The Space Race & Civil Rights
& The Viet Nam War
War Film Festival - VietNam War Movies
- 1957 Oct 4: The Soviet Union launched the Sputnik satellite into orbit, which began the Space Race.
- 1957 Dec 2: Start-up of America's first full-scale commercial nuclear power facility at Shippingport, Pennsylvania; operation ended in 1982.
- 1957 Dec 6: America's first attempt to put a satellite into space orbit failed, blowing up on the launch pad at Cape Canaveral.
- 1957 Dec 6: A.F.L.-C.I.O. membership voted to expel the International Brotherhood of Teamsters on charges of corruption. (The Teamsters were readmitted 30 years later.)
- 1957 Dec 17: Succeesful test-firing of the new Atlas I.C.B.M. {intercontintal ballistic missile}.
- 1958 Jan 31: First successful U.S. satellite launch, of Explorer I.
- 1958 March 22: Movie producer Mike Todd and three others died when their plane crashed near Grants, New Mexico. {Because Todd's wife Elizabeth Taylor collapsed upon seeing the news on television, news outlets quickly agreed to a policy of not releasing names of accident victims until next-of-kin are notified by authorities.}
- 1958 March 26: Third successful U.S. satellite launch, of Explorer III, by U.S. Army.
- 1958 July 29: President Eisenhower signed the National Aeronautics & Space Act, creating N.A.S.A.
- 1958 Dec 9: Founding of the anti-Communist John Birch Society in Indianapolis, Indiana (named after the supposed first casualty in the Cold War).
- 1958 Dec 10: The first domestic passenger jet flight, of a National Airlines Boeing 707 from New York to Miami with 111 pasengers aboard.
- 1959: Reuben Mattus at Senator Frozen Products in Bronx, New York created the first national brand of premium, all-natural ice cream, renamed Häagen-Dazs in 1961; acquired by Pillsbury in 1983.
- 1959 Jan 25: Official start of the Jet Age, with the first scheduled transcontinental passenger flight, of an American Airlines Boeing 707 jet aircraft.
- 1959 Feb 3: A plane crash near Clear Lake, Iowa claimed the lives of rock'n'roll stars Buddy Holly, Richie Valens, and J.P. 'The Big Bopper' Richardson.
- 1959 March: First public showing of the silicon integrated circuit ('microchip') at a New York City radio engineers trade show, by inventor Jack Kilby.
- 1959 March 9: Mattel's Barbie Teen-Age Fashion Model Doll™ debuted at the New York Toy Fair.
- 1959 April 8: First meeting of the CODASYL (for "COnference on DAta SYstems Languages") committee that designed & specified what became known as the COBOL-60 computer programming language; the acronym COBOL (for COmmon Business-Oriented Language) was approved on September 18. The Remington Rand's Flow-Matic language/compiler is considered a direct predecessor, and thus its primary developer Rear Adm. Grace Murray Hopper [1906-92] is considered 'the mother of COBOL'.
- 1959 April 9: N.A.S.A. announced the selection of America's first seven astronauts: Scott Carpenter, Gordon Cooper, John Glenn, Gus Grissom, Wally Schirra, Alan Shephard & Donald 'Deke' Slayton.
- 1959 Sept 14: Soviet space probe Luna 2 became the first manmade object to reach the moon (in a crash landing on the moon's surface).
- 1959 Oct 5: IBM announced the all-transistorized Model 1401 data processing system for small businesses,
- 1959 Oct 21: Public opening of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum of Art in New York City, designed & built by Frank Lloyd Wright [1867-1959].
- 1960 Apr 1: U.S. launched the first weather satellite, TIROS-1, from Cape Canaveral.
- 1960 May 1: The Soviet Union shot down an American U-2 reconnaissance [or spy] plane near Sverdlovsk and captured pilot Francis Gary Powers.
- 1960 May 2: Execution of convicted sex offender and best-selling author Caryl Chessman at San Quentin Prison in California.
- 1960 Sept 26: The first televised debate between Richard M. Nixon & John F. Kennedy, on domestic issues.
- 1960 Oct 7: The second televised debate between Richard M. Nixon & John F. Kennedy, broadcast from Washington, DC.
- 1960 Oct 13: The third televised debate between Richard M. Nixon & John F. Kennedy.
- 1960 Oct 21: The fourth televised debate between Richard M. Nixon & John F. Kennedy, on the topic of American relations with Cuba.
- 1960 Oct 22: First free flight of the modern propane hot-air balloon, built by Paul Yost [1919-2007].
- 1961: Proctor & Gamble launched the Pampers® line of disposable diapers.
- 1961 Jan 17: President Eisenhower warned against the rise of 'the military-industrial complex' in his farewell address.
- 1961 Jan 25: President Kennedy held the first presidential news conference broadcast live on both television & radio.
- 1961 Feb 1: Sit-in movement launched as four black males occupied stools at a segregated lunch counter in Greensboro, North Carolina.
- 1961 Mar 1: President Kennedy established the Peace Corps.
- 1961 April 12: Soviet 'cosmonaut' Yuri Gagarin became the first man to orbit the earth.
- 1961 April 17: Bay of Pigs invasion in Cuba.
- 1961 May 5: America's first sub-orbital space flight, launching 'Freedom 7' from Cape Canaveral, sending Mercury astronaut Alan B. Shepard, Jr. off-Earth for 15 minutes.
- 1961 June 19: The Supreme Court decided in the landmark Mapp v. Ohio case that evidence obtained outside provisions of the Fourth Amendment may not be used in state or federal criminal prosecutions.
- 1961 July 2: Author Ernest Hemingway shot himself to death at age 62 in his home in Ketchum, Idaho.
- 1961 July 21: America's second sub-orbital space flight, launching 'Liberty Bell 7' from Cape Canaveral, sending Mercury astronaut Virgil 'Gus' Grissom around the planet.
- 1961 Nov 29: N.A.S.A. Mercury chimpanzee Enos was launched aboard the 'Atlas Five' spacecraft, which orbited the earth twice before a safe landing in the Atlantic Ocean.
- 1961 Dec 11: U.S. aircraft carrier delivered Army helicopters to Saigon, VietNam – the first direct military support for South VietNam against Communist guerrillas.
- 1962: Introduction of Trident sugar-free chewing gum, the first nationally-produced product promoted as not causing tooth decay.
- 1962 Feb 20: N.A.S.A. Mercury astronaut John Glenn became the first American to orbit Earth, for 4 hours 55 minutes, aboard 'Friendship 7'.
- 1962 March 26: The Supreme Court decided in the landmark Baker v. Carr case establishing the principle of 'one man, one vote' and mandating federal power to force states to review reapportionment of voting districts.
- 1962 May 24: Astronaut Scott Carpenter became the second American to orbit the earth, aboard 'Aurora Seven'.
- 1962 June 25: The Supreme Court decided in Engel v. Vitale {consolidated with the Murray v. Curlett case} that official or mandatory school prayers are unconstitutional.
- 1962 June 30: Bluestone atomic test at Christmas Island in the South Pacific.
- 1962 July 10: America's Telstar communications satellite launched from Cape Canaveral, Florida.
- 1962 Aug 5: Actress Marilyn Monroe was found dead of a (possibly unintentional) drug overdose at her home in the Bel Air district of Los Angeles, CA.
- 1962 Aug 11-12: The Soviet Union sent cosmonaut Pavel Popovich into orbit, next day they sent cosmonaut Andrian Nikolayev into orbit; both returned to Earth safely on 15 August.
- 1962 Aug 27: N.A.S.A. launched the Mariner 2 space probe, which flew past the planet Venus in December 1962.
- 1962 Sept 17: N.A.S.A. announced the next 9 astronauts, including Neil Armstrong, later the first man to walk on the moon.
- 1962 Oct 3: Astronaut Wally Schirra blasted off from Cape Canaveral aboard 'Sigma 7' on a nine-hour flight in space around planet Earth.
- 1962 Oct 14: The Cuban Missile Crisis – President Kennedy was shown spy-plane photos of Russian nuclear missile sites in Cuba, which the Soviet Union denied; on October 22, Kennedy announced on television that any missile attack from Cuba would be an act of war, and that the island was being blockaded; tensions remained high (from thoughts of World War III) until October 28, when Russia's Kruschchev backed down by issuing a public order for the dismantling of the missiles sites and return of the equipment to the Soviet Union. (A long-kept-secret element of the negotiations was the agreement by Kennedy to remove American missile sites from Turkey.)
- 1963: Founding of Weight Watchers.
- 1963 Jan 29: First members named to the Football Hall of Fame in Canton, Ohio.
- 1963 March 18: The U.S. Supreme Court landmark Gideon v. Wainwright ruling requirres a court-appointed attorney for those too indigent to pay for one, per the Sixth & Fourteenth Amendments.
- 1963 May 15: N.A.S.A.'s final Project Mercury flight began, with astronaut L.Gordon Cooper aboard 'Faith Seven'.
- 1963 May 25: President Kennedy asked America to work toward putting a man on the moon by the end of the decade.
- 1963 May 28: Pivotal N.A.A.C.P. sit-in demonstration at the Woolworth's lunch counter in Downtown Jackson, Mississippi.
- 1963 June 12: Civil rights leader Medgar Evers was fatally shot in front of his home in Jackson, Mississippi.
- 1963 June 17: The Supreme Court decided in Abington School District v. Schempp that official or mandatory school prayers are unconstitutional.
- 1963 July 1: The U.S. Post Office inaugurated the five-digit ZIP-code program.
- 1963 Aug 28: Martin Luther King, Jr. delivered his "I Have A Dream" speech to 200,000 people in front of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, DC.
- 1963 Sept 15: Four black girls were killed by a dynamite bomb set by K.K.K. members at the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama.
- 1963 Nov 2: President Ngo Dihn Diem of South VietNam was assassinated in a military coup.
- 1963 Nov 22: Assassination of President John F. Kennedy, during a motorcade thru Dealey Plaza in Dallas, Texas; Texas Gov. John Connally was seriously wounded. Lee Harvey Oswald was later discovered hiding in a movie theater and taken into custody. Vice President Lyndon Baines Johnson became President.
- 1963 Nov 24: Jack Ruby shot and mortally wounded accused assassin Lee Harvey Oswald in a Dallas, Texas police garage.
- 1964 Jan 23: 24th Amendment, which eliminated poll tax in federal elections, was ratified.
- 1964 June 22: Important Supreme Court Escobedo v. Illinois decision specifying a suspect's right to legal counsel, per the Sixth Amendment; later clarified by Miranda v. Arizona in June 1966.
- 1964 Jan 8: President Lyndon Baines Johnson declared a 'War On Poverty'.
- 1964 Jan 23: 24th Amendment ratified, eliminating the poll tax in federal elections.
- 1964 March 14: A Dallas, Texas jury convicted Jack Ruby of murdering Lee Harvey Oswald.
- 1964 April 7: I.B.M. introduced the innovative System/360 mainframe computers, the first line designed to give customers 'upward compatibility', the option to upgrade to more powerful and expensive configurations.
- 1964 April 17: Ford Motor Company unveiled its new Mustang model at the New York World's Fair.
- 1964 July 2: President Johnson signed the sweeping Civil Rights Bill into law.
- 1964 Aug 4: Alleged attack on U.S. Navy destroyers Maddox and C. Turner Joy off the coast of North Vietnam, in the Gulf of Tonkin.
- 1964 Aug 7: U.S. Congress passed the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, the official beginning of the VietNam War.
- 1964 Sept 27: The Warren Commission issued its report, finding that Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone in the assassination of JFK on 22 November 1963.
- 1964 Dec 10: Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. accepted the Nobel Peace Prize during ceremonies in Oslo, Norway.
- 1965 Jan 4: President Johnson outlined the goals of his 'Great Society' program during the State of the Union address to Congress.
- 1965 Feb 15: Canada unveiled the new red & white maple leaf flag at ceremonies in Ottawa.
- 1965 Feb 21: Former Black Muslim leader Malcolm X was shot to death at age 39 in New York City by Black Muslim assassins.
- 1965 March 8: First U.S. combat trooops landed in South VietNam: 3,500 Marines assigned to defend the air base at Da Nang.
- 1965 March 21: Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. led 3,000 demonstrators on a march from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama.
- 1965 March 25: Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. led 25,000 marchers to the state capitol in Montgomery, Alabama to protest denial of voting rights to blacks.
- 1965 April 6: Launch by the U.S. of the Intelsat 1 communication satellite, also known as 'Early Bird'.
- 1965 June 3: Gemini 4 astronaut Edward White made the first American 'space walk'.
- 1965 June 7: The Supreme Court decided the landmark Griswold v. Connecticut case, that affirmed the individual's right to privacy, under the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.
- 1965 Aug 6: President Lyndon Johnson signed the Voting Rights Act.
- 1965 Aug 11: Violence erupted in South Central Los Angeles following a traffic stop by a white C.H.P. motorcycle officer and the arrest of an Afro-American driver and his brother and mother. The 'Watts Riots' lasted six days; 34 people died.
- 1965 Dec 4: N.A.S.A. launched 'Gemini VII' with astronauts U.S.A.F. LtCol Frank Borman and Navy Commander James A. Lovell aboard.
- 1966 Feb 3: First spacecraft landed on the moon, the Soviet Luna 9.
- 1966 June 2: America's space probe Surveyer I landed on the moon and began transmitting detailed photographs of the lunar surface.
- 1966 June 13: The Supreme Court decided in the landmark Miranda v. Arizona case that clarified a suspect's right to remain silent during interrogation.
- 1966 Oct 29: Founding of the National Organization For Women, in Washington, DC.
- 1966 Dec 15: Walt Disney died in Los Angeles, California at age 65.
- 1967 Jan 27: A flash fire aboard Apollo I during a test at Cape Kennedy killed astroanuts Virgil I. 'Gus' Grissom, Edward H. White & Roger B. Chaffee.
- 1967 Feb 10: The 25th Amendment, clarifying presidential disability & succession, went into effect.
- 1967 July 23: Riots in Detroit, Michigan; 43 people died.
- 1967 Oct 21: March by 100,000 protestors to the Pentagon in Washington, DC which was turned into a riot by Federal police. Leaders included Abbie Hoffman, Jerry Rubin, Robert Lowell, Noam Chomsky, Paul Goodman, Dwight McDonald, Dr. Benjamin Spock & Ed Sanders of The Fugs band; among the 683 people arrested was Norman Mailer, whose essays about the event evolved into a bestselling & Pulitzer-winning book, "The Armies of The Night: History As A Novel, The Novel As History" [1968].
- 1967 Nov 20: The U.S. Census Clock at the Department of Commerce ticked past 200 million population.
- 1968: Introduction of the McDonald's 'Big Mac' cheeseburger.
- 1968 Jan 9: Surveyor VII made a soft landing on the moon, the last of the unmanned explorations of the moon's surface.
- 1968 Jan 23: North Korea seized the U.S. Navy intelligence ship USS Pueblo.
- 1968 Jan 30: Beginning of the VietCong's Tet (Holiday) Offensive.
- 1968 Feb 8: Largely unnoticed & forgotten Orangeburg Massacre: South Carolina Highway Patrol officers opened fire on desegregationists at South Carolina State College who were protesting against a whites-only bowling alley; three students were killed and 27 others wounded.
- 1968 March 16: The 'My Lai Massacre' in VietNam was carried out by U.S. troops under the command of Army Lt. William L. Calley, Jr.
- 1968 April 4: Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. was shot to death in Memphis, Tennessee at age 39.
- 1968 April 26: The U.S. exploded a one-megaton nuclear device called 'Boxcar' beneath the Nevada desert.
- 1968 May 25: Dedication of the Gateway Arch in St. Louis, Missouri, part of the Jefferson National Expansion Memorial.
- 1968 July 1: Signing of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty by U.S.A, Britain, Soviet Union and nearly 60 other countries.
- 1968 Aug 24: France exploded a hydrogen bomb in the South Pacific, making made them the world's fifth thermonuclear power.
- 1968 Oct 7: The Motion Picture Assn. of America adopted the film-rating system.
- 1968 Dec 21: N.A.S.A. Apollo 8 astronauts Frank Borman, James A. Lovell Jr. & William A. Anders blasted off to orbit the moon; they were the first men to leave the earth's gravitational field and the first to see the back side of the moon.
- 1968 Dec 23: North Korea released 82 crew members from the intelligence ship USS Pueblo, after 11 months in captivity.
- 1968 Dec 24: Apollo 8 astronauts read passages from the Old Testament during a Christmas Eve television broadcast while orbiting the moon.
- 1968 Dec 27: N.A.S.A. Apollo 8 mission splashdown in the Pacific Ocean.
- 1969 Jan 20: Richard M. Nixon was sworn into office as the 37th President of the United States.
- 1969 March 3: N.A.S.A. Apollo 9 astronauts James McDivitt, David Scott & Russell Schweickart blasted off to orbit the Earth for ten days; splashdown was March 13, east of the Bahamas, north of Puerto Rico.
- 1969 May 18: N.A.S.A. Apollo 10 astronauts Eugene A. Cernan, Thomas P. Stafford & John W. Young blasted off to orbit the moon (and test the lunar lander).
- 1969 May 20: U.S. & South Vietnamese forces captured Ap Bia Mountain, one of the bloodiest battles of the Vietnam War, earning the nickname 'Hamburger Hill'.
- 1969 May 26: N.A.S.A. Apollo 10 mission splashdown in the Pacific Ocean.
- 1969 June 9: U.S Senate confirmed Warren Burger as the new Chief Justice of The Supreme Court, succeeding Earl Warren.
- 1969 June 27: Patrons at the Stonewall Inn, a gay bar in New York City's Greenwich Village, clashed with police in an incident considered the birth of the gay rights movement.
- 1969 July 16: Liftoff of 'Apollo 11' lunar landing mission from Cape Kennedy; splashdown was July 24 in the Pacific Ocean.
- 1969 July 20: Apollo 11 astronauts Neil Armstrong & Edwin 'Buzz' Aldrin in the lunar lander 'Eagle' touched down on the surface of the moon at 4:18 p.m. EDT. Aldrin & Armstrong were the first men to walk on the moon's surface; astronaut Michael Collins remained overhead in the orbiter module.
- 1969 July 21: Neil Armstrong left the lunar lander and stepped onto the surface of the moon, joined shortly by 'Buzz' Aldrin.
- 1969 July 21: Apollo 11 astronauts Armstrong & Aldrin blasted off from the moon's surface aboard the lunar landing module at 1:54 p.m. EDT.
- 1969 July 24: Apollo 11 mission splashed down safely in the South Pacific.
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