September 1968

The following events occurred in September 1968:

September 1, 1968 (Sunday)

*In the first reforms after the August 20 invasion by the Soviet Union and the Warsaw Pact, the Czechoslovakian Communist Party more than doubled its Central Committee from 87 members to 194, and increased its Presidium from 11 members to 21. Party First Secretary Alexander Dubcek, Premier Oldrich Cernik, and National Assembly President Josef Smrkovsky, who had all been arrested after the invasion and held prisoner in the Soviet Union, were elected to the new Presidium and retained their positions.
*Austria received its first deliveries of natural gas from the Soviet Union with the opening of a pipeline across the Czechoslovakian border with Austria, fulfilling a June 1 agreement as the first Western European country to agree to a long term purchase of Soviet energy resources.
*Born: Mohamed Atta, Egyptian-born terrorist who led the hijacking of American Airlines Flight 11 and destroyed the North Tower of the World Trade Center during the September 11 attacks, killing himself and 1,493 people on that day; in Kafr el-Sheikh, United Arab Republic (now Egypt)

September 2, 1968 (Monday)

*The Bimini Road, an underwater rock formation composed of large, rectangular limestone blocks in an almost straight line that runs for , was discovered by three divers off of the coast of the North Bimini island in the Bahamas.

September 3, 1968 (Tuesday)

* António de Oliveira Salazar, the 79-year-old Prime Minister of Portugal and that nation's dictator since 1932, was seriously injured at his beach resort home in Estoril when the deck chair he was sitting in collapsed and his head struck the floor. Salazar had a cerebral hemorrhage and, by Friday, was showing signs of a stroke. He went into a coma and would be replaced on September 27.
*The crash of a Bulgarian airliner killed 42 of the 82 passengers on board, and all but two members of the crew of five, while attempting to land at Bourgas on a flight from Dresden in East Germany. Most of the people on board were East German tourists who were on their way to a vacation at the Black Sea resort.
*Sir Leonard Williams, who had recently been knighted after retiring as the general secretary of Britain's Labour Party, took office as the second Governor-General of Mauritius.
*Died: Juan José Castro, 73, Argentinian classical composer and conductor

September 4, 1968 (Wednesday)

*Marshall Space Flight Center (MSFC) Director Wernher von Braun performed a full- pressure suit test in the Saturn I Workshop immersed in the Neutral Buoyancy Tank. He reported that the upgraded seals used in the aft dome penetration sealing study were "very good", but recommended additional handholds and tether points.
* Alphonse Massamba-Débat was forced to resign from his position as President of the Republic of the Congo, one month after relinquishing most of his power to the National Revolutionary Council following an August 4 coup. The Prime Minister, Congo Army Captain Alfred Raoul, was named as the acting President but would yield a few months later to the Council leader, Captain Marien Ngouabi, on January 1, 1969. Massamba-Debat would be executed on March 25, 1977, a week after Ngouabi's assassination.
*Born:
** Mike Piazza, American Major League Baseball player and inductee of the Baseball Hall of Fame, known for hitting 427 home runs in his 16-season career; in Norristown, Pennsylvania
** John DiMaggio, American voice actor; in North Plainfield, New Jersey

September 5, 1968 (Thursday)

*To preserve its monopoly on the American telephone system, the AT&T Corporation introduced a small device that CEO H. I. Romnes called the "protective coupling arrangement" (PCA). On June 26, the Carterfone decision had been issued by the U.S. Federal Communications Commission allowing other companies to connect directly to the AT&T telephone network. AT&T then changed the electronic signals required for access; customers would be able to connect non-AT&T devices (such as modems or facsimile machines) to the AT&T network, but only if they paid a monthly lease for the PCA that could transmit the required electronic signal. In displaying the device and announcing the new policy to AT&T executives, Romnes said "We welcome competition... the more, the merrier... our intent is to make interfaces as simple and inexpensive as possible."

September 6, 1968 (Friday)

*The Kingdom of Swaziland, a British colony surrounded entirely by South Africa, was granted independence from the United Kingdom. At the time, Swaziland had a population of 400,000 people. Sobhuza II, who had been named the Paramount Chief of the Swazi people as an infant after the death of his father in 1899, and who had been formally enthroned in 1921, was presented with the instruments of independence by the British Secretary of State for Commonwealth Affairs, George Thomson, who appeared on behalf of Queen Elizabeth II.
*Portugal's Prime Minister Salazar underwent emergency brain surgery in Lisbon, three days after striking his head on the floor of his residence when a deck-chair collapsed.
*Died: Dr. Rudolf Schindler, 80, German gastroenterologist who, with Georg Wolf, invented the first semi-flexible gastroscope in 1932

September 7, 1968 (Saturday)

*Two different protests were made against the Miss America beauty pageant in Atlantic City, New Jersey, one against sexism, the other against racism. Activist and author Robin Morgan and 100 members of the feminist organization New York Radical Women organized the "No More Miss America" protest and picketed outside of Convention Hall while the pageant went on inside. Among the events were the crowning of a live sheep (followed by the parade of the ewe, dressed in a bikini and a "Miss America" sash along the famous Atlantic City Boardwalk) and the planned burning of the contents of a "Freedom Trash Can" with high-heeled shoes, women's brassieres, girdles, false eyelashes and copies of magazines like '' Playboy''. A description, by reporter Lindsy Van Gelder and the ''New York Post'' of the bonfire plan as the first "bra burning" protest attracted reporters, but an Atlantic City ordinance prohibited the setting of fires on the wooden Boardwalk. The event was one of the first large demonstrations of Second Wave Feminism as the Women's Liberation movement began to attract national media attention.
*On the same day of the protests, Judith Ford of Illinois was crowned as Miss America for 1969 at Convention Hall, but on the same evening, the very first Miss Black America pageant took place at the nearby Ritz Carlton Hotel, initially to call attention to the lack of African American contestants in the pageant and in the state pageants that determined the winners. Saundra Williams of Pennsylvania was crowned hours after Ford won the Miss America title.
*''The Banana Splits Adventure Hour'' began airing on NBC as a collaboration of Sid and Marty Krofft with the Hanna-Barbera Company. Marking the start of a trend in the American television networks away from violent programming to slapstick comedy and music, the show featured four costumed animal characters — Fleegle, Bingo, Drooper and Snork— who played instruments in a rock group. The show would run for 2 seasons, airing its last episode 15 months later on December 13, 1969.
* Geoff Vowden, a forward for Birmingham City F.C., was put into the second half of a soccer football game against Huddersfield Town A.F.C. to replace starter Ron Wylie, and scored three goals in the Blues' 5–1 win over the Terriers, becoming the first substitute player in English Football League history to achieve a hat-trick.
*Born: Marcel Desailly, Ghana-born centre-back and midfielder for the French national soccer football team from 1993 to 2004; in Accra
*Died: Lucio Fontana, 69, Argentine-born Italian painter and sculptor

September 8, 1968 (Sunday)

*After a ceasefire of almost 11 months, the War of Attrition between Egypt and Israel (the period between the 1967 and 1973 wars) erupted into large scale fighting as the Egyptian Army began firing artillery shells against Israeli Defense Force positions on the opposite side of the Suez Canal. Over the course of three weeks, 10 Israeli soldiers were killed and 18 wounded. Israel would retaliate on October 30 with a helicopter raid on two of the Suez Canal bridges and an electricity substation on the Nile River; as a result of the shelling, Israel would fortify its side of the canal and the Bar Lev Line would be completed in March.
*In peace talks in Paris, aimed at negotiating an end to the Vietnam War, U.S. negotiator W. Averell Harriman had his first private meeting with his counterpart from North Vietnam, Lê Đức Thọ. The two diplomats conferred, along with their interpreters, at the Paris suburb of Vitry-sur-Seine.
*Born:
**Francisco Martin Duran, American felon who received a 40-year prison sentence after firing 29 rounds of ammunition at the White House on October 29, 1994, in an apparent attempt to assassinate U.S. President Bill Clinton; in Barelas, Albuquerque, New Mexico
** Louise Minchin, English morning news show host for BBC One; in British Hong Kong

September 9, 1968 (Monday)

*The very first US Open tennis tournament was held, as a successor to the U.S. National Championship, a Grand Slam event that had been limited to amateurs. Virginia Wade defeated Billie Jean King to win the women's singles; both had become professional players earlier in the year. Bob Lutz and Stan Smith, both amateurs, won the men's doubles over the team of Arthur Ashe (amateur) and Andrés Gimeno (pro). Maria Bueno and Margaret Court beat Rosemary Casals and King in the women's doubles; all four were pros.
*Still playing as an amateur, Arthur Ashe, an African-American and a lieutenant in the United States Army, won his first Grand Slam tournament, the US Open, by defeating professional Tom Okker of the Netherlands in the best-of-five finals, 14–12, 5–7, 6–3, 3–6, 6–3. Okker, however, was awarded the $14,000 prize money for the highest finish by a professional because Ashe was ineligible to receive it as an amateur. Ashe would turn professional the following year and would win the Australian Open in 1970 and Wimbledon in 1975.
*The Pryor Mountains Wild Horse Range was established as the first area in the United States set aside as a refuge for mustangs, the American wild horse. The U.S. Department of the Interior designated of isolated mountain terrain (almost 62 square miles) in Montana and Wyoming as a protected area.
*Born: Lila Downs, Grammy Award-winning Mexican singer and multilingual songwriter; in Tlaxiaco

September 10, 1968 (Tuesday)

* Harvard University professor Henry Kissinger began a relationship with Republican presidential nominee Richard Nixon with a telephone call to the Nixon campaign's foreign policy adviser, Richard V. Allen, offering his services that would lead to Kissinger's appointment as President Nixon's National Security Adviser and, later, as the U.S. Secretary of State. According to a 1983 book by investigative journalist Seymour Hersh, ''The Price of Power: Kissinger in the Nixon White House'', Allen recounted later that Kissinger said that he had many friends who were involved in the Paris Peace Talks on behalf of President Lyndon Johnson, and began providing the Nixon campaign with classified information from the talks. In 2016, notes from another Nixon adviser, H. R. Haldeman, would confirm suspicion that Nixon had used Kissinger's information to sabotage the peace talks in the days before the election.
* Maranatha Baptist College began its very first classes, with 173 students and 27 faculty, in Watertown, Wisconsin.
*Born:
**Big Daddy Kane (stage name for Antonio Hardy), American hip hop artist; in Brooklyn
** Guy Ritchie, English filmmaker; in Hatfield, Hertfordshire

September 11, 1968 (Wednesday)

*Ninety-five people, including French Army General René Cogny, were killed when Air France Flight 1611 crashed into the Mediterranean during its scheduled approach to Nice after departure from the island of Corsica. Before the impact in the sea, off the coast of the Cap d'Antibes, the pilot radioed that there was a fire on board the Caravelle jet.
*Convicted Japanese murderer Iwao Hakamada was sentenced to death by hanging, in a ruling by a panel of three judges. After spending more than 45 years on death row, Hakamada would be released on March 27, 2014, and granted a retrial based on evidence of police and prosecutor misconduct.
*The government of India announced its plans to create Meghalaya, a new autonomous territory out of the southwestern hill country of the existing state of Assam, though it would require an amendment to the Indian constitution. Meghalaya would become the 20th state of India in 1972.
*Top military advisor Earle Wheeler advised U.S. President Lyndon Johnson not to halt bombing against military targets over the remaining areas of North Vietnam still under pressure of American bombing.
*Born: Gary "Litefoot" Davis, American actor, rap artist and American Indian activist; in Upland, California
*Died:
** Tommy Armour, 71, Scottish-born American professional golfer who overcame World War I injuries to become a champion player; winner of the U.S. Open (1927), the PGA Championship (1930) and the British Open (1931).
**General René Cogny, 64, retired French Army officer who commanded French forces in Vietnam at the time of the 1954 sacking of Dien Bien Phu, was among the 95 people killed on Flight 1611.

September 12, 1968 (Thursday)

* North Korea allowed foreign journalists to view members of the crew of the , which had been captured on January 23. U.S. Navy Commander Lloyd M. Bucher and 20 other members of the ''Pueblo'' crew of 83 men were displayed at a "press conference" at Pyongyang, although the only person to give answers at the conference was a spokesman for the North Korean government who told reporters what Commander Bucher had allegedly said.
*A team of physicians and designers, led by engineer Robert W. Mann of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, introduced the " Boston Digital Arm", the first prosthetic limb controlled by a brain–computer interface, wherein the wearer could control the movement of the arm by the electric signals sent by the brain to electronic instruments designed to interpret the signals.

September 13, 1968 (Friday)

* Albania withdrew from the Warsaw Pact three weeks after the Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia. The Albanian government had ceased participating in Warsaw Pact maneuvers six years earlier. Enver Hoxha, the premier of Albania, declared that "The Warsaw Treaty no longer serves socialism and peace", Hoxha said, "it no longer serves the cause of the working class and proletarian internationalism, and it has lost the ideological and class basis on which it was created. It now serves the revisionist bourgeoisie, it serves the big-power chauvinistic narrow interests of the Soviet revisionist leadership as well as the U.S.—Soviet counter-revolutionary alliance for the domination of the world."
*In the largest industrial merger in the United Kingdom up to that time, General Electric Company (GEC) acquired the assets of English Electric with the approval of the Industrial Reorganisation Corporation. The acquisition agreement had been signed by GEC and English Electric on September 6.
*A crowd of 300,000 anti-government demonstrators in Mexico City carried out the ''La Marcha del Silencio''— the "Silence March", approaching the National Palace quietly, but ominously, without shouting protest slogans as a show of the marchers' self-discipline and anti-violent aims.
*Born: Bernie Williams, Puerto Rican baseball player; in San Juan
*Died: U.S. Army Major General Keith L. Ware, 52, World War II Medal of Honor recipient, was killed along with seven other people when his helicopter was shot down over South Vietnam. He would be posthumously awarded the Distinguished Service Cross.

September 14, 1968 (Saturday)

*The American CBS television network unveiled its lineup of non-violent musical comedies with '' The Archie Show'', bringing the teenage characters from the popular Archie Comics

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