January
1st	Australian media baron Rupert Murdoch purchases the largest selling British Sunday newspaper The News of the World
5th	Members of the Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) damage property and assault occupants in the Bogside in Derry. In response, residents erect barricades and establish Free Derry
5th	The Soviet Union launches Venera 5 toward Venus
10th	The Soviet Union launches Venera 6 toward Venus
12th	Led Zeppelin I, an album considered by many to be one of the first in the heavy metal genre, is released
14th	Manchester United legend Sir Matt Busby announces his retirement as Manager, aged 59
14th	An explosion aboard the USS Enterprise near Hawaii kills 27 and injures 314
15th	The Soviet Union launches Soyuz 5
16th	Czech student Jan Palach sets fire to himself in protest at the Soviet occupation of his country. He dies a martyr on 26 January
18th	South Vietnamese and National Liberation Front delegations join the Paris peace talks
20th	Lyndon Baines Johnson leaves office as Richard Nixon is inaugurated as the 37th US President
24th	Martial law is declared in Madrid, the University is closed and over 300 students are arrested
27th	Fourteen men, 9 of them Jews, are executed in Baghdad for spying for Israel
27th	Reverend Ian Paisley, hardline Protestant leader in Northern Ireland, is jailed for 3 months for illegal assembly
30th	The Beatles make their last ever live appearance on the roof of the Apple studios, in London. Police are called in to stop the noise when neighbours complain

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February
4th	In Cairo, Yasser Arafat is appointed Palestine Liberation Organisation leader at the Palestinian National Congress
5th	A huge oil slick off the coast of Santa Barbara, California closes the city's harbour
9th	The Boeing 747 makes its maiden flight
13th	FLQ terrorists bomb the Stock Exchange in Montreal, Quebec
24th	The Mariner 6 Mars probe is launched

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March
2nd	In Toulouse, France the first Concorde test flight is conducted
2nd	Soviet and Chinese forces clash at a border outpost on the Ussuri River
3rd	In a Los Angeles, California court, Sirhan Sirhan admits that he killed presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy
3rd	NASA launches Apollo 9 (James McDivitt, David Scott, Rusty Schweickart) to test the lunar module
10th	In Memphis, Tennessee, James Earl Ray pleads guilty to assassinating Martin Luther King Jr. (he later retracts his guilty plea)
13th	Apollo 9 returns safely to Earth after testing the Lunar Module
17th	The Longhope, Orkney lifeboat in Scotland is lost; the entire crew of 8 die
17th	Golda Meir becomes the first female prime minister of Israel
19th	British paratroopers and Marines land on the island of Anguilla
19th	A 385-metre (1,265-foot) tall TV-mast at Emley Moor, UK, collapses because of icing
28th	Former United States President Dwight D. Eisenhower dies after a long illness in the Walter Reed Army Medical Center, Washington, D.C.

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April
1st	The Hawker Siddeley Harrier (Jump Jet) enters service with the Royal Air Force
9th	Fermín Monasterio Pérez was killed by ETA in Vizcaya, Spain being the 4th victim in the name of the Basque nationalism
13th	In Queensland, the Brisbane Tramways end service after 84 years of operation
20th	British troops arrive in Northern Ireland to reinforce the Royal Ulster Constabulary
22nd	Robin Knox-Johnston becomes the first person to sail around the world solo without stopping
28th	Charles de Gaulle steps down as president of France after suffering defeat in a referendum the day before

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May
10th	The Battle of Dong Ap Bia, immprtalised in the film, "Hamburger Hill" begins during the Vietnam War
10th	Manchester City won The FA cup
14th	Colonel Muammar al-Gaddafi visits Mecca, Saudi Arabia
16th	Venera 5, a Soviet spaceprobe, lands on Venus
17th	Soviet probe Venera 6 begins to descend into Venus' atmosphere, sending back atmospheric data before being crushed by pressure
18th	Apollo 10 (Tom Stafford, Gene Cernan, John Young) is launched, on the full dress-rehearsal for the Moon landing
19th	French Foreign Legion paratroopers land onto Kolwezi, Zaire, to rescue Europeans in the middle of a civil war
20th	United States National Guard helicopters spray skin-stinging powder on anti-war protesters in California
22nd	Apollo 10's lunar module flies to within 15,400 m of the Moon's surface
26th	Apollo 10 returns to Earth, after a successful 8-day test of all the components needed for the upcoming first manned Moon landing
26th	John Lennon and Yoko Ono start their Bed-In at the Queen Elizabeth Hotel in Montreal, Quebec
29th	Guided tours begin at the Kremlin and other government sites in Moscow

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June
1st	In Montreal, Canada, Give Peace a Chance is recorded in a famous bed-in for peace by John Lennon. The song, the first single recorded solo by a Beatle, and released under the name Plastic Ono Band, is still a strong anthem for peace
3rd	The Australian aircraft carrier Melbourne collides with the U.S. destroyer Frank E. Evans in the South China Sea; 74 U.S. sailors are killed
8th	U.S. President Richard Nixon and South Vietnamese President Nguyen Van Thieu meet at Midway Island. Nixon announces that 25,000 U.S. troops will be withdrawn by September
20th	Georges Pompidou is elected President of France
24th	The United Kingdom and Rhodesia sever diplomatic ties
28th	The Stonewall riots in New York City mark the start of the modern gay rights movement in the US

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July
1st	Charles, Prince of Wales, is invested with his title at Caernarfon
3rd	Brian Jones, former member of The Rolling Stones, drowns in his swimming pool
7th	French is made equal to English throughout the Canadian national government
8th	The very first U.S. troop withdrawals are made from Vietnam
10th	Sailor, Donald Crowhurst's trimaran Teignmouth Electron is found drifting and unoccupied. It is assumed that Crowhurst probably committed suicide
14th	After Honduras loses a soccer game against El Salvador, rioting breaks out in Honduras against Salvadoran migrant workers. Of the 300,000 Salvadoran workers in Honduras, tens of thousands are expelled, prompting a brief Salvadoran invasion of Honduras. The OAS works out a cease-fire on July 18, which takes effect on July 20
16th	Apollo 11 (Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin, Michael Collins) lifts off toward the first landing on the Moon
18th	Edward M. Kennedy drives off a bridge on his way home from a party on Chappaquiddick Island, Massachusetts. Mary Jo Kopechne, a former campaign aide to his brother who was in the car with him, dies in the incident
19th	Gloria Diaz wins the Miss Universe pageant, with the Philippines receiving its first title
20th	The Eagle lands on the lunar surface. The world watches in awe as Neil Armstrong takes his historic first steps on the moon
24th	The Apollo 11 astronauts return from the first successful Moon landing, and are placed in biological isolation for several days, on the chance they may have brought back lunar germs. The airless lunar environment is later determined to preclude microscopic life
25th	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
31st	The halfpenny ceases to be legal tender in the UK

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August
5th	Mariner 7 makes its closest fly-by of Mars (3,524 kilometers)
9th	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 Tate and husband Roman Polanski's home in Los Angeles, California. Steven Parent, leaving from a visit to the Polanskis' caretaker, is also killed. 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
10th	The Manson Family kills Leno and Rosemary LaBianca, wealthy Los Angeles businesspeople
12th	Violence erupts after the Apprentice Boys of Derry march in Derry, Northern Ireland, resulting in a three-day communal riot known as the Battle of the Bogside
13th	Serious border clashes occur between the Soviet Union and the People's Republic of China
14th	British troops are deployed in Northern Ireland following the three-day Battle of the Bogside
15th	The Woodstock Festival begins in upstate New York, featuring some of the top rock musicians of the era
17th	Category 5 Hurricane Camille, the most powerful tropical cyclonic system at landfall in recorded history, hits the Mississippi coast, killing 248 people and causing US$1.5 billion in damage (1969 dollars)

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September
1st	A coup in Libya ousts King Idris, and brings Colonel Muammar al-Gaddafi to power
5th	Lieutenant William Calley is charged with 6 counts of premeditated murder, for the deaths of 109 Vietnamese civilians in My Lai
9th	Allegheny Airlines Flight 853 DC-9 collides in flight with a Piper PA-28, and crashes near Fairland, Indiana USA
28th	The Social Democrats and the Free Democrats receive a majority of votes in the German parliamentary elections, and decide to form a common government

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October
1st	The Beijing Subway begins operation
5th	Monty Python's Flying Circus first airs on British Television
15th	Hundreds of thousands of people take part in National Moratorium antiwar demonstrations across the United States
17th	Willard S. Boyle and George Smith invent the CCD at Bell Laboratories. Thirty years later, this technology is widely used in digital cameras
21st	Willy Brandt becomes Chancellor of West Germany
29th	The first message was sent over ARPANET, the forerunner of the internet

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November
3rd	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'
9th	A group of Amerindians, led by Richard Oakes, seize Alcatraz Island for 19 months, inspiring a wave of renewed Indian pride and government reform
10th	Sesame Street premieres on the National Educational Television (NET) network in America
14th	NASA launches Apollo 12 (Pete Conrad, Richard Gordon, Alan Bean), the second manned mission to the Moon
15th	In Washington, DC, 250,000-500,000 protesters stage a peaceful demonstration against the war, including a symbolic "March Against Death"
15th	Regular colour television broadcasts begin on BBC1 and ITV in UK
15th	Dave Thomas opened his first restaurant in a former steakhouse on a cold, snowy Saturday in downtown Columbus, Ohio. He named the chain Wendy's after his 8-year-old daughter Melinda Lou; nicknamed Wendy by her siblings
17th	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
19th	Apollo program: Apollo 12 astronauts Charles Conrad and Alan Bean land at Oceanus Procellarum ("Ocean of Storms"), becoming the third and fourth humans to walk on the Moon
19th	Footballing legend Pelé scores his 1,000th career goal
20th	The Cleveland Plain Dealer publishes explicit photographs of dead villagers from the My Lai massacre in Vietnam
24th	The Apollo 12 spacecraft splashes down safely in the Pacific Ocean, ending the second manned mission to the Moon
25th	John Lennon returns his MBE medal to protest the British government's support of the U.S. war in Vietnam

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December
1st	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")
2nd	The Boeing 747 jumbo jet makes its debut. It carries 191 people, most of them reporters and photographers, from Seattle, Washington to New York City
4th	Black Panther Party members Fred Hampton and Mark Clark are shot dead in their sleep during a raid by 14 Chicago police officers
6th	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"