Looking back at 1968

The following are the events that transpired throughout 1968, the year Edcouch-Elsa High School students protested against racial discrimination, inadequate facilities and other issues:

January 

Jan 6 -- Dr. Norman E. Shumway of Stanford performed the 1st US adult heart transplant. Mike Kasperak (54) lived for 2 weeks before he died of massive bleeding from other organs.

Jan. 9 -- The Surveyor VII space probe made a soft landing on the moon, marking the end of the American series of unmanned explorations of the lunar surface.

Jan.10 -- The 10,000 US airplane is lost over Vietnam.

Jan. 17 -- President Lyndon Baines Johnson (1908-1973) delivers the State of the Union Address.

Jan 19 -- Cambodia charged that the United States and South Vietnam had crossed the border and killed three Cambodian

Jan 21 -- In Vietnam the Battle of Khe Sahn began as North Vietnamese forces attacked a US Marine base; the Americans were able to hold their position until the siege was lifted 2 1/2 months later. It was the longest and bloodiest battle of the Vietnam War. The Battle began at 0530 hours when North Vietnamese Army forces hammered the Marine-occupied Khe Sanh Combat Base with rocket, mortar, artillery, small arms, and automatic weapons fire. Hundreds of 82-mm mortar rounds and 122-mm rockets slammed into the combat base. Virtually all of the base's ammunition stock and a substantial portion of the fuel supplies were destroyed.

Jan. 23 -- North Korean patrol boats capture the USS Pueblo, a US Navy intelligence gathering vessel and its 83 man crew on charges of violating the communist country's twelve-mile territorial limit. This crisis would dog the US foreign policy team for 11 months, with the crew of the Pueblo finally gaining freedom on December 22.

Jan. 31 -- At half-past midnight on Wednesday morning the North Vietnamese launch the Tet offensive at Nha Trang. Nearly 70,000 North Vietnamese troops will take part in this broad action, taking the battle from the jungles to the cities. The offensive will carry on for weeks and is seen as a major turning point for the American attitude toward the war. At 2:45 that morning the US embassy in Saigon is invaded and held until 9:15AM. 

February

Feb. 1 -- During police actions following the first day of the Tet offensive General Nguyen Ngoc Loan, a south Vietnamese security official is captured on film executing a Viet Cong prisoner by American photographer Eddie Adams. The Pulitzer Prize-winning photograph becomes yet another rallying point for anti-war protestors. Despite later claims that the prisoner had been accused of murdering a Saigon police officer and his family, the image seems to call into question everything claimed and assumed about the American allies, the South Vietnamese. 

Feb. 2 -- Richard Nixon, a republican from California, enters the New Hampshire primary and declares his presidential candidacy.

Feb. 4 -- Martin Luther King Jr. delivers a sermon at his Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta which will come to be seen as prophetic. His speech contains what amounts to his own eulogy. After his death, he says, "I'd like somebody to mention that day that Martin Luther King Jr. tried to give his life serving others. I'd like for somebody to say that day that Martin Luther King Jr. tried to love somebody... that I tried to love and serve humanity. Yes, if you want to, say that I was a drum major for peace... for righteousness."

Feb 6 -- Charles de Gaulle opened the 19th Winter Olympics in Grenoble, France. 

Feb. 7 -- International reporters arrive at the embattled city of Ben Tre in South Vietnam. Peter Arnett, then of the Associated Press, writes a dispatch quoting an unnamed US major as saying, "It became necessary to destroy the town to save it." The quote runs nationwide the next day in Arnett's report.

Feb 8 -- George Wallace of Alabama entered the presidential race.

Feb 8 -- Robert F. Kennedy said that the U.S. cannot win the Vietnam War. 

Feb 12 -- "Soul on Ice" by Eldridge Cleaver (full name: Leroy Eldridge Cleaver), a militant activist and Black Panther, was first published. Cleaver spent much of his early life in and out of prison on charges ranging from drug possession to assault. It was in prison that he began the essays that would become Soul on Ice. Shortly after being paroled in 1966, Eldridge Cleaver met Huey Newton and Bobby Seale, the founders of the Black Panther party. Cleaver quickly became the party's minister of information. Faced with further prison time after a shootout with police in April 1968, Cleaver jumped bail and fled the country, first to Cuba, then to Algeria. He returned voluntarily in 1975 having broken with the Panthers and disillusioned with communism. His change in thinking is reflected in his 1978 book Soul on Fire. He died on May 1, 1998, in Pomona, California.

Feb 16 -- The nation's first 911 emergency telephone system was inaugurated, in Haleyville, Ala. 

Feb. 18 -- The US State Department announces the highest US casualty toll of the Vietnam War. The previous week saw 543 Americans killed in action, and 2547 wounded. 

Feb 20 -- State troopers used tear gas to stop Alcorn A & M demonstrations. 

Feb 24 -- The Tet offensive ended with the crushing of the last Viet Cong resistance in Hue, South Vietnam. North Vietnamese troops captured the imperial palace in Hue, South Vietnam. US troops reconquered Hue, Vietnam. 

Feb 26 -- Thirty-two African nations agreed to boycott the Olympics because of the presence of South Africa, and apartheid. 

Feb 26 -- Clandestine Radio Voice of Iraqi People (Communist) made its final transmission. 

Feb 27 -- CBS News anchorman Walter Cronkite‘s commentary on the progress of the Vietnam War solidified President Lyndon B. Johnson‘s decision not to seek re-election in 1968. Cronkite, who had been at Hue in the midst of the Tet Offensive earlier in February, said: "Who won and who lost in the great Tet Offensive against the cities? I‘m not sure." He concluded: "It is increasingly clear to this reporter that the only rational way out...will be to negotiate, not as victors but as an honorable people who lived up to their pledge to defend democracy, and did the best they could." Johnson called the commentary a "turning point," saying that if he had "lost Cronkite," he‘d "lost Mr. Average Citizen." On March 31, Johnson announced he would not seek re-election. 

Feb 29 -- At the Grammy Awards, the Fifth Dimension's "Up, Up and Away" won record of the year for 1967, while album of the year honors went to the Beatles for "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band." 

Feb 29 -- President Johnson's National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders (also known as the Kerner Commission) warned that racism was causing America to move "toward two societies, one black, one white -- separate and unequal." 

Feb 29 -- Robert McNamara resigned as US Secretary of Defense after the Tet disaster. He was succeeded by Clark Clifford for 9 months who worked to reverse US policy in Vietnam. 

Feb 29 -- The discovery of the first "pulsar," a star which emits regular radio waves, was announced by Dr. Jocelyn Bell Burnell at Cambridge, England. 

Undated, The Federal Hourly Minimum Wage was set at $1.60 an hour.

March 

March 1 -- Vatican City's Apostolic Constitution of 1967 went into effect. 

March 2 -- Ladies Figure Skating Championship won by Peggy Fleming (USA 

March 4 -- Martin Luther King Jr. announced plans for Poor People's Campaign 

March 9 -- General William Westmoreland asked for 206,000 more troops in Vietnam. 

March 10 -- Robert Kennedy visited Delano, Calif., in his bid for the presidency. He joined Cesar Chavez in a chapel where Chavez broke his fast on behalf of organizing farm workers. 

March 11 -- The ultra secret facility Lima Site 85 in Phou Phathi, Laos, was manned by USAF personnel and 11 were KIA or MIA as it was overran. The event has been characterized as the largest single day ground loss for the USAF. 

Mar 11 -- The Russian K-129, a Golf-II class, diesel-electric submarine armed with nuclear missiles and 98 seamen aboard, sank in 16,000 feet of water northwest of the Hawaiian island of Oahu. Russian officials suspected that the K-129 was struck by an American submarine, the USS Swordfish. But the US Navy said the vessel suffered a catastrophic internal explosion. A US sub, the Halibut, found the Soviet vessel 6 months later and recovered 3 missiles with nuclear warheads, Soviet code books and an encryption machine. In 1974 the CIA attempted to recover the sub. A 100 foot section was pulled in by the Glomar Explorer with 2 nuclear tipped torpedoes and the bodies of 6 Russian sailors. Claude  Barnes Capehart worked on the Howard Hughes' deep-sea research vessel, Glomar Explorer, that under CIA sponsorship raised a Soviet submarine from the floor of the Pacific Ocean. Later in Chowchilla, Calif., he told his girlfriend that he was in Texas when Kennedy was assassinated, and that "Oswald wasn't the only one involved." Just before a scheduled interview in 1989, Capehart dropped dead of a heart attack.

March 12 -- The New Hampshire primary election brings shocking results. The Eugene McCarthy campaign, benefiting from the work of 2,000 full-time student volunteers and up to 5,000 on the weekends immediately preceding the vote comes within 230 votes of defeating the sitting president Lyndon Johnson. These students, participants in what McCarthy refers to as his "children's crusade" have cut their hair, modified their wardrobes, and become "clean for Gene" to contact the conservative voters in the state. 

March 13 --  Atlantic Richfield Company (ARCO) and Humble Oil and Refining Company (now Exxon Company, U.S.A.) announced the discovery of oil on Alaska's North Slope (Prudhoe Bay). The oil companies soon began efforts to construct a pipeline, but work was suspended due to environmental concerns. 

March 16 -- Senator Robert Kennedy, former Attorney General and brother of former President John F. Kennedy (1961-63) ends months of debate by announcing that he will enter the 1968 Presidential race. 

March 16 -- Although it will not become public knowledge for more than a year, US ground troops from Charlie Company rampage through the hamlet of My Lai killing more than 500 Vietnamese civilians from infants to the elderly. The massacre continues for three hours until three American fliers intervene, positioning their helicopter between the troops and the fleeing Vietnamese and eventually carrying a handful of wounded to safety. 

March 16 -- In Vietnam Lt. Calley led 105 men of Company C into My Lai and at least 347 of 700 Vietnamese civilians were killed. Estimates of villagers massacred ranged from 347-504. Other killings by B Company occurred nearby. Col. Oran K. Henderson (d.1998 at 77) was on his first day as commanding officer of the new 11th Infantry Brigade and watched from a command helicopter. Hugh Thompson (d.2006), a helicopter pilot, observed the end of the massacre. He landed between some remaining villagers and his fellow soldiers and ordered his gunner to fire on American troops if necessary. With 2 other gunships he airlifted to safety a dozen villagers. He and his gunner were awarded the Soldier's Medal in 1998. The atrocity was exposed by Ron Ridenhour (d.1998 at 52), a door gunner on an observation helicopter, who flew over the village a few days after the event. He waited several months until he was out of the service before reporting the event to state and congressional officials. The Army later charged 25 officers and enlisted men in the massacre but only Lt. Calley was convicted. Gen. Samuel W. Koster (d.2006) was charged with covering up the killings, but criminal charges were eventually dismissed. Koster was censured, stripped of a medal and demoted one rank to brigadier general. John Sack (d.2004), war correspondent, later authored "Lieutenant Calley: His Own Story." In 1999 Trent Angers authored "The Forgotten Hero of My Lai: The Hugh Thompson Story." 

March 19 -- Howard University students seized the administration building. 

March 20 -- LBJ signed a bill removing gold backing from US paper money.   

March 22 -- In Czechoslovakia Antonin Novotny resigns the Czech presidency setting off alarm bells in Moscow. The next day leaders of five Warsaw Pact countries meet in Dresden, East Germany to discuss the crisis. 

March 22 -- Gen. William Westmoreland (1914-2005) was relieved of his duties in the wake of the Tet disaster. Troop strength under Westmoreland had reached over 500,000 and he wanted more. He was succeeded by Gen. Creighton Abrams. Abrams reversed Westmoreland's strategy. He ended major "search and destroy" missions and focused on protecting population centers. William Colby took charge of the pacification campaign. President Lyndon B. Johnson named Gen. William C. Westmoreland to be the Army's new Chief of Staff. 

March 27 -- Suharto succeeded Sukarno as president of Indonesia. Gen. Suharto thwarted a Communist coup and gradually assumed power. Thousands of alleged communists were executed amid widespread violence. 

March 28 -- Martin Luther King Jr. leads a march in Memphis which turns violent. After King himself had been led from the scene one 16 year old black boy is killed, 60 people are injured, and over 150 arrested. 

March 31 -- President Lyndon Johnson delivers his Address to the Nation Announcing Steps to Limit the War in Vietnam and Reporting His Decision Not to Seek Reelection. The speech announces the first in a series of limitations on US bombing, promising to halt these activities above the 20th parallel. 

April 

April 3 -- Less than 24 hours before he was assassinated in Memphis, Tenn., civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. delivered his "mountaintop" speech to a rally of striking sanitation workers, "It really doesn't matter with me now, because I've been to the mountain top, and I don't mind." 

April 4 -- Martin Luther King Jr. spends the day at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis working and meeting with local leaders on plans for his Poor People's March on Washington to take place late in the month. At 6p.m., as he greets the car and friends in the courtyard, King is shot with one round from a 30.06 rifle. He will be declared dead just an hour later at St. Joseph's hospital. After an international man-hunt James Earl Ray will be arrested on June 27 in England, and convicted of the murder. Ray died in prison in 1998.

Robert Kennedy, hearing of the murder just before he is to give a speech in Indianapolis, IN, delivers a powerful extemporaneous eulogy in which he pleads with the audience "to tame the savageness of man and make gentle the life of this world."

The King assassination sparks rioting in Baltimore, Boston, Chicago, Detroit, Kansas City, Newark, Washington, D.C., and many others. Across the country 46 deaths will be blamed on the riots.

April 10 -- In the 40th Academy Awards "Heat of the Night," Rod Steiger & Katherine Hepburn won. 

April 11 -- United States Secretary of Defense Clark Clifford calls 24,500 military reserves to action for 2 year commitments, and announces a new troop ceiling of 549,500 American soldiers in Vietnam. The total number of Americans "in country" will peak at some 541,000 in August this year, and decline to 334,000 by 1970. 

April 11 -- President Johnson signed into law the Civil Rights Act of 1968, a week after the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. This included the Indian Civil Rights Act, which limited sentences that tribes could hand down on any charge to six months. In 1968 Congress increased the maximum to one year. 

April 23 -- A rally and occupation of the Low administrative office building at Columbia University, planned to protest the university's participation in the Institute for Defense Analysis is scuttled by conservative students and university security officers. The demonstrators march to the site of a proposed new gymnasium at Morningside Heights to stage a protest in support of neighbors who use the site for recreation. The action eventually results in the occupation of five buildings -- Hamilton, Low, Fairweather and Mathematics halls, and the Architecture building. It will culminate seven days later when police storm the buildings and violently remove the students and their supporters at the Columbia administration's request.

April 23 -- The Methodist Church and the Evangelical United Brethren Church merged to form the United Methodist Church. 

April 23 -- An 8-day student sit-in began at Columbia Univ. to protest ties to the Defense Dept. and plans to build a gym over neighborhood objections. Within 72 hours students seized 5 buildings and 628 people were arrested. 

April 26 -- Students seized administration building at Ohio State University. 

April 26 -- The United States exploded beneath the Nevada desert a 1.3 megaton nuclear device called "Boxcar." 

April 29 -- The counterculture musical "Hair" opened on Broadway following limited engagements off-Broadway. 

April 29 -- Dr. Ralph Abernathy led The Poor People's Campaign in Washington D.C., less than a month after the assassination of King. It concluded on June 23. The campaign was for reforms in welfare, employment and housing policies. Abernathy was the successor to Rev. Martin Luther King as head of the Southern Christian Leadership conference. 

MAY

May 3 -- The US and North Vietnamese delegations agree to begin peace talks in Paris later this month. The formal talks will begin on May 10. 

May 3-17 -- Student riots and strikes hit France. 10 million workers went on strike. Workers struck the Renault factory on Seguin Island for 33 days until the government recognized their union.

May 6 -- In France, "Bloody Monday" marks one of the most violent days of the Parisian student revolt. Five thousand students march through the Latin Quarter with support from the student union and the instructors' union. Reports of the ensuing riot conflict, either the police charge unprovoked, or demonstrators harass them with thrown stones. The fighting is intense with rioters setting up barricades and the police attacking with gas grenades. Over-night the battle will subside, but only after engaging the sympathies of large numbers of French unionists. 

May 10 -- FBI director Hoover sent all field offices an urgent memo escalating the FBI's attack on dissent. It authorized an operation called "Counterintelligence Program -- New Left." 

May 11 -- Ralph Abernathy, Martin Luther King Jr.'s designated successor, and the Southern Christian Leadership Corps are granted a permit for an encampment on the Mall in Washington, DC. Eventually, despite nearly a solid month of rain, over 2,500 people will eventually occupy Resurrection City. On June 24th the site is raided by police, 124 occupants arrested, and the encampment demolished. 

May 13 -- The actions taken by the students and instructors at the Sorbonne inspires sympathetic strikes throughout France. As many as nine million workers are on strike by May 22. President de Gaulle takes action to shore up governmental power, making strident radio addresses and authorizing large movements of military troops within the country. These shows of force eventually dissipate the French revolutionary furor. 

May 13 -- Peace talks between the U.S. and North Vietnam began in Paris. 

May 17 -- In Maryland the Catonsville Nine including Phillip Berrigan (d.2002), a Catholic priest, took hundreds of files from the draft board at the Knights of Columbus building and set them on fire with gasoline and soap chips. 

May 25 -- Rolling Stones released "Jumping Jack Flash." 

May 27 -- Memorial Day, which began in 1868 as Decoration Day, was set aside to remember those who have died in the service of their country. Celebrated on May 30 for the first 100 years, Memorial Day was officially changed to the last Monday in May in 1968.

Philip (d.2002) and Daniel Berrigan with seven other Catholic activists entered a draft board office in Catonsville Md., and seized nearly 400 files of young men classified 1-A, then burned the files with homemade napalm, made from a recipe in the US Army Special Services Handbook.

May 28 -- Senator Eugene McCarthy won the Democratic primary in Oregon. 

May 29 -- Truth in Lending Act was signed into law. 

June 

Jun 1 -- "Mrs. Robinson" by Simon & Garfunkel peaked at No. 1 on the pop singles chart. 

June 3 -- Andy Warhol is shot in his New York City loft by Valerie Solanis, a struggling actress, and writer.

June 3 -- There was a Poor Peoples' March on Washington. 

June 4-5 -- On the night of the California Primary Robert Kennedy addresses a large crowd of supporters at the Ambassador Hotel in San Francisco. He has won victories in California and South Dakota and is confident that his campaign will go on to unite the many factions stressing the country. As he leaves the stage, at 12:13AM on the morning of the fifth Kennedy is shot by Sirhan Sirhan, a 24 year old Jordanian living in Los Angeles. The motive for the shooting is apparently anger at several pro-Israeli speeches Kennedy had made during the campaign. The forty-two year old Kennedy dies in the early morning of June sixth. 

June 8 -- Robert Kennedy's funeral is held at St. Patrick's Cathedral in New York. Senator Edward Kennedy, the youngest brother of John and Robert delivers the eulogy. After the service, the body and 700 guests depart on a special train for the burial at Arlington National Cemetery in Virginia. 

June 18 -- The US Supreme Court banned racial discrimination in the sale and rental of housing. 

June 19 -- 50,000 marched on Washington, D.C. to support the Poor People's Campaign.  

June 27 -- As the "Prague Spring" continues in Czechoslovakia Ludvik Vaculik releases his manifesto "Two Thousand Words". This essay, criticizing Communist rule in Czechoslovakia and concluding with an overt threat to "foreign forces" trying to control the government of the country was seen as a direct challenge to the Soviet Administration who extended ongoing military exercises in the country, and began planning for their invasion later in the summer.

June 28 -- A bill adding a 10 percent surcharge to income taxes and reducing government spending is signed by President Johnson. The president effectively admits it has been impossible to provide both "guns and butter." 

July 

July 1 -- The United States, Britain, the Soviet Union and 58 other nations signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. India refused to sign. 

July 7 -- Abbie Hoffman's "The Yippies are Going to Chicago" is published in The Realist. The yippie movement, formed by Hoffman, Jerry Rubin and Paul Krassner, all committed activists and demonstrators, is characterized by public displays of disorder ranging from disrupting the trading floor of the New York Stock Exchange to the destruction of the Clocks at Grand Central Terminal, the main commuter station for workers in New York City. The Yippie's will be in the center of action six weeks later at the Chicago Democratic National Convention, hosting a "Festival of Life" in contrast to what they term the convention's "Festival of Death."

July 17 -- The Arab Socialist Baath Party staged a bloodless coup in Iraq and gained control as the Revolution Command Council. Abdul Rahman Arif, brother of Abdul Salam Arif (d.1966), was ousted in the Baathist coup and exiled to Istanbul. Ahmed Hasan-al-Bakr became president of Iraq after the July 17 coup. This became a national holiday until it was abolished in 2003. Saddam Hussein soon became recognized as the strongman of the regime. 

July 27 -- There was a race riot in Gary, Indiana. 

July 29 -- Pope Paul VI issued the encyclical Humanae Vitae, which reaffirmed the Church's opposition to abortion and to all contraception except the rhythm method.

August 

Aug. 8 -- At their Party convention in Miami Beach the Republicans nominate Richard Milhouse Nixon to be their presidential candidate. The next day Nixon will appoint Spiro Agnew of Maryland as his running mate. Nixon has been challenged in his campaign by Nelson Rockefeller of New York, and Ronald Reagan of California. 

Aug 8 -- There was a race riot in Miami, Florida. 

Aug. 10 -- Race riots took place in Miami, Chicago and Little Rock.   

Aug. 20 -- The Soviet Union invades Czechoslovakia with over 200,000 Warsaw pact troops, putting an end to the "Prague Spring," and beginning a period of enforced and oppressive "normalization." 

Aug.  25 -- Arthur Ashe became the 1st black to win US tennis singles championship. 

Aug. 26 -- Mayor Richard Daley opens the Democratic National Convention in Chicago. While the convention moves haltingly toward nominating Hubert Humphrey for president, the city's police attempt to enforce an 11 o'clock curfew. On that Monday night demonstrations are widespread, but generally peaceful. The next two days, however, bring increasing tension and violence to the situation. 

Aug. 28 -- By most accounts, on Wednesday evening Chicago police take action against crowds of demonstrators without provocation. The police beat some marchers unconscious and send at least 100 to emergency rooms while arresting 175.  Mayor Daley tried the next day to explain the police action at a press conference. He famously explained: "The policeman isn't there to create disorder, the policeman is there to preserve disorder."  Twenty-eight years later, when the Democrats next held a convention in Chicago, some police officers still on the force wore t-shirts proclaiming, "We kicked their father's butt in '68 and now it's your turn."

Aug 30 -- The Beatle's recorded Hey Jude, their 1st record under the Apple label. 

September 

Sept. 1 -- Democratic nominee Hubert Humphrey kicks off his presidential campaign at New York City's Labor Day parade. 

Sept. 7 -- Women's Liberation groups, joined by members of New York NOW, target the Miss America Beauty Contest in Atlantic City. The protest includes theatrical demonstrations including ritual disposal of traditional female roles into the "freedom ashcan." While nothing is actually set on fire, one organizer's comment - quoted in the New York Times the next day - that the protesters "wouldn't do anything dangerous, just a symbolic bra-burning," lives on in the derogatory term "bra-burning feminist." 

Sept. 24 -- "The Mod Squad" premiered on ABC. The show ran until 1973. 

Sept 24 -- The CBS news magazine "60 Minutes" premiered on CBS-TV on a Tuesday night. Don Hewitt created and produced the TV news show "60 Minutes." He wrote his book "Minute by Minute" in 1985.   

Sept. 30 -- The first Boeing 747 was rolled out.

The Big Mac was created by McDonald's franchisee Jim Delligatti in Pittsburgh. It sold for 49 cents.

October 

Oct. 1 -- The cult horror movie "Night of the Living Dead" had its world premiere in Pittsburgh.

Oct. 2 -- Police and military troops in Mexico City react violently to a student - led protest in Tlatelolco Square. Hundreds of the demonstrators are killed or injured. Under Pres. Gustavo Diaz Ordaz soldiers with automatic weapons killed some 300 students in the Mexico City Tlatelolco massacre prior to the start of the summer Olympics. The government said only 50 students were killed during gunfire that lasted 5 hours. Luis Echeverria, later president, was the interior minister and the man in charge of public security. He was called before a congressional committee in 1998. Evidence in 1999 confirmed that pre-positioned soldiers fired on the students. In 2002 a special prosecutor said he has found no evidence to support historians' claims that some 300 people died when army troops opened fire on demonstrators in 1968. He put the number killed at 38.

Oct. 3 -- George Wallace, who has been running an independent campaign for the presidency which has met significant support in the South and the Midwest, names retired Air Force Chief of Staff Curtis E. LeMay to be his running mate. At the press conference, the general is asked about his position on the use of nuclear weapons, and responds: "I think most military men think it's just another weapon in the arsenal... I think there are many times when it would be most efficient to use nuclear weapons. ... I don't believe the world would end if we exploded a nuclear weapon."

Oct. 11 -- Apollo 7 is launched from Florida for an eleven day journey which will orbit the Earth 163 times. 

Oct. 12 -- The Summer Olympic Games open in Mexico City. The games have been boycotted by 32 African nations in protest of South Africa's participation. On the 18th Tommie Smith and John Carlos, U.S. athletes and medalists in the 200-meter dash will further disrupt the games by performing the black power salute during the "Star-Spangled Banner" at their medal ceremony. 

Oct 14. -- The Beatles "White Album" was completed. 

Oct. 18 -- The US Olympic Committee suspended two black athletes, Tommie Smith and John Carlos, for giving a black power salute as a protest during a victory ceremony in Mexico City. Bob Beamon soared 29 feet, 2 inches, to set a world record in the long jump. In 1976 Dick Schaap authored "The Perfect Jump." 

Oct .20 -- Jacqueline Kennedy marries Aristotle Onassis, a Greek shipping magnate on the private island of Skorpios.

Oct. 27 -- In London there was a massive anti-Vietnam war demonstration.

Oct. 31 -- President Johnson announces a total halt to US bombing in North Vietnam. 

November 

Nov. 5 -- Richard Nixon becomes president by less than a percentage point.  

Shirley Chisholm (1924-2004) of Brooklyn, New York, became the first black woman elected to serve in the US House of Representatives.

Nov. 14 -- National Turn in Your Draft Card Day is observed with rallies and protests on college campuses throughout the country. 

Nov. 17 -- NBC outraged football fans by cutting away from the final minutes of a New York Jets-Oakland Raiders game to begin a TV special, "Heidi," on schedule. The jets led 32-29 with one minute remaining. Viewers were deprived of seeing the Raiders come from behind to beat the Jets, 43-to-32. 

Nov. 22 -- Beatles released their "Beatles," (White Album) their only double album. 

Nov. 26 -- After stalling for months, the South Vietnamese government agrees to join in the Paris peace talks. 

Undated -- At SF State on the one year anniversary of the Gator incident, the Black Student Union issued a list of 10 "nonnegotiable" demands and called for a one day strike. The strike lasted 167 days. 

December 

Dec. 11 -- The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) was founded by Dr. George Habash, founder of the pan-Arab nationalist movement. 

Dec. 12 -- Robert and Ethel Kennedy's daughter, Rory, their eleventh child is born. 

Dec. 21 -- The launch of Apollo 8 begins the first US mission to orbit the Moon.