The year was highlighted by protests and other unrests that occurred worldwide.

Events

January–February

January 5 Events Pre-1600 *1477 – Battle of Nancy: Charles the Bold is defeated and killed in a conflict with René II, Duke of Lorraine; Duchy of Burgundy, Burgundy subsequently becomes part of France. 1601–1900 *1675 – Battle of Turckh ...

– "

Prague Spring The Prague Spring ( cs, Pražské jaro, sk, Pražská jar) was a period of political liberalization and mass protest in the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic. It began on 5 January 1968, when reformist Alexander Dubček was elected First Sec ...

Alexander Dubček Alexander Dubček (; 27 November 1921 – 7 November 1992) was a Slovak politician who served as the First Secretary of the Presidium of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia (KSČ) (''de facto'' leader of Czechoslovak ...

is chosen as leader of the

Communist Party of Czechoslovakia The Communist Party of Czechoslovakia (Czech and Slovak: ''Komunistická strana Československa'', KSČ) was a communist and Marxist–Leninist political party in Czechoslovakia that existed between 1921 and 1992. It was a member of the Cominte ...

. *

January 10 Events Pre-1600 *49 BC – Julius Caesar crosses the Rubicon, signalling the start of civil war. * 9 – The Western Han dynasty ends when Wang Mang claims that the divine Mandate of Heaven called for the end of the dynasty and the be ...

–

John Gorton Sir John Grey Gorton (9 September 1911 – 19 May 2002) was an Australian politician who served as the nineteenth Prime Minister of Australia, in office from 1968 to 1971. He led the Liberal Party during that time, having previously been a l ...

is sworn in as 19th

Prime Minister of Australia The prime minister of Australia is the head of government of the Commonwealth of Australia. The prime minister heads the executive branch of the Australian Government, federal government of Australia and is also accountable to Parliament of A ...

, taking over from

John McEwen Sir John McEwen, (29 March 1900 – 20 November 1980) was an Australian politician who served as the 18th prime minister of Australia, holding office from 1967 to 1968 in a caretaker capacity after the disappearance of Harold Holt. He was the ...

after being elected leader of the

Liberal Party The Liberal Party is any of many political parties around the world. The meaning of ''liberal'' varies around the world, ranging from liberal conservatism on the right to social liberalism on the left. __TOC__ Active liberal parties This is a li ...

the previous day, following the

disappearance of Harold Holt On 17 December 1967, Harold Holt, the Prime Minister of Australia, disappeared while swimming in the sea near Portsea, Victoria. An enormous search operation was mounted in and around Cheviot Beach, but his body was never recovered. Holt was pr ...

. Gorton becomes the only

Senator A senate is a deliberative assembly, often the upper house or chamber of a bicameral legislature. The name comes from the ancient Roman Senate (Latin: ''Senatus''), so-called as an assembly of the senior (Latin: ''senex'' meaning "the el ...

to become Prime Minister, though he immediately transfers to the

House of Representatives House of Representatives is the name of legislative bodies in many countries and sub-national entitles. In many countries, the House of Representatives is the lower house of a bicameral legislature, with the corresponding upper house often c ...

through the

1968 Higgins by-election A by-election was held for the Australian House of Representatives seat of Higgins on 24 February 1968. It was triggered by the presumed drowning death of the Prime Minister and Liberal Party MP Harold Holt on 17 December 1967. Background O ...

in Holt's vacant seat. *

January 15 Events Pre-1600 * 69 – Otho seizes power in Rome, proclaiming himself Emperor of Rome, beginning a reign of only three months. * 1541 – King Francis I of France gives Jean-François Roberval a commission to settle the province of ...

– The

1968 Belice earthquake The 1968 Belice earthquake sequence took place in Sicily between 14 and 15 January. The largest shock measured 5.5 on the moment magnitude scale, with five others of magnitude 5+. The maximum perceived intensity was X (''Extreme'') on the Mer ...

Sicily (man) it, Siciliana (woman) , population_note = , population_blank1_title = , population_blank1 = , demographics_type1 = Ethnicity , demographics1_footnotes = , demographi ...

kills 380 and injures around 1,000. *

January 21 Events Pre-1600 * 763 – Following the Battle of Bakhamra between Alids and Abbasids near Kufa, the Alid rebellion ends with the death of Ibrahim, brother of Isa ibn Musa. * 1525 – The Swiss Anabaptist Movement is founded when Co ...

Vietnam War The Vietnam War (also known by #Names, other names) was a conflict in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from 1 November 1955 to the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975. It was the second of the Indochina Wars and was officially fought between North Vie ...

Battle of Khe Sanh The Battle of Khe Sanh (21 January – 9 July 1968) was conducted in the Khe Sanh area of northwestern Quảng Trị Province, Republic of Vietnam (South Vietnam), during the Vietnam War. The main US forces defending Khe Sanh Combat Base (KSCB) ...

– One of the most publicized and controversial battles of the war begins, ending on

April 8 Events Pre-1600 * 217 – Roman emperor Caracalla is assassinated and is succeeded by his Praetorian Guard prefect, Marcus Opellius Macrinus. * 876 – The Battle of Dayr al-'Aqul saves Baghdad from the Saffarids. *1139 – Ro ...

. **

1968 Thule Air Base B-52 crash On 21 January 1968, an aircraft accident, sometimes known as the Thule affair or Thule accident (; da, Thuleulykken), involving a United States Air Force (USAF) B-52 bomber occurred near Thule Air Base in the Danish territory of Greenland. The ...

: A U.S.

B-52 Stratofortress The Boeing B-52 Stratofortress is an American long-range, subsonic, jet-powered strategic bomber. The B-52 was designed and built by Boeing, which has continued to provide support and upgrades. It has been operated by the United States Air ...

crashes in Greenland, discharging 4

nuclear bomb A nuclear weapon is an explosive device that derives its destructive force from nuclear reactions, either fission (fission bomb) or a combination of fission and fusion reactions (thermonuclear bomb), producing a nuclear explosion. Both bomb ...

s. *

January 23 Events Pre-1600 * 393 – Roman emperor Theodosius I proclaims his eight-year-old son Honorius co-emperor. * 971 – Using crossbows, Song dynasty troops soundly defeat a war elephant corps of the Southern Han at Shao. *1264 & ...

–

North Korea North Korea, officially the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK), is a country in East Asia. It constitutes the northern half of the Korea, Korean Peninsula and shares borders with China and Russia to the north, at the Yalu River, Y ...

seizes the , claiming the ship violated its territorial waters while spying. *

January 25 Events Pre-1600 * 41 – After a night of negotiation, Claudius is accepted as Roman emperor by the Senate. * 750 – In the Battle of the Zab, the Abbasid rebels defeat the Umayyad Caliphate, leading to the overthrow of the dynasty ...

–

Israel Israel (; he, יִשְׂרָאֵל, ; ar, إِسْرَائِيل, ), officially the State of Israel ( he, מְדִינַת יִשְׂרָאֵל, label=none, translit=Medīnat Yīsrāʾēl; ), is a country in Western Asia. It is situated ...

i submarine sinks in the Mediterranean Sea, killing 69. USS Pueblo (AGER-2)

January 28 Events Pre-1600 * 98 – On the death of Nerva, Trajan is declared Roman emperor in Cologne, the seat of his government in lower Germany. * 814 – The death of Charlemagne, the first Holy Roman Emperor, brings about the accession o ...

– French submarine '' Minerve'' sinks in the Mediterranean Sea, killing 52. *

January 30 Events Pre-1600 *1018 – Poland and the Holy Roman Empire conclude the Peace of Bautzen. *1287 – King Wareru founds the Hanthawaddy Kingdom, and proclaims independence from the Pagan Kingdom. 1601–1900 *1607 – An estimated ...

–

: The

Tet Offensive The Tet Offensive was a major escalation and one of the largest military campaigns of the Vietnam War. It was launched on January 30, 1968 by forces of the Viet Cong (VC) and North Vietnamese People's Army of Vietnam (PAVN) against the forces o ...

begins as

Viet Cong , , war = the Vietnam War , image = FNL Flag.svg , caption = The flag of the Viet Cong, adopted in 1960, is a variation on the flag of North Vietnam. Sometimes the lower stripe was green. , active ...

forces launch a series of surprise attacks across

South Vietnam South Vietnam, officially the Republic of Vietnam ( vi, Việt Nam Cộng hòa), was a state in Southeast Asia that existed from 1955 to 1975, the period when the southern portion of Vietnam was a member of the Western Bloc during part of th ...

. *

January 31 Events Pre-1600 * 314 – Pope Sylvester I is consecrated, as successor to the late Pope Miltiades. * 1208 – The Battle of Lena takes place between King Sverker II of Sweden and his rival, Prince Eric, whose victory puts him on the t ...

soldiers attack the

Embassy of the United States, Saigon The United States Embassy in Saigon was first established in June 1952, and moved into a new building in 1967 and eventually closed in 1975. The embassy was the scene of a number of significant events of the Vietnam War, most notably the Viet Co ...

. **

Nauru Nauru ( or ; na, Naoero), officially the Republic of Nauru ( na, Repubrikin Naoero) and formerly known as Pleasant Island, is an island country and microstate in Oceania, in the Central Pacific. Its nearest neighbour is Banaba Island in Ki ...

president

Hammer DeRoburt Hammer DeRoburt (25 September 1922 – 15 July 1992) was the first President of the Republic of Nauru, and ruled the country for most of its first twenty years of independence. Background and early career Born in 1922, DeRoburt was the g ...

declares independence from

Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a Sovereign state, sovereign country comprising the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous List of islands of Australia, sma ...

. *

February 1 Events Pre-1600 * 1327 – The teenaged Edward III is crowned King of England, but the country is ruled by his mother Queen Isabella and her lover Roger Mortimer. * 1411 – The First Peace of Thorn is signed in Thorn (Toruń), Mon ...

: A

officer named

Nguyễn Văn Lém Nguyễn () is the most common Vietnamese surname. Outside of Vietnam, the surname is commonly rendered without diacritics as Nguyen. Nguyên (元）is a different word and surname. By some estimates 39 percent of Vietnamese people bear this s ...

is executed by

Nguyễn Ngọc Loan Major General Nguyễn Ngọc Loan (; 11 December 193014 July 1998) was a South Vietnamese general and chief of the South Vietnamese National Police. Loan gained international attention when he summarily executed handcuffed prisoner Nguyễn ...

, a

ese National Police Chief. The event is photographed by Eddie Adams. The photo makes headlines around the world, eventually winning the

1969 Pulitzer Prize The following are the Pulitzer Prizes for 1969. Journalism awards *Public Service: **The ''Los Angeles Times'', for its exposé of wrongdoing within the Los Angeles City Government Commissions, resulting in resignations or criminal convictions ...

, and sways U.S. public opinion against the war. ** The

Pennsylvania Railroad The Pennsylvania Railroad (reporting mark PRR), legal name The Pennsylvania Railroad Company also known as the "Pennsy", was an American Class I railroad that was established in 1846 and headquartered in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. It was named ...

and the

New York Central Railroad The New York Central Railroad was a railroad primarily operating in the Great Lakes and Mid-Atlantic regions of the United States. The railroad primarily connected greater New York and Boston in the east with Chicago and St. Louis in the Midw ...

merge to form

Penn Central The Penn Central Transportation Company, commonly abbreviated to Penn Central, was an American Railroad classes, class I railroad that operated from 1968 to 1976. Penn Central combined three traditional corporate rivals (the Pennsylvania Railroad ...

, the largest ever corporate

merger Mergers and acquisitions (M&A) are business transactions in which the ownership of companies, other business organizations, or their operating units are transferred to or consolidated with another company or business organization. As an aspect ...

up to this date. *

February 6 Events Pre-1600 * 1579 – The Archdiocese of Manila is made a diocese by a papal bull with Domingo de Salazar being its first bishop. 1601–1900 * 1685 – James II of England and VII of Scotland is proclaimed King upon the death of ...

–

February 18 Events Pre-1600 * 1229 – The Sixth Crusade: Frederick II, Holy Roman Emperor, signs a ten-year truce with al-Kamil, regaining Jerusalem, Nazareth, and Bethlehem with neither military engagements nor support from the papacy. * 1268 &ndas ...

– The

1968 Winter Olympics The 1968 Winter Olympics, officially known as the X Olympic Winter Games (french: Les Xes Jeux olympiques d'hiver), were a winter multi-sport event held from 6 to 18 February 1968 in Grenoble, France. Thirty-seven countries participated. Frenchm ...

are held in Grenoble, France. *

February 12 Events Pre-1600 *1404 – The Italian professor Galeazzo di Santa Sophie performed the first post-mortem autopsy for the purposes of teaching and demonstration at the Heiligen–Geist Spital in Vienna. *1429 – English forces under ...

–

Phong Nhị and Phong Nhất massacre The Phong Nhị and Phong Nhất massacre ( ko, 퐁니·퐁넛 양민학살 사건, Vietnamese: ''Thảm sát Phong Nhất và Phong Nhị'') was a massacre of unarmed citizens in the villages of Phong Nhị and Phong Nhất, Điện Bàn D ...

. *

February 24 Events Pre-1600 * 484 – King Huneric of the Vandals replaces Nicene bishops with Arian ones, and banishes some to Corsica. * 1303 – The English are defeated at the Battle of Roslin, in the First War of Scottish Independence. * 13 ...

–

: The

is halted;

recaptures

Huế Huế () is the capital of Thừa Thiên Huế province in central Vietnam and was the capital of Đàng Trong from 1738 to 1775 and of Vietnam during the Nguyễn dynasty from 1802 to 1945. The city served as the old Imperial City and admi ...

. *

February 25 Events Pre-1600 * 138 – Roman emperor Hadrian adopts Antoninus Pius as his son, effectively making him his successor. * 628 – Khosrow II, the last great Shah of the Sasanian Empire (Iran), is overthrown by his son Kavadh II. ...

–

: Hà My massacre.

March–April

March 2 Events Pre-1600 * 537 – Siege of Rome: The Ostrogoth army under king Vitiges begins the siege of the capital. Belisarius conducts a delaying action outside the Flaminian Gate; he and a detachment of his ''bucellarii'' are almost cut o ...

– Baggeridge Colliery closes marking the end of over 300 years of

coal mining Coal mining is the process of extracting coal from the ground. Coal is valued for its energy content and since the 1880s has been widely used to generate electricity. Steel and cement industries use coal as a fuel for extraction of iron from ...

in the

Black Country The Black Country is an area of the West Midlands county, England covering most of the Metropolitan Boroughs of Dudley, Sandwell and Walsall. Dudley and Tipton are generally considered to be the centre. It became industrialised during its ro ...

of England. * March 6 – Un-recognized

Rhodesia Rhodesia (, ), officially from 1970 the Republic of Rhodesia, was an unrecognised state in Southern Africa from 1965 to 1979, equivalent in territory to modern Zimbabwe. Rhodesia was the ''de facto'' successor state to the British colony of S ...

executes 3 black citizens, the first executions since

UDI Udi may refer to: Places * Udi, Enugu, a local government areas and city in Nigeria * Udi, a place in the Etawah district of Uttar Pradesh, India People * Udi Gal (born 1979), Israeli Olympic sailor * Udi Vaks (born 1979), Israeli Olympic judoka ...

, prompting international condemnation. *

March 7 Events Pre-1600 * 161 – Marcus Aurelius and L. Commodus (who changes his name to Lucius Verus) become joint emperors of Rome on the death of Antoninus Pius. * 1138 – Konrad III von Hohenstaufen was elected king of Germany at Cob ...

–

: The

First Battle of Saigon The First Battle of Saigon, fought during the Tet Offensive of the Vietnam War, was the coordinated attack by communist forces, including both the North Vietnamese Army and the ''Viet Cong'' (VC), against Saigon, the capital of South Vietnam. ...

ends. * March 8 ** The first student protests spark the

1968 Polish political crisis The Polish 1968 political crisis, also known in Poland as March 1968, Students' March, or March events ( pl, Marzec 1968; studencki Marzec; wydarzenia marcowe), was a series of major student, intellectual and other protests against the ruling Poli ...

. ** The

Soviet The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, ...

ballistic missile submarine A ballistic missile submarine is a submarine capable of deploying submarine-launched ballistic missiles (SLBMs) with nuclear warheads. The United States Navy's hull classification symbols for ballistic missile submarines are SSB and SSBN – t ...

''K-129'' sinks with all 98 crew members, about 90

nautical mile A nautical mile is a unit of length used in air, marine, and space navigation, and for the definition of territorial waters. Historically, it was defined as the meridian arc length corresponding to one minute ( of a degree) of latitude. Today ...

s (104 miles or 167 km) southwest of

Hawaii Hawaii ( ; haw, Hawaii or ) is a state in the Western United States, located in the Pacific Ocean about from the U.S. mainland. It is the only U.S. state outside North America, the only state that is an archipelago, and the only stat ...

. * March 10– 11 –

: Battle of Lima Site 85, the largest single ground combat loss of United States Air Force members (12) during the (at this time) secret war later known as the

Laotian Civil War The Laotian Civil War (1959–1975) was a civil war in Laos which was waged between the Communist Pathet Lao and the Royal Lao Government from 23 May 1959 to 2 December 1975. It is associated with the Cambodian Civil War and the Vietnam War ...

. * March 11 – U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson mandates that all computers purchased by the federal government support the

ASCII ASCII ( ), abbreviated from American Standard Code for Information Interchange, is a character encoding standard for electronic communication. ASCII codes represent text in computers, telecommunications equipment, and other devices. Because of ...

character encoding Character encoding is the process of assigning numbers to Graphics, graphical character (computing), characters, especially the written characters of Language, human language, allowing them to be Data storage, stored, Data communication, transmi ...

. *

March 12 Events Pre-1600 * 538 – Vitiges, king of the Ostrogoths ends his siege of Rome and retreats to Ravenna, leaving the city to the victorious Byzantine general, Belisarius. * 1088 – Election of Urban II as the 159th Pope of the Cat ...

Mauritius Mauritius ( ; french: Maurice, link=no ; mfe, label=Mauritian Creole, Moris ), officially the Republic of Mauritius, is an island nation in the Indian Ocean about off the southeast coast of the African continent, east of Madagascar. It incl ...

achieves independence from British rule. ** U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson barely edges out antiwar candidate

Eugene McCarthy Eugene Joseph McCarthy (March 29, 1916December 10, 2005) was an American politician, writer, and academic from Minnesota. He served in the United States House of Representatives from 1949 to 1959 and the United States Senate from 1959 to 1971. ...

in the

New Hampshire Democratic primary The New Hampshire presidential primary is the first in a series of nationwide party primary elections and the second party contest (the first being the Iowa caucuses) held in the United States every four years as part of United States presiden ...

, a vote which highlights the deep divisions in the country, and the party, over

Vietnam Vietnam or Viet Nam ( vi, Việt Nam, ), officially the Socialist Republic of Vietnam,., group="n" is a country in Southeast Asia, at the eastern edge of mainland Southeast Asia, with an area of and population of 96 million, making i ...

. *

March 13 Events Pre-1600 *624 – The Battle of Badr, the first major battle between the Muslims and Quraysh. *1567 – The Battle of Oosterweel, traditionally regarded as the start of the Eighty Years' War. *1591 – At the Battle of Tond ...

– The first

Rotaract Rotaract originally began as a Rotary International Rotary International is one of the largest service organizations in the world. Its stated mission is to "provide service to others, promote integrity, and advance world understanding, goo ...

club is chartered in

North Charlotte Old North Charlotte is a neighborhood in Charlotte, North Carolina. Old North Charlotte, contrary to its name, comprises a large section of the city's east side. Old North Charlotte is one of Charlotte's oldest neighborhoods and can trace its ...

, North Carolina. *

March 14 Events Pre-1600 * 1074 – Battle of Mogyoród: Dukes Géza and Ladislaus defeat their cousin Solomon, King of Hungary, forcing him to flee to Hungary's western borderland. * 1590 – Battle of Ivry: Henry of Navarre and the Huguen ...

– Nerve gas leaks from the U.S. Army Dugway Proving Ground near

Skull Valley, Utah Skull Valley is a long''Utah Atlas & Gazetteer,'' DeLorme, 6th ed., 2014, pp. 15, 16, 23 & 24 valley located in east Tooele County, Utah, United States at the southwest of the Great Salt Lake. The valley trends north–south, but turns sligh ...

. * March 16 **

– 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 Robert Francis Kennedy (November 20, 1925June 6, 1968), also known by his initials RFK and by the nickname Bobby, was an American lawyer and politician who served as the 64th United States Attorney General from January 1961 to September 1964, a ...

enters the race for the

Democratic Party Democratic Party most often refers to: *Democratic Party (United States) Democratic Party and similar terms may also refer to: Active parties Africa *Botswana Democratic Party *Democratic Party of Equatorial Guinea *Gabonese Democratic Party *Demo ...

presidential nomination. * March 18 –

Gold standard A gold standard is a monetary system in which the standard economic unit of account is based on a fixed quantity of gold. The gold standard was the basis for the international monetary system from the 1870s to the early 1920s, and from the la ...

: The

United States Congress The United States Congress is the legislature of the federal government of the United States. It is bicameral, composed of a lower body, the House of Representatives, and an upper body, the Senate. It meets in the U.S. Capitol in Washing ...

repeals the requirement for a

gold Gold is a chemical element with the symbol Au (from la, aurum) and atomic number 79. This makes it one of the higher atomic number elements that occur naturally. It is a bright, slightly orange-yellow, dense, soft, malleable, and ductile met ...

reserve to back U.S. currency. * March 19– 23 –

Afrocentrism Afrocentrism is an approach to the study of world history that focuses on the history of people of recent African descent. It is in some respects a response to Eurocentric attitudes about African people and their historical contributions. It ...

, Black Power,

: 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 A sit-in or sit-down is a form of direct action that involves one or more people occupying an area for a protest, often to promote political, social, or economic change. The protestors gather conspicuously in a space or building, refusing to mo ...

, laying siege to the administration building, shutting down the university in protest over its

ROTC The Reserve Officers' Training Corps (ROTC ( or )) is a group of college- and university-based officer-training programs for training commissioned officers of the United States Armed Forces. Overview While ROTC graduate officers serve in all ...

program and the Vietnam War, and demanding a more Afrocentric curriculum. *

March 22 Events Pre-1600 * 106 – Start of the Bostran era, the calendar of the province of Arabia Petraea. * 235 – Roman emperor Severus Alexander is murdered, marking the start of the Crisis of the Third Century. * 871 – Æthelr ...

–

Daniel Cohn-Bendit Daniel Marc Cohn-Bendit (; ; born 4 April 1945) is a French-German politician of Jewish descent. He was a student leader during the unrest of May 1968 in France and was also known during that time as ''Dany le Rouge'' (French for "Danny the Red" ...

("Danny the Red") and 7 other students occupy the administrative offices of the

University of Nanterre Paris Nanterre University (French: ''Université Paris Nanterre''), formerly Paris-X and commonly referred to as Nanterre, is a public research university based in Nanterre, Paris, France. It is one of the most prestigious French universities, ma ...

, setting in motion a chain of events that lead France to the brink of revolution in May. * March 24 –

Aer Lingus Flight 712 Aer Lingus Flight 712 crashed en route from Cork to London on 24 March 1968 killing all 61 passengers and crew. The aircraft, a Vickers Viscount 803 named "St. Phelim", crashed into the sea off Tuskar Rock, County Wexford. Although the investi ...

crashes en route from

Cork Cork or CORK may refer to: Materials * Cork (material), an impermeable buoyant plant product ** Cork (plug), a cylindrical or conical object used to seal a container ***Wine cork Places Ireland * Cork (city) ** Metropolitan Cork, also known as G ...

to London near Tuskar Rock, Wexford, killing 61 passengers and crew. *

March 28 Events Pre-1600 * AD 37 – Roman emperor Caligula accepts the titles of the Principate, bestowed on him by the Senate. * 193 – After assassinating the Roman Emperor Pertinax, his Praetorian Guards auction off the throne to Di ...

–

Brazil Brazil ( pt, Brasil; ), officially the Federative Republic of Brazil (Portuguese: ), is the largest country in both South America and Latin America. At and with over 217 million people, Brazil is the world's fifth-largest country by area ...

ian high school student

Edson Luís de Lima Souto Edson Luís de Lima Souto (; February 24, 1950 – March 28, 1968) was a Brazilian teenage student killed by the military police of Rio de Janeiro after a confrontation in the restaurant Calabouço (), in downtown Rio de Janeiro. Edson was one o ...

is shot by the police in a protest for cheaper meals at a restaurant for low-income students. The aftermath of his death is one of the first major events against the

military dictatorship A military dictatorship is a dictatorship in which the military exerts complete or substantial control over political authority, and the dictator is often a high-ranked military officer. The reverse situation is to have civilian control of the m ...

. *

April 2 Events Pre-1600 *1513 – Having spotted land on March 27, Spanish explorer Juan Ponce de León comes ashore on what is now the U.S. state of Florida, landing somewhere between the modern city of St. Augustine and the mouth of the St. Jo ...

– Bombs explode at midnight in two department stores in

Frankfurt-am-Main Frankfurt, officially Frankfurt am Main (; Hessian dialects, Hessian: , "Franks, Frank ford (crossing), ford on the Main (river), Main"), is the most populous city in the States of Germany, German state of Hesse. Its 791,000 inhabitants as o ...

; Andreas Baader and Gudrun Ensslin are later arrested and sentenced for

arson Arson is the crime of willfully and deliberately setting fire to or charring property. Although the act of arson typically involves buildings, the term can also refer to the intentional burning of other things, such as motor vehicles, wat ...

. *

April 4 Events Pre-1600 * 503 BC – Roman consul Agrippa Menenius Lanatus celebrates a triumph for a military victory over the Sabines. * 190 – Dong Zhuo has his troops evacuate the capital Luoyang and burn it to the ground. * 611 – ...

Assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. Martin Luther King Jr., an African-American clergyman and civil rights leader, was fatally shot at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennessee, on April 4, 1968, at 6:01 p.m. CST. He was rushed to St. Joseph's Hospital, where he died at 7 ...

: Martin Luther King Jr. is shot dead at the Lorraine Motel in

Memphis, Tennessee Memphis is a city in the U.S. state of Tennessee. It is the seat of Shelby County in the southwest part of the state; it is situated along the Mississippi River. With a population of 633,104 at the 2020 U.S. census, Memphis is the second-mos ...

. King-assassination riots erupt in major American cities, lasting for several days afterwards. ** Apollo program: Apollo-Saturn mission 502 ( Apollo 6) is launched, as the second and last uncrewed test-flight of the

Saturn V Saturn V is a retired American super heavy-lift launch vehicle developed by NASA under the Apollo program for human exploration of the Moon. The rocket was human-rated, with multistage rocket, three stages, and powered with liquid-propellant r ...

launch vehicle. ** AEK Athens wins the FIBA European Cup Winners Cup Final in

basketball Basketball is a team sport in which two teams, most commonly of five players each, opposing one another on a rectangular Basketball court, court, compete with the primary objective of #Shooting, shooting a basketball (ball), basketball (appr ...

against Slavia Prague, in front of a record attendance of 80,000 spectators. It is the first major European trophy won at club level of any sport in Greece. * April 6 ** " La, la, la" by Massiel (music and lyrics by Manuel de la Calva and Ramón Arcusa) wins the

Eurovision Song Contest 1968 The Eurovision Song Contest 1968 was the 13th edition of the annual Eurovision Song Contest. It took place in London, United Kingdom, following the country's first victory at the with the song " Puppet on a String" by Sandie Shaw. Despite havi ...

for Spain, at the

Royal Albert Hall The Royal Albert Hall is a concert hall on the northern edge of South Kensington, London. One of the UK's most treasured and distinctive buildings, it is held in trust for the nation and managed by a registered charity which receives no govern ...

in London. ** A shootout between

Black Panthers The Black Panther Party (BPP), originally the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense, was a Marxism-Leninism, Marxist-Leninist and Black Power movement, black power political organization founded by college students Bobby Seale and Huey P. New ...

and police in

Oakland, California Oakland is the largest city and the county seat of Alameda County, California, United States. A major West Coast of the United States, West Coast port, Oakland is the largest city in the East Bay region of the San Francisco Bay Area, the third ...

, results in several arrests and deaths, including 17-year-old Panther

Bobby Hutton Robert James Hutton (April 21, 1950 – April 6, 1968), also known as "Lil' Bobby", was the treasurer and first recruit to join the Black Panther Party.Richmond, Indiana explosion The Richmond, Indiana, explosion was a double explosion in the United States in 1968. It occurred at 1:47 PM EST on April 6, in downtown Richmond, Indiana. The explosions killed 41 people and injured more than 150. The primary explosion was du ...

: A double explosion in downtown

Richmond Richmond most often refers to: * Richmond, Virginia, the capital of Virginia, United States * Richmond, London, a part of London * Richmond, North Yorkshire, a town in England * Richmond, British Columbia, a city in Canada * Richmond, California, ...

kills 41 and injures 150. * April 7 – British racing driver

Jim Clark James Clark Jr. OBE (4 March 1936 – 7 April 1968) was a British Formula One racing driver from Scotland, who won two World Championships, in 1963 and 1965. A versatile driver, he competed in sports cars, touring cars and in the Indianapol ...

is killed in a Formula 2 race at

Hockenheim Hockenheim () is a town in northwest Baden-Württemberg, Germany, about 20 km south of Mannheim and 10 km west of Walldorf. It is located in the Upper Rhine valley on the tourist theme routes "Baden Asparagus Route" () and Bertha Benz M ...

. *

April 10 Events Pre-1600 * 428 – Nestorius becomes the Patriarch of Constantinople. * 837 – Halley's Comet makes its closest approach to Earth at a distance equal to 0.0342 AU (5.1 million kilometres/3.2 million miles). * 1407 ...

– The ferry strikes a

reef A reef is a ridge or shoal of rock, coral or similar relatively stable material, lying beneath the surface of a natural body of water. Many reefs result from natural, abiotic processes— deposition of sand, wave erosion planing down rock out ...

at the mouth of Wellington Harbour, New Zealand, with the loss of 53 lives, in Cyclone Giselle, which has created the windiest conditions ever recorded in New Zealand. * April 11 **

Josef Bachmann Josef Erwin Bachmann (12 October 1944 – 24 February 1970) became widely known in Germany for his assassination attempt on the Marxist activist Rudi Dutschke, firing three bullets at him, on 11 April 1968. Bachmann was convicted of the attack an ...

tries to assassinate Rudi Dutschke, leader of the left-wing movement ( APO) in Germany, and tries to commit suicide afterwards, failing in both, although Dutschke dies of his brain injuries 11 years later. ** German left-wing students blockade the

Springer Press Axel Springer SE () is a German digital and popular periodical publishing house which is the largest in Europe, with numerous multimedia news brands, such as '' Bild'', ''Die Welt'', and ''Fakt'' and more than 15,000 employees. It generated to ...

HQ in Berlin and many are arrested (one of them

Ulrike Meinhof Ulrike Marie Meinhof (7 October 1934 – 9 May 1976) was a German left-wing journalist and founding member of the Red Army Faction (RAF) in West Germany, commonly referred to in the press as the "Baader-Meinhof gang". She is the reputed author ...

). * April 20 –

Pierre Elliott Trudeau Joseph Philippe Pierre Yves Elliott Trudeau ( , ; October 18, 1919 – September 28, 2000), also referred to by his initials PET, was a Canadian lawyer and politician who served as the 15th prime minister of Canada from 1968 to 1979 and ...

becomes the 15th Prime Minister of Canada. *

April 23 Events Pre-1600 * 215 BC – A temple is built on the Capitoline Hill dedicated to Venus Erycina to commemorate the Roman defeat at Lake Trasimene. * 599 – Maya king Uneh Chan of Calakmul attacks rival city-state Palenque in southe ...

** President Mobutu releases captured

mercenaries A mercenary, sometimes also known as a soldier of fortune or hired gun, is a private individual, particularly a soldier, that joins a military conflict for personal profit, is otherwise an outsider to the conflict, and is not a member of any o ...

in the

Congo Congo or The Congo may refer to either of two countries that border the Congo River in central Africa: * Democratic Republic of the Congo, the larger country to the southeast, capital Kinshasa, formerly known as Zaire, sometimes referred to a ...

. ** Surgeons at the Hôpital de la Pitié, Paris, perform Europe's first heart transplant, on Clovis Roblain. ** The

United Methodist Church The United Methodist Church (UMC) is a worldwide mainline Protestant denomination based in the United States, and a major part of Methodism. In the 19th century, its main predecessor, the Methodist Episcopal Church, was a leader in evangelical ...

is created by the union in

Dallas Dallas () is the List of municipalities in Texas, third largest city in Texas and the largest city in the Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex, the List of metropolitan statistical areas, fourth-largest metropolitan area in the United States at 7.5 ...

, Texas, of the former Methodist and Evangelical United Brethren churches. *

– 30 –

: Columbia University protests of 1968 – Student protesters at

Columbia University Columbia University (also known as Columbia, and officially as Columbia University in the City of New York) is a private research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Church in Manhatt ...

in New York City take over administration buildings and shut down the university. * April 26 – The

nuclear weapon A nuclear weapon is an explosive device that derives its destructive force from nuclear reactions, either fission (fission bomb) or a combination of fission and fusion reactions ( thermonuclear bomb), producing a nuclear explosion. Both bom ...

"Boxcar" is tested at the Nevada Test Site in the biggest detonation of Operation Crosstie.

May–June

* May 2 – The

Israel Broadcasting Authority The Israel Broadcasting Authority (IBA; ) was Israel's public broadcaster from 1948 to 2017. History The Israel Broadcasting Authority was an outgrowth of the radio station ''Kol Yisrael'', which made its first broadcast as an independent st ...

commences television broadcasts. * May 3 –

Braniff Flight 352 Braniff International Airways Flight 352 was a scheduled domestic flight from William P. Hobby Airport in Houston, Texas, United States, to Dallas Love Field in Dallas; on May 3, 1968, a Lockheed L-188A Electra flying on the route, registration ...

crashes near

Dawson, Texas Dawson is a town in Navarro County, in the U.S. state of Texas. The population was 807 at the 2010 census. History The town was established in 1847 and was the second town established in the county. Geography Dawson is located at (31.895427 ...

, United States, killing all 85 people on board. *

May 13 Events Pre-1600 *1373 – Julian of Norwich has visions of Jesus while suffering from a life-threatening illness, visions which are later described and interpreted in her book '' Revelations of Divine Love''. * 1501 – Amerigo Vespu ...

– Paris student riots: One million march through the streets of Paris. *

–

Manchester City Manchester () is a city in Greater Manchester, England. It had a population of 552,000 in 2021. It is bordered by the Cheshire Plain to the south, the Pennines to the north and east, and the neighbouring city of Salford to the west. The tw ...

wins the

1967–68 Football League First Division In the 1967–68 Football League First Division season Manchester City won the First Division title for the second time in the club's history. They won the title on 11 May, with a 4–3 win at Newcastle United whilst the defending champions and th ...

by 2 clear points, over club rivals Manchester United *

May 16 Events Pre-1600 * 946 – Emperor Suzaku abdicates the throne in favor of his brother Murakami who becomes the 62nd emperor of Japan. *1204 – Baldwin IX, Count of Flanders is crowned as the first Emperor of the Latin Empire. * 1364 ...

–

Ronan Point Ronan Point was a 22-storey tower block in Canning Town in Newham, East London, that partly collapsed on 16 May 1968, only two months after it had opened. A gas explosion blew out some load-bearing walls, causing the collapse of one entire corn ...

, a 23 floor tower block in Canning Town, east London, partially collapses after a gas explosion, killing 5. * May 17 – The

Catonsville Nine The Catonsville Nine were nine Catholic activists who burned draft files to protest the Vietnam War. On May 17, 1968, they took 378 draft files from the draft board office in Catonsville, Maryland and burned them in the parking lot. List of the N ...

enter the Selective Service offices in

Catonsville, Maryland Catonsville is a census-designated place (CDP) in Baltimore County, Maryland, United States. The population was 41,567 at the 2010 census. The community lies to the west of Baltimore along the city's border. Catonsville contains the majority of th ...

, take dozens of selective service draft records, and burn them with

napalm Napalm is an incendiary mixture of a gelling agent and a volatile petrochemical (usually gasoline (petrol) or diesel fuel). The name is a portmanteau of two of the constituents of the original thickening and gelling agents: coprecipitated al ...

as a protest against the

. *

May 18 Events Pre-1600 * 332 – Emperor Constantine the Great announces free distributions of food to the citizens in Constantinople. * 872 – Louis II of Italy is crowned for the second time as Holy Roman Emperor at Rome, at the age of 4 ...

Mattel Mattel, Inc. ( ) is an American multinational toy manufacturing and entertainment company founded in January 1945 and headquartered in El Segundo, California. The company has presence in 35 countries and territories and sells products in more ...

's ''

Hot Wheels Hot Wheels is an American brand of scale model cars introduced by American toymaker Mattel in 1968. It was the primary competitor of Matchbox until 1997, when Mattel bought Tyco Toys, then owner of Matchbox. Many automobile manufacturers have ...

'' toy cars are introduced. **

West Bromwich Albion West Bromwich Albion Football Club () is an English professional football club based in West Bromwich, West Midlands, England. They compete in the EFL Championship, the second tier of English football. The club was formed in 1878 and has pla ...

win the Football Association Cup, defeating Everton 1–0 after extra time. The winning goal is scored by Jeff Astle. * May 19 ** A general election is held in Italy. ** Nigerian forces capture Port Harcourt and form a ring around the Biafrans. This contributes to a humanitarian disaster as the surrounded population already suffers from hunger and starvation. *

May 22 Events Pre-1600 * 192 – Dong Zhuo is assassinated by his adopted son Lü Bu. * 760 – Fourteenth recorded perihelion passage of Halley's Comet. * 853 – A Byzantine fleet sacks and destroys undefended Damietta in Egypt. * 11 ...

– The U.S. nuclear-powered

submarine A submarine (or sub) is a watercraft capable of independent operation underwater. It differs from a submersible, which has more limited underwater capability. The term is also sometimes used historically or colloquially to refer to remotely op ...

''Scorpion'' sinks with 99 men aboard, 400 miles southwest of the

Azores ) , motto =( en, "Rather die free than subjected in peace") , anthem= ( en, "Anthem of the Azores") , image_map=Locator_map_of_Azores_in_EU.svg , map_alt=Location of the Azores within the European Union , map_caption=Location of the Azores wi ...

. * May 29 –

Manchester United Manchester () is a city in Greater Manchester, England. It had a population of 552,000 in 2021. It is bordered by the Cheshire Plain to the south, the Pennines to the north and east, and the neighbouring city of City of Salford, Salford to ...

wins the European Cup Final, becoming the first English team to do so. *

May 30 Events Pre-1600 * 70 – Siege of Jerusalem: Titus and his Roman legions breach the Second Wall of Jerusalem. Jewish defenders retreat to the First Wall. The Romans build a circumvallation, cutting down all trees within fifteen kilometres ...

–

Bobby Unser Robert William Unser (February 20, 1934 – May 2, 2021) was an American automobile racer. At his induction into the Motorsports Hall of Fame of America in 1994, he had the fourth most IndyCar Series wins at 35 (behind his brother Al, A. J. Fo ...

wins the

Indianapolis 500 The Indianapolis 500, formally known as the Indianapolis 500-Mile Race, and commonly called the Indy 500, is an annual automobile race held at Indianapolis Motor Speedway (IMS) in Speedway, Indiana, United States, an enclave suburb of Indi ...

. * June 2 – Student demonstrations in Yugoslavia start in

Belgrade Belgrade ( , ;, ; Names of European cities in different languages: B, names in other languages) is the Capital city, capital and List of cities in Serbia, largest city in Serbia. It is located at the confluence of the Sava and Danube rivers a ...

. *

June 3 Events Pre-1600 * 350 – The Roman usurper Nepotianus, of the Constantinian dynasty, proclaims himself Roman emperor, entering Rome at the head of a group of gladiators. * 713 – The Byzantine Empire, Byzantine emperor Philippikos Ba ...

– Radical feminist Valerie Solanas shoots

Andy Warhol Andy Warhol (; born Andrew Warhola Jr.; August 6, 1928 – February 22, 1987) was an American visual artist, film director, and producer who was a leading figure in the visual art movement known as pop art. His works explore the relationsh ...

at his New York City studio,

The Factory The Factory was Andy Warhol's studio in New York City, which had four locations between 1963 and 1987. The Factory became famed for its parties in the 1960s. It was the hip hangout spot for artists, musicians, celebrities and Warhol's superstar ...

; he survives after a 5-hour operation. * June 4 – The Standard & Poor's 500 index in the United States closes above 100 for the first time, at 100.38. *

June 5 Events Pre-1600 *1257 – Kraków, in Poland, receives city rights. *1283 – Battle of the Gulf of Naples: Roger of Lauria, admiral to King Peter III of Aragon, destroys the Neapolitan fleet and captures Charles II of Naples, Charles ...

– Assassination of Robert F. Kennedy: U.S. presidential candidate

is shot at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles. Sirhan Sirhan is arrested. * June 7 – The Ford sewing machinists strike for equal pay starts at the Ford Dagenham plant in London. * June 10 –

Italy Italy ( it, Italia ), officially the Italian Republic, ) or the Republic of Italy, is a country in Southern Europe. It is located in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea, and its territory largely coincides with the homonymous geographical re ...

beats

Yugoslavia Yugoslavia (; sh-Latn-Cyrl, separator=" / ", Jugoslavija, Југославија ; sl, Jugoslavija ; mk, Југославија ;; rup, Iugoslavia; hu, Jugoszlávia; rue, label=Pannonian Rusyn, Югославия, translit=Juhoslavija ...

2–0 in a replay to win the 1968 European Championship. The original final on

June 8 Events Pre-1600 * 218 – Battle of Antioch: With the support of the Syrian legions, Elagabalus defeats the forces of emperor Macrinus. * 452 – Attila leads a Hun army in the invasion of Italy, devastating the northern provinces ...

ended 1–1. *

June 12 Events Pre-1600 * 910 – Battle of Augsburg: The Hungarians defeat the East Frankish army under King Louis the Child, using the famous feigned retreat tactic of the nomadic warriors. * 1240 – At the instigation of Louis IX of Fr ...

– The horror film '' Rosemary's Baby'' premieres in the U.S. *

June 17 Events Pre-1600 * 653 – Pope Martin I is arrested and taken to Constantinople, due to his opposition to monothelitism. * 1242 – Following the Disputation of Paris, twenty-four carriage loads of Jewish religious manuscripts were bur ...

– The Malayan Communist Party launches a second insurgency and the state of emergency is again imposed in

Malaysia Malaysia ( ; ) is a country in Southeast Asia. The federation, federal constitutional monarchy consists of States and federal territories of Malaysia, thirteen states and three federal territories, separated by the South China Sea into two r ...

. *

June 20 Events Pre-1600 * 451 – Battle of Chalons: Flavius Aetius' battles Attila the Hun. After the battle, which was inconclusive, Attila retreats, causing the Romans to interpret it as a victory. * 1180 – First Battle of Uji, starting ...

–

Austin Currie Joseph Austin Currie (11 October 1939 – 9 November 2021) was an Irish politician who served as a Minister of State for Justice with responsibility for Children's Rights from 1994 to 1997. He served as a Teachta Dála (TD) for the Dublin West ...

, Member of the Parliament of Northern Ireland, along with others, squats in a house in Caledon to protest discrimination in housing allocations. *

June 23 Events Pre-1600 * 229 – Sun Quan proclaims himself emperor of Eastern Wu. * 1266 – War of Saint Sabas: In the Battle of Trapani, the Venetians defeat a larger Genoese fleet, capturing all its ships. * 1280 – The Spanish Re ...

** Puerta 12 tragedy: A football stampede in

Buenos Aires Buenos Aires ( or ; ), officially the Autonomous City of Buenos Aires ( es, link=no, Ciudad Autónoma de Buenos Aires), is the capital and primate city of Argentina. The city is located on the western shore of the Río de la Plata, on South ...

leaves 74 dead and 150 injured. ** The first round of voting takes place in the French legislative elections scheduled following the public unrest of

May May is the fifth month of the year in the Julian and Gregorian calendars and is the third of seven months to have a length of 31 days. May is a month of spring in the Northern Hemisphere, and autumn in the Southern Hemisphere. Therefore, May ...

. * June 26 ** The

Bonin Islands The Bonin Islands, also known as the , are an archipelago of over 30 subtropical and tropical islands, some directly south of Tokyo, Japan and northwest of Guam. The name "Bonin Islands" comes from the Japanese word ''bunin'' (an archaic readi ...

are returned to Japan after 23 years of occupation by the United States Navy. ** The "

March of the One Hundred Thousand The March of the One Hundred Thousand ( pt, Passeata dos Cem Mil) was a manifestation of popular protest against the Military dictatorship in Brazil, which occurred on June 26, 1968 in Rio de Janeiro, organized by the student movement and with the p ...

" takes place in

Rio de Janeiro Rio de Janeiro ( , , ; literally 'River of January'), or simply Rio, is the capital of the state of the same name, Brazil's third-most populous state, and the second-most populous city in Brazil, after São Paulo. Listed by the GaWC as a b ...

as crowds demonstrate against the

Brazilian military government The military dictatorship in Brazil ( pt, ditadura militar) was established on 1 April 1964, after a coup d'état by the Brazilian Armed Forces, with support from the United States government, against President João Goulart. The Brazilian dicta ...

July–August

July 1 Events Pre-1600 * 69 – Tiberius Julius Alexander orders his Roman legions in Alexandria to swear allegiance to Vespasian as Emperor. * 552 – Battle of Taginae: Byzantine forces under Narses defeat the Ostrogoths in Italy, and the ...

– The Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty opens for signature. *

July 4 Events Pre-1600 * 362 BC – Battle of Mantinea: The Thebans, led by Epaminondas, defeated the Spartans. * 414 – Emperor Theodosius II, age 13, yields power to his older sister Aelia Pulcheria, who reigned as regent and proclaim ...

– British yachtsman

Alec Rose Sir Alec Rose (13 July 1908 – 11 January 1991) was a nursery owner and fruit merchant in England who, after serving in the Royal Navy during World War II, developed a passion for amateur single-handed sailing. He took part in the second single-h ...

, 59, receives a hero's welcome as he sails into

Portsmouth Portsmouth ( ) is a port and city in the ceremonial county of Hampshire in southern England. The city of Portsmouth has been a unitary authority since 1 April 1997 and is administered by Portsmouth City Council. Portsmouth is the most dens ...

, after his 354-day round-the-world trip. * July 17 –

Saddam Hussein Saddam Hussein ( ; ar, صدام حسين, Ṣaddām Ḥusayn; 28 April 1937 – 30 December 2006) was an Iraqi politician who served as the fifth president of Iraq from 16 July 1979 until 9 April 2003. A leading member of the revolution ...

becomes Vice Chairman of the Revolutionary Council in

Iraq Iraq,; ku, عێراق, translit=Êraq officially the Republic of Iraq, '; ku, کۆماری عێراق, translit=Komarî Êraq is a country in Western Asia. It is bordered by Turkey to Iraq–Turkey border, the north, Iran to Iran–Iraq ...

after a ''

coup d'état A coup d'état (; French for 'stroke of state'), also known as a coup or overthrow, is a seizure and removal of a government and its powers. Typically, it is an illegal seizure of power by a political faction, politician, cult, rebel group, m ...

''. *

July 18 Events Pre-1600 * 477 BC – Battle of the Cremera as part of the Roman–Etruscan Wars. Veii ambushes and defeats the Roman army. * 387 BC – Roman- Gaulish Wars: Battle of the Allia: A Roman army is defeated by raiding Gauls, l ...

– The semiconductor company

Intel Intel Corporation is an American multinational corporation and technology company headquartered in Santa Clara, California. It is the world's largest semiconductor chip manufacturer by revenue, and is one of the developers of the x86 seri ...

is founded. * July 20 – The first International Special Olympics Summer Games are held at

Soldier Field Soldier Field is a multi-purpose stadium on the Near South Side of Chicago, Illinois, United States. Opened in 1924 and reconstructed in 2003, the stadium has served as the home of the Chicago Bears of the National Football League (NFL) since 1 ...

in Chicago, Ill, with about 1,000 athletes with intellectual disabilities. * July 23– 28 – Black militants led by Fred (Ahmed) Evans engage in a fierce gunfight with police in the Glenville Shootout of

Cleveland, Ohio Cleveland ( ), officially the City of Cleveland, is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio and the county seat of Cuyahoga County. Located in the northeastern part of the state, it is situated along the southern shore of Lake Erie, across the U.S. ...

, in the United States. *

July 25 Events Pre-1600 * 306 – Constantine I is proclaimed Roman emperor by his troops. * 315 – The Arch of Constantine is completed near the Colosseum in Rome to commemorate Constantine I's victory over Maxentius at the Milvian Bridge. ...

–

Pope Paul VI Pope Paul VI ( la, Paulus VI; it, Paolo VI; born Giovanni Battista Enrico Antonio Maria Montini, ; 26 September 18976 August 1978) was head of the Catholic Church and sovereign of the Vatican City, Vatican City State from 21 June 1963 to his ...

publishes the

encyclical An encyclical was originally a circular letter sent to all the churches of a particular area in the ancient Roman Church. At that time, the word could be used for a letter sent out by any bishop. The word comes from the Late Latin (originally from ...

entitled ''

Humanae vitae ''Humanae vitae'' (Latin: ''Of Human Life'') is an encyclical written by Pope Paul VI and dated 25 July 1968. The text was issued at a Vatican press conference on 29 July. Subtitled ''On the Regulation of Birth'', it re-affirmed the teaching of ...

'', on

birth control Birth control, also known as contraception, anticonception, and fertility control, is the use of methods or devices to prevent unwanted pregnancy. Birth control has been used since ancient times, but effective and safe methods of birth contr ...

. *

July 26 Events Pre-1600 * 657 – First Fitna: In the Battle of Siffin, troops led by Ali ibn Abu Talib clash with those led by Muawiyah I. * 811 – Battle of Pliska: Byzantine Emperor Nikephoros I is killed and his heir Staurakios is seri ...

– Vietnam War:

ese opposition leader

Trương Đình Dzu Trương Đình Dzu (10 November 1917 – ) was a South Vietnamese lawyer and politician who unsuccessfully ran as a candidate for the presidency in the 1967 elections against Nguyễn Văn Thiệu and his running mate Nguyễn Cao Kỳ, who ...

is sentenced to 5 years hard labor, for advocating the formation of a

coalition government A coalition government is a form of government in which political parties cooperate to form a government. The usual reason for such an arrangement is that no single party has achieved an absolute majority after an election, an atypical outcome in ...

as a way to move toward an end to the war. * July 29 – Arenal Volcano erupts in

Costa Rica Costa Rica (, ; ; literally "Rich Coast"), officially the Republic of Costa Rica ( es, República de Costa Rica), is a country in the Central American region of North America, bordered by Nicaragua to the north, the Caribbean Sea to the no ...

for the first time in centuries. * August 1 – The

Municipal University of São Caetano do Sul Municipal University of São Caetano do Sul (Portuguese: ''Universidade Municipal de São Caetano do Sul'', USCS) is a university in São Caetano do Sul, Brazil. History The institution was first known as ''Faculdade Municipal de Ciências Econ ...

is established in

São Caetano do Sul São Caetano do Sul (or São Caetano) ('' Saint Cajetan of the South''. ) is a city in São Paulo state in Brazil. It is part of the Metropolitan Region of São Paulo. The population is 161,957 (2020 est.) in an area of 15.33 km2. It is the ci ...

São Paulo São Paulo (, ; Portuguese for 'Saint Paul') is the most populous city in Brazil, and is the capital of the state of São Paulo, the most populous and wealthiest Brazilian state, located in the country's Southeast Region. Listed by the GaWC a ...

. *

August 2 Events Pre-1600 *338 BC – A Macedonian army led by Philip II defeated the combined forces of Athens and Thebes in the Battle of Chaeronea, securing Macedonian hegemony in Greece and the Aegean. *216 BC – The Carthaginian arm ...

– The magnitude () 7.6 Casiguran earthquake affects the

Aurora province Aurora, officially the Province of Aurora ( fil, Lalawigan ng Aurora; ilo, Probinsia ti Aurora), is a province in the Philippines located in the eastern part of Central Luzon region, facing the Philippine Sea. Its capital is Baler and borders, cl ...

in the Philippines with a maximum Mercalli intensity of IX (''Violent''), killing at least 207 and injuring 261. *

August 5 Events Pre-1600 *AD 25 – Guangwu claims the throne as Emperor of China, restoring the Han dynasty after the collapse of the short-lived Xin dynasty. * 70 – Fires resulting from the destruction of the Second Temple in Jerusalem are ...

– 8 – The

Republican National Convention The Republican National Convention (RNC) is a series of presidential nominating conventions held every four years since 1856 by the United States Republican Party. They are administered by the Republican National Committee. The goal of the Repu ...

Miami Beach, Florida Miami Beach is a coastal resort city in Miami-Dade County, Florida. It was incorporated on March 26, 1915. The municipality is located on natural and artificial island, man-made barrier islands between the Atlantic Ocean and Biscayne Bay, the ...

nominates

Richard Nixon Richard Milhous Nixon (January 9, 1913April 22, 1994) was the 37th president of the United States, serving from 1969 to 1974. A member of the Republican Party, he previously served as a representative and senator from California and was ...

for U.S. president and Spiro Agnew for vice president. *

August 11 Events Pre-1600 * 3114 BC – The Mesoamerican Long Count calendar, used by several pre-Columbian Mesoamerican civilizations, notably the Maya, begins. * 2492 BC – Traditional date of the defeat of Bel by Hayk, progenitor and founde ...

– The last steam passenger train service runs in Britain. A selection of

British Railways British Railways (BR), which from 1965 traded as British Rail, was a state-owned company that operated most of the overground rail transport in Great Britain from 1948 to 1997. It was formed from the nationalisation of the Big Four British rai ...

steam

locomotive A locomotive or engine is a rail transport vehicle that provides the Power (physics), motive power for a train. If a locomotive is capable of carrying a payload, it is usually rather referred to as a multiple unit, Motor coach (rail), motor ...

s make the 120-mile journey from

Liverpool Liverpool is a city and metropolitan borough in Merseyside, England. With a population of in 2019, it is the 10th largest English district by population and its metropolitan area is the fifth largest in the United Kingdom, with a popul ...

Carlisle Carlisle ( , ; from xcb, Caer Luel) is a city that lies within the Northern England, Northern English county of Cumbria, south of the Anglo-Scottish border, Scottish border at the confluence of the rivers River Eden, Cumbria, Eden, River C ...

and return to Liverpool – the journey is known as the

Fifteen Guinea Special The ''Fifteen Guinea Special'' was the last main-line passenger train to be hauled by steam locomotive power on British Rail on 11 August 1968 before the introduction of a steam ban that started the following day, the extra day added to allow fo ...

. * August 18 – Two charter buses are forced into the

Hida River The has its source in Mount Norikura (乗鞍岳 ''Norikura-ga-take'') in Takayama, Gifu Prefecture, Japan. It flows from the northern to the southern section of the prefecture before emptying into the Kiso River in Minokamo. River communit ...

on National Highway Route 41 in Japan in an accident caused by heavy rain; 104 are killed. * August 20– 21 –

Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia The Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia refers to the events of 20–21 August 1968, when the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic was jointly invaded by four Warsaw Pact countries: the Soviet Union, the Polish People's Republic, the People's Rep ...

: The '

' of political liberalization ends, as 750,000

Warsaw Pact The Warsaw Pact (WP) or Treaty of Warsaw, formally the Treaty of Friendship, Cooperation and Mutual Assistance, was a collective defense treaty signed in Warsaw, Poland, between the Soviet Union and seven other Eastern Bloc socialist republic ...

troops and 6,500

tank A tank is an armoured fighting vehicle intended as a primary offensive weapon in front-line ground combat. Tank designs are a balance of heavy firepower, strong armour, and good battlefield mobility provided by tracks and a powerful engin ...

s with 800 aircraft invade

Czechoslovakia , rue, Чеськословеньско, , yi, טשעכאסלאוואקיי, , common_name = Czechoslovakia , life_span = 1918–19391945–1992 , p1 = Austria-Hungary , image_p1 ...

, the largest military operation in Europe since the end of World War II. *

August 24 Events Pre-1600 * 367 – Gratian, son of Roman Emperor Valentinian I, is named co-Augustus at the age of eight by his father. * 394 – The Graffito of Esmet-Akhom, the latest known inscription in Egyptian hieroglyphs, is written. ...

–

Canopus (nuclear test) ''Canopus'' (or ''Opération Canopus'') was the codename of the first French two-stage thermonuclear test. It was conducted by the Pacific Carrier Battle Group (nicknamed ''Alfa Force'') on 24 August 1968, at the Pacific Experiments Centre near ...

: France explodes its first

hydrogen bomb A thermonuclear weapon, fusion weapon or hydrogen bomb (H bomb) is a second-generation nuclear weapon design. Its greater sophistication affords it vastly greater destructive power than first-generation nuclear bombs, a more compact size, a lowe ...

in a test at

Fangataufa Fangataufa (or Fangatafoa) is an uninhabited coral atoll in the eastern part of the Tuamotu Archipelago in French Polynesia. The atoll has been fully-owned by the French state since 1964. From 1966 to 1996 it was used as a nuclear test site by th ...

atoll in

French Polynesia )Territorial motto: ( en, "Great Tahiti of the Golden Haze") , anthem = , song_type = Regional anthem , song = " Ia Ora 'O Tahiti Nui" , image_map = French Polynesia on the globe (French Polynesia centered).svg , map_alt = Location of Frenc ...

. * August 22– 30 – Police clash with anti-war protesters in

Chicago (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name ...

outside the

1968 Democratic National Convention The 1968 Democratic National Convention was held August 26–29 at the International Amphitheatre in Chicago, Illinois, United States. Earlier that year incumbent President Lyndon B. Johnson had announced he would not seek reelection, thus making ...

, which nominates

Hubert Humphrey Hubert Horatio Humphrey Jr. (May 27, 1911 – January 13, 1978) was an American pharmacist and politician who served as the 38th vice president of the United States from 1965 to 1969. He twice served in the United States Senate, representing Mi ...

for U.S. president and

Edmund Muskie Edmund Sixtus Muskie (March 28, 1914March 26, 1996) was an American statesman and political leader who served as the 58th United States Secretary of State under President Jimmy Carter, a United States Senator from Maine from 1959 to 1980, the 6 ...

for vice president. The riots and subsequent trials are an essential part of the activism of the Youth International Party. * August 29 – Crown Prince Harald of Norway marries

Sonja Haraldsen Sonja (born Sonja Haraldsen on 4 July 1937) is Queen of Norway since 17 January 1991 as the wife of King Harald V. Sonja and the then Crown Prince Harald had dated for nine years prior to their marriage in 1968. They had kept their relations ...

, the commoner he has dated for 9 years.

September–October

* September 6 – Swaziland (now eSwatini) becomes independent. *

September 7 Events Pre-1600 * 70 – A Roman army under Titus occupies and plunders Jerusalem. * 878 – Louis the Stammerer is crowned as king of West Francia by Pope John VIII. *1159 – Pope Alexander III is chosen. *1191 – Third Cru ...

**The crash of

Air France Flight 1611 __NOTOC__ Air France Flight 1611 (AF1611) was a Sud Aviation SE-210 Caravelle III en route from Ajaccio, in the island of Corsica, to Nice, France, on 11 September 1968 when it crashed into the Mediterranean Sea off Nice, killing all 95 on ...

kills 95 people, including French Army General

René Cogny René Cogny (25 April 1904, Saint-Valery-en-Caux – 11 September 1968) was a French Général de corps d'armée, World War II and French Resistance veteran and survivor of Buchenwald concentration camp, Buchenwald and Mauthausen-Gusen concentratio ...

, as the Caravelle jetliner plunges into the

Mediterranean The Mediterranean Sea is a sea connected to the Atlantic Ocean, surrounded by the Mediterranean Basin and almost completely enclosed by land: on the north by Western and Southern Europe and Anatolia, on the south by North Africa, and on the e ...

Sea while making its approach to

Nice Nice ( , ; Niçard: , classical norm, or , nonstandard, ; it, Nizza ; lij, Nissa; grc, Νίκαια; la, Nicaea) is the prefecture of the Alpes-Maritimes department in France. The Nice agglomeration extends far beyond the administrative c ...

following its departure from the island of

Corsica Corsica ( , Upper , Southern ; it, Corsica; ; french: Corse ; lij, Còrsega; sc, Còssiga) is an island in the Mediterranean Sea and one of the 18 regions of France. It is the fourth-largest island in the Mediterranean and lies southeast of ...

. * The International Association of Classification Societies (IACS) is founded. * September 13 **

Albania Albania ( ; sq, Shqipëri or ), or , also or . officially the Republic of Albania ( sq, Republika e Shqipërisë), is a country in Southeastern Europe. It is located on the Adriatic and Ionian Seas within the Mediterranean Sea and shares ...

officially withdraws from the Warsaw Pact upon the Soviet Union-led

, having already ceased to participate actively in Pact activity since 1962. *

September 17 Events Pre-1600 * 1111 – Highest Galician nobility led by Pedro Fróilaz de Traba and the bishop Diego Gelmírez crown Alfonso VII as "King of Galicia". * 1176 – The Battle of Myriokephalon is the last attempt by the Byzantine Empi ...

– The D'Oliveira affair: The

Marylebone Cricket Club Marylebone Cricket Club (MCC) is a cricket club founded in 1787 and based since 1814 at Lord's Cricket Ground, which it owns, in St John's Wood, London. The club was formerly the governing body of cricket retaining considerable global influence ...

tour of South Africa is cancelled when the South Africans refuse to accept the presence of Basil D'Oliveira, a

Cape Coloured Cape Coloureds () are a South African ethnic group consisted primarily of persons of mixed race and Khoisan descent. Although Coloureds form a minority group within South Africa, they are the predominant population group in the Western Cape. ...

, in the side. *

September 21 Events Pre-1600 * 455 – Emperor Avitus enters Rome with a Gallic army and consolidates his power. * 1170 – The Kingdom of Dublin falls to Norman invaders. * 1217 – Livonian Crusade: The Estonian leader Lembitu and Livonian ...

– The Soviet's Zond 5 uncrewed lunar flyby mission returns to earth, with its first-of-a-kind biological payload intact. *

September 23 Events Pre-1600 * 38 – Drusilla, Caligula's sister who died in June, with whom the emperor is said to have an incestuous relationship, is deified. * 1122 – Pope Callixtus II and Holy Roman Emperor Henry V agree to the Concordat ...

–

: The

comes to an end in

. * September 27 – Marcelo Caetano becomes

prime minister A prime minister, premier or chief of cabinet is the head of the cabinet and the leader of the ministers in the executive branch of government, often in a parliamentary or semi-presidential system. Under those systems, a prime minister is not ...

of Portugal. * September 29 – A

referendum A referendum (plural: referendums or less commonly referenda) is a direct vote by the electorate on a proposal, law, or political issue. This is in contrast to an issue being voted on by a representative. This may result in the adoption of a ...

in Greece gives more power to the military junta. *

October 2 Events Pre-1600 * 829 – Theophilos succeeds his father Michael II as Byzantine Emperor. * 939 – Battle of Andernach: Otto I, Holy Roman Emperor, crushes a rebellion against his rule, by a coalition of Eberhard of Franconia and ot ...

– Tlatelolco massacre: A student demonstration ends in bloodbath at La Plaza de las Tres Culturas in Tlatelolco, Mexico City, Mexico, 10 days before the inauguration of the

1968 Summer Olympics The 1968 Summer Olympics ( es, Juegos Olímpicos de Verano de 1968), officially known as the Games of the XIX Olympiad ( es, Juegos de la XIX Olimpiada) and commonly known as Mexico 1968 ( es, México 1968), were an international multi-sport eve ...

. 300-400 are estimated to have been killed. * October 3 – In

Peru , image_flag = Flag of Peru.svg , image_coat = Escudo nacional del Perú.svg , other_symbol = Great Seal of the State , other_symbol_type = Seal (emblem), National seal , national_motto = "Fi ...

Juan Velasco Alvarado Juan Francisco Velasco Alvarado (June 16, 1910 – December 24, 1977) was a Peruvian general who served as the President of Peru after a successful coup d'état against Fernando Belaúnde's presidency in 1968. Under his presidency, nationalism ...

takes power in a revolution. *

October 8 Events Pre-1600 * 314 – Constantine I defeats Roman Emperor Licinius, who loses his European territories. * 451 – The first session of the Council of Chalcedon begins. * 876 – Frankish forces led by Louis the Younger preven ...

–

Operation Sealords Operation Sealords was a military operation that took place during the Vietnam War. SEALORDS acronym SEALORDS is an acronym for Southeast Asia Lake, Ocean, River, and Delta Strategy. It was a joint operation between United States and South Vi ...

: United States and

ese forces launch a new operation in the

Mekong Delta The Mekong Delta ( vi, Đồng bằng Sông Cửu Long, lit=Nine Dragon River Delta or simply vi, Đồng Bằng Sông Mê Kông, lit=Mekong River Delta, label=none), also known as the Western Region ( vi, Miền Tây, links=no) or South-weste ...

. * October 11 ** Apollo program:

NASA The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA ) is an independent agency of the US federal government responsible for the civil space program, aeronautics research, and space research. NASA was established in 1958, succeeding t ...

launches ''

Apollo 7 Apollo 7 (October 1122, 1968) was the first crewed flight in NASA's Apollo program, and saw the resumption of human spaceflight by the agency after the fire that killed the three Apollo 1 astronauts during a launch rehearsal test on Ja ...

'', the first crewed Apollo mission ( Wally Schirra,

Donn Eisele Donn Fulton Eisele (June 23, 1930 – December 1, 1987) (Colonel (United States), Colonel United States Air Force, USAF) was a United States Air Force, United States Air Force officer, test pilot, and later a List of astronauts by selection ...

Walter Cunningham Ronnie Walter Cunningham (born March 16, 1932) is a retired American astronaut. In 1968, he was a lunar module pilot on the Apollo 7 mission. He was NASA's third civilian astronaut (after Neil Armstrong and Elliot See), and has also been a figh ...

). Mission goals include the first live

television Television, sometimes shortened to TV, is a telecommunication medium for transmitting moving images and sound. The term can refer to a television set, or the medium of television transmission. Television is a mass medium for advertisin ...

broadcast from

orbit In celestial mechanics, an orbit is the curved trajectory of an object such as the trajectory of a planet around a star, or of a natural satellite around a planet, or of an artificial satellite around an object or position in space such as a p ...

and simulating

lunar module The Apollo Lunar Module (LM ), originally designated the Lunar Excursion Module (LEM), was the lunar lander spacecraft that was flown between lunar orbit and the Moon's surface during the United States' Apollo program. It was the first crewed ...

rendezvous and docking, using the S-IVB rocket stage as a test target. ** In

Panama Panama ( , ; es, link=no, Panamá ), officially the Republic of Panama ( es, República de Panamá), is a transcontinental country spanning the southern part of North America and the northern part of South America. It is bordered by Cos ...

, a military ''coup d'état'', led by Col. Boris Martinez and Col. Omar Torrijos, overthrows the democratically elected (but highly controversial) government of President

Arnulfo Arias Arnulfo Arias Madrid (15 August 1901 – 10 August 1988) was a Panamanian politician, medical doctor, and writer who served as the President of Panama from 1940 to 1941, again from 1949 to 1951, and finally for 11 days in October 1968. Throu ...

. Within a year, Torrijos ousts Martinez and takes charge as de facto

Head of Government The head of government is the highest or the second-highest official in the executive branch of a sovereign state, a federated state, or a self-governing colony, autonomous region, or other government who often presides over a cabinet, a gro ...

in Panama. * October 12– 27 – The

Games of the XIX Olympiad The 1968 Summer Olympics ( es, Juegos Olímpicos de Verano de 1968), officially known as the Games of the XIX Olympiad ( es, Juegos de la XIX Olimpiada) and commonly known as Mexico 1968 ( es, México 1968), were an international multi-sport eve ...

are held in Mexico City, Mexico. * October 12 –

Equatorial Guinea Equatorial Guinea ( es, Guinea Ecuatorial; french: Guinée équatoriale; pt, Guiné Equatorial), officially the Republic of Equatorial Guinea ( es, link=no, República de Guinea Ecuatorial, french: link=no, République de Guinée équatoria ...

receives its independence from Spain. *

October 14 Events Pre-1600 *1066 – The Norman conquest of England begins with the Battle of Hastings. * 1322 – Robert the Bruce of Scotland defeats King Edward II of England at the Battle of Old Byland, forcing Edward to accept Scotland's i ...

: The

United States Department of Defense The United States Department of Defense (DoD, USDOD or DOD) is an executive branch department of the federal government charged with coordinating and supervising all agencies and functions of the government directly related to national secu ...

announces that the

United States Army The United States Army (USA) is the land service branch of the United States Armed Forces. It is one of the eight U.S. uniformed services, and is designated as the Army of the United States in the U.S. Constitution.Article II, section 2, cla ...

and United States Marines will send about 24,000 troops back to

for involuntary second tours. * October 16 ** In Mexico City, African-American athletes

Tommie Smith Tommie C. Smith (born June 6, 1944) is an American former track and field, track and field athlete and former wide receiver in the American Football League. At the 1968 Summer Olympics, Smith, aged 24, won the 200-meter sprint finals and gold me ...

and

John Carlos John Wesley Carlos (born June 5, 1945) is an American former track and field athlete and professional American football player. He was the bronze-medal winner in the 200 meters at the 1968 Summer Olympics, where he displayed the Black Power sal ...

raise their fists in a

black power salute During their medal ceremony in the Olympic Stadium in Mexico City on October 16, 1968, two African-American athletes, Tommie Smith and John Carlos, each raised a black-gloved fist during the playing of the US national anthem, "The Star-Spangled ...

after winning, respectively, the gold and bronze medals in the Olympic men's 200 metres. **

Kingston, Jamaica Kingston is the capital and largest city of Jamaica, located on the southeastern coast of the island. It faces a natural harbour protected by the Palisadoes, a long sand spit which connects the town of Port Royal and the Norman Manley Inter ...

is rocked by the Rodney Riots, provoked by the banning of Walter Rodney from the country. *

October 18 Events Pre-1600 * 33 – Heartbroken by the deaths of her sons Nero and Drusus, and banished to the island of Pandateria by Tiberius, Agrippina the Elder dies of self-inflicted starvation. * 320 – Pappus of Alexandria, Greek philos ...

– US athlete Bob Beamon breaks the long jump world record by 55 cm / 21 ins at the

Olympics The modern Olympic Games or Olympics (french: link=no, Jeux olympiques) are the leading international sporting events featuring summer and winter sports competitions in which thousands of athletes from around the world participate in a var ...

Mexico City Mexico City ( es, link=no, Ciudad de México, ; abbr.: CDMX; Nahuatl: ''Altepetl Mexico'') is the capital and largest city of Mexico, and the most populous city in North America. One of the world's alpha cities, it is located in the Valley o ...

. His record stands for 23 years, and is still the second longest jump in history. *

October 25 Events Pre-1600 * 285 (or 286) – Execution of Saints Crispin and Crispinian during the reign of Diocletian, now the patron saints of leather workers, curriers, and shoemakers. * 473 – Emperor Leo I acclaims his grandson Leo II a ...

–

Led Zeppelin Led Zeppelin were an English rock band formed in London in 1968. The group comprised vocalist Robert Plant, guitarist Jimmy Page, bassist/keyboardist John Paul Jones, and drummer John Bonham. With a heavy, guitar-driven sound, they are ci ...

make their first live performance, at

Surrey University The University of Surrey is a public research university in Guildford, Surrey, England. The university received its royal charter in 1966, along with a number of other institutions following recommendations in the Robbins Report. The instituti ...

in England * October 31 –

: 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 Events Pre-1600 * 365 – The Alemanni cross the Rhine and invade Gaul. Emperor Valentinian I moves to Paris to command the army and defend the Gallic cities. * 996 – Emperor Otto III issues a deed to Gottschalk, Bishop of Freising, ...

November–December

November 5 Events Pre-1600 * 1138 – Lý Anh Tông is enthroned as emperor of Vietnam at the age of two, beginning a 37-year reign. * 1499 – The '' Catholicon'', written in 1464 by Jehan Lagadeuc in Tréguier, is published; this is the first Br ...

1968 United States presidential election The 1968 United States presidential election was the 46th quadrennial presidential election, held on Tuesday, November 5, 1968. The Republican nominee, former vice president Richard Nixon, defeated the Democratic nominee, incumbent vice presiden ...

: Republican candidate

defeats the Democratic candidate, Vice President

, and American Independent Party candidate

George Wallace George Corley Wallace Jr. (August 25, 1919 – September 13, 1998) was an American politician who served as the 45th governor of Alabama for four terms. A member of the Democratic Party, he is best remembered for his staunch segregationist and ...

. **

Luis A. Ferré Don Luis Alberto Ferré Aguayo (February 17, 1904 October 20, 2003) was a Puerto Rican engineer, industrialist, politician, philanthropist, and a patron of the arts. He was the governor of Puerto Rico from 1969 to 1973. He was the founder of the ...

, of the newly formed New Progressive Party is elected

Governor of Puerto Rico The governor of Puerto Rico ( es, gobernador de Puerto Rico) is the head of government of the Commonwealth (U.S. insular area), Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, and commander-in-chief of the Puerto Rico National Guard. The governor has a duty ...

, by beating incumbent governor Roberto Sánchez Vilella of the People's Party,

Luis Negrón López Luis Negrón López (April 19, 1909 - September 18, 1991) was a politician from Puerto Rico. Negrón was among the founding members of the Popular Democratic Party ''(PPD)'' and served as Senator and as candidate for Governor of Puerto Rico in ...

of the Popular Democratic Party and Antonio J. Gonzalez of the Puerto Rican Independence Party, he also becomes the first "statehooder" governor of the Island. *

November 11 Events Pre-1600 * 308 – At Carnuntum, Emperor ''emeritus'' Diocletian confers with Galerius, ''Augustus'' of the East, and Maximianus, the recently returned former ''Augustus'' of the West, in an attempt to end the civil wars of the T ...

– A second

republic A republic () is a "state in which power rests with the people or their representatives; specifically a state without a monarchy" and also a "government, or system of government, of such a state." Previously, especially in the 17th and 18th c ...

is declared in the

Maldives Maldives (, ; dv, ދިވެހިރާއްޖެ, translit=Dhivehi Raajje, ), officially the Republic of Maldives ( dv, ދިވެހިރާއްޖޭގެ ޖުމްހޫރިއްޔާ, translit=Dhivehi Raajjeyge Jumhooriyyaa, label=none, ), is an archipelag ...

. *

November 15 Events Pre-1600 * 655 – Battle of the Winwaed: Penda of Mercia is defeated by Oswiu of Northumbria. *1315 – Growth of the Old Swiss Confederacy: The Schweizer Eidgenossenschaft ambushes the army of Leopold I in the Battle of Morg ...

–

: Operation Commando Hunt is initiated to interdict men and supplies on the Ho Chi Minh trail, through

Laos Laos (, ''Lāo'' )), officially the Lao People's Democratic Republic ( Lao: ສາທາລະນະລັດ ປະຊາທິປະໄຕ ປະຊາຊົນລາວ, French: République démocratique populaire lao), is a socialist ...

into

. By the end of the operation, 3 million tons of bombs are dropped on Laos, slowing but not seriously disrupting trail operations. *

November 17 Events Pre-1600 * 887 – Emperor Charles the Fat is deposed by the Frankish magnates in an assembly at Frankfurt, leading his nephew, Arnulf of Carinthia, to declare himself king of the East Frankish Kingdom in late November. *1183 &n ...

** British European Airways introduces the

BAC One-Eleven The BAC One-Eleven (or BAC-111/BAC 1-11) was an early jet airliner produced by the British Aircraft Corporation (BAC). Originally conceived by Hunting Aircraft as a 30-seat jet, before its merger into BAC in 1960, it was launched as an 80-se ...

into commercial service. ** The Heidi Game: NBC cuts off the final 1:05 of an

Oakland Raiders The Oakland Raiders were a professional American football team that played in Oakland from its founding in 1960 to 1981 and again from 1995 to 2019 before relocating to the Las Vegas metropolitan area where they now play as the Las Vegas Raide ...

–

New York Jets The New York Jets are a professional American football team based in the New York metropolitan area. The Jets compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member club of the league's American Football Conference (AFC) East division. The J ...

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 19 Events Pre-1600 * 461 – Libius Severus is declared emperor of the Western Roman Empire. The real power is in the hands of the ''magister militum'' Ricimer. * 636 – The Rashidun Caliphate defeats the Sasanian Empire at the Battle o ...

– In

Mali Mali (; ), officially the Republic of Mali,, , ff, 𞤈𞤫𞤲𞥆𞤣𞤢𞥄𞤲𞤣𞤭 𞤃𞤢𞥄𞤤𞤭, Renndaandi Maali, italics=no, ar, جمهورية مالي, Jumhūriyyāt Mālī is a landlocked country in West Africa. Mali ...

, President Modibo Keïta's regime is overthrown in a bloodless military coup led by

Moussa Traoré Moussa Traoré (25 September 1936 – 15 September 2020) was a Malian soldier, politician, and dictator who was President of Mali from 1968 to 1991. As a Lieutenant, he led the military ousting of President Modibo Keïta in 1968. Thereafter he ...

. *

November 20 Events Pre-1600 * 284 – Diocletian is chosen as Roman emperor. * 762 – During the An Shi Rebellion, the Tang dynasty, with the help of Huihe tribe, recaptures Luoyang from the rebels. *1194 – Palermo is conquered by Henry ...

– The

Farmington Mine disaster The Farmington Mine disaster was an explosion that happened at approximately 5:30 a.m. on November 20, 1968, at the Consol No. 9 coal mine north of Farmington and Mannington, West Virginia, United States. The explosion was large enough to be ...

in Farmington, West Virginia, kills seventy-eight men. * November 24 – 4 men

hijack Hijack may refer to: Films * ''Hijack'' (1973 film), an American made-for-television film * ''Hijack!'', a 1975 British film sponsored by the Children's Film Foundation - see Children's Film Foundation filmography * ''Hijack'' (2008 film), a Bol ...

Pan Am Flight 281 Pan Am Flight 281 was a regularly scheduled Pan American World Airways flight to San Juan, Puerto Rico. It was hijacked on November 24, 1968, by four men from JFK International Airport, New York City to Havana, Cuba. U.S. jet fighter aircraft ...

from

JFK International Airport John F. Kennedy International Airport (colloquially referred to as JFK Airport, Kennedy Airport, New York-JFK, or simply JFK) is the main international airport serving New York City. The airport is the busiest of the seven airports in the New ...

, New York to

Havana Havana (; Spanish: ''La Habana'' ) is the capital and largest city of Cuba. The heart of the La Habana Province, Havana is the country's main port and commercial center.

Cuba Cuba ( , ), officially the Republic of Cuba ( es, República de Cuba, links=no ), is an island country comprising the island of Cuba, as well as Isla de la Juventud and several minor archipelagos. Cuba is located where the northern Caribbea ...

. * December 9 –

Douglas Engelbart Douglas Carl Engelbart (January 30, 1925 – July 2, 2013) was an American engineer and inventor, and an early computer and Internet pioneer. He is best known for his work on founding the field of human–computer interaction, particularly ...

publicly demonstrates his pioneering

hypertext Hypertext is E-text, text displayed on a computer display or other electronic devices with references (hyperlinks) to other text that the reader can immediately access. Hypertext documents are interconnected by hyperlinks, which are typi ...

system, NLS, in

San Francisco San Francisco (; Spanish language, Spanish for "Francis of Assisi, Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the List of Ca ...

, together with the

computer mouse A computer mouse (plural mice, sometimes mouses) is a hand-held pointing device that detects two-dimensional motion relative to a surface. This motion is typically translated into the motion of a pointer on a display, which allows a smooth c ...

, at what becomes retrospectively known as "

The Mother of All Demos "The Mother of All Demos" is a name retroactively applied to a landmark computer demonstration, given at the Association for Computing Machinery / Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (ACM/IEEE)—Computer Society's Fall Joint Compu ...

". * December 10 – Japan's biggest heist, the never-solved "

300 million yen robbery , also known as the 300 million yen affair or incident, was a robbery that occurred on December 10, 1968 in Tokyo, Japan. A man posing as a police officer on a motorcycle stopped bank employees transferring money and stole 294 million yen. It is ...

", occurs in Tokyo. * December 11 ** The film ''

Oliver! ''Oliver!'' is a coming-of-age stage musical, with book, music and lyrics by Lionel Bart. The musical is based upon the 1838 novel '' Oliver Twist'' by Charles Dickens. It premiered at the Wimbledon Theatre, southwest London in 1960 before op ...

'' based on the hit London and Broadway musical, opens in the U.S. after being released first in the UK. It goes on to win the

Academy Award The Academy Awards, better known as the Oscars, are awards for artistic and technical merit for the American and international film industry. The awards are regarded by many as the most prestigious, significant awards in the entertainment ind ...

for Best Picture. * December 13 – Prompted by growing unrest and a perceived proliferation of "pro-communist" violent actions,

ian

president President most commonly refers to: *President (corporate title) *President (education), a leader of a college or university *President (government title) President may also refer to: Automobiles * Nissan President, a 1966–2010 Japanese ful ...

Artur da Costa e Silva enacts the so-called AI-5, the fifth of a series of non-constitutional emergency decrees allegedly to help "stabilize" the country after the turmoils of the early 1960s. * December 22 –

Mao Zedong Mao Zedong pronounced ; also romanised traditionally as Mao Tse-tung. (26 December 1893 – 9 September 1976), also known as Chairman Mao, was a Chinese communist revolutionary who was the founder of the People's Republic of China (PRC) ...

advocates that educated urban youth in China be sent for re-education in the

countryside In general, a rural area or a countryside is a geographic area that is located outside towns and cities A city is a human settlement of notable size.Goodall, B. (1987) ''The Penguin Dictionary of Human Geography''. London: Penguin.Kuper, ...

. It marks the start of the "Up to the mountains and down to the villages" movement. *

December 24 Events Pre-1600 * 502 – Chinese emperor Xiao Yan names Xiao Tong his heir designate. * 640 – Pope John IV is elected, several months after his predecessor's death. * 759 – Tang dynasty poet Du Fu departs for Chengdu, whe ...

– Apollo program: The crewed U.S. spacecraft

Apollo 8 Apollo 8 (December 21–27, 1968) was the first crewed spacecraft to leave low Earth orbit and the first human spaceflight to reach the Moon. The crew orbited the Moon ten times without landing, and then departed safely back to Earth. These ...

enters orbit around the

Moon The Moon is Earth's only natural satellite. It is the fifth largest satellite in the Solar System and the largest and most massive relative to its parent planet, with a diameter about one-quarter that of Earth (comparable to the width of ...

. Astronauts Frank Borman, Jim Lovell and William Anders become the first humans to see the

far side ''The Far Side'' is a single-panel comic created by Gary Larson and syndicated by Chronicle Features and then Universal Press Syndicate, which ran from December 31, 1979, to January 1, 1995 (when Larson retired as a cartoonist). Its surrealis ...

of the

and planet

Earth Earth is the third planet from the Sun and the only astronomical object known to harbor life. While large volumes of water can be found throughout the Solar System, only Earth sustains liquid surface water. About 71% of Earth's surfa ...

as a whole, as well as having traveled further away from Earth than any people in history. Anders photographs ''

Earthrise ''Earthrise'' is a photograph of Earth and some of the Moon's surface that was taken from lunar orbit by astronaut William Anders on December 24, 1968, during the Apollo 8 mission. Nature photographer Galen Rowell described it as "the most infl ...

''. The crew also give a reading from the Book of Genesis. * December 28 – Israeli forces fly into Lebanese airspace, launching an attack on the airport in

Beirut Beirut, french: Beyrouth is the capital and largest city of Lebanon. , Greater Beirut has a population of 2.5 million, which makes it the third-largest city in the Levant region. The city is situated on a peninsula at the midpoint o ...

and destroying more than a dozen aircraft.

Dates unknown

* The

Khmer Rouge The Khmer Rouge (; ; km, ខ្មែរក្រហម, ; ) is the name that was popularly given to members of the Communist Party of Kampuchea (CPK) and by extension to the regime through which the CPK ruled Cambodia between 1975 and 1979. ...

is officially formed in

Cambodia Cambodia (; also Kampuchea ; km, កម្ពុជា, UNGEGN: ), officially the Kingdom of Cambodia, is a country located in the southern portion of the Indochinese Peninsula in Southeast Asia, spanning an area of , bordered by Thailand t ...

as an offshoot movement of the

Vietnam People's Army Vietnam or Viet Nam ( vi, Việt Nam, ), officially the Socialist Republic of Vietnam,., group="n" is a country in Southeast Asia, at the eastern edge of mainland Southeast Asia, with an area of and population of 96 million, making i ...

from North Vietnam to bring communism to the nation. A few years later, they will become bitter enemies. * La Maestra, a Latin American play is written by Enrique Buenaventura. * An oil field is confirmed in Northern Alaska: the Prudhoe Bay Oil Field. * Midea Group, a well-known home appliance worldwide, founded in Guangdong Province, China.

Births

January

(Felipe de Borbón) Inauguración de FITUR 2018 (39840659951) (cropped)

* January 1 – Davor Šuker, Croatian footballer * January 2 **Violet Berlin, British presenter and script writer **Cuba Gooding Jr., African-American actor * January 3 – Matheus Nachtergaele, Brazilian actor and director *

** DJ BoBo, Swiss singer, songwriter and dancer ** Andrzej Gołota, Polish boxer ** Carrie Ann Inaba, American choreographer, game show host and singer * January 6 ** Blanca Eekhout, Venezuelan politician ** John Singleton, African-American film director and writer (d. 2019) * January 8 – James Brokenshire, British politician (d. 2021) * January 11 – Benjamin List, German organic chemist, recipient of Nobel Prize in Chemistry * January 12 – Rachael Harris, American actress and comedian * January 13 – Pat Onstad, Canadian footballer * January 14 – LL Cool J, African-American rapper and actor *

– Chad Lowe, American actor and director * January 16 ** Stephan Pastis, American cartoonist ** Atticus Ross, English musician, songwriter, record producer and audio engineer * January 17 – Svetlana Masterkova, Russian athlete *

– Charlotte Ross, American actress * January 22 – Guy Fieri, American chef * January 24 ** Michael Kiske, German musician ** Mary Lou Retton, American gymnast * January 26 ** Eric Davis (American football), Eric Davis, American football player ** Novala Takemoto, Japanese author and fashion designer * January 27 – Mike Patton, American singer *

– Sarah McLachlan, Canadian singer * January 29 – Edward Burns, American actor *

– King Felipe VI of Spain

February

** Lisa Marie Presley, American singer ** Mark Recchi, Canadian ice hockey player ** Pauly Shore, American actor * February 3 ** David Scarboro, English actor (d. 1988) ** Vlade Divac, Serbian basketball player ** Marwan Khoury, Lebanese singer and composer * February 5 ** Roberto Alomar, American baseball player ** Marcus Grönholm, Finnish rally driver ** Qasim Melho, Syrian television actor * February 7 ** Peter Bondra, Slovakian ice hockey player ** Porntip Nakhirunkanok, Miss Universe 1988 * February 8 ** Gary Coleman, African-American actor (d. 2010) ** April Stewart, American voice actress * February 10 ** Laurie Foell, New Zealand/Australian actress ** Atika Suri, Indonesian television newscaster * February 11 ** Lavinia Agache, Romanian artistic gymnast ** Mo Willems, American children's book author *

– Josh Brolin, American actor * February 13 ** Kelly Hu, American actress, voice artist, former fashion model and beauty queen ** Niamh Kavanagh, Irish singer, Eurovision Song Contest 1993 winner * February 14 – Jules Asner, American model and television personality * February 15 – Gloria Trevi, Mexican singer and actress *

** Molly Ringwald, American actress ** Dennis Satin, German film director * February 21 – Pellom McDaniels, American football player (d. 2020) * February 22 ** Bradley Nowell, American musician (d. 1996) ** Jeri Ryan, American actress *

** Andy Berman, American actor, director, producer, writer, voice artist, and comedian ** Mitch Hedberg, American stand-up comedian (d. 2005) * February 29 – Sam Sneed, American producer and rapper

March

Damon Albarn - Gorillaz - Roskilde Festival 2010

Celine Dion Concert Singing Taking Chances 2008

* March 1 ** Kat Cressida, American voice actress ** Kunjarani Devi, Indian weightlifter ** Muho Noelke, German Zen master *

– Daniel Craig, British actor * March 3 – Brian Leetch, American ice hockey player * March 4 ** Giovanni Carrara, Venezuelan Major League Baseball player ** Patsy Kensit, British actress * March 5 ** Gordon Bajnai, Hungarian Prime Minister ** Ambrose Mandvulo Dlamini, 10th Prime Minister of Eswatini (d. 2020) * March 6 ** Moira Kelly, American actress ** :pt:Mara Maravilha, Mara Maravilha, Brazilian singer, songwriter, television presenter, actress and businesswoman *

– Jeff Kent, American baseball player * March 11 – Lisa Loeb, American singer *

– Aaron Eckhart, American actor *

** Akira Nogami, Japanese professional wrestler ** Masami Okui, Japanese singer *

** Megan Follows, Canadian-American actress ** James Frain, British actor * March 15 ** Mark McGrath, American singer ** Terje Riis-Johansen, Norwegian politician ** Sabrina Salerno, Italian singer * March 16 ** David MacMillan, Scottish-born organic chemist, recipient of Nobel Prize in Chemistry ** Trevor Wilson (basketball), Trevor Wilson, American basketball player * March 20 ** Carlos Almeida (athlete), Carlos Almeida, Cape Verdean long-distance runner ** Ultra Naté, American singer, songwriter, record producer, DJ and promoter *

**Euronymous, Norwegian musician (d. 1993) * March 23 ** Damon Albarn, English singer-songwriter and musician ** Mike Atherton, English cricketer * March 26 ** Kenny Chesney, American country music singer ** James Iha, American rock musician * March 27 – Ben Koldyke, American actor *

– Iris Chang, American author (d. 2004) * March 29 – Lucy Lawless, New Zealand actress and singer * March 30 – Celine Dion, Canadian singer

April

* April 1 ** Julia Boutros, Lebanese singer ** Andreas Schnaas, German director * April 5 ** Paula Cole, American singer ** Stewart Lee, English stand-up comedian * April 7 – Jože Možina, Slovenian historian, sociologist and journalist *

– Patricia Arquette, American actress * April 12 – Ott (record producer), Ott, English musician and record producer * April 13 – Jørn Stubberud, Norwegian musician * April 14 – Anthony Michael Hall, American actor and singer * April 15 – Stacey Williams, American model * April 16 ** Greg Baker, American actor and musician ** Martin Dahlin, Swedish football player ** Vickie Guerrero, American professional wrestler * April 17 ** Julie Fagerholt, Danish fashion designer ** Adam McKay, American film director, producer, screenwriter, comedian, and actor * April 18 – David Hewlett, English-born Canadian actor, writer and director * April 19 – Ashley Judd, American actress * April 20 ** J. D. Roth, American television host ** Yelena Välbe, Russian cross-country skier *

– Timothy McVeigh, American terrorist (d. 2001) * April 24 ** Stacy Haiduk, American actress ** Jorge Medina, Bolivian civil rights activist and politician (d. 2022) ** Yuji Nagata, Japanese professional wrestler * April 28 – Howard Donald, British singer (Take That) * April 29 ** Michael Herbig, German film director, actor and author ** Darren Matthews, English professional wrestler

May

Frederik, Crown Prince of Denmark in 2018

Kylie Minogue at The Queen's Birthday Party (cropped 3)

* May 1 – Oliver Bierhoff, German footballer * May 2 ** Jeff Agoos, American soccer player ** Hikaru Midorikawa, Japanese voice actor * May 3 ** Nina Paley, American cartoonist ** Li Yong (television host), Chinese host (d. 2018) * May 4 ** Julian Barratt, English comedian, actor, musician and music producer ** Momoko Kikuchi, Japanese actress and singer * May 5 – John Soko, Zambian footballer (d. 1993) * May 7 ** Eagle-Eye Cherry, Swedish-born musician ** Traci Lords, American actress * May 8 – Mickaël Madar, French footballer * May 9 – Marie-José Pérec, French athlete * May 10 – Al Murray, English comedian * May 12 – Tony Hawk, American skateboarder *

** Sonja Zietlow, German television presenter ** Scott Morrison, 30th Prime Minister of Australia *

– Chingmy Yau, Hong Kong actress * May 17 – Constance Menard, French professional dressage rider *

– Vanessa Leggett, American freelance journalist, author, lecturer and First Amendment advocate * May 19 – Kyle Eastwood, American jazz bass musician * May 20 ** Timothy Olyphant, American actor ** Waisale Serevi, Fijian rugby player *

** Michael Kelly (American actor), Michael Kelly, American actor ** Graham Linehan, Irish television writer and director * May 23 – John Ortiz, American actor * May 24 – Charles De'Ath, English actor * May 26 – Crown Prince Frederik of Denmark * May 27 ** Jeff Bagwell, American baseball player ** Frank Thomas (AL baseball player), Frank Thomas, American baseball player * May 28 ** Kylie Minogue, Australian actress and singer ** Tetsu Nagasawa, Japanese footballer & manager *

– Zacarias Moussaoui, French-Moroccan 9/11 conspirator

June

Kelly Craft poses a photo with Haitian President Moise (cropped)

* June 1 – Jason Donovan, Australian actor and singer * June 2 ** Beetlejuice (entertainer), Beetlejuice, American entertainer, member of the Wack Pack (''The Howard Stern Show'') ** Jon Culshaw, English impressionist * June 4 – Scott Wolf, American actor *

– Sandra Annenberg, Brazilian newscaster, previously actress * June 9 – Aleksandr Konovalov (politician, born 1968), Aleksandr Konovalov, Russian lawyer and politician * June 10 ** Bill Burr, American comedian ** Nobutoshi Canna, Japanese voice actor * June 14 – Yasmine Bleeth, American actress *

– Mateusz Morawiecki, Polish banker and politician, 17th Prime Minister of Poland * June 24 – Boris Gelfand, Israeli chess grandmaster * June 25 – Albert Fulivai, Tongan rugby league player * June 26 ** Paolo Maldini, Italian football player ** Jovenel Moïse, 42nd President of Haiti (d. 2021) ** Iwan Roberts, Welsh footballer * June 28 ** Chayanne, Puerto Rican-American singer ** Adam Woodyatt, English actor * June 29 ** Theoren Fleury, Canadian ice hockey player ** Brian d'Arcy James, American actor and musician * June 30 – Phil Anselmo, American heavy metal vocalist

July

* July 5 ** Ken Akamatsu, Japanese Mangaka, manga artist ** Michael Stuhlbarg, American actor ** Darin LaHood, American attorney and politician * July 6 – Rashid Sidek, Malaysian badminton player and coach * July 7 ** Jorja Fox, American actress ** Allen Payne, American actor ** Jeff VanderMeer, American writer * July 8 ** Billy Crudup, American actor ** Akio Suyama, Japanese Voice acting in Japan, voice actor ** Josephine Teo, Singaporean politician ** Michael Weatherly, American actor * July 9 – Eduardo Santamarina, Mexican actor * July 10 – Hassiba Boulmerka, Algerian athlete * July 11 – Conrad Vernon, American voice actor and director * July 13 ** Robert Gant, American actor ** Omi Minami, Japanese voice actress * July 14 – Samantha Gori, Italian basketball player * July 15 ** Leticia Calderón, Mexican actress ** Eddie Griffin, American actor and comedian * July 16 ** Dhanraj Pillay, Indian field hockey player ** Barry Sanders, American football player ** Olga de Souza, Brazilian-Italian singer, model and dancer * July 17 ** Darren Day, British actor and TV presenter ** Beth Littleford, American actress and comedian *

– Grant Bowler, New Zealand-born Australian actor * July 19 – Robert Flynn, American vocalist and guitarist (Machine Head (band), Machine Head) * July 23 ** Gary Payton, African-American basketball player ** Stephanie Seymour, American model and actress * July 24 ** Kristin Chenoweth, American soprano and actress ** Laura Leighton, American actress ** Troy Kotsur, American actor *

– John Grant (musician), John Grant, American singer-songwriter * July 27 – Julian McMahon, Australian actor * July 30 – Robert Korzeniowski, Polish athlete

August

Eric Bana at the 2009 Tribeca Film Festival

Rachael Ray, Red Dress Collection 2007 (cropped)

* August 1 – Pavo Urban, Croatian photographer (d. 1991) * August 3 – Rod Beck, American baseball player (d. 2007) * August 4 ** Lee Mack, English actor and stand-up comedian ** Olga Neuwirth, Austrian composer *

** Marine Le Pen, French politician ** Colin McRae, Scottish rally car driver (d. 2007) * August 7 – Lynn Strait, American musician (d. 1998) * August 8 – Kimberly Brooks, American actress and voice artist * August 9 ** Gillian Anderson, American actress ** Eric Bana, Australian actor ** James Roy (writer), James Roy, Australian author * August 12 ** Pablo Rey, Spanish painter ** Paul Tucker (musician), Paul Tucker, English songwriter and record producer ** Kōji Yusa, Japanese voice actor * August 14 ** Catherine Bell (actress), Catherine Bell, American actress ** Darren Clarke, Northern Irish professional golfer ** Jason Leonard, English rugby player * August 15 – Debra Messing, American actress * August 17 ** Ed McCaffrey, American football player ** Bruno van Pottelsberghe, Belgian economist * August 20 ** Klas Ingesson, Swedish footballer (d. 2014) ** Yuri Shiratori Japanese actress and singer ** Bai Yansong, Chinese host * August 21 ** Dina Carroll, British singer ** Stretch (rapper), Stretch, American rapper and record producer (d. 1995) * August 23 – KK (singer), KK, Indian singer (d. 2022) *

** Shoichi Funaki, Japanese professional wrestler ** Hiroshi Kitadani, Japanese singer ** Tim Salmon, American baseball player * August 25 – Rachael Ray, American television chef and host * August 27 – Luis Tascón, Venezuelan politician (d. 2010) * August 28 ** Billy Boyd (actor), Billy Boyd, Scottish actor ** Tom Warburton, American animator * August 31 ** Valdon Dowiyogo, Nauruan politician and Australian football player ** Hideo Nomo, Japanese baseball player

September

Big Daddy Kane at Hip Hop Kemp 2013 (cropped)

TechCrunch Disrupt 2019 (48834434641) (cropped)

* September 1 ** Mohamed Atta, 9/11 ringleader of the hijackers and pilot of American Airlines Flight 11 (d. 2001) ** Atsuko Yuya, Japanese voice actress * September 3 – Ray Coulthard, Raymond Coulthard, English actor * September 4 ** John DiMaggio, American voice actor and comedian ** Mike Piazza, American baseball player * September 5 – Thomas Levet, French golfer *

** Marcel Desailly, French footballer ** Lucy Robinson (actress), Lucy Robinson, British actress * September 9 – Julia Sawalha, English actress * September 10 ** Big Daddy Kane, American hip-hop artist ** Guy Ritchie, British film director * September 11 ** Kay Hanley, American musician ** Tetsuo Kurata, Japanese actor * September 13 – Laura Cutina, Romanian artistic gymnast * September 15 – Danny Nucci, American actor * September 16 – Marc Anthony, American actor and singer *

** Anastacia, American singer-songwriter ** Tito Vilanova, Spanish football manager (d. 2014) * September 18 – Toni Kukoč, Croatian basketball player * September 20 ** Philippa Forrester, British TV presenter ** Van Jones, African-American author ** Leah Pinsent, Canadian actress *

** Lisa Angell, French singer ** Kevin Buzzard, British mathematician ** Ricki Lake, American actress, producer, and television presenter * September 22 ** Megan Hollingshead, American voice actress ** Mihai Răzvan Ungureanu, 62nd Prime Minister of Romania *

** Yvette Fielding, English television presenter ** Michelle Thomas, American actress (d. 1998) * September 25 ** Prince Friso of Orange-Nassau, (d. 2013) ** John A. List, American economist ** Will Smith, African-American actor and rapper * September 26 ** James Caviezel, American actor ** Michelle Meldrum, American guitarist (d. 2008) ** Tricia O'Kelley, American actress ** Ben Shenkman, American television, film and stage actor * September 27 ** Mari Kiviniemi, 62nd Prime Minister of Finland ** Paul Rudish, American voice actor and animator * September 28 ** Mika Häkkinen, Finnish double Formula 1 world champion ** Naomi Watts, British actress and film producer * September 29 ** Patrick Burns (paranormal investigator), Patrick Burns, American paranormal investigator and television personality ** Alex Skolnick, American jazz/heavy metal guitarist ** Samir Soni, Indian film and TV actor

October

Juan Orlando Hernández Alvarado no Brasil

* October 1 ** Mark Durden-Smith, British television presenter ** Jay Underwood, American actor *

** Lucy Cohu, English actress ** Victoria Derbyshire, English broadcast presenter ** Jana Novotná, Czech tennis player (d. 2017) * October 3 – Paul Crichton, English footballer * October 7 ** Luminița Anghel, Romanian dance/pop recording artist, songwriter, television personality and politician ** Thom Yorke, British singer-songwriter *

** Daniela Castelo, Argentine journalist (d. 2011) ** Emily Procter, American actress * October 9 ** Troy Davis, American high-profile death row inmate and human rights activist (d. 2011) ** Pete Docter, American animator, director * October 10 ** Bart Brentjens, Dutch mountainbiker ** Feridun Düzağaç, Turkish rock singer-songwriter * October 11 ** Tiffany Grant, American voice actress ** Jane Krakowski, American actress ** Brett Salisbury, American football quarterback * October 12 ** Paul Harragon, Australian rugby league player ** Hugh Jackman, Australian actor, singer, and producer * October 13 ** Preet Bharara, Indian-American politician ** Tisha Campbell-Martin, American actress and singer *

** Matthew Le Tissier, English footballer * October 15 ** Didier Deschamps, French footballer ** Jyrki 69, Finnish singer ** Vanessa Marcil, American actress * October 20 – Damien Timmer, British joint-managing director, television producer, television executive producer * October 22 – Shaggy (musician), Shaggy, Jamaican singer * October 24 – Mark Walton (story artist), Mark Walton, American story artist, actor * October 27 – Alain Auderset, Swedish writer * October 28 – Juan Orlando Hernández, 55th President of Honduras * October 29 – Tsunku, Japanese singer, music producer and song composer * October 30 ** Moira Quirk, English actress and voice actress ** Jack Plotnick, American film and television actor, writer, and producer

November

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– Silvio Fauner, Italian cross-country skier * November 4 ** Lee Germon, New Zealand cricketer ** Daniel Landa, Czech composer, singer and actor ** Miles Long, American pornographic actor and film director, director *

** Mr. Catra, Brazilian musician (d. 2018) ** Sam Rockwell, American actor ** Seth Gilliam, African-American actor **Penny Wong, Australian politician, Foreign Minister * November 6 – Kelly Rutherford, American actress * November 7 – Ignacio Padilla, Mexican writer (d. 2016) * November 8 ** Parker Posey, American actress ** Zara Whites, Dutch actress * November 9 – Nazzareno Carusi, Italian classical pianist * November 10 – Tracy Morgan, African-American actor and comedian * November 12 **Kathleen Hanna, American musician and activist ** Aya Hisakawa, Japanese voice actress ** Sammy Sosa, Dominican Major League Baseball player * November 13 – Pat Hentgen, American baseball player *

** Fausto Brizzi, Italian screenwriter and film director ** Ol' Dirty Bastard, American rapper (d. 2004) * November 16 – Tammy Lauren, American actress * November 18 ** Barry Hunter (footballer), Barry Hunter, Northern Irish footballer and football manager ** Luizianne Lins, Brazilian politician ** Owen Wilson, American actor and comedian *

** Chew Chor Meng, Singaporean Chinese television actor ** John Trobaugh, American artist and photographer * November 21 – Qiao Hong, Chinese table tennis player * November 23 – Hamid Hassani, Iranian scholar * November 24 ** Phil Starbuck, former English association football, footballer ** Awie, Malaysian rock singer ** yukihiro (musician), yukihiro, Japanese musician * November 25 ** Tunde Baiyewu, British singer ** Jill Hennessy, Canadian actress * November 27 – Michael Vartan, French actor * November 29 ** Hayabusa (wrestler), Eiji Ezaki, Japanese professional wrestler (d. 2016) ** Jonathan Knight, American singer * November 30 – Rica Matsumoto, Japanese actress, voice actress and singer

December

Lucy Liu DCC 2012 (75882241089) (cropped)

* December 2 ** Lucy Liu, American actress, voice actress, director, singer, dancer, model, and artist ** Rena Sofer, American actress * December 3 ** Brendan Fraser, Canadian-American actor ** Montell Jordan, American singer * December 5 – Margaret Cho, American actress and comedian * December 7 – Mark Geyer, Australian rugby league player * December 9 – Kurt Angle, American amateur and professional wrestler, 1996 Summer Olympics, 1996 Olympic gold medalist * December 11 ** Emmanuelle Charpentier, French biochemist, recipient of Nobel Prize in Chemistry ** Monique Garbrecht-Enfeldt, German speed skater ** Eula Valdez, Filipino actress * December 18 – Rachel Griffiths, Australian actress * December 19 – Ken Marino, American actor and comedian * December 21 – Khrystyne Haje, American actress * December 22 – Dina Meyer, American actress * December 23 – Manuel Rivera-Ortiz, American photographer *

– Choi Jin-sil, South Korean actress and model (d. 2008) * December 25 – Helena Christensen, Danish model * December 28 – Lior Ashkenazi, Israeli actor * December 30 – Fabrice Guy, French Olympic skier

Unknown date

* Eleonora Requena, Venezuelan poet. * Isadora Zubillaga, Venezuelan diplomat and activist.

Deaths

January

* January 4 ** Armando Castellazzi, Italian footballer and manager (b. 1904) ** Joseph Pholien, Belgian politician, 37th Prime Minister of Belgium (b. 1884) * January 6 – Karl Kobelt, 2-time President of the Swiss Confederation (b. 1891) * January 7 ** Gholamreza Takhti, Iranian wrestler (b. 1930) ** Mario Roatta, Italian general (b. 1887) * January 9 – Kōkichi Tsuburaya, Japanese athlete (b. 1940) *

** Ali Fuat Cebesoy, Turkish politician (b. 1882) ** Eben Dönges, acting Prime Minister of South Africa and elected President of South Africa (b. 1898) *

– Leopold Infeld, Polish physicist (b. 1898) * January 16 – Bob Jones Sr., American evangelist, religious broadcaster, and founder of Bob Jones University (b. 1883) * January 18 – John Ridgely, American actor (b. 1909) *

– Georg Dertinger, German politician (b. 1902) * January 22 ** Aleksandr Arbuzov, Russian chemist (b. 1877) ** Duke Kahanamoku, American Olympic swimmer (b. 1890) * January 29 – Tsuguharu Foujita, Japanese-French painter and printmaker (b. 1886)

February

* February 4 ** Eddie Baker, American actor (b. 1897) ** Neal Cassady, American author and poet (b. 1926) * February 7 – Nick Adams (actor, born 1931), Nick Adams, American actor (b. 1931) * February 10 – Pitirim Sorokin, Russian-American sociologist (b. 1889) * February 11 – Howard Lindsay, American playwright (b. 1888) * February 13 ** Mae Marsh, American actress (b. 1894) ** Ildebrando Pizzetti, Italian composer (b. 1880) * February 15 – Little Walter, American blues musician, singer, and songwriter (b. 1930) * February 17 – Sir Donald Wolfit, English actor (b. 1902) * February 19 – Georg Hackenschmidt, German strongman and professional wrestler (b. 1877) * February 20 – Anthony Asquith, British director and writer (b. 1902) * February 21 – Howard Florey, Australian-born pharmacologist, recipient of the Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine (b. 1898) * February 22 – Peter Arno, American cartoonist (b. 1904) *

– Camille Huysmans, Belgian politician, 34th Prime Minister of Belgium (b. 1871) * February 27 ** Frankie Lymon, American singer (b. 1942) ** Hertha Sponer, German physicist and chemist (b. 1895) * February 29 – Hugo Benioff, American seismologist (b. 1899)

March

* March 6 – Joseph W. Martin Jr., American politician (b. 1884) * March 8 – Jerzy Braun (rower), Jerzy Braun, Polish athlete (b. 1911) *

– Erwin Panofsky, German-Jewish art historian (b. 1892) * March 15 – Khuang Aphaiwong, 4th Prime Minister of Thailand, country leader during World War II (b. 1902) * March 16 – Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco, Italian composer (b. 1895) * March 20 – Carl Theodor Dreyer, Danish film director (b. 1889) * March 23 – Edwin O'Connor, American journalist, novelist, and radio commentator (b. 1918) * March 24 – Alice Guy-Blaché, French filmmaker (b. 1873) * March 27 – Yuri Gagarin, Soviet cosmonaut, first human in space (b. 1934) March 30- American child actor, Bobby Driscoll (b. 1937)

April

* April 1 – Lev Landau, Russian physicist, Nobel Prize in Physics, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1908) *

– ** Martin Luther King Jr., American civil rights leader, recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize (b. 1929) ** Assis Chateaubriand, Brazilian newspaper magnate (b. 1892) * April 7 –

, Scottish racing driver and double Formula One World Champion (b. 1936) *

– Harold D. Babcock, American astronomer (b. 1882) * April 15 – Boris Lyatoshinsky, Ukrainian composer, conductor, and teacher (b. 1895) * April 16 ** Fay Bainter, American actress (b. 1893) ** Albert Betz, German physicist (b. 1885) ** Edna Ferber, American writer (b. 1885) * April 24 ** Tommy Noonan, American actor (b. 1921) ** Walter Tewksbury, American athlete (b. 1876) * April 25 – Gunnar Andersen, Norwegian footballer and ski jumper (b. 1890) * April 26 – John Heartfield, German visual artist (b. 1891)

May

* May 5 – Albert Dekker, American actor (b. 1905) * May 7 – Lurleen Wallace, American politician (b. 1926) * May 9 ** Finlay Currie, Scottish actor (b. 1878) ** Marion Lorne, American actress (b. 1883) ** Mercedes de Acosta, American poet, playwright, and novelist (b. 1892) * May 10 – Scotty Beckett, American child actor (b. 1929) * May 11 – Robert Burks, American cinematographer (b. 1909) * May 14 – Husband E. Kimmel, American admiral (b. 1882) * May 25 – Georg von Küchler, German field marshal and war criminal (b. 1881) * May 26 – Little Willie John, American R&B singer (b. 1937) * May 28 ** Kees van Dongen, Dutch-French painter (b. 1877) ** Fyodor Okhlopkov, Soviet sniper (b. 1908)

June

* June 1 – Helen Keller, American activist and spokeswoman for the deaf and blind (b. 1880) * June 2 – R. Norris Williams, American tennis player (b. 1891) * June 4 ** Dorothy Gish, American actress (b. 1898) ** Walter Nash, Sir Walter Nash, 27th Prime Minister of New Zealand (b. 1882) * June 6 ** Randolph Churchill, British politician, son of Winston Churchill (b. 1911) **

, American lawyer and politician (United States Senator, U.S. Attorney General) (b. 1925) * June 7 – Dan Duryea, American actor (b. 1907) * June 14 ** Karl-Birger Blomdahl, Swedish composer (b. 1916) ** Salvatore Quasimodo, Italian writer, Nobel Prize in Literature, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1901) * June 15 ** Sam Crawford, American baseball player (b. 1880) ** Wes Montgomery, American jazz guitarist (b. 1923) *

– José Nasazzi, Uruguayan footballer (b. 1901) * June 18 – Nikolaus von Falkenhorst, German general and war criminal (b. 1885) * June 25 – Tony Hancock, English comedian and actor (b. 1924)

July

** Fritz Bauer, German judge and prosecutor (b. 1903) ** Virginia Weidler, American actress (b. 1927) * July 2 ** Zaki al-Arsuzi, Syrian philosopher, philologist, sociologist, and historian (b. 1899) ** Francis Brennan (cardinal), Francis Brennan, American cardinal (b. 1894) * July 9 ** Viktor Blinov, Russian ice hockey player (b. 1945) ** Alexander Cadogan, British diplomat (b. 1884) * July 12 – José Bordas Valdez, 43rd President of the Dominican Republic (b. 1874) * July 14 – Konstantin Paustovsky, Russian-Soviet writer (b. 1892) * July 15 – Cai Chusheng, Chinese film director (b. 1906) *

– Corneille Heymans, Belgian physiologist, Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1892) * July 20 – Joseph Keilberth, German conductor (b. 1908) * July 21 – Ruth St. Denis, American dancer (b. 1879) * July 22 – Giovannino Guareschi, Italian journalist (b. 1908) * July 23 ** Luigi Cevenini, Italian footballer and coach (b. 1895) ** Henry Hallett Dale, Sir Henry Dale, English pharmacologist and physiologist (b. 1875) * July 27 – Lilian Harvey, Anglo-German actress and singer (b. 1906) * July 28 ** Otto Hahn, German chemist, discoverer of nuclear fission, Nobel Prize in Chemistry, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1879) ** Ángel Herrera Oria, Spanish journalist, politician, cardinal and servant of God (b. 1886)

August

* August 3 – Konstantin Rokossovsky, Soviet officer, Marshal of the Soviet Union (b. 1896) *

– Luther Perkins, American guitarist (b. 1928) * August 19 – George Gamow, Soviet-American theoretical physicist and cosmologist (b. 1904) * August 25 – Stan McCabe, Australian cricketer (b. 1910) * August 26 – Kay Francis, American actress (b. 1905) * August 27 ** Robert Z. Leonard, American film director (b. 1889) ** Princess Marina of Greece and Denmark (b. 1906) * August 29 – Ulysses S. Grant III, American soldier and planner (b. 1881) * August 30 – William Talman (actor), William Talman, American actor (b. 1915) * August 31 – Dennis O'Keefe, American actor (b. 1908)

September

* September 3 – Juan José Castro, Argentine composer and conductor (b. 1895) *

– Lucio Fontana, Italian painter and sculptor (b. 1899) * September 13 – Frank Barson, English footballer (b. 1891) *

– Armand Blanchonnet, French Olympic cyclist (b. 1903) * September 18 ** Franchot Tone, American actor (b. 1905) ** Francis McDonald, American actor (b. 1891) * September 19 ** Chester Carlson, American physicist, and inventor (b. 1906) ** Red Foley, American singer (b. 1910) *

– Pio of Pietrelcina, Italian Roman Catholic priest and saint (b. 1887) * September 24 – Virginia Valli, American actress (b. 1898) * September 28 – Norman Brookes, Sir Norman Brookes, Australian tennis champion (b. 1877)

October

Gale Gordon Bea Benaderet Granby's Green Acres 1950 (cropped)

* October 1 – Romano Guardini, Italian-German Catholic priest and theologian (b. 1885) *

– Marcel Duchamp, French artist (b. 1887) * October 4 ** Francis Biddle, American politician (b. 1886) ** Hitoshi Imamura, Japanese general (b. 1886) * October 13 ** Manuel Bandeira, Brazilian poet, literary critic, and translator (b. 1886) ** Bea Benaderet, American actress (b. 1906) ** John L. Hines, American general, Chief of Staff of the U.S. Army (b. 1868) * October 15 ** Franz Beyer (general), Franz Beyer, German general (b. 1892) ** Herbert Copeland, American biologist (b. 1902) *

– Lee Tracy, American actor (b. 1898) * October 26 – Sergei Natanovich Bernstein, Russian and Soviet mathematician (b. 1880) * October 27 – Lise Meitner, German-Austrian physicist, discoverer of nuclear fission (b. 1878) * October 28 – Hans Cramer, German general (b. 1896) * October 30 ** Ramon Novarro, Mexican-born American actor (b. 1899) ** Conrad Richter, American writer (b. 1890)

November

– Georgios Papandreou, 3-Time Prime Minister of Greece (b. 1888) * November 6 – Charles Munch (conductor), Charles Munch, French conductor (b. 1891) * November 7 – Alexander Gelfond, Soviet mathematician (b. 1906) * November 8 – Wendell Corey, American actor (b. 1914) * November 9 ** Jan Johansson (jazz musician), Jan Johansson, Swedish jazz pianist (b. 1931) ** Gerald Mohr, American actor (b. 1914) *

– Jeanne Demessieux, French composer (b. 1921) * November 14 – Ramón Menéndez Pidal, Spanish philologist and historian (b. 1869) *

– Charles Bacon, American athlete (b. 1885) * November 16 ** Augustin Bea, German cardinal (b. 1881) ** Carl Bertilsson, Swedish gymnast (b. 1889) *

– Mervyn Peake, English writer, artist, poet, and illustrator (b. 1911) * November 18 – Walter Wanger, American film producer (b. 1894) *

– Helen Gardner (actress), Helen Gardner, American actress (b. 1884) * November 25 – Upton Sinclair, American writer (b. 1878) * November 26 – Arnold Zweig, German writer, pacifist and socialist (b. 1887) * November 28 – Enid Blyton, English writer (b. 1897) * November 30 – Charles Henry Bartlett, British cyclist (b. 1885)

December

* December 1 ** Hugo Haas, Czech actor, director and writer (b. 1901) ** Darío Moreno, Turkish-Jewish polyglot singer, composer, lyricist, and guitarist (b. 1921) * December 4 – Archie Mayo, American actor and director (b. 1891) * December 5 – Fred Clark, American actor (b. 1914) * December 9 – Enoch L. Johnson, American political boss and racketeer (b. 1883) * December 10 ** Karl Barth, German Protestant theologian (b. 1888) ** Thomas Merton, American author (b. 1915) * December 12 ** Tim Ahearne, Irish athlete (b. 1885) ** Tallulah Bankhead, American actress (b. 1902) * December 18 – Giovanni Messe, Italian field marshal and politician (b. 1883) * December 19 – Norman Thomas, American socialist (b. 1884) * December 20 ** Max Brod, Czech-born Israeli composer, writer and biographer (b. 1884) ** John Steinbeck, American writer, Nobel Prize in Literature, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1902) * December 30 ** Trygve Lie, 1st United Nations Secretary General, Secretary General of the United Nations (b. 1896) ** Kirill Meretskov, Soviet military officer, Marshal of the Soviet Union (b. 1897) * December 31 – George Lewis (clarinetist), George Lewis, American musician (b. 1900)

Date unknown

* Sami as-Solh, 5-Time Prime Minister of Lebanon (b. 1887)

Nobel Prizes

* Nobel Prize in Physics, Physics – Luis Walter Alvarez * Nobel Prize in Chemistry, Chemistry – Lars Onsager * Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, Physiology or Medicine – Robert W. Holley, Har Gobind Khorana, Marshall W. Nirenberg * Nobel Prize in Literature, Literature – Yasunari Kawabata * Nobel Peace Prize, Peace – René Cassin

References

External links

* {{Authority control 1968, Leap years in the Gregorian calendar

Events

January–February

March–April

May–June

July–August

September–October

November–December

Dates unknown

Births

January

February

March

April

May

June

July

August

September

October

November

December

Unknown date

Deaths

January

February

March

April

May

June

July

August

September

October

November

December

Date unknown

Nobel Prizes

References

Further reading

External links