"Rich vs. Poor" Health
The following timeline was created to help illustrate how potential and/or cumulative influence and/or events can impact [for good or for bad] upon individual human health. In some places, bold type highlights were added for quick summary review. [- E.M.]
1945 - "Discontinuity in History" - "[....] Now look at 1945, and consider what happened in the space of a very short time, a veritable instant in history.Before 1945, all that human beings could do in the way of rapine and destruction could not seriously affect our planet. It recovered rapidly from even the most destructive of wars. Since 1945, however, we have accumulated nuclear weapons, which in the space of days (if used unsparingly) can destroy civilization and, perhaps, compromise the very habitability of the planet.
Before 1945, all the economic processes of humanity, from the use of fire to the use of radio, had not sufficed to endanger the environment seriously. Since 1945, however, the rapid advance of industrialization and the vast multiplication of the use of fossil fuels has resulted in the dangerous pollution of air, water, and soil, and the possible creation of a greenhouse effect - so that, again, the very habitability of the planet may be compromised. This includes the use of new artificial substances, such as chlorofluorocarbons and plastics, which resist breakdown by natural processes and which introduce new strains on the environment.
The human population of Earth has risen steadily since the days of the early hominids, but prior to 1945, it more or less matched the extension of the human range and took place slowly enough so that world society could adapt to it. Since 1945, the rate of population increase has itself increased and the world population has more than doubled, while the use of energy and of resources generally has increased far more rapidly still. The planet groans under the weight of humanity, the forests and the wilderness are disappearing, large numbers of living species are being driven to extinction, and the ecological balance of the earth is being compromised. Closer to us as individuals are the spectres of food shortage and famine that would unbearably aggravate the serious problems of disease, violence, drugs, and social alienation that already exist.
All through the history of civilization, until 1945, there has been a tendency for imperial growth, with larger political units being built up. Since 1945, in a very short period of time, all the overseas European empires broke up and "third world" nations have become independant by the dozens. (A generation afterward, the Soviet empire broke up as well.) In a way, this is a "freedom explosion" that might be welcomed, but the change has been so rapid that these new nations have developed neither the economic substructure nor the political maturity to run their societies properly.
Still, not everything points to disaster. All through the history of humanity, there has been a steady and accelerating advance in technology that has, by and large, made human life richer and more secure, and enabled humanity to handle its problems better. This has continued faster than ever, and such new postwar phenomena as computers, television, jet planes, space flight, and medical techniques offer hope. And yet, here too, there is difficulty. Prior to 1945, technological advances spread outward from the point of origin sufficiently slow so that the changes could be absorbed without undue difficulty. Since 1945, new advances spread over the world almost at once, producing changes that can only with difficulty be worked into our society.
If ever there was a discontinuity in history, then, it was in 1945, and it would be entirely too jarring to attempt to continue this present history past that fearful break.
What is needed is a completely different book, one with a short prolog describing the nature of pre-1945 human history, and then examining the effects of the discontinuity in detail. Post-1945 history may turn out to require a book nearly or quite as long as this book, devoted to pre-1945 history.
Naturally, I want to do this second book myself; however, after 52 years as a professional writer, and after the production of well over 465 published books, I seem to begin to recognize a limitation to my capacity for endless work. Well, we shall see ..." [Isaac Asimov, Asimov's Chronology of the World, Copyright 1991, pp. 648-649]*Trivia: "Estimated Number of Warheads as of 2004: Russia - 16,000; U.S.A - 10,350; China - 400; France - 350; United Kingdom - 200; Israel - 200; Pakistan - 24-48; India - 30-35; North Korea - 6-8? The last four countries on this list [Israel, Pakistan, India & North Korea] are not signatories to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty." [Based on: N.G.M., August 2005, pp. 104-105]
1945 - Beginning / Cold War - "Stalin's new military now occupied all of the Baltic States, Poland, East Germany [including the capital, Berlin], Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Romania, and Bulgaria. A post-war agreement with the US and Britain at Yalta guaranteed that the Soviets would withdraw from these countries when stable governments existed there. Stalin liked the sound of that and installed 'stable' governments in these countries that were Communist and answered to him. Also, Soviet troops never withdrew from these countries. The Iron Curtain and the Cold War were beginning in 1945. Stalin began to round up entire families. He would send some to exile in Siberia where they would work in coal and mineral mines, and would send others to industrial cities where they could work on his weapons programs. These people were told that if they ever wanted to see their families again they would do exactly what they were told. They did. People who were of little value to Stalin were systematically killed. It is estimated that 30 million people died on Stalin's orders between 1924-1953. Stalin spent the rest of his life in fear that old rivals were attempting to remove him from power. He continued his purges and killing right up to his death in 1953."
1945 - Status / English National Debt - "In 1815 it [the English national debt] was 885 million pounds and in 1945 it had grown to 22.5 billion pounds. By 1995 the national debt had risen to more than 300 billion pounds, equal to 45 percent of GNP." [Based on: article by Juri Lina, The Barnes Review, September/October 2004, p. 9]
1945 - Elected Communists? / U.S.A. - "As late as 1945 the Communist Party had two members on the New York City Council. Both were elected from Jewish areas of the city. Two Jews born in Russia were William Weinstone, (of the Communist Part USA Central Executive Committee) and Jay Lovestone, (editor of 'The Communist' magazine).
"Mike Gold was editor of 'New Masses.' Alexander Bittelman served on the Central Executive Committee of Communist Part USA and as editor of the Yiddish Communist Part USA daily newspaper, 'Freiheit'. Alexander Trachtenberg fought in the failed 1905 revolution against the Czar. He fled to the U.S. and headed the front group, 'Friends of the Russian Revolution'. Louis Fraina, a Jew born in Italy, was the chief organizer of the original U.S. Communist Party. He operated under the name Ralph Snyder." [Link: 1]1945 - U.S. President Harry S. Truman - April 12th, 1945: "The 33rd American President, Harry S. Truman [Democrat], begins his term."
*Trivia: "President Harry Truman proposes publicly financed national health insurance, but the American Medical Association, the insurance industry and businesses block it." [Source: Institute of Medicine, 10/04/04]
1945 - Surrender / Germany - May 7th, 1945: "Germany surrendered May 7." [Based on: The World Almanac and Book of Facts, 2005, p. 548]
1945 - 1st Atomic Bomb Detonation / New Mexico, U.S.A. - July 16th, 1945: "The first nuclear bomb was detonated [in a test code-named Trinity] on July 16, 1945, at Alamogordo, New Mexico. The second and third bombs fell on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in Japan on August 6 and August 9, respectively. They were products of the 'Manhattan Project,' the $2 billion wartime effort by U.S. and British scientists and the U.S. Army to build a weapon that would 'end the war.' At its peak, about 160,000 people worked on the project in more than 25 sites across the United States. No one person can be completely credited with the invention of nuclear weapons." [Link: 1]
1945 - Atomic Bomb Detonation / Hiroshima, Japan - August 6th, 1945: "Making good on his threat to unleash 'a rain of ruin the like of which has never been seen on earth,' President Harry Truman [from Independence Missouri?] authorizes the dropping of two atomic bombs on Japan - one on Hiroshima on August 6, and a second on Nagasaki on August 9. The Japanese surrender within days."
*Trivia: "Bomb dropped on Hiroshima Aug. 6, with about 750,000 people killed." [Based on: The World Almanac and Book of Facts, 2005, p. 548]
*Trivia: "B-29 bomber Enola Gay drops a 15-kiloton uranium bomb, nicknamed Little Boy, on Hiroshima, Japan. Some 68,000 die immediately, followed by perhaps 70,000 more over the next few years." [Based on: N.G.M., August 2005, p. 103]
*Trivia: "[....] Including those initially listed as missing or who died later from a loosely defined set of bomb-related ailments, including cancers, Hiroshima officials now put the total number of the dead in this city alone at 237,062. This year [2005], 5,000 more names are to be added to the list. [....]" [Based on: A.P. article, S.L.P.D., p. A4, 08/05/05]
1945 - Atomic Bomb Detonation / Nagasaki, Japan - August 9th, 1945: "Making good on his threat to unleash 'a rain of ruin the like of which has never been seen on earth,' President Harry Truman authorizes the dropping of two atomic bombs on Japan - one on Hiroshima on August 6, and a second on Nagasaki on August 9. The Japanese surrender within days."
*Trivia: "Bomb dropped on Nagasaki Aug. 9, killing about 40,000." [Based on: The World Almanac and Book of Facts, 2005, p. 548]
*Trivia: "Fat Man, a 21-kiloton plutonium bomb, is dropped on Nagasaki. Japan, killing 38,000, with an estimated 35,000 additional fatalities. Japan surrenders days later." [Based on: N.G.M., August 2005, p. 103]
*Trivia: "[....] Three days later [08/09/1945], another plane, Bock's Car, bombed Nagasaki, on the souther Japan island of Kyushu, killing at least 80,000. On Aug. 15, 1945, Japan surrendered. [....]" [Based on: A.P. article, S.L.P.D., p. A4, 08/05/05]
1945 - Formal Surrender / Japan - September 2nd, 1945: "Japan agreed to surrender Aug. 14; formally surrendered Sept. 2." [Based on: The World Almanac and Book of Facts, 2005, p. 548]
1945 - Democratic Republic of Vietnam / Ho Chi Minh - September 2nd, 1945: "Ho Chi Minh proclaims the Democratic Republic of Vietnam." [Based on: S.L.P.D. p. A5, 04/25/05]
*Trivia: "Ho Chi Minh Creates Provisional Government Following the surrender of Japan to Allied forces, Ho Chi Minh and his People's Congress create the National Liberation Committee of Vietnam to form a provisional government. Japan transfers all power to Ho's Vietminh."
*Trivia: ""Ho Declares Independence of Vietnam. British Forces Land in Saigon and return Authority to the French."
1945 - OSS Abolished / U.S.A. - October 1st, 1945: "The OSS [Office of Strategic Services] was abolished and its functions transferred to the State and War Departments."
1945 - World Bank - "Since October 1929, the US dollar had been tied to gold at the rate of $35/oz., and the key decision of the conference was the Dollar Standard — the US$ was to be adopted as the medium for international trade and settlement whilst the US government would be able to print as many dollars as would be required to rebuild Europe and regenerate international trade once protective tariffs were lifted. The British pound [Sterling] was intended to play a mediating role in those regions already tied to Sterling.
"The Institutions which were planned at Bretton Woods to oversee this arrangement include the World Bank, launched late in 1945 and officially called the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development [IBRD], intended to provide long-term loans to states for reconstruction after the devastation of the War, the I.M.F. [International Monetary Fund] launched in 1946 and intended to finance short-term imbalances in international payments and help maintain fixed exchange rates, linking all currencies to gold via the Dollar Standard, and in October 1947 the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade [GATT] to oversee the dismantling of trade barriers." [Link 1]1946
1946 - Status / U.S. National Debt - "The U.S. national debt, which was only $16 billion in 1930, reaches a peak of $269 billion in 1946 but this borrowing is also made at very low interest rates. Whereas the economies of most European countries are devasted, the U.S. gross national product rises substantially." [Link: 1]
1946 - International Monetary Fund - "Since October 1929, the US dollar had been tied to gold at the rate of $35/oz., and the key decision of the conference was the Dollar Standard — the US$ was to be adopted as the medium for international trade and settlement whilst the US government would be able to print as many dollars as would be required to rebuild Europe and regenerate international trade once protective tariffs were lifted. The British pound [Sterling] was intended to play a mediating role in those regions already tied to Sterling.
"The Institutions which were planned at Bretton Woods to oversee this arrangement include the World Bank, launched late in 1945 and officially called the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development [IBRD], intended to provide long-term loans to states for reconstruction after the devastation of the War, the I.M.F. [International Monetary Fund] launched in 1946 and intended to finance short-term imbalances in international payments and help maintain fixed exchange rates, linking all currencies to gold via the Dollar Standard, and in October 1947 the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade [GATT] to oversee the dismantling of trade barriers." [Link 1]1946 - Indian Claims Commission Act - "There is some speculation that this act originated, in part, as a response to the role the United States played at the Nuremberg trials. The act was designed to provide legal recourse to those Native Americans who felt that their land was unjustly taken away from them. The act established a Claims Commission, which was responsible for hearing cases brought forward by Native Americns. The commission, however, was not empowered to return land to any Native American; rather, it was required to assign a monetary value to the land in question - 'at the time it was taken.' As a result, awards given out by the commission tended to be very small. In general, the act gave the United States the tool with which to legitimize its claim to Native American lands."
1946 - First Meeting / United Nations - January 10th, 1946: "First meeting of the United Nations."
1946 - Central Intelligence Group / U.S.A. - January 22nd, 1946: "After disbanding the OSS on 1 October 1945, President Truman established the Central Intelligence Group [CIG] on 22 January 1946. Although its budget and staff came from the several departments that maintained intelligence services, this new organization was headed by a Director of Central Intelligence [DCI], appointed by the President to serve under the supervision of a National Intelligence Authority made up of the Secretaries of State, War, and Navy and the President’s personal representative. Thus, there was a Director of Central Intelligence almost two years before there was a Central Intelligence Agency."
*Trivia: "The current [2004] questions about restructuring U.S. intelligence are similar to those raised more than a half-century ago when the national security system was set up, says former CIA director William H. Webster. [....] Christopher Briem, a researcher at the University of Pittsburgh's Center for Social and Urban Research, says Missourians 'were the key players in the creation in the CIA and setting up the intelligence structure that has lasted until now.' One was Rear Adm. Sidney Souers of St. Louis. Though operating largely in the background, he was an architect of the modern national security system, helping define the nature of the National Security Council and the CIA in the early days of the Cold War. [....] Souers served for five months before Truman named him the first executive secretary of the National Security Council. For the next seven years, Souers served as a trusted advisor to Truman on national security matters. The two men left Washington in early 1953 and returned to Missouri. Souers became head of General American Life Insurance Co. in St. Louis. When Truman had initially turned to Souers to help choose among competing ideas for a new intelligence structure, he asked the St. Louisan to work with Clark Clifford, another Missourian and a leading national security and political figure in Washington. The president signed the directive devised by Clifford and Souers on Jan. 22, 1946, Briem said. 'The trust that the president had in his fellow Missourians, Sidney Souers and Clark Clifford, facilitated President Truman's acceptance of a new intelligence organization.' Webster, a St. Louisan, says he and Clifford 'had conversations over the years' about the evolving national security apparatus. Webster has his own place in the history of U.S. intelligence as the only person to have led both the CIA and the FBI." [Based on article by Philip Dine, Post-Dispatch Washington Bureau, 08/24/04]
1946 - Beginning / First Indochina War - December 9th, 1946: "Vietmihn attack French forces in Tonkin, beginning the First Indochina War." [Based on: S.L.P.D. p. A5, 04/25/05]
1947
1947 - Beginning / Doomsday Clock? - "In 1947, the Doomsday Clock began to be published in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists - it was set at 7 minutes till midnight."
1947 - The Truman Doctrine - March 12th, 1947: "In a speech on 12 March 1947, U.S. President Truman formulated what was to be called 'The Truman Doctrine' in terms of the need to provide aid to the governments of Greece and Turkey, but the speech contained the clear implication that Truman was proposing a new global role for the United States." [Link: 1]
1947 - Marshall Plan - June 5th, 1947: "On June 5, 1947, US Secretary of State George Marshall announced the Marshall Plan — a huge loan program extended to all the European countries. At first it was intended that the Soviet Union and the Eastern European countries would benefit from the Marshall Plan, but at a Conference in Paris in July 1947, the war-devastated USSR was told they would get no aid and countries like Poland and Czechoslovakia were faced with the choice of lining up with the US to destroy the Soviet Union [whose Army still had a considerable presence on their own soil!] or be excluded from the Plan and from trade with those countries which were to benefit. This more or less marked the beginning of the Cold War [though the term had been coined by US Navy expert George Kennan in late 1946]. Marshall Aid was then used systematically to pressure governments and voters in countries like Britain, France and Italy into rejecting Communism in exchange for Aid, while Keynesian Economic policies were used to provide welfare and jobs for the workers." [Link 1]
1947 - Taft-Hartley Act - June 23rd, 1947: "On June 23, the Taft-Hartley Act, which banned closed union shops, created the National Labor Relations Board and gave the president the power to seek an 80-day injunction against any strike. The Act was passed over Truman's veto - who called it a 'slave-labor bill.' " [Link: 1]
1947 - U.S. Air Force - September 18th, 1947: "The U.S. Air Force becomes a separate branch of the military."
1947 - National Security Act - September 18th, 1947: "Under the provisions of the National Security Act of 1947 [which became effective on 18 September 1947] the National Security Council and the Central Intelligence Agency were established." [Link: 1]
1947 - Established / CIA, U.S.A. - September 18th, 1947: "The CIA was established by sections of the National Security Act that went into effect on 18 September 1947, a birthday the CIA shares with the US Air Force and the National Security Council, both also created by this Act. RAdm. Roscoe Hillenkoetter, whose tenure as third DCI spanned both CIG and CIA, was reappointed the new Act required." [Link: 1]
1947 - 'Majestic Twelve' - September 26, 1947: "Three days after the memo, on September 26th, 1947, General Twining gave his report on the Roswell crash and its implications for the United States to President Truman and a short list of officials he convened to begin the management of this top-secret combination of inquiry, police development, and 'ops.' This working group which included Adm. Roscoe H. Hillenkoetter, Dr Vannevar Bush, Secretary James Forrestal, Gen. Hoyt Vandenberg, Dr. Detlev Bronk, Dr. Jerome Hunsaker, Sidney W. Souers, Gordon Gray, Dr. Donald Menzel, Gen. Robert M. Montague, Dr. Lyoyd V. Berkner, and Gen. Nathan Twining himself, became the nucleous for an on-going 50-year operation that some people have called 'Majestic-12.' " [The Day After Roswell, Col. Philip J. Corso, with William J. Birnes]
1947 - GATT - "Since October 1929, the US dollar had been tied to gold at the rate of $35/oz., and the key decision of the conference was the Dollar Standard — the US$ was to be adopted as the medium for international trade and settlement whilst the US government would be able to print as many dollars as would be required to rebuild Europe and regenerate international trade once protective tariffs were lifted. The British pound [Sterling] was intended to play a mediating role in those regions already tied to Sterling.
"The Institutions which were planned at Bretton Woods to oversee this arrangement include the World Bank, launched late in 1945 and officially called the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development [IBRD], intended to provide long-term loans to states for reconstruction after the devastation of the War, the I.M.F. [International Monetary Fund] launched in 1946 and intended to finance short-term imbalances in international payments and help maintain fixed exchange rates, linking all currencies to gold via the Dollar Standard, and in October 1947 the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade [GATT] to oversee the dismantling of trade barriers." [Link 1]1947 - Palestine Partition - November 29th, 1947: "When Britain, in 1947, first declared it would withdraw from Palestine, the UN stepped in and adopted a plan calling for the partition of Palestine into two states - one Palestinian and one Jewish, with Jerusalem under UN control. Arabs throughout the Middle East rejected the plan, while Jews in Palestine rejoiced - and steeled themselves for war." [N.G.M./October/2002]
1947 - Project Sign - December 30th, 1947: "On December 30, 1947, Major General L. C. Craigie, Director of Research and Development, issued an order establishing Project Sign [aka Project Saucer]: ...to collect, collate, evaluate and distribute to interested government agencies and contractors all information concerning sightings and phenomena in the atmosphere which can be construed to be of concern to the national security.
"There is reliable testimony that in August, 1948, the Technical Intelligence Division at Wright-Patterson and Project Sign, decided to make a formal Estimate of the Situation. The Estimate was a top secret document that contained unexplained sightings by pilots, scientists, and other reliable witnesses. The report concluded that UFOs were of extraterrestrial origin.
"The Estimate of the Situation was promptly rejected by Air Force Chief of Staff General Hoyt S. Vandenburg. It is said that he deleted the strongest parts of the original report, sent it back, and then, when he received the revised report, he rejected it on the grounds that there was not enough evidence to support the conclusions. Then, after rejecting it, he ordered all copies destroyed. Those inside Project Sign said that their morale and enthusiasm for the project declined sharply after this. Project Sign would soon have its name fittingly changed to Project Grudge." [Link 1]1948
1948 - Independence / Israel - May 14th, 1948: "On May 14th, Israel declared independence, offering itself as a haven from anti-Semitism for the world's Jews. An ongoing war between Jews and Palestinians was thereupon joined by neighboring Arab states. When the war ended in January 1949, Israel controlled 78 percent of Palestine, and 750,000 Palestinians became refugees." [N.G.M. / October 2002]
1948 - Israeli Expansion / Beyond U.N.-Set Borders - "Following Arab attacks on Israel in May 1948, the Israelis pushed back the Arab armies and extended the area under Israeli control beyond the then U.N.-set borders for the Jewish state."
*Trivia: "[....] Any changes Israel made in expanding its boundaries since the end of the 1948 war for independence 'must be mutually agreed to,' Bush said. And he said Israel must remove illegal makeshift outposts from the West Bank and stop expanding Jewish settlements." [Based on: Washington Post article, p. A1 & A14, St. Louis Post-Dispatch, 05/27/05]
1948 - Elements of "Foreign Technology" - December, 1948: "Just a little over a year after the initial group meetings at the White House, Air Force Intelligence, now that the Air Force had become a separate service, issued a December 1948 report - 100-203-79 - called 'Analysis of Flying Object Incidents in the U.S.' in which UFO'S are never referred to as extraterrestial objects but as elements of 'foreign technology,' which is actually the subject of the report. The report, inocuous to most people because it doesn't say that flying saucers are from outer space, is actually one of the first indications showing how the camouflage plan was supposed to work over the ensuing years." [The Day After Roswell, Col. Philip J. Corso, with William J. Birnes]
1948 - Apartheid / South Africa - "[....] Tha National Party, which came to power in 1948, presided over 48 years of systematic and often brutal oppression of the country's [South Africa's] black majority, who were denied the right to vote or mix with whites. [....]" [Based on: A.P., 04/10/05]
1948 - Voting Rights / Arizona Indians - "In 1948, Arizona state is forced by the courts to give Indians the right to vote as in other American states."
1949
1949 - Central Intelligence Agency Act - "In 1949, the Central Intelligence Agency Act was passed supplementing the 1947 Act by permitting the Agency to use confidential fiscal and administrative procedures and exempting the CIA from many of the usual limitations on the expenditure of federal funds." [Link: 1]
1949 - Project Grudge - February, 1949: "In February, 1949, Project Sign came to an end, and with it the Air Force's objective attitude toward UFOs. The final report of Project Sign was decidedly skeptical towards the extraterrestrial origin hypothesis for the origin of UFOs, reflecting a shift towards explaining all sightings as misidentifications of natural phenomena. Secretly, however, the Air Force had merely changed the name of the project to Project Grudge [1949-1952]."
1949 - Conception / NATO - April 4th, 1949: "With the memory of the Berlin Blockade and the Communist takeover in Czechoslovakia still fresh, 12 nations agree to form the North Atlantic Treaty Organization as a counter to Soviet expansionism. The 12 are the United States, Belgium, Britain, Canada, Denmark, France, Iceland, Italy, Luxembourg, the Neatherlands, Norway, and Portugal." [Sources: NATO, The Associated Press, the World Book, the Encyclopedia Britannica]
*Trivia: "NATO established Aug. 24 by U.S., Canada, and 10 Western European nations, agreeing that an armed attack against one would be considered an attack against all." [Based on: The World Almanac and Book of Facts, 2005, p. 549]
1949 - Soviet Atomic Bomb Explosion / Kazakhstan - August 29th, 1949: "The Soviet Union becomes the world's second nuclear power when it explodes a copy of the Fat Man bomb in Kazakhstan. The bomb's design was stolen from the U.S. by German-born scientist Klaus Fuchs." [Based on: N.G.M., August 2005, p. 103]
1949 - Formally Established / People's Republic of China - "On October 1, 1949, the People's Republic of China was formally established, with its national capital at Beijing, with Chairman Mao Zedong. The people were defined as a coalition of four social classes: the workers, the peasants, the petite bourgeoisie, and the national-capitalists."
1950
1950 - 1st Credit Card - "The first credit card [Diners]."
1950 - Native American Relocation - "Dillon Myer, Commissioner of Indian Affairs, supported termination as well as relocation and urbanization program for reservation Indians, encouraging migration to cities and cultural assimilation."
1950 - Authorization / H-Bomb Production, U.S.A. - January 31st, 1950: "President Truman authorized production of the H-bomb Jan. 31." [Based on: The World Almanac and Book of Facts, 2005, p. 549]
1950 - Korean War - June 25th, 1950: "When Communist forces from North Korea invade the Republic of South Korea on June 25, President Truman appeals to the United Nations to take action. The UN quickly brands North Korea the aggessor, and Truman follows up by sending US air and naval support to Korea immediately thereafter."
1950 - U.S. Military Advisors / South Vietnam - "U.S. sent 35 military advisors to South Vietnam June 27, and agreed to aid anti-Communist government." [Based on: The World Almanac and Book of Facts, 2005, p. 549]
*Trivia: "In 1950, the United States sent $15 million dollars in military aid to the French for the war in Indochina. Included in the aid package was a military mission and military advisors."
*Trivia: "In 1950, the Chinese and Soviets offered weapons to the Vietminh."
1950 - Ground Troops & Air Strikes / North Korea - June 30th, 1950: "Truman approved ground forces, air strikes against North Korea June 30." [Based on: The World Almanac and Book of Facts, 2005, p. 549]
1950 - Railroad Seizure / U.S.A. - August 27th, 1950: "Army seized all railroads Aug. 27 on Truman's order to prevent a general strike; returned to owners in 1952." [Based on: The World Almanac and Book of Facts, 2005, p. 549]
1950 - Allied Command / Europe - December, 1950: "General Dwight Eisenhower becomes the first Supreme Allied Commander, Europe. The next year, the Allied Command Europe becomes operational." [Sources: NATO, The Associated Press, the World Book, the Encyclopedia Britannica]
1950 - U.S. Trade Ban / China - December 8th, 1950: "U.S. banned shipments Dec. 8 to Communist China and to Asiatic ports trading with it." [Based on: The World Almanac and Book of Facts, 2005, p. 549]
1951
1951 - Workers' Party / Vietnam - "In 1951, Ho Chi Minh Creates Workers' Party."
1951 - Mohammed Mossadegh / Iran - "The British occupied Iran after WW II to prevent Iran, more specifically Iranian oil, from falling into the hands of Nazi Germany and to protect an oil supply route to the Soviet Union, a British ally during the war. During the war, the U.S. and Britain felt that the Shah had become unmanageable and led another 'regime change' to replace him with his son, Muhammed Shah Pahlavi. Through their new proxy, Washington and London controlled Iran’s oil production. In 1951, the Iranian parliament voted to nationalize the Anglo-Iranian oil company and elected nationalist and pro-Soviet Mossadegh as Prime Minister who then deposed the Shah. London and Washington launched 'Operation Ajax', the code name for the 'regime change' effort that toppled Mossadeqh and 'restored' the Shah. Eisenhower labeled Mossadegh a 'communist' and justified the regime change as necessary to prevent Iran from falling into the Soviet camp." [Links 1]
1951 - Prescott Bush / Union Banking Co. - "Prescott Bush received $750,000 for his share of Union Banking Corporation, a princely sum in 1951, but nothing compared to the millions the Thyssen family got back. Prescott used some of this Nazi cash to bankroll his son George Herbert Walker Bush’s first business enterprise and to support his successful bid for Senate in 1952. The Thyssen’s rebuilt their empire, and today, the Thyssen Group [TBG] is the largest industrial conglomerate in Germany." [D. A. Friedrichs] [Link: 1]
1951 - Construction / U.S. Nuclear Submarine - July 1951: "In July 1951, Congress authorized construction of the world's first nuclear-powered submarine. Four years later, on the morning of July 17, 1955, the Nautilus's first commanding officer, Commander Eugene P. Wilkinson, ordered all lines cast off and signaled the memorable and historic message, 'Underway on nuclear power' - and the age of the nuclear Navy had begun." [Leo Laporte's 2005 Technology Almanac, p. 19]
1951 - Trivia / Sidney Gottlieb -
Sidney Gottlieb (August 3, 1918 – March 7, 1999) was an American chemist probably best-known for his involvement with the Central Intelligence Agency mind control program (MKULTRA).
Sidney was born in the Bronx under the name Joseph Schneider. He received a Ph.D. in chemistry from the California Institute of Technology. Despite the fact that he was a stutterer since childhood, Sidney got a master's degree in speech therapy. He also had a club foot, but this did not stop him from practicing folk dancing, a lifelong passion.
In 1951, Sidney Gottlieb joined the Central Intelligence Agency. As a poison expert, he headed the chemical division of the Technical Services Staff (TSS). Sidney became known as the "Black Sorcerer" and the "Dirty Trickster". He supervised preparations of lethal poisons and experiments in mind control.
[....]
In 1972 while still the head of the Technical Services Staff, shortly before retirement, Sidney Gottlieb allegedly destroyed most of the CIA files pertaining to him.
Sidney Gottlieb's passing on March 10, 1999 came at a convenient time for the CIA, as several new trials involving victims of its experiments were commencing.
[Based on: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sidney_Gottlieb]
1951 - Project BLUEBIRD -
BLUEBIRD is the cryptonym for a CIA mind control program, lasting from 1951 to 1953. During this time the CIA authorized experiments to be conducted by licensed psychiatrists. The experiments had various purposes, including but not limited to: creating new identities, inducing amnesia, inserting hypnotic access codes in subjects' minds, creating multiple personalities, and creating false memories. The research also included placing brain electrodes in people and controlling their behavior from remote transmitters, administering daily dosages of LSD to children for extended periods of time, and using electroconvulsive therapy to erase memories.
[Based on: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_BLUEBIRD]
1951 - Project ARTICHOKE -
"Project ARTICHOKE was a CIA project that researched interrogation methods and arose from project BLUEBIRD in 1951 August 20. The project studied hypnosis, forced opiate addiction (and subsequent forced withdrawal), and the use of other chemicals, among other methods, to produce amnesia and other vulnerable states in subjects. Magician John Mullholland consulted for the project. A memorandum by Richard Helms to director Allen Welsh Dulles indicated it became project MKULTRA in 1953 April 20. It was an offensive programme of mind control that gathered together the intelligence divisions of the Army, Navy, Air Force, and FBI. In addition, the scope of the project was outlined in a memo dated January 1952 that stated, "Can we get control of an individual to the point where he will do our bidding against his will and even against fundamental laws of nature, such as self preservation?"
[Based on: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_ARTICHOKE]
1951 - Transcontinental TV - September 4th, 1951: "Transcontinental TV begun Sept. 4 with Pres. Truman's address at Japanese Peace Treaty Conference in San Francisco." [Based on: The World Almanac and Book of Facts, 2005, p. 549]
1951 - Operation Buster-Jangle / Nevada - November 1st, 1951: "Battlefield effects of blast and fallout are studied during Operation Buster-Jangle in Nevada, where soldiers are exposed to a 21-kiloton test six miles away." [Based on: N.G.M., August 2005, p. 103]
1950s - Nuclear Fallout / U.S.A. - "A panel of experts is recommending [April 2005] the government open the door to hearing cancer claims from people in all states who think they were affected by nuclear fallout from 1950s weapons tests in Nevada. [....] The data suggest people from as far away as the East Coast could have been exposed to radiation carried from the test sites by wind and weather patterns. Previuously, only people who worked with uranium and residents of certain countries in the region were eligible for the $50,000 to $100,000 lump-sum payments. Currently, anyone who has one of 19 kinds of cancer and who was a child in the 1950s living in one of the designated areas downwind of the Nevada test site is eligible for money. But if the program were expanded as the Board on Radiation Effects Research suggests, victims would have to prove to at least some degree their cancer was caused by radioactive fallout. [....]" [Based on: A.P. article, p. A3, St. Louis Post-Dispatch, 04/29/05]
1950s - Trivia / Rioactive Waste, Columbia River, U.S.A. - "[....] According to the EPA (The New York Times, March 28, 1991), the engineers who built the nuclear weapons in the 1950's dumped over 127 million gallons of highly radioactive waste containing Iodine-129, into the ground just a few miles from the Columbia River, the 4th largest river system in the U.S., which flows into the Pacific Ocean. [....]"
[Based on: http://www.rense.com/general39/another.htm]
1952
1952 - Government Seizure / U.S. Steel Mills - April 8th, 1952: "Seizure of nation's steel mills was ordered by Pres. Truman Apr. 8 to avert a strike. Ruled illegal by Supreme Court June 2." [Based on: The World Almanac and Book of Facts, 2005, p. 549]
1952 - Project Blue Book - "From June 1947 through December 1969 the Air Force was primarily responsible for investigating unidentified flying object [UFO] phenomena. Investigations were conducted by the Air Technical Intelligence Center [ATIC] at Wright-Patterson AFB, Ohio until December 17, 1969. All records of these investigations [known as Project Sign, 1947-1949, Project Grudge, 1949-1952, and Project Blue Book, 1952-1969] were retired to the National Archives and Records Administration and are available to the public on archives microfilm publication T1206 [94 rolls of 35 mm film]." [Link: 1, 2]
1952 - Passed / U.S. Immigration & Naturalization Act - June 26th-27th, 1952: "The last racial and ethnic barriers to naturalization removed, June 26-27, with passage of Immigration & Naturalization Act of 1952."
1952 - UFOs Buzz Washington D.C. - July, 1952: "Flying saucers truly did buzz over Washington D.C., in 1952, and there are plenty of photographs and radar reports to substantiate it." [The Day After Roswell, Col. Philip J. Corso, with William J. Birnes]
1952 - British A-Bomb Test / Australia - October 3rd, 1952: "The United Kingdom tests an A-bomb in Australia." [Based on: N.G.M., August 2005, p. 103]
1952 - 1st Hydrogen Bomb Explosion / Pacific Ocean - November 1st, 1952: "The U.S. tests the world's first hydrogen bomb, code-named Mike, at Enewetak Atoll in the Marshall Islands." [Based on: N.G.M., August 2005, p. 103]
*Trivia: "First hydrogen device explosion Nov. 1 in Pacific." [Based on: The World Almanac and Book of Facts, 2005, p. 549]
1953
1953 - Termination Resolution - "Congress passed the Termination Resolution that provided for the end of the special federal relationship with certain American Indian tribes."
1953 - MKULTRA - April 15th, 1953: "Headed by Dr. Sidney Gottlieb, MKULTRA was started on the order of CIA director Allen Dulles in April 13, 1953, largely in response to alleged Soviet, Chinese, and North Korean uses of mind-control techniques on U.S. prisoners of war in Korea. The CIA wanted to use similar methods on their own captives. The CIA was also interested in being able to manipulate foreign leaders with such techniques, and would later invent several schemes to drug Fidel Castro. In 1964, the project was renamed to MKSEARCH. The project attempted to produce a perfect truth drug for use in interrogating suspected Soviet spies during the Cold War, and generally to explore any other possibilities of mind control. Because most of the MKULTRA records were deliberately destroyed in 1972 by order of the Director at that time, Richard Helms, it is impossible to have a complete understanding of the more than 150 individually funded research projects sponsored by MKULTRA and the related CIA programs. [....] Experiments were often conducted without the subjects' knowledge or consent. [....] A secretive arrangement granted a percentage of the CIA budget. The MKULTRA director was granted 6% of the CIA operating budget in 1953, without oversight or accounting."
[Based on: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_MKULTRA#Origins]
1953 - MKDELTA -
MKDELTA, like its successor MKNAOMI, was a mind control operation run by the Central Intelligence Agency. It involved the use of biochemicals in clandestine operations.
According to the Church Committee report (Book I, Chapter XVII):
A special procedure, designated MKDELTA, was established to govern the use of MKULTRA materials abroad. Such materials were used on a number of occasions. Because MKULTRA records were destroyed, it is impossible to reconstruct the operational use of MKULTRA materials by the CIA overseas; it has been determined that the use of these materials abroad began in 1953, and possibly as early as 1950.
Drugs were used primarily as an aid to interrogations, but MKULTRA/MKDELTA materials were also used for harassment, discrediting, or disabling purposes
[Based on: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MKDELTA]
1950s - MKNAOMI -
MKNAOMI was the code name for a joint Department of Defense / CIA research program lasting from the 1950s through the 1970s. Unclassified information about the MKNAOMI program and the related Special Operations Division is scarce. It is generally reported to be a successor to the MKDELTA project and to have focused on biological projects including biological warfare agents - specifically, to store materials that could either incapacitate or kill a test subject and to develop devices for the diffusion of such materials. [....] In 1970, Project MKNAOMI was dissolved and on November 25, 1969, President Richard Nixon abolished any military practice involving biological weapons. On February 14, 1970, a presidential order was given to outlaw all stockpiles of bacteriological weapons and non-living toxins. [....]"
[Based on: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MKNAOMI]
1953 - U.S. Aid / Indochina War - May 8th, 1953: "Pres. Dwight D. Eisenhower announced May 8 that U.S. had given France $60 mil for Indochina War. More aid was announced in Sept." [Based on: The World Almanac and Book of Facts, 2005, p. 549]
1953 - Operation AJAX / Iran - June, 1953: "By the summer of 1953, the British and American governments initiated a joint Anglo-American plan for the covert overthrow of Dr. Mohammad Mossadegh, the Prime Minister of Iran. The plan called Operation AJAX with Kermit Roosevelt, the CIA Mideast Agent in charge [a grandson of Theodore Roosevelt and a distant cousin of Franklin Delano Roosevelt]. 'So this is how we will get rid of the madman Mossadeq in Iran' announced John Foster Dulles to a group of top Washington policy makers in June 1953. The U.S. Secretary of State held in his hand a plan of operation to overthrow the Prime Minister of Iran. There was scarcely any discussions amongst the high powered men in the room, no probing questions and no legal or ethical issues raised."
1953 - Underground Missile Launch / White Sands - June 5th, 1953: "A missile was fired from an underground launch facility in White Sands on June 5. The facility was constructed by the Army Corps of Engineers." [Link: 1]
1953 - Signed / Korean War Armistice - July 27th, 1953: "Korean War armistice signed July 27." [Based on: The World Almanac and Book of Facts, 2005, p. 549]
*Trivia: ""Korea cease-fire talks began in July [1951]; lasted 2 years. Fighting ended July 27, 1953." [Based on: The World Almanac and Book of Facts, 2005, p. 549]
1953 - Restored / Shah of Iran - August 19th, 1953: "On August 19th, 1953, the British Intelligence Service [MI6] and the United States Central Intelligence Agency [CIA], engineered to perform the next phase of their plan against the Iranian national government of Dr. Mossadegh. On that tragic day, a group of tanks led by General Fazlollah Zahedi moved through Tehran and surrounded Dr. Mossadegh's residence. The forces behind the coup d'état also managed to pull a large number of bribed hooligans into the streets to rally against Dr. Mossadegh. Finally the army and police forces let the mob reach the Prime Minister's residence and after hours of bombarding and fighting a bloody battle with the small group of Dr. Mossadegh's loyal guards, they entered the house and after plundering it, they burned it down. In a matter of hours Dr. Mossadegh and his top cabinet leaders surrendered themselves to the coup d'état Prime Minister, General Fazlollah Zahedi, and the Shah flew back to Iran, as a U.S. puppet.
"On August 19th, 1953 [28th day of Mordad 1332, Persian calendar]; the Shah's dictatorship restored. 'I owe my throne to the God, my people, my army and to you', the Shah reportedly told the CIA Mideast Agent, Kermit Roosevelt."
"Dr. Mossadegh remains a figure of tremendous stature in the history of modern Iran. As an individual he had a reputation for honesty, integrity, and sincerity. He strongly opposed British and, later, American influence in Iran. He was an eloquent, impassioned orator, and his speeches are still widely read in Iran.
"During Dr. Mossadegh's trial in the Shah's military court, he publicized the secrets of two military coup d'état attempts against his government. He was sentenced to three years imprisonment; thereafter he was transferred to his country house in Ahmad-Abad at the age of 74 and lived there under house arrest until his death. On March 4, 1967, Dr. Mossadegh died of cancer at the age of 84. His body was buried in one of the rooms of his residence. He was survived by 2 sons and 3 daughters.
"The Iranian people never forgave the Shah for the 1953 illegitimate and bloody coup d'état against the Iranian national hero, Dr. Mohammad Mossadegh and his nationalist cabinet. The Iranian people deeply suffered under the Shah's dictatorship, corruption, phony elections, heavy censorship on the public media, torture and execution of thousands of dissenters until the 1979 Revolution." [Links: 1]1953 - Russian Agriculture - "Despite the terrible blow to agriculture by Stalin's forced collectivisation in the early 1930s, from which agriculture never fully recovered, progress was made, allowing Russia to feed her population adequately. Such economic advance, in so short a time, has no parallel anywhere in the world. The amount of cultivated land was increased in just three years, between 1953 and 1956, by a staggering 35.9 million hectares, an area equivalent to the total cultivated land of Canada." [Link: 1]
1953 - Nikita Kruschev / USSR - "Stalin was so powerful in the USSR that no one would dare oppose him when he was alive. After his death [1953], though, many in the USSR talked of returning to Lenin's original ideals and introducing more freedom to the people of the country. A man who was very influential in the Politburo was able to take power after Stalin died. He promised reforms to the Communists, but quickly went back on these promises and began to create the most powerful military the world had ever known. His name was Nikita Kruschev."
1953 - Trivia / GULAG Population, USSR - "After Stalin died in 1953, the GULAG population was reduced significantly, and conditions for inmates somewhat improved. Forced labor camps continued to exist, although on a small scale, into the Gorbachev period, and the government even opened some camps to scrutiny by journalists and human rights activists. With the advance of democratization, political prisoners and prisoners of conscience all but disappeared from the camps. [NOTE: The communists had their concentration camps in service since 1919 all the way up to and including the Gorbachev period.]" [Link: 1]
1953 - DHEW - "The Federal Security Agency became the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare [DHEW]. The Factory Inspection Amendment clarified previous law and required the FDA to give manufacturers written reports on inspections and analyses of factory samples."
1954
1954 - Status / Native American Protection - "In 1954, Congress removed federal services and protection from sixty-one Native American Indian tribes, bands, and communities."
1954 - "Under God" Added / U.S. Pledge of Allegience - "A campaign by the Knights of Columbus, a Roman Catholic organization, and other religious leaders said the pledge of allegiance needed to be distinguished from similar orations that were used by 'godless communists.' The prospect of atomic war between world superpowers reportedly moved President Dwight Eisenhower [to direct congress] to add the words 'Under God' to the pledge in 1954. The original pledge of allegiance, minus the reference to God, was adopted in 1942. The phrase, 'Under God', would later [in October, 2003] come under Supreme Court review."
*Trivia: "The director of religious outreach for the Democratic Party [Rev. Brenda Bartella Peterson] says she resigned this week [August 2004] because of criticism over her support for removing the words 'under God' from the Pledge of Allegiance. [....] The Catholic League, a conservative anti-defamation group based in New York, critisized the political views of Peterson, an ordained minister in the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ), in three statements issued over the first three days of the week. On Wednesday [08/04/04], Peterson resigned and cited 'recent negative publicity' from the amicus brief in the pledge case that she and 31 other clergy members signed. [....] The 350,000-member Catholic League called Peterson a 'left-wing activist.' It also critisized her for her role in the Clergy Leadership Network, a coalition of anti-Bush religious liberals for which she served as executive director." [Based on: A.P., 08/07/04]
1954 - Launched / Nautilus - January 21st, 1954: "Nautilus first atomic-powered submarine, was launched at Groton, CT, Jan. 21." [Based on: The World Almanac and Book of Facts, 2005, p. 549]
1954 - Color Television - March 25th, 1954: "Radio Corporation of America began manufacturing color television sets at its Bloomington, Ind. plant. It built 5000 sets with 12-inch screens, known as the model CT-100 color receiver. They sold for $1,000 each." [A.P., March, 2004]
1954 - Geneva Conference - May 8th, 1954: "Geneva Conference opens. Two months later, French sign cease-fire." [Based on: S.L.P.D., p. A5, o4/25/05]
*Trivia: "Delegates from nine nations convene in Geneva to start negotiations that will lead to the end of hostilities in Indochina. The idea of partitioning Vietnam is first explored at this forum. Vietminh General Ta Quang Buu and French General Henri Delteil sign the Agreement on the Cessation of Hostilities in Vietnam. As part of the agreement, a provisional demarcation line is drawn at the 17th parallel which will divide Vietnam until nationwide elections are held in 1956. The United States does not accept the agreement, neither does the government of Bao Dai."
1954 - Unconstitutional / U.S. Segregated Education - May 17th, 1954: "The U.S. Supreme Court rules [Brown vs. Board of Education] that segregated education is unconstitutional."
1955
1955 - U.S. Oil Monopoly - "By 1955, through proxy American regimes in Iran and Iraq, American corporations ended up controlling over 50 percent of Middle East oil reserves, and provided Europe with over 90 percent of its oil imports." [Links 1]
1955 - Investigation Trivia / The Philadelphia Experiment - Carlos Miguel Allende, claimed in the 1950s to have been a witness to a test at sea of a ship being made optically invisible using strong electromagnetic force fields when he was a sailor onboard the merchant marine vessel SS Furuseth in 1943. He also claimed that during another test that went wrong, some of the men caught fire, went mad, and - the most bizarre of all, some were embedded halfway into the deck of the ship. Others phased in and out of this reality, only kept here by the laying on of hands. Allende wrote a series of strange letters in 1955 to Morris K. Jessup, a researcher who had written the book 'The Case For The UFO.' It was Allende's fear that the same technology that was responsible for the disasters of the Philadelphia Experiment was the secret behind the propulsion method used successfully by UFOs. Jessup had called for research into such force fields of UFOs without having any knowledge of the navy experiment, and this alarmed Allende." [Link: 1]
1955 - U.S. Training / South Vietnamese Army - February 12th, 1955: "U.S. agreed Feb. 12 to help train South Vietnamese army." [Based on: The World Almanac and Book of Facts, 2005, p. 550]
1955 - Warsaw Pact - May 14th, 1955: "In response to West Germany's NATO membership [May 5th, 1955], the Soviet Union forms the eight-nation Warsaw Pact as an Eastern European counterweight." [Sources: NATO, The Associated Press, the World Book, the Encyclopedia Britannica]
1955 - Disputes / Geneva Agreements, Vietnam - July 6th, 1955: Ngo Dinh Diem disputes Geneva Agreements, refuses to plan open elections in Vietnam." [Based on: S.L.P.D., p. A5, 04/25/05]
*Trivia: "Diem Rejects Conditions of Geneva Accords, Refuses to Participate in Nationwide Elections. China and Soviet Union Pledge Additional Financial Support to Hanoi. Britain, France, and United States covertly urge Diem to respect Geneva accords and conduct discussions with the North. Diem defeats Bao Dai in rigged election and proclaims himself President [10/26/1955] of Republic of Vietnam."
1955 - "Underway" / Nuclear Navy, U.S.A. - July 15th, 1955: "In July 1951, Congress authorized construction of the world's first nuclear-powered submarine. Four years later, on the morning of July 17, 1955, the Nautilus's first commanding officer, Commander Eugene P. Wilkinson, ordered all lines cast off and signaled the memorable and historic message, 'Underway on nuclear power' - and the age of the nuclear Navy had begun." [Leo Laporte's 2005 Technology Almanac, p. 19]
1955 - Plans for Unmanned Satellites - "The White House announced, on July 29th, that President Eisenhower approved plans to launch unmanned satellites to circle the earth, as participation in the International Geophysical Year. The Russians soon made similar announcements." [Link: 1]
1955 - President Ngo Dinh Diem / Republic of South Vietnam - October 26th, 1955: "Diem proclaims South Vietnam as Republic of Vietnam and himself as president." [Based on: S.L.P.D., p. A5, 04/25/05]
1955 - Commissioned / U.S. Guided-Missle Cruiser - "On November 1st, the first guided-missile-equipped cruiser was placed in commission at the Philadelphia Naval Yard." [Link: 1]
1955 - U.S. IRBM Programs - "On November 8th, the Secretary of Defense approved the Jupiter and Thor Intermediate Range Ballistic Missile (IRBM) programs." [Link: 1]
1955 - Soviet Hydrogen Bomb Detonation / Kazakhstan - November 22nd, 1955: "The Soviet Union successfully tests a hydrogen bomb, detonating a 1.6-megaton device in Kazakhstan." [Based on: N.G.M., August 2005, p. 103]
1955 - U.S. ICBM & IRBM Missles - December 1st, 1955: "President Eisenhower placed highest priority on Intercontinental Ballistic Missile (ICBM) and the Thor and Jupiter IRBM programs on December 1st." [Link: 1]
1955 - Trivia / Rosa Parks, U.S.A. - December 1st, 1955: "Rosa Parks refused Dec. 1 to give her seat to a white man on a bus in Montgomery, AL. Bus segregation ordinance declared unconstitutional by a federal court following boycott organized by Rev. Martin Luther King Jr." [Based on: The World Almanac and Book of Facts, 2005, p. 550]
1955 - AFL-CIO / U.S.A. - December 5th, 1955: "America's second largest labor organizations merged Dec. 5, creating the AFL-CIO." [Based on: The World Almanac and Book of Facts, 2005, p. 550]
1956
1956 - Relocation Act - "The Relocation Act creates job training centers in urban areas for Native Americans. The purpose of the act was to force Native Americans off the reservation by offering job training opportunities only in urban areas. Native Americans participating in the job training programs were required to sign formal agreements that they would not return to their reservations."
1956 - Founded? / "Priori of Zion" - May 1956: "Letter dated 8 June 1956 by the Mayor of Annemasse to the Sub Prefect of St Julien-en-Genevois disclosed information that Pierre Plantard had broken sections of the French Penal Code relating to crimes and offences against property and was sentenced to six months imprisonment by the Tribunal of St Julien-en-Genevois in December 1953. The Priory of Sion had been formed in May 1956 and was originally dedicated to the defence of Low-Cost Housing, also backing the opposition Candidate at the local Annemasse Council elections – the Priory of Sion also attacked the Annemasse property developers in the pages of its journal, Circuit. The letter dated 8 June 1956 by the Mayor of Annemasse was part of an investigation into the Priory of Sion headed by the local Annemasse Council and the Sub Prefecture of St Julien-en-Genevois into Pierre Plantard and the first three issues of Circuit following the formation of the Priory of Sion in May 1956. Three recent letters dated 22 March 2004, 20 April 2004 and 10 May 2004 from Monsieur Serge Champanhet, the Secretary General of the Sub-Prefecture of St Julien-en-Genevois (4 Avenue de Geneve, 74164 Saint Julien-en-Genevois, Haute-Savoie), have both confirmed the existence of the 1956 letter and Plantard’s conviction."
[Based on: http://priory-of-sion.com/psp/convchron.html - See: June 1956]
1956 - Interstate Highway System / U.S.A. - June 29th, 1956: "Federal-Aid Highway Act signed June 29, inaugurating interstate highway system." [Based on: The World Almanac and Book of Facts, 2005, p. 550]
1956 - Activation / 1st Transatlantic Telephone Cable - September 25th, 1956: "First transatlantic telephone cable activated Sept. 25." [Based on: The World Almanac and Book of Facts, 2005, p. 550]
1957
1957 - Established / Fatah - "Fatah, also known as Al-Fatah, is an acronym for Palestine National Liberation Movement; the word itself means 'conquest'. Founded in the 1950s by, among others, Yasser Arafat, its goal is the creation of a Palestinian state."
1957 - Approved / U.S. Civil Rights Bill - April 29th, 1957: "Congress approved first civil rights bill for blacks since Reconstruction, Apr. 29, to protect voting rights." [Based on: The World Almanac and Book of Facts, 2005, p. 550]
1957 - Surgeon General Report / Cigarette Smoking - July 12th, 1957: "The U.S. surgeon general July 12 said studies showed a 'direct link' between cigarette smoking and lung cancer." [Based on: The World Almanac and Book of Facts, 2005, p. 550]
1957 - ICBM Test / Soviet Union - August 1957: "Soviets successfully test an intercontinental ballistic missle (ICBM)." [Based on: N.G.M., August 2005, p. 106]
1957 - U.S. Underground Nuclear Test / Nevada Desert - September 19th, 1957: "U.S. conducts its first underground nuclear test in the Nevada desert." [Based on: N.G.M., August 2005, p. 106]
1957 - 1st Earth Satellite / Sputnik I - October 4th, 1957: "First Earth orbiter, Soviet Sputnik 1, 370 mile high orbit, 184-lb. - October 4, 1957, the Soviet Union stunned the world by placing the first satellite, Sputnik, into space. The Russian spacecraft orbited around the earth in great, amorphous loops. Americans reacted to the Russian Sputnik with amazement and awe. Many doubted that it was really in space, some top minds reported it as unimportant and useless. Some saw it as an object to blown out of the sky, in truth it was nothing more than a dummy space ship." [Link: 1]
1957 - Radioactive Material / England - October 7th, 1957: "A fire in the Windscale plutonium production reactor N of Liverpool, England, released radioactive material; later blamed for 39 cancer deaths." [Based on: The World Almanac and Book of Facts, 2005, p. 210]
1957 - Sputnik 2 - November 3rd, 1957: "Sputnik 2 was launched on November 3 with the dog, Laika, the first animal in space - Unsuccessful Vanguard firing in the USA." [Link 1]
1957 - United Kingdom Hydrogen Bomb Test / Line Islands, Pacific - November 8th, 1957: "The United Kingdom successfully tests a hydrogen bomb in the Line Islands of the Pacific." [Based on: N.G.M., August 2005, p. 106]
1957 - Radioactive Contamination / Rocky Flats, Colo. - "Demolition began Thursday [07/15/04] on what has been called 'the most dangerous building in America,' where workers at the Rocky Flats nuclear plant once handled highly radioactive plutonium used in triggers for nuclear weapons. Leaks, spills and a 1957 fire plagued the building, and part of it was closed 30 years ago because radiation levels were off the charts. The building was called the workhorse of the weapons factory, 16 miles northwest of Denver. The Department of Energy called the building its 'greatest vulnerability' in 1994 because of the buildup of contamination over five decades." [News Services, 07/16/04]
1957 - Radioactive & Chemical Waste / Weldon Spring, MO - In the 1940s Weldon Spring was the world's largest munitions plant, producing TNT and other explosives. From 1957 to 1966, pure uranium was manufactured on the site for nuclear weapons and as fuel for nuclear power plants. The cleanup that was largely completed at Weldon Spring cost $900 million over 17 years and included burial of 1.5 million cubic yards of radioactive materials and chemicals in a seven-story hill." [Post-Dispatch Washington Bureau, 11/16/03]
1958
1958 - Economic Superpower Status / Japan - "1958-1970 Japan achieves economic superpower status. Restrictions on foreign travel are removed and huge numbers of Japanese begin to travel abroad."
1958 - 1st American Satellite / Explorer I - January 31st, 1958: "Explorer 1 became America's first satellite on January 31, 1958. Following the Soviet success with Sputnik and the embarrassing failure in December 1957 of the first American attempt to launch a satellite, the U.S. Army launched a scientific satellite using a rocket that had been developed to test guided missile components. Explorer 1 carried an instrument package developed by a team at the State University of Iowa under the direction of Professor James A. Van Allen. Data returned by Explorer 1 and Explorer 3 [launched in March 1958] provided evidence that the Earth is surrounded by intense bands of radiation, now called the Van Allen radiation belts. This was the first major scientific discovery of the space age."
1958 - Russia Declares Halt / Atomic Tests - March 31st, 1958: "Moscow declared a halt on all atomic tests and asked other nations to follow."
1958 - Established / NORAD - May 19th, 1958: "The United States and Canada formally established the North American Air Defense Command [NORAD]."
1958 - "Regime Change" / Iraq - July 14th, 1958: "The army of Iraq overthrew the monarchy. The Hashemite King Faisal was assassinated."
1958 - U.S. Involvement / Lebanon - "July 15, President Eisenhower ordered 5,000 U.S. Marines to Lebanon, at the request of that country's president, Camille Chamoun, in the face of a perceived threat by Muslim rebels; to help end a short-lived civil war."
*Trivia: "Six-month civil war between Muslims and leftists loyal to Egyptian President Gamal Nasser." [A.P., 02/15/05]
1958 - Created / NASA - July 29th, 1958: "President Eisenhower signed the National Aeronautics and Space Act, which created NASA."
1958 - U.S. Leaves Lebanon - October 25th, 1958: "The last U.S. troops left Beirut."
1958 - Airline Passenger Service / U.S.A. - December 10th, 1958: "First domestic jet airline passenger service in U.S. opened by National Airlines Dec. 10 between New York and Miami." [Based on: The World Almanac and Book of Facts, 2005, p. 550]
1958 - Stray Hydrogen Bomb / Georgia Coast? - September 30th, 2004: "SAVANNAH, Ga. - The U.S. government is sending a team of 20 scientists [September 2004] to check out a report of unusual radiation readings that could be coming from a hydrogen bomb that was lost off the Georgia coast in 1958. [....] The bomb, believed buried in 10 to 15 feet of mud at the bottom of the sea, became one of 11 'Broken Arrows' - nuclear bombs lost during air or sea accidents, according to U.S. military records. The Air Force has long insisted that there is no risk of a nuclear blast from the bomb off Georgia because the plutonium capsule needed to trigger an explosion was removed before the ill-fated flight. Duke [Derek Duke] who lives in Statesboro, Ga., has disputed that point over the years. He sites a Pentagon memo from 1996 that referred to the bomb as a 'complete weapon.' The Air Force has said that memo was wrong. Duke approached Air Force officials more than three years ago [2000?], but they decided at the time not to renew the search for the bomb. The Air Force argued that it was better left undisturbed, because it contains uranium and 400 pounds of conventional explosives." [Russ Bynum, A.P., 09/30/04]
1958 - Invented / Laser - "AT&T Bell Labs scientists invented the laser. In 1981, Arthur Schawlow [d.1999 at 77] of Stanford won the Nobel Prize in Physics. He with his brother-in-law and Charles Townes of UC Berkeley shared credit for inventing the laser. They developed the laser in the 1950s and made a working model in 1960 whiled working for Bell Laboratories."
1958 - Invented / Integrated Circuit - "In 1958, Mr Kilby [Jack Kilby, d. 06/20/05] built the first integrated circuit, in which all the components were fabricated in semiconductor material half the size of a paper clip. He also co-invented the hand-held calculator. Mr. Kilby's invention, a forerunner of the microchip used in today's computers [2005], replaced the bulky and unreliable switches and tubes that had been used in the first computing devices. Later, Robert Noyce of Fairchild Semiconductor received a patent for a similar but more complex circuit made of silicon." [Based on: A.P. article, S.L.P.D., p. A7, 06/22/05]
1958 - The Nuclear Double Standard - 1958: "The controlled press ignores the fact that the three European nations seeking [2005] to prevent Iran from becoming a nuclear state have all assisted in the creation of the Middle East's only nuclear arsenal - Israel's. [....] On the one hand, Iran is abiding by its legal obligations under the treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT). Iran, like every other nation in the Middle East with the exception of Israel, has ratified the NPT and forsworn the pursuit of nuclear weapons. [....] The BBC recently reported that in 1958 Britain had secretly sold Israel 20 tons of 'heavy water,' a key ingredient for its nuclear program. The shipment of deuterium oxide was reported as being 'vital to plutonium production' at Israel's top-secret Dimona nuclear reactor in the Negev Desert. Construction of the Dimona facility began in the late 1950s as the result of a secret agreement with France, which provided assistance with reactor design and construction. While the story of Britain's shipment of heavy water to Israel was reported by the BBC and elsewhere, The New York Times, whose motto is 'All the news that's fit to print,' did not even mention it. A call to the Times asking about the omission was not returned. Senior ministers in then Prime Minister Harold Macmillan's government were reported to have been unaware of the deal, which was supposedly conducted by lower-level civil servants. The shipment was also kept secret from the Americans. [....] Robert McNamara, U.S. secretary of defense from 1961-68, told the BBC he was 'astonished' by the coverup. 'It is very surprising to me we were not told because we shared information about the nuclear bomb very closely with the British,' he said. The heavy water had been bought by Britain from Norway and has been presented in the past as a deal between Israel and Norway. [....] More recently, Germany provided Israel with submarines that had their forward compartments modified, at Israel's request, for the launch of long-range cruise missles. The subs were free. Providing Israel with submarines equipped with the means to deliver nuclear-tipped cruise missles is a clear violation of the NPT by the German government." [Based on: American Free Press (Volume V, # 35, 08/29/05) article by Christopher Bollyn, p. 5] - [Paragraph indents removed to save space - E.M.]
1958 - Vancomycin - "The vancomycin antibiotic was developed. It became the best weapon against bacteria that were no longer vulnerable to other drugs. In 1988 bacteria resistant to vancomycin began to be detected."
1959
1959 - U.S. Recognition / Cuban Government - January 7th, 1959: "The United States recognized Fidel Castro's new government in Cuba."
1959 - Test-Fired / U.S. Titan ICBM - February 6, 1959: "The United States successfully test-fired for the first time a Titan intercontinental ballistic missile from Cape Canaveral."
1959 - Chinese Tibet - March 17, 1959: "Tibet rebelled against Chinese control. China reacted harshly, arrested tens of thousands and held strict control until the late 1970s. The Chinese forced the Dalai Lama, Tenzin Gyatso, and many of his followers to flee [March 17th] to India. The Communists destroyed 6,500 monasteries. About 250 monks of the Drepung Loseling Monastery escaped to India and established a replica of their ancient institution."
1959 - Group 559 / Vietnam - May 19th, 1959: "The formation of the Peoples' Army of Vietnam's Military Transportation Group 559 on May 19, 1959, the 69th birthday of Vietnamese revolutionary leader Ho Chi Minh, ultimately resulted in the creation of the Ho Chi Minh Trail. The trail was intended to facilitate the infiltrating of troops and transporting supplies from North Vietnam to support the revolution in South Vietnam."
1959 - Launched / 1st U.S. ICBM Submarine - 1959 June 9th, 1959: "The first ballistic missile carrying submarine, the USS George Washington, was launched. "
1959 - Kitchen Debate - July 25th, 1959: "Vice President Richard Nixon squared off against Soviet Premier Nikita Khruschev during the so-called Kitchen debate in Moscow."
1959 - Trivia / SETI - September 19th, 1959: "Nature ran a paper by Giuseppe Cocconi and Philip Morrison that said terrestrial radiotelescopes were sensitive enough to detect radio signals from other stars. This was later seen as the beginning of SETI, the Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence."
1959 - Operation Lorraine / Vietnam - October 29th, 1959: "French forces launched Operation Lorraine against Viet Minh supply bases in Indochina."
1959 - Food Stamps / U.S.A. - September 11th, 1959: "US Congress passed a bill authorising food stamps for low-income Americans." [Link: 1]
1950s- Minamata Disease / Japan - "Japan's top court ordered the government Friday [10/15/04] to pay $703,000 in damages to victims of the Minamata Bay mercury poisining. The ruling came 22 years after the case was filed [1982?] over an industrial pollution disaster that killed more than 1,700 people and caused mothers to give birth to deformed babies.
"The Minamata poisoning incident was Japan's worst case of industrial pollution. Since the 1950's, hundreds of people have contracted Minamata disease - a neurological disorder caused by mercury poisoning - from eating tainted fish. The disease was first discovered in the 1950s and named for Minamata Bay in southern Japan, where a company dumped tons of mercury compounds.
"The court said the government and Kumamoto prefecture (state) failed to stop chemical manufacturer Chisso Corp. from dumping tons of mercury compounds into Minamata Bay beginning in the 1930s." [News Services, 10/16/04]1960
1960 - Astronomic Configuration - January 1st, 1960: "Sun [9 Capricorn], Moon [10 Aquarius], Mercury [24-25 Sagittarius], Venus [28 Scorpio], Mars [20 Sagittarius], Jupiter [18 Sagittarius.], Saturn [9 Capricorn], Uranus [20 Leo R], Neptune [8 Scorpio], Pluto [6 Virgo R]."
1960 - Military Status / USSR - "Kruschev's military became so powerful that by 1960, the USSR had more tanks, planes, nuclear weapons, submarines, and aircraft carriers than the United States. He then invaded Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Bulgaria, and began to place nuclear weapons in these countries. Fearing a Soviet takeover, the people of East Germany began to leave their country for freedom in the West. In one week over 100,000 people fled. Krushchev ordered the border sealed, and began to construct a wall that would become the symbol of oppression to the world."
1960 - U.S.-Soviet Buffer State / Afghanistan - "Afghanistan is a rich tapestry of many different peoples living relatively isolated, deep in the highlands of Central Asia. In the 1960s, the U.S. power structure considered Afghanistan as a 'buffer state' between the Soviet Union to the north and the strategically important U.S.-backed states of Iran and Pakistan to the south. The overwhelming majority of the population of 18 million lived as impoverished farmers in the extremely backward countryside - dominated by large landowners and the heads of feudal clans. But then, at the end of the 1970s, the intensifying global rivalry between the U.S. and USSR brought bitter warfare to Afghanistan." [Link: 1]
1960 - "Nuclear Power" / France - February 19th, 1960: "France becomes the fourth nuclear power."
1960 - Sharpeville Massacre / South Africa - March 21st, 1960: "In South Africa, police fired into a packed demonstration of blacks against the hated Pass Laws. Seventy people died in the massacre at Sharpeville, and the world began slowly to wake to the brutal reality of apartheid. Soon after the shootings, Nelson Mandela was detained."
1960 - U.S. U2 Spy Plane / USSR - May 1, 1960: "On the eve of a US-Soviet summit, U2 pilot Frances Gary Powers is shot down while flying a spy mission over the Soviet Union. Powers is taken prisoner, the Eisenhower administration is forced to own up to the mission, and Khrushchev cancels the summit."
1960 - Signed / U.S. Civil Rights Act - May 6th, 1960: "Civil Rights Act of 1960 signed by Eisenhower."
1960 - U.S. Infrared Spy Satelite - May 22nd, 1960: "The U.S. launches Midas 2, the first infrared spy satellite."
1960 - U.S. Photo Spy Satellite - August 18th, 1960: "The U.S. launches the CORONA, the first photo spy satellite."
1960 - U.S. Weather Satellite - "First television weather satellite Tiros 1." [Link: 1]
1960 - U.S. Communication Satellte - "First communications satellite 124-lb. Echo 1." [Link: 1]
1960 - Launched / USS Enterprise - September 24th, 1960: "The USS Enterprise, the first nuclear-powered aircraft carrier is launched." [Link: 1]
1960 - U.S. Warning / "Military Industrial Complex" - November 1960: "Eisenhower warns the nation about the 'Military-Industrial Complex' and its power."
1960 - U.S. Nuclear Ballistic Missles / U.S.S. George Washington - November 15th, 1960: "The U.S.S. George Washington becomes the first submarine to carry nuclear ballistic missles." [Based on: N.G.M., August 2005, p. 107]
1960 - Birth Control Pills / U.S.A. - December 1960: "Birth Control Pills go on sale in the U.S.A."
1960 - Status / Union Membership, U.S.A. - "As recently as the 1960s, union membership stood at just over 30 percent of all workers, according to the National Bureau of Economic Research [September 2003]." [St. Louis Post-Dispatch]
1960 - Color Additive Amendments - "In 1960, color additive amendments were enacted to allow the FDA to establish, by regulations, the conditions of safe use for all color additives in foods, drugs, cosmetics, and some devices, and to require manufacturers to perform the necessary scientific investigations to establish safety for their intended uses."
1960 - Advanced Technology? / National Security Agency - Early 1960s: "[....] As of the early 1960's the most advanced computers in the world were at the NSA, Ft. Meade. Research breakthroughs with these computers were kept for the NSA. At the present time [+2000] the NSA has advanced technology computers that are 15 years ahead of present computer technology. [....] NSA Signals Intelligence uses EMF Brain Stimulation for Remote Neural Monitoring (RNM) and Electronic Brain Link (EBL). EMB Brain Stimulation has been in development since the MK Ultra program of the early 1950's which included neurological research into 'radiation (non-ionizing EMF) and bioelectric research and development. The resulting secret technology is categorized at the National Security Archives as 'Radiation intelligence' defined as 'information from unintentionally emanated electromagnetic waves in environment, not including radioactivity or nuclear detonation.' Signals Intelligence implemented and kept this technology secret in the same manner as other electronic warfare programs of the U.S. government. The NSA monitors available information about this technology and withholds scientific research from the public. There are also international intelligence agreements to keep this technology secret. [....]"
[Based on: http://www.cyberspaceorbit.com/SigintInfo.htm]
1961
1961 - Foreign Relations / U.S.A. & Cuba - January 3rd, 1961: "U.S. severed diplomatic and consular relations with Cuba Jan. 3, after disputes over nationalization of U.S. firms, U.S. military presence at Guantanamo base." [Based on: The World Almanac and Book of Facts, 2005, p. 550]
1961 - Reactor Accident / Idaho Falls, Idaho - January 3rd, 1961: "A reactor at a federal installation near Idaho Falls, ID, killed three workers. Radiation contained." [Based on: The World Almanac and Book of Facts, 2005, p. 210]
1961 - Increasing Power / "Military Industrial Complex" - January 17th, 1961: "Eisenhower warns of increasing power of 'military-industrial complex.' "
1961 - U.S. President John F. Kennedy - January 20th, 1961: "The 35th American President, John F. Kennedy [Democrat], begins his term. Kennedy was the 4th American President [the 1st Democrat] assassinated."
1961 - Approved / U.S. Counter-Insurgency Plan, Vietnam - January 28th, 1961: "President John Kennedy approves counter-insurgency plan for Vietnam." [Based on: S.L.P.D., p. A5, 04/25/05]
1961 - Established / U.S. Peace Corps - March 1st, 1961: "The Peace Corps is established."
*Trivia: "John Kennedy initiates 17 billion dollar nuclear missile program, increases military aid to Indochina & announces creation of the Peace Corps."
1961 - 1st Man in Space / Vostok 1 - April 12th, 1961: "Having launched the first earth satellite in 1957, the Soviet Union again stole the thunder of the U.S. space programme in April 1961, by sending Yuri Gagarin into orbit [in Vostok 1] as the first man in space. He circled the earth three times. The best the Americans could do a month later was to blast Alan Shepard briefly into space and bring him straight down again."
1961 - Bay of Pigs Invasion / Cuba - April 17th, 1961: "A plot to invade Cuba and overthrow Fidel Castro goes miserably wrong when air support at the Bay of Pigs fails to materialize. Kennedy's leadership skills are called into question, and Kennedy himself develops doubts about heeding the advice of the military."
1961 - The Brookings Report - April 18th, 1963: "According to The Brookings Report: 'Discovery of life on other worlds could cause the earth's civilization to collapse.' " [Link: 1]
1961 - Alliance for Progress / Latin America - May 27th, 1961: "Pres. Kennedy ... signed bill creating Alliance for Progress, for Latin America." [Based on: The World Almanac and Book of Facts, 2005, p. 550]
1961 - Worldwide Demonstrations / "Ban The Bomb" - July 1961: "Ban The Bomb Demonstrations start worldwide."
1961 - Satellite Live TV Transmission - July 19th, 1961: "First Telstar Satellite Live TV Transmission across the Atlantic."
1961 - Man in Space / Vostok 2 - August 6th, 1961: "Gherman Titov spends more than a day in space [25 hours] in the second Vostok manned flight in August." [Link: 1]
1961 - Beginning / Berlin Wall - August 13th, 1961: "The GDR blocks off East from West Berlin and begins constructing the Berlin wall after the U.S. rejects proposals by Khrushchev to make Berlin a 'free city' with access controlled by East Germany."
1961 - U.S. Military Advisors / Vietnam - In 1961, U.S. President Kennedy sent the first 100 military advisors along with 400 soldiers to Vietnam."
1961 - Americans Urged to Build Fallout Shelters - September 1961: "President John F. Kennedy urges Americans to build fallout shelters." [Based on: N.G.M., August 2005, p. 107]
1961 - Underground Nuclear Testing / U.S.A. - September 15th, 1961: "U.S. starts underground nuclear testing."
*Trivia: "U.S. conducts its first underground nuclear test [09/19/1957] in the Nevada desert." [Based on: N.G.M., August 2005, p. 106]
1961 - Fallout Shelters Advised? / U.S.A.- October 16th, 1961: "President Kennedy advises Americans to build fallout shelters."
1961 - World's Largest Nuclear Bomb Explosion - October 30th, 1961: "The U.S.S.R. explodes the world's largest nuclear bomb, with a yield of roughly 50 megatons." [Based on: N.G.M., August 2005, p. 107]
1961 - U.S. Sub-Orbital Space Flight - First manned American space-flight by astronaut Shepard, sub-orbital." [Link: 1]
1961 - Commissioned / USS Enterprise - November 25, 1961: "The first nuclear powered aircraft carrier, the USS Enterprise, was commissioned."
1961 - Time Experiments? / USSR - "In 1952, head of the Soviet secret police organization Lavrenty Beria initiated a case against researchers participating in the experiments, as a result of which 18 professors were executed by shooting and 59 candidates and doctors of physical sciences were sent to camps. The Institute recommenced its activity under Khruschev. But an experimental stand with eight leading researchers disappeared in 1961, and buildings close to the one where experiments were conducted were ruined. After that, the Communist Party political bureau and the Council of Ministers decided to suspend researchers of the Institute for an uncertain period. [Olga Zharina, 03/01/2004, Pravada]
1962
1962 - Status / Berlin Wall, Berlin - "By 1962, the Berlin Wall completely encircled the city of Berlin. President Kennedy started what became known as the Berlin airlift to ensure that the Soviets could not take over the rest of the city. At the same time Krushchev secretly began to put nuclear missiles in the country of Cuba. Cuba is located 90 miles from the United States. If Krushchev could get these missile sites operational, he could launch an attack against the United States with no warning what-so-ever. Krushchev did not know however, that the United States knew of his plans in Cuba after a 'U-2' spy plane took overhead pictures of the missile sites. President Kennedy then called for the massing of over one million troops in Europe to prepare for war with the USSR. Kennedy moved aircraft carriers, tanks, and destroyers close to Soviet territory. Kennedy then stunned the world by announcing all this on national public television and told Krushchev in private that he had 24 hours to remove the missiles from Cuba or the United States might launch a full scale nuclear strike against the USSR. No one had ever made this threat before and Krushchev made the public statement, '...we will crush you.' Kennedy did not back down however, and refused to extend the deadline he gave Krushchev. Faced with nuclear oblivion, Krushchev removed the missiles from Cuba with only hours to spare. Krushchev was publicly humiliated, and many in the Politburo now called for him to resign his office. He refused and was forcibly removed from power and committed to what became known as 'internal exile.' "
1962 - Foreign Relations / U.S.A. & Vietnam - February 14th, 1962: "Pres. John F. Kennedy said ... that U.S. military advisors in Vietnam would fire if fired upon." [Based on: The World Almanac and Book of Facts, 2005, p. 550]
1962 - Anti-Nuclear March / Washington D.C. - February 16th, 1962: "Boston SANE & fledgling SDS hold first anti-nuclear march on Washington with 4000-8000 protesters."
1962 - Trivia / John Glen - "February 20th, 1962: John Glenn became the first US astronaut to orbit the earth [in the Mercury 6 capsule: Friendship 7."
1962 - Atmospheric Nuclear Testing / U.S.A. - April 25th, 1962: "U.S. resumes atmospheric nuclear testing after 3 year moratorium."
1962 - 1st U.S. Communications Satellite - July 10th, 1962: "Bell Labs' Telstar I, the world's first commercial communication satellite is launched from Cape Canaveral on July 10; the next day the first transatlantic broadcast of a TV signal occurs between earth stations in Andover, Maine, Goonhilly in Cornwall, and Pleumeur-Boudou in France; the U.K. transmits the first color TV pictures via satellite."
1962 - Fatality / Marilyn Monroe - August 5th, 1962: "Marilyn Monroe, 36 years old and a burned-out superstar, was found dead in her bed, of an overdose."
1962 - "Love me do" / The Beatles - September 11th, 1962: "Love me do and P.S. I love you were recorded at the Abbey Road studios by The Beatles." [Link: 1]
1962 - 1st Black Student / University of Mississippi - October 1st, 1962: "James Meredith beame first black student at University of Mississippi ... after 3,000 troops put down riots." [Based on: The World Almanac and Book of Facts, 2005, p. 550]
1962 - Missles in Cuba - October 22nd, 1962: "A Soviet offensive missle buildup in Cuba was revealed Oct. 22 by Pres. Kennedy, who ordered a naval and air quarantine on shipment of offensive military equipment to the island. He and Soviet Prem. Krushchev agreed Oct. 28 on formula to end the crisis. Kennedy announced Nov. 2 that Soviet missle bases in Cuba were being dismantled." [Based on: The World Almanac and Book of Facts, 2005, p. 550]
1962 - Cuban Missle Crisis - October 27th, 1962: "If the Cuban Missile Crisis was the most dangerous passage of the Cold War, the most dangerous moment of the Cuban Missile Crisis was the evening of Saturday, 27 October 1962, when the resolution of the crisis—war or peace— appeared to hang in the balance."
1962 - Project 112 - "On October 31st, [2002?] the Department of Defense released five more detailed fact sheets on Cold War-era chemical and biological warfare tests identified as Desert Test Center Project 112. Project 112 was a comprehensive program initiated in 1962 out of concern for our nation's ability to protect and defend against these potential threats. These fact sheets are in addition to the 40 fact sheets previously released since September 2001." [Links: 1, 2]
1962 - Project Shad - "Project SHAD, an acronym for Shipboard Hazard and Defense, was part of a larger effort called Project 112, which was conducted during the 1960s. Project SHAD encompassed tests designed to identify US warships' vulnerabilities to attacks with chemical or biological warfare agents and to develop procedures to respond to such attacks while maintaining a war-fighting capability." [Link: 1]
1962 - Work Hours Act / United States - "The Work Hours Act provides time-and-a-half pay for work past an eight hour day or 40-hour week."
1962 - Trivia / U.S. Presence, Vietnam - "In 1962, the U.S. presence in Vietnam was increased to 11,000 soldiers."
1962 - Kefauver-Harris Drug Amendments - "News reports on the role of Dr. Frances O. Kelsey, an FDA medical officer, in keeping thlidomide off the American market aroused public interest in drug regulation. The drug had been associated with the birth of thousands of malformed babies in Western Europe. The Kefauver-Harris Drug Amendments were passed to assure a greater degree of safety and to strengthen new drug clearance procedures. For the first time, drug manufacturers were required to prove the effectiveness of their products to the FDA before marketing them. In addition, the amendments: 1) Transferred jurisdiction over medical advertising of prescription products from the Federal Trade Commission [FTC] to the FDA. 2) Extended the FDA's inspection authority over establishments in which prescription drugs are manufactured, processed, packed, or held to include records, files, papers, controls, and facilities. 3) Required that facilities, methods, and control procedures used by manufacturers conform to 'current good manufacturing practices'. 4) Established 'full disclosure', under which the most vital, up-to-date, and reliable information about a prescription drug was required in its labeling, in the form of a package insert."
1962 - Trivia / Agent Orange, Vietnam - "U.S. Air Force begins using Agent Orange - a defoliant that came in metal orange containers - to expose roads and trails used by Vietcong forces. Senate Majority Leader Mike Mansfield reports back to JFK from Saigon his opinion that Diem had wasted the two billion dollars America had spent there."
*Trivia: "A federal judge on Thursday [03/10/05] dismissed a lawsuit alleging that U.S. chemical companies, including Monsanto Co. of Creve Coeur, Mo., committed war crimes against 4 million Vietnamese citizens by making Agent Orange, the defoliant that allegedly caused birth defects, miscarriages and cancer. 'There is no basis for any of the claims of plantiffs under the domestic law of any nation or state or under any form of international law,' U.S. District Judge Jack B. Weinstein wrote in a 233-page ruling. 'The case is dismissed.' Lawyers who filed the suit on behalf of the Vietnamese citizens said an appeal was planned. They had argued that Agent Orange, which is laden with the toxic chemical dioxin, was a poison barred by international rules of war. Lawyers for Monsanto, Dow Chemical Co. and more than a dozen other companies said they should not be punished for following what they believed to be the legal orders of the nation's commander in chief. [....] A lawyer for the Vietnamese plantiffs called the decision that Agent Orange was not a poison 'a clear error.' U.S. aircraft sprayed more than 21 million gallons of the chemical between 1962 to 1971 in attempts to destroy crops and remove foliage used as cover by communist forces. Some 10,000 U.S. war veterans receive medical-disability benefits related to Agent Orange." [Based on A.P. article, S.L.P.D., p. C2, 03/11/05]
1962 - LED's - "In 1962, Light-emitting diodes [LEDs] are developed by General Electric."
1963
1963 - U.K. Tour / The Beatles - February 2nd, 1963: "A young rock band, then called a group, had learned its craft in the cramped and sweaty Cavern Club in Liverpool. Turned down by Decca at the start of 1962, the Beatles went on towards the end of that year to make a modest impression with their first single, Love Me Do. In 1963, they took over the world. The Beatles had started their first U.K. tour on February 2nd, 1963." [Link: 1]
1963 - Civil Rights March / Alabama - May 2nd, 1963: "March for civil rights begun ... in Birmingham, AL, led to desegragation accord, which in turn sparked rioting and violence." [Based on: The World Almanac and Book of Facts, 2005, p. 550]
1963 - Monterey Folk Festival - May 17th, 1963: "Joan Baez, Bob Dylan, and Peter Paul and Mary performed at the first Monterey Folk Festival, a three day event, on the weekend of 17 May 1963, along with many other folk artists." [Link: 1]
1963 - Proposed / U.S. Civil Rights Bill - June 11th, 1963: "JFK Proposes the Civil Rights Bill."
1963 - Desegration / University of Alabama - June 11th, 1963: "University of Alabama desegrated after Gov. George Wallace stepped aside when confronted by federally deployed National Guard troops June 11." [Based on: The World Almanac and Book of Facts, 2005, p. 550]
1963 - Assassinated / Medgar Evers - June 12th, 1963: "Mississippi NAACP leader Medgar Evers [b. 1925] is murdered by KKK member Byron de la Beckwith."
*Trivia: "Byron De La Beckwith convicted Feb. 5 [1994] of the 1963 murder of civil rights leader Medgar Evers." [Based on: The World Almanac and Book of Facts, 2005, p. 555]
1963 - 1st Maneuverable Satellite - "First maneuverable satellite [Polyot 1, USSR]." [Link: 1]
1963 - U.S. Communications Satellite / Syncom II - "NASA 80 - lb. Syncom II, geosynchronous communications satellite." [Link: 1]
1963 - 1st Woman in Space - June 16th. 1963: "Soviet cosmonaut Lt. Valentina Tereshkova becomes the first woman in space [in Vostok 6]." [Link: 1]
1963 - "ECKANKAR" - July 9th, 1963: "This chapter [Chap. 3, Dialogue in the Age of Criticism, by Doug Marman, Copyright 2000] covers the few short years just before Paul [Paul Twitchell] officially introduced ECKANKAR as a spiritual teaching. David [David Lane] begins by referring to an interview by Jack Jarvis, on July 9, 1963, called 'Paul Twitchell, Man of Parts,' which appears to be the first time that Paul mentions the name ECKANKAR. Shortly after, Paul wrote a response to Jarvis' article, called, 'The Square Peg,' which I quoted from earlier in Chapter One.
"These days, then, were Paul's Cliff-Hanger days, when he also began introducing the name and concept of ECKANKAR." [Based on: Doug Marman, Dialogue in the Age of Criticism, Chap. 3]1963 - Newport Folk Festival - July 26-28, 1963: "Newport Folk Festival July 26-28, includes Bob Dylan, Joan Baez, Phil Ochs and Pete Seeger."
1963 - Signed / 1st Nuclear Test Ban Treaty - August 5th, 1963: "First Nuclear Test Ban Treaty signed."
1963 - "I Have A Dream" / Martin Luther King Jr. - August 28th, 1963: "Martin Luther King Jr. delivers his 'I Have a Dream' speech on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial on August 28th to 200,000 people." [Link: 1]
1963 - Ratified / 1st Nuclear Test Ban Treaty - September 24th, 1963: "Nuclear Test Ban Treaty ratified by Senate."
1963 - Signed / Limited Nuclear Test Ban Treaty - October 7th, 1961: "President Kennedy signs the Limited Test Ban Treaty ... prohibiting nuclear testing in the atmosphere, underwater, and in outer space." [Based on: N.G.M., August 2005, p. 107]
1963 - In Effect / Nuclear Test Ban Treaty - October 10th, 1963: "Nuclear Test Ban Treaty takes effect."
1963 - "Beatlemania" - October 13th, 1963: "British newspapers first use the term 'Beatlemania' in headlines."
*Trivia: "Beatles on TV at London Palladium [10/13/63]. 15 million get to see them perform 'She Loves You' and 'Twist and Shout'."
1963 - U.S.-Approved Assassination / South Vietnam - November 1st, 1963: "U.S. President John F. Kennedy approves the assassination of the the president of South Vietnam." [Based on TV program: "The Presidents" - The History Channel, 01/21/05]
1963 - Assassination / Ngo Dinh Diem, South Vietnam - November 2nd, 1963: "President Ngo Dinh Diem of South Vietnam and his brother are killed in a coup." [Link: 1]
1963 - Assassination / John F. Kennedy, U.S.A. - November 22nd, 1963: "In Dallas, Texas, U.S. President John F. Kennedy was assassinated."
1963 - U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson - November 22nd, 1963: "The 36th American President, Lyndon B. Johnson [Democrat], begins his term."
1963 - Escalation / Vietnam War - November 24th, 1963: "LBJ escalates the Vietnam War."
1963 - "I Want to Hold Your Hand" / The Beatles - November 29th, 1963: "Beatles "I Want to Hold Your Hand" Released."
1963 - Revelation / Nuclear Weapons Stockpile, Israel - "Israel’s possession of nuclear weapons had actually been revealed ... by the late George Ball, who was under secretary of state under presidents John Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson. Ball, in a Washington Post commentary, said the United States had been aware of Israel’s nuclear stockpile since 1963." [based on: James P. Tucker Jr., A.F.P., March 2004]
1963 - Ba'ath Party / Iraq - "In 1963, the CIA architected a bloody military coup to overthrow Kassem and brought the joint socialist-nationalist Ba'athist party - headed by Col. Salem Aref, to power. The CIA then supported the Baathists' bloody pogrom against the leftists, consolidating Saddam's power." [Links 1]
1963 - Trivia / Light Research - [....] Until Glauber published his theories in 1963, scientists dismissed the idea that quantum theory, which was developed to describe the behavior of particles, had any application to light. But Glauber showed that certain types of light - including lasers - could only be understood using quantum methods, which treat light as individual packets of energy rather than continuous waves. [....] [Baseed on: A.P. article, p. A11, S.L.P.D., 10/05/05]
1964
1964 - U.S. Surgeon General Warning - January 11th, 1964: "U.S. Surgeon General declares cigarettes cause lung disease."
*Trivia: "The U.S. Surgeon General issues a 387-page report containing evidence that cigarette smoking causes lung cancer and heart disease, but tobacco companies deny the charges."
1964 - "Eckankar, The Bilocation Philosophy" - January, 1964: "David [David Lane] reports that in January 1964, Orion Magazine published what seems to be Paul's [Paul Twitchell's] first public article entirely devoted to ECKANKAR. In this article, called, 'Eckankar, The Bilocation Philosophy,' Paul wrote:
Eckankar, the philosophy of out of body experience, is that understanding which I have gained from bi-location excursions similar to those in the lives of saints of all faiths...
Man needs to learn to leave his body at will and dwell in his spirit body, on other planes. He must someday leave this fleshy temple, so he should learn that by going in and out of his body that he can give it up to death without suffering...
The orthodox eastern philosophies teach that man must become one with God, but I cannot hold to this concept. The individual self of man becomes a coworker of God, not a part of the unity of Him, in the sense of being one with the divine source anyway, for we are dwelling in the body of God, but we have the freedom of movement and of choice inside this framework of the Almighty...
[Based on: Doug Marman, Dialogue in the Age of Criticism, Chap. 3]
1964 - New Military Junta / South Vietnam - January 30th, 1964: "New military junta takes over in South Vietnam."
1964 - "British Rock & Roll Invasion" / U.S.A. - February 7th, 1964: "The British Rock and Roll Invasion of America is started by the Beatles as they land in Kennedy Airport [New York]."
*Trivia: "The Beatles ... appeared Feb. 9 on CBS-TV's Ed Sullivan Show." [Based on: The World Almanac and Book of Facts, 2005, p. 551]
1964 - Vietnam War Protest / San Francisco - "In the spring 80,000 people march in San Francisco to protest the Vietnam War."
1964 - Fatalities / Civil Rights Workers - June 22nd, 1964: "Three civil rights workers were reported missing in Mississippi June 22; found buried Aug. 4. Twenty-one white men were arrested. On Oct. 20, 1967, an all-white federal jury convicted 7 of conspiracy in the slayings." [Based on: The World Almanac and Book of Facts, 2005, p. 551]
*Trivia: "More than 40 years [01/07/05] after one of the most notorious crimes of the turbulent civil rights era - the 'Freedom Summer' slayings of three young civil rights workers - a reputed Ku Klux Klansman [Edgar Ray Killen] was arrested Thursday [01/06/05] on state murder charges in the case. [....] In 1964, James Chaney, 21, Michael Schwerner, 24 and Andrew Goodman, 20, who were helping to register black voters, were murdered as they drove to a church to investigate a fire. They were believed to have been stopped by Klansmen, beaten and shot to death. Their bodies were found weeks later buried in a nearby dam. Nineteen men - including Killen - were indicted. Seven were convicted of federal civil rights violations in 1967 and sentenced to prison terms ranging from three to 10 years. Killen was freed after his trial on federal conspiracy charges ended in a hung jury. [....]" [A.P., 01/07/05]
1964 - Signed / U.S. Civil Rights Act - July 2nd, 1964: "Omnibus civil rights bill cleared by Congress July 2, signed same day by Pres. Johnson, banning discrimination in voting, jobs, public accomodations." [Based on: The World Almanac and Book of Facts, 2005, p. 551]
*Trivia: "1964 seemed to mark a turning point in America; with the passage of the Civil Rights Act, a new age in race relations appeared to be dawning. But the states acted quickly to circumvent the new federal law. California reacted with Proposition 14, which moved to block the fair housing components of the Civil Rights Act. This, and other acts, created a feeling of injustice and despair in the inner cities."
*Trivia: "The Civil Rights Act, signed by President Lyndon B. Johnson, outlaws segregation of restaurants, lodging and other public facilities." [St. Louis Post Dispatch, 05/17/04]
1964 - Gulf of Tonkin Incident - August 4th, 1964: "The National Security Agency has released hundreds of pages of long-secret documents on the 1964 Gulf of Tonkin incident that played a critical role near the beginning of the Vietnam War. The material posted on the Internet at midnight Wednesday [11/30/05] included one of the largest collections of secret, intercepted communications ever made available for study. The most provocative document is a 2001 article in which an agency historian argued that the agency's intelligence officers 'deliberately skewed' the evidence passed on to policymakers on the crucial question of whether North Vietnamese ships attacked U.S. destroyers on Aug. 4, 1964. Based on the mistaken belief that such an attack had occurred, President Lyndon Johnson ordered airstrikes on North Vietnam, and Congress passed a broad resolution authorizing military action. The historian, Robert Hanyok, wrote the article in an internal publication and it was classified top secret despite the fact that it dealt with events in 1964. Word of Hanyok's findings leaked to historians outside the agency, who requested the article under the Freedom of Information Act in 2003. [....] In his 2001 article, an elaborate piece of detective work, Hanyok wrote that 90 percent of the intercepts of North Vietnamese communications relevant to the supposed Aug. 4, 1964, attack were omitted from the major agency documents going to policymakers. 'The overwhelming body of reports, if used, would have told the story that no attack had happened,' he wrote. 'So a conscious effort ensued to demonstrate that an attack had occurred.' [....] 'A lot of people at the agency haven't been happy that communications intelligence was used to support a wrong conclusion,' he said. Agency employees worked late Wednesday [11/30/05] to meet a self-imposed end-of-November deadline, posting the intercepts, oral history interviews with retired agency officials and internal reports on the agency's Web site at www.nsa.gov/vietnam." [Based on: New York Times article (Secret Gulf of Tonkin papers are released on Web), p. A3, S.L.P.D., 12/02/05]
1964 - Gulf of Tonkin Resolution - August 7th, 1964: "In a bloodless coup, General Nguyen Khanh seizes power in Saigon. South Vietnam junta leader, Major General Duong Van Minh, is placed under house arrest, but is allowed to remain as a figurehead chief-of-state. On August 2, three North Vietnamese PT boats allegedly fire torpedoes at the USS Maddox, a destroyer located in the international waters of the Tonkin Gulf, some thirty miles off the coast of North Vietnam [In 1971 it would be revealed that the U.S. gunboats violated Vietnamese territorial waters]. The attack comes after six months of covert US and South Vietnamese naval operations. A second, even more highly disputed attack, is alleged to have taken place on August 4. The Gulf of Tonkin Resolution is approved by Congress on August 7 and authorizes President Lyndon Johnson to 'take all necessary measures to repel any armed attack against forces of the United States and to prevent further aggression.' The resolution passes unanimously in the House, and by a margin of 82-2 in the Senate. The Resolution allows Johnson to wage all out war against North Vietnam without ever securing a formal Declaration of War from Congress." [Link: 1]
*Trivia: "The 'facts' behind this critically important resolution [the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution] were quite simply ... lies." [Ben Bradlee - former managing editor, The Washington Post - 1987 public lecture, England]
*Trivia: "Reportedly, before the end of the Vietnam War, 58,000 American soldiers and almost 3 million Vietnamese will have died." [Source Video: "The Great Deception"]1964 - War on Poverty Bill - August 11th, 1964: "Congress approved War on Poverty bill Aug 11, providing for a domestic Peace Corps (VISTA), a Job Corps, and antipoverty funding." [Based on: The World Almanac and Book of Facts, 2005, p. 551]
1964 - Awarded Nobel Peace Prize / Martin Luther King - August 14th?, 1964: "Martin Luther King awarded Nobel Peace Prize."
1964 - The Beatles / U.S. Tour - August 1964: "Beatles first U.S. tour: 25 North American cities."
*Trivia: "Entertainment highlights during the week of August 14th-20th, 1964: "The beatles opened their North American tour at the Cow Palace in San Francisco. The Righteous Brothers and jackie DeShannon also were on the tour." [Based on: A.P., 08/15/05]
1964 - Warren Commission Report - September 27th, 1964: "The Warren Commission released Sept. 27 a report concluding that Lee Harvey Oswald was solely responsible for the Kennedy assassination." [Based on: The World Almanac and Book of Facts, 2005, p. 551]
*Trivia: "[....] A 1979 report by the House Select Committee on Assassinations concluded Oswald probably did not act alone. [....]" [Based on: A.P. article, p. A4, S.L.P.D., 11/22/05]
1964 - Leonid Brezhnev / USSR - October, 1964: "Because of the large amounts of money spent in Krushchev's arms and space race, the USSR was once again faced with massive unemployment and debt. A new leader came on the scene who, just as Krushchev before him, began to promise massive reforms. This leader, however, kept his word. Leonid Brezhnev had been a Politburo member since the time of Stalin. He had fought in World War II, was wounded and decorated. He was viewed by the people as an ideal ruler. In 1964, he began a series of reforms that greatly improved the working conditions of his people. He signed nuclear arms reduction treaties with the USA and allowed the conquered countries of Europe more freedom. He even allowed a joint Soviet/American space flight in 1975. He was the most liked ruler since Lenin. The only problem was that now that the people had enjoyed so much freedom they only wanted more. Brezhnev died in 1982 after ruling peaceably for almost 20 years."
1964 - Deportation / Ayatollah Rhuollah Khomeini - November, 1964: "In 1964, the Iranian legislative assembly granted American soldiers and their families stationed in Iran, the same immunity to prosecution which was normally only enjoyed by diplomats. The Iranian people were outraged that American soldiers were able to break their laws without fear. One of the most outspoken critics of this law was the Shiite Muslim Leader, Ayatollah Rhuollah Khomeini. He accused those of agreeing to this, including the Shah himself, as being traitors to Iran. The Shah could not risk having this powerful religious leader imprisoned. What he could and did risk, was having him deported. Khomeini was exiled to Turkey. On November 4, 1964, Khomeini vowed that he would return one day and even the score with the Shah and the United States. Throughout the 1970's, the Shah, with the backing of the U.S., remained in power. But there was a growing movement which was getting increasingly violent, against both the United States and the hated Shah." [Links: 1]
1964 - Founded / Palestinian Liberation Organization - "The PLO was founded in 1964 by Egyptian President Gamal Abdul Nasser. Arafat took over the PLO in 1969."
1964 - Trivia / U.S. Appliances - "There are 500 million radios and 162 million TV sets in America."
1965
1965 - Astronomic Configuration - January 1st, 1965: "Sun [10 Capricorn], Moon [20 Sagittarius], Mercury [19 Sagittarius], Venus [15-16 Sagittarius], Mars [23 Virgo], Jupiter [16 R. Taurus], Saturn [1 Pisces], Uranus [14 R. Virgo], Neptune [19 Scorpio], Pluto [16 R. Virgo]."
1965 - Multiple Opposition - "Multiple Opposition: Here, two or more conjuncting planets are opposed by one or more planets in the opposite sign. These are uncommon, though crucial. They have a climactic quality of breakthrough or starting-over, of catharsis and rapid advance. Things reach critical mass, and past and future are contrasted wildly. A recent historic example arose in 1965-66, in which Uranus conjuncting Pluto in Virgo was opposed by Saturn and Chiron conjuncting in Pisces."
1965 - Viet Cong Attack / U.S. Installations, South Vietnam - February 7th, 1965: "Viet Cong attack U.S. installations in South Vietnam." [E.M.]
1965 - U.S. Bombing / North Vietnam - February 8th, 1965: "U.S. starts bombing North Vietnam."
*Trivia: "Bombing of North Vietnam begins [03/02/1965]." [Based on: S.L.P.D., p. A5, 04/25/05]
1965 - U.S. Immigration Act - "In 1965, the U.S. passed the Immigration Act, which removed 'national origin' language, and eventually caused Asian immigration to increase." [Link: 1]
1965 - Assassination / Malcom X - February 21st, 1965: "In 1965 Malcolm X was fatally shot while giving a speech in New York, after he had criticized Elijah Muhammad. Malcolm was shot by three people that turned out to be from the Nation of Islam. All three of them were convicted and sent to prison."
1965 - Operation Rolling Thunder / North Vietnam - February 24th, 1965: "Sustained American bombing raids of North Vietnam, dubbed Operation Rolling Thunder, begin February 24th, 1965. The nearly continuous air raids would go on for three years and drop twice as many bombs on North Vietnam as were dropped in all of WWII. The first American combat troops, the 9th Marine Expeditionary Brigade, arrive in Vietnam to defend the US airfield at Danang. Scattered Vietcong gunfire is reported, but no Marines are injured. The first conventional battle of the Vietnam war takes place as American forces clash with North Vietnamese units in the Ia Drang Valley. The US 1st Air Cavalry Division employs its newly enhanced technique of aerial reconnaissance to finally defeat the NVA, although heavy casualties are reported on both sides. US Troop Levels Top 200,000."
1965 - 1st U.S. Battlefield Soldier / Vietnam - March 6th, 1965: "First American soldier officially sets foot on Vietnam battlefields."
1965 - 1st Space Walk - March 18th, 1965: "Soviet cosmonaut Aleksei Leonov makes the first spacewalk." [Link: 1]
1965 - Vietnam War Protests / U.S.A. - "March, 1965: The practice of protesting US policy in Vietnam by holding 'teach-ins' at colleges and universities becomes widespread. The first 'teach-in' - featuring seminars, rallies, and speeches - takes place at the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor in March. In May, a nationally broadcast 'teach-in' reaches students and faculty at over 100 campuses."
1965 - Voting Rights March / Martin Luther King - March 21st, 1965: "March from Selma to Montgomery, AL, begun Mar. 21 by Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. to demand federal protection of blacks' voting rights. New Voting Rights Act signed Aug. 6." [Based on: The World Almanac and Book of Facts, 2005, p. 551]
1965 - U.S. Troop Status / Vietnam - April, 1965: "25,000 U.S. troops stationed in Vietnam."
1956 - Antiwar March / Washington D.C. - April 17th, 1965: "SDS leads first anti-Vietnam war march in Washington. 25,000 attend including Phil Ochs, Joan Baez and Judy Collins."
1965 - Nguyen Van Thieu / South Vietnam - June 19th, 1965: "Air Marshal Nguyen Cao Ky [b.1930] and Nguyen Van Thieu [1923-2001] gain control of the government of South Vietnam after a coup."
1965 - U.S. Offensive / Vietnam - June 27th, 1965: "General William C. Westmoreland launches the first full-scale combat offensive by U.S. troops in Vietnam."
1965 - #1 Song / The Rolling Stones - July 10th, 1965: "Rolling Stones' I Can't Get No Satisfaction #1."
1965 - U.S. Medicare Act - July 30th, 1965: "The U.S. passes the Medicare Act." [Link: 1]
*Trivia: "Bill establishing Medicare, government health insurance program for elderly, signed by Pres. Johnson July 30." [Based on: The World Almanac and Book of Facts, 2005, p. 551]
*Trivia: "President Lyndon B. Johnson's Great Society initiative includes Medicare for retirees and Medicaid for select groops of poor Americans." [Source: Institute of Medicine, 10/04/04]
*Trivia: "Federal spending on health grows four-fold [1965-1975] to more than $40 billion." [Source: Institute of Medicine, 10/04/04]
1965 - Rolling Stones Debut / London Palladium - August 1965: "Entertainment highlights during the week of July 31st - August 6th: "The Rolling Stones made their debut at the London Palladium." [Based on: A.P., 08/01/05]
1965 - Signed / U.S. Voting Rights Act - August 6th, 1965: "New Voting Rights Act signed Aug. 6." [Based on: The World Almanac and Book of Facts, 2005, p. 551]
1965 - Race Riots / Los Angeles - August 11th, 1965: "A a routine traffic stop in South Central Los Angeles provided the spark that lit a fire of riots that lasted for six days, leaving 34 dead, over a thousand people injured, nearly 4,000 arested, and hundreds of buildings destroyed."
*Trivia: "Los Angeles riot by blacks living in Watts area resulted in 34 deaths and $200 mil in property damage Aug. 11-16." [Based on: The World Almanac and Book of Facts, 2005, p. 551]
1965 - "Help!" / The Beatles - August 23rd, 1965: "Premiere of Beatles' Help!."
1965 - Vietnam Protests / Los Angeles - "During the summer several hundred protestors try to stop Viet Nam troop trains on the Santa Fe tracks in West Berkeley, California; in the fall over 10 thousand people march from the Berkeley campus to the Oakland Army Terminal. Riots in the Watts section of South Los Angeles for six days in August cause $40 million in property damage."
1965 - Auto Emissions Standards / U.S.A. - October 1st, 1965: "Anti-pollution bill sets emission standards for cars."
1965 - U.S. Involvement / Indonesia - October 15th, 1965: "In Indonesia, Sukarno is ousted in a coup led by General Suharto. On October 15th there is a mass murder of hundreds of thousands of 'communists' by Suharto, with CIA backing."
1965 - Anti-War Protestors / U.S.A. - October 16th, 1965: "100,000 anti-war protesters nationwide in 80 cities."
1965 - Founded / ECKANKAR - October 22nd, 1965: "ECKANKAR ['Religion of the Light & Sound of God'] was officially founded on October 22nd, 1965, in San Diego, California." [E.M.]
*Trivia: "The teachings of ECK, the high teachings, had been scattered to the four corners of the world. The different masters each had parts and pieces of it, but they attached little requirements, or strings, to it: You must be a vegetarian, or you have to meditate so many hours a day if you want to really be a true follower on the path to God. And this was wrong for our day and age. It was geared for another culture.
"Paul [Paul Twitchell] gathered up the whole teaching and took the best. Though it may be a strange thing to say, in this sense I see him as a master compiler. He gathered the golden teachings that were scattered around the world and made them readily available to us. So now we don't have to spend ten or fifteen years in an ashram in India, sitting around in the dust with the flies, or locked in a walled-up little cell to keep our attention from the outside world, in order to live the spiritual life... " [Harold Klemp, International Youth Conference, Las Vegas, NV, April 21, 1984] [See also: Dialogue in the Age of Criticism, Chap. 10]*Trivia: "[....] Paul referred to Eckankar in many ways. At various times he called it a path, a mood, or a way of life. At other times he pointed out what ECK is not or stated that nothing could be said to describe It. But when corporate papers are being filed, the state officials want information about the organization. "ECK is not like anything you've ever heard of before" is not considered an acceptable answer. So, in addition to Paul's mission to bring out the teachings of ECK and somehow establish them in the world, he was faced with the dilemma of how to define Eckankar for legal purposes. [....]" [Based on: Harold Klemp - See: Paul Defines Eckankar
1965 - Battle of Ia Drang Valley / Vietnam - October-November, 1965: "The Battle of Ia Drang Valley is the first time U.S. troops meet North Vietnamese regulars." [Link: 1]
1965 - Trivia / U.S. Credit Cards - "There are now 5 million credit cards in circulation in America; by 1996 it will be 1.4 billion." [Link: 1]
1965 - Trivia / Transfer RNA - "In 1965, the molecular structure of transfer RNA is determined."
1965 - Drug Abuse Control Amendments - "The Drug Abuse Control Amendments were enacted to deal with problems caused by abuse of three dangerous drugs: depressants, stimulants, and hallucinogens."
1965 - U.S. Chemical Weapons Tests / Alaska - "The United States held open-air biological and chemical weapons tests in at least four states — Alaska, Hawaii, Maryland and Florida — during the 1960s in an effort to develop defenses against such weapons, according to Pentagon documents. A series of tests in Alaska from 1965-67 used artillery shells and bombs filled with the nerve agents sarin and VX, the records show." [October 8th, 2002 / Associated Press Release]
1966
1966 - H-Bomb Accident / Spain - January 17th, 1966: "B52 collides, drops 4 10-megaton H bombs on Spain, none explode, cover-up follows."
1966 - Cultural Revolution / China - "The Cultural Revolution begins in China - it will last for 10 years; Chairman Mao publishes the 'little red book' Quotations from Chairman Mao, which immediately becomes required reading for good [live] Chinese communists." [Link: 1]
1966 - Famine / India - "India suffers the worst famine in 20 years, and U.S. President Johnson asks Congress for $1 billion to aid them."
1966 - Anti-Vietnam Protest Rally / New York - March 25th, 1966: Anti-Vietnam war protests in NY bring out 25,000 on 5th Ave. Other protests in 7 US cities and 7 foreign cities."
*Trivia: "Veterans from World Wars I and II, along with veterans from the Korean war stage a protest rally in New York City. Discharge and separation papers are burned in protest of US involvement in Vietnam. The Congress of Racial Equality [CORE] issues a report claiming that the US military draft places 'a heavy discriminatory burden on minority groups and the poor.' The group also calls for a withdrawal of all US troops from Vietnam."
1966 - Trivia / U.S. Forces, Cambodia - May 1st, 1966: "U.S. forces began firing into Cambodia May 1." [Based on: The World Almanac and Book of Facts, 2005, p. 551]
1966 - Anti-war Demonstration / Washington D.C. - "Antiwar demonstration in D.C., 10,000 attend."
1966 - Miranda Decision - June 13th, 1966: "The U.S. Supreme Court decides Miranda v. Arizona, resulting in a stunning curbing of police power to obtain confessions."
1966 - U.S. Air Attacks / Vietnam - "In June the first U.S. air attacks near Hanoi and Haiphong are launched from Tan Son Nhut Air Base outside Saigon, followed by attacks on North Vietnamese forces inside the DMZ."
*Trivia: "Bombing of Hanoi area of N Vietnam by U.S. planes began June 29." [Based on: The World Almanac and Book of Facts, 2005, p. 551]
1966 - Medicare Begins / U.S.A. - July 1st, 1966: "Medicare begins in the U.S.A."
1966 - Star Trek - September 8th, 1966: "Gene Roddenberry's Star Trek series premieres on NBC-TV." [Link: 1]
1966 - Partial Core Meltdown / Detroit, MI - October 6th, 1966: "A sodium cooling system malfunction caused a partial core meltdown at the Enrico Fermi demonstration breeder reactor, near Detroit, MI. Radiation contained." [Based on: The World Almanac and Book of Facts, 2005, p. 210]
1966 - Department of Transportation / U.S.A. - October 15th, 1966: "U.S. Dept. of Transportation created Oct. 15." [Based on: The World Almanac and Book of Facts, 2005, p. 551]
1966 - Peace & Freedom Walk / N.Y. City - November 5th, 1966: "Walk for Love and Peace and Freedom: 10,000 + in New York City."
1966 - U.S. Presence / Vietnam Conflict - By Dec. 31, 385,300 U.S. troops were stationed in S Vietnam, plus 60,000 offshore and 33,000 in Thailand." [Based on: The World Almanac and Book of Facts, 2005, p. 551]
1966 - Cassette Tapes - "Cassette tapes are introduced commercially based on a compact standard."
1966 - Cracked / Genetic Code - "In 1966, Marshall Nirenburg, Heinrich Mathaei and Severo Ochoa cracked the genetic code, determining which codon sequences correspond to which amino acid - Pandora's Box is opened."
1966 - Biological Weapons Tests / Texas - "On March 18th, 1981, the U.S. disclosed there were biological weapons tested in Texas in 1966."
1967
1967 - Operation Cedar Falls, Vietnam - January 8th, 1967: "In a major ground war effort dubbed Operation Cedar Falls, about 16,000 US and 14,000 South Vietnamese troops set out to destroy Vietcong operations and supply sites near Saigon. A massive system of tunnels is discovered in an area called the Iron Triangle, an apparent headquarters for Vietcong personnel." [Link: 1]
1967 - Gathering of Tribes / San Francisco, California - "Gathering of the Tribes, First Human Be-In, 20,000, S.F."
1967 - Apollo 1 Disaster - January 27th, 1966: "NASA astronauts Grissom, White and Chaffee burn to death on the launchpad in Apollo 1."
1967 - Music Release / The Beatles - February 1967: "Beatles release Strawberry Fields Forever, Penny Lane, Michelle, & Yesterday."
1967 - U.S. Troops / Cambodian Border - February 1967: "25,000 US troops sent to Cambodian border."
1967 - Oil Spill / Land's End, England - March 18th, 1967: "First U.S. supertanker wreck. Torrey Canyon spills 90,000 tons of oil onto English shores."
1967 - "Vietnam Week" - April 10th, 1967: "Vietnam Week starts. Draft card burnings and anti-draft demonstrations."
1967 - Anti-War Protest / New York - April 15th, 1967: "Anti-Vietnam War protest. 400,000 march from Central Park to UN. Speeches by Martin Luther King, Stokely Carmichael and Dr. Benjamin Spock."
1967 - Anti-War Protest / California - April 15th, 1967: "An anti-war demonstration is held in San Francisco."
1967 - President Nguyen Van Thieu / South Vietnam - "Nguyen Van Thieu is elected president of South Vietnam."
1967 - U.S. Air Strike / Hanoi - May 19th, 1967: "First U.S. air strike on Hanoi."
1967 - Music Release / The Beatles - June 2nd, 1967: "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band album by the Beatles released. According to CNN News [06/01/05] the release date was June 1st, 1967."
*Trivia: "Sgt. Pepper hits #1 July 1st."
1967 - Six Day War / Israel - June 5th, 1967: "In early 1967 Syria and Egypt appeared to be readying an attack on Israel. On June 5th the Jewish state struck first, routing Egyptian forces and seizing the Sinai Peninsula and Gaza Strip. When Jordan shelled Tel Aviv and West Jerusalem, Israel retaliated, capturing all of Arab-held Jerusalem and the West Bank. Up north, Israel captured Syria's Golan Heights. A few months later the UN passed resolution 242, calling for Israel to withdraw from occupied territory in exchange for peace." [Based on: N.G.M./October/2002] [Link: l]
Trivia: "In the 1967 Six Day War, Israeli forces speedily overan Gaza and swept across the West Bank, establishing a new frontier for Israel on the Jordan river. While the Israelis annexed East Jerusalem, they were less certain about what to do with the rest of the newly occupied West Bank and its million or so inhabitants. Although some Israeli leaders favored granting limited self-government to the more densely populated Palestinian areas, others were determined to settle Israelis amongst the Palestinians. Their aim was to make it impossible for any future Israeli government to pull out from what they proclaimed to be Israel's land by divine right. Initially such Israeli settlements - then as now illegal under international law - were few and sparsely populated." [N.G.M. / October 2002]
*Trivia: "Soon after capturing the West Bank, Gaza Strip, Sinai, and the Golan Heights in the 1967 war, Israel adopted a policy designed to create settlements of Israeli civilians in these territories that would be difficult to anyone, including later Israeli governments, to remove. Such activity violates principles set down by the Fourth Geneva Convention, which forbids victors in war from colonizing foreign lands seized in battle. However every Israeli government since 1967 has expanded these settlements by expropriating Arab lands and building homes for Israeli Jews, even when Israel's leaders were negotiating for peace with the Palestinians. While some Israeli settlers are motivated by ideology, many others are attracted by government subsidies and incentives." [N.G.M./October/2002]
*Trivia: "According to the Israeli human rights organization B'Tselem, 42 percent of the land in the West Bank is now controlled by Israeli settlements." [N.G.M./October/2002].
*Trivia: "Despite their hold on the world's attention, the Gaza Strip and West Bank territories, occupied by Israel since the Six Day War in June 1967, cover relatively tiny areas. Gaza, home to 1.1 million Palestinians and 7,000 Israeli settlers [who occupy 25 percent of the land], is only 26 miles long." [N.G.M /October/2002].
*Trivia: "To shelter Palestinian refugees after Israel's 1948 War of Independence, the UN and volunteer agencies raised a tent city near Nablus. Six decades later the refugees remain." [N.G.M /October/2002]
1967 - Israeli Attack / USS Liberty - June 8th, 1967: " 'Attack one American and you attack all Americans' was once proclaimed by President Clinton. More recently, an Assistant Secretary for State proclaimed that the U. S. government always protects its citizens. These are damned lies and meaningless words. These words were not true in 1967 (when Israel deliberately attacked the USS LIBERTY), and unfortunately, and in spite of these beautiful words, they are not even true today. Moreover, there is no such thing as justice. On that June day in 1967, the weather was beautiful... Clear and sunny, visibility unlimited... the LIBERTY, an elaborate state-of-the art intelligence gathering platform, was in international waters off the Gaza strip and was flying the Stars and Stripes. Israeli reconnaissance planes flew overhead for hours. Pilots and ship's crew waved to each other. Then, inexplicably, unmarked Israeli aircraft began attacking the ship. The defenseless LIBERTY radioed for help. Two aircraft carriers in the Med. responded by launching fighter aircraft. Unbelievably, they were recalled by the White House. RADM Geis, then commanding the carriers in the Sixth Fleet, called Washington personally to confirm the order. SecDef McNamara came on the line, then President Johnson. Johnson indicated to Geis that the aircraft were to be returned, that he would not have his allies embarrassed, and that he didn't care who was killed or what was done to the ship. Geis, like any good sailor, recalled the aircraft." [Link: 1]
1967 - Iraqi Relations / Russia & France - "Following the U.S. and British support for Israel in the 1967 Arab-Israeli war, Iraq drifted from the Anglo-American camp, and started to lean towards France and the Soviet Union, offering them exclusive oil development contracts and buying billions in Russian and French military hardware."
1967 - Hydrogen Bomb Test / China - June 17th, 1967: "China successfully tests its own hydrogen bomb." [Based on: N.G.M., August 2005, p. 107]
1967 - "All You Need Is Love" / The Beatles - June 25th, 1967: "Beatles sing 'All You Need Is Love' on TV."
1967 - Black Riots / U.S.A. - July 1967: "Riots by blacks in Newark, NJ, July 12-17 killed 26, injured 1,500; more than 1,000 arrested. In Detroit, MI, July 23-30, 43 died; 2,000 injured, 5,000 left homeless by rioting, looting, burning in city's black ghetto." [Based on: The World Almanac and Book of Facts, 2005, p. 551]
*Trivia: "Blacks take to the streets in Chicago, Brooklyn, Cleveland and Baltimore."
1967 - Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty - August 24th, 1967: "The U.S. and the U.S.S.R. finally submit identical texts of a proposed nuclear non-proliferation treaty to the U.N." [Link: 1]
1967 - Antiwar March / Washington D.C. - October 21-22: "An antiwar march on Washington ... drew 50,000 participants." [Based on: The World Almanac and Book of Facts, 2005, p. 551]
*Trivia: "Anti-war protesters storm the Pentagon."
*Trivia: " 'Diggers' exorcise the Pentagon. 35,000 Demonstrate, 647 arrested."
1967 - Battle of Dak To / Vietnam - "The Battle of Dak To in November is the longest and most violent in the South Vietnmaese highlands since the Battle of Ia Drang." [Link: 1]
1967 - U.S. Air Quality Act - November 14th, 1967: "Air Quality Act provides $428 million to fight air pollution."
1967 - U.S. Product Safety Commission - November 20th, 1967: "National Commission on Product Safety established."
1967 - "Magical Mystery Tour" / The Beatles - December 1967: "Beatles release 'Magical Mystery Tour.' "
1967 - Trivia / American Forces, Vietnam - December 1967: "486,000 American troops in Vietnam, of the 15,000 killed to date, 60% died in 1967."
1967 - "Stop The Draft" Movement / U.S.A. - December 1967: " 'Stop the Draft' movement organized by 40 antiwar groups, nationwide protests ensue."
*Trivia: "Over 10,000 riot in downtown Oakland in an attempt to shut down the Oakland Induction Center during Stop the Draft Week."
*Trivia: "1000 antiwar protesters [12/05/67] try to close NYC induction center. 585 arrested including Allen Ginsberg and Dr. Benjamin Spock."
1967 - "Dock of the Bay" / Otis Redding - December 8th, 1967: "Otis Redding records 'Dock of the Bay.' "
1967 - Fatality / Otis Redding - December 10th, 1967: "Otis Redding dies in plane crash."
1967 - NATO / "Flexible Response" - December 1967: "NATO adopts a posture of 'flexible response' to any aggression, ruling out the automatic use of nuclear missles." [Sources: NATO, The Associated Press, the World Book, the Encyclopedia Britannica]
1967 - Vietnam Protest Speech / Martin Luther King - "Calling the US 'the greatest purveyor of violence in the world,' Martin Luther King publicly speaks out against US policy in Vietnam. King later encourages draft evasion and suggests a merger between antiwar and civil rights groups. University of Wisconsin students demand that corporate recruiters for Dow Chemical - producers of napalm - not be allowed on campus. Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara, appearing before a Senate subcommittee, testifies that US bombing raids against North Vietnam have not achieved their objectives. McNamara maintains that movement of supplies to South Vietnam has not been reduced, and neither the economy nor the morale of the North Vietnamese has been broken."
1968
1968 - Troop Status / Vietnam War - "The U.S., at the peak of the war, now has 500,000 troops in Vietnam; the South Vietnamese have another 1.5 million; the NLF [Viet Cong] have 400,000."
1968 - Battle of Khe Sanh / Vietnam - January 20th, 1968: "The Battle of Khe Sanh begins with a siege by North Vietnamese forces; the siege is lifted on April 14th." [Link: 1]
1968 - Tet Offensive / Vietnam - January 30-31, 1968: "In a show of military might [Tet Offensive] that catches the US military off guard, North Vietnamese and Vietcong forces sweep down upon several key cities and provinces in South Vietnam, including its capital, Saigon. Within days, American forces turn back the onslaught and recapture most areas. From a military point of view, Tet is a huge defeat for the Communists, but turns out to be a political and psychological victory. The US military's assessment of the war is questioned and the 'end of tunnel' seems very far off." [Link: 1]
1968 - Battle of Hue / Vietnam - January 31st, 1968: "[....] At 0340 hours, 31 January, the enemy initiated a closely co-ordinated rocket, mortar, and ground assault against Hue. Attacking with seven to ten battalions, the enemy struck selected targets within the city, both north and south of the Huong River. [....]" [Links: 1, 2]
*Trivia: "[....] The Battle for Hue wages for 26 days as US and South Vietnamese forces try to recapture the site seized by the Communists during the Tet Offensive. Previously, a religious retreat in the middle of a war zone, Hue was nearly leveled in a battle that left nearly all of its population homeless. Following the US and ARVN victory, mass graves containing the bodies of thousands of people who had been executed during the Communist occupation are discovered. [....]" [Link: 1]
1968 - My Lai Massacre / Vietnam - March 16th, 1968: "Angry and frustrated men of Charlie Company, 11th Brigade, American Division entered the village of My Lai. 'This is what you've been waiting for - search and destroy - and you've got it,' said their superior officers. A short time later the killing began. When news of the atrocities surfaced, it sent shockwaves through the US political establishment, the military's chain of command, and an already divided American public.Westmoreland Requests 206,000 More Troops."
1968 - "Prague Spring" / Czechoslovakia - March 22nd, 1968: "Repressive Czechoslovakian Communist party leader Antonin Novotny [1904-75] is ousted by liberal Communist Alexander Dubcek [1921-92], who institutes liberal democratic reforms known as the Prague Spring."
1968 - U.S. Bombing Reduction / North Vietnam - March 31st, 1968: "Pres. Johnson curbed bombing of North Vietnam Mar. 31. Peace talks began in Paris May 10. All bombing of North halted Oct 31." [Based on: The World Almanac and Book of Facts, 2005, p. 551]
1968 - Assassination / Martin Luther King - April 4th, 1968: "Martin Luther King is Slain in Memphis."
*Trivia: "The week following Martin Luther King Jr.'s murder sees black uprisings in 125 cities across the U.S."
1968 - Peace Talks / Vietnam - May 10th, 1968: "Following a lengthy period of debate and discussion, North Vietnamese and American negotiators agree on a location and start date of peace talks. Talks are slated to begin in Paris on May 10 with W. Averell Harriman representing the United States, and former Foreign Minister Xuan Thuy heading the North Vietnamese delegation."
1968 - Established / U.S. DEA - April 8th, 1968: "Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs established (DEA)."
1968 - U.S. Military Reserves / Vietnam - April 11th, 1968: "Major call-up of reserves for duty in Vietnam ."
1968 - Spring Mobilization / Against Vietnam War - April 15th, 1968: "Start of Spring Mobilization against the Vietnam war."
1968 - Assassination / Robert Kennedy - June 5th, 1968: "Bobby Kennedy assassinated by Sirhan Sirhan moments after winning California primary."
1968 - Pentagon Papers - June 13th, 1968: "The Pentagon Papers begin to be excerpted in the New York Times; the government went to court to stop further publication, wins an injunction, but loses in the Supreme Court on June 30, 1971." [Link: 1]
1968 - H-Bomb Accident / Greenland - June 22nd, 1968: "B-52 carrying H-bomb crashes in Greenland."
1968 - Status / Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty - July 1st, 1968: "The U.S., U.S.S.R., Britain and 59 other countries sign the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty - the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia causes the Senate to delay ratification until March 5, 1970." [Link: 1]
*Trivia: "The U.S., Soviet Union, and United Kingdom sign the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), followed by dozens of other nations. Today [August 2005] the treaty is signed by 188 countries." [Based on: N.G.M., August 2005, p. 107]
1968 - Saddam Hussein / Iraq - July 17th, 1968: "Although not a military man, Saddam Hussein dons a military uniform and attacks and occupies the presidential palace. The weak Iraqi president surrenders immediately. Ba'ath Party again gains power in Iraq. Ahmad Hassan al-Bakr becomes president with Saddam Hussein as the second in command."
1968 - U.S. Troop Status / Vietnam - August 1968: "541,000 U.S. Troops in Vietnam."
1968 - Status / Saddam Hussein, Iraq - August, 1968: "Saddam Hussein is prominent in 'the correction movement' in Iraq, which purges the non-Ba'ath elements in the coup. He personally puts a gun to the head of the Prime Minister, later taking him to the airport, putting him in a plane, and deporting him. Soon afterwards cooperation between US and Ba'ath Party is in decline. Saddam ejects all the pro-American elements from the government and begins to assert his authority in the country. Unable to obtain required materials, including arms, from the US, Saddam travels to the USSR, whose cooperation he achieves."
1968 - Soviet & Warsaw Pact Invasion / Czechoslovakia - August 21st, 1968: "Soviet and Warsaw Pact leaders send an invasion force of 650,000 troops into Czechoslovakia."
1968 - French Hydrogen Bomb Test / South Pacific - August 24th, 1968: "France tests an H-bomb in the South Pacific." [Based on: N.G.M., August 2005, p. 107]
1968 - U.S. Bombing Cessation / North Vietnam - October 30th, 1968: "U.S. President Johnson announces a complete cessation of bombing of North Vietnam north of the 20th parallel, and begins withdrawing troops from Vietnam."
1968 - U.S. President Richard Nixon - November 5th, 1968: "Running on a platform of 'law and order,' Richard Nixon barely beats out Hubert Humphrey for the presidency. Nixon takes just 43.4 percent of the popular vote, compared to 42.7 percent for Humphrey. Third-party candidate George Wallace takes the remaining percentage of votes."
1968 - 1st Televised Interracial Kiss / U.S.A. - November 22nd, 1968: "The first interracial kiss on American primetime TV is shown on the Star Trek episode Plato's Stepchildren - Nichelle Nichols and William Shatner."
1968 - Led Zepplin / U.S. Tour - December, 1968: "Entertainment highlights during the week of Dec. 26-Jan 1: Led Zeppelin began its first U.S. tour, opening for Vanilla Fudge." [A.P., 12/27/04]
*Trivia: "In 1968, the British rock group Led Zeppelin released the first of four yearly albums that turn them into legends."
1968 - Intel Corporation - "Semiconductor to form Intel Corporation." [Link: 1]
1968 - Condon Report / U.S.A. - "The Condon Report commissioned by the U.S. Air Force concludes that UFOs don't exist." [Link: 1]
1968 - Israeli Bombing / Beirut Airport - 1968: "Israeli warplanes bomb Beirut airport, two days after Arab guerrillas attacked an Israeli airliner in Athens, Greece." [A.P., 02/15/05]
1968 - U.S. Biological Weapons Tests / South Pacific - "In 1968, the United States conducts biological weapons tests at Johnston Atoll in the South Pacific."
1969
1969 - Paris Peace Talks - January 18th, 1969: "The Paris Peace talks begin negotiating full withdrawal of U.S. troops from Vietnam."
1969 - Radiation Accident / Switzerland - January 21st, 1969: "A coolant malfunction from an experimental underground reactor at Lucens Vad, Switzerland, released radiation into a cavern, which was then sealed." [Based on: The World Almanac and Book of Facts, 2005, p. 210]
1969 - "Spring Mobilization" / Central Park - "The Spring Mobilization to end the war in Vietnam draws half a million antiwar protestors to New York's Central Park."
1969 - Battle of Ben Het / Vietnam - March 3rd, 1968: "The Battle of Ben Het on March 3-4 in the Central Highlands of South Vietnam is the first time since the Korean War that U.S. troops engage enemy tanks." [Link: 1]
1969 - U.S. Bombing / Cambodia - March 18th, 1969: "In an effort to destroy Communist supply routes and base camps in Cambodia, President Nixon gives the go-ahead to 'Operation Breakfast.' The covert bombing of Cambodia, conducted without the knowledge of Congress or the American public, will continue for fourteen months."
1969 - U.S. Troop Status / Vietnam - April 1969: "543,000 U.S. troops now in Vietnam."
1969 - U.S. Bombing / Vietnam - April 24th, 1969: "U.S. B-52s launch biggest attack on North Vietnam. Protests in 40 cities."
1969 - Trivia / "Vietnamization" - June 8th, 1969: "Secretary of Defense Melvin Laird describes a policy of 'Vietnamization' when discussing a diminishing role for the US military in Vietnam. The objective of the policy is to shift the burden of defeating the Communists onto the South Vietnamese Army and away from the United States."
1969 - 1st Men on the Moon - July 20th, 1969: "American morale, in the face of the country's first ever major military defeat, was greatly boosted when Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin became the first men on the moon."
1969 - Mars Flyby / Mariner 6 - July 31st, 1969: "The spacecraft Mariner 6 makes its flyby of Mars." [Link: 1]
1969 - Mars Flyby / Mariner 7 - August 5th, 1969: "The spacecraft Mariner 7 makes its flyby of Mars." [Link: 1]
1969 - Manson Murders - August 9th-10th, 1969: "The Tate-La Bianca Murders in Los Angeles on August 9-10 are later traced to Charles Manson [b. 1934]: he and his Family are given death sentences, later reduced to life imprisonment."
1969 - Woodstock Concert / Upstate N.Y. - August 15th-18th: "A Rock concert was held in Upstate [Bethel] New York. An estimated 400,000 people attended the three-day event, during which three people died and two babies were born." [Link: 1]1969 - Fatality / Ho Chi Minh - September 3rd, 1969: "Ho Chi Minh Dies at Age 79."
1969 - Peace Day / First Vietnam Moratorium - October 15th, 1969: "Massive Antiwar Demonstration in Washington D.C. 500,000 protesters nationwide."
1969 - Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty / Iraq - October 29th, 1969: "Iraq ratifies the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, pledging to not manufacture nuclear weapons."
1969 - Desegragation / U.S.A. - October 30th, 1969: "Supreme Court orders desegregation nationwide."
1969 - Sesame Street - November 10th, 1969: "The Sesame Street children's television program debut on PBS."
1969 - Antiwar Rally / Washington D.C. - November 15th, 1969: "500,000 + march in Wash. D.C. for peace. Largest antiwar rally in U.S. history. Speakers: McCarthy, McGovern, Coretta King, Dick Gregory, Leonard Bernstein. Singers: Arlo Guthrie, Pete Seeger, Peter, Paul, & Mary, John Denver, Mitch Miller, touring cast of Hair "
1969 - Becomes Public / My Lai Massacre - November 16, 1969: "Through the reporting of journalist Seymour Hersh, Americans read for the first time of the atrocities committed by Lt. William Calley and his troops in the village of My Lai. At the time the reports were made public, the Army had already charged Calley with the crime of murder."
1969 - Residential Area Ban / DDT, U.S.A. - November 20th, 1969: "DDT use banned in residential areas."
1969 - Status / U.S. Biological Weapons - November 25th, 1969: "President Richard Nixon announced a new policy on biological warfare for the United States. The United States pledged to never use biological weapons under any circumstance.
1969 - Status / U.K. Biological Weapons - "The United Kingdom officially ended its offensive biological weapons program."
1969 - U.S. Death Toll / Vietnam - December 1969: "Over 100,000 U.S. troops dead or injured in Vietnam."
1969 - Draft Lottery / New York City - December 1st, 1969: "First draft lottery since W.W.II held in NYC."
1969 - Timeline Trivia / Lebanon - 1969: "Lebanon agrees to allow Palestinian guerrillas to stage attacks on Israel from southern Lebanon." [A.P., 02/15/05]
1969 - U.S. Investigation of UFOs - "From June 1947 through December 1969 the Air Force was primarily responsible for investigating unidentified flying object [UFO] phenomena. Investigations were conducted by the Air Technical Intelligence Center [ATIC] at Wright-Patterson AFB, Ohio until December 17, 1969. All records of these investigations [known as Project Sign, 1947-1949, Project Grudge, 1949-1952, and Project Blue Book, 1952-1969] were retired to the National Archives and Records Administration and are available to the public on archives microfilm publication T1206 [94 rolls of 35 mm film]." [Link 1]
1969 - Environmental Wake-Up Call - "As the Industrial Revolution transitioned into the postwar industrial boom, Americans found themselves paying a high price for the resulting pollution. The wake-up call came in the late 1960's when Lake Erie was declared dead, Cleveland's Cuyahoga River caught fire, and radioactive strontium 90 was found in mothers' breast milk across North America and in even the most remote corners of the globe." [Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Crimes Against Nature, p. 21]
1970
1970 - Astronomic Configuration - January 1st, 1970: "Sun [10 Capricorn], Moon [10 Libra], Mercury [29 Capricorn], Venus [4 Capricorn], Mars [12 Pisces], Jupiter [2 Scorpio], Saturn [2 R. Taurus], Uranus [8 Libra], Neptune [29-30 Scorpio], Pluto [27 R. Virgo]."
1970 - 1st Earth Day Protest - April 22nd, 1970: "On Earth Day in 1970, ... insults drove 20 million Americans to the streets in the largest public demonstrations in U.S. history. Motivated by that stunning display of grassroots power, Republicans and Democrats, working together, created the Environmental Protection Agency and passed 28 major laws over the next 10 years to protect our air, water, endangered species, wetlands, food safety, and public lands. [....] The passage of these statutes marked the return of ancient rights recognized since the dawn of civilization." [Robert F. Kennedt Jr., Crimes Against Nature, pp. 22-23]
*Trivia: "The victory was short-lived. Earth Day 1970 caught polluters off guard, but over the next 30 years they mounted an increasingly sophisticated and aggressive counterattack to undermine these laws. The environmental reversals of the Bush [George W. Bush] administration are the triumphant outcome of their tree-decade campaign." [Robert F. Kennedt Jr., Crimes Against Nature, p. 23]
1970 - U.S. Troops / Cambodia - April 30th, 1970: "Nixon sends troops into Cambodia."
1970 - In Effect? / Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty - "Nuclear nonproliferation treaty takes effect."
1970 - Antiwar Rally / Washington D.C. - May 9th, 1970: "100,000 attend antiwar rally, Wash. D.C."
1970 - Public Deceptions? / U.S. President Richard Nixon - May 31st, 1970: "Even after Richard Nixon's secret war in Cambodia became known, the president persisted in deception. 'Publicly, we say one thing,' he told aides. 'Actually, we do another.' [....] On May 31, 1970, a month after Nixon went on TV to defend the previously secret U.S. bombings and troop movements in Cambodia, asserting that he would not let his nation become 'a pitiful, helpless giant,' the president met his top military and national security aides at the Western White House in San Clemente, Calif. [....] In a memo from the meeting marked 'Eyes Only, Top Secret Sensitive,' Nixon told his military men to continue doing what was necessary in Cambodia, but to say for public consumption that the United States was merely providing support to South Vietnamese forces when necessary to protect U.S. troops. 'That is what we will say publicly,' he asserted. 'But now, let's talk about what we will actually do.' [....] Nixon told his aides to plan offensive operations in neutral Laos, continue U.S. air operations in Cambodia and work on a summer offensive in South Vietnam." [Based on: A.P. article by Cal Woodward (Nixon told military to lie about actions in Cambodia), p. A4, S.L.P.D., 11/17/05]
*Trivia: "March 7th, 1971: A thousand U.S. planes bombed Cambodia and Laos."
1970 - Gene Synthesis - June 4th, 1970: "University of Wisconsin researchers announce the complete synthesis of a gene."
1970 - "Conscientious Objector" Status / U.S.A. - June 15th, 1970: "Supreme Court OKs conscientious objector status on moral grounds."
*Trivia: "In 1970, the U.S. Supreme Court broadened the definition of conscientious objector to include people without belief in God who profess ethical or moral convictions against war."
1970 - Israeli & Syrian Fighting / Golan Heights - June 25th, 1970: "Syrian and Israeli forces fight over the Golan Heights in the biggest battle since 1967."
1970 - EPA / U.S.A. - July 9th, 1970: "The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency was established in 1970 to consolidate in one agency a variety of federal research, monitoring, standard-setting and enforcement activities to ensure environmental protection. EPA's mission is to protect human health and to safeguard the natural environment - air, water, and land - upon which life depends.
1970 - Test-Fired / U.S. Poseidon Missle - August 3rd, 1970: "The U.S. military announces the first successful underwater firing of a Poseidon ballistic nuclear missile."
1970 - Black September / Jordan - September 6th, 1970: "Three aircraft were hijacked and ordered to fly to a remote airstrip in Jordan, where their passengers were held hostage. They were eventually blown up, though the hostages were released. Jordan's King Hussein was gravely embarrassed by the affair, and ordered in his loyal Bedouin troops to smash the Jordan-based Palestinian militant bases. The episode became known in the Arab world as Black September."
1970 - Fatality / Jimi Hendrix - September 18th, 1970: "Reportedly died on this date in history: Rock Legend, Jimi Hendrix."
*Trivia: "In 1970, Jimi Hendrix played what was to be his last British concert - at the Isle of Wight Pop Festival off the English coast. Three weeks later, the entertainer died in London."
1970 - Fatality / Janis Joplin - October 4th, 1970: "Reportedly died on this date in history: Singer, Janis Joplin."
1970 - Comprehensive Drug Abuse Prevention and Control Act - October 27th, 1970: "Congress passes the Comprehensive Drug Abuse Prevention and Control Act, which includes the Controlled Substances Act establishing five categories of regulated drugs."
1970 - Cell Synthesis - November 12th, 1970: "SUNY researchers announce the first synthesis of a living cell."
1970 - EPA Activation / U.S.A. - December 2nd, 1970: "Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) activated."
1970 - U.S. Troop Status / Vietnam - "Number of US Troops Falls to 280 thousand."
1970 - Albumn Release / Jesus Christ Superstar - "The first J.C.S.S. albumn was released in 1970. The famous musical aired in 1973."
1970 - Status / U.S. Farmers - "Farmers make up less than 5 percent of the U.S. workforce for the first time."
1970 - "Natural Disaster" Deaths / 1970 - "Estimated number of people who died from natural disasters this year [1970]: at least 384,790." [E.M.]
1971
1971 - U.S. Involvement [2nd Decade] / Vietnam - January 1st, 1971: "The United States began a second decade of involvement in Vietnam."
1971 - Reduction / U.S. Cigarette Advertising - January 1st, 1971: "Advertising of cigarettes on U.S. television and radio ceases as the Public Health Cigarette Smoking Act goes into effect."
1971 - Outlawed / DDT, U.S.A. - January 7th, 1971: "DDT use outlawed by U.S. Court of Appeals."
1971 - Oil Spill / California - January 18th, 1971: "Two Standard Oil tankers collided in the fog a quarter mile west of the Golden Gate Bridge. The Arizona Standard ripped into the Oregon Standard and caused the spill of some 1.9 million gallons of heavy bunker oil."
1971 - Phnom Penh Bombing / Cambodia - January 22nd, 1971: "Communist forces shelled Phnom Penh, Cambodia for the first time."
1971 - Bloody Sunday / Ireland - January 30th, 1971: "Northern Ireland was spinning out of control. On 30 January 1971, the day embedded in Irish national consciousness as Bloody Sunday, 13 civil rights demonstrators were shot dead by British paratroopers. Weeks later, the government in London finally lost patience with Protestant supremacist government in Belfast, and imposed direct rule. William Whitelaw was dispatched to Belfast as the first Secretary of State, his bumbling exterior concealing a shrewd, even steely purpose. The Provisional IRA stepped up its killing rate: seven died in the bombing of Aldershot military bombings, the first Republican bombing in Britain since 1939. In July came Bloody Friday, when 11 innocent people were blown away by Provisional bombs in Belfast. Amid the mayhem, Whitelaw was starting to crack the political whip. A radical political package emerged, with a new Northern Ireland Assembly elected on proportional representation. Towards the end of 1973, the remarkable Sunningdale Agreement produced a blueprint for a new Ireland, with a power-sharing executive, and cooperation between north and south in a Council of Ireland."
1971 - Bombing / U.S. Capitol Building - March 1st, 1971: "The bombing in the U.S. Capitol building was claimed to be in protest of U.S. involvement in Laos. The bomb exploded in a Capitol restroom 30 minutes after a telephone warning, which proclaimed the action to protest against U.S. involvement in Laos. Some $200,000 in damage was caused by the bombing. There were no injuries."
1971 - U.S. Bombing / Cambodia & Laos - March 7th, 1971: "A thousand U.S. planes bombed Cambodia and Laos."
1971 - Casualty Statistics / Vietnamese Civilians - March 14th, 1971: "Senator Edward Kennedy estimated that 25,000 Vietnamese civilians had been killed in 1970."
1971 - 1st Microprocessor Chip - March, 1971: "Intel Corporation delivers the first microprocessor chip, the 4004, with 2300 transistors and the computing power of the ENIAC - it was designed by Marcian Edward Hoff [b. 1937], and is announced commercially in November."
1971 - V.A. Antiwar Demonstration / Washington D.C. - April 19th, 1971: "Over 1000 Veterans demonstrate against the Vietnam war in Wash D.C., throwing their medals over the Capitol fence."
1971 - Launched / Russian Space Station - April 19th, 1971: "Russia launched its first Salyut space station."
1971 - V.A. Antiwar Demonstration / Washington D.C. - April 23rd, 1971: "Vietnam veterans return medals and ribbons in antiwar protest."
1971 - V.A. Antiwar March / D.C. & San Francisco - April 24th, 1971: Over 350,000 Veterans march in Wash D.C. and SF to protest war in Vietnam."
1971 - "Algonquin Peace City" / Washington D.C. - April 26th, 1971: "50,000 demonstrators in Washington D.C. set up 'Algonquin Peace City.' "
1971 - May Day Anti-War Protests / Washington D.C. - May 3rd, 1971: "Anti-war protesters calling themselves the Mayday Tribe began four days of demonstrations in Washington aimed at shutting down the nation's capital."
1971 - Status / U.S. Involvement, Vietnam - May 31st, 1971: "A US proposal was made to the North Vietnamese that included a cease-fire-in-place, US withdrawal, and the return of prisoners. 58,167 Americans were killed in the Vietnam war."
1971 - OSHA - May, 1971: "The US Occupational Safety and Health Administration [OSHA] was born. The Occupational Safety and Health Act was passed to protect workers from on-the-job injuries and illnesses."
1971 - Reduced Biological Weapons Stockpile / U.S.A. - May 1971-February 1973: "United States destroys biological weapons stockpile."
1971 - Published / Pentagon Papers - June 13th, 1971: "The New York Times began to publish the Pentagon Papers leaked to it by Daniel Ellsberg. The papers were a secret official history of the Vietnam War in 47 volumes that were highly classified. The Nixon administration went to court to stop publication. A legal battle ensued for 16 days and the Supreme Court ruled 6-3 that the government failed to make its case for prior restraint and publication was resumed. In 1996 the book, 'The Day the Presses Stopped' by David Rudenstine, was published and tells the whole story."
1971 - Ratified / 26th U.S. Amendment - July 1st, 1971: "26th U.S. Constitutional amendment ['Voting age set to 18 years'] ratified." [Link: 1]
1971 - Fatality / Jim Morrison - July 3rd, 1971: "27-year-old rock singer Jim Morrison [b. 1943] of The Doors dies in Paris."
1971 - Status / U.S. Currency - August 15th, 1971: "President Nixon suspends the convertibility of U.S. dollars into gold, effectively ending the Bretton Woods system of fixed international currency exchange rates. Ever since 1971, when US president Richard Nixon took the dollar off the gold standard [at $35 per ounce] that had been agreed to at the Bretton Woods Conference at the end of World War II, the dollar has been a global monetary instrument that the United States, and only the United States, can produce by fiat. The dollar, now [2003] a fiat currency, is at a 16-year trade-weighted high despite record US current-account deficits and the status of the US as the leading debtor nation. The US national debt as of April 4, 2002 was $6.021 trillion against a gross domestic product [GDP] of $9 trillion."
1971 - U.S. Troop Withdraw / Vietnam - November 1971: "Nixon starts withdrawing troops from Vietnam."
1971 - Mars Orbiter / Mariner 9 - November 13th, 1971: " Mariner 9 becomes the first space probe to orbit another planet, Mars; after waiting out a global dust storm it takes 7329 revealing pictures of Mars' surface, including the polar caps and volcanoes." [Links: 1, 2]
1971 - Greenpeace / Vancouver, Canada - "Greenpeace founded [November 1971] in Vancouver, Canada."
1971 - Landing / Mars 3 - December 2nd, 1971: "Soviet Mars 3 spacecraft landed on Mars near TERRA SIRENUM."
1971 - Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act - December 18th, 1971: "On December 18, 1971, Public Law 92-203, the 'Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act,' was signed into law by President Nixon. Public Law 92-203 was enacted by Congress to settle the claim of Alaska's native Indian Aleut and Eskimo population to aboriginal title to the land on which they have lived for generations. This claim had been unresolved during the more than 100 years since the U.S. purchased Alaska from Russia in 1867. The Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act removed the sovereign status of Indian nations in Alaska by incorporating them into the United States. Approximately 44 million acres of Native American lands were turned into U.S. assets. The importance of this act is that the incorporation of Native American lands included the oil beneath and the timber on the top."
1971 - United Arab Emirates - "In 1971, the United Arab Emirates are formed by six states on the Persial Gulf coast - a seventh joins next year." [Link: 1]
1971 - Texas Clean Air Act - "When the Texas Clean Air Act of 1971 became law, more than 1,000 industrial facilities were 'grandfathered,' or exempted from the new pollution regulations. The idea was that these grandfathered plants would either modernize or become obsolete and close down. [....] Fully one-third of the state's air pollution - 903,800 tons a year by the end of the 1990's - was issuing from these grandfathered smokestacks. These plants emit as much nitrogen oxide as 18 million cars." [Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Crimes Against Nature, pp. 15-16]
1972
1972 - North Vietnamese Attacks - March 30th, 1972: "North Vietnamese forces launched the biggest attacks in 4 years across the demilitarized zone Mar. 30. The U.S. responded Apr. 15 by resumption of bombing of Hanoi and Haiphong after a 4-year lull." [Based on: The World Almanac and Book of Facts, 2005, p. 552]
1972 - Tel Aviv Suicide Attack - May, 1972: "The Middle East was in turmoil, and it sent shockwaves of violence around the world. Japanese far-left militants killed 25 people in a suicide attack on Tel Aviv airport in May 1972."
1972 - Signed / SALT I Treaty - May 26th, 1972: "President Richard Nixon and Soviet General Secretary Leonid Brezhnev sign the Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty (SALT 1), the first agreement to limit the number and type of nuclear weapons systems." [Based on: N.G.M., August 2005, p. 107]
1972 - Watergate Break-In - June 17th, 1972: "Five men are arrested in a break-in at the Democratic National Committee headquarters at the Watergate Hotel in Washington." [Based on: A.P. article, S.L.P.D., p. A6, 06/01/05]
1972 - Ground Combat End / Vietnam - June 17th, 1972: "U.S. ground combat in Vietnam ends."
1972 - Last U.S Combat Troops / Vietnam - August 11th, 1972: "Last U.S. combat troops left Vietnam Aug. 11." [Based on: The World Almanac and Book of Facts, 2005, p. 552]
1972 - Indictments / Watergate Break-In - September 15th, 1972: "Seven men, including two former White House aides, are indicted in Watergate break-in." [Based on: A.P. article, S.L.P.D., p. A6, 06/01/05]
1972 - U.S. Bombing Resumed / North Vietnam - December 18th, 1972: "Full-scale bombing of North Vietnam resumed after Paris peace negotiations reached an impasse Dec. 18." [Based on: The World Almanac and Book of Facts, 2005, p. 552]
1972 - Record Close / DJIA - November 14th, 1972: "The Dow Jones Industrial Average closed above 1,000 for the first time, Nov. 14." [Based on: The World Almanac and Book of Facts, 2005, p. 552]
1972 - Trivia / Sidney Gottlieb -
Sidney Gottlieb (August 3, 1918 – March 7, 1999) was an American chemist probably best-known for his involvement with the Central Intelligence Agency mind control program (MKULTRA).
Sidney was born in the Bronx under the name Joseph Schneider. He received a Ph.D. in chemistry from the California Institute of Technology. Despite the fact that he was a stutterer since childhood, Sidney got a master's degree in speech therapy. He also had a club foot, but this did not stop him from practicing folk dancing, a lifelong passion.
In 1951, Sidney Gottlieb joined the Central Intelligence Agency. As a poison expert, he headed the chemical division of the Technical Services Staff (TSS). Sidney became known as the "Black Sorcerer" and the "Dirty Trickster". He supervised preparations of lethal poisons and experiments in mind control.
[....]
In 1972 while still the head of the Technical Services Staff, shortly before retirement, Sidney Gottlieb allegedly destroyed most of the CIA files pertaining to him.
Sidney Gottlieb's passing on March 10, 1999 came at a convenient time for the CIA, as several new trials involving victims of its experiments were commencing.
[Based on: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sidney_Gottlieb]
1972 - Established / Biological Weapons Convention - "The Biological Weapons Convention was established. The treaty prohibited the research development and production of offensive biological weapons. The Soviet Union and the United States both ratified the treaty.
1973
1973 - Indictments Trivia / Watergate Break-In - January 11th-30th, 1973: "Five men plead guilty to conspiracy, burglary and wiretapping. Two stand trial and are convicted." [Based on: A.P. article, S.L.P.D., p. A6, 06/01/05]
1973 - U.S. Cease Fire / Vietnam - January 28th, 1973: "A cease-fire agreement that, in the words of Richard Nixon, 'brings peace with honor in Vietnam and Southeast Asia,' is signed in Paris by Henry Kissinger and Le Duc Tho. The agreement is to go into effect on January 28, 1973."
*Trivia: "United States, South and North Vietnam and National Liberation Front sign [01/27/1973] peace pact." [Based on: S.L.P.D., p. A5, 04/25/05]
1973 - Wounded Knee Siege - February 27, 1973: "When machine-gun-toting American Indian militants took over Wounded Knee in 1973, the eyes of the world focussed on the tiny Pine Ridge reservation villiage and the tense 71-day standoff with federal agents." [A.P., 02/01/04]
1973 - Last American Troops / Vietnam - March 29th, 1973: "Last American Troops Leave Vietnam."
1973 - Bombing Cessation / Cambodia - August 14th, 1973: "The Senate Armed Services Committee opens hearing on the US bombing of Cambodia. Allegations are made that the Nixon administration allowed bombing raids to be carried out during what was supposed to be a time when Cambodia's neutrality was officially recognized. As a result of the hearings, Congress orders that all bombing in Cambodia cease effective at midnight, August 14, 1973."
1973 - Yom Kippur War / Israel - "On October 6th, 1973, which was the Jewish holiday of Yom Kippur, the Egyptians and the Syrians launched a surprise attack against Israel. After a brief confrontation between the United States and the Soviet Union, a cease-fire went into effect on October 22nd, 1973."
1973 - Nuclear Weapons Assembly / Israel? - October 1973: "The U.S. goes on nuclear alert during the Arab-Israeli Yom Kippur War. Israel reportedly assembles nuclear weapons during the war." [Based on: N.G.M., August 2005, p. 107]
1973 - Trivia / Depleted Uranium Weapons - [....] The first DU weapons system was developed for the Navy in 1968, and DU weapons were given to and used by Israel in 1973 under U.S. supervision in the Yom Kippur war against the Arabs. [....]"
[Based on: http://www.sfbayview.com/081804/depleteduranium081804.shtml]
1973 - Watergate Trivia / The "Saturday Night Massacre" - October 20th, 1973: "Cox refuses to compromise on the tapes, and Nixon orders Attorney General Elliot Richardson to fire Cox. Richardson refuses and resigns in protest. Richardson's number two also refuses and resigns. Acting Attorney General Robert Bork fires Cox. This becomes known as the 'Saturday Night massacre.' " [Based on: A.P. article, S.L.P.D., p. A6, 06/01/05]
*Trivia: "The Supreme Court rules [07/24/1974] Nixon must hand over the tapes."
1973 - U.S. Premier / "The Exorcist" - December, 1968: "Entertainment highlights during the week of Dec. 26-Jan 1: 'The Exorcist,' a movie directed by William Friedkin and starring Linda Blair, premiered in theaters nationwide." [A.P., 12/27/04]
1973 - Trivia / U.S. Income Gap - "Over two decades, the income gap has increased steadily between the richest Americans, who own homes and stocks, and those at the middle or bottom of the pay scale, whose paychecks buy less. [....] The wealthiest 20 percent of households in 1973 accounted for 44 percent of total U.S. income, according to the Census Bureau. Their share jumped to 50 percent in 2002 while everyone else's fell. For the bottom fifth, the share dropped from 4.2 percent to 3.5 percent." [By Leigh Strope, A.P., 08/17/04]
1973 - Changing Images of Man - "In 1973 the United States government commissioned a report from SRI International entitled Changing Images of Man, edited by Willis W. Harman and O.W. Markley, which conclude that the spread of what it termed 'the new values' - spiritual and ecological awareness and self-reilisation movements - is become virtually unstoppable. This would bring about a transformation of society (particularly in the United States) that would radically undermine 'modern industrial-state culture and institutions' and result in 'serious social disruptions, economic decline, runaway inflation, and even institutional collapse'. This report anticipates a lessening of trust in authority and a reaction against a regimented, tightly controlled society. It also suggested ways of preventing this worst-case scenario by identifying existing institutions or traditions that could be used to control and contain the impetus of the new movement. Significantly, it recommended as one of the best solutions the tradition of Freemasonry. [....] What is particularly significant is that this report was produced by SRI International at the very time that they were heavily involved with the CIA and the US Defense Department. Imagine how it must have made alarm bells ring in the corridors of power, especially as it stressed that such a transformation of society was inevitable. The only recourse for those in positions of power and authority was for them to actively hijack the belief systems that underpinned this social unrest, moving it in whatever direction gave them the greatest advantage and retaining their control over the masses." [The Stargate Conspiracy, p. 318-319]
1973 - The Heritage Foundation - "Founded in 1973, The Heritage Foundation is a neo-conservative public policy research institute."
*Trivia: "From its inception, the Heritage Foundation urged its followers 'to strangle the environmental movement,' which it declared 'the greatest single threat to the American economy,' dismissing global warming , acid rain, and other environmental crises as 'henny pennyism.' Its prominence as the leading voice for pollution-based prosperity helped it attract enormous donations from the automobile, coal, oil, and chemical companies." [Robert F. Kennedt Jr., Crimes Against Nature, p. 24]
1973 - Biological Weapons Destruction / U.S.A. - "The entire United Sates arsenal of biological weapons is destroyed except for seed stocks held for research purposes."
1973 - Sky Lab / U.S.A. - "NASA 190,000-lb Skylab in Earth orbit made many astronomical observations and engineering experiments performed by three crews in visits as long as 85 days." [Link: 1]
1974
1974 - Mars Landing / Mars 5 - The Russian-made Mars 5 soft landed on Mars in March 1974."
1974 - Indian Nuclear Device Detonation / Rajasthan Desert - May 18th, 1974: "India detonates an underground nuclear device, called Smiling Buddha, in the Rajasthan desert." [Based on: N.G.M., August 2005, p. 107]
1974 - Articles of Impeachment / U.S. President Richard Nixon - July 27th-30th, 1974: "House Judiciary Committee approves three articles of impeachment: obstruction of justice, misuse of powers and violation of his oath of office, and failure to comply with House subpoenas." [Based on: A.P. article, S.L.P.D., p. A6, 06/01/05]
1974 - Resignation / Richard Nixon - August 9th, 1974: "The Watergate scandal reached its dramatic crescendo in August 1974, with the resignation of President Richard Nixon, the first American President to be brought low by the threat of impeachment. One of the first acts of his successor, the unelected Vice-president Gerald Ford, was to grant Nixon a full pardon [11/08/1974] for his role in Watergate."
1974 - Nixon Pardon / U.S. President Gerald R. Ford - September 8th, 1974: "President Gerald Ford pardons Nixon." [Based on: A.P. article, S.L.P.D., p. A6, 06/01/05]
1974 - NBC Debut / Little House on the Prairie - September 11th, 1974: "NBC television series premier: Little House on the Prairie." [Link: 1]
1974 - Revelation / MKSEARCH - December 1974: "In December 1974, The New York Times reported that the CIA had conducted illegal domestic activities, including experiments on U.S. citizens, during the 1960s. That report prompted investigations by both the U.S. Congress (in the form of the Church Committee) and a presidential commission (known as the Rockefeller Commission) into the domestic activities of the CIA, the FBI, and intelligence-related agencies of the military. In the summer of 1975, congressional hearings and the Rockefeller Commission report revealed to the public for the first time that the CIA and the DOD had conducted experiments on both cognizant and unwitting human subjects as part of an extensive program to influence and control human behavior through the use of psychoactive drugs such as LSD and mescaline and other chemical, biological, and psychological means. They also revealed that at least one subject had died after administration of LSD. [....]"
[Based on: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_MKULTRA#Origins]
1974 - Fighting / North & South Vietnam - December 13th, 1974: "Fighting erupts between North and South Vietnamese forces in Phuoc Long province." [Based on: S.L.P.D., p. A5, 04/25/05]
1974 - DU Weapons Testing / U.S.A. - [....] The first DU weapons system was developed for the Navy in 1968, and DU weapons were given to and used by Israel in 1973 under U.S. supervision in the Yom Kippur war against the Arabs. The Phalanx weapons system, using DU, was tested on the USS Bigelow out of Hunters Point Naval Shipyard in 1977, and DU weapons have been sold by the U.S. to 29 countries. Military research report summaries detail the testing of DU from 1974-1999 at military testing grounds, bombing and gunnery ranges and at civilian labs under contract. Today 42 states are contaminated with DU from manufacture, testing and deployment. [....] A Japanese professor, Dr. K. Yagasaki, has calculated that 800 tons of DU is the atomicity equivalent of 83,000 Nagasaki bombs. The U.S. has used more DU since 1991 than the atomicity equivalent of 400,000 Nagasaki bombs. Four nuclear wars indeed, and 10 times the amount of radiation released into the atmosphere from atmospheric testing! No wonder our soldiers, their families and the people of the Middle East, Yugoslavia and Central Asia are sick. But as Henry Kissinger said after Vietnam when our soldiers came home ill from Agent Orange, 'Military men are just dumb stupid animals to be used for foreign policy.' [....]"
[Based on: http://www.sfbayview.com/081804/depleteduranium081804.shtml]
1975
1975 - Trivia / U.S. Newspapers - "The days when most cities and even towns had several independently owned newspapers published by local people with close ties to the community are gone. Most of them were bought out or driven out of business by the mid-1970s. Today most 'local' newspapers are owned by a rather small number of large companies controlled by executives who live and work hundreds or even thousands of miles away." [Link: 1]
1975 - End / Vietnam War - April 29th-30th: "Remaining U.S. personnel and some South Vietnamese evacuated; North Vietnamese capture saigon. The Vietnam war ends." [Based on: S.L.P.D., p. A5, 04/25/05]
1975 - Mars Launch / Viking 1 - August 20th, 1975: "Mars Viking 1 launch." [Link: 1]
1975 - Revelation / MKSEARCH - Summer 1975: "In December 1974, The New York Times reported that the CIA had conducted illegal domestic activities, including experiments on U.S. citizens, during the 1960s. That report prompted investigations by both the U.S. Congress (in the form of the Church Committee) and a presidential commission (known as the Rockefeller Commission) into the domestic activities of the CIA, the FBI, and intelligence-related agencies of the military. In the summer of 1975, congressional hearings and the Rockefeller Commission report revealed to the public for the first time that the CIA and the DOD had conducted experiments on both cognizant and unwitting human subjects as part of an extensive program to influence and control human behavior through the use of psychoactive drugs such as LSD and mescaline and other chemical, biological, and psychological means. They also revealed that at least one subject had died after administration of LSD. [....]"
[Based on: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_MKULTRA#Origins]
1975 - Mars Launch / Viking 2 - September 9th, 1975: "Mars Viking 2 launch." [Link: 1]
1975 - Examples of Genocide / Cambodia - "A former Khmer Rouge leader acknowledged Tuesday [12/30/03] that there is 'no more doubt left' that his regime committed genocide, the first admission of the communist group's collective guilt. Khieu Samphan's surprising statement was made in an interview with The Associated Press. It is a major step in the long overdue effort to bring justice to those responsible for the deaths of 1.7 million Cambodians during the ultra-leftist group's 1975-1979 rule. [....] Until Tuesday [12/30/03] none of the Khmer Rouge's top leaders had publicly accepted that the government committed genocide." [A.P.]
*Trivia: "2 million Communist opposition, ethnic Vietnamese, Chinese and buddhist monks killed." [Based on: Reuters, World Almanac and KRT - St. Louis Post-Dispatch, p. A12, 06/26/05]
1975 - Civil War / Lebanon - 1975: "Civil War between Syrian-backed Muslims and Israeli-aligned Christians begins." [A.P., 02/15/05]
1970s - Intelligence Fraud? / "Lab 9" - "Writer Bruce rux says of the Puharich-Whitmore-Schlemmer set-up of the mid-1970s: 'Lab 9' shows all the hallmarks of being an intelligence fraud, one of numerous disinformation sources employed by that particular community.' " [Based on, The Stargate Conspiracy, by Lynn Picknett & Clive Prince, p. 220]
1976
1976 - Banned / PCB's, U.S.A. - "Congress banned PCBs as part of the 1976 Toxic Substances Control Act, or Superfund act."
1976 - FDA Approval / NAPROXEN - March 11th, 1976: "Approved by the FDA on this date in history: NAPROXEN (Brand name: Aleve)." [Based on: St. Louis Post-Dispatch, p. A6, 12/23/04]
1976 - Mars Landing / Viking 1 - July 20th, 1976: "Viking 1 spacecraft lands at CHRYSE PLANITIA, Mars."
1976 - Mars Landing / Viking 2 - September 3rd, 1976: "Viking 2 spacecraft lands at UTOPIA PLANITIA, Mars."
1976 - Founded / MSLF - "In 1976, Coors, owner of one of Colorado's biggest polluters, founded the Mountain States Legal Foundation (MSLF) to challenge environmental laws. The MSLF mimicked the work of public interest organizations like the Natural Resources Defense Council, which has been fighting frontline legal battles for the environmental movement since 1970. Funded by multi-national polluters such as Phillips Petroleum, Exxon, Texaco, Amoco, Shell, Ford Motor Company, and Chevron, the MSLF filed suits intended to block efforts by environmentalists, unions, minorities, and handicapped Americans that might cut into corporate profit taking." [Robert F. Kennedt Jr., Crimes Against Nature, p. 23]
1976 - Crafted? / "Model of 911 Terrorist Attack " -
"The laundry list of terrorist warnings handed to the Bush administration prior to 9/11 makes the president and others look like “bumbling idiots or a bunch of conniving criminals” responsible for the mass murders at the WTC twin towers, the Pentagon, Pennsylvania and in Afghanistan and Iraq. These are the harsh words of Timothy McNiven, an outspoken critic of the President’s handling of 9/11 and a 29-year U.S. Defense Department operative still under contract with the government. He says not only did the Bush administration purposely ignore Al Qaeda in the months preceding the 9/11 attacks, but the situation is even more disturbing, considering his military unit way back in 1976 devised a mock terrorist attack of the twin towers exactly like what occurred on 9/11. McNiven, who first went public in an affidavit included in a 9/11-related federal conspiracy (RICO) lawsuit filed against Bush and others in 2004, claims his unit was ordered to create the “perfect terrorist plan” using commercial airliners as weapons and the twin towers as their target. The publicized version of the study, commissioned by Congress, was to identify security lapses and submit corrective measures to lawmakers. However, McNiven claims the real purpose of the study was to brainstorm how to pull off the perfect terrorist attack using the exact same 9/11 scenario. The study, commissioned to C-Battery 2/81st Field Artillery, U.S. Army, stationed in Strasbourg, Germany in 1976, specifically devised the scenario of the twin towers being leveled by Middle Eastern terrorists using commercial airliners and even plastic box cutters to bypass security. To silence critics, McNiven has successfully passed a credible lie detector test regarding his participation in the study as well as other specific orders given to him by his superiors in case of a real attack on the twin towers. The head of the 1976 mock terrorist plan was Lt. Michael Teague of Long Island, who McNiven says was given specific orders by higher-ups in the military to use the twin towers as the terrorist target. McNiven said he has been unable to contact Teague, but was interested in his opinion now that “the 9/11 attacks happened the way we planned them in 1976.” “I remember Lt. Teague changed the scenario of the supposed study from a 100 story building to the twin towers,” recalled McNiven, emphasizing that Teague was acting on specific orders from unknown superiors. “He then said he thought it was very strange to be asked to devise a plan to blow up your own home town. But as I watched the twin towers really collapse on the morning of September 11, I realized I was watching the very same thing we devised in 1976.” Since that ominous realization, McNiven has devoted his life to alerting the American public about the similarities between 9/11 and the 1976 study, without much success, his story basically being ignored by politicians and the mainstream media. “Why am I doing this? Why have I spent every waking hour trying to bring this story to the American people?” asked McNiven. He claims he still is following a strange direct military order given to him more than 25 years ago. “During the course of the terrorist plan we were devising, I made the statement to Lt. Teague that if the WTC was ever attacked like we planned, I’d go public. I was then physically assaulted and told never to reveal anything we were doing regarding the twin towers.” However, about a week later, a strange turn of events occurred. For no apparent reason, McNiven claims, his superiors completely changed their minds. “I was given the direct order that if the twin towers were ever attacked the way we discussed in the 1976 study, I was to do everything in my power to bring the similarities to the attention of the American people. “I have no idea why they changed their minds, but I was then emphatically told that this order was never to be rescinded—never—because those who would rescind it, would be the very same people who turned against the American people.” Besides taking a lie detector to verify his story, McNiven has made public a detailed list of about 40 names of those individuals who took part in the mock terrorist plan, including Col. Robert Morrison, Maj. Joe Dipiero, Sgt. Middleton, Sgt. Arroyo and many others. “There were also people from the Defense Department and the CIA who were monitoring the study, but I wasn’t able to get their names,” he added. Some of McNiven’s most recent assignments with the Defense Department include work on the Northwest Drug Task Force and various other drug smuggling and weapons trafficking cases.
[Based on: article by Greg Szymanski] [Note: title, paragraph indents and spacing removed to save space - E.M.]
*Trivia:
A former U.S. Army corporal and Department of Defense (DOD) operative has received a number of death threats after releasing information that his military unit in 1976 was commissioned by Congress to create the perfect terrorist plan to level the WTC with airplanes and box cutters. Timothy McNiven, under contract with the DOD, claims the threats were transmitted by email and “snail mail” from unknown origins in what he calls an ongoing harassment campaign to keep him quiet about the government-sponsored “perfect terrorist plan,” almost identical to what happened on Sept. 11, 2001. McNiven, however, disregarded the threats, telling his story to AFP. His account first appeared in the March 21 issue. Besides personal threats, he also claims other members of his 1976 unit, including a man named Sgt. Riggs, were also threatened. Riggs and more than 100 of McNiven’s unit members have not come forward or spoken publicly about his accusations. “I am just one of the enlisted men who took part, but I can confirm it took place and our plan was just like what went down on 9-11,” said McNiven. “There were about 100 people from my unit involved and I am actively seeking help to find them. “Sgt. Riggs told me one day that he and others had their wives and children threatened by the U.S. government with retaliatory acts if they were to release their information to the media. But he said if I could break the censorship and get to the media first, he then would come forward and tell what he knows.” The study, commissioned to C-Battery 2/81st Field Artillery, U.S. Army, stationed in Strasbourg, Germany in 1976, specifically devised the scenario of the twin towers being leveled by Middle Eastern terrorists using commercial airliners and even plastic box cutters to bypass security. McNiven first went public with the hidden purpose behind the congressional study in an affidavit included in a 9-11-related federal conspiracy lawsuit filed against Bush and others in by Mrs. Ellen Mariani on Sept. 12, 2003. The publicized version of the study, commissioned by Congress, was to identify security lapses and submit corrective measures to lawmakers. However, McNiven claims the real purpose of the study was to brainstorm how to pull off the perfect terrorist attack using the same 9-11 scenario. To back up his story, McNiven passed a credible lie detector test, testified in a sworn affidavit contained in the federal 2003 RICO lawsuit filed against Bush and provided the names of the men in his 1976 unit. McNiven claims to have lost contact with the members of his unit, but he especially is interested in finding Lt. Michael Teague, the officer in charge of the unit who gave the specific orders to devise the mock 9-11 plan. “I remember Lt. Teague changed the scenario of the supposed study from a 100 story building to the twin towers,” said McNiven, emphasizing that Teague was acting on specific orders from unknown superiors. “He then said he thought it was very strange to be asked to devise a plan to blow up your own home town. But as I watched the twin towers really collapse on the morning of Sept. 11, I realized I was watching the very same thing we devised in 1976,” he said. McNiven said he was originally told by Teague “never to go public” about the contents of the details and findings of the mock terrorist plan. But later, for unknown reasons, Teague changed his mind, perhaps due to feelings of guilt, and gave him direct orders to go public if anything like 9-11 ever occurred in the future. “I was given the direct order, which I feel I am still under, that if the twin towers were ever attacked the way we discussed in the 1976 study, I was to do everything in my power to bring the similarities to the attention of the American people,” said McNiven. “I have no idea why they changed their minds, but I was then emphatically told that this order was never to be rescinded—never—because those who would rescind it, would be the very same people who turned against the American people.” Besides Teague and Riggs, he is hoping others in his unit will come forward with more details in order to verify his story. “I am willing to take additional polygraph exams to prove I am telling the truth until other participants in the study come forward,” added McNiven. Some of the other members of his unit, names provided by McNiven, include Col. Robert Morrison, Maj. Joe Dipiero, Sgt. Maj. McKay, Sgt. Middleton, Sgt. Arroyo, Sgt. Murray, Sgt. Edwards, Sgt. Broder, Sgt. Steadman, Sgt. Wolford, Sgt. Jackson, Sgt. Garza, Sgt. Meralas, Sgt. Taraza, Sgt. Spears, 1st Sgt. Ray, Sgt. Terry Henderson, Sgt. Barber, Cpl. Picket, Cpl. Wisner, Richard Seanz, Berni Domoski, George Cinch, Harry Waldren, Tom Kimber, Rick Lyons, Michael Hubbert, Dan Henderson, Martian Seals, Jake Asuit, Bruce Levine, Thomas Gumbs, Rick Bruns, Dennis Montoya, Phlash Richardson, Fetch, Bob Bender, Johnson, Drew Cousins and Terry Cook.
[Based on: AFP article by Greg Szymanski] [Note: title, paragraph indents and spacing removed to save space - E.M.]
1977
1977 - Trivia / Israeli Settlements - "By 1977 there were only 4,500 Israeli settlers in the West Bank [with another 50,000 in East Jerusalem]. But following election of the conservative Likud Party government that year, the settlement drive went into high gear. Among other initiatives to clear land for this purpose, the new Israeli government declared that established landowners unable to produce legal title [which most Palestinians in the West Bank did not possess] could have their holdings seized as state land. To encourage settlers to move from Israel or abroad to the settlements, successive Israeli governments offered generous subsidies, such as tax breaks and cut-rate mortgages. Even for those not drawn by visions of occupying the biblical land of Israel, these were attractive inducements. Living in cheap commodious housing, inhabitants of the larger settlement blocs close to the Green Line could enjoy a comfortable suburban lifestyle within an easy commute to jobs inside Israel itself." [N.G.M. / October 2002]
1977 - Fatality / Elvis Presley - August 16th, 1977: "Reportedly died this date [08/16/77] in history: Rock Legend: Elvis Presley."
1977 - Launched / Voyager 2 - August 20th, 1977: "The U.S. spacecraft Voyager 2 is launched." [Link: 1]
1977 - Launched / Voyager 1 - September 5th, 1977: "The U.S. spacecraft Voyager 1 is launched." [Link: 1]
1977 - Trivia / Andrija Puharich - "The Washington Post reported in 1977 that Puharich also worked in the Army's Chemical and Biological Warfare Center at Fort Detrick, Maryland, and has 'lectured the Army, Air Force and Navy on possibilities for mind warfare. Expert in hypnotism as well as microelectronics.' " [Alex Constantine, Virtual Government, p. 11-12]
1977 - World Smallpox Cases / Zero - "There has not been a natural case of smallpox in the world since 1977." [A.P., 8/18/03]
1978
1978 - 1st Test Tube baby - July, 1978: "The world's first test tube baby, Louise Brown, was born in Britain in July 1978."
1978 - Riots / Iran - "During 1978 and '79, there were increasing riots in the cities of Iran against the Shah. The Ayatollah, sensing his time to return was near, was now living in Paris. He issued a proclamation calling for the overthrow of the Shah and the hated Pahlavi regime." [Links: 1]
1978 - Camp David I - "At Camp David, Maryland, U.S. President Jimmy Carter brought together Egyptian President Anwar Sadat and Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin to forge the first peace talks treaty ever between Arabs and Israelis. In return for peace with Egypt [including full political and economic ties] Israel agreed to return the Sinai and remove its settlements there. Sadat was under pressure to advance the Palestinian cause in this negotiation, but in the end Camp David sidestepped the issue." [N.G.M./October/2002]
1978 - USSR Coup / Afghanistan - "Afghanistan is a rich tapestry of many different peoples living relatively isolated, deep in the highlands of Central Asia. In the 1960s, the U.S. power structure considered Afghanistan as a 'buffer state' between the Soviet Union to the north and the strategically important U.S.-backed states of Iran and Pakistan to the south. The overwhelming majority of the population of 18 million lived as impoverished farmers in the extremely backward countryside - dominated by large landowners and the heads of feudal clans. But then, at the end of 1970s, the intensifying global rivalry between the U.S. and USSR brought bitter warfare to Afghanistan.
"In 1978, bureaucrat-capitalist forces allied with the Soviet imperialists staged a coup and took over Afghanistan's weak central government in Kabul. Resistance to the Kabul regime developed among a wide range of forces who were hostile to each other - from Maoists, who opposed Soviet domination, to traditional patriarchal clans who were in an uproar over girls going to school. And in 1979, the Soviet army invaded to prop up their local allies.
"Zbigniew Brzezinski, national security adviser to former U.S. President Jimmy Carter said: 'Literally the day after the Soviet action in Kabul, I wrote a memo to the president in which the key sentence was: We now have the opportunity to give the Soviet Union its Vietnam.' According to Charles Cogan, the former CIA station chief for this area, U.S. arms were arriving at the scene within 13 days of the Soviet invasion.
"The U.S.-Soviet rivalry produced a war that would tear Afghanistan apart. More than one million Afghani people were killed and one-third of the population fled into refugee camps. Tens of thousands of Soviet soldiers died in the war. Twenty years later, the fighting in Afghanistan has still not ended." [Link: 1]1979
1979 - Revolution / Iran - "On January 16, 1979, riddled with cancer, the Shah, his wife and family and a small group of supporters, boarded the Royal Iranian Boeing 707 and left Iran. He hoped that he could find refuge in the United States. President Jimmy Carter made it clear that he was not welcome. The Shah was reduced to travelling from country to country. He found temporary homes in Egypt, Morocco, the Bahamas, Panama and Mexico. Ayatollah Khomeini returned and became the leader of Iran. The immediate impact was that the United States lost access to Iranian oil. A $7 billion arms deal that the United States had signed with Iran was cancelled, and on February 14, 1979, the Ayatollah's revolutionary forces overran the American Embassy in Tehran. The United States announced the withdrawal of all American personnel from Iran." [Links: 1]
1979 - Partial Meltdown / Three Mile Island - March 28th, 1979: "The United States came close to nuclear catastrophe when one of the reactors at the Three Mile Island power station in Pennsylvania had a partial meltdown. Technicians intervened quickly to forestall an explosion, but arguments rage still about what happened and what the consequences really were."
1979 - Hostage Crisis / Iran - November 4th, 1979: "Although the United States had no intention of helping the return of the Shah to power, in October 22, 1979, they did allow the Shah to enter the United States for medical reasons. The Iranians saw this as an indication that the United States still supported their old friend the Shah. On November 4, 1979, 3,000 Iranian students stormed the American Embassy and took the 66 Americans who were inside hostage. Blacks and women hostages were released. The students justified this because they felt that Blacks had suffered from oppression in the United States and that they did not wage war against women." [Links: 1]
1979 - U.S. Nuclear Missles / Europe - December 12th 1979: "NATO approves the deployment in Europe of middle-range U.S. nuclear missles." [Sources: NATO, The Associated Press, the World Book, the Encyclopedia Britannica]
1979 - Founded / P.I.J. - "Palestinian Islamic Jihad, founded in 1979, is a small group devoted exclusively to terrorist activities. It is headquartered in Syria and receives much of its funding from Iran."
1979 - Soviet Afghanistan - "Turmoil in Iran caused a good deal of international nervousness. But at the end of 1979 events there were overshadowed by an even mightier upheaval in next-door Afghanistan. Two years earlier, communists had seized power in the capital, Kabul, and had spent much of the time since fighting each other as well as a rabble of disparate anti-communist rebels. The Soviet Union, still led by the doddering dogmatist Leonid Brezhnev, had the deluded notion that it could impose peace and marxist orthodoxy, by brute military force. In the last week of the year, the Soviet army flooded over the Oxus to aid the new puppet government in Kabul. Instead, Moscow's intervention led to its own humiliation, and the utter destruction of Afghanistan as a recognisable country. Ten years and one million dead later, the war became one of the key factors in the implosion of the Soviet empire."
1970s - Founded / Force 17 - "Started in the 1970's, Yasser Arafat's personal bodyguard was initially responsible for mortar attacks on Israeli settlements in the Gaza Strip and on Israeli civilian towns and kibbutzim in the Negev. Force 17 was established during the years of the PLO presence in Lebanon; its name was taken from the last two digits of its Beirut telephone number. Security force for Arafat, other PLO leaders, Palastinian Authority; Israel says it has attacked Jewish settelers."
1979 - Gold & Silver Prices / U.S.A. - "[....] In 1979, almost overnight gold and silver prices soared as the Hunt brothers heavily invested. The result was people everywhere poring through drawyers and closets to sell coins, silverware, jewelry or virtually anything else at prices exceeding $50 an ounce for silver and $850 an ounce for gold. As with any other fad, it didn't last. In less than a year, prices plunged. After that, precious metals fell out of favor for many years. Since 2000, silver has climbed from $4 an ounce to more than $7. Gold increased from $280 to upward of $440. And platinum has more than doubled from around $400 an ounce to more than $900 last week [Sept. 2005]. [....]" [Based on: article by Peter Rexford, p. D3, S.L.P.D., 09/19/05]
1979 - Trivia / Kennedy Assassination - "[....] A 1979 report by the House Select Committee on Assassinations concluded Oswald probably did not act alone. [....]" [Based on: A.P. article, p. A4, S.L.P.D., 11/22/05]
*Trivia: "The Warren Commission released a Sept. 27 [1964] report concluding that Lee Harvey Oswald was solely responsible for the Kennedy assassination." [Based on: The World Almanac and Book of Facts, 2005, p. 551]
1970s - Gained Momentum / Islamic Jihad - "Islamic Jihad means 'Islamic Holy War'. It is a name used by many disparate groups throughout the Arab world, some of which have been designated as foreign terrorist organizations by the State Department. The first Jihad movement was founded in Egypt in the 1960s, but with the Iranian revolution in the late 1970s, the movement gained momentum. The groups' goal is to conquer secular Arab governments and replace them with a fundamentalist Islamic one. They see the destruction of Israel as the first step toward that goal."
1979 - Jewish Bombing Attempt / Dome of the Rock, Jerusalem - "In 1979 the Jewish underground attempted to blow up the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem, but failed."
1970s - Scientists First Raised Concern? / Trans Fat, U.S.A. - "[....] The $500 billion food processing industry has long defended trans fat, starting in the 1970s when scientists first raised concerns. But with the new labeling requirement looming [2005] and lawmakers searching for ways to hold food companies responsible for their customer' health, getting rid of it has become an obsession. [....]" [New York Times, 02/13/05]
1979 - Interview / "Priori of Zion" Spokesman, Pierre Plantard - 1979: "According to the NBC program: Secrets Of The Code [that dealt with the subject of The Da Vinci Code, 7pm CST, 04/13/05], a person named Pierre Plantard [d. 2000] was interviewed in 1979. In that interview, Plantard claimed that 'The Priori of Zion' still exists, and that he was a member." [E.M.] See: related links -
http://www.priory-of-sion.com/
http://www.magpienest.org/feathersofhope/archives/2003/11/23/sangreal.html
Page last updated 01/22/11