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SNCC is Formed
The Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee was the principal channel of student commitment in the United States to the civil rights movement during the 1960s. Emerging in 1960 from the student-led sit-ins at segregated lunch counters in Greensboro, North Carolina, and Nashville, Tennessee, the Committee sought to coordinate and assist direct-action challenges to the civic segregation and political exclusion of African Americans. -
First Televised Presidential Debate
The first televised presidential debate, and was between JFK and Nixon during the 1960 election. -
"The Flintstones"
The series takes place in a romanticized Stone Age setting and follows the activities of the titular family, the Flintstones, and their next-door neighbors, the Rubbles. It was originally broadcast on ABC from September 30, 1960, to April 1, 1966, and was the first animated series to hold a prime-time slot on television. -
JFK Wins the 1960 Election
The 1960 United States presidential election was the 44th quadrennial presidential election. In a closely contested election, Democratic Senator John F. Kennedy defeated the incumbent vice president Richard Nixon, the Republican nominee. -
USSR Sends the first man to Space (Vostok 1)
Vostok 1 was the first spaceflight of the Vostok program and the first human orbital spaceflight in history. The orbital spaceflight consisted of a single orbit around Earth which skimmed the upper atmosphere at 169 kilometers at its lowest point taking 108 minutes piloted by Yuri Gagarin. -
Construction of the Berlin Wall
The Berlin Wall became the symbol of the Cold War and a tangible manifestation of the world's separation into two distinct ideological blocs of NATO and the USSR. -
Roger Maris ties Babe Ruth's Home-Run Record
Maris tied Babe Ruth with 60 home runs off Baltimore Orioles pitcher Jack Fisher, in the Yankees' 3-2 win at the old Yankee Stadium. Five days later, Maris would set a new Major League single-season record of 61 home runs. -
SDS releases its Port Huron Statement
The 25,700-word statement issued a non-ideological call for participatory democracy, based on non-violent civil disobedience and the idea that individual citizens could help make the social decisions that determined their quality of life. Also known as the "Agenda for a Generation", it popularized the term participatory democracy. -
The Death of Marilyn Monroe
Marilyn Monroe was an American actress, model, and singer. Famous for playing comic "blonde bombshell" characters, she became one of the most popular sex symbols of the 1950s and early 1960s, as well as an emblem of the era's sexual revolution. -
James Meredith
James Meredith was the first official African American student at the University of Mississippi. He was guarded twenty-four hours a day by reserve U.S. deputy marshals and army troops, and he endured constant verbal harassment from a minority of students. He graduated on August 18, 1963, from the University of Mississippi with a degree in political science. -
Premier of "Dr. No"
Dr. No had its worldwide premiere at the London Pavilion, on 5 October 1962, expanding to the rest of the United Kingdom three days later. The North American premiere on 8 May 1963 was more low-profile, with 450 cinemas in the Midwest and Southwest regions of the United States. -
Cuban Missile Crisis
The Cuban Missile Crisis, also known as the October Crisis (of 1962), was a 35-day confrontation between the United States and the Soviet Union, which escalated into an international crisis when American deployments of missiles in Italy and Turkey were matched by Soviet deployments of similar ballistic missiles in Cuba. It is the closest the Cold War came to escalating into a full-scale conflict, nuclear war. -
"I have a Dream" Speech
"I Have a Dream" is a public speech that was delivered by American civil rights activist and Baptist minister Martin Luther King Jr. during the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom. Delivered to over 250,000 civil rights supporters from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C., the speech was one of the most famous moments of the civil rights movement and among the most iconic speeches in American history. -
Assassination of JFK
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. He was fatally shot from the nearby Texas School Book Depository by Lee Harvey Oswald, a former US Marine. -
Beatles Arrive in the US
The Beatles arrived at John F Kennedy airport in New York, greeted by thousands of screaming fans. This was the first time the famous rock-and-roll band had come to the US and was going on tour. -
The Beatles appear on Ed Sullivan
At 8 o'clock on February 9th, 1964, America tuned in to CBS and The Ed Sullivan Show. But this night was different. 73 million people gathered at their TV sets to see The Beatles' first live performance on U.S. soil. The television rating was a record-setting 45.3, 45.3% of households with televisions were watching. That figure reflected a total of 23,240,000 American homes. The show garnered a 60 share, 60% of the televisions turned on were tuned in to Ed Sullivan and The Beatles. -
New York World’s Fair Begins
The 1964–1965 New York World's Fair was a world's fair that held over 140 pavilions and 110 restaurants, representing 80 nations, 24 US states, and over 45 corporations with the goal and the final result of building exhibits or attractions at Flushing Meadows–Corona Park in Queens, New York City. The fair covered 646 acres on half the park, with numerous pools or fountains, and an amusement park with rides near the lake. -
Lyndon B Johnson wins 1964 Election
The 1964 United States presidential election was the 45th quadrennial presidential election. Incumbent Democratic United States President Lyndon B. Johnson defeated Barry Goldwater, the Republican nominee, in a landslide. With 61.1% of the popular vote, Lyndon B. Johnson won the largest share of the popular vote of any candidate since the largely uncontested 1820 election, which no candidate of either party has been able to match since. -
Assassination of Malcolm X
Malcolm X, a religious and civil rights leader, was assassinated during a speech at the Audubon Ballroom in Manhattan by Thomas Hagan. Malcolm X was 39 and left behind his wife and six daughters, including at the time unborn twins. -
Watts Race Riots
The Watts riots, took place in the Watts neighborhood and its surrounding areas of Los Angeles from August 11 to 16, 1965. During the resisting of arrest, a black man was struck by a baton. With rumors running rampant, six days of civil unrest followed, with nearly 14,000 members of the California Army National Guard helping to suppress the disturbance, which resulted in 34 deaths, as well as over $40 million in property damage. -
LSDis declared illegal by the US Government
The governors of Nevada and California each signed bills into law on May 30, 1966, that make them the first two American states to outlaw the manufacture, sale, and possession of LSD. The law went into effect immediately in Nevada, and on October 6, 1966, in California. Other U.S. states and many other countries soon followed with similar bans. -
The “Star Trek” TV Show Airs for the First Time
Star Trek is an American science fiction television series created by Gene Roddenberry that follows the adventures of the starship USS Enterprise (NCC-1701) and its crew. It later acquired the retronym of Star Trek: The Original Series to distinguish the show within the media franchise that it began. -
The San Fransisco Summer of Love
The Summer of Love was 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. The Summer of Love encompassed hippie music, hallucinogenic drugs, anti-war, and free-love scenes throughout the US. -
Super Bowl I
The first AFL–NFL World Championship Game (a.k.a. Suber Bowl I) was an American football game played at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum in Los Angeles, California. The National Football League champion Green Bay Packers defeated the American Football League champion Kansas City Chiefs by the score of 35–10. Starting one of the US's biggest sporting events to date. -
Muhammed Ali refuses Military Service
When Ali arrived to be inducted into the United States Armed Forces, he refused, citing his religion forbade him from serving. This cost him the stripping of his heavyweight title, a suspension from boxing, a $10,000 fine, and a five-year prison sentence. -
The Beatles Release Sgt. Pepper’s
The eighth studio album by the English rock band The Beatles, musicologists regard it as an early concept album that advanced the roles of sound composition, extended form, psychedelic imagery, record sleeves, and the producer in popular music. The album had an immediate cross-generational impact and was associated with numerous touchstones of the era's youth culture, such as fashion, drugs, mysticism, and a sense of optimism and empowerment. -
Thurgood Marshall is Nominated for the Supreme Court
Nominated by Lyndon B. Johnson to fill the seat being vacated by Tom C. Clark. Marshall was confirmed by the U.S. Senate in a 69–11 vote on August 30, 1967, becoming the first African American member of the Court, and the court's first non-white justice. -
Tet Offensive
The Tet Offensive was a major escalation and one of the largest military campaigns of the Vietnam War. Starting on January 31, 1968, it was a campaign of surprise attacks against military and civilian command and control centers throughout South Vietnam. -
The Assassination of Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
Martin Luther King Jr. was an American Baptist minister and activist who was one of the most prominent leaders in the civil rights movement from 1955 until his assassination in 1968. He was killed by James Earl Ray at 6:01 p.m., as he stood on the motel's second-floor balcony. The bullet entered through his right cheek, smashing his jaw, then traveled down his spinal cord before lodging in his shoulder. After emergency chest surgery, King died at St. Joseph's Hospital at 7:05 p.m. -
Assassination of Robert F. Kennedy
Kennedy, a United States senator, and candidate in the 1968 Democratic Party presidential primaries, won the California and South Dakota primaries on June 4. He addressed his campaign supporters in the Ambassador Hotel's Embassy Ballroom. After leaving the podium, and exiting through a kitchen hallway, he was mortally wounded by multiple shots fired by Sirhan. -
1968 Democratic National Convention protests
The 1968 Democratic National Convention protests were a series of protest activities against the Vietnam War that took place prior to and during the 1968 Democratic National Convention. The protesters were met by the Chicago Police Department in the streets and parks of Chicago, including indiscriminate police violence against protesters, reporters, photographers, and bystanders that was later described as a "police riot". -
Nixion Wins the 1968 Election
The 1968 United States presidential election was the 46th quadrennial presidential election. The Republican nominee, former vice president Richard Nixon, defeated both the Democratic nominee, incumbent vice president Hubert Humphrey, and the American Independent Party nominee, former Alabama governor George Wallace. -
Stonewall Riots
The Stonewall Riots were a series of protests by members of the gay community in response to a police raid at the Stonewall Inn in Greenwich Village. Patrons of the Stonewall, other Village lesbian and gay bars, and neighborhood street people fought back when the police became aggressive. The riots are widely considered the watershed event that transformed the gay liberation movement and the twentieth-century fight for LGBT rights in the United States. -
Moon Landing (totally not fake)
The United States' Apollo 11 was the first crewed mission to land on the Moon, with Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin. This was the end of the space race. US victory over the USSR. -
Woodstock
A three-day-long music festival held on Max Yasgur's dairy farm in Bethel, New York, 40 miles (65 km) southwest of the town of Woodstock. Billed as "an Aquarian Exposition: 3 Days of Peace & Music" and alternatively referred to as the Woodstock Rock Festival, it attracted an audience of more than 400,000 attendees. Thirty-two acts performed outdoors despite sporadic rain and was one of the largest music festivals held in history. -
Altamont Free Concert
The Altamont Speedway Free Festival was a counterculture rock concert in the United States, held at the Altamont Speedway outside of Tracy, California. Approximately 300,000 attended the concert, being anticipated as a "Woodstock West". The event is remembered for considerable violence, including the stabbing death of Meredith Hunter and three accidental deaths: two by a hit-and-run car accident, and one by an LSD-induced drowning in an irrigation canal.