1969

Richard M. Nixon
1969-1974

New in 1969

Rubella vaccine.
Jumbo jet (Boeing 747).
Nobel Prize for economics.
Female undergraduates at Yale.

1969 Deaths

Dwight D. Eisenhower
Judy Garland
Ho Chi Minh
Boris Karloff
Joseph Kennedy
Rocky Marciano

1969 Births

Bobby Brown
Steffi Graf

1969 Notes

Phillip Morris purchases Miller Brewing for estimated $250 million.

Work begins on Alyeska pipeline in Alaska.

First draft lottery held.

U.S. bans production of all chemical and biological warfare agents.

Muscle Cars

1969 Chevy Camaro SS

On July 21, 1969 American astronaut Neil Armstrong stepped down from the Apollo 11 landing craft and onto the surface of the moon. President John Kennedy's 1961 pledge to put a man on the moon by the end of the decade was realized. "That's one small step for man," Armstrong immortally summed up for hundreds of millions of TV viewers back on earth, "one giant leap for mankind."

Colonel Edwin "Buzz" Aldrin, Jr., joined Armstrong 19 minutes later and, the two lunar pioneers planted a U.S. flag. They also left behind a plaque with the inscription, "We came in peace for all mankind."

In all, they spent 21 1/2 hours on the moon before returning to the orbiting Apollo 11 command ship, Columbia, piloted by Lieutenant Colonel Michael Collins.

Peace Plan

Soon after Nixon entered the White House, the secret plan for peace in Vietnam that he'd made a centerpiece of his electoral campaign became clear: Withdraw troops and expand bombing.

Nixon predicted "peace with honor" within three years. North Vietnam's leaders were unimpressed, however; for a second year, peace talks in Paris went nowhere.

In August 1969, police officers began investigating the grisly murder of actress Sharon Tate, wife of director Roman Polanski, and four friends at her Los Angeles home. The five victims had sustained numerous gunshot and more than 50 stab wounds. Tate had been eight months pregnant. In December, another multiple slaying- of Leno and Rosemary LaBianca- was connected to the Tate murders.

The culprit was Charles Manson, a failed songwriter who had spent most of his life in jail. Manson and his "family", mostly female youth who became his groupies, came to represent the nightmarish side of the hippie movement.

Manson and five of his cohorts- two men and three women- were sentenced to death; when California ended capital punishment in 1972, the sentences were commuted to life.

End Of An Era

After 148 years, The Saturday Evening Post stopped publishing in 1969. The politically Republican weekly was made famous for its Norman Rockwell cover illustrations.