NB: 1968 saw world shaking events. This book by Mark Kurlansky will tell you more. There’s a brief timeline below. This is an analytical article I posted last year: May 1968 – March 2023! Those interested can find audio-visuals of these events on the Net. White Bird was one of the most popular songs amongst young people agitating against the Vietnam war in the western world; and We Won’t Get Fooled Again. In India we loved to sing Woh subah kabhi to aaayegi; and Jinhen Naaz Hai Hind Par. DS
DO NOT ADJUST YOUR MIND ! THERE IS A FAULT WITH REALITY: Slogan on the walls of Paris, May 1968
JANUARY
January 5: Prague Spring: Alexander Dubček chosen leader of the Communist Party in Czechoslovakia.
January 21: Battle of Khe Sanh: One of the most publicized battles of the war begins, ending on April 8.
January 30: Vietnam War: Tet Offensive: Viet Cong launch surprise attacks across South Vietnam.
January 31: Việt Cộng soldiers attack the US Embassy, Saigon
FEBRUARY
February 1 – Vietnam War: A Viet Cong officer is photographed being executed by the South Vietnamese National Police Chief. The photo wins the 1969 Pulitzer Prize, and sways U.S. opinion against the war
February 12 – Vietnam War: Phong Nhị and Phong Nhất massacre.
February 13 – Civil rights disturbances at the Universitys of Wisconsin–Madison and North Carolina
February 19: Florida Education Association (FEA) initiates a mass resignation of teachers to protest state inadequate state funding of education. This is the first state-wide teachers’ strike in the United States.
February 24 – Vietnam War: The Tet Offensive is halted; South Vietnam recaptures Huế.
February 25 – Vietnam War: Hà My massacre.
MARCH
March 7 – Vietnam War: The First Battle of Saigon ends.
March 8 – The first student protests spark the 1968 Polish political crisis
March 16: Vietnam War – My Lai Massacre: American troops kill scores of civilians. The story became public in November 1969 and help undermined public support for the U.S. efforts in Vietnam
March 17 – A London demonstration against the Vietnam War leads to violence; 91 injured, 200 arrested
March 19–March 23: Students at Howard University in Washington, D.C., signal a new era of militant student activism in the U.S.; with rallies and a 5-day sit-in, laying siege to the administration building, shutting the university in protest over its Reserve Officers Training Program and the Vietnam War
March 22 – Daniel Cohn-Bendit (‘Danny the Red’) and 7 other students occupy the offices of the University of Nanterre, starting a chain of events that lead France to the brink of revolution in May.
March 28 – Brazilian high school student Edson Luís de Lima Souto is shot by police in a protest for cheaper meals for low-income students. The beginning of resistance against the military dictatorship
APRIL
April 4: Martin Luther King Jr. shot dead in Memphis, Tennessee. Riots in major American cities.
Apollo 6 is launched, as the second and last unmanned test-flight of the Saturn V launch vehicle
April 6: A shootout between Black Panthers and Oakland police results in several arrests and deaths
April 11: Attempt to assassinate Rudi Dutschke, leader of the left-wing (APO) in Germany. Dutschke dies of his brain injuries 11 years later. German left-wing students blockade the Springer Press HQ in Berlin
U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson signs the Civil Rights Act of 1968
April 23 to April 30: Vietnam War – Columbia University students in New York shut down the university
MAY
May 2 – Administration shuts down Nanterre (Paris) University; protest at Sorbonne (Paris) May3;
May 6; mass protest strike of students and teachers, 20,000 strong march. Tear gassing, rioting barricades; support by high school students. May 7 – school and university students, teachers and workers demand that: charges against students be dropped, police leave campuses and Nanterre and Sorbonne be reopened
May 10, mass demonstrations, police aggression, rioting, barricades
May 13 –One million march through the streets of Paris. Over 400 popular action committees emerge in Paris and elsewhere to take up grievances against the government, including the Sorbonne Occupation Committee. A sit-down strike at the Sud Aviation plant near Nantes on May 14; leads to strikes at Renault factories all over France. Workers occupy fifty factories by May 16. 200,000 workers are on strike by May 17; 2 million on May 18; and 10 million, roughly two-thirds of the workforce, the following week.
May 29 – Gen De Gaulle flees the country, to French military base in Germany
May 30 – 4 to 5 lac strong demo in Paris wishes farewell to De Gaulle
May 17 – The Catonsville Nine (including the Jesuit Berrigan brothers) enter the Selective Service offices in Catonsville, Maryland, and burn dozens of selective service draft records to protest the Vietnam War.
JUNE
June 5 – U.S. presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy is shot at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles
June 17 – The Malayan Communist Party launches a second insurgency and emergency is proclaimed
JULY
July 17 – Saddam Hussein becomes Vice Chairman of Iraq’s the Revolutionary Council after a coup
July 23–July 28 – Black militants led by Fred Evans engage in a gunfight with police in Cleveland, Ohio
July 26 – Vietnam War: South Vietnamese opposition leader Trương Đình Dzu is sentenced to 5 years hard labour, for advocating the formation of a coalition government as a way to end to the war.
AUGUST
August 5–August 8 – The Republican National Convention nominates Richard Nixon for U.S. President
August 20–August 21 – The Prague Spring ends. 750,000 Warsaw Pact troops, 6,500 tanks, 800 planes invade Czechoslovakia in the biggest operation in Europe since 1945
August 24 – France explodes its first hydrogen bomb.
August 22–August 30 – Police clash with anti-war protesters in Chicago outside the 1968 Democratic National Convention, which nominates Hubert Humphrey for President
SEPTEMBER
September 7 – 150 members of New York Radical Women arrive in Atlantic City, New Jersey to protest against the Miss America Pageant. Women’s Liberation begins to gather much media attention.
September 21 – The Soviet’s Zond 5 unmanned lunar flyby mission returns to earth
September 23 – Vietnam War: The Tet Offensive comes to an end in South Vietnam
September 29 – A referendum in Greece gives more power to the military junta.
OCTOBER
October 2 –A student demonstration ends in bloodbath at La Plaza de las Tres Culturas in Tlatelolco, Mexico City; ten days before the 1968 Summer Olympics. 300-400 estimated killed.
October 5 – Police attack on demonstrators in Derry, Northern Ireland, marks the start of The Troubles
October 8 – Operation Sealords: US and South Vietnamese forces launch operation in the Mekong Delta
October 11 – Apollo 7, the first manned Apollo mission. First live TV broadcast from orbit
October 12–October 27 – The XIX Olympiad is held in Mexico City, Mexico
October 14 –The US Department of Defense announces 24,000 troops due for involuntary second tours
October 16 – In Mexico City, African-American athletes Tommie Smith & John Carlos make a black power salute after winning the gold and bronze medals in the Olympic men’s 200 metres
October 31 – Vietnam War: President Johnson announces a cessation of bombardment of North Vietnam.
NOVEMBER
November 5: U.S. presidential election. Republican Nixon defeats Vice President Hubert Humphrey
November 11 – Vietnam War: Operation Commando Hunt is initiated to stop the flow of men and supplies on the Ho Chi Minh trail, through Laos into South Vietnam. By the end of the operation, 3 million tons of bombs are dropped on Laos, slowing but not seriously disrupting trail operations.
November 27–30 – First National Women’s Liberation Conference in Lake Villa, Illinois.
DECEMBER
December 24 – Apollo 8 enters orbit around the Moon. Astronauts Borman, Lovell and Anders become the first humans to see the far side of the Moon and Earth as a whole. Anders photographs Earthrise.
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In 1968, protests forced Columbia University to change graduation. Here’s what happened next
May 1968 was a revolution. Now the violence is just frightening: Daniel Cohn-Bendit
Celeste – Hear My Voice: from The Trial of the Chicago 7
In Gaza Protest, Columbia Students Occupy Hamilton Hall, Site of Historic 1968 Takeover
I’ve Covered Violent Crackdowns on Protests for 15 Years. This Police Overreaction Was Unhinged
Large police presence at UCLA as protests disrupt colleges nationwide
After the truth-shower 