1968: 50 Years

It is often considered to be one of the most turbulent years of the 20th century. This is only what happened in the United States in 1968. The anti-Vietnam War protests went from peaceful to violent as did the Civil Rights protests. Universities were occupied. There were walkouts. There were riots around the country. Great political leaders were murdered. A President, who used a fake incident to send combat troops into Vietnam, left political office in disgrace when he realized his actions had torn the country apart. 1968 is often said to be when the United States of America came the closest to a Second Civil War then any time in our history (before and since.) We managed to escape that fate back then.  It has been 50 years since 1968 and it seems there is great division and the threat for violence in the US. Hopefully, we can learn from 1968 so we don’t repeat it in 2018.

January 21^st- April 8^th: Vietnam War – Battle of Khe Sanh: One of the most publicized and controversial battles of the war begins, ending on April 8.

January 23^rd   North Korea seizes the USS Pueblo.

January 30^th- September 23^rd:  Vietnam War: The Viet Cong and North Vietnam launch the Tet Offensive against South Vietnam, the United States, and their allies.

January 30^th: Assistant Postmaster General Richard Murphy ruled that hippies could continue to work for the United States Postal Service "but they must have neat haircuts and get rid of their beards and sandals" and wear proper attire; according to Murphy, the largest number of hippies worked at post offices in San Francisco and some had been "walking their routes barefooted with shaggy beards, hair down to their shoulders, and wearing everything from bearskin coats to dungarees."

January 31^st  Vietnam War: Viet Cong soldiers attack the US Embassy, Saigon.

January 31^st: Vietnam War: Deadest day for American soldiers during the whole war with 245 killed across the country.

February 1^st – Vietnam War: A Viet Cong officer named Nguyễn Văn Lém is executed by Nguyễn Ngọc Loan, a South Vietnamese National Police Chief. The event is photographed by Eddie Adams. The photo makes headlines around the world, eventually winning the 1969 Pulitzer Prize, and sways U.S. public opinion against the war.

February: Vietnam War: Gallup poll showed 35% approved of Johnson's handling of the war.

February 8^th: A civil rights protest staged at a white-only bowling alley in Orangeburg, South Carolina is broken up by highway patrolmen; 3 college students are killed.

February 12^th – April 16^th:  Memphis sanitation strike: Provoked by the crushing to death of two black workers, over 1,000 black waste collectors in Memphis, Tennessee, begin a strike that lasts until April 16.

February 16^th: Vietnam War: The Selective Service System revised its rules for deferments and exemptions from the draft, allowing the induction of most graduate students who were pursuing a master's degree, a decision that affected 600,000 men. Students in medical school, dental school, or other health field remained exempt, as did those in a theological seminary who planned on "going into ministry"

February 19^th:  The Florida Education Association (FEA) initiates a mass resignation of teachers to protest state funding of education forcing the closure of the schools in 51 of Florida's 67 counties. This is, in effect, the first statewide teachers' strike in the U.S.

 February 23^rd: Vietnam War: the U.S. Selective Service System announced a new draft call for 48,000 men, the second highest of the war.

February 27^th: Vietnam War: "Report from Vietnam by Walter Cronkite” watched by 9 million viewers. Help leads to President Johnson not seeking re-election a month later.

March 5^th: East Los Angeles Walkout started with 200 Latino students and eventually had 6,000 Latino and Black students protesting poor educational conditions and racism.

March 12^th: U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson edges out antiwar candidate Eugene J. McCarthy in the New Hampshire Democratic primary, a vote which highlights the deep divisions in the country, as well as the party, over Vietnam.

March 16^th: Vietnam War:  My Lai massacre: American troops kill scores of civilians. The story will first become public in November 1969 and will help undermine public support for the U.S. efforts in Vietnam.

March 18^th: The Congress of the United States repeals the requirement for a gold reserve to back U.S. currency.

March 19^th-23^rd: Students at Howard University in Washington, D.C., signal a new era of militant student activism on college campuses in the U.S. Students stage rallies, protests and a 5-day sit-in, laying siege to the administration building, shutting down the university in protest over its ROTC program and the Vietnam War, and demanding a more Afrocentric curriculum.

March 20^th: An American subversive group toppled a Pacific Gas and Electric Company (PG & E) electrical tower with dynamite charges outside of Berkeley, California. The destruction of the tower brought down two 115,000 volt transmission lines, cutting off power to the University of California and to the Lawrence Radiation Laboratory. Power at the radiation laboratory was quickly fixed by emergency backup generators, and the PG & E utility restored partial service to the university by 8:00 in the morning. Two days later, the aerial cable of Pacific Bell was brought down in Contra Costa County, disrupting phone service in Berkeley and Oakland

March 26^th: Vietnam War:  President Lyndon Johnson met with his group of advisers, led by Secretary of State Dean Rusk and Secretary of Defense Clark Clifford, who had come to be known as "The Wise Men". After long supporting and encouraging Johnson's conduct of the Vietnam War, a majority of the group informed him bluntly that "an American military solution in Vietnam was no longer attainable" and that he should take steps to disengage the U.S. from further participation. "The Wisemen's conclusion that the United States had to find a new way out of Vietnam rocked Johnson as nothing else had."

March 29^th: A group of 500 black activists, led by Robert F. Williams, assembled at the black-owned Twenty Grand Motel in Detroit to proclaim their intention to create a Republic of New Afrika, and independent black nation located in areas of the southeastern United States that had predominantly black populations.

March 31^st: U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson announces he will not seek re-election.

April 4^th: Martin Luther King, Jr. is shot dead at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennessee. Riots erupt in 100 major American cities, lasting for several days afterwards. 45 people Died, 2,500 Injured and 15,000 Arrested.

April 6^th: A shootout between Black Panthers and Oakland police results in several arrests and deaths, including 16-year-old Panther Bobby Hutton.

April 23^rd –30^th  Vietnam War: Student protesters at Columbia University in New York City take over administration buildings and shut down the university protesting the University’s work with the US Military and the plan for a segregated gym.

April 26^th: Vietnam War: An estimated 200,000 college and high school students in New York City failed to show up for school after a call for a nationwide protest by the Student Mobilization Committee To End the War In Vietnam

April 29^th: Vietnam War: The musical Hair officially opens on Broadway.

May 17^th:  Vietnam War: The Catonsville Nine enter the Selective Service offices in Catonsville, Maryland, take dozens of selective service draft records, and burn them with napalm as a protest against the Vietnam War.

May 27^th: Rioting began in Louisville, Kentucky when a crowd of 400 protesters, mostly black, gathered in the city's Parkland neighborhood. When the violence escalated, Mayor Kenneth A. Schmied established a curfew and requested the Governor to call out 700 Kentucky National Guard troops to enforce it. The rioting would end two days later; two people were killed.

June 3^rd: Feminist campaigner Valerie Solanas attempts to kill artist Andy Warhol as he enters his studio. She fires three shots, wounding him, and also slightly wounds art critic Mario Amaya. After a five-hour operation, Warhol recovers.

June 5^th:  U.S. presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy is shot at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles, California by Sirhan Sirhan. Kennedy dies from his injuries the next day.

July 1^st: Vietnam War: The Central Intelligence Agency's Phoenix Program is officially established.

July 23^rd: Glenville shootout: Police in the Glenville district of Cleveland, Ohio, USA, exchange fire with the "Black Nationalists of New Libya", a Black Power group. By the end of the incident the following morning, three policemen, three suspects and a bystander have been killed and 15 others injured.

August 5^th –8^th:  The Republican National Convention in Miami Beach, Florida nominates Richard Nixon for U.S. President and Spiro Agnew for Vice President.

August 22^nd –30^th: Police clash with anti-war protesters in Chicago, Illinois, outside the 1968 Democratic National Convention, which nominates Hubert Humphrey for U.S. President, and Edmund Muskie for Vice President.

August:  Vietnam War: Gallup poll shows 53% of Americans said it was a mistake to send troops to Vietnam.

October 14^th:   Vietnam War: The United States Department of Defense announces that the United States Army and United States Marines will send about 24,000 troops back to Vietnam for involuntary second tours.

October 16^th:  In Mexico City, Tommie Smith and John Carlos, 2 black Americans competing in the Olympic 200-meter run, raise their arms in a black power salute after winning, respectively, the gold and bronze medals for 1st and 3rd place.

October 20^th: Former U.S. First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy marries Greek shipping tycoon Aristotle Onassis on the Greek island of Skorpios.

October 31^st: Vietnam War: Citing progress in the Paris peace talks, U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson announces to the nation that he has ordered a complete cessation of "all air, naval, and artillery bombardment of North Vietnam" effective November 1.

November 5^th: U.S. presidential election, 1968: Republican challenger Richard M. Nixon defeats the Democratic candidate, Vice President Hubert Humphrey, and American Independent Party candidate George C. Wallace.

November 11^th:  Vietnam War: Operation Commando Hunt is initiated to interdict men and supplies on the Ho Chi Minh Trail, through Laos into South Vietnam. By the end of the operation, 3 million tons of bombs are dropped on Laos, slowing but not seriously disrupting trail operations.

November 14^th: Yale University announces it is going to admit women.

November 24^th:  4 men hijack Pan Am Flight 281 from JFK International Airport, New York to Havana, Cuba.

December 23^rd: Release of the USS Pueblo crew after spending 11 months in captivity by the North Koreans.

December 24^th: Apollo Program: U.S. spacecraft Apollo 8 enters orbit around the Moon. Astronauts Frank Borman, Jim Lovell and William A. Anders become the first humans to see the far side of the Moon and planet Earth as a whole. The crew also reads from Genesis.

December 31^st: Vietnam War: As a result of the heavy fighting from the Tet Offensive , 1968 went on to become the deadliest year of the war for the US forces with 16,592 soldiers killed.