:: wikimiki.org ::
| Star Trek: The Original Series |
Star Trek: The Original SeriesStar Trek is a science fiction television series created by Gene Roddenberry in the 1960s and aired between September 8, 1966 to September 2, 1969, with a total of 79 episodes produced. Although cancelled after its short run, the program was placed in syndication and spawned a strong fan following. The success of the program was followed by five additional television series and ten theatrical movies. The Guinness Book of Records lists it as having the largest number of spinoffs. To distinguish this first series from the sequels which followed (all of which comprise the Star Trek universe or franchise), it has acquired the retronym Star Trek: The Original Series (sometimes shortened to ST:TOS or TOS).
Set in a utopian vision of the 23rd century, Star Trek follows the adventures of the starship Enterprise and her crew, led by William Shatner as Captain James T. Kirk, Leonard Nimoy portraying his first officer, Spock. Shatner's voiceover at the beginning of each episode stated the ship's goal:
:Space, the final frontier. These are the voyages of the starship Enterprise. Its five-year mission: to explore strange new worlds, to seek out new life and new civilizations, to boldly go where no man has gone before.
When Star Trek debuted on NBC in 1966, it was not successful; ratings were low and advertising revenue was lackluster. For the show's second season, it was moved to Friday nights at 8:30 P.M. and the threat of cancellation loomed. The show's devoted fanbase conducted an unprecedented campaign, petitioning NBC to keep the show on the air, succeeding in gaining a third season. But after the show was moved from 8:30 P.M. to 10 P.M. on Fridays, ratings remained poor. The series was cancelled at the end of its third season.
__TOC__
Creation
A longtime fan of science fiction, in 1960 Roddenberry put together a proposal for Star Trek, a science fiction television series set on board a large interstellar space ship dedicated to exploring the galaxy. Some influences Roddenberry noted were A. E. van Vogt's tales of the Space Beagle, Eric Frank Russell's Marathon stories, and the 1956 science fiction film Forbidden Planet. Roddenberry also had extensive experience in writing westerns that were particularly popular televison fare at the time, and pitched the show to the network as a "Wagon Train to the stars."[http://www.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/WagonTrainToTheStars]
In 1964, Roddenberry secured a three-year development deal with leading independent TV production company Desilu (founded by comedy stars Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz). In Roddenberry's original concept, the protagonist was named Captain Robert April of the "S.S. Yorktown". Eventually, this character became Captain Christopher Pike. The first pilot episode, "The Cage", was made in 1964, with actor Jeffrey Hunter in the role of Pike.
Roddenberry envisaged a multi-racial and mixed-gender crew, based on his assumption that racial prejudice and sexism would not exist in the 23rd century at a time when racial segregation was still firmly entrenched in many areas of the United States. He also included recurring characters from alien races, including Spock, who was half human and half Vulcan, united under the banner of the United Federation of Planets.
Other innovative Star Trek features involved solutions to basic production problems. The idea of the faster-than-light warp drive was not new to science fiction, but it allowed narrative device that permitted the Enterprise to quickly traverse space. The matter transporter, where crew members "beamed" from place to place, solved the problem of moving characters quickly from the ship to a planet, a spacecraft landing sequence for each episode being prohibitively expensive.
The Star Trek pilot was first offered to the CBS network, but the channel turned it down for the more mainstream Irwin Allen production, Lost In Space. Star Trek was then offered to NBC, and executives were favorably impressed with the concept and made the highly unusual decision to commission a second pilot: "Where No Man Has Gone Before". Only the character of Spock (played by Leonard Nimoy) remained from the original pilot, and only two cast members (Majel Barrett and Leonard Nimoy) carried on to the series. Much of the first pilot's footage was utilized into a later two-part episode, "The Menagerie".
In the second pilot, the main characters, Captain Kirk (William Shatner), chief engineer Lieutenant Commander Scott (James Doohan) and Lieutenant Sulu (George Takei) were introduced. Chief medical officer and the captain's confidante Dr. Leonard McCoy (DeForest Kelley) (a Dr. Piper was present on the pilot) , Yeoman Janice Rand (Grace Lee Whitney) and communications officer Lieutenant Uhura (Nichelle Nichols) were introduced later. Roddenberry's inclusion of the Asian Sulu and black Uhura was a bold move when most television characters of the time were white.
Members of Roddenberry's production staff included art director Matt Jefferies. Jefferies designed the Enterprise; his contributions commemorated in the so-called Jefferies tube, which became a standard part of the (fictional) design of Federation starships. Jefferies' starship concepts arrived at a final saucer-and-cylinders design that became a template for all subsequent Star Trek space vehicles. Jefferies also developed the main set for the Enterprise bridge (based on an original design by Pato Guzman) and used his practical experience as a WWII airman and his knowledge of aircraft design to come up with a sleek, functional, ergonomic bridge layout. Costume designer William Ware Theiss created the look of the Enterprise uniforms and the risqué costumes for female guest stars. Artist and sculptor Wah Chang, who had worked for Walt Disney, was hired to design and manufacture props: he created the flip-open communicator, the portable sensing-recording-computing tricorder and the phaser weapons.
The series introduced viewers to many ideas which have become common in science fiction films: warp drive, teleportation, wireless hand-held communicators and scanners, directed energy weapons, desktop computer terminals, laser surgery and computer speech synthesis. Although these concepts had numerous antecedents in sci-fi literature and film, they had never before been integrated together in one presentation. Even the ship's automatic doors were a novel feature in 1966.
Characterizations
Star Trek made celebrities of its cast of largely unknown actors. Kelley had appeared in many films and TV shows, but mostly in smaller roles. Shatner and Nimoy also had previous TV and film experience but neither was very well-known (although Shatner had starred as the terrified air traveler in the classic Twilight Zone episode "Terror at 20,000 Feet"). After the episodes aired, many performers found themselves type-cast due to their roles.
The three main characters were Kirk, Spock and McCoy, with writers often playing the different personalities off each other: Kirk was passionate and resourceful, Spock was calm and logical, and McCoy was sardonic and spoke his mind. The Spock character was at first rejected by network officials who feared that his vaguely "satanic" appearance (with pointed ears and eyebrows) might prove upsetting to some viewers. The network had even airbrushed out Spock's pointed ears and eyebrows from publicity materials sent to the network affiliates. But Spock went on to become one of the most popular characters on the show as was McCoy's impassioned country-doctor personality.
The series was created during a time of cold war politics, and the plots of its episodes occasionally reflected this. The original series shows encounters with other advanced spacefaring civilizations, including the Klingons and the Romulans, both of which were involved in separate "cold wars" with the Federation.
Episodes
In terms of its writing, Star Trek is notable as the first science fiction TV series to utilize the services of leading contemporary science fiction writers, such as Harlan Ellison, as well as established TV writers. Series script editor Dorothy C. Fontana (originally Roddenberry's secretary) was also a vital part of the success of Star Trek — she edited most of the series and wrote several episodes.
Several notable themes were tackled throughout the entire series. Arguably, the most important was the exploration of major issues of 1960s America, like sexism, racism, nationalism, and global war. Roddenberry utilized the allegory of a space vessel set many years in the future to explore these issues. Star Trek was the first television show to feature an interracial kiss, Roddenberry getting around the censorship of such displays by depicting it as being compelled by an alien of great mental ability.
Episodes, such as "The Apple" "Who Mourns for Adonais?" and "The Return of the Archons", display subtle anti-religious themes. "Bread and Circuses" and "The Omega Glory" have themes that are more overtly pro-religion and patriotic. Network interference, up to and including wholesale censorship of scripts and film footage, was a regular occurrence in the 1960s and Star Trek suffered from its fair share of tampering. Many scripts had to be revised after vetting by the NBC censors and, according to one book about the series, the gaping mouth of the "salt vampire" monster in the episode "The Man Trap" was actually an in-joke which referred to the network censor's persistent habit of cutting love scenes which featured open-mouthed kisses.
The Original Series was also noted for its sense of humor such as Spock and McCoy's pointed, yet friendly, bickering. Episodes like "The Trouble with Tribbles", "I, Mudd" and "A Piece of the Action" are written and staged as comedies. This humor is much more subdued in the spin-offs and movies, with the exception of Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home.
Theme song
The show's theme tune was an instrumental piece written by Alexander Courage and immediately recognized by many people. Lyrics were written by Gene Roddenberry without Courage's knowledge and without intending for them ever to be sung. Roddenberry would nevertheless get a 50% share of the music's performance royalties.
Characters
Regular
- Captain James T. Kirk (William Shatner), commanding officer
- Commander Mr. Spock (Leonard Nimoy), science officer and second-in-command
- Lt. Commander Leonard McCoy (DeForest Kelley), ship's doctor
- Lt. Commander Montgomery Scott (James Doohan), chief engineer
- Lieutenant Nyota Uhura (Nichelle Nichols), communications officer
- Lieutenant Hikaru Sulu (George Takei), helmsman
- Yeoman Janice Rand (Grace Lee Whitney), Captain's Yeoman (season 1)
- Ensign Pavel Chekov (Walter Koenig), navigator (season 2-3)
Sulu and Uhura were not given first names in this series. Sulu's first name, Hikaru, was revealed in Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country.
The relatively young, mop-topped Russian navigator Chekov was added in the second season. Studio documentation suggests that the intention was to introduce a character with more appeal to a teenage market, especially the female sector. [http://www.snopes.com/radiotv/tv/chekov.asp]
Semi-regular
- Nurse Christine Chapel (Majel Barrett); Barrett also provided the voice of the computer in TOS and Star Trek: The Next Generation. She also played (as a brunette) the part of Captain Pike's First Officer in the pilot episode "The Cage". Barrett married Roddenberry in 1969.
- Transporter Chief Kyle (John Winston)
- Lieutenant Galloway (David L. Ross), the only recurring character to be killed off during the original series
- Mr. Leslie (Eddie Paskey)
In addition, the series is notorious for repeatedly including characters (usually security personnel wearing red uniforms) that are killed or injured soon after their introduction. So prevalent was this plot device that it inspired the term redshirt to denote a stock character whose sole purpose is to die violently to demonstrate the dangerous circumstances.
Characters who survive into the Next Generation era and beyond
The spin-off series, Star Trek: The Next Generation, when it premiered in 1987, set approximately 100 years after the events of TOS, it was impractical for any TOS characters to be regulars on the new show. As the show and other spin-offs progressed, several TOS-era characters made appearances:
- Spock, now a Vulcan ambassador, is said to have gone underground in the Romulan Empire in hopes of fostering peaceful coexistence with the Federation and reunification with Vulcan society ("Unification, Parts I and II").
- McCoy, now a 137-year-old admiral, inspects the Enterprise-D during her maiden flight in "Encounter at Farpoint".
- Scott, who is promoted to captain, is revealed to have spent about 70 years trapped in a transporter buffer before being rescued by the Enterprise-D crew and resuming his life in "Relics".
- Sarek, Spock's father, continued to be an ambassador for the next century, finally retiring to Vulcan where he passes away during the events of "Unification".
- Kang, Koloth and Kor, the three Klingons featured in "Day of the Dove", "The Trouble with Tribbles" and "Errand of Mercy", continued to serve the Empire well into the 24th century. They appeared in the Star Trek: Deep Space Nine episode "Blood Oath" in which Kang and Koloth were killed. Kor later died fighting in the Dominion War. A younger version of Kang, from the era of Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country, later appeared in the Star Trek: Voyager episode "Flashback".
- James Kirk disappears in the mid-2290s during the maiden voyage of the Enterprise-B while visiting with Chekov and Scotty but 75 years later Kirk is recovered from an alternate plane of existence by Enterprise-D Captain Jean-Luc Picard. Kirk's emergence in the 24th century is short-lived, however, when he is killed in Star Trek: Generations.
Besides the above examples, there have been numerous non-canon novels and comic books published over the years in which TOS-era crew are depicted in the TNG era, either through time-travel or other means.
Trivia
- Fans of the original Star Trek series became known as Trekkies, though some fans prefer the term Trekkers.
- Leonard Nimoy (Spock) and Majel Barrett (Number One/Nurse Christine Chapel) are the only actors to appear in the both the first pilot ("The Cage") and last regular episode ("Turnabout Intruder") of the series.
- When designing the plans for the Enterprise, bathrooms were omitted. This was jokingly acknowledged in TNG, when the chart of the Enterprise-D at the back of the Engineering set featured a toilet located in the middle of the saucer section.
- The Jefferies tubes were access tunnels leading to every part of the ship and were named after Matt Jefferies, the art director on the show.
- TOS is well noted for prescience as to future technological developments, including mobile phones (the communicators) and magnetic resonance imaging (used in tricorders).
- The arrowhead insignia introduced in TOS was actually exclusively used by the crew of the Enterprise. When the crew encountered other Starfleet vessels, they bore different insignia depending on their ship. It is presumed in canon that the arrowhead insignia was adopted by the whole of Starfleet after the end of TOS, but before Star Trek: The Motion Picture.
- There are several pipes and tubes in many sets marked with the designation "GNDN". While it is never explained what this designation meant, it was in fact an in-joke from set designers and stood for "Goes Nowhere, Does Nothing".
See also
- List of Star Trek: TOS episodes
- TOS TrekMUSE
- Beam me up, Scotty
References
- Michael Okuda, Star Trek Encyclopedia: A Reference Guide to the Future (1999)
- Michael Okuda, Denise Okuda, Star Trek Chronology: A History of the Future (1996)
External links
- [http://www.trek5.com/lowerdecks/genepitch.html Roddenberry's original March 1964 pitch outline for Star Trek]
- [http://www.ericweisstein.com/fun/startrek/ Excruciatingly Detailed Star Trek (TOS) Plot Summaries] by Eric Weisstein.
- [http://supernovawd.netfirms.com/ Supernova (Star Trek) World Directory] - A site about the worlds of TOS. It sticks to TOS facts, rarely adding in TNG facts when needed. Highly detailed.
-
-
- [http://www.startrek.com/startrek/view/series/TOS/index.html Star Trek: The Original Series] at StarTrek.com
Category:Star Trek series
Category:1960s TV shows in the United States
Category:NBC network shows
Category:Pop culture television
ja:宇宙大作戦
Science FictionScience fiction
Gene Roddenberry]
Eugene Wesley Roddenberry (born August 19, 1921 in El Paso, Texas, USA - died October 24, 1991 in Santa Monica, California) was an American scriptwriter and producer. He is best known as the creator of the science fiction television series Star Trek, and was one of the first people to be buried in space.
Personal life
Roddenberry spent his boyhood in Los Angeles, California, where his family had moved so his father could pursue a career with the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD). Following in his father's footsteps after high school, Roddenberry took classes in police studies at Los Angeles City College.
He later transferred his academic interest to aeronautical engineering and qualified for a pilot's license. Roddenberry joined the U.S. Army Air Corps in 1941 and became an aviator. He flew many combat B-17 missions in the Pacific Theatre and was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross and the Air Medal. After leaving the service, he was a commercial pilot for Pan American World Airways (Pan Am).
Roddenberry left Pan Am to pursue writing for television in Los Angeles. He fell back on his early training as a policeman and joined the LAPD. He served the LAPD from 1949 – 1956.
Roddenberry was married twice. He had two children by his first wife, Eileen Rexroat (to whom he was married 27 years) — Dawn, and the late Darleen. His second marriage, in 1969, was to Majel Barrett, who played Nurse Christine Chapel in the original Star Trek series, Lwaxana Troi, and the voice of the computer in the later three series. He had one child, Rod Roddenberry, with Barrett.
Gene Roddenberry was a secular humanist. After his death, a lipstick-sized capsule of his ashes was sent into space to orbit the earth for six years (after which they burned up in the earth's atmosphere).
Television Career
Before Star Trek, Roddenberry wrote scripts for many of the popular television series of the 1950s, such as Have Gun, Will Travel. He produced The Lieutenant, a 1963-1964 NBC series about the United States Marines. He was also trying to get other science fiction series off the ground, mostly without success.
Roddenberry developed his idea for Star Trek in 1964. The series was finally picked up by Desilu Studios. The original $500,000 pilot received minor support from NBC, but the network commissioned an unprecedented second pilot. The series premiered on September 8, 1966 and ran for three seasons. Although it was cancelled due to low ratings, the series gained wide popularity in syndication.
Following the cancellation of Star Trek, Roddenberry pitched four sci-fi tv series concepts that all had pilot movies produced but were not picked up; The Questor Tapes, Genesis II, Planet Earth, and Strange New World. He also co-wrote and was executive producer on the made for TV movie, Spectre (1977).
1977
During the 1970s, Roddenberry also lectured at universities around the country. He amused the attendees with anecdotes from the Star Trek set, spoke of his visions of the future and showed the Star Trek Blooper Reel, a collection of outtakes from the original series. Fans bestowed upon him the affectionate nickname "The Great Bird of the Galaxy" after a mythical creature referenced in an episode of the original Trek series.
Beginning in 1975, go-ahead was given by Paramount for Roddenberry to develop a sequel "Star Trek" television series based around as many of the original cast as could be recruited. This series was to be the anchor show of a new network, but plans by Paramount for this network were scrapped and plans were changed to do a Star Trek feature film. The result Star Trek: The Motion Picture had a lukewarm response, but nevertheless, several feature films and a new television series, Star Trek: The Next Generation, were created in the 1980s. Roddenberry was deeply involved with creating and producing Star Trek: The Next Generation, although his involvement lessened in seasons 2 and 3 due to deteriorating health. Star Trek also spawned the television series Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, Star Trek: Voyager and Star Trek: Enterprise.
Roddenberry only produced the first Star Trek film, Star Trek: The Motion Picture. Due to cost overruns and a problematic relationship with the Paramount management, Roddenberry was ousted and replaced by Harve Bennett. He continued as executive consultant on the next four films - Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, Star Trek III: The Search for Spock, Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home and Star Trek V: The Final Frontier. The last film based on the original Star Trek series, Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country was dedicated in Roddenberry's memory; he reportedly viewed a version of the film a few days before his death.
In addition to his film and TV work, Roddenberry also wrote the novelization for Star Trek: The Motion Picture, which was published in 1979 and was the first of hundreds of Star Trek based novels to be published by Pocket Books. It has been claimed by some that Alan Dean Foster was the ghost writer of the book, but this has been debunked, although Foster did contribute to the film's screenplay. Roddenberry talked of writing a second Trek novel but died before he was able to do so.
Controversy
ghost writer.]]
Writers on Star Trek have charged that ideas they developed were later passed off by Roddenberry as his own, or that he lied about their contributions to the show at Star Trek conventions. Roddenberry was confronted by these writers, and apologized to them, but according to his critics, he continued to repeat the false claims.
In her autobiography, actress Nichelle Nichols who played Uhura in the first Star Trek series, reported having had a love affair with Roddenberry. She felt that his strong and controversial inclination to get her on the show had a lot to do with their relationship.
Roddenberry's life and work has been favorably chronicled in the biography Inside Trek: My Secret Life with Star Trek Creator Gene Roddenberry by Susan Sackett, his close associate for 17 years. The book has been described as inaccurate by his critics.
Despite his reduced management of Star Trek near the end of his life, Roddenberry was still respected enough that Paramount Pictures, owners of the various Star Trek series, agreed to his request that the Star Trek Animated Series not be considered canon by the studio. According to the reference work The Star Trek Chronology, Roddenberry reportedly considered elements of the fifth and sixth Trek films to be apocryphal, though there is no indication that he wanted them removed from Trek canon.
In 1987, Roddenberry first made a public statement, at a science fiction junket, in a response to a fan's question, that the Star Trek: The Next Generation television series would address what it was like to be gay in the science fiction future. This would be done in a similar fashion to the way the original series had dealt with ethnicity and gender. Fans still debate to what extent this Roddenberry statement was fullfilled and what is the definitive role of LGBT Characters in The Star Trek Universe.
Legacy
After his death in 1991, Roddenberry's estate allowed the creation of two long-running television series based upon some of his previously unfilmed story ideas and concepts. Earth: Final Conflict and Andromeda were produced under the guidance of Majel Barrett-Roddenberry. A third Roddenberry storyline was adapted in 1995 as the short-lived comic book Gene Roddenberry's Lost Universe.
There is an asteroid called 4659 Roddenberry and a crater on Mars that were named in his honor.
Notes
# Interview in The Humanist, March/April 1991
# See Gene Roddenberry: The Myth and the Man Behind Star Trek by Joel Engel, books by Star Trek Producer Herb Solow, science-fiction convention talks by Star Trek writer Dorothy C. Fontana, and books and articles by Harlan Ellison.
External links
- [http://www.pathcom.com/~boby/gene.htm Eugene Wesley "Gene" Roddenberry]
- [http://www.museum.tv/archives/etv/R/htmlR/roddenberry/roddenberry.htm The Museum of Broadcast Communication]
- [http://www.trek5.com/lowerdecks/genepitch.html Roddenberry's original March 1964 pitch outline for Star Trek]
- [http://www.philosophysphere.com/humanist.html Originally published in The Humanist, March/April 1991]
- [http://www.iclnet.org/pub/resources/text/cri/cri-jrnl/web/crj0147a.html Strange New Worlds: The Humanist Philosophy of Star Trek] by Robert Bowman, Christian Research Journal, Fall 1991, pp. 20 ff.
-
- [http://www.nndb.com/people/503/000022437/ NNDB]
Roddenberry, Gene
Roddenberry, Gene
Roddenberry, Gene
Roddenberry, Gene
Roddenberry, Gene
Roddenberry, Gene
Roddenberry, Gene
Category:Humanists
Roddenberry, Gene
Roddenberry, Gene
Roddenberry, Gene
1960s
The 1960s in its most obvious sense refers to the decade between 1960 and 1969, but the expression has taken on a wider meaning over the past twenty years. The Sixties has come to refer to the complex of inter-related cultural and political events which occurred in approximately that period, in western countries, particularly Britain, France, the United States and West Germany. Social upheaval was not limited to just these nations, reaching large scale in nations such as Japan, Mexico and Canada as well. The term is used both nostalgically by those who participated in those events, and pejoratively by those who regard the time as a period whose harmful effects are still being felt today. The decade was also labelled the Swinging Sixties because of the libertine attitudes that emerged during the decade.
Popular memory has conflated into the Sixties some events which did not actually occur during the period. For example, although some of the most dramatic events of the American civil rights movement occurred in the early 1960s, the movement had already began in earnest during the 1950s. On the other hand, the rise of feminism and gay rights began only in the very late 1960s and did not fully flower until the Seventies. However, the "Sixties" has become synonymous with all the new, exciting, radical, subversive and/or dangerous (according to one's viewpoint) events and trends of the period.
Events and trends
Many of the trends of the 1960s were due to the demographic changes brought about by the baby boom generation, the height of the Cold War, and the dissolution of European colonial empires. The rise in social revolution, civil rights movements, human rights movement, anti-War movements, and the Counterculture movement are only some of the characteristics that defined the 1960s. Many experts attribute the 1960s "counter-culture revolution" as being the result of the major social and political factors that rose in the 1950s like brinksmanship, continued fighting in the 3rd world, and a return to pre-WWII lifestyle. The new generation was determined to reject a pre-WWII conformist lifestyle with men in suits and women in the kitchen. While many believed it to be just a "Western" phenomenon, the '60s revolution spread far beyond the borders of America and Western Europe. In South America, revolutions were at a height, in the Eastern Bloc, movements were made inspired by the Hungarian Revolution to reject Soviet domination, and in the Middle East attempted to resist Soviet and American domination (see Non-Aligned Movement). Overall, the '60s affected almost the entire globe. It was during this time that protectionist, command, and mixed economies reached their peak...
Technology
Non-Aligned Movement
Non-Aligned Movement]
- USSR puts first man (Yuri Gagarin) and first woman (Valentina Tereshkova) in outer space
- The United States puts man on Earth's Moon (see Apollo 11)
- Geosynchronous satellites revolutionize global communications
- Start of the development of algorithmic information theory
- The ARPAnet, precursor of the Internet, is founded in 1969 as a United States Department of Defense project. The numbered series of Request For Comments (RFC) documents begins in order to document the standards and practices of this network, and continues to this day
- Direct Use of the Sun's Energy by pioneer solar-energy scientist Farrington Daniels is published (1964)
- Compact audio cassette introduced; begins to displace reel-to-reel audio tape recording for home users
Science
- Discovery of plate tectonics revolutionizes understanding of continental drift
- Jacques Monod and Francois Jacob discover the lac operon
- Rise of the science of ecology in the awareness of the intelligentsia
War, peace and politics
intelligentsia"]]
intelligentsia]
- Cultural Revolution in mainland China causes political and economic chaos.
- Nigerian Civil War begins.
- 6-Day War between Israelis and Arabs in 1967.
- Beginning of The Troubles in Northern Ireland
- Berlin Wall built in 1961.
- Bay of Pigs Invasion in 1961, the United States sponsored an attempt to overthrow Cuba's socialist government and Fidel Castro.
- Civil rights movement in the United States; end of official segregation and disenfranchisement of African-Americans; racial tensions continue with large race riots in Watts (Los Angeles) in 1966, Detroit in 1967, and Hough and Glenville in Cleveland.
- Sino-Indian War in late 1962. China attacks India and gains some land in Kashmir.
- Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962.
- Indo-Pakistani War of 1965 over Kashmir ends in a stalemate.
- The Vietnam War and protests, leading to Kent State University shootings in May, 1970.
- Suppression of uprising in Czechoslovakia.
- The Stonewall Riots in New York City give birth to the gay rights movement, June 1969.
- United Nations imposes sanctions against South Africa to protest the policy of Apartheid.
- Students protesting perceived problems with the status-quo are suppressed with violence by police and soldiers in USA, France, Mexico, Czechoslovakia. See New Left.
- The Quiet Revolution (Révolution tranquille) begins in Quebec - precipitous decline of the Roman Catholic church, liberalism, social-democratic programs, and the birth of modern Quebec nationalism.
- The rise of radical feminism.
Economics
- Many countries in The West experience high economic growth (4 to 8% per year)
Culture
- Rock and roll develops, diversifies, and becomes very hip. The Beatles eclipse Elvis Presley and become the most popular musical artists in the world. "Topical" artists like Bob Dylan and Joan Baez worked social commentary into their music.
- 2001: A Space Odyssey hits movie theaters
- The long running BBC family science fiction show Doctor Who begins in 1963
- Star Trek makes its debut in 1966
- James Bond movies begin. Dr. No is the first of the series in 1962, starring Sean Connery as Bond
- Hippies, drug culture & rock and roll converge at the Woodstock festival, 1969
- In the West, the growing popularity of religions other than Christianity (for example, as discussed in the writings of Alan Watts), and of atheism; Time Magazine asks: "Is God Dead?" See Fourth Great Awakening, Consciousness Revolution
- Memorable expositions, or "World's Fairs," are held in Seattle (1962), New York (1964/1965), Montreal (1967) and San Antonio (1968)
- Progressive rock emerges
- The fine arts begins to move away from exclusively consisting of painting, drawing, and sculpture and begins to incorporate elements from popular culture (Pop art) and begins to favour the ideas behind a work, rather than the work itself (Conceptual art)
Others
Conceptual art built in 1969]]
- Post-Colonialism; many new or previously colonized countries achieve independence in Africa, Asia
- U.S. president John F. Kennedy assassinated in 1963; his brother Robert F. Kennedy assassinated in 1968
- U.S. civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. assassinated on April 4, 1968
- Charles Manson gave up his ambitions of becoming a popular song writer to become a cult leader and mass murderer, 1969
- Nation of Islam leader Malcolm X assassinated on February 21, 1965
- U.S. president Lyndon B. Johnson's Great Society program
- In the United States, increase in crime; riots in Los Angeles in 1965 and Chicago, Illinois at the 1968 Democratic National Convention
- Rise of the baby boom generation to adulthood
- First widespread availability of practical birth control pill for women; See sexual revolution
- Sweden switches from driving on the left to the right, in order to harmonise with neighbouring countries. See Rules of the road
Big changes during the Sixties
In the United States
The movement for civil and political rights for African Americans (in the early '60s usually called Negroes and in the later '60s Blacks), initially a non-violent movement led by Martin Luther King, Jr. and other Gandhian figures but later producing radical offshoots such as the Black Power movement and competing with the Black Panther Party and the Black Muslims for primacy in the African-American community.
The beginning of what was generally seen as a new political era with the election of President John F. Kennedy in 1960, and its ending in tragedy and disillusionment with Kennedy's assassination in 1963, the assassinations of King and Robert F. Kennedy in 1968, and the collapse of Lyndon Johnson's presidency.
The rise of a mass movement in opposition to the Vietnam War, culminating in the massive Moratorium protests in 1969, and also the movement of resistance to conscription (“the Draft”) for the war. The antiwar movement was initially based on the older 1950s "Peace movement" controlled by the Communist Party USA, but by the mid '60s it outgrew this and became a broad-based mass movement centred on the universities and churches.
Stimulated by this movement, but growing beyond it, the large numbers of student-age youth, beginning with the Free University of California, Berkeley]] in 1964, peaking in the riots at the 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago, Illinois and reaching a climax with the shootings at Kent State University in 1970.
The rapid rise of a "New Left," employing the rhetoric of Marxism but having little organizational connection with older Marxist organizations such the Communist Party, and even less connection with the supposed focus of Marxist politics, the organized labor movement, and consisting of ephemeral campus-based Trotskyist, Maoist and anarchist groups, some of which by the end of the 1960s had turned to terrorism.
terrorism
The overlapping, but somewhat different, movement of youth cultural radicalism manifested by the hippies and the counter-culture, whose emblematic moments were the Summer of Love in San Francisco in 1967 and the Woodstock Festival in 1969.
The rapid spread, associated with this movement, of the recreational use of cannabis and other drugs, particularly new synthetic psychedelic drugs such as LSD.
The breakdown among young people of conventional sexual morality and the flourishing of the sexual revolution. Initially geared mostly to heterosexual male gratification, it soon gave rise to contrary trends, Women's Liberation and Gay Liberation.
The rise of an alternative culture among affluent youth, creating a huge market for rock and blues music produced by drug-culture influenced bands such as The Beatles, Jefferson Airplane and The Doors, and also for radical music in the folk tradition pioneered by Bob Dylan.
In other Western countries
The peak of the student and New Left protests in 1968 coincided with political upheavals in a number of other countries. Although these events often sprang from completely different causes, they were influenced by reports and images of what was happening in the United States and France. Students in Mexico City, for example, protested against the corrupt regime of Gustavo Díaz Ordaz: in the resulting Tlatelolco massacre hundreds were killed.
The influence of American culture and politics in Western Europe, Japan and Australia was already so great by the early 1960s that most of the trends described above soon spawned counterparts in most Western countries. University students rioted in London, Paris, Berlin and Rome, huge crowds protested against the Vietnam War in Australia and New Zealand (both of which had committed troops to the war), and politicians such as Harold Wilson and Pierre Trudeau modelled themselves on John F. Kennedy.
An important difference between the United States and Western Europe, however, was the existence of a mass socialist and/or Communist movement in most European countries (particularly France and Italy), with which the student-based new left was able to forge a connection. The most spectacular manifestation of this was the May 1968 student revolt in Paris, which linked up with a general strike called by the Communist-controlled trade unions and for a few days seemed capable of overthrowing the government of Charles de Gaulle.
In non-Western countries
In Eastern Europe, students also drew inspiration from the protests in the west. In Poland and Yugoslavia they protested against restrictions on free speech by Communist regimes. In Czechoslovakia, 1968 was the year of Alexander Dubček’s Prague Spring, a source of inspiration to many Western leftists who admired Dubček's "socialism with a human face." The Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia in August ended these hopes, and also fatally damaged the chances of the orthodox Communist Parties drawing many recruits from the student protest movement.
In the People's Republic of China the mid 1960s were also a time of massive upheaval, and the Red Guard rampages of Mao Zedong's Cultural Revolution had some superficial resemblances to the student protests in the West. The Maoist groups that briefly flourished in the West in this period saw in Chinese Communism a more revolutionary, less bureaucratic model of socialism. Most of them were rapidly disillusioned when Mao welcomed Richard Nixon to China in 1972. People in China, however, saw the Nixon visit as a victory in that they believed the United States would concede that Mao Zedong thought was superior to capitalism (this was the Party stance on the visit in late 1971 and early 1972). The Cuban revolutionary Ernesto "Che" Guevara also became an iconic figure for the student left, although he was in fact an orthodox Communist.
People
World leaders
Ernesto "Che" Guevara]]
- Prime Minister Robert Menzies (Australia)
- Prime Minister Harold Holt (Australia)
- Prime Minister John McEwen (Australia)
- Prime Minister John Diefenbaker (Canada)
- Prime Minister Lester B. Pearson (Canada)
- Prime Minister Pierre Elliott Trudeau (Canada)
- Chairman Mao Zedong (People's Republic of China)
- President Chiang Kai-shek (Republic of China on Taiwan)
- President Gamal Abdel Nasser (Egypt)
- President Charles de Gaulle (France)
- Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru (India)
- Prime Minister Lal Bahadur Shastri (India)
- Prime Minister Indira Gandhi (India)
- Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion (Israel)
- Prime Minister Levi Eshkol (Israel)
- Emperor Hirohito (Japan)
- Pope John XXIII
- Pope Paul VI
- Prime Minister Basil Brooke (Northern Ireland)
- Prime Minister Terence O'Neill (Northern Ireland)
- Prime Minister James Chichester-Clark (Northern Ireland)
- Governor Luis A. Ferré (Commonwealth of Puerto Rico)
- Taoiseach Sean Lemass (Republic of Ireland)
- Taoiseach Jack Lynch (Republic of Ireland)
- Nikita Khrushchev (Soviet Union)
- Leonid Brezhnev (Soviet Union)
- Queen Elizabeth II (United Kingdom)
- Prime Minister Harold Macmillan (United Kingdom)
- Prime Minister Harold Wilson (United Kingdom)
- President Dwight D. Eisenhower (United States)
- President John F. Kennedy (United States)
- President Lyndon Johnson (United States)
- President Richard Nixon (United States)
- Chancellor Konrad Adenauer (West Germany)
- Chancellor Ludwig Erhard (West Germany)
- Chancellor Kurt Georg Kiesinger (West Germany)
- President for Life Josip Broz Tito (Yugoslavia)
Writers and intellectuals
- Isaac Asimov
- J. G. Ballard
- Truman Capote
- Andy Capp
- Rachel Carson
- Noam Chomsky
- Judith Christ
- Philip K. Dick
- Louise Fitzhugh
- Milton Friedman
- Allen Ginsberg
- Seamus Heaney
- Robert A. Heinlein
- Frank Herbert
- Ken Kesey
- Timothy Leary
- Norman Mailer
- Marshall McLuhan
- Jules Pfeiffer
- Carl Sagan
- Charles Schulz
- Dr. Seuss
- John Steinbeck
- Hunter S. Thompson
- Joseph Heller
- Gore Vidal
- Kurt Vonnegut
- Alan Watts
- Tom Wolfe
Sports figures
- Lance Alworth (American football player)
- Richie Benaud (Australian cricket captain)
- George Best (Northern Irish football player)
- Nino Benvenuti (Italian boxer)
- Jim Brown (American football player)
- Wilt Chamberlain (American basketball player)
- Bobby Charlton (English football player)
- Jim Clark (Scottish racing driver)
- Cassius Clay later known as Muhammad Ali (American boxer)
- Roberto Clemente (Puerto Rican baseball player)
- Eusebio (Portuguese football player)
- Peggy Fleming (American figure skater)
- Bob Gibson (American baseball player)
- Cookie Gilchrist (American football player)
- Bobby Hull (Canadian hockey player)
- Gordie Howe (Canadian hockey player)
- Franz Klammer (Austrian skier)
- David Kopay (American football player)
- Sandy Koufax (American baseball player)
- Denis Law (Scotland footballer)
- Vince Lombardi (American football coach)
- Willie Mays (American baseball player)
- Stan Mikita (Slovak-Canadian hockey player)
- Bobby Moore (English football player)
- Joe Namath (American football player)
- Jack Nicklaus (American golfer)
- Arnold Palmer (American golfer)
- Gary Player (South African golfer)
- Bobby Orr (Canadian ice hockey player)
- Pelé (Brazilian football player)
- Richard Petty (American NASCAR racing driver)
- Frank Robinson (American baseball player)
- Bill Shankly (Liverpool FC football manager)
- Gary Sobers (Barbados & West Indies cricket captain and all-rounder)
- Alfredo di Stefano (Argentinian/Spanish football player)
- Fred Trueman (Yorkshire & England cricketer)
Entertainers
cricket
- Bud Abbott
- Steve Allen
- Ursula Andress
- Julie Andrews
- Fred Astaire
- John Astin
- Frankie Avalon and Annette Funicello
- Joan Baez
- Lucille Ball
- Brigitte Bardot
- Billy Barty
- The Beach Boys
- The Beatles
- Tony Bennett
- Jack Benny
- Milton Berle
- Joey Bishop
- Ray Bolger
- Ernest Borgnine
- Charles Bronson
- Mel Brooks and Carl Reiner
- Johnny Brown
- Carol Burnett
- George Burns
- The Byrds
- Sid Caesar
- Godfrey Cambridge
- Diane Cannon
- Cantinflas
- Capucine
- Vicki Carr
- Diahann Carrol
- Johnny Carson
- Violet Carson
- Art Carney
- Jack Cassidy
- Ted Cassidy
- Carol Channing
- Roy Clark
- Imogene Coca
- Nat King Cole
- Sean Connery
- Tim Conway
- Bill Cosby
- Joan Crawford
- Bing Crosby
- Gary Crosby
- Phillip Crosby
- Tony Curtis
- Dalida
- Bette Davis
- Sammy Davis, Jr.
- Doris Day
- John Derrick
- Neil Diamond
- Angie Dickenson
- Walt Disney
- The Doors
- Donovan
- Mamie Van Doren
- Kirk Douglas
- Patty Duke
- Jimmy Durante
- Dick Van Dyke
- Bob Dylan
- Clint Eastwood
- Barbara Eden
- Linda Evans
- Robert Evans
- Henry Fonda
- Jane Fonda
- Peter Fonda
- Eileen Fulton
- Judy Garland
- James Garner
- Gerry & the Pacemakers
- Jack Gilford
- Jackie Gleason
- Cary Grant
- Kathryn Grant aka Kathryn Crosby
- Grateful Dead
- Dick Gregory
- Andy Griffith
- Merv Griffin
- Fred Gwynne
- Buddy Hackett
- Joey Heatherton
- Jimi Hendrix
- Audrey Hepburn
- Katharine Hepburn
- Charlton Heston
- Alfred Hitchcock
- Dustin Hoffman
- Bob Hope
- Dennis Hopper
- Ron Howard
- Rock Hudson
- The Jackson 5
- Chad and Jeremy
- Antonio Carlos Jobim
- Carolyn Jones
- Shirley Jones
- Tom Jones
- Janis Joplin
- Boris Karloff
- Danny Kaye
- Buster Keaton
- Gene Kelly
- Don Knotts
- Jimmy Komac
- Harvey Korman
- Nancy Kwan
- Bert Lahr
- Peter Lawford
- Norman Lear
- Bruce Lee
- Janet Leigh
- Jack Lemmon
- Jerry Lewis
- Art Linkletter
- Gina Lollobrigida
- Sophia Loren
- Peter Lorre
- Paul Lynde
- Shirley Maclaine
- Ann Margret
- Dean Martin
- Groucho Marx
- James Mason
- David McCallum
- Country Joe McDonald
- Steve McQueen
- Barry Melton
- The Monkees
- Mary Tyler Moore
- Rita Moreno
- Pat Morita
- Howard Morris
- Zero Mostel
- Paul Newman
- Jack Nicholson
- David Niven
- Roy Orbison
- Gregory Peck
- Peter & Gordon
- Oscar Peterson
- Patricia Phoenix
- Pink Floyd
- Sidney Poitier
- Vincent Price
- Richard Pryor
- Elvis Presley
- Otis Redding
- Robert Redford
- Steve Reeves
- Debbie Reynolds
- Don Rickles
- Chita Rivera
- The Rolling Stones
- Mickey Rooney
- Dan Rowan and Dick Martin
- Peter Sellers
- Rod Serling
- David Seville
- Dick Shawn
- Dinah Shore
- Simon & Garfunkel
- Frank Sinatra
- Frank Sinatra, Jr.
- Nancy Sinatra
- Red Skelton
- The Smothers Brothers
- Elke Sommer
- Sonny and Cher
- Jill St. John
- Connie Stevens
- Inger Stevens
- Stella Stevens
- James Stewart
- Ed Sullivan
- The Supremes
- Russ Tamblyn
- Jacques Tati
- Elizabeth Taylor
- Danny Thomas
- Marlo Thomas
- The Three Stooges
- Spencer Tracy
- Robert Wagner
- William Wagoner
- Burt Ward
- John Wayne
- Tuesday Weld
- Raquel Welch
- Orson Welles
- Adam West
- The Who
- Gene Wilder
- Andy Williams
- Flip Wilson
- Natalie Wood
- Stevie Wonder
- Ed Wynn
- Keenan Wynn
- Led Zeppelin
- Bradley Football
- Cass Elliot -- The Mamas & the Papas
- Carl Stuart Hamblen
See also
- List of rock and roll albums in the 1960s
Further Viewing
To see examples of the idealism of the Sixties, view the Woodstock Movie.
External links
- [http://www.public.iastate.edu/~rjackson/webbibl.html The 1960s: A Bibliography]
Category:1960s
ko:1960년대
ja:1960年代
simple:1960s
1966
1966 (MCMLXVI) was a common year starting on Saturday (link goes to calendar)
Events
January
- January 1 - In a coup, Colonel Jean-Bédel Bokassa ousts president David Dacko and takes over the Central African Republic.
- January 2 - Strike of public transportation workers in New York City - ends January 13
- January 3 - First Acid Test at the Fillmore, San Francisco
- January 4 - Military coup in Upper Volta (later Burkina Faso).
- January 4 - Prime ministers of India and Pakistan meet in Moscow
- January 5 - Fire due to a gas leak in Feyzin oil refinery near Lyon, France - 12 dead, 80 injured
- January 10 - Pakistani-Indian peace negotiations end successfully in Moscow
- January 10 - French paper L'Express publishes a story of Georges Figon, who took part of the kidnapping of Mehdi Ben Barka. January 18 French police announces that Figon has committed suicide just before he was about to be arrested
- January 11 - Conference about the situation in Rhodesia begins in Lagos
- January 11 - Indian prime minister Lal Bahadur Shastri dies
- January 12 - Lyndon Johnson states that the United States should stay in South Vietnam until Communist aggression there is ended.
- January 13 - Robert C. Weaver becomes the first African American Cabinet member by being appointed United States Secretary of Housing and Urban Development.
- January 15 - A violent military coup in Nigeria
- January 15 - Moscow announces that Sergei Korolev is dead
- January 17 - The Nigerian coup is overturned
- January 17 - A B-52 bomber collides with a KC-135 jet tanker over Spain, dropping three 70-kiloton hydrogen bombs near the town of Palomares and one into the sea
- January 17 - Carl Brashear, the first African American United States Navy diver, is involved in an accident on a routine mission which amputates his leg.
- January 18 - About 8000 US soldiers land in South Vietnam - numbers of US troops total 190.000
- January 19 - Indira Gandhi is elected Prime Minister of India - sworn in January 24
- January 19 - Australian Prime Minister Robert Menzies resigns
- January 20 - Demonstrations against high food prices in Hungary
- January 21 - Italian Prime Minister Aldo Moro resigns due to a power struggle in his party
- January 22 - Military government of Nigeria announces that ex-prime minister Abubakar Tafawa Balewa has been killed during the coup
- January 26 - Harold Holt becomes Prime Minister of Australia when Robert Menzies retires
- January 26 - Three Beaumont chrildren disapper on their way to Glenelg Beach Adelaide SA, Australia. Never to be seen again
- January 27 - British government promises USA that British troops in Malaysia stay until more peaceful conditions in the region
- January 29 - The first of 608 performances of Sweet Charity opens at the Palace Theatre in New York City.
- January 31 - United Kingdom ceases all trade with Rhodesia
- January - First SR-71 spy plane goes into service.
February
- February 1 - West Germany has purchased 2600 political prisoners from East Germany
- February 3 - The unmanned Soviet Luna 9 spacecraft makes the first controlled rocket-assisted landing on the Moon
- February 4 - Japanese passenger jet crashes into Tokyo Bay - 133 dead
- February 6 - Fidel Castro blames China for spreading anti-Soviet propaganda among Cuban soldiers
- February 10 - Soviet writers Yuli Daniel and Andrei Sinjavski are sentenced for five and seven years, respectively, for anti-Soviet writings
- February 11 - Belgian government resigns
- February 14 - The Australian Dollar was introduced at a rate of two dollars per pound, or ten shillings per dollar.
- February 19 - Naval minister of United Kingdom, Christopher Mayhew, resigns
- February 20 - When Valeri Tarsis, Soviet author and translator is abroad, Soviet Union negates his citizenship
- February 23 - A military coup in Syria replaces the previous government with a Ba'athist regime.
- February 24 - A military coup in Ghana raises sacked general Ankrah to power while president Kwame Nkrumah is abroad.
- February 26 - Curfew in Jakarta
- February 28 - US astronauts Charles Bassett and Elliott See are killed in an aircraft accident in St. Louis, MO
March
- March 1 - Soviet space probe Venera 3 crashes on Venus, becoming the first spacecraft to land on another planet's surface.
- March 1 - The Ba'ath Party takes power in Syria
- March 2 - Kwame Nkrumah arrives in Guinea and is granted an asylum
- March 4 - The Beatles: In an interview published in The Evening Standard, John Lennon comments, "We're more popular than Jesus now," eventually sparking a controversy in the United States.
- March 5 - Massive theft of nuclear materials revealed in Brazil
- March 7 - Charles De Gaulle asks US president Johnson for negotiations about the state of NATO equipment in France
- March 8 - Anti-communist demonstrations in Indonesian foreign ministry
- March 8 – Ronald Kray, one of the Kray twins, shoots rival gangster George Cornell; the incidents leads to brother's incarceration
- March 8 - Vietnam War: Australia announces it is going to substantially increase its number of troops in Vietnam
- March 8 - A IRA bomb destroys Nelson's Pillar in Dublin
- March 10 - Crown Princess Beatrix of the Netherlands marries Claus von Amsberg.
- March 10 - Wedding of Beatrix, the crown princess of Netherlands and Claus von Amsberg. Some spectators demonstrate against the groom, because he is German
- March 11 – Indonesian president Sukarno gives all executive powers to general Suharto
- March 11 - French president Charles De Gaulle states that French troops will be taken out of NATO and that all French NATO bases and HQ's must be closed within a year
- March 16 - Gemini 8 docks with Agena target satellite
- March 17 - More anti-communist demonstrations in Indonesia
- March 17 - Off the coast of Spain in the Mediterranean, the Alvin submarine finds a missing American hydrogen bomb.
- March 23 - Pope Paul VI and Dr Arthur Michael Ramsey, the Archbishop of Canterbury, meet in Rome - the first official meeting for 400 years between the Catholic and the Anglican Churches
- March 26 - Demonstrations again the Vietnam War in USA
- March 27 - In South Vietnam, 20.000 Buddhists march in demonstrations against the policies of the military government
- March 28 - Indira Gandhi visits Washington DC
- March 29 - 23rd Communist party conference in Soviet Union - Leonid Brezhnev demands that US troops leave Vietnam and announces that Chinese-Soviet relations are not satisfying
- March 31 - The Labour Party under Harold Wilson win the British General Election
- March 31 - The Soviet Union launches Luna 10 which later becomes the first space probe to enter orbit around the moon
April
- April 2 - Indonesian army demands that the country rejoin the United Nations
- April 4 - Luna 10 enters orbit around the moon
- April 7 - The United Kingdom asks the UN Security Council authority to use force to stop oil tankers that violate oil embargo against Rhodesia. Authority is given April 10
- April 8 - Buddhists in South Vietnam protest against the fact that the new government has not set a date for free elections
- April 12 - Jan Berry of Jan & Dean suffers brain damage in a serious automobile accident in Beverly Hills, California
- April 14 - South Vietnamese government promises free elections in 3-5 months
- April 15 - anti-Nasser conspiracy exposed in Egypt
- April 18 - China declares that it stops economic aid to Indonesia
- April 21 - Artificial heart installed to the chest of Marcel DeRudder in Houston hospital
- April 21 - The opening of Parliament of the United Kingdom is televised for the first time
- April 27 - Pope Paul VI and Soviet premier Gromyko meet in the Vatican - the first meeting between representatives of the Catholic Church and Soviet Union
- April 28 - In Rhodesia, security forces kill 7 ZANLA men in combat- Chimurenga, ZANU rebellion begins
- April 29 - US troops in Vietnam total 250.000
- April 30 - regular hovercraft service begins over the English Channel (discontinued 2000 due to Channel Tunnel)
May
- May 1 - Floods in Finnish coast
- May 4 - Fiat signs a contract with Soviet government to build a car factory in Soviet Union
- May 6 - The Moors Murderers Ian Brady and Myra Hindley sentenced for life imprisonment
- May 12 - African members of the UN Security Council say that British army should blockage Rhodesia
- May 12 - Radio Peking claims that US planes have shot down a Chinese plane over Yunnan - US denies the story the next day
- May 14 - Turkey and Greece intend to start negotiations about the situation in Cyprus
- May 15 - Indonesia asks Malaysia for peace negotiations
- May 16-July 1 - Seamen's strike in Britain
- May 15 - South Vietnam army besieges Da Nang
- May 24 - Troops of Uganda army arrest Edward Mutesa II of Buganda and occupy his palace
- May 24 - Nigerian government forbids all political activity in the country (until the January 17 1969)
- May 25 - Explorer program: Explorer 32 launches
- May 25 - In St. Louis, Missouri, US Vice-President Hubert Humphrey and US Secretary of the Interior Stewart Udall dedicate the Gateway Arch as part of the Jefferson National Expansion Memorial
- May 26 - Guyana achieves independence.
- May 28 - Fidel Castro announces a martial law in Cuba because of possible US attack
- May 28 – Indonesian and Malayan governments declare that Indonesian Confrontation is over. Treaty signed in August 11
- May 31 - Philippines reform diplomatic relations with Malaysia
June
- June 2 - Eamon de Valera re-elected as Irish president
- June 2 - Surveyor program: Surveyor 1 lands in Oceanus Procellarumon the Moon, becoming the first spacecraft to soft land on another world
- June 2 - Four former cabinet ministers executed in Zaire for alleged involvement in a plot to kill Mobutu Sese Seko
- June 3 - Joaquín Balaguer elected president of Dominican Republic
- June 5 - Gene Cernan completes second U.S. spacewalk (which lasted 2 hours, 7 minutes) on the Gemini 9 mission.
- June 6 - James Meredith, civil rights activist, is shot while trying to march across Mississippi
- June 13 - The U.S. Supreme Court rules in Miranda v. Arizona that the police must inform suspects of their rights before questioning them
- June 14 - The Vatican announces the abolition of Index Librorum Prohibitum index of banned books
- June 17 - Air France personnel strike begins
- | | |
