1969

Decades: 1910s 1920s 1930s 1940s 1950s - 1960s - 1970s 1980s 1990s 2000s 2010s

Years: 1964 1965 1966 1967 1968 - 1969 - 1970 1971 1972 1973 1974

Events

January-February

• January 10 - After 147 years, the last issue of the Saturday Evening Post is published
• January 14 - An explosion aboard the USS Enterprise near Hawaii kills 25
• January 15 - The Soviet Union launches Soyuz 5
• January 19 - Student Jan Palach sets himself on fire in Prague's Wenceslas Square to protest the invasion of Czechoslovakia by the Soviet Union in 1968
• January 20 - Richard Nixon succeeds Lyndon Johnson as President of the United States of America
• January 30 - The Beatles' last public performance, on the roof of Apple Records. The impromptu concert was broken up by the police
• February 3 - In Cairo Yasser Arafat is appointed Palestinian Liberation Organization leader at the Palestinian National Congress and takes command the next day
• February 8 - The last issue of the Saturday Evening Post hits magazine stands
• February 13 - FLQ terorists bomb the Stock Exchange in Montreal, Quebec

March-April

• March 2 - In Toulouse, France the first Concorde test flight is conducted
• March 2 - Soviet and Chinese forces clash at a border outpost on the Ussuri River
• March 3 - In a Los Angeles, California court, Sirhan Sirhan admits that he killed presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy
• March 3 - Apollo program: NASA launches Apollo 9 to test the lunar module
• March 10 - In Memphis, Tennessee, James Earl Ray pleads guilty to assassinating Martin Luther King Jr. Ray would later retract his guilty plea
• March 13 - Apollo program: Apollo 9 returns safely to Earth after testing the Lunar Module
• March 17 - Golda Meir of Milwaukee, Wisconsin, USA, becomes Prime Minister of Israel
• April 1 - The Hawker Siddeley Harrier enters service with the RAF
• April 4 - Dr. Denton Cooley implants the first temporary artificial heart

May-June

• May 16 - Venera program: Venera 5, a Soviet spaceprobe, lands on Venus
• May 17 - Venera program: Soviet Venera 6 begins to descend into Venus', atmosphere sending back atmospheric data before being crushed by pressure
• May 18 - Apollo program: Apollo 10 launches
• May 22 - Apollo program: Apollo 10's lunar module flies within 15,400 m of the moon's surface
• May 26 - Apollo program: Apollo 10 returns to earth after a successful eight-day test of all the components needed for the upcoming first manned moon landing
• June 27 - The Stonewall riots mark the start of the modern gay rights movement in the U.S.

July

• July 7 - French is made equal to English throughout the Canadian national government
• July 14 - Football War - after Honduras lost a soccer game against El Salvador, rioting broke out in Honduras against Salvadoran migrant workers. Of the 300,000 Salvadorean workers in Honduras, tens of thousands were expelled, prompting a brief Salvadoran invasion of Honduras. The OAS worked out a cease-fire on July 18, taking effect on July 20
• July 18 - Edward M. Kennedy drives off a bridge on his way home from a party on Chappaquiddick Island, Massachusetts. Mary Jo Kopechne, an aide who was in the car with him, dies in the incident
• July 20 - Apollo program: The human race, represented by Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin, lands on the Moon. Apollo 11 lifted off for the moon on July 16 and returned safely on July 24
• July 25 - Vietnam War: US President Richard Nixon declares the Nixon Doctrine stating that the United States now expects its Asian allies to take care of their own military defense. This was the start of the "Vietnamization" of the war
• July 30 - Vietnam War: US President Richard M. Nixon makes an unscheduled visit to South Vietnam and meets with President Nguyen Van Thieu and with US military commanders

August

• August 4 - Vietnam War: At the apartment of French intermediary Jean Sainteny in Paris, US representative Henry Kissinger and North Vietnamese representative Xuan Thuy begin secret peace negotiations. The negotiations will eventually fail
• August 5 - Mariner program: Mariner 7 makes its closest fly-by of Mars (3,524 kilometers)
• August 9 - Members of a cult led by Charles Manson murder five people including Sharon Tate, Jay Sebring and, Abigail Folger. The next day The Family would murder Rosemary and Leno LaBianca
• August 12 - Jack Lynch, Taoiseach of the Republic of Ireland, makes a speech to the nation in which he asks the British Government to deploy a UN Peace-Keeping mission in Northern Ireland.
• August 13 - Serious border clash between Soviet Union and People's Republic of China
• August 14 - British troops deployed in Northern Ireland
• August 17 - Category 5 Hurricane Camille hits the Mississippi coast killing 248 people and causing US$1.5 billion in damage (1969 dollars)

September-October

• September 1 - A coup in Libya brings Col. Moammar Qaddafi to power
• September 5 - My Lai Massacre: Lt. William Calley is charged with six specifications of premeditated murder for the death of 109 Vietnamese civilians in My Lai
• September 22 - 25 Islamic conference in Rabat, Morocco after al-Aqsa Mosque fire (Augusr 21) condemns Israeli occupation of Jerusalem
• October 1 - In Sweden, Olof Palme is elected Labour party leader, replacing Tage Erlander as prime minister on October 14
• October 9 - In Chicago, Illinois, the United States National Guard is called in for crowd control as demonstrations continue in connection to the trial of the "Chicago Eight" (trial started on September 24)
• October 15 - Vietnam War: Hundreds of thousands of people take part in National Moratorium antiwar demonstrations across the United States
• October 21 - Willy Brandt becomes Chancellor of West Germany
• October 21 - Siad Barre comes to power in Somalia in a coup

November

• November - Creation of ARPANET, the predecessor of the Internet
• November 3 - Vietnam War: US President Richard M. Nixon addresses his nation on television and radio asking the "silent majority" to join him in solidarity on the Vietnam War effort and to support his policies
• November 10 - Sesame Street premieres
• November 12 - Vietnam War: My Lai Massacre - Independent investigative journalist Seymour Hersh breaks the My Lai story
• November 13 - Vietnam War: Anti-war protesters in Washington, DC stage a symbolic "March Against Death"
• November 14 - Apollo program: NASA launches Apollo 12, the second manned mission to the surface of the Moon (landed on the Moon on November 19)
• November 15 - Cold War: The Soviet submarine K-19 collides with the American submarine USS Gato in the Barents Sea
• November 15 - Vietnam War: In Washington, DC, 250,000-500,000 protesters staged a peaceful demonstration against the war
• November 17 - Cold War: Negotiators from the Soviet Union and the United States meet in Helsinki to begin SALT I negotiations aimed at limiting the number of strategic weapons on both sides
• November 19 - Apollo program: Apollo 12 astronauts Charles Conrad and Alan Bean land at Oceanus Procellarum ("Ocean of Storms") and become the third and fourth humans to walk on the Moon
• November 20 - Vietnam War: The Cleveland Plain Dealer publishes explicit photographs of dead villagers from the My Lai massacre in Vietnam
• November 21 - U.S. President Nixon and Japanese Premier Eisaku Sato agree in Washington on the return of Okinawa to Japanese control in 1972 Under the terms of the agreement, the US is to retain its rights to bases on the island, but these are to be nuclear-free
• November 21 - The first ARPANET link is established
• November 24 - Apollo program: The Apollo 12 spacecraft splashes down safely in the Pacific Ocean, ending the second manned mission to the Moon
• November 28 - The Newcomers stopped airing on the BBC

December

• December 1 - Vietnam War: The first draft lottery in the United States is held since World War II (on January 4, 1970, the New York Times ran a long article, "Statisticians Charge Draft Lottery Was Not Random").
• December 4 - Black Panther members Fred Hampton and Mark Clark are shot to death in their sleep during a raid by 14 Chicago police officers.
• December 12 - Piazza Fontana Slaughter in Italy (Strage di Piazza Fontana). A U.S. officer and C.I.A. agent called David Carrett involved.

Ongoing events

• Vietnam War (1964 - 1975)
• War of Attrition, between Egypt and Israel, which lasted until August 1970. This conflict was characterized by escalating artillery duels, air raids and commando missions

Year in topic

• 1969 in film
  • Midnight Cowboy
  • Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid
  • True Grit starring John Wayne, Robert Duvall, Dennis Hopper and others
• 1969 in literature
  • Portnoy's Complaint
• 1969 in music
  • The National Academy of Popular Music/Songwriters Hall of Fame founded.
  • August 15 - August 17: The Woodstock Music and Art Festival was held at Max Yasgur's dairy farm in Bethel, New York, near Woodstock. Although 10,000 or 20,000 people were expected, over 400,000 attended. Among the many artists who performed were Jimi Hendrix, Joan Baez, Joe Cocker, The Who, Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young and the Grateful Dead. The weekend was rainy, the facilities were overcrowded, and attendees shared food, alcohol, and drugs, although no violence was reported. The Woodstock Festival represented the culmination of the counterculture of the 1960s and the high point of the "hippie era."
  • The #1 Song was "Aquarius (Let the Sunshine In)"
  • Graffiti art had fully developed into an art form, with distinctive styles, trends and schools, by 1969; graffiti art is one of the four elements of hip hop, the musical form of which is influenced by the success of the Last Poets and similar artists, beginning in 1969
• 1969 in sports
• 1969 in television
  • Tiny Tim gets married on Johnny Carson's Tonight Show.
  • A live transmission from the moon is viewed by 600 million people around the world when Neil Armstrong walks in the moon.
  • The Brady Bunch premieres

Births

• January 3 - Michael Schumacher, Formula One driver; six-time champion of that series
• January 5 - Marilyn Manson, singer
• January 14 - Jason Bateman, actor
• January 14 - David Grohl, drummer, composer
• January 16 - Roy Jones Jr., boxer
• January 20 - Skeet Ulrich, actor
• February 5 - Bobby Brown, singer
• February 9 - Gabby Hayes, actor
• February 11 - Jennifer Aniston, American actress.
• February 11 - Shannon Long Gladstone, Australian, Playboy magazine's playmate for October 1988.
• February 11 - Bryan Eversgerd US baseball player.
• March 1 - Javier Bardem, actor
• April 25 - Renée Zellweger, actress
• May 7 - Eagle Eye Cherry, musician
• May 15 - Emmitt Smith, American football player
• May 18 - Martika, Cuban-American singer
• May 26 - Alain Knaff, programmer
• June 14 - Steffi Graf, German tennis player
• June 15 - Oliver Kahn, German football player
• August 18 - Edward Norton, actor
• August 19 - Matthew Perry, American actor
• September 5 - Dweezil Zappa, actor, musician, eldest son of Frank Zappa
• September 25 - Catherine Zeta-Jones, Welsh actress
• September 25 - Hansie Cronje, South African cricketer
• October 3 - Gwen Stefani, No Doubt frontwoman
• October 10 - Brett Favre, American football player
• December 21 - Julie Delpy, actress
• December 28 - Linus Torvalds, programmer

Deaths

• January 4 - Violet and Daisy Hilton, conjoined twins, actresses
• January 19 - Czech student Jan Palach sets himself on fire in Wenceslas Square, Prague in protest at the communist regime and the USSR's occupation of the country.
• January 25 - Irene Castle, dancer
• January 29 - Allen Dulles, Director of the Central Intelligence Agency
• February 4 - Thelma Ritter, actress
• February 11 - James Lanphier, actor.
• February 20 - Ernest Ansermet, conductor
• February 26 - Levi Eshkol, Prime Minister of Israel
• March 4 - Nicholas Schenck, motion-picture empresario
• March 11 - John Wyndham, author
• March 26 - John Kennedy Toole, author
• March 27 - B. Traven, writer
• March 28 - Dwight D. Eisenhower, US General of the Army, 34th president of the United States
• May 14 - Frederick Lane, Australian swimmer
• May 19 - Coleman Hawkins, jazz musician
• June 21 - Maureen Connolly, tennis star
• July 18 - Mary Jo Kopechne, congressional staffer for Edward Kennedy
• August 9 - Sharon Tate, actress
• August 31 - Rocky Marciano, boxer, retired undefeated as world heavyweight champion
• September 2 - Ho Chi Minh, President of North Vietnam
• October 12 - Sonja Henie, Olympic and World Champion figure skater
• October 21 - Jack Kerouac, US author
• October 21 - Waclaw Sierpinski, Polish mathematician
• November 12 - William F. Friedman, cryptanalyst
• November 15 - Iskander Mirza, first President of Pakistan
• December 5 - Her Serene Highness Princess Alice of Battenberg, mother of Prince Philip, consort of Queen Elizabeth II.

Nobel Prizes

• Physics - Murray Gell-Mann
• Chemistry - Derek H R Barton, Odd Hassel
• Medicine - Max Delbrück, Alfred D Hershey, Salvador E Luria
• Literature - Samuel Beckett
• Peace - International Labour Organization
• Economics - Ragnar Frisch, Jan Tinbergen

Referenced By