1969 [ MCMLXIX ] – Year in Review

Last Public Performance for the Beatles

January 20 – Richard Nixon is sworn in as the 37th President of the United States.

First to Officially Employ the Trademark Name ‘Super Bowl’ III

Easy Rider (starring Peter Fonda) is the forerunner of a new wave of youth-oriented movies.

Jul 20 Mankind, represented by astronaut Neil Armstrong, steps onto the moon.

Stonewall Rebellion Early Morning Hours of June 28, 1969

he Stonewall riots (also referred to as the Stonewall uprising or the Stonewall rebellion) were a series of spontaneous, violent demonstrations by members of the gay (LGBT) 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, […]

Golda Meir becomes the first female prime minister of Isreal

March 17, 1969, Golda Meir becomes the first female prime minister of Israel.

The Godfather by Mario Puzo is first distributed to booksellers

The novel The Godfather by Mario Puzo is first distributed to booksellers by the publisher G. P. Putnam’s Sons.

3/10/69 James Earl Ray pleads guilty to assassinating Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

March 10, 1969, in Memphis, Tennessee, James Earl Ray pleads guilty to assassinating Martin Luther King Jr. (he later retracts his guilty plea).

Sirhan Sirhan Admits to Shooting Robert F. Kennedy

March 3, 1969, in a Los Angeles court, Sirhan Sirhan admits that he killed presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy.Sirhan Bishara Sirhan, a Palestinian immigrant born in Jerusalem in 1944, moved to the United States with his family as a boy and attended high school in California. He later stated he killed Robert Kennedy because the […]

SCOTUS rules 1st Amendment Applies to public schools

Tinker v. Des Moines Independent Community School District: The Supreme Court of the United States rules that the First Amendment to the United States Constitution applies to public schools.

Front de libération du Québec (FLQ) terrorists bomb the Montreal Stock Exchange.

February 13, 1969, Front de libération du Québec (FLQ) terrorists bomb the Montreal Stock Exchange.

“Jumbo Jet” is flown for the first time

February 9, 1969, the Boeing 747 “jumbo jet” is flown for the first time, taking off from the Boeing airfield at Everett, Washington. On February 9, 1969, Boeing flies its 747 model for the first time. The jumbo jet, christened the City of Everett, is the first new Boeing transport not painted in Boeing’s traditional […]

Only TV show canceled midway through its first episode

Turn-On is an American sketch comedy series that aired on ABC in February 1969. Only one episode was shown, leaving one episode unaired, and the show is considered one of the most infamous flops in TV history. Turn-On’s sole episode was shown on Wednesday, February 5, 1969, at 8:30 pm ET. Among the cast were […]

Yasser Arafat

February 4, 1969, Cairo, Yasser Arafat is elected Palestine Liberation Organization leader at the Palestinian National Congress.

Santa Barbara CA Oil Spill – Inspires ‘Earth Day’

January 28 – 1969 Santa Barbara oil spill: A blowout on Union Oil‘s Platform A spills 80,000 to 100,000 barrels of crude oil into a channel and onto the beaches of Santa Barbara County in Southern California; on February 5 the oil spill closes Santa Barbara’s harbor. The incident inspires Wisconsin Senator Gaylord Nelson to […]

Iraqi authorities hanged 14 alleged spies in a public execution in Baghdad

On 27 January 1969, Fourteen men, 9 of them Jews, are executed in Baghdad for spying for Israel. By 1969, Iraq’s Jewish community had shrunk from more than 130,000 in 1948 to less than 3,000 due to mass emigration caused the establishment of the State of Israel, the subsequent Arab-Israeli wars, and anti-Jewish persecution. The […]

January 12 – The First Led Zeppelin album is released in the USA

Led Zeppelin were an English rock band formed in London in 1968. The group consisted of guitarist Jimmy Page, singer Robert Plant, bassist/keyboardist John Paul Jones, and drummer John Bonham. Along with Black Sabbath and Deep Purple, the band’s heavy, guitar-driven sound has led them to be cited as one of the progenitors of heavy […]

5th Dimension Release Aquarius

Album: The Age of Aquarius Artist: The 5th Dimension Release year: 1969 Duration: 4:49 Genre: Psychedelic soul When the moon is in the Seventh HouseAnd Jupiter aligns with MarsThen peace will guide the planetsAnd love will steer the starsThis is the dawning of the age of AquariusAge of AquariusAquarius!Aquarius! Harmony and understandingSympathy and trust aboundingNo […]

Last Public Performance for the Beatles

January 30 – The Beatles give their last public performance, of several tracks on the roof of Apple Records, London (featured in Let It Be (1970 film)).

January 20 – Richard Nixon is sworn in as the 37th President of the United States.

January 20, 1969 Richard Nixon is sworn in as the 37th President of the United States. Richard Milhous Nixon (January 9, 1913 – April 22, 1994) was an American politician who served as the 37th president of the United States from 1969 until 1974, when he resigned from office, the only American president to do so. […]

First to Officially Employ the Trademark Name ‘Super Bowl’ III

Super Bowl III was the third AFL–NFL Championship Game in professional American football, and the first to officially bear the trademark name “Super Bowl“. The game, played on January 12, 1969, at the Orange Bowl in Miami, Florida, is regarded as one of the greatest upsets in both American football history and in the recorded […]

Easy Rider (starring Peter Fonda) is the forerunner of a new wave of youth-oriented movies.

Easy Rider is a 1969 American independent road drama film written by Peter Fonda, Dennis Hopper, and Terry Southern, produced by Fonda, and directed by Hopper. Fonda and Hopper played two bikers who travel through the American Southwest and South carrying the proceeds from a cocaine deal. The success of Easy Rider helped spark the […]

Jul 20 Mankind, represented by astronaut Neil Armstrong, steps onto the moon.

A Moon landing is the arrival of a spacecraft on the surface of the Moon. This includes both crewed and uncrewed (robotic) missions. The first human-made object to reach the surface of the Moon was the Soviet Union’s Luna 2 mission, on 13 September 1959. The United States’ Apollo 11 was the first crewed mission […]

James Rector, a student who died from shotgun wounds inflicted by the police on May 15, 1969

People’s Park in Berkeley, California is a park located off Telegraph Avenue, bounded by Haste and Bowditch streets and Dwight Way, near the University of California, Berkeley. The park was created during the radical political activism of the late 1960s. The local Southside neighborhood was the scene of a major confrontation between student protesters and […]

The 1st Concorde Test Flight

In Toulouse, France the first Concorde test flight is conducted. The design work was supported by a preceding research programme studying the flight characteristics of low ratio delta wings. A supersonic Fairey Delta 2 was modified to carry the ogee planform, and, renamed as the BAC 221, used for flight tests of the high speed […]

Jacqueline Bisset in 1969

Simply beautiful, the English actress Winifred Jacqueline Fraser Bisset during the early stages of her career. Jacqueline first came to prominence in 1968 with roles in The Detective, Bullitt, and The Sweet Ride, which earned her a Golden Globe nomination for ‘Most Promising Newcomer’. She earned another Golden Globe nomination, this time for ‘Best Actress in […]

Nov 20 A group of 80 American Indian college students occupy Alcatraz Island in the name of all tribes.

The Occupation of Alcatraz (November 20, 1969, to June 11, 1971) was a nineteen month long protest, when 89 American Indians and their supporters occupied Alcatraz Island. The protest was led by Richard Oakes, LaNada Means, and others; John Trudell was the spokesperson. This group lived on the island together until the protest was forcibly […]

Dec 26 Timothy Leary is sentenced to 10 years in prison for possession of marijuana

Timothy Leary — the high priest of the 1960s movement to create a better world by turning on to LSD — died of prostate cancer yesterday, leaving behind bitterly conflicting opinions over what his brilliant, erratic and colorful life meant. Leary, who died in his sleep at 75 at his hilltop Beverly Hills home, was […]

Dec 6 Woodstock of the West, just east of Oakland and Berkeley hire the Hell’s Angels Gang for security that brutally beat fans, killing one.

The Altamont Speedway Free Festival was a counterculture rock concert held on Saturday, December 6, 1969 at the Altamont Speedway, northern California, United States. The event is best known for considerable violence, including the stabbing death of Meredith Hunter and three accidental deaths: two caused by a hit-and-run car accident, and one by LSD-induced drowning […]

Aug 15 thru 18 Began as a profit venture becomes a free concert, to be known as Woodstock, in upstate New York

Woodstock was a music festival held between August 15–18, 1969, which attracted an audience of more than 400,000. Billed as “An Aquarian Exposition: 3 Days of Peace & Music”, it was held at Max Yasgur’s 600-acre dairy farm near White Lake in Bethel, New York, 43 miles (70 km) southwest of Woodstock. Over the sometimes […]

Charles Manson Gang Kills 9 Fully Defenseless People – That Include Pregnant Sharon Tate and the LaBianca’s

Aug 8 Charles Manson wants to bring about a race war by having members of his group kill wealthy people and cast suspicion on blacks. He believes that in their music the Beatles have been warning of a coming holocaust, which he calls Helter Skelter. Manson’s first target is the house where Terry Melcher once […]

Jul 18 Senator Edward Kennedy drives off a bridge and passenger, Mary Jo Kopechne, drowns

The Chappaquiddick incident was a single-vehicle car accident that occurred on Chappaquiddick Island in Massachusetts on Friday, July 18, 1969. The late-night accident was caused by Senator Ted Kennedy’s negligence and resulted in the death of his 28-year-old passenger Mary Jo Kopechne, who was trapped inside the vehicle. According to Kennedy’s testimony, he accidentally drove […]

Apr 9 At Harvard University, Students are Abused by Police for Occupying University Hall

Apr 9 At Harvard University, Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) occupy University Hall and are evicted by police. Thirty-seven are injured and 200 arrested. In Cambridge, as in the rest of America, the late 1960s were a period of unrest and upheaval. As we consider our 2019 theme “How Does Cambridge Engage?” we benefit […]

Apr 4 The first artificial heart is implanted into a human

On this day, April 4, in 1969, the world’s first artificial heart was implanted into Haskell Karp of Skokie, Illinois. Karp’s own heart was failing him, and the search for a donor heart for transplants was taking too long. The physician in charge, Dr. Denton A. Cooley, had to act, and he decided on the […]

Mar 28 Former President Eisenhower dies of heart failure

On this day in 1969, Dwight D. Eisenhower, the nation’s 34th president, died of congestive heart failure at Walter Reed Army Hospital in Washington, D.C. He was 78. Eisenhower, who was in office from 1953 to 1961, spent much of his retirement years with his wife, Mamie, at their farm near the Civil War battlefield […]

COINTELPRO – FBI Targets the Black Panther Party

The FBI is targeting the Black Panther Party in its program of investigating and disrupting dissident political organizations within the United States – a program labeled COINTELPRO. Beginning in 1969, leaders of the Black Panther Party were targeted by the COINTELPRO and “neutralized” by being assassinated, imprisoned, publicly humiliated or falsely charged with crimes. Some […]

Mar 20 John Lennon, Beatle, marries Yoko Ono, artist

John Lennon and Yoko Ono are possibly one of the most famous power couples of all time. They came together during the time of The Beatles, the hottest band in the world at the time, and arguably even still so. So of course a relationship of one of the members of the group would be […]

A State of Extreme Emergency on Berkeley campus

Feb 5, 1969, turmoil has increased as off-campus anarchists have attacked a police line and the police have retaliated in forays that strike at students merely walking off campus. War between students and the police has erupted. Governor Reagan declares “a state of extreme emergency” on the Berkeley campus and surrounding area.

Santa Barbara California Oil Spill

Jan 29, 1969, near Santa Barbara California, an offshore oil well begins what in the coming eleven days will be the release of 200,000 gallons of oil that will spread over 800 square miles of ocean and 35 miles of coastline. The people of this affluent part of California are outraged. The Santa Barbara oil […]

Jews are executed for spying

Jan 27, 1969, in Baghdad, nine Jews are executed for spying. Baghdad Radio invites Iraqis to “come and enjoy the feast.” An estimated 500,000 men, women and children parade and dance past the hanging bodies and chant “Death to Israel” and “Death to all traitors.” . Baghdad Radio invites Iraqis to “come and enjoy the […]

Paris Peace Talks – Resume

Jan 25 In Paris, peace talks resume, attended by representatives from the US, the Saigon regime, North Vietnam and the Viet Cong. President Nixon favors a negotiated settlement of the war, believing that a unilateral US withdrawal would be a disaster. He wants the war to end but without the appearance of a US capitulation.

Yippies Hold a Counter-Presidential Inaugural Parade

Jan 18 -19 Yippies and others hold a counter-inaugural parade, and at midnight they hold mock swearing-in ceremony. The character representing the president wears a pig mask, followed by a play assassination. They have an inaugural ball, with a poetry reading, a light show and rock bands. Many in the United States, including liberals, ignore […]