1969 in the United States

← 1968 1967 1966 1969 in the United States → 1970 1971 1972
Decades:	1940s 1950s 1960s 1970s 1980s
See also:	History of the United States (1964–1980) Timeline of United States history (1950–1969) List of years in the United States

Events from the year 1969 in the United States.

Incumbents

Federal government

• President: Lyndon B. Johnson (D–Texas) (until January 20), Richard Nixon (R–California) (starting January 20)
• Vice President: Hubert Humphrey (D–Minnesota) (until January 20), Spiro Agnew (R–Maryland) (starting January 20)
• Chief Justice: Earl Warren (California) (until June 23), Warren E. Burger (Minnesota) (starting June 23)
• Speaker of the House of Representatives: John William McCormack (D–Massachusetts)
• Senate Majority Leader: Mike Mansfield (D–Montana)
• Congress: 90th (until January 3), 91st (starting January 3)

Events

January

• January 1 – In college football, Ohio State defeats USC in the Rose Bowl Game to win the national title for the 1968 season.
• January 9 – In Washington, D.C., the Smithsonian Institution displays the art of Winslow Homer for 6 weeks.
• January 12 – Super Bowl III: The New York Jets of the American Football League defeat the heavily favored Baltimore Colts of the National Football League 16–7.
• January 13 – Elvis Presley steps into American Studios in Memphis, Tennessee, recording "Long Black Limousine" thus beginning the recording of what becomes his landmark comeback sessions for the albums "From Elvis In Memphis" and "Back in Memphis." The sessions yield the popular and critically acclaimed singles "Suspicious Minds", "In the Ghetto" and "Kentucky Rain."
• January 14
  • USS Enterprise fire: An explosion aboard aircraft carrier USS Enterprise near Hawaii kills 27 and injures 314.
  • CBS greenlights Peanuts as a primetime television series. It runs for one season commencing April 10.
• January 16 – Ten paintings are defaced in New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art.
• January 18 – In Washington, D.C., the Smithsonian Institution displays the art of Winslow Homer for 6 weeks.
• January 20 – Richard Nixon is sworn in as the 37th president of the United States, and Spiro Agnew is sworn in as the 39th vice president.
• January 26 – Elvis Presley steps into American Studios in Memphis, Tennessee, recording "Long Black Limousine", thus beginning the recording of what becomes his landmark comeback sessions for the albums From Elvis in Memphis and Back in Memphis. The sessions yield the popular and critically acclaimed singles "Suspicious Minds", "In the Ghetto", and "Kentucky Rain".
• January 27 – The modern-day powerhouse of the Hetch Hetchy Project at Moccasin, California, rated at 100,000 kVA, is completed and placed in operation. On February 7, the original is removed from service.
• January 28 – 1969 Santa Barbara oil spill: A blowout on Union Oil's Platform A in the Dos Cuadras Offshore Oil Field spills 80,000 to 100,000 barrels of crude oil into a channel and onto the beaches of Santa Barbara County in Southern California; on February 5 the oil spill closes Santa Barbara's harbor. The incident inspires Wisconsin Senator Gaylord Nelson to organize the first Earth Day in 1970.

February

• February 5
  • Aquanaut Berry L. Cannon dies of carbon dioxide poisoning while attempting to repair the SEALAB III habitat off San Clemente Island, California.
  • Four hundred Major League Baseball players boycott spring training over owners' refusal to increase their pension-fund contributions along with television broadcast revenues.
  • The U.S. population reaches 200 million.
  • The controversial television show Turn-On premieres on the ABC network and is canceled after one episode following protests by viewers and ABC affiliate stations.
• February 8 – The last issue of The Saturday Evening Post in its original form hits magazine stands after 147 years.
• February 9 – The Boeing 747 makes its maiden flight, from Paine Field at Everett, Washington.
• February 24
  • The Mariner 6 Mars probe is launched from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station.
  • Tinker v. Des Moines Independent Community School District: The U.S. Supreme Court rules that the First Amendment applies to public schools.
• February 26 – The baseball players' boycott of spring training is settled, largely on their terms.

March

• March 3
  • In a Los Angeles court, Sirhan Sirhan admits that he killed presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy.
  • Apollo program: NASA launches Apollo 9 (James McDivitt, David Scott, Rusty Schweickart) to test the Apollo Lunar Module.
• March 4 – Arrest warrants are issued by a Florida court for Jim Morrison on charges of indecent exposure during a Doors concert three days earlier.^[1]
• March 10 – In Memphis, Tennessee, James Earl Ray pleads guilty to assassinating Martin Luther King Jr. (he later retracts his guilty plea).
  • The United States Navy establishes the Navy Fighter Weapons School (also known as Top Gun) at Naval Air Station Miramar.
  • The novel The Godfather by Mario Puzo is first distributed to booksellers by the publisher G. P. Putnam's Sons.^[2]
• March 13 – Apollo program: Apollo 9 returns safely to Earth after testing the Lunar Module.
• March 18 – Operation Breakfast, the covert bombing of Cambodia by U.S. planes, begins.
• March 28 – Former United States General and President Dwight D. Eisenhower dies after a long illness in the Walter Reed Army Medical Center, Washington, D.C..

April

• April – A grassroots movement of Berkeley community members seizes an empty lot owned by the University of California to begin the formation of "People's Park."
• April 9 – The Harvard University Administration Building is seized by close to 300 students, mostly members of the Students for a Democratic Society. Before the takeover ends, 45 are injured and 184 are arrested.^[3]
• April 14 – The 41st Academy Awards ceremony, the first with no official host since 1939, is held at Dorothy Chandler Pavilion in Los Angeles. Carol Reed's Oliver! receives 11 nominations and wins five awards, including Best Picture and Best Director for Reed. Stanley Kubrick also receives his only Oscar win - Best Visual Effects for 2001: A Space Odyssey.
• April 20 – A grassroots movement of Berkeley community members seizes an empty lot owned by the University of California, to begin the formation of "People's Park".

May

• May 1 – Semiconductor company AMD is founded.
• May 10 – Zip to Zap, a harbinger of the Woodstock Concert, ends with the dispersal and eviction of youth and young adults at Zap, North Dakota, by the National Guard.
• May 15 – A teenager known as 'Robert R.' dies in St. Louis, Missouri, of a baffling medical condition. In 1984 it will be identified as the first confirmed case of HIV/AIDS in North America.
• May 18 – Apollo program: Apollo 10 (Tom Stafford, Gene Cernan, John Young) is launched, on the full dress-rehearsal for the Moon landing.
• May 20 – United States National Guard helicopters spray skin-stinging powder on protesters in Berkeley, California, in the aftermath of the People's Park unrest.
• May 21 – Shirley Chisholm appears before Congress to speak about prejudices facing women in the workforce and the need for equal rights for women.^[4]
• May 22 – Apollo program: Apollo 10's lunar module flies to within 15,400 m of the Moon's surface.
• May 25 – Midnight Cowboy, an X-rated, Oscar-winning John Schlesinger film, is released.
• May 26 – Apollo program: Apollo 10 returns to Earth, after a successful 8-day test of all the components needed for the upcoming first crewed Moon landing.

June

• June 3 – Melbourne-Evans collision: The Australian aircraft carrier HMAS Melbourne collides with the U.S. destroyer USS Frank E. Evans in the South China Sea; 74 U.S. sailors are killed.
• June 8 – U.S. President Richard Nixon and South Vietnamese President Nguyễn Văn Thiệu meet at Midway Island. Nixon announces that 25,000 U.S. troops will be withdrawn by September.
• June 18–22 – The National Convention of the Students for a Democratic Society (SDS), held in Chicago, collapses, and the Weatherman faction seizes control of the SDS National Office. Thereafter, any activity run from the National Office or bearing the name of SDS is Weatherman-controlled.
• June 23 – Warren E. Burger is sworn in as Chief Justice of the United States by retiring Chief Justice Earl Warren.
• June 28 – The Stonewall riots in New York City mark the start of the modern gay rights movement in the U.S.

July

• July 4 – Michael Mageau and Darlene Ferrin are shot at Blue Rock Springs in California. They are the second (known) victims of the Zodiac Killer. Mageau survives the attack while Ferrin is pronounced dead-on-arrival at Richmond Medical Center.
• July 8 – Vietnam War: The first U.S. troop withdrawals are made.
• July 14 – The $500, $1,000, $5,000, and $10,000 bills are officially removed from circulation.
• July 16 – Apollo program: Apollo 11 (Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin, Michael Collins) lifts off from Cape Kennedy toward the first human landing on the Moon.
• July 17 – The New York Times publicly takes back the ridicule of the rocket scientist Robert H. Goddard published on January 13, 1920, that stated that spaceflight is impossible.^[5]
• July 18 – Chappaquiddick incident – Ted Kennedy drives off a bridge after leaving a party on Chappaquiddick Island, Massachusetts. Mary Jo Kopechne, a former campaign aide to his brother Robert, dies in the early morning hours of July 19 in the submerged car.
• July 20 – Apollo program Moon landing: At 3:17 pm ET (20:17 UTC) Apollo 11's Lunar Module Eagle lands on the Moon's surface. At 10:56 pm ET (02:56 UTC July 21), an estimated 650 million people worldwide watch in awe as Neil Armstrong takes the first historic steps by a human on the surface.
• July 21 – A. D. King, younger brother of Martin Luther King Jr., dies at age 38.
• July 24 – Apollo program: Armstrong, Aldrin, and Collins return safely to Earth after the first landing on the Moon.
• July 25 – Vietnam War: U.S. 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 starts the "Vietnamization" of the war.
• July 26 – The New York Chapter of the Young Lords is founded to fight for empowerment of Puerto Ricans.
• July 30 – Vietnam War: U.S. President Richard Nixon makes an unscheduled visit to South Vietnam, meeting with President Nguyễn Văn Thiệu and U.S. military commanders.

August

• August 4 – Vietnam War: At the apartment of French intermediary Jean Sainteny in Paris, U.S. representative Henry Kissinger and North Vietnamese representative Xuan Thuy begin secret peace negotiations. They eventually fail since both sides cannot agree to any terms.
• 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 Sharon Tate (who was 8 months pregnant) and her friends: Folgers coffee heiress Abigail Folger, Wojciech Frykowski, and Hollywood hairstylist Jay Sebring at Roman Polanski's home in Los Angeles. Also killed was Steven Parent, leaving from a visit to the home's caretaker. More than 100 stab wounds are found on the victims, except for Parent, who had been shot almost as soon as the Manson Family entered the property.
• August 10 – The Manson Family kills Leno and Rosemary LaBianca, wealthy Los Angeles business people.
• August 15 – Captain D's is founded as "Mr. D's Seafood and Hamburgers" by Ray Danner with its first location opening in Donelson, Tennessee.
• August 15–18 – The Woodstock Festival is held in upstate New York, featuring some of the era's top rock musicians.
• August 17 – Category 5 Hurricane Camille, the most powerful tropical cyclonic system at landfall in history, hits the Mississippi coast, killing 248 people and causing US$1.5 billion in damage (1969 dollars).
• August 20 – Florissant Fossil Beds National Monument is established in Florissant, Colorado.
• August 21 – Donald and Doris Fisher open the first Gap store on Ocean Avenue in San Francisco.

September

• September 2 – The first automatic teller machine in the United States is installed in Rockville Centre, New York.
• September 5 – My Lai Massacre: Lieutenant William Calley is charged with six counts of premeditated murder, for the deaths of 109 Vietnamese civilians in My Lai.
• September 6 – Children's TV series H.R. Pufnstuf begins its run on NBC. It was also a segment in The Banana Splits Adventure Hour season 2.
• September 9 – Allegheny Airlines Flight 853 DC-9 collides in flight with a Piper PA-28, and crashes near Fairland, Indiana.
• September 13 – Scooby-Doo, Where Are You!, Dastardly and Muttley in Their Flying Machines, and The Perils of Penelope Pitstop are broadcast for the first time on CBS.
• September 14 – Men who were born during the years from 1944 to 1951, and who celebrate their birthdays on this day, mark the occasion without being aware that September 14 will be the first date selected in the new U.S. draft lottery on December 1.
• September 20 – The last Warner Bros. cartoon of the original theatrical Looney Tunes series is released: Injun Trouble.
• September 23 – Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, a film starring Paul Newman and Robert Redford, opens to limited release in the U.S.
• September 24 – The Chicago Eight trial begins in Chicago, Illinois.^[3]
• September 25 – DHL, a worldwide logistics and delivery service, is founded in California.^[6]
• September 26 – The Brady Bunch premieres on ABC.

October

• October 1 – The 5.6 M_w Santa Rosa earthquake shook the North Bay area of California with a maximum Mercalli intensity of VII (Very strong). This first event in a doublet earthquake was followed two hours later by a 5.7 M_w  shock. Total financial losses from the events was $8.35 million.
• October 2 – A 1.2 megaton thermonuclear device is tested at Amchitka Island, Alaska. This test is code-named Project Milrow, the 11th test of the Operation Mandrel 1969–1970 underground nuclear test series. This test is known as a "calibration shot" to test if the island is fit for larger underground nuclear detonations.
• October 9–12 – Days of Rage: In Chicago, the United States National Guard is called in to control demonstrations involving the radical Weathermen, in connection with the "Chicago Eight" Trial.
• October 11 – The Zodiac Killer murders taxi cab driver Paul Stine in San Francisco, California.
• October 15 – Vietnam War: Hundreds of thousands of people take part in antiwar demonstrations across the United States called by the National Mobilization Committee to End the War in Vietnam.
• October 16 – The "miracle" New York Mets win the World Series, beating the heavily favored Baltimore Orioles 4 games to 1.
• October 17
  • Willard S. Boyle and George Smith invent the CCD at Bell Laboratories (30 years later, this technology is widely used in digital cameras).
  • Fourteen black athletes are dismissed from the University of Wyoming football team for wearing black armbands into their coach's office.
• October 31 – Wal-Mart incorporates as Wal-Mart Stores, Inc.

November

• November 3 – Vietnam War: U.S. President Richard Nixon addresses the nation on television and radio, asking the "silent majority" to join him in solidarity with the Vietnam War effort, and to support his policies. Vice President Spiro T. Agnew denounces the President's critics as "an effete corps of impudent snobs" and "nattering nabobs of negativism".
• November 9 – A group of American Indians, led by Richard Oakes, seizes Alcatraz Island as a symbolic gesture, offering to buy the property for $24 from the U.S. government. A longer occupation begins 11 days later. The act inspires a wave of renewed Indian pride and government reform.
• November 10 – The children's television show Sesame Street premieres on NET (now PBS).
• November 12 – Vietnam War – My Lai Massacre: Independent investigative journalist Seymour Hersh breaks the My Lai story.
• November 14 – Apollo program: NASA launches Apollo 12 (Pete Conrad, Richard Gordon, Alan Bean), the second crewed mission to the Moon.
• November 15
  • Cold War: The Soviet submarine K-19 collides with the American submarine USS Gato in the Barents Sea.
  • Vietnam War: In Washington, D.C., 250,000–500,000 protesters stage a peaceful demonstration against the war, including a symbolic "March Against Death".
  • Dave Thomas opens his first restaurant in a former steakhouse in downtown Columbus, Ohio. He names the chain Wendy's after his 8-year-old daughter Melinda Lou (nicknamed Wendy by her siblings).
• November 17 – Cold War: Negotiators from the Soviet Union and the United States meet in Helsinki, to begin the SALT I negotiations aimed at limiting the number of strategic weapons on both sides.
• November 19 – Apollo program: Apollo 12 astronauts Pete Conrad and Alan Bean land at Oceanus Procellarum ("Ocean of Storms"), becoming the third and fourth humans to walk on the Moon.
• November 20
  • Vietnam War: The Plain Dealer (Cleveland, Ohio) publishes explicit photographs of dead villagers from the My Lai massacre in Vietnam.
  • Occupation of Alcatraz: A group of Native American activists calling themselves "Indians of All Tribes" begin an 18-month occupation of Alcatraz Island as surplus federal land, to call attention to U.S. policies and treaty obligations to Native Americans and their tribal communities.
• November 21
  • U.S. President Richard Nixon and Japanese Premier Eisaku Satō agree in Washington, D.C., to the return of Okinawa to Japanese control in 1972. Under the terms of the agreement, the U.S. retains rights to military bases on the island, but they must be nuclear-free.
  • The United States Senate votes down the Supreme Court nomination of Clement Haynsworth, the first such rejection since 1930.
• November 22 – College Football: Michigan ends Ohio State's 22-game winning streak with a 24–12 upset at Ann Arbor, denying the Buckeyes their second consecutive national championship.
• November 24 – Apollo program: The Apollo 12 spacecraft splashes down safely in the Pacific Ocean, ending the second crewed mission to the Moon.
• November 25 – John Lennon returns his MBE medal to protest the British government's support of the U.S. war in Vietnam.

December

• December 1 – Chicago: Blues musician Magic Sam dies at the age of 32 of a heart attack.
• 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 will run a long article, "Statisticians Charge Draft Lottery Was Not Random").
• December 2 – The Boeing 747 jumbo jet makes its debut. It carries 191 people, most of them reporters and photographers, from Seattle to New York City.
• December 4
  • Black Panther Party members Fred Hampton and Mark Clark are shot dead in their sleep during a raid by 14 Chicago police officers.
  • A Boy Named Charlie Brown, the first feature film based on the Peanuts comic strip, was released to theaters for the first time.^[7]
• December 6
  • The Altamont Free Concert is held at the Altamont Speedway in northern California. Hosted by the Rolling Stones, it is an attempt at a "Woodstock West" and is best known for the uproar of violence that occurred. It is viewed by many as the "end of the sixties."
  • College football: #1 ranked Texas rallies from 14–0 deficit with two fourth quarter touchdowns to edge #2 Arkansas 15–14 at Fayetteville in a game attended by President of the United States Richard Nixon and several high-ranking government dignitaries, including future President George H. W. Bush. The victory clinches the national championship of the coaches poll for the Longhorns; they would win the Associated Press national championship by defeating Notre Dame 21–17 in the Cotton Bowl on New Year's Day.
• December 7 – Frosty the Snowman airs for the first time on CBS.^[8]
• December 12 – The Piazza Fontana bombing in Italy (Strage di Piazza Fontana) takes place. A U.S. Navy officer and C.I.A. agent, David Carrett, is later investigated for possible involvement.
• December 28 – The Young Lords take over the First Spanish Methodist Church in East Harlem.

Undated

• The first Gap store opens in San Francisco.
• Reported as being the year the first strain of the AIDS virus (HIV) migrated to the United States via Haiti.^[9]
• The Water Rights Determination and Administration Act is passed in Colorado.^[10]
• The weather station of Mount Washington, New Hampshire, records the heaviest calendar year precipitation in the US east of the Cascades with 130.14 inches (3,305.6 mm), beating the previous record of Rosman, North Carolina, by 0.54 inches (13.7 mm).^[11]
• Fall – First-generation Dodge Challenger automobile introduced in the United States.
• Women are allowed membership in the Future Farmers of America (the later National FFA Organization).
• Arthur Treacher's Fish and Chips is founded by S. Robert Davis and Dave Thomas and its first location in Columbus, Ohio opens for business.

Ongoing

• Cold War (1947–1991)
• Space Race (1957–1975)
• Vietnam War, U.S. involvement (1964–1973)
• Détente (c. 1969–1979)

Births

Deaths

See also

• List of American films of 1969
• Timeline of United States history (1950–1969)

References

External links

• Media related to 1969 in the United States at Wikimedia Commons

This page was last edited on 4 April 2024, at 16:39