Some of what was going on in the U.S. and around the world during March 1969.
The number of Americans killed in action in Vietnam, according to the U.S. Department of Defense, was 32,376 as of the week that ended on March 1. The total would later in the month surpass the 33,629 U.S. deaths in the Korean War.
NASA launched Apollo 9 on March 3. Astronauts James McDivitt, David Scott, and Rusty Schweickart were to test the lunar module’s ability to undock and redock with the lunar orbiter, deemed crucial to a future effort to land on the moon and return.
March 3 was also the day the Navy established the Navy Fighter Weapons School, known popularly as “Top Gun,” at then-Naval Air Station, Miramar, in San Diego. Top Gun pilots flew the F-4 Phantom.
In Memphis, Tenn., James Earl Ray, 41, pleaded guilty on March 10 to the assassination of Martin Luther King on April 4, 1968. By pleading guilty, Ray avoided a potential death penalty.
The U.S. Senate voted 83-15 on March 13 to ratify the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, signed the previous July.
President Nixon issued secret orders on March 15 to extend U.S. military operations to Cambodia. The secret bombing of Cambodia began on March 18 and was revealed by the New York Times in April.
Golda Meir was sworn in on March 17 as the first female Prime Minister of Israel.
Beatle John Lennon and Yoko Ono were married March 20 at Gibraltar.
In his final college game on March 22, Lew Alcindor (later known as Kareem Abdul-Jabbar) scored 37 points to lead UCLA to its third consecutive NCAA basketball championship. The Bruins beat Purdue, 92-72.
Dwight D. Eisenhower, Supreme Allied Commander in WWII and 34th President of the United States (1953-61), died at Walter Reed Army Hospital, Washington, D.C., on March 28. He was 78 years old.
The 79th and last original episode of Star Trek, “Turnabout Intruder,” was broadcast on March 28. NBC had announced previously it would not renew the show for a fourth season. This is the scene from that episode in which a woman from Captain Kirk’s past exchanges bodies with him.
The Allman Brothers Band made its debut on March 30 at the Jacksonville Armory, Florida. Here they are at the Fillmore East in September 1970.