News Headlines of '69
1969 Evening News Abstracts: TV News Archive - Daily abstracts of TV evening news
Richard Nixon is inaugurated president of the United States (January 20) and announces the beginning of troop withdrawal from Vietnam (July 8). He bans the use of chemical and biological weapons.
Boris Karloff dies. (February 2)
Yasser Arafat becomes President of the PLO. (February 7)
Last edition of the Saturday Evening Post. (February 8)
The maiden flights of both the Boeing 747 (February 9) and the Concorde. (March 2)
James Earl Ray pleads guilty to killing Martin Luther King, Jr. (March 10)
Paul McCartney (Beatles) marries Linda Eastman in London. (March 12)
Golda Meir becomes Israeli Prime Minister. (March 17)
Chicago 8 indicted on March 19. Trial begins on September 24.
Dwight Eisenhower (34th President of the US) dies. (March 28)
Midnight Cowboy wins the Best Picture Oscar, the first and only time an X-rated movie received the honor. (March)
Sirhan Sirhan convicted of assassinating Robert F. Kennedy. (April 17)
French President Charles de Gaulle resigns from office (April 28) after his proposal for regional reform is rejected by voters. He dies the next year. President Georges Pompidou continues de Gaulle's policies but ends French opposition to Britain's presence in the Common Market.
The Queen Elizabeth II's maiden voyage. (May 2)
Construction begins on Walt Disney World in Orlando, Florida. (May 27)
Tobacco advertising banned on Canadian radio and television. (June 1)
The gay rights movement begins in New York with the Stonewall Inn Riot, in protest of a police raid of a dance club and bar in Greenwich Village. (June 27-28)
Prince Charles of Great Britain becomes Prince of Wales. (July 1)
Senator Ted Kennedy and Mary Jo Kopecne plunge off Chappaquiddick bridge. Kopecne does not survive. (July 18)
Neil Armstrong Lands on the Moon. Through NASA, the U.S. space program flies higher than anyone before. Neil Armstrong becomes the first man to walk on the moon when he exits the lunar capsule Apollo 11 with the famous words "One small step for man, one giant leap for mankind." (July 20)
The Manson Murders shocked the nation in the Summer of '69. (August 9)
Woodstock Music Festival reigns for four days in August in the Catskill Mountains. More than half a million people gather in the small, upstate New York town of Bethel (near Woodstock, N.Y.). It is four days of rain, sex and rock 'n' roll. Recreational drugs are quite widespread. Performers include Janis Joplin, Jimi Hendrix, The Who, Joan Baez, Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young, Jefferson Airplane and Sly and the Family Stone. (August 15-18)
Rocky Marciano (boxer) dies. (August 31)
Ho Chi Minh (North Vietnamese president) dies. (September 3)
Somali president Abdi Rashid Ali Shermarke is assassinated (October 15) and the government is seized by General Muhammad Siad Barre, who dissolves the legislature and establishes himself as a dictator.
Jack Kerouac (author) dies. (October 21)
Supreme Court orders end to all school desegregation "at once". (October 29)
Strategic Arms Limitation Talks (SALT) begin between the United States and the U.S.S.R., as President Nixon tries to control the nuclear arms race and promote a policy of détente. (November)
Sesame Street, created by the Children's Television Workshop, debuts on public television and begins to change attitudes about children's learning capabilities. (November 10)
Joseph P. Kennedy, Sr. (father of JFK) dies. (November 18)
A Rolling Stones fan is killed at the group's Altamont, California, concert by members of Hell's Angels. Three others died at the Altamont concert. Two people were run over in their sleeping bags as they lay sleeping. One unidentified person drowned. (December 6)
Tiny Tim marries Miss Vicky on The Tonight Show. (December 17)
Great Britain abolishes the death penalty. (December 18)
***Some information contained on this page referenced from
The History Channel - 1969 online site.***
