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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"
The Flintstones is an American animated sitcom produced by Hanna-Barbera. ... 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. -
President Kennedy is Elected
The 1960 United States presidential election was the 44th quadrennial presidential election. 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 Berlin Wall was a guarded concrete barrier that physically and ideologically divided Berlin from 1961 to 1989. Construction of the Wall was commenced by the German Democratic Republic on 13 August 1961. The Wall cut off West Berlin from surrounding East Germany, including East Berlin. -
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 its Port Huron Statement
SDS developed from the Student League for Industrial Democracy (SLID), the youth branch of a socialist educational organization known as the League for Industrial Democracy (LID). LID descended from the Intercollegiate Socialist Society, started in 1905. Early in 1960, the SLID changed its name into Students for a Democratic Society (SDS). The Port Huron Statement was adopted at the organization's first convention in 1962 based on an earlier draft by staff member Tom Hayden. -
Marilyn Monroe Dies
After a brief investigation, Los Angeles police concluded that her death was “caused by a self-administered overdose of sedative drugs and that the mode of death is probable suicide.” Marilyn Monroe was born Norma Jeane Mortenson in Los Angeles on June 1, 1926. -
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, also known as the October Crisis of 1962, the Caribbean Crisis, or the Missile Scare, was a 13-day confrontation between the United States and the Soviet Union initiated by the American discovery of Soviet ballistic missile deployment in Cuba. -
"Dr. No" The First James Bond Movie Premiers
The very first James Bond film sees Scottish actor Sean Connery bring the British character to life on the big screen. Agent 007 goes to Jamaica to investigate the death of a British intelligence chief. There, he meets Honey Ryder, the first Bond girl, played by Ursula Andress. -
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. -
John F Kennedy is Assassinated
John Fitzgerald Kennedy, the 35th President of the United States, was assassinated on November 22, 1963, at 12:30 p.m. Central Standard Time in Dallas, Texas, while riding in a presidential motorcade through Dealey Plaza. Kennedy was riding with his wife Jacqueline and others when he was fatally shot by former U.S. Marine Lee Harvey Oswald firing from a nearby building. The motorcade rushed to Parkland Memorial Hospital where President Kennedy was pronounced dead about 30 minutes after. -
The Beatles Arrive in the United States
The Beatles' American invasion begins. 7 February 1964 was the day The Beatles' American invasion began. The band's Boeing 707, Pan Am flight 101, left London Airport early on the morning of 7 February 1964, bound for New York City. -
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
New York World's Fair was a world's fair that held over 140 pavilions, 110 restaurants, for 80 nations (hosted by 37), 24 US states, and over 45 corporations to build exhibits or attractions at Flushing Meadows–Corona Park in Queens, New York City. The immense fair covered 646 acres on half the park, with numerous pools or fountains, and an amusement park with rides near the lake. However, the fair did not receive official sanctioning from the Bureau of International Expositions. -
Gulf of Tonkin Incident
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. -
Lyndon B Johnson Defeats Barry Goldwater
The 1964 United States presidential election was the 45th quadrennial American presidential election. It was held on Tuesday, November 3, 1964. Incumbent Democratic United States President Lyndon B. Johnson defeated Barry Goldwater, the Republican nominee. -
Malcom X Assassinated
El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz, better known as Malcolm X, was an American Muslim minister and human rights activist who was a popular figure during the civil rights movement. -
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. -
"Star Trek" TV Show Airs
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. Star Trek's Nielsen ratings while on NBC were low, and the network cancelled it after three seasons and 79 episodes. -
San Francisco "Summer of Love" Begins
The Summer of Love began on January 14, 1967, when some 30,000 people gathered in San Francisco's Golden Gate Park. They came to take part in counterculture poet Allen Ginsberg and writer Gary Synder's "Human Be-In" initiative, part of the duo's call for a collective expansion of consciousness. -
First NFL Football 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 Muhammed Ali Refuses Military Service
On April 28, 1967, with the United States at war in Vietnam, Ali refused to be inducted into the armed forces, saying “I ain't got no quarrel with those Vietcong.” On June 20, 1967, Ali was convicted of draft evasion, sentenced to five years in prison, fined $10,000 and banned from boxing for three years. -
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 on the Billboard Top LPs chart in the US. -
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. -
Thurgood Marshall Nominated to the Supreme Court
Thurgood Marshall appointed to 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, or officially called The General Offensive and Uprising of Tet Mau Than 1968 by North Vietnam and the Viet Cong, was one of the largest military campaigns of the Vietnam War, launched by the forces of the Viet Cong and others. -
Martin Luther King Jr. Assassinated
Martin Luther King Jr. was an American Christian minister and activist who became the most visible spokesperson and leader in the Civil Rights Movement from 1955 until his assassination in 1968. -
Robert Kennedy is Assassinated
Senator Robert Kennedy is shot at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles after winning the California presidential primary. Immediately after he announced to his cheering supporters that the country was ready to end its fractious divisions, Kennedy was shot several times by the 22-year-old Palestinian Sirhan Sirhan. -
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. -
LSD Declared Illegal by the US Government
Lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD), also known as acid, is a hallucinogenic drug. Effects typically .... It is impossible to predict when a bad trip will occur.The CIA introduced LSD to the United States, purchasing the entire world's supply for ... On October 24, 1968, possession of LSD was made illegal in the United States. -
Richard Nixon is Elected
The 1968 United States presidential election was the 46th quadrennial U.S. presidential election. 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
Neil Armstrong, Edwin "Buzz" Aldrin and Michael Collins were the astronauts on Apollo 11. Four days later, Armstrong and Aldrin landed on the moon, becoming the first to do it. -
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
Woodstock was a music festival held August 15–18, 1969, on Max Yasgur's dairy farm in Bethel, New York, 40 miles southwest of Woodstock. Billed as "an Aquarian Exposition: 3 Days of Peace & Music" and alternatively referred to as the Bethel Rock Festival, it attracted an audience of more than 400,000. -
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. Approximately 300,000 attended the concert, and some anticipated that it would be a "Woodstock West".
