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Lieutenant Governor of Nevada: Edward Fike (political party unknown)
Lieutenant Governor of New Mexico: Elias Lee Francis II (Republican)
Lieutenant Governor of New York: Malcolm Wilson (Republican)
Lieutenant Governor of North Carolina: Robert W. Scott (Democratic) (until January 3), Hoyt Patrick Taylor Jr. (Democratic) (starting January 3)
Lieutenant Governor of North Dakota: Charles Tighe (Democratic) (until month and day unknown), Richard F. Larsen (Republican) (starting month and day unknown)
January 20: Richard Nixon becomes the 37th U.S. President
Spiro Agnew becomes the 39th U.S. Vice President
January[]
January 1 – In college football, Ohio State defeats USC in the Rose Bowl Game to win the national title for the 1968 season.
January 9 – In Washington, D.C., the Smithsonian Institution displays the art of Winslow Homer for 6 weeks.
January 12 – Super Bowl III: The New York Jets of the American Football League defeat the heavily favored Baltimore Colts of the National Football League 16–7.
January 13 – Elvis Presley steps into American Studios in Memphis, Tennessee, recording "Long Black Limousine" thus beginning the recording of what becomes his landmark comeback sessions for the albums "From Elvis In Memphis" and "Back in Memphis." The sessions yield the popular and critically acclaimed singles "Suspicious Minds", "In the Ghetto" and "Kentucky Rain."
January 14
USS Enterprise fire: An explosion aboard aircraft carrier USS Enterprise near Hawaii kills 27 and injures 314.
CBS greenlights Peanuts as a primetime television series. It runs for one season commencing April 10.
January 16 – Ten paintings are defaced in New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art.
January 20 – Richard Nixon is sworn in as the 37th President of the United States, and Spiro Agnew is sworn in as Vice President of the United States.
January 27 – The modern-day powerhouse of the Hetch Hetchy Project at Moccasin, California, rated at 100,000 kVA, is completed and placed in operation. On February 7, the original is removed from service.
January 28 – 1969 Santa Barbara oil spill: A blowout on Union Oil's Platform A in the Dos Cuadras Offshore Oil Field spills 80,000 to 100,000 barrels of crude oil into a channel and onto the beaches of Santa Barbara County in Southern California; on February 5 the oil spill closes Santa Barbara's harbor. The incident inspires WisconsinSenatorGaylord Nelson to organize the first Earth Day in 1970.
February[]
February 5
AquanautBerry L. Cannon dies of carbon dioxide poisoning while attempting to repair the SEALAB III habitat off San Clemente Island, California.
Four hundred Major League Baseball players boycott spring training over owners' refusal to increase their pension-fund contributions along with television broadcast revenues.
The U.S. population reaches 200 million.
February 8 – The last issue of The Saturday Evening Post in its original form hits magazine stands after 147 years.
February 9 – The Boeing 747 makes its maiden flight, from Paine Field at Everett, Washington.
February 24
The Mariner 6 Mars probe is launched from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station.
Tinker v. Des Moines Independent Community School District: The U.S. Supreme Court rules that the First Amendment applies to public schools.
February 26 – The baseball players' boycott of spring training is settled, largely on their terms.
March[]
March 3
In a Los Angeles court, Sirhan Sirhan admits that he killed presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy.
Apollo program: NASA launches Apollo 9 (James McDivitt, David Scott, Rusty Schweickart) to test the Apollo Lunar Module.
March 10 – In Memphis, Tennessee, James Earl Ray pleads guilty to assassinating Martin Luther King Jr. (he later retracts his guilty plea).
March 13 – Apollo program: Apollo 9 returns safely to Earth after testing the Lunar Module.
March 28 – Former United States General and President Dwight D. Eisenhower dies after a long illness in the Walter Reed Army Medical Center, Washington, D.C..
April[]
April – A grassroots movement of Berkeley community members seizes an empty lot owned by the University of California to begin the formation of "People's Park."
April 9 – The Harvard University Administration Building is seized by close to 300 students, mostly members of the Students for a Democratic Society. Before the takeover ends, 45 are injured and 184 are arrested.[1]
April 14 – The 41st Academy Awards ceremony, the first with no official host since 1939, is held at Dorothy Chandler Pavilion in Los Angeles. Carol Reed's Oliver! receives 11 nominations and wins five awards, including Best Picture and Best Director for Reed. Stanley Kubrick also receives his only Oscar win - Best Visual Effects for 2001: A Space Odyssey.
May[]
May 9, 1969: excursion train on the Salt Lake, Garfield and Western Railway as part of the 1969 Golden Spike Centennial
May 10 – Zip to Zap, a harbinger of the Woodstock Concert, ends with the dispersal and eviction of youth and young adults at Zap, North Dakota by the National Guard.
May 15 – A teenager known as 'Robert R.' dies in St. Louis, Missouri, of a baffling medical condition. In 1984 it will be identified as the first confirmed case of HIV/AIDS in North America.
May 18 – Apollo program: Apollo 10 (Tom Stafford, Gene Cernan, John Young) is launched, on the full dress-rehearsal for the Moon landing.
May 20 – United States National Guard helicopters spray skin-stinging powder on protesters in Berkeley, California in the aftermath of the People's Park unrest.
May 21 – Shirley Chisholm appears before Congress to speak about prejudices facing women in the workforce and the need for equal rights for women.[2]
May 22 – Apollo program: Apollo 10's lunar module flies to within 15,400 m of the Moon's surface.
May 26 – Apollo program: Apollo 10 returns to Earth, after a successful 8-day test of all the components needed for the upcoming first manned Moon landing.
June[]
June 3 – Melbourne-Evans collision: The Australian aircraft carrier HMAS Melbourne(R21) collides with the U.S. destroyer Frank E. Evans in the South China Sea; 74 U.S. sailors are killed.
June 8 – U.S. President Richard Nixon and South Vietnamese President Nguyễn Văn Thiệu meet at Midway Island. Nixon announces that 25,000 U.S. troops will be withdrawn by September.
June 9 – Nice.
June 18–22 – The National Convention of the Students for a Democratic Society (SDS), held in Chicago, collapses, and the Weatherman faction seizes control of the SDS National Office. Thereafter, any activity run from the National Office or bearing the name of SDS is Weatherman-controlled.
June 23 – Warren E. Burger is sworn in as Chief Justice of the United States by retiring Chief Justice Earl Warren.
June 28 – The Stonewall riots in New York City mark the start of the modern gay rights movement in the U.S.
July[]
July 8 – Vietnam War: The first U.S. troop withdrawals are made.
July 14 – The $500, $1,000, $5,000, and $10,000 bills are officially removed from circulation.
July 16 – Apollo program: Apollo 11 (Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin, Michael Collins) lifts off from Cape Kennedy toward the first human landing on the Moon.
July 17 – The New York Times publicly takes back the ridicule of the rocket scientist Robert H. Goddard published on 13 January 1920, that stated that spaceflight is impossible.[3]
July 18 – Chappaquiddick incident – Edward M. Kennedy drives off a bridge after leaving a party on Chappaquiddick Island, Massachusetts. Mary Jo Kopechne, a former campaign aide to his brother, Robert, dies in the early morning hours of July 19 in the submerged car.
July 20 – Apollo programMoon landing: At 3:17 pm ET (20:17 UTC) Apollo 11's Lunar Module Eagle lands on the Moon's surface. At 10:56 pm ET (02:56 UTC July 21), an estimated 650 million people worldwide watch in awe as Neil Armstrong takes the first historic steps by a human on the surface.
July 21 – A.D. King, younger brother of Martin Luther King Jr., dies at age 38.
July 24 – Apollo program: Armstrong, Aldrin, and Collins return safely to Earth after the first landing on the Moon.
July 25 – Vietnam War: U.S. President Richard Nixon declares the Nixon Doctrine, stating that the United States now expects its Asian allies to take care of their own military defense. This starts the "Vietnamization" of the war.
July 26 – The New York Chapter of the Young Lords is founded to fight for empowerment of Puerto Ricans.
July 30 – Vietnam War: U.S. President Richard M. Nixon makes an unscheduled visit to South Vietnam, meeting with President Nguyễn Văn Thiệu and U.S. military commanders.
August[]
August 4 – Vietnam War: At the apartment of French intermediary Jean Sainteny in Paris, U.S. representative Henry Kissinger and North Vietnamese representative Xuan Thuy begin secret peace negotiations. They eventually fail since both sides cannot agree to any terms.
August 5 – Mariner program: Mariner 7 makes its closest fly-by of Mars (3,524 kilometers).
August 9 – Members of a cult led by Charles Manson murder Sharon Tate, (who was 8 months pregnant), and her friends: Folgers coffee heiress Abigail Folger, Wojciech Frykowski, and Hollywood hairstylist Jay Sebring at Roman Polanski's home in Los Angeles. Also killed was Steven Parent, leaving from a visit to the home's caretaker. More than 100 stab wounds are found on the victims, except for Parent, who had been shot almost as soon as the Manson Family entered the property.
August 10 – The Manson Family kills Leno and Rosemary LaBianca, wealthy Los Angeles business people.
August 15–18 – The Woodstock Festival is held in upstate New York, featuring some of the era's top rock musicians.
August 17 – Category 5 Hurricane Camille, the most powerful tropical cyclonic system at landfall in history, hits the Mississippi coast, killing 248 people and causing US$1.5 billion in damage (1969 dollars).
August 20 – Florissant Fossil Beds National Monument is established in Florissant, Colorado.
September[]
September 2 – The first automatic teller machine in the United States is installed in Rockville Centre, New York.
September 5 – My Lai Massacre: Lieutenant William Calley is charged with six counts of premeditated murder, for the deaths of 109 Vietnamese civilians in My Lai.
September 6 – Children's TV series H.R. Pufnstuf begins its run on NBC. It was also a segment in The Banana Splits Adventure Hour season 2.
September 9 – Allegheny Airlines Flight 853DC-9 collides in flight with a PiperPA-28, and crashes near Fairland, Indiana.
September 13 – Scooby-Doo, Where Are You!, Dastardly and Muttley in Their Flying Machines, and The Perils of Penelope Pitstop debuts on CBS.
September 20 – The last Warner Bros. cartoon of the original theatrical Looney Tunes series is released: Injun Trouble.
September 23 – Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, a film starring Paul Newman and Robert Redford, opens to limited release in the U.S.
September 24 – The Chicago Eight trial begins in Chicago, Illinois.[1]
September 26 – The Brady Bunch premieres on ABC.
October[]
1969 Wal-Mart logo
October 1 – The 5.6 MwSanta Rosa earthquake shook the North Bay area of California with a maximum Mercalli intensity of VII (Very strong). This first event in a doublet earthquake was followed two hours later by a 5.7 Mw shock. Total financial losses from the events was $8.35 million.
October 2 – A 1.2 megaton thermonuclear device is tested at Amchitka Island, Alaska. This test is code-named Project Milrow, the 11th test of the Operation Mandrel 1969–1970 underground nuclear test series. This test is known as a "calibration shot" to test if the island is fit for larger underground nuclear detonations.
October 9–12 – Days of Rage: In Chicago, the United States National Guard is called in to control demonstrations involving the radical Weathermen, in connection with the "Chicago Eight" Trial.
October 11 – The Zodiac Killer murders taxi cab driver Paul Stine in San Francisco, California.
October 15 – Vietnam War: Hundreds of thousands of people take part in antiwar demonstrations across the United States called by the National Mobilization Committee to End the War in Vietnam.
October 16 – The "miracle" New York Mets win the World Series, beating the heavily favored Baltimore Orioles 4 games to 1.
October 17– Fourteen black athletes are kicked off the University of Wyoming football team for wearing black armbands into their coach's office.
October 31 – Wal-Mart incorporates as Wal-Mart Stores, Inc.
November[]
November 3 – Vietnam War: U.S. President Richard M. Nixon addresses the nation on television and radio, asking the "silent majority" to join him in solidarity with the Vietnam War effort, and to support his policies. Vice President Spiro T. Agnew denounces the President's critics as "an effete corps of impudent snobs" and "nattering nabobs of negativism".
November 10 – The children's television show Sesame Street premieres on NET (now PBS).
November 12 – Vietnam War – My Lai Massacre: Independent investigative journalist Seymour Hersh breaks the My Lai story.
November 14 – Apollo program: NASA launches Apollo 12 (Pete Conrad, Richard Gordon, Alan Bean), the second manned mission to the Moon.
November 15
Cold War: The Soviet submarine K-19 collides with the American submarine USS Gato in the Barents Sea.
Vietnam War: In Washington, D.C., 250,000–500,000 protesters stage a peaceful demonstration against the war, including a symbolic "March Against Death".
Dave Thomas opens his first restaurant in a former steakhouse in downtown Columbus, Ohio. He names the chain Wendy's after his 8-year-old daughter Melinda Lou (nicknamed Wendy by her siblings).
November 17 – Cold War: Negotiators from the Soviet Union and the United States meet in Helsinki, to begin the SALT I negotiations aimed at limiting the number of strategic weapons on both sides.
November 19 – Apollo program: Apollo 12 astronauts Pete Conrad and Alan Bean land at Oceanus Procellarum ("Ocean of Storms"), becoming the third and fourth humans to walk on the Moon.
November 20
Vietnam War: The Plain Dealer (Cleveland, Ohio) publishes explicit photographs of dead villagers from the My Lai massacre in Vietnam.
Occupation of Alcatraz: A group of Native Americanactivists calling themselves "Indians of All Tribes" begin an 18-month occupation of Alcatraz Island as surplus federal land, to call attention to U.S. policies and treaty obligations to Native Americans and their tribal communities.
November 21
U.S. President Richard Nixon and Japanese Premier Eisaku Satō agree in Washington, D.C. to the return of Okinawa to Japanese control in 1972. Under the terms of the agreement, the U.S. retains rights to military bases on the island, but they must be nuclear-free.
The United States Senate votes down the Supreme Court nomination of Clement Haynsworth, the first such rejection since 1930.
November 24 – Apollo program: The Apollo 12 spacecraft splashes down safely in the Pacific Ocean, ending the second manned mission to the Moon.
November 25 – John Lennon returns his MBE medal to protest the British government's support of the U.S. war in Vietnam.
December[]
December 1 – Chicago: Blues musician Magic Sam dies at the age of 32 of a heart attack.
December 1 – Vietnam War: The first draft lottery in the United States is held since World War II (on January 4, 1970, The New York Times will run a long article, "Statisticians Charge Draft Lottery Was Not Random").
December 2 – The Boeing 747 jumbo jet makes its debut. It carries 191 people, most of them reporters and photographers, from Seattle to New York City.
December 4 – Black Panther Party members Fred Hampton and Mark Clark are shot dead in their sleep during a raid by 14 Chicago police officers.
December 6 – The Altamont Free Concert is held at the Altamont Speedway in northern California. Hosted by the Rolling Stones, it is an attempt at a "Woodstock West" and is best known for the uproar of violence that occurred. It is viewed by many as the "end of the sixties."
December 7 – Frosty the Snowman airs for the first time on CBS.[4]
December 12 – The Piazza Fontana bombing in Italy (Strage di Piazza Fontana) takes place. A U.S. Navy officer and C.I.A. agent, David Carrett, is later investigated for possible involvement
Undated[]
The first Gap store opens in San Francisco.
Reported as being the year the first strain of the AIDS virus (HIV) migrated to the United States via Haiti.[5]
The weather station of Mount Washington, New Hampshire records the heaviest calendar year precipitation in the US east of the Cascades with 130.14 inches (3,305.6 mm), beating the previous record of Rosman, North Carolina by 0.54 inches (13.7 mm).[6]