Category: US & World events

National and international events 50 years ago.

A chartered airplane carrying 14 members of the Wichita State football team and its head coach crashed into 12,447-foot-high Mount Trelease in Colorado on October 2, killing 32 of the 40 people onboard, including the Wichita State contingent. They were flying to a game against Utah State the following day. Twenty-three team members were on a second plane that made the trip safely. 

Janis Joplin was found dead on October 4 in her room in a Hollywood hotel. She died at age 27 from an overdose of drugs.

The Public Broadcasting System (PBS) began broadcasting October 5 as successor to National Educational Television.

Soviet writer Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature on October 8. The Soviet government did not allow Solzhenitsyn to leave the country to receive the award.

On October 12, President Richard Nixon announced that an additional 40,000 American troops would be withdrawn before Christmas.

Canadian Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau announced on October 16 the only peacetime state of emergency in that nation’s history, outlawing the Quebec Liberation Front (FLQ). The act permitted civil rights to be suspended for six months and sent additional military forces into Quebec. The next day, Quebec Labor Minister Pierre Laporte, kidnapped a week earlier by the FLQ, was murdered by his captors. His body was found in the trunk of a car at an airport near Montreal.

The North Tower of the World Trade Center became the tallest building on earth at 2:51 pm ET on October 20 when a piece of framework was added, bringing the height to 1,254 feet, topping the Empire State Building’s 1,250 feet.

Muhammad Ali, stripped of his title as world heavyweight boxing champion because of his refusal to enter military service, began his comeback on October 26 with a technical knockout of Jerry Quarry in the third round in Atlanta, Ga.

Doonesbury, a politically-themed comic by Garry Trudeau, made its debut in 25 newspapers on October 26.

On September 3, 1970, the small community of Coronado, Calif., became “presi-dense.” U.S. President Richard Nixon and Mexico President Gustavo Diaz Ordaz came to Coronado where President Nixon hosted President Diaz Ordaz at a state dinner held at the Hotel del Coronado. It was the first state dinner held outside Washington, D.C.

Presidents Nixon and Diaz Ordaz had met in August in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico, where they reached agreement on pending U.S.-Mexico border issues. The state dinner in Coronado was to celebrate that agreement.

Both Presidents arrived at Naval Air Station, North Island around midday. While I don’t know from where in Mexico Diaz Ordaz had left, Nixon had taken a helicopter from the “Western White House” in San Clemente, less than 60 miles north.

They traveled from North Island to the “Hotel Del” in a motorcade along Orange Avenue, Coronado’s main drag. A 30-minute leisurely drive with thousands lining the avenue. (I have a picture that’s closer than the one above, but Nixon’s waving arm blocked his face. Much better views in the video further down.) I assume I and others at Naval Special Warfare Group Pacific had asked permission to use our lunch hour to watch.

Here’s a gallery of street scenes that day.

There’s actually a brief film of the motorcade, taken by Rosemary Kelly with a Bell & Howell 8mm movie camera. Her son later incorporated it into a report about the day’s events and, of course, it’s on YouTube. (Not sure why this particular background music was chosen.)

Also in the motorcade were lots of California Highway Patrol on motorcycles and a bunch of “floats” celebrating patriotic and military themes and generally featuring young women. (There may have been others that did not feature young women, but I may not have taken pictures of those.) I’m guessing the floats had been part of Coronado’s famed July 4 parade and were making a repeat performance. A gallery:

The dinner was attended by some 1,000 guests, including former President Lyndon Johnson and Lady Bird Johnson and California Governor Ronald Reagan and Nancy Reagan. In addition to U.S. and Mexican officials and California/San Diego luminaries, there were also popular culture stars of the time, at least those appreciated mostly by older adults. Among them were icons Frank Sinatra and John Wayne, and somewhat lesser folk like Art Linklater, Hugh O’Brien, Cesar Romero, Red Skelton, Efram Zimbalist Jr., and pro golfer Billy Casper, a San Diego native.

The two Presidents didn’t stay overnight. Both headed back to NAS North Island around midnight and took off on their trips home.

National and world events, 50 years ago.

On September 5, the U.S. Army 101st Airborne Division, joined by the South Vietnamese 1st Infantry Division, began Operation Jefferson Glen to drive Viet Cong from Thua Thien Province. It was the last major operation by American ground forces in the war. The U.S. turned over the operation to the South Vietnamese and withdrew on October 8. Four days later, President Nixon announced future U.S. troop actions would be defensive only.

Jimi Hendrix performed his final concert on September 6, appearing on the German island of Fehmarn. Hendrix was found dead 12 days later in London.

After a span of a dozen years spent mainly performing in Las Vegas, Elvis Presley began a concert tour on September 9. 

The Chevrolet Vega, General Motors’ entry into the subcompact car market, debuted on September 10. List price for the first model was $2,091. On the following day, Ford introduced its second subcompact (first was the Maverick), the Pinto. Ford charged $1,919, $17o less than the Vega price.

The U.S. “Sky Marshal Program,” intended to protect American flights from hijacking, began on September 12. That same day, USC played football against Alabama in Tuscaloosa. It was the first time the all-white Alabama team hosted a team that was racially integrated. USC won 42-21.

One hundred twenty-six men and women ran in the first New York City Marathon on September 13. The first race was four laps around Central Park on its walking paths.

Several notable American television series made their debut during the month:

• The Flip Wilson Show premiered on NBC September 14, marking the first TV variety show to be hosted by an African-American, Clerow “Flip” Wilson.
• The Mary Tyler Moore Show began a seven-season run on September 19. 
• Monday Night Football debuted on ABC on September 21. Announcers were Keith Jackson, Howard Cosell, and Dan Meredith. In the initial game, the Cleveland Browns defeated the New York Jets, 31-21.
• The Odd Couple, starring Tony Randall and Jack Klugman, premiered on September 24.
• The Partridge Family made its debut on September 25.

The longest-running American television show at the time, Ted Mack’s The Original Amateur Hour, made its final appearance on September 28.

Things that happened 50 years ago.

On August 2, U.S. Senate Majority Leader Mike Mansfield confirmed a Washington Post report that in 1963 President John F. Kennedy had decided to order withdrawal of all American troops from South Vietnam after the 1964 election. Kennedy was assassinated before that election and his successor, Lyndon Johnson, increased troop levels to half a million troops during his term.

Marin County Superior Court Judge Harold Haley was taken hostage from his San Rafael, Calif., courtroom on August 7 and later killed. During the criminal trial of a member of the Black Panthers, James McClain, a teenage Jonathan Jackson tossed a sawed-off shotgun he had smuggled into the courtroom, along with other weapons, to McClain.  Holding the shotgun against the judge’s neck, McClain, as well as Jackson and two convict witnesses, took an assistant prosecutor and three women jurors as additional hostages and attempted to leave in a rented van. They ran into a police blockade. In the ensuing shootout, McClain killed Judge Haley, and McClain, Jackson, and the two other convicts were killed by police. The weapons smuggled into the courtroom and used in the incident were registered to Angela Davis, now professor emerita at UC Santa Cruz.

Former heavyweight boxing champion Muhammad Ali was granted a license to box on August 11, three years after being stripped of his title in 1967 for refusing induction into the Army. 

Singer Janis Joplin gave what would be her final concert on August 12 before 35,000 people at the Harvard University Stadium, Cambridge, Mass. She would die October 4 of a heroin overdose.

Robert Fassnacht, a 33-year-old physicist working late at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, Wisc., was killed instantly on the morning of August 24, when a explosives-laden truck exploded outside of Sterling Hall, a building that contained the U.S. Army Mathematics Research Center. It was the work of a group called “The New Year’s Gang” in protest against the Vietnam War. Three of the four individuals in the gang were arrested and each served several years in prison. The fourth was never located.

Thirty-two U.S. servicemen were killed on August 26 when a rocket-propelled grenade struck their Chinook helicopter in Quang Nam Province, South Vietnam. It was one of the worst aircraft personnel losses in the war. 

The McDonnell-Douglas DC-10, competitor to the Boeing 747, made its maiden flight on August 29. Carrying only a flight crew, the other “jumbo jet” took off from Long Beach, Calif., and flew for several hours before landing at Edwards Air Force Base. 

On a personal note, on 1 July, the military got a raise. As an O-2 (Lieutenant Junior Grade in the Navy) with fewer than two years commissioned service, my pay went from $449.70 to $486 a month (about $3,300 in today’s dollars).

Things that happened in the U.S. and around the world 50 years ago.

On July 4, a crowd of 400,000 people gathered at the Washington Monument in Washington, D.C., for “Honor America Day.” The event was organized by comedian Bob Hope and evangelist Billy Graham. On the same day, Casey Kassem ran down his first “American Top 40” on the syndicated radio show. The syndicated program started on only 10 radio stations.

President Richard Nixon presented to Congress on July 8 a nine-point program later described as “the most dramatic reversal in the history of U.S. policy toward Indians.” The program would reverse the longstanding effort to assimilate American Indian tribes into American culture and encouraged self-determination.

Nixon proposed to Congress on July 9 establishment of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).

The National League won its eighth straight Major League Baseball All-Star game on July 14, 5-4, in the 12th inning. Cincinnati Red Pete Rose scored the winning run with his notorious crash into Cleveland Indian catcher Ray Fosse.

Sears, Roebuck & Company announced on July 27 its plans to build the world’s tallest building, in Chicago. The Sears Tower, at 1,450 feet, would be 100 feet taller than the twin-tower World Trade Center in New York City.

Cesar Chavez, leader of United Farm Workers (UFW), announced on July 29 the end of the UFW’s five-year strike for a fair wage for farm workers and ended a worldwide boycott of grapes. The 26 largest grape-growers agreed to raise the hourly wage to $1.80 and pay $.20 for each box picked. The contract collapsed with a few weeks when the Teamsters Union attempted to organize farm workers.

Players in the National Football League voted on July 30 to go out on strike. While rookies showed up later for training camps, most veterans chose to stay out.

The traditional daily drink of rum for members of the British Navy ended on July 31. It ended a 238-year tradition whereby each sailor was entitled to a “tot” of 95.5-proof rum.

Stuff that happened 50 years ago.

June 1970 started off pretty slow in terms of major events. On June 13, Kent State University opened its campus for the first time since the May 4 shootings in which National Guardsmen killed four students and wounded nine. Twelve hundred students in the Class of 1970 received diplomas in ceremonies open only to those invited.

The first criminal trial of Charles Manson and several of his followers, for the 1969 murders of Sharon Tate and six others, opened in Los Angeles on June 15.

Kenneth Gibson was elected mayor of Newark, N.J., on June 16, becoming the first African-American mayor of a major East Coast city.

On June 24, the U.S. Senate voted to repeal the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, approved in 1964 to support American intervention in Vietnam.

The first Gay Pride march in the U.S. took place June 27 in Chicago. There were about 150 participants.

U.S. ground troops withdrew from Cambodia on June 29. A total of 339 American servicemen had been killed during the two-month incursion.

World and national events 50 years ago.

On May 1, U.S. and South Vietnamese troops moved against North Vietnamese forces in Cambodia. Protests against the action began on college campuses later the same day.

An estimated 500 students at Kent State University, following protests against the Cambodia incursion, went into Kent, Ohio, on May 2 and smashed windows of local businesses and cars. Five police officers were injured and 14 students arrested before the crowd was dispersed at 3 am by tear gas. Later the same day, a group of about 600 protestors set fire to the ROTC building on the Kent State campus, prompting the Kent mayor to request Ohio National Guard troops.

Four college students were shot and killed by Ohio National Guardsmen on the Kent State campus on May 4. At around noon, Guardsmen fired tear gas into a crowd of about 500 protestors. Some protestors threw rocks and threw back tear gas canisters at Guardsmen. At 12:24 pm, an estimated 28 Guardsmen fired 61 shots within 13 seconds.

Twenty-seven members of the U.S. Army 101st Airborne Division were killed by North Vietnamese troops on May 6 when NVN troops overran their base 16 miles south of the DMZ.

The New York Knicks won their first National Basketball Association championship on May 8, defeating the Los Angeles Lakers, 113-99, in game seven at Madison Square Garden. Knicks center Willis Reed, despite a muscle tear in his thigh suffered four days earlier and with medication helping to reduce the pain, started the game and played almost the first half.

An estimated 100,000 people gathered in Washington, D.C., on May 9 to protest U.S. involvement in Southeast Asia. Early that morning, before dawn, President Richard Nixon,  accompanied only by Secret Service agents, made an unannounced visit to the Lincoln Memorial and later spoke to protestors gathered there. “Go shout your slogans on the Ellipse,” he told them. “Just keep it peaceful.”

The Boston Bruins won their first Stanley Cup since 1941 on May 10. Bobby Orr scored his iconic goal 40 seconds into overtime to beat the St. Louis Blues, 4-3, and sweep the series.

In the second day of demonstrations at predominately black Jackson State College (Miss.), state law enforcement officers poured an estimated 150 rounds into upper floors of a campus dormitory and into a crowd of demonstrators on May 15, killing two and wounding 12.

An estimated 150,000 people gathered in New York City’s Hall Park on May 20 to support U.S. involvement in Southeast Asia.

A programmable desktop computer was sold for the first time on May 25 when the Computer Terminal Company (CTC) sold 40 Datapoint 2200 machines to General Mills. The original Datapoint could had an internal memory of eight kilobytes and could store data on cassette tapes with 130 kilobyte capacity. Most computers were leased to customers at a current equivalent of $1,100 a month.

The National League of Pow/MIA Families was founded on May 28 by a group of wives of U.S. servicemen listed as prisoners of war or missing in action. The emblem of the organization continues to fly over many governmental installations.

 

 

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.”

Events of the nation and world in March 1970, another relatively uneventful month.

Three members of the Weatherman, classified as a domestic terrorist organization, were killed March 6 when the pipe bomb they had constructed exploded prematurely in New York City. Another member of Weatherman wrote later the plan had been to place the bomb in a dancehall at Fort Dix where U.S. service members and dates would have attended a dance. Two other Weatherman members would also be killed by a premature bomb explosion in New York on March 28.

A solar eclipse passed over the Atlantic Coast of the U.S., including Norfolk, Va., on March 7. There will be a post on that date with pictures.

The U.S. Army charged 14 of its officers, including two generals, on March 17 with suppressing information about the 1968 massacre at My Lai, South Vietnam, and referred charges for court martial. Charges against the generals were later dropped. Only LT William Calley would be tried and convicted in the incident.

 

February 50 years ago started off quite uneventfully. Even the first event of note is pretty iffy.

On February 13, a record album described as the first “heavy metal” album — the eponymously named Black Sabbath — went on sale in Britain. With lead singer Ozzy Osbourne, the band’s debut album went on sale in the U.S. in June.

On the following day, February 14, the British rock group The Who performed a concert at the University of Leeds. The live album, Live at Leeds, was described as “the best live rock album ever made.”

In the U.S., on Valentine’s Day, Harper & Row released what would be the best-selling novel of the year, Love Story.

After five months, the trial of the “Chicago Seven” ended February 18 with the jury acquitting the group of charges of conspiring to foment rioting that took place at the 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago. Five of the seven — Abbie Hoffman, Jerry Rubin, David Dellinger, Tom Hayden, and Rennie Davis — were found guilty of crossing state lines in order to incite a riot. In 1972, those convictions were overturned.

An episode of Sesame Street on February 25 featured the muppet character Ernie singing (with Jim Henson providing the voice) Rubber Ducky for the first time. Here’s video.

Hey Jude, the second-to-last marketed album by The Beatles, went on sale worldwide on February 26. The title song had been released as a single in 1968.