1960                                                  

First Lunch Counter Sit-in

U-2 Shot Down by USSR/ Pilot Captured

Birth Control Pill

JFK Elected President

900 US Advisors in Vietnam

1961                                                  

US-backed invasion of Cuba (Bay of Pigs)                                                            Freedom Ride Activists  attacked

First Kennedy-Khrushchev Summit

USSR constructs Berlin Wall

Russian Cosmonaut orbits Earth

3,200 US Advisors in Vietnam

1962                                                  

American Astronaut put into orbit

University of Mississippi Integrated

Vatican II Begins

Cuban Missile Crisis

11,300 US Advisors in Vietnam

1963                                                  

Children’s Marches in Birmingham, AL

Voters’ Rights Activist Medgar Evers Killed

Buddhist Monk Immolates self in Saigon

JFK’s American University Commencement (“Peace Speech”)

March on Washington/ MLK’s “I Have a Dream”

Betty Freidan’s “Feminine Mystique” Published

Coup d’Etat in Vietnam

JFK Assassinated/LBJ assumes Presidency

16,300 US Advisors in Vietnam

1964                                                  

Beatles Arrive in America

“Freedom Summer” in Mississippi

Civil Rights Workers Murdered in Mississippi

Tonkin Gulf Resolution Passed

Civil Rights Act Passed

Free Speech Movement in Berkeley

LBJ Elected President

23,300 US Advisors in Vietnam

1965                                                  

Marines Land in Vietnam 

Selma (AL) March

Medicare Passed

Malcolm X Killed

Watts (Los Angeles) Riots

Voting Rights Act Passed

184,300 American Troops in Vietnam

1966                                                  

National Organization of Women (NOW) Founded

US Continues to Send Troops to Vietnam

Anti-war March in Washington

385,300 American Troops in Vietnam

1967                                                  

First “Human Be-in”/Summer of Love

Riots in Detroit, Newark, and a hundred other cities

Anti-Vietnam War March in Washington DC

MLK gives “Beyond Vietnam” Speech

485,600 American Troops in Vietnam

1968                                                  

USS Pueblo captured by North Koreans

TET (Lunar New Year) Offensive in Vietnam

Walter Cronkite Tells Nation War Can’t be Won

My Lai Massacre

RFK Enters 1968 Presidential Race

LBJ Says he Won’t Run for Re-election

MLK Assassinated

Urban Riots Throughout US Following King’s Death

Berrigan Brothers, et al Burn Draft Records

Robert F. Kennedy Assassinated

Chicago Riots at Democratic National Convention

Nixon Elected President

Shirley Chisholm Elected to US Congress

536,100 American Troops in Vietnam

1969                                                  

Stonewall Riot in NYC

Americans Land on the Moon

Woodstock

Nixon’s “Silent Majority” Speech

Nationwide Peace Moratorium

475,200 American Troops in Vietnam

Notes:

(1) At the beginning of the decade there were 760 American Military Advisors in Vietnam; the decade ended with close to 500,000 Americans fighting there.

(2) Four different men occupied the White House between 1960 and 1970—Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson, and Nixon

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Prepared for course/lecture series: “The 60s through the Great Speeches of the 60s”

Arthur C. Benedict • Updated: June 1, 2022