Historical Events in 1968

Events 1 - 200 of 804

• Jan 1 ABC radio splits into 4 networks (Info, Entertainment, Contemp & FM)
• Jan 1 Netherlands gets color TV
• Jan 1 Pennsylvania Railroad and NYC Central merge into Pennsylvania Central

• Jan 1 WDCO TV channel 15 in Cochran, GA (PBS) begins broadcasting

• Jan 2 KBHK TV channel 44 in San Francisco, California (IND) begins broadcasting
• Jan 4 Duck hunter accidentally shoots endangered whooping crane in Texas
• Jan 4 Leo Fender sells Fender Guitars for $13 million to CBS

• Jan 6 Dr Norman E. Shumway performs 1st US adult cardiac transplant operation
• Jan 6 Surveyor 7 (last of series) launched by US for soft-landing on Moon
• Jan 6 The Beatles' album "Magical Mystery Tour" goes #1 and stays #1 for 8 weeks
• Jan 7 "GE College Bowl" quiz show premieres on NBC TV
• Jan 7 1st class US postage raised from 5 cents to 6 cents
• Jan 7 Surveyor 7, the last spacecraft in the Surveyor series, lifts off

• Jan 9 1st ABA All-Star Game: East 126 beats West 120 at Indiana
• Jan 9 Surveyor 7 space probe soft lands on Moon
• Jan 10 US Surveyor 7 lands near lunar crater Tycho
• Jan 11 Explorer 36 (GEOS-B) launched into earth orbit (1080/1570 km)
• Jan 12 Beatles Film Production Ltd changes name to Apple Film Production Ltd
• Jan 12 Nighttime version of "Hollywood Squares" premieres on NBC TV

• Jan 13 Minnesota North Stars NHL player Bill Masterson, suffers head injuries during a game and dies two days later, becoming the 1st player to die as result of a game

• Jan 15 KDCD TV channel 18 in Midland, Texas (IND) begins broadcasting
• Jan 15 Minnesota North Stars forward Bill Masterton dies 2 days after suffering a head injury in a game against the Oakland Seals; the only death as a result of a game injury in NHL history
• Jan 16 Jay Allen's "Prime of Miss Jean Brodie" premieres in NYC
• Jan 16 The Youth International Party is founded.

• Jan 18 USSR performs nuclear test at the Semipalatinsk Test Site in northeast Kazakhstan
• Jan 19 Northern Ireland Prime Minister Terence O'Neill calls for "a new endeavour by organisations in Northern Ireland to cross denominational barriers and advance the cause of better community relations"
• Jan 19 WKBF TV channel 61 in Cleveland, Ohio (IND) begins broadcasting

• Jan 20 Houston Cougars defeat the UCLA Bruins 71-69 to win basketball's Game of the Century and end UCLA's 47 game winning streak
• Jan 21 The Battle of Khe Sanh - one of the most publicized and controversial battles of the Vietnam War - begins at the Khe Sanh Air Base
• Jan 21 US B-52 bomber with nuclear bomb on board crashes in Greenland

• Jan 22 "Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In" premieres on NBC
• Jan 22 Apollo Lunar Module is launched to Moon; unmanned lunar module tests made
• Jan 22 NBA announces expansion franchise licences awarded to Milwaukee (Bucks) and Phoenix (Suns)
• Jan 23 Spy ship USS Pueblo & 83-man crew seized in Sea of Japan by North Korea
• Jan 24 Operation Coburg begins, an Australian and New Zealand military action during the Vietnam War
• Jan 25 Risse St in Bronx named
• Jan 25 Robert Anderson's "I Never Sang for My Father" premieres in NYC
• Jan 26 Israeli submarine Dakar sinks in Mediterranean Sea, 69 die
• Jan 27 French submarine Minerve disappears in the Mediterranean with the loss of 52 crew
• Jan 28 29th PGA Seniors Golf Championship: Chandler Harper
• Jan 28 Goose Goslin & Kiki Cuyler elected to Baseball Hall of Fame
• Jan 28 Radiation alert following B-52 crash in Arctic air base of Thule in Greenland
• Jan 28 Thai boxer Chartchai Chionoi retains his world flyweight title with a 13th-round TKO of home favourite Efren Torres in Mexico City; first of 3 meetings between the pair
• Jan 29 Nauru (formerly Pleasant Island) adopts constitution
• Jan 30 1968 NFL Draft: Ron Yary from USC first pick by Minnesota Vikings
• Jan 30 Bobby Goldsboro records his biggest hit, "Honey"
• Jan 30 Viet Cong and the North Vietnamese launch the Tet offensive against South Vietnames and US forces
• Jan 31 Bobby Simpson takes 5-59 v India in his last Test for ten years
• Jan 31 Nauru (formerly Pleasant Island) declares independence from Australia
• Jan 31 US performs nuclear test at Nevada Test Site

• Feb 1 World trade conference Unctad 2 opens in New Delhi
• Feb 2 Springer Publishers in West Berlin, bombed
• Feb 4 Around 100 Indians and Pakistanis from Kenya arrive in Britain, escaping discrimination

• Feb 5 A fishing trawler from Hull sinks off the coast of Iceland
• Feb 5 KDTV TV channel 39 in Dallas-Fort Worth, Texas (IND) begins broadcasting
• Feb 5 Skater Kees Verkerk wins olympic gold in the 1500m
• Feb 6 Dutch 2nd Chamber condemns US bombing of North Vietnam

• Feb 6 KESD TV channel 8 in Brookings, SD (PBS) begins broadcasting
• Feb 6 X Winter Olympic Games opens in Grenoble, France
• Feb 7 Belgium government of Vanden Boeynants falls
• Feb 7 WLED TV channel 49 in Littleton, NH (PBS) begins broadcasting
• Feb 8 Film "Planet of the Apes", based on Pierre Boulle's 1963 novel "La Planète des singes" premieres in New York City
• Feb 8 Orangeburg Massacre: highway patrol officers kill 3 students and injure 27 others demonstrating at South Carolina State University, 1st student killing by law enforcement in the US
• Feb 9 A rare 3-way tie for silver in the women's 500m speed skating at the Grenoble Winter Olympics; Soviet Lyudmila Titova wins from American trio of Jenny Fish, Mary Meyers and Dianne Holum
• Feb 9 Rotterdam metro opened by Princess Beatrix
• Feb 9 World champion Jean-Claude Killy of France wins the downhill at the Grenoble Winter Olympics; first of 3-event clean sweep of the alpine skiing events at the Games
• Feb 10 "Spooky" by Classics IV hits #3

• Feb 11 Israeli-Jordan border fight
• Feb 11 Jeffrey Kramer survives 76-m jump, Washington Bridge, Hudson River New York
• Feb 11 Madison Square Garden III closes Madison Square Garden IV opens (NYC)
• Feb 12 Dutch speed skater Ans Schut wins women's 3,000m event at Grenoble Winter Olympics; first 10 finishers beat previous Olympic record set in Squaw Valley (1960)
• Feb 12 Frenchman Jean Claude-Killy follows his win in the downhill with victory in giant slalom at Grenoble Winter Olympics; clean sweeps 3 alpine skiing events with success in the slalom
• Feb 13 After winning giant slalom in Innsbruck (1964) French skier Marielle Goitschel takes out the slalom gold medal at the Grenoble Winter Olympics
• Feb 13 Swedish 10k cross country champion Toini Gustafsson wins her 2nd gold medal at the Grenoble Winter Olympics in the 5k event ahead of Soviet pair Galina Kulakova and Alvetina Kolchina
• Feb 13 US sends 10,500 additional soldiers to Vietnam
• Feb 14 Norwegian 15k Olympic cross country champion Harald Grønningen wins his second gold medal of the Grenoble Winter Olympics in the 4 x 10k relay
• Feb 14 Soviet Union goes 1-2 in pairs figure skating at the Grenoble Winter Olympics; husband & wife team Oleg Protopopov and Liudmila Belousova edge teammates Tatiana Zhuk and Alexander Gorelik
• Feb 14 WHKY TV channel 14 in Hickory, NC (IND) begins broadcasting
• Feb 15 ABA basketball Anaheim Amigos Les Salvage scores 10 3-point baskets in game vs Denver Rockets
• Feb 15 Biathlon 4 x 7.5k relay debuts at the Grenoble Winter Olympics with the Soviet Union taking the gold medal ahead of Norway and Sweden
• Feb 15 Fred Anton Maier of Norway skates a world record 7:22.4 in winning the 5,000m at the Grenoble Winter Olympics; Dutch 1,500m champion Kees Verkerk is just 0.8s behind for silver
• Feb 15 WVUT TV channel 22 in Vincennes, Indiana (PBS) begins broadcasting

• Feb 16 Italy completes the bobsleigh double at the Grenoble Winter Olympics with victory in the 4-man; Eugenio Monti and Luciano de Paolis double up for gold winning 2-man earlier
• Feb 16 US 1st 911 phone system goes into service in Haleyville, Alabama
• Feb 17 Frenchman Jean Claude-Killy completes a clean sweep of the alpine skiing events at the Grenoble Winter Olympics when he wins the slalom; also takes out the downhill and giant slalom
• Feb 17 Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame, Springfield, Massachusetts opens
• Feb 17 Norwegian cross country skier Ole Ellefsæter wins 50k event at the Grenoble Winter Olympics; 2nd gold medal of the Games (4 x 10k relay)
• Feb 17 Soviet Union wins its 3rd Olympic ice hockey gold medal in Grenoble; clinch title with final round, 5-0 win over Canada; Soviet LW Anatoli Firsov top scores with 16 points
• Feb 18 After winning men's luge singles Olympic gold medal in Innsbruck (1964), Thomas Köhler of Germany teams with Klaus Bonsack to take out the doubles in Grenoble
• Feb 18 Britain commences a trial of year-round daylight saving time (BST - British Standard Time, one hour ahead of GMT)

• Feb 18 Thousands of people in West Berlin demonstrate against US involvement in the Vietnam War
• Feb 18 X Winter Olympic Games close in Grenoble, France
• Feb 19 1st US statewide teachers' strike begins in Florida [note: a two-day walk out in Utah in 1963 is considered first by some]
• Feb 19 Children's educational TV program "Mister Rogers' Neighborhood" debuts on NET (now PBS)
• Feb 20 Chinese space agency, The China Academy of Space Technology is established in Beijing
• Feb 20 State troopers used tear gas to stop demonstration at Alcorn A & M
• Feb 21 150,000 demonstrate against leftist students in West Berlin
• Feb 21 Baseball announces a minimum annual salary of $10,000

• Feb 24 Gary Unger begins NHL consecutive game record of 914 games
• Feb 24 US troops reconquer Hue Vietnam

• Feb 25 430 Unification Church couples wed in Korea
• Feb 25 Archbishop Makarios re-elected president of Cyprus
• Feb 26 Clandestine Radio Voice of Iraqi People (Communist) final transmission

• Feb 28 Pirate Radio Hauraki, on a boat floating off coast of NZ, returns to the air
• Feb 29 Beatles' "Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band" wins Grammy Award for Album of the Year, the first rock LP to do so

• Feb 29 National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders (Kerner Comm) reports against racism & demands aid given to blacks
• Feb 29 US end regular flights with nuclear bombs
• Feb 29 US performs nuclear test at Nevada Test Site

• Mar 1 High winds blow-off the Philadelphia Spectrum's roof, forcing the Flyers to play their final month of the NHL season on the road, with home games moved to Toronto, NYC and Quebec City
• Mar 1 NBC's unprecedented on-air announcement, Star Trek will return
• Mar 1 Pirate Radio Atlantis South (England) begins test transmitting
• Mar 1 Political Party Radikalen (PPR) established in Netherlands
• Mar 1 Vatican City's Apostolic Constitution of 1967 goes into effect
• Mar 2 Ice Dance Championship at Geneva won by Towler & Ford of Great Britain
• Mar 2 Ice Pairs Championship at Geneva won by Belousova & Protopopov of the Soviet Union
• Mar 2 Men's Figure Skating Champions in Geneva won by Emmerich Danzer of Austria
• Mar 2 USAF displays Lockheed C-5A Galaxy, biggest plane in the world, with a cargo compartment 37m long
• Mar 2 USSR launches space probe Zond 4; fails to leave Earth orbit
• Mar 3 "Here's Where I Belong" opens/closes at Billy Rose Theater NYC
• Mar 3 Greek, Portuguese & Spanish embassies bombed in the Hague

• Mar 3 Pirate station "Radio Caroline" goes off the air when its ships Mi Amigo and Caroline are boarded and seized before the day's broadcasting began

• Mar 4 Orbiting Geophysical Observatory 5 launched
• Mar 5 US launches Solar Explorer 2 to study the Sun
• Mar 7 The BBC broadcasts the news for the first time in color on television
• Mar 8 6-year-old Tommy Moore scores hole-in-one in golf (Hagerstown, Maryland)
• Mar 8 Bill Graham's New York rock venue Fillmore East opens in Manhattan
• Mar 8 Students demonstrate in Warsaw
• Mar 9 10th Grammy Awards: Up Up & Away, Sgt Pepper's wins 4
• Mar 10 North Vietnamese and communist Laotion troops overrun a secret US radar facility, Lima Site 85, on a Laos mountaintop
• Mar 11 Anti-Zionist Clandestine Radio Voice of El Assifa starts transmitting

• Mar 12 Indian Ocean island nation Mauritius gains independence from Britain (National Day)
• Mar 12 US performs nuclear test at Nevada Test Site
• Mar 13 Beatles release single "Lady Madonna" in the UK
• Mar 13 Nerve gas accident at Skull Valley, Utah, kills 6,000 sheep
• Mar 14 CBS TV suspends Radio Free Europe free advertising because RFE doesn't make it clear it is sponsored by the CIA
• Mar 15 Bob Beamon sets indoor long jump record (27'2-3/4")

• Mar 15 Diocese of Rome announces that it "deplored the concept", but wouldn't prohibit rock & roll masses at Church of San Lessio Falconieri

• Mar 15 Uprising in South Yemen
• Mar 15 US Mint stops buying & selling gold
• Mar 16 General Motors produces its 100 millionth automobile, the Oldsmobile Toronado
• Mar 16 My Lai massacre occurs when American soldiers kill ~400 unarmed Vietnamese civilians, in one of the most controversial incidents of the Vietnam War

• Mar 17 2-tiered gold price negotiated in Washington, D.C. by US & 6 European nations

• Mar 18 US Congress repeals requirement for a gold reserve
• Mar 18 WVER TV channel 28 in Rutland, VT (PBS) begins broadcasting
• Mar 18 WVTA TV channel 41 in Windsor, VT (PBS) begins broadcasting
• Mar 19 Howard University, Washington, D.C., students seize administration building

• Mar 20 Military intervene in South-Yemen (leftist ministers resign)
• Mar 21 "Royals" chosen as the name of new KC AL franchise
• Mar 21 Hill, Hawkins & Coghill's musical premieres in London
• Mar 21 Israeli forces cross Jordan River to attack PLO bases

• Mar 22 Antonín Novotný resigns presidency of Czechoslovakia
• Mar 22 Lynda Johnson ordered off San Francisco cable car for eating an ice cream cone
• Mar 22 Student riot in Nanterre near Paris

• Mar 23 Rev Walter Fauntroy, is 1st non-voting congressional delegate from DC
• Mar 25 KLVX TV channel 10 in Las Vegas, NV (PBS) begins broadcasting
• Mar 25 Members of the Derry Housing Action Committee (DHAC) disrupt a meeting of Londonderry Corporation to protest at the lack of housing provision in the city, Northern Ireland
• Mar 25 US performs nuclear test at Nevada Test Site

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