Also Within This Year in History:
1968
The turbulence of 1968 began on New Year’s Day with the Tet Offensive, shocking Americans with the unwinnable realities of the Vietnam War. The assassinations of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and Robert F. Kennedy darkened the national mood and deepened domestic unrest. Mass protests erupted around the globe, from Chicago to Prague to France, Mexico and beyond. In space, Apollo 8 orbited the moon, while back on earth, “Laugh-In” topped TV ratings, “Hair” premiered on Broadway and McDonald’s debuted the iconic Big Mac.
Antonin Novotny, the Stalinist ruler of Czechoslovakia, is succeeded as first secretary by Alexander Dubcek, a Slovak who supports liberal reforms. In the first few months of his rule, Dubcek…
In the midst of depression and a steep decline in his musical career, legendary country singer Johnny Cash arrives to play for inmates at California’s Folsom Prison on January 13,…
On January 15, 1968, an 87‑year‑old Jeannette Rankin leads 5,000 women—nicknamed the “Jeannette Rankin Brigade”—in a march in Washington, D.C. against the Vietnam War. The march is a capstone of Rankin’s…
On January 18, 1968, Eartha Kitt, the celebrated actress and singer known for playing Catwoman on the 1960s Batman television series and her sultry holiday hit “Santa Baby,” causes a stir during a…
One of the most publicized and controversial battles of the Vietnam War begins at Khe Sanh, 14 miles below the DMZ and six miles from the Laotian border. Seized and…
On January 23, 1968, the USS Pueblo, a Navy intelligence vessel, is engaged in a routine surveillance of the North Korean coast when it is intercepted by North Korean patrol…
The Israeli submarine Dakar, carrying 69 sailors, disappears on January 25, 1968. It would remain missing for some 30 years. The Dakar was built at the height of World War…
In coordinated attacks all across South Vietnam, communist forces launch their largest offensive of the Vietnam War against South Vietnamese and U.S. troops. Dozens of cities, towns, and military bases—including…
On this day in 1968, as part of the Tet Offensive, a squad of Viet Cong guerillas attacks the U.S. Embassy in Saigon. The soldiers seized the embassy and held…
Saigon, South Vietnam was a chaotic and bloody place in the winter of 1968. On January 30, North Vietnamese forces struck suddenly and with shocking force at targets throughout the…
Richard M. Nixon announces his candidacy for the presidency. Most observers had written off Nixon’s political career eight years earlier, when he had lost to John F. Kennedy in the…
Bernard Josephs returns to his house in Bromley, England, and finds his wife Claire lying under the bed, her throat slashed and severed to the spine. Defensive wounds to her…
On the night of February 8, 1968, police officers in Orangeburg, South Carolina open fire on a crowd of young people during a protest against racial segregation, killing three and…
In 1968, 36‑year‑old Henry Lewis makes history when he is chosen, over more than 150 other candidates, as the first Black conductor of a major U.S. orchestra: the New Jersey…
U.S. officials report that, in addition to the 800,000 people listed as refugees prior to January 30, the fighting during the Tet Offensive has created 350,000 new refugees. The communist…
February 16, 1968 sees the first official “911” call placed in the United States. Now taken for granted as first course of action in the event of emergency by nearly…
On February 24, 1968, a major phase of the Tet Offensive ends as U.S. and South Vietnamese troops recapture the ancient capital of Hue from communist forces. Although scattered fighting…
Allied troops who had recaptured the imperial capital of Hue from the North Vietnamese during the Tet Offensive discover the first mass graves in Hue. It was discovered that communist…
The President’s National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders—known as the Kerner Commission—releases its report, condemning racism as the primary cause of the recent surge of riots. Headed by Governor Otto…
Thousands of Mexican American students walk out of schools in East Los Angeles to protest unequal conditions. Their action amplifies a growing movement for Chicano civil rights. When some 22,000…
