San Francisco's "Human Be-In" launches the Summer of Love | January 14, 1967 | HISTORY

On January 3, 1967, Jack Ruby, the Dallas nightclub owner who killed the alleged assassin of President John F. Kennedy, dies of a massive blood clot in a Dallas hospital. The Texas Court of Appeals had recently overturned his death sentence for the murder of Lee Harvey Oswald and was scheduled to grant him a new trial.

On January 10, 1967, during his State of the Union speech, President Lyndon B. Johnson asks Congress for more money to support the Vietnam War.

The Human Be-In is held in San Francisco's Golden Gate Park on January 14, 1967, launching the "Summer of Love." The event draws more than 20,000 people to enjoy peace, love, music and psychedelics.

On January 15, 1967, the Green Bay Packers of the National Football League (NFL) smash the American Football League (AFL)’s Kansas City Chiefs, 35-10, in the first-ever AFL-NFL World Championship, later known as Super Bowl I, at Memorial Coliseum in Los Angeles.

A launch pad fire during Apollo program tests at Cape Canaveral, Florida, kills astronauts Virgil “Gus” Grissom, Edward H. White II, and Roger B. Chaffee. An investigation indicated that a faulty electrical wire inside the Apollo 1 command module was the probable cause of the fire. The astronauts, the first Americans to die in a spacecraft, had been participating in a simulation of the Apollo 1 launch scheduled for the next month.

On February 22, 1967, Indonesian President Sukarno surrenders all executive authority to military dictator General Haji Mohammad Suharto, remaining president in title only.

Senator Robert Kennedy (D-New York) proposes a three-point plan to help end the war. The plan included suspension of the U.S. bombing of North Vietnam and the gradual withdrawal of U.S. and North Vietnamese troops from South Vietnam with replacement by an international force. Secretary of State Dean Rusk rejected Kennedy’s proposal because he believed that the North Vietnamese would never agree to withdraw their troops.

On March 14, the body of President John F. Kennedy is moved to a spot just a few feet away from its original interment site at Arlington National Cemetery. The slain president had been assassinated more than three years earlier, on November 22, 1963.

The Reverend Martin Luther King Jr., leads a march of 5,000 antiwar demonstrators in Chicago. In an address to the demonstrators, King declared that the Vietnam War was “a blasphemy against all that America stands for.” King first began speaking out against American involvement in Vietnam in the summer of 1965.

The Reverend Martin Luther King Jr., head of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, delivers a speech entitled “Beyond Vietnam” in front of 3,000 people at Riverside Church in New York City. In it, he says that there is a common link forming between the civil rights and peace movements. King proposed that the United States stop all bombing of North and South Vietnam; declare a unilateral truce in the hope that it would lead to peace talks; set a date for withdrawal of all troops from Vietnam; and give the National Liberation Front a role in negotiations.

On April 21, 1967, General Motors (GM) celebrates the manufacture of its 100 millionth American-made car. At the time, GM was the world’s largest automaker.

On April 24, 1967, Soviet cosmonaut Vladimir Komarov is killed when his parachute fails to deploy during his spacecraft’s landing. He becomes the first human known to have died in space.

On April 28, 1967, boxing champion Muhammad Ali refuses to be inducted into the U.S. Army and is immediately stripped of his heavyweight title. Ali, a Muslim, cited religious reasons for his decision to forgo military service.

On the morning of May 1, 1967, in an intimate wedding before only 14 guests, music sensation Elvis Presley marries non-celebrity Priscilla Beaulieu in an eight-minute civil ceremony in a private suite at Las Vegas’ famed Aladdin Hotel. The couple wants to keep the nuptials very private, so they ditch reporters by flying on a private jet from Palm Springs in the wee hours and arriving in Las Vegas at 4 a.m.

One of the first major treaties designed to limit the spread of nuclear weapons goes into effect as the Soviet Union ratifies an agreement banning nuclear weapons from outer space. The United States, Great Britain and several dozen other nations had already signed and/or ratified the treaty.

On May 30, 1967, Gabriel Garcia Márquez's Cien años de soledad, or One Hundred Years of Solitude, is first published. The book, often referred to as a defining work of Latin American literature, made Márquez a prime candidate for the Nobel Prize in Literature, which he was awarded in 1982.

After suffering through years of suppression under Nigeria’s military government, the breakaway state of Biafra proclaims its independence from Nigeria.

On June 1, 1967, the Beatles release their eighth album, Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, a concept album that marked a new creative peak for the Liverpudlian superstars and that would become a critical favorite in the history of rock 'n' roll.

Israel responds to a build-up of Arab forces along its borders by launching a preemptive aerial attack against Egypt. Jordan subsequently entered the fray, but the Arab coalition was no match for Israel’s armed forces. In six days of fighting, Israel occupied the Gaza Strip and the Sinai Peninsula of Egypt, the Golan Heights of Syria and the West Bank and Arab sector of East Jerusalem, both previously under Jordanian rule. By the time the United Nations cease-fire took effect on June 11, Israel had more than doubled its size, including claiming the Old City of Jerusalem from Jordan.

During the Six-Day War, Israeli aircraft and torpedo boats attack the USS Liberty in international waters off Egypt’s Gaza Strip. The intelligence ship, well-marked as an American vessel and only lightly armed, was attacked first by Israeli aircraft that fired napalm and rockets at the ship. The Liberty attempted to radio for assistance, but the Israeli aircraft blocked the transmissions. Eventually, the ship was able to make contact with the U.S. carrier Saratoga, and 12 fighter jets and four tanker planes were dispatched to defend the Liberty. When word of their deployment reached Washington, however, Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara ordered them recalled to the carrier, and they never reached the Liberty. The reason for the recall remains unclear.

The Six-Day War between Israel and its Arab neighbors ends with a United Nations-brokered cease-fire. The outnumbered Israel Defense Forces achieved a swift victory in the brief war, rolling over the Arab coalition and more than doubling the amount of territory under Israel’s control. The greatest fruit of victory lay in seizing the Old City of Jerusalem from Jordan; thousands of Jews wept while bent in prayer at the Second Temple’s Western Wall.

On June 13, 1967, President Lyndon B. Johnson nominates U.S. Court of Appeals Judge Thurgood Marshall to fill the seat of retiring Supreme Court Associate Justice Tom C. Clark. On August 30, after a heated debate, the Senate confirmed Marshall’s nomination by a vote of 69 to 11. Two days later, he was sworn in by Chief Justice Earl Warren, making him the first African American in history to sit on America’s highest court.

On June 18, 1967, the Monterey Pop Festival comes to a close with a lineup that includes not-yet-iconic figures of the 1960s music scene—Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, the Who and the Grateful Dead—as well as Ravi Shankar, Buffalo Springfield and the Mamas and the Papas. Held over three days during the height of the Summer of Love, Monterey Pop helps bring these artists to the national consciousness.

Blonde bombshell and celebrated actress Jayne Mansfield is killed instantly on June 29, 1967, when the car in which she is riding strikes the rear of a trailer truck on U.S. Route 90 east of New Orleans, Louisiana.

On June 29, 1967, Keith Richards sits before magistrates in Chichester, West Sussex, England, facing charges that stemmed from the infamous raid of Richards’ Redlands estate five months earlier. Though the raid netted very little in the way of actual drugs, what it did net was a great deal of notoriety for the already notorious Rolling Stones.

Five weeks after its secession from Nigeria, the breakaway Republic of Biafra is attacked by Nigerian government forces.

On July 17, 1967, one of the oddest musical pairings in history comes to an end when Jimi Hendrix dropped out as the opening act for teenybopper sensations The Monkees.

The 1967 Detroit Riots were among the bloodiest in American history. The strife occurred during a period of Detroit’s history when the once-affluent city was struggling economically, and race relations nationwide were at an all-time low.

On July 29, 1967, The Doors' song “Light My Fire,” from their debut album, earns the top spot in the Billboard Hot 100, becoming their first bona fide smash hit and propelling The Doors from cult favorites of the rock cognoscenti into international pop stars and avatars of the '60s counterculture.

A fire on a United States Navy carrier stationed off the coast of Vietnam kills 134 service members on July 29, 1967. The deadly fire on the USS Forrestal began with the accidental launch of a rocket.

On August 16, 1967, President Johnson’s broad interpretation of the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution is attacked in the Senate Foreign Relations Subcommittee by the Chairman, Senator William Fulbright of Arkansas, who feels that Johnson has no mandate to conduct the war on the present scale.

On August 27, 1967, Brian Epstein, manager of the Beatles, was found dead of an accidental drug overdose. The following day, the headline in the London Daily Mirror read “EPSTEIN (The Beatle-Making Prince of Pop) DIES AT 32.” Brian Epstein was, by all accounts, the man who truly got the Beatles off the ground, and in John Lennon’s estimation, it was difficult to see how they’d manage to go on without the man who had managed every aspect of the Beatles’ business affairs up until his unexpected death. “I knew that we were in trouble then,” John later recalled. “I didn’t really have any misconceptions about our ability to do anything other than play music. I was scared. I thought, ‘We’ve ******* had it.'”

On August 30, 1967, Thurgood Marshall becomes the first African American to be confirmed as a Supreme Court justice. He would remain on the Supreme Court for 24 years before retiring for health reasons, leaving a legacy of upholding the rights of the individual as guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution.

Sergeant Duane D. Hackney is presented with the Air Force Cross for bravery in rescuing an Air Force pilot in Vietnam. He was the first living Air Force enlisted man to receive the award, the nation’s second highest award for bravery in action.

On September 17, 1967, up-and-coming British Invasion rock band the Who—known for their high-energy, instrument-destroying antics—ended an already explosive, nationally televised performance of their hit “My Generation” with a literal bang. The blast, caused by fireworks drummer Keith Moon had packed into his bass drum, badly singed guitarist Pete Townshend’s hair, left shrapnel in Moon’s arm and momentarily knocked "The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour" off the air.

Chief Justice Earl Warren swears in Thurgood Marshall, the first Black justice of the U.S. Supreme Court. As chief counsel for the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) in the 1940s and ’50s, Marshall was the architect and executor of the legal strategy that ended the era of official racial segregation.

On October 3, 1967, Woody Guthrie, godfather of the 1950s folk revival movement, dies.

A Bolivian guerrilla force led by Marxist revolutionary Che Guevara is defeated in a skirmish with a special detachment of the Bolivian army. Guevara was wounded, captured and executed the next day.

On October 9, 1967, socialist revolutionary and guerrilla leader Che Guevara, age 39, is killed by the Bolivian army. The U.S.-military-backed Bolivian forces captured Guevara on October 8 while battling his band of guerrillas in Bolivia and executed him the following day. His hands were cut off as proof of death and his body was buried in an unmarked grave. In 1997, Guevara’s remains were found and sent back to Cuba, where they were reburied in a ceremony attended by President Fidel Castro and thousands of Cubans.

On October 13, 1967, the Anaheim Amigos lose to the Oakland Oaks, 134-129, in the inaugural game of the American Basketball Association. In its first season, the ABA included 11 teams: the Pittsburgh Pipers, Minnesota Muskies, Indiana Pacers, Kentucky Colonels and New Jersey Americans played in the Eastern Division, and the New Orleans Buccaneers, Dallas Chaparrals, Denver Rockets, Houston Mavericks, Anaheim Amigos and Oakland Oaks played in the Western.

In Washington, D.C. nearly 100,000 people gather to protest the American war effort in Vietnam. More than 50,000 of the protesters marched to the Pentagon to ask for an end to the conflict. The protest was the most dramatic sign of waning U.S. support for President Lyndon Johnson’s war in Vietnam. Polls taken in the summer of 1967 revealed that, for the first time, American support for the war had fallen below 50 percent.

On November 29, 1967, President Lyndon Johnson announces that Robert S. McNamara will resign as Secretary of Defense and will become president of the World Bank.

On December 3, 1967, 53-year-old Louis Washkansky receives the first human heart transplant at Groote Schuur Hospital in Cape Town, South Africa.

On its final approach to Madison, Wisconsin on December 10, 1967, the private plane carrying soul-music legend Otis Redding would crash into the frigid waters of a small lake three miles short of the runway, killing seven of the eight men aboard, including Redding. His megahit “Sittin’ On The Dock Of The Bay” would be released in its “unfinished” form several weeks later. It would soon become history’s first posthumous #1 hit and the biggest pop hit of Redding’s career.

On December 12, 1967, Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner, a groundbreaking movie about an interracial romantic relationship starring Katharine Hepburn, Spencer Tracy, Sidney Poitier and Katharine Houghton, opens in theaters.

The film The Graduate opens at two theaters in New York: the Coronet on Third Avenue and the Lincoln Art Theater on Broadway. The film, based on a 1963 novel by Charles Webb, had a simple premise: As its screenwriter explained it, “this kid graduates college, has an affair with his parents’ best friend and then falls in love with the friend’s daughter.” (It was, he added, “the best pitch I ever heard.”) In other words, The Graduate was an uneasy exploration of what it meant to be young and adrift at a time of extraordinary confusion and upheaval. Anne Bancroft and Dustin Hoffman starred.