December 1969


The following events occurred in December 1969:

[December 1], 1969 (Monday)

  • The first draft lottery in the United States since 1942 was held, and September 14 was the first of the 366 days of the year selected, with Congressman Alexander Pirnie of New York making the first selection. The significance was that those to be given highest priority by their local draft boards were men born on September 14, 1950, and those born on September 14 from 1943 to 1949. The drawing took place at the Selective Service headquarters in Washington, D.C., starting at 8:00 in the evening and concluded 87 minutes later. The random drawing was made from 366 plastic capsules, each one containing a piece of paper with one of the dates of the year. The remaining nine days picked were April 24, December 30, February 14, October 18, September 6, October 26, September 7, November 22 and December 6, while the 366th and last selection was June 8. On January 4, 1970, The New York Times would run a long article, "Statisticians Charge Draft Lottery Was Not Random".
  • Municipal elections are held in Ottawa, Canada. Kenneth Fogarty is elected mayor, winning 81.26% of the vote.
  • TriMet, the Tri-County Metropolitan Transportation District of Oregon, began operations with bus service in the three counties in Portland, Oregon, the day after its contract with drivers and mechanics was approved by Union Local 757. It would add railway service in 1986 with the start of MAX Light Rail.

[December 2], 1969 (Tuesday)

[December 3], 1969 (Wednesday)

[December 4], 1969 (Thursday)

  • The Tokyo Convention, formally known as the Convention on Offences and Certain Other Acts Committed on Board Aircraft, came into effect after being agreed on September 14, 1963.
  • A Boy Named Charlie Brown, the first feature film based on the Peanuts comic strip, was released to theaters for the first time.
  • Born: Jay-Z, American rap music author and record producer; in Brooklyn
  • Died: Fred Hampton, 21, and Mark Clark, 22, American civil rights activists, were killed by the Chicago Police during a raid on the Panther location at 2337 Monroe Street after the signing of a search warrant for illegal weapons. Hampton, the Black Panther Party's Illinois chairman, was unarmed and asleep in bed when shot.

[December 5], 1969 (Friday)

[December 6], 1969 (Saturday)

[December 7], 1969 (Sunday)

[December 8], 1969 (Monday)

  • All 90 people on board Olympic Airways Flight 954 were killed when the DC-6 plane crashed into the side of Mount Paneio near the Greek village of Keratea, about from its destination of Athens. The plane had taken off an hour earlier from the island of Crete and was caught in what was described as "driving rain and hurricane-force winds" as it approached the Greek capital.
  • A grand jury in Los Angeles indicted Charles Manson and four of his followers on seven counts of murder arising from the Tate-LaBianca murders exactly four months earlier. A sixth defendant, Leslie Sankston, was charged with two counts of murder in connection with the LaBianca murders.

[December 9], 1969 (Tuesday)

[December 10], 1969 (Wednesday)

  • Construction of the Federal Reserve Bunker, a storage facility for several billion dollars' worth of United States currency, was completed. The building and its underground facilities were housed within Mount Pony, part of the Blue Ridge Mountains, near Culpeper, Virginia, with the purpose of preventing the failure of the United States economy in the event of a nuclear war or a similarly catastrophic national emergency. Following the end of the Cold War between the United States and the Soviet Union, the currency was removed and the storage facilities now used by the Library of Congress as an archive for fragile media created during the 20th Century, including film stock and audio and video recordings.
  • The Viale Lazio massacre was carried out in Sicily at Viale Lazio 106 in Palermo, location of the Girolamo Moncada Construction Company, the front for Sicilian Mafia gang boss Michele Cavataio. Dressed in police uniforms, five hitmen led by Bernardo Provenzano raided Cavataio's office in what appeared to be a routine arrest, then opened fire with machine guns. In the gun battle that followed, Cavataio and three of his associates were killed, along with one of the members of the hit squad, Calogero Bagarella. The attack brought an end to a truce between the rival gangs in Sicily.
  • Émile Derlin Zinsou, the President of Dahomey since his installation by the West African nation's Army on July 17, 1968, was overthrown in a coup led by Lieutenant Colonel Maurice Kouandété. Lt. Col. Kouandété would be removed from office in a second coup three days later.

[December 11], 1969 (Thursday)

  • A Korean Air Lines turboprop airliner, with 46 South Korean passengers and a crew of four, was hijacked to North Korea, shortly after takeoff from Gangneung on a flight toward Seoul. At 12:25 in the afternoon, Cho Ch'ang-hŭi, a North Korean agent, entered the cockpit of the plane and directed the crew to fly to the north. Once in North Korean airspace, the airliner was escorted by North Korean Air Force jets and landed at Wonsan. Thirty-nine of the 46 passengers would be allowed to return home on February 14, 1970, but the other seven, as well as the pilot, the copilot and two stewardesses, would never be allowed to leave. Nearly 50 years after their abduction, the fate of the 11 South Korean detainees remains unknown.
  • For the fifth time in the 20th century, a supernova within the spiral galaxy NGC 6946 was observed from Earth, at least 22 million years after it had occurred. Working from Padua, Italian astronomer Leonida Rosino reported the star that had been destroyed, now designated as SN1969P. Other supernovae had been seen by Earth astronomers in 1917, 1939, 1948 and 1968, and five more would be observed in later years.
  • Born: Viswanathan Anand, Indian chess grandmaster and a former five-time World Chess Champion; in Mayiladuthurai, Tamil Nadu state

[December 12], 1969 (Friday)

  • Fourteen people were killed and 90 others injured in Milan in what would become known as the Piazza Fontana bombing. The explosion happened at the headquarters of the Banca Nazionale Dell'Agricoltura at the Italian city's Strage di Piazza Fontana. Three of the critically injured people would later die of their wounds. Two neo-Fascist terrorists, Giovanni Ventura and Franco Freda, were charged with the bombing but never put on trial. They would be released from prison on September 7, 1976, in conjunction with a new law passed in Italy setting a four-year limit on detention without a trial, but transferred to exile on the island of Giglio.
  • The Jackson 5 released their iconic debut album Diana Ross Presents The Jackson 5. The album contains their first hit single, "I Want You Back".

[December 13], 1969 (Saturday)

[December 14], 1969 (Sunday)

[December 15], 1969 (Monday)

  • The Shell Oil tanker Marpessa became "the biggest ship ever to sink", three days after an explosion ripped the vessel open while it was traveling from Rotterdam to the Persian Gulf. All but two of the crew were able to evacuate before the ship went down in the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of Senegal.
  • U.S. President Nixon announced that he would bring an additional 50,000 American troops out of the Vietnam War over the next four months, marking the withdrawal of over 110,000 U.S. servicemen during the first year of his administration.
  • Died: Giuseppe Pinelli, 41, Italian railroad worker and anarchist who was detained by the Polizia di Stato for questioning regarding the Piazza Fontana bombing, fell to his death from a fourth story window of the Milan police station

[December 16], 1969 (Tuesday)

  • Six fans of the India national cricket team were killed and 50 injured in a stampede outside of the Eden Gardens stadium, before the last day of the fourth test match in the violence-marred Australia v. India test cricket series in Calcutta. A report noted that "A crowd of 20,000 had queued all night for tickets" for the final day of play, "But only 6000 to 7000 were for sale." Australia won the fourth test by 10 wickets and won the best-3-of-5 series in the fifth test, in Madras, on December 29, by 77 runs.
  • The House of Commons of the United Kingdom voted, 343 to 185, to make permanent the abolition of capital punishment for murder. The Murder Act of 1965 had provided for a five-year ban, but had included a provision that hanging would be restored effective July 31, 1970, "unless Parliament by affirmative resolutions of both Houses" voted otherwise. The House of Lords provided its affirmative resolution two days later.
  • Born:
  • *Lei Jun, Chinese billionaire entrepreneur and philanthropist, founder the consumer electronics company Xiaomi; in Xiantao, Hubei
  • *Michelle Smith, Irish Olympian and swimmer, winner of 3 gold medals in the 1996 Olympics; in Rathcoole, County Dublin

[December 17], 1969 (Wednesday)

  • The first widely publicized warning of climate change, caused by pollution, was delivered by physical scientist Joseph O. Fletcher of the Rand Corporation. Fletcher told the assembled scientists that "Very substantial changes have taken place during our lifetime" in the increase in temperature in the first part of the 20th century, resulting in the melting of the ice caps of the Earth; that carbon dioxide had been responsible for up to one half of the warming; and that although mankind's influence on the warning had been small compared to natural causes, "within another generation, man will become important, the carbon dioxide pollution apparently being the most important" and that the world had "only a few decades to solve the problem". Colonel Fletcher's speech to a meeting of the American Geophysical Union, in San Francisco, was covered by reporter Duston Harvey and then disseminated by United Press International.
  • In a record for an American late-night television show, around 30-50 million people tuned in to watch the wedding of falsetto-voiced singer Herbert Buckingham Khaury, better known by his stage name, Tiny Tim, on The Tonight Show, hosted by Johnny Carson. Tim's 17-year-old bride, Victoria Mae Budinger, was quickly nicknamed "Miss Vicky" by the American press. The ceremony itself had taken place before an audience of 250 people, at 7:43 in the evening, during the videotaping of the Tonight Show at its studio at the NBC television network's headquarters in New York. Tim, famous for his bestselling recording of "Tiptoe Through the Tulips", walked to the altar through 10,000 tulips imported from the Netherlands for the occasion.
  • Project Blue Book, the United States government's official investigation of sightings of unidentified flying objects, more commonly referred to as "UFOs" or "flying saucers", was ordered closed after 21 years by U.S. Secretary of the Air Force Robert Seamans. In the years after the program was established in 1948, the U.S. Air force investigated 12,618 sightings and found explanations for all but 701 of them. Seamans said in a statement that "Continuation of the Project cannot be justified either on the ground of national security or in the interest of science." The closure took effect on January 30, 1970.
  • Born: Robinah Nabbanja, Ugandan educator and politician, 11th Prime Minister of Uganda since 2021

[December 18], 1969 (Thursday)

  • Capital punishment for murder was ended permanently in the United Kingdom by a voice vote of the House of Lords, two days after the House of Commons voted to eliminate an expiration date for the Murder Act of 1965. Royal assent was not required because the vote was a follow-up to language from the 1965 Act that the ban would be temporary "unless Parliament by affirmative resolutions of both Houses otherwise determines" that it should not expire on July 31, 1970. Earlier in the day, the Lords had considered a compromise that would have extended the expiration date to December 31, 1972, but rejected the amendment with 220 against and 174 in favor, making it clear that the voice vote to eliminate the sunset provision would pass by the same margin.
  • Only seven days after the top secret Lockheed SR-71 Blackbird supersonic spy plane began test flights, the multimillion-dollar U.S. aircraft began encountering control problems that were traced to a piece of rolled-up duct tape that had been left inside a pitot tube during the installation of a new camera system. The tape, used as a plug to prevent dust from getting into the pitot tube during the work, was no larger in diameter than a cigarette, but caused the aircraft's pitot-static system to malfunction. The two U.S. Air Force test pilots, Colonel Joe Rogers and Major Gary Heidelbaugh, were able to eject to safety at an altitude of, while the SR-71 crashed near Shoshone, California in Death Valley.
  • The sixth James Bond film, On Her Majesty's Secret Service, held its world premiere at the Odeon Leicester Square in London, with George Lazenby as Agent 007. The film would premiere in the United States the following day.
  • Saudi Arabia and Kuwait signed a treaty that divided the Neutral Zone that had existed as a buffer between the two nations since 1922.

[December 19], 1969 (Friday)

[December 20], 1969 (Saturday)

  • From his hospital bed, Uganda's President Obote declared a state of emergency and banned all political parties except for his own, the Uganda People's Congress. Obote's dictatorial rule would continue until his overthrow a little more than a year later by General Idi Amin Dada on January 25, 1971.
  • Died: Adolfo Consolini, 52, Italian discus thrower and 1948 Olympic gold medalist, died from viral hepatitis.

[December 21], 1969 (Sunday)

[December 22], 1969 (Monday)

[December 23], 1969 (Tuesday)

  • Seventy-five bus riders were killed in Yerevan, at the time part of the Soviet Union and capital of the Armenian SSR. The group, mostly workers making their early morning commute, was on an overcrowded bus which hit a patch of ice and plunged over a cliff. As was common in the Soviet era, the incident was not published in the news, and was not disclosed until three days later.
  • Born: Greg Biffle, American stock car racing driver; in Vancouver, Washington
  • Died: Tiburcio Carías, 93, Honduran politician and military officer, 38th President of Honduras from 1933 to 1949

[December 24], 1969 (Wednesday)

[December 25], 1969 (Thursday)

  • Seiko, the Japanese electronics manufacturer, introduced the world's first quartz clock wristwatch, the Astron, at a press conference in Tokyo. The electronic timepiece was the most accurate wristwatch in the world at the time, guaranteed to be accurate within five seconds for every month of use, and began a new era in watch manufacturing. One historian of timepieces would later write that "Astron was the shot heard around the watch world, beginning an upheaval that radically rearranged that world. It shifted the balance of power to the Far East, toppled Switzerland as the world’s watch production leader, sent the Swiss watch industry into a two-decade-long tailspin, brought a quantum leap in watch accuracy, a quantum change in watch styling, and much more."

[December 26], 1969 (Friday)

  • The Joey Bishop Show, the ABC television network's late-night attempt to compete against The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson on NBC, was telecast for the last time, a little more than two and a half years after its April 17, 1967 debut. As one commentator would note at the time, "The Joey Bishop Show was third in the ratings because of the number of ABC affiliates that didn't carry the program". Bishop, who had deferred to guest hosts more often toward the end of the series, appeared for the opening monologue, thanked the audience and viewers, then left, leaving his sidekick, Regis Philbin, to host for the remainder of the 90 minutes.
  • Twenty-six merchant marines were killed in the destruction of the American freighter SS Badger State. Formerly the U.S. Navy transport ship USS Starlight, the SS Badger State was transporting ordnance for the U.S. Air Force, including bombs and rockets to be used in the Vietnam War. The long ship had picked up its cargo from the Bangor Base, Washington, near Seattle, and was en route to Da Nang in South Vietnam. At 11:05 a.m. Hawaii time, Badger State was about north of Hawaii and sailing in a storm, when part of the cargo broke loose and started a fire. The order was given to abandon ship. All but one of the 40 crew were able to escape into life rafts an hour before the ship exploded, but only one raft, with 14 survivors, was rescued, all by a Greek ship, the Khian Star. After a week, and the recovery of five bodies, the U.S. Navy abandoned its search as well as any attempts to put out the fires. The ship sank late in the evening on January 5.

[December 27], 1969 (Saturday)

[December 28], 1969 (Sunday)

  • In New York, the Young Lords, a Puerto Rican militant group, took over the First Spanish Methodist Church at 111th Street and Lexington Avenue in East Harlem and then used it for the next 11 days to make positive contributions to the Hispanic community in the city. Temporarily renaming the building "The People's Church", the Young Lords provided a clinic, a day care center, breakfast, evening entertainment and classes at no charge until space could be secured for a Young Lords center in the Bronx. The group surrendered peacefully on January 7. The takeover brought publicity to the needs of Puerto Ricans who had moved to or who had been born in the mainland U.S., and inspired the "Nuyorican Movement" for New Yorkers of Puerto Rican descent.
  • South African astronomer John Caister Bennett discovered a comet previously not observed from Earth. Officially "C/1969 Y1", "Comet Bennett" was logged at 19:41 UTC, and would make its closest approach to Earth on March 27, passing within and being visible to the naked eye. The Perth Observatory calculated that the comet had an orbital period of 1,700 years and that it will not approach Earth again until the 37th century.
  • Born: Linus Torvalds, Finnish-born American computer software engineer who developed the Linux free software operating system at age 21; in Helsinki

[December 29], 1969 (Monday)

[December 30], 1969 (Tuesday)

[December 31], 1969 (Wednesday)