(1963) Dr. King delivers a speech of dreams in Washington, DCStanding in front of the Lincoln Memorial, his voice ringing out to some 250,000 listeners, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. delivers a stirring speech that will galvanize the civil rights movement and be heralded as one of the greatest orations in American history.“I Have a Dream” is a public speech delivered by American civil rights activist Martin Luther King Jr. during the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom on August 28, 1963, in which he calls for an end to racism in the United States and called for civil and economic rights. Delivered to over 250,000 civil rights supporters from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C., the speech was a defining moment of the Civil Rights Movement. wiki/I_Have_a_Dream(1968) Protesters clash with police at Chicago conventionTens of thousands of anti-war activists and an even larger number of police officers and federal troops meet in a fray of batons, fists, and tear gas in Chicago, and TV cameras capture the melee as it arrives on the doorstep of the Democratic National Convention at the Hilton Hotel.Protest activity took place prior to and during the 1968 Democratic National Convention. In 1967, counterculture and anti-Vietnam War protest groups had been promising to come to Chicago and disrupt the convention, and the city promised to maintain law and order. For eight days, the protesters and the Chicago Police Department met in the streets and parks of Chicago while the U.S. Democratic Party met at the convention in the International Amphitheater.
Date: 1968 1968 Democratic National Convention, Chicago. Sept 68 C15 8 1313 , Photo by Bea A Corson, Chicago. Purchased at estate sale in 2011 by Victor Grigas Released Public Domain
(1968) The USSR puts a chokehold on CzechoslovakiaHopes for a freer society are brutally quashed as Warsaw Pact tanks and hundreds of thousands of troops thunder through the street of Prague, Czechoslovakia. Democratic reforms that began seven months earlier as the ‘Prague Spring’ are now crushed in the iron grip of Soviet domination.The Prague Spring was a period of political liberalization in Czechoslovakia during the era of its domination by the Soviet Union after World War II. It began on 5 January 1968, when reformist Alexander Dubček was elected First Secretary of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia, and continued until 21 August 1968 when the Soviet Union and other members of the Warsaw Pact invaded the country to halt the reforms.
(793) Shocking raid from the north ushers in a new ageThe Kingdom of Northumbria sees uninvited guests arrive on Lindisfarne, an island off of England’s northeast coast. What these ‘Northmen’ do there, including destroying the abbey and killing its monks, will jolt Europe and earn the Vikings a fierce reputation for the ages.The Viking Age is the period from the late 8th century to the mid-11th century in European history, especially Northern European and Scandinavian history, between the Germanic Iron Age and the Middle Ages, from a general Scandinavian perspective. It is the period of history when Scandinavian Norsemen explored Europe by its seas and rivers for trade, raids, colonisation and conquest. In this period, the Norsemen settled in Norse Greenland, Newfoundland, and present-day Faroe Islands, Iceland, Norway, Scotland, England, Ireland, the Netherlands, Germany, Ukraine, Russia, and Turkey. Though Viking travellers and colonists were seen at many points in history as brutal raiders, many historical documents suggest that their invasion of other countries was retaliation in response to the encroachment upon tribal lands by Christian missionaries, and perhaps by the Saxon Wars prosecuted by Charlemagne and his kin to the south, or, were motivated by overpopulation, trade inequities, and the lack of viable farmland in their homeland. Information about the Viking Age is drawn largely from what was written about the Vikings by their enemies, and primary sources of archaeology, supplied with secondary sources like the Icelandic Sagas. But the Vikingers were not illiterates. Some history can be found on Runestones, a good example of this is the larger of the two Jelling Stones. Further did travellers like Adam of Bremen and Ansgar visit Scandinavia by the end of the Viking Age, and wrote imperative works of chronicle-style. And later did Saxo do the same. Also some Scandinavian early Middle-Ages works like Hávamál, Codex Regius, the Scanian Law have also been of historical help.
Start date: 800 AD End date: 1066
wiki/Viking_Age(1949) Big Brother is watching you as ‘1984’ is publishedNewspeak, thoughtcrimes, and Big Brother are introduced as George Orwell’s vision of a dystopian future is published. ‘Nineteen Eighty-Four’ will be seen as both a great literary work and an accurate warning of the “double plus ungood” rise of totalitarianism and surveillance.Nineteen Eighty-Four, often published as 1984, is a dystopian novel published in 1949 by English author George Orwell. The novel is set in Airstrip One, a province of the superstate Oceania in a world of perpetual war, omnipresent government surveillance, and public manipulation. The superstate and its residents are dictated to by a political regime euphemistically named English Socialism, shortened to “Ingsoc” in Newspeak, the government’s invented language. The superstate is under the control of the privileged elite of the Inner Party, a party and government that persecutes individualism and independent thinking as “thoughtcrime”, which is enforced by the “Thought Police”.
Author: George Orwell First published: Jun 08, 1949 Number of pages: 298 Characters: Big Brother · Winston Smith · Emmanuel Goldstein · O’Brien · Julia · Syme Preceded by: Animal Farm Adaptations: Nineteen Eighty-Four (1984) · 1984 (1956) · Brazil (1985) · Nineteen Eighty-Four (1954) · 1984 · 1984: A Personal View of Orwell’s ‘Nineteen Eighty Four’ (1983) · 1984 · 1984
wiki/Nineteen_Eighty-Four(1959) US Post Office delivers mail by rocketThree thousand letters streak through the sky at 600 mph, encased in a guided missile shot from the nuclear submarine USS Barbero. This newfangled airmail travels a distance of more than 100 miles in 22 minutes, but Missile Mail delivery will prove cost-prohibitive and won’t catch on.Rocket mail is the delivery of mail by rocket or missile. The rocket lands by deploying an internal parachute upon arrival. It has been attempted by various organizations in many different countries, with varying levels of success. It has never become widely seen as being a viable option for delivering mail, due to the cost of the schemes and numerous failures. wiki/Rocket_mail(1968) Suspected killer of Martin Luther King, Jr. arrestedTwo months after civil rights leader Martin Luther King, Jr. was gunned down in Memphis, Tennessee, his suspected assassin is apprehended at London’s Heathrow Airport. James Earl Ray will be extradited back to the US, stand trial, and be convicted and sentenced to 99 years in prison.James Earl Ray was a convicted murderer who assassinated Martin Luther King Jr. on April 4, 1968 in Memphis, Tennessee. Ray was convicted on his 41st birthday after entering a guilty plea to forgo a jury trial. Had he been found guilty by jury trial, he would have been eligible for the death penalty.
Born: Mar 10, 1928 · Alton, IL Died: Apr 23, 1998 · Nashville, TN Movies: Who Killed Martin Luther King? Parents: Lucille Ray (Mother) · James Gerald Ray (Father)
Highlights
1959: In 1959 he was caught stealing $120 in an armed robbery of a St. Louis Kroger store.
1968: Arriving in Atlanta on March 24, 1968, Ray checked into a rooming house.
1968: There, on March 30, 1968, he bought a Remington Model 760 Gamemaster .30-06-caliber rifle and a box of 20 cartridges from the Aeromarine Supply Company.
1968: On April 4, 1968, Ray killed Martin Luther King with a single shot fired from his Remington rifle, while King was standing on the second-floor balcony of the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennessee.
1968: On June 8, 1968, two months after King’s death, Ray was arrested at London’s Heathrow Airport while trying to leave the United Kingdom on the false Canadian passport.
1998: Ray died at age 70 on April 23, 1998, at the Columbia Nashville Memorial Hospital from complications related to kidney disease and liver failure caused by hepatitis C.
(1956) The Milton Berle Show features a scandalous ElvisNew singing sensation Elvis Presley makes his second appearance on NBC’s ‘Milton Berle Show,’ this time to perform his single ‘Hound Dog.’ Teenagers swoon, while the older set and most critics are outraged at Presley’s indecent gyrations. Future TV gigs will film Elvis from the waist up.Elvis Aaron Presley was an American singer-songwriter and actor. Regarded as one of the most significant cultural icons of the 20th century, he is often referred to as the “King of Rock and Roll” or simply “the King”.
Lived: Jan 08, 1935 – Aug 16, 1977 (age 42) Height: 6′ 0″ (1.82 m) Spouse: Priscilla Presley (m. 1967 – 1973) Partner: Linda Thompson (1972 – 1976) Children: Lisa Marie Presley (Daughter) Buried: Graceland
wiki/Elvis_Presley(1963) ‘Profumo Affair’ rocks the British governmentTeenage showgirls, possible prostitution, and the British War Secretary sharing a lover with a Soviet diplomat are the ingredients in a stew of a scandal forcing the resignation of John Profumo, and ultimately leading to the fall of Prime Minister Harold Macmillan’s Conservative government.The Profumo affair was a British political scandal that originated with a brief sexual relationship in 1961 between John Profumo, the Secretary of State for War in Harold Macmillan’s government, and Christine Keeler, a 19-year-old would-be model. In March 1963, Profumo denied any impropriety in a personal statement to the House of Commons, but was forced to admit the truth a few weeks later. He resigned from the government and from Parliament. The repercussions of the affair severely damaged Macmillan’s self-confidence, and he resigned as prime minister on health grounds in October 1963. His Conservative Party was marked by the scandal, which may have contributed to its defeat by Labour in the 1964 general election. wiki/Profumo_affair(1967) Israel launches preemptive attack on Egyptian air powerCiting an Arab military build-up near its border with Egypt, Israel launches air strikes on Egyptian airfields, destroying upwards of 400 aircraft. The Six-Day War will grow to include Syria and Jordan, and Israel will capture the Sinai Peninsula, Gaza Strip, and the Golan Heights.The Six-Day War, also known as the June War, 1967 Arab–Israeli War, or Third Arab–Israeli War, was fought between June 5 and 10, 1967 by Israel and the neighboring states of Egypt, Jordan, and Syria.
Start date: Jun 05, 1967 End date: Jun 10, 1967
wiki/Six-Day_War(1968) Robert F. Kennedy brought down by assassin’s bulletsPresidential candidate Robert Kennedy is shot three times as he departs the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles after giving a victory speech following his California Democratic Primary win. He will die the next day from his wounds, almost five years after his brother John was assassinated.On June 5, 1968, presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy was fatally shot at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles, shortly after winning the California presidential primaries in the 1968 election, and died the next day while hospitalized.
(1864) General Grant makes a tragic decision at Cold HarborConfederate forces are entrenched just 10 miles southeast of Richmond, capital of the Confederacy. Union General U. S. Grant orders a full frontal assault, despite his reinforcements not having arrived, and 7,000 Union troops are dead within an hour’s time in one of the Civil War’s bloodiest battles.The Battle of Cold Harbor was fought from May 31 to June 12, 1864, with the most significant fighting occurring on June 3. It was one of the final battles of Union Lt. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant’s Overland Campaign during the American Civil War, and is remembered as one of American history’s bloodiest, most lopsided battles. Thousands of Union soldiers were killed or wounded in a hopeless frontal assault against the fortified positions of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee’s army.
Start date: May 31, 1864 End date: Jun 12, 1864
wiki/Battle_of_Cold_Harbor(1943) Military men target Latinos in L.A. riotingFueled by racism, and what’s perceived as the flaunting of wartime rationing rules, the Zoot Suit Riots flare in Los Angeles as white Marines and Navy sailors attack young Latino men. Other cities will see similar clashes between soldiers and minorities wearing the distinctive suit.The Zoot Suit Riots were a series of attacks in June 1943 in Los Angeles, California, United States, by white American servicemen stationed in Southern California against Mexican American youths and other minorities who were residents of the city.
Date: 1943
wiki/Zoot_Suit_Riots(1967) Aretha Franklin gets some R-E-S-P-E-C-T Aretha Franklin hits No. 1 on the ‘Billboard’ Hot 100 singles chart with her version of Otis Redding’s ‘Respect,’ turning the song into a women’s anthem. Decades later, Rolling Stone will rank her recording as one of the five greatest songs of all time.“Respect” is a song written and originally released by American recording artist Otis Redding in 1965. The song became a 1967 hit and signature song for R&B singer Aretha Franklin. The music in the two versions is significantly different, and through a few minor changes in the lyrics, the stories told by the songs have a different flavor. Redding’s version is a plea from a desperate man, who will give his woman anything she wants. He won’t care if she does him wrong, as long as he gets his due respect, when he brings money home . However, Franklin’s version is a declaration from a strong, confident woman, who knows that she has everything her man wants. She never does him wrong, and demands his “respect”. Franklin’s version adds the “R-E-S-P-E-C-T” chorus and the backup singers’ refrain of “Sock it to me, sock it to me, sock it to me…”
Franklin’s cover was a landmark for the feminist movement, and is often considered as one of the best songs of the R&B era, earning her two Grammy Awards in 1968 for “Best Rhythm & Blues Recording” and “Best Rhythm & Blues Solo Vocal Performance, Female”, and was inducted in the Grammy Hall of Fame in 1987. In 2002, the Library of Congress honored Franklin’s version by adding it to the National Recording Registry. It was placed number five on Rolling Stone magazine’s list of The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time. It was also included in the list of Songs of the Century, by the Recording Industry of America and the National Endowment for the Arts. Franklin included a live recording on the album Aretha in Paris (1968).
Album: I Never Loved a Man the Way I Love You Artists: Aretha Franklin · Otis Redding Duration: 2:21 Genre: R&B / Soul, Soul
wiki/Respect_(song)(1968) Pop art provocateur is nearly assassinatedAlready well into his 15 minutes of fame, Andy Warhol, the king of Manhattan’s underground art-world elite, is shot at his famed workspace, The Factory. He will survive after a 5-hour operation, and his would-be assassin, Valerie Solanas, will be diagnosed as a paranoid schizophrenic.Andy Warhol was an American artist, director and producer who was a leading figure in the visual art movement known as pop art. His works explore the relationship between artistic expression, celebrity culture, and advertising that flourished by the 1960s, and span a variety of media, including painting, silkscreening, photography, film, and sculpture. Some of his best known works include the silkscreen paintings Campbell’s Soup Cans and Marilyn Diptych, the experimental film Chelsea Girls, and the multimedia events known as the Exploding Plastic Inevitable.
Lived: Aug 06, 1928 – Feb 22, 1987 (age 58) Height: 5′ 11″ (1.80 m) Periods: Pop art · Modern art Education: Carnegie Mellon University (1945 – 1949) · Schenley High School (1942 – 1945) Buried: St. John the Baptist Byzantine Catholic Cemetery Parents: Julia Warhola (Mother) · Andrej Warhola (Father)
(1963) Dr. King delivers a speech of dreams in Washington, DC
(1968) Protesters clash with police at Chicago convention
(1968) The USSR puts a chokehold on Czechoslovakia
(793) Shocking raid from the north ushers in a new age
(1949) Big Brother is watching you as ‘1984’ is published
(1959) US Post Office delivers mail by rocket
(1968) Suspected killer of Martin Luther King, Jr. arrested
(1956) The Milton Berle Show features a scandalous Elvis
(1963) ‘Profumo Affair’ rocks the British government
(1967) Israel launches preemptive attack on Egyptian air power
(1968) Robert F. Kennedy brought down by assassin’s bullets
(1864) General Grant makes a tragic decision at Cold Harbor
(1943) Military men target Latinos in L.A. rioting
(1967) Aretha Franklin gets some R-E-S-P-E-C-T 
(1968) Pop art provocateur is nearly assassinated
