1968: Weeks 44-46

Posted on November 15, 2008
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Weekly timeline for 1968: A year of change and tumult

October 30: “The Lion in Winter,” starring Peter O’Toole, Katharine Hepburn and Anthony Hopkins, opens.

October 31:  Citing progress in the Paris peace talks, President Johnson announces that he has ordered a complete cessation of “all air, naval, and artillery bombardment of North Vietnam,” effective November 1.

nixon.jpgNovember 5: Richard M. Nixon is elected the 37th U.S. President with Spiro Agnew as vice president. It was not until midday EST that Democrat Vice President Hubert Humphrey conceded victory to the Republican candidate. The announcement comes after a full 24 hours of waiting when at times it seemed any of the three presidential candidates could have won the race to the White House. At the latest count, only 25,552 votes separated the two front runners. Nixon and Humphrey each won 43%; George Wallace’s American Independent Party, with Curtis Lemay for vice president, receives 13.5% of the popular vote and wins in Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and Georgia.

November 5: Shirley Chisholm (1924-2004) of Brooklyn, New York, becomes the first black woman elected to serve in the U.S. House of Representatives.

November 8: John Lennon and his wife Cynthia divorce.

November 8: Actor Wendell Corey dies at age 54.

November 10: Mel Brooks’ “The Producers,” starring Zero Mostel and Gene Wilder, opens.

November 13: The Beatles’ “Yellow Submarine” opens.

November 14: “National Turn in Your Draft Card Day” features draft card burnings.

November 14: Yale University announces its plan to go co-ed.

November 14: “The Shoes of the Fisherman,” starring Anthony Quinn and Laurence Olivier, opens.

November 17: NBC outrages football fans by cutting away from the final minutes of a New York Jets-Oakland Raiders game to begin a TV special, “Heidi,” on schedule. The jets led 32-29 with one minute remaining. Viewers were deprived of seeing the Raiders come from behind to beat the Jets, 43-to-32.

 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

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