70s timeline

  • Newport Jazz Festival

    The Newport Casino in Rhode Island, marking the first major outdoor jazz festival in America.
  • Nixon-Kennedy Debates (1st on Television)

    Between Senator John F. Kennedy and Vice President Richard Nixon in Chicago Broadcast by CBS, this event highlighted the power of visual media, as the poised, telegenic Kennedy won over 70 million viewers
  • The Assassination of John F. Kennedy

    He was assassinated in Dallas, Texas, while riding in a motorcade through Dealey Plaza. At 12:30 p.m., shots fired from the Texas School Book Depository struck Kennedy in the neck and head.
  • The Beatles appear for the first time on the Ed Sullivan Show

    Broadcast from CBS Studio 50 in New York City. An estimated 73 million viewers—roughly 40% of the U.S. population—watched the performance, which launched Beatlemania in America and the British Invasion.
  • The Gulf of Tonkin Resolution

    Was a authorized President Lyndon B. Johnson to use conventional military force in Southeast Asia without a formal declaration of war.
  • Operation Rolling Thunder

    Was a sustained US aerial bombing campaign during the Vietnam War, aimed at curbing North Vietnamese support for Viet Cong insurgents.
  • March on the Pentagon

    Was a major, two-day anti-Vietnam War demonstration on October 21–22, 1967, where up to 100,000 protesters rallied at the Lincoln Memorial before roughly 50,000 marched to the Pentagon to confront the "machinery of war."
  • Mai Lai Massacre

    The mass killing of hundreds of unarmed civilians by U.S. forces during the Vietnam War.
  • Riots at the Chicago Democratic Convention

    Protests against the United States' involvement in the Vietnam War took place prior to and during the 1968 Democratic National Convention
  • Woodstock

    Billed as "3 Days of Peace Music," began on August 15, 1969, on Max Yasgur's dairy farm in Bethel, NY. Over 400,000 people gathered for the historic weekend, which featured 32 performances by artists like Richie Havens (who opened), Ravi Shankar, and Joan Baez on the first day.
  • Chicago 8 Trial

    Was a landmark federal case prosecuting anti-war activists for inciting riots
  • The Beatles Break Up

    Driven by intense personal, creative, and financial frictions rather than a single event. While John Lennon privately quit
  • Kent State Protest

    Ohio National Guardsmen fired 67 shots into a crowd of unarmed Kent State University students protesting the Cambodian Campaign of the Vietnam War, killing four and wounding nine
  • Roe vs. Wade

    Established a woman's constitutional right to an abortion, rooted in the right to privacy under the Fourteenth Amendment, striking down many state anti-abortion laws