1969: Information and Much More from Answers.com
- ️Wed Jun 14 1972
1961 1962 1963 1964 1965 1966 1967 1968 1969 1970
Former Saudi king Saud ibn Abdul Aziz dies of a heart attack at Athens February 23 at age 67. He has reportedly been receiving an annual stipend of $10 million.
U.S. B-52s secretly attack communist bases in Cambodia in March as 543,000 U.S. troops escalate the war in Vietnam with support from small contingents sent by Australia, New Zealand, Thailand, the Philippines, and South Korea (whose government has sent 50,000 men). Gen. Earle Gilmore Wheeler, 61, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, directs the bombing on orders from President Nixon, who wants to stop the flow of Soviet arms and equipment coming through Cambodia.
North Vietnamese foreign minister Mme. Nguyen Thi Binh announces a 10-point peace program at Paris May 8. Chief negotiator for the National Liberation Front and foreign minister of the Provisional Revolutionary government, she submits a plan for the unification of Vietnam, but the other peace conference delegates reject it as the "quagmire" once predicted by France's president Charles de Gaulle becomes all too evidently a fact.
The Battle of Hamburger Hill (Ap Bia Mountain) rages from May 10 to May 20 in what will be the last major combat operation by U.S. troops in Vietnam; 633 North Vietnamese are killed, 46 U.S. soldiers die (about 400 are wounded).
Opposition to the Vietnam War grows in the United States as Americans learn about the secret bombing of Cambodia and the atrocities committed last year at My Lai.
President Nixon meets with President Thieu at Midway June 8 and announces the start of U.S. troop withdrawal and a new "Vietnamization" policy that will help the Indochinese nation deal with her own problems. Nixon's Omaha-born secretary of defense Melvin R. (Robert) Laird, 46, has come up with the term as a way to defuse U.S. involvement in southeast Asia as a political issue. Some 25,000 U.S Marines will be withdrawn immediately, the president promises.
North Vietnamese leader Ho Chi Minh dies at Hanoi September 3 at age 79 after 15 years as president. He is succeeded as president of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam by Vice President Ton Duc Thang, 81, who will become president of a reunited Socialist Republic of Vietnam in 1976. Le Dung (Le Duan), now 61, has been first secretary of the Vietnam Workers' Party and assumes leadership of the party, forming a triumvirate with Truong Chinh, now 62, and Pham Von Dong to rule the country.
Malaysia has riots as hostilities erupt between Chinese and Malays (see 1963; 1970).
Premier Kosygin meets at Beijing (Peking) Airport with Zhou Enlai (Chou En-lai) en route home from the funeral of Ho Chi Minh at Hanoi; the two communist leaders discuss Sino-Soviet border clashes that have occurred earlier in the year in East and Central Asia. Formal border conferences begin at Beijing October 19 amid signs of deepening divisions in the communist world.
Former president Dwight D. Eisenhower dies of congestive heart failure at Walter Reed Hospital March 22 at age 78. He has been a patient at the facility since May of last year; former CIA director Allen W. Dulles has died of influenza complicated by a pulmonary edema at his native Washington, D.C., January 29 at age 75; Sen. Everett M. Dirksen (R. Ill.) dies at Washington September 7 at age 73.
The U.S. Senate fails to confirm former president Johnson's Supreme Court chief justice nominee Abe Fortas (the first time such a nominee has been rejected since 1795). Fortas will resign from the court next year under threat of impeachment. President Nixon nominates St. Paul, Minn.-born Court of Appeals judge Warren Burger, 61, to succeed Earl Warren as chief justice (see 1968), Burger wins easy confirmation, he is sworn in June 23, and he will serve until his retirement in 1986. The Senate votes 55 to 45 in November to reject Nixon Supreme Court appointee Clement F. Haynsworth Jr., 56, whose ethical and philosophic standards were questioned by organized labor and civil-rights groups; legal scholar John Minor Wisdom, now 64, of the Fifth Circuit Court has helped to end segregation in the South and is a leading candidate for appointment to the high court, but Attorney General John Mitchell reportedly complains that Wisdom is a "damn left-winger" who would be "worse than Earl Warren" if he ever got on the Supreme Court (see Carswell, 1970)
Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D. Mass.) loses some credibility as a statesman when the body of a former campaign worker for the late Robert Kennedy is retrieved on the morning of July 19 from a 1967 Oldsmobile sedan that plunged into Poucha Pond on Chappaquiddick Island off Martha's Vineyard some hours earlier and is upside down in eight feet of water. Mary Jo Kopechne, 28, left a party at midnight of July 18 with Sen. Kennedy; he drove off Dike Bridge, allegedly tried to save the young woman, but has failed unaccountably to report the accident to police for 10 hours and thus raised questions as to his judgment. Kennedy has defied tradition by challenging Russell Long of Louisiana after only 6 years' tenure and defeated the 20-year veteran January 4 to become assistant majority leader at age 35. Financier-diplomat Joseph P. Kennedy dies at Hyannisport, Mass., November 18 at age 81 (he suffered a stroke in 1961 and has never recovered); as his only surviving son, Edward will survive the scandal and serve in the Senate into the 21st century, winning widespread acclaim for his vigorous support of progressive causes.
Chicago judge Julius Hoffman, 74, hears testimony in the case of United States v. Dellinger and others that opens September 24 (see 1968). New York-born civil-rights lawyer William (Moses) Kunstler, 50, defends David Dellinger, Rennie Davis, Tom Hayden, Abbie Hoffman, Black Panther leader Bobby Seale, Jerry Rubin, university lecturer Lee Weiner, 32, and chemistry professor John R. Froins against charges that they conspired to incite riot. Justice Hoffman has Seale gagged and manacled to his chair in the courtroom and sentences him in November to 4 years in prison for contempt of court.
Radicals who have broken with Students for a Democratic Society change their name from the Weathermen to the Weather Underground. The original name came from the Bob Dylan song "Subterranean Homesick Blues," whose lyric contains the words, "You don't need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows." The Weather Underground will plant bombs to protest the continuing war in Vietnam.
"I will say confidently that looking ahead just three years the war will be over," says President Nixon October 12. "It will be over on a lasting basis that will promote lasting peace in the Pacific."
The New Mobilization Committee to End the War in Vietnam demands a moratorium on the war October 15 and masses hundreds of thousands of demonstrators in Washington, D.C., November 15. Police surround the White House with D.C. Transit buses parked bumper to bumper to protect the executive mansion, where President Nixon watches a football game on television. The police use tear gas to disperse demonstrators gathered in front of the Justice Department, and the antiwar left charges the FBI and the CIA with spying on them and breaking into their offices to gather information.
A bomb explodes at Manhattan's Criminal Court building November 12—the eighth government or corporate building to be bombed since July 26. Police and FBI agents arrest four militant radicals, including Jane Hale Alpert, 24, hours later. They also seek Pat Swinton in connection with the bombings but she will evade apprehension, and Alpert will jump bail (see 1974).
Journalist Seymour M. Hersh breaks the story of last year's My Lai massacre November 12; explicit photographs of villagers killed at My Lai appear November 20 in the Cleveland Plain Dealer (see 1971).
Chicago police raid an apartment before dawn December 4 pursuant to a court order. The 14 officers are armed with a Thompson submachine gun, five shotguns, a .357 pistol, and 19 or 20 .38 caliber pistols. Black Panther leader Fred Hampton or Mark Clark fires one shot at the police, the police fire at least 82 shots, killing both Hampton and Clark, and recover illegal weapons.
Admiral Raymond A. Spruance (ret.) dies of arteriosclerosis at Pebble Beach, Calif., December 13 at age 83.
Québecois separatists kidnap British Trade Commissioner James Richard Cross at Montreal October 5, and Quebec's labor minister Pierre Laporte is abducted by four armed men October 9. Prime Minister Trudeau invokes the War Measures Act October 16, the first such invocation in peacetime, and calls the army into Montreal. Police are empowered under the law to round up and detain anyone suspected of involvement in the violence without formal charges, and some 450 people are arrested, including separatist Pierre Vallières (who will be released and dissociate himself from his organization, calling it a "terrorist menace"). Laporte's body is found a few days later in the trunk of a car, and the Front for the Liberation of Quebec claims responsibility.
Irish nationalist Robert Briscoe dies of cancer at Dublin in May at age 74. Queen's University, Belfast, undergraduate Bernadette (Josephine) Devlin, 21, is one of 12 Northern Irish members seated in Britain's House of Commons, becoming the youngest MP since the election of William Pitt the younger in 1781 (see 1949). She views the situation in Ulster as a class struggle, not a religious war, since Protestants on the lower economic scale are as much exploited as the predominantly working-class Roman Catholics who constitute one third of Northern Ireland's population (see 1971).
Gen. Sir Miles Dempsey dies at Yattindon, Berkshire, June 6 at age 72; a collapsed aorta kills former British Army general Harold R. L. G. Alexander, 1st Earl Alexander of Tunis, at Slough June 16 at age 77; Rear Admiral Graham H. Stokes, Royal Navy, dies at London August 22 at age 66.
West German elections September 28 end without a clear winner. Former German chancellor Franz von Papen has died at Obersasbach, West Germany, May 2 at age 89.
Social Democratic Party (SPD) leader and former foreign minister Willy Brandt (Karl Herbert Frahn), 55, becomes chancellor of the Federal Republic October 21 in a coalition government that pursues the policy of Ostpolitic, recognizing the status of Eastern European nations with a view to improving relations.
Czechoslovakia's Communist Party leader Gustav Husák succeeds Alexander Dubcek as first secretary in April (his title will be changed to general secretary in 1971), reverses Dubcek's reforms, and begins a purge of the party's liberal members under a new federalism that has come into force January 1 as he focuses on managing the Czech economy and stifling internal dissent (see 1968). Prime Minister Cernik is named prime minister of the new federal government and quickly moves to disavow "errors" that he and others have committed (but see 1970). Husák will give up his position as general secretary in 1987 but will retain the presidency until December 1989 (see Husák, 1971).
Former Soviet Army marshal Kliment E. Voroshilov dies of a heart attack at Moscow December 3 at age 88. He was president of the USSR from 1953 to 1960.
Former Venezuelan president and writer Romulo Gallegos dies at Caracas April 4 at age 84. Venezuela inaugurates a new, democratically elected president: Rafael Caldera Rodriguez will remain in office until 1974, legalizing the Communist Party and establishing diplomatic relations with Moscow.
Former Jamaican prime minister Norman W. Manley dies of a heart attack at Kingston September 3 at age 76; former Mexican president Adolfo Lopez Mateo of cancer at Mexico City September 22 at age 59; former Brazilian president Marshal Arthur da Costa e Silva at Rio de Janeiro December 17 at age 67 (he suffered a cerebral stroke August 29).
Russian-born Milwaukee-raised Palestine pioneer Golda Meir (née Mabovitch), 70, is sworn in as Israel's fourth premier February 17, replacing Levi Eshkol, who dies at Jerusalem February 26 at age 73. Foreign minister from 1956 to 1966 and before that the minister of labor, Meir has been opposed by Agudat Israel, a religious party whose members adhere to the Orthodox rule that Jewish men do not look at "strange women." She will hold office for 5 embattled years.
Indian political leader and journalist C. N. (Conjeevaran Nataragen) Annadurai dies of stomach cancer at Madras February 2 at age 59; six mourners die in a stampede February 3 when his body lies in state at the city's Ragji Hall, nearly 3 million people attend his funeral February 4, but 28 persons are killed en route when they are struck by bridge girders while riding atop a packed train.
Pakistan's president Ayub Khan resigns March 26 as street riots erupt in cities throughout the country; now 61, he has announced that he would not stand for reelection and is succeeded by his protégé, army commander in chief Gen. Agha Mohammed Yahya Khan, 52, who served in Italy and the Middle East during World War II and organized the Pakistani Staff College in 1947. "I will not tolerate disorder," says Yahya Khan. "Let everyone return to his post" (but see 1971; environment [cyclone], 1970).
Indian banker-diplomat Sir Benegal Rama Rau dies at Bombay (Mumbai) December 13 at age 80.
Former Congo president Joseph Kasavubu dies at Boma, Lower Congo, March 24 at age 55 (approximate); former Congo premier Moise Tshombe in exile at Algiers June 29 at age 49.
Sudan's premier Ismail al-Azari is overthrown May 25 in an army coup. He dies of a heart attack at Khartoum August 26 at age 69, and Gen. Gaafar Mohamed el-Nimeiri, 39, takes over as prime minister in October. President of the Council for the Revolution, Nimeiri is a 1966 graduate of the U.S. Army Command College at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas (see 1970).
Kenyan political leader Tom Mboya, 38, is gunned down in a Nairobi street July 5, initiating clashes between his Luo tribesmen and Jomo Kenyatta's Kikuya tribe.
A Libyan military coup September 1 overthrows Idris I, now 79, who is receiving medical treatment at a Turkish spa. The king has distanced himself from Arab nationalist movements in his 18-year reign, and the ardent nationalist Col. Muammar al-Qaddafi, 27, has taken the opportunity of Idris's absence to seize power and turn the monarchy into a republic. His cohorts name him commander in chief of the armed forces and chairman of the Revolutionary Command Council, which becomes the nation's new governing body (see 1970).
Somalia's president Abdi Rashid Ali Shermarke is assassinated October 15 at age 49 while visiting the drought-stricken northeast. Premier Mohammed Ibrahim Egal rushes home from Palm Springs, Calif., where he has been visiting actor William Holden, but Gen. Mohamed Siad Barre dissolves the legislature, arrests government leaders, sets himself up as dictator of a renamed Somali Democratic Republic, and asks the Peace Corps to leave (see 1960; 1974).
Buganda's former king Sir Edward F. W. Walugenbe Mutebiluwanguela Mutesa II dies of acute alcohol poisoning at London November 21 at age 45.
President Nixon bans production of chemical and biological warfare agents in November (see environment [Utah nerve gas contamination], 1968). Included are bacteria that produce anthrax, tick-borne encephalitis, bubonic plague, psittacosis (parrot fever), Q-fever, brucellosis, tularemia, Rocky Mountain spotted fever, and botulism along with the chemical agents mustard gas, phosgene, and the VX nerve gas that killed 6,400 sheep last year. Riot control agents such as tear gas remain in production.
Millionaire Louisiana segregationist Leander H. Perez dies of a heart attack at his plantation near Belle Chasse March 19 at age 77.
New York's Stonewall Inn riot launches a "gay rights" movement as homosexuals protest a police raid on a Greenwich Village dance club and bar in Christopher Street June 27 (see Mattachine Society, 1950). Eight officers of the NYPD's Public Morals Section have entered the bar just after midnight with a warrant charging that it had no liquor license; employees and customers (including three in drag) with no identification papers have been taken to the precinct station for processing, and violence ensues, ending with the arrest of 13 individuals on charges of harassment, resisting arrest, disorderly conduct, and the like. Homophobia has been rampant in the Village, with many shops displaying signs that read, "If You're Gay Stay Away," but a sign reading, "Support Gay Power" soon appears on the boarded-up window of the Stonewall Inn; the gay community will now forcibly resist discrimination.
Singapore has race riots May 13 as Islamic Malays clash with residents of Chinese origin (see politics, 1965). Racial tensions have escalated since riots in 1950, when Muslims attacked Europeans and Eurasians, killing 18 and injuring 173; many more were killed and injured 5 years ago, and authorities have blamed outside agitators.
The Apollo 10 space vehicle May 18 carries U.S. astronauts Eugene A. Cernan, Thomas P. Stafford, and John W. Young on an 8-day mission that attains lunar orbit on its third day, makes 31 orbits, including a final orbit of the moon that comes within 10 miles of the moon's surface, and tests the Apollo systems. Man walks on the moon for the first time July 21 as astronaut Neil A. Armstrong, now 39, steps out of the lunar module from Apollo 11 and is joined by his companion Edwin E. "Buzz" Aldrin Jr., 39, while Michael Collins remains in the command module, circling the moon at an altitude of 60 to 75 miles. German rocket scientist Willie Ley has died of a heart attack at New York June 24 at age 62, having introduced Werner von Braun to rocketry and paved the way for the U.S. space program whose efforts have involved some 400,000 scientists, technologists, and others in a mammoth undertaking based in large part on cold-war political considerations. Soviet television does not carry the event, but more than 600 million people worldwide watch Neil Armstrong on television and hear him say, "One small step for . . . man [he means a man], one giant leap for mankind" (he carries a piece of fabric from the 1903 Wright brothers plane Flyer 1). NASA engineers are not sure the astronauts will be able to return, the men splash down safely in the Pacific July 24, but millions of Americans believe that the moon walk was staged in a studio to divert attention from the Vietnam War; many millions more demand that money and technology be applied to more socially productive purposes, although quite a few practical technological advances will emerge from the space program.
The Department of Justice files an antitrust suit against IBM in the last official act under the outgoing Johnson administration (see 1956). The largest antitrust action ever taken, the case will not come to trial until 1975; by that time International Business Machines will be the world's largest company in terms of the value of its stock (which will be worth more than the combined value of all the stock of all companies listed on the American Stock Exchange).
A booming U.S. economy employs a record number of workers, unemployment falls to its lowest level in 15 years, the prime interest rate is 7 percent, the dollar is strong in world money markets, and Wall Street's Dow Jones Industrial Average rises above 1,000 for the first time in history.
Italy's "economic miracle" postwar recovery grinds to a stop after a boom that pulled the country out of a recession early in the decade. Splintered until now by fights between communists and noncommunists, Italy's trade union movement achieves some unity and employs strikes and violence to win major pay raises, but productivity does not increase, agriculture declines, the nation has to increase imports to meet the demand fueled by rising living standards, and a slide toward bankruptcy begins.
Forty-three percent of U.S. women over age 16 and 41 percent of all married women are in the labor force, up from 34 percent of women over age 14 and 31 percent of married women in 1960; only 4 percent are farm hands or domestic servants.
Former CIO president John L. Lewis dies at Washington, D.C., June 11 at age 89; lawyer-author Thurman Arnold following a heart attack at Alexandria, Va., November 7 at age 78.
An automatic teller machine introduced at a Rockville Centre, N.Y., shopping center employs Dallas marketing executive Donald Wetzel's idea of operating ATMs with reusable plastic cards in place of the paper vouchers employed in cash dispensers (a magnetic strip on the card contains a personal code that the user must enter on a keyboard along with instructions to the computer) (see 1968). New York's Chemical Bank puts in a cash dispenser (see 1970).
Washington announces December 19 that it will relax restrictions on U.S. trade with the People's Republic of China.
Budapest-born New York investor George Soros, 39, establishes the Quantum Fund. Open only to very rich investors, the hedge fund is a small, secretive partnership, based in Curaçao, Netherlands Antilles; it will purchase some stocks and foreign currencies while selling others short. Soros has studied under anti-Marxist British philosopher Karl Popper at the London School of Economics (see 1992; Open Society Fund, 1979).
Wall Street's Dow Jones Industrial Average closes December 31 at 800.36, down from 943.75 at the end of 1968.
The Gap opens its first store, selling phonograph records and blue jeans. Naming their enterprise for the "generation gap," San Francisco merchant Donald G. (George) Fisher, 41, and his wife, Doris (née Feigenbaum), 38, stop offering music after 3 months to concentrate on their fast-selling denims, will expand the stock of casual clothing for men, women, and children, and by April 2005 Gap will be operating more than 3,000 stores throughout North America, the United Kingdom, France, and Japan (see Banana Republic, 1983).
Phillips Petroleum drillers discover a giant oil field off the coast of Norway. The North Sea basin will prove to be the largest reservoir of oil outside the Middle East and will be found to lie 60 percent in British waters, 40 percent in Norwegian waters. Experts estimate that the basin contains 10 billion barrels of oil, a figure that will later be raised to between 40 billion and 50 billion (see 1975).
Exploitation of the Alaskan North Slope petroleum reserve remains the subject of hot debate as drillers build storage tanks at Prudhoe Bay on the Beaufort Sea (see 1968). The 66-year-old town of Fairbanks becomes a boom town for construction that begins on the north-south trans-Alaskan pipeline that will extend for 800 miles to get the oil to tankers; delays in building lines to carry the oil up over the Brooks Range and south to Prince Charles Sound will result in a better designed pipeline with fewer potential danger spots for leakage (see environment [Exxon Valdez], 1989).
Oilman Clinton Williams "Clint" Murchison dies of a heart attack at Athens, Texas, June 20 at age 74.
Congress votes December 22 to reduce the oil depletion allowance granted to U.S. petroleum producers since 1926 as a tax incentive to encourage exploration for new reserves, lowering it from 27.5 percent to 22 percent despite President Nixon's campaign promise last year to maintain the old rate. The new tax allowance, like the old one, is based on the selling price of oil rather than on the capital invested to establish the well being depleted.
The United States Lines retires its passenger ship S.S. United States after 17 years as competition from transatlantic air carriers and foreign flag liners makes U.S. passenger vessels unprofitable.
The Concorde supersonic jet makes its first flight March 2 from Toulouse with Sud-Aviation chief test pilot Andre Turcat at the controls for the 28-minute flight (see 1962). The British prototype Concorde 902 takes off from a Royal Air Force base at Fairford, Gloucestershire, April 9 for a 22-minute flight with test pilot Brian Trubshaw, 45, at the controls. The Concorde makes its first supersonic flight October 1 (see 1970).
A Venezuelan DC-9 crashes into a high-tension wire after takeoff from Maracaibo March 16, killing all 84 aboard plus 71 on the ground; a United Arab Ilyushin-18 crashes at Aswan Airport March 20, killing 87; a Mexican Boeing 727 flies into a mountain near Monterrey June 4, killing 79; an Allegheny Airlines DC-9 collides with a student plane at Shelbyville, Ind., September 9, killing 83; a Nigerian VC-10 crashes near Iju November 20, killing 87; an Olympic Airways DC-6B crashes in a storm near Athens December 8, killing 93.
Mexico City's first subway line opens September 5 between Chapultepec and Zaragoza after nearly 27 months of construction, but it is only 11.5 kilometers long and has only 16 stations (see 1970).
The Trans-Australian Railway marks completion of a track standardization program with a golden spike ceremony November 29 at Broken Hill in New South Wales. The road includes a 29-mile stretch of continuously welded track—the largest such stretch of track in the world (see Indian-Pacific Express, 1970).
The Ford Maverick that goes on sale April 17 is a compact car designed at the behest of Ford president Lee Iacocca to compete with Volkswagen and other foreign makes whose U.S. sales have reached $1 billion per year (it is priced at $1,995, versus $1,799 for a Volkswagen). General Motors prepares to introduce its Chevrolet Camaro compact and the success of the $2,500 Maverick makes other automakers come up with sporty designs to attract the baby-boom generation.
The average U.S. automobile wholesales at $2,280, up from $1,880 in 1959.
Italian-born racing driver Mario (Gabriel) Andretti, 29, wins the Indianapolis 500 with a record speed of 156.867 miles per hour.
The Unix computer operating system is introduced by Bell Laboratories, whose engineers Kenneth Thompson and Dennis Ritchie have created it for the large computers that are coming into use for academia, business, science, and the military.
Neil Armstrong steps on the surface of the moon and confirms a prediction made in 1964 by astronomer Gerard P. Kuiper that it would be "like crunchy snow." Now 63, Kuiper has been director of the University of Arizona's Lunar and Planetary Laboratory since 1960.
English mathematician Roger Penrose, 38, and English theoretical physicist Stephen W. (William) Hawking, 27, prove that all matter within a black hole collapses to a singularity—a geometric point in space where mass is compressed to infinite density and zero volume (see Hawking, 1971).
Physicist Joseph Weber announces that he has detected events that might be caused by incoming gravitational waves—vibrations occurring simultaneously in pairs of large and well-insulated aluminum cylinders, each weighing several tons and situated about 1,000 kilometers apart (see Weber, 1952). The late Albert Einstein's theory of general relativity predicted the occurrence of such waves, whose properties would resemble those of electromagnetic waves; Weber's study will prove impossible to replicate, but it will lead others to investigate with more efficient instruments.
Thor Heyerdahl of 1947 Kon Tiki fame sails from Safi, Morocco, May 25 with a seven-man international crew aboard the papyrus raft Ra to test his theory that South America may have been populated by voyagers from Egypt or some other North African country (Heyerdahl has been struck by the fact that Aymro natives on Lake Titicaca use reed boats similar to those used in Chad and Egypt). The expedition observes pollution not seen in the Pacific: empty bottles, cans, plastic containers, nylon, and—most conspicuously—clots of solidified black petroleum—as it travels 3,000 miles across the Atlantic before foundering in late July within 600 miles of the South American coast. Alerted by radio, authorities in Barbados send a vessel to rescue Heyerdahl and his crew (see 1970).
Nobel physicist Cecil F. Powell dies near Milan August 9 at age 65; Nobel physicist Otto Stern at Berkeley, Calif., August 17 at age 81; physicist Paul Scherrer at Zürich September 25 at age 79; astronomer Vesto M. Slipher at Flagstaff, Ariz., November 8 at age 93.
The world's first successful bone marrow transplant saves a leukemia patient from death in March. Texas-born Seattle physician E. Donnall Thomas, 49, has worked at Harvard Medical School with kidney-transplant pioneer Joseph Murray (see 1954). He performed a bone marrow transplant from a patient's identical twin in 1956, the patient's blood cancer recurred, problems of immune rejection seemed insurmountable, but Thomas persevered, put together a team in Seattle that experimented with new drugs that could suppress the recipient's immune system and thereby prevent rejection of tissue, and although the technique initially succeeds only in about 12 percent of cases, the Thomas team will increase that to 50 percent within 10 years and use bone marrow transplants to treat not only leukemia but also other blood cancers, certain inherited blood disorders, and patients whose bone marrow has been destroyed by accidental exposure to radiation.
Spanish-born epidemiologist Jordi Casals-Ariet, 58, falls ill in June while doing research at his Yale University laboratory on a virus found in the Nigerian village of Lassa, about 150 miles south of the Sahara.
U.S. Public Health Service researcher Robert J. Huebner suggests in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences that viruses may trigger dangerous cell overgrowth, interacting with a specific (but ordinary) gene to produce cancer. Now 55, Huebner will refine his oncogene theory, stating more directly that a specific and normal human gene may mutate and cause cancer.
Blue Cross health insurance programs cover some 68 million Americans, up from 37 million in 1950, and Blue Shield surgical insurance covers roughly 60 million. Hospital insurance policies issued by private, for-profit companies (often as part of a package that includes life insurance) cover another 100 million, and some 7 million are covered by nonprofit programs other than Blue Cross; third-party groups pay more than 90 percent of most U.S. city hospital bills.
The cost of medical care in the United States escalates; a crisis in healthcare delivery looms in large part because patients can in many cases receive insurance benefits only if hospitalized, because they often are hospitalized unnecessarily by sympathetic physicians, because Blue Cross pays hospitals on a cost-plus basis without scrutinizing costs too carefully, because physicians order countless tests to protect themselves from malpractice suits, because hospital administrators install costly equipment and facilities that are underutilized, and because hospital workers receive higher wages.
On Death and Dying by Swiss-born U.S. physician Elisabeth Kübler-Ross, 43, encourages humane treatment and counseling of terminally ill patients. Her work will spur development of hospices for the dying.
Microbiologist Thomas Francis Jr. of influenza vaccine fame dies at Ann Arbor, Mich., October 1 at age 69.
Coretta Scott King speaks from the pulpit of St. Paul's Cathedral at London March 16, the first woman to do so.
Israeli police discover the body of former Episcopal bishop James A. (Albert) Pike September 7 in the Judean desert 3 days after the car he was driving broke down. His wife had gone for help, and he has fallen off a cliff at age 56.
A caucus at the convention of the National Council of Churches in November presents an angry statement accusing the Church of maintaining "anachronistic attitudes toward women." Cincinnati-born activist Betty Schiess (née Bone), 46, wants to be a minister and receives support from the Diocese of Central New York, whose leaders present a resolution to the convention urging the admission of women to the ministry. "All that is required to do so is the addition of the feminine pronoun to the canon on ordination," it says (see 1974).
Barnard College women at New York stage a sleep-in March 9, moving into dormitory rooms vacated by male Columbia students in a bid to integrate the dorms. "When you isolate people you only accentuate the differences," one student says. "Psychologically and educationally, it's a more natural way to live," adds another.
Yale University becomes coeducational after 268 years as an institution strictly for men (see 1970). Fraternities on the campus fall out of favor as more and more students come to agree with New Yorker magazine writer E. B. White, who has said that "the opposite of fraternities is fraternity."
Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) roust Harvard deans from their offices April 8 and occupy University Hall, the main administration building. Cambridge, Mass., police move into the Yard April 9 and club the protesting students.
Black students at Cornell University in Ithaca, N.Y., walk out of the student union building April 20, ending a 36-hour occupation. Some openly carry rifles, and all leave the university after officials agree to drop disciplinary proceedings against five who were involved in earlier demands for a separate "black college." SDS members are arrested after trying to disrupt an ROTC drill.
Antiwar activists shut down the University of California at Berkeley in mid-May after police and National Guardsmen take back the "People's Park" that the activists have appropriated as a symbol of their protest (see 1964). Gov. Ronald Reagan rages against faculty members who show sympathy for the activists' cause.
About 100 SDS members at Columbia University in New York take over two buildings but flee May 22 when warrants are issued for their arrests.
The U.S. Supreme Court rules unanimously April 7 that a Georgia antipornography law is unconstitutional. "If the First Amendment means anything," writes Justice Thurgood Marshall, "it means that a state has no business telling a man, sitting alone in his own house, what books he may read or what films he may watch." The decision reverses the conviction of an Atlanta man whose house was involved in a gambling raid and found to contain three reels of "dirty" films.
The U.S. Supreme Court rules unanimously June 9 in the case of Red Lion Broadcasting Co. v. FCC that the FCC's 20-year-old "Fairness Doctrine" enhances rather than infringes the freedoms guaranteed by the First Amendment of the Constitution (but see 1981).
The watchdog group Accuracy in Media founded by Salt Lake City-born Washington, D.C., economist Reed (John) Irvine, 46, aims to "investigate complaints [of liberal bias], take proven cases to top media officials, seek corrections, and mobilize public pressure to bring about remedial action." Irvine was appalled by the television coverage given last year to antiwar protestors at the Democratic convention in Chicago; his group will pursue conspiracy theories and lead to a proliferation of right-wing radio talk shows.
The National Association of Broadcasters announces a plan July 8 to phase out cigarette advertising on radio and television over a 3-year period beginning January 1, 1970 (see 1967). The phase-out will be accelerated (see 1971).
The Internet has its beginnings in a "node" installed at the University of California, Los Angeles, by the Cambridge, Mass., firm Bolt Beranek & Newman (later BBN Corp.) in response to a Defense Department order that a dispersed and decentralized communications network be set up that cannot be wiped out completely by a nuclear attack. UCLA graduate student Jonathan B. (Bruce) Postel, 26, and a few other computer scientists have created the ARPANET (Advanced Research Projects Agency Network); three other universities are soon linked to the one at UCLA, and international links will follow as Postel devises a communications switch to route network traffic (see 1972).
The Official Languages Act adopted by Canada's Parliament September 9 states that English and French shall have equal status in all areas of the government. Prime Minister Trudeau's secretary of state for internal affairs Gérard Pelletier, now 50, has been instrumental in obtaining passage of the measure.
Australian press lord Rupert Murdoch acquires his first British newspaper (see 1952). Now 38, he then purchases the money-losing daily Sun from International Publishing Corp., whose chairman rues the sale when Murdoch converts the former Daily Herald November 17 to a tabloid format and begins printing the "Sun Lovely" (a topless model) on page three (see 1964).
"Doonesbury" by New York-born cartoonist Garry Trudeau, 20, comments on U.S. military involvement in Vietnam. Trudeau began the comic strip about one Michael J. Doonesbury under the title "Bull Tales" in the YaleDaily News last year, he syndicates it to 25 newspapers through the newly-formed Universal Press Syndicate, and nearly 300 newspapers will pick it up.
Atlanta Constitution publisher Ralph McGill dies of a heart attack at Atlanta February 4 at age 70; former St. Louis Post-Dispatch editorial cartoonist Daniel R. Fitzpatrick of cancer and tuberculosis at St. Louis at May 18 at age 78; cartoonist Frank King of "Gasoline Alley" fame at Winter Park, Fla., June 23 at age 86; columnist Westbrook Pegler at Tucson, Ariz., June 24 at age 74; columnist Drew Pearson of a heart attack at Washington, D.C., September 1 at age 71; Yomiuri Shinbun publisher Matsutaro Tshoriki of a heart ailment at Tokyo October 9 at age 84 (he is credited with having introduced baseball to Japan in the 1930s and has headed the nation's Atomic Energy Commission since 1956).
U.S. newspapers and television commentators assail President Nixon's position on Vietnam and his November 3 appeal to "the great Silent Majority of my fellow Americans." Washington, D.C.-born White House speech writer Patrick Buchanan, 30, drafts an address for Vice President Spiro Agnew to deliver at Des Moines, President Nixon goes over the speech, and Agnew stands up November 13 to attack the "dozen anchormen, commentators, and executive producers [who] . . . decide what 40 to 50 million Americans will learn of the day's events in the nation and in the world . . . read the same newspapers . . . draw their political and social views from the same sources . . . talk constantly to one another, thereby providing artificial reinforcement to their shared viewpoint." Nixon begins a campaign of intimidation against the press and electronic media.
The Saturday Evening Post puts out its final weekly issue February 8 after 148 years of publication; it will resume in the summer of 1971 on a six-times-per-year basis and grow to have a circulation of 500,000.
New Yorker magazine cofounder Raoul Fleischmann dies at his Fifth Avenue apartment May 11 at age 83; journalist Jane Howard of pancreatic cancer at New York June 27 at age 61.
Penthouse magazine begins publication at New York in September. Brooklyn-born publisher Robert Guccione, 38, started the magazine at London in March 1965. Eschewing the use of an airbrush to eliminate pubic hair from nude photographs, he challenges Hugh Hefner's Playboy, whose newsstand sales he will overtake by 1975 (see 1953).
Nonfiction: The Emerging Republican Majority by New York-born political pundit Kevin (Price) Phillips, 29, whose "Southern strategy" is credited with having helped Nixon win last year's presidential election; The Anti-Communist Impulse by New York-born political writer Michael Parenti, 35; American Foreign Policy by Henry A. Kissinger, who helps to engineer the U.S. bombing of Cambodia; Present at the Creation by former secretary of state Dean Acheson; How to Control the Military by John Kenneth Galbraith; The 900 Days: The Siege of Leningrad by former New York Times Moscow bureau chief Harrison E. Salisbury, now 60; Custer Died for Your Sins: An Indian Manifesto by South Dakota-born clergyman's son Vine (Victor) Deloria Jr., 36; The Death of the Past by Cambridge University historian J. H. Plumb, now 58, who argues that people have always rewritten history to further their own ends and that technological advances have made the past a less reliable guide to modern industrial societies; The Struggle for the Middle East: The Soviet Union in the Mediterranean by Walter Laqueur; The Peter Principle by Canadian-born University of Southern California education professor Laurence J. Peter, 50, and Raymond Hull unmasks pretensions to power among middle-management bureaucrats: "In a hierarchy every employee tends to rise to his level of incompetence"; Utopia or Oblivion and Operating Manual for Spaceship Earth by architect-engineer R. Buckminster Fuller, now 74; So Human an Animal by bacteriologist René Dubos; An Unfinished Woman (autobiography) by playwright Lillian Hellman, now 64, who writes, "By the time I grew up, the fight for the emancipation of woman, their rights under the law, in the office, in bed, was stale stuff"; Mary, Queen of Scots by English biographer Antonia Fraser (née Pakenham), 37.
Philosopher Karl T. Jaspers dies of a stroke at Basle February 26 at age 86. He emigrated to Switzerland in 1937 after being dismissed from the University of Heidelberg for refusing to give up his Jewish wife, and his works were banned; writer and political thinker Leonard Woolf dies of a stroke at Rodmell, Sussex, August 14 at age 88; author Gavin Maxwell at Inverness, Scotland, September 6 at age 55; Orientalist Alexandra David-Neel at Digne, France, September 8 at age 100; psychologist-author Sir Frederick C. Bartlett at Cambridge, Cambridgeshire, September 30 at age 82; humorist Stephen Potter at London December 2 at age 69.
Fiction: Master and Commander by London-born English novelist Patrick O'Brian (Richard Patrick Russ), 54, is the first of 20 books that O'Brian will write about the fictional Royal Navy officer Jack Aubrey (modeled on Admiral Thomas Cochrane) and his surgeon friend Stephen Maturin in the Napoleonic wars; Ada by Vladimir Nabokov; The Bluest Eye by Ohio-born novelist Toni Morrison (née Chloe Anthony Wofford), 38; Portnoy's Complaint by Philip Roth; Slaughterhouse Five, or The Children's Crusade by Kurt Vonnegut Jr.; Bullet Park by John Cheever; The Godfather by New York-born novelist Mario Puzo, 48, whose story about the Mafia is on the New York Times best-seller list for 67 weeks, tops the lists in Britain, France, Germany, and other countries, and will have sales of 21 million copies; The Four-Gated City by Doris Lessing; Them by Joyce Carol Oates; The Master and Margarita by the late Soviet novelist Mikhail Bulgakov, who died in 1940 at age 48; Spring Snow by Yukio Mishima; Hallucinations: Being an Account of the Life and Adventures of Friar Servando Terese de Mier (El mundo alucinante) by Reinaldo Arenas, whose work is smuggled out of Cuba and published initially in French (the author will soon be imprisoned for his writings and his homosexuality); The Andromeda Strain by Chicago-born Harvard Medical School student Michael Crichton, 26; The Waterfall by Margaret Drabble; Teach Us to Outgrow Our Madness (Warera no kyōki o ikinobiru michi o oshieyo) (stories) by Kenzaburo Oe; The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula Le Guin.
Novelist Josephine Herbst dies of lung cancer at New York January 28 at age 71; science-fiction writer John Wyndham at London March 11 at age 62; mystery writer Charlotte Armstrong of cancer at Glendale, Calif., July 18 at age 64; novelist Witold Gombrowicz of heart failure at Vence in the south of France July 25 at age 64; Dame Ivy Compton-Burnett of a heart attack at London August 27 at age 85; "Beat" novelist Jack Kerouac of a massive gastric hemorrhage at St. Petersburg, Fla., October 21 at age 47; Wyndham Lewis at Alteas, Spain, November 22 at age 78.
Poetry: The Fire Screen by James Merrill; The Dream Songs by John Berryman; Freely Espousing by James Schuyler; Alpine: Poems by George Oppen; "Elegaic Feelings American" by Gregory Corso is an elegy for his friend Jack Kerouac and for dead notions of America, offering a new hope: "O and yet when it's asked of you/ 'What happened to him?'/ I say, 'What happened to America/ has happened/ to him — the two were/ inseparable'/ Like the wind/ to the sky is the voice to the wind"; The Secret Meaning of Things by Lawrence Ferlinghetti; Good Times by Depew, N.Y.-born poet (Thelma) Lucille Clifton (née Sayles), 34.
Poet-editor Max Eastman dies at Bridgetown, Bahamas, March 25 at age 86; poet-novelist-essayist Sir Osbert Sitwell of a heart attack at Montagna, Italy, May 4 at age 76.
Juvenile: The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Syracuse, N.Y.-born author-illustrator Eric Carle, 40; Sounder by Lexington, Ky.-born Connecticut 9th-grade teacher William H. (Howard) Armstrong, 55; The One in the Middle Is the Green Kangaroo by Elizabeth, N.J.-born author Judy Blume (née Sussman), 30; Sam the Minuteman by Nathaniel Benchley; A Girl Called Al by Ann Arbor, Mich.-born author Constance C. (Clarke) Green, 45; Sylvester and the Magic Pebble by William Steig; Still Another Alphabet Book by New York-born author and graphic artist Martin Stephen Moskof, 39, and Seymour Chwast; The Deranged Cousins; or, Whatever by Edward Gorey; The Hotel Cat by Esther Averill; Charlotte, Sometimes by Penelope Farmer; Goodbye, Dove Square by Janet McNeill.
Author Richmal Crompton dies January 11 at age 78 while working on William the Superman, her 37th William book (her comedic schoolboy has appeared on radio, stage, films, and television); Elinor Brent-Dyer dies at Redhill, England, September 20 at age 75; artist and author Norman Lindsay at Sydney November 21 at age 90.
Painting: Occupations by German artist Anselm Kiefer, 24; The Kiss and Man with Pipe and Cupid by Pablo Picasso, now 87; Orange Yellow Orange by Mark Rothko; Montauk by Willem de Kooning; City Limits and The Studio by Philip Guston, who breaks with abstract expressionism and adopts an allegorical, mock-childlike style; Night Empire (acrylic on canvas) by Chicago-born painter Elizabeth Murray, 29; Vinculum I by Eva Hesse; Clearing Weather by Fairfield Porter; Private Domain by Alex Katz. Ben Shahn dies following cancer surgery at New York March 14 at age 70; Otto Dix at Singen in West Germany July 25 at age 78.
Artist Yoko Ono marries musician John Lennon of the Beatles at Gibraltar March 20 and they hold a Bed-In for Peace in the honeymoon suite at the Amsterdam Hilton.
Sculpture: One-Ton Prop (a house of cards) by Richard Serra; Carnal Clock (light boxes containing collages of body parts) by Robert Rauschenberg; Mirror Displacement: Cayuga Salt Mine Project by Robert Smithson; Continuous Project Altered Daily by Robert Morris; Cumul I (marble) by Louise Bourgeois; Accession II (galvanized steel and plastic tubing) by Eva Hesse. Porcelain bird sculptor Edward M. Boehm dies of a coronary attack at Trenton, N.J., January 29 at age 55.
Look magazine editor Patricia Carbine accepts a suggestion from Philadelphia-born photographer Mary Ellen Mark, 29, that she do a picture story on Italian film director Federico Fellini making Fellini Satyricon. Mark has been shooting stills for United Artists in Hollywood, goes on to shoot another story in France on filmmaker François Truffaut, and takes pictures in London for a piece on English efforts to control the use of heroin.
Theater: To Be Young Gifted and Black by the late Lorraine Hansberry (adapted by Robert Nemiroff) 1/2 at New York's off-Broadway Cherry Lane Theater, with Barbara Baxley, Cicely Tyson, 380 perfs.; Ceremonies in Dark Old Men by Americus, Ga.-born playwright Lonnie Elder III, 41, 2/4 at New York's St. Marks Playhouse; Play It Again, Sam by Woody Allen 2/12 at New York's Broadhurst Theater, with Allen, Diane Keaton, Tony Roberts, 453 perfs.; What the Butler Saw by the late Joe Orton 3/5 at the Queen's Theatre, London, with Ralph Richardson; No Place to Be Somebody by Cleveland-born playwright Charles Gordone, 41, 5/4 at New York's off-Broadway Public Theater; Boesman and Lena by South African playwright (Harold) Athol (Lannigan) Fugard, 37, 7/10 at a university theater in Grahamstown; The Contractor by David Storey 10/20 at London's Royal Court Theater, with Philip Stone, John Antrobus, Norman Jones, T. P. McKenna; Butterflies Are Free by New York-born playwright-screenwriter Leonard Gershe, 47, 10/21 at New York's Booth Theater, with Keir Dullea, Blythe Danner, Eileen Heckart, 1,128 perfs.; Last of the Red Hot Lovers by Neil Simon 12/28 at New York's Eugene O'Neill Theater, with James Coco, Linda Lavin, Doris Roberts, 706 perfs.
Producer Gilbert Miller dies in his sleep at his 12-room Park Avenue, New York, apartment January 2 at age 85; actress Thelma Ritter of an apparent heart attack at Queens, N.Y., February 4 at age 63; Ice Capades founder John A. Harris at Pittsburgh February 12 at age 70; playwright Jack Kirkland of a heart ailment at New York February 22 at age 66; former Federal Theatre Project director Hallie Flanagan at Old Tappan, N.J., July 23 at age 78; actor Eric Portman of a heart ailment at St. Veep, England, December 7 at age 66; actor Hugh Williams at London December 7 at age 65 while appearing in his new comedy His, Hers and Theirs at the Apollo Theater.
Television: Civilisation 2/23 on BBC with English art historian Sir Kenneth (Mackenzie) Clark, 73; The Liver Birds 7/18 on BBC-1 with Nerys Hughes, Polly James in a series created by writers Carla Lane, Myra Taylor, and Lou Schwartz (79 30-minute episodes, to 1979); The Courtship of Eddie's Father 9/11 on ABC with Bill Bixby, Brandon Cruz, Myyoshi Umeki (to 6/14/1972, 73 episodes); Scooby-Doo, Where Are You? 9/13 on ABC with Hanna-Barbera animation (to 9/2/1972 and on ABC from 9/1974 to 8/1976); The Bill Cosby Show 9/14 on NBC (to 8/13/1971, 52 episodes); The Flip Wilson Show 9/17 on NBC with stand-up comedian Wilson, now 36, who has gained attention with his "Heah come de judge!" announcements on Rowan and Martin's Laugh-In. Wilson will create characters who include ghetto drag queen Geraldine Jones and the Rev. Leroy of the Church of What's Happenin' Now, winning over audiences with one-liners such as "The Devil made me do it," "I don't smoke and I don't do windows," "When you're hot, you're hot, when you're not, you're not," and "What you see is what you get" (to 10/1/1970); Marcus Welby M.D. 9/23 on ABC with Robert Young (to 5/11/1976); The Brady Bunch 9/26 on ABC with Robert Reed, Florence Henderson, Barry Williams (as Greg), Anne B. Davis as Alice the housekeeper (to 8/30/1974); Love American Style 9/29 on ABC (to 1/11/1974); Monty Python's Flying Circus 10/5 on BBC-1 with Oxford- and Cambridge-educated comedians Graham Chapman, 28, John Cleese, Terry Gilliam, Eric Idle, Terry Jones, and Michael Palin in sophisticated, surrealistic skits (to 1970 and from 1972 to late 1974); Sesame Street (daytime) 11/10 on PBS begins a revolution in children's attitudes toward learning and adults' attitudes about what children are capable of learning. Designed by producer Joan Ganz Cooney, 40, of the Children's Television Workshop and funded by the Ford Foundation, Carnegie Corp. (which 3 years ago asked Cooney to prepare a report on the possible use of TV to educate young children), and U.S. Office of Education, Sesame Street teaches preschool children letters and numbers with the same techniques used in commercial television programs such as the 14-year-old Captain Kangaroo show. Sesame Street introduces Jim Henson's Muppets with characters such as Kermit the Frog, Oscar the Grouch, Big Bird, the Cookie Monster, Ernie, and Grover; it will grow to have an audience of 235 million viewers each week in more than 85 countries.
TV Movies by Film Fan Monthly editor-publisher Leonard Maltin, 18, of Tenafly, N.J., describes old films and rates them with stars to help viewers avoid wasting time on those of dubious merit. The generally reliable (but not infallible) book will be updated in 1974 and 1978, every two years after that, and annually beginning in 1986 as its name is changed to TV Movies and Video Guide.
TV actor Gabby Hayes dies of a heart ailment at Burbank, Calif., February 9 at age 83; TV personality and quiz-show host Bud Collyer of a circulatory disease at Greenwich, Conn., September 8 at age 61.
Movie of the Week debuts on ABC September 23 and helps the network achieve parity with CBS and NBC in audience ratings. San Francisco-born TV executive Barry Diller, 27, started his career in the mail room of the William Morris agency, joined ABC's programming department 3 years ago, was given charge of negotiating with the major studios for broadcast rights to films, and has launched a series of 90-minute made-for-television films that will prove more popular than films made originally for theater showing by venturing into areas (drugs, homosexuality, the Vietnam War) that Hollywood avoids. Diller will be named chairman of Paramount Pictures in 1974 (see 1984).
Films: George Roy Hill's Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid with Paul Newman, Santa Monica-born actor Robert Redford, 32, Katharine Ross, Cloris Leachman, Jeff Corey; Lindsay Anderson's If with Malcolm McDowell, David Wood; Haskell Wexler's Medium Cool with Robert Forster, footage of last year's Democratic convention in Chicago; John Schlesinger's Midnight Cowboy with Dustin Hoffman, Yonkers, N.Y.-born actor Jon Voight, 30; Sam Peckinpah's The Wild Bunch with William Holden, Robert Ryan, Ernest Borgnine. Also: Paul Mazursky's Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice with Natalie Wood, Robert Culp, Elliott Gould, Dyan Cannon; Masahiro Shinoda's Double Suicide with Kachienon Nakamura, Shira Iwashita; Dennis Hopper's Easy Rider with Dodge City, Kansas-born director-actor Hopper, 33, New York-born actor Peter Fonda, 30, New Jersey-born actor Jack Nicholson, 32, dramatizes the alienation between the hippie generation and established rural American social values; Robert Bresson's A Gentle Woman (Une Femme Douce) with Dominique Sanda; Frank Perry's Last Summer with New York-born actor Richard (Earl) Thomas, 18, Hollywood, Calif.-born actress Barbara Hershey (originally Herezstein), 22, Cathy Burns; Karel Reisz's The Loves of Isadora with Vanessa Redgrave as Isadora Duncan, Jason Robards, James Fox; Sergio Leone's Once Upon a Time in the West with Charles Bronson, Henry Fonda, Claudia Cardinale, Jason Robards; Peter R. Hunt's On Her Majesty's Secret Service with George Lazenby, Diana Rigg; Ingmar Bergman's The Passion of Anna with Liv Ullmann, Bibi Andersson, Max von Sydow; Ronald Neame's The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie with Maggie Smith; Mark Rydell's The Reivers with Steve McQueen, Rupert Crosse; Burt Kennedy's Support Your Local Sheriff with James Garner, Joan Hackett, 36; Sydney Pollack's They Shoot Horses, Don't They? with New York-born actress Jane (Seymour) Fonda, 31, Canadian-born actor Michael Sarrazin, 29, English actress Susannah York, 27, New York-born vaudeville veteran Red Buttons (originally Aaron Schwatt), 50, Gig Young; Claude Sautet's The Things of Life (Les Choses de la Vie) with Michel Piccoli, Romy Schneider; Constantin Costa-Gravas's Z with Yves Montand, Greek actress Irene Papas, 43.
Actor Charles Winninger dies at Palm Springs, Calif., January 27 at age 84; Boris Karloff of respiratory disease at Midhurst, Sussex, February 2 at age 81; Loews (and M-G-M) cofounder Nicholas M. Schenck of a stroke at Miami Beach March 3 at age 87; screenwriter-producer Charles Brackett of congestive heart failure at Los Angeles March 9 at age 76; actor Alan Mowbray of a heart attack at Hollywood March 25 at age 72; Mitzi Green of cancer at Huntington Beach, Calif., May 24 at age 48; Robert Taylor of lung cancer at Santa Monica June 8 at age 57 (his 112-acre ranch on Mandeville Road in the Brentwood section of Los Angeles has an 11,726-square foot house with nine bedrooms); Judy Garland is found dead of a drug overdose in a locked bathroom of her London apartment June 22 at age 47. She has been married five times, had three children, and tried suicide at least 20 times as she swallowed amphetamine pills in an effort to maintain her weight; director Leo McCarey dies of emphysema at Santa Monica July 5 at age 71; actor Rex Ingram of a heart attack at Hollywood September 19 at age 73; Eduardo Cianelli of cancer at Rome October 8 at age 80; ice skater-actress Sonja Henie of leukemia on an ambulance plane between Paris and Oslo October 12 at age 57; director Josef von Sternberg of a heart ailment at Hollywood December 22 at age 75.
Broadway and off-Broadway musicals: Dear World 2/6 at the Mark Hellinger Theater, with Angela Lansbury, Milo O'Shea in an adaptation of the 1945 Jean Giraudoux play The Madwoman of Chaillot, music and lyrics by Jerry Herman, 132 perfs.; 1776 3/16 at the 46th Street Theater, with Howard Da Silva, William Daniels, Ken Howard, book by Peter Stone, music and lyrics by Sherman Edwards, 1,217 perfs.; Oh! Calcutta! 6/17 at the off-Broadway Eden Theater, a revue devised by English critic Kenneth Peacock Tynan, 42, with contributions by Samuel Beckett, Jules Feiffer, Dan Greenberg, John Lennon, and others, music and lyrics by the Open Door, scenes that include frontal nudity and simulated sex acts, 704 perfs. (plus 610 more at the Belasco Theater beginning late in February, 1971); Coco 12/18 at the Mark Hellinger Theater, with Katharine Hepburn as couturière Gabrielle "Coco" Chanel, now 86, New York-born actor René Auberjonois, 29, music by German-born U.S. composer-conductor André Previn, now 40, book and lyrics by Alan Jay Lerner, 332 perfs.
Broadway composer Vernon Duke dies January 16 at age 65 while undergoing surgery for lung cancer at Santa Monica; dancer Irene Castle dies at her Eureka Springs, Ark., "Peacock Farm" January 25 at age 75; Ella Logan of cancer at Burlingame, Calif., May 1 at age 56; composer Douglas Stewart Moore of pneumonia at Greenport, N.Y., July 25 at age 75.
Opera: Augusta, Ga.-born soprano Jessye Norman, 24, makes her operatic debut singing the role of Elisabeth in the 1845 Wagner opera Tannhaüser at Berlin's Deutsch Oper and goes on to sing the role of Countess Almaviva in the 1786 Mozart opera Le Nozze di Figaro; New York soprano Beverly Sills (originally Belle Silverman), 40, makes her debut at Milan's La Scala.
Former Metropolitan Opera tenor Giovanni Martinelli dies of a circulatory ailment at New York February 2 at age 83; soprano Gladys Swarthout of a heart attack at Florence, Italy, July 7 at age 64.
Eve Queler conducts her Opera Orchestra of New York in a concert performance of the 1900 Puccini opera Tosca at Alice Tully Hall 12/1 (see 1967).
Avery Fisher sells his 32-year-old hi-fi business for $31 million.
First performance: Symphony No. 14 by Dmitri Shostakovich in September at Leningrad.
The Woodstock Music and Art Fair in the Catskill Mountains at Bethel, N.Y., draws 300,000 youths from all over America for 4 days in August to hear Jimi Hendrix, Joan Baez, Ritchie Havens, the Jefferson Airplane, the Who, the Grateful Dead, Carlos Santana, and other rock stars. Despite traffic jams, thunderstorms, and shortages of food, water, and medical facilities, the gathering is orderly with a sense of loving and sharing, but thousands in the audience are stoned on marijuana ("grass," "pot," "maryjane") or hashish ("hash"), tripping on lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD), or using other drugs that include barbiturates ("downers"), amphetamines ("uppers"), mescaline, and cocaine.
The Altamont Music Festival outside San Francisco December 6 draws more than 300,000 to a free Rolling Stones concert. Members of the Hells Angels motorcycle gang, hired to provide security, administer several beatings and stab a boy to death when he tries to reach the stage.
Popular songs: "Give Peace a Chance" by artist Yoko Ono and John Lennon of the Beatles; "Something" and "Here Comes the Sun" by George Harrison; "Get Back" by John Lennon and Paul McCartney; "Honky Tonk Women" by Mick Jagger and Keith Richards of The Rolling Stones; "Lay Lady Lay" by Bob Dylan; "Man in Black" by Johnny Cash; "Son of a Preacher Man" by John Hurley and Ronnie Wilkins; "Hot Fun in the Summertime" by Sylvester Stewart; Songs from a Room (album) by Leonard Cohen includes "Bird on a Wire"; "It's Your Thing" by Rudolph, Ronald, and O'Kelley Isley; "Put a Little Love in Your Heart" by Randy Jones, Jackie De Shannon, and Jimmy Holiday; "Games People Play" by Joe South; "Come Saturday Morning" by Dory Previn, lyrics by Fred Karlin (for the film The Sterile Cuckoo); "Raindrops Keep Falling on My Head" by Burt Bacharach (for the film Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid); "Okie From Muskogee" by U.S. composer Roy Edward Burris with California-born country music songwriter Merle Haggard, 32, who baits hippies with lines such as "We don't smoke marijuana in Muskogee"; "Choice of Colors" by Curtis Mayfield; Young, Gifted and Black (album) by Nina Simone, whose eloquent songs will cause the U.S. show-business establishment to blackball her; Gliding Bird (album) by Birmingham, Ala.-born country singer Emmylou Harris, 22; Greatest Hits Vol. 1 (album) by Tammy Wynette, whose single "Stand By Your Man" (written with recording executive Billy Sherrill) wins her a spot in the cast of Grand Ole Opry (she also records "Singing My Song" and "The Ways to Love a Man").
Dixieland jazz clarinetist Charles E. "Pee Wee" Russell dies of pancreatitis at Alexandria, Va., February 15 at age 62; former Texas hillbilly singer-politician W. Lee "Pappy" O'Daniel at Dallas May 11 at age 79; jazz tenor saxophonist Coleman Hawkins of pneumonia at New York May 19 at age 64; songwriter Jimmy McHugh of a heart attack at Beverly Hills May 23 at age 74;songwriter Frank Loesser dies of lung cancer at his native New York July 28 at age 59; bandleader and songwriter Russ Morgan of a cerebral hemorrhage at Las Vegas August 7 at age 65; blues and folk singer Josh White after brain surgery at Manhasset, N.Y., September 5 at age 61.
The New York Jets beat the Baltimore Colts 16 to 7 January 12 at Miami to win Super Bowl III, but Pittsburgh-born Colts quarterback John Constantine "Johnny" Unitas is named greatest National Football League (NFL) quarterback of all time.
Legendary horse trainer Maximilian Justice "Max" Hirsch dies of a heart attack at New Hyde Park, N.Y., April 3 at age 88.
Former tennis star Maureen "Little Mo" Connolly dies of cancer at Dallas June 21 at age 33. She retired in 1955 at age 19 after sustaining a leg injury in a horseback-riding accident.
Rod Laver wins the "grand slam" in tennis for a second time at age 31; Adrianne Shirley "Anne" Jones (née Hardon), 30, (Brit), wins in women's singles at Wimbledon, Margaret Smith Court at Forest Hills.
Baseball's two major leagues split into eastern and western divisions with two new expansion teams each. The National League adds the Montreal Expos and the San Diego Padres, the American League adds the Kansas City Royals and the Seattle Pilots.
Former Chicago White Sox player Eddie Cicotte dies of cancer at Farmington, Mich., May 5 at age 84.
Texas-born St. Louis Cardinals centerfielder Curtis Charles "Curt" Flood, 31, is traded to the Philadelphia Phillies at the end of the regular season but refuses to report to the new team, challenging the so-called "reserve clause" that since 1879 has given major-league clubs complete ownership of their players. Asserting that he is "the rightful proprietor of my own person and my own talents," Flood also challenges the immunity against anti-trust action granted by Congress to major league baseball in 1922 and determines to fight the reserve clause in the courts (see Supreme Court ruling, 1972).
The New York Mets win their first World Series, defeating the Baltimore Orioles 4 games to 1.
Former Stillman's Gymnasium (New York) owner Lou Stillman dies of a heart attack at Santa Barbara, Calif., August 19 at age 82 (his gym has trained at least 35,000 boxers); former heavyweight champion Rocky Marciano dies in a plane crash at Des Moines, Iowa, August 31 at age 45.
Golfing legend Walter Hagen dies of cancer at Traverse City, Mich., October 5 at age 76. Always self-confident and insistent that he be treated with the courtesy due a gentleman, he has lived extravagantly and raised the social standing of professional golfers.
Interior decorator Dorothy Draper dies at Cleveland March 10 at age 79.
U.S. pantyhose production reaches 624 million pair, up from 200 million last year, as American women switch from nylon hosiery.
The National Women's Hall of Fame is founded at Seneca Falls, N.Y.
World chess champion Tigran Petrosian plays Soviet grandmaster Boris Spassky, 32, at Moscow in April and loses the title he has held since 1963; Spassky will hold the title until 1972.
The $80 million International Hotel opens at Las Vegas, Nev., where financier Kirk Kerkorian, now 52, has built the hotel-casino (see Kerkorian, 1955; Hughes, 1968; Wynn, 1977).
Smokenders is founded February 18 by New Jersey psychiatrist Jacquelyn (Mrs. Jon) Rogers, 45, who has rented a hotel meeting room, placed an advertisement in newspapers, and attracted a crowd of 23 who pay $3 each. Rogers tells them she smoked two packs per day for 20 years, says they, too, will stop smoking in 6 weeks (most of them do), and launches an enterprise that will draw more than 100,000 smokers in the next decade. Smokenders uses techniques similar to those of Alcoholics Anonymous and Weight Watchers.
President Nixon tells his 29-year-old aide Egil "Bud" Krogh in January to reduce crime in the District of Columbia. Drug czar physician Robert DuPont observes in August that 44 percent of those arrested test positive for heroin and favors treatment of felons with methadone (see medicine, 1964); nearly 10,000 U.S. addicts will be on methadone by next year, despite fear on the part of some professionals that methadone maintenance programs simply substitute one addiction for another. Burglaries in the district will fall sharply by May of next year, but heroin addiction remains a source of crime in cities worldwide, and the need to support their costly habit drives addicts to burglary, robbery, and prostitution (see 1971).
The New Jersey Chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) files suit in federal court charging that marijuana should not be classed with heroin and other dangerous drugs. Marijuana, says the ACLU, is harmless both to the user and to society. Heroin sales to New York schoolchildren have jumped as a result of the federal government's Operation Intercept program to restrict the flow of marijuana from Mexico, says an expert testifying before a joint legislative committee at Washington. The price of marijuana, he claims, has climbed so high that heroin sells at a competitive price.
Mafia kingpin Vito Genovese dies of heart disease at a Springfield, Mo., medical center for federal prisoners February 14 at age 71 (see 1963). He was given a 15-year sentence for narcotics smuggling in 1958.
The Tate-LaBianca murders make headlines in August. Screen actress Sharon Tate Polanski, 26, is murdered at her Bel-Air home in Benedict Canyon early in the morning of August 10 along with coffee heiress Abigail Folger, 25, her common-law husband, Wojiciech "Voytek" Frykowski, 32, Hollywood hair stylist Jay Sebring, 35, and delivery boy Steven Earl Parent. Supermarket chain president Leno LaBianca, 44, and his wife, Rosemary, 38, are murdered later in the day at Los Angeles. Police say the murders are unrelated, but a jury late next year will find ex-convict Charles M. Manson, 32, and his hippie cult family guilty of all seven murders. (Manson has allegedly mesmerized his followers with drugs, sex, and religion.)
The National Commission on Urban Growth recommends development of 10 new U.S. communities of 100,000 each to accommodate an expected 20 million or more in additional population but no government action is taken.
Chicago's 100-story John Hancock Center is completed to designs by Skidmore, Owings & Merrill. Rising 1,107 feet, the skyscraper is second in height only to New York's 38-year-old Empire State Building.
The Cooper residence at Orleans, Mass., is completed to designs by Charles Gwathmey.
Architect Walter Gropius dies at Boston July 5 at age 86 following heart-valve surgery; Ludwig Mies van der Rohe at Chicago August 17 at age 83.
An offshore oil well blowout in California's Santa Barbara Channel covers a 30-mile stretch of shoreline with 235,000 gallons of crude oil beginning January 28. The offshore drilling platforms of Union Oil Co. kill fish and wildlife, and while the blowout is contained after 11 days, the platforms will continue to leak oil for years.
The Cuyahoga River bursts into flames five stories high at Cleveland June 22, dramatizing the need to clean up oil and chemical pollution.
An earthquake in eastern China July 25 registers 5.9 on the Richter scale and leaves 3,000 dead.
Hurricane Camille hits the Mississippi Gulf Coast August 17 with winds of 190 miles per hour. The strongest hurricane since 1935, the storm strikes even harder in Virginia and West Virginia, leaving 248 dead, 200,000 homeless, and property damage of $1.5 billion.
California's heavy rains produce mud slides that destroy or damage 10,000 homes; 100 die.
Sierra Club executive director David (Ross) Brower resigns under pressure after 17 years that have seen membership swell from 1,000 to 77,000. The 77-year-old organization has blocked or delayed construction of at least $7 billion worth of dams and other projects; some members think that the militant, Berkeley-born, Berkeley drop-out Brower has gone too fast and too far (the club lost its tax-exempt status 3 years ago on grounds that it had become largely a political organization). Now 57, Brower founds two new organizations—Friends of the Earth and the John Muir Institute for Environmental Studies—as he works to save Grand Canyon from dams proposed by the Bureau of Land Management.
Conservationist-naturalist Fairfield Osborn dies of a heart attack at New York September 16 at age 82.
Europe's Rhine River has a massive fish kill in June—2 years after the disappearance of two 50-pound canisters containing the insecticide Thiodan. The canisters evidently fell overboard in transit from Frankfurt to the Netherlands and experts theorize that the poison has finally leaked into the water, killing millions of fish.
The Northeast Atlantic Fisheries Commission urges a ban on salmon fishing outside national fishing boundaries as the salmon catch declines in rivers of Canada, Britain, Europe, and the United States.
Peru's president Velasco Alvarado orders that U.S. fishing boats within his country's 200-mile coastal limit to be captured and fined; when Washington retaliates with a temporary suspension of arms sales, he replies, "Let them send the Marines as they did in Santo Domingo. We will defend ourselves with rocks if necessary."
The average U.S. farm worker produces enough food and fiber for 47 people, up from 40 last year, as agricultural productivity continues to climb.
Opaque-2 corn becomes available for commercial planting in the spring. Developed by Purdue University scientist Edwin T. (Theodore) Mertz, 60, and his Seattle-born colleague Oliver E. Nelson, 49, it has a protein content of nearly 12 percent (most hybrid corn has about 8 percent), and although soybeans contain about three times as much protein the new corn has great potential for helping to solve problems of malnutrition in Central America, East Africa, and other parts of the world where people have traditionally eaten corn and do not get milk, soybeans, or other good dietary sources of protein.
The average Wisconsin dairy cow yields 10 quarts of milk per day, up from six in 1940, as a result of breed improvements.
Data compiled at great expense to U.S. taxpayers by Arnold Schaefer in last year's 10-state survey of children's nutritional status is transferred by President Nixon's executive order from computers in the Washington area to the Center for Disease Control at Washington, whose computers are not compatible. The data will never be tabulated and Schaefer is by some accounts told to keep quiet about his findings or risk finding himself unemployable.
Twenty-one million U.S. children participate in the National School Lunch Program. About 3.8 million receive lunch free or at substantially reduced prices, and the figure soon will rise to 8 million.
A White House Conference on Food, Nutrition and Health opens in December under the chairmanship of Harvard's French-born nutritionist Jean Mayer, 49. It considers problems of hunger, malnutrition, food safety, food quality, deception and misinformation (Adelle Davis of 1954 Let's Eat Right to Keep Fit fame is called the nation's most notorious purveyor of nutrition misinformation), nutrition education, food production, and food availability in America. Mayer, who has founded the National Council on Hunger and Malnutrition in the United States, was the first witness before the Senate Select Committee headed by Sen. George McGovern, but while few of the conference's recommendations will result in legislation, funding for food-stamp programs will increase in the next 5 years from $400 million to more than $3 billion (see 1970).
U.S. frankfurters have an average fat content of 33 percent, up from 19 percent in 1941, and some franks are more than half fat. The U.S. Department of Agriculture has proposed a 33 percent maximum, but a 25 percent maximum is favored by the Consumer Federation of America, the National Consumers League, and New York City Commissioner of Consumer Affairs Bess Myerson, whose pressure on President Nixon's Special Assistant for Consumer Affairs Virginia E. Knauer leads Knauer to endorse a 30 percent maximum that is announced in December.
Japanese lathe operator Takako Nakamura, 28, throws herself off a speeding train after discovering that she has been poisoned by inhaling cadmium fumes while working for the T