1969

1969 (MCMLXIX) was a common year starting on Wednesday of the Gregorian calendar, the 1969th year of the Common Era (CE) and Anno Domini (AD) 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.

Millennium:	2nd millennium
Centuries:	19th century – 20th century – 21st century
Decades:	1930s  1940s  1950s  – 1960s –  1970s  1980s  1990s
Years:	1966 1967 1968 – 1969 – 1970 1971 1972

1969 in other calendars

Gregorian calendar	1969 MCMLXIX
Ab urbe condita	2722
Armenian calendar	1418 ԹՎ ՌՆԺԸ
Assyrian calendar	6719
Bahá'í calendar	125–126
Balinese saka calendar	1890–1891
Bengali calendar	1376
Berber calendar	2919
British Regnal year	17 Eliz. 2 – 18 Eliz. 2
Buddhist calendar	2513
Burmese calendar	1331
Byzantine calendar	7477–7478
Chinese calendar	戊申年 (Earth Monkey) 4665 or 4605     — to — 己酉年 (Earth Rooster) 4666 or 4606
Coptic calendar	1685–1686
Discordian calendar	3135
Ethiopian calendar	1961–1962
Hebrew calendar	5729–5730
Hindu calendars
- Vikram Samvat	2025–2026
- Shaka Samvat	1890–1891
- Kali Yuga	5069–5070
Holocene calendar	11969
Igbo calendar	969–970
Iranian calendar	1347–1348
Islamic calendar	1388–1389
Japanese calendar	Shōwa 44 (昭和４４年)
Javanese calendar	1900–1901
Juche calendar	58
Julian calendar	Gregorian minus 13 days
Korean calendar	4302
Minguo calendar	ROC 58 民國58年
Nanakshahi calendar	501
Thai solar calendar	2512
Tibetan calendar	阳土猴年 (male Earth-Monkey) 2095 or 1714 or 942     — to — 阴土鸡年 (female Earth-Rooster) 2096 or 1715 or 943

Events

• January 12 – Led Zeppelin's first album is released.
• January 20 – Richard Nixon becomes President of the United States, after Lyndon Johnson.
• February 3 – Yasser Arafat becomes Palestinian Liberation Organization leader at the Palestinian National Congress.
• April 9 – Around 300 students take over Harvard University, because they do not like the Vietnam War being fought.
• May 10 – Battle of Hamburger Hill in Vietnam.
• May 20 – National Guard helicopters spray skin-stinging powder on Vietnam War protesters in California.
• May 31 – John Lennon and Yoko Ono record "Give Peace a Chance" at their "Bed-In" in Montreal.
• June 8 – Nixon announces that 25,000 US troops will start to leave Vietnam before September.
• July 8 – As promised, some US troops begin to leave Vietnam.
• July 16–24 – The Apollo 11 mission makes Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin the first people on the Moon.
• August 9 – The Manson Family murders the actress Sharon Tate and members of her family.
• August 15 – The Woodstock music festival starts in Upstate New York.
• August 17 – Hurricane Camille hits Mississippi, killing 248 people.
• August 31 – Boxer Rocky Marciano dies in a plane crash on the day before his 46th birthday.
• September 1 – King Idris I of Libya is removed from power in a coup.
• September 7 – Monty Python's Flying Circus airs for the first time on British television.
• October 15 – Hundreds of thousands of people across the US protest against the Vietnam War by not going to work.
• October 21 – Willy Brandt becomes the first SPD-Chancellor of Germany
• November 9 – A group of American Indians takes over Alcatraz Island and holds it for 19 months.
• November 10 - Sesame Street first aired.
• November 13 – Up to 500,000 anti-war protesters march and protest in Washington DC.
• December 1 – The United States holds the first "draft lottery", to pick who is going to be sent to fight in Vietnam.

Births

• January 2 – Christy Turlington, American model
• January 3 – Michael Schumacher, German Formula one driver
• January 5 – Marilyn Manson, American singer
• January 14 – Dave Grohl, American musician
• January 16 – Roy Jones, Jr., American professional boxer
• January 18 – Dave Bautista, American professional wrestler
• February 1 – Brian Krause, American actor
• February 11 – Jennifer Aniston, American actress
• March 6 – Greg Scott, English television presenter
• April 25 – Renée Zellweger, American actress
• May 14 – Cate Blanchett, Australian actress
• May 25 – Stacy London, American fashion consultant
• June 14 – Steffi Graf, German tennis player
• June 15 – Oliver Kahn, German football player
• June 27 – Colleen Fitzpatrick, American singer and actress
• July 17 - Kazuki Kitamura, Japanese actor
• July 20 – Josh Holloway, American actor
• July 24 – Jennifer Lopez, American singer and actress
• July 27 – Triple H, American professional wrestler
• August 6 – Elliott Smith, American singer and musician (d. 2003)
• August 18 – Edward Norton, American actor
• August 19 – Matthew Perry, American actor
• August 28 – Jack Black, American actor, comedian, and musician
• October 24 - Adela Noriega, Mexican television actress
• November 10 – Jens Lehmann, German football player
• December 4 – Jay-Z, American rapper
• December 9 – Bixente Lizarazu, French footballer
• December 19 – Kristy Swanson, American actress
• December 28 – Linus Torvalds, Finnish computer scientist
• Buckethead, American musician

Deaths

January

Grażyna Bacewicz

Jan Palach

Dominique Pire

Meher Baba

• January 1 – Barton MacLane, American actor (b. 1902)
• January 1 – Bruno Söderström, Swedish track and field athlete (b. 1881)
• January 4 – Paul Chambers, American jazz double bassist (b. 1935)
• January 9 – Jacques van Egmond, Dutch racing cyclist (b. 1908)
• January 17 – Grażyna Bacewicz, Polish composer (b. 1909)
• January 19 – Jan Palach, Czech activist (b. 1948)
• January 30 – Dominique Pire, Belgian friar (b. 1910)
• January 31 – Meher Baba, Indian mystic (b. 1894)

February

Saud of Saudi Arabia

Levi Eshkol

• February 2 – Boris Karloff, English actor (b. 1887)
• February 23 – Madhubala, Indian actress (b. 1933)
• February 23 – King Saud of Saudi Arabia (b. 1902)
• February 26 – Levi Eshkol, 3rd Prime Minister of Israel (b. 1895)

March

Dwight D. Eisenhower

• March 24 – Joseph Kasa-Vubu, 1st President of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (b. 1917)
• March 28 – Dwight D. Eisenhower, 34th President of the United States (b. 1890)

May

Franz von Papen

• May 2 – Franz von Papen, 22nd Chancellor of Germany (b. 1879)
• May 3 - Zakir Husain, 3rd President of India (b. 1897)

June

Judy Garland

• June 8 – Robert Taylor, American actor (b. 1911)
• June 22 – Judy Garland, American actress and singer (b. 1922)

July

• July 3 – Brian Jones, British musician (the Rolling Stones) (b. 1942)

August

Theodor W. Adorno

• August 6 - Theodor W. Adorno, German philosopher (b. 1903)
• August 9 – Sharon Tate, American actress (b. 1943)
• August 31 – Rocky Marciano, American boxer (b. 1923)

September

Ho Chi Minh

• September 2 – Ho Chi Minh, 1st President of Vietnam (b. 1890)

October

Jack Kerouac

• October 12 – Sonja Henie, Norwegian figure skater (b. 1912)
• October 21 – Jack Kerouac, American writer and poet (b. 1922)

November

• November 8 – Vesto Slipher, American astronomer (b. 1875)
• November 12 - Iskander Mirza, 1st President of Pakistan (b. 1899)
• November 12 – Liu Shaoqi, 2nd President of China (b. 1898)
• November 18 - Joseph P. Kennedy, Sr., American businessman (b. 1888)
• November 21 – Mutesa II of Buganda, President of Uganda (b. 1924)

December

• December 13 – Spencer Williams Jr., American actor (b. 1893)
• December 17 - Artur da Costa e Silva, 27th President of Brazil (b. 1899)

Nobel Prizes

• Nobel Prize in Physics – Murray Gell-Mann, American physicist (for his work on the theory of elementary particles)
• Chemistry – Derek H R Barton, Odd Hassel
• Medicine – Max Delbrück, Alfred D Hershey, Salvador E Luria
• Literature – Samuel Beckett, Irish writer
• Peace – International Labour Organization
• Economics – Ragnar Frisch, Jan Tinbergen

Movies released

• Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid
• Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice
• Cactus Flower
• Easy Rider
• Midnight Cowboy
• Shart
• The Wild Bunch

Hit songs

• "Aquarius"/"Let The Sunshine In" – Fifth Dimension
• "The Ballad of John and Yoko" – The Beatles
• "But You Know I Love You" – Kenny Rogers and The First Edition
• "The Boxer" – Simon and Garfunkel
• "In The Ghetto" – Elvis Presley
• "Cloud Nine" – The Temptations
• "Come Together" – The Beatles
• "Get Back" – The Beatles
• "Good Times Bad Times" – Led Zeppelin
• "Honky Tonk Women" – Rolling Stones
• "I'd Wait A Million Years" – The Grass Roots
• "Listen to the Band" – The Monkees
• "Pinball Wizard" – The Who
• "Proud Mary" – Creedence Clearwater Revival
• "Raindrops Keep Fallin' On My Head" – B.J. Thomas
• "Something" – The Beatles
• "Suspicious Minds" – Elvis Presley
• "Touch Me" – The Doors
• "Whole Lotta Love" – Led Zeppelin

New Books

• Ada or Ardor: A Family Chronicle – Vladimir Nabokov
• The Andromeda Strain – Michael Crichton
• The Edible Woman – Margaret Atwood
• The Godfather – Mario Puzo
• The Green Man – Kingsley Amis

Other websites

Media related to 1969 at Wikimedia Commons