Major US events 49 years ago

dreadnut

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July 20, 1969, I watched the lunar landing with my Dad on our old black & white tv set.

3 weeks later, Woodstock. No, I was not there, LOL, I was only 15.
 
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killdeer43

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Watched it with my friend, Pete, and we followed instructions to document it on my tripod-mounted Super 8 camera. Film speed needed to be set to keep out the 'squiggly' lines from the TV.
Doing it hi tech in '69! :encouragement:

Joe
 

richardp69

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July 20, 1969, I watched the lunar landing with my Dad on our old black & white tv set.

3 weeks later, Woodstock. No, I was not there, LOL, I was only 15.

I did get there after just graduating classes. I'm afraid I left a few brain cells as victims and am still not sure I've fully recovered. Maybe the best timer of my life though (I think)
 

Rich Cohen

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I was a Peace Corps volunteer living in a remote village in India (no electricity, no running water, no bathroom, no paved road to the village). When I pointed to the moon in the night sky and told the villagers that a man was walking around on the moon, they were incredulous. Thought I was a lunatic! Needless to say, I missed Woodstock too.
 

Stuball48

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July 20th, 1969, I was between my Junior and Senior year in college at Austin Peay in Clarksville, TN. I had taken my first paying job that summer with Consolidated Aluminum in New Johnsonville, TN. Saved $1700 and got married in September.
Watched replay of Lunar Landing on TV and missed Woodstock. My family was much more interested in the woodpile than Woodstock.
 

fronobulax

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Watched the landing on TV. A friend and I talked about driving downstate and going to Woodstock but we decided not to since we did not have tickets.
 

dreadnut

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I hesitated to mention that in the weeks between the lunar landing and Woodstock, the Manson murders occurred. A tumultuous summer for sure.
 

bobouz

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Freshly graduated from high school & in the second year of the lottery, I missed getting drafted by ten numbers.

Got prepared for college instead & living on the west coast, no Woodstock.

Bought a motorcycle, and got three tickets in the first month of ownership!
 

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A day later I was on my way to Veit Nam. Round trip is good, so very sorry for my brothers and sisters who gave there all.

Ralph
 
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Quantum Strummer

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I saw Apollo 11 lift off while on vacation with my folks in Scotland (where my mom was born) and then saw the moonwalk back at home a few days later. Both on B&W TVs. A pair of my dad's friends, former colleagues too, worked on the Apollo program so interest in our household was high.

I remember seeing footage from Woodstock on TV but I was more into Motown than rock & roll back then. I was also only 9. :)

-Dave-
 

Nuuska

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A slight veer from Apollo to Sputnik 2 - with poor Laika-dog who lost his life - I remember when I was kid in winter -57-58 - we went out to open place to see the bright satellite on black sky. All of us kids believed Laika was living up there in that tin can . . .
 

walrus

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Saw it on a b/w TV in a cottage on vacation. Pretty cool stuff for an 10 year old.

walrus
 

Cougar

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A slight veer from Apollo to Sputnik 2 - with poor Laika-dog who lost his life - I remember when I was kid in winter -57-58 - we went out to open place to see the bright satellite on black sky. All of us kids believed Laika was living up there in that tin can . . .

I remember seeing that, too. I was in Southern California. Where were you? :sentimental:

I was a Peace Corps volunteer living in a remote village in India.... When I pointed to the moon in the night sky and told the villagers that a man was walking around on the moon, they were incredulous. Thought I was a lunatic!

I was in the Peace Corps in East Africa a year or so later. The village I taught at already knew the Americans had actually put a man on the moon. They treated me like a rock star. :saturn:
 

Rich Cohen

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I remember seeing that, too. I was in Southern California. Where were you? :sentimental:



I was in the Peace Corps in East Africa a year or so later. The village I taught at already knew the Americans had actually put a man on the moon. They treated me like a rock star. :saturn:

I was kidding when I said the villagers thought I was a lunatic. Actually, I was highly respected and warmly welcomed by the villagers....I learned a hell of a lot more from them then I could ever teach them about farming!
 

Westerly Wood

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I was 1.5 years old. I am sure someone was holding me on the couch during the landing, or i might have been walking around a table or something keeping my balance.
 

adorshki

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Ok, how about some of the stuff that just didn't seem to be very significant at the time, but are real "arm hair raisers" for me at least, all these years later:
The very first "email" was sent between Stanford and UCLA on October 19th on the ARPANET.
Altamont became the antithesis of Woodstock on December 6th.
Ted Hoff and Stanley Mazor invent the microprocessor.
Led Zeppelin is released in the US.
(May 16th)An American teenager known as 'Robert R.' dies in St. Louis, Missouri, of a baffling medical condition. In 1984 it will be identified as the first confirmed case of HIV/AIDS in North America.
(June) The Cuyahoga River fire helps spur an avalanche of water pollution control activities resulting in the Clean Water Act, Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement and the creation of the federal Environmental Protection Agency.
(July) Senator Edward Kennedy drives off a bridge on Chappaquiddick island.
(August) Category 5 Hurricane Camille, the most powerful tropical cyclonic system at landfall in history, hits the Mississippi coast, killing 248 people and causing US$1.5 billion in damage (1969 dollars)
(September) The first automatic teller machine in the United States is installed in Rockville Centre, New York.
Lieutenant William Calley is charged with 6 counts of premeditated murder, for the 1968 My Lai Massacre deaths of 109 Vietnamese civilians in My Lai, Vietnam.
The Chicago Eight trial begins in Chicago, Illinois.
(October) In Chicago, the United States National Guard is called in to control demonstrations involving the radical Weathermen, in connection with the "Chicago Eight" Trial.
Hundreds of thousands of people take part in Moratorium to End the War in Vietnam demonstrations across the United States.
(November)U.S. President Richard Nixon addresses the nation on television and radio, asking the "silent majority" to join him in solidarity with the Vietnam War effort, and to support his policies.
Independent investigative journalist Seymour Hersh breaks the My Lai story.
(December) The first draft lottery in the United States is held since World War II (on January 4, 1970, The New York Times will run a long article, "Statisticians Charge Draft Lottery Was Not Random").
 

bobouz

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Al - Yes, you jogged my faulty memory.

The first draft lottery encompassed those eligible men born up through 1950. Born in '51, I was already in college by the time the second lottery drawing (encompassing those born in 1951) settled into it's yearly format.

Ending up with a rather low number, your life pretty much went on hold, waiting to see what the last number would be that actually got drafted.

Interesting times, indeed.
 

adorshki

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Al - Yes, you jogged my faulty memory.

The first draft lottery encompassed those eligible men born up through 1950. Born in '51, I was already in college by the time the second lottery drawing (encompassing those born in 1951) settled into it's yearly format.

Ending up with a rather low number, your life pretty much went on hold, waiting to see what the last number would be that actually got drafted.

Interesting times, indeed.
Yes, and that was kind of misleading of me because that was just when they first used the lottery system.
Fears of the surprise "Greetings from the United States Government" letter were common enough already, by '66.
Having been born in '56 I didn't worry about it until I was a junior in high school, and then I lucked out because actual call-ups stopped in '72 and Laird declared the all-volunteer Army in '73, so even though registration was still required I was fairly certain I'd dodged the bullet, so to speak.
There were a lot of returning vets changing the face of "Woodstock Nation" during that time, though.

And in October of the same year, Led Zeppelin II is released.

walrus

Yeah but that one wasn't as much of a "arm hair-raiser" in terms of foreshadowing things to come, to me, anyway.
"Communication Breakdown" was a bit of a hit but nothing like "Whole Lotta Love".
Back then I didn't know Jimmy Page had morphed 'em out of the ashes of the Yardbirds, and truth-to-tell, I suspect the demographic that embraced "Whole Lotta Love" didn't have much clue, either.
 
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