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LHS Graphic, created by Keith Shaw, edited by Kermit Phillips

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Chronology 1968-69


What happened During our Senior Year:
1968 the population of the United States will pass 200 Million
14 January 1969 Super bowl II in Miami: Green Bay Packers 33, Oakland Raiders 14
Bart Starr, Daryle Lamonica
23 January 1968 U.S.S. Pueblo and 83-man crew seized in Sea of Japan by North Koreans. 82 survivors are released 22 December 1968
30 January 1968 Tet offensive in South Vietnam. U.S. Embassy in Saigon occupied.
31 March 1968 "I shall not seek, nor shall I accept ..." President Lyndon Johnson
04 April 1968 Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. assassinated in Memphis, TN. Racial riots follow in more than 100 cities.
10 May 1968 Vietnam peace talks begin in Paris.
1968
The United States budget for 1968:
income/
expenses
1969 dollars inflation adjusted
to 2001 dollars
Income: $ 154 billion $ 780 billion
Expenses: $ 173 billion $ 876 billion
Deficit $ 19 billion $ 96 billion
01 June 1968 Helen Keller dies at age 87
05 June 1968 Robert F. Kennedy assassinated in Los Angeles after winning the presidential primary in California. Dies 06 June.
August 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago. "The whole world is watching"
20 August 1968 The Soviet Union invades Czechoslovakia to remove Alexander Dubcek from power.
October 1968 Jackie Kennedy marries Aristotle Onassis
October 1968 Mexico City is occupied by troops to crush a revolt as preparations for the Olympic Games are underway.
18 October 1968 Tommy Smith (LHS '63) and John Carlos give Black Power salute at Olympic medal ceremony in Mexico City. They are suspended from the Olympics.
31 October 1968 President Lyndon Johnson orders a halt to the bombing of North Vietnam to prepare for Paris peace talks.
05 November 1968 Richard M. Nixon defeats Hubert Humphrey for President of the United States in a very close election. Vice Presidential candidates were: Spiro T. Agnew and Edmund S. Muskie. American party candidates were: George C. Wallace and Curtis E. LeMay
25 November 1968 Author Upton Sinclair dies at age 90.
27 November 1968 Black Panther leader Eldridge Cleaver declared a fugitive.
12 December 1968 Actress Tallulah Bankhead dies at age 65.
19 December 1968 Socialist leader Norman Thomas dies at age 84.
19 December 1968 Author John Steinbeck dies at age 66.
24-25 December 1968 U.S. astronauts Borman, Lovell and Anders make 10 orbits around the moon before returning to earth.
07 January 1969 Prince Charles crowned Prince of Wales.
26 January 1969 Super bowl III: New York Jets 16, Baltimore Colts 7
Joe Namath and Johnny Unitas
29 January 1969 Former CIA Director Allen W. Dulles dies at age 75.
02 February 1969 Actor Boris Karloff dies at age 81.
03 February 1969 New Jersey teacher's strike ends with salary scale at $7,500 to $10,750
08 February 1969 The last issue of the "Saturday Evening Post" is published
01 March 1969 In New Orleans, Clay Shaw is acquitted on charge of conspiracy to assassinate John F. Kennedy
March 1969 U.S. troop level reaches peak of 541,500 in Vietnam.
28 March 1969 Dwight D. Eisenhower, 34th President of the United States dies at age 78
03 April 1969 The Federal Reserve sets the prime interest rate at %6, the highest in 40 years
06 April 1969 North pole reached by first overland crossing by foot and dog sled in 16 month journey by a British team from 21 February 1968 to 11 June 1969
09 April 1969 Harvard students occupy University Hall, disbursed by police on 10 April with 37 injured and 200 arrested
17 April 1969 Sirhan B. Sirhan found guilty of first degree murder of Robert F. Kennedy
20 April 1969 Heavily armed students occupy the student center at Cornell University. Steven D, Star will win a Pulitzer prize for the photograph of the students.
24 April 1969 Lin Piao named successor to Mao Tse-tung as Chairman of the Chinese Communist Party
28 April 1969 Charles de Gaulle resigns as President of France after losing vote of confidence
18 May 1969 President Richard M. Nixon offers an 8 point peace plan at the Paris Peace talks to end the Vietnam war
18-26 May 1969 Apollo 10 orbits the moon 31 times on the 21st of May Cmdr. John Young pilots the command module "Charlie Brown" while Col. Thomas Stafford and Cmdr. Eugene Cernan pilot the lunar lander "Snoopy" within 9 miles of the moon's surface.
02 June 1969 74 American sailors are lost when the Australian aircraft carrier "Melbourne" hits U.S. Destroyer "Frank E. Evans" in night maneuvers
08 June 1969 Actor Robert Taylor dies at age 57.
11 June 1969 Labor leader John L. Lewis dies at age 89.
15 June 1969 Georges Pompidou elected president of France
22 June 1969 Actress Judy Garland dies at age 47.
23 June 1969 Warren Earl Burger, age 61, succeeds Earl Warren as Chief Justice of the Supreme Court. Justice Earl Warren retiring after 16 years on the Court.
19 July 1969 John Fairfax, age 31 of Britan, finishes 180 day crossing of the Atlantic Ocean by rowboat from the Canary Islands to Hollywood Beach, Florida.
20 July 1969 Neil A. Armstrong and Edwin E. Aldrin, Jr. walk on the moon. Michael Collins orbits in the command module.
18 July 1969 Sen. Edward M. Kennedy drives off a bridge in Chappaquiddick, MA. and the body of Mary Jo Kopechne is found in the car.
02-16 August 1969 Catholics and Protestants fighting in Belfast, Northern Ireland. The United Kingdom sends troops to control the violence.
15-17 August 1969 Woodstock Music and Art Fair. Three days of rock and roll.
17 August 1969 Hurricane Camille spends five days sweeping across Mississippi, Louisana, Tennesee, West Virginia and Virginia, leaving 300 dead.
17 August 1969 Dr. Philip Blaiberg, world's longest surviving heart transplant patient to date, dies in Cape Town, South Africa. The new heart worked for 19 months and 15 days. Death was due to coronary artery disease.
01 September 1969 Columnist Drew Pearson dies at age 71.
03 September 1969 President Ho Chi Minh of Vietnam dies.
07 September 1969 Senator Republican leader Everett McKinley Dirksen dies at age 73.
24 September 1969 The Chicago 8 trial begins. Judge Julius J. Hoffman presiding.
05 October 1969 Golfer Walter Hogen dies at age 76.
09 October 1969 Baseball player Don Hoak dies at age 41.
12 October 1969 Skater and actress Sonja Henie dies at age 57.
14 October 1969 Olaf Palme elected Primer of Sweden at age 42
15 October 1969 hundreds of thousands of Americans participate in Moratorium Day events across the country.
16 October 1969 The amazing New York Mets win the World Series over the Baltimore Orioles in a 4 to 1 game series
21 October 1969 Willy Brandt becomes Chancellor of West Germany
30 October 1969 The Paris Peace talks are stalled after 40 sessions
30 October 1969 U.S. Supreme Court orders desegration of the schools should proceed immediately with no delays.
30 October 1969 35 black coeds occupy Vassar's school administration building for three days
15 November 1969 more than 250,000 people demonstrate in Washington D.C. against the war in Vietnam.
19 November 1969 Apollo 12 completes second landing trip to the moon. Charles Conrad, Jr. and Alan L. Bean walked on the moon.
01 December 1969 The Selective Service System holds the first draft lottery since 1942. Most of the men from our class will receive their lottery numbers in the summer of 1970.

Add your comments !

What do you remember that happened during 1968 and 1969 ?

Please help improve this chronology and add your memories to this page:
It was the summer of '68. Lynne Brown had tickets to the Doors concert
in Fresno and invited Maryanne Scott and me along. I didn't really want
to go, it seemed too wild. At the last minute,
the concert was moved from the convention center to the fairgrounds
because promoters feared Jim Morrison would do something
obscene (he did).
It was the first time I smelled pot.
Sunny Frazier
- Wednesday, May 16, 2001 at 12:10:47 (PDT)

April 22, 1969 - The night the levee broke.

It was during the beginning of the runoff of the great Flood of '69 and
the Kings River was running fast past our farm near Stratford. The
Kings was in the early stages of filling the Tulare Lake. We got a call
around 10 PM that night from Mrs. Stanton. She said that the east bank
of the Kings River levee had broken not far from their house and was
flooding our ground. My father, Dan, yelled to wake up my brother, Tom,
with the news and I got up too. We jumped into Tom's truck and headed
out to see where the break was and to assess the damage. We got on the levee
and drove to where she said the break was supposed to be, but it was not there.
Tom was driving and he sped up the truck a little. After a short time my Dad
said he saw a glimmer of moonlight out in the field and for Tom to
slow down. As soon as he said it we saw the break. We saw water boiling
from the river through the levee into our field. Tom hit the brakes of
the truck and, of course, it started to slide on the dirt levee. It kept
sliding and sliding and I thought we were going in. The truck finally
stopped within inches, according to my memory, of plunging into the break.
We all piled out and took a breath and saw how close we had come to falling in.
My Dad yelled at Tom to "back the damn truck up". Then we stuck a shovel
into the middle of the levee to warn any other fool from doing what we
almost did and headed back to safety. That night the whole town of Stratford
pitched in to build a new levee around the farms near the break and managed
to stop the water from flooding a much larger area. It was quite a wild night.

John Newton

Oh yeah - Ed also talked me into going to SF that summer to see a concert at
the Fillmore. That too was a wild night.

- Sunday, April 08, 2001 at 22:32:42 (PDT)

30 March 1969 - Record rainfall this year has filled the Tulare Lake by
Stratford. It has been a long time since the lake has existed like this.
Ed, John and I go water skiing on the lake. We are
probably the first people to ski on the lake since it formed this year.

31 December 1970
Then, there was the time when Ed talked me into driving to
San Francisco for the New Year's show at Winterland.
I think it was Jefferson Airplane, Taj Mahal, Quicksilver
Messenger Service and one other group. The show went on
all night and we drove back to Fresno in the morning in the cold with
no top on my '59 Triumph TR3 since that was stolen off the car when
Ed last talked me into driving to San Francisco for the Vietnam
war Moratorium on November 15, 1969.

--Hiram - what a long strange trip it has been ...
- Sunday, April 08, 2001 at 01:16:19 (PDT)

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This page last updated: Thursday, 14-Aug-2003 00:00:00 PDT.