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March 1969

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The following events occurred in March 1969:

March 7, 1969: Apollo 9 astronauts prove that the Apollo Lunar Module works
March 17, 1969: Golda Meir becomes new Prime Minister of Israel
March 2, 1969: Supersonic Concorde jet makes its first flight[1]
March 25, 1969: Pakistan's dictator Ayub Khan resigns[2]

March 1, 1969 (Saturday)

Morrison
  • Jim Morrison, the lead singer for The Doors, performed a controversial rock concert (and other alleged acts) before 12,000 fans at the Dinner Key Auditorium in Miami.[3] Three days later, a Miami court would issue warrants for his arrest on a felony charge of indecent exposure and five misdemeanor charges,[4] although by that time, he was no longer in Miami. Morrison would return to Miami to be arraigned on the criminal charges on November 9 and remain free after posting bond.[5] Following 16 days of testimony, Morrison would be found guilty of the indecent exposure charge on September 20, 1970,[6] and would be sentenced to six months in jail and a $500 fine, but would post bail while the case was on appeal.[7] Morrison would die of heart failure on July 3, 1971, during the time that the appeal was in progress.[8]
  • Clay Shaw, the only person ever indicted for conspiracy in the assassination of John F. Kennedy, was acquitted of all charges by a jury in New Orleans. Rejecting the argument by district attorney Jim Garrison that a conviction would "restore justice and truth and freedom in this country", the jury deliberated for only 55 minutes and concluded that Garrison had not proven his case.[9]
  • Born: Javier Bardem, Spanish film actor and Academy Award winner; in Las Palmas, Canary Islands

March 2, 1969 (Sunday)

Zhenbao/Damansky Island[10]
  • Soviet and Chinese forces fought a battle on an island claimed by both nations (called Zhenbao by the Chinese and Damansky by the Russians) in the middle of the Ussuri River that separated the countries.[11][12] The extent of Chinese losses was unknown, but the Soviet Union disclosed later that 31 Red Army soldiers had been killed and 14 others wounded in the initial battle.[13]
  • Jack "Murph the Surf" Murphy was sentenced to life imprisonment following his conviction on first degree murder in the deaths of two people in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. His co-defendant, Jack Griffith, was found guilty of second degree murder and given a 45-year prison sentence. Under Florida law at that time, Murphy would be eligible for parole after seven years despite the life sentence, while Griffith would not be eligible for 15 years.[14]
  • Eleven spectators at a dragstrip track were killed, and more than 40 others injured, when one of the race cars went out of control at a speed of 180 miles (290 km) per hour. The car, a 1969 Chevrolet Camaro, crashed through a chain link fence at the Yellow River Drag Racing Strip in Covington, Georgia.[15]
  • In Toulouse, France conducted the first Concorde test flight. Chief test pilot André Turcat raced down the runway at Toulouse-Blagnac Airport, attaining a speed of 225 miles per hour (362 km/h) after 2,000 yards (1,800 m) and took the supersonic jet skyward for 27 minutes before returning to Toulouse.[16]

March 3, 1969 (Monday)

March 3, 1969: Launch of Apollo 9

March 4, 1969 (Tuesday)

  • The formative event for the Union of Concerned Scientists took place at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), when scientists who were working on military projects conducted a work stoppage to protest "against misdirected scientific research and the abuse of scientific technology"; researchers at 30 other American universities soon conducted their own temporary strikes.[20] Physicist Kurt Gottfried wrote the UCS mission statement, "Beyond March 4", to be distributed to the MIT participants and then to scientists on other campuses, writing that "the Stone Age may return on the gleaming wings of Science, and what might now shower immeasurable material blessings upon mankind, may even bring about its total destruction. Beware, I say; time may be short."[21]
  • Between March 4 and 22, a series of Apollo Telescope Mount (ATM) extravehicular activity neutral buoyancy tests were performed at Marshall Space Flight Center (MSFC). Astronauts participated in both scuba gear and pressurized space suits. The purpose of the tests was to evaluate the performance and procedures for moving film cassettes to the two ATM work stations and to perform some of the tasks required at these stations. Recommendations were made for the improvement of most of the features evaluated. As a result of the tests, equipment and procedures modifications were made.[22]
  • Born:
  • Died: Nicholas Schenck, 88, Russian-born American theater chain and film studio executive

March 5, 1969 (Wednesday)

  • Gustav Heinemann was narrowly elected President of West Germany on the third round of balloting by the 1,023 members of the federal and state legislatures, conducted in West Berlin despite protests from the government of East Germany. The final round came down to Heinemann, the nation's Justice Minister, and Defense Minister Gerhard Schroeder, after no candidate had been able to get the absolute majority of votes on the first two rounds. When the number of candidates was reduced to two, Heinemann won the largely ceremonial head of state post by a margin of 512 to 506.[23]
  • Serial killer Tony Costa was arrested in Boston an hour after police discovered the dismembered bodies of two 23-year-old women who were last seen on January 24. The women had had the misfortune of renting a room at a boardinghouse in Provincetown, where Costa had also been staying, and had vanished minutes after the house proprietor had introduced them. At the time of Costa's arrest, police had found four bodies buried in the sand dunes of Cape Cod near Truro, Massachusetts.[24]
  • South Vietnam's Prime Minister, Tran Van Huong, narrowly escaped an assassination attempt that came as he was being driven to his home at 1:00 in the afternoon in Saigon. Huong's car was attacked by four members of a Viet Cong assassination team, all of whom were wearing stolen uniforms of the ARVN Rangers; fortunately for Huong, the attempt took place in the presence of Saigon police and ARVN troops who opened fire and gave the driver time to accelerate and escape.[25]
  • Switzerland's President, Ludwig von Moos, announced to the lower house of parliament in Bern that the seven-man executive council planned to present a constitutional amendment to grant women full power to vote and to be elected to political office, breaking with one of the Alpine nation's oldest traditions.[26]
  • All 17 passengers and both crewmembers on Prinair Flight 277 were killed when the propeller-driven de Havilland Heron crashed into a mountain as it was making its approach to San Juan, Puerto Rico on its flight from St. Thomas, Virgin Islands.[27][28]

March 6, 1969 (Thursday)

Scheweickart testing the Moon suit
  • The "Moon suit" (officially the "Extravehicular Mobility Unit"), to be worn by Apollo mission astronauts on the Moon was successfully tested in the vacuum of outer space for the first time.[29] Apollo 9 astronaut Russell L. Schweickart donned the cumbersome pressurized garment (with a greater than previously-required oxygen supply and more powerful radio equipment) and performed a spacewalk for 37 minutes, proving that the suit would be effective for the Apollo 11 astronauts to wear for an extended period on the Moon.
  • For the first time during the Vietnam War, a serviceman in the U.S. military was convicted after a court-martial for desertion to Sweden. Setting an example for others, the court-martial tribunal sentenced U.S. Army Spec. 4 Edwin C. Arnett, a cook, to four years imprisonment at hard labor and given a dishonorable discharge, after his trial at Fort Dix, New Jersey.[30] At the time, there were 53,357 men who had been classified as deserters from the armed services as of the last figures (for the fiscal year ending June 30, 1968). A study by a special U.S. Senate subcommittee also found that less than one percent of classified deserters were convicted of desertion, with a rate of 0.35% in the U.S. Army and 0.48% in the U.S. Navy.[31]
  • The number of Americans killed in action in the Vietnam War was reported by the U.S. Department of Defense to have been 32,376 as of the week that ended on March 1, soon to surpass the 33,629 U.S. deaths in the Korean War.[32] (According to the Coffelt Database of Vietnam Casualties, 1,318 servicemen would die in the 20 days that followed; the 75 deaths on March 26 would the bring the number to 33,994).[33]
  • Born: Tsering Wangmo Dhompa, Indian-born Tibetan poet; in Chennai, Tamil Nadu[34]
  • Died:

March 7, 1969 (Friday)

  • The Apollo 9 astronauts completed the most critical part of the mission, successfully testing the maneuvers needed for a crewed spacecraft to turn around, dock with the lunar module (LEM) carried from a separately orbiting section of the rocket, allow two members of the crew to safely climb into it, undock it (for a future descent to the Moon, and then to return, reconnect to the orbiter and transfer back.[35] After the docking, astronauts McDivitt and Schweickart climbed into the LEM (designated as Spider), fired rockets to ascend 10 miles (16 km) above the command module (Gumdrop, crewed by Scott) to an altitude of 156 miles (251 km) and, because of the longer time to make a circuit of the Earth, "gradually fell behind, reaching a maximum trailing distance" of 113 miles (182 km) from the command module.[36] At that point, "Spider" fired the descent engine, jettisoned the lower half of the LEM to its original altitude and then flew back. After locating Gumdrop and redocking with it, McDivitt and Schweickart crossed back into the command module, then jettisoned the LEM (part of which would orbit for 12 years).[37]
  • In Moscow, an angry mob of thousands of Russians were brought by buses to the city center, marched to the embassy of the People's Republic of China and, over the next three hours, broke more than 100 windows and pelted the walls with hurled ink bottles. The demonstrations were made in response to the killing of Soviet troops during the border clash less than a week earlier, and got out of hand despite coordination by the Soviet government.[38]
  • With a crew of three, a U.S. Army helicopter rescued 124 South Koreans from a fire in a 13-story tall apartment building in Seoul. The copter made nine trips, including one where a crewmember rescued a woman who was hanging from her 12th-floor apartment.[39]

March 8, 1969 (Saturday)

General Riad
  • General Abdul Munim Riad, Chief of Staff of the Egyptian Armed Forces, was fatally wounded while touring the front line during an exchange of artillery between the Egyptians and the Israelis at the Suez Canal. An artillery shell landed inside the trench near Ismailia where General Riad had been walking, killed by what would later be described as a "million-to-one shot". General Riad died the next day.[40]

March 9, 1969 (Sunday)

March 10, 1969 (Monday)

March 11, 1969 (Tuesday)

March 12, 1969 (Wednesday)

March 13, 1969 (Thursday)

  • The U.S. Senate voted, 83 to 15, to ratify the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, which had been signed in Geneva on July 1, 1968, by the United States, the Soviet Union and the United Kingdom. The 15 U.S. Senators voting against the treaty were seven Southern Democrats and eight Republicans, while 49 Democrats and 34 Republicans voted in favor.[52]
  • All 15 crewmen aboard the Soviet fishing trawler NR-4553 died when their ship collided with a larger Panamanian-registered oil tanker and sank off of the coast of the United States. A search of the area, located 31 miles (50 km) northeast of Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, found no survivors.[53]
  • Apollo 9 splashed down in the Atlantic Ocean after its 10-day mission and was recovered by the USS Guadalcanal at 1:01 in the afternoon Atlantic Time (1601 UTC).[54]
  • Born: Susanna Mälkki, Finnish orchestra conductor; in Helsinki

March 14, 1969 (Friday)

  • U.S. President Nixon announced that he had approved the implementation of the Safeguard Program, an anti-ballistic missile defense system that would protect American missile bases against a direct attack by the Soviet Union, give "defense of the American people against the kind of nuclear attack which Communist China is likely to be able to mount within the decade" and to protect against "the possibility of accidental attacks from any source." At the same time, the President announced the discontinuation of further work on the Sentinel program previously approved by former President Lyndon Johnson, and rejected a plan for deployment of missiles around American cities. "Although every instinct motivates me to provide the American people with complete protection against a major nuclear attack," Nixon said, "it is not now within our power to do so." He conceded that deployment of missiles to protect major cities "still could not prevent a catastrophic level of U.S. fatalities from a deliberate all-out Soviet attack" and added that it might appear to be "the prelude to an offensive strategy" against the USSR.[55][56]
  • Died: Ben Shahn, 70, Lithuanian-born artist in the social realism movement

March 15, 1969 (Saturday)

  • President Nixon extended the area of American operations in the Vietnam War beyond North Vietnam and South Vietnam, and authorized the U.S. Department of Defense to begin aerial bombing of the neighboring Kingdom of Cambodia, keeping the move a secret not only from the press, but from the United States Congress as well.[57] The secret bombing, which would start on March 18, would be exposed by the New York Times less than two months later, on May 9.[58]
  • The Soviet Union made a counterattack against Chinese forces on Zhenbao/Damansky island as a followup to the March 2 incident initiated by the Chinese. While the number of deaths on both sides was not publicized, the USSR's Red Army defeated China's People's Liberation Army (PLA) with superior force and "a PLA infantry regiment was decimated by a single salvo from six Soviet BM-21 Grad multiple launch rocket systems."[59][60][61]
  • Uruguay's President, Jorge Pacheco Areco, ended the state of emergency that had been declared in the South American nation on June 13, 1968. By then, the organized revolution against the government in response to the emergency had become so widespread that the emergency would be reinstated three months later, on June 24.[62][63]
  • The Denver University Pioneers won the NCAA Ice Hockey championship, defeating Cornell University's Big Red, 4–3, in nearby Colorado Springs.[64]
  • Born: Yutaka Take, Japanese horse racing jockey and 2005 Japanese Triple Crown winner; in Kyoto, Kyoto Prefecture

March 16, 1969 (Sunday)

March 17, 1969 (Monday)

March 18, 1969 (Tuesday)

March 19, 1969 (Wednesday)

Anguilla republic flag
  • The brief (40 days) existence of the "Republic of Anguilla" came to a peaceful end as a force of 135 British paratroopers from the Red Devil parachute regiment, along with British Marines and Scotland Yard detectives landed on the Caribbean island. Ronald Webster, who had declared himself President of Anguilla when the island issued its declaration of independence following a referendum, appeared at the British command headquarters and arranged for a meeting the next morning, then left again. Diplomat Anthony Lee was then installed as the resident British Commissioner.[73]
  • The Chicago Seven (then known as the Chicago Eight) were indicted by a grand jury on the charge of causing the riots at the 1968 Democratic National Convention.
  • Born: Connor Trinneer, American TV actor best known for Star Trek: Enterprise and Stargate Atlantis; in Walla Walla, Washington

March 20, 1969 (Thursday)

March 21, 1969 (Friday)

  • "A sum total of 10 voyages to the surface of the Moon" was announced by NASA Administrator Thomas O. Paine, who told reporters that if the Apollo 11 mission came off as planned in July, it would be followed by nine more lunar landings, with Apollo 12, 13 and 14 set for leaving equipment to measure lunar disturbances, and the six later landings to be set up in "areas of the most significant interest" with the possibility of "overland exploration". "We're talking here really about man's conquest of the seventh continent," Paine noted.[78]

March 22, 1969 (Saturday)

March 23, 1969 (Sunday)

  • Charles Manson made an unexpected visit to 10050 Cielo Drive, the California home rented by film director Roman Polanski and his wife, actress Sharon Tate. Manson was searching for the previous resident, record producer Terry Melcher, from whom he had tried to obtain a musical recording contract. On August 8, not knowing Melcher's new location but having learned that the house at Benedict Canyon was occupied by celebrities, Manson would direct a group of his followers to travel to the house and murder everyone there. While Polanski would be away in Europe at the time, Tate and four other people would be killed. Confirmation that Manson had been at the house before the crime would be revealed at Manson's murder trial on October 21, 1970.[81]
  • In a reaction to the earlier controversy over Jim Morrison's conduct during the earlier concert by The Doors, a group of 30,000 people gathered at the Orange Bowl Stadium in Miami for a "Rally for Decency" organized by teenagers. Celebrity guests included Jackie Gleason, Anita Bryant and the pop rock group The Lettermen.[82]
  • The bottom half of the Apollo 9 lunar module Spider, jettisoned by the crew before they returned to Earth, re-entered the Earth's atmosphere and burned up over the Indian Ocean east of Africa; the top half of the first lunar module in space would not return until 12 years later, on October 23, 1981.[35]

March 24, 1969 (Monday)

  • Officials at NASA announced that the upcoming Apollo 10 mission would continue its original mission to orbit the Moon and to have the lunar module descend to about 50,000 feet (15,000 m) above the lunar surface to scout landing sites. After the successful testing of the lunar module during Apollo 9, questions had been raised about whether "NASA might skip the Apollo 10 flight May 18 and move directly to the Apollo 11 lunar landing mission in July"[83] or even "a possible moon landing by Apollo 10",[84] with mission commander Thomas P. Stafford and Eugene A. Cernan (who would become, in 1972, the last person to walk on the Moon) touching down on the lunar surface on May 22.[85]
  • At the request of King Hussein, Bahjat Talhouni resigned as Prime Minister of Jordan along with the rest of his cabinet of ministers and was replaced by Foreign Minister Abdelmunim Al-Rifai. The move came only two weeks before the King was preparing to travel to Washington to speak with U.S. President Nixon.[86]
  • Born: Stephan Eberharter, Austrian alpine ski racer and 2002 and 2003 World Cup gold medalist; in Brixlegg
  • Died: Joseph Kasavubu, 53, first President of the Republic of the Congo from 1960 to 1965

March 25, 1969 (Tuesday)

  • Pakistan's President Mohammed Ayub Khan announced his resignation in a nationwide TV and radio address. He departed after more than ten years of military rule, and in the wake of four months of strikes and riots that had killed more than 700 people. "This is the last time that I am addressing you as president of Pakistan," he told listeners. "The situation in the country is fast deteriorating... the economy of the country has been crippled, factories are closing down, and production is dwindling every day.... It is impossible for me to preside over the destruction of our country." Ayub Khan was succeeded by the commander of the Pakistan Army, General Agha Muhammad Yahya Khan, who declared martial law, banned all further strikes, demonstrations and political meetings, and provided for military courts to put any violators on trial.[87]
  • Died:
    • Max Eastman, 86, American political activist who co-founded the leftist periodical The Liberator, then changed views and published the book Reflections on the Failure of Socialism.
    • Alan Mowbray, 72, English-born film and TV actor and co-founder of the Screen Actors Guild
    • Billy Cotton, 69, English bandleader, race car driver and film actor

March 26, 1969 (Wednesday)

March 27, 1969 (Thursday)

  • Dick Smothers, co-producer of the popular but controversial CBS show, The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour, was sent a telegram by CBS President Robert Wood, warning that action would be taken if Dick and Tommy Smothers continued to avoid network attempts to review advance videotapes of the episodes prior to broadcast. Wood, who would announce the show's cancellation eight days later, wrote "You are not free to use The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour as a device to 'push for new standards.' If you cannot comply with our standards— whether or not you approve of them— The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour cannot appear on CBS." A copy of the telegram would be released to the press in conjunction with the April 4 cancellation announcement.[91]
  • Mariner 7, the second U.S. probe to the planet Mars in two months, was sent into space at 5:22 p.m. local time from Cape Kennedy. The payload included two television cameras that had the highest resolution at that time, capable of capturing images as small as 900 feet (270 m) wide from an altitude of 2,000 miles (3,200 km). The flyby mission was scheduled to make its closest approach to the south pole of Mars on August 5.[92]
  • Born:

March 28, 1969 (Friday)

Eisenhower

March 29, 1969 (Saturday)

  • Ronald Ridenhour alerted U.S. military and government officials to the My Lai Massacre that had happened a year earlier in South Vietnam. Ridenhour, who had recently completed his tour of duty as a U.S. Army helicopter gunner and had confirmed stories from some of the soldiers who had been witnesses, wrote a four-page letter to 30 different members of Congress, to President Nixon and Secretary of Defense Melvin Laird, and General Earle Wheeler, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and sent copies to each by registered mail. One of the recipients, Arizona Congressman Morris Udall read the letter and circulated it to members of the House Armed Services Committee, and General Wheeler forwarded a copy to Army Chief of Staff William C. Westmoreland and an investigation began.[95]
  • The New People's Army (Bagong Hukbong Bayan) was formed by the Communist Party of the Philippines to wage a war against the Filipino government. Bernabe Buscayno, who went by the alias "Commander Dante", and Communist Party founder Jose Maria Sison.[96] The group, originally based in the city of Capas on Luzon island, began with 60 soldiers and 35 rifles and would have as many as 25,200 people within twenty years. It would launch its first terrorist attack on August 21, 1971, wounding over 100 people (nine fatally) during a political rally, and has continued to wage a guerrilla war ever since.
  • The United Kingdom with "Boom Bang-a-Bang" by Lulu, Spain with "Vivo cantando" by Salomé, the Netherlands with "De troubadour" by Lenny Kuhr, and France with "Un jour, un enfant" by Frida Boccara, all won the Eurovision Song Contest 1969 respectively. It was the first time in the history of the contest that a tie for first place had occurred, and as there was no tiebreaker rule in place at the time, all four countries were declared joint winner.[97][98]
  • The bodies of sixty-eight civilians executed by the Viet Cong in the previous year's Tet Offensive were uncovered in a shallow grave near the city of Huế.[99]
  • Born: Chiaki Ishikawa, Japanese singer and lead vocalist for the duo See-Saw; as Ishikawa Chiaki in Tokyo

March 30, 1969 (Sunday)

  • The Allman Brothers Band, formed by brothers Duane Allman and Gregg Allman, along with Dickey Betts, Berry Oakley, Butch Trucks, and "Jaimoe" Johanson, played their very first concert, making their debut at the Jacksonville Armory in Florida.[100] Duane Allman would be killed in a motorcycle accident less than three years later, on October 29, 1971.[101]
  • Two days after his death, the body of former President Eisenhower was brought by caisson to the United States Capitol to lie in state in the Capitol Rotunda.

March 31, 1969 (Monday)

Notes

References

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