Portal:1960s

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The 1960s Portal

Top, L-R: 2 U.S. soldiers crawl on the ground during the Vietnam War; The Beatles who were part of the British Invasion that changed music in the United States and around the world. Centre, L-R: John F. Kennedy is assassinated in 1963, after serving as President for three years; Martin Luther King Jr. makes his famous I Have a Dream speech to a crowd of over a million; millions participate in the Woodstock Festival of 1969. Bottom, L-R: China's Mao Zedong initiates the Great Leap Forward plan which fails and brings mass starvation in which 20 to 30 million people died by 1961; the Stonewall Inn, site of major demonstrations for gay and lesbian rights; for the first time in history, a human being sets foot on the Moon, during the Cold War-era Space Race, July 1969.

The 1960s (pronounced "nineteen-sixties") was a decade of the Gregorian calendar that began on 1 January 1960, and ended on 31 December 1969. The term "1960s" also refers to an era more often called the Sixties, denoting the complex of inter-related cultural and political trends around the globe. This "cultural decade" is more loosely defined than the actual decade, beginning around 1963 with the Kennedy assassination and ending around 1974 with the Watergate scandal.

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"Daisy", sometimes known as "Daisy Girl" or "Peace, Little Girl," was a controversial political advertisement aired on television during the 1964 United States presidential election by incumbent president Lyndon B. Johnson's campaign. Though only aired once (by the campaign), it is considered an important factor in Johnson's landslide victory over Barry Goldwater and an important turning point in political and advertising history. It was created by Tony Schwartz of Doyle Dane Bernbach. It remains one of the most controversial political advertisements ever made.

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Promotional poster for Mantra-Rock Dance musical event
Credit: Harvey W. Cohen

The Mantra-Rock Dance musical event took place on January 29, 1967, at the Avalon Ballroom in San Francisco and came to be dubbed as the "ultimate high" and the "major spiritual event" of the hippie era. It was organized by the early followers of the Hare Krishna movement as a promotional and fundraising effort for their first temple on the West Coast. One of them, Harvey W. Cohen, created the Stanley Mouse inspired promotional poster (pictured). The Mantra-Rock Dance featured the Hare Krishna founder Bhaktivedanta Swami, the countercultural ideologues Allen Ginsberg and Timothy Leary, and leading rock groups the Grateful Dead, Moby Grape, and Janis Joplin with Big Brother and the Holding Company. The event caused the Hare Krishna mantra to be adopted by all levels of the counterculture as a "loose commonality" and a viable alternative to drugs.

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The four members of The Beatles

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King in 1964
Martin Luther King Jr. (January 15, 1929 – April 4, 1968) was an American clergyman, activist, humanitarian, and leader in the civil rights movement. He is best known for his role in the advancement of civil rights using nonviolent civil disobedience. King has become a national icon in the history of American progressivism. A Baptist minister, King became a civil rights activist early in his career. He led the 1955 Montgomery bus boycott and helped found the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) in 1957, serving as its first president. With the SCLC, King led an unsuccessful struggle against segregation in Albany, Georgia, in 1962, and organized nonviolent protests in Birmingham, Alabama, that attracted national attention following television news coverage of the brutal police response. King also helped to organize the 1963 March on Washington, where he delivered his "I Have a Dream" speech. There, he established his reputation as one of the greatest orators in American history. King was assassinated on April 4, 1968, in Memphis, Tennessee. His death was followed by riots in many U.S. cities.

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