Keeping ten years’ worth of events and dates straight can be difficult. So here we include a timeline of the major events of the 1960s that we discuss in this book, along with a few other interesting and informative happenings.
Feb 1:
First lunch counter sit-in, Greensboro, North Carolina.
Apr 14–17:
Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) formed.
May 1:
U.S. U-2 spy plane piloted by Francis Gary Powers shot down over the Soviet Union.
May 9:
U.S. Food and Drug Administration approves birth control pill.
Sept 26:
First televised presidential debate between Richard Nixon and John F. Kennedy.
Oct 19:
Martin Luther King Jr. jailed in Atlanta during a sit-in at a restaurant.
Nov 8:
John F. Kennedy elected president, defeating Richard Nixon.
Mar 1:
President Kennedy signs an executive order creating the Peace Corps.
Mar 13:
President Kennedy creates the Alliance for Progress to aid Latin American countries.
Apr 12:
Cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin (U.S.S.R.) becomes the first man in space.
Apr 17:
Bay of Pigs invasion starts.
May 4:
First freedom ride begins.
May 5:
Alan Shepard becomes the first American in space.
Aug 13:
Construction on the Berlin Wall begins.
Nov:
16,000 advisors sent to Vietnam.
Dec:
President Kennedy creates the President’s Commission on the Status of Women.
Feb 7:
President Kennedy expands U.S. embargo on all goods to and from Cuba except for food and medicines.
Feb 20:
John Glenn becomes the first American to orbit Earth.
Apr 11:
President Kennedy orders steel price rollbacks.
June 11–15:
Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) write and adopt the Port Huron Statement.
Oct 1:
James Meredith, the first black student admitted to University of Mississippi, attends his first class.
Oct 15–28:
Cuban Missile Crisis.
Jan 14:
President Kennedy proposes a $10 billion tax cut.
May:
Civil rights protests in Birmingham, Alabama.
May:
President Ngo Dinh Diem begins moving South Vietnamese people into strategic hamlets.
June 11:
Governor George Wallace blocks the door to prevent the integration of University of Alabama.
June 13:
NAACP field officer Medgar Evers murdered in Mississippi.
June 16:
Soviet Union sends first woman, Valentina Tereshkova, into space.
Aug 5:
The U.S. and Soviet Union sign the Limited Test Ban Treaty.
Aug 28:
March for Jobs and Freedom in Washington, D.C.; Martin Luther King Jr. delivers his “I have a dream” speech.
Sept 15:
Four little girls killed in Birmingham, Alabama, church bombing.
Nov 2:
South Vietnam president Diem assassinated.
Nov 22:
President Kennedy assassinated. Lyndon Johnson sworn in as president.
Nov 24:
President Kennedy assassin Lee Harvey Oswald killed by Jack Ruby.
Nov 29:
Warren Commission appointed to investigate President Kennedy assassination.
Feb 7:
The Beatles arrive in the U.S. for the first time for their February 9 appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show.
Summer:
Freedom Summer organized to register black voters in Mississippi.
July 2:
President Johnson signs the Civil Rights Act into law.
Aug 6:
Bodies of three civil rights workers found in Mississippi.
Aug 7:
Tonkin Gulf Resolution passed.
Oct 1:
Berkeley protesters defy ban on political activity at Bancroft and Telegraph avenues.
Oct 14:
Martin Luther King Jr. receives the Nobel Peace Prize.
Oct 15:
Nikita Khruschev deposed; Leonid Brezhnev takes power in the Soviet Union.
Oct 16:
China explodes its first atomic bomb.
Nov 3:
President Johnson defeats Barry Goldwater to win the presidential election. Robert Kennedy elected as a senator from New York.
Dec 2:
Student sit-in at Sproul Hall on University of California–Berkeley campus.
Feb 21:
Malcolm X assassinated.
Mar:
Operation Rolling Thunder begins.
Mar 7–21:
Selma to Montgomery marches.
Apr 17:
SDS holds its first march in Washington, D.C., to protest the Vietnam War.
Apr 21:
President Johnson authorizes the dispatch of 40,000 combat troops to Vietnam.
June:
Search-and-destroy missions start in Vietnam.
June 3:
Supreme Court overturns law prohibiting birth control.
June 3:
General William Westmoreland requests troop increases up to 180,000 men, with another 100,000 for 1966.
July 28:
Congress passes Medicare law.
Aug 6:
President Johnson signs Voting Rights Act into law.
Aug 11–17:
Watts Riots in Los Angeles.
Sept 8:
Cesar Chavez begins his long battle with vineyard owners, which lasts five years.
Sept 24:
President Johnson issues executive order creating affirmative action.
Oct:
Mao Tse Tung begins the Cultural Revolution in China.
June 6:
James Meredith shot during his solo civil rights march from Memphis, Tennessee, to Jackson, Mississippi.
June 13:
Supreme Court hands down Miranda decision.
June 30:
National Organization of Women (NOW) founded.
Oct:
Black Panthers formed.
Jan 3:
Jack Ruby dies.
Jan 14:
Human Be-In held in Golden Gate Park.
Apr:
General Westmoreland predicts that the 475,000 troops by the end of the year will only be enough to hold Vietnam and that 100,000 to 200,000 more will be needed to shorten the conflict.
Apr 19:
Stokely Carmichael coins the phrase “black power.”
Apr 28:
Muhammad Ali refuses induction into army on religious grounds.
June 12:
In Loving v. Virginia,
Supreme Court overturns laws banning inter- racial marriage.
June 16–18:
Monterey Pop Festival rings in the Summer of Love.
July:
Riots in Detroit and Newark.
Oct 2:
Thurgood Marshall becomes the first African American Supreme Court justice.
Oct 16:
Stop the Draft Week begins. Antiwar protesters march to Oakland Induction Center.
Oct 21:
Antiwar protesters march on the Pentagon.
Oct 28:
Black Panther leader Huey Newton arrested for killing police officer.
Jan 31:
Tet Offensive begins.
Mar 16:
My Lai Massacre.
Mar 31:
Johnson withdraws from presidential race.
Apr 4:
Martin Luther King Jr. assassinated.
Apr 11:
President Johnson signs Civil Rights Act of 1968, prohibiting discrimination in housing.
Apr 23:
Columbia students begin antiwar protest.
June 5:
Robert Kennedy assassinated in Los Angeles.
July 28:
Pope Paul VI issues the Humanae Vitae
encyclical, reaffirming the Catholic Church’s stance against birth control.
Aug 26–29:
Democratic National Convention held in Chicago and meets with protests.
Sept 7:
Women’s rights advocates protest the Miss America Pageant.
Oct:
Tommie Smith and John Carlos lose medals for black power salute at the Mexico City Olympics.
Oct 31:
President Johnson ends bombing campaign in Vietnam.
Nov 6:
Richard Nixon elected president over Hubert Humphrey.
Mar:
President Nixon announces his Vietnamization plan.
Mar 20:
Chicago Eight indicted for conspiracy.
Apr:
Berkley community creates People’s Park.
June:
President Nixon announces first troop withdrawals from Vietnam.
June 27:
Stonewall Riots begin.
July 20:
Neil Armstrong becomes the first man to walk on the moon.
Aug 9:
Charles Manson and his “family” murder four people in Los Angeles, California.
Aug 15–17:
Woodstock.
Sept 2:
North Vietnam leader Ho Chi Minh dies.
Oct 15:
Moratorium antiwar protest in Washington, D.C., and other cities.
Nov 9:
Indians of All Tribes occupy Alcatraz.
Nov 15:
November Mobilization antiwar protest in Washington, D.C.
Dec 1:
Selective Service institutes a draft lottery.
Dec 6:
Altamont music festival.