General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: 1968 (Your Help, Please!) [View all]SheilaT
(23,156 posts)Every single month some new and more terrible happened.
In January the USS Pueblo was captured by North Korea.
February was the Tet Offensive.
In March Eugene McCarthy did well enough in the New Hampshire primary that Robert Kennedy was emboldened to run, and Lyndon Johnson decided he would not run again for President.
April Martin Luther King was assassinated and riots broke out across the country.
May the USS Scorpion, a nuclear powered submarine sank, with a loss of 99 lives. Student riots in Paris.
June Robert Kennedy was assassinated. The Prague Spring, with the people of Czechoslovakia trying to break free from the Soviet Union.
July was relatively quiet, but we were all still reeling from what had already happened so far.
August the Republicans nominated Richard Nixon for President, and the Democrats, amid bloodshed and rioting, nominated Hubert Humphrey. Soviets invaded Czechoslovakia, quelling that bid for freedom.
September saw some of the first major stirrings of the Women's Movement.
October there were student riots in Mexico City ahead of the summer Olympics. During those Olympics two black athletes angered many white Americans by raising their fists in the Black Power salute when our National Anthem was played.
Also that month Jackie Kennedy married Aristotle Onassis.
November saw the election of Richard Nixon.
December we had the marriage of David Eisenhower and Julie Nixon, the launch of Apollo 8 which gave us those amazing photos of our planet. The crew of the USS Pueblo was released on December 23, although the ship still remains in North Korea.
Yeah, every single month had something happening that would have been the story of the year in any other year. And I've only hit the highlights.
I turned 20 that year, and I remember it well.