A half-century ago, much of the world appeared to be in a state of crisis. Protests erupted in France, Czechoslovakia, Germany, Mexico, Brazil, the United States, and many other places. Some of these protests ended peacefully; many were put down harshly. Two of the biggest catalysts for protest were the U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War and the ongoing lack of civil rights in the U.S. and elsewhere.
Two of America’s most prominent leaders, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and Senator Robert F. Kennedy, were assassinated within months of each other. But some lessons were being learned and some progress was being made—this was also the year that NASA first sent astronauts around the moon and back, and the year President Lyndon Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act into law.
Take a look back at 1968 through these amazing historical photos.
U.S. National Guard troops block off Beale Street in Memphis, Tennessee, as Civil Rights marchers wearing placards reading, “I AM A MAN” pass by on March 29, 1968. It was the third consecutive march held by the group in as many days.
The Supremes, with Diana Ross, front, Cindy Birdsong, and Mary Wilson dance with their arms in the air as they perform at the annual “Bal pare” party in Munich, West Germany, on January 21, 1968. The American trio was backed by the West German Rolf Hans Mueller big band and was celebrated with thundering applause.
The flag of South Vietnam flies atop a tower of the main fortified structure in the old citadel as a jeep crosses a bridge over a moat in Hue during the Tet Offensive in February of 1968.
South Vietnamese General Nguyen Ngoc Loan, chief of the national police, fires his pistol, executing suspected Viet Cong officer Nguyen Van Lem (also known as Bay Lop) on a Saigon street on February 1, 1968, early in the Tet Offensive. Lem was suspected of commanding a death squad which had targeted South Vietnamese police officers that day. The fame of this photo led to a life of infamy for Nguyen Ngoc Loan, who quietly moved to the United States in 1975 and opened a pizza shop in Virginia.
A U.S Marine with several days of beard growth sits in a helicopter on July 18, 1968, after being picked up from a landing zone near Con Thein on the southern edge of the demilitarized zone in South Vietnam. His unit had just been relieved of duty after patrolling the region around the DMZ.
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