1968: The Year That Changed the World

1968 Presidential Election

The Presidential Election held in 1968 would be the 46th presidential election. Richard Nixon was the Republican Nominee and he ran against Vice President Hubert Humphrey. The election year was a difficult one marked by the assassination of Martin Luther King and Robert Kennedy, opposition to the Vietnam War, and race riots. Richard Nixon ran on a campaign that promised to restore law and order to to the nation’s cities and provide new leadership in the Vietnam War. Nixon won the election.

Assassination of Martin Luther King Jr

Civil Rights leader Martin Luther King, Jr. was hot on April 4, 1968 at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennessee. He was a Nobel Peace Prize laureate and supported nonviolent civil disobedience to obtain civil rights. James Earl Ray was arrested on June 8, 1968 and charged with the crime.

Assassination of Robert F Kennedy

Robert Francis “Bobby” Kennedy was a United States Senator and brother of John F. Kennedy. He was slated to be the democratic candidate in the 1968 election but was assassinated shortly before midnight on June 5, 1968 in Los Angeles, California. Kennedy was shot as he walked through the kitchen of the Ambassador Hotel by Sirhan Sirhan, a 24 year old Palestinian immigrant.

The Green Beret film

This film was set in Vietnam and starred John Wayne, Jim Hutton, David Janssen, Aldo Ray, Patrick Wayne, Jack Soo and George Takei. This film was anti-communist and pro-Saigon.

Bullitt

This film starred Steve McQueen, Robert Vaughn and Jacqueline Bisset. It is now regarded as one of the most influential in movie history.

Funny Girl

This biographical romantic musical comedy drama was directed by William Wyler. It is losely based on the life and career and Broadway and film star Fanny Brice. The film starred Barbara Streisand and Omar Sharif. Funny Girl is considered one of the greatest musical films ever.

Yellow Submarine film

This British animated musical fantasy comedy was a film inspired by the music of the Beatles. The real Beatles only participated in the closing scene on the film.

Beatles Apple Records

Apple Records was the record label founded by the Beatles.

Elvis 68 Comeback Special

Elvis, starring Elvis Presley, was a made for Television special that aired on December 3, 1968 on NBC.

60 Minutes

This news magazine format television program began airing on September 24, 1968 on CBS News. It starred Harry Reasoner and Mike Wallace and was shown initially on Tuesday evenings at 10pm EST. An abbreviated version of an Academy Award-winning short film by Saul Bass, Why Man Creates.

Tet Offensive

The Tet Offensive was one of the largest military campaigns of the entire Vietnam War. It luanched on January 30, 1968 against the United States. It was a suprrpise attack. Although the offensive was a military defeat for North Vietnam, it had a profound effect on the US government and shocked the US public, which had been led to believe by its political and military leaders that the North Vietnamese were being defeated and incapable of launching such an ambitious military operation. U.S. public support for the war declined and the U.S. sought negotiations to end the war.

Walter Cronkite in Vietnam War

In mid-February 1968, on the urging of his executive producer Walter Cronkite journeyed to Vietnam to cover the aftermath of the Tet Offensive. This was Cronkite’s report:

“We have been too often disappointed by the optimism of the American leaders, both in Vietnam and Washington, to have faith any longer in the silver linings they find in the darkest clouds. They may be right, that Hanoi’s winter-spring offensive has been forced by the Communist realization that they could not win the longer war of attrition, and that the Communists hope that any success in the offensive will improve their position for eventual negotiations. It would improve their position, and it would also require our realization, that we should have had all along, that any negotiations must be that – negotiations, not the dictation of peace terms. For it seems now more certain than ever that the bloody experience of Vietnam is to end in a stalemate. This summer’s almost certain standoff will either end in real give-and-take negotiations or terrible escalation; and for every means we have to escalate, the enemy can match us, and that applies to invasion of the North, the use of nuclear weapons, or the mere commitment of one hundred, or two hundred, or three hundred thousand more American troops to the battle. And with each escalation, the world comes closer to the brink of cosmic disaster.

To say that we are closer to victory today is to believe, in the face of the evidence, the optimists who have been wrong in the past. To suggest we are on the edge of defeat is to yield to unreasonable pessimism. To say that we are mired in stalemate seems the only realistic, yet unsatisfactory, conclusion. On the off chance that military and political analysts are right, in the next few months we must test the enemy’s intentions, in case this is indeed his last big gasp before negotiations. But it is increasingly clear to this reporter that the only rational way out then will be to negotiate, not as victors, but as an honorable people who lived up to their pledge to defend democracy, and did the best they could.”

Yippies

The Youth International Party, whose members were commonly called Yippies, was a radically youth-oriented and counter culture group founded by Jerry Rubin and Abbie Hoffman, who supported free speech and anti war movements. They nominated a pig as a cnadidate for Prsident in 1968 to mock the social status quo.

Apollo 8

Apollo 8 became the second human spaceflight and mission in the United States Apollo program and was launched on December 21, 1968. It was the first manned spacecraft to leave the Earth’s orbit, reach the moon and return safely to earth. The crew would make a Christmas Eve Broadcast where they read the first 10 verses from the Book of Genesis. At the time, this broadcast was the most watched TV program ever.