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Free Speech Movement
Savio to found the Berkeley Free Speech Movement (FSM), a coalition of student groups insisting on the right to campus political activity. Savio claimed that the university served the
interests of corporate America and treated students as
interchangeable machine parts. He called on students
to resist. -
the Tet Offensive
America’s hopes for victory in Vietnam exploded, mortally wounding LBJ’s reelection plans. National Liberation Front (NLF) and North Vietnamese forces mounted a huge Tet offensive, attacking more than a hundred South Vietnamese cities and towns and even the U.S. embassy in Saigon -
Martin Luthur King Jr. Assassinated
Martin Luther King, Jr., was killed in Memphis, Tennessee, where he had gone to support striking sanitation workers. The assassin was James Earl Ray, an escaped convict and white racist. Ray would confess, be found guilty, and then recant, leaving aspects of the killing unclear. -
Robert F. Kennedy Assassinated
after his victory in the California primary, the brother of the murdered president was himself assassinated by a Palestinian refugee, Sirhan Sirhan, who loathed Kennedy’s pro-Israeli views. -
the Chicago Democratic Convention
In August 1968 violence outside the Democratic National Convention in Chicago reinforced the appeal of both Wallace and Nixon. Thousands descended on the city to protest the Vietnam War. Some radicals wanted to provoke a confrontation to discredit the Democrats. A handful of anarchistic “Yippies” (the Youth International Party led by counterculture guru Abbie Hoffman) sought to ridicule the political system by threatening to dump LSD in Chicago’s water system and to release greased pigs. -
Nixon elected President
The 1968 election brought both the inauguration of a new president and the end of the liberal era. The 57 percent of the electorate who chose Nixon or Wallace would dominate American politics for the rest of the century. While the Democratic party fractured into a welter of contending groups, the Republicans attracted a new majority who lived in the suburbs, the West, and the Sunbelt. The GOP appealed to those most concerned with traditional values, most upset by high taxes. -
US Lands on the moon
On July 21, 1969, the Apollo 11 lunar module, named Eagle, descended to the Sea of Tranquillity. As millions watched on television, astronaut Neil Armstrong, the first human to set foot on another celestial body, walked on the moon’s surface and proclaimed, “That’s one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.” Americans were proud that the United States had come from behind to win the space race. -
Woodstock
four hundred thousand young people gathered for the Woodstock festival in New York’s Catskill Mountains to celebrate their vision of freedom and harmony. For three days and nights they reveled in rock music and openly shared drugs, sexual partners, and contempt for the Establishment. Woodstock became a community. -
Kent State shooting
Poorly trained guardsmen at Kent State broke up a protest assembly by firing into the crowd. 4 students died, some were just going to lunch. -
Nixon Visits China
Air Force One landed in China, the first visit ever by a sitting American president to the largest nation in the world. Although differences between the two powers delayed official diplomatic relations until 1979, Nixon’s trip, the Chinese foreign minister said, bridged “the vastest ocean in the world, twenty-five years of no communication.” -
SALT I Signed
The Strategic Arms Limitation Talks (SALT I), ratified by the Senate in October 1972, limited each nation to two antiballistic missile systems, froze each side’s offensive nuclear missiles for five years, and committed both countries to strategic equality rather than nuclear superiority. -
Watergate Break-in
Led by Liddy and Hunt of the White House plumbers, the Republican undercover team received Mitchell’s approval to wiretap telephones at the Democratic National Committee headquarters in the Watergate apartment and office complex in Washington. Early one morning in June 1972, a security guard foiled the break-in to install the bugs. Arrested were James McCord, the security coordinator of CREEP, and several other Liddy and Hunt associates. -
Nixon Reelected
In January 1973, safely reelected, Nixon again reversed course, replacing wage-and-price ceilings with “voluntary restraints” and “guidelines.” Inflation zoomed to 9 percent, then to 12 percent in 1974 as the Organization of Petroleu Exporting Countries (OPEC) boycott quadrupled the price of crude oil. Inflation and sluggish growth would dog the U.S. economy throughout the decade. -
Roe v. Wade
In New York in 1970 one fetus was legally aborted for every two babies born. The Supreme Court’s Roe v. Wade (1973) struck down all remaining state laws infringing on a woman’s right to abortion during the first trimester (three months) of pregnancy. -
Vietnam Ceasefire signed
The Paris Accords, signed in late January 1973, essentially restated the terms of the October truce. Nixon and Kissinger knew well that it would not end the war or bring an honorable peace. At best they hoped that the war would remain stalemated until Nixon was safely out of office. The agreement ended hostilities between the United States and North Vietnam, but left unresolved the differences betwee North and South Vietnam. -
Nixon Resigns
On August 9, 1974, Richard Nixon became the first president to resign, and Gerald Ford took office as the nation’s first chief executive who had not been elected either president or vice president. -
South Vietnam Falls
North Vietnamese offensive captures Danang. Senate rejects President Gerald Ford’s request for emergency aid for South Vietnam. South Vietnam surrenders following North Vietnam’s capture of Saigon. Khmer Rouge takes control in Cambodia. Pro-Hanoi People’s Democratic Republic established in Laos.
