Happenings 50 years ago.
American Motors Corporation (AMC) introduced the Gremlin on April 1. Was it an April fools joke?
Fifty thousand protestors marched in Washington, D.C., on April 5 in what was termed “the era’s largest pro-war demonstration. Many in the “March for Victory” disagreed with President Nixon’s decision to reduce the American commitment in Vietnam and urged the war be brought to North Vietnam.
In the Academy Awards on April 7, Midnight Cowboy became the first (and still only) X-rated movie to win the best picture Oscar. John Wayne won his first, and only, Oscar as Best Actor for his performance in True Grit.
Major League Baseball returned to Milwaukee on April 7, as the Milwaukee Brewers took the field only seven days after being the Seattle Pilots. The Brewers lost, 12-0, to the California Angels.
Apollo 13, with astronauts Jim Lovell, Fred Hayes, and Jack Swigert, was launched from Cape Kennedy on April 11. Two days later, while enroute to the Moon, Apollo 13 reported, “Houston, we’ve had a problem.” An oxygen tank had exploded and electrical power was diminishing. The planned lunar landing was scrubbed and the capsule went around the Moon to return to Earth. The spacecraft splashed down safely in the South Pacific on April 17.
“Earth Day” was celebrated for the first time in the U.S. on April 22.
In a nationally televised address on April 30, President Nixon announced he had sent 2,000 American troops into Cambodia and had ordered bombing of the area by B-52s. He said it was not an “invasion” of Cambodia as all the territory targeted was “completely occupied and controlled by North Vietnamese forces.”