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SNCC formed
The Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC, often pronounced /snɪk/ SNIK) was one of the major Civil Rights Movement organizations of the 1960s. It emerged from the first wave of student sit-ins and formed at an April 1960 meeting organized by Ella Baker at Shaw University. -
First televised presidential debate
70 million American viewers watched the first of four televised presidential debates between candidates Richard Nixon and John F. Kennedy. -
First Airing of "The Flintstones"
in a prime time schedule, the first such instance for an animated series. The continuing popularity of The Flintstones rested heavily on its juxtaposition of modern everyday concerns in the Stone Age setting. -
President Kennedy is Elected
John F. Kennedy becomes the youngest man ever to be elected president of the United States, narrowly beating Republican Vice President Richard Nixon. He was also the first Catholic to become president.The campaign was hard fought and bitter. -
Russians Send the First Man into space
aboard the spacecraft Vostok 1, Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Alekseyevich Gagarin becomes the first human being to travel into space. -
Berlin Wall is Constructed
West Berlin was a geographical loophole through which thousands of East Germans fled to the democratic West. In response, the Communist East German authorities built a wall that totally encircled West Berlin. It was thrown up overnight, on 13 August 1961. -
Roger Maris of the Yankees Breaks Babe Ruth's single season home run
New York Yankee Roger Maris becomes the first-ever major-league baseball player to hit more than 60 home runs in a single season. The great Babe Ruth set the record in 1927; Maris and his teammate Mickey Mantle spent 1961 trying to break it. After hitting 54 homers, Mantle injured his hip in September, leaving Maris to chase the record by himself. Finally, in the last game of the regular season, Maris hit his 61st home run against the Boston Red Sox. (The league-champion Yanks won the game 1-0) -
SDS releases its port Huron statement
a 1962 political manifesto of the North American student activist movement Students for a Democratic Society (SDS). It was written primarily by Tom Hayden, a University of Michigan student and then the Field Secretary of SDS, with help from 58 other SDS members -
Marilyn Monroe Dies
famous actress dies from an overdose -
James Meredith registers at Ole Miss
The Ole Miss riot of 1962, or Battle of Oxford, was fought between Southern segregationists and federal and state forces beginning the night of September 30, 1962; segregationists were protesting the enrollment of James Meredith, a black US military veteran, at the University of Mississippi -
"Dr. No" the first James Bond movie premiers
British spy film, starring Sean Connery, with Ursula Andress and Joseph Wiseman, filmed in Jamaica and England. -
Cuban Missile Crisis
The Cuban Missile Crisis, also known as the October Crisis of 1962, the Caribbean Crisis, or the Missile Scare, was a 13-day confrontation between the United States and the Soviet Union -
Dr. Kings "I Have a dream" speech
a public speech delivered by American civil rights activist Martin Luther King Jr. during the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom on August 28, 1963 -
John F Kennedy is assassinated
killed by Lee Harvey Oswald -
Gulf of Tonkin
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. -
The Beatles Arrive in the United States
An estimated four thousand Beatles' fans were present on 7 February 1964 as Pan Am Flight 101 left Heathrow Airport. Among the passengers were the Beatles, on their first trip to the United States as a band, with their entourage of photographers and journalists, and Phil Spector -
The Beatles appear on Ed Sullivan
The Beatles, with their Edwardian suits and mop top haircuts, made their first American television appearance—LIVE—on The Ed Sullivan Show. A record setting 73 million people tuned in that evening making it one of the seminal moments in television history. -
New York world's fair begins
New York World's Fair held over 140 pavilions, 110 restaurants, for 80 nations (hosted by 37), 24 US states, and over 45 corporations to build exhibits or attractions at Flushing Meadows Park in Queens, NY. The immense fair covered 646 acres (261 ha) on half the park -
Lyndon B Johnson defeats Barry Goldwater
Incumbent Democratic President Lyndon B. Johnson defeated Barry Goldwater, the Republican nominee. ... At the 1964 Democratic National Convention, Johnson also won the nomination of his preferred running mate, Senator Hubert Humphrey of Minnesota. -
Malcom X assassinated
On February 21, 1965, he was assassinated by three members of the Nation of Islam. -
Watts Race Riots
The Watts riots, sometimes referred to as the Watts Rebellion, took place in the Watts neighborhood of Los Angeles from August 11 to 16, 1965. On August 11, 1965, Marquette Frye, an African-American motorist on parole for robbery, was pulled over for reckless driving. -
"Star Trek" TV show airs
an American media franchise based on the science fiction television series created by Gene Roddenberry. The first television series, simply called Star Trek and now referred to as "The Original Series", debuted in 1966 and aired for three seasons on the television network NBC. -
LSD declared illegal by the U.S. government
The psychedelic drug lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD) was first synthesized on November 16, 1938 by the Swiss chemist Albert Hofmann in the Sandoz (now Novartis) laboratories in Basel, Switzerland. It was not until five years later on April 16, 1943, that the psychedelic properties were found. -
San Francisco "Summer of Love" begins
a social phenomenon that occurred during the summer of 1967, when as many as 100,000 people, mostly young people sporting hippie fashions of dress and behavior, converged in San Francisco's neighborhood of Haight-Ashbury. -
First NFL Football Super Bowl
The first AFL-NFL World Championship Game in professional American football, known retroactively as Super Bowl I and referred to in some contemporaneous reports, including the game's radio broadcast, -
Boxer Muhammed Ali refuses Military service
boxing champion Muhammad Ali refuses to be inducted into the U.S. Army and is immediately stripped of his heavyweight title. Ali, a Muslim, cited religious reasons for his decision to forgo military service -
Beatles release Sgt. Pepper's album
it was an immediate commercial and critical success, spending 27 weeks at the top of the UK albums chart and 15 weeks at number one in the US -
Thurgood Marshall nominated to the supreme court
President Lyndon Johnson appoints U.S. Court of Appeals Judge Thurgood Marshall to fill the seat of retiring Supreme Court Associate Justice Tom C. Clark. On August 30, after a heated debate, the Senate confirmed Marshall's nomination by a vote of 69 to 11. -
Monterrey Music Festival held
a three-day concert event held June 16 to June 18, 1967 at the Monterey County Fairgrounds in Monterey, California -
Tet Offensive
The General Offensive and Uprising of Tet Mau Than 1968 by North Vietnam and the NLF, was one of the largest military campaigns of the Vietnam War -
Martin Luther King Jr. assassinated
an American clergyman and civil rights leader, was shot at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennessee, on April 4, 1968. He was rushed to St. Joseph's Hospital, and was pronounced dead at 7:05 -
Robert Kennedy is Assassinated
Robert Francis Kennedy was an American politician and lawyer who served as a United States Senator from New York from January 1965 until his assassination -
Protests at the 1968 Democratic National Convention
at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago, tens of thousands of Vietnam War protesters battle police in the streets, while the Democratic Party falls apart over an internal disagreement concerning its stance on Vietnam. -
Richard Nixon is elected
The Republican nominee, former Vice President Richard Nixon, defeated the Democratic nominee, incumbent Vice President Hubert Humphrey. -
Stonewall Riot
a series of spontaneous, violent demonstrations by members of the gay community against a police raid that took place in the early morning hours of June 28, 1969 -
American astronauts land on the moon
Neil Armstrong, Edwin "Buzz" Aldrin and Michael Collins were the astronauts on Apollo 11. Four days later, Armstrong and Aldrin landed on the moon. They landed on the moon in the Lunar Module. -
Manson Family murders Sharon Tate
On January 20, 1968, Tate married Roman Polanski, her director and co-star in 1967's The Fearless Vampire Killers. On August 9, 1969, Tate and four others were murdered by members of the Manson Family in the home she shared with Polanski. -
Woodstock concert
The Woodstock Music & Art Fair—informally, the Woodstock Festival or simply Woodstock— was a music festival in the United States in 1969 which attracted an audience of more than 400,000 -
The Rolling Stones host the Altamont music festival
Altamont was the brainchild of the Rolling Stones, who hoped to cap off their U.S. tour in late 1969 with a concert that would be the West Coast equivalent of Woodstock, in both scale and spirit.
