1969 Events, Music, Trivia and other Useless Information

World Events

• As President Nixon took office, the American death toll in the Viet Nam war reached 34,000.
• CBS canceled one of its most popular shows, The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour, because a copy of the show hadn't reached the censors in time. The network was under pressure to dump the politically potent variety show, which Vice President Spiro Agnew had claimed was "subversive."
• Millions of Americans participated in a Viet Nam Moratorium Day, with candelight vigils and prayers for peace. President Nixon ignored the event, but Vice President Spiro Agnew called the participants "an effete corps of impudent snobs."
• Veterans' Day ceremonies around the country consisted of pro-America demonstrations. Vice President Agnew called U.S. patriots "the silent majority." Three days later, 250,000 people marched on Washington to protest the war. Simultaneously, 100,000 demonstrated in San Francisco.
• 340 Harvard students took over the university's administration building. 400 state troopers and police officers cleared them out with tear gas and beatings from nightsticks. At Cornell University, a 36-hour sit-in was held in the student union building by black militants brandishing automatic weapons. At Berkeley, a National Guard helicopter dropped caustic chemicals on a protesters' area called People's Park. 19 University of California faculty members were among those burned by the substance.
• Max Yasgur's farm near Bethel, New York became the second-largest city in New York, when nearly 400,000 converged on the area for the Woodstock Music And Art Fair. Police looked the other way as the counterculture celebrated its largest gathering with peace, music, sex, drugs and rock and roll. Heavy press coverage makes the event seem larger than it was and shows the passing of baby boomers from young children to adult children.
• Charles Manson and several members of his cult were charged with the brutal murders of actress Sharon Tate and four others in Los Angeles. Tate was married to film director Roman Polanski.
• Senate Foreign Relations Committee chairman William Fullbright disclosed that the Pentagon and the Nixon administration had been waging an illegal war in Laos, without the required knowledge of the Congress. Meanwhile, Lt. William Calley, Jr. was under investigation on charges that his infantry unit had massacred 450 women, children and other villagers at My Lai, South Viet Nam.
• Leonard Bernstein stepped down as director of the New York Philharmonic Orchestra.
• Judy Garland died of a drug overdose at age 47.
• The counterculture-gone-commercial was evident in many of the year's hit songs, including Everyday People, Age Of Aquarius/Let The Sun Shine In, Come Together, Crimson & Clover and In The Year 2525.
• Charmin Bathroom Tissue went from obscurity to America's best-seller, due to an ad campaign featuring grocer Mr. Whipple, portrayed by character actor Dick Wilson.
• Pele scores 1000th goal
• Boeing 747 and Concorde first flight
• In time for perhaps the very last of the boomers, Sesame Street debuts on television.
• But also, Penthouse begins publication... in plenty of time for the boomers.
• President Nixon announces his "Vietnamization" designed to help the Vietnamese deal with their own problems, and extricate the U.S. from southeast Asia.
• July 18: Senator Ted Kennedy drives his car off a bridge on Chappaquiddick Island off Martha's Vineyard, killing his young passenger, Mary Jo Kopechne. This major story was partially drowned out (sorry) by the moon landing that took place just days later. A week after the accident, Kennedy received a suspended sentence, and that was the end of it. But many Americans would never look at Kennedy the same way (and few would ever ride in a car with him at the wheel.)
• July 21: The U.S. wins the space race convincingly by landing a man on the moon. Neil Armstrong, Edwin Aldrin, and Michael Collins fly on board Apollo 11. "Houston... Tranquility Base, here; the Eagle has landed." Event of the century? Possibly; we all thought so at the time. We met the late president's challenge and conquered outer space. This gave Americans confidence that we could beat the Russians in anything... if put to the test.
• August 10: Charles Manson and other members of his cult murder actress Sharon Tate and six others in a horrible event that was referred to as "Helter Skelter."
• The ACLU (American Civil Liberties Union) claims that marijuana is harmless to both the user and society in general.
• The U.S. spends no more money than it takes in. That won't happen again till the boomers hit 50.
• Hurricane Camille hits the Mississippi gulf coast killing 248; damage is set at $1.5 billion.
• An oil spill off the coast of Santa Barbara spreads over 30 miles of the shoreline. This is the first major of dozens to follow in the next 25 years.
• Dr. Laurence Peter introduces the world to his "Peter Principle," which states that workers rise to their level of incompetence.
• President Nixon bans the production of chemical weapons.
• As the first of the boomers reach their 20's, the cost of medical care begins to rise sharply.
• October: "I will say confidently that looking ahead just three years the war will be over." - President Nixon.
• The "Chicago 7" (even though there were actually 8) have their day on court. Attorney William Kunstler, defends David Dellinger, Rennie Davis, Tom Hayden, Abbie Hoffman, Black Panther leader Bobby Seale, Jerry Rubin, Lee Weiner, and chemistry professor John R. Froins. Bobby Seale is gagged and chained to his chair because of his courtroom outbursts and sentences him in November to 4 years in prison for contempt of court. The others get off with relatively light sentences.
• Defying all conventional wisdom, the New York Mets win their first World Series. Meanwhile, the New York Jets win the Super Bowl, defying all logic... except that of Joe Namath.
• November: President Nixon appeals to the "great silent majority" to support his Vietnam policy.
• "Marcus Welby" and "Monthy Python's Flying Circus" debut on television.
• The Academy award for Best Picture goes to "Midnight Cowboy." John Wayne wins for Best Actor in "True Grit." Paul Newman and Robert Redford star in "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid."
• November 15: 250,000 protestors (mostly students) march against the war in Washington, D.C. It is only fitting that the decade ends with just as much excitement and turmoil as it began.
• December 1: The Selective Service conducts the first draft lottery since 1942, affecting 800,000 males born between 1944 and 1950.

San Francisco Events (Mostly Music Related)

• San Francisco, 1969  -  As a protest against the U.S. government's treatment of Native Americans, approximately one hundred American Indians occupy Alcatraz Island in November. The group, composed primarily of American Indian college students, remains for nineteen months before their forced removal.
• March 20, 1969  -  Janis Joplin and Her Band opened at Winterland.
• March 21, 1969  -  San Francisco State College strike ended.
• March 27, 1969  -  Bo Diddley opened at Winterland.
• May 7, 1969  -  Grateful Dead and the Airplane perform at the Polo Field in Golden Gate Park.
• May 24, 1969  -  Haight-Ashbury Festival in the Golden Gate Park Panhandle.
• May 28, 1969  -  People’s Park Bail Ball benefit held at Winterland. Creedance Clearwater Revival and the Airplane entertained.
• June 13, 1969  -  Jefferson Airplane with Grace Slick at the Family Dog Ballroom at the Great Highway. The show was broadcast by KSAN.
• June 17, 1969  -  Woody Herman and His Orchestra at the Fillmore West.
• June 25, 1969  -  The Doors, Lonnie Mack, Elvin Bishop Group at the Cow Palace.
• July 19, 1969  -  The Who appeared at Fillmore West.
• August 22, 1969  -  Three-day Wild West Festival at Kezar Stadium with Janis Joplin, Turk Murphy, Jefferson Airplane, the Dead, Country Joe, Santana, Sly and the Family Stone, and the Youngbloods.
• October 9, 1969  -  Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young opened at Fillmore West.
• October 21, 1969  -  Beat-era author Jack Keroac dies
• November 13, 1969  -  Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young, Cold Blood, Joy of Cooking, and Lamb at Winterland.
• November 15, 1969  -  Thousands of people participated in a peace march.
• December 6, 1969  -  Rolling Stones appeared at the Altamont Speedway near Livermore after they were denied use of Golden Gate Park. One person was murdered during the show. Marked the end of the San Francisco Rock era.
• December 22, 1969  -  Radio Free Alcatraz broadcast for first time from Berkeley radio station KPFA.
• December 31, 1969  -  Jefferson Airplane New Year's show at Winterland.

Technology Events

• Honeywell releases the H316 "Kitchen Computer", the first home computer, priced at $10,600 in the Neiman Marcus catalog.
• Advanced Micro Devices is founded by Jerry Sanders and seven others from Fairchild Semiconductor.
• Intel announces a 1 kilobit RAM chip (that's only 128 Bytes!), which has a significantly larger capacity than any previously produced memory chip.
• For the Busicom project, Intel's Marcian (Ted) Hoff and Stan Mazor design a 4-bit CPU chip set architecture that could receive instructions and perform simple functions on data. The CPU becomes the 4004 microprocessor
• ARPANET (later to become a little thing called the Internet) commissioned by DoD for research into networking. First set up with 4 nodes: Stanford, UCLA, UCSB, and U. of Utah. First attempt at sending packets was from UCLA to Stanford on October 29. The first 2 characters were successfully transferred, but the third keystroke crashed the system. (hmmmm...maybe Bill Gates was involved!)

1969 Oscar Nominations   (winner is underlined)

1969 Grammy Winners

Top 50 Songs of 1969