Timeline 1968
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1968 Jan 1-1968 Dec 31, The year was marked by protest marches. In 1998 Tariq Ali and Susan Watkins published: "1968: Marching in the Streets." In 2004 Mark Kurlansky authored "1968: The Year That Rocked the World."
(SFC, 5/22/98, p.C12)(SSFC, 1/25/04, p.M1)
1968 Jan 2, San Francisco poet Lawrence Ferlinghetti, arrested during the pre-Christmas series of peace demonstrations outside the Oakland Induction Center, was sentenced to 17 days in county jail after pleading guilty no contest to a charge of disturbing the peace.
(SSFC, 12/31/17, DB p.54)
1968 Jan 5, The US Justice Dept. indicted Dr. Benjamin Spock, Rev. William Coffin of Yale (1924-2006) and 3 others for conspiring to violate draft law.
(SFC, 4/13/06, p.B7)
1968 Jan 5, A newspaper strike shut down the SF Chronicle, the Examiner and the News-Call Bulletin for 53 days. Bill O'Brien (d.2004) became president of the SF-Oakland Newspaper Guild the next day and supported the strike, which had originated with Hearst papers in LA. Senior executives of the SF Chronicle put out a special edition of the paper on a copy machine.
(SFC, 2/05/04, p.A27)(SSFC, 6/7/09, p.W3)(http://tinyurl.com/nkszr8)
1968 Jan 5, Alexander Dubcek (1921-1992) was elected First Secretary of the Communist Party in Czechoslovakia.
(http://www.radio.cz/en/article/112505)(www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/COLDdubcek.htm)
1968 Jan 6, Dr. Norman E. Shumway of Stanford performed the 1st US adult heart transplant. Mike Kasperak (54) lived for 2 weeks before he died of massive bleeding from other organs.
(www.britannica.com/eb/article-9067567)(SFC, 2/11/06, p.B5)
1968 Jan 8, Jacques Cousteau's 1st undersea special aired on US network TV.
(www.imdb.com/title/tt0845400/)
1968 Jan 9, The TV show "It Takes A Thief" with Robert Wagner began on ABC. It written and produced by Leslie Stevens (d.1998) and ran to 1970.
(SFC, 8/13/97, Z1 p.3)(SFC, 4/29/98, p.C2)
1968 Jan 9, The Surveyor VII space probe made a soft landing on the moon, marking the end of the American series of unmanned explorations of the lunar surface.
(AP, 1/9/99)
1968 Jan 10, Lyle Menendez was born in NY and grew up in Princeton, NJ. In 1989 he and his brother Erik killed their parents.
(www.imdb.com/name/nm1062652/)
1968 Jan 13, Hester & Appolinar's musical "Your Own Thing," premiered in NYC.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Your_Own_Thing)
1968 Jan 13, The U.S. reported shifting most air targets from North Vietnam to Laos.
(HN, 1/13/99)
1968 Jan 14, The Green Bay Packers under Vince Lombardi, after winning its third consecutive NFL championship, won the 2nd Super Bowl Football game over the Oakland Raiders. This was Lombardi's last game as coach of the Packers. The game drew the first $3 million gate in football history. In 1999 David Maraniss authored "When Pride Still Mattered: A Life of Vince Lombardi."
(WSJ, 1/28/97, p.A16)(SFEC, 1/9/00, BR p.5)(Superbowl.com)
1968 Jan 14, US forces in Vietnam launched Operation Niagara I to locate enemy units around the Marine base at Khe Sanh.
(www.history.com/this-day-in-history.do?action=Article&id=1613)
1968 Jan 16, The UK announced that it would end all "East of Suez" presence by 1971.
(WUD, 1994, p.1687)
1968 Jan 19, In San Francisco demonstrators battled riot police as US Sec. of State Dean Rusk spoke at the Fairmont Hotel. More than 60 anti-war demonstrators were arrested.
(SSFC, 1/14/18, DB p.58)
1968 Jan 19, Cambodia charged that the United States and South Vietnam had crossed the border and killed three Cambodians.
(HN, 1/19/99)
1968 Jan 21, An American B-52 bomber carrying four hydrogen bombs crashed at North Star Bay, Greenland, killing one crew member and scattering radioactive material. Reports began to surface later and in 1995 the Danish government paid a $15.5 million settlement to some 1,700 exposed workers.
(www.ens-newswire.com/ens/aug2004/2004-08-09-02.asp)(AP, 1/21/08)
1968 Jan 21, A group of 31 North Korean commandos trudged undetected for about 40 miles from the border to the presidential Blue House of South Korean President Park Chung-hee in downtown Seoul. South Korean security forces repelled the assault. 28 North Koreans and 34 South Koreans were killed.
(SFC, 9/19/96, p.A8)(AP, 12/25/03)
1968 Jan 21, In Vietnam the Battle of Khe Sahn began as North Vietnamese forces attacked a US Marine base; the Americans were able to hold their position until the siege was lifted 2 1/2 months later. It was the longest and bloodiest battle of the Vietnam War. The Battle began at 0530 hours when North Vietnamese Army forces hammered the Marine-occupied Khe Sanh Combat Base with rocket, mortar, artillery, small arms, and automatic weapons fire. Hundreds of 82-mm mortar rounds and 122-mm rockets slammed into the combat base. Virtually all of the base's ammunition stock and a substantial portion of the fuel supplies were destroyed.
(WSJ, 5/2/02, p.D7)(AP, 1/21/08)(www.vietnam-war.info/battles/siege_of_khe_sanh.php)
1968 Jan 22, The TV variety show "Laugh In" began on NBC with comedians Dan Rowan and Dick Martin. It continued running to May 14, 1973. It was the top ranking network show on television for two seasons (1968-1969) with rankings of 31.8 and 26.3%.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rowan_&_Martin%27s_Laugh-In)(WSJ, 4/24/95, p.R-5)
1968 Jan 22, The off Broadway show "Jacques Brel Is Alive and Well and Living in Paris" premiered at the Village Gate Theater. A film version was produced in 1975. Brel (1929-1978), a Belgian singer, was later buried in the Marquesas Island of Hiva Oa, in the same cemetery as Paul Gauguin.
(www.talkinbroadway.com/regional/sfla/sfla176.html)
1968 Jan 22, Apollo 5 was launched to the Moon; unmanned lunar module tests made.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollo_5)
1968 Jan 23, North Korea seized the U.S. Navy intelligence ship Pueblo, charging it had intruded into the communist nation's territorial waters on a spying mission. One crewman was killed in the attack. Cmdr. Lloyd Bucher (d.2004 at 76) was quickly separated from the 81-man crew. The crew was released 11 months later.
(NG, 8/74, p.266)(AP, 1/23/98)(SFC, 10/2/01, p.A15)(SFC, 1/30/04, p.A25)
1968 Jan 24, Mary Lou Retton, gymnast (Oly-gold/2 silver/2 bronze-84), was born in Fairmont, WV.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Lou_Retton)
1968 Jan 24, An Israeli submarine, the Dakar, a British-made submarine with a 69-man crew, was lost in the Mediterranean Sea while enroute from England to Israel. The sunken ship was found May 28, 1999, between Crete and Cyprus.
(SFC, 5/31/99, p.A8)(www.geocities.com/CapitolHill/Lobby/9650/dakar.html)
1968 Jan 28, Vince Lombardi resigned as coach of Wisconsin’s Green Bay Packers, two weeks after winning Super Bowl II. He remained as general manager. On Feb 1 Phil Bengtson was named coach of the Packers.
(www.packers.com/history/chronology/)(www.nfl.com/history/chronology/1961-1970)
1968 Jan 29, A court convened in Vietnam for the murder of Cambodian, triple agent Inchin Lam, by Special Forces Captain John J. McCarthy Jr. Murder charges were later dropped due to exculpatory evidence and proven prosecutorial fraud on the court. A civil action for $1.3 billion in US Federal District Court, Washington D.C. against the CIA and associated agencies was dismissed in 2003.
(www.copvcia.com/Mac.htm)(http://johnmccarthy90066.tripod.com/id299.html)
1968 Jan 29, Leonard Tsuguharu Foujita (b.1886), painter and engraver born in Tokyo, Japan, died in Zurich, Switz. He applied French oil techniques to Japanese-style paintings. In 2006 Phyllis Birnbaum authored “Glory in a Line: A Life of Foujita – The Artist Caught Between East and West."
(SSFC, 11/26/06, p.M1)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tsuguharu_Foujita)
1968 Jan 31, In Vietnam, the Tet Offensive began as Viet Cong and North Vietnamese soldiers attacked strategic and civilian locations throughout South Vietnam. The Viet Cong, under General Vo Nguyen Giap (b.1911), seized part of the US embassy in Saigon for 6 hours. They attacked more than 100 cities in South Vietnam with many US casualties. Although the Communists were beaten back, the offensive was seen as a major setback for the US and its allies. During the Tet Offensive, the Communist troops who took control of the ancient capital of Hue killed an estimated 6,000 civilians before they again lost control of the city.
(www.vwam.com/vets/tet/tet.html)(SFC, 2/3/00, p.A25)(AP, 1/30/08)
Jan, Ralph Ginzburg (1929-2006), American author and publisher, began publishing Avant Garde, a literary and arts magazine in NYC. The magazine continued to July, 1971.
(SFC, 7/7/06, p.B9)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ralph_Ginzburg)
1968 Feb 1, Richard M. Nixon announced his bid for the Republican presidential nomination.
(AP, 2/1/08)
1968 Feb 1, Lisa Marie Presley, daughter of Elvis and Priscilla Beaulieu Presley, was born. Lisa Marie married ‘The Gloved One’, Michael Jackson, in the ‘90s.
(SFC, 8/11/97, p.A1)(440 Int'l, 2/1/1999)
1968 Feb 1, US troops drove the North Vietnamese out of Tan Son Nhut airport in Saigon. South Vietnam President Nguyen Van Thieu declared martial law. Saigon's police chief Nguyen Ngoc Loan executed a Viet Cong officer with a pistol shot to the head in a scene captured by Associated Press photographer Eddie Adams and NBC News.
(HN, 2/1/99)(SFC, 7/16/98, p.B2)(AP, 2/1/08)
1968 Feb 1, The Pennsylvania Railroad and NYC Central merged into Penn Central.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penn_Central)
1968 Feb 4, Neal Cassidy (b.1926), friend of Jack Kerouac and one of the Merry Pranksters, died on a Mexican highway.
(SFC, 7/2/97, p.E5)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neal_Cassady)
1968 Feb 5, US troops divided Viet Cong at Hue while the Saigon government claimed they would arm loyal citizens. The main assaults at Khe Sanh started.
(HN, 2/5/99)(http://www.knowledgerush.com/kr/encyclopedia/Siege_of_Khe_Sanh/)
1968 Feb 6, Former president Dwight Eisenhower hit a golfing hole-in-one.
(SFEC, 4/5/98, Z1 p.8)
1968 Feb 6, Charles de Gaulle opened the 19th Winter Olympics in Grenoble, France.
(HN, 2/6/99)
1968 Feb 7, The Arthur Miller play "Price" premiered in NYC.
(www.theatredatabase.com/20th_century/arthur_miller_timeline.html)
1968 Feb 7, North Vietnamese used 11 Soviet-built light tanks to overrun the U.S. Special Forces camp at Lang Vei at the end of an 18-hour long siege.
(HN, 2/7/99)
1968 Feb 8, George Wallace, the pro-segregation governor of Alabama, entered the US presidential race. Wallace ran as a third-party candidate. He was mainly popular in the deep south, but he was able to attract 14% of the popular vote in the November election.
(HN, 2/7/97)(www.answers.com/topic/george-wallace)
1968 Feb 8, Robert F. Kennedy said that the US cannot win the Vietnam War.
(HN, 2/8/98)
1968 Feb 8, At South Carolina State 3 black students were killed in a confrontation with highway patrolmen in Orangeburg, during a civil rights protest against a whites-only bowling alley. Nearly 50 were injured in the Orangeburg Massacre during confrontations with the National Guard. In 2001 Gov. Jim Hodges voiced his regret over the massacre. In 1970 Jack Nelson (1929-2009), LA Times reporter, authored “The Orangeburg Massacre."
(SFEC, 2/22/98, BR p.8)(AP, 2/8/99)(SFC, 2/9/01, p.A3)(SFC, 10/22/09, p.D6)
1968 Feb 8, In South Carolina Lee Roy Martin, called the editor of a local newspaper, and told him where to find the bodies of two women he'd dumped in the woods. He threatened to kill even more women until he was "shot down like the dog I am." Clues in the area led to Martin's arrest. Martin, dubbed the “Gaffney Strangler," was convicted of four murders and sentenced to four life terms. In 1972, he was stabbed to death in his cell.
(AP, 7/4/09)
1968 Feb 10, Peggy Fleming of the United States won the gold medal in women's figure skating at the Winter Olympic Games in Grenoble, France.
(AP, 2/10/97)
1968 Feb 12, "Soul on Ice" by Eldridge Cleaver (full name: Leroy Eldridge Cleaver), a militant activist and Black Panther, was first published. Cleaver spent much of his early life in and out of prison on charges ranging from drug possession to assault. It was in prison that he began the essays that would become Soul on Ice. Shortly after being paroled in 1966, Eldridge Cleaver met Huey Newton and Bobby Seale, the founders of the Black Panther party. Cleaver quickly became the party's minister of information. Faced with further prison time after a shootout with police in April 1968, Cleaver jumped bail and fled the country, first to Cuba, then to Algeria. He returned voluntarily in 1975 having broken with the Panthers and disillusioned with communism. His change in thinking is reflected in his 1978 book Soul on Fire. He died on May 1, 1998, in Pomona, California.
(AP, 2/12/98)(HNQ, 2/2/01)
1968 Feb 12, A US Navy T-33 jet trainer crashed into the San Francisco Bay Bridge exploding into flames and killing the two men aboard.
(SSFC, 2/11/18, DB p.50)
1968 Feb 13, The US sent 10,500 more combat troops to Vietnam.
(HN, 2/13/98)
1968 Feb 15, The Anaheim Amigos’ Les Selvage scored 10, 3-pt baskets in an ABA game vs. the Denver Nuggets.
(www.islandnet.com/~kpolsson/sports/spor1968.htm)
1968 Feb 16, Beatles George Harrison & John Lennon flew to India with their wives for transcendental meditation with the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi.
(www.beatles.ws/1968.htm)
1968 Feb 16, America’s first 911 emergency telephone system was inaugurated in Haleyville, Ala.
(AP, 2/16/98)
1968 Feb 18, Three US pilots, who had been held by the Vietnamese, arrived in Washington. The Vietnamese people later pressured Hanoi to account for their own 300,000 MIAs.
(HN, 2/18/98)
1968 Feb 18, British adopted year-round daylight savings time.
(www.nmm.ac.uk/explore/astronomy-and-time/time-facts/british-summer-time-(bst))
1968 Feb 18, Some 10,000 people in West Berlin demonstrated against US in Vietnam War.
(www.dreamsville.net/?p=196)
1968 Feb 19, The children's program Mister Rogers' Neighborhood, created by Fred Rogers (1928-2003), premiered on NET (later PBS).
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mister_Rogers%27_Neighborhood)
1968 Feb 19, Mississippi state troopers used tear gas to stop Alcorn A&M demonstrations.
(http://tinyurl.com/c5flal)
1968 Feb 20, A Hue, South Vietnam, army chief ordered all looters to be shot on sight.
(HN, 2/20/98)
1968 Feb 26, Thirty-two African nations agreed to boycott the Olympics because of the presence of South Africa.
(HN, 2/26/98)
1968 Feb 26, Lionel Rose (1949-2011) outpointed Fighting Harada in Tokyo and became a national sports hero and an icon for Australia's indigenous community. Hundreds of thousands lined Melbourne's streets to welcome him home after his title triumph. He lost the world bantamweight title to Mexican Ruben Olivares in a fifth-round knockout in August 1969.
(AFP, 5/9/11)(http://aso.gov.au/titles/radio/lionel-rose-wins-world-title/notes/)
1968 Feb 26, Clandestine Radio Voice of Iraqi People (Communist) made its final transmission.
(SC, 2/26/02)
1968 Feb 27, CBS News anchorman Walter Cronkite‘s commentary on the progress of the Vietnam War solidified President Lyndon B. Johnson‘s decision not to seek re-election in 1968. Cronkite, who had been at Hue in the midst of the Tet Offensive earlier in February, said: "Who won and who lost in the great Tet Offensive against the cities? I‘m not sure." He concluded: "It is increasingly clear to this reporter that the only rational way out...will be to negotiate, not as victors but as an honorable people who lived up to their pledge to defend democracy, and did the best they could." Johnson called the commentary a "turning point," saying that if he had "lost Cronkite," he‘d "lost Mr. Average Citizen." On March 31, Johnson announced he would not seek re-election.
(HNQ, 10/30/00)
1968 Feb 27, Frankie Lymon (b.1942), American singer died. He was an African-American rock and roll/rhythm and blues singer, best known as the boy soprano lead singer of a New York City-based early rock and roll group called the Teenagers. Their first single, "Why Do Fools Fall in Love" (1956), was also their biggest hit. The 1998 film "Why Do Fools Fall in Love" was a musical comedy-drama with Halle Berry, Vivica A. Fox, Lela Rochon and Little Richard. It was directed by Gregory Nava and set in the 1950s based on the life of Frankie Lymon.
(SFC, 8/28/98, p.C1)(SFC, 9/2/98, p.E1)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frankie_Lymon)
1968 Feb 29, At the Grammy Awards, the Fifth Dimension's "Up, Up and Away" won record of the year for 1967, while album of the year honors went to the Beatles for "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band."
(HN, 2/29/00)(AP, 2/29/04)
1968 Feb 29, President Johnson's National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders (also known as the Kerner Commission) warned that racism was causing America to move "toward two societies, one black, one white -- separate and unequal."
(AP, 2/29/00)
1968 Feb 29, Robert McNamara resigned as US Secretary of Defense as a result of the Tet disaster. He was succeeded by Clark Clifford for 9 months who worked to reverse US policy in Vietnam.
(WUD, 1994, p.1687)(SFEC, 10/11/98, p.A2)
1968 Feb 29, The discovery of the first "pulsar," a star which emits regular radio waves, was announced by Dr. Jocelyn Bell Burnell at Cambridge, England.
(AP, 2/29/00)(HN, 2/29/00)
1968 Feb, Robert Crumb (b.1943) published Zap No. 1 featuring the long-bearded, guru-like Natural.
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Crumb)(SFC, 3/15/17, p.D6)
1968 Feb, The US federal hourly minimum wage was set at $1.60 an hour.
(http://usgovinfo.about.com/library/blminwage.htm)
1968 Feb, An Indian army transport aircraft crashed on the Dhakka glacier in Himachal Pradesh state. 102 people were killed. Trekkers stumbled upon its wreckage in 2003 after finding the partially frozen body of a soldier on the glacier.
(AFP, 8/31/13)
1968 Mar 1, Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara was replaced by Clark Clifford.
(HN, 3/1/99)
1968 Mar 1, Singers Johnny Cash (36) and June Carter (38) wed.
(SFC, 9/13/03, p.A12)
1968 Mar 1, The first 15-minute version of the musical "Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat" by Andrew Lloyd Weber was performed at Central Hall, Westminster, London.
(www.thisistheatre.com/joseph/index.html)
1968 Mar 1, The British Parliament amended its Commonwealth Immigrants Act of 1962 further reducing rights of citizens of the Commonwealth of Nations countries to migrate to the UK.
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commonwealth_Immigrants_Act_1968)
1968 Mar 2, The Poor Peoples' March on Washington, envisioned by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. as a means of dramatizing the plight of the poor of all races, got under way.
(www.project1968.com/in-the-news-may-2-1968.html)
1968 Mar 2, In Switzerland the World Ice Pairs Figure Skating Championship in Geneva was won by Lyudmila Belousova and Oleg Protopopov (USSR). The Ladies Figure Skating Championship was won by Peggy Fleming (USA). The Men's Figure Skating Championship was won by Emmerich Danzer (Austria).
(SC, 3/2/02)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Figure_Skating_Championships)
1968 Mar 2, In Vietnam the siege of Khe Sanh ended and the US Marines stationed there were still in control of the mountain top. Gen. John J. Tolson presented a briefing and laid out the concept of what became known as Operation Pegasus. The siege of Khe Sanh was the longest and bloodiest battle of the Vietnam War. During the siege Manny Babbit was wounded. Babbit in 1980 killed a 78-year-old woman in Sacramento, Ca., and was convicted and sentenced to death. He was awarded his Purple Heart while on death row in 1998.
(HN, 3/2/99)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Khe_Sanh)(SFC, 3/20/98, p.A1)
1968 Mar 2, The USSR launched space probe Zond 4. It failed to leave Earth orbit.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zond_4)
1968 Mar 3, The musical "Here's Where I Belong" opened and closed at Billy Rose Theater in NYC. The book was by Alex Gordon and Terrence McNally, lyrics by Alfred Uhry, and music by Robert Waldman.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Here%27s_Where_I_Belong)
1968 Mar 3, The embassies of Greece, Portugal and Spain were bombed in the Hague.
(http://1968ineurope.sneakpeek.de/index.php/chronologies/index/42)
1968 Mar 3, The Tet offensive at Hue, South Vietnam, ended with the crushing of the last Viet Cong resistance. North Vietnamese troops had captured the imperial palace in Hue, South Vietnam. US troops reconquered Hue, Vietnam.
(WUD, 1994, p.1687)(HN, 2/24/99)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Hue)
1968 Mar 4, Martin Luther King Jr. announced plans for Poor People's Campaign. In late March and early April 1968, Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr. devoted his organizing talents to a drive to bring the nation's poor people to Washington, D.C. for a series of massive nonviolent demonstrations. King's "Poor People's Campaign" would attempt to unify African Americans, Latinos, and lower-income whites in pressing the Johnson Administration and Congress in an election year to enact a $30 billion-a-year domestic "Marshall Plan" to alleviate poverty.
(SC, 3/4/02)(http://hnn.us/articles/49016.html)
1968 Mar 4, NASA launched its Orbiting Geophysical Observatory 5.
(http://heasarc.gsfc.nasa.gov/docs/heasarc/missions/ogo.html)
1968 Mar 7, The First Battle of Saigon, begun on Jan 30 as part of the Tet Offensive, ended.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Battle_of_Saigon)
1968 Mar 8, Some 1500 students demonstrated in Warsaw following a government ban on the performance of a play by Adam Mickiewicz, (Dziady), written in 1824). Within four days, protests spread to Krakow, Lublin, Gliwice, Wroclaw, Gdansk, Poznan, and Lodz.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1968_Polish_political_crisis)
1968 Mar 8, The Russian K-129, a Golf-II class, diesel-electric submarine armed with nuclear missiles and 98 seamen aboard, sank in 16,000 feet of water northwest of the Hawaiian island of Oahu. Russian officials suspected that the K-129 was struck by an American submarine, the USS Swordfish. The US Navy said the vessel suffered a catastrophic internal explosion. A US sub, the Halibut, found the Soviet vessel 6 months later and recovered 3 missiles with nuclear warheads, Soviet code books and an encryption machine. In August 1974 the CIA recovered part of the sub. A 100 foot section was pulled in by the Glomar Explorer with 2 nuclear tipped torpedoes and the bodies of 6 Russian sailors.
(SFC, 7/15/96, p.A6)(SFC, 7/5/96, p.A19,21)(AP, 9/11/07)(AP, 2/13/10)
1968 Mar 9, General William Westmoreland asked for 206,000 more troops in Vietnam.
(HN, 3/9/98)
1968 Mar 9, Black Panther Party Chairman Bobby Seale (31) spoke to some seven hundred college students at San Francisco State College and said ghetto negroes “must unify around the gun" urged students fight to free Huey Newton.
(SSFC, 3/4/18, DB p.50)
1968 Mar 10, Robert Kennedy visited Delano, Ca., in his bid for the presidency. He joined Cesar Chavez in a chapel where Chavez broke his fast on behalf of organizing farm workers.
(SFEM, 11/17/96, p.18)
1968 Mar 10-1968 Mar 11, The ultra secret facility Lima Site 85 in Phou Phathi, Laos, was manned by USAF personnel and 11 were KIA or MIA as it was overran. The event has been characterized as the largest single day ground loss for the USAF.
(www.cia.gov/csi/studies/95unclass/Linder.html)(http://limasite85.us/)
1968 Mar 11, San Francisco health authorities announced that evidence of bubonic plague was discovered in an autopsy on a dead rat found in the Marina District. The city had not experienced any human deaths from bubonic plague since 1909 and the last animal death from bubonic plague was reported in 1941.
(SSFC, 3/11/18, DB p.54)
1968 Mar 12, President Lyndon Johnson won the New Hampshire Democratic primary, but a strong second-place showing by anti-war Senator Eugene McCarthy of Minnesota played a role in Johnson's decision not to seek re-election. Johnson won over Eugene McCarthy 49.6 to 41.9%. Republican Richard Nixon won the New Hampshire primary over Nelson Rockefeller 77.6 to 10.8%.
(SSFC, 1/25/04, p.A19)(AP, 3/12/08)
1968 Mar 12, A Miami-bound flight was commandeered to Cuba.
(SFC, 3/14/03, p.E8)
1968 Mar 12, The British-ruled African island of Mauritius became an independent country within the Commonwealth of Nations and many Europeans left the country. GDP per person was about $200. By 2008 it rose to $7,000 per person.
(SFC, 6/24/96, p.A8)(SFC, 7/1/97, p.A9)(SSFC, 12/9/01, p.C9)(AP, 3/12/08)(Econ, 10/18/08, p.58)
1968 Mar 13, Atlantic Richfield Company (ARCO) and Humble Oil and Refining Company (now Exxon Company, U.S.A.) announced the discovery of oil on Alaska’s North Slope (Prudhoe Bay). The oil companies soon began efforts to construct a pipeline, but work was suspended due to environmental concerns.
(AH, 2/05, p.14)(www.alyeska-pipe.com/Pipelinefacts/Chronology.html)
1968 Mar 15, The U.S. mint halted the practice of buying and selling gold.
(HN, 3/15/98)
1968 Mar 15, American intelligence noted withdrawal of major NVA units from the Khe Sanh area.
(www.geocities.com/Pentagon/4867/timeline.html)
1968 Mar 16, Robert F. Kennedy decided to join the presidential race.
(HN, 3/16/98)
1968 Mar 16, LBJ decided to send 35-50,000 more troops to Vietnam.
(HN, 3/16/98)
1968 Mar 16, In Vietnam Lt. Calley led 105 men of Company C into My Lai and at least 347 of 700 Vietnamese civilians were killed. Estimates of villagers massacred ranged from 347-504. Other killings by B company occurred nearby. Col. Oran K. Henderson (d.1998 at 77) was on his first day as commanding officer of the new 11th Infantry Brigade and watched from a command helicopter. Hugh Thompson (d.2006), a helicopter pilot, observed the end of the massacre. He landed between some remaining villagers and his fellow soldiers and ordered his gunner to fire on American troops if necessary. With 2 other gunships he airlifted to safety a dozen villagers. He and his gunner were awarded the Soldier's Medal in 1998. The atrocity was exposed by Ron Ridenhour (d.1998 at 52), a door gunner on an observation helicopter, who flew over the village a few days after the event. He waited several months until he was out of the service before reporting the event to state and congressional officials. The Army later charged 25 officers and enlisted men in the massacre but only Lt. Calley was convicted. Gen. Samuel W. Koster (d.2006) was charged with covering up the killings, but criminal charges were eventually dismissed. Koster was censured, stripped of a medal and demoted one rank to brigadier general. John Sack (d.2004), war correspondent, later authored "Lieutenant Calley: His Own Story." In 1999 Trent Angers authored "The Forgotten Hero of My Lai: The Hugh Thompson Story."
(SFC, 3/5/98, p.A9)(SFC, 3/16/98, p.A8)(SFC, 5/11/98, p.A20)(SFC, 6/6/98, p.A23)(WSJ, 11/2/99, p.A24)(SFC, 3/31/04, p.B7)(SFC, 1/6/06, p.B5) (SFC, 2/14/06, p.B7)(AP, 3/16/08)
1968 Mar 16, Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco (b.1895), Italian composer, died.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mario_Castelnuovo-Tedesco)
1968 Mar 17, A peaceful anti-Vietnam War protest in London was followed by a riot outside the US Embassy; more than 80 people were reported injured. Some 20,000 people at the Vietnam Solidarity Campaign in London were mowed down by police on horses as they marched.
(AP, 3/17/08)(SFC, 5/22/98, p.C12)(www.springerlink.com/content/qg812p1147300117/)
1968 Mar 18, Pres. Johnson signed Public Law 90-269 removing gold backing from US paper money.
(www.peterdavidbeter.com/docs/txt/dbal33.txt)
1968 Mar 19, Howard University students in Washington DC staged rallies, protests and a 5-day sit-in, laying siege to the administration building, shutting down the university in protest over its ROTC program, and demanding a more Afrocentric curriculum.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1968)
1968 Mar 19, In southern California Elizabeth Ernstein (14) disappeared while walking home from school in Mentone, San Bernadino County. Her remains were found in 1969 in a shallow grave near Wrightwood, but were not identified until 2012 through DNA testing.
(SFC, 9/7/12, p.C8)
1968 Mar 20, Pres. Lyndon Johnson held talks with Paraguay’s Pres.-Gen. Alfredo Stroessner in Washington DC.
(Econ, 2/14/04, p.34)(www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=28747)
1968 Mar 21, Israeli forces attacked a Palestinian base belonging to Fatah in the village of Al-Karameh in Jordan. Israeli forces engage in a battle with Palestinian fighters for the first time. On 24 March 1968, the Security Council adopted resolution 248 (1968), condemning the large scale and premeditated military actions by Israel against Jordan. The Karameh mission failed. Muki Betser, Israeli commando, was wounded. He later became commander of the Sayeret Matkal, Israel’s elite counter-terrorist unit.
(SFC, 7/16/96, p.E5)(www.un.int/palestine/chron60.shtml)
1968 Mar 22, Gen'l. William Westmoreland (1914-2005) was relieved of his duties in the wake of the Tet disaster. Troop strength under Westmoreland had reached over 500,000 and he wanted more. He was succeeded by Gen'l. Creighton Abrams. Abrams reversed Westmoreland's strategy. He ended major "search and destroy" missions and focused on protecting population centers. William Colby took charge of the pacification campaign. President Lyndon B. Johnson named Gen. William C. Westmoreland to be the Army's new Chief of Staff.
(HN, 3/22/97)(WSJ, 6/23/99, p.A24)(Econ, 7/30/05, p.79)(AP, 3/22/08)
1968 Mar 22, In southern Thailand Tuanku Biyo Kodoniyo set up the Pattani United Liberation Organization (PULO). It called for an independent Islamic country.
(www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/para/pulo.htm)
1968 Mar 23, Reverend Walter Fauntroy became the 1st non-voting congressional delegate from Washington DC, since Reconstruction.
(www.thehistorymakers.com/timeline/index.asp?string=1968)
1968 Mar 27, Suharto succeeded Sukarno as president of Indonesia. Gen'l. Suharto thwarted a Communist coup and gradually assumed power. Thousands of alleged communists were executed amid widespread violence.
(WSJ, 5/22/98, p.A15)(SFC, 9/8/99, p.A17)(MC, 3/27/02)
1968 Mar 27, Yuri Gagarin (34), Soviet cosmonaut (Vostok I) and the first man to orbit the Earth, died in a plane crash.
(AP, 3/27/97)(MC, 3/27/02)
1968 Mar 28, The U.S. lost its first aircraft in Vietnam. An F-111 vanished in a combat mission over North Vietnam. Republic Aircraft's F-105 Thunderchief, better known as the 'Thud,' was the Air Force's warhorse in Vietnam.
(HN, 3/28/98)
1968 Mar 28, In Memphis a riot erupted during a protest march in support of striking sanitation workers led by Martin Luther King. One African-American marcher was killed and King urged calm as National Guard troops are called to Memphis to restore order. King subsequently departed Memphis, but vowed to return on April 4 to attend another march.
(SFC, 12/1/97, p.A3)(http://tinyurl.com/atrl3z)
1968 Mar 29, In SF Linda Harmon (14) was raped and stabbed to death while babysitting for a neighbor in Visitacion Valley. In late 2003 police matched DNA evidence to William Speer, who was undergoing therapy for sexually violent tendencies at an Arizona mental hospital.
(SFC, 12/24/03, p.A13)(SFC, 11/4/05, p.B1)
1968 Mar 29, Students seized a building at Maryland’s Bowie State College.
(www.amoeba.com/blog/tags/baseball/page1.html)
1968 Mar 30, General Ludvik Svoboda (1895-1979) was elected president of Czechoslovakia. He stayed in office to 1975.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ludv%C3%ADk_Svoboda)
1968 Mar 31, Pres. Johnson announced that he would not run for re-election and declared a partial bombing halt in Vietnam. The stock market soared. Citing national divisions over the war in Vietnam, Johnson declares that "I shall not seek, and I will not accept, the nomination of my party for another term as your president."
(WUD, 1994, p.1687)(TMC, 1994, p.1968)(SFC, 8/18/96, Z1 p.4)(AP, 3/31/97)
1968 In Poland some 4,000 students marched through Warsaw yelling: "Down with the dictatorship."
(SFC, 5/22/98, p.C12)
1968 Apr 1, In Vietnam the U.S. Army launched Operation Pegasus to reopen a land route to the besieged Khe Sanh Marine base.
(HN, 4/1/99)(www.geocities.com/Pentagon/4867/timeline.html)
1968 Apr 2, The influential science-fiction film "2001: A Space Odyssey," produced and directed by Stanley Kubrick, had its world premiere in Washington.
(AP, 4/2/08)
1968 Apr 2, Senator Eugene McCarthy won the Democratic primaries in Wisconsin. In 2004 Dominic Sandbrook authored "Eugene McCarthy: The Rise and Fall of Postwar American Liberalism."
(http://news.minnesota.publicradio.org/features/2005/06/15_newsroom_mccarthytimeline/)(SSFC, 4/11/04, p.M6)
1968 Apr 2, In West Germany the Baader-Meinhof gang was formed and named after its founders, Andreas Baader (d.1977) and Ulrike Meinhof (d.1976). Both later committed suicide in prison. The gang became known as the Red Army Faction and led assassinations, bombings and bank robberies in West Germany through the 1970s and 1980s. The RAF published a letter to Reuters in 1998 and declared to have disbanded.
(SFC, 4/21/98, p.A18)(www.baader-meinhof.com/timeline/1968.html)
1968 Apr 3, Less than 24 hours before he was assassinated in Memphis, Tenn., civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. delivered his "mountaintop" speech to a rally of striking sanitation workers, "It really doesn't matter with me now, because I've been to the mountain top, and I don't mind."
(AP, 4/3/98)
1968 Apr 3, North Vietnam agreed to meet with US representatives to set up preliminary peace talks.
(AP, 4/3/97)
1968 Apr 4, Civil rights leader Martin Luther King, 39, was assassinated while standing on the balcony of the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tenn. James Earl Ray (d.1998) confessed and pleaded guilty in Mar, 1969, but later tried to recant and said he was a fall guy. In 1993 Lloyd Jowers (d.2000), a Memphis businessman, said on ABC-TV that he had hired King's killer as a favor to an underworld figure who was a friend. Jowers said he received $100,000 from Memphis produce merchant Frank Liberto to arrange King’s murder. In 1997 Ray identified an arms smuggler named "Raoul" as the real killer. In 1998 a former FBI agent produced documents from Ray’s car with the name Raul. In 1999 a civil trial jury in Memphis ruled that the 1968 killing of Rev. Martin Luther King was a conspiracy. The jury concluded that Lloyd Jowers, a former café owner, had conspired with elements of the Memphis Police Dept., the federal government and organized crime to kill King. In 2000 a Justice Dept. report rejected allegations of conspiracy. In 2002 Rev. Ronald Denton Wilson (61) said that his father, Henry Clay Wilson (d.1990), had shot King. In 2003 Stewart Burns authored "To the Mountaintop: Martin Luther King's Sacred Mission to Save America."
(SF E&C, 1/15/1995, A-15)(WUD, 1994, p.1687)(SFC, 12/26/96, p.A3)(AP, 4/4/97)(SFC, 4/7/97, p.A10)(SFC, 3/25/98, p.A3)(SFC, 4/24/98, p.A1)(SFEC, 11/21/99, p.A12)(SFC, 11/23/99, p.A9)(SFC, 12/9/99, p.A1)(SFC, 12/10/99, p.A15)(SFC, 5/24/00, p.C5)(SFC, 6/10/00, p.A3)(SFC, 4/4/02, p.A2)(SSFC, 1/11/04, p.M1)
1968 Apr 4, Bobby Kennedy spoke at a black ghetto in Indianapolis just after hearing of the assassination of Martin Luther King. His speech registered the enormity of the event and began the work of healing. Riots over the next few days hit 76 American cities, but Indianapolis remained quiet.
(Econ, 4/22/06, p.79)
1968 Apr 4, Five days of race riots erupted in Washington, D.C. following assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr. Civil unrest affected at least 110 U.S. cities; Washington, along with Chicago and Baltimore, were among the most affected.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1968_Washington,_D.C._riots)
1968 Apr 5, Riots erupted across the US following the King assassination.
(CL, 4/5/96)
1968 Apr 5, Robert F. Kennedy assured the nation that "no martyr's cause had ever been stilled by an assassin’s bullet."
(SFEC, 1/16/00, BR p.1)
1968 Apr 5, In Vietnam the siege of Khe Sahn ended after 76 days.
(HN, 5/5/97)
1968 Apr 6, In Richmond, Indiana, gunpowder stocks at a sporting-goods store exploded and at least 16 people were killed.
(www.gendisasters.com/data1/in/explosions/richmond-gasexplosion-apr1968.htm)
1968 Apr 6, Black Panther member Bobby Hutton (17) was killed in a gun battle with police in West Oakland, Ca., and Eldridge Cleaver was arrested.
(SFC,10/24/97, p.A15)(SFC, 4/25/98, p.A13)
1968 Apr 6, East German voters approved a new socialist constitution by a 94.5% margin.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/East_German_Constitution)
1968 Apr 8, The Academy Awards and Baseball's Opening Day were postponed because of the M.L. King assassination.
(www.funtrivia.com/en/subtopics/The-Assassination-of-Martin-Luther-King-201065.html)
1968 Apr 8, Clay Felker (1925-2008), former editor of the New York Herald’s Sunday magazine, re-introduced New York magazine as a glossy after the paper folded.
(SFC, 7/2/08, p.A2)
1968 Apr 8, In Czechoslovakia a new government was formed under Oldrich Cernik.
(http://archiv.radio.cz/history/history14.html)
1968 Apr 8, In Vietnam Khe Sanh was officially relieved after 77 days by the US 2nd Cavalry. US forces in Operation Pegasus finally retook Route 9, ending the siege of Khe Sanh. Khe Sanh had been the biggest single battle of the Vietnam War to that point. The official assessment of the North Vietnamese Army dead was just over 1,600 killed, with two divisions all but annihilated. Thousands more were probably killed by American bombing.
(www.pbs.org/battlefieldvietnam/timeline/index2.html)
1968 Apr 10, In the 40th Academy Awards "In the Heat of the Night" won as best film. Rod Steiger won as best actor for his role in the film. Katherine Hepburn won as best actress for her role in “Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner."
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/40th_Academy_Awards)
1968 Apr 10, President Johnson replaced General Westmoreland with General Creighton Abrams in Vietnam [see Mar 22].
(HN, 4/10/98)
1968 Apr 10, A ferry boat sank in harbor of Wellington, NZ, and 51 were killed.
(http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/april/10/newsid_2924000/2924897.stm)
1968 Apr 11, President Johnson signed into law the Civil Rights Act of 1968, a week after the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. This included a Fair Housing Act and the Indian Civil Rights Act, which limited sentences that tribes could hand down on any charge to six months. In 1968 Congress increased the maximum to one year. The Federal National Mortgage Association (Fannie Mae - FNMA), established by the government in 1938, became a private, shareholder-owned company as part of the Fair Housing Act.
(http://tinyurl.com/2o3p2q)(AP, 4/11/98)(SFC, 2/20/98, p.A23)(http://tinyurl.com/ldx765)
1968 Apr 11, Riots erupted in West Berlin after the shooting of student leader Rudi Dutschke (1940-1979). He survived the assassination attempt by a right-wing extremist, living for another twelve years until related health problems caused his death.
(WUD, 1994, p.1687)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rudi_Dutschke)
1968 Apr 14, The gay-themed play, "The Boys in the Band" by Mart Crowley, opened off Broadway at Theater Four and set a new genre. A film version was released in 1970.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Boys_in_the_Band)(AP, 4/14/08)(WSJ, 8/28/96, p.A10)
1968 Apr 16, The Pentagon announced the "Vietnamization" of the war; troops will begin coming home.
(HN, 4/16/99)
1968 Apr 16, Edna Ferber (b.1885), US author (Giant, Showboat), died. Her novels included “Show Boat" (1926), which was produced on Broadway in 1927 and later adopted 4 times as a movie.
(www.apl.org/history/ferber/edna.bio.html)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edna_Ferber)
1968 Apr 18, Some 178,000 employees of US Bell Telephone System went on strike.
(www.project1968.com/in-the-news-april-14-apri.html)
1968 Apr 18, There was a coup in Sierra Leone. A new government under Siaka Stevens was announced.
(WUD, 1994, p.1687)
1968 Apr 19, Ralph S. Plaisted (1927- 2008), insurance salesman turned explorer, reached the North Pole by snowmobile with 3 other men. This was the first expedition to indisputably reach the North Pole.
(SFC, 9/11/08, p.B4)
1968 Apr 19, The Secretary of the National Assembly in Czechoslovakia promised rehabilitation of political prisoners and freedom of the press, assembly and religion.
(WUD, 1994, p.1687)
1968 Apr 19, Makhosetive, later King Mswati III of Swaziland, was born.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mswati_III_of_Swaziland)
1968 Apr 20, Enoch Powell (1912-1998) became a national figure in Britain following his address to the General Meeting of the West Midlands Area Conservative Political Center, which became known as the "Rivers of Blood" speech. It pointedly criticized immigration into Britain from the Commonwealth nations and opposed the then proposed–anti-discrimination legislation Race Relations Bill being mooted at the time.
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enoch_Powell)
1968 Apr 20, Pierre Elliott Trudeau was sworn in as Canada’s 15th Prime Minister. He succeeded Lester B. Pierson and continued in office to 1979.
(CFA, '96, p.81)(AP, 4/20/97)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pierre_Trudeau)
1968 Apr 21, In the 22nd Tony Awards: "Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead" and "Hallelujah Baby" won.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/22nd_Tony_Awards)
1968 Apr 21, The First Baptist Church of Oxford Mississippi voted to exclude black people from their congregation.
(Econ, 10/24/15, p.29)
1968 Apr 23, The Methodist Church and the Evangelical United Brethren Church merged to form the United Methodist Church.
(AP, 4/23/97)
1968 Apr 23, At Columbia Univ. in NYC the SDS held a rally in support of the IDA Six. An 8-day student sit-in began at Columbia Univ. to protest ties to the Defense Dept. and plans to build a gym over neighborhood objections. Within 72 hours students seized 5 buildings. The occupation ended on April 30 as police swept in and arrested some 700 people. In 2009 Mark Rudd, prominent student leader at Columbia, authored “Underground: My Life With SDS and the Weathermen."
(www.wikicu.com/1968_protests)(SFC, 9/1/03, p.B4)(WSJ, 3/28/09, p.W8)(SFC, 4/23/18, p.A7)
1968 Apr 26, The US Social Security Administration (SSA) convened an interagency meeting of technical staff from Federal agencies with an interest in poverty. SSA personnel presented to the group their proposal to use the revised food plans to recalculate the poverty and low income thresholds, and the group agreed to the proposal.
(www.ssa.gov/history/fisheronpoverty.html)
1968 Apr 26, Students seized administration building at Ohio State University.
(HN, 4/26/98)
1968 Apr 26, The United States exploded a 1.3 megaton nuclear device called "Boxcar" beneath the Nevada desert.
(AP, 4/26/08)
1968 Apr 26, In Sierra Leone Pres. Siaka Stevens (1905-1988) re-assumed the post of prime minister following brief military rule. He led a one-party socialist state that was later described as a “17-year plague of locusts."
(WSJ, 5/31/00, p.A26)(Econ, 8/4/07, p.42)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siaka_Stevens)
1968 Apr 27, In San Francisco Muhammad Ali spoke in front of some 15,000 anti-war and anti-racist demonstrators at Civic Center Plaza saying: "any intelligent white woman and white man" doesn't want a "Kinky haired Negro" marrying into his or her family. Neither, he added, did any intelligent "so-called Negro" want his children marrying whites.
(SSFC, 4/22/18, DB p.50)
1968 Apr 27, In the Netherlands part of a group of Catholic radicals left their own party and formed the Political Party of Radicals (PPR). The party dissolved in 1991.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_Party_Radicals)
1968 Apr 28, In Baden-Wurttenburg, West Germany, the far-right National Democratic Party gained 12 seats.
(WUD, 1994, p.1687)
1968 Apr 29, The counterculture musical "Hair" opened on Broadway following limited engagements off-Broadway.
(AP, 4/29/08)
1968 Apr 29, Dr. Ralph Abernathy led The Poor People's Campaign in Washington D.C., less than a month after the assassination of King. It concluded on June 23. The campaign was for reforms in welfare, employment and housing policies. Abernathy was the successor to Rev. Martin Luther King as head of the Southern Christian Leadership conference.
(HNQ, 1/19/99)
1968 Apr 30, US Marines attacked a division of North Vietnamese in the village of Dai Do.
(HN, 4/30/99)
1968 Apr 30, In NYC a thousand police officers swept into Columbia Univ. to clear out protesters who had occupied Hamilton Hall on April 23. One hundred students and 15 officers were injured as police arrested 700 people.
(SFC, 4/23/18, p.A7)
1968 Apr, Simon & Garfunkel released their song "Mrs. Robinson."
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mrs._Robinson)
1968 Apr, Jews moved into Hebron following its occupation in the wake of the 1967 6-Day War. They later settled in the new suburb of Kiryat Arba. Rabbi Moshe Levinger (1935-2015) left Jerusalem on Passover eve along with several dozen followers and checked into the Park Hotel posing as Swiss tourists. The next day, Levinger declared their true identity and announced their intention to re-establish Hebron's Jewish community.
(SFC, 12/4/08, p.A27)(AP, 5/17/15)
1968 Apr, Soviet dissidents began publishing the "Chronicle of Current Events" and continued to 1982. It was one of the longest-running samizdat periodicals of the post-Stalin USSR. The final issue of the Chronicle was dated 31 December 1982, but it was never circulated in the USSR or translated abroad. All but two were smuggled out and then translated and circulated by Peter Reddaway (b.1939). In 2020 Reddaway's book "The Dissidents" was published.
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chronicle_of_Current_Events)(Econ, 4/11/20, p.66)
1968 Apr, The South Korean Silmido Unit was forged of misfits to "blast Kim Il Sung's palace in Pyongyang and cut his throat."
(AP, 12/25/03)
1968 May 1, In a second day of battle, US Marines, with the support of naval fire, continued their attack on a North Vietnamese Division at Dai Do.
(HN, 5/1/99)
1968 May 2, The US Army attacked Nhi Ha in South Vietnam and began a fourteen-day battle to wrestle it away from Vietnamese Communists.
(HN, 5/2/99)
1968 May 3, After three days of battle, the US Marines retook Dai Do complex in Vietnam, only to find the North Vietnamese had evacuated the area.
(HN, 5/3/99)
1968 May 3, A Black Student Sit-In at the Bursar's Office began. It lasted for 38 hours, after the Northwestern University refused to accede to the demands of For Members Only, the black undergraduate student group.
(www.library.northwestern.edu/archives/onthisday/2009/05/)
1968 May 3, Texas Dr. Denton Cooley (1920-2016) and Dr. Michael E. DeBakey (1908-2008), surgeons at Houston’s St. Luke’s Hospital, sewed the heart of a 15-year-old girl into Everett Thomas (47) in the world’s first successful heart transplant. Thomas lived for 204 days.
(http://tinyurl.com/gtkx9po)(SSFC, 11/20/16, p.C11)
1968 May 3-1958 May 17, Student riots and strikes hit France. 10 million workers went on strike. Workers struck the Renault factory on Seguin Island for 33 days until the government recognized their union.
(WUD, 1994, p.1687)(SFC, 5/22/98, p.C12)(WSJ, 3/31/99, p.B14)
1968 May 5, US Air Force planes hit Nhi Ha, South Vietnam, in support of attacking infantrymen.
(HN, 5/5/99)
1968 May 5, Spain closed its frontier with Gibraltar. This Followed a referendum in which Gibraltar's voters were asked whether they wished to become part of Spain and voted with a resounding no vote.
(www.thepeoplehistory.com/may5th.html)
1968 May 6, Astronaut Neil Armstrong was nearly killed in a lunar module trainer accident.
(HNQ, 7/20/99)
1968 May 6, In Paris violent fighting took place in the morning and then from 2 p.m. in the afternoon to 1 a.m. the next morning on the Boulevard Saint-Michel and Saint-Germain. Close to 600 students and police were wounded. Student strikes spread to the provinces.
(http://marxists.anu.edu.au/history/etol/writers/frank/1968/may1968/chronology.htm)
1968 May 8, William Styron (1925-2006), a white author, received the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction for “The Confessions of Nat Turner" (1967). The book was based on the true story of an 1831 slave revolt in Virginia. Some black intellectuals, including Cornell historian John Henrik Clarke, published a critical response to the book.
(www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/rfk/sfeature/sf_1968_text_05.html)
1968 May 8, Catfish Hunter of the Oakland Athletics pitched the first perfect game in the American League in 47 years before a crowd of 5,000 at the Oakland Coliseum.
(SFEC, 3/1/98, p.W39)
1968 May 10, FBI director Hoover sent all field offices an urgent memo escalating the FBI’s attack on dissent. It authorized an operation called “Counterintelligence Program – New Left."
(SFCM, 10/10/04, p.23)
1968 May 10, Preliminary Vietnam peace talks began in Paris.
(AP, 5/10/97)
1968 May 11, In France PM Georges Pompidou made a speech conceding to the demand to reopen the universities and implied the government would release arrested students. The night of May 10-11 became known as the ``Night of the Barricades.’ These events galvanized public support for the students.
(http://links.org.au/node/491)
1968 May 12, In Israel the Knesset passed the Jerusalem Day Law, making the day a national holiday. Israel’s government proclaimed Jerusalem Day, to be celebrated on the 28th of Iyar, the Hebrew date on which the divided city of Jerusalem became one.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jerusalem_Day)
1968 May 13, Peace talks between the US and North Vietnam began in Paris.
(WUD, 1994, p.1687)(HN, 5/13/98)
1968 May 13, In France a general strike and monster demonstration took place in Paris. Some 1,000,000 French demonstrated in support of student protesters.
(http://marxists.anu.edu.au/history/etol/writers/frank/1968/may1968/chronology.htm)
1968 May 14, The Beatles in NYC announced the formation of their Apple Corp.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_Corps)
1968 May 14, Adm. Husband Edward Kimmel (b.1882), commandant US Ocean fleet WW II, died in Connecticut. Some historians, such as submariner Captain Edward L. "Ned" Beach, later believed Admiral Kimmel and Army Lieutenant General Walter Short became scapegoats for the failures of their superiors prior to the attack on Pearl Harbor and that their careers were effectively and unfairly ruined.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Husband_Kimmel)
1968 May 15, US Marines relieved army troops in Nhi Ha, South Vietnam, after a fourteen-day battle.
(HN, 5/15/99)
1968 May 15, A tornado at Jonesboro, Arkansas, killed 34 people. Another near Anchorage, Alaska, killed one person.
(SFC, 5/15/09, p.D8)
1968 May 17, In Maryland the Catonsville Nine, including Catholic priests Daniel (1921-2016) and Phillip Berrigan (1921-2002), took hundreds of files from the draft board at the Knights of Columbus building and set them on fire with gasoline and soap chips. On November 9 all nine were sentenced to two years in prison.
(www.amazon.com/Trial-Catonsville-Nine-Daniel-Berrigan/dp/0823223310)(SFC, 12/7/02, p.A3)(SFC, 5/2/16, p.C4)
1968 May 18, In Maryland’s 94th Preakness Ismael Valenzuela aboard Forward Pass won in 1:56.8.
(http://gallery.pictopia.com/bloodhorse/gallery/6826/photo/1259538/)
1968 May 20, The US Supreme Court (United States v. United Shoe Machinery Corp., 391 U.S. 244) ruled for the breakup of United Shoe Machinery Company in Mass.
(http://supreme.justia.com/us/391/244/)(WSJ, 10/2/97, p.A16)
1968 May 22, The nuclear-powered US submarine Scorpion, with 99 men aboard, sank in the Atlantic Ocean. It was declared lost on June 5. Remains of the sub were found in October on the ocean floor 400 miles southwest of the Azores.
(AP, 5/22/07)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Scorpion_(SSN-589))
1968 May 24, The Rolling Stones, an English rock band, released "Jumping Jack Flash" in England. The US release was on June 1.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jumpin%27_Jack_Flash)
1968 May 24, Pres. De Gaulle proposed a referendum and students set fire to Paris. Rioters set fire to the Paris Bourse.
(WUD, 1994, p.1687)(MC, 5/24/02)
1968 May 25, The Gateway Arch, part of the Jefferson National Expansion Memorial in St. Louis, was dedicated by Vice President Hubert Humphrey and Interior Secretary Stewart Udall.
(AP, 5/25/08)
1968 May 25, Charles K. Feldman, film producer, died. His film productions included Casino Royale (1967).
(www.imdb.com/name/nm0271012/)
1968 May 25, George KFW von Kuchler (b.1881), German marshal, died. Kuchler’s forces had moved into Belgium and occupied Antwerp on 18 May 1940.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georg_von_K%C3%BCchler)
1968 May 25, In Newcastle, England, Mary Flora Bell, one day before her 11th birthday, strangled Martin Brown (4). She and unrelated friend Norma Bell (13) were later tried for the murders of 2 boys Martin Brown (4) and Brian Howe (3), committed 9 weeks apart. In 1972 Gitta Sereny published "The Case of Mary Bell," based on her coverage of the trial. In 1999 Gitta Sereny published "Cries Unheard: Why Children Kill: The Story of Mary Bell," based on interviews with Mary Bell.
(SFEC, 6/6/99, BR p.5)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Bell)
1968 May 27, The US Memorial Day was celebrated. The last Monday of the month was set aside in 1968 to remember those who had died in the service of their country. Memorial Day, which began in 1868 as Decoration Day, had been celebrated on May 30 for the first 100 years.
(HNPD, 5/31/99)
1968 May 27, In Senegal a university student strike began. Police moved in and one student died and several more were hurt. Workers then declared a strike on May 30 and for a time the protests came close to bringing down the government of Pres. Leopold Sedar Senghor.
(AFP, 6/2/18)
1968 May 28, Minnesota Senator Eugene McCarthy beat Sen. Robert F. Kennedy in the Democratic primary in Oregon.
(http://news.minnesota.publicradio.org/features/2005/06/15_newsroom_mccarthytimeline/)
1968 May 29, Pres. Johnson signed the Truth in Lending Act into law.
(http://altlaw.org/v1/cases/552046)
1968 May 29, UN Resolution 253 resolved sanctions on white-minority-ruled Rhodesia.
(www.unhcr.org/refworld/country,,,RESOLUTION,ZWE,456d621e2,3b00f27434,0.html)
1968 May 30, French Pres. Charles de Gaulle delivered a forceful televised address in order to regain control of public opinion, thrown into confusion by the political events resulting from a student protest.
(www.ena.lu/address_given_charles_gaulle_events_1968_paris_1968-022600052.html)
1968 May 30, Authorities blew up the University Church in Leipzig, Germany, to make room for the reconstruction of Karl-Marx-Platz, the city’s main square.
(http://www.churchtimes.co.uk/content.asp?id=61806)
1968 May, The Lawrence Hall of Science opened in the Berkeley Hills. It was built in honor of Ernest Orlando Lawrence, who developed the cyclotron. The octagonal shape represented the 8 branches of physical science.
(LHS, 2/12/1998)
1968 May, Bill Hambrecht & George Quist founded Hambrecht & Quist, an investment banking firm in SF, California, that focused on hi-growth issues. In 1999 it was acquired for $1.35B by Chase Manhattan Bank.
(SFC, 6/22/96, p.D1)(www.nndb.com/company/084/000057910/)
1968 May, The USSR KGB head Yuri Andropov, worried about the “Prague Spring," ordered 15 agents to target the intellectual elite in Czechoslovakia. This was the first such KGB action against a Warsaw Pact ally. This was reported after documents were released in 2014, copies of KGB files smuggled out of Russia in 1992 by senior KGB official Vasili Mitrokhin.
(AP, 7/10/14)
1968 Jun 1, The British television series "The Prisoner," starring Patrick McGoohan, had its American premiere on CBS.
(AP, 6/1/08)
1968 Jun 1, Author-lecturer Helen Keller (87), who earned a college degree despite being blind and deaf most of her life, died in Westport, Conn. In 1980 Joseph Lash published "Helen and Teacher," the story of Helen Keller and Annie Sullivan.
(AP, 6/1/97)(SFEC, 8/16/98, BR p.3)
1968 Jun 3, Valerie Solanas, founder of the Society for Cutting Up Men (SCUM), and author of the "SCUM Manifesto," shot Andy Warhol with a .32 automatic in his New York film studio, known as The Factory. Warhol survived but Solanas was judged insane and served three years in a psychiatric prison. She died in 1988 at 52 in a welfare hotel in San Francisco of bronchial pneumonia and emphysema. The 1996 film "I Shot Andy Warhol" was made by Mary Harron and featured Lili Taylor as Solanas.
(SFC, 5/15/96, p.E-1)(AP, 6/3/98)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valerie_Solanas)
1968 Jun 4, Robert Kennedy won the California democratic Presidential Primary whose candidates included Eugene McCarthy. Vice-Pres. Hubert Humphrey had declined to enter the California primary. Kennedy was shot the next day in LA by Sirhan Sirhan and died on June 6.
(SFEM, 11/17/96, p.26)
1968 Jun 4, Alexandre Kojeve (b.1902), French-Russian philosopher, died in Brussels. He was suspected of serving as a Soviet spy from 1938 to his death.
(WSJ, 10/11/01, p.A20)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexandre_Koj%C3%A8ve)
1968 Jun 5, Sen. Robert F. Kennedy was shot and mortally wounded at the Ambassador Hotel in LA just after claiming victory in California's Democratic presidential primary. Gunman Sirhan Bishara Sirhan was immediately arrested. In 2016 Larry Tye authored “Bobby Kennedy: The Making of a Liberal Icon." In 2018 Lisa Pease authored "A Lie Too Big to Fail," in which she described how witnesses with evidence of conspiracy were silenced by the Los Angeles Police Department; how evidence was deliberately altered and, in some instances, destroyed. In 2021 Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said security guard Thane Eugene Cesar (d.2019) fired the shots that killed his father.
(WUD, 1994, p.1687)(AP, 6/5/97)(Econ, 7/9/16, p.71)(SFC, 12/9/21, p.A10)
1968 Jun 6, Sen. Robert F. Kennedy died at Good Samaritan Hospital in Los Angeles, a day after he was shot by Sirhan Bishara Sirhan. In 2000 Ronald Steel authored "In Love With Night: The American Romance With Robert Kennedy." In 1969 Jack Newfield (d.2004) authored “Robert Kennedy: A Memoir." In 2000 Evan Thomas authored "Robert Kennedy: His Life."
(AP, 6/6/97)(SFEC, 1/16/00, BR p.1)(WSJ, 9/7/00, p.A24)(SFC, 12/22/04, p.B5)
1968 Jun 7, Michael Robert Smith (25) escaped from California’s Soledad prison while serving time for a robbery conviction. He headed to Nevada, then New Jersey and into a marriage that didn't work out. In 2001 Smith moved to a tiny trailer in a heavily wooded area of Creek County, Okla., where he was recaptured in 2006.
(AP, 5/20/06)
1968 Jun 7, Dan Duryea (b.1907), film, stage and TV actor, died. His numerous films included “The Pride of the Yankees" (1942) and “The Flight of the Phoenix" (1965).
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dan_Duryea)
1968 Jun 7, In South Vietnam the week long Operation Swift Saber began. US Marines swept an area 10 miles northwest of Danang.
(www.chinfo.navy.mil/navpalib/ships/carriers/histories/cv45-valleyforge/cv45-valleyforge.html)
1968 Jun 7, In Spain ETA, a Basque Homeland and Freedom separatist group, shot and killed Civil Guard Jose Pardines Arcay at a checkpoint. This marked ETA’s 1st killing as it began fighting for independence. Its political wing was Herri Batasuna.
(SFEC, 7/13/97, p.A11)(SFC, 7/21/97, p.A10)(AP, 3/22/06)
1968 Jun 8, Authorities announced the capture in London of James Earl Ray, the suspected assassin of civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr.
(AP, 6/8/97)(HN, 6/8/98)
1968 Jun 12, The UN General Assembly adopted a Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons effective as of Mar 5, 1970. It acknowledged that some countries had nuclear weapons and charged them the obligation of negotiating their elimination. This obligation was expressed in stronger terms in 1996 by the Int’l. Court of Justice. It was opened for signatures on July 1, 1968.
(http://nuclearweaponarchive.org/Nwfaq/Nfaq7.html)(Econ, 8/20/05, p.14)
1968 Jun 13, Johnny Cash performed a live concert at California’s Folsom Prison. Applause from the inmates was dubbed into his "At Folsom Prison" album.
(WSJ, 11/26/97, p.CA4)(Econ, 9/18/04, p.88)
1968 Jun 13, US Supreme Court Chief Justice Earl Warren (1891-1974) submitted his resignation to Pres. Johnson.
(www.presidentialtimeline.org/html/record.php?id=1338)
1968 Jun 14, Four of the Boston Five were convicted of conspiracy in their organized draft protest. Mitchell Goodman (1924-1997) organized the protest that included the burning of draft cards. Dr. Benjamin Spock (1903-1998), American pediatrician, was one of the defendants and the trial came to be known as the "Spock trial." The convictions were later overturned.
(SFC, 2/7/97, p.A28)(www.stg.brown.edu/projects/1968/reference/timeline.html)
1968 Jul 15, The TV soap opera “One Life to Live" premiered. Its final episode was scheduled in the Fall of 2011.
(SFC, 4/15/11, p.F2)(www.ovguide.com/tv/one_life_to_live.htm)
1968 Jun 17, The US Supreme Court in Jones v. Mayer banned racial discrimination in the sale and rental of housing.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jones_v._Mayer)
1968 Jun 17, The UK enacted sanctions against Rhodesia.
(WUD, 1994, p.1687)
1968 Jun 19, Some 50,000 marched on Washington, DC, to support the Poor People's Campaign. Rev. Jesse Jackson preached “I Am Somebody" at Resurrection City, a tent city set up in front of the White House. In 1971 he turned the speech into a poem for Sesame Street.
(http://cheyannescampsite.blogspot.com/2008_06_15_archive.html)(SFC, 7/5/96, BR, p.6)(HN, 6/19/98)
1968 Jun 19, In SF newlywed Officer Peter McElligott (25) was fatally shot in a shootout with 2 robbery suspects in Golden Gate Park. The 2 attackers were soon captured and later convicted of murder.
(SFC, 1/27/07, p.A8)(SSFC, 6/17/18, DB p.50)
1968 Jun 24, "Resurrection City," a shantytown constructed as part of the Poor People's March on Washington, D.C., was closed by authorities.
(AP, 6/24/97)
1968 Jun 24, The St. Jean Baptiste parade in Montreal, an annual celebration of Quebec nationalism, erupted in violence.
(WSJ, 10/3/00, p.A26)
1968 Jun 25, The Canadian federal election was held to elect members of the Canadian House of Commons of the 28th Parliament of Canada. The Liberal Party won a majority government under its new leader, PM Pierre Trudeau.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canadian_federal_election,_1968)
1968 Jun 26, President Johnson read and released Supreme Court Chief Justice Earl Warren's two June 13 letters, his June 26 reply, and announced that he had named Associate Justice Abe Fortas to succeed Warren.
(AP, 6/26/98)(www.mdeansutton.com/warren.htm)
1968 Jun 26, There was a big victory for the Liberal Party in Canada.
(WUD, 1994, p.1687)
1968 Jun 26, The national flag of Japan, the hinomaru, was raised atop Mt. Suribachi on Iwo Jima symbolizing the return of the central Pacific island to Japan.
(SSFC, 6/24/18, DB p.54)
1968 Jun 27, The Czechoslovak parliament abolished censorship and provided for rehabilitation of political prisoners.
(WUD, 1994, p.1687)
1968 Jun 28, Pres. Johnson signed the Uniform Monday Holiday Act. It moved official recognition of Washington’s birthday and some other holidays to Mondays. Columbus Day, previously celebrated on Oct. 12, was moved to the 2nd Monday of October. In 2004 Pres. Bush set it to Oct 11.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uniform_Monday_Holiday_Act)(SFC, 2/21/05, p.A7)
1968 Jun 29, "Tip-Toe Thru' The Tulips With Me" by Tiny Tim (1932-1996), aka Herbert Khaury, peaked at #17.
(SFC, 12/2/96, p.A4)(www.dreamsville.net/index.php?paged=2)
1968 Jun 29, In Costa Rica the Arenal volcano, dormant for 450 years, burst into life and killed 95 people. The village of Tabacon was wiped out.
(SFC, 5/9/98, p.A7)(SSFC, 4/1/01, p.T6)
1968 Jun 30, The Lockheed C-5A Galaxy, a large US Air Force transport plane, made its first flight.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C-5_Galaxy)
1967 Jun, The theme song from the film "The Good, The Bad, And The Ugly" by Hugo Montenegro (1925-1981) reached No. 2 on the US record charts.
(http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0599359/bio)
1968 Jun, Ralph Nader formed his first task force of crusading students, comprised of seven law student volunteers. The group, later known as Nader’s Raiders, began looking into the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), a sleepy bureaucracy entrusted with protecting consumers from shoddy products, fraudulent business practices and deceptive advertising.
(www.csrl.org/csrlhistory/index.html)
1968 Jun, In Quebec, Canada, the summertime Festival d’Ete de Quebec was begun.
(www.thecanadianencyclopedia.com/index.cfm?PgNm=TCE&Params=U1ARTU0001201)
1968 Jul 1, The Band released their "Music From Big Pink" album. It features one of their best-known songs, "The Weight."
(WSJ, 12/15/99, p.A20)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Music_from_Big_Pink)
1968 Jul 1, The United States, Britain, the Soviet Union and 58 other nations signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. India refused to sign.
(AP, 7/1/97)(SFC, 5/28/98, p.A9)(http://tinyurl.com/d5cf45)
1968 Jul 1, Dominica’s left-wing government brought in the Seditious and Undesirable Publications Act to suppress dissent. Eugenia Charles led the opposition to get it withdrawn and was made the leader of the Dominica Free Party.
(Econ, 9/17/05, p.90)(http://tinyurl.com/l5lh6m)
1968 Jul 4, Arthur Kopit's "Indians," premiered in London.
(www.enotes.com/indians)
1968 Jul 4, The radio astronomy satellite Explorer 38 launched.
(www.n2yo.com/satellite/?s=28608)
1968 Jul 8, Golda Meir resigned from her post as secretary of the Labor Party.
(www.jafi.org.il/education/jafi75/timeline5i.html)
1968 Jul 13, Christoforos Savva (b.1924), Cyprus’ most avant-garde artist, died of a heart attack in Sheffield, England.
(https://tinyurl.com/yxolkqub)(AP, 1/31/21)
1968 Jul 15, Commercial air travel began between US & USSR.
(www.flightglobal.com/pdfarchive/view/1968/1968%20-%201275.html)
1968 Jul 15, Intel was founded. Robert Noyce and Gordon Moore had left Fairchild Semiconductor to form NM Electronics in Mountain View, Ca. In 1997 Tim Jackson published "Inside Intel: Andrew Grove and the Rise of the World’s Most Powerful Chip Company." Grove (1936-2016) joined Intel in this year as its first employee and became its president in 1979. They bought the rights to the name Intel from Intelco for $15,000.
(SFEC, 10/26/97, BR p.3)(SFEC, 12/21/97, p.A2)(SFC, 10/11/00, p.A6)(SFC, 7/16/03, p.B1)(Econ, 3/26/15, p.75)
1968 Jul 17, Beatle's animated film "Yellow Submarine" premiered in London. The US premiere was on November 13.
(www.imdb.com/title/tt0063823/releaseinfo)
1968 Jul 17, The Arab Socialist Baath Party staged a bloodless coup in Iraq and gained control as the Revolution Command Council. Abdul Rahman Arif, brother of Abdul Salam Arif (d.1966), was ousted in the Baathist coup and exiled to Istanbul. Ahmed Hasan-al-Bakr became president of Iraq after the July 17 coup. This became a national holiday until it was abolished in 2003. Saddam Hussein soon became recognized as the strongman of the regime.
(NG, 5/88, p.653)(SFC, 9/24/02, p.A10)(AP, 7/13/03)(NW, 9/8/03, p.32)
1968 Jul 18, Intel was incorporated as N M Electronics (the letters standing for Noyce and Moore), but quickly changed its name to Intel, formed from the first syllables of the words integrated and electronics.
(http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_gx5202/is_2004/ai_n19123399)
1968 Jul 18, The UK enacted sanctions against Rhodesia for a 2nd time. The first time was on June 17.
(WUD, 1994, p.1687)(http://tinyurl.com/c5kcs9)
1968 Jul 20, Joseph Keilberth (b.1908), German conductor (Bayreuth Festival), died.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Keilberth)
1968 Jul 25, H. Wroblewski discovered asteroid #1993 Guacolda on exposures by G. Plouguin and I. Belyaiev at the University of Chile, Cerro El Roble Station.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1993_Guacolda)
1968 Jul 26, In NYC Vladimir Vorlicek (34) of Brooklyn bought a box of shotgun shells at an Abercrombie and Fitch gun store, loaded one shell into a gun taken from a rack and shot himself.
(SSFC, 7/22/18, DB p.50)
1968 Jul 26, Britain’s Theater Act abolished censorship of the theatre and amended the law in respect of theatres and theatrical performances. .
(www.opsi.gov.uk/RevisedStatutes/Acts/ukpga/1968/cukpga_19680054_en_1)
1968 Jul 27, A 3-day race riot began in Gary, Indiana.
(www.project1968.com/july-28-august-3-1968.html)
1968 Jul 29, Pope Paul VI issued the encyclical Humanae Vitae, which reaffirmed the Church’s opposition to abortion and to all contraception except the rhythm method.
(WUD, 1994, p.1687)(AP, 7/29/98)(SSFC, 7/8/01, p.A4)
1968 Jul 30, In Gary, Indiana, policemen took aim at snipers after the third night of racial unrest. 64 people were taken into custody. Mayor Richard G. Hatcher, the first Negro mayor in a city with a Negro majority, said that he now believes that gangs realize they will not be allowed to use violence to get what they want.
(www.project1968.com/july-28-august-3-1968.html)
1968 Jul 30, Saddam Hussein took charge of internal security services in Iraq.
(AP, 10/17/05)
1968 Jul 31, The Beatle's recorded Hey Jude.
(http://oldies.about.com/od/thebeatlessongs/a/heyjude.htm)
1968 Jul 31, In Boston 4 men were convicted for shooting Edward "Teddy" Deegan in a Chelsea, Mass., alley in 1965. In 2007 a federal judge in Boston ordered the government to pay a record nearly $102 million for the FBI's role in the wrongful murder convictions of the 4 men. Two of the men convicted, Louis Greco and Henry Tameleo, died behind bars. The others, Peter Limone (73) and Joseph Salvati (74) spent three decades in prison.
(www.justicedenied.org/issue/issue_27/fbi%27s_legacy_of_shame.html)
1968 Jul, The British blues group Cream, with vocalist and bassist Jack Bruce (1943-2014), drummer Ginger Baker (b.1939) and guitarist Eric Clapton (b.1945) released their double album “Wheels of Fire" in the US. It became the first double album to go platinum.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wheels_of_Fire)
1968 Aug 3, The Bratislava statement conceded Czechoslovakia’s right to pursue its own path. The conference was held in Bratislava, Slovakia, for representatives of the communist and workers' parties of the People's Republic of Bulgaria, the Hungarian People's Republic, the German Democratic Republic, the Polish People's Republic, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, and the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic.
(WUD, 1994, p.1687)(http://library.thinkquest.org/C001155/documents/doc41.htm)
1968 Aug 5, The Republican national convention convened in Miami Beach. Ronald Reagan announced that he would seek the GOP nomination for president. He soon threw his support to Nixon.
(AP, 8/5/08)(SSFC, 6/9/02, p.F6)(SSFC, 6/6/04, A16)
1968 Aug 8, Richard M. Nixon was nominated for president at the Republican National Convention in Miami Beach. Later that day, Nixon chose Maryland Gov. Spiro T. Agnew to be his running mate.
(AP, 8/8/97)
1968 Aug 8, In Florida a riot broke out in several neighborhoods of Miami, Florida, including one community just 10 miles from the Republican Convention. 3 negroes were killed by gunfire.
(www.project1968.com/august-4-10-1968.html)
1968 Aug 9, The 267-day Detroit newspaper strike ended.
(www.loc.gov/rr/news/chronological/exception_report.html)
1968 Aug 10, In West Virginia 35 people were killed in the crash of a Piedmont Airlines Fairchild FH-227 at Kanawha County Airport.
(AP, 8/10/08)
1968 Aug 11, Eight US troops were killed and 50 wounded when an Air Force F100 fighter accidentally bombed a US unit near Ta Bat, northeast of Saigon. The fighter intended on hitting Viet Cong who were located in front of the troops.
(www.project1968.com/august-11-17-1968.html)
1968 Aug 11, The USSR announced new military maneuvers along the Czechoslovak border.
(WUD, 1994, p.1687)
1968 Aug 13, In Greece there was an assassination attempt against Col. George Papadopoulos (1919-1999), the right-wing military leader, organized by Alexandros Panagoulis (1939-1976), Greek politician and poet.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexandros_Panagoulis)
1968 Aug 15, Pirate Radio Free London began transmitting.
(http://radio.eric.tripod.com/in_breach_of_the_law.htm)
1968 Aug 19, George Gamow (b.1904), a Soviet-American theoretical physicist and writer, died in Colorado. He popularized the idea of The Big Bang. His books included: "Mr. Tompkins in Wonderland" (1939) and “One, Two Three… Infinity" (1947).
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Gamow)
1968 Aug 20, Some 650,000 Soviet Union and other Warsaw Pact troops began invading Czechoslovakia to crush the "Prague Spring" liberalization drive of Alexander Dubcek's regime. In 2015 Czech historians Prokop Tomek and Ivo Pejcoch authored “Black Book of the Soviet Occupation" in which they documented all known victims of the Soviet-led invasion and crackdown on the Prague Spring. A total of 135, more than originally thought, were killed in the 1968 in military operations. In following years, road accidents involving military vehicles killed 248, while 12 were murdered.
(AP, 8/20/97)(SFC, 8/25/04, p.B7)(AP, 8/20/15)
1968 Aug 21, William Dana reached 81.53 km. in the last high-altitude X-15 flight.
(http://pages.prodigy.net/pxkb94ars/Astro_X-15_Flights_9.htm)
1968 Aug 21, After 5 years Russia once again jammed Voice of America radio.
(http://radio.about.com/library/history/blhistory0821.htm)
1968 Aug 21, The Soviet Union and other Warsaw Pact nations invaded Czechoslovakia to crush the "Prague Spring" liberalization drive led by Alexander Dubcek.
(AP, 8/21/08)
1968 Aug 22, Pope Paul VI arrived in Bogota, Colombia, for the start of the first papal visit to Latin America.
(AP, 8/22/98)
1968 Aug 22, In Czechoslovakia a Soviet-led invasion crushed the Prague Spring reforms. In 1997 3 Communist Party leaders, Milos Jakes, Karel Hoffmann and Joseph Lenart, were accused of conspiring with the Soviets.
(SFC, 5/3/97, p.A10)
1968 Aug 24, France became the world's fifth thermonuclear power as it exploded a hydrogen bomb in the South Pacific.
(AP, 8/24/97)
1968 Aug 25, In Moscow’s Red Square eight dissidents (the "Magnificent Eight"), including Konstantin Babitsky, Larisa Bogoraz (d.2004), Vladim Delaunay, Vladimir Dremliuga, Viktor Fainberg, Natalia Gorbanevskaya (1936-2013), Pavel Litvinov and Tatiana Baeva, came out in the Red Square to protest against the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia and paid for it with years of lagers, exile and "special" mental hospitals.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1968_Red_Square_demonstration)(SFC, 4/8/04, p.B7)(Econ, 12/7/13, p.94)(AP, 6/8/18)
1968 Aug 26, The Democratic National Convention opened in Chicago. Thousands of antiwar demonstrators took to Chicago's streets to protest the Vietnam War during the Democratic National Convention.
(AP, 8/26/08)(SSFC, 6/9/02, p.F6)
1968 Aug 27, Tom Haden, anti-war organizer, was beaten up, put in a paddy wagon and whisked off to a Cook County Jail.
(SFC, 8/18/96, Z1 p1)
1968 Aug 28, In Chicago, Ill., Vice-President Hubert Horatio Humphrey was nominated by the Democrats for US Presidency on the first ballot. Riots broke out outside the Democratic National Convention as police and anti-war demonstrators clashed in the streets. The 1969 film "Medium Cool" was set during the Chicago Convention riots of 1968.
(WUD, 1994, p.1687)(TMC, 1994, p.1968)(Hem, 8/96, p.86-88)(AP, 8/28/97)(SFEC, 9/6/98, DB p.52)
1968 Aug 28, Connecticut Senator Abraham Ribicoff (1910-1998) nominated George McGovern for the US Presidency and strongly criticized Chicago’s Mayor Daly for his strong-arm tactics in controlling protestors at the Democratic National Convention.
(SFC, 2/23/98, p.A5)(www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/abrahamribicoff1968dnc.htm)
1968 Aug 29, Maine Sen. Edmund Muskie was chosen to be the Democratic nominee for vice president at the party's convention in Chicago.
(AP, 8/29/08)
1968 Aug 31, In northeast Iran some 7-12 thousand people died in the 7.8 Dasht-e Bayaz earthquake, which also destroyed 60,000 buildings.
(WUD, 1994, p.1687)(www.bssaonline.org/cgi/content/abstract/59/5/1751)
1968 Aug, The play "You, Me and the Next War," by Hanoch Levin (1943-1999), Israeli dramatist, was produced.
(SFC, 8/19/99, p.D2)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanoch_Levin)
1968 Sep 1, Pirate Radio Marina in the Netherlands began transmitting.
(www.historyorb.com/entertainment/radio/pirate-radio)
1968 Sep 4, In the Republic of Congo there was an army coup. Brazzaville deposed Pres. Masemba-Debat.
(WUD, 1994, p.1687)
1968 Sep 6, Feminists protesting outside the Miss America pageant in Atlantic City, N.J., tossed articles including cosmetics, girdles and bras into a trash can ostensibly for burning, although nothing was actually set on fire. Miss Illinois Judith Ford won the pageant.
(AP, 9/7/08)
1968 Sep 6, Swaziland in southern Africa gained independence from Britain.
(http://tinyurl.com/ydbsn2hd)
1968 Sep 8, In Poland Ryszard Siwiec (b.1909), accountant, teacher and anti-communist protester, self immolated in front of some 10,000 spectators during the national harvest festival at the Dziesieciolecia football stadium. He died 4 days later at a hospital.
(Econ, 10/10/09, p.55)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ryszard_Siwiec)
1968 Sep 9, Arthur Ashe (1943-1993) became the 1st black to win the US Open men’s tennis singles championship.
(www.answers.com/topic/arthur-ashe)(http://tinyurl.com/d2xhty)
1968 Sep 10, Two Oakland, Ca., police officers fired a barrage of rifle shots into the national headquarters of the Black Panther party at 4421 Grove St. Officers William V. Williams and Robert W. Farrell were arrested shortly after the incident. Both uniformed and on duty officers were said to be heavily intoxicated.
(SSFC, 9/9/18, DB p.50)
1968 Sep 11, The Soviet troops started leaving Prague for the countryside. At the beginning of October, the Czechoslovak leadership went to Moscow to negotiate "normalization". As an outcome, the political leaders remained in office and submitted to the Soviet demands.
(www.wien.gv.at/english/history/commemoration2008/prague-spring.html)
1968 Sep 13, Albania officially withdrew from the Warsaw Pact. Albania had condemned the August Soviet-led invasion of Czechoslovakia.
(http://countrystudies.us/albania/153.htm)
1968 Sep 14, Al Frueh (b.1880), American caricature artist (New Yorker magazine), died.
(WSJ, 8/21/01, p.A17)(www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/221010/Al-Frueh)
1968 Sep 15, Rev. Billy Graham carried word to Pres. Johnson from Richard Nixon that Nixon would give Johnson a share of the credit when the Vietnam war was settled. Johnson later became convinced that Nixon was using Anna Chennault, widow of a WW II general, to persuade Pres. Nguyen Van Thieu to sabotage the Paris peace talks with the communists.
(SFC, 3/16/98, p.A2)
1968 Sep 15, The Organization of African Unity condemned the secession of Biafra.
(WUD, 1994, p.1687)
1968 Sep 16, Republican presidential nominee Richard Nixon exclaimed, "Sock it to ME?" in a taped bit for the NBC-TV comedy program "Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In."
(AP, 9/16/08)
1968 Sep 17, The TV series "Julia" began airing with Diahann Carroll (1935-2019) as a nurse with a young son whose husband was killed in Vietnam. Carroll was the first black woman to star in a non-servant role in a TV series. "Julia" contined to 1971.
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julia_(TV_series))(SSFC, 10/6/19, p.B10)
1968 Sep 18, The film "Funny Girl" with Barbra Streisand premiered in NYC.
(http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0062994/releaseinfo)
1968 Sep 19, Marine Capt. Robert A. Holt and Capt. John A. Lavoo were killed when their F-4B Phantom jet crashed during combat a mission over Quang Binh Province. Their remains were identified and returned to the US in 1999.
(SFC, 6/8/99, p.A9)
1968 Sep 19, Chester Carlson (62), inventor of the photocopy machine (1960), died. In 2004 David Owen authored “Copies In seconds."
(WSJ, 8/6/04, p.A8)(ON, 11/04, p.9)
1968 Sep 20, The TV show "Name of the Game" premiered with Gene Barry and Tony Franciosa. It was written and produced by Leslie Stevens (d.1998) and ran to 1971.
(SFC, 4/29/98, p.C2)(www.imdb.com/title/tt0062591/)
1968 Sep 21, The Adam-12 television police drama premiered. It followed two police officers of the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD), Pete Malloy and Jim Reed, as they rode the streets of Los Angeles in their patrol unit, 1-Adam-12. It starred Martin Milner and Kent McCord. William Boyett (1927-2004) played Sgt. MacDonald. The series continued to 1975.
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adam-12)(SSFC, 1/2/05, p.A23)
1968 Sep 21, Charles Jackson (b.1903), American writer, died of barbiturate poisoning in NYC. He was known for his novel “The Lost Weekend" (1944). In 2013 Blake Bailey authored “Farther & Wilder: The Lost Weekends and Literary Dreams of Charles Jackson."
(SSFC, 3/24/13, p.F2)
1968 Sep 23, The TV western "The Outcasts" premiered. The one season show featured Otis Young (d.2001 at 69) and Don Murray working together as post Civil War bounty hunters.
(SFC, 10/20/01, p.E2)(www.imdb.com/title/tt0062596/)
1968 Sep 24, The TV show "Mod Squad" premiered on ABC and continued to 1973. It was about 3 hip young cops who worked undercover in LA. A film version was begun in 1998.
(AP, 9/24/98)(SFC, 8/27/99, p.C14)(www.imdb.com/title/tt0062589/)
1968 Sep 24, The CBS news magazine "60 Minutes" premiered on CBS-TV on a Tuesday night. Don Hewitt created and produced the TV news show "60 Minutes." He wrote his book "Minute by Minute" in 1985.
(SFEM, 2/8/98, Par p.26)(AP, 9/24/98)
1968 Sep 26, Hawaii Five-O premiered on CBS TV and continued to 1980. It starred Jack Lord (d.1998 at 77) and was the longest running police show in TV history. Its theme song was "Walk Don’t Run" by the Ventures. Lord (born as John Joseph Patrick Ryan) was a painter off TV and his canvasses sold privately for top dollar.
(SFC, 7/11/96, p.D4)(SFC, 1/22/98, p.D3)
1968 Sep 26, In Portugal Prof. Marcello Caetano replaced Antonio Salazar as Prime Minister.
(WUD, 1994, p.1687)
1968 Sep 27, Portugal’s President Americo Thomaz replaced PM Antonio de Oliveira Salazar with Marcelo Caetano after Salazar suffered a major stroke, caused by his falling from a chair in his summer house.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ant%C3%B3nio_de_Oliveira_Salazar)
1968 Sep 28, Beatles' "Hey Jude" single went #1 and stayed #1 for 9 weeks.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hey_Jude)
1968 Sep 29, Piere Mulele voluntarily returned from exile to Kinshasa, Congo.
(WUD, 1994, p.1687)
1968 Sep 29, A Greek plebiscite was held by the then ruling dictatorial regime to endorse, by public vote, the junta's new Constitution. Participation was made obligatory and abstention punishable by imprisonment.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greek_plebiscite,_1968)
1968 Sep 30, The 1st Boeing 747 was rolled out of the Everett, Wa., assembly building.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_747)
1968 Sep, The Big Mac was created by McDonald’s franchisee Jim Delligatti in Pittsburgh. It sold for 49 cents.
(SFC, 9/10/98, p.B2)
1968 Sep, In Daly City, Ca., the community of St. Andrew was founded with Father James Moher as pastor with a predominantly Filipino congregation. In July of 1975 a parish church was completed at 1571 Southgate Ave..
(SFC, 10/8/12, p.A6)
1968 Sep, In Czechoslovakia the Plastic People of the Universe band was founded by Milan Hlavsa (d.2001 at 49).
(WSJ, 7/22/98, p.A12)(SFC, 1/8/01, p.A19)
1968 Sep, The Soviet spacecraft Zond ("Probe") 5 became the first to loop around the moon and return to Earth. The L-1, given the name Zond, was a spacecraft designed to carry two cosmonauts on a single loop around the moon. The L-1 suffered repeated failure and never flew with a crew. The unmanned L-1s traveled to the moon five times under the Zond name.
(HNQ, 4/27/99)
1968 Oct 1, The cult horror movie "Night of the Living Dead" had its world premiere in Pittsburgh.
(AP, 10/1/98)
1968 Oct 1, The US Senate refused to shut down a filibuster against President Lyndon B. Johnson's nomination of Abe Fortas to be US chief justice. Fortas withdrew the next day.
(AP, 10/1/08)
1968 Oct 1, The US Congress created the Flaming Gorge National Recreation Area in Wyoming.
(www.utah.com/nationalsites/flaming_gorge.htm)
1968 Oct 2, Pres. Johnson established Redwood National Park in northern California under Public Law 90-545. Congress created the Redwood National Park in California at a cost of $306 million. Large portions of the Arcata Redwood Corp. lands were detached to form sections of Redwood National Park. The land was initially assembled by Michigan timber baron Arthur Hill. His son, Harry Hill, built the French Renaissance townhouse that is now the Italian consulate.
(www.eoearth.org/article/Redwood_National_Park,_United_States)(SFC, 9/9/97, p.A19)(SFEC, 12/5/99, p.T1)
1968 Oct 2, Pres. Johnson signed a bill establishing Washington state’s North Cascades National Park.
(SSFC, 7/18/04, p.D7)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Cascades_National_Park)
1968 Oct 2, The 2,650-mile Pacific Crest Trail, spanning Mexico to Canada, was designated a National Scenic Trail as part of the US National Trails System Act.
(SFC, 7/16/08, p.E2)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pacific_Crest_Trail)
1968 Oct 2, US Supreme Court Justice Abe Fortas withdrew his nomination as chief justice. Six months later, he resigned from the court, admitting he'd made a financial deal with the Louis Wolfson Foundation.
(http://hnn.us/articles/11753.html)
1968 Oct 2, In Mexico soldiers under Pres. Gustavo Diaz Ordaz used automatic weapons and killed some 300 students in the Mexico City Tlatelolco massacre prior to the start of the summer Olympics. The government said only 50 students were killed during gunfire that lasted 5 hours. Luis Echeverria, later president, was the interior minister and the man in charge of public security. He was called before a congressional committee in 1998. Evidence in 1999 confirmed that pre-positioned soldiers fired on the students. In 2002 a special prosecutor said he has found no evidence to support historians' claims that some 300 people died when army troops opened fire on demonstrators in 1968. He put the number killed at 38. A judge dismissed other genocide charges against Echeverria in July 2005, ruling that while he may have been responsible for a separate 1971 student massacre, he could not be tried because the statute of limitations had expired in 1985.
(WUD, 1994, p.1687)(SFC, 9/1/96, p.A16)(SFEC, 4/6/97, p.C12)(WSJ, 8/13/97, p.A12)(SFC, 2/4/98, p.C2,14)(WSJ, 9/10/98, p.A1)(SFC, 6/28/99, p.A10)(AP, 8/5/02)(AP, 3/27/09)
1968 Oct 2, Marcel Duchamp (b.1887), French painter, died. He was known best for his 1915 "Nude Descending a Staircase."
(V.D.-H.K.p.361)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marcel_Duchamp)
1968 Oct 3, The Howard Sackler play, "Great White Hope," starring James Earl Jones and Jane Alexander, opened on Broadway.
(AP, 10/3/08)
1968 Oct 3, American Independent Party presidential candidate George Wallace tapped retired Air Force Gen. Curtis E. LeMay to be his running mate.
(AP, 10/3/08)
1968 Oct 3, In Peru the military seized power in a coup. Pres. Belaunde was overthrown by Gen. Juan Velasco.
(SFC, 12/20/96, p.B4)(WUD, 1994, p.1687)(SFC, 6/5/02, p.A23)
1968 Oct 4, Cambodia admitted that the Viet Cong used their country for sanctuary.
(www.nationalreview.com/robbins/robbins200408180835.asp)
1968 Oct 5, Catholic demonstrators in Londonderry, Northern Ireland, clashed with police.
(http://tinyurl.com/n9nhn)(SFC, 6/18/96, p.A8)
1968 Oct 7, The Motion Picture Association of America adopted its film-rating system (G,M,R,X), ranging from "G" for "general" audiences to "X" for adult patrons only. The system was fathered by Jack Valenti (1921-2007), head of the MPAA.
(AP, 10/7/97)(SFC, 1/21/04, p.D2)(SFC, 4/27/07, p.B9)
1968 Oct 8, US forces in Vietnam launched Operation Sealord, an attack on North Vietnamese supply lines and base areas.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Sealords)
1968 Oct 9, Pierre Mulele, Congolese rebel leader, was publicly tortured and executed in the Congo [some sources give October 3].
(WUD, 1994, p.1687)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pierre_Mulele)
1968 Oct 9, The new military government of Peru seized the country's oil fields.
(AP, 10/9/08)
1968 Oct 11, Apollo 7, The first manned Apollo mission, was launched from Cape Kennedy with astronauts Wally Schirra, Donn Fulton Eisele and R. Walter Cunningham aboard. It made 163 orbits in 260 hours.
(AP, 10/11/97)(www.apollomissionphotos.com/index_AP7.html)
1968 Oct 11, In San Francisco Private Richard Bunch (19) was shot and killed by a guard at the Presidio stockade.
(SSFC, 10/14/18, DB p.46)
1968 Oct 11, In Panama Pres. Arnulfo Arias was ousted in a coup by Gen’l. Omar Torrijos. Arias was the founder of Panama's special security system and opened the vote to women before he was ousted.
(WUD, 1994, p.1687)(SFC, 1/2/97, p.A20)(SFC, 4/29/99, p.D5)
1968 Oct 12, Eq. Guinea gained Independence was from Spain. Eq. Guinea consists of two geographic entities: the mainland of Rio Muni and the island of Bioko, formerly Fernando Poo. Francisco Macias became the 1st president and proclaimed himself God’s "unique miracle." He drove the economy into the ground and over a third of the population went into exile.
(www.eia.doe.gov/emeu/cabs/eqguinea.html)(WP, 6/29/96, p.A15)(SFC, 5/15/01, p.A10)
1968 Oct 12, The summer Games of the 19th Olympiad were officially opened in Mexico City by Mexican President Gustavo Diaz Ordaz.
(WUD, 1994, p.1687)(HN, 10/12/98)
1968 Oct 14, The Beatles "White Album" was completed at the Abbey Road Studios.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Beatles_(album))
1968 Oct 14, The first live telecast from a manned US spacecraft was sent from Apollo 7.
(AP, 10/14/98)
1968 Oct 16, American athletes Tommie Smith and John Carlos (23) sparked controversy at the Mexico City Olympics by giving "black power" salutes during a victory ceremony after they'd won gold and bronze medals in the 200-meter race. In 2011 John Carlos with Dave Zirin authored “The John Carlos Story: The Sports Moment That Changed the World."
(AP, 10/16/08)(SSFC, 10/9/11, p.G4)
1968 Oct 18, The US Olympic Committee suspended two black athletes, Tommie Smith and John Carlos, for giving a black power salute as a protest during a victory ceremony in Mexico City. Bob Beamon soared 29 feet, 2 inches, to set a world record in the long jump. In 1976 Dick Schaap authored “The Perfect Jump."
(AP, 10/18/98)(WSJ, 8/9/08, p.W8)
1968 Oct 19, Yasonari Kawabata (1899-1972), Japanese novelist (Thousand Cranes) won the Nobel Prize in Literature.
(http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/literature/laureates/1968/kawabata-docu.html)
1968 Oct 20, Former first lady Jacqueline Kennedy married Greek shipping magnate Aristotle Onassis on the island of Scorpios.
(AP, 10/20/97)(HN, 10/20/98)
1968 Oct 22, Pres. Johnson signed the Gun Control Act of 1968. It regulated firearms above .50-caliber as destructive devices and required registration and owner’s fingerprints. It also banned the sale of handguns to those under 21. Enforcement was up to the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (BATF). It barred the import of assault weapons even if they were reconfigured if they were not found to have legitimate "sporting purposes." In the wake of the Kennedy and King assassinations the US Congress expanded gun ownership prohibitions to include dishonorably discharged veterans and other groups.
(WSJ, 3/24/97, p.A12)(SFC,10/17/97, p.A4)(http://tinyurl.com/p9lslc)(WSJ, 12/16/03, p.A4)(Econ, 12/4/10, p.44)
1968 Oct 22, Apollo 7 returned safely, splashing down in the Atlantic Ocean.
(AP, 10/22/97)
1968 Oct 23, In Nicaragua the Cerro Negro volcano began erupting again and continued to Dec 10. It had first appeared in 1850.
(DD-EVTT, Illustr.#9)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cerro_Negro)
1968 Oct 24, At the National Air and Space Administration test pilot Bill Dana was at the controls of the North American X-15 rocket-propelled research aircraft when it made the 199th--and what turned out to be the final--flight of the X-15 program. He was flying the X-15-1, which had been the first of three aircraft to participate in a series of tests that spanned a decade and resulted in major advances for America's space flight program. In the course of that research, the X-15s spent 18 hours flying above Mach 1, 12 hours above Mach 2, nearly 9 hours above Mach 3, almost 6 hours above Mach 4, one hour above Mach 5 and a few short minutes above Mach 6. The X-15 was hailed by the scientific community as the most successful research aircraft of all time.
(HNPD, 10/24/98)
1968 Oct 26, Illinois state and the city of Chicago recognized Jean Baptiste Pointe de Sable (1745-1818), a Haitian-born sea captain, as the founder of Chicago.
(www.usps.com/communications/community/_pdf/bhm06_poster.pdf)(http://tinyurl.com/cnt6tk)
1968 Oct 27, In San Francisco a blast shattered windows at the Richmond Police Station. Minutes later three firemen were wounded by gunfire at Laguna and Eddy Streets. Police said they could give no reason for the outbreak in violence.
(SSFC, 10/28/18, DB p.46)
1968 Oct 27, The 19th Olympic games closed at Mexico City, Mexico.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1968_Summer_Olympics)
1968 Oct 27, In London there was a massive anti-Vietnam war demonstration.
(WUD, 1994, p.1687)
1968 Oct 27, Lisa Meitner (b.1878), Austrian-born Swedish physicist, died in England. During the war while in hiding from Hitler in Sweden, she analyzed and understood for its significance the work of Otto Hahn who in 1944 was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics for his work on nuclear fission.
(MT, 10/94, letters, p.10)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lise_Meitner)
1968 Oct 28, Pres. Johnson named Robert Komer (d.2000 at 78) as ambassador to Turkey. Komer had served Johnson as head of the "pacification" program in Vietnam, which used information and propaganda to gain political and social control of south Vietnam.
(http://history.state.gov/departmenthistory/people/komer-robert-william)(SFC, 4/14/00, p.D5)
1968 Oct 28, In SF the first eviction notices were served to the 196 tenants of the International Hotel. This led to a 9-year struggle that resulted in their forced eviction on Aug 4, 1977. The property had been taken over five months earlier by the Milton Myers Company under Pres. Walter Shorenstein.
(http://aam1968.blogspot.com/2008/01/third-world-student-strikes-at-sfsu-ucb.html)(SSFC, 8/19/07, p.B1)(SSFC, 11/25/18, p.46)
1968 Oct 30, Luis W. Alvarez (1911-1988) of UC Berkeley won the Nobel Prize in Physics for his work on the bubble chamber.
(SFC, 10/10/96, p.A1)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luis_Walter_Alvarez)
1968 Oct 30, Ramon Samaniego Novarro (b.1899), the 1st successful Latin star in Hollywood (Ben Hur), was killed by 2 male hustlers. In 2002 Andres Soares authored "Beyond Paradise: The Life of Ramon Novarro.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ramon_Novarro)(SSFC, 1/5/03, p.M4)
1968 Oct 31, President Johnson announced a halt to all US bombing of North Vietnam, effective the next morning, saying he hoped for fruitful peace negotiations.
(www.lbjlib.utexas.edu/johnson/archives.hom/speeches.hom/681031.asp)
1968 Oct 31, Liu Shaoqi (1898-1968), president of China since 1959, was ousted.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liu_Shaoqi)
1968 Oct, The MH-1A, a US converted Liberty Ship named Sturgis, began supplying electricity to the Panama Canal Zone using a 10MW nuclear reactor. Operations continued to 1975.
(Econ, 4/26/14, p.79)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MH-1A)
1968 Oct, Miloslava Rezkova-Hubnerovawon (1950-2014) won the gold medal for Czechoslovakia in women's high jump in Mexico City.
(AP, 10/20/14)
1968 Nov 1, Lyndon B. Johnson's halt to bombing in Vietnam went into effect at 8 AM, Washington time.
(www.lbjlib.utexas.edu/johnson/archives.hom/speeches.hom/681031.asp)
1968 Nov 1, The Motion Picture Association of America unveiled its new voluntary film rating system: G for general audiences, M for mature audiences (later changed to GP, then PG), R for restricted audiences, and X (later changed to NC-17) for adults only.
(AP, 11/1/08)
1968 Nov 1, Georgios Papandreou (b.1888), Greek minister and premier, died.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Papandreou,_senior)
1968 Nov 3, In Greece thousands of people demonstrated against the fascist junta as ex-premier Georgios Papandreou is buried.
(http://1968ineurope.sneakpeek.de/index.php/chronologies/index/6)
1968 Nov 5, Richard M. Nixon was elected the 37th US President with Spiro Agnew as vice-president. He defeated Vice President Hubert H. Humphrey and third-party candidate George C. Wallace.
(WUD, 1994, p.1687)(TMC, 1994, p.1968)(AP, 11/5/97)(HN, 11/5/98)
1968 Nov 5, Barry Goldwater (1909-1998), former Republican presidential candidate (1964), was re-elected in Arizona to the US Senate.
(SFC, 5/30/98, p.A3)(www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/USAgoldwater.htm)
1968 Nov 5, Alan Cranston (1914-2000), former California state controller (12959-1967), was elected for his 1st term as US Senator.
(SFC, 1/1/01, p.A5)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_Cranston)
1968 Nov 5, Shirley Chisholm (1924-2004) of Brooklyn, New York, became the first black woman elected to serve in the US House of Representatives.
(HN, 11/5/98)(SFC, 1/3/05, p.A3)
1968 Nov 5, Ronald Stanley Bridgeforth (24) fired on South San Francisco police officers who tried to arrest him for credit card fraud at a discount store. Bridgeforth (67), a councilor and faculty member at Washtenaw Community College in Michigan, surrendered in 2011. On March 23, 2012, Bridgeforth was sentenced to a year in county jail, 3 years probation, 300 hours of community service and a fine of $8,500.
(SFC, 11/11/11, p.C1)(SFC, 11/22/11, p.A11)(SFC, 3/24/12, p.C2)
1968 Nov 6, The play “The Ruling Class" by Peter Barnes (1931-2004) opened in Nottingham, England. It was a satirical attack on the church and British aristocracy. It was made into a 1972 film for which Peter O'Toole received an Oscar nomination.
(SFC, 7/3/04, p.B6)(www.answers.com/topic/the-ruling-class-play-6)
1968 Nov 6, At SF State on the one year anniversary of the Gator incident, the Black Students' Union and the Third World Liberation Front issued a list of 10 "nonnegotiable" demands and called for a one day strike. The strike lasted 167 days.
(http://userwww.sfsu.edu/~runamuck/PACEPAPER.htm)(SFEC, 3/1/98, p.W3)(SFEC, 3/21/99, Z1 p.4)
1968 Nov 6, Charles Munch (b.1891), French-US conductor, died. He directed the Boston Symphony Orchestra from 1949-1962.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_M%C3%BCnch)
1968 Nov 11, The Maldives became a republic for a 2nd time with Ibrahim Naseer (Nasir) as President.
(www.pjsymes.com.au/articles/Maldives(article).htm)(Econ, 12/23/06, p.54)(AP, 11/11/08)
1968 Nov 12, Sammy Sosa, baseball outfielder (Chicago Cubs), was born in the Dominican Republic.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sammy_Sosa)
1968 Nov 12, The US Supreme Court in Epperson v. Arkansas voided an Arkansas law banning the teaching of evolution in public schools.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epperson_v._Arkansas)
1968 Nov 14, In the US "National Turn in Your Draft Card Day" featured draft card burning as the Vietnam death toll approached 30,000 and US troop strength in Vietnam reached its peak of 550,000.
(www.answers.com/topic/1968)
1968 Nov 14, Yale University announced its plan to go co-ed.
(HN, 11/14/98)
1968 Nov 17, NBC outraged football fans by cutting away from the final minutes of a New York Jets-Oakland Raiders game to begin a TV special, "Heidi," on schedule. The jets led 32-29 with one minute remaining. Viewers were deprived of seeing the Raiders come from behind to beat the Jets, 43-to-32.
(AP, 11/17/98)(SFC, 11/14/03, p.I8)
1968 Nov 18, Soviets recovered the Zond 6 spacecraft after a flight around the moon.
(HN, 11/18/98)
1968 Nov 19, Three San Francisco police officers were wounded in a shootout with a vanload of Black Panthers on Seventh Street near Folsom. The eight militants were captured unharmed.
(SSFC, 11/18/18, DB p.46)
1968 Nov 19, Gen'l. Moussa Traore (b.1936) began serving as the 2nd president of Mali after leading the military ouster of Pres. Modibo Keita (1915-1977. Traore then ruled for 23 years.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moussa_Traor%C3%A9)(SFC, 9/23/99, p.A12)
1968 Nov 22, Beatles released their "Beatles," (White Album) their only double album.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Beatles_(album))
1968 Nov 23, Five Cubans hijacked a US B-727 jet, from Chicago to Cuba.
(http://cuban-exile.com/doc_176-200/doc0180.html)
1968 Nov 24, Eldridge Cleaver fled the US with his wife rather face assault charges from 1958. He returned to the US in 1975.
(www.pbs.org/hueypnewton/people/people_cleaver.html)
1968 Nov 24, Three Latins hijacked a US B-707 jet, from New York’s Kennedy Int’l. to Cuba. Pena Soltren, a US citizen, and two accomplices used weapons hidden in a diaper bag to hijack Pan Am Flight 281. In 2009 Luis Armando Pena Soltren (66) voluntarily returned to the same airport to surrender and face prosecution. On Jan 4, 2011, Soltren was sentenced to 15 years in prison.
(http://cuban-exile.com/doc_176-200/doc0180.html)(AP, 10/12/09)(SFC, 1/5/11, p.A4)
1968 Nov 25, Upton B. Sinclair (b.1878), US novelist and social reformer (Jungle), died at age 90. His work included almost 50 novels, over 20 nonfiction books, plays and countless pieces of journalism. In 1975 Leon A. Harris Jr. (d.2000) authored "Upton Sinclair, American Rebel." In 2006 Anthony Arthur authored “Radical Innocent: Upton Sinclair."
(www.americanwriters.org/writers/sinclair.asp)(WSJ, 2/23/06, p.D8)(WSJ, 6/10/06, p.P8)
1968 Nov 28, In London, England, John Lennon and Yoko Ono appeared at the Marylebone Magistrates' Court. John pleaded guilty to possession of cannabis resin and was fined 150 pounds plus 20 guineas costs.
(http://tinyurl.com/qjbdgb)
1968 Nov 30, Montesino Sanchez, a Cuban, hijacked a Boeing 720 from Miami to Cuba.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Cuba-US_aircraft_hijackings)
1968 Nov, The album “Astral Weeks" by Irish-born singer and song-writer Van Morrison was released. In 1999 it was given a Grammy Hall of Fame award.
(WSJ, 4/14/07, p.P14)
1968 Dec 1, Burt Bacharach and Hal David's musical "Promises, Promises" opened at Shubert Theater in NYC for 1281 performances.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Promises,_Promises)
1968 Dec 2, Pres Nixon named Henry Kissinger (b.1923) security advisor.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Kissinger)
1968 Dec 4, The US stock market began an 18 month decline of 44%.
(www.stockmarketcycles.com/sign_of_the_bear.htm)
1968 Dec 5, Football star O.J. Simpson won a Heisman Trophy. In 1999 it was auctioned in LA for $230,000 to help cover the $33.5 million judgment against him in the wrongful death of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ron Goldman.
(SFC, 2/17/99, p.A3)
1968 Dec 5, Eduardo Castera, a Latin successfully hijacked a B-727 from Tampa to Cuba.
(http://cuban-exile.com/doc_176-200/doc0180.html)
1968 Dec 6, The original Malian constitution was abrogated after a military coup d’état and replaced by a new fundamental law.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constitution_of_Mali)
1968 Dec 7, The Rolling Stones released their album "Beggar’s Banquet" in the US, one day after it was released in the UK. They soon filmed a concert performance right after the Who’s performance of "A Quick One" that the Stones did not match and the film was shelved. In 1996 it was planned to release the film where Jethro Tull and Taj Mahal are also featured. The album included the song "Sympathy for the Devil."
(SFC, 8/16/96, p.D11)(SFC, 10/23/00, p.F3)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beggars_Banquet)
1968 Dec 7, The first orbiting astronomical observatory, OAO-2, was launched.
(SFEC, 9/28/97, p.A14)
1968 Dec 8, South Vietnam’s vice president Nguyen Cao Ky arrived in Paris for peace talks.
(HN, 12/8/98)
1968 Dec 9, Doug Engelbart and researchers at Stanford Research Institute first demonstrated in SF the computer mouse along with a graphical user interface (gui), display editing, integrated text and graphics, hyper documents and 2-way video-conferencing with shared work spaces. In 2001 Thierry Bardini authored "Bootstrapping: Douglas Engelbart, Coevolution, and the Origins of Personal Computing." William English (1929-2020) helped build the mouse and orchestrated its elaborate demonstration.
(SFC, 12/4/98, p.B2)(SSFC, 1/21/01, BR p.6)(SFC, 12/8/08, p.A1)(SSFC, 8/2/20, p.C10)
1968 Dec 10, Thomas Merton (b.1915), American Trappist monk and writer, died in Bangkok, Thailand from accidental electrocution. He had just finished his 7th journal "The Other side of the Mountain." Merton was influenced by the Hindu scholar Mahanambrata Brahmachari (d.1999). Merton's work also the spiritual autobiography "The Seven Story Mountain." In 1978 Monica Furlong (d.2003) authored a biography of Merton.
(SFC, 2/24/98, p.A22)(SFEC, 9/27/98, BR p.3)(SFC, 11/2/99, p.A26)(SFC, 2/3/03, p.B4)(WSJ, 3/26/03, p.D8)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Merton)
1968 Dec 11, The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) was founded by Dr. George Habash, founder of the pan-Arab nationalist movement.
(SFC, 12/13/96, p.B2,4)
1968 Dec 11, Two blacks successfully hijacked a DC-8 from St. Louis to Cuba.
(http://cuban-exile.com/doc_176-200/doc0180.html)
1968 Dec 12, Tallulah Bankhead (b.1903), American actress, died: "The only thing I regret about my past is the length of it. If I had to live my life again, I'd make the same mistakes, only sooner." In 2000 Tovah Feldshuh created "Tallulah Hallelujah," a one-woman show in salute to Bankhead.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tallulah_Bankhead)(WSJ, 10/11/00, p.A24)(SSFC, 1/14/01, DB p.34)
1968 Dec 18, Carolyn Olsen was murdered during a robbery that netted $18 on a Santa Monica tennis court. Black Panther leader Geronimo Pratt was accused of the murder though he maintained that he was in Oakland on the night the 27-year old teacher was shot to death. He was arrested in 1970 and convicted in 1972 and sentenced to a life term in prison. Julius "Buffo" Butler, a police informant who spied on the Black Panther Party, told police that he believed Pratt killed Olsen. In 1997 a judge ruled to reverse Pratt’s conviction based on the credibility of Butler. He was released on $25,000 bail on 6/10/97. In 2000 Pratt was awarded $4.5 million to be paid by Los Angeles and the FBI.
(SFC, 4/18/96, C-1)(SFC, 6/7/97, p.A5)(SFC, 6/11/97, p.C2)(SFC, 7/15/00, p.A3)
1968 Dec 19, Norman Thomas (b.1884), founder of the ACLU and Socialist Party leader (1926-55), died.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norman_Thomas)
1968 Dec 20, The first known murder by the Zodiac killer took place. Two teenagers, David Farraday and Betty Lou Jensen, were shot to death in a parked car on Lake Herman Road outside Vallejo, Ca. The California Zodiac killer later identified himself with a letter to the Times-Harold in Vallejo. After that he claimed to have killed 37 people but the police connected him to only five deaths.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zodiac_Killer)(SFEC, 3/1/98, p.W20)(SFC, 10/2/00, p.A19)(SFC, 4/7/04, p.A7)
1968 Dec 20, John Steinbeck (b.1902), California-born author, died from a bad heart in New York City at age 66. He won the Nobel Prize in 1940. In 1995 Jay Parini published "John Steinbeck: A Biography."
(AP, 12/20/97)(SFEC, 6/21/98, DB p.35)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Steinbeck)
1968 Dec 21, Apollo 8 with astronauts Borman, Lovell & Anders was launched on the 1st mission to orbit the moon.
(AP, 12/21/97)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollo_8)
1968 Dec 23, The 82 crew members of the US intelligence ship Pueblo were released by North Korea, 11 months after they had been captured.
(AP, 12/23/97)
1968 Dec 24, The 3 Apollo 8 astronauts (James A. Lovell, William Anders and Frank Borman), orbiting the moon, read passages from the Old Testament Book of Genesis during a Christmas Eve television broadcast. The first pictures of an Earth-rise over the Moon are seen as the crew of Apollo 8 orbits the moon.
(TL, 1988, p.117)(AP, 12/24/97)(HN, 12/24/99)
1968 Dec 26, Jay Allen's "Forty Carats," premiered in NYC. It was adapted from the French original by Pierre Barillet and Jean-Pierre Gredy. The 1973 film adaptation starred Liv Ullman.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forty_Carats)
1968 Dec 26, Usher Fellig (Weegee), Ukraine-born (1899) American photographer, died. He worked in the Lower East Side of New York City as a press photographer during the 1930s and '40s, and developed his signature style by following the city's emergency services and documenting their activity.
(Econ, 1/28/12, p.82)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weegee)
1968 Dec 26, A Palestinian terrorist attack in Athens on an Israeli civilian airliner killed one person. Mahmoud Mohammad (25) and Maher Suleiman (19) were later captured by Greek officials, In 1970, a Greek court convicted Mahmoud Mohammad for his role in the attack. In 1987 Mahmoud Mohammed Issa Mohammed entered Canada, where he was ordered to be deported in 1988. In 2007 he was still in Canada after some 30 appeals and reviews.
(http://tinyurl.com/35olct)(Econ, 9/15/07, p.48)(www.skyjack.co.il/chronology.htm)
1968 Dec 26, Jose Maria Sison founded the underground Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP). The armed wing of the Maoist group, the New People’s Army (NPA), began waging guerrilla warfare in 1969.
(SFC, 8/21/01, p.A6)(AP, 12/26/10)(Econ, 8/27/16, p.26)
1968 Dec 27, The US agreed to sell fifty F-4 Phantom jets to Israel.
(HN, 12/27/98)
1968 Dec 27, Apollo 8, the 1st manned mission to the moon, and its three astronauts made a safe, nighttime splashdown in the Pacific.
(AP, 12/27/97)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollo_8)
1968 Dec 28, The Beatles' "White Album," went #1 in the US, beginning this week, and stayed at the top for 9 weeks.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Beatles_(album))
1968 Dec 28, Israel attacked the Beirut Int’l. Airport, destroying 13 civilian planes. This was in response to an attack on an Israeli airliner in Athens by the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP).
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1968_Israeli_raid_on_Lebanon)
1968 Dec, The pop song "Israelites" by Desmond Dekker (1941-2006), Jamaican singer, was released in Jamaica and soon became a worldwide hit. Dekker brought the sound of Jamaican ska music to the world.
(SFC, 5/27/06, p.B5)
1968 Dec, The Cambridge company Bolt Beranek and Newman won a Dept. of Defense ARPA (Advanced Research Projects Agency) contract to develop packet switches called Interface Message Processors (IMP). The project was led by Frank Heart and Robert Kahn. The first internode was to installed at the Univ. of California at Los Angeles.
(SFEC, 3/16/97, Z1 p.3)(SFC,10/24/97, p.E5)
1968 Edward Kienholz (1927-1994) created his "Portable war memorial," a bizarre tableaux including a hot dog stand and a coke dispenser.
(TL, 1988, p.117)(http://artchive.com/artchive/K/kienholz/war_memorial.jpg.html)
1968 Yayoi Kusama (b.1929), Japanese-born artist, staged her "Naked Event at the Statue of Liberty."
(WSJ, 8/4/98, p.A16)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yayoi_Kusama)
1968 Architects Doug Michels (1943-2003) and Chip Lord founded the Ant Farm in SF. In 1974 they created "Cadillac Ranch," a sculpture of 10 planted Cadillacs, in Amarillo, Texas. In 1975 they created the performance work "Media Burn," in which Michels drove a Cadillac through a pyramid of burning television sets. Ant Farm disbanded in 1978.
(SSFC, 6/22/03, p.A1)
1968 Cecile Nelken (1917-2009), sculptor and publisher, founded Artweek, the first US West Coast weekly art newspaper.
(SFC, 7/17/09, p.D5)
1968 Henry Moore, English artist and sculptor, made his "Three Piece No. 3: Vertebrae."
(SFC, 10/26/96, p.B1)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Moore)
1968 Pablo Picasso (1881-1973) created his Suite 347, a series of aquatints and etchings.
(Econ, 4/24/10, p.83)
1968 Roland Barthes (1915-1980), French literary critic, published his essay “The Death of the Author." In his essay, Barthes criticizes the reader's tendency to consider aspects of the author's identity—his political views, historical context, religion, ethnicity, psychology, or other biographical or personal attributes—to distill meaning from his work.
(WSJ, 8/2/08, p.W9)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_of_the_author)
1968 Richard Bradford (1932-2002) authored his novel "Red Sky at Morning." A film version was released in 1971.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Bradford)(SFC, 11/8/99, p.C2)(SFC, 3/27/02, p.A21)
1968 John Brunner, British novelist, authored “Stand on Zanzibar," in which he forecast that the world’s population would reach 7 billion in 2010.
(Econ, 10/22/11, p.28)
1968 Herb Caen (1916-1997), SF newspaper columnist, wrote his 7th book: "City of Golden Hills."
(SFEC, 2/2/97, p.A13)
1968 Carlos Castaneda (1925-1998) published his thesis: "The Teachings of Don Juan: A Yaqui Way of Knowledge," with the Univ. of Calif. Press. It became an int’l. best seller. He went on to publish "A Separate Reality," "Journey to Ixtlan," and others.
(SFC, 6/19/98, p.A2)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carlos_Castaneda)
1968 Charles C.G. Chaplin and James Bohlke co-authored “Fishes of the Bahamas and Adjacent Tropical Waters."
(Sm, 2/06, p.42)
1968 Marie Vieux-Chauvet (1916-1973) published her Haitian trilogy “Love, Anger, Madness." It was withdrawn soon after publication France following a government warning that it would endanger the author’s family. It was released again in France in 2005 and in English in 2009.
(Econ, 8/15/09, p.78)
1968 Dr. Price Cobbs (1928-1918) and Dr. William H. Grier co-authored "Black Rage," a portrayal of the psychological trauma that racism and the legacy of slavery inflicts on black people.
(SFC, 7/11/18, p.D5)
1968 Robert Conquest (1917-2015), British-born historian, authored “The Great Terror: Stalin’s Purge of the Thirties" (1968).
(SFC, 8/6/15, p.D3)
1968 "The Warrior Pharaohs" by British author Leonard Cottrell (1913-1974) was published by Evans Brothers Ltd, London.
(L.C.-W.P., 1968)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leonard_Cottrell)
1968 Quentin Crisp (1908-1999), English gay writer born as Denis Pratt, authored his autobiography: "The Naked Civil Servant." In 1975 The Naked Civil Servant was broadcast on British and American television and made both actor John Hurt and Crisp himself into stars.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quentin_Crisp)(SFC, 11/22/99, p.C4)(WSJ, 7/14/00, p.W11)
1968 Nicky Cruz (b.1939 in Puerto Rico), former NYC city gangster, wrote his autobiography "Run, Baby, Run." He had converted to Christianity in 1958 and begun ministering to inner city youth.
(WSJ, 10/23/98, p.W13)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicky_Cruz)
1968 Mary Daly (1928-2009), Boston College professor and feminist theologian, authored “The Church and the Second Sex."
(SSFC, 1/10/10, p.C10)
1968 Philip Dick (1928-1982) authored his sci-fi novel "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep." In 1982 it was made into the film "Blade Runner."
(SFC, 6/25/02, p.D1)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philip_K._Dick)
1968 Frederick Exley (1929-1992), American novelist, published his book "A Fan’s Notes," a fictional memoir of his failed life. In 1997 Jonathon Yardley published: "Misfit: The Strange Life of Frederick Exley."
(SFEC, 8/17/97, BR p.3)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frederick_Exley)
1968 Colin Fletcher (1922-2007), Welsh-born pioneering backpacker and writer, authored "The Complete Walker." It became a manifesto for backpackers.
(SSFC, 8/11/02, p.C3)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colin_Fletcher)
1968 Don Freeman (1908-1978), painter and children’s writer, authored "Corduroy," the story of a teddy bear named Corduroy, who is bought in a department store by a girl named Lisa.
(SFEC, 2/27/00, BR p.12)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don_Freeman)
1968 Walter Galenson (1914-1999), American labor economist, published "The C.I.O. Challenge to the A.F.L." with Harvard Univ. Press.
(SFC, 1/8/00, p.A19)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walter_Galenson)
1968 Graham Greene (1904-1991), English author and playwright, wrote "Travels With My Aunt." In 1989 it was adopted for stage by Giles Havergal, director of the Citizens’ Theater in Glasgow.
(SFEC, 1/5/97, DB p.25)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graham_Greene)
1968 William Grier and Price Cobbs authored "Black Rage," in which they argued that psychological functioning is the same in all races, but that the experiences of Black people make them different.
(SFEC, 7/20/97, BR p.3)
1968 Arthur Hailey (1920-2004) author his best-selling novel "Airport."
(HN, 4/5/01)(SFC, 11/26/04, p.B3)
1968 Garrett Hardin (1915-2003), ecologist, wrote his classic essay: "The Tragedy of the Commons." He explained how herdsmen with an incentive to add animals will overgraze common pastureland. It spawned the "save the whales" animal-protection movement.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garrett_Hardin)(WSJ, 9/9/97, p.A18)(Econ, 8/2/08, p.76)
1968 Abbie Hoffman (1936-1989), political activist and one of the co-founders of the Yippies, wrote "Revolution for the Hell of It."
(SFC, 12/29/96, BR p.5)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abbie_Hoffman)
1968 H. Richard Hornberger (1924-1997), under the pseudonym of Richard Hooker, collaborated with W.C. Heinz on the Korean War novel "MASH." It was made into a film in 1970 and a TV series (1972-1977).
(SFEC, 8/29/99, BR p.3)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H._Richard_Hornberger)
1968 Chuang Hua (1931-2000), the pen name of Stella Yang Copley, authored her novel “Crossings," an experimental novel on the life of a first generation Chinese-American woman.
(www.ndpublishing.com/books/chuanghuacrossings.html)
1968 Edward Luttwak (b.1942), Romania-born American military strategist, authored “Coup d’Etat: A Practical Handbook."
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Luttwak)
1968 Norman Mailer authored "The Armies of the Night: History as a Novel/The Novel as History," a nonfiction novel recounting the October 1967 March on the Pentagon.
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Armies_of_the_Night)(AP, 2/4/21)
1968 Journalist Joe McGinniss (1942-2014) authored “The Selling of the President.“
(SFC, 3/11/14, p.A8)
1968 James Michener (1907-1997), American author, wrote his travel book "Iberia," a detailed and illustrated exploration of Spain at it was during the mid 1960s.
(SFC,10/17/97, p.A17)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_A._Michener)
1968 Jerome Mintz (1930-1997), US anthropologist, published "Legends of the Hasidim: an introduction to Hasidic culture and oral tradition in the New World."
(www.mnsu.edu/emuseum/information/biography/klmno/mintz_jerome.html)
1968 Jerome Mintz (d.1997 at 67), US anthropologist, published "The Anarchists of Casa Viejas," an account and oral history of the 1933 Spanish uprising.
(SFC,12/20/97, p.A21)
1968 Anton Myrer (1922-1996), American writer, authored "Once an Eagle," a story of the US Army from WW I to Vietnam. It pitted an honorable officer against a self-serving officer and sold millions of copies.
(SFC, 8/20/99, p.D7)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anton_Myrer)
1968 William Safire (1929-2009), conservative journalist and presidential speechwriter, authored “Safire’s Political Dictionary."
(Econ, 10/3/09, p.11)
1968 Charles Susskind (1922-2004), professor at UC Berkeley, authored “Understanding Technology." Susskind was born in Prague, Czechoslovakia, and escaped to England in 1939.
(SFC, 6/17/04, p.B6)
1968 James Watson (b.1928), American molecular biologist and Nobel Prize winner, published "The Double Helix."
(SFC, 3/19/98, p.C4)(SFEM, 7/30/00, p.9)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_D._Watson)
1968 Tom Wolfe (b.1931), American writer and journalist, authored "The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test." It was about the 1964 road trip by Ken Kesey and the Merry Pranksters to the NY World’s Fair.
(SSFC, 11/11/01, p.A16)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tom_Wolfe)
1968 Dom DeLuise (1933-2009), actor, chef, comedian and author, hosted “The Dom DeLuise Show," a comedy variety summer series on CBS.
(SFC, 5/6/09, p.A9)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dom_DeLuise)
1968 The TV series “The Name of the Game" featured Gene Barry (1919-2009). The show continued to 1971.
(SFC, 12/15/09, p.C5)
1968 The "Rolling Stones Rock and Roll Circus" was shot for home video but not released until 1996. The 62 minute TV special featured the Stones, John Lennon, Yoko Ono, Eric Clapton, the Who, Marianne Faithfull, Taj Mahal and Jethro Tull.
(SFC, 10/15/96, p.B1)
1968 The Delfonics soul singing group of Philadelphia recorded their hit "La-la Means I Love You."
(SFEC, 1/25/98, DB p.45)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Delfonics)
1968 Edison Denisov (1929-1996), Russian composer, composed his "Ode for Instrumental Ensemble," and "Romantic Music for Oboe, Harp and String Trio."
(SFC, 11/27/96, p.B2)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edison_Denisov)
1968 Alfred Schnittke (1934-1998), Russian composer, composed his "2nd Violin Concerto." It marked a major shift into eclecticism for the composer.
(SFC, 8/5/98, p.A17)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfred_Schnittke)
1968 Edwin Hawkins recorded his arrangement of “Oh Happy Day" on a 2-track tape machine for the Northern California State Youth Choir. An album was made with Century Records to help finance a trip to a church youth conference in Washington DC. In 1969 Abe Kesh at KSAN-FM began playing the song, which featured the voice of Dorothy Morrison. The album was soon re-issued by Buddah Records.
(SFC, 10/23/09, p.F1)
1968 Graham Nash (b.1942) left the Hollies to join David Crosby (b.1941) and Stephen Stills (b.1945). The first Crosby, Stills & Nash album was released in 1969.
(www.rockhall.com/inductee/crosby-stills-and-nash)
1968 The song "Just Dropped In (to See What Condition My Condition Was In) was the 1st charted single for Kenny Rogers, who was with the First Edition. The song was written by Texas songwriter Mickey Newbury (d.2002 at 62).
(SFC, 10/3/02, p.A20)
1968 Aretha Franklin (b.1942) recorded "Since You’ve Been Gone" and “Think."
(http://tinyurl.com/oe3cmp)(http://tinyurl.com/obhjaj)
1968 Marvin Gaye recorded "I Heard It Through the Grapevine."
(SFC, 11/12/02, p.D8)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_Heard_It_Through_the_Grapevine)
1968 The Iron Butterfly recorded their 17-minute classic "In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida," with Erik Braunn (d.2003 at 52) on lead guitar. Doug Ingle, Ron Bushy and Lee Dorman completed the band.
(SFC, 7/29/03, p.A17)
1968 Janis Joplin and Big Brother and the Holding Company band recorded their album "Cheap Thrills" in New York.
(SFC, 5/19/96, DB, p.39)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cheap_Thrills)
1968 The Moody Blues released their album "Days of Future Past" in the US. It had been released in Britain in November 1967.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Days_of_Future_Passed)
1968 Laura Nyro (1947-1997) released her song suite album "Eli and the Thirteenth Confession." her biggest songs were "When I Die," "Stoned Soul Picnic," "Wedding Bell Blues," "Sweet Blindness," and "Eli’s Coming."
(SFE, 4/10/97, p.A23)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eli_and_the_Thirteenth_Confession)
1968 The Jefferson Airplane rock group and manager Bill Thompson (1944-2015) purchased a mansion in San Francisco for $70,000. It had been built in 1904 by lumber baron R.A. Vance. In 1985 the 20-room home at 2400 Fulton was sold for $700,000.
(SSFC, 1/30/11, DB p.42)(SFC, 1/15/15, p.D6)
1968 Itzhak Perlman and Pinchas Zuckerman made their SF Symphony debuts.
(SFEC, 8/17/97, DB p.45)
1968 Astor Piazolla collaborated with poet Horacio Ferrer on the work "Maria," a succession of tangos, waltzes and a fugue, that tells the story of a prostitute in Buenos Aires.
(WSJ, 10/27/98, p.A20)
1968 The song “Sittin’ on the Dock of the Bay" by Otis Redding (1941-1967) became a smash hit. It was the first posthumous single in US chart history.
(SFC, 4/25/06, p.B5)
1968 The singing group Sha Na Na began singing together at Columbia Univ. as the Columbia Kingsmen. Their first gig in Manhattan paid $50 for the 12 members. They sang "Let’s Go to the Hop" at Woodstock and did a TV show from 1977-1980.
(SFC, 6/26/98, p.C13)
1968 The Supremes released their album "Love Child."
(SFC, 11/12/02, p.D8)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Love_Child_(The_Supremes_album))
1968 Johnnie Taylor (d.2000 at 62) had his 1st No. 1 R&B hit with "Who’s Making Love."
(SFC, 6/2/00, p.D5)
1968 Stevie Wonder made a hit with the song "For Once in My Life."
(SFC, 11/12/02, p.D8)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/For_Once_in_My_Life)
1968 Tammy Wynette (1942-1998), country singer, recorded her hit song "Stand by Your Man." In 2003 it was rated the No. 1 top country song.
(SFC, 6/6/03, p.D22)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stand_By_Your_Man)
1968 Iannis Xenakis (b.1922), Greek architect and composer, composed "Kraanerg," an example of his "stochastic" music in Paris. It combined taped electronic music and live performance and was described as alien.
(WSJ, 11/19/96, p.A18)
1968 The Anchorage Museum of History and Art opened.
(WSJ, 7/17/97, p.A20)
1968 Astor Piazolla collaborated with poet Horacio Ferrer on the work "Maria," a succession of tangos, waltzes and a fugue, that tells the story of a prostitute in Buenos Aires.
(WSJ, 10/27/98, p.A20)
1968 Dr. Robert Butler (d.2010 at 83) coined the term “ageism" to describe age discrimination.
(SFC, 7/7/10, p.C4)
1968 Dr. Robert Schuller founded New Hope, the first Christian 24-hour suicide prevention center.
(SFEC, 4/20/97, Par p.18)
1968 James Patrick Shannon (d.2003), auxiliary bishop of St. Paul, Minn., resigned following reprimands over his views over birth control and the Vietnam War. In 1999 he authored "Reluctant Dissenter."
(SSFC, 9/14/03, p.A27)
1968 Dennis Banks (b.1937), an Anishinabe Indian from Minnesota, co-founded the American Indian Movement (AIM). Vernon Bellecourt (1932-2007), an Ojibwe Indian from Minnesota, also helped found the movement.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dennis_Banks)(SFC, 10/15/07, p.B6)
1968 Ari Onassis invited Jackie Kennedy to Skorpios and later they married.
(TMC, 1994, p.1968)
1968 Debra Barnes of Pittsburgh, Kansas, won the Miss America beauty pageant.
(SFEC, 9/15/96, p.A6)
1968 Stewart Brand published the first Whole Earth Catalog. He had spent years in India on a campaign to eradicate smallpox.
(Wired, 5/97, p.101)
1968 The Association of Black Psychologists was founded.
(WSJ, 7/8/96, p.C1)(Civilization, July-Aug, 1995, p. 36)
1968 Ruth Whitney (1928-1999), editor of Glamour Magazine, put a black model on the cover for the first time in the magazine's history.
(SFC, 6/8/99, p.A22)(http://tinyurl.com/ov9m59)
1968 Al Goldstein and Jim Buckley co-founded Screw magazine. It folded in 2003.
(SFC, 12/20/13, p.D9)
1968 Calvin Klein founded Calvin Klein Ltd. in NYC for $10,000.
(SSFC, 11/29/09, p.N6)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calvin_Klein)
1968 Jay Chiat (1931-2002), American advertising designer, founded the Chiat/Day advertising agency.
(Wired, 2/99, p.78)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jay_Chiat)
1968 Kay Teer Crawford (d.2001 at 83) founded the Miss Drill Team USA pageant.
(SFC, 9/7/01, p.A26)
1968 The Kansas City Athletics under owner Charlie Finley moved to Oakland and began playing in the new Oakland Coliseum.
(SFEC, 3/1/98, p.W39)
1968 When the Raiders played in their first Super Bowl in Miami, boss Al Davis got a call from mobster Meyer Lansky asking him to speak to a group of funeral directors. Davis tried to back out but Lansky said: "You will be there at 6 p.m." A biography of Lansky was written by Hank Messick (d.1999).
(SFC, 6/21/96, p.A17)(SFC, 11/9/99, p.A23)
1968 J. Anthony Lukas (d.1997 at 64) won a Pulitzer Prize for his book "The Two Worlds of Linda Fitzpatrick." It was about a teenage girl from an affluent Connecticut family beaten to death with her hippie boyfriend after turning to a life of drugs in the East Village.
(SFC, 6/7/97, p.A19)
1968 The Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences was first endowed by Sweden’s central bank. It is the only Nobel Prize that was not created by Alfred Nobel in 1901.
(WSJ, 10/11/95, p. A-16)(WSJ, 10/15/98, p.A22)
1968 Har Gobind Khorana (1922-2011), India-born biochemist, shared a Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine with Marshall W. Nirenberg and Robert W. Holley for helping unravel how genetic information in a cell is used to make proteins vital for human life.
(SFC, 11/12/11, p.A8)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H._Gobind_Khorana)
1968 Horace A. Barker (d.2000 at 93), a professor at UC Berkeley, was awarded the US National Medal of Science by Pres. Johnson. His work helped in the discovery and characterization of the active form of vitamin B12.
(SFC, 1/5/01, p.D5)
1968 The Kerner Commission of Pres. Johnson concluded that America was moving toward 2 societies: one black, one white, separate and unequal.
(SFC, 9/18/98, p.A1)
1968 The American Independent Party candidate George Wallace named General Curtis LeMay as his vice-presidential candidate.
(SFC, 6/12/96, p.E5)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curtis_LeMay)
1968 Richard Nixon (1913-1994) was given the mood-altering prescription drug Dilantin by Jack Dreyfus, founder of the Dreyfus Fund.
(SFEC, 8/27/00, p.A6)(http://tinyurl.com/p365a3)
1968 The US Congress passed the National Flood Insurance Act of 1968 creating the National Flood Insurance Program
(www.seas.gwu.edu/~emse232/emse232book3)(WSJ, 8/31/98, p.A1)
1968 The US Federal Bureau of Narcotics, a part of the Treasury Dept., was absorbed by the Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs in the Dept. of Justice.
(SSFC, 1/11/15, p.E7)
1968 The Dept. of Defense ARPA (Advanced Research Projects Agency) issued a request for proposals to develop packet switches called Interface Message Processors (IMP).
(SFEC, 3/16/97, Z1 p.3)
1968 The story of the WWII code-talkers was declassified. American Navajo Indians had used their native language as code that the Japanese were unable to break. Chester Nez, the last living Navajo code-breaker died on June 4, 2014, at age 93.
(Econ, 6/21/14, p.90)
1968 The A-12 Blackbird spy plane was retired. Lockheed Martin had built 15 such planes, a forerunner to the SR-71 Blackbird. It had originated as part of the CIA’s “Oxcart" program.
(WSJ, 1/26/07, p.A1)
1968 The Library of Congress finished its Machine Readable Cataloguing (Marc) pilot project, which was under the direction of Henriette D. Avram (1919-2006). In 1969 bibliographic records were sent on magnetic tape to libraries around the country. In 1971 Marc became the national standard fro electronic cataloguing.
(SFC, 5/4/06, p.B7)
1968 Milton Friedman proposed the doctrine of NAIRU, the non-accelerating inflation rate of unemployment. It generally holds that there is nothing we can do to get the unemployment rate below its natural rate. If somehow the unemployment rate slips below its natural rate, than accelerating inflation would be triggered. The natural unemployment rate has been placed variously between 5 & 7%. Friedman won the 1976 Nobel Prize in economics and retired to the Hoover Inst. at Stanford.
(www.washingtonmonthly.com/features/2004/0407.galbraith.html)(WSJ, 5/27/98, p.A20)
1968 Ted Stevens began representing Alaska in the US Senate.
(SFC, 12/20/05, p.A1)
1968 Following the disocvery of oil in Prudhoe Bay, Alaska, the Eskimos were given 44m acres of land, $1 billion and shares in regional and village corporations so that the government could build a pipeline to the oil.
(Econ, 8/30/14, p.27)
1968 The London Bridge was sold to American entrepreneur Robert Paxton McCulloch (b.1911). Robert McCulloch, founder of Lake Havasu City, Az., bought the stone bridge for approximately $2.6 million and had it transported by ship and truck from London in pieces across the Atlantic Ocean and via the Panama Canal and Los Angeles. That process and reconstruction took three years, leading to the October 1971 dedication.
(AP, 10/2/21)
1968 Don Thomson (d.2001) helped create Channel 21, the 1st UHF Spanish-language television channel in Phoenix, Az.
(SFC, 2/10/01, p.A22)
1968 In San Francisco construction of the 4-part Embarcadero Center began. It was completed in 1983.
(SFEC, 1/23/00, p.B1)
1968 Japan Center opened in San Francisco’s Japantown with a Peace Plaza and a 5-tiered pagoda. The center included the new Miyako Mall, the Miyako Hotel and the Kintetsu Mall.
(SFEC, 9/20/98, Z1 p.6)(SFC, 2/10/06, p.D1)
1968 Gary Arlington (29) founded America’s first comics store on 23rd St. in San Francisco’s Mission district. The comics sold for 12 cents. Arlington (d.2014) closed his store in 2003 after 35 years in business.
(SFC, 1/22/14, p.E3)
1968 Dr. Alejandro Zaffaroni (b.1923), native of Montevideo, Uruguay, founded ALZA Corp. The SF Bay Area company has grown to be one of the largest medical device companies in the US specializing in drug delivery technologies. He later helped to launch Affymax, a drug discovery company, and Affymetrix, which did DNA research on semiconductor chips.
(BJSJ, 10/30/95, p.8)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alejandro_Zaffaroni)
1968 The Berkeley Repertory Theater was founded by Michael Leibert on College Ave.
(SFEC, 3/8/98, p.W29)(WSJ, 5/8/01, p.A24)
1968 The Hillbarn Theater, co-founded by Robert Brauns (d.2001 at 87) opened on East Hillsdale Blvd in Foster City. The original outdoor theater, had been in the corral of the old Pingrey estate overlooking El Camino Real near the Belmont city line.
(SFC, 3/31/01, p.A21)
1968 The Royal Chapel at Carmel, Ca., became a cathedral for a second time as the Diocese of Monterey was reorganized.
(SSFC, 1/4/09, p.B3)
1968 David “Moses" Berg of Oakland, Ca., founded the Children of God. He combined the free love of the sexual revolution with the fervor of the American evangelical movement [see May, 2, 1978].
(SSFC, 2/27/05, p.A1)
1968 Yusuf Bey (d.2003) created “Your Black Muslim Bakery" in Oakland, Ca.
(SFC, 11/30/05, p.A16)
1968 The Industrial Center Building at 480 Gate Five Rd. in Sausalito, Ca., became a haven for artists.
(SFEM,11/30/97, p.10)
1968 Mary Moore (d.2001 at 73) founded Mandrake’s nightclub at University and 10th St. in Berkeley. The club folded in 1974.
(SFC, 12/28/01, p.A34)
1968 Canãda College opened in Redwood City, Ca.
(SFEC, 3/15/98, p.W20)
1968 In the SF Bay Area Marine World/Africa U.S.A. opened on 66 acres in Redwood Shores. The animal-themed amusement park moved to Vallejo in 1985 and the Redwood Shores land was developed as the headquarters of Oracle Corp.
(SFC, 3/10/18, p.D1)
1968 William Hartman (d.1997 at 78) and Marilyn Fithian founded the Center for Marital and Sexual Studies in Long Beach, Ca. They later published "Treatment of Sexual Dysfunction" based on their studies.
(SFC, 10/14/97, p.A19)
1968 California governor Ronald Reagan signed an Inmate Bill of Rights. It was amended in 1994 to limit rights only to those guaranteed in the California and US constitutions. It was again amended in 1996 to make personal visits a privilege, not a right.
(SFC, 7/9/96, p.A17)(http://tiny.cc/kOk1t)
1968 US Federal agents raided the Marin home of Frank Werber (1929-2007), the original manager of the Kingston Trio, and seized 258 pounds of Mexican marijuana. He served a 6-month sentence in Marin County, Ca. In 1972 he retired on 160 acres of wilderness in New Mexico.
(SFC, 6/8/07, p.B7)
1968 The California Air Resources Board (ARB) was established to regulate the state’s ambient air quality.
(SFEC,11/10/97, p.A10)
1968 The California legislature passed the California Open Records Law freeing up public documents at agencies other than the Public Utilities Commission.
(SSFC, 11/27/11, p.A21)
1968 Bobby Lee Verdugo (d.2020) became a key figure in the East Los Angeles student movement of Mexican Americans who faced physical punishment for speaking Spanish in class and discrimination from white administrators and teachers. Eventually, a politicized Mexican American population riled by the reaction to the walkouts forced the schools to end punishment for speaking Spanish and later introduced bilingual education classes. The walkouts became the subject of a 2006 HBO movie where actor Efren Ramirez played Verdugo.
(Reuters, 5/2/20)
1968 The California State Fair moved to the 356-acre CalExpo grounds in Sacramento.
(SSFC, 8/7/05, p.F7)
1968 Myth has it that the Nuestra Familia prison gang was organized after a stolen shoe incident at San Quentin prison. It set the Mexican Mafia, a gang rooted in East Los Angeles, against the Familia based in San Jose.
(SFEC, 6/29/97, Z1 p.1)
1968 In northern California the Black Bear Ranch commune was established in Siskiyou County near Yreka. A documentary of the project was released in 2007.
(SFC, 7/10/10, p.E1)
1968 Sidney W. Brossman (d.1999 at 76) became head of the new California Community Colleges and served to 1977.
(SFEC, 3/28/99, p.D6)
1968 Architect Henry Schubart (d.1998 at 81) moved his family to Salt Spring Island in British Columbia due to his opposition to the Vietnam War. He had designed the campus buildings of the Dominican College in Marin, Ca., the St. Louis Bertrand Church in Oakland and the Holy Names Church in SF among other works. In BC he introduced the use of skylights.
(SFC, 2/20/98, p.A23)
1968 Myth has it that the Nuestra Familia prison gang was organized after a stolen shoe incident at San Quentin prison. It set the Mexican Mafia, a gang rooted in East Los Angeles, against the Familia based in San Jose.
(SFEC, 6/29/97, Z1 p.1)
1968 Sears Point Raceway began operating in Marin County, Ca.
(SFC, 12/15/99, p.A21)
1968 The Kansas City Athletics under owner Charlie Finley moved to Oakland, Ca., and began playing in the new Oakland Coliseum.
(SFEC, 3/1/98, p.W39)
1968 A newspaper strike shut down the SF Chronicle, the Examiner and the News-Call Bulletin for 53 days. Bill O'Brien (d.2004) became president of the SF-Oakland Newspaper Guild the next day and supported the strike, which had originated with Hearst papers in LA.
(SFC, 2/05/04, p.A27)
1968 Al Brounstein (d.2006 at 86) purchased 80 acres on Diamond Mountain in Napa, Ca., for a little over $100,000. He began developing a vineyard and later admitted to smuggling cuttings from Bordeaux, France, by way of Tijuana. His first crop from Diamond Creek Vineyards was produced in 1972.
(SFC, 6/28/06, p.B7)
1968 Robert Mondavi made a dry wine from Sauvignon Blanc and renamed it Fume Blanc.
(SFC, 5/17/08, p.A7)
1968 The last of the hog farms in Colma, Ca., closed. Some 10,000 garbage-eating pigs were raised along the Hillside Blvd. farm
(Ind, 7/15/00,5A)
1968 T. Jack Foster, the developer of Foster City, Ca., died. His sons continued his project and sold out to Centex Corp. in 1970.
(Ind, 8/4/01, 5A)
1968 Actors from the Living Theater were arrested in San Francisco for disrobing onstage.
(SFC, 7/14/96, DB p.30)
1968 Chet Helms, operating under the name "Family Dog," lost his lease and permits for running shows at the Avalon Ballroom at Sutter and Van Ness.
(SFC, 10/9/97, p.A17)
1968 Bill Graham opened the Fillmore East in NYC and moved his SF operation to the former Carousel Ballroom, renamed the Fillmore West.
(SFC,12/13/97, p.A15)
1968 San Francisco Mayor Alioto greeted King Olav V of Norway with a grand reception at City Hall.
(SFEC, 2/1/98, p.A10)
1968 In San Francisco Andrew McKinley and Bryan Bilby opened the Adobe Book Shop at 3166 16th St.
(SFC, 4/9/03, p.E1)
1968 Chronicle Books was founded in San Francisco.
(SFC, 8/7/99, p.A8)
1968 The SF Police formed a helicopter unit. The city went without police helicopters from 1975 to 1998, when the unit was revived.
(SFC, 1/13/00, p.A15)
1968 SF State engineering student Charles Hall debuted his waterbed, an 8-foot-square, heated "Pleasure Pit," at a gallery on Leavenworth St.
(SFC, 1/2/19, p.D1)
1968 In San Francisco Richard Simmons opened Specs Twelve Adler Museum Cafe just off of Columbus Ave. and across the street from Vesuvio's.
(SFC, 1/26/04, p.B1)
1968 In San Francisco Walter Shorenstein announced his plan to tear down the Int’l. Hotel at 848 Kearny and replace it with a parking lot. Stymied by public pressure he sold the property in 1973.
(SFC, 6/8/01, WBa p.6)
1968 In San Francisco George Whitney stopped operating Playland-at-the-Beach. It was closed and put up for sale in 1972.
(SSFC, 7/3/05, p.F6)
1968 Linda Harmon (14) was raped, beaten and stabbed to death in SF. In 2003 DNA evidence identified William Speer (61), a convicted sexual predator, as the murderer.
(SFC, 12/24/03, p.A13)
1968 Donaldina Cameron (b.1869), San Francisco social worker, died. She had worked to rescue Chinese girls sold into prostitution in SF and founded the Donaldina Cameron House on Sacramento St. for low income Asian immigrants.
(SFC, 6/18/04, p.F4)
1968-1976 Joseph L. Alioto served as mayor of San Francisco.
(SFC, 12/19/96, p.A22)
1968 Detroit poet John Sinclair was arrested and sentenced to 10 years in prison for possession of two marijuana joints.
(SFEC, 7/21/96, DB p.35)
1968 In Grand Chute, Wis., a night watchman was killed during a robbery at a car dealership. In 2005 police in Appleton, Wis., arrested Robert Mitchell (75) for the murder.
(SFC, 11/19/05, p.A3)
1968 Maurice “Hank" Greenberg took over as head of American International Group (AIG). He stepped down in 2005 as AIG, the world’s largest insurer, faced regulatory troubles.
(Econ, 3/19/05, p.77)
1968 John Templeton (1912-2008) American investment analyst, fled to the Bahamas and took British citizenship in order to avoid American taxes.
(Econ, 7/19/08, p.95)
1968 In the US shoulder harnesses became required items on all cars.
(WSJ, 6/19/96, Adv. Supl)
1968 The Chevrolet Blazer opened up the Sports Utility Vehicle (SUV) market.
(SFEC, 10/10/99, Z1 p.6)
1968 ATT reserved 911 for emergency calls after the 1967 recommendation by the President’s Commission on Crime.
(WSJ, 1/9/97, p.A8)
1968 CBS established a 50-50 joint venture with Sony Corp.
(WSJ, 3/7/05, p.A8)
1968 Denny’s bought Winchell’s Donut Houses. Verne Winchell (d.2002 at 87) founded the business in the 1950s.
(SFC, 11/29/02, p.A27)
1968 The 4th Betty Crocker, a General Mills advertising icon, made her appearance and continued to 1972.
(WSJ, 7/5/96, p.A6)(http://chnm.gmu.edu/features/sidelights/crocker.html)
1968 The J.M. Smucker Co. introduced Goober Grape, a single container with peanut butter and grape jelly swirled together.
(SFC, 1/31/08, p.A13)
1968 Hewlett-Packard introduced the world’s 1st programmable scientific desktop calculator.
(SFC, 1/13/01, p.A15)
1968 Hewlett-Packard introduced the 1st commercially available light-emitting diode (LED) used for displays and traffic lights.
(SFC, 2/22/06, p.C1)
1968 Newton Glekel (1913-2007), NYC real estate lawyer and deal maker, purchased a controlling interest in Detroit-based Hygrade Food Products Co., maker of Ball Park hot dogs. He sold his stake to Britain’s Hanson Industries Inc. in 1976.
(WSJ, 8/4/07, p.A4)
1968 Montgomery Ward merged with Container Corp. to become Marcor.
(WSJ, 12/29/00, p.A3)
1968 Tele-Communications Inc. was founded by Bob Magness (1924-1996) when he merged Community Television Inc. and Western Microwave Inc. in Denver. The company went public in 1970.
(SFEC, 11/17/96, p.C12)
1968 Wayne Huizenga and Dean Buntrock established Waste Management Inc. in Chicago. It became a public company in 1971.
(SFC, 7/19/07, p.A14)
1968 Charles P. Ball, a graduate student at SF State Univ., designed the first water bed.
(SFEC, 6/1/97, Z1 p.5)
1968 The first modular office system, invented by Robert Propst, was commercially introduced in cube form. It was named “Action Office 2" and dismayed the designer.
(Econ, 1/3/15, p.45)
1968 Fred Mattson (d.1997 at 76) and Dr. Robert Volpenhein, employed by Proctor & Gamble, created olestra, a cocktail of fatty acids that enzymes left untouched.
(SFEC, 6/8/97, p.D6)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olestra)
1968 The National Eye Institute at the National Institutes of Health was founded with the assistance of Dr. Alfred Maumenee Jr.
(SFC, 1/21/98, p.A20)
1968 Dr. Robert Good (d.2003 at 81) performed the 1st successful human bone marrow transplant.
(SFC, 6/19/03, p.A1)
1968 Scientists crossed the Pacific oyster with the Kumamoto oyster and produced the Gigomoto oyster. They had hoped for a cross that would have the best traits of both oysters but instead produced a cross with the worst traits of both oysters.
(WSJ, 4/4/96, A-12)
1968 Teacher Jane Elliot separated her class into blue-eyed and brown-eyed students and treated one group better that the other in a demonstration of discrimination.
(SFC, 8/30/96, p.D6)
1968 Barbara Liskov received a doctorate from Stanford Univ. in computer science, the first such degree ever awarded to a woman in the US. In 2009 she won the $250,000 Turing computing award from the Association for Computing Machinery for her work in organizing complex programs and efforts to make software more resistant to errors and hacking.
(SFC, 3/13/09, p.C3)
1968 In a move toward decentralization it was planned to give community districts more control over the NYC school system. The process was derailed when many white teachers were fired in Brooklyn on account of race in districts that came under control of black nationalists. In 2007 Richard D. Kahlenberg authored “Tough Liberal," a biography of Albert Shanker (1928-1997), head of the NYC teacher’s union. Shanker led the series of teacher strikes that fought total community control.
(WSJ, 12/31/97, p.A10)(WSJ, 8/28/07, p.D6)
1968 The U of M Institute for Social Research (ISR) began its Panel Study of Income Dynamics, an annual study of the wealth, health and behavior of American families.
(MT, Fall. ‘97, p.4)
1968 Milton Wexler (1909-2007), Hollywood psychoanalyst, launched the Hereditary Disease Foundation, after his wife, Leonore Wexler, got diagnosed with Huntington’s disease. Scientists in 1983 found a genetic marker for Huntington’s disease and in 1993 located the gene itself.
(SFC, 3/23/07, p.B9)
1968 Roy Jacuzzi invented the first whirlpool bath.
(SFC, 6/12/99, p.D1)(http://inventors.about.com/library/inventors/bljacuzzi.htm)
1968 A new medium priced home in the US was priced at $24,700.
(WSJ, 6/14/96, p.B10)
1968 Floating fish-processing factories took in a combined catch of 810,000 tons of cod off the eastern banks of North America. During the next decade there was a steady drop cod population.
(NH, 5/96, p.61)
1968 Fossil bones of a plesiosaur were unearthed at a Kansas ranch. The 15-foot dinosaur lived about 78 million years ago and was believed to have given birth to live young under water.
(SFC, 8/12/11, p.A6)(www.oceansofkansas.com/plesiosaur.html)
1968 The Rogue River in southern Oregon was named as one the country's first national wild and Scenic rivers.
(SFEC, 3/19/00, p.T4)
1968 Dr. Kurt Freund (1914-1996), psychiatrist, left Czechoslovakia after the failure of the revolt and moved to Canada. He had developed a way to measure penile response to erotic stimulation with a phallometric device.
(SFEC, 10/27/96, p.B8)
1968 The Hong Kong flu pandemic broke out and killed some 34,000 Americans. Over the next two years the pandemic killed an estimated one million people all over the world. It was caused by an H3N2 strain of the influenza A virus, descended from H2N2 through antigenic shift. Each year an average of 20,000 Americans die of the flu.
(WSJ, 1/14/98, p.A18)(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hong_Kong_flu)
1968 Open air testing of chemical weapons at the US Army Dugway Proving Grounds in the Utah desert caused the deaths of some 3,600 [6,400] sheep in an adjacent valley.
(SFEC, 4/27/97, p.A18)(WSJ, 6/1/98, p.A1)
1968 The IOC introduced drug testing for Olympic athletes.
(Econ, 7/30/16, p.68)
1968 In Austria a girl (16) at the state-run home in Tyrol province was reportedly raped by two soldiers and three others defecated on her. She and four other girls were picked out for the soldiers by a female orderly. In 2012 a military commission was been set up to investigate the allegations.
(AP, 8/20/12)
1968 The Bahamas elected a socialist leaning president. This led to the end of the Bahamas as a major off-shore tax haven and the rise of the Cayman Islands as a tax haven.
(SSFC, 7/10/05, p.E3)
1968 In Belgium Flemish students called for French speaking Walloons to leave the Univ. at Leuven. This led to a division of the library’s 1.6 million books with half going to the new campus of Louvain-la-Neuve in French speaking Wallonia. The partition divided the Catholic church and brought down the government.
(Econ, 1/29/11, p.51)
1968 In Bhutan Michael Aris (1946-1999), a graduate from Durham Univ., was invited about this time to become the private tutor of the children of the royal family of Bhutan. Aris spent 6 years in Bhutan. In 1972 he married Aung San Suu Kyi of Burma.
(SFC, 3/30/99, p.F4)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Aris)
1968 Bolivia’s Gen. Juan Jose Torres selected economist Hugo Torresgoitia as vice president.
(SFC, 7/14/03, p.A2)
1968 In Britain the literary Booker Prize was founded by Sir Michael Caine (d.1999 at 71), an executive for Booker PLC, which specialized in food distribution and agribusiness. The prize was modeled after the French Prix Goncourt.
(SFC, 3/25/99, p.C3)
1968 Cash-strapped Britain said it was pulling military forces from the Persian Gulf and South-East Asia.
(Econ, 10/23/10, p.70)
1968 The London Sunday Times sponsored the 1st Golden Globe round-the-world sailboat race. Robin Knox-Johnston was the only entrant to complete the race, becoming the first person to sail single-handed and non-stop around the world. The race gave birth to the French Vendee Globe race. In 1999 Derek Lundy authored "Godforsaken Sea," an account of the 1996 Vendee Globe. In 2001 Peter Nichols authored "A Voyage for Madmen," an account of the race and its 9 skippers.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sunday_Times_Golden_Globe_Race)(SFEC, 8/15/99, BR p.5)(WSJ, 6/22/01, p.W12)
1968 British Leyland was put together by Harold Wilson’s industrial planners. It was nationalized in 1975, and sold to British Aerospace in 1988. BMW picked up Rover in 1994.
(Econ, 4/16/05, p.15)
1968 Asia’s first int’l. film festival was held in Phnom Penh, Cambodia.
(Econ, 4/6/13, p.97)
1968 Pierre Trudeau, PM of Canada, published an admiring book about Mao Tse-Tung’s China.
(WSJ, 10/3/00, p.A26)
1968 Canada renamed its air and sea forces as the Maritime and Ari Commands. In 2011 the naming reverted to the Royal Canadian Navy and Royal Canadian Air Force. The Land Force again became the Canadian Army.
(Econ, 8/20/11, p.38)
1968 China established a research center to prepare for manned space flight, with 1973 target date for launch. Program later canceled because of lack of money and political support.
(AP, 10/15/03)
1968 The documentary film “Czechoslovakia 1968" was a 20-minute production by the US Information Agency.
(SFC,11/21/97, p.C17)
1968 Ladislav Bittman (1931-2018), a Cold War spy for Czechoslovakia, defected to West Germany and sought asylum in the US, where he changed his name to Lawrence Michael Martin. He later added Bittman to his surname.
(SSFC, 9/23/18, p.C9)
1968 In Denmark the original Legoland was built in Billund.
(SFEC, 2/7/99, p.T3)
1968 A Danish geologist published a paper on the Greenland Ice Cap that included melting threats to it. The study used core samples that drilled down to bedrock.
(WSJ, 6/8/06, p.D8)
1968 Zinsou became premier (1968-1969) of Dahomey (later Benin).
(http://tinyurl.com/9ryq5)
1968 Charles de Gaulle switched sides to align France with the Arabs. This laid the foundation for Israel’s high-tech industry.
(Econ 5/20/17, SR p.4)
1968 Kourou, French Guiana, launched its 1st commercial satellite. A space center opened there in 1970.
(AP, 8/27/02)
1968 In Germany the Gallery of the Twentieth Century by architect Mies van der Rohe (1886-1969) was dedicated in Berlin.
(TL, 1988, p.117)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ludwig_Mies_van_der_Rohe)
1968 Jean Dominique (d.2000) purchased the lease on Radio Haiti Inter and initiated broadcasts in Creole. Dominique was forced in to exile in 1980, but returned in 1986.
(SFC, 4/30/04, p.E6)
1968 In India the Triennale-India art show began in New Delhi with shows held every 3 years.
(SFC,12/27/97, p.C16)
1968 In India Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) was founded to manage payroll and inventory for Tata's burgeoning portfolio of businesses. Public shares were offered in 2004 as sales hit %1.5 billion and employees numbered 28,000.
(Econ, 7/24/04, p.61)(Econ., 10/3/20, p.53)
1968 India passed legislation allowing the state to seize properties owned by its “enemies."
(Econ, 3/18/17, p.38)
1968 Galgal Refaim, or the "wheel of ghosts" was first noticed by scholars, a year after Israel captured the Golan Heights from Syria. It consists of four circles, the outermost more than 500 feet across, made up of an estimated 42,000 tons of basalt stone, the remains of massive walls that experts believe once rose as much as high as 30 feet. The enormous feat of construction was carried out some 6000 years ago by a society about which little is known. A tomb existed in the center of the site, but scholars tend to agree it was added a millennia or two after the circles were erected in the Chalcolithic period, between 4500 and 3500 BC. In 2011 a scholar suggested that Galgal Refaim was an excarnation facility.
(AP, 11/3/11)
1968 In Italy Michelangelo Pistoletto, artist, rolled around Turin his giant ball of pulped newspaper. The exploit was captured on film.
(SFC, 2/10/98, p.E4)
1968 The Sant’Egidio community was started in Rome by a high school student with ideals of prayer, mission and solidarity wit the poor. By 2008 it had 60,000 members in 70 countries and had become active in faith-based peacemaking.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Community_of_Sant'Egidio)(Econ, 7/5/08, p.72)
1968 In Japan Iwao Hakamada, accused of killing a family and setting fire to its house after a robbery in 1966, was sentenced to death. After 19 days of 12-hour interrogations he confessed. At his trial he said the confession was coerced. In 2008 Japan’s Supreme Court turned down a retrial plea.
(Econ, 3/29/08, p.56)(AP, 3/27/14)
c1968 The Aral Sea between Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan began shrinking after Soviet engineers diverted water from its 2 feeder streams, the Amu Darya and the Syr Darya. The water was diverted to a massive dam and irrigation system for cotton production.
(SFC, 11/30/98, p.A11)(SFEC, 1/31/99, p.A20)
1968 In Mexico there was a rain of hundreds of thousands of maggots on Acapulco.
(SFC, 5/30/98, p.E4)
1968 In the Netherlands the Rembrandt Research Project was formed and funded by the government to act as the gatekeepers of Rembrandt’s work.
(WSJ, 8/7/98, p.W12)
1968 Baba Hassan Din, English convert to Sufism, died in Lahore, Pakistan. In the 1950’s he had adopted a boy named Hafiz Iqbal, and raised him to be a scholar. Both were later recognized as Sufi saints.
(Econ, 12/20/08, p.73)
1968 In Papua New Guinea Michael Somare (b.1936) was first elected to parliament. He later served 3 terms as prime minister.
(Econ, 8/6/11, p.35)
1968 In Poland some 13,000 Jews were forced to leave the country following mass anti-communist protests in March. Students defending a banned anti-totalitarian play initiated the protests, which the ruling communist factions used in their infighting that climaxed in the purge of Jews.
(AP, 3/6/18)
1968 In Poland Gen. Jaruzelski was appointed defense minister, benefiting from a purge of Jewish comrades.
(Econ, 6/14/14, p.86)
1968 Abel Muzorewa was consecrated bishop of Rhodesia for the United Methodist.
(AFP, 4/9/10)
1968 The Russian film "The Shield and the Sword," covered the exchange of Soviet undercover agent Rudolf Abel convicted in the US for downed American spy plane pilot Francis Gary Powers. Russian President Vladimir Putin later said the film inspired him to join the KGB.
(AP, 6/21/17)
1968 In Kosovo, Serbia, ethnic Albanians staged their first pro-independence demonstrations.
(USAT, 3/24/99, p.4A)
1968 The Diuktai Cave, a rich Palaeolithic site dating back to 35-10,000 BC, was discovered on the Aldan, a tributary of the Lena in Siberia by Dr. Yuri Mochanov.
(NG, Oct. 1988, p.464)
1968 In South Korea Park Tae-joon (1927-2011) founded POSCO to manufacture steel. By 2008 it was the world’s 4th largest steelmaker. It was started by the state using $120 million in war reparations from Japan. It was privatized after South Korea’s 1997 financial crises.
(Econ, 8/30/08, p.62)(Econ, 9/27/08, SR p.9)(AP, 12/13/11)
1968 In Spain the ETA, Basque Homeland and Freedom, a Basque separatist group, began fighting for independence. Its political wing was Herri Batasuna.
(SFEC, 7/13/97, p.A11)(SFC, 7/21/97, p.A10)
1968 In Sweden the first gathering of folk-musicians at Bingsjö was held.
(NH, 4/97, p.31)
1968 Julius K. Nyerere (1922-1999), the first president of Tanzania (1964-1985), authored Ujamaa: Essays on Socialism." He coined the economic policy called ujamaa, a Swahili word for togetherness or family and fused the country’s 120 tribes into a cohesive state.
(www.nathanielturner.com/ujamaanyerere.htm)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julius_Nyerere)(WSJ, 12/10/96, p.A6)
1968 In Tanzania Campbell Bridges (1937-2009), Scottish-born geologist, became the first to record the discovery of the gemstone-quality tsavorite a green gem that shines even before polishing. The gem was later mined in Kenya and Tanzania.
(AP, 8/13/09)
1968 The International Comparison Program (ICP) was established to compare the economic outputs of countries. The ICP was established as a joint venture of the UN Statistical Division (UNSD) and the International Comparisons Unit of the University of Pennsylvania with financial contributions from the Ford Foundation and the World Bank.
(Econ, 5/3/14, p.65)(http://tinyurl.com/ku3m76a)
1968 World leaders proclaimed that individuals have a basic human right to determine freely and responsibly the number and timing of their children. This led to the annual UN celebration of World Population Day.
(www.unfpa.org/wpd/)
1968 In Venezuela researchers, Napoleon Chagnon and James V. Neel, reportedly inoculated thousands of Yanomami Indians with a measles vaccine. Chagnon published "Yanomamö: The Fierce People," a summation of his 30 years in the Amazon forest. In 2000 the controversial book "Darkness in El Dorado" Patrick Tierney blamed the researchers for a major epidemic that killed hundreds of Indians. At least 30 Indians died from a measles epidemic that hit Yanomani villages at least one year before researchers administered the Edmonston B vaccine [see 1967].
(SFC, 11/10/00, p.A4)(SFC, 11/16/00, p.A19)(NH, Jul, p.28)(WSJ, 2/23/08, p.W8)
1968 The US military "Project Urgency" returned some North Vietnamese prisoners with hidden incriminating evidence, so they would appear as US agents.
(SFC, 11/5/99, p.D4)
1968 In Yugoslavia Tito purged Serbian novelist Dobrica Cosic (b.1921) for nationalism. Cosic developed a complex and paradoxical theory of Serbian national persecution that later evolved into the Greater Serbian program of Slobodan Milosevic. Cosic later became the first president of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (1992 to 1993).
(WSJ, 5/7/99, p.A18)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dobrica_%C4%86osi%C4%87)
1968-1969 The US Pentagon admitted in 1999 that it had helped South Korea obtain Agent Orange to defoliate areas along the demilitarized zone. Soldiers applied it by hand. In 2000 1,890 South Korean soldiers and farmers had registered as victims. They sought $4.3 billion from Dow Chemical and Monsanto and $1 billion for the US government.
(SFC, 11/17/99, p.A18)
1968-1969 Pres. Francisco Macias Nguema murdered a 6th of the population of Eq. Guinea.
(WSJ, 8/31/05, p.D10)
1968-1970 Chuck Mawhinney, one of the United States Marine Corps’ most accomplished snipers, served a 13-month tour in Vietnam and two six-month extensions. During that time he was credited with 103 confirmed kills and 216 probables.
(HNQ, 12/16/02)
1968-1971 Farleigh S. Dickinson (1920-1996) served in the New Jersey state senate. He sponsored the law that created the Hackensack Meadowlands Development Commission, a 21,000 acres site that covered 14 municipalities.
(SFC, 10/17/96, C2)
1968-1972 Edward Dorn (d.1999 at 70), poet and educator, composed his 5-volume poem "Gunslinger."
(SFC, 12/15/99, p.B2)
1968-1973 In 1998 Allen J. Matusow published "Nixon’s Economy," a look at Nixon’s economic record over this period.
(WSJ, 7/22/98, p.A12)
1968-1973 A severe famine hit the Sahel region of North Africa. Mauritania, Mali, Upper Volta (Burkina Faso) and Niger were most affected.
(Econ, 8/20/05, p.57)
1968-1974 The UK forcibly removed thousands of Chagossians from their homelands and sent them more than 1,600 km (1,000 miles) away to Mauritius and the Seychelles, where they faced extreme poverty and discrimination.
(BBC, 10/19/20)
1968-1975 The pro-Soviet Velasco Alvarado regime ruled Peru. The military government expropriated the sugar estates on the country’s north coast turning them into government-owned cooperatives.
(WSJ, 12/27/96, p.A7)(Econ, 2/10/07, p.38)
1968-1979 Pierre E. Trudeau, Liberal Party, served as the 15th Prime Minister of Canada.
(CFA, '96, p.81)
1968-1979 Robert W. Fleming was president of the Univ. of Michigan. He succeeded Harlan Hatcher in Jan. His autobiography was published in 1996: "Tempests Into Rainbows."
(MT, 3/96, p.16)
1968-1985 In Italy serial killings during this period left 16 people dead in the Tuscan countryside. In 1994 Pietro Pacciani (69) was convicted of 14 murders and sentenced to life in prison following trial that was televised. He was cleared in 1996 and ordered to face a retrial, but died in 1998. Pacciani's friend, Mario Vanni (70) and Giancarlo Lotti (54) were convicted of their involvement in five of the double murders. Vanni was given a life sentence and Lotti received a sentence of 26 years in prison. In 2001 Florentine authorities reopened the case amid speculation they were investigating up to a dozen wealthy Italians who orchestrated the ritualistic killings by manipulating a trio of voyeuristic peasants. In 2006 Mario Spezi, a journalist who has worked with the American thriller author Douglas Preston on a book about the killings, was arrested and accused of slander and sidetracking the investigation.
(AP, 4/9/06)
1968-1998 American Engineer Jon Postel (1943-1998) coordinated the Internet’s protocols and addressing system over this period.
(Econ, 11/19/05, p.68)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jon_Postel)
Return to home
1968 Jan 1-1968 Dec 31, The year was marked by protest marches. In 1998 Tariq Ali and Susan Watkins published: "1968: Marching in the Streets." In 2004 Mark Kurlansky authored "1968: The Year That Rocked the World."
(SFC, 5/22/98, p.C12)(SSFC, 1/25/04, p.M1)
1968 Jan 2, San Francisco poet Lawrence Ferlinghetti, arrested during the pre-Christmas series of peace demonstrations outside the Oakland Induction Center, was sentenced to 17 days in county jail after pleading guilty no contest to a charge of disturbing the peace.
(SSFC, 12/31/17, DB p.54)
1968 Jan 5, The US Justice Dept. indicted Dr. Benjamin Spock, Rev. William Coffin of Yale (1924-2006) and 3 others for conspiring to violate draft law.
(SFC, 4/13/06, p.B7)
1968 Jan 5, A newspaper strike shut down the SF Chronicle, the Examiner and the News-Call Bulletin for 53 days. Bill O'Brien (d.2004) became president of the SF-Oakland Newspaper Guild the next day and supported the strike, which had originated with Hearst papers in LA. Senior executives of the SF Chronicle put out a special edition of the paper on a copy machine.
(SFC, 2/05/04, p.A27)(SSFC, 6/7/09, p.W3)(http://tinyurl.com/nkszr8)
1968 Jan 5, Alexander Dubcek (1921-1992) was elected First Secretary of the Communist Party in Czechoslovakia.
(http://www.radio.cz/en/article/112505)(www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/COLDdubcek.htm)
1968 Jan 6, Dr. Norman E. Shumway of Stanford performed the 1st US adult heart transplant. Mike Kasperak (54) lived for 2 weeks before he died of massive bleeding from other organs.
(www.britannica.com/eb/article-9067567)(SFC, 2/11/06, p.B5)
1968 Jan 8, Jacques Cousteau's 1st undersea special aired on US network TV.
(www.imdb.com/title/tt0845400/)
1968 Jan 9, The TV show "It Takes A Thief" with Robert Wagner began on ABC. It written and produced by Leslie Stevens (d.1998) and ran to 1970.
(SFC, 8/13/97, Z1 p.3)(SFC, 4/29/98, p.C2)
1968 Jan 9, The Surveyor VII space probe made a soft landing on the moon, marking the end of the American series of unmanned explorations of the lunar surface.
(AP, 1/9/99)
1968 Jan 10, Lyle Menendez was born in NY and grew up in Princeton, NJ. In 1989 he and his brother Erik killed their parents.
(www.imdb.com/name/nm1062652/)
1968 Jan 13, Hester & Appolinar's musical "Your Own Thing," premiered in NYC.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Your_Own_Thing)
1968 Jan 13, The U.S. reported shifting most air targets from North Vietnam to Laos.
(HN, 1/13/99)
1968 Jan 14, The Green Bay Packers under Vince Lombardi, after winning its third consecutive NFL championship, won the 2nd Super Bowl Football game over the Oakland Raiders. This was Lombardi's last game as coach of the Packers. The game drew the first $3 million gate in football history. In 1999 David Maraniss authored "When Pride Still Mattered: A Life of Vince Lombardi."
(WSJ, 1/28/97, p.A16)(SFEC, 1/9/00, BR p.5)(Superbowl.com)
1968 Jan 14, US forces in Vietnam launched Operation Niagara I to locate enemy units around the Marine base at Khe Sanh.
(www.history.com/this-day-in-history.do?action=Article&id=1613)
1968 Jan 16, The UK announced that it would end all "East of Suez" presence by 1971.
(WUD, 1994, p.1687)
1968 Jan 19, In San Francisco demonstrators battled riot police as US Sec. of State Dean Rusk spoke at the Fairmont Hotel. More than 60 anti-war demonstrators were arrested.
(SSFC, 1/14/18, DB p.58)
1968 Jan 19, Cambodia charged that the United States and South Vietnam had crossed the border and killed three Cambodians.
(HN, 1/19/99)
1968 Jan 21, An American B-52 bomber carrying four hydrogen bombs crashed at North Star Bay, Greenland, killing one crew member and scattering radioactive material. Reports began to surface later and in 1995 the Danish government paid a $15.5 million settlement to some 1,700 exposed workers.
(www.ens-newswire.com/ens/aug2004/2004-08-09-02.asp)(AP, 1/21/08)
1968 Jan 21, A group of 31 North Korean commandos trudged undetected for about 40 miles from the border to the presidential Blue House of South Korean President Park Chung-hee in downtown Seoul. South Korean security forces repelled the assault. 28 North Koreans and 34 South Koreans were killed.
(SFC, 9/19/96, p.A8)(AP, 12/25/03)
1968 Jan 21, In Vietnam the Battle of Khe Sahn began as North Vietnamese forces attacked a US Marine base; the Americans were able to hold their position until the siege was lifted 2 1/2 months later. It was the longest and bloodiest battle of the Vietnam War. The Battle began at 0530 hours when North Vietnamese Army forces hammered the Marine-occupied Khe Sanh Combat Base with rocket, mortar, artillery, small arms, and automatic weapons fire. Hundreds of 82-mm mortar rounds and 122-mm rockets slammed into the combat base. Virtually all of the base's ammunition stock and a substantial portion of the fuel supplies were destroyed.
(WSJ, 5/2/02, p.D7)(AP, 1/21/08)(www.vietnam-war.info/battles/siege_of_khe_sanh.php)
1968 Jan 22, The TV variety show "Laugh In" began on NBC with comedians Dan Rowan and Dick Martin. It continued running to May 14, 1973. It was the top ranking network show on television for two seasons (1968-1969) with rankings of 31.8 and 26.3%.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rowan_&_Martin%27s_Laugh-In)(WSJ, 4/24/95, p.R-5)
1968 Jan 22, The off Broadway show "Jacques Brel Is Alive and Well and Living in Paris" premiered at the Village Gate Theater. A film version was produced in 1975. Brel (1929-1978), a Belgian singer, was later buried in the Marquesas Island of Hiva Oa, in the same cemetery as Paul Gauguin.
(www.talkinbroadway.com/regional/sfla/sfla176.html)
1968 Jan 22, Apollo 5 was launched to the Moon; unmanned lunar module tests made.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollo_5)
1968 Jan 23, North Korea seized the U.S. Navy intelligence ship Pueblo, charging it had intruded into the communist nation's territorial waters on a spying mission. One crewman was killed in the attack. Cmdr. Lloyd Bucher (d.2004 at 76) was quickly separated from the 81-man crew. The crew was released 11 months later.
(NG, 8/74, p.266)(AP, 1/23/98)(SFC, 10/2/01, p.A15)(SFC, 1/30/04, p.A25)
1968 Jan 24, Mary Lou Retton, gymnast (Oly-gold/2 silver/2 bronze-84), was born in Fairmont, WV.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Lou_Retton)
1968 Jan 24, An Israeli submarine, the Dakar, a British-made submarine with a 69-man crew, was lost in the Mediterranean Sea while enroute from England to Israel. The sunken ship was found May 28, 1999, between Crete and Cyprus.
(SFC, 5/31/99, p.A8)(www.geocities.com/CapitolHill/Lobby/9650/dakar.html)
1968 Jan 28, Vince Lombardi resigned as coach of Wisconsin’s Green Bay Packers, two weeks after winning Super Bowl II. He remained as general manager. On Feb 1 Phil Bengtson was named coach of the Packers.
(www.packers.com/history/chronology/)(www.nfl.com/history/chronology/1961-1970)
1968 Jan 29, A court convened in Vietnam for the murder of Cambodian, triple agent Inchin Lam, by Special Forces Captain John J. McCarthy Jr. Murder charges were later dropped due to exculpatory evidence and proven prosecutorial fraud on the court. A civil action for $1.3 billion in US Federal District Court, Washington D.C. against the CIA and associated agencies was dismissed in 2003.
(www.copvcia.com/Mac.htm)(http://johnmccarthy90066.tripod.com/id299.html)
1968 Jan 29, Leonard Tsuguharu Foujita (b.1886), painter and engraver born in Tokyo, Japan, died in Zurich, Switz. He applied French oil techniques to Japanese-style paintings. In 2006 Phyllis Birnbaum authored “Glory in a Line: A Life of Foujita – The Artist Caught Between East and West."
(SSFC, 11/26/06, p.M1)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tsuguharu_Foujita)
1968 Jan 31, In Vietnam, the Tet Offensive began as Viet Cong and North Vietnamese soldiers attacked strategic and civilian locations throughout South Vietnam. The Viet Cong, under General Vo Nguyen Giap (b.1911), seized part of the US embassy in Saigon for 6 hours. They attacked more than 100 cities in South Vietnam with many US casualties. Although the Communists were beaten back, the offensive was seen as a major setback for the US and its allies. During the Tet Offensive, the Communist troops who took control of the ancient capital of Hue killed an estimated 6,000 civilians before they again lost control of the city.
(www.vwam.com/vets/tet/tet.html)(SFC, 2/3/00, p.A25)(AP, 1/30/08)
Jan, Ralph Ginzburg (1929-2006), American author and publisher, began publishing Avant Garde, a literary and arts magazine in NYC. The magazine continued to July, 1971.
(SFC, 7/7/06, p.B9)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ralph_Ginzburg)
1968 Feb 1, Richard M. Nixon announced his bid for the Republican presidential nomination.
(AP, 2/1/08)
1968 Feb 1, Lisa Marie Presley, daughter of Elvis and Priscilla Beaulieu Presley, was born. Lisa Marie married ‘The Gloved One’, Michael Jackson, in the ‘90s.
(SFC, 8/11/97, p.A1)(440 Int'l, 2/1/1999)
1968 Feb 1, US troops drove the North Vietnamese out of Tan Son Nhut airport in Saigon. South Vietnam President Nguyen Van Thieu declared martial law. Saigon's police chief Nguyen Ngoc Loan executed a Viet Cong officer with a pistol shot to the head in a scene captured by Associated Press photographer Eddie Adams and NBC News.
(HN, 2/1/99)(SFC, 7/16/98, p.B2)(AP, 2/1/08)
1968 Feb 1, The Pennsylvania Railroad and NYC Central merged into Penn Central.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penn_Central)
1968 Feb 4, Neal Cassidy (b.1926), friend of Jack Kerouac and one of the Merry Pranksters, died on a Mexican highway.
(SFC, 7/2/97, p.E5)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neal_Cassady)
1968 Feb 5, US troops divided Viet Cong at Hue while the Saigon government claimed they would arm loyal citizens. The main assaults at Khe Sanh started.
(HN, 2/5/99)(http://www.knowledgerush.com/kr/encyclopedia/Siege_of_Khe_Sanh/)
1968 Feb 6, Former president Dwight Eisenhower hit a golfing hole-in-one.
(SFEC, 4/5/98, Z1 p.8)
1968 Feb 6, Charles de Gaulle opened the 19th Winter Olympics in Grenoble, France.
(HN, 2/6/99)
1968 Feb 7, The Arthur Miller play "Price" premiered in NYC.
(www.theatredatabase.com/20th_century/arthur_miller_timeline.html)
1968 Feb 7, North Vietnamese used 11 Soviet-built light tanks to overrun the U.S. Special Forces camp at Lang Vei at the end of an 18-hour long siege.
(HN, 2/7/99)
1968 Feb 8, George Wallace, the pro-segregation governor of Alabama, entered the US presidential race. Wallace ran as a third-party candidate. He was mainly popular in the deep south, but he was able to attract 14% of the popular vote in the November election.
(HN, 2/7/97)(www.answers.com/topic/george-wallace)
1968 Feb 8, Robert F. Kennedy said that the US cannot win the Vietnam War.
(HN, 2/8/98)
1968 Feb 8, At South Carolina State 3 black students were killed in a confrontation with highway patrolmen in Orangeburg, during a civil rights protest against a whites-only bowling alley. Nearly 50 were injured in the Orangeburg Massacre during confrontations with the National Guard. In 2001 Gov. Jim Hodges voiced his regret over the massacre. In 1970 Jack Nelson (1929-2009), LA Times reporter, authored “The Orangeburg Massacre."
(SFEC, 2/22/98, BR p.8)(AP, 2/8/99)(SFC, 2/9/01, p.A3)(SFC, 10/22/09, p.D6)
1968 Feb 8, In South Carolina Lee Roy Martin, called the editor of a local newspaper, and told him where to find the bodies of two women he'd dumped in the woods. He threatened to kill even more women until he was "shot down like the dog I am." Clues in the area led to Martin's arrest. Martin, dubbed the “Gaffney Strangler," was convicted of four murders and sentenced to four life terms. In 1972, he was stabbed to death in his cell.
(AP, 7/4/09)
1968 Feb 10, Peggy Fleming of the United States won the gold medal in women's figure skating at the Winter Olympic Games in Grenoble, France.
(AP, 2/10/97)
1968 Feb 12, "Soul on Ice" by Eldridge Cleaver (full name: Leroy Eldridge Cleaver), a militant activist and Black Panther, was first published. Cleaver spent much of his early life in and out of prison on charges ranging from drug possession to assault. It was in prison that he began the essays that would become Soul on Ice. Shortly after being paroled in 1966, Eldridge Cleaver met Huey Newton and Bobby Seale, the founders of the Black Panther party. Cleaver quickly became the party's minister of information. Faced with further prison time after a shootout with police in April 1968, Cleaver jumped bail and fled the country, first to Cuba, then to Algeria. He returned voluntarily in 1975 having broken with the Panthers and disillusioned with communism. His change in thinking is reflected in his 1978 book Soul on Fire. He died on May 1, 1998, in Pomona, California.
(AP, 2/12/98)(HNQ, 2/2/01)
1968 Feb 12, A US Navy T-33 jet trainer crashed into the San Francisco Bay Bridge exploding into flames and killing the two men aboard.
(SSFC, 2/11/18, DB p.50)
1968 Feb 13, The US sent 10,500 more combat troops to Vietnam.
(HN, 2/13/98)
1968 Feb 15, The Anaheim Amigos’ Les Selvage scored 10, 3-pt baskets in an ABA game vs. the Denver Nuggets.
(www.islandnet.com/~kpolsson/sports/spor1968.htm)
1968 Feb 16, Beatles George Harrison & John Lennon flew to India with their wives for transcendental meditation with the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi.
(www.beatles.ws/1968.htm)
1968 Feb 16, America’s first 911 emergency telephone system was inaugurated in Haleyville, Ala.
(AP, 2/16/98)
1968 Feb 18, Three US pilots, who had been held by the Vietnamese, arrived in Washington. The Vietnamese people later pressured Hanoi to account for their own 300,000 MIAs.
(HN, 2/18/98)
1968 Feb 18, British adopted year-round daylight savings time.
(www.nmm.ac.uk/explore/astronomy-and-time/time-facts/british-summer-time-(bst))
1968 Feb 18, Some 10,000 people in West Berlin demonstrated against US in Vietnam War.
(www.dreamsville.net/?p=196)
1968 Feb 19, The children's program Mister Rogers' Neighborhood, created by Fred Rogers (1928-2003), premiered on NET (later PBS).
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mister_Rogers%27_Neighborhood)
1968 Feb 19, Mississippi state troopers used tear gas to stop Alcorn A&M demonstrations.
(http://tinyurl.com/c5flal)
1968 Feb 20, A Hue, South Vietnam, army chief ordered all looters to be shot on sight.
(HN, 2/20/98)
1968 Feb 26, Thirty-two African nations agreed to boycott the Olympics because of the presence of South Africa.
(HN, 2/26/98)
1968 Feb 26, Lionel Rose (1949-2011) outpointed Fighting Harada in Tokyo and became a national sports hero and an icon for Australia's indigenous community. Hundreds of thousands lined Melbourne's streets to welcome him home after his title triumph. He lost the world bantamweight title to Mexican Ruben Olivares in a fifth-round knockout in August 1969.
(AFP, 5/9/11)(http://aso.gov.au/titles/radio/lionel-rose-wins-world-title/notes/)
1968 Feb 26, Clandestine Radio Voice of Iraqi People (Communist) made its final transmission.
(SC, 2/26/02)
1968 Feb 27, CBS News anchorman Walter Cronkite‘s commentary on the progress of the Vietnam War solidified President Lyndon B. Johnson‘s decision not to seek re-election in 1968. Cronkite, who had been at Hue in the midst of the Tet Offensive earlier in February, said: "Who won and who lost in the great Tet Offensive against the cities? I‘m not sure." He concluded: "It is increasingly clear to this reporter that the only rational way out...will be to negotiate, not as victors but as an honorable people who lived up to their pledge to defend democracy, and did the best they could." Johnson called the commentary a "turning point," saying that if he had "lost Cronkite," he‘d "lost Mr. Average Citizen." On March 31, Johnson announced he would not seek re-election.
(HNQ, 10/30/00)
1968 Feb 27, Frankie Lymon (b.1942), American singer died. He was an African-American rock and roll/rhythm and blues singer, best known as the boy soprano lead singer of a New York City-based early rock and roll group called the Teenagers. Their first single, "Why Do Fools Fall in Love" (1956), was also their biggest hit. The 1998 film "Why Do Fools Fall in Love" was a musical comedy-drama with Halle Berry, Vivica A. Fox, Lela Rochon and Little Richard. It was directed by Gregory Nava and set in the 1950s based on the life of Frankie Lymon.
(SFC, 8/28/98, p.C1)(SFC, 9/2/98, p.E1)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frankie_Lymon)
1968 Feb 29, At the Grammy Awards, the Fifth Dimension's "Up, Up and Away" won record of the year for 1967, while album of the year honors went to the Beatles for "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band."
(HN, 2/29/00)(AP, 2/29/04)
1968 Feb 29, President Johnson's National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders (also known as the Kerner Commission) warned that racism was causing America to move "toward two societies, one black, one white -- separate and unequal."
(AP, 2/29/00)
1968 Feb 29, Robert McNamara resigned as US Secretary of Defense as a result of the Tet disaster. He was succeeded by Clark Clifford for 9 months who worked to reverse US policy in Vietnam.
(WUD, 1994, p.1687)(SFEC, 10/11/98, p.A2)
1968 Feb 29, The discovery of the first "pulsar," a star which emits regular radio waves, was announced by Dr. Jocelyn Bell Burnell at Cambridge, England.
(AP, 2/29/00)(HN, 2/29/00)
1968 Feb, Robert Crumb (b.1943) published Zap No. 1 featuring the long-bearded, guru-like Natural.
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Crumb)(SFC, 3/15/17, p.D6)
1968 Feb, The US federal hourly minimum wage was set at $1.60 an hour.
(http://usgovinfo.about.com/library/blminwage.htm)
1968 Feb, An Indian army transport aircraft crashed on the Dhakka glacier in Himachal Pradesh state. 102 people were killed. Trekkers stumbled upon its wreckage in 2003 after finding the partially frozen body of a soldier on the glacier.
(AFP, 8/31/13)
1968 Mar 1, Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara was replaced by Clark Clifford.
(HN, 3/1/99)
1968 Mar 1, Singers Johnny Cash (36) and June Carter (38) wed.
(SFC, 9/13/03, p.A12)
1968 Mar 1, The first 15-minute version of the musical "Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat" by Andrew Lloyd Weber was performed at Central Hall, Westminster, London.
(www.thisistheatre.com/joseph/index.html)
1968 Mar 1, The British Parliament amended its Commonwealth Immigrants Act of 1962 further reducing rights of citizens of the Commonwealth of Nations countries to migrate to the UK.
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commonwealth_Immigrants_Act_1968)
1968 Mar 2, The Poor Peoples' March on Washington, envisioned by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. as a means of dramatizing the plight of the poor of all races, got under way.
(www.project1968.com/in-the-news-may-2-1968.html)
1968 Mar 2, In Switzerland the World Ice Pairs Figure Skating Championship in Geneva was won by Lyudmila Belousova and Oleg Protopopov (USSR). The Ladies Figure Skating Championship was won by Peggy Fleming (USA). The Men's Figure Skating Championship was won by Emmerich Danzer (Austria).
(SC, 3/2/02)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Figure_Skating_Championships)
1968 Mar 2, In Vietnam the siege of Khe Sanh ended and the US Marines stationed there were still in control of the mountain top. Gen. John J. Tolson presented a briefing and laid out the concept of what became known as Operation Pegasus. The siege of Khe Sanh was the longest and bloodiest battle of the Vietnam War. During the siege Manny Babbit was wounded. Babbit in 1980 killed a 78-year-old woman in Sacramento, Ca., and was convicted and sentenced to death. He was awarded his Purple Heart while on death row in 1998.
(HN, 3/2/99)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Khe_Sanh)(SFC, 3/20/98, p.A1)
1968 Mar 2, The USSR launched space probe Zond 4. It failed to leave Earth orbit.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zond_4)
1968 Mar 3, The musical "Here's Where I Belong" opened and closed at Billy Rose Theater in NYC. The book was by Alex Gordon and Terrence McNally, lyrics by Alfred Uhry, and music by Robert Waldman.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Here%27s_Where_I_Belong)
1968 Mar 3, The embassies of Greece, Portugal and Spain were bombed in the Hague.
(http://1968ineurope.sneakpeek.de/index.php/chronologies/index/42)
1968 Mar 3, The Tet offensive at Hue, South Vietnam, ended with the crushing of the last Viet Cong resistance. North Vietnamese troops had captured the imperial palace in Hue, South Vietnam. US troops reconquered Hue, Vietnam.
(WUD, 1994, p.1687)(HN, 2/24/99)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Hue)
1968 Mar 4, Martin Luther King Jr. announced plans for Poor People's Campaign. In late March and early April 1968, Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr. devoted his organizing talents to a drive to bring the nation's poor people to Washington, D.C. for a series of massive nonviolent demonstrations. King's "Poor People's Campaign" would attempt to unify African Americans, Latinos, and lower-income whites in pressing the Johnson Administration and Congress in an election year to enact a $30 billion-a-year domestic "Marshall Plan" to alleviate poverty.
(SC, 3/4/02)(http://hnn.us/articles/49016.html)
1968 Mar 4, NASA launched its Orbiting Geophysical Observatory 5.
(http://heasarc.gsfc.nasa.gov/docs/heasarc/missions/ogo.html)
1968 Mar 7, The First Battle of Saigon, begun on Jan 30 as part of the Tet Offensive, ended.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Battle_of_Saigon)
1968 Mar 8, Some 1500 students demonstrated in Warsaw following a government ban on the performance of a play by Adam Mickiewicz, (Dziady), written in 1824). Within four days, protests spread to Krakow, Lublin, Gliwice, Wroclaw, Gdansk, Poznan, and Lodz.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1968_Polish_political_crisis)
1968 Mar 8, The Russian K-129, a Golf-II class, diesel-electric submarine armed with nuclear missiles and 98 seamen aboard, sank in 16,000 feet of water northwest of the Hawaiian island of Oahu. Russian officials suspected that the K-129 was struck by an American submarine, the USS Swordfish. The US Navy said the vessel suffered a catastrophic internal explosion. A US sub, the Halibut, found the Soviet vessel 6 months later and recovered 3 missiles with nuclear warheads, Soviet code books and an encryption machine. In August 1974 the CIA recovered part of the sub. A 100 foot section was pulled in by the Glomar Explorer with 2 nuclear tipped torpedoes and the bodies of 6 Russian sailors.
(SFC, 7/15/96, p.A6)(SFC, 7/5/96, p.A19,21)(AP, 9/11/07)(AP, 2/13/10)
1968 Mar 9, General William Westmoreland asked for 206,000 more troops in Vietnam.
(HN, 3/9/98)
1968 Mar 9, Black Panther Party Chairman Bobby Seale (31) spoke to some seven hundred college students at San Francisco State College and said ghetto negroes “must unify around the gun" urged students fight to free Huey Newton.
(SSFC, 3/4/18, DB p.50)
1968 Mar 10, Robert Kennedy visited Delano, Ca., in his bid for the presidency. He joined Cesar Chavez in a chapel where Chavez broke his fast on behalf of organizing farm workers.
(SFEM, 11/17/96, p.18)
1968 Mar 10-1968 Mar 11, The ultra secret facility Lima Site 85 in Phou Phathi, Laos, was manned by USAF personnel and 11 were KIA or MIA as it was overran. The event has been characterized as the largest single day ground loss for the USAF.
(www.cia.gov/csi/studies/95unclass/Linder.html)(http://limasite85.us/)
1968 Mar 11, San Francisco health authorities announced that evidence of bubonic plague was discovered in an autopsy on a dead rat found in the Marina District. The city had not experienced any human deaths from bubonic plague since 1909 and the last animal death from bubonic plague was reported in 1941.
(SSFC, 3/11/18, DB p.54)
1968 Mar 12, President Lyndon Johnson won the New Hampshire Democratic primary, but a strong second-place showing by anti-war Senator Eugene McCarthy of Minnesota played a role in Johnson's decision not to seek re-election. Johnson won over Eugene McCarthy 49.6 to 41.9%. Republican Richard Nixon won the New Hampshire primary over Nelson Rockefeller 77.6 to 10.8%.
(SSFC, 1/25/04, p.A19)(AP, 3/12/08)
1968 Mar 12, A Miami-bound flight was commandeered to Cuba.
(SFC, 3/14/03, p.E8)
1968 Mar 12, The British-ruled African island of Mauritius became an independent country within the Commonwealth of Nations and many Europeans left the country. GDP per person was about $200. By 2008 it rose to $7,000 per person.
(SFC, 6/24/96, p.A8)(SFC, 7/1/97, p.A9)(SSFC, 12/9/01, p.C9)(AP, 3/12/08)(Econ, 10/18/08, p.58)
1968 Mar 13, Atlantic Richfield Company (ARCO) and Humble Oil and Refining Company (now Exxon Company, U.S.A.) announced the discovery of oil on Alaska’s North Slope (Prudhoe Bay). The oil companies soon began efforts to construct a pipeline, but work was suspended due to environmental concerns.
(AH, 2/05, p.14)(www.alyeska-pipe.com/Pipelinefacts/Chronology.html)
1968 Mar 15, The U.S. mint halted the practice of buying and selling gold.
(HN, 3/15/98)
1968 Mar 15, American intelligence noted withdrawal of major NVA units from the Khe Sanh area.
(www.geocities.com/Pentagon/4867/timeline.html)
1968 Mar 16, Robert F. Kennedy decided to join the presidential race.
(HN, 3/16/98)
1968 Mar 16, LBJ decided to send 35-50,000 more troops to Vietnam.
(HN, 3/16/98)
1968 Mar 16, In Vietnam Lt. Calley led 105 men of Company C into My Lai and at least 347 of 700 Vietnamese civilians were killed. Estimates of villagers massacred ranged from 347-504. Other killings by B company occurred nearby. Col. Oran K. Henderson (d.1998 at 77) was on his first day as commanding officer of the new 11th Infantry Brigade and watched from a command helicopter. Hugh Thompson (d.2006), a helicopter pilot, observed the end of the massacre. He landed between some remaining villagers and his fellow soldiers and ordered his gunner to fire on American troops if necessary. With 2 other gunships he airlifted to safety a dozen villagers. He and his gunner were awarded the Soldier's Medal in 1998. The atrocity was exposed by Ron Ridenhour (d.1998 at 52), a door gunner on an observation helicopter, who flew over the village a few days after the event. He waited several months until he was out of the service before reporting the event to state and congressional officials. The Army later charged 25 officers and enlisted men in the massacre but only Lt. Calley was convicted. Gen. Samuel W. Koster (d.2006) was charged with covering up the killings, but criminal charges were eventually dismissed. Koster was censured, stripped of a medal and demoted one rank to brigadier general. John Sack (d.2004), war correspondent, later authored "Lieutenant Calley: His Own Story." In 1999 Trent Angers authored "The Forgotten Hero of My Lai: The Hugh Thompson Story."
(SFC, 3/5/98, p.A9)(SFC, 3/16/98, p.A8)(SFC, 5/11/98, p.A20)(SFC, 6/6/98, p.A23)(WSJ, 11/2/99, p.A24)(SFC, 3/31/04, p.B7)(SFC, 1/6/06, p.B5) (SFC, 2/14/06, p.B7)(AP, 3/16/08)
1968 Mar 16, Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco (b.1895), Italian composer, died.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mario_Castelnuovo-Tedesco)
1968 Mar 17, A peaceful anti-Vietnam War protest in London was followed by a riot outside the US Embassy; more than 80 people were reported injured. Some 20,000 people at the Vietnam Solidarity Campaign in London were mowed down by police on horses as they marched.
(AP, 3/17/08)(SFC, 5/22/98, p.C12)(www.springerlink.com/content/qg812p1147300117/)
1968 Mar 18, Pres. Johnson signed Public Law 90-269 removing gold backing from US paper money.
(www.peterdavidbeter.com/docs/txt/dbal33.txt)
1968 Mar 19, Howard University students in Washington DC staged rallies, protests and a 5-day sit-in, laying siege to the administration building, shutting down the university in protest over its ROTC program, and demanding a more Afrocentric curriculum.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1968)
1968 Mar 19, In southern California Elizabeth Ernstein (14) disappeared while walking home from school in Mentone, San Bernadino County. Her remains were found in 1969 in a shallow grave near Wrightwood, but were not identified until 2012 through DNA testing.
(SFC, 9/7/12, p.C8)
1968 Mar 20, Pres. Lyndon Johnson held talks with Paraguay’s Pres.-Gen. Alfredo Stroessner in Washington DC.
(Econ, 2/14/04, p.34)(www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=28747)
1968 Mar 21, Israeli forces attacked a Palestinian base belonging to Fatah in the village of Al-Karameh in Jordan. Israeli forces engage in a battle with Palestinian fighters for the first time. On 24 March 1968, the Security Council adopted resolution 248 (1968), condemning the large scale and premeditated military actions by Israel against Jordan. The Karameh mission failed. Muki Betser, Israeli commando, was wounded. He later became commander of the Sayeret Matkal, Israel’s elite counter-terrorist unit.
(SFC, 7/16/96, p.E5)(www.un.int/palestine/chron60.shtml)
1968 Mar 22, Gen'l. William Westmoreland (1914-2005) was relieved of his duties in the wake of the Tet disaster. Troop strength under Westmoreland had reached over 500,000 and he wanted more. He was succeeded by Gen'l. Creighton Abrams. Abrams reversed Westmoreland's strategy. He ended major "search and destroy" missions and focused on protecting population centers. William Colby took charge of the pacification campaign. President Lyndon B. Johnson named Gen. William C. Westmoreland to be the Army's new Chief of Staff.
(HN, 3/22/97)(WSJ, 6/23/99, p.A24)(Econ, 7/30/05, p.79)(AP, 3/22/08)
1968 Mar 22, In southern Thailand Tuanku Biyo Kodoniyo set up the Pattani United Liberation Organization (PULO). It called for an independent Islamic country.
(www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/para/pulo.htm)
1968 Mar 23, Reverend Walter Fauntroy became the 1st non-voting congressional delegate from Washington DC, since Reconstruction.
(www.thehistorymakers.com/timeline/index.asp?string=1968)
1968 Mar 27, Suharto succeeded Sukarno as president of Indonesia. Gen'l. Suharto thwarted a Communist coup and gradually assumed power. Thousands of alleged communists were executed amid widespread violence.
(WSJ, 5/22/98, p.A15)(SFC, 9/8/99, p.A17)(MC, 3/27/02)
1968 Mar 27, Yuri Gagarin (34), Soviet cosmonaut (Vostok I) and the first man to orbit the Earth, died in a plane crash.
(AP, 3/27/97)(MC, 3/27/02)
1968 Mar 28, The U.S. lost its first aircraft in Vietnam. An F-111 vanished in a combat mission over North Vietnam. Republic Aircraft's F-105 Thunderchief, better known as the 'Thud,' was the Air Force's warhorse in Vietnam.
(HN, 3/28/98)
1968 Mar 28, In Memphis a riot erupted during a protest march in support of striking sanitation workers led by Martin Luther King. One African-American marcher was killed and King urged calm as National Guard troops are called to Memphis to restore order. King subsequently departed Memphis, but vowed to return on April 4 to attend another march.
(SFC, 12/1/97, p.A3)(http://tinyurl.com/atrl3z)
1968 Mar 29, In SF Linda Harmon (14) was raped and stabbed to death while babysitting for a neighbor in Visitacion Valley. In late 2003 police matched DNA evidence to William Speer, who was undergoing therapy for sexually violent tendencies at an Arizona mental hospital.
(SFC, 12/24/03, p.A13)(SFC, 11/4/05, p.B1)
1968 Mar 29, Students seized a building at Maryland’s Bowie State College.
(www.amoeba.com/blog/tags/baseball/page1.html)
1968 Mar 30, General Ludvik Svoboda (1895-1979) was elected president of Czechoslovakia. He stayed in office to 1975.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ludv%C3%ADk_Svoboda)
1968 Mar 31, Pres. Johnson announced that he would not run for re-election and declared a partial bombing halt in Vietnam. The stock market soared. Citing national divisions over the war in Vietnam, Johnson declares that "I shall not seek, and I will not accept, the nomination of my party for another term as your president."
(WUD, 1994, p.1687)(TMC, 1994, p.1968)(SFC, 8/18/96, Z1 p.4)(AP, 3/31/97)
1968 In Poland some 4,000 students marched through Warsaw yelling: "Down with the dictatorship."
(SFC, 5/22/98, p.C12)
1968 Apr 1, In Vietnam the U.S. Army launched Operation Pegasus to reopen a land route to the besieged Khe Sanh Marine base.
(HN, 4/1/99)(www.geocities.com/Pentagon/4867/timeline.html)
1968 Apr 2, The influential science-fiction film "2001: A Space Odyssey," produced and directed by Stanley Kubrick, had its world premiere in Washington.
(AP, 4/2/08)
1968 Apr 2, Senator Eugene McCarthy won the Democratic primaries in Wisconsin. In 2004 Dominic Sandbrook authored "Eugene McCarthy: The Rise and Fall of Postwar American Liberalism."
(http://news.minnesota.publicradio.org/features/2005/06/15_newsroom_mccarthytimeline/)(SSFC, 4/11/04, p.M6)
1968 Apr 2, In West Germany the Baader-Meinhof gang was formed and named after its founders, Andreas Baader (d.1977) and Ulrike Meinhof (d.1976). Both later committed suicide in prison. The gang became known as the Red Army Faction and led assassinations, bombings and bank robberies in West Germany through the 1970s and 1980s. The RAF published a letter to Reuters in 1998 and declared to have disbanded.
(SFC, 4/21/98, p.A18)(www.baader-meinhof.com/timeline/1968.html)
1968 Apr 3, Less than 24 hours before he was assassinated in Memphis, Tenn., civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. delivered his "mountaintop" speech to a rally of striking sanitation workers, "It really doesn't matter with me now, because I've been to the mountain top, and I don't mind."
(AP, 4/3/98)
1968 Apr 3, North Vietnam agreed to meet with US representatives to set up preliminary peace talks.
(AP, 4/3/97)
1968 Apr 4, Civil rights leader Martin Luther King, 39, was assassinated while standing on the balcony of the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tenn. James Earl Ray (d.1998) confessed and pleaded guilty in Mar, 1969, but later tried to recant and said he was a fall guy. In 1993 Lloyd Jowers (d.2000), a Memphis businessman, said on ABC-TV that he had hired King's killer as a favor to an underworld figure who was a friend. Jowers said he received $100,000 from Memphis produce merchant Frank Liberto to arrange King’s murder. In 1997 Ray identified an arms smuggler named "Raoul" as the real killer. In 1998 a former FBI agent produced documents from Ray’s car with the name Raul. In 1999 a civil trial jury in Memphis ruled that the 1968 killing of Rev. Martin Luther King was a conspiracy. The jury concluded that Lloyd Jowers, a former café owner, had conspired with elements of the Memphis Police Dept., the federal government and organized crime to kill King. In 2000 a Justice Dept. report rejected allegations of conspiracy. In 2002 Rev. Ronald Denton Wilson (61) said that his father, Henry Clay Wilson (d.1990), had shot King. In 2003 Stewart Burns authored "To the Mountaintop: Martin Luther King's Sacred Mission to Save America."
(SF E&C, 1/15/1995, A-15)(WUD, 1994, p.1687)(SFC, 12/26/96, p.A3)(AP, 4/4/97)(SFC, 4/7/97, p.A10)(SFC, 3/25/98, p.A3)(SFC, 4/24/98, p.A1)(SFEC, 11/21/99, p.A12)(SFC, 11/23/99, p.A9)(SFC, 12/9/99, p.A1)(SFC, 12/10/99, p.A15)(SFC, 5/24/00, p.C5)(SFC, 6/10/00, p.A3)(SFC, 4/4/02, p.A2)(SSFC, 1/11/04, p.M1)
1968 Apr 4, Bobby Kennedy spoke at a black ghetto in Indianapolis just after hearing of the assassination of Martin Luther King. His speech registered the enormity of the event and began the work of healing. Riots over the next few days hit 76 American cities, but Indianapolis remained quiet.
(Econ, 4/22/06, p.79)
1968 Apr 4, Five days of race riots erupted in Washington, D.C. following assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr. Civil unrest affected at least 110 U.S. cities; Washington, along with Chicago and Baltimore, were among the most affected.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1968_Washington,_D.C._riots)
1968 Apr 5, Riots erupted across the US following the King assassination.
(CL, 4/5/96)
1968 Apr 5, Robert F. Kennedy assured the nation that "no martyr's cause had ever been stilled by an assassin’s bullet."
(SFEC, 1/16/00, BR p.1)
1968 Apr 5, In Vietnam the siege of Khe Sahn ended after 76 days.
(HN, 5/5/97)
1968 Apr 6, In Richmond, Indiana, gunpowder stocks at a sporting-goods store exploded and at least 16 people were killed.
(www.gendisasters.com/data1/in/explosions/richmond-gasexplosion-apr1968.htm)
1968 Apr 6, Black Panther member Bobby Hutton (17) was killed in a gun battle with police in West Oakland, Ca., and Eldridge Cleaver was arrested.
(SFC,10/24/97, p.A15)(SFC, 4/25/98, p.A13)
1968 Apr 6, East German voters approved a new socialist constitution by a 94.5% margin.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/East_German_Constitution)
1968 Apr 8, The Academy Awards and Baseball's Opening Day were postponed because of the M.L. King assassination.
(www.funtrivia.com/en/subtopics/The-Assassination-of-Martin-Luther-King-201065.html)
1968 Apr 8, Clay Felker (1925-2008), former editor of the New York Herald’s Sunday magazine, re-introduced New York magazine as a glossy after the paper folded.
(SFC, 7/2/08, p.A2)
1968 Apr 8, In Czechoslovakia a new government was formed under Oldrich Cernik.
(http://archiv.radio.cz/history/history14.html)
1968 Apr 8, In Vietnam Khe Sanh was officially relieved after 77 days by the US 2nd Cavalry. US forces in Operation Pegasus finally retook Route 9, ending the siege of Khe Sanh. Khe Sanh had been the biggest single battle of the Vietnam War to that point. The official assessment of the North Vietnamese Army dead was just over 1,600 killed, with two divisions all but annihilated. Thousands more were probably killed by American bombing.
(www.pbs.org/battlefieldvietnam/timeline/index2.html)
1968 Apr 10, In the 40th Academy Awards "In the Heat of the Night" won as best film. Rod Steiger won as best actor for his role in the film. Katherine Hepburn won as best actress for her role in “Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner."
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/40th_Academy_Awards)
1968 Apr 10, President Johnson replaced General Westmoreland with General Creighton Abrams in Vietnam [see Mar 22].
(HN, 4/10/98)
1968 Apr 10, A ferry boat sank in harbor of Wellington, NZ, and 51 were killed.
(http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/april/10/newsid_2924000/2924897.stm)
1968 Apr 11, President Johnson signed into law the Civil Rights Act of 1968, a week after the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. This included a Fair Housing Act and the Indian Civil Rights Act, which limited sentences that tribes could hand down on any charge to six months. In 1968 Congress increased the maximum to one year. The Federal National Mortgage Association (Fannie Mae - FNMA), established by the government in 1938, became a private, shareholder-owned company as part of the Fair Housing Act.
(http://tinyurl.com/2o3p2q)(AP, 4/11/98)(SFC, 2/20/98, p.A23)(http://tinyurl.com/ldx765)
1968 Apr 11, Riots erupted in West Berlin after the shooting of student leader Rudi Dutschke (1940-1979). He survived the assassination attempt by a right-wing extremist, living for another twelve years until related health problems caused his death.
(WUD, 1994, p.1687)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rudi_Dutschke)
1968 Apr 14, The gay-themed play, "The Boys in the Band" by Mart Crowley, opened off Broadway at Theater Four and set a new genre. A film version was released in 1970.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Boys_in_the_Band)(AP, 4/14/08)(WSJ, 8/28/96, p.A10)
1968 Apr 16, The Pentagon announced the "Vietnamization" of the war; troops will begin coming home.
(HN, 4/16/99)
1968 Apr 16, Edna Ferber (b.1885), US author (Giant, Showboat), died. Her novels included “Show Boat" (1926), which was produced on Broadway in 1927 and later adopted 4 times as a movie.
(www.apl.org/history/ferber/edna.bio.html)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edna_Ferber)
1968 Apr 18, Some 178,000 employees of US Bell Telephone System went on strike.
(www.project1968.com/in-the-news-april-14-apri.html)
1968 Apr 18, There was a coup in Sierra Leone. A new government under Siaka Stevens was announced.
(WUD, 1994, p.1687)
1968 Apr 19, Ralph S. Plaisted (1927- 2008), insurance salesman turned explorer, reached the North Pole by snowmobile with 3 other men. This was the first expedition to indisputably reach the North Pole.
(SFC, 9/11/08, p.B4)
1968 Apr 19, The Secretary of the National Assembly in Czechoslovakia promised rehabilitation of political prisoners and freedom of the press, assembly and religion.
(WUD, 1994, p.1687)
1968 Apr 19, Makhosetive, later King Mswati III of Swaziland, was born.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mswati_III_of_Swaziland)
1968 Apr 20, Enoch Powell (1912-1998) became a national figure in Britain following his address to the General Meeting of the West Midlands Area Conservative Political Center, which became known as the "Rivers of Blood" speech. It pointedly criticized immigration into Britain from the Commonwealth nations and opposed the then proposed–anti-discrimination legislation Race Relations Bill being mooted at the time.
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enoch_Powell)
1968 Apr 20, Pierre Elliott Trudeau was sworn in as Canada’s 15th Prime Minister. He succeeded Lester B. Pierson and continued in office to 1979.
(CFA, '96, p.81)(AP, 4/20/97)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pierre_Trudeau)
1968 Apr 21, In the 22nd Tony Awards: "Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead" and "Hallelujah Baby" won.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/22nd_Tony_Awards)
1968 Apr 21, The First Baptist Church of Oxford Mississippi voted to exclude black people from their congregation.
(Econ, 10/24/15, p.29)
1968 Apr 23, The Methodist Church and the Evangelical United Brethren Church merged to form the United Methodist Church.
(AP, 4/23/97)
1968 Apr 23, At Columbia Univ. in NYC the SDS held a rally in support of the IDA Six. An 8-day student sit-in began at Columbia Univ. to protest ties to the Defense Dept. and plans to build a gym over neighborhood objections. Within 72 hours students seized 5 buildings. The occupation ended on April 30 as police swept in and arrested some 700 people. In 2009 Mark Rudd, prominent student leader at Columbia, authored “Underground: My Life With SDS and the Weathermen."
(www.wikicu.com/1968_protests)(SFC, 9/1/03, p.B4)(WSJ, 3/28/09, p.W8)(SFC, 4/23/18, p.A7)
1968 Apr 26, The US Social Security Administration (SSA) convened an interagency meeting of technical staff from Federal agencies with an interest in poverty. SSA personnel presented to the group their proposal to use the revised food plans to recalculate the poverty and low income thresholds, and the group agreed to the proposal.
(www.ssa.gov/history/fisheronpoverty.html)
1968 Apr 26, Students seized administration building at Ohio State University.
(HN, 4/26/98)
1968 Apr 26, The United States exploded a 1.3 megaton nuclear device called "Boxcar" beneath the Nevada desert.
(AP, 4/26/08)
1968 Apr 26, In Sierra Leone Pres. Siaka Stevens (1905-1988) re-assumed the post of prime minister following brief military rule. He led a one-party socialist state that was later described as a “17-year plague of locusts."
(WSJ, 5/31/00, p.A26)(Econ, 8/4/07, p.42)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siaka_Stevens)
1968 Apr 27, In San Francisco Muhammad Ali spoke in front of some 15,000 anti-war and anti-racist demonstrators at Civic Center Plaza saying: "any intelligent white woman and white man" doesn't want a "Kinky haired Negro" marrying into his or her family. Neither, he added, did any intelligent "so-called Negro" want his children marrying whites.
(SSFC, 4/22/18, DB p.50)
1968 Apr 27, In the Netherlands part of a group of Catholic radicals left their own party and formed the Political Party of Radicals (PPR). The party dissolved in 1991.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_Party_Radicals)
1968 Apr 28, In Baden-Wurttenburg, West Germany, the far-right National Democratic Party gained 12 seats.
(WUD, 1994, p.1687)
1968 Apr 29, The counterculture musical "Hair" opened on Broadway following limited engagements off-Broadway.
(AP, 4/29/08)
1968 Apr 29, Dr. Ralph Abernathy led The Poor People's Campaign in Washington D.C., less than a month after the assassination of King. It concluded on June 23. The campaign was for reforms in welfare, employment and housing policies. Abernathy was the successor to Rev. Martin Luther King as head of the Southern Christian Leadership conference.
(HNQ, 1/19/99)
1968 Apr 30, US Marines attacked a division of North Vietnamese in the village of Dai Do.
(HN, 4/30/99)
1968 Apr 30, In NYC a thousand police officers swept into Columbia Univ. to clear out protesters who had occupied Hamilton Hall on April 23. One hundred students and 15 officers were injured as police arrested 700 people.
(SFC, 4/23/18, p.A7)
1968 Apr, Simon & Garfunkel released their song "Mrs. Robinson."
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mrs._Robinson)
1968 Apr, Jews moved into Hebron following its occupation in the wake of the 1967 6-Day War. They later settled in the new suburb of Kiryat Arba. Rabbi Moshe Levinger (1935-2015) left Jerusalem on Passover eve along with several dozen followers and checked into the Park Hotel posing as Swiss tourists. The next day, Levinger declared their true identity and announced their intention to re-establish Hebron's Jewish community.
(SFC, 12/4/08, p.A27)(AP, 5/17/15)
1968 Apr, Soviet dissidents began publishing the "Chronicle of Current Events" and continued to 1982. It was one of the longest-running samizdat periodicals of the post-Stalin USSR. The final issue of the Chronicle was dated 31 December 1982, but it was never circulated in the USSR or translated abroad. All but two were smuggled out and then translated and circulated by Peter Reddaway (b.1939). In 2020 Reddaway's book "The Dissidents" was published.
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chronicle_of_Current_Events)(Econ, 4/11/20, p.66)
1968 Apr, The South Korean Silmido Unit was forged of misfits to "blast Kim Il Sung's palace in Pyongyang and cut his throat."
(AP, 12/25/03)
1968 May 1, In a second day of battle, US Marines, with the support of naval fire, continued their attack on a North Vietnamese Division at Dai Do.
(HN, 5/1/99)
1968 May 2, The US Army attacked Nhi Ha in South Vietnam and began a fourteen-day battle to wrestle it away from Vietnamese Communists.
(HN, 5/2/99)
1968 May 3, After three days of battle, the US Marines retook Dai Do complex in Vietnam, only to find the North Vietnamese had evacuated the area.
(HN, 5/3/99)
1968 May 3, A Black Student Sit-In at the Bursar's Office began. It lasted for 38 hours, after the Northwestern University refused to accede to the demands of For Members Only, the black undergraduate student group.
(www.library.northwestern.edu/archives/onthisday/2009/05/)
1968 May 3, Texas Dr. Denton Cooley (1920-2016) and Dr. Michael E. DeBakey (1908-2008), surgeons at Houston’s St. Luke’s Hospital, sewed the heart of a 15-year-old girl into Everett Thomas (47) in the world’s first successful heart transplant. Thomas lived for 204 days.
(http://tinyurl.com/gtkx9po)(SSFC, 11/20/16, p.C11)
1968 May 3-1958 May 17, Student riots and strikes hit France. 10 million workers went on strike. Workers struck the Renault factory on Seguin Island for 33 days until the government recognized their union.
(WUD, 1994, p.1687)(SFC, 5/22/98, p.C12)(WSJ, 3/31/99, p.B14)
1968 May 5, US Air Force planes hit Nhi Ha, South Vietnam, in support of attacking infantrymen.
(HN, 5/5/99)
1968 May 5, Spain closed its frontier with Gibraltar. This Followed a referendum in which Gibraltar's voters were asked whether they wished to become part of Spain and voted with a resounding no vote.
(www.thepeoplehistory.com/may5th.html)
1968 May 6, Astronaut Neil Armstrong was nearly killed in a lunar module trainer accident.
(HNQ, 7/20/99)
1968 May 6, In Paris violent fighting took place in the morning and then from 2 p.m. in the afternoon to 1 a.m. the next morning on the Boulevard Saint-Michel and Saint-Germain. Close to 600 students and police were wounded. Student strikes spread to the provinces.
(http://marxists.anu.edu.au/history/etol/writers/frank/1968/may1968/chronology.htm)
1968 May 8, William Styron (1925-2006), a white author, received the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction for “The Confessions of Nat Turner" (1967). The book was based on the true story of an 1831 slave revolt in Virginia. Some black intellectuals, including Cornell historian John Henrik Clarke, published a critical response to the book.
(www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/rfk/sfeature/sf_1968_text_05.html)
1968 May 8, Catfish Hunter of the Oakland Athletics pitched the first perfect game in the American League in 47 years before a crowd of 5,000 at the Oakland Coliseum.
(SFEC, 3/1/98, p.W39)
1968 May 10, FBI director Hoover sent all field offices an urgent memo escalating the FBI’s attack on dissent. It authorized an operation called “Counterintelligence Program – New Left."
(SFCM, 10/10/04, p.23)
1968 May 10, Preliminary Vietnam peace talks began in Paris.
(AP, 5/10/97)
1968 May 11, In France PM Georges Pompidou made a speech conceding to the demand to reopen the universities and implied the government would release arrested students. The night of May 10-11 became known as the ``Night of the Barricades.’ These events galvanized public support for the students.
(http://links.org.au/node/491)
1968 May 12, In Israel the Knesset passed the Jerusalem Day Law, making the day a national holiday. Israel’s government proclaimed Jerusalem Day, to be celebrated on the 28th of Iyar, the Hebrew date on which the divided city of Jerusalem became one.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jerusalem_Day)
1968 May 13, Peace talks between the US and North Vietnam began in Paris.
(WUD, 1994, p.1687)(HN, 5/13/98)
1968 May 13, In France a general strike and monster demonstration took place in Paris. Some 1,000,000 French demonstrated in support of student protesters.
(http://marxists.anu.edu.au/history/etol/writers/frank/1968/may1968/chronology.htm)
1968 May 14, The Beatles in NYC announced the formation of their Apple Corp.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_Corps)
1968 May 14, Adm. Husband Edward Kimmel (b.1882), commandant US Ocean fleet WW II, died in Connecticut. Some historians, such as submariner Captain Edward L. "Ned" Beach, later believed Admiral Kimmel and Army Lieutenant General Walter Short became scapegoats for the failures of their superiors prior to the attack on Pearl Harbor and that their careers were effectively and unfairly ruined.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Husband_Kimmel)
1968 May 15, US Marines relieved army troops in Nhi Ha, South Vietnam, after a fourteen-day battle.
(HN, 5/15/99)
1968 May 15, A tornado at Jonesboro, Arkansas, killed 34 people. Another near Anchorage, Alaska, killed one person.
(SFC, 5/15/09, p.D8)
1968 May 17, In Maryland the Catonsville Nine, including Catholic priests Daniel (1921-2016) and Phillip Berrigan (1921-2002), took hundreds of files from the draft board at the Knights of Columbus building and set them on fire with gasoline and soap chips. On November 9 all nine were sentenced to two years in prison.
(www.amazon.com/Trial-Catonsville-Nine-Daniel-Berrigan/dp/0823223310)(SFC, 12/7/02, p.A3)(SFC, 5/2/16, p.C4)
1968 May 18, In Maryland’s 94th Preakness Ismael Valenzuela aboard Forward Pass won in 1:56.8.
(http://gallery.pictopia.com/bloodhorse/gallery/6826/photo/1259538/)
1968 May 20, The US Supreme Court (United States v. United Shoe Machinery Corp., 391 U.S. 244) ruled for the breakup of United Shoe Machinery Company in Mass.
(http://supreme.justia.com/us/391/244/)(WSJ, 10/2/97, p.A16)
1968 May 22, The nuclear-powered US submarine Scorpion, with 99 men aboard, sank in the Atlantic Ocean. It was declared lost on June 5. Remains of the sub were found in October on the ocean floor 400 miles southwest of the Azores.
(AP, 5/22/07)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Scorpion_(SSN-589))
1968 May 24, The Rolling Stones, an English rock band, released "Jumping Jack Flash" in England. The US release was on June 1.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jumpin%27_Jack_Flash)
1968 May 24, Pres. De Gaulle proposed a referendum and students set fire to Paris. Rioters set fire to the Paris Bourse.
(WUD, 1994, p.1687)(MC, 5/24/02)
1968 May 25, The Gateway Arch, part of the Jefferson National Expansion Memorial in St. Louis, was dedicated by Vice President Hubert Humphrey and Interior Secretary Stewart Udall.
(AP, 5/25/08)
1968 May 25, Charles K. Feldman, film producer, died. His film productions included Casino Royale (1967).
(www.imdb.com/name/nm0271012/)
1968 May 25, George KFW von Kuchler (b.1881), German marshal, died. Kuchler’s forces had moved into Belgium and occupied Antwerp on 18 May 1940.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georg_von_K%C3%BCchler)
1968 May 25, In Newcastle, England, Mary Flora Bell, one day before her 11th birthday, strangled Martin Brown (4). She and unrelated friend Norma Bell (13) were later tried for the murders of 2 boys Martin Brown (4) and Brian Howe (3), committed 9 weeks apart. In 1972 Gitta Sereny published "The Case of Mary Bell," based on her coverage of the trial. In 1999 Gitta Sereny published "Cries Unheard: Why Children Kill: The Story of Mary Bell," based on interviews with Mary Bell.
(SFEC, 6/6/99, BR p.5)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Bell)
1968 May 27, The US Memorial Day was celebrated. The last Monday of the month was set aside in 1968 to remember those who had died in the service of their country. Memorial Day, which began in 1868 as Decoration Day, had been celebrated on May 30 for the first 100 years.
(HNPD, 5/31/99)
1968 May 27, In Senegal a university student strike began. Police moved in and one student died and several more were hurt. Workers then declared a strike on May 30 and for a time the protests came close to bringing down the government of Pres. Leopold Sedar Senghor.
(AFP, 6/2/18)
1968 May 28, Minnesota Senator Eugene McCarthy beat Sen. Robert F. Kennedy in the Democratic primary in Oregon.
(http://news.minnesota.publicradio.org/features/2005/06/15_newsroom_mccarthytimeline/)
1968 May 29, Pres. Johnson signed the Truth in Lending Act into law.
(http://altlaw.org/v1/cases/552046)
1968 May 29, UN Resolution 253 resolved sanctions on white-minority-ruled Rhodesia.
(www.unhcr.org/refworld/country,,,RESOLUTION,ZWE,456d621e2,3b00f27434,0.html)
1968 May 30, French Pres. Charles de Gaulle delivered a forceful televised address in order to regain control of public opinion, thrown into confusion by the political events resulting from a student protest.
(www.ena.lu/address_given_charles_gaulle_events_1968_paris_1968-022600052.html)
1968 May 30, Authorities blew up the University Church in Leipzig, Germany, to make room for the reconstruction of Karl-Marx-Platz, the city’s main square.
(http://www.churchtimes.co.uk/content.asp?id=61806)
1968 May, The Lawrence Hall of Science opened in the Berkeley Hills. It was built in honor of Ernest Orlando Lawrence, who developed the cyclotron. The octagonal shape represented the 8 branches of physical science.
(LHS, 2/12/1998)
1968 May, Bill Hambrecht & George Quist founded Hambrecht & Quist, an investment banking firm in SF, California, that focused on hi-growth issues. In 1999 it was acquired for $1.35B by Chase Manhattan Bank.
(SFC, 6/22/96, p.D1)(www.nndb.com/company/084/000057910/)
1968 May, The USSR KGB head Yuri Andropov, worried about the “Prague Spring," ordered 15 agents to target the intellectual elite in Czechoslovakia. This was the first such KGB action against a Warsaw Pact ally. This was reported after documents were released in 2014, copies of KGB files smuggled out of Russia in 1992 by senior KGB official Vasili Mitrokhin.
(AP, 7/10/14)
1968 Jun 1, The British television series "The Prisoner," starring Patrick McGoohan, had its American premiere on CBS.
(AP, 6/1/08)
1968 Jun 1, Author-lecturer Helen Keller (87), who earned a college degree despite being blind and deaf most of her life, died in Westport, Conn. In 1980 Joseph Lash published "Helen and Teacher," the story of Helen Keller and Annie Sullivan.
(AP, 6/1/97)(SFEC, 8/16/98, BR p.3)
1968 Jun 3, Valerie Solanas, founder of the Society for Cutting Up Men (SCUM), and author of the "SCUM Manifesto," shot Andy Warhol with a .32 automatic in his New York film studio, known as The Factory. Warhol survived but Solanas was judged insane and served three years in a psychiatric prison. She died in 1988 at 52 in a welfare hotel in San Francisco of bronchial pneumonia and emphysema. The 1996 film "I Shot Andy Warhol" was made by Mary Harron and featured Lili Taylor as Solanas.
(SFC, 5/15/96, p.E-1)(AP, 6/3/98)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valerie_Solanas)
1968 Jun 4, Robert Kennedy won the California democratic Presidential Primary whose candidates included Eugene McCarthy. Vice-Pres. Hubert Humphrey had declined to enter the California primary. Kennedy was shot the next day in LA by Sirhan Sirhan and died on June 6.
(SFEM, 11/17/96, p.26)
1968 Jun 4, Alexandre Kojeve (b.1902), French-Russian philosopher, died in Brussels. He was suspected of serving as a Soviet spy from 1938 to his death.
(WSJ, 10/11/01, p.A20)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexandre_Koj%C3%A8ve)
1968 Jun 5, Sen. Robert F. Kennedy was shot and mortally wounded at the Ambassador Hotel in LA just after claiming victory in California's Democratic presidential primary. Gunman Sirhan Bishara Sirhan was immediately arrested. In 2016 Larry Tye authored “Bobby Kennedy: The Making of a Liberal Icon." In 2018 Lisa Pease authored "A Lie Too Big to Fail," in which she described how witnesses with evidence of conspiracy were silenced by the Los Angeles Police Department; how evidence was deliberately altered and, in some instances, destroyed. In 2021 Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said security guard Thane Eugene Cesar (d.2019) fired the shots that killed his father.
(WUD, 1994, p.1687)(AP, 6/5/97)(Econ, 7/9/16, p.71)(SFC, 12/9/21, p.A10)
1968 Jun 6, Sen. Robert F. Kennedy died at Good Samaritan Hospital in Los Angeles, a day after he was shot by Sirhan Bishara Sirhan. In 2000 Ronald Steel authored "In Love With Night: The American Romance With Robert Kennedy." In 1969 Jack Newfield (d.2004) authored “Robert Kennedy: A Memoir." In 2000 Evan Thomas authored "Robert Kennedy: His Life."
(AP, 6/6/97)(SFEC, 1/16/00, BR p.1)(WSJ, 9/7/00, p.A24)(SFC, 12/22/04, p.B5)
1968 Jun 7, Michael Robert Smith (25) escaped from California’s Soledad prison while serving time for a robbery conviction. He headed to Nevada, then New Jersey and into a marriage that didn't work out. In 2001 Smith moved to a tiny trailer in a heavily wooded area of Creek County, Okla., where he was recaptured in 2006.
(AP, 5/20/06)
1968 Jun 7, Dan Duryea (b.1907), film, stage and TV actor, died. His numerous films included “The Pride of the Yankees" (1942) and “The Flight of the Phoenix" (1965).
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dan_Duryea)
1968 Jun 7, In South Vietnam the week long Operation Swift Saber began. US Marines swept an area 10 miles northwest of Danang.
(www.chinfo.navy.mil/navpalib/ships/carriers/histories/cv45-valleyforge/cv45-valleyforge.html)
1968 Jun 7, In Spain ETA, a Basque Homeland and Freedom separatist group, shot and killed Civil Guard Jose Pardines Arcay at a checkpoint. This marked ETA’s 1st killing as it began fighting for independence. Its political wing was Herri Batasuna.
(SFEC, 7/13/97, p.A11)(SFC, 7/21/97, p.A10)(AP, 3/22/06)
1968 Jun 8, Authorities announced the capture in London of James Earl Ray, the suspected assassin of civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr.
(AP, 6/8/97)(HN, 6/8/98)
1968 Jun 12, The UN General Assembly adopted a Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons effective as of Mar 5, 1970. It acknowledged that some countries had nuclear weapons and charged them the obligation of negotiating their elimination. This obligation was expressed in stronger terms in 1996 by the Int’l. Court of Justice. It was opened for signatures on July 1, 1968.
(http://nuclearweaponarchive.org/Nwfaq/Nfaq7.html)(Econ, 8/20/05, p.14)
1968 Jun 13, Johnny Cash performed a live concert at California’s Folsom Prison. Applause from the inmates was dubbed into his "At Folsom Prison" album.
(WSJ, 11/26/97, p.CA4)(Econ, 9/18/04, p.88)
1968 Jun 13, US Supreme Court Chief Justice Earl Warren (1891-1974) submitted his resignation to Pres. Johnson.
(www.presidentialtimeline.org/html/record.php?id=1338)
1968 Jun 14, Four of the Boston Five were convicted of conspiracy in their organized draft protest. Mitchell Goodman (1924-1997) organized the protest that included the burning of draft cards. Dr. Benjamin Spock (1903-1998), American pediatrician, was one of the defendants and the trial came to be known as the "Spock trial." The convictions were later overturned.
(SFC, 2/7/97, p.A28)(www.stg.brown.edu/projects/1968/reference/timeline.html)
1968 Jul 15, The TV soap opera “One Life to Live" premiered. Its final episode was scheduled in the Fall of 2011.
(SFC, 4/15/11, p.F2)(www.ovguide.com/tv/one_life_to_live.htm)
1968 Jun 17, The US Supreme Court in Jones v. Mayer banned racial discrimination in the sale and rental of housing.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jones_v._Mayer)
1968 Jun 17, The UK enacted sanctions against Rhodesia.
(WUD, 1994, p.1687)
1968 Jun 19, Some 50,000 marched on Washington, DC, to support the Poor People's Campaign. Rev. Jesse Jackson preached “I Am Somebody" at Resurrection City, a tent city set up in front of the White House. In 1971 he turned the speech into a poem for Sesame Street.
(http://cheyannescampsite.blogspot.com/2008_06_15_archive.html)(SFC, 7/5/96, BR, p.6)(HN, 6/19/98)
1968 Jun 19, In SF newlywed Officer Peter McElligott (25) was fatally shot in a shootout with 2 robbery suspects in Golden Gate Park. The 2 attackers were soon captured and later convicted of murder.
(SFC, 1/27/07, p.A8)(SSFC, 6/17/18, DB p.50)
1968 Jun 24, "Resurrection City," a shantytown constructed as part of the Poor People's March on Washington, D.C., was closed by authorities.
(AP, 6/24/97)
1968 Jun 24, The St. Jean Baptiste parade in Montreal, an annual celebration of Quebec nationalism, erupted in violence.
(WSJ, 10/3/00, p.A26)
1968 Jun 25, The Canadian federal election was held to elect members of the Canadian House of Commons of the 28th Parliament of Canada. The Liberal Party won a majority government under its new leader, PM Pierre Trudeau.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canadian_federal_election,_1968)
1968 Jun 26, President Johnson read and released Supreme Court Chief Justice Earl Warren's two June 13 letters, his June 26 reply, and announced that he had named Associate Justice Abe Fortas to succeed Warren.
(AP, 6/26/98)(www.mdeansutton.com/warren.htm)
1968 Jun 26, There was a big victory for the Liberal Party in Canada.
(WUD, 1994, p.1687)
1968 Jun 26, The national flag of Japan, the hinomaru, was raised atop Mt. Suribachi on Iwo Jima symbolizing the return of the central Pacific island to Japan.
(SSFC, 6/24/18, DB p.54)
1968 Jun 27, The Czechoslovak parliament abolished censorship and provided for rehabilitation of political prisoners.
(WUD, 1994, p.1687)
1968 Jun 28, Pres. Johnson signed the Uniform Monday Holiday Act. It moved official recognition of Washington’s birthday and some other holidays to Mondays. Columbus Day, previously celebrated on Oct. 12, was moved to the 2nd Monday of October. In 2004 Pres. Bush set it to Oct 11.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uniform_Monday_Holiday_Act)(SFC, 2/21/05, p.A7)
1968 Jun 29, "Tip-Toe Thru' The Tulips With Me" by Tiny Tim (1932-1996), aka Herbert Khaury, peaked at #17.
(SFC, 12/2/96, p.A4)(www.dreamsville.net/index.php?paged=2)
1968 Jun 29, In Costa Rica the Arenal volcano, dormant for 450 years, burst into life and killed 95 people. The village of Tabacon was wiped out.
(SFC, 5/9/98, p.A7)(SSFC, 4/1/01, p.T6)
1968 Jun 30, The Lockheed C-5A Galaxy, a large US Air Force transport plane, made its first flight.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C-5_Galaxy)
1967 Jun, The theme song from the film "The Good, The Bad, And The Ugly" by Hugo Montenegro (1925-1981) reached No. 2 on the US record charts.
(http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0599359/bio)
1968 Jun, Ralph Nader formed his first task force of crusading students, comprised of seven law student volunteers. The group, later known as Nader’s Raiders, began looking into the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), a sleepy bureaucracy entrusted with protecting consumers from shoddy products, fraudulent business practices and deceptive advertising.
(www.csrl.org/csrlhistory/index.html)
1968 Jun, In Quebec, Canada, the summertime Festival d’Ete de Quebec was begun.
(www.thecanadianencyclopedia.com/index.cfm?PgNm=TCE&Params=U1ARTU0001201)
1968 Jul 1, The Band released their "Music From Big Pink" album. It features one of their best-known songs, "The Weight."
(WSJ, 12/15/99, p.A20)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Music_from_Big_Pink)
1968 Jul 1, The United States, Britain, the Soviet Union and 58 other nations signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. India refused to sign.
(AP, 7/1/97)(SFC, 5/28/98, p.A9)(http://tinyurl.com/d5cf45)
1968 Jul 1, Dominica’s left-wing government brought in the Seditious and Undesirable Publications Act to suppress dissent. Eugenia Charles led the opposition to get it withdrawn and was made the leader of the Dominica Free Party.
(Econ, 9/17/05, p.90)(http://tinyurl.com/l5lh6m)
1968 Jul 4, Arthur Kopit's "Indians," premiered in London.
(www.enotes.com/indians)
1968 Jul 4, The radio astronomy satellite Explorer 38 launched.
(www.n2yo.com/satellite/?s=28608)
1968 Jul 8, Golda Meir resigned from her post as secretary of the Labor Party.
(www.jafi.org.il/education/jafi75/timeline5i.html)
1968 Jul 13, Christoforos Savva (b.1924), Cyprus’ most avant-garde artist, died of a heart attack in Sheffield, England.
(https://tinyurl.com/yxolkqub)(AP, 1/31/21)
1968 Jul 15, Commercial air travel began between US & USSR.
(www.flightglobal.com/pdfarchive/view/1968/1968%20-%201275.html)
1968 Jul 15, Intel was founded. Robert Noyce and Gordon Moore had left Fairchild Semiconductor to form NM Electronics in Mountain View, Ca. In 1997 Tim Jackson published "Inside Intel: Andrew Grove and the Rise of the World’s Most Powerful Chip Company." Grove (1936-2016) joined Intel in this year as its first employee and became its president in 1979. They bought the rights to the name Intel from Intelco for $15,000.
(SFEC, 10/26/97, BR p.3)(SFEC, 12/21/97, p.A2)(SFC, 10/11/00, p.A6)(SFC, 7/16/03, p.B1)(Econ, 3/26/15, p.75)
1968 Jul 17, Beatle's animated film "Yellow Submarine" premiered in London. The US premiere was on November 13.
(www.imdb.com/title/tt0063823/releaseinfo)
1968 Jul 17, The Arab Socialist Baath Party staged a bloodless coup in Iraq and gained control as the Revolution Command Council. Abdul Rahman Arif, brother of Abdul Salam Arif (d.1966), was ousted in the Baathist coup and exiled to Istanbul. Ahmed Hasan-al-Bakr became president of Iraq after the July 17 coup. This became a national holiday until it was abolished in 2003. Saddam Hussein soon became recognized as the strongman of the regime.
(NG, 5/88, p.653)(SFC, 9/24/02, p.A10)(AP, 7/13/03)(NW, 9/8/03, p.32)
1968 Jul 18, Intel was incorporated as N M Electronics (the letters standing for Noyce and Moore), but quickly changed its name to Intel, formed from the first syllables of the words integrated and electronics.
(http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_gx5202/is_2004/ai_n19123399)
1968 Jul 18, The UK enacted sanctions against Rhodesia for a 2nd time. The first time was on June 17.
(WUD, 1994, p.1687)(http://tinyurl.com/c5kcs9)
1968 Jul 20, Joseph Keilberth (b.1908), German conductor (Bayreuth Festival), died.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Keilberth)
1968 Jul 25, H. Wroblewski discovered asteroid #1993 Guacolda on exposures by G. Plouguin and I. Belyaiev at the University of Chile, Cerro El Roble Station.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1993_Guacolda)
1968 Jul 26, In NYC Vladimir Vorlicek (34) of Brooklyn bought a box of shotgun shells at an Abercrombie and Fitch gun store, loaded one shell into a gun taken from a rack and shot himself.
(SSFC, 7/22/18, DB p.50)
1968 Jul 26, Britain’s Theater Act abolished censorship of the theatre and amended the law in respect of theatres and theatrical performances. .
(www.opsi.gov.uk/RevisedStatutes/Acts/ukpga/1968/cukpga_19680054_en_1)
1968 Jul 27, A 3-day race riot began in Gary, Indiana.
(www.project1968.com/july-28-august-3-1968.html)
1968 Jul 29, Pope Paul VI issued the encyclical Humanae Vitae, which reaffirmed the Church’s opposition to abortion and to all contraception except the rhythm method.
(WUD, 1994, p.1687)(AP, 7/29/98)(SSFC, 7/8/01, p.A4)
1968 Jul 30, In Gary, Indiana, policemen took aim at snipers after the third night of racial unrest. 64 people were taken into custody. Mayor Richard G. Hatcher, the first Negro mayor in a city with a Negro majority, said that he now believes that gangs realize they will not be allowed to use violence to get what they want.
(www.project1968.com/july-28-august-3-1968.html)
1968 Jul 30, Saddam Hussein took charge of internal security services in Iraq.
(AP, 10/17/05)
1968 Jul 31, The Beatle's recorded Hey Jude.
(http://oldies.about.com/od/thebeatlessongs/a/heyjude.htm)
1968 Jul 31, In Boston 4 men were convicted for shooting Edward "Teddy" Deegan in a Chelsea, Mass., alley in 1965. In 2007 a federal judge in Boston ordered the government to pay a record nearly $102 million for the FBI's role in the wrongful murder convictions of the 4 men. Two of the men convicted, Louis Greco and Henry Tameleo, died behind bars. The others, Peter Limone (73) and Joseph Salvati (74) spent three decades in prison.
(www.justicedenied.org/issue/issue_27/fbi%27s_legacy_of_shame.html)
1968 Jul, The British blues group Cream, with vocalist and bassist Jack Bruce (1943-2014), drummer Ginger Baker (b.1939) and guitarist Eric Clapton (b.1945) released their double album “Wheels of Fire" in the US. It became the first double album to go platinum.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wheels_of_Fire)
1968 Aug 3, The Bratislava statement conceded Czechoslovakia’s right to pursue its own path. The conference was held in Bratislava, Slovakia, for representatives of the communist and workers' parties of the People's Republic of Bulgaria, the Hungarian People's Republic, the German Democratic Republic, the Polish People's Republic, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, and the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic.
(WUD, 1994, p.1687)(http://library.thinkquest.org/C001155/documents/doc41.htm)
1968 Aug 5, The Republican national convention convened in Miami Beach. Ronald Reagan announced that he would seek the GOP nomination for president. He soon threw his support to Nixon.
(AP, 8/5/08)(SSFC, 6/9/02, p.F6)(SSFC, 6/6/04, A16)
1968 Aug 8, Richard M. Nixon was nominated for president at the Republican National Convention in Miami Beach. Later that day, Nixon chose Maryland Gov. Spiro T. Agnew to be his running mate.
(AP, 8/8/97)
1968 Aug 8, In Florida a riot broke out in several neighborhoods of Miami, Florida, including one community just 10 miles from the Republican Convention. 3 negroes were killed by gunfire.
(www.project1968.com/august-4-10-1968.html)
1968 Aug 9, The 267-day Detroit newspaper strike ended.
(www.loc.gov/rr/news/chronological/exception_report.html)
1968 Aug 10, In West Virginia 35 people were killed in the crash of a Piedmont Airlines Fairchild FH-227 at Kanawha County Airport.
(AP, 8/10/08)
1968 Aug 11, Eight US troops were killed and 50 wounded when an Air Force F100 fighter accidentally bombed a US unit near Ta Bat, northeast of Saigon. The fighter intended on hitting Viet Cong who were located in front of the troops.
(www.project1968.com/august-11-17-1968.html)
1968 Aug 11, The USSR announced new military maneuvers along the Czechoslovak border.
(WUD, 1994, p.1687)
1968 Aug 13, In Greece there was an assassination attempt against Col. George Papadopoulos (1919-1999), the right-wing military leader, organized by Alexandros Panagoulis (1939-1976), Greek politician and poet.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexandros_Panagoulis)
1968 Aug 15, Pirate Radio Free London began transmitting.
(http://radio.eric.tripod.com/in_breach_of_the_law.htm)
1968 Aug 19, George Gamow (b.1904), a Soviet-American theoretical physicist and writer, died in Colorado. He popularized the idea of The Big Bang. His books included: "Mr. Tompkins in Wonderland" (1939) and “One, Two Three… Infinity" (1947).
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Gamow)
1968 Aug 20, Some 650,000 Soviet Union and other Warsaw Pact troops began invading Czechoslovakia to crush the "Prague Spring" liberalization drive of Alexander Dubcek's regime. In 2015 Czech historians Prokop Tomek and Ivo Pejcoch authored “Black Book of the Soviet Occupation" in which they documented all known victims of the Soviet-led invasion and crackdown on the Prague Spring. A total of 135, more than originally thought, were killed in the 1968 in military operations. In following years, road accidents involving military vehicles killed 248, while 12 were murdered.
(AP, 8/20/97)(SFC, 8/25/04, p.B7)(AP, 8/20/15)
1968 Aug 21, William Dana reached 81.53 km. in the last high-altitude X-15 flight.
(http://pages.prodigy.net/pxkb94ars/Astro_X-15_Flights_9.htm)
1968 Aug 21, After 5 years Russia once again jammed Voice of America radio.
(http://radio.about.com/library/history/blhistory0821.htm)
1968 Aug 21, The Soviet Union and other Warsaw Pact nations invaded Czechoslovakia to crush the "Prague Spring" liberalization drive led by Alexander Dubcek.
(AP, 8/21/08)
1968 Aug 22, Pope Paul VI arrived in Bogota, Colombia, for the start of the first papal visit to Latin America.
(AP, 8/22/98)
1968 Aug 22, In Czechoslovakia a Soviet-led invasion crushed the Prague Spring reforms. In 1997 3 Communist Party leaders, Milos Jakes, Karel Hoffmann and Joseph Lenart, were accused of conspiring with the Soviets.
(SFC, 5/3/97, p.A10)
1968 Aug 24, France became the world's fifth thermonuclear power as it exploded a hydrogen bomb in the South Pacific.
(AP, 8/24/97)
1968 Aug 25, In Moscow’s Red Square eight dissidents (the "Magnificent Eight"), including Konstantin Babitsky, Larisa Bogoraz (d.2004), Vladim Delaunay, Vladimir Dremliuga, Viktor Fainberg, Natalia Gorbanevskaya (1936-2013), Pavel Litvinov and Tatiana Baeva, came out in the Red Square to protest against the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia and paid for it with years of lagers, exile and "special" mental hospitals.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1968_Red_Square_demonstration)(SFC, 4/8/04, p.B7)(Econ, 12/7/13, p.94)(AP, 6/8/18)
1968 Aug 26, The Democratic National Convention opened in Chicago. Thousands of antiwar demonstrators took to Chicago's streets to protest the Vietnam War during the Democratic National Convention.
(AP, 8/26/08)(SSFC, 6/9/02, p.F6)
1968 Aug 27, Tom Haden, anti-war organizer, was beaten up, put in a paddy wagon and whisked off to a Cook County Jail.
(SFC, 8/18/96, Z1 p1)
1968 Aug 28, In Chicago, Ill., Vice-President Hubert Horatio Humphrey was nominated by the Democrats for US Presidency on the first ballot. Riots broke out outside the Democratic National Convention as police and anti-war demonstrators clashed in the streets. The 1969 film "Medium Cool" was set during the Chicago Convention riots of 1968.
(WUD, 1994, p.1687)(TMC, 1994, p.1968)(Hem, 8/96, p.86-88)(AP, 8/28/97)(SFEC, 9/6/98, DB p.52)
1968 Aug 28, Connecticut Senator Abraham Ribicoff (1910-1998) nominated George McGovern for the US Presidency and strongly criticized Chicago’s Mayor Daly for his strong-arm tactics in controlling protestors at the Democratic National Convention.
(SFC, 2/23/98, p.A5)(www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/abrahamribicoff1968dnc.htm)
1968 Aug 29, Maine Sen. Edmund Muskie was chosen to be the Democratic nominee for vice president at the party's convention in Chicago.
(AP, 8/29/08)
1968 Aug 31, In northeast Iran some 7-12 thousand people died in the 7.8 Dasht-e Bayaz earthquake, which also destroyed 60,000 buildings.
(WUD, 1994, p.1687)(www.bssaonline.org/cgi/content/abstract/59/5/1751)
1968 Aug, The play "You, Me and the Next War," by Hanoch Levin (1943-1999), Israeli dramatist, was produced.
(SFC, 8/19/99, p.D2)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanoch_Levin)
1968 Sep 1, Pirate Radio Marina in the Netherlands began transmitting.
(www.historyorb.com/entertainment/radio/pirate-radio)
1968 Sep 4, In the Republic of Congo there was an army coup. Brazzaville deposed Pres. Masemba-Debat.
(WUD, 1994, p.1687)
1968 Sep 6, Feminists protesting outside the Miss America pageant in Atlantic City, N.J., tossed articles including cosmetics, girdles and bras into a trash can ostensibly for burning, although nothing was actually set on fire. Miss Illinois Judith Ford won the pageant.
(AP, 9/7/08)
1968 Sep 6, Swaziland in southern Africa gained independence from Britain.
(http://tinyurl.com/ydbsn2hd)
1968 Sep 8, In Poland Ryszard Siwiec (b.1909), accountant, teacher and anti-communist protester, self immolated in front of some 10,000 spectators during the national harvest festival at the Dziesieciolecia football stadium. He died 4 days later at a hospital.
(Econ, 10/10/09, p.55)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ryszard_Siwiec)
1968 Sep 9, Arthur Ashe (1943-1993) became the 1st black to win the US Open men’s tennis singles championship.
(www.answers.com/topic/arthur-ashe)(http://tinyurl.com/d2xhty)
1968 Sep 10, Two Oakland, Ca., police officers fired a barrage of rifle shots into the national headquarters of the Black Panther party at 4421 Grove St. Officers William V. Williams and Robert W. Farrell were arrested shortly after the incident. Both uniformed and on duty officers were said to be heavily intoxicated.
(SSFC, 9/9/18, DB p.50)
1968 Sep 11, The Soviet troops started leaving Prague for the countryside. At the beginning of October, the Czechoslovak leadership went to Moscow to negotiate "normalization". As an outcome, the political leaders remained in office and submitted to the Soviet demands.
(www.wien.gv.at/english/history/commemoration2008/prague-spring.html)
1968 Sep 13, Albania officially withdrew from the Warsaw Pact. Albania had condemned the August Soviet-led invasion of Czechoslovakia.
(http://countrystudies.us/albania/153.htm)
1968 Sep 14, Al Frueh (b.1880), American caricature artist (New Yorker magazine), died.
(WSJ, 8/21/01, p.A17)(www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/221010/Al-Frueh)
1968 Sep 15, Rev. Billy Graham carried word to Pres. Johnson from Richard Nixon that Nixon would give Johnson a share of the credit when the Vietnam war was settled. Johnson later became convinced that Nixon was using Anna Chennault, widow of a WW II general, to persuade Pres. Nguyen Van Thieu to sabotage the Paris peace talks with the communists.
(SFC, 3/16/98, p.A2)
1968 Sep 15, The Organization of African Unity condemned the secession of Biafra.
(WUD, 1994, p.1687)
1968 Sep 16, Republican presidential nominee Richard Nixon exclaimed, "Sock it to ME?" in a taped bit for the NBC-TV comedy program "Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In."
(AP, 9/16/08)
1968 Sep 17, The TV series "Julia" began airing with Diahann Carroll (1935-2019) as a nurse with a young son whose husband was killed in Vietnam. Carroll was the first black woman to star in a non-servant role in a TV series. "Julia" contined to 1971.
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julia_(TV_series))(SSFC, 10/6/19, p.B10)
1968 Sep 18, The film "Funny Girl" with Barbra Streisand premiered in NYC.
(http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0062994/releaseinfo)
1968 Sep 19, Marine Capt. Robert A. Holt and Capt. John A. Lavoo were killed when their F-4B Phantom jet crashed during combat a mission over Quang Binh Province. Their remains were identified and returned to the US in 1999.
(SFC, 6/8/99, p.A9)
1968 Sep 19, Chester Carlson (62), inventor of the photocopy machine (1960), died. In 2004 David Owen authored “Copies In seconds."
(WSJ, 8/6/04, p.A8)(ON, 11/04, p.9)
1968 Sep 20, The TV show "Name of the Game" premiered with Gene Barry and Tony Franciosa. It was written and produced by Leslie Stevens (d.1998) and ran to 1971.
(SFC, 4/29/98, p.C2)(www.imdb.com/title/tt0062591/)
1968 Sep 21, The Adam-12 television police drama premiered. It followed two police officers of the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD), Pete Malloy and Jim Reed, as they rode the streets of Los Angeles in their patrol unit, 1-Adam-12. It starred Martin Milner and Kent McCord. William Boyett (1927-2004) played Sgt. MacDonald. The series continued to 1975.
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adam-12)(SSFC, 1/2/05, p.A23)
1968 Sep 21, Charles Jackson (b.1903), American writer, died of barbiturate poisoning in NYC. He was known for his novel “The Lost Weekend" (1944). In 2013 Blake Bailey authored “Farther & Wilder: The Lost Weekends and Literary Dreams of Charles Jackson."
(SSFC, 3/24/13, p.F2)
1968 Sep 23, The TV western "The Outcasts" premiered. The one season show featured Otis Young (d.2001 at 69) and Don Murray working together as post Civil War bounty hunters.
(SFC, 10/20/01, p.E2)(www.imdb.com/title/tt0062596/)
1968 Sep 24, The TV show "Mod Squad" premiered on ABC and continued to 1973. It was about 3 hip young cops who worked undercover in LA. A film version was begun in 1998.
(AP, 9/24/98)(SFC, 8/27/99, p.C14)(www.imdb.com/title/tt0062589/)
1968 Sep 24, The CBS news magazine "60 Minutes" premiered on CBS-TV on a Tuesday night. Don Hewitt created and produced the TV news show "60 Minutes." He wrote his book "Minute by Minute" in 1985.
(SFEM, 2/8/98, Par p.26)(AP, 9/24/98)
1968 Sep 26, Hawaii Five-O premiered on CBS TV and continued to 1980. It starred Jack Lord (d.1998 at 77) and was the longest running police show in TV history. Its theme song was "Walk Don’t Run" by the Ventures. Lord (born as John Joseph Patrick Ryan) was a painter off TV and his canvasses sold privately for top dollar.
(SFC, 7/11/96, p.D4)(SFC, 1/22/98, p.D3)
1968 Sep 26, In Portugal Prof. Marcello Caetano replaced Antonio Salazar as Prime Minister.
(WUD, 1994, p.1687)
1968 Sep 27, Portugal’s President Americo Thomaz replaced PM Antonio de Oliveira Salazar with Marcelo Caetano after Salazar suffered a major stroke, caused by his falling from a chair in his summer house.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ant%C3%B3nio_de_Oliveira_Salazar)
1968 Sep 28, Beatles' "Hey Jude" single went #1 and stayed #1 for 9 weeks.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hey_Jude)
1968 Sep 29, Piere Mulele voluntarily returned from exile to Kinshasa, Congo.
(WUD, 1994, p.1687)
1968 Sep 29, A Greek plebiscite was held by the then ruling dictatorial regime to endorse, by public vote, the junta's new Constitution. Participation was made obligatory and abstention punishable by imprisonment.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greek_plebiscite,_1968)
1968 Sep 30, The 1st Boeing 747 was rolled out of the Everett, Wa., assembly building.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_747)
1968 Sep, The Big Mac was created by McDonald’s franchisee Jim Delligatti in Pittsburgh. It sold for 49 cents.
(SFC, 9/10/98, p.B2)
1968 Sep, In Daly City, Ca., the community of St. Andrew was founded with Father James Moher as pastor with a predominantly Filipino congregation. In July of 1975 a parish church was completed at 1571 Southgate Ave..
(SFC, 10/8/12, p.A6)
1968 Sep, In Czechoslovakia the Plastic People of the Universe band was founded by Milan Hlavsa (d.2001 at 49).
(WSJ, 7/22/98, p.A12)(SFC, 1/8/01, p.A19)
1968 Sep, The Soviet spacecraft Zond ("Probe") 5 became the first to loop around the moon and return to Earth. The L-1, given the name Zond, was a spacecraft designed to carry two cosmonauts on a single loop around the moon. The L-1 suffered repeated failure and never flew with a crew. The unmanned L-1s traveled to the moon five times under the Zond name.
(HNQ, 4/27/99)
1968 Oct 1, The cult horror movie "Night of the Living Dead" had its world premiere in Pittsburgh.
(AP, 10/1/98)
1968 Oct 1, The US Senate refused to shut down a filibuster against President Lyndon B. Johnson's nomination of Abe Fortas to be US chief justice. Fortas withdrew the next day.
(AP, 10/1/08)
1968 Oct 1, The US Congress created the Flaming Gorge National Recreation Area in Wyoming.
(www.utah.com/nationalsites/flaming_gorge.htm)
1968 Oct 2, Pres. Johnson established Redwood National Park in northern California under Public Law 90-545. Congress created the Redwood National Park in California at a cost of $306 million. Large portions of the Arcata Redwood Corp. lands were detached to form sections of Redwood National Park. The land was initially assembled by Michigan timber baron Arthur Hill. His son, Harry Hill, built the French Renaissance townhouse that is now the Italian consulate.
(www.eoearth.org/article/Redwood_National_Park,_United_States)(SFC, 9/9/97, p.A19)(SFEC, 12/5/99, p.T1)
1968 Oct 2, Pres. Johnson signed a bill establishing Washington state’s North Cascades National Park.
(SSFC, 7/18/04, p.D7)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Cascades_National_Park)
1968 Oct 2, The 2,650-mile Pacific Crest Trail, spanning Mexico to Canada, was designated a National Scenic Trail as part of the US National Trails System Act.
(SFC, 7/16/08, p.E2)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pacific_Crest_Trail)
1968 Oct 2, US Supreme Court Justice Abe Fortas withdrew his nomination as chief justice. Six months later, he resigned from the court, admitting he'd made a financial deal with the Louis Wolfson Foundation.
(http://hnn.us/articles/11753.html)
1968 Oct 2, In Mexico soldiers under Pres. Gustavo Diaz Ordaz used automatic weapons and killed some 300 students in the Mexico City Tlatelolco massacre prior to the start of the summer Olympics. The government said only 50 students were killed during gunfire that lasted 5 hours. Luis Echeverria, later president, was the interior minister and the man in charge of public security. He was called before a congressional committee in 1998. Evidence in 1999 confirmed that pre-positioned soldiers fired on the students. In 2002 a special prosecutor said he has found no evidence to support historians' claims that some 300 people died when army troops opened fire on demonstrators in 1968. He put the number killed at 38. A judge dismissed other genocide charges against Echeverria in July 2005, ruling that while he may have been responsible for a separate 1971 student massacre, he could not be tried because the statute of limitations had expired in 1985.
(WUD, 1994, p.1687)(SFC, 9/1/96, p.A16)(SFEC, 4/6/97, p.C12)(WSJ, 8/13/97, p.A12)(SFC, 2/4/98, p.C2,14)(WSJ, 9/10/98, p.A1)(SFC, 6/28/99, p.A10)(AP, 8/5/02)(AP, 3/27/09)
1968 Oct 2, Marcel Duchamp (b.1887), French painter, died. He was known best for his 1915 "Nude Descending a Staircase."
(V.D.-H.K.p.361)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marcel_Duchamp)
1968 Oct 3, The Howard Sackler play, "Great White Hope," starring James Earl Jones and Jane Alexander, opened on Broadway.
(AP, 10/3/08)
1968 Oct 3, American Independent Party presidential candidate George Wallace tapped retired Air Force Gen. Curtis E. LeMay to be his running mate.
(AP, 10/3/08)
1968 Oct 3, In Peru the military seized power in a coup. Pres. Belaunde was overthrown by Gen. Juan Velasco.
(SFC, 12/20/96, p.B4)(WUD, 1994, p.1687)(SFC, 6/5/02, p.A23)
1968 Oct 4, Cambodia admitted that the Viet Cong used their country for sanctuary.
(www.nationalreview.com/robbins/robbins200408180835.asp)
1968 Oct 5, Catholic demonstrators in Londonderry, Northern Ireland, clashed with police.
(http://tinyurl.com/n9nhn)(SFC, 6/18/96, p.A8)
1968 Oct 7, The Motion Picture Association of America adopted its film-rating system (G,M,R,X), ranging from "G" for "general" audiences to "X" for adult patrons only. The system was fathered by Jack Valenti (1921-2007), head of the MPAA.
(AP, 10/7/97)(SFC, 1/21/04, p.D2)(SFC, 4/27/07, p.B9)
1968 Oct 8, US forces in Vietnam launched Operation Sealord, an attack on North Vietnamese supply lines and base areas.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Sealords)
1968 Oct 9, Pierre Mulele, Congolese rebel leader, was publicly tortured and executed in the Congo [some sources give October 3].
(WUD, 1994, p.1687)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pierre_Mulele)
1968 Oct 9, The new military government of Peru seized the country's oil fields.
(AP, 10/9/08)
1968 Oct 11, Apollo 7, The first manned Apollo mission, was launched from Cape Kennedy with astronauts Wally Schirra, Donn Fulton Eisele and R. Walter Cunningham aboard. It made 163 orbits in 260 hours.
(AP, 10/11/97)(www.apollomissionphotos.com/index_AP7.html)
1968 Oct 11, In San Francisco Private Richard Bunch (19) was shot and killed by a guard at the Presidio stockade.
(SSFC, 10/14/18, DB p.46)
1968 Oct 11, In Panama Pres. Arnulfo Arias was ousted in a coup by Gen’l. Omar Torrijos. Arias was the founder of Panama's special security system and opened the vote to women before he was ousted.
(WUD, 1994, p.1687)(SFC, 1/2/97, p.A20)(SFC, 4/29/99, p.D5)
1968 Oct 12, Eq. Guinea gained Independence was from Spain. Eq. Guinea consists of two geographic entities: the mainland of Rio Muni and the island of Bioko, formerly Fernando Poo. Francisco Macias became the 1st president and proclaimed himself God’s "unique miracle." He drove the economy into the ground and over a third of the population went into exile.
(www.eia.doe.gov/emeu/cabs/eqguinea.html)(WP, 6/29/96, p.A15)(SFC, 5/15/01, p.A10)
1968 Oct 12, The summer Games of the 19th Olympiad were officially opened in Mexico City by Mexican President Gustavo Diaz Ordaz.
(WUD, 1994, p.1687)(HN, 10/12/98)
1968 Oct 14, The Beatles "White Album" was completed at the Abbey Road Studios.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Beatles_(album))
1968 Oct 14, The first live telecast from a manned US spacecraft was sent from Apollo 7.
(AP, 10/14/98)
1968 Oct 16, American athletes Tommie Smith and John Carlos (23) sparked controversy at the Mexico City Olympics by giving "black power" salutes during a victory ceremony after they'd won gold and bronze medals in the 200-meter race. In 2011 John Carlos with Dave Zirin authored “The John Carlos Story: The Sports Moment That Changed the World."
(AP, 10/16/08)(SSFC, 10/9/11, p.G4)
1968 Oct 18, The US Olympic Committee suspended two black athletes, Tommie Smith and John Carlos, for giving a black power salute as a protest during a victory ceremony in Mexico City. Bob Beamon soared 29 feet, 2 inches, to set a world record in the long jump. In 1976 Dick Schaap authored “The Perfect Jump."
(AP, 10/18/98)(WSJ, 8/9/08, p.W8)
1968 Oct 19, Yasonari Kawabata (1899-1972), Japanese novelist (Thousand Cranes) won the Nobel Prize in Literature.
(http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/literature/laureates/1968/kawabata-docu.html)
1968 Oct 20, Former first lady Jacqueline Kennedy married Greek shipping magnate Aristotle Onassis on the island of Scorpios.
(AP, 10/20/97)(HN, 10/20/98)
1968 Oct 22, Pres. Johnson signed the Gun Control Act of 1968. It regulated firearms above .50-caliber as destructive devices and required registration and owner’s fingerprints. It also banned the sale of handguns to those under 21. Enforcement was up to the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (BATF). It barred the import of assault weapons even if they were reconfigured if they were not found to have legitimate "sporting purposes." In the wake of the Kennedy and King assassinations the US Congress expanded gun ownership prohibitions to include dishonorably discharged veterans and other groups.
(WSJ, 3/24/97, p.A12)(SFC,10/17/97, p.A4)(http://tinyurl.com/p9lslc)(WSJ, 12/16/03, p.A4)(Econ, 12/4/10, p.44)
1968 Oct 22, Apollo 7 returned safely, splashing down in the Atlantic Ocean.
(AP, 10/22/97)
1968 Oct 23, In Nicaragua the Cerro Negro volcano began erupting again and continued to Dec 10. It had first appeared in 1850.
(DD-EVTT, Illustr.#9)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cerro_Negro)
1968 Oct 24, At the National Air and Space Administration test pilot Bill Dana was at the controls of the North American X-15 rocket-propelled research aircraft when it made the 199th--and what turned out to be the final--flight of the X-15 program. He was flying the X-15-1, which had been the first of three aircraft to participate in a series of tests that spanned a decade and resulted in major advances for America's space flight program. In the course of that research, the X-15s spent 18 hours flying above Mach 1, 12 hours above Mach 2, nearly 9 hours above Mach 3, almost 6 hours above Mach 4, one hour above Mach 5 and a few short minutes above Mach 6. The X-15 was hailed by the scientific community as the most successful research aircraft of all time.
(HNPD, 10/24/98)
1968 Oct 26, Illinois state and the city of Chicago recognized Jean Baptiste Pointe de Sable (1745-1818), a Haitian-born sea captain, as the founder of Chicago.
(www.usps.com/communications/community/_pdf/bhm06_poster.pdf)(http://tinyurl.com/cnt6tk)
1968 Oct 27, In San Francisco a blast shattered windows at the Richmond Police Station. Minutes later three firemen were wounded by gunfire at Laguna and Eddy Streets. Police said they could give no reason for the outbreak in violence.
(SSFC, 10/28/18, DB p.46)
1968 Oct 27, The 19th Olympic games closed at Mexico City, Mexico.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1968_Summer_Olympics)
1968 Oct 27, In London there was a massive anti-Vietnam war demonstration.
(WUD, 1994, p.1687)
1968 Oct 27, Lisa Meitner (b.1878), Austrian-born Swedish physicist, died in England. During the war while in hiding from Hitler in Sweden, she analyzed and understood for its significance the work of Otto Hahn who in 1944 was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics for his work on nuclear fission.
(MT, 10/94, letters, p.10)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lise_Meitner)
1968 Oct 28, Pres. Johnson named Robert Komer (d.2000 at 78) as ambassador to Turkey. Komer had served Johnson as head of the "pacification" program in Vietnam, which used information and propaganda to gain political and social control of south Vietnam.
(http://history.state.gov/departmenthistory/people/komer-robert-william)(SFC, 4/14/00, p.D5)
1968 Oct 28, In SF the first eviction notices were served to the 196 tenants of the International Hotel. This led to a 9-year struggle that resulted in their forced eviction on Aug 4, 1977. The property had been taken over five months earlier by the Milton Myers Company under Pres. Walter Shorenstein.
(http://aam1968.blogspot.com/2008/01/third-world-student-strikes-at-sfsu-ucb.html)(SSFC, 8/19/07, p.B1)(SSFC, 11/25/18, p.46)
1968 Oct 30, Luis W. Alvarez (1911-1988) of UC Berkeley won the Nobel Prize in Physics for his work on the bubble chamber.
(SFC, 10/10/96, p.A1)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luis_Walter_Alvarez)
1968 Oct 30, Ramon Samaniego Novarro (b.1899), the 1st successful Latin star in Hollywood (Ben Hur), was killed by 2 male hustlers. In 2002 Andres Soares authored "Beyond Paradise: The Life of Ramon Novarro.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ramon_Novarro)(SSFC, 1/5/03, p.M4)
1968 Oct 31, President Johnson announced a halt to all US bombing of North Vietnam, effective the next morning, saying he hoped for fruitful peace negotiations.
(www.lbjlib.utexas.edu/johnson/archives.hom/speeches.hom/681031.asp)
1968 Oct 31, Liu Shaoqi (1898-1968), president of China since 1959, was ousted.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liu_Shaoqi)
1968 Oct, The MH-1A, a US converted Liberty Ship named Sturgis, began supplying electricity to the Panama Canal Zone using a 10MW nuclear reactor. Operations continued to 1975.
(Econ, 4/26/14, p.79)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MH-1A)
1968 Oct, Miloslava Rezkova-Hubnerovawon (1950-2014) won the gold medal for Czechoslovakia in women's high jump in Mexico City.
(AP, 10/20/14)
1968 Nov 1, Lyndon B. Johnson's halt to bombing in Vietnam went into effect at 8 AM, Washington time.
(www.lbjlib.utexas.edu/johnson/archives.hom/speeches.hom/681031.asp)
1968 Nov 1, The Motion Picture Association of America unveiled its new voluntary film rating system: G for general audiences, M for mature audiences (later changed to GP, then PG), R for restricted audiences, and X (later changed to NC-17) for adults only.
(AP, 11/1/08)
1968 Nov 1, Georgios Papandreou (b.1888), Greek minister and premier, died.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Papandreou,_senior)
1968 Nov 3, In Greece thousands of people demonstrated against the fascist junta as ex-premier Georgios Papandreou is buried.
(http://1968ineurope.sneakpeek.de/index.php/chronologies/index/6)
1968 Nov 5, Richard M. Nixon was elected the 37th US President with Spiro Agnew as vice-president. He defeated Vice President Hubert H. Humphrey and third-party candidate George C. Wallace.
(WUD, 1994, p.1687)(TMC, 1994, p.1968)(AP, 11/5/97)(HN, 11/5/98)
1968 Nov 5, Barry Goldwater (1909-1998), former Republican presidential candidate (1964), was re-elected in Arizona to the US Senate.
(SFC, 5/30/98, p.A3)(www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/USAgoldwater.htm)
1968 Nov 5, Alan Cranston (1914-2000), former California state controller (12959-1967), was elected for his 1st term as US Senator.
(SFC, 1/1/01, p.A5)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_Cranston)
1968 Nov 5, Shirley Chisholm (1924-2004) of Brooklyn, New York, became the first black woman elected to serve in the US House of Representatives.
(HN, 11/5/98)(SFC, 1/3/05, p.A3)
1968 Nov 5, Ronald Stanley Bridgeforth (24) fired on South San Francisco police officers who tried to arrest him for credit card fraud at a discount store. Bridgeforth (67), a councilor and faculty member at Washtenaw Community College in Michigan, surrendered in 2011. On March 23, 2012, Bridgeforth was sentenced to a year in county jail, 3 years probation, 300 hours of community service and a fine of $8,500.
(SFC, 11/11/11, p.C1)(SFC, 11/22/11, p.A11)(SFC, 3/24/12, p.C2)
1968 Nov 6, The play “The Ruling Class" by Peter Barnes (1931-2004) opened in Nottingham, England. It was a satirical attack on the church and British aristocracy. It was made into a 1972 film for which Peter O'Toole received an Oscar nomination.
(SFC, 7/3/04, p.B6)(www.answers.com/topic/the-ruling-class-play-6)
1968 Nov 6, At SF State on the one year anniversary of the Gator incident, the Black Students' Union and the Third World Liberation Front issued a list of 10 "nonnegotiable" demands and called for a one day strike. The strike lasted 167 days.
(http://userwww.sfsu.edu/~runamuck/PACEPAPER.htm)(SFEC, 3/1/98, p.W3)(SFEC, 3/21/99, Z1 p.4)
1968 Nov 6, Charles Munch (b.1891), French-US conductor, died. He directed the Boston Symphony Orchestra from 1949-1962.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_M%C3%BCnch)
1968 Nov 11, The Maldives became a republic for a 2nd time with Ibrahim Naseer (Nasir) as President.
(www.pjsymes.com.au/articles/Maldives(article).htm)(Econ, 12/23/06, p.54)(AP, 11/11/08)
1968 Nov 12, Sammy Sosa, baseball outfielder (Chicago Cubs), was born in the Dominican Republic.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sammy_Sosa)
1968 Nov 12, The US Supreme Court in Epperson v. Arkansas voided an Arkansas law banning the teaching of evolution in public schools.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epperson_v._Arkansas)
1968 Nov 14, In the US "National Turn in Your Draft Card Day" featured draft card burning as the Vietnam death toll approached 30,000 and US troop strength in Vietnam reached its peak of 550,000.
(www.answers.com/topic/1968)
1968 Nov 14, Yale University announced its plan to go co-ed.
(HN, 11/14/98)
1968 Nov 17, NBC outraged football fans by cutting away from the final minutes of a New York Jets-Oakland Raiders game to begin a TV special, "Heidi," on schedule. The jets led 32-29 with one minute remaining. Viewers were deprived of seeing the Raiders come from behind to beat the Jets, 43-to-32.
(AP, 11/17/98)(SFC, 11/14/03, p.I8)
1968 Nov 18, Soviets recovered the Zond 6 spacecraft after a flight around the moon.
(HN, 11/18/98)
1968 Nov 19, Three San Francisco police officers were wounded in a shootout with a vanload of Black Panthers on Seventh Street near Folsom. The eight militants were captured unharmed.
(SSFC, 11/18/18, DB p.46)
1968 Nov 19, Gen'l. Moussa Traore (b.1936) began serving as the 2nd president of Mali after leading the military ouster of Pres. Modibo Keita (1915-1977. Traore then ruled for 23 years.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moussa_Traor%C3%A9)(SFC, 9/23/99, p.A12)
1968 Nov 22, Beatles released their "Beatles," (White Album) their only double album.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Beatles_(album))
1968 Nov 23, Five Cubans hijacked a US B-727 jet, from Chicago to Cuba.
(http://cuban-exile.com/doc_176-200/doc0180.html)
1968 Nov 24, Eldridge Cleaver fled the US with his wife rather face assault charges from 1958. He returned to the US in 1975.
(www.pbs.org/hueypnewton/people/people_cleaver.html)
1968 Nov 24, Three Latins hijacked a US B-707 jet, from New York’s Kennedy Int’l. to Cuba. Pena Soltren, a US citizen, and two accomplices used weapons hidden in a diaper bag to hijack Pan Am Flight 281. In 2009 Luis Armando Pena Soltren (66) voluntarily returned to the same airport to surrender and face prosecution. On Jan 4, 2011, Soltren was sentenced to 15 years in prison.
(http://cuban-exile.com/doc_176-200/doc0180.html)(AP, 10/12/09)(SFC, 1/5/11, p.A4)
1968 Nov 25, Upton B. Sinclair (b.1878), US novelist and social reformer (Jungle), died at age 90. His work included almost 50 novels, over 20 nonfiction books, plays and countless pieces of journalism. In 1975 Leon A. Harris Jr. (d.2000) authored "Upton Sinclair, American Rebel." In 2006 Anthony Arthur authored “Radical Innocent: Upton Sinclair."
(www.americanwriters.org/writers/sinclair.asp)(WSJ, 2/23/06, p.D8)(WSJ, 6/10/06, p.P8)
1968 Nov 28, In London, England, John Lennon and Yoko Ono appeared at the Marylebone Magistrates' Court. John pleaded guilty to possession of cannabis resin and was fined 150 pounds plus 20 guineas costs.
(http://tinyurl.com/qjbdgb)
1968 Nov 30, Montesino Sanchez, a Cuban, hijacked a Boeing 720 from Miami to Cuba.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Cuba-US_aircraft_hijackings)
1968 Nov, The album “Astral Weeks" by Irish-born singer and song-writer Van Morrison was released. In 1999 it was given a Grammy Hall of Fame award.
(WSJ, 4/14/07, p.P14)
1968 Dec 1, Burt Bacharach and Hal David's musical "Promises, Promises" opened at Shubert Theater in NYC for 1281 performances.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Promises,_Promises)
1968 Dec 2, Pres Nixon named Henry Kissinger (b.1923) security advisor.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Kissinger)
1968 Dec 4, The US stock market began an 18 month decline of 44%.
(www.stockmarketcycles.com/sign_of_the_bear.htm)
1968 Dec 5, Football star O.J. Simpson won a Heisman Trophy. In 1999 it was auctioned in LA for $230,000 to help cover the $33.5 million judgment against him in the wrongful death of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ron Goldman.
(SFC, 2/17/99, p.A3)
1968 Dec 5, Eduardo Castera, a Latin successfully hijacked a B-727 from Tampa to Cuba.
(http://cuban-exile.com/doc_176-200/doc0180.html)
1968 Dec 6, The original Malian constitution was abrogated after a military coup d’état and replaced by a new fundamental law.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constitution_of_Mali)
1968 Dec 7, The Rolling Stones released their album "Beggar’s Banquet" in the US, one day after it was released in the UK. They soon filmed a concert performance right after the Who’s performance of "A Quick One" that the Stones did not match and the film was shelved. In 1996 it was planned to release the film where Jethro Tull and Taj Mahal are also featured. The album included the song "Sympathy for the Devil."
(SFC, 8/16/96, p.D11)(SFC, 10/23/00, p.F3)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beggars_Banquet)
1968 Dec 7, The first orbiting astronomical observatory, OAO-2, was launched.
(SFEC, 9/28/97, p.A14)
1968 Dec 8, South Vietnam’s vice president Nguyen Cao Ky arrived in Paris for peace talks.
(HN, 12/8/98)
1968 Dec 9, Doug Engelbart and researchers at Stanford Research Institute first demonstrated in SF the computer mouse along with a graphical user interface (gui), display editing, integrated text and graphics, hyper documents and 2-way video-conferencing with shared work spaces. In 2001 Thierry Bardini authored "Bootstrapping: Douglas Engelbart, Coevolution, and the Origins of Personal Computing." William English (1929-2020) helped build the mouse and orchestrated its elaborate demonstration.
(SFC, 12/4/98, p.B2)(SSFC, 1/21/01, BR p.6)(SFC, 12/8/08, p.A1)(SSFC, 8/2/20, p.C10)
1968 Dec 10, Thomas Merton (b.1915), American Trappist monk and writer, died in Bangkok, Thailand from accidental electrocution. He had just finished his 7th journal "The Other side of the Mountain." Merton was influenced by the Hindu scholar Mahanambrata Brahmachari (d.1999). Merton's work also the spiritual autobiography "The Seven Story Mountain." In 1978 Monica Furlong (d.2003) authored a biography of Merton.
(SFC, 2/24/98, p.A22)(SFEC, 9/27/98, BR p.3)(SFC, 11/2/99, p.A26)(SFC, 2/3/03, p.B4)(WSJ, 3/26/03, p.D8)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Merton)
1968 Dec 11, The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) was founded by Dr. George Habash, founder of the pan-Arab nationalist movement.
(SFC, 12/13/96, p.B2,4)
1968 Dec 11, Two blacks successfully hijacked a DC-8 from St. Louis to Cuba.
(http://cuban-exile.com/doc_176-200/doc0180.html)
1968 Dec 12, Tallulah Bankhead (b.1903), American actress, died: "The only thing I regret about my past is the length of it. If I had to live my life again, I'd make the same mistakes, only sooner." In 2000 Tovah Feldshuh created "Tallulah Hallelujah," a one-woman show in salute to Bankhead.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tallulah_Bankhead)(WSJ, 10/11/00, p.A24)(SSFC, 1/14/01, DB p.34)
1968 Dec 18, Carolyn Olsen was murdered during a robbery that netted $18 on a Santa Monica tennis court. Black Panther leader Geronimo Pratt was accused of the murder though he maintained that he was in Oakland on the night the 27-year old teacher was shot to death. He was arrested in 1970 and convicted in 1972 and sentenced to a life term in prison. Julius "Buffo" Butler, a police informant who spied on the Black Panther Party, told police that he believed Pratt killed Olsen. In 1997 a judge ruled to reverse Pratt’s conviction based on the credibility of Butler. He was released on $25,000 bail on 6/10/97. In 2000 Pratt was awarded $4.5 million to be paid by Los Angeles and the FBI.
(SFC, 4/18/96, C-1)(SFC, 6/7/97, p.A5)(SFC, 6/11/97, p.C2)(SFC, 7/15/00, p.A3)
1968 Dec 19, Norman Thomas (b.1884), founder of the ACLU and Socialist Party leader (1926-55), died.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norman_Thomas)
1968 Dec 20, The first known murder by the Zodiac killer took place. Two teenagers, David Farraday and Betty Lou Jensen, were shot to death in a parked car on Lake Herman Road outside Vallejo, Ca. The California Zodiac killer later identified himself with a letter to the Times-Harold in Vallejo. After that he claimed to have killed 37 people but the police connected him to only five deaths.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zodiac_Killer)(SFEC, 3/1/98, p.W20)(SFC, 10/2/00, p.A19)(SFC, 4/7/04, p.A7)
1968 Dec 20, John Steinbeck (b.1902), California-born author, died from a bad heart in New York City at age 66. He won the Nobel Prize in 1940. In 1995 Jay Parini published "John Steinbeck: A Biography."
(AP, 12/20/97)(SFEC, 6/21/98, DB p.35)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Steinbeck)
1968 Dec 21, Apollo 8 with astronauts Borman, Lovell & Anders was launched on the 1st mission to orbit the moon.
(AP, 12/21/97)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollo_8)
1968 Dec 23, The 82 crew members of the US intelligence ship Pueblo were released by North Korea, 11 months after they had been captured.
(AP, 12/23/97)
1968 Dec 24, The 3 Apollo 8 astronauts (James A. Lovell, William Anders and Frank Borman), orbiting the moon, read passages from the Old Testament Book of Genesis during a Christmas Eve television broadcast. The first pictures of an Earth-rise over the Moon are seen as the crew of Apollo 8 orbits the moon.
(TL, 1988, p.117)(AP, 12/24/97)(HN, 12/24/99)
1968 Dec 26, Jay Allen's "Forty Carats," premiered in NYC. It was adapted from the French original by Pierre Barillet and Jean-Pierre Gredy. The 1973 film adaptation starred Liv Ullman.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forty_Carats)
1968 Dec 26, Usher Fellig (Weegee), Ukraine-born (1899) American photographer, died. He worked in the Lower East Side of New York City as a press photographer during the 1930s and '40s, and developed his signature style by following the city's emergency services and documenting their activity.
(Econ, 1/28/12, p.82)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weegee)
1968 Dec 26, A Palestinian terrorist attack in Athens on an Israeli civilian airliner killed one person. Mahmoud Mohammad (25) and Maher Suleiman (19) were later captured by Greek officials, In 1970, a Greek court convicted Mahmoud Mohammad for his role in the attack. In 1987 Mahmoud Mohammed Issa Mohammed entered Canada, where he was ordered to be deported in 1988. In 2007 he was still in Canada after some 30 appeals and reviews.
(http://tinyurl.com/35olct)(Econ, 9/15/07, p.48)(www.skyjack.co.il/chronology.htm)
1968 Dec 26, Jose Maria Sison founded the underground Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP). The armed wing of the Maoist group, the New People’s Army (NPA), began waging guerrilla warfare in 1969.
(SFC, 8/21/01, p.A6)(AP, 12/26/10)(Econ, 8/27/16, p.26)
1968 Dec 27, The US agreed to sell fifty F-4 Phantom jets to Israel.
(HN, 12/27/98)
1968 Dec 27, Apollo 8, the 1st manned mission to the moon, and its three astronauts made a safe, nighttime splashdown in the Pacific.
(AP, 12/27/97)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollo_8)
1968 Dec 28, The Beatles' "White Album," went #1 in the US, beginning this week, and stayed at the top for 9 weeks.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Beatles_(album))
1968 Dec 28, Israel attacked the Beirut Int’l. Airport, destroying 13 civilian planes. This was in response to an attack on an Israeli airliner in Athens by the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP).
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1968_Israeli_raid_on_Lebanon)
1968 Dec, The pop song "Israelites" by Desmond Dekker (1941-2006), Jamaican singer, was released in Jamaica and soon became a worldwide hit. Dekker brought the sound of Jamaican ska music to the world.
(SFC, 5/27/06, p.B5)
1968 Dec, The Cambridge company Bolt Beranek and Newman won a Dept. of Defense ARPA (Advanced Research Projects Agency) contract to develop packet switches called Interface Message Processors (IMP). The project was led by Frank Heart and Robert Kahn. The first internode was to installed at the Univ. of California at Los Angeles.
(SFEC, 3/16/97, Z1 p.3)(SFC,10/24/97, p.E5)
1968 Edward Kienholz (1927-1994) created his "Portable war memorial," a bizarre tableaux including a hot dog stand and a coke dispenser.
(TL, 1988, p.117)(http://artchive.com/artchive/K/kienholz/war_memorial.jpg.html)
1968 Yayoi Kusama (b.1929), Japanese-born artist, staged her "Naked Event at the Statue of Liberty."
(WSJ, 8/4/98, p.A16)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yayoi_Kusama)
1968 Architects Doug Michels (1943-2003) and Chip Lord founded the Ant Farm in SF. In 1974 they created "Cadillac Ranch," a sculpture of 10 planted Cadillacs, in Amarillo, Texas. In 1975 they created the performance work "Media Burn," in which Michels drove a Cadillac through a pyramid of burning television sets. Ant Farm disbanded in 1978.
(SSFC, 6/22/03, p.A1)
1968 Cecile Nelken (1917-2009), sculptor and publisher, founded Artweek, the first US West Coast weekly art newspaper.
(SFC, 7/17/09, p.D5)
1968 Henry Moore, English artist and sculptor, made his "Three Piece No. 3: Vertebrae."
(SFC, 10/26/96, p.B1)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Moore)
1968 Pablo Picasso (1881-1973) created his Suite 347, a series of aquatints and etchings.
(Econ, 4/24/10, p.83)
1968 Roland Barthes (1915-1980), French literary critic, published his essay “The Death of the Author." In his essay, Barthes criticizes the reader's tendency to consider aspects of the author's identity—his political views, historical context, religion, ethnicity, psychology, or other biographical or personal attributes—to distill meaning from his work.
(WSJ, 8/2/08, p.W9)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_of_the_author)
1968 Richard Bradford (1932-2002) authored his novel "Red Sky at Morning." A film version was released in 1971.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Bradford)(SFC, 11/8/99, p.C2)(SFC, 3/27/02, p.A21)
1968 John Brunner, British novelist, authored “Stand on Zanzibar," in which he forecast that the world’s population would reach 7 billion in 2010.
(Econ, 10/22/11, p.28)
1968 Herb Caen (1916-1997), SF newspaper columnist, wrote his 7th book: "City of Golden Hills."
(SFEC, 2/2/97, p.A13)
1968 Carlos Castaneda (1925-1998) published his thesis: "The Teachings of Don Juan: A Yaqui Way of Knowledge," with the Univ. of Calif. Press. It became an int’l. best seller. He went on to publish "A Separate Reality," "Journey to Ixtlan," and others.
(SFC, 6/19/98, p.A2)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carlos_Castaneda)
1968 Charles C.G. Chaplin and James Bohlke co-authored “Fishes of the Bahamas and Adjacent Tropical Waters."
(Sm, 2/06, p.42)
1968 Marie Vieux-Chauvet (1916-1973) published her Haitian trilogy “Love, Anger, Madness." It was withdrawn soon after publication France following a government warning that it would endanger the author’s family. It was released again in France in 2005 and in English in 2009.
(Econ, 8/15/09, p.78)
1968 Dr. Price Cobbs (1928-1918) and Dr. William H. Grier co-authored "Black Rage," a portrayal of the psychological trauma that racism and the legacy of slavery inflicts on black people.
(SFC, 7/11/18, p.D5)
1968 Robert Conquest (1917-2015), British-born historian, authored “The Great Terror: Stalin’s Purge of the Thirties" (1968).
(SFC, 8/6/15, p.D3)
1968 "The Warrior Pharaohs" by British author Leonard Cottrell (1913-1974) was published by Evans Brothers Ltd, London.
(L.C.-W.P., 1968)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leonard_Cottrell)
1968 Quentin Crisp (1908-1999), English gay writer born as Denis Pratt, authored his autobiography: "The Naked Civil Servant." In 1975 The Naked Civil Servant was broadcast on British and American television and made both actor John Hurt and Crisp himself into stars.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quentin_Crisp)(SFC, 11/22/99, p.C4)(WSJ, 7/14/00, p.W11)
1968 Nicky Cruz (b.1939 in Puerto Rico), former NYC city gangster, wrote his autobiography "Run, Baby, Run." He had converted to Christianity in 1958 and begun ministering to inner city youth.
(WSJ, 10/23/98, p.W13)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicky_Cruz)
1968 Mary Daly (1928-2009), Boston College professor and feminist theologian, authored “The Church and the Second Sex."
(SSFC, 1/10/10, p.C10)
1968 Philip Dick (1928-1982) authored his sci-fi novel "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep." In 1982 it was made into the film "Blade Runner."
(SFC, 6/25/02, p.D1)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philip_K._Dick)
1968 Frederick Exley (1929-1992), American novelist, published his book "A Fan’s Notes," a fictional memoir of his failed life. In 1997 Jonathon Yardley published: "Misfit: The Strange Life of Frederick Exley."
(SFEC, 8/17/97, BR p.3)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frederick_Exley)
1968 Colin Fletcher (1922-2007), Welsh-born pioneering backpacker and writer, authored "The Complete Walker." It became a manifesto for backpackers.
(SSFC, 8/11/02, p.C3)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colin_Fletcher)
1968 Don Freeman (1908-1978), painter and children’s writer, authored "Corduroy," the story of a teddy bear named Corduroy, who is bought in a department store by a girl named Lisa.
(SFEC, 2/27/00, BR p.12)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don_Freeman)
1968 Walter Galenson (1914-1999), American labor economist, published "The C.I.O. Challenge to the A.F.L." with Harvard Univ. Press.
(SFC, 1/8/00, p.A19)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walter_Galenson)
1968 Graham Greene (1904-1991), English author and playwright, wrote "Travels With My Aunt." In 1989 it was adopted for stage by Giles Havergal, director of the Citizens’ Theater in Glasgow.
(SFEC, 1/5/97, DB p.25)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graham_Greene)
1968 William Grier and Price Cobbs authored "Black Rage," in which they argued that psychological functioning is the same in all races, but that the experiences of Black people make them different.
(SFEC, 7/20/97, BR p.3)
1968 Arthur Hailey (1920-2004) author his best-selling novel "Airport."
(HN, 4/5/01)(SFC, 11/26/04, p.B3)
1968 Garrett Hardin (1915-2003), ecologist, wrote his classic essay: "The Tragedy of the Commons." He explained how herdsmen with an incentive to add animals will overgraze common pastureland. It spawned the "save the whales" animal-protection movement.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garrett_Hardin)(WSJ, 9/9/97, p.A18)(Econ, 8/2/08, p.76)
1968 Abbie Hoffman (1936-1989), political activist and one of the co-founders of the Yippies, wrote "Revolution for the Hell of It."
(SFC, 12/29/96, BR p.5)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abbie_Hoffman)
1968 H. Richard Hornberger (1924-1997), under the pseudonym of Richard Hooker, collaborated with W.C. Heinz on the Korean War novel "MASH." It was made into a film in 1970 and a TV series (1972-1977).
(SFEC, 8/29/99, BR p.3)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H._Richard_Hornberger)
1968 Chuang Hua (1931-2000), the pen name of Stella Yang Copley, authored her novel “Crossings," an experimental novel on the life of a first generation Chinese-American woman.
(www.ndpublishing.com/books/chuanghuacrossings.html)
1968 Edward Luttwak (b.1942), Romania-born American military strategist, authored “Coup d’Etat: A Practical Handbook."
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Luttwak)
1968 Norman Mailer authored "The Armies of the Night: History as a Novel/The Novel as History," a nonfiction novel recounting the October 1967 March on the Pentagon.
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Armies_of_the_Night)(AP, 2/4/21)
1968 Journalist Joe McGinniss (1942-2014) authored “The Selling of the President.“
(SFC, 3/11/14, p.A8)
1968 James Michener (1907-1997), American author, wrote his travel book "Iberia," a detailed and illustrated exploration of Spain at it was during the mid 1960s.
(SFC,10/17/97, p.A17)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_A._Michener)
1968 Jerome Mintz (1930-1997), US anthropologist, published "Legends of the Hasidim: an introduction to Hasidic culture and oral tradition in the New World."
(www.mnsu.edu/emuseum/information/biography/klmno/mintz_jerome.html)
1968 Jerome Mintz (d.1997 at 67), US anthropologist, published "The Anarchists of Casa Viejas," an account and oral history of the 1933 Spanish uprising.
(SFC,12/20/97, p.A21)
1968 Anton Myrer (1922-1996), American writer, authored "Once an Eagle," a story of the US Army from WW I to Vietnam. It pitted an honorable officer against a self-serving officer and sold millions of copies.
(SFC, 8/20/99, p.D7)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anton_Myrer)
1968 William Safire (1929-2009), conservative journalist and presidential speechwriter, authored “Safire’s Political Dictionary."
(Econ, 10/3/09, p.11)
1968 Charles Susskind (1922-2004), professor at UC Berkeley, authored “Understanding Technology." Susskind was born in Prague, Czechoslovakia, and escaped to England in 1939.
(SFC, 6/17/04, p.B6)
1968 James Watson (b.1928), American molecular biologist and Nobel Prize winner, published "The Double Helix."
(SFC, 3/19/98, p.C4)(SFEM, 7/30/00, p.9)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_D._Watson)
1968 Tom Wolfe (b.1931), American writer and journalist, authored "The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test." It was about the 1964 road trip by Ken Kesey and the Merry Pranksters to the NY World’s Fair.
(SSFC, 11/11/01, p.A16)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tom_Wolfe)
1968 Dom DeLuise (1933-2009), actor, chef, comedian and author, hosted “The Dom DeLuise Show," a comedy variety summer series on CBS.
(SFC, 5/6/09, p.A9)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dom_DeLuise)
1968 The TV series “The Name of the Game" featured Gene Barry (1919-2009). The show continued to 1971.
(SFC, 12/15/09, p.C5)
1968 The "Rolling Stones Rock and Roll Circus" was shot for home video but not released until 1996. The 62 minute TV special featured the Stones, John Lennon, Yoko Ono, Eric Clapton, the Who, Marianne Faithfull, Taj Mahal and Jethro Tull.
(SFC, 10/15/96, p.B1)
1968 The Delfonics soul singing group of Philadelphia recorded their hit "La-la Means I Love You."
(SFEC, 1/25/98, DB p.45)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Delfonics)
1968 Edison Denisov (1929-1996), Russian composer, composed his "Ode for Instrumental Ensemble," and "Romantic Music for Oboe, Harp and String Trio."
(SFC, 11/27/96, p.B2)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edison_Denisov)
1968 Alfred Schnittke (1934-1998), Russian composer, composed his "2nd Violin Concerto." It marked a major shift into eclecticism for the composer.
(SFC, 8/5/98, p.A17)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfred_Schnittke)
1968 Edwin Hawkins recorded his arrangement of “Oh Happy Day" on a 2-track tape machine for the Northern California State Youth Choir. An album was made with Century Records to help finance a trip to a church youth conference in Washington DC. In 1969 Abe Kesh at KSAN-FM began playing the song, which featured the voice of Dorothy Morrison. The album was soon re-issued by Buddah Records.
(SFC, 10/23/09, p.F1)
1968 Graham Nash (b.1942) left the Hollies to join David Crosby (b.1941) and Stephen Stills (b.1945). The first Crosby, Stills & Nash album was released in 1969.
(www.rockhall.com/inductee/crosby-stills-and-nash)
1968 The song "Just Dropped In (to See What Condition My Condition Was In) was the 1st charted single for Kenny Rogers, who was with the First Edition. The song was written by Texas songwriter Mickey Newbury (d.2002 at 62).
(SFC, 10/3/02, p.A20)
1968 Aretha Franklin (b.1942) recorded "Since You’ve Been Gone" and “Think."
(http://tinyurl.com/oe3cmp)(http://tinyurl.com/obhjaj)
1968 Marvin Gaye recorded "I Heard It Through the Grapevine."
(SFC, 11/12/02, p.D8)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_Heard_It_Through_the_Grapevine)
1968 The Iron Butterfly recorded their 17-minute classic "In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida," with Erik Braunn (d.2003 at 52) on lead guitar. Doug Ingle, Ron Bushy and Lee Dorman completed the band.
(SFC, 7/29/03, p.A17)
1968 Janis Joplin and Big Brother and the Holding Company band recorded their album "Cheap Thrills" in New York.
(SFC, 5/19/96, DB, p.39)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cheap_Thrills)
1968 The Moody Blues released their album "Days of Future Past" in the US. It had been released in Britain in November 1967.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Days_of_Future_Passed)
1968 Laura Nyro (1947-1997) released her song suite album "Eli and the Thirteenth Confession." her biggest songs were "When I Die," "Stoned Soul Picnic," "Wedding Bell Blues," "Sweet Blindness," and "Eli’s Coming."
(SFE, 4/10/97, p.A23)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eli_and_the_Thirteenth_Confession)
1968 The Jefferson Airplane rock group and manager Bill Thompson (1944-2015) purchased a mansion in San Francisco for $70,000. It had been built in 1904 by lumber baron R.A. Vance. In 1985 the 20-room home at 2400 Fulton was sold for $700,000.
(SSFC, 1/30/11, DB p.42)(SFC, 1/15/15, p.D6)
1968 Itzhak Perlman and Pinchas Zuckerman made their SF Symphony debuts.
(SFEC, 8/17/97, DB p.45)
1968 Astor Piazolla collaborated with poet Horacio Ferrer on the work "Maria," a succession of tangos, waltzes and a fugue, that tells the story of a prostitute in Buenos Aires.
(WSJ, 10/27/98, p.A20)
1968 The song “Sittin’ on the Dock of the Bay" by Otis Redding (1941-1967) became a smash hit. It was the first posthumous single in US chart history.
(SFC, 4/25/06, p.B5)
1968 The singing group Sha Na Na began singing together at Columbia Univ. as the Columbia Kingsmen. Their first gig in Manhattan paid $50 for the 12 members. They sang "Let’s Go to the Hop" at Woodstock and did a TV show from 1977-1980.
(SFC, 6/26/98, p.C13)
1968 The Supremes released their album "Love Child."
(SFC, 11/12/02, p.D8)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Love_Child_(The_Supremes_album))
1968 Johnnie Taylor (d.2000 at 62) had his 1st No. 1 R&B hit with "Who’s Making Love."
(SFC, 6/2/00, p.D5)
1968 Stevie Wonder made a hit with the song "For Once in My Life."
(SFC, 11/12/02, p.D8)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/For_Once_in_My_Life)
1968 Tammy Wynette (1942-1998), country singer, recorded her hit song "Stand by Your Man." In 2003 it was rated the No. 1 top country song.
(SFC, 6/6/03, p.D22)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stand_By_Your_Man)
1968 Iannis Xenakis (b.1922), Greek architect and composer, composed "Kraanerg," an example of his "stochastic" music in Paris. It combined taped electronic music and live performance and was described as alien.
(WSJ, 11/19/96, p.A18)
1968 The Anchorage Museum of History and Art opened.
(WSJ, 7/17/97, p.A20)
1968 Astor Piazolla collaborated with poet Horacio Ferrer on the work "Maria," a succession of tangos, waltzes and a fugue, that tells the story of a prostitute in Buenos Aires.
(WSJ, 10/27/98, p.A20)
1968 Dr. Robert Butler (d.2010 at 83) coined the term “ageism" to describe age discrimination.
(SFC, 7/7/10, p.C4)
1968 Dr. Robert Schuller founded New Hope, the first Christian 24-hour suicide prevention center.
(SFEC, 4/20/97, Par p.18)
1968 James Patrick Shannon (d.2003), auxiliary bishop of St. Paul, Minn., resigned following reprimands over his views over birth control and the Vietnam War. In 1999 he authored "Reluctant Dissenter."
(SSFC, 9/14/03, p.A27)
1968 Dennis Banks (b.1937), an Anishinabe Indian from Minnesota, co-founded the American Indian Movement (AIM). Vernon Bellecourt (1932-2007), an Ojibwe Indian from Minnesota, also helped found the movement.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dennis_Banks)(SFC, 10/15/07, p.B6)
1968 Ari Onassis invited Jackie Kennedy to Skorpios and later they married.
(TMC, 1994, p.1968)
1968 Debra Barnes of Pittsburgh, Kansas, won the Miss America beauty pageant.
(SFEC, 9/15/96, p.A6)
1968 Stewart Brand published the first Whole Earth Catalog. He had spent years in India on a campaign to eradicate smallpox.
(Wired, 5/97, p.101)
1968 The Association of Black Psychologists was founded.
(WSJ, 7/8/96, p.C1)(Civilization, July-Aug, 1995, p. 36)
1968 Ruth Whitney (1928-1999), editor of Glamour Magazine, put a black model on the cover for the first time in the magazine's history.
(SFC, 6/8/99, p.A22)(http://tinyurl.com/ov9m59)
1968 Al Goldstein and Jim Buckley co-founded Screw magazine. It folded in 2003.
(SFC, 12/20/13, p.D9)
1968 Calvin Klein founded Calvin Klein Ltd. in NYC for $10,000.
(SSFC, 11/29/09, p.N6)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calvin_Klein)
1968 Jay Chiat (1931-2002), American advertising designer, founded the Chiat/Day advertising agency.
(Wired, 2/99, p.78)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jay_Chiat)
1968 Kay Teer Crawford (d.2001 at 83) founded the Miss Drill Team USA pageant.
(SFC, 9/7/01, p.A26)
1968 The Kansas City Athletics under owner Charlie Finley moved to Oakland and began playing in the new Oakland Coliseum.
(SFEC, 3/1/98, p.W39)
1968 When the Raiders played in their first Super Bowl in Miami, boss Al Davis got a call from mobster Meyer Lansky asking him to speak to a group of funeral directors. Davis tried to back out but Lansky said: "You will be there at 6 p.m." A biography of Lansky was written by Hank Messick (d.1999).
(SFC, 6/21/96, p.A17)(SFC, 11/9/99, p.A23)
1968 J. Anthony Lukas (d.1997 at 64) won a Pulitzer Prize for his book "The Two Worlds of Linda Fitzpatrick." It was about a teenage girl from an affluent Connecticut family beaten to death with her hippie boyfriend after turning to a life of drugs in the East Village.
(SFC, 6/7/97, p.A19)
1968 The Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences was first endowed by Sweden’s central bank. It is the only Nobel Prize that was not created by Alfred Nobel in 1901.
(WSJ, 10/11/95, p. A-16)(WSJ, 10/15/98, p.A22)
1968 Har Gobind Khorana (1922-2011), India-born biochemist, shared a Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine with Marshall W. Nirenberg and Robert W. Holley for helping unravel how genetic information in a cell is used to make proteins vital for human life.
(SFC, 11/12/11, p.A8)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H._Gobind_Khorana)
1968 Horace A. Barker (d.2000 at 93), a professor at UC Berkeley, was awarded the US National Medal of Science by Pres. Johnson. His work helped in the discovery and characterization of the active form of vitamin B12.
(SFC, 1/5/01, p.D5)
1968 The Kerner Commission of Pres. Johnson concluded that America was moving toward 2 societies: one black, one white, separate and unequal.
(SFC, 9/18/98, p.A1)
1968 The American Independent Party candidate George Wallace named General Curtis LeMay as his vice-presidential candidate.
(SFC, 6/12/96, p.E5)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curtis_LeMay)
1968 Richard Nixon (1913-1994) was given the mood-altering prescription drug Dilantin by Jack Dreyfus, founder of the Dreyfus Fund.
(SFEC, 8/27/00, p.A6)(http://tinyurl.com/p365a3)
1968 The US Congress passed the National Flood Insurance Act of 1968 creating the National Flood Insurance Program
(www.seas.gwu.edu/~emse232/emse232book3)(WSJ, 8/31/98, p.A1)
1968 The US Federal Bureau of Narcotics, a part of the Treasury Dept., was absorbed by the Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs in the Dept. of Justice.
(SSFC, 1/11/15, p.E7)
1968 The Dept. of Defense ARPA (Advanced Research Projects Agency) issued a request for proposals to develop packet switches called Interface Message Processors (IMP).
(SFEC, 3/16/97, Z1 p.3)
1968 The story of the WWII code-talkers was declassified. American Navajo Indians had used their native language as code that the Japanese were unable to break. Chester Nez, the last living Navajo code-breaker died on June 4, 2014, at age 93.
(Econ, 6/21/14, p.90)
1968 The A-12 Blackbird spy plane was retired. Lockheed Martin had built 15 such planes, a forerunner to the SR-71 Blackbird. It had originated as part of the CIA’s “Oxcart" program.
(WSJ, 1/26/07, p.A1)
1968 The Library of Congress finished its Machine Readable Cataloguing (Marc) pilot project, which was under the direction of Henriette D. Avram (1919-2006). In 1969 bibliographic records were sent on magnetic tape to libraries around the country. In 1971 Marc became the national standard fro electronic cataloguing.
(SFC, 5/4/06, p.B7)
1968 Milton Friedman proposed the doctrine of NAIRU, the non-accelerating inflation rate of unemployment. It generally holds that there is nothing we can do to get the unemployment rate below its natural rate. If somehow the unemployment rate slips below its natural rate, than accelerating inflation would be triggered. The natural unemployment rate has been placed variously between 5 & 7%. Friedman won the 1976 Nobel Prize in economics and retired to the Hoover Inst. at Stanford.
(www.washingtonmonthly.com/features/2004/0407.galbraith.html)(WSJ, 5/27/98, p.A20)
1968 Ted Stevens began representing Alaska in the US Senate.
(SFC, 12/20/05, p.A1)
1968 Following the disocvery of oil in Prudhoe Bay, Alaska, the Eskimos were given 44m acres of land, $1 billion and shares in regional and village corporations so that the government could build a pipeline to the oil.
(Econ, 8/30/14, p.27)
1968 The London Bridge was sold to American entrepreneur Robert Paxton McCulloch (b.1911). Robert McCulloch, founder of Lake Havasu City, Az., bought the stone bridge for approximately $2.6 million and had it transported by ship and truck from London in pieces across the Atlantic Ocean and via the Panama Canal and Los Angeles. That process and reconstruction took three years, leading to the October 1971 dedication.
(AP, 10/2/21)
1968 Don Thomson (d.2001) helped create Channel 21, the 1st UHF Spanish-language television channel in Phoenix, Az.
(SFC, 2/10/01, p.A22)
1968 In San Francisco construction of the 4-part Embarcadero Center began. It was completed in 1983.
(SFEC, 1/23/00, p.B1)
1968 Japan Center opened in San Francisco’s Japantown with a Peace Plaza and a 5-tiered pagoda. The center included the new Miyako Mall, the Miyako Hotel and the Kintetsu Mall.
(SFEC, 9/20/98, Z1 p.6)(SFC, 2/10/06, p.D1)
1968 Gary Arlington (29) founded America’s first comics store on 23rd St. in San Francisco’s Mission district. The comics sold for 12 cents. Arlington (d.2014) closed his store in 2003 after 35 years in business.
(SFC, 1/22/14, p.E3)
1968 Dr. Alejandro Zaffaroni (b.1923), native of Montevideo, Uruguay, founded ALZA Corp. The SF Bay Area company has grown to be one of the largest medical device companies in the US specializing in drug delivery technologies. He later helped to launch Affymax, a drug discovery company, and Affymetrix, which did DNA research on semiconductor chips.
(BJSJ, 10/30/95, p.8)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alejandro_Zaffaroni)
1968 The Berkeley Repertory Theater was founded by Michael Leibert on College Ave.
(SFEC, 3/8/98, p.W29)(WSJ, 5/8/01, p.A24)
1968 The Hillbarn Theater, co-founded by Robert Brauns (d.2001 at 87) opened on East Hillsdale Blvd in Foster City. The original outdoor theater, had been in the corral of the old Pingrey estate overlooking El Camino Real near the Belmont city line.
(SFC, 3/31/01, p.A21)
1968 The Royal Chapel at Carmel, Ca., became a cathedral for a second time as the Diocese of Monterey was reorganized.
(SSFC, 1/4/09, p.B3)
1968 David “Moses" Berg of Oakland, Ca., founded the Children of God. He combined the free love of the sexual revolution with the fervor of the American evangelical movement [see May, 2, 1978].
(SSFC, 2/27/05, p.A1)
1968 Yusuf Bey (d.2003) created “Your Black Muslim Bakery" in Oakland, Ca.
(SFC, 11/30/05, p.A16)
1968 The Industrial Center Building at 480 Gate Five Rd. in Sausalito, Ca., became a haven for artists.
(SFEM,11/30/97, p.10)
1968 Mary Moore (d.2001 at 73) founded Mandrake’s nightclub at University and 10th St. in Berkeley. The club folded in 1974.
(SFC, 12/28/01, p.A34)
1968 Canãda College opened in Redwood City, Ca.
(SFEC, 3/15/98, p.W20)
1968 In the SF Bay Area Marine World/Africa U.S.A. opened on 66 acres in Redwood Shores. The animal-themed amusement park moved to Vallejo in 1985 and the Redwood Shores land was developed as the headquarters of Oracle Corp.
(SFC, 3/10/18, p.D1)
1968 William Hartman (d.1997 at 78) and Marilyn Fithian founded the Center for Marital and Sexual Studies in Long Beach, Ca. They later published "Treatment of Sexual Dysfunction" based on their studies.
(SFC, 10/14/97, p.A19)
1968 California governor Ronald Reagan signed an Inmate Bill of Rights. It was amended in 1994 to limit rights only to those guaranteed in the California and US constitutions. It was again amended in 1996 to make personal visits a privilege, not a right.
(SFC, 7/9/96, p.A17)(http://tiny.cc/kOk1t)
1968 US Federal agents raided the Marin home of Frank Werber (1929-2007), the original manager of the Kingston Trio, and seized 258 pounds of Mexican marijuana. He served a 6-month sentence in Marin County, Ca. In 1972 he retired on 160 acres of wilderness in New Mexico.
(SFC, 6/8/07, p.B7)
1968 The California Air Resources Board (ARB) was established to regulate the state’s ambient air quality.
(SFEC,11/10/97, p.A10)
1968 The California legislature passed the California Open Records Law freeing up public documents at agencies other than the Public Utilities Commission.
(SSFC, 11/27/11, p.A21)
1968 Bobby Lee Verdugo (d.2020) became a key figure in the East Los Angeles student movement of Mexican Americans who faced physical punishment for speaking Spanish in class and discrimination from white administrators and teachers. Eventually, a politicized Mexican American population riled by the reaction to the walkouts forced the schools to end punishment for speaking Spanish and later introduced bilingual education classes. The walkouts became the subject of a 2006 HBO movie where actor Efren Ramirez played Verdugo.
(Reuters, 5/2/20)
1968 The California State Fair moved to the 356-acre CalExpo grounds in Sacramento.
(SSFC, 8/7/05, p.F7)
1968 Myth has it that the Nuestra Familia prison gang was organized after a stolen shoe incident at San Quentin prison. It set the Mexican Mafia, a gang rooted in East Los Angeles, against the Familia based in San Jose.
(SFEC, 6/29/97, Z1 p.1)
1968 In northern California the Black Bear Ranch commune was established in Siskiyou County near Yreka. A documentary of the project was released in 2007.
(SFC, 7/10/10, p.E1)
1968 Sidney W. Brossman (d.1999 at 76) became head of the new California Community Colleges and served to 1977.
(SFEC, 3/28/99, p.D6)
1968 Architect Henry Schubart (d.1998 at 81) moved his family to Salt Spring Island in British Columbia due to his opposition to the Vietnam War. He had designed the campus buildings of the Dominican College in Marin, Ca., the St. Louis Bertrand Church in Oakland and the Holy Names Church in SF among other works. In BC he introduced the use of skylights.
(SFC, 2/20/98, p.A23)
1968 Myth has it that the Nuestra Familia prison gang was organized after a stolen shoe incident at San Quentin prison. It set the Mexican Mafia, a gang rooted in East Los Angeles, against the Familia based in San Jose.
(SFEC, 6/29/97, Z1 p.1)
1968 Sears Point Raceway began operating in Marin County, Ca.
(SFC, 12/15/99, p.A21)
1968 The Kansas City Athletics under owner Charlie Finley moved to Oakland, Ca., and began playing in the new Oakland Coliseum.
(SFEC, 3/1/98, p.W39)
1968 A newspaper strike shut down the SF Chronicle, the Examiner and the News-Call Bulletin for 53 days. Bill O'Brien (d.2004) became president of the SF-Oakland Newspaper Guild the next day and supported the strike, which had originated with Hearst papers in LA.
(SFC, 2/05/04, p.A27)
1968 Al Brounstein (d.2006 at 86) purchased 80 acres on Diamond Mountain in Napa, Ca., for a little over $100,000. He began developing a vineyard and later admitted to smuggling cuttings from Bordeaux, France, by way of Tijuana. His first crop from Diamond Creek Vineyards was produced in 1972.
(SFC, 6/28/06, p.B7)
1968 Robert Mondavi made a dry wine from Sauvignon Blanc and renamed it Fume Blanc.
(SFC, 5/17/08, p.A7)
1968 The last of the hog farms in Colma, Ca., closed. Some 10,000 garbage-eating pigs were raised along the Hillside Blvd. farm
(Ind, 7/15/00,5A)
1968 T. Jack Foster, the developer of Foster City, Ca., died. His sons continued his project and sold out to Centex Corp. in 1970.
(Ind, 8/4/01, 5A)
1968 Actors from the Living Theater were arrested in San Francisco for disrobing onstage.
(SFC, 7/14/96, DB p.30)
1968 Chet Helms, operating under the name "Family Dog," lost his lease and permits for running shows at the Avalon Ballroom at Sutter and Van Ness.
(SFC, 10/9/97, p.A17)
1968 Bill Graham opened the Fillmore East in NYC and moved his SF operation to the former Carousel Ballroom, renamed the Fillmore West.
(SFC,12/13/97, p.A15)
1968 San Francisco Mayor Alioto greeted King Olav V of Norway with a grand reception at City Hall.
(SFEC, 2/1/98, p.A10)
1968 In San Francisco Andrew McKinley and Bryan Bilby opened the Adobe Book Shop at 3166 16th St.
(SFC, 4/9/03, p.E1)
1968 Chronicle Books was founded in San Francisco.
(SFC, 8/7/99, p.A8)
1968 The SF Police formed a helicopter unit. The city went without police helicopters from 1975 to 1998, when the unit was revived.
(SFC, 1/13/00, p.A15)
1968 SF State engineering student Charles Hall debuted his waterbed, an 8-foot-square, heated "Pleasure Pit," at a gallery on Leavenworth St.
(SFC, 1/2/19, p.D1)
1968 In San Francisco Richard Simmons opened Specs Twelve Adler Museum Cafe just off of Columbus Ave. and across the street from Vesuvio's.
(SFC, 1/26/04, p.B1)
1968 In San Francisco Walter Shorenstein announced his plan to tear down the Int’l. Hotel at 848 Kearny and replace it with a parking lot. Stymied by public pressure he sold the property in 1973.
(SFC, 6/8/01, WBa p.6)
1968 In San Francisco George Whitney stopped operating Playland-at-the-Beach. It was closed and put up for sale in 1972.
(SSFC, 7/3/05, p.F6)
1968 Linda Harmon (14) was raped, beaten and stabbed to death in SF. In 2003 DNA evidence identified William Speer (61), a convicted sexual predator, as the murderer.
(SFC, 12/24/03, p.A13)
1968 Donaldina Cameron (b.1869), San Francisco social worker, died. She had worked to rescue Chinese girls sold into prostitution in SF and founded the Donaldina Cameron House on Sacramento St. for low income Asian immigrants.
(SFC, 6/18/04, p.F4)
1968-1976 Joseph L. Alioto served as mayor of San Francisco.
(SFC, 12/19/96, p.A22)
1968 Detroit poet John Sinclair was arrested and sentenced to 10 years in prison for possession of two marijuana joints.
(SFEC, 7/21/96, DB p.35)
1968 In Grand Chute, Wis., a night watchman was killed during a robbery at a car dealership. In 2005 police in Appleton, Wis., arrested Robert Mitchell (75) for the murder.
(SFC, 11/19/05, p.A3)
1968 Maurice “Hank" Greenberg took over as head of American International Group (AIG). He stepped down in 2005 as AIG, the world’s largest insurer, faced regulatory troubles.
(Econ, 3/19/05, p.77)
1968 John Templeton (1912-2008) American investment analyst, fled to the Bahamas and took British citizenship in order to avoid American taxes.
(Econ, 7/19/08, p.95)
1968 In the US shoulder harnesses became required items on all cars.
(WSJ, 6/19/96, Adv. Supl)
1968 The Chevrolet Blazer opened up the Sports Utility Vehicle (SUV) market.
(SFEC, 10/10/99, Z1 p.6)
1968 ATT reserved 911 for emergency calls after the 1967 recommendation by the President’s Commission on Crime.
(WSJ, 1/9/97, p.A8)
1968 CBS established a 50-50 joint venture with Sony Corp.
(WSJ, 3/7/05, p.A8)
1968 Denny’s bought Winchell’s Donut Houses. Verne Winchell (d.2002 at 87) founded the business in the 1950s.
(SFC, 11/29/02, p.A27)
1968 The 4th Betty Crocker, a General Mills advertising icon, made her appearance and continued to 1972.
(WSJ, 7/5/96, p.A6)(http://chnm.gmu.edu/features/sidelights/crocker.html)
1968 The J.M. Smucker Co. introduced Goober Grape, a single container with peanut butter and grape jelly swirled together.
(SFC, 1/31/08, p.A13)
1968 Hewlett-Packard introduced the world’s 1st programmable scientific desktop calculator.
(SFC, 1/13/01, p.A15)
1968 Hewlett-Packard introduced the 1st commercially available light-emitting diode (LED) used for displays and traffic lights.
(SFC, 2/22/06, p.C1)
1968 Newton Glekel (1913-2007), NYC real estate lawyer and deal maker, purchased a controlling interest in Detroit-based Hygrade Food Products Co., maker of Ball Park hot dogs. He sold his stake to Britain’s Hanson Industries Inc. in 1976.
(WSJ, 8/4/07, p.A4)
1968 Montgomery Ward merged with Container Corp. to become Marcor.
(WSJ, 12/29/00, p.A3)
1968 Tele-Communications Inc. was founded by Bob Magness (1924-1996) when he merged Community Television Inc. and Western Microwave Inc. in Denver. The company went public in 1970.
(SFEC, 11/17/96, p.C12)
1968 Wayne Huizenga and Dean Buntrock established Waste Management Inc. in Chicago. It became a public company in 1971.
(SFC, 7/19/07, p.A14)
1968 Charles P. Ball, a graduate student at SF State Univ., designed the first water bed.
(SFEC, 6/1/97, Z1 p.5)
1968 The first modular office system, invented by Robert Propst, was commercially introduced in cube form. It was named “Action Office 2" and dismayed the designer.
(Econ, 1/3/15, p.45)
1968 Fred Mattson (d.1997 at 76) and Dr. Robert Volpenhein, employed by Proctor & Gamble, created olestra, a cocktail of fatty acids that enzymes left untouched.
(SFEC, 6/8/97, p.D6)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olestra)
1968 The National Eye Institute at the National Institutes of Health was founded with the assistance of Dr. Alfred Maumenee Jr.
(SFC, 1/21/98, p.A20)
1968 Dr. Robert Good (d.2003 at 81) performed the 1st successful human bone marrow transplant.
(SFC, 6/19/03, p.A1)
1968 Scientists crossed the Pacific oyster with the Kumamoto oyster and produced the Gigomoto oyster. They had hoped for a cross that would have the best traits of both oysters but instead produced a cross with the worst traits of both oysters.
(WSJ, 4/4/96, A-12)
1968 Teacher Jane Elliot separated her class into blue-eyed and brown-eyed students and treated one group better that the other in a demonstration of discrimination.
(SFC, 8/30/96, p.D6)
1968 Barbara Liskov received a doctorate from Stanford Univ. in computer science, the first such degree ever awarded to a woman in the US. In 2009 she won the $250,000 Turing computing award from the Association for Computing Machinery for her work in organizing complex programs and efforts to make software more resistant to errors and hacking.
(SFC, 3/13/09, p.C3)
1968 In a move toward decentralization it was planned to give community districts more control over the NYC school system. The process was derailed when many white teachers were fired in Brooklyn on account of race in districts that came under control of black nationalists. In 2007 Richard D. Kahlenberg authored “Tough Liberal," a biography of Albert Shanker (1928-1997), head of the NYC teacher’s union. Shanker led the series of teacher strikes that fought total community control.
(WSJ, 12/31/97, p.A10)(WSJ, 8/28/07, p.D6)
1968 The U of M Institute for Social Research (ISR) began its Panel Study of Income Dynamics, an annual study of the wealth, health and behavior of American families.
(MT, Fall. ‘97, p.4)
1968 Milton Wexler (1909-2007), Hollywood psychoanalyst, launched the Hereditary Disease Foundation, after his wife, Leonore Wexler, got diagnosed with Huntington’s disease. Scientists in 1983 found a genetic marker for Huntington’s disease and in 1993 located the gene itself.
(SFC, 3/23/07, p.B9)
1968 Roy Jacuzzi invented the first whirlpool bath.
(SFC, 6/12/99, p.D1)(http://inventors.about.com/library/inventors/bljacuzzi.htm)
1968 A new medium priced home in the US was priced at $24,700.
(WSJ, 6/14/96, p.B10)
1968 Floating fish-processing factories took in a combined catch of 810,000 tons of cod off the eastern banks of North America. During the next decade there was a steady drop cod population.
(NH, 5/96, p.61)
1968 Fossil bones of a plesiosaur were unearthed at a Kansas ranch. The 15-foot dinosaur lived about 78 million years ago and was believed to have given birth to live young under water.
(SFC, 8/12/11, p.A6)(www.oceansofkansas.com/plesiosaur.html)
1968 The Rogue River in southern Oregon was named as one the country's first national wild and Scenic rivers.
(SFEC, 3/19/00, p.T4)
1968 Dr. Kurt Freund (1914-1996), psychiatrist, left Czechoslovakia after the failure of the revolt and moved to Canada. He had developed a way to measure penile response to erotic stimulation with a phallometric device.
(SFEC, 10/27/96, p.B8)
1968 The Hong Kong flu pandemic broke out and killed some 34,000 Americans. Over the next two years the pandemic killed an estimated one million people all over the world. It was caused by an H3N2 strain of the influenza A virus, descended from H2N2 through antigenic shift. Each year an average of 20,000 Americans die of the flu.
(WSJ, 1/14/98, p.A18)(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hong_Kong_flu)
1968 Open air testing of chemical weapons at the US Army Dugway Proving Grounds in the Utah desert caused the deaths of some 3,600 [6,400] sheep in an adjacent valley.
(SFEC, 4/27/97, p.A18)(WSJ, 6/1/98, p.A1)
1968 The IOC introduced drug testing for Olympic athletes.
(Econ, 7/30/16, p.68)
1968 In Austria a girl (16) at the state-run home in Tyrol province was reportedly raped by two soldiers and three others defecated on her. She and four other girls were picked out for the soldiers by a female orderly. In 2012 a military commission was been set up to investigate the allegations.
(AP, 8/20/12)
1968 The Bahamas elected a socialist leaning president. This led to the end of the Bahamas as a major off-shore tax haven and the rise of the Cayman Islands as a tax haven.
(SSFC, 7/10/05, p.E3)
1968 In Belgium Flemish students called for French speaking Walloons to leave the Univ. at Leuven. This led to a division of the library’s 1.6 million books with half going to the new campus of Louvain-la-Neuve in French speaking Wallonia. The partition divided the Catholic church and brought down the government.
(Econ, 1/29/11, p.51)
1968 In Bhutan Michael Aris (1946-1999), a graduate from Durham Univ., was invited about this time to become the private tutor of the children of the royal family of Bhutan. Aris spent 6 years in Bhutan. In 1972 he married Aung San Suu Kyi of Burma.
(SFC, 3/30/99, p.F4)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Aris)
1968 Bolivia’s Gen. Juan Jose Torres selected economist Hugo Torresgoitia as vice president.
(SFC, 7/14/03, p.A2)
1968 In Britain the literary Booker Prize was founded by Sir Michael Caine (d.1999 at 71), an executive for Booker PLC, which specialized in food distribution and agribusiness. The prize was modeled after the French Prix Goncourt.
(SFC, 3/25/99, p.C3)
1968 Cash-strapped Britain said it was pulling military forces from the Persian Gulf and South-East Asia.
(Econ, 10/23/10, p.70)
1968 The London Sunday Times sponsored the 1st Golden Globe round-the-world sailboat race. Robin Knox-Johnston was the only entrant to complete the race, becoming the first person to sail single-handed and non-stop around the world. The race gave birth to the French Vendee Globe race. In 1999 Derek Lundy authored "Godforsaken Sea," an account of the 1996 Vendee Globe. In 2001 Peter Nichols authored "A Voyage for Madmen," an account of the race and its 9 skippers.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sunday_Times_Golden_Globe_Race)(SFEC, 8/15/99, BR p.5)(WSJ, 6/22/01, p.W12)
1968 British Leyland was put together by Harold Wilson’s industrial planners. It was nationalized in 1975, and sold to British Aerospace in 1988. BMW picked up Rover in 1994.
(Econ, 4/16/05, p.15)
1968 Asia’s first int’l. film festival was held in Phnom Penh, Cambodia.
(Econ, 4/6/13, p.97)
1968 Pierre Trudeau, PM of Canada, published an admiring book about Mao Tse-Tung’s China.
(WSJ, 10/3/00, p.A26)
1968 Canada renamed its air and sea forces as the Maritime and Ari Commands. In 2011 the naming reverted to the Royal Canadian Navy and Royal Canadian Air Force. The Land Force again became the Canadian Army.
(Econ, 8/20/11, p.38)
1968 China established a research center to prepare for manned space flight, with 1973 target date for launch. Program later canceled because of lack of money and political support.
(AP, 10/15/03)
1968 The documentary film “Czechoslovakia 1968" was a 20-minute production by the US Information Agency.
(SFC,11/21/97, p.C17)
1968 Ladislav Bittman (1931-2018), a Cold War spy for Czechoslovakia, defected to West Germany and sought asylum in the US, where he changed his name to Lawrence Michael Martin. He later added Bittman to his surname.
(SSFC, 9/23/18, p.C9)
1968 In Denmark the original Legoland was built in Billund.
(SFEC, 2/7/99, p.T3)
1968 A Danish geologist published a paper on the Greenland Ice Cap that included melting threats to it. The study used core samples that drilled down to bedrock.
(WSJ, 6/8/06, p.D8)
1968 Zinsou became premier (1968-1969) of Dahomey (later Benin).
(http://tinyurl.com/9ryq5)
1968 Charles de Gaulle switched sides to align France with the Arabs. This laid the foundation for Israel’s high-tech industry.
(Econ 5/20/17, SR p.4)
1968 Kourou, French Guiana, launched its 1st commercial satellite. A space center opened there in 1970.
(AP, 8/27/02)
1968 In Germany the Gallery of the Twentieth Century by architect Mies van der Rohe (1886-1969) was dedicated in Berlin.
(TL, 1988, p.117)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ludwig_Mies_van_der_Rohe)
1968 Jean Dominique (d.2000) purchased the lease on Radio Haiti Inter and initiated broadcasts in Creole. Dominique was forced in to exile in 1980, but returned in 1986.
(SFC, 4/30/04, p.E6)
1968 In India the Triennale-India art show began in New Delhi with shows held every 3 years.
(SFC,12/27/97, p.C16)
1968 In India Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) was founded to manage payroll and inventory for Tata's burgeoning portfolio of businesses. Public shares were offered in 2004 as sales hit %1.5 billion and employees numbered 28,000.
(Econ, 7/24/04, p.61)(Econ., 10/3/20, p.53)
1968 India passed legislation allowing the state to seize properties owned by its “enemies."
(Econ, 3/18/17, p.38)
1968 Galgal Refaim, or the "wheel of ghosts" was first noticed by scholars, a year after Israel captured the Golan Heights from Syria. It consists of four circles, the outermost more than 500 feet across, made up of an estimated 42,000 tons of basalt stone, the remains of massive walls that experts believe once rose as much as high as 30 feet. The enormous feat of construction was carried out some 6000 years ago by a society about which little is known. A tomb existed in the center of the site, but scholars tend to agree it was added a millennia or two after the circles were erected in the Chalcolithic period, between 4500 and 3500 BC. In 2011 a scholar suggested that Galgal Refaim was an excarnation facility.
(AP, 11/3/11)
1968 In Italy Michelangelo Pistoletto, artist, rolled around Turin his giant ball of pulped newspaper. The exploit was captured on film.
(SFC, 2/10/98, p.E4)
1968 The Sant’Egidio community was started in Rome by a high school student with ideals of prayer, mission and solidarity wit the poor. By 2008 it had 60,000 members in 70 countries and had become active in faith-based peacemaking.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Community_of_Sant'Egidio)(Econ, 7/5/08, p.72)
1968 In Japan Iwao Hakamada, accused of killing a family and setting fire to its house after a robbery in 1966, was sentenced to death. After 19 days of 12-hour interrogations he confessed. At his trial he said the confession was coerced. In 2008 Japan’s Supreme Court turned down a retrial plea.
(Econ, 3/29/08, p.56)(AP, 3/27/14)
c1968 The Aral Sea between Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan began shrinking after Soviet engineers diverted water from its 2 feeder streams, the Amu Darya and the Syr Darya. The water was diverted to a massive dam and irrigation system for cotton production.
(SFC, 11/30/98, p.A11)(SFEC, 1/31/99, p.A20)
1968 In Mexico there was a rain of hundreds of thousands of maggots on Acapulco.
(SFC, 5/30/98, p.E4)
1968 In the Netherlands the Rembrandt Research Project was formed and funded by the government to act as the gatekeepers of Rembrandt’s work.
(WSJ, 8/7/98, p.W12)
1968 Baba Hassan Din, English convert to Sufism, died in Lahore, Pakistan. In the 1950’s he had adopted a boy named Hafiz Iqbal, and raised him to be a scholar. Both were later recognized as Sufi saints.
(Econ, 12/20/08, p.73)
1968 In Papua New Guinea Michael Somare (b.1936) was first elected to parliament. He later served 3 terms as prime minister.
(Econ, 8/6/11, p.35)
1968 In Poland some 13,000 Jews were forced to leave the country following mass anti-communist protests in March. Students defending a banned anti-totalitarian play initiated the protests, which the ruling communist factions used in their infighting that climaxed in the purge of Jews.
(AP, 3/6/18)
1968 In Poland Gen. Jaruzelski was appointed defense minister, benefiting from a purge of Jewish comrades.
(Econ, 6/14/14, p.86)
1968 Abel Muzorewa was consecrated bishop of Rhodesia for the United Methodist.
(AFP, 4/9/10)
1968 The Russian film "The Shield and the Sword," covered the exchange of Soviet undercover agent Rudolf Abel convicted in the US for downed American spy plane pilot Francis Gary Powers. Russian President Vladimir Putin later said the film inspired him to join the KGB.
(AP, 6/21/17)
1968 In Kosovo, Serbia, ethnic Albanians staged their first pro-independence demonstrations.
(USAT, 3/24/99, p.4A)
1968 The Diuktai Cave, a rich Palaeolithic site dating back to 35-10,000 BC, was discovered on the Aldan, a tributary of the Lena in Siberia by Dr. Yuri Mochanov.
(NG, Oct. 1988, p.464)
1968 In South Korea Park Tae-joon (1927-2011) founded POSCO to manufacture steel. By 2008 it was the world’s 4th largest steelmaker. It was started by the state using $120 million in war reparations from Japan. It was privatized after South Korea’s 1997 financial crises.
(Econ, 8/30/08, p.62)(Econ, 9/27/08, SR p.9)(AP, 12/13/11)
1968 In Spain the ETA, Basque Homeland and Freedom, a Basque separatist group, began fighting for independence. Its political wing was Herri Batasuna.
(SFEC, 7/13/97, p.A11)(SFC, 7/21/97, p.A10)
1968 In Sweden the first gathering of folk-musicians at Bingsjö was held.
(NH, 4/97, p.31)
1968 Julius K. Nyerere (1922-1999), the first president of Tanzania (1964-1985), authored Ujamaa: Essays on Socialism." He coined the economic policy called ujamaa, a Swahili word for togetherness or family and fused the country’s 120 tribes into a cohesive state.
(www.nathanielturner.com/ujamaanyerere.htm)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julius_Nyerere)(WSJ, 12/10/96, p.A6)
1968 In Tanzania Campbell Bridges (1937-2009), Scottish-born geologist, became the first to record the discovery of the gemstone-quality tsavorite a green gem that shines even before polishing. The gem was later mined in Kenya and Tanzania.
(AP, 8/13/09)
1968 The International Comparison Program (ICP) was established to compare the economic outputs of countries. The ICP was established as a joint venture of the UN Statistical Division (UNSD) and the International Comparisons Unit of the University of Pennsylvania with financial contributions from the Ford Foundation and the World Bank.
(Econ, 5/3/14, p.65)(http://tinyurl.com/ku3m76a)
1968 World leaders proclaimed that individuals have a basic human right to determine freely and responsibly the number and timing of their children. This led to the annual UN celebration of World Population Day.
(www.unfpa.org/wpd/)
1968 In Venezuela researchers, Napoleon Chagnon and James V. Neel, reportedly inoculated thousands of Yanomami Indians with a measles vaccine. Chagnon published "Yanomamö: The Fierce People," a summation of his 30 years in the Amazon forest. In 2000 the controversial book "Darkness in El Dorado" Patrick Tierney blamed the researchers for a major epidemic that killed hundreds of Indians. At least 30 Indians died from a measles epidemic that hit Yanomani villages at least one year before researchers administered the Edmonston B vaccine [see 1967].
(SFC, 11/10/00, p.A4)(SFC, 11/16/00, p.A19)(NH, Jul, p.28)(WSJ, 2/23/08, p.W8)
1968 The US military "Project Urgency" returned some North Vietnamese prisoners with hidden incriminating evidence, so they would appear as US agents.
(SFC, 11/5/99, p.D4)
1968 In Yugoslavia Tito purged Serbian novelist Dobrica Cosic (b.1921) for nationalism. Cosic developed a complex and paradoxical theory of Serbian national persecution that later evolved into the Greater Serbian program of Slobodan Milosevic. Cosic later became the first president of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (1992 to 1993).
(WSJ, 5/7/99, p.A18)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dobrica_%C4%86osi%C4%87)
1968-1969 The US Pentagon admitted in 1999 that it had helped South Korea obtain Agent Orange to defoliate areas along the demilitarized zone. Soldiers applied it by hand. In 2000 1,890 South Korean soldiers and farmers had registered as victims. They sought $4.3 billion from Dow Chemical and Monsanto and $1 billion for the US government.
(SFC, 11/17/99, p.A18)
1968-1969 Pres. Francisco Macias Nguema murdered a 6th of the population of Eq. Guinea.
(WSJ, 8/31/05, p.D10)
1968-1970 Chuck Mawhinney, one of the United States Marine Corps’ most accomplished snipers, served a 13-month tour in Vietnam and two six-month extensions. During that time he was credited with 103 confirmed kills and 216 probables.
(HNQ, 12/16/02)
1968-1971 Farleigh S. Dickinson (1920-1996) served in the New Jersey state senate. He sponsored the law that created the Hackensack Meadowlands Development Commission, a 21,000 acres site that covered 14 municipalities.
(SFC, 10/17/96, C2)
1968-1972 Edward Dorn (d.1999 at 70), poet and educator, composed his 5-volume poem "Gunslinger."
(SFC, 12/15/99, p.B2)
1968-1973 In 1998 Allen J. Matusow published "Nixon’s Economy," a look at Nixon’s economic record over this period.
(WSJ, 7/22/98, p.A12)
1968-1973 A severe famine hit the Sahel region of North Africa. Mauritania, Mali, Upper Volta (Burkina Faso) and Niger were most affected.
(Econ, 8/20/05, p.57)
1968-1974 The UK forcibly removed thousands of Chagossians from their homelands and sent them more than 1,600 km (1,000 miles) away to Mauritius and the Seychelles, where they faced extreme poverty and discrimination.
(BBC, 10/19/20)
1968-1975 The pro-Soviet Velasco Alvarado regime ruled Peru. The military government expropriated the sugar estates on the country’s north coast turning them into government-owned cooperatives.
(WSJ, 12/27/96, p.A7)(Econ, 2/10/07, p.38)
1968-1979 Pierre E. Trudeau, Liberal Party, served as the 15th Prime Minister of Canada.
(CFA, '96, p.81)
1968-1979 Robert W. Fleming was president of the Univ. of Michigan. He succeeded Harlan Hatcher in Jan. His autobiography was published in 1996: "Tempests Into Rainbows."
(MT, 3/96, p.16)
1968-1985 In Italy serial killings during this period left 16 people dead in the Tuscan countryside. In 1994 Pietro Pacciani (69) was convicted of 14 murders and sentenced to life in prison following trial that was televised. He was cleared in 1996 and ordered to face a retrial, but died in 1998. Pacciani's friend, Mario Vanni (70) and Giancarlo Lotti (54) were convicted of their involvement in five of the double murders. Vanni was given a life sentence and Lotti received a sentence of 26 years in prison. In 2001 Florentine authorities reopened the case amid speculation they were investigating up to a dozen wealthy Italians who orchestrated the ritualistic killings by manipulating a trio of voyeuristic peasants. In 2006 Mario Spezi, a journalist who has worked with the American thriller author Douglas Preston on a book about the killings, was arrested and accused of slander and sidetracking the investigation.
(AP, 4/9/06)
1968-1998 American Engineer Jon Postel (1943-1998) coordinated the Internet’s protocols and addressing system over this period.
(Econ, 11/19/05, p.68)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jon_Postel)
