The 1960s at a Glance

1960
• Civil Rights Act of 1960 is signed by Eisenhower
• Alfred Hitchocks’ Psycho is released
• The Presidential Debates are televised for the first time
• JKF is elected president

1961
• Four black students are arrested at a “whites only” lunch counter in Greensboro, S.C.
• Construction begins on the Berlin Wall
• Bay of Pigs invasion
• The Peace Corps is founded
• Soviet astronaut Yuri Gagarin is the first man in space

1962
• Andy Warhol exhibits his Campbell’s Soup Can
• Cuban Missile Crisis
• Marilyn Monroe is found dead

1963
• Alabama Governor George Wallace delivers his infamous “Segregation Forever” speech
• Martin Luther King, Jr. delivers his famous “I Have a Dream” speech; 200,000 attend the 1963 Washington, D.C. Civil Rights March
• Nuclear Ban Treaty is put into effect
• JFK is assassinated in Dallas

1964
• The Beatles first arrive in the United States; perform on the Ed Sullivan Show to a viewing audience of 74 million people—the largest audience in the history of television
• LBJ signs the Civil Rights Act; public facilities are opened to all
• Nelson Mandela is sentenced to life in prison
• Martin Luther King, Jr. is awarded the Nobel Peace Prize

1965
• The U.S. invades Vietnam
• Malcolm X is assassinated
• Martin Luther King, Jr. calls for a boycott of Alabama due to the state’s appalling discrimination, race riots, and violence
• San Francisco writer Michael Fallon coins the term “hippies”
• Burning draft cards becomes illegal

1966
• The Black Panther Party is founded
• Mass draft protests sweep the country
• John Lennon tells the press the Beatles are more popular than Jesus

1967
• The Kansas City Chiefs lose to the Green Bay Packers in the first Super Bowl
• Three U.S. astronauts are killed during a simulated launch
• Gray Line Tours begins offering “hippie tours” of Haight/Ashbury
• The Beatles release Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band
• There are now 448,400 U.S. troops in Vietnam

1968
• Martin Luther King, Jr. is assassinated
• Robert F. Kennedy is assassinated
• Nixon is elected President, Spiro Agnew is the new Vice President

1969
• Charles Manson and “Family” arrested
• Neil Armstrong becomes the first man on the moon
• Woodstock
• The beginning of the Gay Liberation Movement
• The Rolling Stones’ concert at Altamont breaks out in violence; one man is killed