1968

Events

January–February

• January – The I'm Backing Britain campaign starts spontaneously.
• January 5 – Prague Spring: Alexander Dubček is chosen as leader of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia.
• January 10 – John Gorton is sworn in as 19th Prime Minister of Australia, taking over from John McEwen after being elected leader of the Liberal Party the previous day, following the disappearance of Harold Holt. Gorton becomes the only Senator to become Prime Minister, though he immediately transfers to the House of Representatives through the 1968 Higgins by-election in Holt's vacant seat.
• January 15 – The 1968 Belice earthquake in Sicily kills 380 and injures around 1,000.
• January 21
• * Vietnam War: Battle of Khe Sanh – One of the most publicized and controversial battles of the war begins, ending on April 8.
• * 1968 Thule Air Base B-52 crash: A U.S. B-52 Stratofortress crashes in Greenland, discharging 4 nuclear bombs.
• January 23 – North Korea seizes the, claiming the ship violated its territorial waters while spying.
• January 25 – Israeli submarine sinks in the Mediterranean Sea, killing 69.
• January 28 – French submarine Minerve sinks in the Mediterranean Sea, killing 52.
• January 30 – Vietnam War: The Tet Offensive begins as Viet Cong forces launch a series of surprise attacks across South Vietnam.
• January 31
• * Viet Cong soldiers attack the Embassy of the United States, Saigon.
• * Nauru president Hammer DeRoburt declares independence from Australia, Britain and New Zealand.
• February 1
• * Vietnam War: Execution of Nguyễn Văn Lém – A Viet Cong officer is summarily executed by Nguyễn Ngọc Loan, a South Vietnamese National Police Chief. The event is photographed by Eddie Adams. The photo makes headlines around the world, eventually winning the 1969 Pulitzer Prize, and sways U.S. public opinion against the war.
• * The Pennsylvania Railroad and the New York Central Railroad merge to form Penn Central, the largest ever corporate merger up to this date.
• February 6–18 – The 1968 Winter Olympics are held in Grenoble, France.
• February 8 – Civil rights movement in the United States: Orangeburg Massacre – A civil rights demonstration on a college campus to protest de facto racial segregation in South Carolina is broken up by highway patrolmen; three African American students are killed, the first instance of police killing student protestors at an American campus.
• February 12 – Vietnam War: Phong Nhị and Phong Nhất massacre.
• February 19 – The television series Mister Rogers' Neighborhood premieres on National Educational Television in the United States and becomes one of the longest running children's shows ever.
• February 24 – Vietnam War: The Tet Offensive is halted; South Vietnam recaptures Huế.
• February 25 – Vietnam War: Hà My massacre.

  March–April

• March 1
• * Commonwealth Immigrants Act 1968 further reduces right of entry for citizens from the British Commonwealth to the United Kingdom.
• * First performance of an Andrew Lloyd Webber–Tim Rice musical, Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat in its original form as a "pop cantata", by pupils of a private school in London.
• March 2 – Baggeridge Colliery closes marking the end of over 300 years of coal mining in the Black Country of England.
• March 3 – Air France Flight 212, a Boeing 707, crashes in Guadeloupe while approaching an airport. As a result, 63 people die.
• March 6 – Un-recognized Rhodesia executes 3 black citizens, the first executions since UDI, prompting international condemnation.
• March 7 – Vietnam War: The First Battle of Saigon ends.
• March 8
• * The first student protests spark the 1968 Polish political crisis.
• * The Soviet ballistic missile submarine K-129 sinks with all 98 crew members, about 90 nautical miles southwest of Hawaii.
• March 10–11 – Vietnam War: Battle of Lima Site 85, the largest single ground combat loss of United States Air Force members during the secret war later known as the Laotian Civil War.
• March 11 – U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson mandates that all computers purchased by the federal government support the ASCII character encoding.
• March 12
• * Mauritius achieves independence from British rule.
• * 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.
• March 13 – The first Rotaract club is chartered in North Charlotte, North Carolina.
• March 14
• * Late this evening, the U.K. government at the request of the U.S. agrees that the London Gold Pool will be closed from tomorrow. George Brown, the British Foreign Secretary, apparently drunk, is absent from meetings to discuss the crisis and is forced to resign from the government on March 15.
• * Nerve gas leaks from the U.S. Army Dugway Proving Ground near Skull Valley, Utah.
• March 16
• * Vietnam War – My Lai massacre: American troops kill between 347 and 504 unarmed civilians and rape women and children. The story, initially covered up as a military victory, will first become public in November 1969 and will 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.
• March 18 – Gold standard: The United States Congress repeals the requirement for a gold reserve to back U.S. currency.
• March 19–23 – Afrocentrism, Black Power, Vietnam War: Students at Howard University in Washington, D.C., signal 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, shutting down the university in protest over its ROTC program and the Vietnam War, and demanding a more Afrocentric curriculum.
• March 22 – Daniel Cohn-Bendit and 7 other students occupy the administrative offices of the new Nanterre campus of the University of Paris as part of protests over a rigid educational system, setting in motion a chain of 'May 68' events that lead France to the brink of revolution.
• March 24 – Aer Lingus Flight 712 crashes en route from Cork to London near Tuskar Rock, Wexford, killing 61 passengers and crew.
• March 28 – Brazilian high school student Edson Luís de Lima Souto is shot by the police in a protest for cheaper meals at a restaurant for low-income students. The aftermath of his death is one of the first major events against the military dictatorship.
• March 31 – In a televised address, U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson announces that he will not be a candidate for re-election.
• April 2
• * Bombs explode at midnight in two department stores in Frankfurt-am-Main; Andreas Baader and Gudrun Ensslin are later arrested and sentenced for arson.
• * 2001: A Space Odyssey premieres in the Uptown Theater in Washington D.C.
• April 4
• * Assassination of Martin Luther King Jr.: Martin Luther King Jr. is shot dead at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennessee by James Earl Ray. King-assassination riots erupt in major American cities, lasting for several days afterwards.
• * Apollo program: Apollo-Saturn mission 502 is launched, as the second and last uncrewed test-flight of the Saturn V launch vehicle.
• * AEK Athens wins the FIBA European Cup Winners Cup Final in basketball against Slavia Prague, in front of a record attendance of 80,000 spectators. It is the first major European trophy won at club level of any sport in Greece.
• April 6
• * 13th Eurovision Song Contest is held in the Royal Albert Hall, London. The winning song, Spain's "La, la, la" is sung in Spanish by Massiel after Spanish authorities refuse to allow Joan Manuel Serrat to perform it in Catalan. The United Kingdom finishes in second place, one point behind, with the song "Congratulations" sung by Cliff Richard, which goes on to outsell the winning Spanish entry throughout Europe.
• * A shootout between Black Panthers and police in Oakland, California, results in several arrests and deaths, including 17-year-old Panther Bobby Hutton.
• * Richmond, Indiana explosion: A double explosion in downtown Richmond caused by a methane leak kills 41 and injures 150.
• April 7 – British racing driver Jim Clark is killed in a Formula 2 race at Hockenheim.
• April 10 – The ferry strikes a reef at the mouth of Wellington Harbour, New Zealand, with the loss of 53 lives, in Cyclone Giselle, which has created the windiest conditions ever recorded in New Zealand.
• April 11
• * Josef Bachmann tries to assassinate Rudi Dutschke, leader of the left-wing movement in Germany, and tries to commit suicide afterwards, failing in both, although Dutschke dies of his brain injuries 11 years later.
• * German left-wing students blockade the Springer Press headquarters in Berlin and many are arrested.
• April 18 – London Bridge is sold to U.S. entrepreneur Robert P. McCulloch for reconstruction at Lake Havasu City, Arizona.
• April 20
• * Pierre Elliott Trudeau becomes the 15th Prime Minister of Canada.
• * Conservative British politician Enoch Powell makes a controversial "Rivers of Blood" speech in Birmingham deploring the effects of immigration; he is dismissed from the Shadow Cabinet the following day.
• * South African Airways Flight 228 a Boeing 707 crashed shortly after take-off killing 123 people on board.
• April 23
• * President Mobutu releases captured mercenaries in the Congo.
• * Surgeons at the Hôpital de la Pitié, Paris, perform Europe's first heart transplant, on Clovis Roblain.
• * The United Methodist Church is created by the union in Dallas, Texas, of the former Methodist and Evangelical United Brethren churches.
• April 23–30 – Vietnam War: Columbia University protests of 1968 – Student protesters at Columbia University in New York City take over administration buildings and shut down the university.
• April 26 – The nuclear weapon "Boxcar" is tested at the Nevada Test Site in the biggest detonation of Operation Crosstie.