Britain and the World 1968

BRITAIN AND THE WORLD SINCE 1953

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	1968
Jan5	Alexander Dubcek is elected as leader of the Czechoslovakian Communist Party
Jan15	An earthquake in Sicily kills 231 people and injures a further 262
Jan21	US B52 bomber crashes in Greenland and in the process discharges four nuclear bombs
Jan23	North Korea seizes U.S. Ship, ,the USS Pueblo, as it was spying in Korean waters. 83 held as spies
Jan25	The Israeli Submarine Dakar sinks in the Mediterranean Sea with the loss of 69 men. Two days later a French submarine suufers a similar fate with 52 men dying
Jan31	Viet Cong guerrillas and North Vietnamese soldiers launched the Tet (New Year) offensive, targeting more than 100 towns and cities in South Vietnam; in Saigon they invaded the grounds of the U.S. embassy.
Feb1	Famous photo: Saigon police chief Nguyen Ngoc Loan executes a Viet Cong officer with a shot to the head
Feb3	Yasser Arafat is elected leader of the Palestine Liberation Organisation
Feb8	Boeing 747 makes its maiden flight
	Three college students were killed in a confrontation with highway patrolmen in Orangeburg, South Carolina, during a civil rights protest against a whites-only bowling alley.
Feb13	Civil rights disturbances occur at the University of Wisconsin and North Carolina. At the former 900 National Guard where drafted in to supress the protests
Feb14	Vito Genovese dies
Feb18	British Standard Time introduced - all year daylight saving time
Feb22	Labour government announces that Asian immigration to be reduced to 1,500 per year
Feb29	The discovery of the first ``pulsar,'' a star which emits regular radio waves, was announced by Dr. Jocelyn Bell Burnell at Cambridge, England.
Mar15	British Minister of Foreign affairs George Brown resigns from government
Mar16	The My Lai Massacre was carried out by US troops under the command of Lieutenant William L. Calley Jr
Mar27	Yuri Gagarin dies in a plane crash
Mar31	US President Lyndon Johnson announces that he will not stand for re-election
Apr2	In Frankfurt-am-Main three people die as bombs explode in department stores. The bombs were placed by Andreas Baader and Gudrun Einslinn
Apr4	Rev Martin Luther King Jr assassinated in at the Lorainne Motel in Memphis by James Earl Ray He was arrested in London.08.06.1968
Apr7	President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the 1968 US Civil Rights Act.
	Scottish racing driver Jim Clark was killed at the age of 32 when he crashed into trees during a Formula 2 race in Hockenheim, Germany. The cause of the crash was never definitively identified, but investigators concluded it was most likely due to a deflating rear tyre
Apr11	London Bridge was sold to American Robert McCullough for 1 million pounds. It was later re-erected in Arizona. .
Apr23	Surgeons at the Hopital de la Pitie, Paris, performed Europe's first heart transplant on Clovis Roblain, a retired lorry driver, aged 66. The transplanted heart was taken from Michel Gyppaz, 23, who had been fatally injured in a motor accident. Roblain died on the 30th.
	Decimal coins are introduced into Britain for the first time (5p and 10p decimal coins)
	South Africa are excluded from the Olympic Games by the governing committee
	From April 23-27, Columbia University is practically shut down as Columbia students launches an unprecedented antiwar demonstration. After the initial invasion of a university building where three school officials are taken hostage for 24 hours, additional buildings are occupied by a growing mass of protesters, After six days more that 1,000 policemen enter the campus and clear the buildings in a violent and chaotic student-police encounter. Classes at Columbia come to a virtual standstill for the rest of the academic year.
Apr27	Abortion is legalised in Britain after royal assent is given to the 1967 Abortion Act.
Apr28	11 year-old Mary Bell strangles 4 year-old boy in Newcastle Upon Tyne
May6	Enoch Powell 'Rivers of Blood' speech on immigration
May3	French students and police clashed violently in Paris, the start of a month of disturbances and strikes that threatened the rule of General Charles De Gaulle.
Jun5	Robert Kennedy assassinated by Sirhan Sirhan in the kitchens of The Ambassador Hotel Los Angeles
Jun7	James Earl Ray arrested at Heathrow Airport for murder of Martin Luther King, Jr.
Jun28	Rock Group The Nice burn an American flag while performing "America" and the management bans them for life from performing at the Royal Albert Hall
Jun29	Pope Paul VI, in an encyclical entitled "Humanae Vitae" (Of Human Life), declared that any artificial forms of birth control were prohibited by the Roman Catholic Church.
	First Free Concert in Hyde Park featuring Pink Floyd, Jethro Tull, Roy Harper, and Tyrannosaurus Rex
Jul17	After a coup in Iraq, Saddam Hussein becomes the Vice Chairman of the Revolutionary Council
Aug21	Radio Prague (Czech) at 12:50 AM announces a Soviet led invasion. Soviet and Warsaw Pact troops crossed the border into Czechoslovakia just before midnight, at the start of their invasion to crush the "Prague Spring" reforms.
Aug26	Police and Anti-war demonstrators repeatedly clash at Chicago's Democratic National Convention - Hubert Humphries is nominated as the Democratic runner for the US Presidency
Sep6	Swaziland gains independence from Great Britain
Sep8	Virginia Wade wins US Tennis Open defeating Billie Jean King
Sep9	Arthur Ashe becomes the first black male to win a major tennis tournament when he captures the US Open
Sep16	Two-tier postal rate starts in Britain
Sep17	The D'Oliviera Affair - MCC tour of South Africa is cancelled when the South Africans refuse to accept the prescence of a Cape Coloured in the side
Sep27	Prof Marcelo Caetana takes over as Prime Minister of Portugal from Dr Salazar who is in a coma
	Actors in the London musical Hair perform naked on stage
Sep29	A Referendum in Greece gives more power to the military junta
Sep30	First Boeing 747 rolls out
Oct5	Beginning of disturbances in Northern Ireland
Oct12	Nineteenth modern Olympic games opens in Mexico City - Tommie Smith & John Carlos give black power salute (16th)
Oct20	Aristocle Onassis and Jacqueline Kennedy marry on the Greek island of Skorpios
Oct30	U.S. President Lyndon Johnson ordered a complete cessation of American bombing of North Vietnam.
Nov5	Richard Nixon (Republican) beats VP Humphrey (D) & George C Wallace for US President. He was re-elected for a second term in 1972 but due to Watergate and its aftermath he is impeached and is forced to resign from office
Nov8	Cynthia Lennon is granted a divorce from John Lennon
Nov26	The Farewell Concert for Cream at the Royal Albert Hall in London
Nov28	Enid Blyton dies
Dec12	The actress Tallulah Bankhead dies at the age of 65
Dec18	11 year old Mary Bell is sentenced "to be detained at her Majesty's Pleasure" for the murder of two young boys in the Scotswood district of Newcastle
Dec19	The Lion stamp on eggs sold through the U.K.'s Egg Marketing Board is set to disappear
Dec23	The novelist John Steinbeck dies of a heart attack in New York City
Dec21-27	Apollo 8 (Frank Borman Jim Lovell Bill Anders) is the first manned flight to the moon and lunar orbit
Dec30	Queen Elizabeth leaves Southampton on her final voyage.
	For a brief summary of 1968 as seen through the eyes of the Harold Wilson's government please click here. The information incidentally was released under the Thirty Year Rule in 1998

Last Updated 27/04/10 08:07

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