1968 - Our School Year in History

September 12, 1967 - June19, 1968

Let's take a little journey back in time. It was a simpler time then, or was it? You be the judge.

September 1967

  • September 12: Ronald Reagan cautioned Washington to consider "full technological resources" be employed in order to win the Vietnam War.

October 1967

  • October 2: Thurgood Marshall took his seat on the Supreme Court

  • October 12: The St. Louis Cardinals beat the Boston Red Sox 7-2 to win the World Series.

  • October 30: Lt. Gen. Nguyen Van Thieu was sworn in as president of South Viet Nam.

November 1967

  • November 17: Surveyor 6 made a six second flight on the moon, followed by the first lift-off from the lunar surface.

  • November 20: The population of United States passed 200 million.

  • November 21: President Johnson signed an air quality act which alloted $428 million to fight air pollution.

December 1967

  • December 3: Louis Washkansky received the first human heart transplant during a procedure lead by Dr. Christiaan Barnard, in South Africa. Mr. Washkansky died 18 days later.

  • December 10: Otis Redding, American soul singer ("Sittin' on the Dock of the Bay"), died at age 26.

  • December 23: President Johnson addressed the American troops at Cam Ranh Bay, urging them to ignore the anti-war protests back home.

  • December 29-30: At least 546 people were arrested in New York City during protests of the Vietnam War. Arrests included Dr. Benjamin Spock and poet Allen Ginsberg. Ho Chi Minh sent a message to American opponents of the war: "We shall win. And so shall you."

January 1968

  • January 5: Alexander Dubcek takes over control of Czechoslovakia.

  • January 14: The Green Bay Packers beat the Oakland Raiders 33-14 to win their second straight Super Bowl. Vince Lombardi hinted indicated he was considering retirement.

  • January 20: Washington lawyer Clark Clifford was named to replace Robert McNamara as Secretary of Defense by President Johnson.

  • January 23: The Pueblo, a US Navy intelligence ship on a surveillance patrol of the North Korean coast, was seized by North Korea. The Pueblo was commanded by Commander Lloyd M. Bucher and manned by 82 crew members.

  • January 29: LBJ presents record $186 billion budget to Congress.

  • January 31: Communist Guerrillas in Vietnam launched their Tet Offensive on more than 100 cities from the Mekong Delta to Saigon and north to the highlands.

February 1968

  • February 1: Richard Nixon announced his candidacy for President while in New Hampshire

  • February 6-17: Winter Olympics in Genoble, France delivered us such household names as Peggy Fleming and Jean-Claude Killy.

  • February 8: George Wallace entered the Presidential race.

  • February 8: Robert F. Kennedy says the United States can not win the war in Vietnam. Stating that there is not "any prospect" for victory, Kennedy urged that "It is time for the truth."

  • February 21: A Delta airliner, destined for Miami, was hijacked to Havana, Cuba.

  • February 24: Three United States Marine battalions liberated Hue in one of the Viet Cong's greatest victories of the Tet Offensive.

March 1968

  • March 8: Pope Paul VI named Terence Cooke to succeed Cardinal Spellman as archbishop of New York.

  • March 16: President Johnson won the New Hampshire Democratic primary, beating out Minnesota Senator Eugene McCarthy who captured 40% of the vote. Richard Nixon easily captured the Republican prize, winning 80% of the votes.

  • March 16: Robert F. Kennedy entered the Presidential race.

  • March 22: General William Westmoreland named Army Chief of Staff by LBJ.

  • March 23: UCLA beat North Carolina 78-55 to take the NCAA basketball title.

  • March 27: Yuri Gagarin, the first man in space, died in a plane crash in Russia.

  • March 28: The US lost its first aircraft in Vietnam when an F-111 vanished during a combat mission.

  • March 31: President Lyndon Baines Johnson stunned political friends and foes alike when he announced during a television broadcast to the nation, "I shall not seek and I will not accept the nomination of my party as your president."

April 1968

  • April 4: The Reverend Martin Luther King,39, was fatally shot as he leaned over the second floor balcony railing just outside his room at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis.

  • April 9: Blacks rioted in Chicago, Baltimore, Washington and Cincinnati. 31 people died nationwide, including  11 in Chicago, 5 in Baltimore, and 8 in DC. Rioting included arson, looting and violence.

  • April 10: LBJ named General Creighton Abrams commander of the US troops in Vietnam.

  • April 11: US called 24,500 reserves to active duty.

  • April 11: President Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act of 1968 while pleading for an end to the rioting which erupted since the slaying of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., saying, "We all know that the roots of injustice run deep, but violence cannot redress a solitary wrong or remedy a single unfairness."

  • April 19: The FBI named James Earl Ray as the assassin of Dr. King.

  • April 20: Pierre Trudeau was sworn in as Canada's 15th Prime Minister, succeeding Lester Pearson.

  • April 23: 300 Columbia University students protested the Vietnam War by barricading the office of the college Dean.

  • April 24: Black students at Boston University occupied the Administration Building demanding the school add a Black History major.

  • April 25: Columbia University closed to avoid protesters.

  • April 26: 200,000 college and high school students in New York cut classes in protest of the Vietnam War.

  • April 27: Hubert Humphrey announced his candidacy for President.

  • April 30: New York City police swarmed onto the Columbia University campus early in the morning to evict students who had occupied five buildings.

May 1968

  • May 8: Jim "Catfish" Hunter of the Oakland Athletics pitched a perfect game.

  • May 11: The Montreal Canadiens defeated the St. Louis Blues 3-2 to win hockey's Stanley Cup.

  • May 13: American and North Vietnamese diplomats opened formal peace talks in Paris.

  • May 18: 117 protestors were arrested at a sit-in at Columbia University.

  • May 23: A record 1100 GIs were reported killed in Vietnam during the previous two week period.

  • May 28: Senator Eugene McCarthy won a stunning upset victory over Senator Robert Kennedy in the Oregon presidential primary, setting the stage for a crucial battle in California.

  • May 29: Protestors involved in the Poor People's March (started in Memphis on May 2nd) stormed the Supreme Court building.

  • May 30: Bobby Unser won the Indianapolis 500, averaging 152.9 MPH.

June 1968

  • June 5: Lee H. Edwards Class of 1968 Graduation, 8 P.M. at the Asheville City Auditorium.

  • June 5: Senator Robert F. Kennedy was assassinated by Sirhan Bishara Sirhan in the back of the Embassy Room of the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles minutes after claiming victory in the California Democratic primary. Three days later at the funeral, his brother Senator Edward Kennedy said, "My brother need not be idealized or enlarged in death beyond what he was in life. He should be remembered as a good and decent man, who saw wrong and tried to right it, saw suffering and tried to heal it, saw war and tried to stop it. As he said many times, in many parts of this nation, to those who sought to touch him" 'Some men see things as they are and say why. I dream things that never were and say, why not?'"

  • June 8: James Earl Ray was arrested in London and charged with the murder on Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

  • June 10: General William Westmoreland said that military victory in Vietnam was unlikely in the face of politcal restraints.

  • June 16: Golfer Lee Trevino won the US Open in Texas.

  • June 19: 50,000 people marched a mile in Washington, terminating at the Reflecting Pool, in support of the Poor People's Campaign. By the end of the week several hundred who were staying in a wood shanty community dubbed "Resurrection City" grew angry. Vandalism resulted, troops were called in and the Reverend Ralph Abernathy was arrested.

Cultural Events of 1967

Literature

  • "The Chosen" by Chaim Potok
  • "The Confessions of Nat Turner" by William Styron (Pulitzer Prize
  • "Cancer Ward" by Alexander Solzhenitsyn
  • "Rosencrantz and Guilderstern are Dead" by Tom Stoppard

Academia

  • "The New Industrial State" by John Kenneth Galbraith

  • "The Naked Ape" by Desmond Morris

Music

  • "Penny Lane", "All You Need is Love" by the Beatles
  • "Ruby Tuesday" by the Rolling Stones
  • "Groovin'" by the Rascals
  • Gerry Dorsey changes his name to Englebert Humperdinck

Film

  • "Blow Up" by Antonioni
  • "The Countess from Hong Kong" by Chaplin
  • "The Chelsea Girls" by Andy Warhol
  • "The Taming of the Shrew" by Schlesinger

Miscellaneous

  • The first Microwave Oven was introduced

Cultural Events of 1968

Literature

  • "Airport" by Arthur Hailey
  • "Couples" by John Updike
  • "Welcome to the Monkey House" by Kurt Vonnegut

Academia

  • "The Story of Civilization" by Will and Ariel Durant (Pulitzer Prize)
  • "The Double Helix" by Watson
  • "Psychoanalysis and Politics" by Herbert Marcuse

Music

  • "Hey Jude" by the Beatles
  • "I Heard it Through the Grapevine" by Marvin Gaye
  • "The Dock of the Bay" by Otis Redding
  • "Mrs. Robinson" by Simon and Garfunkel

Film

  • "The Odd Couple" with Jack Lemmon and Walter Mathau
  • "Funny Girl" with Barbra Streisand
  • "The Lion in Winter" with Katharine Hepburn and Peter O'Toole
  • "2001" by Stanley Kubrick

Consumer Information

  • New Home: $24,700
  • Milk (half gallon): $0.61
  • Bacon (pound): $0.81
  • Bread (loaf): $0.22
  • Potatoes (10 lbs): $0.76
  • Annual Salary: $8,633.00