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SNCC Formed
The Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee was one of the major American Civil Rights Movement organizations of the 1960s. It emerged from the first wave of student sit-ins and formed at a May 1960 meeting organized by Ella Baker at Shaw University. -
First Televised Presidential Debate
The first general election presidential debate was held on September 26, 1960, between U.S. Senator John F. Kennedy, the Democratic nominee, and Vice President Richard Nixon, the Republican nominee, in Chicago at the studios of CBS's WBBM-TV. -
First Airing of "The Flintstones"
It was originally broadcast on ABC from September 30, 1960 until April 1, 1966, as the first animated series to hold a prime time slot. The continuing popularity of The Flintstones rested heavily on its juxtaposition of modern everyday concerns in the Stone Age setting. -
President Kennedy is Elected
It was held on Tuesday, November 8, 1960. In a closely contested election, Democrat United States Senator John F. Kennedy defeated incumbent Vice President Richard Nixon, the Republican Party nominee. -
Russians Send The First Man Into Space
On April 12, 1961, aboard the spacecraft Vostok 1, Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Alekseyevich Gagarin becomes the first human being to travel into space. During the flight, the 27-year-old test pilot and industrial technician also became the first man to orbit the planet, a feat accomplished by his space capsule in 89 minutes. -
Berlin Wall is Constructed
The Communist government of East Germany built a wall separating East and West Berlin. The wall was built to keep the country's people in, but the Soviets and East German government said it was to keep capitalism out. -
Roger Maris of The Yankees Breaks Babe Ruth's Single Season Home Run Record
Roger Maris breaks home-run record. On October 1, 1961, 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. -
SDS Releases It's Port Huron Statement
The Port Huron Statement was written in Port Huron, Michigan, at a meeting of Students for a Democratic Society. -
Marilyn Monroe Dies
Marilyn Monroe died of a barbiturate overdose late in the evening of Saturday, August 4, 1962, at her 12305 Fifth Helena Drive home in Los Angeles, California. Her body was discovered before dawn on Sunday, August 5. -
James Meredith Registers at Ole Miss
James Meredith, an African American man, attempted to enroll at the all-white University of Mississippi in 1962. Chaos soon broke out on the Ole Miss campus, with riots ending in two dead, hundreds wounded and many others arrested, after the Kennedy administration called out some 31,000 National Guardsmen and other federal forces to enforce order. -
Cuban Missile Crisis
The Cuban Missile Crisis was a time of heightened confrontation between the Soviet Union, the United States, and Cuba during the Cold War.It was a proxy conflict around Cuba. It began when the Soviet Union began building missile sites in Cuba in 1962. -
"Dr. No"--The First James Bond Movie Premiers
"Dr. No", was the first Bond movie ever that premiered in 1962. He drove the Sunbeam Alpine Series II which sported a lake blue coat of paint. In classic 007 fashion, the super spy is lured to the apartment of Miss Taro, an enemy spy. As he drives up a mountainside for a "heart to heart" with Miss Taro, he's ambushed. -
Dr. King's "I Have A Dream" Speech
"I Have a Dream" is a public speech that was delivered by American civil rights activist Martin Luther King Jr. during the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom on August 28, 1963, in which he called for civil and economic rights and an end to racism in the United States. This was a very famous speech. -
John F. Kennedy Assassination
Shortly after noon on November 22, 1963, President John F. Kennedy was assassinated as he rode in a motorcade through Dealey Plaza in downtown Dallas, Texas. -
The Beatles Arrive in the United States
The Beatles arrived in the United States and their televised performances on The Ed Sullivan Show were viewed by approximately 73 million people. It established the Beatles' international stature, changed attitudes to popular music in the US and sparked the British Invasion phenomenon. -
The Beatles Appear on Ed Sullivan
On February 9th, 1964, 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
The New York World's Fair was a world's fair that held over 140 pavilions, 110 restaurants, for 80 nations, 24 US states, and over 45 corporations to build exhibits or attractions at Flushing Meadows–Corona Park in Queens, New York City. -
Gulf of Tonkin Incident
North Vietnamese patrol torpedo boats attacked the USS Maddox while the destroyer was in international waters in the Gulf of Tonkin. -
Lyndon B. Johnson Defeats Barry Goldwater
In one of the most crushing victories in the history of U.S. presidential elections, incumbent Lyndon Baines Johnson defeats Republican challenger Barry Goldwater, Sr. With over 60 percent of the popular vote, Johnson turned back the conservative senator from Arizona to secure his first full term in office after succeeding to the presidency after the assassination of John F. Kennedy in November 1963. -
LSD Declared Illegal By The U.S Government
LSD is just one mind-altering substance in a class of drugs called hallucinogens, which cause people to have hallucinations—things that someone sees, hears or feels that appear to be real but are in fact created by the mind. Therefore, the government made it illegal. -
Malcolm X Assassinated
On February 21, 1965, one week after his home was firebombed, Malcolm X was shot to death by Nation of Islam members while speaking at a rally of his organization in New York City. -
Watts Race Riots
The Watts riots 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
Star Trek is an American science-fiction television series created by Gene Roddenberry that follows the adventures of the star ship USS Enterprise and its crew. -
San Francisco "Summer of Love" Beings
The gathering of approximately 30,000 at the Human Be-In helped publicize hippie fashions. The term "Summer of Love" originated with the formation of the Council for the Summer of Love during the spring of 1967 as a response to the convergence of young people on the Haight-Ashbury district. -
First NFL Football Super Bowl
The Green Bay Packers of the National Football League smash the American Football League Kansas City Chiefs, 35-10, in the first-ever AFL-NFL World Championship, later known as Super Bowl I, at Memorial Coliseum in Los Angeles. -
Boxer Muhammad Ali Refuses Military Service
Clay v. United States was Muhammad Ali's appeal of his conviction in 1967 for refusing to report for induction into the United States military forces during the Vietnam War. -
Beatles Release Sgt. Peppers Album
Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band is the eighth studio album by the English rock band the Beatles. Released on 26 May 1967 in the United Kingdom and 2 June 1967 in the United States, it spent 27 weeks at number one on the UK Albums Chart and 15 weeks at number one on the Billboard Top LPs chart in the US. -
Monterrey Music Festival Held
The Monterrey International Pop Music Festival was a three-day concert event held June 16 to June 18, 1967, at the Monterrey County Fairgrounds in Monterrey, California. -
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. -
Tet Offensive
The Tet Offensive was a series of surprise attacks by the Vietcong and North Vietnamese forces, on scores of cities, towns, and hamlets throughout South Vietnam. It was considered to be a turning point in the Vietnam War. -
Martin Luther King Jr. Assassination
Just after 6 p.m. the following day, King was standing on the second-floor balcony of the Lorraine Motel, where he and his associates were staying, when a sniper's bullet struck him in the neck. -
Robert Kennedy Assassination
In the early hours of June 5, 1968, shortly after delivering a speech to celebrate his win in the California primary, Kennedy was shot in a kitchen corridor outside the ballroom of the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles. He died the next day at age 42. -
Protests at The 1968 Democratic National Convention
Protest activity against the Vietnam War took place prior to and during the 1968 Democratic National Convention. In 1967, counterculture and anti-Vietnam War protest groups had been promising to come to Chicago and disrupt the convention, and the city promised to maintain law and order. -
Richard Nixon Electron
It was held on Tuesday, November 5, 1968. The Republican nominee, former Vice President Richard Nixon, defeated the Democratic nominee, incumbent Vice President Hubert Humphrey. -
Stonewall Riots
The Stonewall riots were a series of spontaneous, violent demonstrations by members of the gay community against a police raid that began in the early morning hours of June 28, 1969, at the Stonewall Inn in the Greenwich Village neighborhood of Manhattan, New York City -
American Astronauts Land on The Moon
The Apollo Program was a NASA plan to send up people into space. Apollo 11 took off on July 16, 1969. Neil Armstrong, Edwin "Buzz" Aldrin and Michael Collins were the astronauts on Apollo 11. Four days later, Armstrong and Aldrin landed on the moon. -
Manson Family Murders Sharon Tate
The Tate–LaBianca murders were perpetrated by members of the Charles Manson "Family" in Los Angeles, California. They murdered five people on August 8–9, 1969, and two more the following evening -
Woodstock Concert
The Woodstock Music and Art Festival was a rock music festival at Max Yasgur's dairy farm in the town of Bethel, New York from 15–18 August 1969. It might be the most famous rock concert and festival ever held. For many, it showed the counterculture of the 1960s and the "hippie era". -
The Rolling Stones Host The Altamont Music Festival
The Altamont Speedway Free Festival was a counterculture rock concert held on Saturday, December 6, 1969 at the Altamont Speedway, northern California, United States.The event is best known for considerable violence, including the stabbing death of Meredith Hunter and three accidental deaths: two caused by a hit-and-run car accident, and one by LSD-induced drowning in an irrigation canal. Scores were injured, numerous cars were stolen and then abandoned, and there was extensive property damage.
