March 1968

The following events occurred in March 1968:

March 1, 1968 (Friday)

• Action of 1 March 1968: Four North Vietnamese trawlers attempt to resupply the Viet Cong, opposed by United States Navy and South Vietnamese forces engaged in Operation Market Time. Three of the trawlers were destroyed and the fourth turned back.
• Operation Coburg, an Australian and New Zealand military action, comes to an end. During the six weeks of the operation, the Australians had lost 17 killed and 61 wounded, with allied casualties including two New Zealanders and one American killed, and eight New Zealanders and six Americans wounded.^[1]
• Country musicians Johnny Cash and June Carter are married in Franklin, Kentucky, USA, with Merle Kilgore as best man.
• The first public performance of an Andrew Lloyd Webber–Tim Rice musical takes place when Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat is staged in its original form as a "pop cantata", by pupils of Colet Court preparatory school in Hammersmith, London, UK.^[2][3][4]

March 2, 1968 (Saturday)

• South Australian state election, 1968: The incumbent Australian Labor Party, led by Premier of South Australia Don Dunstan, is defeated by the Liberal and Country League led by Leader of the Opposition Steele Hall.^[5]
• Leeds United defeat Arsenal F. C. in the 1968 Football League Cup Final at Wembley Stadium, UK.
• Born: Daniel Craig, English actor, in Chester

March 3, 1968 (Sunday)

• Liberian tanker Ocean Eagle runs aground at San Juan, Puerto Rico. It subsequently breaks in two, and is declared a total loss.^[6]

March 4, 1968 (Monday)

• Died: Einar Sissener, 70, Norwegian actor and director

March 5, 1968 (Tuesday)

• A Musical chess match between Marcel Duchamp and John Cage takes place at Ryerson Polytechnic, Toronto.
• Born: Gordon Bajnai, Hungarian politician, Prime Minister 2009-2010, in Szeged

March 6, 1968 (Wednesday)

March 7, 1968 (Thursday)

• Vietnam War: The First Battle of Saigon ends.

March 8, 1968 (Friday)

• The first student protests spark the 1968 Polish political crisis. The removal of dissidents Adam Michnik and Henryk Szlajfer from the University of Warsaw results in a crowd of 500-1000 rallying students gathering, only to be broken up by a state-mobilized "worker squad".^[7]
• Vietnam War: Battle of Lima Site 85, the largest single ground combat loss of United States Air Force members (12) during the then-secret war later known as the Laotian Civil War.
• The Soviet Golf II-class ballistic missile submarine sinks in the Pacific Ocean 90 nautical miles (104 miles; 167 km) southwest of Hawaii, with the loss of all 98 crew members.^[8]
• Twenty-two people are killed in a bus accident near Bolvadin, Turkey.

March 9, 1968 (Saturday)

• England defeats the Netherlands 1–0 in an international women's field hockey match at Wembley Stadium, UK.
• Athlete Jeff Julian wins his second New Zealand national title in the men's marathon, at Whangarei.

March 10, 1968 (Sunday)

• The Danish coaster Hi Krooyer sinks 10 nautical miles (19 km) south of Sule Skerry, Orkney Islands, UK, following an on-board explosion. One of the five crew is killed.^[9]
• Died: Ireland's Minister for Education Donogh O'Malley, 47, who collapses while campaigning in County Clare.

March 11, 1968 (Monday)

• U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson mandates that all computers purchased by the federal government support the ASCII character encoding.^[10]
• Born: Lisa Loeb, US singer, in Bethesda, Maryland

March 12, 1968 (Tuesday)

• Mauritius achieves independence from British rule.^[11]
• U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson barely edges out antiwar candidate Eugene McCarthy in the New Hampshire Democratic primary, a vote which highlights the deep divisions in the country, and the party, over Vietnam.
• Born: Aaron Eckhart, US actor, in Cupertino, California

March 13, 1968 (Wednesday)

• The world's first Rotaract club is chartered, in North Charlotte, North Carolina, United States.
• Roman Zambrowski, a Jewish veteran of the Communist Party of Poland, is singled out and expelled from the Party.^[12]

March 14, 1968 (Thursday)

• Nerve gas leaks from the U.S. Army Dugway Proving Ground near Skull Valley, Utah, USA.
• In the UK, Sir Brandon Rhys-Williams wins the Kensington South by-election for the Conservative party with 75.5 percent of the vote, as a result of the resignation of sitting Conservative MP William Roots.^[13]

March 15, 1968 (Friday)

• The Central American Championships in Athletics open at the Estadio Somoza in Managua, Nicaragua, with six nations competing.^[14]
• Britain's Foreign Secretary George Brown resigns.
• The 1968 NCAA Division I Men's Ice Hockey Tournament is won by Denver Pioneers.

March 16, 1968 (Saturday)

• Vietnam War – My Lai Massacre: American troops kill scores of civilians. The story did not become public until November 1969 and would help undermine public support for the U.S. efforts in Vietnam.
• U.S. Senator Robert F. Kennedy enters the race for the Democratic Party presidential nomination.
• A constitutional referendum in Greece approves a new constitution prepared by the ruling military junta.^[15]
• US freighter African Star collides with the towing vessel Midwest Cities and her oil barge, Intercity No. 11, on the Mississippi River near Port LaHatch, LA. The ensuing conflagration results in the deaths of 15 crew and two passengers.^[16]
• Died: Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco, 72, Italian composer

March 17, 1968 (Sunday)

• A demonstration in London's Grosvenor Square against U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War leads to violence; 91 people are injured, 200 demonstrators arrested.
• Thirty-three passengers are killed in a bus accident near İstanbul, Turkey.

March 18, 1968 (Monday)

• Gold standard: The United States Congress repeals the requirement for a gold reserve to back U.S. currency.
• Mel Brooks' classic satirical film, The Producers, is premiered in the United States.^[17] The film won an Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay and was ranked eleventh on the AFI's 100 Years...100 Laughs list.

March 19, 1968 (Tuesday)

• Student protests begin at Howard University in Washington, D.C., USA, signalling a new era of militant student activism on college campuses in the U.S. Students stage rallies, protests and a 5-day sit-in, laying siege to the administration building, eventually shutting down the university in protest over its ROTC program and the Vietnam War, and demanding a more Afrocentric curriculum.
• The 1968 All England Badminton Championships open at Wembley Arena, London, UK.^[18]

March 20, 1968 (Wednesday)

• Died: Carl Theodor Dreyer, 79, Danish film director

March 21, 1968 (Thursday)

• The Battle of Karameh takes place in the town of Karameh, Jordan, between IDF forces and combined forces of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) and the Jordanian Army. It is part of the so-called War of Attrition.^[19]

March 22, 1968 (Friday)

• Prague Spring: Following the rise to power of Alexander Dubček, Antonín Novotný is replaced as President of Czechoslovakia by Ludvík Svoboda.^[20]
• Daniel Cohn-Bendit ("Danny the Red") and other students occupy the administrative offices of the University of Nanterre, setting in motion a chain of events that lead France to the brink of revolution in May. The university's administration calls the police. After the publication of their wishes, the students left the building without any trouble. The incident became known as the "Movement of 22 March".^[21]
• Born: Javier Castillejo, Spanish boxer, in Madrid

March 23, 1968 (Saturday)

• Born: Damon Albarn, English singer-songwriter, in Whitechapel, London; Mike Atherton, English cricket captain, in Failsworth, Lancashire.
• Died: Edwin O'Connor, 49, US novelist and Pulitzer Prize for Fiction winner (cerebral hemorrhage)

March 24, 1968 (Sunday)

• Aer Lingus Flight 712 crashes en route from Cork to London near Tuskar Rock, Ireland, killing 61 passengers and crew.
• Died: Alice Guy-Blaché, 94, French film director

March 25, 1968 (Monday)

• Died: Charles Chaplin Jr., 42, US actor, son of Charlie Chaplin and Lita Grey (pulmonary embolism)

March 26, 1968 (Tuesday)

The 58th and final original episode of The Monkees is aired on NBC television in the United States.

• US singer Joan Baez marries activist David Harris in New York.

March 27, 1968 (Wednesday)

• Died: Yuri Gagarin, 34, Soviet pilot and cosmonaut, first man in space, and Vladimir Seryogin, 45, Soviet test pilot, both killed when their MiG-15UTI they were piloting crashes near Kirzhach.^[22]

March 28, 1968 (Thursday)

• Glidrose Publications releases the James Bond novel, Colonel Sun by "Robert Markham" (a pseudonym for Kingsley Amis). Initially intended as a relaunch of the Bond book series following the death in 1964 of the character's creator, Ian Fleming, Colonel Sun instead ends up being the final book of the series (discounting a "biography" of Bond and a pair of film script adaptations) until John Gardner revives the literary James Bond in 1981.
• Born: Lucy Lawless, New Zealand actress, in Mount Albert, Auckland
• Died: Edson Luís de Lima Souto, 18, Brazilian high school student, shot by the police while campaigning for cheaper meals at a restaurant for low-income students. Students carry him to the Legislative Assembly of Rio de Janeiro, insisting on an autopsy. Forty years later, a memorial to the student would be erected in Rio.^[23]

March 29, 1968 (Friday)

• US Civil rights leader Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. travels to Memphis, Tennessee, in support of the black sanitary public works employees, represented by AFSCME Local 1733, who had been on strike since March 12 for higher wages and better treatment.^[24]
• The FIBA Africa Championship 1968, a major basketball tournament, opens in Morocco.
• A partial solar eclipse occurs in the polar regions.

March 30, 1968 (Saturday)

• Born: Céline Dion, Canadian singer, in Charlemagne, Quebec

March 31, 1968 (Sunday)

• U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson announces he will not seek re-election.

References