Category: US & World events

The Kansas City Chiefs defeated the Oakland Raiders, 17-7, to win the American Football  League (AFL) Championship on January 4. The Chiefs thus qualified to meet the NFL champion Minnesota Vikings, which had won the NFL Championship earlier that day over the Cleveland Browns, 27-7, in the “Super Bowl.” It was the final game of the AFL.

In Super Bowl IV on January 11, the underdog Kansas City Chiefs defeated the Minnesota Vikings, 23-7. The Chiefs were the last AFL champions.

The US Supreme Court issued a ruling on January 14 that required the last 14 legally segregated school systems in the country to integrate their student bodies by February.

Diana Ross and the Supremes sang their last live concert as a group in Las Vegas on January 14. Ross would begin her solo career in February. Here’s a video of them live performing earlier the same song that concluded that concert.

Samsung Electronics was incorporated on January 20 in South Korea. It was created as a new division of the Samsung Group, which had started in 1938 as a wholesaler of groceries.

The first scheduled flight of a Boeing 747 “Jumbo Jet” took place early morning January 22, leaving JFK International Airport in New York for London. Pan American flight 001 was to have taken place the previous evening, but the flight was delayed because of mechanical issues.

 

The United States held its first draft lottery since 1942 on 1 December. #1 in the lottery that day was September 14. (My “draft number,” irrelevant as I was on active duty in the Navy, was above 300.)

The Boeing 747 made its first passenger flight on 2 December, flying from Seattle to New York City on a Pan American chartered flight. The plane carried 191 people, 110 of them reporters and photographers. The flight took fours hours, two minutes. Here’s a 1969 Pan Am commercial for the 747.

The Altamont Free Concert was held 6 December at the Altamont Speedway, near Tracy, Calif., in the Bay Area, attracting 300,000 people. Hosted by the Rolling Stones, it was intended to be “Woodstock West.” It was better known for the four deaths that happened during the day, including the beating and stabbing to death of one of the spectators, by members of the Hells Angels hired as security guards.

A Los Angeles grand jury on 8 December indicted Charles Manson and four of his followers (Charles “Tex” Watson, Patricia Krenwinkel, Linda Kasabian, Susan Atkins) on seven counts of murder arising from the Tate-LaBianca murders exactly four months earlier.

President Nixon announced on 15 December that he would bring an additional 50,000 American troops out of Vietnam over the next four months, marking the withdrawal of over 110,000 U.S. servicemen during the first year of his administration.

In a record for American late-night television, 30 million+ people tuned in on 17 December to watch the wedding of falsetto-voiced singer Herbert Buckingham Khaury, better known by his stage name, Tiny Tim, on The Tonight Show, hosted by Johnny Carson. Tiny Tim’s 17-year-old bride, Victoria Mae Budinger, was quickly nicknamed “Miss Vicky” by the American press.

On 22 December, 11 sailors at the Miramar Naval Air Station in San Diego were killed, and seven were seriously injured, when a disabled U.S. Navy F-8 Crusader jet plunged into the aircraft hangar where the group had been gathered. Moments earlier, the F-8 pilot had reported a malfunction and ejected safely from the aircraft.

In ABC’s second attempt to cut into the ratings success of NBC’s The Tonight Show, starring Johnny Carson, The Dick Cavett Show debuted on 29 December. Replacing The Joey Bishop Show, Cavett’s show originated from New York City and would run for five years.

Some of what was going on in “the world” in November 1969.

US President Richard Nixon addressed the nation on television and radio on 3 November to announce his plans to end direct American involvement in Vietnam. He termed the plan “Vietnamization,” whereby American troops would be withdrawn and replaced by Republic of Vietnam forces.

Sesame Street made its debut on the National Education Network (predecessor to the Public Broadcasting System) on 10 November. The first episode came through the courtesy of the numbers 2 and 3 and the letters E, S, and W.

The story of the 1968 My Lai massacre was revealed to the American public on 12 November by freelance report Seymour Hersh and in a New York Times article by its reporter, Robert M. Smith. At least 109 Vietnamese civilians were killed by American troops in and around the village of My Lai in March 1968.

The cartoon character “Fat Albert” was introduced on 12 November in a television special by comedian Bill Cosby.

NASA launched Apollo 12, the second manned mission to a Moon landing, on 14 November. Launched in the midst of a rainstorm, the rocket bearing astronauts Pete Gordon, Richard Gordon, and Alan Bean was twice struck by lightning on its ascent, but safely achieved orbit.

The first “Wendy’s” hamburger restaurant opened on 15 November in Columbus, Ohio.

More than 500,000 protestors marched in “the largest peace march on Washington in American history” on 15 November for the second “Moratorium to End the War in Vietnam.”

Apollo 12’s Pete Conrad and Alan Bean became the third and fourth humans to reach the surface of the Moon on 19 November.

The occupation of Alcatraz Island in San Francisco Bay by American Indians began on 20 November. It would last until June 1971.

The connection between “interface message processors” at UCLA and the Stanford Research Center was made permanent on 21 November. It was the first link of ARPANET, progenitor of the Internet.

The Apollo 12 spacecraft splashed down safely in the Pacific on 24 November.

Some of what was going on in “the world” in October 1969.

The Baltimore Orioles and the New York Mets clinched the championships of the American and National baseball leagues on October 6. Except for the creation of east and west divisions of each league, requiring divisional playoffs, Baltimore and New York would have met directly after the season in the World Series. The Mets swept the Atlanta Braves in their best-of-five series, while the Orioles did the same to the Minnesota Twins.

The first public protests by the radical Weather Underground began October 8 in Chicago, Ill., with “Days of Rage” timed to coincide with the “Chicago Seven” trial of defendants charged with inciting violence at the Democratic Convention of 1968.

Hundreds of thousands of Americans took to the streets on October 15 to take part in the “Moratorium to End the War in Vietnam.” Demonstrations took place in various cities across country, with the number of protestors in Washington, D.C., estimated at 250,000, and in Boston, 100,000. October 15 was a workday. A larger presence was expected at a second series of demonstrations scheduled for Saturday, November 15.

The Miracle Mets won the World Series in five games, concluding with a 5-3 victory over the Baltimore Orioles on October 16.

Future U.S. President Bill Clinton was reclassified from 1-S to 1-A by his local draft board on October 30, losing the deferment granted to college students. It ruled he had reneged on his promise to join ROTC at the University of Arkansas. Clinton later received a high number in the draft lottery and never served.

The first automatic teller machine (ATM) was installed on September 2 at a branch of Chemical Bank in Rockville Centre, N.Y.

Ho Chi Minh, president of North Vietnam, died of a heart attack on September 3.

LT William Calley, U.S. Army, was charged on September 5 with six counts of premeditated murder in connection with the 1968 My Lai massacre of 109 Vietnamese civilians.

One hundred seventy-one women entered Princeton University on September 7 as undergraduates, the first in the institution’s history.

The New York Mets, who had never finished higher then ninth in baseball’s National League, took the league lead on September 10. Behind the Chicago Cubs by 9 1/2 games four weeks earlier, the Mets now took a one game lead, with 22 games to go.

Steve Carleton of the St. Louis Cardinals set a major league record on September 15 by striking out 19 New York Mets in a nine-inning game. As an indication of this “marvelous” season for the Mets, they won anyway, 4-3.

The medical show Marcus Welby, M.D., starring Robert Young, premiered on ABC on September 23. Three days later, the first episode of The Brady Bunch  showed, also on ABC.

Abbey Road, the last album recorded by The Beatles together, was released on September 26. Let It Be, largely finished at the time, was not released until April 1970.

 

NASA Administrator Thomas Paine told an audience on August 1 that a manned mission to Mars and Venus, both in the same mission, would be feasible in the 1980s.

The Coronado Bridge, between San Diego and Coronado, Calif., opened to auto traffic on August 3, one minute after midnight. The bridge is 2.1 miles long and rises 244 feet above San Diego Bay, high enough to allow U.S. Navy ships to pass underneath.

A sonic boom from a U.S. Navy F-4 Phantom shattered three-quarters of the windows in the downtown business district of the Canadian resort town of Kelowna, British Columbia, on August 6. A member of the Navy’s Blue Angels was trying to catch up to the rest of the team during practice for an upcoming air show. He exceeded Mach 1 at the altitude of only 300 feet. Damage was an estimated $150,000.

On August 8, the Beatles crossed Abbey Road for their iconic photo, taken by Iain Macmillan.

As directed by Charles Manson, members of the “Manson Family” invaded a house in Los Angeles rented by film director Roman Polanski and his wife, Sharon Tate, late on August 9. The group brutally killed Tate, her late-term unborn child, three guests, and a random visitor to a nearby building. Polanski was out of the country. Less than 24 hours later, other Manson Family members murdered Leno LaBianca and his wife, Rosemary, in a Los Angeles house picked at random. Manson and 25 others were arrested on August 16 . . . for auto theft. The group was released 10 days later because of a clerical error on the arrest warrant.

British Army troops arrived in Northern Ireland on August 14 to bring an end to sectarian rioting in Derry. Their presence did not end until nearly 38 years later.

“Three days of peace and music” — the Woodstock Festival — began on August 14 near the town of Bethel, N.Y., in the Catskills. When the original opening act was late because they were stuck in traffic, the then little-known folk singer, Richie Havens, opened the festival with a three-hour performance. Upwards of 200,000 people attended the festival, which wrapped up with a Jimi Hendrix concert on Monday. At one point, heavy rain turned the venue, a farm, into what a UPI reporter called “a sea of mud, sickness and drugs.”

Hurricane Camille made landfall near Biloxi, Miss., on August 17. The storms and resulting floods killed 259 people.

The Beatles recorded their final song as a group on August 20.

The U.S. federal government announced the first use of a “poverty line” on August 29.

Rocky Marciano, the only undefeated heavyweight boxing champion (49-0), was killed, along with two others, in the crash of a small plane near Newton, Iowa, on August 31. It was the eve of what would have been his 46th birthday.

Events that happened in July 1969.

On 3 July, Brian Jones, founding member of the Rolling Stones, was found dead in the swimming pool of his Hartfield, England, estate. He had left the band a month before to pursue a solo career. His death was the first of that of several rock stars — Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, and Jim Morrison — in the next couple of years, all at the age of 27. It gave rise to the notion of a “27 Club,” the concept that rock stars were more likely to die at that age.

A sudden, intense storm on Independence Day killed 42 people in Ohio and Michigan. Many were outside celebrating July 4. A tornado swept through Lakewood, Ohio, a suburb of Cleveland, and killed several people.

French joined English as the official languages of Canada on 7 July.

The first of 25,000 American troops to be withdrawn from Vietnam arrived at McCord Air Force Base, Washington, on 8 July.

In anticipation of the launch of Apollo 11, David Bowie’s song, Space Oddity, was released on 11 July. The song refers to a fictional astronaut, “Major Tom.”

Apollo 11 — with astronauts Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin, and Michael Collins on board — launched from Cape Kennedy on 16 July at 9:32 am local time. Less than three hours later, it left earth orbit to begin its journey to the Moon.

Police from Edgartown, Mass., on Martha’s Vineyard, arrived 19 July at the scene of an automobile accident on Chappaquiddick Island, and found the body of 27-year-old Mary Jo Kopechne inside an automobile that had fallen into a deep pond. Afterward, U.S. Senator Edward “Teddy” Kennedy reported that he had accidentally driven off of the bridge 10 hours earlier and that he had escaped the car, leaving Miss Kopechne inside, left the scene, and gone back to his bedroom to sleep. The senator’s explanation for failing to report the event for 10 hours was that he had been “in shock.” Kennedy pleaded guilty on 25 July to leaving the scene of an accident and was given a suspended sentence of two months in jail and one year’s probation.

As millions watched on live TV on 20 July (but not those on the Biddle or out in the field in Vietnam), Neil Armstrong piloted the Apollo 11 lunar module, named “Eagle,” to the surface of the Moon. Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin became the first humans to land on another world. About seven hours after landing, Armstrong set foot on the moon and said, “That’s one small step for man . . . one giant leap for mankind.” Armstrong later said that he had actually said, “That’s one small step for a man . . . .” and that radio transmission had obscured the single article. Michael Collins, alone in the Apollo 11 command module, “Columbia,” for more than 21 hours, maintained an orbit around the Moon. When he was on the far side of the Moon, he was at least 2,222 miles away from the nearest human being (his fellow astronauts on the Moon), with no radio contact with Earth or his crewmates, and more than 244,000 miles and a 2,100 mile-wide ball of rock “between him and every other human who ever lived.” On 21 July, in what NASA considered the most dangerous part of the Apollo 11 mission, Aldrin piloted the Eagle to rendezvous with the command module. Apollo 11 splashed down in the South Pacific on 24 July and the astronauts were recovered later that day by the USS Hornet (CV-12). The crew arrived back in Houston, at NASA’s Manned Spacecraft Center, on 27 July. 

 

 

Events in the U.S. and around the world in June, while we were at sea.

Seventy-four U.S. sailors were killed June 3 when their ship, USS Frank E. Evans (DD-754), was accidentally rammed and sliced in two by the Australian aircraft carrier, HMAS Melbourne. Three of the dead were brothers from Niobrara, Neb. The ships had been conducting exercises in the South China Sea. (The Biddle had a close encounter with the ill-fated Evans a little later in the month.)

Blind Faith made its debut June 7 in London’s Hyde Park in front of 100,000. The latest “supergroup” combined Eric Clapton, Steve Winwood, Ginger Baker, and Ric Grech. Blind Faith released their only album and played their final concert in August.

President Nixon announced June 8 that 25,000 U.S. troops would be withdrawn by the end of September.

Hee Haw aired on CBS for the first time June 15. The show was in the same time slot as the canceled Smothers Brothers Show. Popular with viewers but panned by critics, the show, hosted by Roy Clark and Buck Owens, would run for two years, and then another 22 years in syndication.

 

The Cuyahoga River, which runs through Cleveland, Ohio, caught fire June 22 when an oil slick on its surface ignited. 

Actress and singer Judy Garland was found dead in her London home June 22 of a drug overdose.

The Stonewall Riots, a milestone in the U.S. gay rights movement, took place June 28 in New York City when angry bystanders threw bottles and rocks at policemen making a routine raid on the Stonewall Inn in Greenwich Village. 

 

Some of what was happening in the U.S. and around the world 50 years ago.

The world’s newest ocean liner, Queen Elizabeth 2, departed Southampton, England, on May 2 on its maiden voyage. The ship was the first to make private use of a Global Positioning System, connecting with four U.S. Navy satellites to identify its position within 100 feet, and signaling what some said was “the end of dead reckoning and sextant.” The QE2 arrived in New York City five days later.

The U.S. Navy announced on May 6 that it would not seek courts martial against any member of the crew of the USS Pueblo, seized in early 1968 by North Korea. The crew had been held captive by North Korea for 11 months and were questioned for 80 days by a Naval Court of Inquiry, conducted in Coronado, Calif. The Court of Inquiry had recommended general courts martial of Pueblo skipper, CDR Lloyd Bucher, and the officer in charge of the ship’s intelligence section, LT Stephen Harris, for allowing North Korean seizure of the ship, equipment, and codebooks. Secretary of the Navy John Chafee said he overruled the court’s recommendation because the crew “had suffered long enough” and added, “I am convinced that neither individual discipline, nor the state of discipline or morale of the Navy, nor any other interest requires further legal proceedings.”

Saint Christopher, revered by many Catholics and others as the patron saint of travelers, was removed from the liturgical calendar by the Roman Catholic Church on May 9. He was among 40 others removed following Vatican research that determined none of them had existed.

The battle of Hamburger Hill, later demonstrated to be the most costly — in terms of lives lost — U.S. offensive in the Vietnam War began May 10 as an airstrike on Hill 937 of the Dong Ap Bia mountain range in South Vietnam. Members of the 101st Airborne Division were sent in the next day.

The last Chevrolet Corvair — a 1969 Corvair Monza sport coupe — rolled off the assembly line at General Motors’ plant near Ypsilanti, Mich., on May 14. During its 10-year production run, the rear-engine car had been popular — 1.7 million sold — and controversial — subject of Ralph Nadar’s book about it, Unsafe at Any Speed.

On May 18, Apollo 10 launched from Cape Canaveral on what was described as “a dress rehearsal of a lunar landing mission.”

The American press first used the term “Hamburger Hill” on May 19 to describe the military action between U.S. and North Vietnamese forces begun nine days earlier, as the total of U.S. forces killed exceeded 50. Reinforced by South Vietnamese troops, U.S. and South Vietnamese forces captured the hill on May 20, following 12 charges up the 3,000-foot hill to dislodge North Vietnamese troops. Seventy-two Americans were killed in the battle, with another eight missing in action; more than 400 were wounded. U.S. Army officials later acknowledged that capture of the hill had “no tactical significance.”

Apollo 10 returned to Earth on May 26, following a successful eight-day test of all the elements needed for the upcoming first manned Moon landing. The USS Princeton was within three miles of the splashdown target in the South Pacific and recovered the capsule.

Mario Andretti won his first and only Indianapolis 500 on May 29. Having won the 1967 Daytona 500, Andretti became the first driver to win races for both Formula One and NASCAR Stock carsl.