1968 in the United States

1968 in the United States was marked by several major historical events. It is often considered to be one of the most turbulent and traumatic years of the 20th century in the United States.

The year began with relative peace until January 21 when the North Vietnamese Army PAVN attacked the Marine base at Khe Sanh Combat Base Quang Tri Province, Vietnam. This was the beginning of the Battle of Khe Sanh and the attack focused US command on Khe Sanh near the DMZ. The initial attack was followed by the North Vietnamese country-wide launch of the Tet Offensive on January 30, 1968, resulting in a South Vietnamese-US victory, eliminating the Viet Cong as an effective fighting force. The attack included a North Vietnamese assassination attempt on South Vietnam's president Nguyễn Văn Thiệu which failed. North Vietnam premised the attack on a South Vietnamese uprising against South Vietnam and US forces but this uprising did not occur as the South Vietnamese populace did not rally to the North. Also, on January 23 the North Korean government seized and its crew of eighty-three in an attempt to divert attention from a failed January 21 assassination attempt on South Korean President Park Chung-hee known as the Blue House raid. In Greenland a B-52 bomber on a Cold War mission known as Operation Chrome Dome crashed with four nuclear bombs on board. One airman was killed. The cleanup operation was informally known as Operation Freezelove, a play on words on the movie ''Dr. Strangelove''.

Four to six thousand citizens of the city of Huế, Vietnam, deemed political enemies, were either clubbed to death or buried alive by the North Vietnamese Army. This is known as the Massacre at Hue.

The year also saw the highest level of US troop commitment when President Lyndon B. Johnson signed legislation that increased the maximum number of United States troops active on the ground to five hundred and forty-nine thousand and five hundred (549,500). This did not count US forces in the South China Sea, Laos, Cambodia, Thailand, North Vietnam, and China with reserves in the Philippines, Okinawa, Japan, Korea, Guam, Hawaii, the United States, and worldwide totaling over three million (3,000,000). South Vietnam in the same year fielded a total force of eight hundred and twenty thousand troops (820,000). It was also the most expensive year of the war, with a cost of $77.4 billion. The support of the United States for South Vietnam was at its peak. Antiwar sentiment continued to grow as an increasing number of Americans questioned United States involvement in Vietnam, as the United States was drafting young men to fight for South Vietnam while South Vietnam did not have a draft for its own citizens; however, the war continued despite changing US public opinion.

North Vietnam benefited politically from the Tet Offensive when Walter Cronkite, a respected television newscaster, swayed many Americans and President Johnson, by giving his personal opinion on a national prime time editorial: "It is increasingly clear to this reporter that the only rational way out then will be to negotiate, not as victors, but as an honorable people who lived up to their pledge to defend democracy, and did the best they could." This may have marked a transition in journalism where a news reporter became a news and policy maker. President Johnson cited Walter Cronkite's changed opinion as a factor as well as Johnson's poor New Hampshire primary numbers in his decision to stop seeking reelection, stating to his advisers: "If I have lost Cronkite I have lost middle America." President Johnson later died on January 22, 1973, at age 64 from heart problems.

On April 4, civil rights activist Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated. The United States erupted in violent riots, the most severe of which occurred in Washington, D.C., Chicago, and Baltimore. Extensive areas of these and many other cities were looted, burned, and destroyed by the rioters and more than 40 people were killed during the month of protest, which led to greater racial tensions between Americans. Despite this, a landmark piece of legislation, the Civil Rights Act of 1968, which was President John F. Kennedy's legacy, was passed by the expertise of President Johnson in April. This legislation was passed with bipartisan Congressional support and effectively prohibited housing discrimination based on race.

The 1968 United States Presidential election became a referendum on the Vietnam War. A peace candidate had previously emerged in the Democratic Party when Senator Eugene McCarthy challenged the Vietnam War policies of President Johnson, who had refused to seek or accept another nomination for president and had endorsed his vice president, Hubert Humphrey, for the Democratic Presidential nomination. Senator McCarthy's support came primarily from young people, most of whom were subject to the draft or were in deferred status. This divided the country by age as older citizens, a so-called silent majority, tended to support or not actively oppose government policies. This division of the populace encouraged Senator Robert F. Kennedy to seek the Democratic Presidential nomination. Senator Kennedy was assassinated after winning the California primary and defeating Senator Eugene McCarthy. The assassination of Robert F. Kennedy in June led to uncertainty in the race for the Democratic nomination for the presidency. After Vice President Humphrey won the Democratic nomination at the 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago, another wave of violent protests emerged, this time between the mostly young antiwar demonstrators and police. The uncertainty within the Democratic Party benefited Richard Nixon, a Republican and former vice president, as he successfully won the presidential race by appealing to the "Silent Majority" under the promise "Peace with Honor". Nixon, a staunch anti-communist, had gained the voters' trust. A particularly strong showing by segregationist George Wallace of the American Independent Party in 1968's presidential election highlighted the strong element of racial division that continued to persist across the country.

In popular culture, '' 2001: A Space Odyssey'' was the most profitable film of the year, earning $56.7 million, while ''Oliver!'' won the Academy Award for Best Picture. "Hey Jude" by the Beatles was the hottest single of 1968 in the U.S. according to Billboard, demonstrating the continued popularity of bands associated with the British Invasion that began in 1964.

Incumbents

Federal Government

* President: Lyndon B. Johnson ( D-Texas)
* Vice President: Hubert Humphrey ( D-Minnesota)
* Chief Justice: Earl Warren (California)
* Speaker of the House of Representatives: John William McCormack ( D-Massachusetts)
* Senate Majority Leader: Mike Mansfield ( D-Montana)
* Congress: 90th

Events

January

* January 2 – The Dow Jones Industrial Average is 906.4.
* January 5 – The United States indicts Benjamin Spock, famous pediatrician and author (age 65), for conspiracy to violate the draft laws. Dr. Spock was a graduate of Yale University and winner of an Olympic gold medal for rowing on the Seine River in Paris, France in 1924.
* January 6
**Dr. N.E. Shumway performs the first adult cardiac transplant operation in the U.S.
**Surveyor 7, the last of the series of unmanned probes, is launched by the U.S. for soft-landing on the Moon.
* January 7 – First-class US postage is raised from 5 cents to 6 cents. US Prime rate 6%.
* January 13 – Johnny Cash records ''At Folsom Prison'' live at Folsom State Prison, California.
* January 14 – The Green Bay Packers win Super Bowl II.
* January 17 – Lyndon B. Johnson calls for the non-conversion of the U.S. dollar.
* January 18 – The Soviet Union performs a nuclear test at Eastern Kazakh/Semipalitinsk.
* January 19 – At a White House conference on crime, singer and actress Eartha Kitt denounces the Vietnam War to Lady Bird Johnson while attending a "ladies' lunch".
* January 21
**Battle of Khe Sanh in Vietnam begins.
**1968 Thule Air Base B-52 crash: A U.S. B-52 Stratofortress crashes in Greenland carrying four nuclear bombs which did not explode.
* January 22 – ''Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In'' debuts on NBC. This launches the career of Goldie Hawn, who became an instant sensation.
* January 23 – North Korea seizes , claiming the ship invaded its territorial waters while spying.
* January 30 – The Viet Cong of North Vietnam launch the Tet Offensive against South Vietnam, the United States, and their allies.
* January 31 – Viet Cong soldiers attack the Embassy of the United States, Saigon. Their leaders are killed by the two United States Military Police on duty at the gate. The 101st Airborne lands on the Embassy roof and eliminates the remaining leaderless soldiers.

February

* February 1
** Vietnam War: A Viet Cong officer named Nguyễn Văn Lém is executed by Nguyễn Ngọc Loan, a South Vietnamese National Police Chief. The event is photographed by Eddie Adams. The photo makes headlines around the world, eventually winning the 1969 Pulitzer Prize, and sways U.S. public opinion against the war.
** The Pennsylvania Railroad and the New York Central Railroad merge to form Penn Central, the largest ever corporate merger up to this date.
* February 8 – American civil rights movement: A civil rights protest staged at a white-only bowling alley in Orangeburg, South Carolina is broken up by highway patrolmen; three college students are killed.
* February 11 – Madison Square Garden in New York City opens.
* February 12 – Memphis sanitation strike: Provoked by the crushing to death of two black workers, over 1,000 black waste collectors in Memphis, Tennessee, begin a strike that lasts until April 16.
* February 13 – Civil rights disturbances occur at the University of Wisconsin–Madison and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
* February 16 – The first 9-1-1 call is made by Alabama Senator, Rankin Fite in Haleyville, Alabama.
* February 19
** The Florida Education Association (FEA) initiates a mass resignation of teachers to protest state funding of education. This is, in effect, the first statewide teachers' strike in the U.S.
** NET televises the very first episode of ''Mister Rogers' Neighborhood''.
* February 28 – The influential American news reporter Walter Cronkite shows his disdain for the Vietnam War effort during a broadcast, which influences President Johnson not to seek another term.
* February 29 – The Kerner Commission releases its final report on the causes of the 1967 race riots.

March

* March 11 – U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson mandates that all computers purchased by the federal government support ASCII character encoding.
* March 12 – U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson edges out antiwar candidate Eugene J. McCarthy in the New Hampshire Democratic primary, a vote which highlights the deep divisions in the country, as well as the party, over Vietnam.
* March 14 – Nerve gas leaks from the U.S. Army Dugway Proving Ground near Skull Valley, Utah.
* March 16
**Vietnam War – 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 enters the race for the Democratic Party presidential nomination.
* March 17 – A demonstration in London's Grosvenor Square against U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War leads to violence; 91 people are injured and 200 demonstrators are arrested.
* March 18 – Gold standard: The Congress of the United States repeals the requirement for a gold reserve to back U.S. currency.
* March 19–23 – Afrocentrism, Black power, Vietnam War: 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. Students lay siege to the administration building, shut down the university in protest over its ROTC program and the Vietnam War, and demand a more Afrocentric curriculum.
* March 21 – Vietnam War: In ongoing campus unrest, Howard University students protesting the Vietnam War, the ROTC program on campus, and the draft, confront Gen. Lewis Hershey, then head of the U.S. Selective Service System, and as he attempts to deliver an address, shouting cries of "America is the Black man's battleground!"
* March 26 – Joan Baez marries activist David Harris in New York.
* March 31 – U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson announces he will not seek re-election in the 1968 presidential election.

April

* April 2
** The film '' 2001: A Space Odyssey'' premieres in Washington, D.C.
** In a television special broadcast on NBC, white British singer Petula Clark touches black American singer Harry Belafonte affectionately on the arm.
* April 3
** Civil rights activist Martin Luther King Jr. delivers his "I've Been to the Mountaintop" speech at Mason Temple in Memphis, Tennessee.
** ''Planet of the Apes'' is released in theaters.
* April 4
** Martin Luther King Jr. is shot dead at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennessee. In response, riots erupt in major American cities, lasting for several days afterward.
** Apollo Program: ''Apollo 6'' is launched, the second and last unmanned test flight of the Saturn V launch vehicle.
*April 5 – Robert F. Kennedy gives
speech
at the Cleveland City Club.
* April 6
** A shootout between Black Panthers and Oakland police results in several arrests and deaths, including 17-year-old Panther Bobby Hutton

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