page_title: 1969
section_title: July
hierarchical_section_title: 1969 / Events / July
caption_attribution_description: Apollo 11 Hasselblad image from film magazine 40/S - EVA
context_page_description: 1969 was a common year starting on Wednesday of the Gregorian calendar, the 1969th year of the Common Era and Anno Domini designations, the 969th year of the 2nd millennium, the 69th year of the 20th century, and the 10th and last year of the 1960s decade.
  The year is associated with the first manned landing on the Moon, the creation of the internet, and the commencement of the LGBT Rights Movement.
context_section_description: July 1 – Charles, Prince of Wales, is invested with his title at Caernarfon.
  July 3 – Brian Jones, musician and founder of The Rolling Stones, drowns in his swimming pool at his home in Sussex, England.
  July 4 – Michael Mageau and Darlene Ferrin are shot at Blue Rock Springs in California. They are the second (known) victims of the Zodiac Killer. Mageau survives the attack while Ferrin is pronounced dead-on-arrival at Richmond Medical Center.
  July 5 – Tom Mboya, Kenyan Minister of Development, is assassinated.
  July 7 – French is made equal to English throughout the Canadian national government.
  July 8 – Vietnam War: The very first U.S. troop withdrawals are made.
  July 10 – Donald Crowhurst's sailing trimaran Teignmouth Electron is found drifting and unoccupied in mid-Atlantic; it is presumed that Crowhurst committed suicide (or fell overboard) at sea earlier in the month having falsified his progress in the solo Sunday Times Golden Globe Race.
  July 14
  Football War: After Honduras loses an association football match 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.
  The Act of Free Choice commences in Merauke, West Irian.
  The United States' $500, $1,000, $5,000 and $10,000 bills are officially withdrawn from circulation.
  July 16 – Apollo program: Apollo 11 (Buzz Aldrin, Neil Armstrong, Michael Collins) lifts off from Cape Kennedy in Florida towards the first manned landing on the Moon.
  July 19
  Chappaquiddick incident: US Senator Edward M. Kennedy drives off a bridge into a tidal pond after leaving a party on Chappaquiddick Island, Massachusetts, killing Mary Jo Kopechne. Kennedy does not report the accident for nine or ten hours.
  John Fairfax lands in Hollywood Beach, Florida near Miami and becomes the first person to row across an ocean solo, after 180 days spent at sea on board 25' ocean rowboat 'Britannia' (left Gran Canaria on January 20, 1969).
  July 20 – Apollo program Moon landing: At 10:56 pm ET (02:56 UTC July 21) Apollo 11's lunar module Eagle lands on the Moon's surface. An estimated 650 million people worldwide, the largest television audience for a live broadcast at this time, watch in awe as Neil Armstrong takes his first historic steps on the surface.
  July 20 - 1969 Tour de France: Eddy Merckx wins the Tour de France for the first time.
  July 22 – Spanish dictator and head of state Francisco Franco appoints Prince Juan Carlos his successor.
  July 24
  The Apollo 11 returns from the first successful Moon landing and the astronauts are placed in biological isolation for several days in case they may have brought back lunar germs. The airless lunar environment is later determined to rule out microscopic life.
  The Soviet Union returns British lecturer Gerald Brooke to the United Kingdom freed from a Soviet prison in exchange for their spies Peter and Helen Kroger (Morris and Lona Cohen).
  July 25 – Vietnam War: 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.
  July 26 – The New York Chapter of the Young Lords is founded to fight for empowerment of Puerto Ricans.
  July 30 – Vietnam War: U.S. President Richard Nixon makes an unscheduled visit to South Vietnam, meeting with President Nguyễn Văn Thiệu and U.S. military commanders.
  July 31
  The old halfpenny ceases to be legal tender in the UK.
  Pope Paul VI arrives in Entebbe, Uganda for the first visit by a reigning Pope to Africa.
caption: July 20: Buzz Aldrin descends a ladder to become the second human to step onto the surface of the Moon during Apollo 11
exif: {"Image XResolution": "300", "Image YResolution": "300", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image Software": "Adobe Photoshop CS Windows", "Image DateTime": "2015:09:23 15:59:13", "Image YCbCrPositioning": "Co-sited", "Image ExifOffset": "162", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "300", "Thumbnail YResolution": "300", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "346", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "24199", "Thumbnail YCbCrPositioning": "Co-sited", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0220", "EXIF ComponentsConfiguration": "YCbCr", "EXIF FlashPixVersion": "0100", "EXIF ColorSpace": "sRGB", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "4048", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "3968"}