Political Events

The Tonkin Gulf Resolution approved by Congress August 7 authorizes President Johnson to “take all necessary measures to repel any armed attack against forces of the United States and to prevent further aggression.”  Three North Vietnamese PT boats have allegedly fired torpedoes August 2 at a U.S. destroyer in the international waters of the Tonkin Gulf 30 miles off of the coast of North Vietnam following 6 months of covert U.S. naval operations, President Johnson has ordered retaliatory action after a second such alleged attack, U.S. aircraft have bombed North Vietnamese bases August 5, and the resolution has been approved 88 to 2 in the senate and 416 to 0 in the House of Representatives.

On Monday, March 16th, after excruciatingly innovative strategizing, HUMBERTO ALVAREZ sets sail from Castro-kidnapped CUBA in a boat that just barely holds 25 members of his family and life-long friends.  After 30 determined hours navigating the Caribbean Sea, he triumphantly delivers his precious cargo to our American shores and freedom.  Forty-seven years later, his successful playwright/performer son Jorge opens his one-man show Off-Broadway detailing the experience that guaranteed him the acclaimed life he now leads in New York.

Jawaharla Nehru dies suddenly May 27 at age 74 after nearly 17 years as prime minister of India.

A Soviet coup d’etat October 13 strips Nikita Khrushchev, now 70, of all power.  Leonid Ilych Brezhnev, 57 becomes party leader, Aleksei Nikolaevich Kosygin 60, premier, October 14.

Britain’s labor party wins the general elections in October, Prime Minister Douglas-Home resigns, and (James) Harold Wilson, 48, begins a ministry that will continue until 1970.

Canada adopts the Maple Leaf flag October 22.  Queen Elizabeth will make it official early next year.

Zambia is created  October 24 out of Northern Rhodesia and Barotseland with Kenneth Kaunda as president of the new independent state. The British South Africa Co. has released mineral rights in the area on the promise of compensation from London and from the new Zambian government.

Human Rights, Social Justice

South Africa expands her apartheid racial segregation laws May 6 with a Bantu Laws amendment bill that empowers her minister of Bantu administration to declare “prescribed” area in which the number of Bantus (Africans) to be employed can be specified.  Eight native leaders including Nelson Mandela are sentenced to life imprisonment June 12 for sabotage and subversion and in July police make massive arrests under the General Laws Amendment Act which allows them to hold suspects for up to 6 months without reporting their arrests.

Economics, Finance, Retailing

President Johnson calls for “total victory” in a “national war on poverty” March 16.  He signs an Economic Opportunity Act August 20 and appoints Sargent Shriver, 48, to head the new Office of Economic Opportunity (OEO)  Brother-in-law of the late President Kennedy, Shriver will coordinate such agencies as the Job Corps, the Neighborhood Youth Corps, Volunteers in Service to America (VISTA), community action programs, and a Head Start program designed to help preschool children achieve higher levels of health, nutrition and preparedness for school.

U.S. sales through vending machines total $3.5 billion as Americans drop 83 million coins into machines every 24 hours.

Transportation

Jimmy Hoffa achieves his goal of bringing all U.S. truckers under a single Teamsters Union contract and raises fears that he may paralyze that country with a nationwide strike.  Hoffa has made the Teamsters the most powerful union in America and heightened his power potential by pursuing efforts to unite railway, airline, canal boat and merchant marine workers with his Teamsters.  Attorney General  Kennedy has made Hoffa his chief target since 1962, a Senate investigating committee has found him hard to question, but he is found guilty of having tampered with the jury in a 1962 trial.

The Mustang, introduced by Ford Motor Company, is a sporty compact that is essentially a Falcon with different exterior sheet metal.

Medicine

The Surgeon General’s Report issued January 11 by Dr. Luther L. Terry, 52, links cigarette smoking to lung cancer and other diseases.  The lung cancer rate among U.S. men will increase in the next decade from 30 per 100,000 to 50 and will more than double among women to 10 as young people increase cigarette smoking despite warnings.

Communications, Media

BBC-2 begins broadcasting April 30.  The second British Broadcasting Corporation television channel transmits on 625 lines to provide high definition pictures for sets equipped to pick up 625-line signals.

Literature

Last Exit to Brooklyn by U.S. novelist Hubert Selby, 38 (a London court convicts Selby of obscenity but he wins reversal on appeal).
Nothing Like the Sun by Anthony Burgess
Charlie and the Chocolate factory by Roald Dahl

Art

The Sin of Man by Rene Magrite
Brillo Boxes and Shot Orange Marilyn by Andy Warhol.

Theater

After the Fall by Arthur Miller opened January 23 at New York’s ANTA Theatre-Washington Square with Jason Robards Jr., Barbara Loden, David Wayne, Hal Holbrook, Salome Jens, Ruth Attaway, Faye Dunaway, Zohra Lambert, Ralph Meeker, 208 performances
The Entertaining Mr. Sloan by English playwright Joe Orton, 31, opened May 6 at London’s New Arts Theatre
Inadmissible Evidence by Joan Osborne opened September 9 at London’s Royal Court Theatre with Nicol Williamson
The Royal Hunt of the Sun by Peter Shaffer opened February 8 at London’s Old Vic Theatre, with Christopher Plummer as Francisco Pizarro.

Films

Robert Stevenson’s Mary Poppins with Julie Andrews, Dick Van Dyke; Blake Edwards’s A Shot in the Dark with Peter Sellers

Hollywood Musicals

George Cukor’s My Fair Lady with Audrey Hepburn, Rex Harrison
A Hard Day’s Night with the Beatles

Broadway Musicals

Hello Dolly! opened January 16 at the St James Theater with Carol Channing.  Music and Lyrics by Jerry Herman, 2,844 performances
Funny Girl opened March 26 at the Winter Garden Theatre with Barbara Streisand. 1,348 performances.
Fiddler on the Roof opened September 22 at the Imperial Theatre with Zero Mostel 3,242 performances

Popular Songs

“I Feel Fine”
“Love Me Do”
“Please Please Me”, and “She Loves You”
“I Get Around”

Sports

Roy Emmerson wins men’s singles at Wimbledon and Forest Hills, Maria Bueno in women’s singles.

Tobacco

U.S. cigarette consumption reaches 524 billion – more than 4,300 smokes for every American over age 18.

Crime

The Kitty Genovese case raises alarms about America’s growing isolation, callousness and inhumanity.  An attacker stalks Queens, N.Y. bar manager Catherine Genovese early in the morning of March 13; 38 of her Kew Gardens neighbors hear her wild calls for help, nobody interferes for fear of “getting involved,” the neighbors watch from windows while Genovese is stabbed to death; nobody phones the police until half an hour later.

Food Availability

The U.S. food stamp program conducted at Rochester NY from 1939 to 1943 is reactivated on a broad scale by the U.S. department of Agriculture to help feed needy Americans.

Food and Drink

Pop-Tarts toaster pastries are introduced by Kellogg

Lucky Charms breakfast food introduced by General Foods is 50.4% sugar.

Population

The Time Has Come by Boston Catholic physician John Rock, now 74, rejects the Church’s position against artificial contraceptive methods.  Rock helped develop the progesterone contraceptive pill.

A dozen U.S. states have tax-supported birth control programs, most of them in the South where Catholic influence is weak and where whites try to hold down black birth rates.  There are 450 public birth-control clinics in the nation.