1968

Events from the year 1968 in the United States.
==Incumbents==
===Federal Government===
* President: Lyndon B. Johnson (D-TX)
* Vice President: Hubert Humphrey (D-MN)
* Chief Justice: Earl Warren (CA)
* Speaker of the House of Representatives: John William McCormack (D-MA)
* Senate Majority Leader: Mike Mansfield (D-MT)
* Congress: 90th
==Events==
===January===
* January 2 – The Dow Jones Industrial Average is 906.4.
* January 5 – The United States indicts Benjamin Spock, famous pediatrician and author (age 65), for conspiracy to violate the draft laws. Dr. Spock was a graduate of Yale University and winner of an Olympic gold medal for rowing on the Seine River in Paris, France in 1924.
* January 6
** Dr. N.E. Shumway performs the first adult cardiac transplant operation in the U.S.
** Surveyor 7, the last of the series of unmanned probes, is launched by the U.S. for soft-landing on the Moon.
* January 7 – First-class U.S. postage is raised from 5 cents to 6 cents. U.S. Prime rate 6%.
* January 13 – Johnny Cash records At Folsom Prison live at Folsom State Prison, California.
* January 14 – Super Bowl II: The Green Bay Packers defeat the Oakland Raiders 33–14 at Miami Orange Bowl in Miami, Florida.
* January 17 – Lyndon B. Johnson calls for the non-conversion of the U.S. dollar.
* January 18 – The Soviet Union performs a nuclear test at Eastern Kazakh/Semipalitinsk.
* January 19 – At a White House conference on crime, singer and actress Eartha Kitt denounces the Vietnam War to Lady Bird Johnson while attending a "ladies' lunch".
* January 21
** Battle of Khe Sanh in Vietnam begins.
** 1968 Thule Air Base B-52 crash: A U.S. B-52 Stratofortress crashes in Greenland carrying four nuclear bombs which did not explode.
* January 22 – Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In debuts on NBC. This launches the career of Goldie Hawn, who became an instant sensation.
* January 23 – North Korea seizes USS Pueblo, claiming the ship invaded its territorial waters while spying.
* January 27 – Bee Gees' album, Horizontal is released in the United States.
* January 30 – The Viet Cong of North Vietnam launch the Tet Offensive against South Vietnam, the United States, and their allies.
* January 31 – Viet Cong soldiers attack the Embassy of the United States, Saigon. Their leaders are killed by the two United States Military Police on duty at the gate. The 101st Airborne lands on the Embassy roof and eliminates the remaining leaderless soldiers.
===February===
* February 1
** 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.
** The Pennsylvania Railroad and the New York Central Railroad merge to form Penn Central, the largest ever corporate merger up to this date.
* February 8 – American civil rights movement: A civil rights protest staged at a white-only bowling alley in Orangeburg, South Carolina is broken up by highway patrolmen; three college students are killed.
* February 11 – Madison Square Garden in New York City opens.
* February 12 – 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 13 – Civil rights disturbances occur at the University of Wisconsin–Madison and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
* February 16 – The first 9-1-1 call is made by Alabama Senator, Rankin Fite in Haleyville, Alabama.
* February 19
** The Florida Education Association (FEA) initiates a mass resignation of teachers to protest state funding of education. This is, in effect, the first statewide teachers' strike in the U.S.
** NET televises the very first episode of Mister Rogers' Neighborhood.
* February 28 – The influential American news reporter Walter Cronkite shows his disdain for the Vietnam War effort during a broadcast, which influences President Johnson not to seek another term.
* February 29 – The Kerner Commission releases its final report on the causes of the 1967 race riots.
===March===
* March 11 – U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson mandates that all computers purchased by the federal government support ASCII character encoding.
* March 12 – 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 14 – Nerve gas leaks from the U.S. Army Dugway Proving Ground near Skull Valley, Utah.
* March 16
** 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.
** U.S. Senator Robert F. Kennedy enters the race for the Democratic Party presidential nomination.
* March 17 – A demonstration in London's Grosvenor Square against U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War leads to violence; 91 people are injured and 200 demonstrators are arrested.
* March 18 – Gold standard: The Congress of the United States repeals the requirement for a gold reserve to back U.S. currency.
* March 19 – Afrocentrism, Black power, Vietnam War: 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. Students lay siege to the administration building, shut down the university in protest over its ROTC program and the Vietnam War, and demand a more Afrocentric curriculum.
* March 21 – Vietnam War: In ongoing campus unrest, Howard University students protesting the Vietnam War, the ROTC program on campus, and the draft, confront Gen. Lewis Hershey, then head of the U.S. Selective Service System, and as he attempts to deliver an address, shouting cries of "America is the Black man's battleground!"
* March 26 – Joan Baez marries activist David Harris in New York.
* March 31 – U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson announces he will not seek re-election in the 1968 presidential election.
===April===
* April 2
** The film 2001: A Space Odyssey premieres in Washington, D.C.
** In a television special broadcast on NBC, white British singer Petula Clark touches black American singer Harry Belafonte affectionately on the arm.
* April 3 – Civil rights activist Martin Luther King Jr. delivers his "I've Been to the Mountaintop" speech at Mason Temple in Memphis, Tennessee.
* April 4
** Martin Luther King Jr. is shot dead at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennessee. In response, riots erupt in major American cities, lasting for several days afterward.
** Apollo Program: Apollo 6 is launched, the second and last unmanned test flight of the Saturn V launch vehicle.
* April 5 – Robert F. Kennedy gives a speech at the Cleveland City Club.
* April 6
** A shootout between Black Panthers and Oakland police results in several arrests and deaths, including 17-year-old Panther Bobby Hutton.
** A double explosion in downtown Richmond, Indiana kills 41 and injures 150.
* April 10 – The 40th Academy Awards ceremony, hosted by Bob Hope, is held at Santa Monica Civic Auditorium. Norman Jewison's In the Heat of the Night wins five awards, including Best Picture, while Mike Nichols wins Best Director for The Graduate. Arthur Penn's Bonnie and Clyde and Stanley Kramer's Guess Who's Coming to Dinner both receive ten nominations each.
* April 11 – U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson signs the Civil Rights Act of 1968.
* April 23 – Vietnam War: Columbia University protests of 1968: Student protesters at Columbia University in New York City take over administration buildings and shut down the university.
* April 29 – The musical Hair officially opens on Broadway.
===May===
* May 14 – The Beatles announce the creation of Apple Records in a New York press conference.
* May 15 – An outbreak of severe thunderstorms produces tornadoes causing massive damage and heavy casualties in Charles City, Iowa, Oelwein, Iowa, and Jonesboro, Arkansas.
* May 17 – 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 22 – The U.S. nuclear-powered submarine Scorpion sinks with 99 men aboard, 400 miles southwest of the Azores.
===June===
* June 3 – Radical feminist Valerie Solanas shoots Andy Warhol at his New York City studio, The Factory; he survives after a 5-hour operation.
* June 5 – 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.
* June 26 – Bonin Islands are returned to Japan after 23 years of occupation by the United States Navy.
===July===
* July 1 – The Central Intelligence Agency's Phoenix Program is officially established.
* July 18 – The semiconductor company Intel is founded.
* July 23 – Black militants led by Fred Evans engage in a fierce gunfight with police in the Glenville Shootout of Cleveland, Ohio.
===August===
* August 5 – The Republican National Convention in Miami Beach, Florida nominates Richard Nixon for U.S. president and Spiro Agnew for vice president.
* August 21 – The Medal of Honor is posthumously awarded to James Anderson, Jr.; he is the first black U.S. Marine to be awarded the Medal of Honor.
* August 22 – 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.
===September===
* September 1 – Bee Gees' album, Idea is released in the United States.
* September 7
** 150 women (members of New York Radical Women) arrive in Atlantic City, New Jersey to protest against the Miss America Pageant for being exploitative of women. Led by activist and author Robin Morgan, it is one of the first large demonstrations of Second Wave Feminism as Women's Liberation begins to attract media attention.
** The Banana Splits Adventure Hour begins airing on NBC. It went on for two seasons, ending on December 13 a year later in the middle of Season 2.
* September 13 – Army Major General Keith L. Ware, World War II Medal of Honor recipient, is killed when his helicopter is shot down in Vietnam. He is posthumously awarded the Distinguished Service Cross.
* September 24 – 60 Minutes debuts on CBS.
===October===
* October 2 – North Cascades National Park is established.
* October 8 – Vietnam War: Operation Sealords: United States and South Vietnamese forces launch a new operation in the Mekong Delta.
* October 10 – The Detroit Tigers win the 1968 World Series, defeating the St. Louis Cardinals 4–3.
* October 11 – Apollo program: NASA launches Apollo 7, the first manned Apollo mission (Wally Schirra, Donn Eisele, Walter Cunningham). Mission goals include the first live television broadcast from orbit and testing the lunar module docking maneuver.
* October 14 – 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 – In Mexico City, Tommie Smith and John Carlos, two 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 – Former U.S. First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy marries Greek shipping tycoon Aristotle Onassis on the Greek island of Skorpios.
* October 25 – The Jimi Hendrix Experience releases Electric Ladyland.
* October 31 – 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===
* November 5
** 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.
** Luis A. Ferre is elected Governor of Puerto Rico.
* November 11 – 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 – Yale University announces it is going to admit women.
* November 17 – The Heidi game: NBC cuts off the final 1:05 of an Oakland Raiders–New York Jets football game to broadcast the pre-scheduled Heidi. Fans are unable to see Oakland (which had been trailing 32–29) score 2 late touchdowns to win 43–32; as a result, thousands of outraged football fans flood the NBC switchboards to protest.
* November 20 – The Farmington Mine Disaster in Farmington, West Virginia, kills 78 men.
* November 24 – Four men hijack Pan Am Flight 281 from JFK International Airport, New York to Havana, Cuba.
* November 26 – Vietnam War: United States Air Force First Lieutenant and Bell UH-1F helicopter pilot James P. Fleming rescues an Army Special Forces unit pinned down by Viet Cong fire, earning a Medal of Honor for his bravery.
===December===
* December 3 – The NBC special If I Can Dream marks the concert return of Elvis Presley.
* December 6 – During an airing of Rudolph The Red Nosed Reindeer, NBC renews The Banana Splits Adventure Hour for a second season.
* December 8 – NBC airs Pinocchio, starring Burl Ives and Peter Noone as part of Hallmark Hall of Fame.
* December 9 – Douglas Engelbart publicly demonstrates his pioneering hypertext system, NLS, in San Francisco.
* December 11 – The film Oliver!, based on the hit London and Broadway musical, opens in the U.S. after being released first in England. It goes on to win the Academy Award for Best Picture. The Rolling Stones Rock and Roll Circus is also filmed on this date, but not released until 1996.
* December 20 – The Zodiac Killer is believed to have shot Betty Lou Jensen and David Faraday on Lake Herman Road, Benicia, San Francisco Bay, California, his first confirmed victims.
* December 22 – David Eisenhower marries Julie Nixon, the daughter of U.S. President-elect Richard Nixon.
* December 23 – The crew of USS Pueblo are released after spending 11 months in captivity by the North Koreans.
* December 24 – 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 gives a reading from the Book of Genesis.
==Memoriam==
* January 19 – Ray Harroun, race car driver (aged 89; Anderson, IN, USA)
* February 7 – Daniel A. Poling, clergyman (aged 83; Philadelphia, PA, USA)
* February 18 – Hanford MacNider, senior officer of the U.S. Army (aged 78; Sarasota, FL, USA)
* February 22 – Scott W. Lucas, attorney and politician (aged 76; Rocky Mount, NC, USA)
* March 6 – Joseph W. Martin Jr., politician (aged 83; Hollywood, FL, USA)
* March 11 – Pearl Doles Bell, film scenarist, novelist and editor (aged 84; New York City, NY, USA)
* April 4 – Martin Luther King Jr., activist, clergyman and leader in the Civil Rights Movement (aged 39; Memphis, TN, USA)
* April 16 – Edna Ferber, novelist, short story writer and playwright (aged 82; New York City, NY, USA)
* April 24 – Walter Tewksbury, runner and hurdler (aged 92; Tunkhannock, PA, USA)
* May 10 – Scotty Beckett, actor and singer (aged 38; Los Angeles, CA, USA)
* May 28 – Corbett Davis, football fullback (aged 53; Houlton, ME, USA)
* June 1 – Helen Keller, campaigner for the deaf and blind (aged 87; Easton, CT, USA)
* June 2
** Jouett Shouse, politician (aged 88; Lexington, KY, USA)
** R. Norris Williams, tennis player (aged 77; Philadelphia, PA, USA)
* June 6 – Robert F. Kennedy, younger brother of U.S. President John F. Kennedy, U.S. Senator, presidential candidate (aged 42; Los Angeles, CA, USA)
* June 17 – Henrietta Bingham, journalist, newspaper executive, horse-breeder and anglophile (aged 67; New York City, NY, USA)
* August 18 – Arthur Marshall, ragtime composer and performer (aged 86; Kansas City, MO, USA)
* September 7 – Harold C. Train, rear admiral in World War II, Director of the Office of Naval Intelligence (aged 80; Bethesda, MD, USA)
* November 25 – Upton Sinclair, novelist (aged 90; Bound Brook, NJ, USA)
* December 11 – Bob Bartlett, U.S. Senator from Alaska from 1959 to 1968 (aged 64; Cleveland, OH, USA)
* December 14 – John W. Aiken, furniture finisher and socialist activist (aged 72; Canton, OH, USA)
* December 19 – Norman Thomas, Presbyterian minister (aged 84; Cold Spring Harbor, NY, USA)
* December 20 – John Steinbeck, author (aged 66; New York City, NY, USA)
==External links==
* 1968 in the United States
Category:United States History: Volume 19