The Long 68: A Brief Chronology
| Date | USA | Europe | The Rest of the World |
| April 1960 | Foundation of Parti Socialiste Unifié in France | ||
| November 1960 | John F. Kennedy elected president | ||
| November 1961 | In Germany SPD expels Sozialistischer Deutscher Studentenbund | ||
| June 1962 | Port Huron meeting marks new prominence for Students for a Democratic Society | ||
| July 1962 | Algeria gains independence after eight-year war | ||
| October 1962 | Second Vatican Council opens | ||
| November 1963 | President John F. Kennedy is assassinated. Vice president Lyndon Johnson succeeds him | ||
| 1964 | Freedom Summer as students go south to help fight for civil rights | ||
| July 1964 | Civil Rights Act passed | ||
| September 1964 | Free Speech movement begins at Berkeley | Nanterre campus of Paris University opened | |
| October 1964 | Labour Party gains narrow victory in parliamentary elections. Harold Wilson becomes prime minister | ||
| November 1964 | Lyndon Johnson elected president | ||
| February 1965 | America begins bombing North Vietnam. Assassination of Malcolm X | ||
| April 1965 | Demonstration in Washington against the Vietnam War | ||
| June 1965 | Overthrow of Algerian President Ben Bella by a coup | ||
| August 1965 | Watts riots in Los Angeles | Campaign against Emergency Law in Germany unites unions and radical left | |
| December 1965 | De Gaulle, opposed by-Mitterrand, wins second round of presidential election in France | Second Vatican Council ends | |
| January 1966 | Student occupation at Trento in Italy | Tricontinental Conference, Havana | |
| March 1966 | Stokely Carmichael elected chairman of Students’ Non-Violent Co-Ordinating Committee | Harold Wilson’s Labour Party wins increased majority in parliamentary elections | |
| April 1966 | Jeunesse Communiste Révolutionnaire founded in France | ||
| May 1966 | British government declares state of emergency in response to seamen’s strike | Beginning of Cultural Revolution in China | |
| July 1966 | Stokely Carmichael uses phrase ‘Black Power’ | ||
| September 1966 | Speech by de Gaulle in Phnom Penh calling for peace in Vietnam | ||
| October 1966 | Black Panther Party founded in California. Radical Student Alliance created in UK | ||
| November 1966 | Second student occupation at Trento | ||
| December 1966 | Union des Jeunesses Communistes Marxistes-Leninistes founded in France. Grand Coalition brings SPD and Christian Democrats together in Germany | ||
| February 1967 | Creation of Comités Vietnam de Base in France. Strikes at Rhodiacéta in Besançon | ||
| March 1967 | Narrow victory for Gaullists in French legislative elections. Occupation of London School of Economics | ||
| April 1967 | Large demonstrations in New York and San Francisco against the Vietnam War | Formation of Northern Ireland Civil Rights Association. Coup by colonels in Greece | Règis Debray captured in Bolivia |
| June 1967 | Policeman kills Benno Ohnesorg during demonstration against Shah of Iran in West Berlin. Michel Rocard becomes secretary of Parti Socialiste Unifié in France | ||
| July 1967 | Race riots in Newark and Detroit | Conference on Dialectics of Liberation in London | De Gaulle says ‘Long live free Quebec’ |
| Octobcr 1967 | Che Guevara killed in Bolivia | ||
| December 1967 | Creation of comités d’action lycéens in France | ||
| January 1968 | Confrontation between Daniel Cohn-Bendit and French minister of youth at Nanterre. Third student occupation at Trento | Tet offensive in Vietnam | |
| February 1968 | Demonstration against Vietnam War in West Berlin and counter-demonstration in favour of US | ||
| March 1968 | Johnson announces he will not seek re-election as president | Battle of Valle Giulia between police and militants in Rome. Anti-Vietnam War demonstration in London. Attack on American Express office in Paris. Formation of March 22 Movement at Nanterre | |
| April 1968 | Assassination of Martin Luther King - followed by riots in many cities. Occupation of Columbia University. Police kill Black Panther Bobby Hutton in Oakland, California | Enoch Powell’s ‘rivers of blood’ speech. Rudi Dutschke shot and gravely injured in Berlin. Andreas Baader and others set fire to Frankfurt department store. Communist leader Pierre Juquin is forced off the Nanterre campus by gauchiste students | |
| May 1968 | See chronology in chap. 5 for events in France | Negotiations between Americans and North Vietnamese in Paris | |
| June 1968 | Assassination of Robert Kennedy | Foundation of Revolutionary Socialist Students’ Federation in UK. Emergency Law comes into force in West Germany - a defeat for the radical left | |
| July 1968 | Violent suppression of demonstrations in Mexico | ||
| August 1968 | Democratic National Convention in Chicago chooses Hubert Humphrey as candidate in presidential election. Violent suppression of demonstrators who have come to city | Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia puts end to Prague Spring. Riots in Londonderry | Violence around Olympic stadium in Mexico City |
| October 1968 | Anti-Vietnam War demonstration in London. Formation of People’s Democracy in Northern Ireland. Foundation of Maoist Gauche Prolétarienne in France | Large-scale massacre by police of protesters in Mexico City | |
| November 1968 | Strike at San Franciso State University, which lasts until following April. Election of Richard Nixon as president | ||
| December 1968 | Proposal ‘Towards a Revolutionary Youth Movement’ put to SDS national convention in Ann Arbor | ||
| January 1969 | LSE closed after student demonstrations | ||
| April 1969 | De Gaulle resigns after his proposal for decentralization is defeated in a referendum. Bernadette Devlin elected to British parliament. Jack Straw elected as president of National Union of Students | ||
| May 1969 | People’s Park uprising in Berkeley | ||
| June 1969 | SDS splits into two factions - foundation of Weathermen | Pompidou wins French presidential election | |
| August 1969 | Woodstock festival | ||
| September 1969 | Suicide of Gabrielle Russier in France. Beginning of ‘Hot Autumn’ of labour unrest in Italy | ||
| October 1969 | Days of Rage in Chicago | Social Democrat Willy Brandt becomes Chancellor in alliance with Liberals | |
| November 1969 | Large demonstrations in Washington and San Franciso against Vietnam War | ||
| December 1969 | Police kill Black Panthers Fred Hampton and Martin Clark. At Flint Council, Weathermen decide to go underground | Provisional Irish Republic Army founded | |
| April 1970 | Nixon announces invasion of Cambodia | Jean-Paul Sartre becomes editor of Maoist newspaper La Cause du Peuple after its editor Jean-Pierre Le Dantec is arrested | |
| May 1970 | Killing of four students by National Guard during protest at Kent State University | Andreas Baader rescued from prison by a group including Ulrike Meinhof. Red Army Faction founded in Germany | |
| June 1970 | Conservatives win general election in UK. Edward Heath becomes prime minister | ||
| July 1970 | Death of Salazar in Portugal | ||
| September 1970 | Weathermen help Timothy Leary escape from prison | Red Brigades founded in Italy | Salvador Allende becomes president of Chile |
| October 1970 | Angela Davis arrested | ||
| November 1970 | Death of de Gaulle | ||
| January 1971 | Angry Brigade claim responsibility for bombing house of secretary of state for employment Robert Carr | ||
| February 1971 | Black Panthers split between supporters of Eldridge Cleaver and those of Huey Newton | ||
| June 1971 | Mitterrand becomes leader of newly formed Parti Socialiste | ||
| January 1972 | Bloody Sunday: soldiers shoot thirteen unarmed demonstrators in Londonderry. Laws preventing radicals from holding state jobs in West Germany. Miners’ strike begins in UK (ends following month) | ||
| February 1972 | Guard at Renault kills Maoist militant Pierre Overncy - 200,000 attend his funeral the following month | ||
| March 1972 | Gauche Prolétarienne kidnaps Robert Nogrette (manager of Renault). He is released after two days | ||
| June 1972 | Acquittal of Angela Davis | Arrest of Andreas Baader and Ulrike Meinhof in Germany | |
| September 1972 | Israeli athletes killed by Palestinian guerrillas at Munich Olympics | ||
| November 1972 | Nixon re-elected as president | ||
| January 1973 | Creation of French newspaper Libération | Signature of Paris accords on end of Vietnam War | |
| April 1973 | Beginning of strike at Lip at Besançon | ||
| August 1973 | Large-scale protests against expansion of French army camp at Larzac | ||
| September 1973 | Pinochet’s coup in Chile. Salvador Allende is killed | ||
| November 1973 | Protest at Athens Polytechnic against the military junta in Greece. Dissolution of Gauche Prolétarienne in France | ||
| February 1974 | Miners’ strike in UK | ||
| April 1974 | Death of Pompidou. ‘Carnation revolution’ in Portugal. Fall of the dictatorship | ||
| May 1974 | Strike by Protestant Ulster Workers’ Council prevents attempt at power-sharing in Northern Ireland. Valéry Giscard d’Estaing elected president of France | ||
| August 1974 | Resignation of Nixon as president after Watergate scandal | ||
| November 1974 | First free elections after Junta in Greece | ||
| February 1975 | Thatcher becomes leader of British Conservative Pary | ||
| April 1975 | Saigon falls to North Vietnamese forces | ||
| November 1975 | Death of Franco | ||
| May 1976 | Suicide of Ulrike Meinhof in prison | ||
| September 1976 | Death of Mao | ||
| September 1977 | Mark Rudd (of Weather Underground) turns himself in | Hans-Martin Schleyer of German employers’ association is kidnapped by Red Army Faction. His body is found in October | |
| October 1977 | Andreas Baader and Gudrun Ensslin commit suicide in prison | ||
| March 1978 | Red Brigades kidnap Christian Democrat politician Aldo Moro in Rome. His body is found in May | ||
| May 1979 | Conservative election victory in UK. Margaret Thatcher becomes prime minister | ||
| April 1980 | Death of Sartre | ||
| July 1980 | Cathy Wilkerson (of Weather Underground) resurfaces in New York | ||
| August 1980 | Bomb planted by extreme right at Bologna railway station kills 85 | ||
| November 1980 | Ronald Reagan elected president | ||
| May 1981 | François Mitterrand elected president of France | ||
| November 1992 | Bill Clinton elected president | ||
| June 1994 | Daniel Cohn-Bendit becomes a Green member of the European parliament | ||
| May 1997 | Labour Party victory in United Kingdom general election. Tony Blair becomes prime minister. Jack Straw is home secretary | ||
| April 1998 | German Red Army Faction announces its dissolution | ||
| September 1998 | Red/Green coalition rules Germany. Joschka Fischer is foreign minister | ||
| April 2007 | Nicolas Sarkozy, presidential candidate in France, talks of ‘liquidating the legacy of May 68’ | ||
| May 2017 | Emmanuel Macron (born 1977) is elected president of France. He is supported by Daniel Cohn-Bendit |