Category: US & World events

Stuff that happened this month, 50 years ago.

Jim Morrison, lead singer of The Doors, was found dead in his bath in Paris, France, on July 3. He was 27.

On July 5, President Richard Nixon certified the 26th amendment to the US Constitution, which lowered the voting age from 21 to 18.

US National Security Adviser Henry Kissinger made a secret trip to the People’s Republic of China on July 9. On a reported flight to Pakistan, part of a “fact-finding trip” and diplomatic visit to Asian nations, the plane carrying Kissinger turned north and landed in Beijing. While the international press were told Kissinger was temporarily sidelined with a stomach ailment and recovering at a mountain resort in Pakistan, he was instead meeting with Chinese Prime Minister Zhou Enlai for three days. President Richard Nixon, in a nationwide address on July 15, announced he had accepted an invitation to visit China, which would take place before May 1972.

The South Tower of the World Trade Center was topped off on July 19 at the height of 1,362 feet, making it the second-tallest structure in the world, exceeded only by its neighbor tower to the north.

Fiddler on the Roof became the longest-running musical on Broadway with its 2,845th consecutive performance on July 21. The record had been held by Hello, Dolly! Fiddler on the Roof had first been performed on Broadway on September 22, 1964.

Apollo 15, carrying astronauts David Scott, Alfred Worden, and James Irwin, launched from Cape Canaveral, Fla., on July 26, beginning a four-day journey to the Moon. After landing on the 30th, Scott became the first person to drive a wheeled vehicle on the Moon on the 31st, while Irwin rode along as a passenger. The trip covered about 2.5 miles from the landing site before returning.

On July 29, I was officially released from active duty in the US Navy. More about that to follow.

Events in the US 50 years ago.

Lew Alcindor, named most valuable player in the National Basketball Association in 1970, announced on June 3 that he had changed his name to Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. The name change was in keeping, he said, with his conversion in 1968 from Roman Catholicism to Islam.

US President Richard Nixon, on June 10, ended the trade embargo with the People’s Republic of China, which had been in effect for 21 years. Nixon authorized the export of “non-strategic items” to China and removed all restrictions on imports from China.

The 19-month occupation of Alcatraz Island in San Francisco Bay by American Indians from various tribes ended on June 11. The occupiers lived in the closed federal penitentiary there. By the time the last group was evacuated, only 15 remained on the island.

President Nixon’s daughter, Tricia, married Edward Cox on June 12 in the White House Rose Garden. It is the most recent wedding to take place there.

 

On June 13, the New York Times published the first installment of the “Pentagon Papers,” classified Department of Defense information about US strategy in Vietnam. After the Times was quickly enjoined from publishing more, the Washington Post independently began publishing content from the Pentagon Papers on June 18. The US Supreme Court voted 6-3 on June 30 that the Times could publish the classified information, rejecting governmental injunctions as unconstitutional prior restraint on speech. Publication of the Pentagon Papers by the Times resumed the following day.

President Nixon announced on June 17 the start of a “War on Drugs.” Describing drug abuse as America’s number one public enemy, he said that, in order to defeat it, “it was necessary to wage a new, all-out offensive.”

Southwest Airlines, a low-cost airline based in Texas, began operations on June 18, serving Dallas, Houston, and San Antonio.

For the first time since the Vietnam War began, the US Senate voted 57-42 on June 22 to remove all US troops by the end of 1971, on the condition that North Vietnam and the Viet Cong release all US prisoners of war. The House of Representatives rejected the measure six days later, 176 for-219 against.

Fillmore East, an iconic rock music venue in New York City, was closed on June 27 after only three years, by concert promoter Bill Graham.

The US Supreme Court voted 8-0 on June 28 to overturn the conviction of Muhammad Ali, four years after he had been convicted of refusing induction into the Army. The court determined Ali had been improperly drafted after claiming conscientious objector status.

 

 

Stuff that happened 50 years ago.

The US National Railroad Passenger Corporation, known as Amtrak, began operation on May 1. It replaced passenger services of private railroad companies that had operated for more than a century. The first official Amtrak service began at 12:05 am, when the Metroliner left New York City’s Penn Station for Washington, DC.

The Harris Poll announced on May 3 that a recent survey of American households found that 60 percent favored withdrawal of US troops from the Vietnam war even if that meant South Vietnam would be defeated. For the first time since the question had been asked, 58 percent of Americans believed it was morally wrong for the US to be engaged in the war.

Also on May 3, “All Things Considered,” National Public Radio’s flagship news program, was broadcast for the first time.

The Emmy Awards ceremony was held May 9 in Los Angeles. Emmys went to “All in the Family,” best comedy series; “The Flip Wilson Show,” best variety series; and “The Bold Ones: The Senator,” best drama.

The price of mailing a letter first-class rose by one-third on May 16. A first-class stamp cost 8 cents, up from 6.

The Magic Mountain amusement park opened in Valencia, Calif., on May 29. Tickets to ride all of the park’s rides were $5.00 for adults, $1.50 for children 12 and under.

Monday, May 31, was Memorial Day, completing a three-day holiday weekend. It was the first instance of the holiday falling on the last Monday in May, as called for in federal legislation establishing uniform Monday holidays for major observances. From 1868 to 1970, Memorial Day (previously “Decoration Day”) had been observed on May 30, whichever day of the week on which that date fell.

Stuff that happened 50 years ago.

The Peoples Republic of China sent an invitation on April 6 to the US national table tennis team, then competing in Japan, to visit China. They were the first Americans to be so invited since Communists took over in 1949. The invitation was accepted the next day and the team began an eight-day visit on April 10. Thus began an era of “ping pong diplomacy” that opened up relations between the US and the PRC.

US President Richard Nixon announced on April 7 the withdrawal of an additional 100,000 American troops from Vietnam by December 1. At the time, there were 284,000 American troops participating in the war.

The Soviet Union launched and placed into orbit Salyut 1, the first “space station,” on April 19.

The US Supreme Court ruled unanimously on April 20 that busing of students could be ordered to achieve racial desegregation in schools.

Vietnam Veterans Against the War concluded on April 23 a week-long protest against continued US involvement in the war with Operation Dewey Canyon III, as about 700 veterans threw medals and ribbons received for service in it onto the steps of the US Capitol. The Rolling Stones album Sticky Fingers was released the same day.

At least 200,000 people in Washington, DC, and 125,000 in San Francisco marched in demonstrations against the Vietnam War on April 24.

Two US Air Force majors set a supersonic speed endurance record on April 26. Over a period of 10 hours, 30 minutes in a Lockheed SR-71 Blackbird, they flew more than 15,000 miles, slowing to subsonic speeds only when refueling. The plane averaged 1,429 miles an hour, or Mach 1.86, and exceeded Mach 3 at times.

Hank Aaron of the Atlanta Braves became only the third player in Major League Baseball history to hit 600 home runs in his career on April 27. Only Babe Ruth and Willie Mays had achieved that feat.

OSHA, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, was created on April 28 as part of the US Department of Labor.

On this date, 50 years ago, also a Monday, I fretted about attending a closed-circuit pay-per-view telecast later in the day of the heavyweight championship fight between undefeated champion Joe Frazier and Muhammad Ali (still “Cassius Clay” to many). The fight would be the third for Ali, also unbeaten, since he had been banned from boxing three years earlier for refusing induction into the U.S. Armed Forces. It was being billed as “the fight of the century.”

The local telecast was to take place at the San Diego Sports Arena, then less than five years old. It was expensive to attend, maybe $15.00 (hey, that’s just under a hundred bucks in today’s money). I wasn’t even sure tickets would still be available. 

I decided to go.

Based on the seat I was able to get, I may have bought one of the last tickets available. I was in the top row (I could lean back onto the side of the building), the screen was at the end of the arena, essentially perpendicular to me, with no one to my right. I and many others in my area watched the fight leaning significantly to our lefts to reduce the distorted presentation we saw on the screen.

The event took place at Madison Square Garden, New York City. According to the Associated Press article about the fight, “The stars and the star-struck came in their finest to watch on a Monday night in Manhattan. It was March 8, 1971, and those crowding their way into the Garden were attired in the fashion of the day, which included full-length fur coats, velvet pants, and peacock feathered hats — and that was just the men. There were also plenty of fashionably attired women in miniskirts or long gowns, with enough skin and hair on both sexes to make the crowd watching as good as the fight.

“At ringside, Frank Sinatra had a camera in his hand, chronicling the scene for Life magazine. There were Kennedys in the building, along with celebrities of the day such as Diana Ross and Woody Allen. The moonwalkers from Apollo 14 were on hand, too, still bearded from their trip to space.”

Those attending in San Diego were not so much the “stars and the star-struck.” If there were San Diego notables in attendance, they were nowhere close to my seat. 

I wasn’t a huge fan of boxing, but it was a much bigger sport then than now. And one major reason for that was Ali. He had become a cultural figure, admired for his antiwar stance by many and despised by as many, if not more, for the same reason. Frazier, who still referred to his opponent as Cassius Clay, was called an “Uncle Tom” by Ali and, whether it was his intention or not, represented to many the cultural “working class” of America. With the cultural clash of America represented by the two fighters, the event was portrayed as much a fight between those cultures.

I think I wanted to see the fight to see what happened in that clash and to see “history.”

To the disappointment, I think, of most in the San Diego Sports Arena, including me, Frazier won the 15-round fight by unanimous decision. While Ali won the 14th round, Frazier caught Ali flush in the jaw with his best of many potent left hooks in the final round, knocking him to the canvas.

Here is a video (7:52) of the highlights of the fight.

Much of what I remember from the evening was the environment inside the Sports Arena. It became increasingly warm and, as smoking was permitted in those days, the upper levels of the arena, where I was sitting, became quite smoky.

After the fight, Ali’s jaw was heavily swollen, but x-rays showed it was not broken. Frazier would eventually need hospitalization for injuries he suffered in the fight.

March 8, 1971 may well have been the high point of Frazier’s career. He lost the next two fights with Ali and was then knocked out twice by George Foreman. After reclaiming his title from Frazier, Ali later defeated Foreman in the 1974 “Rumble in the Jungle.”

 

What happened 50 years ago.

Led Zeppelin performed “Stairway to Heaven” live for the first time on March 5 in Belfast, Northern Ireland. According to bassist John Paul Jones, most of the listeners at the time “were all bored to tears waiting to hear something they knew.” The video below doesn’t show the first performance, but it’s still in the 1970s.

World heavyweight boxing champion Joe Frazier defeated previously undefeated Muhammed Ali (known earlier as Cassius Clay) on March 8 by unanimous decision in what had been billed as “the fight of the century.” (More on the anniversary of this fight, as I attended a telecast of the bout.) 

The 672nd and last original episode of The Red Skelton Hour was telecast on March 15, bringing the end to a 20-year run.

The Boston Patriots, new members of the National Football League (NFL), announced on March 22, prior to a new stadium opening in Foxborough, Mass, that a temporary name of “Bay State Patriots” would be changed to “New England Patriots.”

With a vote of 401 to 19, the US House of Representatives approved on March 23 a measure submitting the 26th amendment to the Constitution, which would lower the nationwide voting age to 18, to the states for ratification. The Senate had approved the same measure unanimously on March 10. The amendment was ratified more quickly than any other amendment, before or since, becoming effective 100 days later on July 1.

The Beverly Hillbillies was broadcast for the last time on March 23, after 274 episodes and nine seasons. The show had been rated #1 in its first season and finished among the top 20 most popular shows in each of the following seasons, except its last.

UCLA defeated Villanova, 68-62, to win the NCAA collegiate basketball championship on March 27. The game was played in the Houston Astrodome in front of a then-record 31,765 fans. It was the Bruins’ seventh NCAA crown in eight seasons. Led by consensus all-Americans Curtis Rowe and Sidney Wicks, UCLA had lost only once, to Notre Dame, in compiling a 29-1 record.

The Ed Sullivan Show had its finale on March 28. Debuting in 1948, the Sunday night fixture was telecast 1,068 times over 23 seasons. On the same day, Hogan’s Heroes ended its six-season run.

A US Army court martial on March 29 found 1st Lt. William Calley guilty of 22 murders in the 1969 My Lai massacre. He was sentenced to life in prison. The Army later reduced his sentence to 20 years and he was paroled in 1976 after serving a third of that sentence.

The first Starbucks coffee shop opened in Seattle, Wash., on March 30.

 

News from the US and around the world 50 years ago.

Lunar landings kept happening. On February 5, Apollo 14, commanded by America’s first astronaut Alan Shepard, made the US’s third landing on the moon. The mission returned to Earth on February 9.

On February 6, Gunner Robert Curtis became the first British Army soldier to die in the Northern Ireland conflict between the majority Protestants and minority Catholics, known as “The Troubles.” The conflict went on for almost 30 years.

Swiss male voters approved on February 7 a referendum giving Swiss women the right to vote in national elections and hold federal office. Women remained ineligible to vote in local elections in eight of Switzerland’s 22 cantons.

The First Division of the Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN) moved into Laos on February 8, many in American-piloted helicopter troopships.

The 6.5 Sylmar earthquake, also known as the San Fernando earthquake, struck Los Angeles at 6 am on February 9. Fifty-eight people were killed by falling debris, many of them in the collapses of the Olive View Hospital and the VA Hospital in Sylmar.

President Richard Nixon ordered on February 10 installation of voice-activated recording devices in the Oval Office and on its telephones. Nixon and three White House aides, including Deputy Assistant to the President Alexander Butterfield, were the only ones to know of the system. In 1973, Butterfield made the explosive disclosure of “the tapes” in Congressional testimony related to the Watergate investigation.

An agreement reached on February 14 between 23 oil companies, facing an embargo on their product, and six oil-exporting countries in the Middle East changed the initiative in oil-pricing from the companies to the exporting nations. Thus began years-long increases in the price of oil and gas.

For the first time, “Presidents Day” was celebrated in the US on February 15. The new holiday conflated previous holidays honoring the birthdays of George Washington (February 22) and Abraham Lincoln (February 12).

Tornadoes, primarily in Mississippi, on February 21 killed 123 people. Nineteen storms raged through northeastern Louisiana, Mississippi, and southern Tennessee.

Golfer Jack Nicklaus won the PGA Championship on February 28, becoming the first golfer to win all four major tournaments — the Masters, British Open, US Open, and PGA — more than once. Earlier that day, male voters in the European principality of Leichtenstein voted not to allow women to vote. The margin was 80 votes, 1,897 to 1,817. 

What happened this month 50 years ago.

The last cigarette commercials on U.S. television and radio were broadcast on January 1. Just before the midnight deadline, a commercial for Virginia Slims showed on NBC’s The Tonight Show. Not sure if the ad below is the very last commercial, but it is reflective of the time.

In the only known instance of the Harlem Globetrotters being defeated by the designated losers in their exhibitions, the New Jersey Reds beat the Globetrotters 100-99 in Martin, Tenn., on January 5. The owner of the Reds said his team played under contract with the Globetrotters but they were not instructed to lose. On the same day, former world heavyweight boxing champion Sonny Liston was found dead in his home in Las Vegas. A coroner surmised that Liston had died on December 30 after falling while alone.

The drama anthology television series Masterpiece Theatre, produced by Boston’s WGBH, debuted on the Public Broadcasting System on January 10. The initial series was The First Churchills, a BBC drama, introduced by series host Alistair Cooke.

The iconic television series All in the Family premiered on January 12. Criticized as vulgar and unfunny, it was also praised for its boldness and brashness. Initially not that popular, reviews and popular word helped make it the #1-rated show by the end of the 1971-72 season.

The Baltimore Colts defeated the Dallas Cowboys, 16-13, in Super Bowl V on January 17. It was the first Super Bowl after the merger of the National and American football leagues.

U.S. Senator George McGovern of South Dakota became the first person to announce his candidacy for the Presidency in the 1972 election on January 18. It was, at the time, the earliest date such an announcement had been made.

Charles Manson and three “Manson Family” members were convicted of murder on January 25 in Los Angeles. Manson, Patricia Krenwinkel, and Susan Atkins were found guilty of committing the Tate-LaBianca murders of August 9 and 10, 1969, in which seven people were murdered, while Leslie Van Houten was found guilty of five killings.

Court martial charges related to the My Lai massacre against Army Major General Samuel Koster, accused of trying to cover up the mass killings of Vietnamese civilians by U.S. soldiers in March 1968, were dropped on January 29 by the commanding general of the U.S. First Army.

The UCLA men’s basketball team beat UC Santa Barbara, 74-61, on January 30, beginning what would become an 88-game winning streak lasting three years. That first win came a week after the Bruins had lost to Notre Dame. On January 19, 1974, Notre Dame would also end the UCLA streak, 71-70.

 

National and world events 50 years ago.

The Aristocats premiered on December 11. One of the most popular films of 1971, the animated movie was the last project approved by Walt Disney before his death in 1966.

Jim Morrison and The Doors performed together for the last time in New Orleans. Morrison experienced an apparent nervous breakdown during the performance. He later recorded the album L.A. Woman with the group before beginning a leave of absence and moving to Paris. He died in Paris in July 1971.

Love Story was released on December 16 in the United States and Canada. Starring Ali MacGraw and Ryan O’Neal, the film would go on to be the highest-earning film of 1971. 

Elvis Presley visited the White House on December 21, greeted by President Richard Nixon and leading to one of the iconic photos of the time. The visit was actually not made public for more than a year until it was mentioned in a Washington Post column in January 1972. It later became the subject of several books and two films.

Also on December 21, the Navy F-14 Tomcat made its first flight. The prototype F-14 crashed nine days later, with the pilots able to eject safely.

The North Tower of the World Trade Center in New York topped out to its full 110-story height on December 23., becoming the tallest building in the world.

The U.S. Defense Command announced on Christmas, December 25, that 23 American servicemen had been killed in combat in Vietnam during the week December 12-18, the lowest number in more than five years.

Hello Dolly, the longest-running Broadway musical up to that time, closed on December 27 after its 2,844th performance. Its longest-running status didn’t last long, as it was surpassed by Fiddler on the Roof in July 1971. Ethel Merman played the role of Dolly Levi in the closing run. She had been preceded by Carol Channing, Ginger Rogers, Martha Raye, Betty Grable, Pearl Bailey, and Phyllis Diller.

 

Stuff that happened in the country and world 50 years ago this month.

Marxist Salvador Allende was inaugurated as president of Chile on November 3. He had been selected by Chile’s congress after winning a narrow plurality of 36.2 percent of the vote, beating the second-place finisher by 1.3 percentage points. Elected to a six-year term, Allende would die in a military coup less than three years later.

Aerosmith played its first concert on November 6. The band appeared at Nipmuc Regional High School in Massachusetts.

Tom Dempsey, field goal kicker for the New Orleans Saints, set an NFL record on November 8 by kicking a 63-yard field goal on the last play of the game to beat the visiting Detroit Lions, 19-17.

More than 300,000 people were killed on or about November 13 when a cyclone hit East Pakistan (now Bangladesh). Three days after the cyclone struck, Radio Pakistan said 13 densely populated islands had lost their entire populations. The dead toll could have been as high as 500,000 people.

A plane carrying 37 members and five coaches of the Marshall University football team crashed into a hillside on November 14 as it made its approach to a West Virginia airport. Thirty-three other passengers and crew also died.  The team was returning from Greenville, N.C., after losing to East Carolina University, 17-14.

The Lockheed L-1011 Tristar, the company’s version of the jumbo jet, made its first flight on November 16, flown by test pilots. The L-1011 was to compete with the Boeing 747 and McDonnell-Douglas Dc-10.

In “Operation Ivory Coast,” a joint U.S. Air Force and Army team entered North Vietnam on November 20 to rescue American service members thought to be prisoners at the Son Tay camp. Upon arriving at the camp, the raiders discovered the prisoners had been relocated.

On November 25, a bank in Buffalo, N.Y., became one of the first U.S. banks to offer its customers access to 24-hour Automated Teller Machines (ATMs). The Marine Midland Bank-Western attached two of the devices to the exterior wall of two branches. Customers could take out $25 or $50 as a loan on a credit account rather than as withdrawals from their own accounts.

The U.S. Census Bureau announced its final count of the 1970 decennial census on November 30. The bureau reported that on April 1, 1970, the U.S. population was 204,765,770 persons. It was the first census since 1800 in which New York did not have the largest population, California having become the most populous state in 1962. (U.S. population in 2019 was estimated to be 328.2 million people.)