1968

A YEAR OF DEFINING MOMENTS IN HISTORY

JANUARY

January 3, 1968

The Birds release album The Notorious Bird Brothers

January 8, 1968

Jacques Cousteau airs first undersea special

January 14, 1968

The Green Bay Packers win Superbowl II

January 15, 1968

Martin Luther King Jr. holds a peace torch outside of a California prison

January 19, 1968

Eartha Kitt denounces the Vietnam War to Ladybird Johnson at a Whitehouse conference

January 22, 1968

Laugh In debuts

January 22, 1968

Canned Heat releases album, Boogie with Canned Heat

January 22, 1968

Aretha Franklin releases album Lady Soul

January 22, 1968

Dr. John releases album Gris Gris

January 23, 1968

USS Pueblo is captured by North Korea

January 24, 1968

Danger Diabolik, directed by Mario Bava premiers

January 29, 1968

Kalaidescope releases A Beacon from Mars

January 29, 1968

Steppenwolf releases album Steppenwolf

January 30, 1968

The Velvet Underground releases album, White Light White Heat

January 30, 1968

Tet Offensive begins

FEBRUARY

February 1, 1968

Execution of Vietcong fighter Nguyen Van Lem by South Vietnamese Brigadier General Nguyễn Ngọc Loan during the Tet Offensive. The photograph was captured by American Eddie Adams

February 8, 1968

The Orangeburg Massacre takes place on South Carolina State University Campus during a protest of desegregation and leads to the deaths of SCSU studentsSamuel Hammond, Henry Smith, and Delano Middleton, a student at the local Wilkinson High School. Middleton was shot while simply sitting on the steps of the freshman dormitory awaiting the end of his mother's work shift.

February 8, 1968

The Winter Olympics commence in Grenoble, France and is the first Olympics to be broadcasted in color

February 8, 1968

Blackbeard's Ghost, directed by Robert Stevenson premiers

February 11, 1968

The new Madison Square Garden opens in New York City

February 13, 1968

Civil rights disturbances occur at the University of Wisconsin–Madison and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

February 16, 1968

Peggy Flemming wins the gold medal for figure skating at the Grenoble Olympics and is the only gold medalist for the United States

February 19, 1968

Mr. Rogers Neighborhood has it's US network debut

February 19, 1968

Hour of the Wolf directed by Ingmar Bergman premiers

February 19, 1968

The Florida Education Association initiates a mass resignation of teachers to protest state funding of education, resulting in the first teachers strike in the US

February 21, 1968

Blood Sweat and Tears releases album Child is the Father to the Man

February 24, 1968

Fleetwood Mac releases album Fleetwood Mac

February 24, 1968

Koruneko directed by Kaneto Shindo is released in Japan

February 1968

Dorothy Ashby releases album Afro Harping

MARCH

March 4, 1968

The Mothers of Invention releases album We're Only in it for the Money

March 12, 1968

U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson edges out antiwar candidate Eugene J. McCarthy in the New Hampshire Democratic primary

March 16, 1968

The Mai Lai massacre of the Vietnam War: American troops kill scores of civilians

March 16, 1968

U.S. Senator Robert F. Kennedy enters the race for the Democratic Party presidential nomination

March 18, 1968

The Producers by Mel Brooks premiers

March 19- 23, 1968

Students at Howard University in Washington, D.C., cue a new era of militant student activism on college campuses through their protests for Civil Rights and against the Vietnam War

March 23, 1968

Dionne Warwick releases album In the Valley of the Dolls

March 28, 1968

In Memphis, Tennessee, violence erupts during a march led by MLK in support of garbage workers

March 1968

Miles Davis releases album Nefertiti

March 1968

Scott Walker releases album Scott 2

APRIL

April 2, 1968

Baader-Meinhof Group, a group of young Germans banded to fight West German capitalism, blows up department store in Frankfurt, Germany

April 3, 1968

2001: A Space Odyssey directed by Stanley Kubrick premiers

April 3, 1968

Planet of the Apes directed by Franklin J. Schaffner premiers

April 3, 1968

Simon and Garfunkel release album Bookends

April 4, 1968

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. is assasinated at the Loraine Motel in Memphis, Tennessee

April 7, 1968

Nina Simon releases album 'Nuff Said

April 11, 1968

LBJ signs the Civil Rights Act aka The Fair Housing Act which prohibits discrimination concerning the sale, rental and financing of housing based on race, religion, national origin or sex.

April 17, 1968

The Bride Wore Black by Francois Truffaut premiers

April 19, 1968

The Zombies release album, Odessey and the Oracle

April 22, 1968

The Monkees release album, The Birds the Bees and the Monkees

April 23- 30, 1968

Students of Columbia University in New York City protest the Vietnam War by taking over administrative buildings and shutting down the school, with violent removal by the NYPD

April 26, 1968

Je'taime Je'taime directed by Alain Resnais premiers

April 29, 1968

The musical Hair debuts on Broadway

April 1968

Anthony Braxton debuts first album, 3 Compositions of New Jazz

April 1968

Yusef Lateef releases album, The Blue Yusef Lateef

MAY

May 1968

Protests and riots by students in Paris escalate this month as industries strike throughout the nation in support of the protesters call for a restructuring of the French education system.

May 1, 1968

Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass releases album The Beat of the Brass

May 2, 1968

The Odd Couple directed by Gene Saks premiers

May 14, 1968

The Beatles announce the creation of Apple Records at a New York press conference

May 15, 1968

The Swimmer directed by Frank Perry and Sydney Pollack premiers

May 17, 1968

The Cantonville Nine: Nine Catholic activists from Cantonville, MD removed hundreds of draft cards from their local Selective Services Office and burned them with home made napalm in protest of the Vietnam War

May 19, 1968

Astro Zombies directed by Ted V. Mikels premiers

May 24, 1968

The band Faces releases album Ogden's Nut Gone Flake

May 1968

Johnny Cash releases album Live at Folsom Prison

May 1968

Film, Project X, directed by William Castle debuts

JUNE

June 3, 1968

Valerie Solanas shoots Andy Warhol

June 5, 1968

Sirhan Sirhan assassinates Robert F. Kennedy right after a speech he gave in the Ambassador hotel of L.A. where he had just won the California presidential primaries.

June 12, 1968

Rosemary's Baby , directed by Roman Polanski, premiers

June 14, 1968

Iron Butterfly debuts album In- A- Gadda- Da- Vida

June 14, 1968

Roland Kirk debuts album Left & Right

June 14, 1968

Roland Kirk debuts album The Inflated Tear

June 14, 1968

Aretha Franklin debuts album Aretha Now

June 15, 1968

Otis Redding debuts album The Immortal Otis Redding

June 19, 1968

The Lost Continent ,directed by, Michael Carreras and Leslie Norman, premiers

June 26, 1968

Never a Dull Moment, directed by Jerry Paris, premiers

June 29, 1968

Pink Floyd debuts album, A Saucerful of Secrets

JULY

July 1, 1968

The Band releases album, The Music from Big Pink

July 1, 1968

Initiation of the controversial CIA operation, Phoenix Program, during the Vietnam War to infiltrate and destroy the Viet Cong by any means necessary.

July 3, 1968

The Doors release album, Waiting for the Sun

July 17, 1968

Yellow Submarine, inspired by The Beatles, and directed by George Dunning, premiers

July 17, 1968

Deep Purple releases album, Shades of Purple

July 18, 1968

The Grateful Dead release album, Anthem of the Sun

July 18, 1968

The semiconductor company Intel is founded

July 21, 1968

The Great Adventure of Horus, Prince of the Sun premiers and is the feature- length directorial debut of Isao Takahata

July 22, 1968

Miles Davis releases album Miles in the Sky

July 26, 1968

The Moody Blues releases album, In Search of the Lost Chord

July 30, 1968

Buffalo Springfield releases album, Last Time Around

July 31, 1968

The Heart is a Lonely Hunter premiers.

Directed by Robert Ellis Miller and based on the novel by Carson McCullers

AUGUST

August 1, 1968

Jeff Beck releases album, Truth

August 5- 8, 1968

The Republican National Convention in Miami Beach, Florida nominates Richard Nixon for U.S. President and Spiro Agnew for Vice President

August 12, 1968

Big Brother and the Holding Company releases album, Cheap Thrills

August 14, 1968

Stolen Kisses, directed by Francois Truffaut, premiers

August 21, 1968

James Anderson Jr. is the 1st African American to win the Medal of Honor, which he does posthumously for throwing himself on a grenade in Vietnam saving fellow Marines

August 22- 30, 1968

The 1968 Democratic National Convention, nominates Hubert Humphrey for U.S. President, and Edmund Muskie for Vice President- outside, police clash with anti- war protesters asking their party to take a stance on the Vietnam War

August 1968

Cream debuts album Wheels of Fire

SEPTEMBER

September 4, 1968

Italian film, Teo Rema, directed by Pier Paolo Pasolini, premiers

September 7, 1968

400 feminists and civil rights activists protest the 1969 Miss America pageant in Atlantic City, drawing world wide media attention to the Women's Liberation Movement.

September 18, 1968

Funny Girl, directed by William Wyler, premiers

September 20, 1968

Space Thing, directed by Byron Mabe, premiers

September 24, 1968

60 Minutes debuts on CBS

September 26, 1968

Oliver! directed by Carol Reed, premiers

September 1968

Jefferson Airplane debuts album, Crown of Creation

September 1968

Miles Davis debuts album, Filles de Kilimanjaro

September 1968

The Cincinnati Bengals start their first season

OCTOBER

October 1, 1968

Night of the Living Dead, directed by George A. Romero, premiers

October 1, 1968

Otis Redding debuts album, Live at Whiskey A Go- Go

October 2, 1968

Coogan's Bluff, directed by Don Siegel, premiers

October 8, 1968

Romeo and Juliet, directed by Franco Zeffirelli, premiers

October 9, 1968

Finian's Rainbow, directed by Francis Ford Coppola, premiers

October 10, 1968

Barbarella, directed by Roger Vadim, premiers

October 11, 1968

NASA launches Apollo 7, the first manned mission to space, and the first live television broadcast from orbit

October 12, 1968

Aretha Franklin debuts album, Aretha in Paris

October 13, 1968

The Subject was Roses, directed by Ulu Grosbard, premiered

October 16, 1968

The Boston Strangler, directed by Richard Fleischer, premiered

October 16, 1968

Jimi Hendrix debuts album, Electric Ladyland

October 17, 1968

Bullitt, directed by Peter Yates, premiers

October 20, 1968

Former U.S. First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy marries Greek shipping tycoon Aristotle Onassis on the Greek island of Skorpios

October 23, 1968

Ice Station Zebra, directed by John Sturges, premiers

NOVEMBER

November 1, 1968

Van Morrison releases album, Astral Weeks

November 5, 1968

Nixon wins Presidential election

November 6, 1968

Head, directed by Bob Rafelson, premiers

November 8, 1968

Diana Ross and the Supremes Join The Temptations album is released

November 9, 1968

Yale University announces it will now admit women as students

November 14, 1968

The Shoes of the Fisherman directed by Michael Anderson, premiers

November 17, 1968

The Heidi game: NBC cuts off the final 1:05 of an Oakland Raiders–New York Jets football game to broadcast the pre-scheduled Heidi. Fans miss Oakland (which had been trailing 32–29) score 2 late touchdowns to win 43–32; as a result, thousands of outraged football fans flood the NBC switchboards to protest.

November 22, 1968

The Beatles debut, The White Album

November 22, 1968

The Kinks debut album, The Village Green Preservation Society

November 24, 1968

Four men hijack Pan Am Flight 281 from JFK International Airport, New York to Havana, Cuba

November 1968

Lee Konitz releases album, Lee Konitz Duets

DECEMBER

December 1, 1968

The Green Slime , directed by Kinji Fukasaku, premiers

December 3, 1968

NBC runs the special If I Can Dream marking the concert return of Elvis Presley

December 6, 1968

The Rolling Stones release album Beggars Banquet

December 8, 1968

NBC Airs Pinocchio starring Burl Ives and Peter Noone as part of Hallmark Hall of Fame

December 11, 1968

Deep Purple releases album, The Book of Taliesyn

December 15, 1968

Greetings, directed by Brian De Palma, premiers

December 16, 1968

Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, directed by Ken Hughes, premiers

December 17, 1968

Candy, directed by Christian Marquand, premiers

December 19, 1968

If... directed by Lindsey Anderson, premiers

December 19, 1968

Skidoo, directed by Otto Preminger, premiers

December 20, 1968

The Zodiac Killer is believed to have shot Betty Lou Jensen and David Faraday on Lake Herman Road, Benicia, San Francisco Bay, California

December 21, 1968

Once Upon a Time in the West, directed by Sergio Leone, premiers

December 22, 1968

The Sea Gull, directed by Sidney Lumet, based on the Chekov play, premiers

December 22, 1968

David Eisenhower (grandson of former president Dwight D. Eisenhower) marries Julie Nixon, the daughter of U.S. President-elect Richard Nixon

December 23, 1968

Release of the USS Pueblo crew after spending 11 months in captivity by the North Koreans

December 24, 1968

The Love Bug, directed by Robert Stevenson, premiers

December 24, 1968

U.S. spacecraft Apollo 8 with astronauts Frank Borman, Jim Lovell and William A. Anders enters orbit around the Moon and become the first humans to see the far side of the Moon and planet Earth as a whole

December 26, 1968

Documentary Monterey Pop directed by D.A. Pennebaker, premiers

December 1968

OJ Simpson wins Heisman Trophy while playing for USC

1968

A YEAR OF DEFINING MOMENTS IN HISTORY

JANUARY

FEBRUARY

MARCH

APRIL

MAY

JUNE

JULY

AUGUST

SEPTEMBER

OCTOBER

NOVEMBER

DECEMBER

1968 RESOURCES