LBJ timeline 😵

1963 22nd Nov

Kennedy shot in Dallas. LBJ was sown in as President of the United States.

1963 27th Nov

Johnson addresses Congress asking them to fulfil JFK’s legacy and pass civil rights legislation.

1963 25th Nov

Kennedy is buried.

1963 29th Nov

Johnson creates a commission chaired by Earl Warren to investigate the assassination.

1964 22nd Jan

National Security Action Memorandum N.273. Reaffirmed pledge to help South Vietnam.

1964 23rd Jan

Twenty-Fourth Amendment to the Constitution is ratified, abolishing poll taxes.

1964 8th Mar

Malcolm X quits the Nation of Islam causing its popularity & influence to diminish.

1964 22nd May

LBJ’s speech in Michigan announces his intention to create a Great Society by extending American prosperity.

1964 21st Jun.– SNCC & CORE try to educate Mississippi blacks to beat the literacy tests. 3 volunteers are murdered.

1964 2nd Jul

Civil Rights Act signed by LBJ. Outlaws’ discrimination based on race/sex/religion.

1964 15th Jul

Barry Goldwater nominated by Republicans for President.

1964 19th Jul

Democrat Governor George Wallace of Alabama drops out of the presidential race.

1964 4th Aug

N. Vietnam attacked US ships on espionage mission in coastal waters.

1964 7th Aug

Gulf of Tonkin Resolution passed by Congress (88-2). Presidential power to pursue military action.

1964 26th Aug

Democrats nominate Johnson as candidate for President. Senator Humphrey was nominated as Vice.

1964 30th Aug

LBJ signs Economic Opportunity Act creating the Office of Economic Opportunity and starting war on poverty.

1964 27th Aug

Warren Commission rejects notion that JFK was assassinated as part of a conspiracy.

1964 14th Sep - Protests on campus grounds are banned; the Berkeley Free Speech Movement is created.

1964 1st Oct

Jack Weinberg attempted arrest. Civil disobedience as 3,000 students blocked the car.

1964 14th Oct

Martin Luther King Jr is awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.

1964 15th Oct

Khrushchev is forced to resign as leader of the Soviet Union. Replaced by Brezhnev.

1964 3rd Nov

Lyndon B. Johnson elected President of the United States. Won 61.1% of popular vote, carried 486 electoral seats. Won Both Houses in the Senate and Congress.

1964 Dec

6,000 students stage a sit at Berkeley in favour of free speech; 750 are arrested.

1965

By January 1965, US gold supplies had decreased by 40% since 1945.

1965

Haight-Ashbury rechristened Hashbury as it is populated by hippies.

1965

Head Start Programme later benefits 1 million children. Upward Bound programme benefits 50,000 students.

Feb 1965

LBJ informs Congress of OEO progress including: 53 Job Corps centres, Neighbourhood Youth Corps in 49 cities, 8000 Volunteers in Service to America, 4mil received Aid to Families with Dependent Children benefits.

1965 9th Feb

9 US soldiers killed in barracks in Pleiku, Vietnam. LBJ begins bombing North Vietnam, approval rating 67%

1965 21st Feb

Malcolm X is assassinated in Harlem by Nation of Islam members.

1965 8th Mar

3,500 US troops in Vietnam.

1965 15th Mar

LBJ calls for voting rights legislation in Congress.

1965 7th Mar

The violence of the ‘Bloody Sunday’ March from Selma to Montgomery is televised.

1965 9th Mar

Second march from Selma, MLK’s protesters knelt in prayer when confronted by police. Creates a split in the CR movement.

1965 15th Mar

LBJ spoke of Selma: ‘Every American citizen must have an equal right to vote.’

1965 21st Mar

Selma to Montgomery March completed.

1965 11th Apr

LBJ signs the Elementary and Secondary Education Act and the Higher Education Act.

1965 17th Apr - An SDS-organised march in Washington in 1965 attracted 25,000.

1965 28th Apr

LBJ sends US marines to the Dominican Republic to protect US citizens after a military coup.

1965 7th Jun

Supreme Court finds a Connecticut law banning contraceptives unconstitutional.

1965 26th Jul

MLK leads a demonstration in Chicago to extend the CR movement to the North.

1965 28th Jul

LBJ increases number of troops sent to Vietnam.

1965 30th Jul

Medicare and Medicaid created by Johnson.

1965 6th Aug

Johnson passes the Voting Rights Act to ban literacy tests & register Black voters in the south.

1965 11th Aug

The Watts Riots break out over poor living standards in Los Angeles causing $40m in damages.

1965 9th Sept

Housing and Urban Development agreed by Congress. Help urban housing shortages and decay.

1965 24th Sept - Executive Order 11375, banned gender discrimination in federal employment. Response to NOW.

1966

SDS comes out against the Vietnam War. Membership rapidly increased to 100,000.

1966 - $20bn in federal expenditure on the poor. This has risen from $13bn in 1963.

1966 22nd Jan

MLK moves to Chicago slum to protest over black ghetto living standards but achieves little.

1966 21st Feb

France withdraws from NATO fearing US involvement in Vietnam would draw them into a war.

1966 7th Mar

Supreme Court unanimously upholds the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

1966 1st Jun

White House Conference pushes Congress to pass further civil rights legislation.

1966 6th Jun

James Meredith is shot on his solo march from Memphis, Tennessee to Jackson Mississippi. It encouraged 4,000 black Americans to vote. Stokely Carmichael first uttered the phrase ‘black power.’

1966 30th Jun

Betty Friedan helps establish NOW to campaign for abortion & the Equal Rights Amendment.

1966 1st Jul

NOW win a Supreme Court case. Overthrew Pennsylvania’s Muncy Act.

1966 1st Oct

The militant Black Panthers are founded in Oakland, California by Huey Newton and Bobby Seale. They were uniform & carry guns.

1966 2nd Oct

Water Quality Act passed. Water pollution a national problem. Est standards across state boundaries.

1966 3rd Nov - Child Protection Act passed.

1966 3rd Nov

Demonstration Cities Act passed by Congress. Underfunded, Johnson est. it needed $2.4bn.

1966 Dec

There are 385,000 American troops in Vietnam.

1967

Operation Chaos launched, a CIA infiltration of the student movement to discredit them.

1967

Women’s Liberation Movement established in US cities.

1967 27th Jan

Three astronauts are killed during a launch pad test for the Apollo program.

1967 4th Apr

King criticises US policy in Vietnam costing him the future support of LBJ.

1967 5th Jun

The Six Day War breaks out between Israel and several Arab nations.

1967 13th Jun

Thurgood Marshall is nominated by LBJ to be an Associate Justice on the Supreme Court.

1967 July

SNCC, increasingly militant, votes to remove white members from the organisation.

1967 13th Jul

Riots breaks out in Newark, New Jersey after racial tensions were escalated by police. 5 days, 26 dead.

1967 23rd Jul

12th Street riot, Detroit. Racial tension with police, 5 days, National Guard, 2 Airborne divisions. 7,200 arrested, 43 died and 1,189 injured.

1967 Aug

100,000 Hippies congregate in San Francisco for the Summer of Love.

1967 Oct

60% of Americans saw the high cost of living as their number one problem. Only 5% said Vietnam.

1967 21st Oct

Anti-war march to the Pentagon.

1967 29th Nov

Secretary of Defence, Robert McNamara, resigns and is replaced by Clark Clifford, LBJ’s advisor.

1968

The federal budget deficit est. at $19.8bn. Trade deficit of nearly $4bn.

1968 23rd Jan

North Korea captures US Navy communications intelligence gathering ship (USS Pueblo).

1968 30th Jan

Tet Offensive. North Vietnamese failed to deliver military victory.

1968 8th Feb

Alabama Governor George Wallace enters presidential race as an independent.

1968 29th Feb

Kerner Report recommended increased expenditure on ghettos.

1968 12th Mar

Johnson wins the New Hampshire Democratic primary; anti-war candidate Eugene McCarthy wins 42%.

1968 16th Mar

My Lai Massacre. News reached public in Nov. 1969

1968 16th Mar

Robert Kennedy enters the race for the Democratic nomination for President.

1968 18th Mar

King embarks on the Poor People’s Campaign. Some refer to him as Martin ‘Loser’ King.

1968 31st Mar

Johnson chooses not to stand for re-election as President. He tells Americans about partial bombing halt.

1968 4th Apr

Martin Luther King is assassinated. Race riots follow in over 100 US cities.

1968 11th Apr

The Fair Housing Act ends discrimination in property renting & sales.

1968 23rd Apr

Columbia University protests. 3 weeks, 1,000 students, 5 buildings seized. 692 arrested.

1968 29th Apr

Poop People’s Campaign led by Ralph Abernathy of the SCLC.

1968 13th May

The US and North Vietnam begins peace talks in Paris.

1968 5th Jun

Robert Kennedy assassinated after winning the Democratic primary in California.

1968 20th Aug

Soviets invade Czechoslovakia to end the movement wanting greater freedom.

1968 25th Aug

Democrats nominate Humphrey as the Democratic candidate for President. Clashes in Chicago.

1968 7th Sept

Women’s Liberation protest outside the Miss America pageant by crowning a sheep the winner.

1968 8th Sept

Black Panther leader Huey Newton is convicted of the manslaughter of a police officer.

1968 16th Oct

Black Power protest at the Mexico Olympics gain publicity but are criticised.

1968 5th Nov

Richard ‘Tricky Dicky’ Nixon is elected President promising “peace with honour” in Vietnam.

1968 12th Nov

Brezhnev announces the Brezhnev Doctrine. The Soviet Union has the right to intervene.

1968 Dec

There are 535,000 American troops in Vietnam.