January 1969


The following events occurred in January 1969:

[January 1], 1969 (Wednesday)

[January 2], [1969] (Thursday)

[January 3], 1969 (Friday)

[January 4], 1969 (Saturday)

[January 5], 1969 (Sunday)

[January 6], 1969 (Monday)

[January 7], 1969 (Tuesday)

  • Trial began in the case of Sirhan Sirhan for the June 5, 1968 murder of presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy. It would last for 15 weeks, as the jury heard testimony from 89 witnesses. After three days of deliberation, the jury found Sirhan guilty of first-degree murder and of five counts of assault with a deadly weapon. Sirhan would be sentenced to death on May 21, but all death penalty sentences in the United States would be set aside in 1972, and Sirhan is spending the rest of his life at Corcoran State Prison.

[January 8], 1969 (Wednesday)

[January 9], 1969 (Thursday)

  • The Condon Committee, chaired by University of Colorado physicist Edward Condon, released its report Scientific Study of Unidentified Flying Objects and concluded that "nothing has come from the study of UFOs in the past 21 years that has added to scientific knowledge. Careful consideration of the record as it is available to us leads us to conclude that further extensive study of UFOs probably cannot be justified in the expectation that science will be advanced thereby." The Condon Report, commissioned by the United States Air Force at the cost of $520,000, recommended that the Air Force close its Project Blue Book investigation of UFO reports, and the USAF would do so at the end of the year.
  • New York Jets quarterback Joe Namath accepted an award from the Miami Touchdown Club, three days before Super Bowl III and said in his after-dinner remarks to the crowd, "The Jets will win Sunday; I guarantee it." At the time of Namath's boast, the nine-year old American Football League had not come close to winning either of the first two Super Bowls against the 49-year-old NFL, losing by scores of 35–10 and 33–14.

[January 10], 1969 (Friday)

  • The publishers of The Saturday Evening Post announced that the weekly magazine would cease publication after almost 148 years, discontinuing after its February 8 issue. Publisher Martin S. Ackerman said at a news conference that the Post had lost more than five million dollars in 1968 and commented that "We just could not sell enough advertising and cut expenses fast enough. Apparently, there is just not the need for our product in today's scheme of living." The Post had started publication in 1821 in Philadelphia, using the same printing shop used by the Pennsylvania Gazette, which had been founded by Benjamin Franklin. Until 1942, the magazine's masthead had carried the false claim that it was "founded in 1728 by Benjamin Franklin".
  • The Soviet Union launched their second exploration vehicle toward Venus in five days, Venera 6, after the Sunday launch of Venera 5. The second probe would arrive on May 17, a day after the first one's arrival, and, like the first, would cease functioning above the surface because of the Venusian temperature and atmospheric pressure.

[January 11], 1969 (Saturday)

  • U.S. Army Special Forces Reserve officer Robert Helmey used an unloaded shotgun to hijack United Airlines Flight 459 to Cuba, diverting it from its Jacksonville to Miami flight and forcing a landing in Havana. In a month with regular hijackings of U.S. flights, Helmey's case stands out because he was the first successful hijacker to be prosecuted in the United States. Immediately after he landed in Cuba, he was arrested by the Castro government and would spend 109 days in solitary confinement in a Cuban jail before being deported to Canada, which in turn would return him to American authorities on May 5. A jury would find him not guilty of all charges on November 20, accepting his defense of temporary insanity, making Helmey the first skyjacker of a commercial aircraft anywhere to be acquitted at trial.
  • U.S. Army First Lieutenant Harold A. Fritz distinguished himself in combat in the Vietnam War by leading the defense of his outnumbered 28-man platoon against a larger force of North Vietnamese attackers during two successive ambush attacks. Despite being seriously wounded in the first moments of the battle, Fritz inspired his men in leading the fight until American tanks were able to come to the platoon's rescue. He would be awarded the Medal of Honor for his heroism on March 2, 1971.
  • The Kingdom of Sweden became the first Western nation to grant formal diplomatic recognition to the Communist republic of North Vietnam. Although the decision by the Swedish cabinet was made on the evening of January 10 in Stockholm, January 11 is recognized as the date in Vietnam because of the six-hour time difference in Hanoi.
  • Born: Kyle Richards, American actress, socialite, and television personality; in Hollywood, California

[January 12], 1969 (Sunday)

[January 13], 1969 (Monday)

[January 14], 1969 (Tuesday)

[January 15], 1969 (Wednesday)

[January 16], 1969 (Thursday)

[January 17], 1969 (Friday)

  • For the first time in the history of human spaceflight, space travelers returned to Earth in a different spacecraft than the one that they had departed upon. While American crews had performed the first docking of spaceships, the Gemini astronauts had always come back in the same vehicle that they had started with. Alexei Yeliseyev and Yevgeny V. Khrunov, sent up on Soyuz 5, landed safely in Soyuz 4 in the Kazahk SSR, about northwest of Karaganda.
  • The U.S. Department of Justice filed an antitrust lawsuit against International Business Machines Corporation, charging the company with monopolizing the digital computer industry, programming hindering competitors and limiting the development of computer programming by its policy of selling its hardware, software and technical support as an inseparable package. The suit would continue until 1982, when it would be dropped because of changes in the industry.
  • Born:
  • *Tiësto, Netherlands-born DJ and record producer, regarded by many sources as the "Godfather of EDM"; in Breda
  • *Lukas Moodysson, Swedish novelist and film director; in Lund

[January 18], 1969 (Saturday)

  • The parties to the Paris Peace Talks came to an agreement on the shape of the conference tables and the placement of the representatives who were negotiating an end to the Vietnam War. After being delayed for nearly six weeks over procedural disagreements raised by South Vietnam's Nguyen Cao Ky, the parties came to an accord that "The two sides would be 'clearly separated' by two rectangular tables with a round one in the middle" and that the tables would have "no nameplates, no flags and no written minutes of the understanding" on the setup. Substantive talks would not begin until a week later, after the inauguration of President Nixon. Lyndon B. Johnson, whose term as U.S. president would expire two days after the agreement on the tables, would write later that "I regretted more than anyone could possibly know that I was leaving the White House without having achieved a just, honorable, and a lasting peace in Vietnam."
  • Failure of Soviet spacecraft Soyuz 5's service module to separate correctly caused a near-fatal re-entry but the module made a hard landing in the Ural Mountains. The accident would not be publicly acknowledged until 1997.
  • The University of Tennessee women's basketball team, which would win the second highest number of NCAA championships— eight— in its later years played its first game since 1926, losing to Western Carolina University, 46 to 77, at Cullowhee, North Carolina.
  • Born:
  • *Jesse L. Martin, African-American stage and TV actor; in Rocky Mount, Virginia
  • *Dave Bautista, American professional wrestler and mixed martial artist; in Washington, D.C.

[January 19], 1969 (Sunday)

[January 20], 1969 (Monday)

[January 21], 1969 (Tuesday)

[January 22], 1969 (Wednesday)

[January 23], 1969 (Thursday)

[January 24], 1969 (Friday)

  • Spain's President Francisco Franco decreed a three-month state of emergency and suspended five civil rights, allowing police to search without a warrant, hold prisoners indefinitely without charges, prevent public assemblies and to exile dissidents to their home provinces. Censorship of all publications, lifted on April 9, 1966, was put into effect the next day.

[January 25], 1969 (Saturday)

  • On the third day of nine consecutive days of heavy rainfall in southern California, mudslides killed nine people in their homes north of Los Angeles in a single day. The final death toll would be 95 people, and $138,000,000 in damage in the Los Angeles metropolitan area.
  • The Vatican issued Comme le prévoit, a directive on guidelines for translation of the Latin liturgy into local languages in accordance with previous papal directives in Sacrosanctum concilium.
  • NR-1, the smallest nuclear submarine ever put into operation and the only nuclear-powered sub for research rather than military use, was launched from Groton, Connecticut.
  • The funeral of Jan Palach was conducted in Prague and was the occasion for thousands of people to take action to protest the continued Soviet occupation of Czechoslovakia.
  • Died: Irene Castle, 75, American Broadway dancer who combined with her husband for the team of Vernon and Irene Castle

[January 26], 1969 (Sunday)

[January 27], 1969 (Monday)

  • A meeting to discuss the feasibility of space stations as the major post-Apollo human spaceflight program was held at NASA Headquarters. Edgar M. Cortright, Director of Langley Research Center, commented that the 1975 launch date would preclude major advances in technology at the outset of the core space station; a regenerative life support system would be needed for minimum resupply; replaceable rather than expendable units would require a new philosophy; and overly advanced missions should be avoided at the outset. Abe Silverstein, Director of Lewis Research Center, commented that NASA must do initial homework on size, weight, orbits, programs and experiments, logistic support, power, and communications. These factors would all need to be defined. Wernher von Braun, Director of MSFC, commented that NASA should spell out the sciences, technology, applications, missions, and research desired, and that NASA should define a 1975 station as a core facility from which the ultimate space base could grow in an efficient orderly evolution through 1985. Robert R. Gilruth, Director of Manned Spacecraft Center, commented that NASA should be looking at a step comparable in challenge to that of Apollo after Mercury; that design should emphasize the utility of the space base as a waystation to the Moon and Mars; that cargo and passenger transfer without extravehicular activity should be available; and that the logistics vehicle support system should be decoupled from the station-building launch capability at the outset. George E. Mueller, Associate Administrator for Manned Space Flight, commented that perhaps the logistics shuttle system should be developed first, before space station characteristics were decided on. James C. Elms, Director, Electronics Research Center, commented, "We should design for artificial gravity and maybe later use the space station without it. You can easily decide to stop something you decided to spin, but it's a diode: you can't later decide to spin something you didn't design to spin."
  • Fourteen men, 9 of them Jews, were executed in Iraq for spying for Israel. Eleven of the men were hanged at Liberation Square in Baghdad. Afterwards, their bodies, "each wrapped with a white poster bearing the text of the death sentence", were "removed from the gallows and hung up on a gate overlooking the square" for public display, where they were viewed by what state radio referred to as "200,000 jubilant Iraqis"; the other three were hanged at Basra. On February 20, Iraq would hang seven men convicted of spying for Israel, all of them Iraqi Muslims, and display their bodies at Liberation Square.
  • Reverend Ian Paisley, Northern Irish Unionist leader and founder of the Free Presbyterian Church of Ulster, was jailed for three months for illegal assembly.
  • Born: Patton Oswalt, American television and film actor and writer, winner of an Emmy Award and a Grammy Award; in Portsmouth, Virginia
  • Died:
  • *Anukulchandra Chakravarty, 80, Bengali Indian guru and philosopher
  • *Charles Winninger, 84, American stage and film comedian

[January 28], 1969 (Tuesday)

[January 29], 1969 (Wednesday)

[January 30], 1969 (Thursday)

  • The Beatles gave their last ever public performance in what is now called "the rooftop concert", setting up their instruments on the roof of the London building that served as the corporate headquarters for their recording company, Apple Corps. Lasting for 42 minutes, the impromptu concert atop the five-story building at 3 Savile Row was filmed for their 1970 film Let It Be. The group opened with a few runthroughs of their soon-to-be-released single "Get Back" and its B-side, "Don't Let Me Down". After three more songs, London police arrived and allowed John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr to perform one final song. The group closed with the song that opened the concert, their last sung phrase being "Get back to where you once belonged." Their parting words to the assembled crowd were from John Lennon: "I'd like to say thank you on behalf of the group and ourselves. I hope we passed the audition."

[January 31], 1969 (Friday)

  • The tragedies of 16-year old David Milgaard, wrongfully convicted of a rape and murder, and of the 20-year old victim, Gail Miller, began a couple of hours after Milgaard and two friends arrived in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan to visit one of his friends. Miller's body was found at 8:30. A month later, Milgaard's friend told police that he suspected Milgaard, a high school drop out and hippie, of the crime. For the next 22 years, David Milgaard would be incarcerated in a Saskatchewan prison, given a life sentence in 1970 after his conviction, until his release on April 16, 1992. Five years later, DNA testing would not only exonerate Milgaard, but would identify the person who had committed the crime. Milgaard would receive CDN $10,000,000 in 1999 for the miscarriage of justice.
  • Televisión Nacional de Chile was incorporated as the first nationwide network in the South American nation, with the encouragement of President Eduardo Frei Montalva. Test transmissions began the next day on Channel 6 in Punta Arenas. It would begin transmission on September 18, initially reaching 6 of Chile's 25 provinces from stations in the cities of Antofagasta, Arica, Concepción, Punta Arenas, Santiago, and Talca.
  • Died: Meher Baba, 74, Indian Gubdy spiritual master who claimed to have been an avatar of the deity Vishnu