January
5th	Alexander Dubček is elected leader of the Communist Party in Czechoslovakia
8th	British Prime Minister Harold Wilson endorses the 'I'm Backing Britain' campaign for working an additional half hour each day without pay
13th	Johnny Cash records Live at Folsom Prison
15th	An earthquake in Sicily kills 231 and injures 262
19th	At a White House conference on crime, singer and actress Eartha Kitt denounces the Vietnam War directly to President Lyndon Johnson
21st	Battle of Khe Sanh begins. One of the most publicised and controversial battles of the war begins, ending on April 8
25th	The Israeli submarine INS Dakar sinks in the Mediterranean Sea, killing 69
27th	A French submarine sinks in the Mediterranean Sea with 52 men
30th	The Tet Offensive begins, as Viet Cong forces launch a series of surprise attacks across South Vietnam
31st	Viet Cong soldiers attack the United States Embassy in Saigon

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February
1st	A Viet Cong officer named Nguyễn Văn Lém is executed by Nguyễn Ngọc Loan, a South Vietnamese National Police Chief. The event is photographed by Eddie Adams. The photo makes headlines around the world, eventually winning the 1969 Pulitzer Prize, and sways U.S. public opinion against the war
6th	The 1968 Winter Olympics begins in Grenoble, France
11th	Border clashes take place between Israel and Jordan
24th	The Tet Offensive is halted - South Vietnam recaptures Hué
27th	Ex-Teenagers singer Frankie Lymon is found dead from a heroin overdose in Harlem

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March
7th	The First Battle of Saigon ends
12th	Mauritius achieves independence from British Rule
16th	My Lai massacre - American troops kill scores of civilians in Vietnam
17th	A demonstration in London's Grosvenor Square against U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War leads to violence - 91 people injured, 200 demonstrators arrested
21st	In ongoing campus unrest, Howard University students protesting the Vietnam War, the ROTC program on campus and the draft, confront Gen. Lewis Hershey, then head of the U.S. Selective Service System, and as he attempts to deliver an address, shout him down with cries of "America is the Black man's battleground!"
27th	Russian space pioneer Yuri Gagarin is killed in a training flight crash
31st	U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson announces he will not seek re-election

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April
2nd	Bombs placed by Andreas Baader and Gudrun Ensslin explode at midnight in 2 department stores in Frankfurt-am-Main; they are later arrested and sentenced for arson
2nd	The premiere of 2001: A Space Odyssey takes place in Washington, DC
4th	Martin Luther King, Jr. is shot dead at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennessee. Riots erupt in major American cities for several days afterward
4th	Apollo-Saturn mission 502 (Apollo 6) is launched, as the second and last unmanned test-flight of the Saturn V launch vehicle
4th	La, la, la by Massiel (music and text by Manuel de la Calva and Ramón Arcusa) wins the Eurovision Song Contest 1968 for Spain
6th	A shootout between Black Panthers and Oakland police results in several arrests and deaths, including 16-year-old Panther Bobby Hutton
7th	Racing driver Jim Clark is killed in a Formula 2 race at Hockenheim
10th	The ferry Wahine strikes a reef at the entrance to Wellington Harbour, New Zealand, with the loss of 53 lives, during Cyclone Giselle, which provided the windiest conditions ever recorded in New Zealand
11th	Josef Bachmann tries to assassinate Rudi Dutschke, leader of a left-wing movement (APO) in Germany, and tries to commit suicide afterwards, failing in both, although Dutschke dies of his brain injuries 11 years later
11th	German left-wing students blockade the Springer Press HQ in Berlin and many are arrested including Ulrike Meinhof who would later become a key player in the Red Army Faction terrorist organisation
20th	Pierre Elliott Trudeau becomes Canada's 15th Prime Minister
20th	English politician Enoch Powell makes his controversial Rivers of Blood Speech
29th	The musical Hair opens on Broadway

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May
1st	Agitations and strikes in Paris lead many youths to believe that a revolution is starting. Student strikes started the chain of events, who were soon joined by workers. Events continue throughout the month, and will eventually lead to the eventual collapse of the De Gaulle government in France
2nd	The Israel Broadcasting Authority commences television broadcasts
10th	West Brom won The FA cup
14th	The Beatles announce the creation of Apple Records in a New York press conference
17th	The Catonsville Nine enter the Selective Service offices in Catonsville, Maryland, take dozens of selective service draft records, and burn them with napalm as a protest against the Vietnam War
19th	General elections are held in Italy
19th	Nigerian forces capture Port Harcourt and form a ring around Biafrans. This contributes to a humanitarian disaster as the surrounded population was already suffering with hunger and starvation
22nd	The U.S. nuclear-powered submarine Scorpion sinks with 99 men aboard, 400 miles southwest of the Azores
29th	Manchester United wins the European Cup Final, becoming the first English team to do so

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June
3rd	Radical feminist Valerie Solanas shoots Andy Warhol as he enters his studio, wounding him
5th	U.S. presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy is shot at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles, California by Sirhan Sirhan. Kennedy dies from his injuries the next day
8th	James Earl Ray is arrested for the murder of Martin Luther King Jr
10th	Italy beat Yugoslavia 2–0 in a replay to win the 1968 European Championship. The original final on June 8 ended 1–1
23rd	A football stampede in Buenos Aires leaves 74 dead and 150 injured
24th	Giorgio Rosa declares the independence of his Republic of Rose Island, an artificial island off Rimini, Italy. Italian troops demolish it not long after

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July
4th	Yachtsman Alec Rose, 59, receives a hero's welcome as he sails into Portsmouth, England after his 354-day round-the-world trip
17th	Saddam Hussein becomes Vice Chairman of the Revolutionary Council in Iraq after a coup d'état
23rd	African-American militants led by Fred (Ahmed) Evans engage in a fierce gunfight with police in the Glenville Shootout of Cleveland, Ohio
25th	Pope Paul VI publishes the encyclical entitled Humanae Vitae, condemning birth control. Many American Catholics defy it
26th	South Vietnamese opposition leader Truong Dinh Dzu is sentenced to 5 years hard labor, for advocating the formation of a coalition government as a way to move toward an end to the war
29th	Arenal Volcano erupts in Costa Rica for the first time in centuries
30th	Thames Television starts transmission replacing Rediffusion London

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August
11th	The last steam passenger train service runs in Britain. A selection of British Rail steam locomotives make the 120-mile journey from Liverpool to Carlisle and returns to Liverpool before having their fires dropped for the last time - this working was known as the Fifteen Guinea Special
18th	Two charter buses go into the Hida River on national highway route 41 in Japan, in an accident caused by heavy rain. 104 killed
20th	The Prague Spring of political liberalisation ends, as 200,000 Warsaw Pact troops and 5,000 tanks invade Czechoslovakia
24th	France explodes its first hydrogen bomb

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September
6th	Swaziland becomes independent
7th	150 women protest against the Miss America Pageant, as exploitative of women. It is one of the first large demonstrations of Second Wave Feminism
11th	French General René Cogny and 94 others die in a Air France Caravelle jetliner crash near Nice in the Mediterranean
17th	The D'Oliveira Affair: The Marylebone Cricket Club tour of South Africa is cancelled when the South Africans refuse to accept the presence of Basil D'Oliveira, a Cape Coloured, in the side
27th	Marcelo Caetano becomes prime minister of Portugal
29th	A referendum in Greece gives more power to the military junta

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October
2nd	A student demonstration ends in a bloodbath at La Plaza de las Tres Culturas in Tlatelolco, Mexico City, Mexico, with between 200 and 300 deaths, 10 days before the inauguration of the 1968 Summer Olympics
5th	Police baton civil rights demonstrators in Derry, Northern Ireland, considered by many to mark the beginning of The Troubles
8th	Operation Sealords begins as the United States and South Vietnamese forces launch a new operation in the Mekong Delta
11th	NASA launches Apollo 7, the first manned Apollo mission (Wally Schirra, Donn Eisele, Walter Cunningham). Mission goals include the first live television broadcast from orbit and testing the lunar module docking maneuver
11th	In Panama, a military coup d'état, led by Col. Boris Martinez and Col. Omar Torrijos, overthrows the democratically-elected government of President Arnulfo Arias. Within a year, Torrijos will have ousted Martinez and taken charge as de facto Head of Government in Panama
12th	The Games of the XIX Olympiad are officially opened in Mexico City, Mexico
12th	Equatorial Guinea receives its independence from Spain
14th	The United States Department of Defense announces that the United States Army and United States Marines will send about 24,000 troops back to Vietnam for involuntary second tours
16th	In Mexico City, Tommie Smith and John Carlos, 2 African-Americans competing in the Olympic 200 metres, raise their arms in a black power salute after winning the gold and bronze medals
20th	Aristotle Onassis and Jacqueline Kennedy marry on the Greek island of Skorpios
31st	Citing progress in the Paris peace talks, U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson announces to the nation that he has ordered a complete cessation of "all air, naval, and artillery bombardment of North Vietnam" effective November 1

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November
5th	U.S. presidential election, 1968: Republican challenger Richard M. Nixon defeats Vice President Hubert Humphrey and American Independent Party candidate George C. Wallace
11th	Operation Commando Hunt is initiated to interdict men and supplies on the Ho Chi Minh Trail, through Laos into South Vietnam. By the end of the operation, 3 million tons of bombs are dropped on Laos, slowing but not seriously disrupting trail operations
22nd	The White Album is released by The Beatles
26th	United States Air Force First Lieutenant and Bell UH-1F helicopter pilot James P. Fleming rescues an Army Special Forces unit pinned down by Viet Cong fire, earning a Medal of Honour for his bravery

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December
9th	Douglas Engelbart publicly demonstrates his pioneering hypertext system, NLS, in San Francisco
10th	Japan's biggest heist, the still unsolved "300 million yen robbery", occurs in Tokyo
11th	The film Oliver!, based on the hit London and Broadway musical, opens in the U.S. after being released first in England. It will go on to win the Academy Award for Best Picture
20th	The Zodiac Killer is believed to have shot Betty Lou Jensen and David Faraday on Lake Herman Road
22nd	David Eisenhower marries Julie Nixon, the daughter of U.S. President-elect Richard Nixon
22nd	Mao Zedong advocates educated youth in urban China to be re-educated in the country. It marks the start of the "Up to the mountains and down to the villages" movement
24th	U.S. spacecraft Apollo 8 enters orbit around the Moon. Astronauts Frank Borman, Jim Lovell and William A. Anders become the first humans to see the far side of the Moon and planet Earth as a whole. The crew also reads from Genesis