Weekly timeline for 1968: A year of change and tumult
May 13: French labor unions, students and teachers begin a 24-hour general strike. Jean Paul Sartre and 121 other intellectuals sign a statement asserting “the right to disobedience.”
May 13: Peace talks between the U.S. and North Vietnam begin in Paris.
May 14: The Czech government announces liberalizing reforms under Alexander Dubcek.
May 15: Two thousand workers occupy the aircraft construction plant of Sud-Aviation at Nantes, France, holding the plant manager and his principal aides prisoner.
May 15: Director Frank Perry’s “The Swimmer,†starring Burt Lancaster and based on a John Cheever story, opens. Also opening this day is Peter Bogdanovich’s first film, “Targets,†starring Boris Karloff and Tim O’Kelly.
May 17: In Maryland the Catonsville Nine, including Phillip Berrigan, a Catholic priest, take hundreds of files from the draft board at the Knights of Columbus building and set them on fire with gasoline and soap chips.
Sources:
The Whole World Was Watching: An oral history of 1968. A joint project between South Kingstown High School and Brown University’s Scholarly Technology Group
Timelines of History
Timeline 1968
Rock Timeline
Wikipedia Music Timeline
Frank Eugene Smitha’s Macrohistory and World Report