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1969
1969 was a common year starting on Wednesday (the link is to a full 1969 calendar).
- For other uses, see Number 1969.
- For the movie, see 1969 (movie).
Events
January
February
March
- March 1 - Major league baseballer Mickey Mantle announces his retirement.
- March 1 - Dad's Army episode Operation Kilt is first broadcast
- March 1 - During a performance at Miami's Dinner Key Auditorium, Jim Morrison of the Doors is arrested for exposing himself during the show. Morrison is officially charged with lewd and lascivious behavior, indecent behavior, open profanity and public drunkenness.
- March 1 - John Kerry officially leaves active duty in Vietnam
- 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 to test the lunar module
- March 10 - In Memphis, Tennessee, James Earl Ray pleads guilty to assassinating Martin Luther King Jr. Ray would later retract his guilty plea
- March 13 - Apollo program: Apollo 9 returns safely to Earth after testing the Lunar Module
- March 17 - Golda Meir of Milwaukee, Wisconsin, USA, becomes Prime Minister of Israel
- March 19 - British paratroopers and Marines land on the island of Anguilla expecting resistance from the "Republican Defence Force"’ of self-declared "President" Ronald Webster . Locals bid the soldiers welcome instead
- March 28 - Dwight D Eisenhower dies after a long illness in the Walter Reed Army Hospital, Washington DC.
April
May
- May 10 - Zip to Zap, a harbringer of the Woodstock Concert, ends with dispersal and eviction of youth and young adults at Zap, North Dakota by the National Guard.
- May 13 - May 13th Incident: Race riots occur in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
- May 16 - Venera program: Venera 5, a Soviet spaceprobe, lands on Venus
- May 17 - Venera program: Soviet 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 by a rowboat
- May 18 - Apollo program: Apollo 10 launches
- May 20 - National Guard helicopters spray skin-stinging powder on anti-war protesters in California
- May 22 - Apollo program: Apollo 10's lunar module flies within 15,400 m of the moon's surface
- May 26 - Apollo program: Apollo 10 returns to earth after a successful eight-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, and record the song "Give Peace a Chance."
June
July
- July 5 – Assassination of Mboya , Kenyan Minister of Development
- 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 14 - Football War - after Honduras lost a soccer game against El Salvador, rioting broke out in Honduras against Salvadoran migrant workers. Of the 300,000 Salvadorean workers in Honduras, tens of thousands were expelled, prompting a brief Salvadoran invasion of Honduras. The OAS worked out a cease-fire on July 18, taking effect on July 20
- July 18 - Edward M. Kennedy drives off a bridge on his way home from a party on Chappaquiddick Island, Massachusetts. Mary Jo Kopechne, an aide who was in the car with him, dies in the incident
- July 20 - Apollo program: The human race, represented by Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin, lands on the Moon. Apollo 11 lifted off for the moon on July 16 and returned safely on July 24
- July 25 - Vietnam War: US 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 was the start of the "Vietnamization" of the war
- July 30 - Vietnam War: US President Richard M. Nixon makes an unscheduled visit to South Vietnam and meets with President Nguyen Van Thieu and with US military commanders
- July 31 - Halfpenny ceases to be legal tender in the UK
August
September
October
November
- November - Creation of ARPANET, the predecessor of the Internet
- November 3 - Vietnam War: US President Richard M. Nixon addresses his nation on television and radio asking the "silent majority" to join him in solidarity on the Vietnam War effort and to support his policies
- November 10 - Sesame Street premieres
- 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, the second manned mission to the surface of the Moon (landed on the Moon on November 19)
- 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 staged a peaceful demonstration against the war
- November 17 - Cold War: Negotiators from the Soviet Union and the United States meet in Helsinki to begin 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") and become the third and fourth humans to walk on the Moon
- November 20 - Vietnam War: The Cleveland Plain Dealer publishes explicit photographs of dead villagers from the My Lai massacre in Vietnam
- November 21 - U.S. President Nixon and Japanese Premier Eisaku Sato agree in Washington on the return of Okinawa to Japanese control in 1972 Under the terms of the agreement, the US is to retain its rights to bases on the island, but these are to be nuclear-free
- November 21 - The first ARPANET link is established
- 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 US war in Vietnam
- November 28 - The Newcomers stopped airing on the BBC
December
Undated events
Ongoing events
Year in topic
- 1969 in film
- 1969 in literature
- 1969 in music
- The National Academy of Popular Music/Songwriters Hall of Fame founded.
- August 15 - August 17: The Woodstock Music and Art Festival was held at Max Yasgur's dairy farm in Bethel, New York, near Woodstock. Although 10,000 or 20,000 people were expected, over 400,000 attended. Among the many artists who performed were Jimi Hendrix, Joan Baez, Joe Cocker, The Who, Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young and the Grateful Dead. The weekend was rainy, the facilities were overcrowded, and attendees shared food, alcohol, and drugs, although no violence was reported. The Woodstock Festival represented the culmination of the counterculture of the 1960s and the high point of the "hippie era."
- The #1 Song was "Aquarius (Let the Sunshine In)"
- Graffiti had fully developed into an art form, with distinctive styles, trends and schools, by 1969; graffiti is one of the four elements of hip hop, the musical form of which is influenced by the success of the Last Poets and similar artists, beginning in 1969
- 1969 in rail transport
- 1969 in sports
- 1969 in television
Births
January
February
March
April
May
June
July
August
September
October
November
December
Deaths
January
February
March
May
June-December
- June 21 - Maureen Connolly, tennis star (b. 1934)
- June 22 - Judy Garland, US actress and singer (b. 1922)
- July 18 - Mary Jo Kopechne, aide to Robert F. Kennedy (b. 1940)
- July 24 - Witold Gombrowicz, Polish novelist and dramatist (b. 1904)
- August 9 - Sharon Tate, American actress (murdered) (b. 1943)
- August 27 - Ivy Compton-Burnett, English novelist (b. 1884)
- August 27 - Erika Mann, oldest daughter of Thomas Mann (b. 1905)
- August 31 - Rocky Marciano, world heavyweight champion boxer (b. 1923)
- September 2 - Ho Chi Minh, President of North Vietnam (b. 1890)
- October 4 - Natalino Otto, Italian singer
- October 12 - Sonja Henie, Norwegian Olympic and World Champion figure skater (b. 1912)
- October 12 Serge Poliakoff , Russian painter
- October 21 - Jack Kerouac, US author
- October 21 - Waclaw Sierpinski, Polish mathematician
- October 30 - Pops Foster, jazz musician (b. 1892)
- November 12 - William F. Friedman, cryptanalyst
- November 15 - Iskander Mirza, first President of Pakistan
- November 18 - Joseph P. Kennedy, Sr., US politician and father of PresidentJohn F. Kennedy
- December 5 - Her Serene Highness Princess Alice of Battenberg, mother of Prince Philip, consort of Queen Elizabeth II.
- Magic Sam, blues musician and guitarist
- December 31 - George Lewis, jazz musician (b. 1900)
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