100 YEARS WITH THE NEWS 1965 to 1974 (part 9 of 10)

Reprinted with permission of The Dallas Morning News

Compiled and written by Carolyn Cerbin from research done by Bonnie Lovell and Judy Sall.
Published 09-29-1985



1965

Sanger Harris opens Dallas' first new downtown department store building in 30 years.

NorthPark mall opens.

The Astrodome opens in Houston with the Astros' win over the New York Yankees, 2-1. The contest was the first major league game ever played indoors.

President Lyndon Johnson orders continual bombing of North Vietnam below the 20th parallel. By year's end there are 184,300 U.S. troops in South Vietnam.

The new Voting Rights Act is signed.

Rioting by blacks in the Watts area of Los Angeles leaves 35 people dead and property damage is estimated at $200 million.

A massive power failure blacks out most of the northeastern United States on Nov. 9.

President Johnson sends to Congress a budget containing the biggest expansion of domestic welfare programs since the New Deal. Popular songs include Downtown and A Hard Day's Night.

1966

Luci Baines Johnson, daughter of President Johnson, marries Patrick Nugent on Aug. 13 in a White House ceremony.

Charles Joseph Whitman climbs to the top of the University of Texas tower in Austin and shoots 44 people, killing 14 and wounding 30. The 90-minute shooting spree ends when off-duty policeman Romero Martinez climbs the tower and shoots Whitman.

Severe thunderstorms cause heavy flooding, which kills 12 people in the Dallas-Fort Worth area.

Goals for Dallas begins with 87 citizens participating in the first discussion.

Dallas fighter Curtis Cokes wins the World Boxing Association's welterweight title.

The Vietnam War continues. U.S. forces begin firing into Cambodia, while U.S. planes bomb Hanoi. By year's end 385,300 U.S. troops are stationed in South Vietnam, plus 60,000 offshore and 33,000 in Thailand. At home, anti-war protests are staged in most major cities.

Medicare, a government medical program for the elderly, begins July 1.

Indira Gandhi becomes prime minister of India.

Jacqueline Susann's Valley of the Dolls is published.

Miniskirts come into fashion.

Jim Ryun, an American college student, sets the world record for the mile with his run of 3 minutes, 51.3 seconds.

1967

Hurricane Beulah and resulting floods drive thousands from their homes. The hurricane spawns 115 tornadoes as winds hit 160 mph. A total of 46 people die and damage is set at $150 million.

Jack Ruby dies.

Dr. Emmett Conrad becomes the first black elected to the Dallas School Board.

Fighting continues in South Vietnam, where 475,000 U.S. troops are now stationed. Anti-war protests increase in the United States.

Twiggy, a British model, takes U.S. fashion by storm.

Thurgood Marshall is sworn in as the first black U.S. Supreme Court justice.

Israel defeats Egypt, Jordan and Syria in six days of fighting and occupies large portions of their territory.

South African surgeons perform the world's first human heart transplant operation on Louis Washkansky, who survives for 18 days.

1968

* H, Ben Decherd becomes chairman of the board of the A.H. Belo Corp.

Eighty-five people die when a Braniff International Electra crashes near Dawson, Texas, en route from Houston to Dallas during a lightning storm.

Dr. Denton Cooley and Dr. Michael DeBakey perform heart transplants in Texas.

North Koreans seize the USS Pueblo and its 83-man crew in the Sea of Japan on Jan. 23. The crew is released Dec. 22.

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. is assassinated April 4 in Memphis, Tenn. James Earl Ray, an escaped convict, pleads guilty to the slaying.

In Los Angeles, Robert Kennedy is shot and fatally wounded June 5 after celebrating his win in the California Democratic primary. He dies the next day. Sirhan Sirhan, a Jordanian, is convicted of the murder.

In Vietnam, Communist troops launch the "Tet offensive,' attacking Saigon and 30 province capitals and suffering heavy losses. U.S. and North Vietnamese officials begin public peace talks in Paris on May 10. President Johnson orders the halt of all bombing of North Vietnam on Oct. 31.

President Johnson announces he will neither seek nor accept the Democratic nomination for president. In November, Richard Nixon defeats Hubert Humphrey for the presidency.

Popular songs include Hey Jude, Mrs. Robinson, and Stoned Soul Picnic.

Mickey Mouse celebrates his 40th birthday.

1969

More than 100,000 people attend the Texas International Pop Festival in Lewisville during Labor Day weekend.

Texas becomes the fourth-most populated state.

Expanded four-party Vietnam peace talks begin Jan. 18. The U.S. force peaks at 543,000 troops in April. Withdrawal begins in July.

A car driven by Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., plunges off a bridge into a tidal pool on Chappaquiddick Island, Martha's Vineyard, Mass. Mary Jo Kopechne, a 28-year-old secretary, is found drowned in the car.

U.S. astronaut Neil A. Armstrong on July 20 becomes the first man to set foot on the moon during the Apollo 11 mission.

Golda Meir becomes Israel's prime minister.

Warren Burger becomes the Chief Justice of the United States.

More than 300,000 people attend the Woodstock Music and Art Fair near Bethel, N.Y.

Popular movies include Midnight Cowboy, Easy Rider and Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.

1970

* The News' circulation is 241,238 daily and 281,920 Sunday.

Attorneys from Dallas Legal Services file suit on behalf of 21 black and Hispanic children, asking U.S. Dist. Judge William Taylor to order a new desegregation plan.

Hurricane Celia strikes Corpus Christi in August with winds up to 145 mph.

The population of Dallas is 844,401.

Millions of Americans participate in anti-pollution demonstrations April 22 to mark the first Earth Day.

U.S. and South Vietnamese forces cross Cambodian borders April 30 to attack enemy bases.

In continuing protests against the Vietnam war, four students are gunned down at Kent State University in Ohio by National Guardsmen.

A federal jury finds the defendants in the "Chicago 7' trial innocent of conspiring to incite riots during the 1968 Democratic National Convention.

1971

The Dallas Cowboys lose Super Bowl V to the Baltimore Colts, 16-13.

Dallas is declared an All-America city.

Wes Wise is elected mayor of Dallas.

In Austin, the Lyndon Baines Johnson Library on the University of Texas campus is dedicated.

The 26th Amendment lowering the voting age to 18 is ratified.

Lt. William L. Calley Jr. is convicted of premeditated murder in the My Lai incident in which 22 South Vietnamese civilians were killed.

U.S. forces in Vietnam decline to 140,000 by year's end.

Erich Segal's Love Story becomes a popular book.

Cigarette ads are banned from U.S. television.

1972

The Dallas Cowboys win Super Bowl VI, defeating the Miami Dolphins, 24-3.

In the first game played at Arlington Stadium, the Texas Rangers defeat the California Angels.

President Nixon visits Peking in a precedent-setting visit to Communist China.

The North Vietnamese launch their biggest attacks in four years across the demilitarized zone March 30. The United States responds, bombing Hanoi and Haiphong after a four-year lull.

Alabama Gov. George C. Wallace is shot and seriously wounded while campaigning at a Laurel, Md., shopping center. Arthur H. Bremer is sentenced in the shooting.

President Nixon visits Moscow for a week of summit talks with Kremlin leaders, which results in a landmark strategic arms pact.

Five men are arrested June 17 for breaking into the offices of the Democratic National Committee in the Watergate office complex in Washington, D.C.

A U.S. Supreme Court ruling prohibits capital punishment.

1973

Dallas/Fort Worth Regional Airport is officially dedicated.

In a landmark ruling, the U.S. Supreme Court rules 7-2 that a state may not prevent a woman from having an abortion during the first six months of pregnancy, invalidating abortion laws in Texas.

On Jan. 27, the Vietnam peace pacts are signed in Paris. The last U.S. troops leave South Vietnam on March 29.

Five of seven defendants in the Watergate break-in trial plead guilty, and the other two are convicted. Later, top Nixon aides H.R. Haldeman, John D. Ehrlichman and John W. Dean, and Attorney General Richard Kleindienst resign amid charges of White House efforts to obstruct justice in the Watergate case.

Vice President Spiro T. Agnew pleads no contest to tax evasion charges and resigns. Rep. Gerald Ford, R-Mich., becomes the first appointed vice president.

Leon Jaworski, conservative Texas Democrat, is named Watergate special prosecutor after Nixon fires Archibald Cox.

Congress overrides Nixon's veto of the war powers bill, which curbed the president's power to commit armed forces to hostilities abroad without congressional approval.

1974

The first scheduled flight lands at D/FW airport on Jan 13.

Preston Jones' A Texas Trilogy is first produced at the Dallas Theater Center in November. Impeachment hearings open May 9 against Nixon by the House Judiciary Committee. Later, the committe recommends three articles of impeachement against the president. Nixon resigns Aug. 9 and Vice President Gerald Ford is sworn in as president. Ford later issues an unconditional pardon to Nixon. Henry Aaron surpasses Babe Ruth's record of 714 career home runs.

Compiled and written by Carolyn Cerbin from research done by Bonnie Lovell and Judy Sall.
Photos: 1. Beachfront property is damaged by Hurricane Celia in
1970. 2. President Nixon speaks at the dedication of the LBJ Library

in Austin. 3. People seek cover from UT sniper Charles Whitman. 4.

Roger Staubach passes for a touchdown in Super Bowl VI. 5. Moon-walker

Edwin Aldrin, 6. Gov. George Wallace and his wife. ; LOCATION: 1. DMN

Historical File. 2. LBJ Library. 3. Whitman, Charles. 4. Staubach,

Roger. 5. NASA-Apollo 11. 6. Wallace, George.

© Copyright - 2000 - Dallas Morning News