1968 – 50 years ago; a year of triumph and tragedy; a year of social unrest and cultural changes; the year that some describe as the most tumultuous in history; a year I remember as a 15 year old; a year captured below with randomly ordered events.
1968 – A leap year starting on a Monday
1968 – World leaders included Lester Pearson, Pierre Trudeau, Charles de Gaulle, Indira Gandhi, Leonid Brezhnev, Lyndon Johnson, Harold Wilson, Mao Tse-tung
1968 – Vietnam War, Tet Offensive, My Lai massacre, and the end of US bombings
1968 – Assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. (April) and Robert F Kennedy (June)
1968 – Eastern Bloc armies (Soviet Union, Bulgaria, Poland, Hungary) invade Czechoslovakia
1968 – Intel Corporation created
1968- Super Bowl II (2) – Packers vs. Raiders
1968 – Anti-Vietnam War protests throughout the US and the Western World
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1968 – The Beatles White Album
1968 – Winter Olympics in Grenoble, France – the first Winter Olympics broadcast in color
1968 – North Korea captured the USS Pueblo (an American surveillance ship) and its crew
1968 – General Strike in France by students and workers
1968 – Enactment of the Civil Rights Act of 1968 in US
1968 – Dutch Elm disease
1968 – Earthquake in Sicily with 231 dead, 262 injured
1968 – South African Dr. Christian Barnard performs his third human heart transplant
1968 – London Bridge sold for $1 million and re-erected in Arizona
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1968 – US President Johnson surprisingly announces he would not run for another term
1968 – Redwood National Park created in California
1968 – Pope Paul VI bans Catholics from using the contraceptive pill for birth control
1968 – The Poor People’s March on Washington, DC
1968 – Zodiac serial murderer in California
1968 – France becomes the world’s fifth nuclear power
1968 – Several major US cities elect black mayors
1968 – Unrests on college campuses across the US
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1968 – Aristotle Onassis and Jacqueline Kennedy marry
1968 – The Ferry TEV Wahine capsizes in Wellington Harbour, New Zealand_
1968 – The nuclear-powered US submarine Scorpion sinks in the Atlantic Ocean (99 crew members died)
1968 – Hong Kong Flu pandemic begins in Hong Kong
1968 – Student riots threaten Mexico Olympics
1968 – Black power salute after the gold and bronze medalists at Olympics in Mexico City, Mexico
1968 – Completed: The Aswan Dam in Egypt and the Gateway Arch in St. Louis, Missouri
1968 – The border between Spain and Gibraltar is closed
1968 – Riots at the Democratic Party National Convention in Chicago, Illinois
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1968 – The first Big Mac goes on sale at McDonalds at a cost of 49 cents
1968 – The Beatles create Apple Records and release “Hey Jude” as the first single on the label
1968 – Richard Nixon defeated Hubert Humphrey and George Wallace for US President (Wallace is the last third-party candidate to win Electoral votes)
1968 – Boeing introduces 747 aircraft
1968 – Mattel introduces Hot Wheel Cars
1968 – Kymer Rouge forms in Cambodia
1968 – Led Zeppelin performs for the first time
1968 – Allen K Breed invents an airbag for cars
1968 – Yale University announces it will admit women
1968 – Apollo 8 orbits the Moon (first manned mission to do so)
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1968 – US Explodes experimental hydrogen bomb and France explodes its first
1968 – Emergency 911 Telephone service starts in the US
1968 – The first ATM (automated teller machine) in the US (Philadelphia)
1968 – CBS airs “60 Minutes” shown for the first time
1968 – Musical Hair, featuring nudity and taking drugs) opens in London and then New York City
1968 – Popular films include The Graduate, Bonnie and Clyde, The Odd Couple, Planet of the Apes, Rosemary’s Baby, and Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner
1968 – Popular Songs include Hey Jude (Beatles), Mrs. Robinson (Simon & Garfunkel), Hello I Love You (Doors), Honey (Bobby Goldsboro), I Heard it through the Grapevine (Marvin Gaye), Love is Blue (Paul Mauriat), The Dock of the Bay (Otis Redding), People Got to Be Free (Rascals)
1968 – Birth year for Will Smith, Celine Dion, LL Cool J, Cuba Gooding Jr, Guy Fieri, Kenny Chesney, Michael Weatherly, Barry Sanders, Rachael Raye, Mary Lou Retton
1968 – Death year for Yuri Gagarin, Helen Keller, Charlie Chaplin, Robert F Kennedy, Martin Luther King, Jr
1968 – First interracial kiss on US television (Star Trek)
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A Frank Angle 