
• January 22 – Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In debuts on NBC.
• January 23 – North Korea seizes the USS Pueblo, claiming the ship violated its territorial waters while spying.
• January 25 – The Israeli submarine INS Dakar sinks in the Mediterranean Sea, killing 69.

January 23 USS Pueblo

• January 27 – A French submarine sinks in the Mediterranean Sea with 52 men.
• January 30 – Vietnam War: The Tet Offensive begins, as Viet Cong forces launch a series of surprise attacks across South Vietnam.
• January 31
  • Viet Cong soldiers attack the US Embassy, Saigon.
  • Nauru president Hammer DeRoburt declares independence from Australia.

February

• February 1
  • Vietnam War: A Viet Cong officer named Nguyễn Văn Lém is executed by Nguyễn Ngọc Loan, a South Vietnamese National Police Chief. The event is photographed by Eddie Adams. The photo makes headlines around the world, eventually winning the 1969 Pulitzer Prize, and sways U.S. public opinion against the war.
  • The Pennsylvania Railroad and the New York Central Railroad merge to form Penn Central, the largest ever corporate merger up to this date.
• February 6–February 18 – The 1968 Winter Olympics are held in Grenoble, France.
• February 8 – American civil rights movement: A civil rights protest staged at a white-only bowling alley in Orangeburg, South Carolina is broken up by highway patrolmen; 3 college students are killed.
• February 11
  • Border clashes take place between Israel and Jordan.
  • Madison Square Garden in New York City opens.
• February 12 – Phong Nhi and Phong Nhat massacre.
• February 13 – Civil rights disturbances occur at the University of Wisconsin–Madison and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
• February 17 – Administrative reforms in Romania divide the country into 39 counties.
• February 19 – The Florida Education Association (FEA) initiates a mass resignation of teachers to protest state funding of education. This is, in effect, the first statewide teachers' strike in the United States.
• February 19 – NET televises the very first episode of Mister Rogers' Neighborhood.
• February 24 – Vietnam War: The Tet Offensive is halted; South Vietnam recaptures Hué.
• February 25 – Vietnam War: Ha My massacre.
• February 27 – Ex-Teenagers singer Frankie Lymon is found dead from a heroin overdose in Harlem.

March

• March 6 – Un-recognized Rhodesia executes three black citizens, the first executions since UDI, prompting international condemnation.
• March 7 – Vietnam War: The First Battle of Saigon ends.
• March 8 – The first student protests spark the 1968 Polish political crisis.
• March 10–11 – Vietnam War: Battle of Lima Site 85, largest single ground combat loss of United States Air Force members (12) during the then-secret war later known as the Laotian Civil War.
• March 11 – U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson mandates that all computers purchased by the federal government support the ASCII character encoding.^[6]
• March 12
  • Mauritius achieves independence from British rule.
  • U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson edges out antiwar candidate Eugene J. McCarthy in the New Hampshire Democratic primary, a vote which highlights the deep divisions in the country, as well as the party, over Vietnam.
• March 13 – The first Rotaract club is chartered in North Charlotte, North Carolina.
• March 14 – Nerve gas leaks from the U.S. Army Dugway Proving Ground near Skull Valley, Utah.
• March 15 – British Foreign Secretary George Brown resigns.
• March 16
  • Vietnam War – My Lai massacre: American troops kill scores of civilians. The story will first become public in November 1969 and will help undermine public support for the U.S. efforts in Vietnam.
  • U.S. Senator Robert F. Kennedy enters the race for the Democratic Party presidential nomination.
• March 17 – A demonstration in London's Grosvenor Square against U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War leads to violence; 91 people are injured, 200 demonstrators arrested.
• March 18 – Gold standard: The Congress of the United States repeals the requirement for a gold reserve to back U.S. currency.
• March 19–March 23 – Afrocentrism, Black power, Vietnam War: Students at Howard University in Washington, D.C., signal a new era of militant student activism on college campuses in the U.S. Students stage rallies, protests and a 5-day sit-in, laying siege to the administration building, shutting down the university in protest over its ROTC program and the Vietnam War, and demanding a more Afrocentric curriculum.
• March 21 – Vietnam War: In ongoing campus unrest, Howard University students protesting the Vietnam War, the ROTC program on campus and the draft, confront Gen. Lewis Hershey, then head of the U.S. Selective Service System, and as he attempts to deliver an address, shout him down with cries of "America is the Black man's battleground!"
• March 22 – Daniel Cohn-Bendit ("Danny The Red") and 7 other students occupy the administrative offices of the University of Nanterre, setting in motion a chain of events that lead France to the brink of revolution in May.
• March 24 – Aer Lingus Flight 712 crashed en route from Cork to London near Tuskar Rock, Wexford, killing 61 passengers and crew.
• March 26 – Joan Baez marries activist David Harris in New York.
• March 28 – Brazilian high school student Edson Luís de Lima Souto is shot by the police in a protest for cheaper meals at a restaurant for low-income students. The aftermath of his death was one of the first major events against the military dictatorship.
• March 31 – U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson announces he will not seek re-election.

April

• April 2
  • Bombs explode at midnight in 2 department stores in Frankfurt-am-Main; Andreas Baader and Gudrun Ensslin are later arrested and sentenced for arson.
  • The film version of 2001: A Space Odyssey premieres in Washington, D.C.
• April 3 – The American movie Planet of the Apes is released in theaters.
• April 4
  • Martin Luther King, Jr. is shot dead at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennessee. Riots erupt in major American cities, lasting for several days afterwards.
  • Apollo Program: Apollo-Saturn mission 502 (Apollo 6) is launched, as the second and last unmanned test-flight of the Saturn V launch vehicle.
• April 6
  • La, la, la by Massiel (music and lyrics by Manuel de la Calva and Ramón Arcusa) wins the Eurovision Song Contest 1968 for Spain, at the Royal Albert Hall in London.
  • A shootout between Black Panthers and Oakland police results in several arrests and deaths, including 16-year-old Panther Bobby Hutton.
  • A double explosion in downtown Richmond, Indiana kills 41 and injures 150.
• April 7 – Racing driver Jim Clark is killed in a Formula 2 race at Hockenheim.
• April 8 – Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs (under Department of Justice) (BNDD) created.
• April 10 – The ferry Wahine strikes a reef at the entrance to Wellington Harbour, New Zealand, with the loss of 53 lives, during Cyclone Giselle, which provides the windiest conditions ever recorded in New Zealand.
• April 11
  • Josef Bachmann tries to assassinate Rudi Dutschke, leader of the left-wing movement (APO) in Germany, and tries to commit suicide afterwards, failing in both, although Dutschke dies of his brain injuries 11 years later.
  • German left-wing students blockade the Springer Press HQ in Berlin and many are arrested (one of them Ulrike Meinhof).
  • U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson signs the Civil Rights Act of 1968.
• April 20
  • Pierre Trudeau becomes Canada's 15th Prime Minister.
  • English politician Enoch Powell makes his controversial Rivers of Blood Speech.
• April 23
  • President Mobutu releases captured mercenaries in the Congo.
  • Surgeons at the Hôpital de la Pitié, Paris, perform Europe's first heart transplant, on Clovis Roblain.
  • The United Methodist Church is created by the union of the former Methodist and Evangelical United Brethren churches.
• April 23–April 30 – Vietnam War: Student protesters at Columbia University in New York City take over administration buildings and shut down the university (see main article Columbia University protests of 1968).
• April 26 – The nuclear weapon "Boxcar" is tested at the Nevada Test Site in the biggest detonation of Operation Crosstie.
• April 29 – The musical Hair officially opens on Broadway.

May

• May 2 – The Israel Broadcasting Authority commences television broadcasts.
• May 3 – Braniff Flight 352 crashes near Dawson, Texas killing all 85 persons on board.
• May 13 – Paris student riots; one million march through streets of Paris.
• May 14 – The Beatles announce the creation of Apple Records in a New York press conference.
• May 15 – An outbreak of severe thunderstorms produces tornadoes causing massive damage and heavy casualties in Charles City, Iowa, Oelwein, Iowa, and Jonesboro, Arkansas.
• May 17 – The Catonsville Nine enter the Selective Service offices in Catonsville, Maryland, take dozens of selective service draft records, and burn them with napalm as a protest against the Vietnam War.
• May 19
  • A general election is held in Italy.
  • Nigerian forces capture Port Harcourt and form a ring around the Biafrans. This contributes to a humanitarian disaster as the surrounded population already suffers from hunger and starvation.
• May 22 – The U.S. nuclear-powered submarine Scorpion sinks with 99 men aboard, 400 miles southwest of the Azores.
• May 29 – Football: Manchester United wins the European Cup Final, becoming the first English team to do so.

June

• June 3 – Radical feminist Valerie Solanas shoots Andy Warhol as he enters his studio, wounding him.
• June 4 – The Standard & Poor's 500 index closes above 100 for the first time, at 100.38.
• June 5 – U.S. presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy is shot at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles, California by Sirhan Sirhan. Kennedy dies from his injuries the next day.
• June 8 – James Earl Ray is arrested for the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr.
• June 10 – Football: Italy beats Yugoslavia 2–0 in a replay to win the 1968 European Championship. The original final on June 8 ended 1–1.
• June 20 – Austin Currie, Member of Parliament (MP) at Stormont in Northern Ireland, along with others, squats a house in Caledon to protest discrimination in housing allocations.
• June 23 – A football stampede in Buenos Aires leaves 74 dead and 150 injured.
• June 24 – Giorgio Rosa declares the independence of his Republic of Rose Island, an artificial island off Rimini, Italy. Italian troops demolish it not long after.
• June 26 – Bonin Islands are returned to Japan after 23 years of occupation by the United States Navy.
• June 30 – Lockheed C-5 Galaxy heavy military transport aircraft first flies in the U.S. This model will still be in service forty years on.

July

• July 1
  • The Central Intelligence Agency's Phoenix Program is officially established.
  • The Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty opens for signature.
• July 4 – Yachtsman Alec Rose, 59, receives a hero's welcome as he sails into Portsmouth, England after his 354-day round-the-world trip.
• July 15 – The soap opera One Life to Live premieres on ABC.
• July 17 – Saddam Hussein becomes Vice Chairman of the Revolutionary Council in Iraq after a coup d'état.
• July 18 – The semiconductor company Intel is founded.
• July 23–July 28 – Black militants led by Fred (Ahmed) Evans engage in a fierce gunfight with police in the Glenville Shootout of Cleveland, Ohio in United States.
• July 25 – Pope Paul VI publishes the encyclical entitled Humanae Vitae, condemning birth control. Many Catholics defy it.
• July 26 – Vietnam War: South Vietnamese opposition leader Truong Dinh Dzu is sentenced to 5 years hard labor, for advocating the formation of a coalition government as a way to move toward an end to the war.
• July 29 – Arenal Volcano erupts in Costa Rica for the first time in centuries.
• July 30 – Thames Television starts transmission in London.
• July 23 Jules Williams, writer, Director, Producer author of The Weigh Foward^[7]

August

• August 5–August 8 – The Republican National Convention in Miami Beach, Florida nominates Richard Nixon for U.S. President and Spiro Agnew for Vice President.
• August 11 – The last steam passenger train service runs in Britain. A selection of British Railways steam locomotives make the 120-mile journey from Liverpool to Carlisle and return to Liverpool, before having their fires dropped for the last time (a working known as the Fifteen Guinea Special).
• August 18 – Two charter buses push into the Hida River on National Highway Route 41 in Japan, in an accident caused by heavy rain; 104 are killed.
• August 20–August 21 – The Prague Spring of political liberalization ends, as 200,000 Warsaw Pact troops and 5,000 tanks invade Czechoslovakia.
• August 21 – The Medal of Honor is posthumously awarded to James Anderson, Jr.—he is the first black U.S. Marine to be awarded the Medal of Honor.
• August 24 – France explodes its first hydrogen bomb.
• August 22–August 30 – Police clash with anti-war protesters in Chicago, Illinois, outside the 1968 Democratic National Convention, which nominates Hubert Humphrey for U.S. President, and Edmund Muskie for Vice President.
• August 29
  • John Gordon Mein, US Ambassador to Guatemala, is assassinated on the streets of Guatemala City. First US Ambassador assassinated in the line of duty.
  • Crown Prince Harald of Norway marries Sonja Haraldsen, the commoner he has dated for 9 years, in Oslo.

September

• September 6 – Swaziland becomes independent.
• September 7
  • Mattel's Hot Wheels toy cars are introduced.
  • 150 women (members of New York Radical Women) arrive in Atlantic City, New Jersey to protest against the Miss America Pageant, as exploitative of women. Led by activist and author Robin Morgan, it is one of the first large demonstrations of Second Wave Feminism as Women's Liberation begins to gather much media attention.
• September 11
  • The International Association of Classification Societies (IACS) was found.
  • French General René Cogny and 94 others die in an Air France Caravelle jetliner crash near Nice in the Mediterranean.
• September 13
  • Albania officially retreats from the Warsaw Pact upon the Soviet Union-led Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia, having already ceased to participate actively in Pact activity since 1962.
  • US Army Maj. Gen. Keith L. Ware, WWII Medal of Honor recipient, is killed when his helicopter is shot down in Vietnam. He is posthumously awarded the Distinguished Service Cross.
  • Agreement for merger between the General Electric Company and English Electric, the largest industrial merger in the UK up to this date.
• September 17 – The D'Oliveira Affair: The Marylebone Cricket Club tour of South Africa is cancelled when the South Africans refuse to accept the presence of Basil D'Oliveira, a Cape Coloured, in the side.
• September 20 – Hawaii 5-O debuts on CBS and eventually becomes the longest-running crime show in television history until Law & Order overtakes it in 2003.
• September 21 – The Soviet's Zond 5 unmanned lunar flyby mission returns to earth, with its first of a kind biological payload intact.
• September 24 – 60 Minutes debuts on CBS and remains on the air today.
• September 27 – Marcelo Caetano becomes prime minister of Portugal.
• September 29 – A referendum in Greece gives more power to the military junta.
• September 30 – At Paine Field, near Everett Washington in the United States, Boeing officially rolls out its new 747 for the media and the public.

October

• October 2 – Tlatelolco massacre: A student demonstration ends in bloodbath at La Plaza de las Tres Culturas in Tlatelolco, Mexico City, Mexico, 10 days before the inauguration of the 1968 Summer Olympics.
• October 3 – In Peru, Juan Velasco Alvarado takes power in a revolution.
• October 5 – Police baton civil rights demonstrators in Derry, Northern Ireland, marking the beginning of The Troubles.
• October 8 – Vietnam War – Operation Sealords: United States and South Vietnamese forces launch a new operation in the Mekong Delta.
• October 10 – the Detroit Tigers win the 1968 World Series, defeating the St. Louis Cardinals 4 games to 3.
• October 11
  • Apollo program: NASA launches Apollo 7, the first manned Apollo mission (Wally Schirra, Donn Eisele, Walter Cunningham). Mission goals include the first live television broadcast from orbit and testing the lunar module docking maneuver.
  • In Panama, a military coup d'état, led by Col. Boris Martinez and Col. Omar Torrijos, overthrows the democratically elected (but highly controversial) government of President Arnulfo Arias. Within a year, Torrijos ousts Martinez and takes charge as de facto Head of Government in Panama.
• October 12–October 27 – The Games of the XIX Olympiad are held in Mexico City, Mexico.
• October 12 – Equatorial Guinea receives its independence from Spain.
• October 14 – Vietnam War: The United States Department of Defense announces that the United States Army and United States Marines will send about 24,000 troops back to Vietnam for involuntary second tours.
• October 15 – Led Zeppelin makes their first live performance, at Surrey University in England^[8]
• October 16
  • In Mexico City, black American athletes Tommie Smith and John Carlos raise their arms in a black power salute after winning, respectively, the gold and bronze medals in the Olympic men's 200 metres.
  • Kingston, Jamaica is rocked by the Rodney Riots, provoked by the banning of Walter Rodney from the country.
• October 20 – Former U.S. First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy marries Greek shipping tycoon Aristotle Onassis on the Greek island of Skorpios.
• October 31 – Vietnam War: Citing progress in the Paris peace talks, U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson announces to the nation that he has ordered a complete cessation of "all air, naval, and artillery bombardment of North Vietnam" effective November 1.

November

• November 5
  • U.S. presidential election, 1968: Republican challenger Richard M. Nixon defeats the Democratic candidate, Vice President Hubert Humphrey, and American Independent Party candidate George C. Wallace.
  • Luis A. Ferre is elected Governor of Puerto Rico.
• November 11
  • Vietnam War: Operation Commando Hunt is initiated to interdict men and supplies on the Ho Chi Minh Trail, through Laos into South Vietnam. By the end of the operation, 3 million tons of bombs are dropped on Laos, slowing but not seriously disrupting trail operations.
  • A second republic is declared in the Maldives.
• November 14 – Yale University announces it is going to admit women.
• November 17 – The Heidi game: NBC cuts off the final 1:05 of an Oakland Raiders–New York Jets football game to broadcast the pre-scheduled Heidi. Fans are unable to see Oakland (which had been trailing 32–29) score 2 late touchdowns to win 43–32; as a result, thousands of outraged football fans flood the NBC switchboards to protest.
• November 20 – The Farmington Mine Disaster in Farmington, West Virginia, kills seventy-eight men.
• November 22 – The Beatles release their self-titled album popularly known as the White Album.
• November 24 – 4 men hijack Pan Am Flight 281 from JFK International Airport, New York to Havana, Cuba.
• November 26 – Vietnam War: United States Air Force First Lieutenant and Bell UH-1F helicopter pilot James P. Fleming rescues an Army Special Forces unit pinned down by Viet Cong fire, earning a Medal of Honor for his bravery.

December

• December 3 – The '68 Comeback Special marks the concert return of Elvis Presley.
• December 9 – Douglas Engelbart publicly demonstrates his pioneering hypertext system, NLS, in San Francisco.
• December 10 – Japan's biggest heist, the still-unsolved "300 million yen robbery", occurs in Tokyo.
• December 11 – The film Oliver!, based on the hit London and Broadway musical, opens in the U.S. after being released first in England. It goes on to win the Academy Award for Best Picture. The Rolling Stones Rock and Roll Circus is also filmed on this date, but not released until 1996.
• December 13 – Brazilian president Artur da Costa e Silva decrees the AI-5 (or the Fifth Institutional Act), which lasts until 1978 and marks the beginning of the hard times of Brazilian military dictatorship.
• December 20 – The Zodiac Killer is believed to have shot Betty Lou Jensen and David Faraday on Lake Herman Road, Benicia, San Francisco Bay, California.
• December 22
  • David Eisenhower, grandson of former US President Dwight D. Eisenhower, marries Julie Nixon, the daughter of US President-elect Richard Nixon.
  • Mao Zedong advocates that educated youth in urban China be re-educated in the country. It marks the start of the "Up to the mountains and down to the villages" movement.
• December 24 – Apollo Program: U.S. spacecraft Apollo 8 enters orbit around the Moon. Astronauts Frank Borman, Jim Lovell and William A. Anders become the first humans to see the far side of the Moon and planet Earth as a whole. The crew also reads from Genesis.

Births

January–February

• January 1 – Davor Suker, Croatian soccer footballer
• January 2 – Cuba Gooding Jr., American actor
• January 5
  • Andrzej Gołota, Polish boxer
  • Carrie Ann Inaba, American choreographer, game show host and singer
• January 6 – John Singleton, African-American film director and writer
• January 9 – Joey Lauren Adams, American actress
• January 12
  • Keith Anderson, American country music singer-songwriter
  • Rachael Harris, American actress and comedian
• January 13 – Pat Onstad, Canadian footballer
• January 14 – LL Cool J, African-American rapper and actor
• January 15 – Chad Lowe, American actor
• January 16 – Stephan Pastis, American cartoonist
• January 17 – Svetlana Masterkova, Russian athlete
• January 19 – Matt Hill, Canadian voice actor
• January 21 – Charlotte Ross, American actress
• January 24
  • Mary Lou Retton, American gymnast
  • Michael Kiske, German musician
• January 26 – Novala Takemoto, Japanese author and fashion designer
• January 27 – Mike Patton, American singer
• January 28 – Sarah McLachlan, Canadian singer
• January 29
  • Edward Burns, American actor
  • Sora Jung, Korean actress
• February 1
  • Lisa Marie Presley, American singer
  • Mark Recchi, Canadian hockey player
• February 3
  • Vlade Divac, Serbian basketball player
  • Marwan Khoury, Lebanese singer and composer
• February 5
  • Qasim Melho, Syrian television actor
  • Roberto Alomar, American baseball player
  • Marcus Gronholm, Finnish rally driver
• February 7
  • Peter Bondra, Slovakian ice hockey player
  • Porntip Nakhirunkanok, Miss Universe 1988
• February 8 – Gary Coleman, American actor (d. 2010)
• February 10
  • Atika Suri, Indonesian television newscaster
  • Laurie Foell, New Zealand/Australian actress
• February 12 – Chynna Phillips, American singer/actress
• February 13 – Kelly Hu, Asian-American actress and former fashion model
• February 14
  • Jules Asner, American model and television personality
  • Nelson "Viscera" Frazier, Jr., American professional wrestler
• February 15 – Gloria Trevi, Mexican singer and actress
• February 18
  • Dennis Satin, German film director
  • Molly Ringwald, American actress, singer and dancer
• February 22
  • Brad Nowell, American musician (d. 1996)
  • Jeri Ryan, American actress
  • Delphine Boel, out-of-wedlock daughter of King Albert II of Belgium
• February 25 – Sandrine Kiberlain, French actress
• February 27 – Matt Stairs, Canadian baseball player

March–April

• March 1
  • Kunjarani Devi, Indian weightlifter
  • Muho Noelke, German Zen master
• March 2 – Daniel Craig, British actor
• March 4
  • Patsy Kensit, British actress
  • Giovanni Carrara, Venezuelan Major League Baseball player
• March 5 – Gordon Bajnai, Hungarian Prime Minister
• March 6 – Moira Kelly, American actress
• March 10 – Thio Li-ann, Singaporean law academic and Nominated Member of Parliament
• March 11 – Lisa Loeb, American singer
• March 12 – Aaron Eckhart, American actor
• March 13 – Akira Nogami, Japanese professional wrestler
• March 14 – James Frain, British actor
• March 15 – Terje Riis-Johansen, Norwegian politician
• March 16 – Trevor Wilson, American basketball player
• March 18 – Shinichiro Miki, Japanese voice actor
• March 19 – Mots'eoa Senyane, Lesotho diplomat
• March 22 – Øystein Aarseth, Norwegian musician (d. 1993)
• March 23
  • Mike Atherton, English cricketer
  • Damon Albarn, English rock musician
  • Mitch Cullin, American novelist
• March 28
  • Iris Chang, American author (d. 2004)
  • Nasser Hussain, English cricketer
• March 29 – Lucy Lawless, New Zealand actress and singer
• March 30 – Céline Dion, Canadian singer
• April 1
  • Andreas Schnaas, German director
  • Julia Boutros, Lebanese singer
• April 8 – Patricia Arquette, American actress
• April 14 – Anthony Michael Hall, American actor and singer
• April 15 – Stacey Williams, American model
• April 16 – Martin Dahlin, Swedish football player
• April 18 – David Hewlett, English born Canadian actor
• April 19 – Ashley Judd, American actress
• April 20
  • J. D. Roth, American television host
  • Yelena Valbe, Russian cross-country skier
• April 23 – Timothy McVeigh, American terrorist (d. 2001)
• April 24
  • Stacy Haiduk, American actress
  • Yuji Nagata, Japanese professional wrestler
• April 28 – Howard Donald, British singer (Take That)

May–June

• May 1 – Oliver Bierhoff, German footballer
• May 7 – Traci Lords, American actress/porn star
• May 9 – Marie-José Pérec, French athlete
• May 10 – Darren Matthews, English professional wrestler
• May 12 – Tony Hawk, American skateboarder
• May 16 – Chingmy Yau, Hong Kong actress
• May 17 – Constance Menard, French professional dressage rider
• May 20 – Waisale Serevi, Fijian rugby player
• May 21 – Julie Vega, Filipino child actress and singer (d. 1985)
• May 22 – Graham Linehan, Irish television writer and director
• May 26 – Crown Prince Frederik of Denmark
• May 27
  • Jeff Bagwell, American baseball player
  • Frank Thomas, American baseball player
• May 28 – Kylie Minogue, Australian actress and singer
• May 30 – Zacarias Moussaoui, French-Moroccan 9/11 conspirator
• June 1 – Jason Donovan, Australian actor and singer
• June 2
  • Beetlejuice, member of the Wack Pack (The Howard Stern Show)
  • Jon Culshaw, English impressionist
• June 9 – Alexandr Konovalov, Russian lawyer and politician
• June 10 – Bill Burr, American comedian
• June 14 – Yasmine Bleeth, American actress
• June 21 – Sonique, British singer
• June 26
  • Iwan Roberts, Welsh footballer
  • Paolo Maldini, Italian football player
  • Shannon Sharpe, American football player and commentator
• June 28 – Adam Woodyatt, British actor
• June 29 – Theoren Fleury, Canadian hockey player
• June 30 – Philip Anselmo, American musician

July–August

• July 5 – Ken Akamatsu, Japanese manga artist
• July 7
  • Jorja Fox, American actress
  • Jeff VanderMeer, American writer
• July 8
  • Billy Crudup, American actor
  • Akio Suyama, Japanese voice actor
  • Michael Weatherly, American actor
• July 10 – Hassiba Boulmerka, Algerian athlete
• July 15 – Stan Kirsch, American actor
• July 16
  • Dhanraj Pillay, Indian field hockey player
  • Barry Sanders, African-American football player
• July 17 – Darren Day, British actor and TV presenter
• July 19 – Robert Flynn, American vocalist and guitarist (Machine Head)
• July 20 – Carlos Saldanha, Brazilian director
• July 21 – Johnnie Barnes, American football player
• July 22 – Rhys Ifans, Welsh actor
• July 23 – Gary Payton, African-American basketball player
• July 24 – Kristin Chenoweth, American soprano and actress
• July 27 – Julian McMahon, Australian actor
• July 30 – Robert Korzeniowski, Polish racewalker
• August 3 – Rod Beck, American baseball player (d. 2007)
• August 5 – Colin McRae, Scottish rally car driver (d. 2007)
• August 9
  • Gillian Anderson, American actress
  • James Roy, Australian author
  • Eric Bana, Australian actor
• August 10 – Greg Hawgood, Canadian ice hockey player
• August 11 – Noordin Mohammad Top, Malaysian Islamist terrorist (d. 2009)
• August 12 – Andras Jones, American actor
• August 14
  • Jason Leonard, English rugby player
  • Darren Clarke, Northern Irish professional golfer
  • Catherine Bell, American actress
• August 15 – Debra Messing, American actress
• August 17
  • Ed McCaffrey, American football player
  • Bruno van Pottelsberghe, Belgian economist
• August 21 – Dina Carroll, British singer
• August 24
  • Tim Salmon, American baseball player
  • Shoichi Funaki, Japanese professional wrestler
• August 25 – Rachael Ray, American television chef and host
• August 28
  • Billy Boyd, Scottish actor
  • Jack Black, American actor and musician
• August 31
  • Hideo Nomo, Japanese baseball player
  • Valdon Dowiyogo, Nauruan politician and Australian football player

September–October

• September 1 – Mohamed Atta, Egyptian terrorist (d. 2001)
• September 4
  • Phill Lewis, American actor
  • Mike Piazza, American baseball player
  • Gavin Smith (poker player), Canadian poker player
• September 5 – Thomas Levet, French golfer
• September 6 – Macy Gray, American R&B singer
• September 7 – Marcel Desailly, French footballer
• September 10
  • Big Daddy Kane, American hip-hop artist
  • Guy Ritchie, British film director
• September 11
  • Kay Hanley, American musician
  • Tetsuo Kurata, Japanese actor
• September 17 – Anastacia, American singer-songwriter
• September 18 – Toni Kukoč, Croatian basketball player
• September 20
  • Darrell Russell, American race car driver (d. 2004)
  • Phillipa Forrester, British TV presenter
  • Leah Pinsent, Canadian actress
• September 23 – Yvette Fielding, English television presenter
• September 25 – Will Smith, American rapper and actor
• September 26
  • James Caviezel, American actor
  • Ben Shenkman, American television, film and stage actor
  • Michelle Meldrum, American guitarist (d. 2008)
• September 27 – Mari Kiviniemi, Prime Minister of Finland
• September 28 – Naomi Watts, English-born Australian actress
• September 29
  • Patrick Burns, American paranormal investigator and television personality
  • Samir Soni, Indian film and TV actor
• October 1 – Jay Underwood, American actor
• October 2
  • Victoria Derbyshire, British radio presenter
  • Benjie Paras, Filipino professional basketball player and actor
• October 3 – Paul Crichton, English footballer
• October 7 – Thom Yorke, British singer/songwriter
• October 8
  • Daniela Castelo, Argentine journalist (d. 2011)
  • Emily Procter, American actress
• October 9 – Troy Anthony Davis, American high-profile death row inmate and human rights activist (d. 2011)
• October 10
  • Feridun Düzağaç, Turkish rock singer and songwriter
  • Bart Brentjens, Dutch mountainbiker
• October 11 – Jane Krakowski, American actress
• October 12 – Hugh Jackman, Australian actor
• October 14 – Matthew Le Tissier, English footballer
• October 15
  • Didier Deschamps, French footballer
  • Jyrki 69, Finnish singer
• October 15 – Vanessa Marcil, American actress
• October 17 – Ziggy Marley, Jamaican musician and oldest son of Bob Marley
• October 22 – Shaggy, Jamaican singer
• October 24 – Mark Walton (story artist) American story artist, actor
• October 29 – Tsunku, Japanese singer, music producer, and song composer

November–December

• November 1 – Silvio Fauner, Italian cross-country skier
• November 3 – Debbie Rochon, Canadian actress
• November 4
  • Council Nedd II, American Anglican bishop
  • Daniel Landa, Czech composer, singer, actor and rallye racer.
  • Lee Germon, New Zealand cricketer
  • Miles Long, American Pornographic Actor and Director
• November 8
  • Parker Posey, American actress
  • Zara Whites, Dutch actress
• November 9 – Nazzareno Carusi, Italian classical pianist
• November 10 – Petra Liebetanz, German-American photographer
• November 11 – David L Cook, Christian recording star
• November 12 – Sammy Sosa, Dominican Major League Baseball player
• November 13 – Pat Hentgen, baseball player
• November 14
  • Serge Postigo, Canadian actor
  • Janine Lindemulder, American adult film actress
• November 15
  • Ol' Dirty Bastard, African-American rapper (d. 2004)
  • Fausto Brizzi, Italian screenwriter and film director
• November 18
  • Barry Hunter, Northern Irish footballer and football manager
  • Owen Wilson, American actor
  • Gary Sheffield, American retired baseball player
  • Luizianne Lins, Brazilian mayor
• November 20 – John Trobaugh, American artist and photographer
• November 21 – Qiao Hong, Chinese table tennis player
• November 22
  • Rasmus Lerdorf, Danish-Greenlandic creator of PHP
  • Sidse Babett Knudsen, Danish actress
• November 23 – Hamid Hassani, Iranian scholar
• November 25
  • Jill Hennessy, Canadian actress
  • Jacqueline Hennessy, Canadian actress and talk show host
• November 27 – Michael Vartan, French actor
• December 2 – Lucy Liu, American actress
• December 3 – Brendan Fraser, Canadian-American actor
• December 5 – Margaret Cho, American actress and comedian
• December 7
  • Mark Geyer, Australian rugby league player
  • Filip Naudts, Belgian photographer
• December 8
  • Mike Mussina, American baseball player
  • Michael Cole, American TV wrestling commentator
  • Wendi Deng, Chinese-American businesswoman
• December 9 – Kurt Angle, American amateur and professional wrestler, 1996 Olympic Gold Medalist
• December 11 – Monique Garbrecht, German speed skater
• December 17 – Paul Tracy, Canadian race car driver
• December 18 – Rachel Griffiths, Australian actress
• December 23 – Manuel Rivera-Ortiz, American photographer
• December 24 – Choi Jin-sil, South Korean actress and model
• December 26 – Dennis Knight, American professional wrestler

Date unknown

• George Henry Smyth, Irish artist
• Andrei Ivanovitch, Russian classical pianist

Deaths

January–March

• January 7
  • Hugo Butler, Canadian screenwriter (b. 1914)
  • Gholamreza Takhti, Iranian wrestler (b. 1930)
• January 11 – Moshe Zvi Segal, Israeli linguist and Talmudic scholar, and Israel Prize recipient (b. 1876)
• January 15 – Bill Masterton, Canadian hockey player (b. 1938)
• January 18 – Bert Wheeler, American actor and comedian (b. 1895)
• January 19 – Ray Harroun, American race car driver (b. 1879)
• January 21 – Will Lang Jr., American journalist (b. 1914)
• January 22 – Duke Kahanamoku, American swimmer (b. 1890)
• January 26 – Merrill C. Meigs, American newspaper publisher and aviation promoter (b. 1883)
• January 30 – Robert Wood Johnson, American business leader and philanthropist (b. 1893)
• February 1
  • Lawson Little, American golfer (b. 1910)
  • Jacob van der Hoeden, Dutch-Israeli veterinary scientist (b. 1891)
• February 4 – Neal Cassady, American writer (b. 1926)
• February 7 – Nick Adams, American actor (b. 1931)
• February 11 – Howard Lindsay, American playwright (b. 1888)
• February 13 – Mae Marsh, American actress (b. 1894)
• February 19 – Georg Hackenschmidt, Estonian strongman and professional wrestler (b. 1878)
• February 20 – Anthony Asquith, British director and writer (b. 1902)
• February 21 – Howard Walter Florey, Australian-born pharmacologist, recipient of the Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine (b. 1898)
• February 22 – Peter Arno, American cartoonist (b. 1904)
• February 23 – Fannie Hurst, American novelist (b. 1885)
• February 27 – Frankie Lymon, American singer (b. 1942)
• February 29 – Tore Ørjasæter, Norwegian poet (b. 1886)
• March 6 – Léon Mathot, French actor (b. 1886)
• March 10 – Helen Walker, American actress (b. 1920)
• March 16
  • Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco, Italian composer (b. 1895)
  • Leon Cadore, American baseball pitcher (b. 1890)
  • June Collyer, American actress (b. 1906)
• March 20
  • Charles Chaplin Jr., American actor (b. 1925)
  • Carl Theodor Dreyer, Danish film director (b. 1889)
• March 23 – Edwin O'Connor, American novelist and Pulitzer Prize for Fiction winner (b. 1918)
• March 24 – Alice Guy-Blaché, French film director (b. 1873)
• March 27 – Yuri Gagarin, Soviet cosmonaut, first human in space (b. 1934)
• March 30 – Bobby Driscoll, American child actor (b. 1937)

April–June

• April 1 – Lev Davidovich Landau, Russian physicist, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1908)
• April 4 – Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., American civil rights activist, recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize (assassinated) (b. 1929)
• April 7 – Jim Clark, Scottish race car driver (b. 1936)
• April 10 – Gustavs Celmins, Latvian politician (b. 1899)
• April 14 – Al Benton, American baseball player (b. 1911)
• April 16
  • Fay Bainter, American actress (b. 1893)
  • Edna Ferber, American writer (b. 1885)
• April 22 – Stephen H. Sholes, American record executive (b. 1911)
• April 24 – Tommy Noonan, American actor (b. 1921)
• April 25 – Walter Tewksbury, American athlete (b. 1876)
• May 1 – Jack Adams, Canadian ice hockey player and coach (b. 1895)
• May 5 – Albert Dekker, American actor (b. 1905)
• May 7
  • Mike Spence, British race car driver (b. 1936)
  • Craig Wood, American golfer (b. 1901)
• May 9
  • Finlay Currie, Scottish actor (b. 1878)
  • Mercedes de Acosta, American poet, playwright, costume designer, and socialite (b. 1893)
  • Marion Lorne, American actress (b. 1883)
• May 10 – Scotty Beckett, American actor (b. 1929)
• May 14 – Husband E. Kimmel, American admiral (b. 1882)
• May 21 – Doris Lloyd, English actress (b. 1896)
• May 23 – James Burke, American actor (b. 1886)
• May 29 – Arnold Susi, Estonian lawyer and politician (b. 1896)
• June 1 – Helen Keller, American spokeswoman for the deaf and blind (b. 1880)
• June 2
  • Jouett Shouse, American politician (b. 1879)
  • Dick Williams, American tennis champion (b. 1891)
• June 4 – Dorothy Gish, American actress (b. 1898)
• June 6
  • Robert F. Kennedy, U.S. Senator and U.S. Attorney General (assassinated) (b. 1925)
  • Randolph Churchill, British politician, son of Winston Churchill (b. 1911)
• June 7 – Dan Duryea, American actor (b. 1907)
• June 14 – Salvatore Quasimodo, Italian writer, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1901)
• June 15
  • Sam Crawford, American baseball player (b. 1880)
  • Wes Montgomery, American jazz guitarist (b. 1925)
• June 18 – Sally O'Neil, American actress (b. 1908)
• June 24 – Tony Hancock, British comedian (b. 1924) (suicide)

July–September

• July 1 – Virginia Weidler, American actress (b. 1926)
• July 6 – Johnny Indrisano, American boxer and actor (b. 1906)
• July 7 – Ellsworth Johnson, American gangster (b. 1906)
• July 18 – Corneille Heymans, Belgian physiologist, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1892)
• July 21 – Ruth St. Denis, American dancer (b. 1878)
• July 23 – Henry Hallett Dale, English scientist, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (b. 1875)
• July 27 – Lilian Harvey, German actress (b. 1906)
• July 28 – Otto Hahn, German chemist, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1879)
• July 30 – Alexander Hall, American Theatrical Motion Picture Director (b. 1894)
• July 31 – Jack Pizzey, Premier of Queensland, Australia (b. 1911)
• August 19 – George Gamow, Ukrainian-born physicist (b. 1904)
• August 26 – Kay Francis, American actress (b. 1899)
• August 27
  • Robert Z. Leonard, American film director (b. 1889)
  • Princess Marina, Duchess of Kent (b. 1906)
• August 29 – Ulysses S. Grant III, American soldier and planner (b. 1881)
• August 31 – Dennis O'Keefe, American actor (b. 1908)
• September 8 – Luther Perkins, American guitarist (b. 1928)
• September 12 – Tommy Armour, Scottish golfer (b. 1894)
• September 18
  • Francis McDonald, American actor (b. 1891)
  • Franchot Tone, American actor (b. 1905)
• September 19 – Red Foley, American singer (b. 1910)
• September 24 – Virginia Valli, American actress (b. 1898)
• September 26 – Lipman Heilprin, Israeli physician and Israel Prize recipient (b. 1902)
• September 28 – Norman Brookes, Australian tennis champion (b. 1877)

October–December

• October 2 – Marcel Duchamp, French artist (b. 1887)
• October 9 – Pierre Mulele, Congolese revolutionary
• October 13 – Bea Benaderet, American actress (b. 1906)
• October 18 – Lee Tracy, American actor (b. 1898)
• October 27 – Lise Meitner, German-Austrian physicist, discoverer of nuclear fission (b. 1878)
• October 30
  • Pert Kelton, American actress (b. 1907)
  • Rose Wilder Lane, American author and reporter (b. 1886)
  • Ramón Novarro, Mexican actor (b. 1899)
  • Conrad Richter, American writer (b. 1890)
• November 4 – Michel Kikoine, Belarusian painter (b. 1892)
• November 6 – Charles Munch, French conductor and violinist (b. 1891)
• November 7 – Gordon Coventry, Australian rules footballer (b. 1901)
• November 8 – Wendell Corey, American actor (b. 1914)
• November 9 – Gerald Mohr, American actor (b. 1914)
• November 13 – Berthold Bartosch, Czech animator (b. 1893)
• November 18 – Walter Wanger, American film producer (b. 1894)
• November 20 – Helen Gardner, American actress (b. 1884)
• November 24 – Istvan Dobi, former Hungarian leader (b. 1898)
• November 25 – Upton Sinclair, American writer (b. 1878)
• November 26 – Arnold Zweig, German writer (b. 1887)
• November 28 – Enid Blyton, British children's writer (b. 1897)
• December 2 – Adamson-Eric, Estonian artist (b. 1902)
• December 4 – Archie Mayo, American actor and director (b. 1891)
• December 5 – Fred Clark, American actor (b. 1914)
• December 10
  • Karl Barth, German Protestant theologian (b. 1888)
  • Thomas Merton, American author (b. 1915)
• December 12 – Tallulah Bankhead, American actress (b. 1902)
• December 14 – Margarete Klose, German soprano (b. 1902)
• December 15 – Jess Willard, American boxer (b. 1881)
• December 19 – Norman Thomas, American politician (b. 1884)
• December 20 – John Steinbeck, American writer, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1902)
• December 21 – Vittorio Pozzo, Italian football player and manager (b. 1886)
• December 30
  • Trygve Lie, Norwegian United Nations Secretary General (the first) (b. 1896)
  • Vladimir Peter Tytla, American animator (b. 1904)
• December 31 – George Lewis, American musician (b. 1900)

Nobel Prizes

• Physics – Luis Walter Alvarez
• Chemistry – Lars Onsager
• Physiology or Medicine – Robert W. Holley, Har Gobind Khorana, Marshall W. Nirenberg
• Literature – Yasunari Kawabata
• Peace – René Cassin

References

1. ^ * Navazelskis, Ina (1 August 1990). Alexander Dubcek. Chelsea House Publications; Library Binding edition. ISBN 1555468314. 
2. ^ John Chartres, "Wilson Joins 'I Back Britain'", The Times, 9 January 1968, p. 1.
3. ^ The NFL's Official Encyclopedic History of Professional Football, (1973), p. 139, Macmillan Publishing Co. New York, NY, LCCN 73-3862
4. ^ "Italy: The Day the Earth Shook". TIME magazine. 26 January 1968. http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,837724,00.html. Retrieved 2 August 2011. 
5. ^ http://emidius.mi.ingv.it/CPTI99/CPTI_finestre.html
6. ^ Lyndon B. Johnson (March 11, 1968). Memorandum Approving the Adoption by the Federal Government of a Standard Code for Information Interchange. The American Presidency Project. Accessed 2008-04-14.
7. ^ Williams, Jules (2011). The Weigh Foward. Quartet Books. ISBN 0704372142. 
8. ^ http://www.rockhall.com/inductee/led-zeppelin

• TIME Magazine, 40th Anniversary Special (2008). "1968: The Year That Changed the World."
• NEWSWEEK Magazine. "1968: The Year That Made Us Who We Are." November 19, 2007.
• TIME Magazine. "1968: The Year That Shaped a Generation." January 11, 1988.
• Kurlansky, Mark. (2004). 1968: The Year that Rocked the World. London: Jonathan Cape. ISBN 978-0-224-06251-0
• NPR "Echoes of 1968" report series.
• 1968 – The Year in Sound An Audiofile produced by Lou Zambrana of WCBS Newsradio 880 (WCBS-AM New York) Part of WCBS 880's celebration of 40 years of newsradio.
• 1968 Coin Pictures
• Magnum Photos, Historic photos from 1968
• BBC Radio 4 – 1968 Myth or Reality? – six months of 'news on this day' programmes and documentaries
• Reflections on 1968 Read people's memories of the year 1968. Minnesota Historical Society

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