1968
A YEAR OF DEFINING MOMENTS IN HISTORY
JANUARY

The Birds release album The Notorious Bird Brothers

Jacques Cousteau airs first undersea special

The Green Bay Packers win Superbowl II

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

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

Laugh In debuts

Canned Heat releases album, Boogie with Canned Heat

Aretha Franklin releases album Lady Soul

Dr. John releases album Gris Gris

USS Pueblo is captured by North Korea

Danger Diabolik, directed by Mario Bava premiers

Kalaidescope releases A Beacon from Mars

Steppenwolf releases album Steppenwolf

The Velvet Underground releases album, White Light White Heat

Tet Offensive begins















FEBRUARY

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

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.

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

Blackbeard's Ghost, directed by Robert Stevenson premiers

The new Madison Square Garden opens in New York City

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

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

Mr. Rogers Neighborhood has it's US network debut

Hour of the Wolf directed by Ingmar Bergman premiers

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

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

Fleetwood Mac releases album Fleetwood Mac

Dorothy Ashby releases album Afro Harping














MARCH

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

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

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

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

The Producers by Mel Brooks premiers

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

Dionne Warwick releases album In the Valley of the Dolls

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

Miles Davis releases album Nefertiti

Scott Walker releases album Scott 2










APRIL

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

2001: A Space Odyssey directed by Stanley Kubrick premiers

Planet of the Apes directed by Franklin J. Schaffner premiers

Simon and Garfunkel release album Bookends

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

Nina Simon releases album 'Nuff Said

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.

The Bride Wore Black by Francois Truffaut premiers

The Zombies release album, Odessey and the Oracle

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

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

Je'taime Je'taime directed by Alain Resnais premiers

The musical Hair debuts on Broadway

Anthony Braxton debuts first album, 3 Compositions of New Jazz

Yusef Lateef releases album, The Blue Yusef Lateef















MAY

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.

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

The Odd Couple directed by Gene Saks premiers

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

The Swimmer directed by Frank Perry and Sydney Pollack premiers

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

Astro Zombies directed by Ted V. Mikels premiers

The band Faces releases album Ogden's Nut Gone Flake

Johnny Cash releases album Live at Folsom Prison

Film, Project X, directed by William Castle debuts










JUNE

Valerie Solanas shoots Andy Warhol

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.

Rosemary's Baby , directed by Roman Polanski, premiers

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

Roland Kirk debuts album Left & Right

Roland Kirk debuts album The Inflated Tear

Aretha Franklin debuts album Aretha Now

Otis Redding debuts album The Immortal Otis Redding

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

Never a Dull Moment, directed by Jerry Paris, premiers

Pink Floyd debuts album, A Saucerful of Secrets











JULY

The Band releases album, The Music from Big Pink

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

The Doors release album, Waiting for the Sun

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

Deep Purple releases album, Shades of Purple

The Grateful Dead release album, Anthem of the Sun

The semiconductor company Intel is founded

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

Miles Davis releases album Miles in the Sky

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

Buffalo Springfield releases album, Last Time Around

The Heart is a Lonely Hunter premiers.
Directed by Robert Ellis Miller and based on the novel by Carson McCullers












AUGUST

Jeff Beck releases album, Truth

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

Big Brother and the Holding Company releases album, Cheap Thrills

Stolen Kisses, directed by Francois Truffaut, premiers

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

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

Cream debuts album Wheels of Fire







SEPTEMBER

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

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.

Funny Girl, directed by William Wyler, premiers

Space Thing, directed by Byron Mabe, premiers

60 Minutes debuts on CBS

Oliver! directed by Carol Reed, premiers

Jefferson Airplane debuts album, Crown of Creation

Miles Davis debuts album, Filles de Kilimanjaro

The Cincinnati Bengals start their first season









OCTOBER

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

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

Coogan's Bluff, directed by Don Siegel, premiers

Romeo and Juliet, directed by Franco Zeffirelli, premiers

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

Barbarella, directed by Roger Vadim, premiers

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

Aretha Franklin debuts album, Aretha in Paris

The Subject was Roses, directed by Ulu Grosbard, premiered

The Boston Strangler, directed by Richard Fleischer, premiered

Jimi Hendrix debuts album, Electric Ladyland

Bullitt, directed by Peter Yates, premiers

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

Ice Station Zebra, directed by John Sturges, premiers














NOVEMBER

Van Morrison releases album, Astral Weeks

Nixon wins Presidential election

Head, directed by Bob Rafelson, premiers

Diana Ross and the Supremes Join The Temptations album is released

Yale University announces it will now admit women as students

The Shoes of the Fisherman directed by Michael Anderson, premiers

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.

The Beatles debut, The White Album

The Kinks debut album, The Village Green Preservation Society

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

Lee Konitz releases album, Lee Konitz Duets











DECEMBER

The Green Slime , directed by Kinji Fukasaku, premiers

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

The Rolling Stones release album Beggars Banquet

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

Deep Purple releases album, The Book of Taliesyn

Greetings, directed by Brian De Palma, premiers

Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, directed by Ken Hughes, premiers

Candy, directed by Christian Marquand, premiers

If... directed by Lindsey Anderson, premiers

Skidoo, directed by Otto Preminger, premiers

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

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

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

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

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

The Love Bug, directed by Robert Stevenson, premiers

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

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

OJ Simpson wins Heisman Trophy while playing for USC



















1968 RESOURCES
- NAACP Honors Memphis Sanitation Workers Who Went On Strike In 1968
- The Winter of 1968
- NY TIMES: 50 Years Later, It Feels Familiar: How America Fractured in 1968
- SMITHSONIAN: A Timeline of 1968: The Year that Shattered America
- THE GUARDIAN: 1968: The Year that Changed History
- HISTORY.COM: This Day in History
- THE CANTONSVILLE NINE FILE