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Newport Jazz Festival
The Daily News reported that opening shows of the seventh annual Newport Jazz Festival at the Cliff Walk Manor nearly had to be postponed because of sparse attendance. The lack of an audience reportedly sent jazz legend Charles Mingus into a frenzy, as he walked off stage and then attempted to throw acid into the face of festival chairman Louis L. Lorillard. -
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Nixon-Kennedy Debates
The 1960 United States presidential debates were a series of debates held during the 1960 presidential election among Democratic nominee John F. Kennedy and Republican nominee Richard Nixon. The four presidential debates were the first series of debates conducted for any presidential election. -
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The Assassination of John F. Kennedy
On Friday, November 22, 1963, John F. Kennedy, the 35th president of the United States, was assassinated at 12:30 p.m. CST in Dallas, Texas, while riding in a presidential motorcade through Dealey Plaza. Kennedy was in the vehicle with his wife, Jacqueline, Texas Governor John Connally, and Connally's wife, Nellie, when he was fatally shot from the nearby Texas School Book Depository by Lee Harvey Oswald, a former US Marine. -
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The Beatles Appear for the first time on the Ed Sullivan Show
The Beatles made several appearances on The Ed Sullivan Show, including three in February 1964 that were among their first appearances in front of an American audience. Their first appearance, on February 9, was seen by a then record 73 million viewers and came to be regarded as a cultural watershed that launched American Beatlemania as well as the wider British Invasion of American pop music and inspired many young viewers to become rock musicians. -
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The Gulf of Tonkin Resolution
In early August 1964, two U.S. destroyers stationed in the Gulf of Tonkin in Vietnam radioed that they had been fired upon by North Vietnamese forces. In response to these reported incidents, President Lyndon B. Johnson requested permission from the U.S. Congress to increase the U.S. military presence in Indochina. -
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Operation Rolling Thunder
Operation Rolling Thunder was the codename for an American bombing campaign during the Vietnam War. U.S. military aircraft attacked targets throughout North Vietnam from March 1965 to October 1968. This massive bombardment was intended to put military pressure on North Vietnam’s communist leaders and reduce their capacity to wage war against the U.S.-supported government of South Vietnam. -
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March on the Pentagon
Anti-Vietnam war protesters rallied to Washington on Saturday, October 21,1967, in the first national demonstration against the war. The Mobilization Committee to End the War in Vietnam organized the protest to get national visibility for the anti-war movement. Nearby, military policemen stood at ten-foot intervals around the Pentagon. Within the circle of MP's, 300 U.S. Deputy Marshals spent the day waiting. -
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Mai Lai Massacre
The My Lai massacre was one of the most horrific incidents of violence committed during the Vietnam War. A company of American soldiers brutally killed most of the people—women, children and old men—in the village of My Lai on March 16, 1968. -
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Riots at the Chicago Democratic Convention
During the evening of August 28, 1968, with the police riot in full swing on Michigan Avenue in front of the Democratic party's convention headquarters, the Conrad Hilton hotel, television networks broadcast live as the anti-war protesters began the now-iconic chant "The whole world is watching". -
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Woodstock
The Woodstock Music Festival began on August 15, 1969, as half a million people waited on a dairy farm in Bethel, New York, for the three-day music festival to start. Billed as “An Aquarian Experience: 3 Days of Peace and Music,” the epic event would later be known simply as Woodstock and become synonymous with the counterculture movement of the 1960s. -
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Chicago 8 Trial
The trial for eight antiwar activists charged with inciting violent demonstrations at the August 1968 Democratic National Convention opens in Chicago before Judge Julius Hoffman. Initially there were eight defendants, but one, Bobby Seale of the Black Panthers, denounced Hoffman as a racist and demanded a separate trial. -
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Kent State Protest
Four Kent State University students were killed and nine were injured on May 4, 1970, when members of the Ohio National Guard opened fire on a crowd gathered to protest the Vietnam War. The tragedy was a watershed moment for a nation divided by the conflict in Southeast Asia. -
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Roe vs. Wade
In 1973, the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling in Roe v. Wade recognized that the decision whether to continue or end a pregnancy belongs to the individual, not the government. Roe held that the specific guarantee of “liberty” in the Fourteenth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, which protects individual privacy, includes the right to abortion prior to fetal viability. -
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The Beatles Break Up
On 10 April 1970, McCartney said in a press release that he was no longer working with the group, which sparked a widespread media reaction and worsened the tensions between him and his bandmates. Legal disputes continued long after his announcement, and the dissolution was not formalised until 29 December 1974.