AS

United States. American President Johnson suffers another fatal, massive heart attack at his ranch.

Soviet Union. The KGB obtains copies of Alexander Solzhenitsyn’s The Gulag Archipelago following the interrogation of one of the typists who had assisted the writer. The woman commits suicide out of remorse. Solzhenitsyn decides the time has come to publish. In December, the YMCA publishes

Henry Kissinger signs the accords for the reunification of Vietnam

Vietnam. In the final week of the war, American B-52s flew their highest number of sorties in two months.

Apollo 17: the camera films Harrison Schmitt hopping on the Moon singing: “I was strolling on the moon one day”, and Eugene Cernan: “In the merry merry month of… December” “No, May, the month was May…”; from Mission Control: “Sorry guys, let’s say today May

Robert E. Kahn provides the first real public demonstration of the ARPANET and electronic mail at the International Computer Communication Conference

Vietnam. The weapon that prevented the communist offensive from being decisive was American B-52s. At least 80% of the 70,000 men Hanoi lost in the South from March to July 1972 were due to air power.

Vietnam. The United States has 47,500 troops in the country, of which only a thousand are combat troops left to defend ammunition depots.

Last launch of a CORONA satellite. It has been replaced by a new system, still classified at the time of writing (2015).

USSR. The plan is to put three cosmonauts on the Moon for a full month! A first N-1 would place a descent stage in lunar orbit. A second N-1 would place a return spacecraft and lunar lander, which, combined with the descent stage, would descend

Pioneer 10 launches. It quickly becomes the fastest object ever built by man, traveling at 50,000 km/h, and in just 11 hours it passes the Moon. (It hasn’t been for some time—the Parker probe is now, and by far…) After a few months, it crosses

De Benedetti’s Olivetti opens a branch in Cupertino, California, when Steve Jobs is an Atari collaborator.

former member of the Tuskgee Health Commission confesses to the Tuskgee Experiment, conducted at the Macon County Health Center in Alabama, starting in 1932. It analyzed the progression of untreated syphilis in 600 Black farmers, 399 of whom were infected. The patients were injected with

Derweze (or Darvaza), Turkmenistan (USSR). Soviet geologists drilling an oil well cause a collapse in the ground about 70 meters in diameter, releasing gaseous methane. In an attempt to consume the poisonous gas, they set it alight. It is still burning after half a century.

The new DisneyWorld amusement park opens in Florida, not far from the Kennedy Space Center.

Babakin, one of the founders of the Lunokhod, dies. The initial research was conducted by OKB-1, but later moved to the Transmash tank plant, and then to Lavochkin, where it was led by the geniuses of Alexander Kemurdzhian and Georgi Babakin (who died in August

The Soviet T2K lunar module successfully orbits Earth. All it needs is a reliable N-1 rocket to carry it to the Moon. It will never get there.

NASA finally abandons other options and focuses on the delta wing with external tank for the Space Shuttle project

Neil Armstrong resigns from NASA and becomes professor of aerospace engineering at the University of Cincinnati.

4:22 PM Italian time: Apollo 15: The Lunar Rover 1 is assembled; it was designed by Boeing in less than 2 years; very soon Scott realizes that the front steering doesn’t work, forcing him to use only the rear one.

J-Missions. The so-called J-Missions of the Apollo program, which spent an extended period of three days on the lunar surface, with extensive scientific explorations, aided by the Lunar Rover. They were an incredible success, with tons of lunar material collected from sites spread over tens

China. The American delegation, led by Henry Kissinger, arrives in Beijing for a secret visit. To shrug off the journalists, they plan a visit to Asia, with a dull and boring agenda. Then, in Rawalpindi, they disappear for 48 hours of rest in a Pakistani

USSR. Leonov was supposed to be on the mission to Salyut I. He had been the first to perform a spacewalk in 1965. In 1965, on the return journey, the retrorockets malfunctioned, and they landed in the Urals. Soviet radio broadcast Mozart’s Requiem to prepare

First orbital station: Salyut I; the three cosmonauts died upon reentry into the atmosphere due to a pressure-compensating valve that exploded when the shuttle was separated for reentry; resuscitation attempts were futile, following the shock and surprise after the hatch was opened (Russian Space Agency).

China. Mao invites the American ping-pong team to visit China. The astonished young Americans gather in the Great Hall of the People, attended by Zhou Enlai, something the vast majority of foreign ambassadors in Beijing have never achieved.

Hiroshi Teramachi founded Toho Seiko Co., Ltd. in Tokyo, which later became THK Co., Ltd. in March 1973.

Stanford University builds the STANFORD ARM, an electrically actuated mechanical arm

Venera 7 lands on Venus and transmits data and images for 23 minutes (it is the first probe to do so).

Warsaw. German Chancellor Willy Brandt spontaneously and unexpectedly kneels in the Warsaw Ghetto and apologizes for Nazi crimes.

Grumman conducts initial tests of F-14 Tomcat prototypes

The Soviet LK would have made a steep descent (20 degrees), from 16 km to 110 m above the Moon, then the cosmonaut would have taken control. He would have had only 3 seconds to find a site or abort. The 11D411 hydrazine engine was

The lunar Lunokhod lands on the Sea of Rains. At the control center in Crimea, excitement is sky-high! The French and Crimean forces send it a laser signal, which is correctly reflected back, and it measures its position. It gets stuck in a crater on

After over 200 man-years of studies, NASA is able to give the specifications for the Space Shuttle: Two-stage-to-orbit, vertical takeoff, horizontal landing configuration, Initial operational capability by the end of 1977, 6800 kg payload to a 500 km, 55 deg inclination orbit when launched from

United States: First Earth Day. Thousands of events take place across the country, mostly on college campuses. It marks the birth of the modern environmental movement, which embraces the image, taken on Christmas Day 1968 by Apollo 8, depicting a pale blue Earth, deep in

11:43 AM Italian time: Apollo 13 reenters the atmosphere over the South Pacific Ocean. A few hours later, Lovell, Swigert, and Haise are on the aircraft carrier Iwo Jima. They are safe. A resounding failure.

3:40 AM Italian time: Apollo 13: The LM’s engine fires again to exit lunar orbit.

9:42 AM Italian time: Apollo 13: The LM’s Descent Engine ignites to launch the CM into lunar orbit.

Stephen Hawking and Roger Penrose prove the Singularity Theorem. If space and time are sufficiently homogeneous, time travel is impossible, there is enough matter and radiation, gravity is always attractive, and General Relativity holds always and everywhere, then there exists at least one history of

Brandon Carter shows that if a stationary, rotating black hole has an axis of symmetry, its size and shape depend only on its mass and rotation speed.

Cryptography: Whitfield Diffie and Martin Hellman find a mathematical procedure that is easy to perform in one direction but incredibly difficult in the other, or the perfect encryption.

19 deaths in Italy due to terrorism

Piazza Fontana attack

The STS (Space Transportation System, known as the Space Shuttle) project is approved at NASA.

1:00 PM Italian time: Apollo 12: Pete Conrad spots Surveyor 3 no more than 300 meters from the Moon: the automatic probe was the target of the pinpoint landing; within minutes, the entire world is watching live as Pete hops across the Moon, singing, “Dum

Apollo 12, shortly after the lunar landing: Pete Conrad looks at the laminated pages of his handbook on his left arm. And he starts laughing. On every odd-numbered page is a picture of Play Boy bunnies, unknowingly attached by the backup crew, responsible for preparing

12:38 PM Italian time: Apollo 12: Pete Conrad sets foot on the Moon and utters the famous phrase: “Whoopie! Man! That may have been a small one for Neil … but it’s a long one for me!” referring to the step he took to descend

7:51 AM Italian time: Apollo 12: Pete Conrad leads the LM to the moon landing

Trial of U.S. soldiers. U.S. Lieutenant William Calley Jr. faces court-martial for ordering his platoon to massacre 102 unarmed peasants in My Lai, South Vietnam, in March 1968. The Army hoped to conduct Calley’s trial in secret, but independent journalist Seymour Hersh discovered and published

Sino-US relations. Diplomats from both sides have held talks on at least 10 occasions. This is a historic first since the revolution in China.

6:00 PM Italian time: Apollo 12 (Saturn V SA-507): Thirty-six seconds after launch, a bolt of lightning strikes the Saturn V and the launch tower through 2,000 meters of ionized gas; the CM computer shuts down to protect itself; 52 seconds after launch, a second

10:10 PM Italian time: A yellow alarm LED lights up on the LEM; without any inflection in his voice, Armstrong announces, “Program Alarm. It’s a 1202.” After 15 seconds, Houston says, “We’re GO on that alarm.” The problem was an overload of the onboard computer,

3:56 PM: Saturday afternoon in the US: First TV broadcast from Apollo 11

The race to the Moon is in its final sprint. The Americans are about to launch Apollo 11. And the Soviets are attempting a last-minute coup (almost literally): they’re launching the Luna 15 automatic probe toward the Moon. The goal is to land on the

Bell Labs, NY: Kenneth L. Thompson and Dennis M. Ritchie invent UNIX as part of the Multics project (between Bell Labs, GE, and MIT to develop an operating system)

Larry Roberts, project manager for the ARPANET project, submits the Request for Comments (RFC). RFC1 is dated April 7, 1969. The RFC concept pioneers the open-source approach that will characterize the Internet era. Based on the responses to RFC1, host-to-IMP standards will be ready by

First flight of a Concorde; 20 examples will be built, which will cover the Paris, London, New York, and Washington routes; the four Rolls Royce turbojets allow it to reach the supersonic speed of 2,179 km/h at 15,630 m of altitude with a range of

On February 3, 1969, the first N-1, the largest launch vehicle ever built (2,772 tons), arrived on the launch pad. The temperature was -41°C. It had a mock-up of the LOK. It was due to launch on February 21 at 00:18. After 5 seconds, a

The question of the possible recovery of the Soviet submarine K-129 (a diesel-electric submarine with nuclear warheads) came to President Nixon’s desk as soon as he took office. It had already been considered by Johnson, but given the imminent end of his term, no decision

When Johnson leaves the presidency, American deaths in Vietnam amount to 36,756.

Prague. A Czechoslovakian student named Jan Palach soaked his clothes in kerosene and set himself on fire. He died three days later.

USSR. Among the cosmonauts nominated for the lunar landing were Yuri Gagarin, Gherman Titov (second in space), and Alexei Leonov (first spacewalk). Gagarin died (March 27, 1968) during the lunar program. Due to potential friction between strong personalities, a second (older) and then a third

Apollo 8: When Jim Lovell and his Apollo 8 crew emerge from behind the Moon and break radio silence, Lovell announces (jokingly, I think…) that Santa Claus exists, having seen him behind the Moon.

In September 1968, the Soviets had already launched and recovered Zond 5, carrying worms, two turtles, and other life forms. The reentry was followed by the American USS McMorris. NASA’s decision to launch a crewed orbit of the Moon before the end of 1968 followed.

Prague. 9:00 a.m. Red Army troops and tanks storm the Central Committee Building of the Czechoslovak Communist Party. Dubcek is captured and immediately flown to Moscow. The focal point of the Czechoslovak resistance is Wenceslas Square.

Prague. 4:00 a.m. Red Army troops and tanks surround the Central Committee Building of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia. Attacked by an enraged crowd, the Soviets open fire, killing one man.

Massive armored forces and 600,000 Warsaw Pact soldiers storm Czechoslovakia unexpectedly, crushing the Prague Spring. Dubcek and key government officials are arrested. 27 Soviet divisions with 6,300 tanks enter the country: despite peaceful resistance, there are 90 dead, 500 wounded, thousands arrested, and 1,526 convicted.

Boulder, Colorado, United States. George Gamow (sometimes Gammoff; born Georgiy Antonovich Gamov; George Antonovich Gamov) was a Soviet and American polymath, theoretical physicist, and cosmologist. He died of liver cirrhosis: alcohol abuse, which had weakened his health. Physicist Edward Teller remembered him thus: “Gamow was

The cause and remedy for all the malfunctions of the Apollo 6 mission, in a joint effort between NASA, universities, and contractors, is found in record time: the next Saturn V can be prepared for launch; it will be Apollo 8, and the debate over

Intel Corporation is founded in Santa Clara, California, by former Fairchild employees Robert Noyce and Gordon Moore.

Doug Engelbart of the Pentagon’s Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA) demonstrates a new way to interact with a computer using a keyboard and mouse. It also includes on-screen graphics, multiple windows, blogs and digital journals, wiki-like collaboration, document sharing, email, instant messaging, hypertext linking, Skype-like

Stanford Research Institute, SRI, develops SHAKEY, a mobile robot equipped with a vision system and tactile sensors

RCA became interested in the LCD phenomenon by inventing the first liquid crystal displays

Aircraft use “High Bypass Jet” engines (example: Boeing 747)

Boeing produces the first Boeing 747

Alfred Y. Cho and John Arthur of Bell Labs invent molecular-beam epitaxy, a technique for depositing layers of single atoms.

Tetra Pak releases first TB Aseptic machine

In 1968, Candido Jacuzzi invented the Jacuzzi as we know it today: patent #3297,025 filed Jan. 10th, 1967.

Gribov and Pontecorvo published a theory based on the hypothesis of the existence of two types of neutrinos. This theory, in the following decades, would help shed new light on experiments on solar neutrinos, which were discovered to switch between different neutrino flavors along the

The U.S. federal government purchases 6,000 acres of land from the state of Illinois on which to build FermiLab and its particle accelerator; construction begins on December 1, 1968.

The young Italian Gabriele Veneziano devised a formula that, two years later, would be used by the Japanese-American physicist Yoichiro Nambu to explain several bizarre aspects of quantum mechanics by modeling individual particles as strings rather than points. The key aspect of this theory is