1968

1950–1980	UK [television]	Watch With Mother, a series for young children featuring favourite characters such as Andy Pandy, the Flowerpot Men, Rag, Tag, and Bobtail, and the Woodentops, is shown on British television.
1960–1969	UK [popular music]	The Beatles' song ‘She Loves You’ is the best-selling single of the 1960s in Britain. The Beatles are responsible for five out of the top six singles in Britain in the 1960s.
1968	UK [popular music]	The British rock band Cream, founded by Eric Clapton, releases the album Wheels of Fire – the first album to sell 1 million copies – and the single ‘Sunshine of Your Love’.
1968	USA [consumer products]	Waterbeds are first brought onto the market in the USA.
1968	USA [media and communication]	The 911 emergency telephone system for police, fire, and ambulances is introduced in New York City. It is the first such system in the USA.
1968	UK [political events]	Eighty thousand people march on the US embassy in London, England, in protest at US involvement in Vietnam.
1968	USA [sculpture]	The US artist Edward Kienholz creates Portable War Memorial.
1968	Russia [solo and chamber music]	The Russian composer Dmitry Shostakovich completes his String Quartet No. 12.
1968	UK [television]	The new ITV stations London Weekend, Yorkshire, HTV, and Thames are launched in Britain.
1968	USA, UK [cinema and film]	The film 2001: A Space Odyssey, directed by US film-maker Stanley Kubrick, is released in Britain. Based on Arthur C Clarke's story The Sentinel, it stars Gary Lockwood, Keir Dullea, and William Sylvester, with Douglas Rain as the voice of the computer HAL.
1968	USA [civil rights]	The US social activist and Black Panther member Eldridge Cleaver publishes Soul on Ice, a book of essays on the personal effects of racism that quickly acquires an international status.
1968	USA [companies and organizations]	US engineers Gordon Moore and Robert Noyce found Intel Corporation, which begins making integrated circuits for computers.
1968	USA [fiction]	The US writer John Updike publishes his novel Couples, a study of sexual promiscuity in New England.
1968	USA [fiction]	The US writer Gore Vidal publishes his transvestite fantasy novel Myra Breckinridge.
1968	USA [historical study]	The US writer Norman Mailer publishes The Armies of the Night, an account of the peace demonstrations in Washington, DC, in October 1967.
1968	England [painting]	The English artist Richard Hamilton paints Swingeing London.
1968	UK [popular music]	For the first time in Britain, albums are outselling singles.
1968	USA [popular music]	The US jazz singer and trumpeter Louis Armstrong releases the single ‘What a Wonderful World’.
1968	UK [popular music]	The British rock group the Beatles releases the single ‘Hey Jude’, the best-selling single of the year in Britain, and the album The Beatles (known as The White Album).
15 January 1968	UK [legislation]	A new law in Britain extends the terms on which divorce may be obtained, permitting it on grounds of ‘irretrievable breakdown’.
21 January - 8 April 1968	North Vietnam, South Vietnam [Vietnam War (1954–75)]	5,000 US marines and South Vietnamese soldiers are besieged by two North Vietnamese army divisions at Khe Sanh in the north of South Vietnam, in one of the fiercest battles of the entire Vietnam War.
30 January - 29 February 1968	North Vietnam, South Vietnam [Vietnam War (1954–75)]	The Vietcong launches the Tet offensive against South Vietnamese cities.
February 1968	UK [schools]	In British secondary schools, the provision of free milk ends.
March 1968	UK [health and medicine]	In Britain, figures show a drop of 23% in road deaths since the introduction of breath tests in 1967.
16 March 1968	USA, South Vietnam [Vietnam War (1954–75)]	US soldiers massacre 450 men, women, and children at the village of My Lai, in South Vietnam. When news of the massacre emerges, some twenty months later, the troops will insist that they acted under the orders of lieutenant William L Calley, Jr.
27 March 1968	USSR [births and deaths]	Yuri Gagarin, Soviet cosmonaut and the first person to travel in space, is killed when his jet aircraft crashes near Moscow, USSR (34).
30 March 1968	world, UK [tennis]	The International Lawn Tennis Association abolishes the distinction between amateurs and professionals following the example of the British Lawn Tennis Association of 15 October 1967.
4 April 1968	USA [political events]	The assassination of Black American civil-rights activist Martin Luther King, Jr, in Memphis, Tennessee, sparks a week of rioting in black ghettos throughout the nation. His assassin, James Earl Ray, is arrested in London, England, on 8 June and promptly extradited to the USA.
4 April 1968	USA [births and deaths]	Martin Luther King, Jr, US Baptist minister and civil-rights leader, is assassinated in Memphis, Tennessee, by a sniper later identified as escaped convict James Earl Ray (39).
8 April 1968	North Vietnam, South Vietnam, USA [Vietnam War (1954–75)]	The USA and its South Vietnamese allies launch Operation Complete Victory, involving some 100,000 US troops, designed to put a definitive end to the Tet offensive.
3 June 1968	USA [crime and punishment]	Valerie Solanis, a part-time actor, shoots and wounds US artist Andy Warhol.
24 June - 6 July 1968	UK, Australia, USA [tennis]	At the first ‘open’ Wimbledon tennis championships in London, England, the singles titles are won by Rod Laver of Australia and Billie Jean King of the USA, who win £2,000 and £750 respectively.
1 July 1968	UK, USA, USSR [treaties]	Sixty-one nations, including Britain, the USA, and USSR sign a nuclear nonproliferation treaty.
20 August 1968	Czechoslovakia, USSR [wars]	Soviet and other Warsaw Pact forces invade Czechoslovakia and arrest reform leaders including Alexander Dubcek.
7 September 1968	USA [women's rights]	About 200 female activists demonstrate against the Miss America pageant in Atlantic City, New Jersey.
12 September 1968	Albania [international organizations]	Albania formally quits the Warsaw Pact.
October 1968	Mexico, USA [Olympic Games]	The US discus thrower Al Oerter becomes the first track and field athlete to win the same event at four successive Olympic Games, in Mexico City, Mexico.
31 October 1968	China [revolution]	During the Cultural Revolution in China, the Communist Party expels President Liu Shaoqi after a protracted campaign against him by the Red Guards.
31 October 1968	USA, North Vietnam, South Vietnam [Vietnam War (1954–75)]	In a nationally televised address, the US president Lyndon B Johnson orders a complete halt to the bombing of North Vietnam and announces an agreement on the composition of Vietnamese delegations for peace talks.
November 1968	USA [elections]	Americans elect Richard M Nixon president and Maryland governor Spiro T Agnew vice-president. In the Congressional elections, Democrats retain majorities in the House (243–192) and Senate (58–42).
14 November 1968	USA, North Vietnam, South Vietnam [political events]	As the number of US deaths in Vietnam exceeds 30,000, National Turn In Your Draft Card Day is held, with widespread burning of cards.
20 December 1968	USA [births and deaths]	John Steinbeck, US novelist who wrote The Grapes of Wrath, dies in New York City (66).
31 December 1968	USSR [aircraft]	The world's first supersonic airliner, the Tupolev TU-144, designed by Soviet engineer Alexey Tupolev, makes its first flight.