1968
Tet Offensive stuns America
On the Vietnamese lunar new year, eighty-five thousand Viet Cong and North Vietnamese troops attacked cities and bases across South Vietnam…
Martin Luther King assassinated
Standing on the balcony of a Memphis motel where he had come to support striking sanitation workers, Martin Luther King Jr. was killed by a single rifle shot.
Soviet tanks crush Prague Spring
Alexander Dubcek's reformist Czechoslovak government had tried to build socialism with a human face: censorship lifted, debate opened, reform promised.
My Lai massacre
American soldiers from Charlie Company entered a South Vietnamese hamlet on a search-and-destroy mission and, over the course of a morning, killed…
Paris erupts in May 1968
Student protests at Nanterre spread to the Sorbonne and then to factories across France.
RFK assassinated in Los Angeles
Minutes after winning the California Democratic primary, Robert Kennedy was shot in a hotel kitchen by a young Palestinian named Sirhan Sirhan.
Tlatelolco massacre in Mexico
Ten days before the Olympic Games were to open in Mexico City, government troops opened fire on a student protest in the Plaza of the Three Cultures…
2001: A Space Odyssey
Beatles release White Album
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Frequently asked
What happened in the year 1968?
Saeculum lists 9 events from 1968. The most significant is Tet Offensive stuns America: On the Vietnamese lunar new year, eighty-five thousand Viet Cong and North Vietnamese troops attacked cities and bases across South Vietnam.
What era was 1968 part of?
1968 falls within the Modern Era (1901-2000). World wars, cold war, and the splitting of the atom.
Which regions saw notable events in 1968?
The events from 1968 span Southeast Asia, North America and Europe.