-
SNCC formed
The Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee 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 a May 1960 meeting organized by Ella Baker at Shaw University. -
First televised presidential debate
1960 Kennedy–Nixon debates. The first general election presidential debate was held on September 26, 1960, between U.S. Senator John F. Kennedy of Massachusetts, the Democratic nominee, and Vice President Richard Nixon, the Republican nominee, in Chicago at the studios of CBS's WBBM-TV. -
President Kennedy was Elected
The United States presidential election of 1960 was the 44th quadrennial presidential election, held on Tuesday, November 8, 1960. In a closely contested election, Democrat 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
During the early years of the Cold War, 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
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 its port Huron statement
The Port Huron Statement is a 1962 political manifesto of the North American student activist movement Students for a Democratic Society (SDS). -
Marilyn Monroe Dies
Marilyn Monroe was found dead of a barbiturate overdose in the early morning hours of Sunday, August 5, 1962, at her 12305 Fifth Helena Drive home in Los Angeles, California. She was a major sex symbol and one of the most popular Hollywood stars during the 1950s and early 1960s. -
James Meredith Registers at Ole Miss
James Meredith was the first African-American student at the University of Mississippi. The school had originally rejected his application, and a legal battle ensued. In 1962, segregationists protesting his admittance to Ole Miss led to bloody riots on campus. -
Cuban Missile Crisis
The Cuban Missile Crisis was a 13-day confrontation between the United States and the Soviet Union initiated by American ballistic missile deployment in Italy and Turkey with consequent Soviet ballistic missile deployment in Cuba. -
"Dr. No" the first James Bond movie premiers
In the film that launched the James Bond saga, Agent 007 (Sean Connery) battles mysterious Dr. No, a scientific genius bent on destroying the U.S. space program. As the countdown to disaster begins, Bond must go to Jamaica, where he encounters beautiful Honey Ryder (Ursula Andress), to confront a megalomaniacal villain in his massive island headquarters. -
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. -
Assassination of JFK
John Fitzgerald Kennedy, the 35th President of the United States, was assassinated in Dallas, Texas, while riding in a presidential motorcade through Dealey Plaza. Kennedy was riding with his wife Jacqueline, Texas Governor John Connally, and Connally's wife Nellie when he was fatally shot by former U.S. -
The Beatles Arrive in the United States
John, Paul, George and Ringo arrived for their first U.S. visit with little idea what lay in store for them. -
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. -
New York World's Fair begins
It was the largest World's Fair ever to be held in the United States occupying nearly a square mile of land. Truly a "Universal and International" class exposition, it was not sanctioned by the Bureau of International Expositions (BIE) and is often overlooked by historians because it was not an "official" World's Fair. -
Gulf of Tonkin
The Gulf of Tonkin incident, also known as the USS Maddox incident, was an international confrontation that led to the United States engaging more directly in the Vietnam War. On August 2, 1964, the destroyer USS Maddox, while performing a signals intelligence patrol as part of DESOTO operations, was pursued by three North Vietnamese Navy torpedo boats of the 135th Torpedo Squadron. -
Lyndon b Johnson defeats Barry Goldwater
Incumbent Democratic President Lyndon B. Johnson defeated Barry Goldwater, the Republican nominee. ... Johnson championed his passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, and his campaign advocated a series of anti-poverty programs collectively known as the Great Society. -
Malcolm X assassinated
Malcolm X was an American Muslim minister and human rights activist. To his admirers he was a courageous advocate for the rights of blacks, a man who indicted white America in the harshest terms for its crimes against black Americans; detractors accused him of preaching racism and violence. -
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. -
First airing of "The Flintstones"
It was originally broadcast from September 30, 1960 to April 1, 1966, in a prime time slot, 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. -
"Star Trek" TV show airs
The series was produced from September 1966 to December 1967 by Norway Productions and Desilu Productions, and by Paramount Television from January 1968 to June 1969. Star Trek aired on NBC from September 8, 1966, to June 3, 1969, and was actually seen first on September 6, 1966, on Canada's CTV network. -
LSD declared illegal in the U.S
LSD, or lysergic acid diethylamide, is a hallucinogenic drug that was first synthesized a Swiss scientist in the 1930s. During the Cold War, the CIA conducted clandestine experiments with LSD (and other drugs) for mind control, information gathering and other purposes. Over time, the drug became a symbol of the 1960s counterculture, eventually joining other hallucinogenic and recreational drugs at rave parties. -
First NFL 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, as the Super Bowl, was played on January 15, 1967 at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum in Los Angeles, California. -
Boxer Muhammad Ali refuses military service
Clay v. United States, 403 U.S. 698 (1971), 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. His local draft board had rejected his application for conscientious objector classification. -
Beatles release Sgt. Pepper's 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 in the US. -
San Francisco "Summer of Love" Begins
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. -
Monterrey Music Festival held
The Monterey International Pop Music Festival was a three-day concert event held June 16 to June 18, 1967, at the Monterey County Fairgrounds in Monterey, California. Crowd estimates for the festival have ranged from 25,000 to 90,000 people, who congregated in and around the festival grounds. -
Thurgood Marshall nominated to the Supreme Court
In 1967, Johnson successfully nominated Marshall to succeed retiring Associate Justice Tom C. Clark. Marshall retired during the administration of President George H. W. Bush. -
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. -
Assassination of MLK
Assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. Martin Luther King Jr., an American clergyman and civil rights leader, was shot at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennessee, on April 4, 1968. King was rushed to St. Joseph's Hospital, and was pronounced dead at 7:05 p.m. CST. -
Robert Kennedy is Assassinated
Robert F. Kennedy was mortally wounded at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles. Earlier that evening, the 42 year-old junior Senator from New York was declared the winner in the South Dakota and California presidential primaries in the 1968 election. -
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 is Elected
The United States presidential election of 1968 was the 46th quadrennial presidential election, 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 took place 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
Apollo 11 was the spaceflight that landed the first two people on the Moon. Mission commander Neil Armstrong and pilot Buzz Aldrin, both American, landed the lunar module Eagle. -
Manson family murders Sharon Tate
The Tate murders were a series of killings conducted by members of the Manson Family on August 8–9, 1969, which claimed the lives of five people. Four members of the Family invaded the home of married celebrity couple, actress Sharon Tate and director Roman Polanski at 10050 Cielo Drive in Los Angeles. -
Woodstock Concert
Woodstock was a music festival held on a dairy farm in the Catskill Mountains, northwest of New York City, between August 15–18, 1969, which attracted an audience of more than 400,000 people. -
The Rolling Stones host the Altamont music festival
The Altamont Festival brings the 1960s to a violent end. 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.
