May 10, 1968: France protests grow and demonstrators barricade the streets (as seen in Bordeaux)May 12, 1968: Reggie Dwight of Pinner assumes stage name "Elton John"May 22, 1968: USS Scorpion nuclear submarine lost with all 99 crewMay 18, 1968: Nuclear-powered Nimbus-B destroyed before it can hit California
In Dallas, at its first meeting since its creation through a merger, the United Methodist Church removed its rule that Methodist ministers could not drink alcohol nor smoke tobacco.[3]
Born:Oliver Bierhoff, German soccer football striker and national team member who scored the first "golden goal" in international play; in Karlsruhe
Died:Jack Adams, 73, Canadian ice hockey player, Detroit Red Wings head coach, and Hockey Hall of Fame inductee. The National Hockey League's award for the coach of the year is named in his honor.
Regular television broadcasting was introduced to Israel with the debut of Channel 1 of the Israel Broadcasting Authority.[4] The launch date, planned just nine weeks earlier, was set for Israeli Independence Day, which was celebrated annually on 5th day of Iyar of the Hebrew calendar and fell on May 2 in 1968. Live coverage of the independence day military parade in Jerusalem was the first program. The first station-produced entertainment series would be Siach Lochamim, a drama, in 1969.[5]
Student protests in France led the administrators of the Paris University at Nanterre to temporarily shut down the educational institution.[6] Instead of quelling the demonstrations, the act led to more protests and the calling of riot police by the university.[7]
The Poor People's March on Washington, its start postponed after the assassination of Martin Luther King, started from Memphis, Tennessee with a group of 8 chartered buses and ended the day at the town of Marks, Mississippi. Because of inadequate supplies for spending the night, half of the group of 600 returned to Memphis.[8]
Staff Sgt. Benavidez
Staff Sergeant Roy Benavidez of the U.S. Army's 5th Special Forces Group distinguished himself in battle near Loc Ninh in South Vietnam when he rescued 8 survivors of a 12-man Special Forces team that was surrounded by 1,000 enemy troops. Despite being off duty, Benavidez volunteered to travel by helicopter with the rescue team and was wounded four different times in the course of an 8-hour exchange of gunfire, but administered first aid to the other wounded officers, held off attackers by firing back and calling in airstrikes, secured classified documents, and dragged and carried wounded men to safety. It would not be until 1981 that Benavidez would receive the Medal of Honor for his heroism.[9]
A newspaper advertisement in The New York Times, paid for by New York City real estate investor Lawrence Wien on behalf of the "Committee for a Reasonable World Trade Center", urged the public to demand that construction of the World Trade Center be limited to two buildings no taller than 900 feet (270 m) rather than the planned 1,350 feet (410 m). An illustration of a jet flying straight toward one of the towers was featured in the ad, inadvertently warning of what would happen more than 33 years later, and the accompanying text commented "Consider the case of the 'Mountain' being built downtown," and after noting "that air traffic patterns will have to change, landing approaches will have to be altered, minimum altitudes in the area will be affected," commented that "If you're concerned about TV reception and safe air travel, write to the Governor today. Before it's too late."[10][11]
Protocol 4 of the European Convention on Human Rights went into effect for member nations of the Council of Europe, with the signatory nations agreeing to prohibit debtor's prisons, to not restrict their populations from traveling inside or outside their country, to prohibit the expulsion of a citizen, and to prohibit the deportation of groups of foreigners on the basis of nationality. Four nations— the United Kingdom, Switzerland, Turkey and Greece—have never ratified the protocol.[14]
A group of 500 students at the Sorbonne in Paris, France, protested against the closure of Paris University at Nanterre and the proposed expulsion of some students.[16] Police arrived to disperse the protesters, and "the first riot of mai 68 ensued" and led to riots and university closures across the country.[17]
The first heart transplant in the United Kingdom was performed by Dr. Donald Ross and a team of surgeons at the National Heart Hospital in London. The patient, Frederick West, would survive for 46 days until dying from complications of an infection.[18]
The United States and North Vietnam agreed that their representatives would meet in Paris on May 10 to begin the first discussions on the format for peace talks to end the Vietnam War.[19]
Braniff Flight 352 crashed near Dawson, Texas, killing all 85 people on board. The turboprop Lockheed L-188A Electra took off on a scheduled flight from Houston to Dallas at 4:11 p.m. but flew into a severe thunderstorm 90 miles (140 km) from its destination and broke up in midair. There were no survivors.[20][21] Investigations would later reveal that the accident was caused by structural over-stress and failure of the airframe while attempting recovery from loss of control during a steep 180-degree turn executed in an attempt to escape the weather.[22]
After funding restraints were placed imposed on the Apollo Applications Program, a holding plan was implemented for the remainder of Fiscal Year 1968, to maintain a reasonable balance in program content while avoiding major cuts to work in progress. [23]
Died:Leonid Sabaneyev, 86, Russian mathematician and classical composer
The 94th Kentucky Derby was won by Dancer's Image. Despite the thoroughbred's history of pain in his ankles, jockey Bobby Ussery rode to victory and finished 1½ lengths ahead of Forward Pass.[24] Three days later, Dancer's Image would be disqualified after failing a drug test and Forward Pass would be declared the winner.[25][26][27]
Four journalists— three from Australia and one from England— were murdered in Saigon by Viet Cong guerrillas after their mini-jeep drove into a trap in the city's Cholon sector. Killed in an execution were Reuters reporters Ron Lamary of England and Bruce Pigott; Michael Birch of the Australian Associated Press; and John Cantwell, Australian correspondent for Time magazine. A fifth journalist, freelancer Frank Palmos of Australia, pretended to be dead and would survive to tell what happened.[32]
In Paris, the Union Nationale des Étudiants de France (UNEF), France's largest student union, along with the union of university teachers, staged a march to protest against police actions at the Sorbonne. More than 20,000 protesters marched towards the Sorbonne, and the police charged the crowd with batons. When some protesters created barricades and threw paving stones, the police respond with tear gas. Hundreds were arrested.
The Argentine tanker MV Islas Orcadas exploded, caught fire and sank at Ensenada, Buenos Aires Province. Burning oil set two other tankers, MV Fray Luis Beltran and MV Cutral Co, on fire, sinking them as well.[33]
The sudden flooding of a coal mine at Hominy Falls, West Virginia trapped 25 miners underground.[34] Fifteen were rescued after being trapped for five days,[35] but the other 10, who had not been heard from since the accident, were believed to have died.[36] To the surprise of rescue workers, six of the 10 men had survived for nearly a week and a half in the flooded mine after they had built a barricade and rationed what food they had left.[37]
The first of thousands of May 7 Cadre Schools, intended to "re-educate" party members, government bureaucrats, college students and professors, and other professionals with forced labor alongside peasant workers, was opened in Liuhe, a village in the Qing'an County section of China's Heilongjiang Province. On October 5, Mao Zedong would publish a directive to require all able-bodied persons to perform agricultural labor. At the height of China's Cultural Revolution, millions of Chinese professionals were sent to cadre schools for at least a year. After the death of Lin Biao in 1971, many of the labor camps would be closed, and the remaining schools would be abolished on February 17, 1979.[38]
In Paris, students, teachers and young workers gathered at the Arc de Triomphe to demand that criminal charges against arrested students be dropped and that the authorities reopen Nanterre and Sorbonne universities.
Forward Pass, who had crossed the finish line second in the Kentucky Derby, was declared the winner after a urinalysis by the Kentucky State Racing Commission found traces of the painkiller phenylbutazone in Dancer's Image. The $122,600 first prize and the $5,000 gold cup were ordered returned by Peter Fuller, the owner of Dancer's Image, and transferred to the Calumet Farm.[39]
Lurleen Wallace, 41, Governor of Alabama who was elected because her husband, George C. Wallace, could not serve consecutive terms, died of cancer after 15 months in office. Lieutenant Governor Albert Brewer was sworn in as the new governor the next day.[40]
Mike Spence, 31, British racing driver, was killed while test driving a Lotus 56 turbocar in preparation for the Indianapolis 500.[41][42]
Jim "Catfish" Hunter of the Oakland A's hurled the ninth perfect game in Major League Baseball history, and the first in an American League game in more than 45 years. Playing at home in a 4-0 win over the Minnesota Twins, Hunter threw 11 strikeouts, including the last two players he faced, Bruce Look and Rich Reese. The feat was witnessed by only 6,298 paying customers.[43] The feat of not allowing an opposing player to reach first base had last been accomplished in the majors by Sandy Koufax on September 9, 1965. For the next 13 years, including the entire 1970s, no more perfect games would be hurled in the American major leagues until May 15, 1981, by Len Barker.
The possibility of a coup to overthrow the British government was suggested in a meeting arranged by newspaper publisher Cecil King, and would be recounted eight years later in book by King's editor-in-chief at the Daily Mirror, Hugh Cudlipp. According to Cudlipp's 1976 memoir Walking on Water, King met with British war hero Lord Mountbatten and outlined the problems with the administration of Prime Minister Harold Wilson. Cudlipp, who was present at the meeting, reported King's belief that there would be civil disorder and said that King asked Mountbatten "whether he would agree to be titular head of a new administration". Government adviser Solly Zuckerman, according to Cudlipp, told King that the idea was "rank treachery" and added, "I am a public servant and will have nothing to do with it", and that Mountbatten ended the meeting.[44]
Communist Party leaders from five of Eastern Europe's nations met in Moscow to discuss a response to the liberal reforms going on in Czechoslovakia during the Prague Spring. Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev expressed his opinion that the situation was "exceptionally dangerous" and that counterrevolutionary party members were taking control of that Communist nation because of the indecisiveness of Czechoslovakia's Party Central Committee. "We must make sure that in the press in our countries", Brezhnev said, "in all our speeches, and in works put out by artistic unions and other organizations, nothing appears that might be construed as even slightly encouraging to the 'new model of socialism' which the anti-socialist elements in the CSSR claim to be creating."[45]Walter Ulbricht (East Germany), Wladyslaw Gomulka (Poland) and Todor Zhivkov (Bulgaria) agreed with Brezhnev's assessment, while János Kádár of Hungary felt that Czechoslovakia's Action Program was a correction of its Party's mistakes rather than a counterrevolution.
Officials at Arlington National Cemetery announced that the burial ground for American veterans would run out of space by 1985, even with a recent 192-acre expansion that had provided space for 60,000 more gravesites. The plan for 17-years in the future was to provide burial only for national heroes after 1985, and to limit interment at Arlington to the placement of cremated remains inside marble vaults.[46]
Born:Chris Lighty, American music executive and founder of Violator Records; in the Bronx (committed suicide, 2012)
Candidates from the United Kingdom's Conservative Party overwhelmingly won municipal elections held in cities and towns in England and Wales in what was seen as an indication of a loss of confidence in the Labour Party and the government of Prime Minister Harold Wilson.[47]
Arthur Wergs Mitchell, 84, African-American U.S. Representative who served Illinois' 1st District from 1935 to 1943. He was the first black Democrat to be elected to Congress, and the only black Congressman during his eight years in office.
Marion Lorne, 82, American actress best known for her portrayal of "Aunt Clara", the confused witch, on the situation comedy Bewitched. She would posthumously receive the Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series.
Harold Gray, 74, American comic strip artist known for creating Little Orphan Annie, which first appeared on August 5, 1924.
Mercedes de Acosta, 75, American poet, playwright, costume designer, and socialite
Finlay Currie, 90, Scottish stage, film, and television actor
Representatives of the United States and of North Vietnam met at Paris for the first time to discuss peace talks, and agreed that discussions would take place at the International Conference Center of the French Foreign Ministry, located in the former Hotel Majestic. W. Averell Harriman led the American delegation with the assistance of Cyrus Vance, and former North Vietnamese foreign minister Xuan Thuy was assisted by Colonel Ha Van Lau.[51]
The government of France issued an order prohibiting the state run ORTF from televising the student demonstrations in France, but ORTF radio correspondents were allowed to make live reports. The independent Radio Luxembourg sent its own journalists to France and kept them there despite harassment from the French police.[52] Because of the live broadcasts, news of the rebellion spread from Paris to the rest of France and to media around the world.[53]
At nightfall, college and high school students began erecting makeshift barricades to seal off the streets around the Latin Quarter of Paris and to keep the police from entering the area. The action was imitative of the history lessons taught about the barricades erected by the crowds of the Paris Commune in 1871 and by the French Resistance fighters against the German occupation in 1944.[53]
J. Edgar Hoover, the U.S. director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), began the secret COINTELPRO (counter-intelligence program) campaign to disrupt leftist groups in the U.S., particularly those composed of students or of African-Americans. The program's existence would be revealed after the theft, on March 8, 1971, of 1,200 documents from an FBI office in Media, Pennsylvania and the program would be discontinued soon after.[54]
Died: Marshal Vasily Sokolovsky, 70 Soviet Red Army general who commanded occupation troops in the Eastern sector of Germany after World War II and who unsuccessfully conducted the Berlin Blockade of 1948 in an attempt to take control of West Berlin.
French police stormed the Latin Quarter of Paris in order to clear away the demonstrators in a chaotic end to the "Night of the barricades" that called worldwide attention to the chaos in France.[56][53]
A crowd of 30,000 students marched to the parliamentary building in Bonn, the capital of West Germany, where members of the Bundestag were going to vote on the "Emergency Laws" (Notstandgesetze) which would authorize the West German executive branch to suspend basic rights during a national crisis. The "Sternmarsch" would be unsuccessful in blocking the enactment of the emergency measure.[57]
Fifty-eight people were killed and more than 200 injured when fire broke out at a wedding pavilion near the Indian city of Vijayawada in the state of Andhra Pradesh. Most of the dead were trampled when the guests rushed toward the few available exits in the pavilion, which was surrounded by a six-foot high fence. The bride and the bridegroom were able to escape.[58]
In England, Manchester City F.C. and Manchester United finished first and second in the regular season of England's The Football League, in a race that ended on the last day of the season. In the penultimate week, City (25–6–10) and United (24–8–9) had identical 56 point records. City beat Newcastle United, 4–3, on the road, but United lost at home, 2–1, to Sunderland.[59][60][61]
The Montreal Canadiens swept the best-of-seven National Hockey League championship and the Stanley Cup, beating the new St. Louis Blues 3 to 2 in Game 4.[62] The playoffs were the first since the 1967 NHL expansion, pitting the champion of the East Division (composed of all six of the NHL's original teams) against the champ from the West Division (made up of the six new teams). Despite being new, the Blues had lost two of the first three games only after the matches had gone into overtime.
Reginald Dwight, who played the piano for the English R&B group Bluesology, chose the stage name that would make him famous while on an airplane flight back to London after his final concert with Bluesology in Edinburgh. After a discussion with his bandmates, Dwight chose to use the first names of saxophonist Elton Dean and lead vocalist John Baldry to coin the pseudonym Elton John.[64][65]
North Vietnamese soldiers overran the U.S. Special Forces camp at Kham Duc and shot down an American C-130 transport as it was evacuating the area, killing all 156 men on board. All but six of the people on the C-130 were South Vietnamese civilians who were being taken to safety.[66] The disaster remains the worst air crash in Vietnamese history.[67] In all, 500 survivors of Kham Duc were saved before the camp was overrun. U.S. Air Force Lieutenant Colonel Joe M. Jackson would receive the Medal of Honor for his daring rescue of the last three Americans to remain at Kham Duc, saving the USAF Combat Control Team after the last of the civilians had been evacuated.[68]
Elections took place in Panama for a new President and for a new National Assembly. Former President Arnulfo Arias received the most votes in a landslide over David Samudio Ávila, the candidate sponsored by outgoing president Marco Aurelio Robles. "Despite the all-out effort by the Robles administration to steal the election", a historian would later write, the victory of Arias "had been made official only after National Guard Commander Bolivar Vallarino insisted on a reasonably honest count of the ballots."[69] Arias, however, would decline to honor the agreements that he had made with the Panamanian National Guard after being inaugurated on October 1, and would be removed from office by the Guard only 10 days later.[70]
In the West African nation of Dahomey (now Benin), the ruling military junta annulled the results of the May 5 presidential election because nearly three-quarters of the eligible voters didn't participate.[71]Basile Adjou Moumouni had won the overwhelming majority of the votes cast (241,273 out of 295,667 or 84%). The junta leader, Colonel Alphonse Alley, refused to recognize the result because most of the 1.13 million registered voters had not shown up on election day. The junta picked its own civilian candidate, Dr.Émile Zinsou and scheduled a referendum for July 28 with the choice of yes or no for Zinsou to be elected.
The Israeli government declared the 28th of Iyar (which fell on May 31 in 1968) as the national holiday Jerusalem Day, to commemorate the June 7, 1967 (28 Iyar 5727 on the Hebrew Calendar) capture of East Jerusalem.
In France, a one-day general strike was called by the Confédération Générale du Travail (CGT) and the Force Ouvrière (CGT-FO) as organized labor groups walked off of their jobs as a show of support to striking students.[73] Prime Minister Georges Pompidou announced the release of prisoners and the reopening of the Sorbonne, but protests continued.
The Paris Peace Talks between the United States and North Vietnam opened at the conference center on Avenue Kléber, and would result in a preliminary agreement on October 27.[74]
An advance team for the Poor People's March on Washington began erecting prefabricated buildings to create "Resurrection City" as temporary housing for the marchers to stay in for five weeks. Governmental permission had been obtained for the occupation of 15 acres at West Potomac Park near the Lincoln Memorial.[75] The organizers had obtained a permit from the National Park Service to remain for 37 days.[76]
Workers at the Sud Aviation aircraft factory near Nantes followed the example of France's university students and went on a sit-down strike, becoming "the very first of the French factories to go on strike" and setting a precedent that would soon spread to the Renault automobile factories, then to western France and eventually to the entire nation.[77]
President Boumediene
Algeria's President Houari Boumédiène ordered the nationalization of 14 foreign energy companies operating in the North African nation and assigned their assets to the government monopoly Sonatrach (Société Nationale pour la Recherche, la Production, le Transport, la Transformation, et la Commercialisation des Hydrocarbures) (National Society for the Research, Production, Transport, Refining and Marketing of Hydrocarbons).[78]
The United Kingdom's 37-year-old National Liberal Party, led by M.P. David Renton, voted for its dissolution, and merged into the Conservative Party. In the 1966 election, NLP candidates won just 3 of the 630 seats in the House of Commons.[79]
In Tokyo, Japan's Matsushita Electric Industrial Company (now Panasonic) introduced what was, at the time, the world's smallest television set. The tiny device, "so small it can be slipped into a coat pocket", had a 1 1⁄2 inch (3.8 cm) screen and weighed 1 1/3 pounds (600 grams).[80]
The first human lung transplant ever performed in Europe (and only the fourth worldwide) took place at the Royal Infirmary in Edinburgh, where 15-year-old Alex Smith was given a lung hours after Anse Main, an 18-year-old woman, had died of an overdose of drugs.[84]
The U.S. Central Intelligence Agency shut down Radio Americas, a station that had gone on the air in 1960 as part of a campaign against Cuba's leader, Fidel Castro. Originally called "Radio Swan" because its transmitter was located on one of the uninhabited Swan Islands off of the coast of Honduras, the station "spearheaded anti-Castro rumor campaigns" and even "supplied its listeners with sabotage instructions".[86]
Two weeks after students in France had closed most of the nation's universities with a student strike, employees seized control of the automobile factories owned by the nationalized Renault company, taking control at Boulogne-Billancourt, Rouen, Le Havre, Le Mans and Flins.[87] Employees of Sud-Aviation, the state operated aircraft factory at Nantes, welded the factory gates shut. Workers struck two factories at Lyon, several newspapers in Paris, and shut down Orly, the Paris international airport.[88]
An 8.3 magnitude earthquake struck northern Japan at 9:49 in the morning, killing at least 47 people through a combination of collapsed buildings and a tsunami. The heaviest damage was at the city of Aomori, and the quake was the strongest in more than four years.[89]
The United Auto Workers was ousted from the AFL–CIO labor union conglomerate. UAW President Walter P. Reuther, a longtime foe of AFL–CIO President George Meany, received a letter of expulsion because the UAW had not paid its $90,000 per month dues for three months.[90]
Ronan Point, a 23-storey tower block in Canning Town, east London, UK, partially collapsed after a gas explosion, killing five people. The disaster would highlight an area of design which had not previously been considered and which would lead to changes in legislation in the UK and other countries.[92]
The social revolt and labor unrest in France spread as the number of striking laborers reached 100,000 employees of dozens of factories. As the takeover continued, red flags were hoisted in and around Lyon over the Rhône-Poulenc chemical plant; the Berliet truck factory; and the Rhodiaceta textile factory.[95] The airports at Orly and at Le Bourget remained closed.
Mattel's Hot Wheels toy cars were introduced, and would become one of the best-selling line of toys in history.[96]
Nimbus-B, a weather satellite powered by two nuclear fueled generators, was launched at 1:23 a.m. from California's Vandenberg Air Force Base but failed to reach orbit after the malfunction of one of the rocket boosters, and began its re-entry toward North America. In order to prevent radioactive contaminants from being scattered across the Pacific Coast, ground control sent a destruct order to the rocket boosters two minutes after the launch.[97] The satellite plunged into the ocean, its nuclear cargo intact, about 95 miles (153 km) west of Los Angeles, and would finally be located and recovered on October 9.[98]
Sirhan Bishara Sirhan, a 24-year-old Jordanian citizen who had been raised in a Palestinian Christian family and who had lived in the U.S. for 12 years, made the first handwritten entries in a journal that would be introduced at his trial for the assassination of Robert F. Kennedy. Less than three weeks before the shooting, Sirhan was in his Pasadena, California, home and wrote "My determination to eliminate R.F.K. is becoming more the more of an unshakable obsession... Robert F. Kenned must be assassinated before 5 June 68".[99][100][101]
The two-week long Cannes Film Festival ended on its 9th day after members of the judges panel resigned in sympathy for striking French students and workers, and several hundred workers in the film industry seized control of the Palais des Festivals et des Congrès.[102][103] An attempt to resume the festival was halted the next day when film technicians (including projectionists) refused to work, and directors of the films scheduled for performance refused to allow the screening.[104][105]
Dogpatch USA, a theme park based on the comic strip Li'l Abner, was opened in the Ozark Mountains near Harrison, Arkansas in neighboring Newton County.[107] The comic strip would cease publication in 1977, and Dogpatch USA would close after the 1993 season. During the park's existence, the post office at Marble Falls, with a zip code of 72648, was officially called Dogpatch, Arkansas.
In the Italian general election, the Christian Democrat party retained control of the lower house of Parliament by winning a plurality (38%) of the vote.[111]Aldo Moro remained Prime Minister as his three party coalition retained a slim majority of the 325 seats in the Italian Senate and the 630 in the Chamber of Deputies.[112]
Nigerian forces captured Port Harcourt and surrounded Biafra. The blockade of Biafra would lead to a severe famine.[113]
Fifteen people, including seven children, were trampled to death in Cairo at the Archangel Michael Coptic Christian Church as thousands of people entered the church to see a reported Marian apparition, Our Lady of Zeitoun.[114]
Financed by a group of wealthy exiles from Haiti, a poorly handled attempt was made to overthrow the dictatorship of François "Papa Doc" Duvalier, starting with an attempt at aerial bombardment of Port-au-Prince. According to one account, a B-25 dropped a single explosive "which blew one more hole in an eroded road", followed by a package of leaflets "which did not scatter because the invaders had not untied the bundle before dropping it".[116][117] An invasion force came ashore and temporarily captured the port city of Cap-Haïtien. One bomb dropped on Port-au-Prince destroyed some private rooms in Duvalier's residence, and "an undetermined number of people were killed".[118] The 35-man invasion force would be defeated the next day.[119]
A massive rescue operation by ships from four nations saved all 178 passengers and crew of the Norwegian cruise ship Blenheim after the vessel caught fire in the North Sea, midway through its voyage from Newcastle to Oslo. Two fishing trawlers from Denmark, the Gine Wulf and the Taily, arrived first, and the supply ship Smith Lloyd from the Netherlands saved others and towed the ship to a safe port. Ships from West Germany and destroyers and helicopters from the United Kingdom's Royal Navy saved the others.[121]
France's President Charles de Gaulle exercised his constitutional power to grant amnesty for the leaders of the students who led the strike against French universities, but the number of French workers on strike increased to 8,000,000 as two million people walked off of their jobs during the day. Banks were closed as panicking depositors sought to withdraw their money, and the stock market in Paris did not open for trading.[122]
Born:Julie Vega (stage name for Julie Pearl Apostol Postigo), Filipina child actress who died of illness at the age of 16; in Quezon City (d. 1985)
Died:Arturo Basile, 54, Italian symphony orchestra conductor, was killed in a single car accident along with his passenger, opera soprano Marika Galli, while driving near the Italian city of Vercelli.
The American nuclear-powered submarineUSS Scorpion sank 400 miles from the Azores, killing all 99 of its crew.[123] A search would be abandoned on June 5; the remains of the Scorpion would not be located for another four months.[124] It would later be revealed that at 1844 UTC,[125] eight listening stations had recorded "a major acoustic event" below the sea surface "followed by lesser acoustic events". The U.S. Navy's classified investigative report would be released on October 25, 1993, revealing its conclusion that the Scorpion was probably destroyed by one of its own torpedoes.[126]
All 23 people on board Los Angeles Airways Flight 841, a Sikorsky S-61L were killed in the worst helicopter accident in American history as the aircraft crashed onto Minnesota Avenue in Paramount, California. The 20 passengers were being shuttled by the crew of three from Disneyland to the Los Angeles International Airport and were halfway through their 32-mile trip when the helicopter exploded and broke apart at 5:47 in the afternoon. The dead included the mayor of Red Bluff, California[127] and eight members of a family from Canton and Steubenville, Ohio who were on vacation.[128] An 20-month investigation by the National Transportation Safety Board would conclude that one of the five blades on the main rotor came loose from the damper that held it to the spinning rotor head, then became entangled in the rotor, throwing the other blades "entirely out of balance"; "The aircraft, completely uncontrollable, crashed in a near-vertical descent," the NTSB concluded, and added that "It was a one-in-a-million accident, with no precedent." [129]
The pro-British United Bermuda Party won 30 of the seats in Bermuda's new, 40-seat House of Assembly, while the Progressive Labour Party, which advocated independence for the British colony, got the remainder. The election was the first under a new one-man, one-vote law. The winners were 26 white and 14 black candidates (7 of whom were UBP members).[130]
By 11 votes, the government of Prime Minister Pompidou of France survived a vote on another censure motion, as 233 of the members of the 485 seat National Assembly voted in favor, but fell short of the 244 required.[131]
Daniel Cohn-Bendit, the leader of France's protests, was barred from re-entering the country after completing a tour of Europe to talk with other student protesters. When he tried to cross into Forbach from the border station shared with Saarbrücken, West Germany, "Danny the Red" found that he had been declared an "undesirable" by the Interior Ministry.[132]
Died: USMC Lieutenant David Westphall, 28, was killed along with 16 other United States Marines in a Viet Cong ambush near An Dinh in South Vietnam. His parents, Victor and Jeanne Westphall, would use the life insurance proceeds for their son to build the first memorial to Americans killed in the Vietnam War, and built a white chapel on land that they owned near Angel Fire, New Mexico.[133]
For the first time, an enemy aircraft was successfully shot down by a ship-launched surface-to-air missile. The U. S. Navy guided-missile cruiserUSS Long Beach(CGN-9) was safely out to sea off of the coast of North Vietnam and was 65 nautical miles (almost 75 miles or 120 kilometers) away from its target, a North Vietnamese MiG flying over North Vietnam. The RIM-8 Talos missile was fired from a distance of 65 nautical miles.[134][135][136]
The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) launched the "SOS Biafra" campaign, requesting the Red Cross humanitarian aid societies in 30 nations to work toward getting "massive material and financial support" from national governments to prevent famine and disease in the area that had seceded from Nigeria.[137]
Echo 1, the world's first communications satellite, fell out of orbit and burned up upon re-entry to the atmosphere. Launched on August 12, 1960, the 100 foot (30 m) polyethylene terephthalate (Mylar) covered balloon had sustained punctures from its encounters with space dust at high speeds, and dropped to lower orbits over time as it deflated. On its re-entry, it passed over northern California, southern Arizona and Mexico's Jalisco state before burning up over the west coast of South America.[138]
President Charles de Gaulle appeared on national television in France and made a plea to viewers for help in ending the strike by 10,000,000 workers and rioting in French cities. He announced a referendum for June and asked for voters to approve a grant of emergency power to force reforms and to halt the "roll to civil war". "Frenchmen, French women", he said, "you will deliver your verdict by a vote. In case your reply is 'no', it follows that I would no longer assume my functions."[142] In the hours leading up to the speech, thousands of demonstrators, many from outside the city, were converging on the center of Paris, while riot police prepared to contain the violence.[143] One historian would observe later that De Gaulle "did not come over as a man in charge of the situation, but a mere mortal struggling for a way out... for the first time in his career de Gaulle seemed an anachronism.[144]
North Vietnam activated a new prisoner-of-war camp at Sơn Tây, 23 miles (37 km) northwest of Hanoi, and began the relocation of 55 of the 356 American POWs. The site, codenamed "Camp Hope", would be the object of an ultimately unsuccessful attempt (on November 21, 1970) by a Special Operations force to rescue the prisoners.[145]
The world's 17th human heart transplant was performed at the Medical College of Virginia by Dr. David M. Hume and Dr. Richard Lower, but the hospital initially refused to disclose the name of the recipient or the donor, and an armed guard was kept on the floor where the patient was recovering.[146] Reporters soon learned from other sources that the recipient was a white man, Joseph G. Klett, and that the heart came from an African-American, Bruce O. Tucker, who had suffered a traumatic brain injury the day before the surgery and whose body was unclaimed;[147] and then found the reason for the secrecy. William Tucker, the donor's brother, brought a lawsuit on behalf of the family on grounds that the heart had been removed without consent and that Bruce was technically alive when he was taken off of life support.[148] The suit, Tucker v. Lower would be "the first case to present the question of the 'definition of death' in the context of organ transplantation".[149] Four years to the day after Tucker's death, a Virginia jury would become "the first anywhere to accept the new medical concept of brain death, the idea that a man is no longer living if his brain is dead."[150]
In France, negotiations began between the Pompidou government, trade unions, and the Organisation patronale, leading to the Grenelle agreements.[151]
The incorporation of a new city with 30,000 residents, Sterling Heights, Michigan, was approved by voters in the Sterling Township of Macomb County. The election result was 3,492 in favor and 2,614 against, with the city to come into existence on July 1.[152][153]
Mary Bell committed the first of two murders by strangling a four-year-old boy named Martin Brown in an upstairs bedroom of a derelict house located at 85 St. Margaret's Road. Brown's body was then discovered by three children later in the day. He was lying on his back with his arms stretched above his head. Aside from specks of blood and foam around his mouth, no signs of violence were visible upon his body. A local workman named John Hall soon arrived on the scene; he attempted to perform CPR, however Brown was already dead.[154]
In Chicago, baseball's National League voted to expand to 12 teams and awarded franchises to San Diego and the first Major League Baseball team in Canada, the Montreal Expos, with both to begin play in 1969, with prospective owners to pay $10,000,000 apiece. Bids from Buffalo, Dallas and Milwaukee were rejected.[157]
The government of France and representatives of its striking trade unions informally settled on the Grenelle agreements that would end the strike in return for a 35 percent increase in the minimum wage and an average increase of 10% in overall wages.[158]
The U.S. Supreme Court ruled, in United States v. O'Brien, that the burning of a draft card in protest did not constitute constitutionally-protected free speech.[159]
Rioting began inLouisville, Kentucky when a crowd of 400 protesters, mostly black, gathered at 28th and Greenwood Streets, in the city's Parkland neighborhood. When the violence escalated, Mayor Kenneth A. Schmied established a curfew and requested Governor Louie B. Nunn to call out 700 Kentucky National Guard troops to enforce it.[161] The rioting would end two days later; two people were killed.[162]
1st Lt. Bush
Future U.S. President George W. Bush, then 22, enlisted in the Texas Air National Guard after his graduation from Yale University as an acceptable way to avoid the possibility of being sent to Vietnam. Like the sons of many other prominent Texans, he was assigned to the 147th Fighter Group, nicknamed "The Champagne Unit".[163]
Died: Sir Philip Vian, 73, British Royal Navy Admiral of the Fleet remembered for his command of the destroyer HMS Cossack in its rescue of 300 British seamen from the German prison ship Altmark on February 17, 1940.
A Garuda Indonesia Airlines Convair 990 Coronado jet crashed shortly after taking off from Mumbai on a flight to Karachi, killing all 29 people on board. Debris from the plane fell onto the village of Bilalpada, killing one person on the ground.[165]
A natural gas explosion in the Atlanta suburb of Hapeville, Georgia, killed seven children and two adults at a day care center, after a bulldozer operator accidentally punctured a gas line.[168] The blast occurred as the first group of children were being evacuated from the building by employees. After a fire started, daycare center workers continued to go back into the building, and 22 of the 36 children in the building escaped injury.
Manchester United F.C. became the first team from England to win the European Cup soccer competition, defeating Benfica of Portugal, 4 to 1, in front of 92,225 at Wembley Stadium. The score was tied, 1-1, at the end of 90 minutes, but George Best, Brian Kidd and Bobby Charlton scored three goals in extra time.
West Germany enacted the controversial "Emergency Laws" (Notstandgesetze) a day after the third reading of the legislation, authorizing its government the power to revoke civil liberties during a national crisis.[170]
France's Prime Minister, Georges Pompidou suggested that President Charles de Gaulle dissolve the National Assembly, call a new election, and then resign. President de Gaulle refused to resign, but called an election for June 23, and threatened to declare a state of emergency. Opposition parties agreed to the call for an election.[171]
French politician Charles Pasqua organized a counterdemonstration of support for President de Gaulle, with at least over 300,000 Gaullist supporters (and perhaps as many as one million) marching down the Champs-Élysées in Paris.[172]
The Indianapolis 500 was run on Thursday rather than on Memorial Day because rain had repeatedly postponed qualifying trials. Bobby Unser, driving a turbocharged Offenhauser-powered car, won the race with a record speed of 152.882 miles per hour and Dan Gurney finished second.[173] By the time of the finish, all but 11 of the 33 cars had been put out of the race by mishaps.
Camille Chamoun, who had served as President of Lebanon from 1952 to 1958, was shot and wounded in an assassination attempt by a gunman who fired four bullets at point-blank range.[174]
^Peter Morris, A Game of Inches: The Stories Behind the Innovations That Shaped Baseball: The Game on the Field (Ivan R. Dee, 2006) p. 103
^"European Convention on Human Rights: Protocol IV (1963)", Encyclopedia of Human Rights, ed. by Edward H. Lawson and Mary Lou Bertucci (Taylor & Francis, 1996) p. 470
^"6 'Dead' W. Va. Miners Saved". Pittsburgh Press. May 16, 1968. p. 1.
^"May 7 Cadre School", in Historical Dictionary of the Chinese Cultural Revolution, ed. by Guo Jian, Yongyi Song and Yuan Zhou (Rowman & Littlefield, 2015) p. 220
^"DRUG DISQUALIFIES DERBY WINNER— Pain Killer Given Horse In Big Race", Pittsburgh Press, May 7, 1968, p. 1
^"Ala. Mourns Death Of Lurleen Wallace", Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, May 8, 1968, p. 2
^"Driver Dies In '500' Race Tuneup", Pittsburgh Press, May 8, 1968, p. 73
^Ferguson, Andrew (October 1996). Team Lotus: the Indianapolis Years. Somerset, England: Patrick Stephens Limited. pp. 181–184. ISBN1-85260-491-3.
^"A's Hunter Hurls Perfect Game", Pittsburgh Press, May 9, 1968, p. 43
^Andrew Marr, A History of Modern Britain (Pan Macmillan, 2009)
^Jaromír Navrátil, ed., The Prague Spring 1968: A National Security Archive Documents Reader (Central European University Press, 1998) pp. 135–136
^"Arlington to Halt Veterans' Burials by 1985", Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, May 9, 1968, p. 1
^"Labor Party Loses Heavily in Towns". Los Angeles Times. May 10, 1968. p. 2.
^"U.S., Hanoi Map Talks", Pittsburgh Press, May 10, 1968, p. 1
^"Sensorial Techniques of the Self: From the Jouissance of May '68 to the Economy of the Delay", in The Long 1968: Revisions and New Perspectives, ed. by Daniel J. Sherman, et al. (Indiana University Press, 2013) p. 320
^ abc"May 1968 in France: The Rise and Fall of a New Social Movement", by Ingrid Gilcher Holtey, in 1968: The World Transformed (Cambridge University Press, 1998)
^ "FBI Changed Tactics After Attack by Boggs— Hoover Ended Drive on New Left When Lawmaker Made 'Secret Police' Charge", Los Angeles Times, December 8, 1973, p.I-14
^Major Donald K. Schneider, Air Force Heroes in Vietnam (Airpower Research Institute, 1979) p. 74
^Giancarlo Soler Torrijos, In the Shadow of the United States: Democracy and Regional Order in the Latin Caribbean (Universal-Publishers, 2008) p. 130
^"Panama for the Panamanians: The Populism of Arnulfo Arias Madrid", by William Francis Robinson, in Populism in Latin America, ed. by Michael L. Conniff (University of Alabama Press, 2012) pp. 196–197
^"25 Per Cent Vote, Election is Annulled", Pittsburgh Press, May 13, 1968, p. 6
^"General Strike Grips France", Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, May 13, 1968, p. 1
^"The Perspective of a Vietnamese Witness", by Luu Doan Huynh, in The War That Never Ends: New Perspectives on the Vietnam War, ed. by David L. Anderson and John Ernst (University Press of Kentucky, 2007) p. 92
^"Poor Erecting Prefab D.C. City", Pittsburgh Press, May 13, 1968, p. 1
^"Abernathy, Ralph David", in Alabama Biographical Dictionary, by Jan Onofrio (Somerset Publishers, 1968) p. 8
^Kristin Ross, May '68 and Its Afterlives (University of Chicago Press, 2008) p. 48
^"Algeria: Development of Nation's Oil Industry discussed", by Jean-Bernard Hullot, Revue Française d'Eturdes Politiques Africaines (November 1969), reprinted in Translations on Sub-Saharan Africa, Issue 850 (U.S. Department of Commerce, 1970) p. 26
^David Dutton, Liberals in Schism: A History of the National Liberal Party (I.B.Tauris, 2008) p. 203
^"New Japanese TV Set Fits In Your Pocket", Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, May 15, 1968, p. 1
^"Kimmel Is Dead; Pearl Harbor Goat", Chicago Tribune, May 15, 1968, p.1
^"'Scapegoat' of P.H. Attack Dies", Honolulu Advertiser, May 15, 1968, p. 1
^"Tornado Onslaught Kills 70", Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, May 17, 1968, p. 2
^"Girl's Lungs Given To Boy", Pittsburgh Press, May 18, 1968, p. 3
^"New Nobel Prize", Pittsburgh Press, May 15, 1968, p. 7
^Jon Elliston, Psywar on Cuba: The Declassified History of U.S. Anti-Castro Propaganda (Ocean Press, 1999) p. 195
^"French Workers Follow Students, Seize Factories", Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, May 17, 1968, p. 1
^"Paris Workers Rebuff Students", Pittsburgh Press, May 17, 1968, p. 1
^"28 Killed As Quake Jolts Japan", Pittsburgh Press, May 16, 1968, p. 1
^"UAW Ousted For Failure To Pay Dues", Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, May 17, 1968, p. 2
^"Cosmic Craft Goes Into Orbit", Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, May 17, 1968, p. 5; The launch was at 0206 GMT 17 May, but at 5:06 p.m. local time on May 16
^"Sirhan Doesn't Want Diaries to Be Used in Trial", Bridgeport (CT) Telegram, February 25, 1969, p. 1
^"Sirhan Shouts Guilty Plea At Trial for RFK Murder", Detroit Free Press, February 26, 1969, p. 1
^Lamar Waldron and Thom Hartmann, Legacy of Secrecy: The Long Shadow of the JFK Assassination (Counterpoint Press, 2008) p. 626
^"Cannes Festival stops", The Observer (London), May 19, 1968, p. 1
^"Protest Cancels Cannes Film Fete", Baltimore Sun, May 19, 1968, p. 2
^"Film festival closed", The Guardian (London), May 20, 1968, p. 1
^"Performing the Revolution", by James S. Williams, in May 68: Rethinking France's Last Revolution (Palgrave Macmillan, 2011) p. 281
^"Cabinet Resigns In Saigon Shakeup", Pittsburgh Press, May 18, 1968, p. 1
^"Dogpatch USA", by Brooks Blevins, in The New Encyclopedia of Southern Culture, Volume 16: Sports and Recreation, ed. by Harvey H. Jackson III (University of North Carolina Press, 2011) p. 280
^Marley Brant, Join Together: Forty Years of the Rock Music Festival (Hal Leonard Corporation, 2008) pp. 41–42
^"Best Show Is Not On Stage", Fort Lauderdale (FL) News and Sun-Sentinel, May 19, 1968, p. B-1
^Lee C. Lawyer, et al., Geophysics in the Affairs of Mankind: A Personalized History of Exploration Geophysics (Society of Exploration Geophysicists, 2001) p. 164
^"25 years after accident, Navy admits the Scorpion killed itself", Chicago Tribune, October 26, 1993, p.1
^"23 Killed On Copter In Crash Near L.A.", Pittsburgh Press, May 23, 1968, p. 1
^"8 In Canton Area Family Killed In Copter Crash", Akron (OH) Beacon Journal, May 23, 1968, p. 1
^"Blades Chopped Copter to Pieces", Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, February 10, 1970, p2
^"Pro-British Win In Bermuda", Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, May 23, 1968, p. 2
^"Anti-De Gaulle Censure Fails", Pittsburgh Press, May 22, 1968, p. 1
^"Sensorial Techniques of the Self: From the Jouissance of May '68 to the Economy of the Delay", by Noit Banai, in The Long 1968: Revisions and New Perspectives (Indiana University Press, 2013) p. 303
^ "'Hanoi Jane' and the Myth of Betrayal: The Cultural War on the Home Front", by Beverly C. Tomek, in The Vietnam War in Popular Culture: The Influence of America's Most Controversial War on Everyday Life, ed. by Ron Milam (ABC-CLIO, 2016) p. 328
^Friedman, Norman, "The Navy's Ramjet Missile", Naval History, June 2014, p. 11.
^James F. Dunnigan and Albert A. Nofi, Dirty Little Secrets of the Vietnam War (Macmillan, 1999) p. 124
^"PARIS SETS UP FOR MASSIVE RIOT— De Gaulle Lays Down Peace Plea", El Paso (TX) Herald-Post, May 24, 1968, p. 1
^Nicholas Atkin, The Fifth French Republic (Palgrave Macmillan, 2004) p. 107
^William H. McRaven, Spec Ops: Case Studies in Special Operations Warfare: Theory and Practice (Random House Publishing Group, 2009) p. 287
^"Richmond Doctors Mum After Heart Transplant", UPI report in Montgomery (AL) Advertiser, May 26, 1968, p. 1
^"MCV Heart Patient Alert In 5 Minutes", The Progress-Index (Petersburg VA), May 31, 1968, p. 1
^"Donor's Brother: 'No Donation'", Tampa Bay Times, June 16, 1968, p. 3
^A Statutory Definition of the Standards for Determining Human Death, by Alexander M. Capron and Leon R. Kass, in Biomedical Ethics and the Law, ed. by James M. Humber (Springer, 2013) p. 567
^The Courier-Journal (Louisville KY), May 26, 1972, p. 9
^Michael Seidman, 'Workers in a Repressive Society of Seductions: Parisian Metallurgists in May–June 1968', French Historical Studies 18:1 (1993), p. 264.
^"State Gets New City", Traverse City (MI) Record-Eagle, May 27, 1968, pp. 2–11
^Images of Modern America: Sterling Heights (Arcadia Publishing, 2017) p. 7
^"Aussies Win Tennis Cup", Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, May 27, 1968, p. 33
^Rolling Stone, No. 13, "Little Willie John Dies in Prison", July 6, 1968
^"San Diego, Montreal Get NL Franchises", Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, May 28, 1968, p. 18
^Patrick Emmenegger, The Power to Dismiss: Trade Unions and the Regulation of Job Security in Western Europe (Oxford University Press, 2014) pp. 138–139
^"United States v. O'Brien, by Donald A. Fishman, in Free Speech On Trial: Communication Perspectives on Landmark Supreme Court Decisions, ed. by Richard A. Parker (University of Alabama Press, 2003) p. 130
^"New Premier Takes Office in Saigon", Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, May 73, 1968, p. 1
^"Guard Sent In to Quell Louisville Disorder", Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, May 28, 1968, p. 1
^Williams, Kenneth H. (1988). ""Oh Baby…It's Really Happening:" The Louisville Race Riot of 1968". The Register of the Kentucky Historical Society. 3: 57–58.
^Kitty Kelley, The Family: The Real Story of the Bush Dynasty (Knopf Doubleday Publishing, 2004)
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