Home | Celebrity Picture Gallery | Videos | Gossips & News | On This Day | Greeting Cards | Jokes | Celebrity Search | Dating | Blogs

<div style="background-color: 667DB3;"><a href="http://www.rsspump.com" title="rss ticker" rel="nofollow">RSS news ticker</a></div>
Eforu.com
Home: On this Day: 1968

Famous birthdays, deaths and events of 1968


Select a date:       

Birthdays


Deaths
  • January 7 - Prof James Smith, South African ichthyologist (b. 1897)
  • January 10 - Basil Sydney, English actor (b. 1894)
  • January 11 - Isidor Isaac Rabi, American physicist
  • January 14 - Dorothea Mackellar, Australian poet (My Country) (b. 1885)
  • January 15 - Bill Masterton, Canadian ice hockey player (b. 1938)
  • January 19 - Ray Harroun, American race car driver (b. 1879)
  • January 21 - Will Lang Jr., American magazine executive (b. 1914)
  • January 22 - Duke Kahanamoku, American swimmer (b. 1890)
  • January 26 - Merrill C. Meigs, American newspaper publisher (b. 1883)
  • January 26 - Yvor Winters, American poet (b. 1900)
  • February 4 - Neal Cassady, American writer (b. 1926)
  • February 7 - Nick Adams, American actor (b. 1931)
  • February 11 - Howard Lindsay, American playwright (b. 1888)
  • February 13 - Mae Marsh, American actress (b. 1895)
  • February 19 - Georg Hackenschmidt, Estonian professional wrestler (b. 1878)
  • February 20 - Anthony Asquith, British film director and writer (b. 1902)
  • February 21 - Howard Walter Florey, Australian-born pharmocologist
  • February 22 - Peter Arno, American cartoonist (b. 1904)
  • February 27 - Frankie Lymon, American singer (b. 1942)
  • February 29 - Tore Ørjasæter, Norwegian poet (b. 1886)
  • March 16 - Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco, Italian composer (b. 1895)
  • March 16 - Gunnar Ekelöf, Swedish poet and writer (b. 1907)
  • March 23 - Edwin O'Connor, American novelist and Pulitzer Prize for Fiction winner (b. 1918)
  • March 24 - Alice Guy-Blaché, American film director (b. 1873)
  • March 27 - Yuri Gagarin, Soviet cosmonaut (b. 1934)
  • March 30 - Bobby Driscoll, American actor (b. 1937)
  • March 31 - Grover Lowdermilk, American baseball player (b. 1885)
  • April 1 - Lev Davidovich Landau, Russian physicist
  • April 4 - Martin Luther King, Jr.,
  • April 7 - Jim Clark, OBE
  • April 10 - Gustavs Celmins, Latvian politician (b. 1899)
  • April 12 - Heinrich Nordhoff, German automobile engineer and Volkswagen director (b. 1899)
  • April 14 - Al Benton, American baseball player (b. 1911)
  • April 16 - Edna Ferber, American author (b. 1885)
  • April 22 - Stephen H. Sholes, American recording executive (b. 1911)
  • April 25 - John Tewksbury, American athlete (b. 1876)
  • May 1 - Harold Nicolson, British diplomat
  • May 1 - Jack Adams, Canadian ice hockey player
  • May 9 - Mercedes de Acosta, American poet
  • May 9 - Finlay Currie, British actor (b. 1878)
  • May 9 - Marion Lorne, American actress (b. 1885)
  • May 10 - Scotty Beckett, American child actor (b. 1929)
  • May 14 - Husband E. Kimmel, American admiral (b. 1882)
  • May 25 - Georg von Küchler, German field marshal (b. 1881)
  • May 26 - Little Willie John, American singer (b. 1937)
  • May 28 - Fyodor Matveyevich Okhlopkov, Yakut-born Soviet sniper (b. 1908)
  • June 1 - Helen Keller, American humanitarian (b. 1880)
  • June 1 - André Laurendeau, French Canadian writer
  • June 2 - André Mathieu, Quebec pianist and composer (b. 1929)
  • June 4 - Dorothy Gish, American actress (b. 1898)
  • June 6 - Robert F. Kennedy, United States Attorney General and Senator (b. 1925)
  • June 6 - Randolph Churchill, son of Winston Churchill (b. 1911)
  • June 7 - Dan Duryea, American actor (b. 1907)
  • June 9 - Bernard Cronin, Australian author and journalist (b. 1884)
  • June 14 - Salvatore Quasimodo, Italian writer
  • June 15 - Sam Crawford, baseball player (b. 1880)
  • June 15 - Wes Montgomery, American jazz guitarist (b. 1925)
  • June 17 - José Nasazzi, Uruguayan footballer (b. 1901)
  • June 19 - James Joseph Sweeney, American Catholic prelate (b. 1898)
  • June 24 - Tony Hancock, British comedian (b. 1924)
  • July 1 - Fritz Bauer, German judge and prosecutor (b. 1903)
  • July 6 - Johnny Indrisano, American boxer and actor (b. 1906)
  • July 14 - Konstantin Georgiyevich Paustovsky, Russian writer (b. 1892)
  • July 14 - Ilias Tsirimokos, Greek Prime Minister (b. 1907)
  • July 18 - Corneille Heymans, Belgian physiologist
  • July 21 - Ruth St. Denis, dancer and choreographer (b. 1878)
  • July 22 - Giovannino Guareschi, Italian journalist (b. 1908)
  • July 23 - Henry Hallett Dale, English scientist
  • July 27 - Babe Adams, baseball player (b. 1882)
  • July 28 - Otto Hahn, German chemist
  • August 5 - Luther Perkins American guitarist,
  • August 12 - Esther Forbes, American novelist (b. 1891)
  • August 19 - George Gamow, Ukrainian-born physicist (b. 1904)
  • August 25 - Stan McCabe, Australian cricketer (b. 1910)
  • August 26 - Kay Francis, American actress (b. 1899)
  • August 27 - Princess Marina, Duchess of Kent (b. 1906)
  • August 29 - Ulysses S. Grant III, American soldier and planner (b. 1881)
  • August 30 - William Talman, American actor (b. 1915)
  • September 3 - Isabel Withers, American actress (b. 1896)
  • September 11 - René Cogny, French General (b. 1904)
  • September 12 - Tommy Armour, Scottish golfer (b. 1894)
  • September 19 - Chester Carlson, American inventor (b. 1906)
  • September 19 - Red Foley, American singer (b. 1910)
  • September 23 - Francesco Forgione, "Padre Pio"
  • September 25 - Hans F. K. Günther, German eugenicist (b. 1891)
  • September 26 - Daniel Johnson, Sr.
  • October 2 - Marcel Duchamp, French artist (b. 1887)
  • October 6 - Phyllis Nicolson, British mathematician (b. 1917)
  • October 9 - Pierre Mulele, Congolese revolutionary (b. 1929)
  • October 13 - Bea Benaderet, American actress (b. 1906)
  • October 16 - Ellis Kinder, baseball player (b. 1914)
  • October 20 - Bud Flanagan, British wartime entertainer (b. 1896)
  • October 27 - Lise Meitner, German physicist (b. 1878)
  • October 30 - Rose Wilder Lane, American journalist and author (b. 1886)
  • October 30 - Ramón Novarro, Mexican actor (b. 1899)
  • October 30 - Conrad Richter, American writer (b. 1890)
  • November 1 - George Papandreou, Greek politician (b. 1888)
  • November 4 - Michel Kikoine, Belarusian painter (b. 1892)
  • November 6 - Charles Munch, French conductor and violinist (b. 1891)
  • November 6 - Charles B. McVay III, Ex-U.S. Navy Captain (b. 1898)
  • November 7 - Alexander Gelfond, Russian mathematician (b. 1906)
  • November 7 - Gordon Coventry, Australian rules footballer (b. 1901)
  • November 8 - Wendell Corey, American actor (b. 1914)
  • November 9 - Jan Johansson, Swedish jazz pianist (b. 1931)
  • November 17 - Mervyn Peake, British writer (b. 1911)
  • November 25 - Upton Sinclair, American journalist
  • November 25 - Paul Siple, American explorer of the Antarctic. (b. 1908)
  • November 28 - Enid Blyton, British children's author (b. 1897)
  • December 1 - Nicolae Bretan, Romanian opera singer (baryton) and composer born in Transylvania (b. 1887)
  • December 1 - Dario Moreno, Turkish-Jewish singer (b. 1921)
  • December 2 - Adamson-Eric (Eric Adamson), Estonian painter (b. 1902)
  • December 5 - Fred Clark, American actor (b. 1914)
  • December 10 - Karl Barth, Swiss theologian (b. 1886)
  • December 10 - George Forrest, Northern Irish MP (b. 1921)
  • December 10 - Thomas Merton, American monk and author (b. 1915)
  • December 12 - Tallulah Bankhead, American actress (b. 1902)
  • December 15 - Antonio Barrette, Canadian politician
  • December 15 - Jess Willard, American boxer (b. 1881)
  • December 19 - Norman Thomas, American socialist (b. 1884)
  • December 20 - John Steinbeck, American writer
  • December 29 - Austin Farrer, English theologian and philosopher (b. 1904)
  • December 30 - Trygve Lie, Norwegian politician

Events
  • January 5 - Alexander Dubèek comes to power: "Prague Spring" begins in Czechoslovakia.
  • January 9 - The only known snowfall in Mexico City occurs; additional snow falls on January 10 and 11.
  • January 13 - Johnny Cash performs live at Folsom Prison
  • January 16 - The Youth International Party is founded.
  • January 20 - The Houston Cougars defeat the UCLA Bruins 71-69 to win the Game of the Century.
  • January 21 - Vietnam War: Battle of Khe Sanh
  • January 23 - North Korea seizes the USS Pueblo, claiming the ship had violated their territorial waters while spying.
  • January 30 - Vietnam War: The Tet Offensive begins when Viet Cong forces launch a series of surprise attacks in South Vietnam.
  • January 31 - Viet Cong attack the United States embassy in Saigon.
  • January 31 - Nauru declares independence from Australia.
  • February 1 - Vietnam War: The execution of Viet Cong officer Nguyen Van Lem by South Vietnamese National Police Chief Nguyen Ngoc Loan is videotaped and photographed by Eddie Adams. This image helped build opposition to the Vietnam War.
  • February 1 - Canada's three military services of Canada, the Royal Canadian Navy, the Canadian Army and the Royal Canadian Air Force, are unified into the Canadian Forces.
  • February 1 - The New York Central Railroad and the Pennsylvania Railroad are merged to form ill-fated Penn Central Transportation.
  • February 5 - Vietnam War: Battle of Khe Sanh begins.
  • February 8 - American civil rights movement: The Orangeburg massacre, a mass killing in Orangeburg, South Carolina of black students from South Carolina State University who were protesting segregation at the town's only bowling alley.
  • February 11 - Israeli-Jordanian border clashes.
  • February 16 - In Haleyville, Alabama, the first 9-1-1 emergency telephone system goes into service.
  • February 17 - In Springfield, Massachusetts the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame opens.
  • February 24 - Vietnam War: The Tet Offensive is halted; South Vietnam recaptures Hué.
  • March 7 - The BBC broadcasts the news for the first time in color on television.
  • March 12 - Mauritius achieves independence.
  • March 16 - Vietnam War: In the My Lai massacre, between 350 and 500 Vietnamese villagers: men, women, and children are killed by American troops.
  • March 16 - General Motors produces its 100 millionth automobile, the Oldsmobile Toronado.
  • March 18 - Gold standard: The U.S. Congress repeals the requirement for a gold reserve to back US currency.
  • March 21 - Battle of Karameh in Jordan between Israeli Defense Forces and Fatah.
  • March 31 - President Lyndon B. Johnson announces he will not run for re-election.
  • April 3 - Martin Luther King Jr. delivers his "I've Been to the Mountaintop" speech.
  • April 4 - Martin Luther King, Jr. is assassinated by James Earl Ray at a motel in Memphis, Tennessee.
  • April 4 - Apollo program: NASA launches Apollo 6.
  • April 4 - AEK Athens BC becomes the first Greek team to win the European Basketball Cup.
  • April 6 - In Richmond, Indiana's downtown district, a double explosion kills 41 and injures 150.
  • April 7 - Jim Clark, two-time F1 World Champion and winner of the Indianapolis 500, dies in a racing accident during a Formula 2 race at Hockenheim, Germany.
  • April 8 - BOAC Flight 712 catches fire shortly after take off. As a result of her actions in the accident, Barbara Jane Harrison is awarded a posthumous George Cross, the only GC awarded to a woman in peacetime.
  • April 10 - Shipwreck of the New Zealand inter-island ferry TEV Wahine outside Wellington harbour.
  • April 11 - President Lyndon B. Johnson signs the Civil Rights Act of 1968, prohibiting discrimination in the sale, rental, and financing of housing.
  • April 11 - German student leader Rudi Dutschke is shot in Berlin.
  • April 12 - Nerve gas accident at Skull Valley, Utah.
  • April 14 - At the U.S. Academy Awards, a tie for the Academy Award for Best Actress is achieved by Katharine Hepburn and Barbra Streisand.
  • April 20 - A South African Airways Boeing 707 crashes during takeoff at Windhoek, South-West Africa, killing 122.
  • April 20 - English politician Enoch Powell makes his controversial Rivers of Blood speech.
  • April 23 - Vietnam War: Student protesters at Columbia University in New York City take over administration buildings and shut down the university. see main article Columbia University protests of 1968.
  • April 24 - Mauritius becomes a member state of the United Nations.
  • April 29 - The controversial musical Hair opens on Broadway.
  • May 11 - The Toronto Transit Commission opens the largest expansion of its Bloor-Danforth Line, going to Scarborough in the east, and Etobicoke in the west.
  • May 22 - The nuclear-powered submarine the USS Scorpion sinks with 99 men aboard 400 miles southwest of the Azores.
  • May 24 - FLQ separatists bomb the U.S. consulate in Quebec City.
  • May 27 - The meeting of the Union Nationale des Étudiants de France (National Union of the Students of France) takes place. 30,000 to 50,000 people gather in the Stade Sebastien Charlety.
  • May 29 - Manchester United win the European Cup, the first English Club to do so.
  • June 3 - Valerie Solanas, author of SCUM Manifesto, attempts to assassinate Andy Warhol by shooting him three times.
  • June 5 - U.S. presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy is shot at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles, California by Palestinian Sirhan Sirhan. Kennedy dies the next day.
  • June 6 - Senator Robert F. Kennedy dies from his wounds after he was shot the previous night.
  • June 7 - The body of assassinated U.S. Senator Robert F. Kennedy lies in state at St. Patrick's Cathedral, New York.
  • June 8 - James Earl Ray is arrested for the murder of Martin Luther King Jr.
  • June 8 - The body of assassinated U.S. Senator Robert F. Kennedy is laid to rest at Arlington National Cemetery.
  • June 9 - U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson declares a national day of mourning following the assassination of Senator Robert F. Kennedy.
  • June 23 - 74 are killed and 150 injured in a football stampede towards a closed exit in a Buenos Aires stadium.
  • June 30 - Solemni hac liturgia by Pope Paul VI.
  • July 1 - The CIA's Phoenix Program is officially established.
  • July 1 - The Nuclear non-proliferation treaty is signed in Washington, London and Moscow by sixty-two countries.
  • July 1 - Formal separation of the United Auto Workers from the AFL-CIO.
  • July 10 - Maurice Couve de Murville becomes Prime Minister of France.
  • July 17 - A revolution occurs in Iraq when Abdul Rahman Arif is overthrown and the Ba'ath Party is installed as the governing power in Iraq with Ahmed Hassan al-Bakr as the new Iraqi President.
  • July 18 - The Intel Corporation is founded in Santa Clara, California
  • July 20 - Special Olympics founded.
  • July 22 - Sir John Newsome recommends public schools should take 50% of their intake from the state school system
  • July 23 - Glenville Shootout: In Cleveland, Ohio, a violent shootout between a Black Militant organization led by Ahmed Evans and the Cleveland Police Department occurs. During the shootout, a riot begins that lasted for five days.
  • July 23 - The first and only successful hijacking of an El Al aircraft takes place when a 707 carrying 10 crew and 38 passengers is taken over by three members of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP). The aircraft was en route from Rome, Italy, to Lod, Israel.
  • July 26 - Vietnam War: South Vietnamese opposition leader Truong Dinh Dzu is sentenced to five years hard labor for advocating the formation of a coalition government as a way to move toward an end to the war.
  • August 1 - The coronation is held of Hassanal Bolkiah, the 29th Sultan of Brunei.
  • August 2 - The 1968 Casiguran Earthquake hits Casiguran, Aurora, Philippines killing more than 270 people and wounding 261.
  • August 8 - Jurō Wada successfully performs Japan's first heart transplant.
  • August 11 - The last steam passenger train service runs in Britain. A selection of British Rail steam locomotives make the 120-mile journey from Liverpool to Carlisle and returns to Liverpool before having their fires dropped for the last time
  • August 13 - Alexandros Panagoulis attempts to assassinate the Greek dictator Colonel G. Papadopoulos in Varkiza, Athens.
  • August 20 - 200,000 Warsaw Pact troops and 5,000 tanks invade Czechoslovakia to end the "Prague Spring" of political liberalization.
  • August 21 - Soviet Union-dominated Warsaw Pact troops invade Czechoslovakia, crushing the Prague Spring; on the same day, Nicolae Ceauşescu, leader of Communist Romania, publicly condemns the Soviet maneuver, encouraging the Romanian population to arm itself against possible Soviet reprisals.
  • August 21 - James Anderson, Jr. posthumously receives the first Medal of Honor to be awarded to an African American U.S. Marine.
  • August 22 - Pope Paul VI arrives in Bogotá, Colombia. It is the first visit of a pope to Latin America.
  • August 24 - France explodes its first hydrogen bomb, thus becoming the world's fifth nuclear power.
  • August 26 - The Democratic National Convention opens in Chicago, Illinois.
  • August 28 - Riots in Chicago, Illinois, during the Democratic National Convention.
  • August 31 - Garfield Sobers becomes the first cricketer to hit 6 sixes in one over.
  • September 6 - Swaziland becomes independent.
  • September 8 - The Beatles perform their last live TV performance on the David Frost show. They perform their new hit Hey Jude.
  • September 11 - Air France Flight 1611 crashes off Nice, France, killing 89 passengers and 6 crew.
  • September 13 - Albania leaves the Warsaw Pact.
  • September 15 - The Soviet Zond 5 spaceship is launched, becoming the first spacecraft to fly around the Moon and re-enter the Earth's atmosphere.
  • September 27 - The stage musical Hair opened at the Shaftesbury Theatre in London, where it played 1,998 performances until its closure was forced by the roof's collapsing in July 1973.
  • September 30 - The Boeing 747 is rolled out and shown to the public for the first time at the Boeing Everett Factory.
  • October 1 - The Guyanese government takes over the British Guiana Broadcasting Service (BGBS).
  • October 2 - A peaceful student demonstration in Mexico City ends in the Tlatelolco massacre.
  • October 5 - Police baton civil rights demonstrators in Derry, Northern Ireland
  • October 8 - Vietnam War: Operation Sealords
  • October 11 - Apollo program: NASA launches Apollo 7, the first successful manned Apollo mission, with astronauts Wally Schirra, Donn F. Eisele and Walter Cunningham aboard.
  • October 12 - Equatorial Guinea becomes independent from Spain
  • October 14 - Vietnam War: 27 soldiers are arrested at the Presidio in San Francisco for their peaceful protest of stockade conditions and the Vietnam War.
  • October 14 - Vietnam War: The United States Department of Defense announces that the United States Army and United States Marines will be sending about 24,000 troops back to Vietnam for involuntary second tours.
  • October 14 - First live telecast from a manned U.S. spacecraft Apollo 7.
  • October 14 - A 6.8 earthquake destroys the Australian town of Meckering, and also ruptures all major roads and railways nearby.
  • October 14 - Jim Hines of the USA becomes the first man ever to break the ten second barrier in the 100 metres Olympic final at Mexico City with a time of 9.95 sec. He would be the only man to do so until 1983.
  • October 14 - The rebuilt Euston railway station in London is opened.
  • October 16 - United States athletes Tommie Smith and John Carlos are kicked off of the USA's team for performing a Black Power salute during a medal ceremony.
  • October 16 - Kingston, Jamaica is rocked by the Rodney Riots, inspired by the barring of Walter Rodney from the country.
  • October 18 - The U.S. Olympic Committee suspends two black athletes for giving a "black power" salute during a victory ceremony at the Mexico City games.
  • October 18 - Bob Beamon sets a world record of 8.90m in the long jump at the Mexico City games. This becomes the longest unbroken track and field record in history, standing for 23 years, and is later named by Sports Illustrated magazine as one of the five greatest sporting moments of the 20th century.
  • October 20 - Former First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy marries Greek shipping tycoon Aristotle Onassis.
  • October 22 - Apollo program: Apollo 7 safely splashes down in the Atlantic Ocean after orbiting the Earth 163 times.
  • October 31 - Vietnam War October surprise: Citing progress with the Paris peace talks, US President Lyndon B. Johnson announces to the nation that he has ordered a complete cessation of "all air, naval, and artillery bombardment of North Vietnam" effective November 1.
  • November 1 - The Motion Picture Association of America's film rating system is officially introduced, originating with the ratings G, M, R, and X.
  • November 5 - United States presidential election, 1968: Republican Richard Nixon wins the American presidency, in what turned out to be a decades-long realignment election.
  • November 11 - Vietnam War: Operation Commando Hunt initiated. The goal was to interdict men and supplies on the Ho Chi Minh Trail, through Laos into South Vietnam.
  • November 11 - A second republic is declared in the Maldives.
  • November 17 - Alexandros Panagoulis is condemned to death for attempting to assassinate Greek dictator George Papadopoulos.
  • November 20 - Vietnam War: Eleven men comprising a Long Range Patrol team from F Company, 58th Infantry, 101st Airborne are surrounded and nearly wiped out by North Vietnamese army regulars from the 4th and 5th Regiment. The seven wounded survivors are rescued after several hours by an impromptu force made of other men from their unit.
  • November 26 - Vietnam War: United States Air Force helicopter pilot James P. Fleming rescues an Army Special Forces unit pinned down by Viet Cong fire and is later awarded the Medal of Honor.
  • December 9 - NLS (a system for which hypertext and the computer mouse were developed) is publicly demonstrated for the first time in San Francisco.
  • December 10 - Japan's biggest heist, the still-unsolved "300 million yen robbery", occurs in Tokyo.
  • December 13 - Brazilian president Artur da Costa e Silva decrees the AI-5 (or the fifth Institutional Act), which lasts until 1978 and marks the beginning of the hard times of Brazilian military dictatorship.
  • December 20 - The Zodiac Killer kills Betty Lou Jenson and David Faraday in Vallejo, California.
  • December 21 - Apollo program: Apollo 8, the first manned mission to the moon, is launched from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. At 2h:50m:37s Mission elapsed time (MES), the crew performs the first ever manned Trans Lunar Injection and become the first humans to leave Earth's gravity.
  • December 23 - The United States won the release of 82 sailors by issuing a written apology to North Korea for spying on the Communist country.
  • December 24 - The crew of the USS Pueblo is released by North Korea after being held for 11 months on suspicion of spying.
  • December 24 - Apollo Program: The crew of Apollo 8 enters into orbit around the Moon, becoming the first humans to do so. They performed 10 lunar orbits and broadcast live TV pictures that became the famous Christmas Eve Broadcast, one of the most watched programs in history.
  • December 25 - Apollo program: Apollo 8 performs the very first successful Trans Earth Injection (TEI) maneuver, sending the crew and spacecraft on a trajectory back to Earth from Lunar orbit.
  • December 25 - 42 Dalits are burned alive in Kilavenmani village, Tamil Nadu, India, a retaliation for a campaign for higher wages by Dalit labourers.
  • December 27 - Apollo Program: Apollo 8 splashes down in the Pacific Ocean, ending the first orbital manned mission to the Moon.


Select a date:       





Home • Celebrity Videos • Celebrity Gossips • Celebrity Gallery • On This Day • Greeting Cards • Jokes • Celebrity Search • Dating • Blogs • Add URL • Contact Us
Copyright ©1998-2009 Eforu.com All rights Reserved. Disclaimer Privacy Policy
This page uses material from the Wikipedia article "1968".