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The Surreal Sixties
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| Listen to some music from the Sixties! | ||
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Good Vibrations Age of Aquarius |
Hold Me, Thrill Me, Kiss Me Louie, Louie |
Groovin' Cherish |
1960A U.S. military transport plane collided with a Brazilan airliner near Rio De Janeiro, killing 62 persons, including 19 members of the U.S. Navy Band.16 members of the Cal State Polytechnic College football team died in an Arctic Pacific plane crash. The first automated post office was dedicated in Providence, Rhode Island. Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev canceled President Eisenhower's visit to the U.S.S.R. after the Soviets shot down a U.S. U2 spy plane. The pilot was exchanged two years later for a Soviet spy jailed in America.
After a series of
200 were arrested in anti-integration riots in New Orleans.
The 7,222nd episode of The Romance Of Helen Trent marked the end of the radio soap's 28-season run.
Broadway was closed down for nearly two weeks due to an actors' strike.
16-year-old Bobby Fischer won the U.S. Chess Championship.
In his inaugural speech, John F. Kennedy called on Americans to
President Kennedy established the Peace Corps.
America took a diplomatic bruise from the CIA's involvement in the Bay Of Pigs Invasion, an unsuccessful attempt to overthrow Communist Cuba's dictator, Fidel Castro.
Another bruise came during the space race, as Soviet Yuri Gagarin became the first man to slip from the bonds of Earth. Later in the year, the U.S. launched Alan Shepard, Jr. and Gus Grissom into space in separate missions.
President Kennedy ordered U.S. marshalls into Alabama due to violent clashes between a bi-racial anti-integration organization and integration advocates.
Wildfires destroyed nearly 500 plush homes in the Brentwood and Bel Air suburbs of Los Angeles.
As the Soviets broke an international moratorium against nuclear bomb testing, President Kennedy urged Americans to build fallout shelters.
Nobel Prize-winning author Ernest Hemingway shot and killed himself.
The Threepenny Opera closed its 7-year run on Broadway after 2,600 performances.
Wagon Train usurped Gunsmoke as America's favorite TV western.
Allen Funt's
Hit songs included Big Bad John by Jimmy Dean, Hit The Road, Jack by Ray Charles, and Running Scared by Roy Orbison.
John Glenn became the first American to
The World's Fair
Marilyn Monroe died of an apparent overdose of sleeping pills in her Los Angeles mansion.
Incumbent Edmund Brown defeated Richard Nixon in his bid for governor of California.
The Beverly Hillbillies debuted on CBS-TV and shot straight to number one in the ratings.
Chubby Checker introduced America to its biggest
The Hearst Corporation closed New York's Daily Mirror after unions got their pay raises following a 114-day strike.
A quarter-million people joined the civil rights March On Washington, at which Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. delivered his legendary "I Have A Dream" speech.
20 weeks after civic leaders and civil rights groups negotated an integration plan in Birmingham, Alabama, a bomb killed four children at a black church.
The U.S. Post Office implemented the Zip Code, which replaced zone designations in large cities and added 5 digits to all American addresses. Ethel Merman sang the
President John F. Kennedy was assassinated during a motorcade procession in Dallas on November 22nd. Vice President
Little Stevie Wonder made his chart debut with Fingertips Part II, a harmonica instrumental. Other hits included It's My Party (And I'll Cry If I Want To) by Leslie Gore, He's So Fine by the Chiffons, and the hootenanny hit, Walk Right In by the Rooftop Singers.
The release by small U.S. record label Vee Jay of the Beatles' singles Please Please Me and From Me To You went unnoticed. The day after Christmas, Capitol Records released I Want To Hold Your Hand to radio stations.
An earthquake near Anchorage with an estimated Richter scale magnitude of 8.6 killed 131 Alaskans.
The "long, hot summer" of civil unrest resulted in major riots in Harlem, Philadelphia, Chicago and Jacksonville.
President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
Martin Luther King, Jr. received the Nobel Peace Prize.
Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev was removed from the Communist Party and replaced by Leonid Brezhnev. Aleksei Kosygin was appointed premier.
The Futurama exhibit by General Motors was the most popular attraction at the World's Fair in New York. Lower-than-expected attendance caused many of the attractions to close before the end of the fair.
An unmanned U.S. spacecraft captured the first detailed pictures of the crater-ridden lunar surface.
Campaigning with his Great Society theme, President Johnson was elected to his first full term, in a landslide vote over Republican Barry Goldwater.
The Warren Commission determined that Lee Harvey Oswald was the lone Kennedy assassin, and there was no conspiracy in the Dallas shooting.
40 people died in heavy flooding, blizzards and ice storms during December in the Pacific Northwest.
Dick Van Dyke and Mary Tyler Moore received Emmys for best actor and actress, and their Dick Van Dyke Show was named best comedy series.
Hello, Dolly! was Broadway's biggest hit.
Four radicals were arrested after a thwarted attempt to blow up the Statue of Liberty.
Black Nationalist founder Malcolm X, who had been moving towards a stance of cooperation with whites, was assassinated by rival Black Muslims. Muslim headquarters in San Francisco and New York were torched two days later.
The Boston Celtics won their seventh straight NBA championship.
The world's first communications satellite, the ComSat Early Bird, was successfully launched, substantially improving the video and sound quality of network TV.
16-year-old Peggy Fleming charmed the world with her women's singles victory at the Winter Olympics in Lake Placid, New York.
Race riots in the Watts section of Los Angeles left 35 dead and caused $190,000,000 in damages.
Martin Luther King, Jr. led a five-day civil rights march from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama.
Over 5,000 were injured and 280 were killed when no less than 35 tornadoes ripped through six midwestern states.
President Johnson authorized the first bombing raids in the Viet Nam War, and began increasing troop levels dramatically.
Due to increasing anti-Viet Nam War protests, the federal government made it a crime to burn draft cards.
The northeastern states and eastern Canada were darkened by a 16-hour blackout, which was later blamed on a squirrel short-circuiting a power transformer in upstate New York.
Construction was completed on St. Louis' Gateway Arch.
Popular toys included the Tick Toy Clock, Mr. Machine, G.I. Joe and the
Nat "King" Cole died of lung cancer at age 45.
English pop and Detroit's Motown sound dominated the charts.
10,000 protested the Viet Nam War outside the White House. Over 60,000 signed a protest sign at the Washington Monument pledging to vote for anti-war candidates.
Pacifist Martin Luther King, Jr. debated militant Stokely Carmichael after the shooting of black voter registration advocate James Meredith.
The Supreme Court's Miranda decision declared that arresting officers must inform suspects of their rights.
Richard Speck was indicted for murdering eight student nurses in Chicago. He was convicted a year later.
43 perished when the American carrier Oriskany burned in the Gulf of Tonkin.
A crazed sniper killed 13 and wounded 31 at the University of Texas in Austin. After police shot and killed Charles Whitman in the university's bell tower, they discovered he had earlier killed his wife and mother.
Shortly after completing the first docking of two spacecraft, Gemini 8 astronauts Neil Armstrong and Dave Scott were thrown into a spin and forced to make an emergency landing. Technical problems plagued subsequent Gemini flights throughout the year.
The Beatlesque TV series The Monkees took the Emmy for best comedy.
The Baltimore Orioles took the World Series from the L.A. Dodgers. For the first time since 1912, the New York Yankees finished last in the American League.
Hit songs included Sunshine Superman by Donovan, Sounds Of Silence by Simon & Garfunkel, We Can Work It Out and Day Tripper by the Beatles and Good Vibrations by the Beach Boys.
North Viet Nam's Ho Chi Minh refused to engage in peace talks, resulting in an escalation of the war effort, followed by increasing protests against the war.
350,000 anti-war demonstrators marched on the U.N. building in New York.
The Pentagon's antiballistic missile symbol was transformed by anti-war demonstrators into the "peace symbol." The V-For-Victory hand sign became the "peace sign."
Nearly 700 people were arrested when 50,000 peace demonstrators
A pro-war parade in New York to show support for the troops in Viet Nam drew 70,000.
America's young people at home, united against the war, were forming a counterculture based on peace, drug use and psychedelic music. Sgt. Pepper by the Beatles signaled the start of the "psychedelic era."
While Tuskegee, Alabama swore in the south's first black sheriff, racist Lester "Axe Handle" Maddox was sworn in as governor of Georgia. Thurgood Marshall became the first black Supreme Court justice. Carl Stokes became the first black mayor of Cleveland.
26 died in Newark, New Jersey and 43 were killed in Detroit during race riots.
85 people died when a Boeing 727 collided with a private plane over Hendersonville, North Carolina.
A Union Oil Of California tanker broke apart in the English Channel polluting beaches from from southwestern England to Normandy, France.
56 people died and over 1,000 were injured when a string of tornadoes ripped through Illinois.
Super Bowl I was covered by both NBC and CBS.
NBC-TV broadcast a summer comedy special called Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In, which had such high ratings, a series was created to premiere in September.
The highest-rated night on TV came when Americans tuned in to see a commercial which had been hyped in newspaper and magazine ads: the introduction of the
The first world-wide live TV broadcast, using communications satellites, was carried by America's National Educational Television, the forerunner of PBS. The Beatles closed the broadcast by premiering their new single, All You Need Is Love.
There were a lot of exclamation points on Broadway marquees, including Hello, Dolly!, a Yiddish spoof called Hello, Solly!, Hallelujah, Baby! and Sherry!
Hit songs included Respect by Aretha Franklin, The Happening by the Supremes, Incense & Peppermints by the Strawberry Alarm Clock and The Letter by the Box Tops.
At Columbia University, students claiming to be "the New Left" occupied several campus buildings until forcibly removed by the National Guard.
At San Francisco State College, students staged a sit-down strike, calling for changes in the Black Studies program. After four months, college president S.I. Hayakawa had the protesters removed by police in a bloody confrontation.
In major cities, FM "underground" stations, shunning the commercial hits in favor of psychedelic and folk-rock album tracks, grew so much in popularity they became the commercial successes they claimed they were countering.
Drug-soaked riffs from
Dr. Benjamin Spock was indicted for conspiracy to aid and abet draft evasion. He and "beat poet" Allan Ginsberg had been arrested in an attempt to shut down the draft induction center in New York City.
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated at a motel in Memphis, shortly after giving a speech in which he hinted that his days were numbered. Two days earlier, one person died when violence broke out at a march in Memphis led by Dr. King in support of a garbage collectors' strike.
North Korea seized the U.S.S. Pueblo, claiming the ship had violated their territorial waters. The crew - who were physically and mentally abused by their captors - were freed after eleven months of touch-and-go negotiations.
President Johnson announced he would not seek re-election.
Chicago Police and the National Guard attempted to control anti-war protesters with violence at the Democratic National Convention. Bystanders, politicians and news reporters were beaten on live television in the ensuing mayhem.
Senator Robert F. Kennedy, brother of the slain president, was
John F. Kennedy's widow, Jaqueline, married Greek shipping magnate Aristotle Onassis.
Republican Richard M. Nixon narrowly defeated Democrat Hubert H. Humphrey for the presidency. Independent George Wallace received over 9,000,000 popular votes.
As psychedelic album rock proliferated on the FM band, AM hit radio had a resurgence of pop songs like This Guy's In Love With You by Herb Alpert, Honey by Bobby Goldsboro and Love Is Blue by Paul Mauriat. Rock songs ruling the charts included Hello, I Love You by the Doors, People Got To Be Free by the Rascals and I Heard It Through The Grapevine by Marvin Gaye.
As President Nixon took office, the American death toll in the Viet Nam war reached 34,000.
CBS canceled one of its most popular shows, The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour, because a copy of the show hadn't reached the censors in time. The network was under pressure to dump the politically potent variety show, which Vice President Spiro Agnew had claimed was "subversive."
Senator Ted Kennedy was charged with leaving the scene of an accident after he drove a car off a bridge in Chappaquidick, Massachusetts. A campaign aide, Mary Jo Kopechne, drowned. Kennedy
Millions of Americans participated in a Viet Nam Moratorium Day, with candelight vigils and prayers for peace. President Nixon ignored the event, but Vice President Spiro Agnew called the participants "an effete corps of impudent snobs."
Veterans' Day ceremonies around the country consisted of pro-America demonstrations. Vice President Agnew called U.S. patriots "the silent majority." Three days later, 250,000 people marched on Washington to protest the war. Simultaneously, 100,000 demonstrated in San Francisco.
340 Harvard students took over the university's administration building. 400 state troopers and police officers cleared them out with tear gas and beatings from nightsticks. At Cornell University, a 36-hour sit-in was held in the student union building by black militants brandishing automatic weapons. At Berkeley, a National Guard helicopter dropped caustic chemicals on a protesters' area called People's Park. 19 University of California faculty members were among those burned by the substance.
Max Yasgur's farm near Bethel, New York became the second-largest city in New York, when nearly 400,000 converged on the area for the
Charles Manson and several members of his cult were charged with the brutal murders of actress Sharon Tate and four others in Los Angeles. Tate was married to film director Roman Polanski.
Senate Foreign Relations Committee chairman William Fullbright disclosed that the Pentagon and the Nixon administration had been waging an illegal war in Laos, without the required knowledge of the Congress. Meanwhile, Lt. William Calley, Jr. was under investigation on charges that his infantry unit had massacred 450 women, children and other villagers at My Lai, South Viet Nam.
Leonard Bernstein stepped down as director of the New York Philharmonic Orchestra.
Judy Garland died of a drug overdose at age 47.
The counterculture-gone-commercial was evident in many of the year's hit songs, including Everyday People, Age Of Aquarius/Let The Sun Shine In, Come Together, Crimson & Clover and In The Year 2525.
Charmin Bathroom Tissue went from obscurity to America's best-seller, due to an ad campaign featuring grocer |
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