ld at the University of Michigan. Performers included John Lennon and Yoko Ono.
12/10/1971, Dean Acheson, US statesman, died aged 78.
25/9/1971, Hugo LaFayette Black, US Supreme Court judge who upheld civil rights, died (born 1886).
30/6/1971. The 26th amendment to the US constitution was passed, lowering the voting age from 21 to 18.
17/6/1971, Disneyland admitted its 100-millionth visitor, Valerie Suldo of New Jersey.
29/4/1971, US combat deaths in Vietnam now exceeded 45,000.
25/4/1971, 200,000 protested in Washington DC against the Vietnam War. 12,000 protestors were arrested over the following week.
7/4/1971, US President Nixon promised to withdraw 100,000 troops from Vietnam by Christmas.
14/2/1971, President Richard Nixon installed a secret taping system in the White House. It was on this system that the Watergate tapes were recorded.
13/2/1971, South Vietnamese troops, with US airctaft and artillery backing, entered Laos.
3/2/1971, Andrew Truxal, US academic, died aged 71.
31/12/1970, US Congress repealed the Gulf of Tonkin resolution (see 7/8/1964), thereby denying President Nixon any further authority to widen the Vietnam War. Nixon, however, ordered further offensives. See 27/1/1973.
29/9/1970, The U.S. Congress gave President Richard Nixon authority to sell arms to Israel.
29/6/1970, US troops completed their withdrawal from Cambodia.
9/5/1970, Protests in Washington DC, USA, against US intervention in Cambodia.
4/5/1970. 4 students were shot dead at Kent State University, Ohio. There had been a wave of campus protests over the entry of US troops into Cambodia. On 4/5/1970 between 1,500 and 3,000 students gathered on the campus at Kent University, contravening an order by Ohio State Governor banning all protests, peaceful or otherwise. At about midday, the National Guard began to use tear gas to break up the demonstration. Some of the students picked up the canisters and hurled them back, and also threw stones. The Guardsmen then opened fire without warning, killing two male and two female students who were not actually involved in the demonstration.
15/10/1969, The biggest anti-Vietnam-War demonstration to date took place in America. The war so far had cost the USA the lives of 40,000 servicemen, over 8 years.
16/9/1969. President Nixon announced the withdrawal of a further 36,000 troops from Vietnam by mid-December.
12/9/1969. President Nixon continued B52 bombing raids on Vietnam.
15/8/1969. The famous American rock festival, Woodstock, began. It was attended by 400,000.
18/7/1969. Senator Edward Kennedy crashed his car into the Chappaquidick River on the east coast of the USA. Kennedy escaped but his companion Mary Jo Kopechne drowned. Kennedy didn’t report the incident for ten hours and was found guilty of leaving the scene of an accident.
11/6/1969, John Llewellyn Lewis, US Trades Union leader (born 2/12/1880 in Lucas, Iowa), died.
8/6/1969. President Nixon announced that 25,000 US troops would be withdrawn from Vietnam by the end of August.
28/2/1969, Dwight D Eisenhower, US statesman, died aged 78.
23/2/1969, President Nixon of the USA began a tour of European capitals.
22/2/1969. President Nixon arrived in Britain for talks with Prime Minister Harold Wilson.
22/12/1968, The captain and crew of the Pueblo were released by the North Koreans at Panmunjom.
31/10/1968. President Johnson of the USA ordered a total halt to US bombing of North Vietnam.
27/10/1968, Violent anti-Vietnam war protests outside the US Embassy in Grosvenor Square, London.
1/8/1968. President Nixon said the Vietnam War should be scaled down.
1/7/1968. The USA and the USSR signed the Non-Proliferation treaty regarding nuclear weapons (see 5/8/1963). This bound its signatories not to transfer nuclear weapons or knowledge to non-nuclear countries. This was a recognition that both the USA and the USSR had interests in not assisting China to become nuclear.
26/6/1968, Earl Warren announced his resignation as Chief Justice of the US Supreme Court.
5/6/1968. A Jordanian-Arab called Sirhan Bishara Sirhan shot Robert Kennedy, US Senator (bor