From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
1969 (MCMLXIX) was a common year starting on Wednesday (the link is to a full 1969 calendar).
- For the film, see 1969 (movie). For numbers, see Number 1969.
- For the live album, see 1969: The Velvet Underground Live.
- For the Stargate SG-1 episode, see 1969 (Stargate SG-1).
[edit] Events
[edit] January
- January 1 - Australian media baron Rupert Murdoch purchases the largest selling British Sunday newspaper The News Of The World.
- January 5 - The Derry Riots leave over 100 people injured.
- January 5 - The Soviet Union launches Venera 5 toward Venus.
- January 9 - In D.C., the Smithsonian displays art of Winslow Homer six weeks.
- January 10 - After 147 years, the last issue of The Saturday Evening Post is published.
- January 10 - The Soviet Union launches Venera 6 toward Venus.
- January 12 - Super Bowl III: the New York Jets defeat the Baltimore Colts.
- January 12 - Led Zeppelin releases their first album, Led Zeppelin.
- January 14 - An explosion aboard the USS Enterprise near Hawaii kills 27 and injures 314.
- January 15 - The Soviet Union launches Soyuz 5.
- January 16 - Ten paintings are defaced in New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art.
- January 16 - Student Jan Palach sets himself on fire in Prague's Wenceslas Square to protest the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia; 3 days later he dies.
- January 20 - Richard Nixon succeeds Lyndon Johnson as the 37th President of the United States of America.
- January 24 - Martial law is declared in Madrid, the University is closed and over 300 students are arrested.
- January 27 - Fourteen men, 9 of them Jews, are executed in Baghdad for spying for Israel.
- January 27 - Reverend Ian Paisley, hardline Protestant leader in Northern Ireland, is jailed for 3 months for illegal assembly.
- January 27 - The present-day Hetch Hetchy Moccasin Powerhouse, rated at 100,000 KVA, is completed and placed in operation.
- January 30 - The Beatles give their last public performance, on the roof of Apple Records. The impromptu concert is broken up by the police.
[edit] February
- March 2 - In Toulouse, France the first Concorde test flight is conducted.
- March 2 - Soviet and Chinese forces clash at a border outpost on the Ussuri River.
- March 3 - In a Los Angeles, California court, Sirhan Sirhan admits that he killed presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy.
- March 3 - Apollo program: NASA launches Apollo 9 (James McDivitt, David Scott, Rusty Schweickart) to test the lunar module.
- March 10 - In Memphis, Tennessee, James Earl Ray pleads guilty to assassinating Martin Luther King Jr. (he later retracts his guilty plea).
- March 13 - Apollo program: Apollo 9 returns safely to Earth after testing the Lunar Module.
- March 17 - The Longhope, Orkney lifeboat in Scotland is lost; the entire crew of 8 die.
- March 17 - Golda Meir becomes the prime minister of Israel.
- March 18 - Operation Breakfast, the secret bombing of Cambodia, begins.
- March 19 - British paratroopers and Marines land on the island of Anguilla.
- March 19 - A 385 metre tall TV-mast at Emley Moor, UK, collapses because of icing.
- March 25 - John Lennon and Yoko Ono marry in Gibraltar.
- March 28 - General and 34th U.S. President, Dwight D. Eisenhower, dies after a long illness in the Walter Reed Army Medical Center, Washington, D.C..
- May 10 - Zip to Zap, a harbinger of the Woodstock Concert, ends with the dispersal and eviction of youth and young adults at Zap, North Dakota by the National Guard.
- May 10 - The Battle of Dong Ap Bia, also known as Hamburger Hill, begins during the Vietnam War.
- May 13 - May 13th Incident: Race riots occur in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.
- May 14 - Colonel Muammar al-Gaddafi visits Mecca, Saudi Arabia.
- May 16 - Venera program: Venera 5, a Soviet spaceprobe, lands on Venus.
- May 17 - Venera program: Soviet probe Venera 6 begins to descend into Venus' atmosphere, sending back atmospheric data before being crushed by pressure.
- May 17 - Tom McClean completes the first solo transatlantic crossing in a rowboat.
- May 18 - Apollo program: Apollo 10 (Tom Stafford, Gene Cernan, John Young) is launched, on the first full dress-rehearsal for the Moon landing.
- May 19-May 20 - French Foreign Legion paratroopers land onto Kolwezi, Zaire, to rescue Europeans in a middle of a civil war.
- May 20 - United States National Guard helicopters spray skin-stinging powder on anti-war protesters in California.
- May 22 - Apollo program: Apollo 10's lunar module flies to within 15,400 m of the Moon's surface.
- May 26 - Apollo program: Apollo 10 returns to Earth, after a successful 8-day test of all the components needed for the upcoming first manned Moon landing.
- May 26-June 2: John Lennon and Yoko Ono conduct their Bed-In at the Queen Elizabeth Hotel in Montreal, Quebec.
- May 29 - Guided tours begin at the Kremlin and other government sites in Moscow.
- May 30 - Riots in Curaçao mark the start of an Afro-Caribbean civil rights movement on the island.
- June 1 - In Montreal, Canada, Give Peace a Chance is recorded in a famous bed-in for peace by John Lennon. The song is the first single recorded solo by a Beatle, and released under the name Plastic Ono Band, it is still a strong anthem for peace.
- June 2 - In Ottawa, Canada, the National Arts Centre opens its doors to the public for the first time.
- June 2 - The Australian aircraft carrier Melbourne collides with the U.S. destroyer Frank E. Evans in the South China Sea; 74 U.S. sailors are killed.
- June 8 - After CBS cancels the program, the last Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour airs.
- June 8 - U.S. President Nixon and South Vietnamese President Nguyen Van Thieu meet at Midway Island. Nixon announces that 25,000 U.S. troops will be withdrawn by September.
- June 15 - Hee Haw debuts on CBS.
- June 18-June 22 - The National Convention of the Students for a Democratic Society, held in Chicago, collapses, and the Weatherman faction seizes control of the SDS National Office. Thereafter, any activity run from the National Office or bearing the name of SDS is Weatherman-controlled.
- June 20 - Georges Pompidou is elected President of France.
- June 21 - Soviet musicologist Pavel Apostolov dies during the general rehearsal of Shostakovich's Fourteenth Symphony.
- June 23 - Warren E. Burger is sworn in as Chief Justice of the United States by retiring chief Earl Warren.
- June 24 - The United Kingdom and Rhodesia sever diplomatic ties.
- June 28 - The Stonewall riots in New York City mark the start of the modern gay rights movement in the U.S.
- July 1 - Charles, Prince of Wales, is invested with his title at Caernarfon.
- July 5 - Tom Mboya, Kenyan Minister of Development, is assassinated.
- July 7 - French is made equal to English throughout the Canadian national government.
- July 8 - Vietnam War: The very first U.S. troop withdrawals are made.
- July 10 - The trimaran Teignmouth Electron of Donald Crowhurst is found drifting and unoccupied; Crowhurst might have committed suicide.
- July 14 - The film Easy Rider premieres.
- July 14 - Football War: After Honduras loses a soccer game against El Salvador, rioting breaks out in Honduras against Salvadoran migrant workers. Of the 300,000 Salvadorean workers in Honduras, tens of thousands are expelled, prompting a brief Salvadoran invasion of Honduras. The OAS works out a cease-fire on July 18, which takes effect on July 20.
- July 16 - Apollo program: Apollo 11 (Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin, Michael Collins) lifts off toward the first landing on the Moon.
- July 18 - Edward M. Kennedy drives off a bridge on his way home from a party on Chappaquiddick Island, Massachusetts. Mary Jo Kopechne, a former campaign aide to his brother who was in the car with him, dies in the incident.
- July 19 - Gloria Diaz wins the Miss Universe pageant, with the Philippines receiving its first title.
- July 20 - Project Apollo: First man on the moon. The human race, represented by Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin, lands on the Moon.
- July 24 - The Apollo 11 astronauts return from the first successful Moon landing, and are placed in biological isolation for several days, on the chance they may have brought back lunar germs. The airless lunar environment is later determined to preclude microscopic life.
- July 25 - Vietnam War: U.S. President Richard Nixon declares the Nixon Doctrine, stating that the United States now expects its Asian allies to take care of their own military defense. This starts the "Vietnamization" of the war.
- July 30 - Vietnam War: U.S. President Richard M. Nixon makes an unscheduled visit to South Vietnam, meeting with President Nguyen Van Thieu and U.S. military commanders.
- July 31 - The halfpenny ceases to be legal tender in the UK.
[edit] August
- August 4 - Vietnam War: At the apartment of French intermediary Jean Sainteny in Paris, U.S. representative Henry Kissinger and North Vietnamese representative Xuan Thuy begin secret peace negotiations. They eventually fail since both sides cannot agree to any terms.
- August 5 - Mariner program: Mariner 7 makes its closest fly-by of Mars (3,524 kilometers).
- August 8 - A fire breaks out in the Bannerman's Castle in the Hudson River; most of the roof collapses and crashes down to the lower levels.
- August 9 - Members of a cult led by Charles Manson murder Sharon Tate, (who was 8 months pregnant), and her friends Abigail Folger, Wojciech Frykowski, and Jay Sebring at Tate and husband Roman Polanski's home in Los Angeles, California. Steven Parent, leaving from a visit to the Polanskis' caretaker, is also killed. More than 100 stab wounds are found on the victims, except for Parent, who had been shot almost as soon as the Manson Family entered the property.
- August 10 - The Manson Family kills Leno and Rosemary LaBianca, wealthy businesspeople who live in another section of Los Angeles.
- August 12 - Jack Lynch, Taoiseach of the Republic of Ireland, makes a speech to the United Nations, in which he asks them to deploy a peace-keeping mission in Northern Ireland.
- August 13 - Serious border clashes occur between the Soviet Union and the People's Republic of China.
- August 14 - British troops are deployed in Northern Ireland.
- August 15-August 18 - The Woodstock Festival is held in upstate New York, featuring some of the top rock musicians of the era.
- August 17 - Category 5 Hurricane Camille hits the Mississippi coast, killing 248 people and causing US$1.5 billion in damage (1969 dollars).
- August 21 - An Australian, Michael Dennis Rohan, set the Al-Aqsa Mosque on fire.
- August 31 - Former Heavyweight Champion Rocky Marciano is killed in a plane crash.
[edit] September
- September 1 - A coup in Libya ousts King Idris, and brings Colonel Muammar al-Gaddafi to power.
- September 2 - The first automatic teller machine in the United States is installed in Rockville Centre, New York.
- September 5 - My Lai Massacre: Lieutenant William Calley is charged with 6 counts of premeditated murder, for the deaths of 109 Vietnamese civilians in My Lai.
- September 7 - Monty Python's Flying Circus airs its first episode on the BBC.
- September 9 - Allegheny Airlines Flight 853 DC-9 collides in flight with a Piper PA-28, and crashes near Fairland, Indiana USA.
- September 22 - September 25 An Islamic conference in Rabat, Morocco, following the al-Aqsa Mosque fire (August 21), condemns the Israeli occupation of Jerusalem.
- September 24 - The "Chicago Eight" trial begins in Chicago, Illinois.
- September 26 - The Beatles release what will be their final album (Abbey Road) recorded together.
- September 26 - The pilot episode of The Brady Bunch, starring Robert Reed and Florence Henderson, airs on United States TV.
- September 28 - The Social Democrats and the Free Democrats receive a majority of votes in the German parliamentary elections, and decide to form a common government.
[edit] October
[edit] November
- November - ARPANET, the predecessor of the Internet, is created.
- November 3 - Vietnam War: U.S. President Richard M. Nixon addresses the nation on television and radio, asking the "silent majority" to join him in solidarity with the Vietnam War effort, and to support his policies. Vice President Spiro T. Agnew denounces the President's critics as 'an effete corps of impudent snobs' and 'nattering nabobs of negativism'.
- November 9 - A group of Amerindians, led by Richard Oakes, seizes Alcatraz Island for 19 months, inspiring a wave of renewed Indian pride and government reform.
- November 12 - Vietnam War: My Lai Massacre - Independent investigative journalist Seymour Hersh breaks the My Lai story.
- November 13 - Vietnam War: Anti-war protesters in Washington, DC stage a symbolic "March Against Death".
- November 14 - Apollo program: NASA launches Apollo 12 (Pete Conrad, Richard Gordon, Alan Bean), the second manned mission to the Moon.
- November 15 - Cold War: The Soviet submarine K-19 collides with the American submarine USS Gato in the Barents Sea.
- November 15 - Vietnam War: In Washington, DC, 250,000-500,000 protesters stage a peaceful demonstration against the war.
- November 15 - Regular colour television broadcasts begin on BBC1 and ITV in UK.
- November 17 - Cold War: Negotiators from the Soviet Union and the United States meet in Helsinki, to begin the SALT I negotiations aimed at limiting the number of strategic weapons on both sides.
- November 19 - Apollo program: Apollo 12 astronauts Charles Conrad and Alan Bean land at Oceanus Procellarum ("Ocean of Storms"), becoming the third and fourth humans to walk on the Moon.
- November 19 - Soccer great Pelé scores his 1,000th goal.
- November 20 - Vietnam War: The Cleveland Plain Dealer publishes explicit photographs of dead villagers from the My Lai massacre in Vietnam.
- November 20 - Richard Oakes returns with 90 followers and offers to buy Alcatraz for $24 (he leaves the island January 1970).
- November 21 - U.S. President Richard Nixon and Japanese Premier Eisaku Sato agree in Washington, D.C. to the return of Okinawa to Japanese control in 1972. Under the terms of the agreement, the U.S. retains rights to military bases on the island, but they must be nuclear-free.
- November 21 - The first ARPANET link is established (the progenitor of the global Internet).
- November 21 - The Senate votes down the Supreme Court nomination of Clement Haynsworth, the first such rejection since 1930.
- November 24 - Apollo program: The Apollo 12 spacecraft splashes down safely in the Pacific Ocean, ending the second manned mission to the Moon.
- November 25 - John Lennon returns his OBE to protest the British government's support of the U.S. war in Vietnam.
[edit] December
[edit] Undated events
- Summer saw the invention of Unix
- In the autumn, the first four nodes of the ARPAnet went up
[edit] Ongoing events
[edit] Births
[edit] January-February
- January 2 - Dean Francis Alfar, Filipino author
- January 2 - Christy Turlington, American fashion model
- January 2 - Tommy Morrison, American boxer
- January 3 - Michael Schumacher, German race car driver
- January 5 - Marilyn Manson, American singer
- January 8 - Jeff Abercrombie, American musician (Fuel)
- January 13 - Stephen Hendry, British snooker player
- January 14 - Jason Bateman, American actor
- January 14 - David Grohl, American drummer and composer (Nirvana; later, Foo Fighters)
- January 15 - Meret Becker, German actress and musician
- January 16 - Roy Jones Jr., American boxer
- January 16 - Per "Dead" Yngve Ohlin, Scandinavian vocalist
- January 17 - Lukas Moodysson, Swedish film director
- January 18 - David "Batista" Bautista, American professional wrestler.
- January 20 - Patrick K. Kroupa, American writer, hacker
- January 27 - Cornelius, musician, singer and producer (Flipper's Guitar)
- February 1 - Gabriel Batistuta, Argentine footballer
- February 3 - Retief Goosen, South African golfer
- February 5 - Bobby Brown, American singer
- February 11 - Jennifer Aniston, American actress
- February 12 - Hong Myung-Bo, South Korean footballer
- February 12 - Brad Werenka, Canadian ice hockey player
- February 13 - Ahlam, Arabic Diva
- February 13 - Ronnie Johncox, former driver in the Indy Racing League
- February 17 - Tuesday Knight, American actress
- February 23 - Michael Campbell, New Zealand golfer
- February 23 - Marc Wauters, Belgian cyclist
[edit] March-April
- April 3 - Lance Storm, Canadian Professional Wrestler
- April 6 - Bret Boone, baseball player
- April 10 - Billy Jayne, American actor
- April 11 - Cerys Matthews, Welsh singer
- April 17 - Henry Ian Cusick, Peruvian actor
- April 19 - Susan Polgar, Hungarian chess player
- April 25 - Joe Buck, baseball and American football broadcaster
- April 25 - Vanessa Beecroft, Italian artist
- April 25 - Darren Woodson, American football player
- April 25 - Renée Zellweger, American actress
[edit] May-June
- May 2 - Brian Lara, West Indian cricketer
- May 3 - Daryl F. Mallett, American author and actor
- May 4 - Micah Aivazoff, Canadian ice hockey player
- May 6 - Jim Magilton, Northern Irish footballer
- May 7 - Eagle Eye Cherry, Swedish-born musician
- May 9 - Amber, Dutch musician
- May 10 - Dennis Bergkamp, Dutch soccer player
- May 13 - Nikos Aliagas, French-born television host
- May 14 - Cate Blanchett, Australian actress
- May 15 - Emmitt Smith, American football player
- May 16 - David Boreanaz, American actor
- May 16 - Tracey Gold, American actress
- May 16 - Steve Lewis, American athlete
- May 18 - Martika, American singer
- May 21 - Georgiy R. Gongadze, Ukrainian journalist (d. 2000)
- June 4 - Rob Huebel, American comedian
- June 4 - Takako Minekawa, Japanese musician, composer and writer
- June 11 - Steven Drozd, American drummer (The Flaming Lips)
- June 14 - Steffi Graf, German tennis player
- June 14 - MC Ren, American rapper (N.W.A)
- June 15 - Oliver Kahn, German football goalkeeper
- June 15 - Ice Cube, American rapper and actor
- June 17 - Paul Tergat, Kenyan athlete
- June 18 - Pål Pot Pamparius, Norwegian guitarist and keyboardist (Turbonegro)
- June 24 - Sissel Kyrkjebø, Norwegian singer
- June 25 - Matt Gallant, American television host
- June 25 - Zim Zum, American guitarist
- June 29 - Ilan Mitchell-Smith, American actor
[edit] July-August
- August 2 - Fernando Couto, Portuguese footballer
- August 6 - Elliott Smith, American musician (d. 2003)
- August 9 - Troy Percival, baseball player
- August 13 - Midori Ito, Japanese figure skater
- August 18 - Edward Norton, American actor
- August 18 - Christian Slater, American actor
- August 19 - Matthew Perry, American actor
- August 19 - Nate Dogg, American rapper
- August 28 - Jack Black, American actor
- August 29 - Joe Swail, Northern Irish snooker player
[edit] September
- September 2 - Cedric "K-Ci" Hailey, American singer
- September 2 - Dave Naz, American Photographer
- September 5 - Dweezil Zappa, American actor and musician
- September 9 - Rachel Hunter, New Zealand model and actress
- September 13 - Shane Warne, Australian cricketer
- September 17 - Ken Doherty, Irish snooker player
- September 23 - Mahir Çağrı, Internet celebrity
- September 23 - Michelle Thomas, American actress (d. 1998)
- September 24 - Donald DeGrate, Jr., American music producer
- September 25 - Hansie Cronje, South African cricketer (d. 2002)
- September 25 - Hal Sparks, American actor and comedian
- September 25 - Catherine Zeta-Jones, Welsh actress
- September 25 - Yves Amyot, Quebec actor
- September 26 - Paul Warhurst, English football player
[edit] October
- October 1 - Igor Ulanov, Russian hockey player
- October 2 - Mitch English, American actor and television host
- October 3 - Gwen Stefani, American singer (No Doubt)
- October 8 - Julia Ann, American porn actress
- October 10 - Brett Favre, American football player
- October 13 - Nancy Kerrigan, American figure skater
- October 14 - David Strickland, American actor (d. 1999)
- October 17 - Ernie Els, South African golfer
- October 19 - Trey Parker, American television producer
- October 20 - Juan Gonzalez, baseball player
- October 20 - Laurie Daley, Australian rugby league player
- October 21 - Angela Vincent, Australian actress
- October 25 - Josef Beranek, Czech ice hockey player
- October 30 - Clay Enos, American photographer
[edit] November-December
- November 4 - Sean "Diddy" Combs, American rapper
- November 4 - Matthew McConaughey, American actor
- November 7 - Michelle Clunie, American actress
- November 7 - Hélène Grimaud, French pianist
- November 7 - Bryant H. McGill, American poet
- November 10 - Jens Lehmann, German football player
- November 10 - Ellen Pompeo, American Actress
- November 11 - Carson Kressley, American fashion expert
- November 12 - Heinz-Christian Strache, Austrian politician
- November 12 - Johnny Gosch, Child kidnap victim
- November 13 - Gerard Butler, Scottish actor
- November 17 - Jean-Michel Saive, Belgian table tennis player
- November 17 - Ryotaro Okiayu, Japanese seiyu (voice actor)
- November 18 - Sam Cassell, basketball player
- November 20 - AQi Fzono, Japanese composer
- November 21 - Ken Griffey, Jr., baseball player
- November 28 - Lexington Steele, African-American actor and film director
- November 29 - Chris Baker, American race car driver
- November 29 - Pierre van Hooijdonk, Dutch footballer
- November 29 - Mariano Rivera, Panamanian Major League Baseball player
- December 4 - Jay-Z, American rapper
- December 15 - Rick Law, American illustrator and producer
- December 17 - Chuck Liddell, American mixed martial arts fighter.
- December 18 - Irvin Duguid, Scottish keyboard player (Stiltskin)
- December 19 - Kristy Swanson, American actress
- December 19 - Richard Hammond, British TV presenter
- December 21 - Julie Delpy, French actress
- December 23 - Martha Byrne, American actress and singer
- December 28 - Linus Torvalds, Finnish computer programmer
- December 30 - Jay Kay, English singer (Jamiroquai)
[edit] Undated
[edit] Deaths
[edit] January - March
[edit] April - June
[edit] July - September
- August 9 - Cecil Frank Powell, British physicist, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1903)
- August 9 - Sharon Tate, American actress (murdered) (b. 1943)
- August 9 - Abigail Folger, American socialite, Folgers Coffee heiress, and social worker (murdered) (b. 1943)
- August 17 - Otto Stern, German physicist, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1888)
- August 27 - Ivy Compton-Burnett, English novelist (b. 1884)
- August 27 - Erika Mann, German writer (b. 1905)
- August 31 - Rocky Marciano, American boxer (b. 1923)
[edit] October - December
