US History: The Great Society 1963 - 1968

President Lyndon Baines Johnson called for a country free of racial tensions, class and race segregation, and prejudice.

We declared the War on Poverty that we could not win. He also proclaimed the Great Society to replace the Kennedy Camelot. Legislation of the Great Society included:

• Congressional Civil-Rights Act, 1964,
• The Economic Opportunity Act, 1964,
• Two education acts in 1965,
• Voting Rights Act, 1965,
• The Job Corps,
• Operation Head Start,
• Volunteers in Service to America (VISTA),
• Medicaid, and
• Medicare.

All of these programs have continued to have both positive results and problems.

In fact, the high school class known as Civics until the 1950s - 1960s and then as Problems of Democracy, experienced another name change in these LBJ years as it became Principles of Deocracy...because "Democacy has no problems," stated school boards across the nation.

1964

February. Supreme Court rules that congressional districts will be approximately equal in population.

Year-long. Leonid Brezhnev helps engineer Khrushchev's fall from power, becomes first secretary of Communist Party

1965

February 1. Martin Luther King, Jr. and 2500 protestors against voter's registration problames were arrested in Selma, Al.

July 1. Los Angeles Riots in Watts.

1966

March 15. US Supreme Court reaches a decison on Miranda vs. Arizona.

1967

June 5. Israel's 6 Day War ends.

June 17. Communist China reports using its first hydrogen bomb.

July 23. Racially motivated Riots in Detroit, NYC, and areas of Conn.

October 2. First Black Supreme Court Justics, Thurgood Marshall.

1968

Jan/Feb. The Tet Offensive is the turning point in the Vietnam Conflict, an undeclared war dating back to the 1940s and conflict between Viet Nam and France.

Jan-Dec. Constant protest marches in America. Tariq Ali & Susan Watkins published 1968: Marching in the Streets.

April 4. Martin Luther King, Jr. assassinated in Memphis TN. James Earl Ray is sentenced to 99 years in 1969.

June 5-6. Sen. Robert F. Kennedy is killed in a Los Angeles hotel after winning the California Primary. Sirhan B. Sirhan was convicted for this in 1969.

Jun 18. US Supreme Court banned racial discrimination in housing sales and rental.

July 1. USA, UK, USSR, and 58 other nations signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. India refused to sign.

July 27. Race riot in Gary, Indiana.

Jul 30, Saddam Hussein took over internal security in Iraq.

August 8. Race riot in Miami.

August/September. Race riots in several cities during the hottests days of summer. In Columbus, Ohio the city was under curfews for 3 days.

October 11. Apollo 7, the first manned Apollo mission.

October 12. Mexico City Olympic Games opens. 300 students had been killed by the military in Mexico City weeks before the opening.

November 12. Supreme Court repealed Arkansas law banning the teaching of evolution.

Month unknown. The Association of Black Psychologists was founded. Glamour Magazine put a Black model on the cover for the first time.Hewlett-Packard introduced the world's 1st programmable scientific desktop calculator.

Funniest Invention of the Year:

Scientists crossed Pacific oysters with Kumamoto oysters and got the Gigomoto oyster. Instead of the best traits of both oysters they got the worst.

Funniest Startup of the Year:

China established a research center for manned space flight to open in 1973, but canceled it, because of lack of money and political support.

Funniest Weather of the Year:

In Mexico there rained hundreds of thousands of maggots on Acapulco, the vacation capital.

Funniest Political Commentary on TV:

That was the Week that Was and Laugh In.