"Sixties", "'60s", "The Sixties", and "The 60s" redirect here. For decades comprising years 60–69 of other centuries, see
List of decades. For the related CNN documentary mini-series, see
The Sixties (miniseries).
The 1960s (pronounced "nineteen-sixties", shortened to the "'60s" or the "Sixties") was a decade that began on January 1, 1960, and ended on December 31, 1969.[1]
While the achievements of humans being
launched into space,
orbiting Earth, and
walking on the Moon extended exploration, the Sixties are known as the "
countercultural decade" in the United States and other Western countries. There was a revolution in social norms, including clothing, music (such as the
Altamont Free Concert), drugs, dress,
sexuality, formalities,
civil rights, precepts of military duty, and schooling. Others denounce the decade as one of irresponsible excess, flamboyance, the decay of social order, and the fall or relaxation of social taboos. A wide range of music emerged; from popular music inspired by and including the
Beatles (in the United States known as the
British Invasion), the
folk music revival, to the poetic lyrics of
Bob Dylan. In the United States the Sixties were also called the "cultural decade" while in the United Kingdom (especially London) it was called the
Swinging Sixties.
The United States had four presidents that served during the decade;
Dwight D. Eisenhower,
John F. Kennedy,
Lyndon B. Johnson and
Richard Nixon. Eisenhower was near the end of his term and left office in January 1961, and
Kennedy was assassinated[2][3] in 1963. Kennedy had wanted
Keynesian[4] and staunch
anti-communist social reforms. These were passed under Johnson including civil rights for African Americans and healthcare for
the elderly and
the poor. Despite his large-scale
Great Society programs, Johnson was increasingly disliked by the
New Left at home and abroad. For some, May 1968 meant the end of traditional collective action and the beginning of a new era to be dominated mainly by the so-called
new social movements.[5]
After the
Cuban Revolution led by
Fidel Castro, the United States attempted to depose the new leader by training Cuban exiles and
invading the island of
Cuba. This led to Cuba to ally itself to the Soviet Union, a hostile enemy to the United States, resulting in an
international crisis when Cuba hosted Soviet ballistic missiles similar to Turkey hosting American missiles, which brought the
possibility of causing
World War III. However, after negotiations between the U.S. and the U.S.S.R, both agreed to withdraw their weapons averting potential
nuclear warfare.
After U.S. President
Kennedy's assassination, direct tensions between the superpower countries of the United States and the Soviet Union developed into a contest with
proxy wars, insurgency funding, puppet governments and other overall influence mainly in
Latin America, Africa, and
Asia. This "
Cold War" dominated the world's geopolitics during the decade. Construction of the
Berlin Wall by
East Germany began in 1961. Africa was in a period of radical political change as 32 countries
gained independence from their
European colonial rulers. The heavy-handed American role in the
Vietnam War lead to an
anti-Vietnam War movement with outraged student protestors around the globe culminating in the
protests of 1968.
By the end of the
1950s, post-war reconstructed Europe began an economic boom. World War II had closed up social classes with remnants of the old feudal gentry disappearing. A developing upper-working-class (a newly redefined middle-class) in Western Europe could afford a radio, television, refrigerator and motor vehicles. The
Soviet Union and other
Warsaw Pact countries were improving quickly after rebuilding from WWII. Real GDP growth averaged 6% a year during the second half of the decade; overall, the worldwide economy prospered in the 1960s with expansion of the middle class and the increase of new domestic technology.
In the United Kingdom, the
Labour Party gained power in 1964 with
Harold Wilson as Prime Minister through most of the decade.[6] In France, the
protests of 1968 led to President
Charles de Gaulle temporarily fleeing the country.[7] Italy formed its first left-of-center government in March 1962 with
Aldo Moro becoming Prime Minister in 1963. Soviet leaders during the decade were
Nikita Khrushchev until 1964 and
Leonid Brezhnev.
During the 1960s, the world population increased from 3.0 to 3.7 billion people. There were approximately 1.15 billion births and 500 million deaths.
1961 – Substantial (approximately 700) American advisory forces first arrive in
Vietnam.
1962 – By mid-1962, the number of U.S. military advisers in
South Vietnam had risen from 900 to 12,000.
1963 – By the time of U.S. President
John F. Kennedy's death there were 16,000 American military personnel in South Vietnam, up from Eisenhower's 900 advisors to cope with rising guerrilla activity in Vietnam.[8]
1964 – In direct response to the minor naval engagement known as the
Gulf of Tonkin incident which occurred on 2 August 1964, the
Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, a
joint resolution of the
U.S. Congress, was passed on 10 August 1964. The resolution gave U.S. President
Lyndon B. Johnson authorization, without a formal
declaration of war by Congress, for the use of military force in Southeast Asia. The Johnson administration subsequently cited the resolution as legal authority for its rapid escalation of U.S. military involvement in the Vietnam War.[9]
1966 – After 1966, with the draft in place more than 500,000 troops are sent to
Vietnam by the Johnson administration and college attendance soars.
The
Bay of Pigs Invasion (1961) – an unsuccessful attempt by a CIA-trained force of Cuban exiles to invade southern Cuba with support from U.S. government armed forces, to overthrow the Cuban government of Fidel Castro.
Portuguese Colonial War (1961–1974) – the war was fought between
Portugal's military and the emerging nationalist movements in
Portugal's African colonies. It was a decisive ideological struggle and armed conflict of the
cold war in African (Portuguese Africa and surrounding nations) and European (mainland Portugal) scenarios. Unlike other European nations, the
Portuguese regime did not leave its African colonies, or the overseas provinces, during the 1950s and 1960s. During the 1960s, various armed independence movements, most prominently led by
communist-led parties who cooperated under the
CONCP umbrella and pro-U.S. groups, became active in these areas, most notably in
Angola,
Mozambique, and
Portuguese Guinea. During the war, several atrocities were committed by all forces involved in the conflict.
The massive
1960 Anpo protests in Japan against the
U.S.-Japan Security Treaty were the largest and longest protests in Japan's history.[11] Although they ultimately failed to stop the treaty, they forced the resignation of Japanese Prime Minister
Nobusuke Kishi and the cancellation of a planned visit to Japan by U.S. President
Dwight D. Eisenhower.[12]
Cultural Revolution in China (1966–1976) – a period of widespread social and political upheaval in the People's Republic of China which was launched by
Mao Zedong, the chairman of the
Chinese Communist Party. Mao alleged that "liberal bourgeois" elements were permeating the party and society at large and that they wanted to restore
capitalism. Mao insisted that these elements be removed through post-revolutionary
class struggle by mobilizing the thoughts and actions of China's youth, who formed
Red Guards groups around the country. The movement subsequently spread into the military, urban workers, and the party leadership itself. Although Mao himself officially declared the Cultural Revolution to have ended in 1969, the power struggles and political instability between 1969 and the arrest of the
Gang of Four in 1976 are now also widely regarded as part of the Revolution.
The
Naxalite movement in India began in 1967 with an
armed uprising of tribals against local landlords in the village of
Naxalbari, West Bengal, led by certain leaders of the
Communist Party of India (Marxist). The movement was influenced by
Mao Zedong's ideology and spread to many tribal districts in Eastern India, gaining strong support among the radical urban youth. After counter-insurgency operations by the police, military and paramilitary forces, the movement fragmented but is still active in many districts.
The
Compton's Cafeteria Riot occurred in August 1966 in the
Tenderloin district of San Francisco. This incident was one of the first recorded
transgender riots in United States history, preceding the more famous 1969 Stonewall Riots in New York City by three years.
The
Stonewall riots occurred in June 1969 in New York City. The Stonewall riots were a series of spontaneous, violent demonstrations against a police raid that took place in the
Stonewall Inn, in the
Greenwich Village neighborhood of New York City. They are frequently cited as the first instance in American history when people in the homosexual community fought back against a government-sponsored system that persecuted sexual minorities, and they have become the defining event that marked the start of the
gay rights movement in the United States and around the world.
In 1967, the
National Farmers Organization withheld milk supplies for 15 days as part of an effort to induce a quota system to stabilize prices.
Mass socialist or Communist movement in most European countries (particularly France and Italy), with which the student-based new left was involved. The most spectacular manifestation of this was the
May student revolt of 1968 in Paris that linked up with a general strike of ten million workers called by the trade unions; and for a few days seemed capable of overthrowing the government of
Charles de Gaulle. De Gaulle went off to visit French troops in Germany to check on their loyalty. Major concessions were won for trade union rights, higher minimum wages and better working conditions.
University students protested in the hundreds of thousands against the Vietnam War in London, Paris, Berlin and Rome.
In Eastern Europe students also drew inspiration from the protests in the West. In Poland and
Yugoslavia they protested against restrictions on free speech by
communist regimes.
The
Tlatelolco massacre – was a government massacre of student and civilian protesters and bystanders that took place during the afternoon and night of 2 October 1968, in the
Plaza de las Tres Culturas in the
Tlatelolco section of Mexico City.
On 1 September 1969, a small group of military officers led by the army officer
Muammar Gaddafioverthrows monarchy in
Libya.
Nuclear threats
The
Cuban Missile Crisis ( 16–28 October 1962) – a near-military confrontation between the U.S. and the Soviet Union about the presence of Soviet missiles in
Cuba. After an American
Naval (quarantine) blockade of Cuba the Soviet Union under the leadership of
Nikita Khrushchev agreed to remove their missiles from Cuba in exchange for the U.S. removing its missiles from Turkey.
The transformation of Africa from
colonialism to independence in what is known as the
decolonisation of Africa dramatically accelerated during the decade, with 32 countries gaining independence between 1960 and 1968, marking the end of the European empires that once dominated the African continent. However, many of these new post-colonial states would struggle with internal and external issues including famine, corruption, genocide, disease, and violent conflicts in the 1960s and succeeding decades.[13] Many of these issues were caused or exacerbated by American and Soviet involvement during the
Cold War with each side supporting various strongmen, dictators, and guerillas favorable to their causes in these countries.[14][15]Economic development on the continent has been difficult, but many nations who decolonized in the 1960s began to see a rebound and unprecedented growth in the first quarter of the 21st century. As a whole, Africa's GDP rose by an average of over 6% a year between 2013 and 2022, a rate only outpaced by China.[16][17]
Prominent political events
North America
United States
1960 –
1960 United States presidential election – The very close campaign was the series of four Kennedy–Nixon debates; they were the first presidential debates held on television. Kennedy won a close election.
1961 – President
John F. Kennedy promised some more aggressive confrontation with the Soviet Union; he also established the
Peace Corps.
1963 –
Betty Friedan published the book The Feminine Mystique, reawakening the feminist movement and being largely responsible for its second wave.
1963 – Kennedy was assassinated and replaced by Vice President
Lyndon Johnson. The nation was in shock. For the next half-century, conspiracy theorists concocted numerous alternative explanations to the official report that a lone gunman killed Kennedy.
1964 – Johnson pressed for
civil rights legislation.
Civil Rights Act of 1964 signed into law by President Lyndon B. Johnson. This landmark piece of legislation in the United States outlawed
racial segregation in schools, public places, and employment. The first black riots erupt in major cities.
1964 – Johnson was reelected over Conservative spokesman Senator
Barry Goldwater by a wide landslide; Liberals gained full control of Congress.
1964 –
Wilderness Act signed into law by President Lyndon B. Johnson on 3 September.
1965 – After the events of the
Selma to Montgomery marches the
National Voting Rights Act of 1965 was lobbied for, and then signed into law, by President Lyndon B. Johnson. The Voting Rights Act outlawed discriminatory voting practices that had caused the widespread disenfranchisement of African Americans in the United States.
1969 – U.S. President
Richard Nixon was inaugurated in January 1969; promised "peace with honor" to end the
Vietnam War.
Canada
The Quiet Revolution in Quebec altered the province-city-state into a more secular society. The Jean Lesage
Liberal government created a welfare state État-Providence and fomented the rise of active nationalism among Francophone French-speaking Quebecer Québécois.
On 15 February 1965, the new Flag of Canada was adopted in Canada, after much anticipated debate known as the Great Canadian Flag Debate.
In 1960, the
Canadian Bill of Rights becomes law, and suffrage, and the right for any Canadian citizen to vote, was finally adopted by John Diefenbaker's Progressive Conservative government. The new election act allowed
First Nations people to vote for the first time.
Mexico
The student and
New Left protests in 1968 coincided with political upheavals in a number of other countries. Although these events often sprung from completely different causes, they were influenced by reports and images of what was happening in the United States and France.[18]
In October 1964, Soviet leader
Nikita Khrushchev was expelled from office due to his increasingly erratic and authoritarian behavior.
Leonid Brezhnev and
Alexei Kosygin then became the new leaders of the Soviet Union.[21]
In
Czechoslovakia, 1968 was the year of
Alexander Dubček's
Prague Spring, a source of inspiration to many Western leftists who admired Dubček's "socialism with a human face". The Soviet
invasion of Czechoslovakia in August ended these hopes and also fatally damaged the chances of the orthodox communist parties drawing many recruits from the student protest movement.[22]
1966 marked the beginning of the Cultural Revolution that was launched by Mao Zedong and lasted until his death in 1976. The goal of the revolution was to preserve Chinese communism by purging Chinese society of its traditional and remaining capitalist elements. Though it failed to achieve its main objectives, the revolution marked the effective return of Mao to the center of power.
Following Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev's removal from power in 1964, Sino-Soviet relations devolved into
open hostility. The Chinese were deeply disturbed by the Soviet suppression of the
Prague Spring in 1968, as the latter now claimed the right to intervene in any country it saw as deviating from the correct path of socialism. In March 1969, armed clashes took place along the
Sino-Soviet border in the former Manchuria and this finally drove the Chinese to restore relations with the US, as Mao Zedong decided that the Soviet Union posed the bigger threat to China.
India
In India a literary and cultural movement started in Calcutta, Patna, and other cities by a group of writers and painters who called themselves "Hungryalists", or members of the
Hungry generation. The band of writers wanted to change virtually everything and were arrested with several cases filed against them on various charges. They ultimately won these cases.[23]
Indonesia
President
Sukarno banned
Masyumi Party on 15 August 1960 and caused a tension between government and Islamist which ulama
Zakaria bin Muhammad Amin referred as his way to eliminate and silence the Islamic party, and political views.[24][25]
In the early hours of 1 October 1965,
a group of army officers launched an abortive coup d'état in
Jakarta, assassinated six senior
Indonesian Army generals and a junior army officer. They also seized
Merdeka Square and later in the morning, proclaimed the establishment of the "Council of Revolution" through a radio broadcast, with
Lieutenant Colonel Untung Syamsuri as its leader.
On the same day,
Major General Suharto successfully persuaded the soldiers on Merdeka Square to join forces with the Indonesian
Army Strategic Reserve Command divisions and launched a counterattack on the movement, ending the coup attempt. Three days later, the bodies of seven army officers were found buried in an old well in
Lubang Buaya and the bodies were recovered.
In the aftermath of the coup d'état attempt, the people blamed the attempt on the
Communist Party of Indonesia, prompt a
mass purge against leftists and communist sympathizers across the country. Around 500,000-1,000,000 casualties were massacred. The killings were mostly done by the locals with the help of the Army.
Soon, mass demonstrations and protests from
Indonesian Students' Action Front against
President Sukarno's government occurred. President Sukarno was notorious for his friendly approach towards the leftists, particularly the Communist Party of Indonesia.
In the climax of the protests, President Sukarno signed
Supersemar on 11 March 1966, effectively transferred authority to Major General Suharto to restore order and ensure security in the country. On 12 March 1967, President Sukarno was stripped of his political power by the
Provisional People's Consultative Assembly (MPRS) and Major General Suharto became
acting president. Later, he became president
formally on 27 March 1968. Sukarno lived under house arrest until his death in June 1970.
Japan's remarkable economic growth between the post-
World War II era and the end of the
Cold War. During the economic boom, Japan rapidly became the world's
second-largest economy at the time (after the United States).
In 1960, Japan was wracked by the massive
Anpo protests against the revision of the
U.S.-Japan Security Treaty, resulting in the resignation of Prime Minister
Nobusuke Kishi; Kishi's successor
Hayato Ikeda began implementing economic policies, known as the
Income Doubling Plan removed most of Japan's anti-monopoly laws and promised to double the size of Japan's economy within 10 years.
Eisaku Satō became Prime Minister of Japan four years later, succeeding Ikeda due to health issues.
The
1964 Summer Olympics were held in Japan, the first time the country hosted them and the first time that the
Olympic Games were held in Asia. The start of operations for the world's first bullet train, the
Tōkaidō Shinkansen) between
Tokyo Station and
Shin-Ōsaka Station, it is the oldest high-speed rail system in the world.
The
May 16 coup and the establishment of the
SCNR, led by Major General
Park Chung Hee on 16 May 1961, put an effective end to the Second Republic. Park was one of a group of military leaders who had been pushing for the de-politicization of the military.
The
Miracle on the Han River began with the
Five-Year Plans of South Korea was an economic development projects implemented by President Park Chung Hee, South Korea received US$800 million from Japan under property claims, and was mostly dependent on
foreign aid, largely from the U.S. in exchange for South Korea's involvement in the
Vietnam War.
South Korea's first diplomatic relations with Japan were established under the Third Republic, and
South Korea-Japan relations were normalized in the
Treaty on Basic Relations signed on 22 July 1965, and in an agreement ratified on 14 August 1965. Japan agreed to provide a large amount of compensation, grants, and loans to South Korea, and the two countries began economic and political cooperation.
Africa
On 1 September 1969, the Libyan monarchy was overthrown, and a radical, revolutionary, government headed by Col. Muammar al-Gadaffi took power.
On 1 October 1960, Nigeria gained its independence from Great Britain.
South America
In 1964, a
successful coup against the democratically elected government of Brazilian president João Goulart, initiated a
military dictatorship that caused over 20 years of oppression.
The
Argentine revolutionary
Ernesto "Che" Guevara travelled to Africa and then
Bolivia in his campaigning to spread worldwide revolution. He was captured and executed in 1967 by the Bolivian army, and afterwards became an iconic figure for the left wing around the world.
During the 1960s the United States was in the
postwar economic boom. The 1960s are remembered as a time period of rapid workforce growth (roughly 33% between February 1961 and December 1969),[26]tax cuts, low unemployment,[27][28] rapid GDP growth, gains in productivity and generally low inflation. After the
Recession of 1960–1961 the United States experienced sustained rapid economic growth which began in February 1961 and ended with the
Recession of 1969–1970. It lasted a total of 106 months, which made it the longest recorded economic expansion in the history of the United States until the
1990s United States boom.
On January 20, 1961, John F. Kennedy became the president of the United States. In his campaign, John F. Kennedy promised to "get America moving again." His goal was economic growth of 4–6% per year and unemployment below 4%.[citation needed]To do this, he proposed a wide range of policies which embraced
Keynesian economics (which he is the first president to do so). Among these policies included a 7% tax credit for businesses that invest in new plants and equipment,[citation needed] Income
tax cuts and an increase in the federal minimum wage.
Although, the 1960s were not perfect. The government routinely produced fiscal deficits (as a result of the tax cuts and increased expenditure embarked under Kennedy), with only one surplus during this time period (as opposed to the 1950s which produced 3).[29] Furthermore, by 1966 inflation began to climb, which is a general trend that continued into the
1970's. By the end of the decade under Nixon, the combined inflation and unemployment rate known as the
misery index (economics) had exploded to nearly 10% with inflation at 6.2% and unemployment at 3.5% and by 1975 the misery index was almost 20%.[30] By the end of the decade, median family income had risen from $8,540 in 1963 to $10,770 by 1969.[31]
Assassinations and attempts
Prominent assassinations, targeted killings, and assassination attempts include:
The
1960 Valdivia earthquake, also known as the Great Chilean earthquake, is to date the most powerful earthquake ever recorded, rating 9.5 on the moment magnitude scale. It caused localized tsunamis that severely battered the Chilean coast, with waves up to 25 meters (82 ft). The main tsunami raced across the Pacific Ocean and devastated
Hilo, Hawaii.
1963 Skopje earthquake was a 6.1 moment magnitude earthquake which occurred in Skopje, SR Macedonia (present-day Republic of Macedonia) on 26 July 1963, which killed over 1,070 people, injured between 3,000 and 4,000 and left more than 200,000 people homeless. About 80% of the city was destroyed.
1963 –
Vajont dam disaster – The Vajont dam flood in Italy was caused by a mountain sliding in the dam and causing a flood wave that killed approximately 2,000 people in the towns in its path.
1964 – The
Good Friday earthquake, the most powerful earthquake recorded in the U.S. and North America, struck
Alaska and killed 143 people.
1965 –
Hurricane Betsy caused severe damage to the U.S. Gulf Coast, especially in the state of
Louisiana.
1969 – The
Cuyahoga River caught fire in Ohio. Fires had erupted on the river many times, including 22 June 1969, when a river fire captured the attention of Time magazine, which described the Cuyahoga as the river that "oozes rather than flows" and in which a person "does not drown but decays." This helped spur legislative action on water pollution control resulting in the Clean Water Act, Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement, and the creation of the federal Environmental Protection Agency.
1969 –
Hurricane Camille hit the U.S. Gulf Coast at Category 5 Status. It peaked and made landfall with 175 mph (280 km/h) winds and caused $1.42 billion (1969 USD) in damages.
On 15 February 1961,
Sabena Flight 548 crashed on its way to Brussels, Belgium, killing all 72 passengers on board and 1 person on the ground. Among those killed were all 18 members of the US figure skating team, on their way to the World Championships.
On 16 March 1962,
Flying Tiger Line Flight 739, a Lockheed Super Constellation, inexplicably disappeared over the Western Pacific, leaving all 107 on board presumed dead. Since the wreckage of the aircraft is lost to this day, the cause of the crash remains a mystery.
On 3 June 1962,
Air France Flight 007, a Boeing 707, crashed on takeoff from Paris. 130 people were killed in the crash while 2 survived.
On 20 May 1965,
PIA Flight 705 crashed on approach to
Cairo, Egypt. 121 died while 6 survived.
In the second half of the decade, young people began to revolt against the conservative norms of the old time, as well as remove themselves from mainstream liberalism, in particular the high level of materialism which was so common during the era. This created a "counterculture" that sparked a social revolution throughout much of the Western world. It began in the United States as a reaction against the conservatism and social conformity of the 1950s, and the U.S. government's extensive military intervention in Vietnam. The youth involved in the popular social aspects of the movement became known as
hippies. These groups created a movement toward liberation in society, including the
sexual revolution, questioning authority and government, and demanding more freedoms and rights for women and minorities. The
Underground Press, a widespread, eclectic collection of newspapers served as a unifying medium for the counterculture. The movement was also marked by the first widespread, socially accepted drug use (including
LSD and
marijuana) and
psychedelic music.
The war in Vietnam would eventually lead to a commitment of over half a million American troops, resulting in over 58,500 American deaths and producing a large-scale antiwar movement in the United States. As late as the end of 1965, few Americans protested the American involvement in Vietnam, but as the war dragged on and the body count continued to climb, civil unrest escalated. Students became a powerful and disruptive force and university campuses sparked a national debate over the war. As the movement's ideals spread beyond college campuses, doubts about the war also began to appear within the administration itself. A mass movement began rising in opposition to the
Vietnam War, including the
National Mobilization to End the War in Vietnam's 1967 march to the United Nations and its
March on the Pentagon, the
1968 Democratic National Convention protests at which the slogan "
The whole world is watching" became famous, and continuing in the massive
Moratorium protests in 1969 as well as the movement of resistance to
conscription ("the Draft") for the war.[citation needed]
The
antiwar movement was initially based on the older 1950s
Peace movement, heavily influenced by the
American Communist Party, but by the mid-1960s it outgrew this and became a broad-based mass movement centered in universities and churches: one kind of protest was called a "
sit-in". Other terms heard in the United States included "
the Draft", "
draft dodger", "
conscientious objector", and "
Vietnam vet". Voter age-limits were challenged by the phrase: "If you're old enough to die for your country, you're old enough to vote."
Beginning in the mid-1950s and continuing into the late 1960s,
African Americans in the United States organized a movement to end legalized
racial discrimination and obtain
voting rights. This article covers the phase of the movement between 1955 and 1968, particularly in the South. The emergence of the
Black Power movement, which lasted roughly from 1966 to 1975, enlarged the aims of the civil rights movement to include racial dignity,
economic and
politicalself-sufficiency, and
anti-imperialism.
The movement was characterized by major campaigns of
civil resistance. Between 1955 and 1968, acts of
civil disobedience and
nonviolent protest produced crisis situations between activists and government authorities. Federal, state, and local governments, businesses, and communities often had to respond immediately to these situations that highlighted the inequities faced by African Americans. Forms of protest and/or civil disobedience included boycotts such as the successful
Montgomery bus boycott (1955–1956) in Alabama; "
sit-ins" such as the influential
Greensboro sit-ins (1960) in North Carolina;
marches, such as the
Selma to Montgomery marches (1965) in Alabama; and other nonviolent activities.
Noted legislative achievements during this phase of the civil rights movement were passage of
Civil Rights Act of 1964,[44] that banned discrimination based on "race, color, religion, or national origin" in employment practices and public accommodations; the
Voting Rights Act of 1965, that restored and protected voting rights; the
Immigration and Nationality Services Act of 1965, that dramatically opened entry to the U.S. to immigrants other than traditional European groups; and the
Fair Housing Act of 1968, that banned discrimination in the sale or rental of housing.
Hispanic and Chicano movement
Another large ethnic minority group, the
Mexican-Americans, are among other
Hispanics in the U.S. who fought to end racial discrimination and socioeconomic disparity. The largest Mexican-American populations were in the Southwestern United States, such as California with over 1 million Chicanos in Los Angeles alone, and
Texas where
Jim Crow laws included Mexican-Americans as "non-white" in some instances to be legally segregated.
Socially, the
Chicano Movement addressed what it perceived to be negative
ethnic stereotypes of Mexicans in mass media and the American consciousness. It did so through the creation of works of literary and visual art that validated Mexican-American ethnicity and culture. Chicanos fought to end social stigmas such as the usage of the Spanish language and advocated official
bilingualism in federal and state governments.
The Chicano Movement also addressed discrimination in public and private institutions. Early in the twentieth century, Mexican Americans formed organizations to protect themselves from discrimination. One of those organizations, the
League of United Latin American Citizens, was formed in 1929 and remains active today.[45]
The movement gained momentum after World War II when groups such as the
American G.I. Forum, which was formed by returning Mexican American veterans, joined in the efforts by other civil rights organizations.[46]
Mexican-American civil-rights activists achieved several major legal victories including the 1947 Mendez v. WestminsterU.S. Supreme Court ruling which declared that segregating children of "Mexican and Latin descent" was unconstitutional and the 1954 Hernandez v. Texas ruling which declared that Mexican Americans and other racial groups in the United States were entitled to equal protection under the
14th Amendment of the
U.S. Constitution.[47][48]
Meanwhile,
Puerto Ricans in the U.S. mainland fought against racism, police brutality and socioeconomic problems affecting the three million Puerto Ricans residing in the 50 states. The main concentration of the population was in New York City.
In the 1960s and the following 1970s, Hispanic-American culture was on the rebound like ethnic music, foods, culture and identity both became popular and assimilated into the American mainstream. Spanish-language television networks, radio stations and newspapers increased in presence across the country, especially in U.S.–Mexican border towns and East Coast cities like New York City, and the growth of the
Cuban American community in Miami, Florida.
The multitude of discrimination at this time represented an inhuman side to a society that in the 1960s was upheld as a world and industry leader. The issues of civil rights and warfare became major points of reflection of virtue and democracy, what once was viewed as traditional and inconsequential was now becoming the significance in the turning point of a culture. A document known as the Port Huron Statement exemplifies these two conditions perfectly in its first hand depiction, "while these and other problems either directly oppressed us or rankled our consciences and became our own subjective concerns, we began to see complicated and disturbing paradoxes in our surrounding America. The declaration "all men are created equal..." rang hollow before the facts of Negro life in the South and the big cities of the North. The proclaimed peaceful intentions of the United States contradicted its economic and military investments in the Cold War status quo." These intolerable issues became too visible to ignore therefore its repercussions were feared greatly, the realization that we as individuals take the responsibility for encounter and resolution in our lives issues was an emerging idealism of the 1960s.
A second wave of feminism in the United States and around the world gained momentum in the early 1960s. While the first wave of the early 20th century was centered on gaining suffrage and overturning de jure inequalities, the second wave was focused on changing cultural and social norms and de facto inequalities associated with women. At the time, a woman's place was generally seen as being in the home, and they were excluded from many jobs and professions. In the U.S., a
Presidential Commission on the Status of Women found discrimination against women in the workplace and every other aspect of life, a revelation which launched two decades of prominent women-centered legal reforms (i.e., the
Equal Pay Act of 1963,
Title IX, etc.) which broke down the last remaining legal barriers to women's personal freedom and professional success.
The United States, in the middle of a social revolution, led the world in LGBT rights in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Inspired by the civil-rights movement and the women's movement, early gay-rights pioneers had begun, by the 1960s, to build a movement. These groups were rather conservative in their practices, emphasizing that gay men and women are no different from those who are straight and deserve full equality. This philosophy would be dominant again after AIDS, but by the very end of the 1960s, the movement's goals would change and become more radical, demanding a right to be different, and encouraging
gay pride.
The symbolic birth of the
gay rights movement would not come until the decade had almost come to a close. Gays were not allowed by law to congregate. Gay establishments such as the
Stonewall Inn in New York City were routinely raided by the police to arrest gay people. On a night in late June 1969, LGBT people resisted, for the first time, a police raid, and rebelled openly in the streets. This uprising called the
Stonewall riots began a new period of the LGBT rights movement that in the next decade would cause dramatic change both inside the LGBT community and in the mainstream American culture.
New Left
The rapid rise of a "
New Left" applied the class perspective of
Marxism to postwar America but had little organizational connection with older Marxist organizations such as the
Communist Party, and even went as far as to reject organized labor as the basis of a unified left-wing movement. Sympathetic to the ideology of
C. Wright Mills, the New Left differed from the traditional left in its resistance to dogma and its emphasis on personal as well as societal change.
Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) became the organizational focus of the New Left and was the prime mover behind the opposition to the War in Vietnam. The 1960s left also consisted of ephemeral campus-based
Trotskyist,
Maoist and
anarchist groups, some of which by the end of the 1960s had turned to
militancy.
Crime
The 1960s was also associated with a large increase in crime and urban unrest of all types. Between 1960 and 1969 reported incidence of violent crime per 100,000 people in the United States nearly doubled and have yet to return to the levels of the early 1960s.[50] Large riots broke out in many cities like Chicago, Detroit, Los Angeles, New York City,
Newark, New Jersey,
Oakland, California and Washington, D.C. By the end of the decade, politicians like
George Wallace and
Richard Nixon campaigned on restoring law and order to a nation troubled with the new unrest.
Science and technology
Science
Space exploration
The
Space Race between the United States and the Soviet Union dominated the 1960s. The Soviets sent the first man,
Yuri Gagarin, into
outer space during the
Vostok 1 mission on 12 April 1961, and scored a host of other successes, but by the middle of the decade the U.S. was taking the lead. In May 1961, President Kennedy set the goal for the United States of landing a man on the Moon by the end of the 1960s.
In June 1963,
Valentina Tereshkova became the first woman in space during the
Vostok 6 mission. In 1965, Soviets launched the first probe to hit another planet of the
Solar System (
Venus),
Venera 3, and the first probe to make a soft landing on and transmit from the surface of the Moon,
Luna 9. In March 1966, the Soviet Union launched
Luna 10, which became the first
space probe to enter orbit around the Moon, and in September 1968,
Zond 5 flew the first terrestrial beings, including two tortoises, to circumnavigate the Moon.
The deaths of astronauts
Gus Grissom,
Ed White, and
Roger B. Chaffee in the
Apollo 1 fire on 27 January 1967, put a temporary hold on the U.S. space program, but afterward progress was steady, with the
Apollo 8 crew (
Frank Borman,
Jim Lovell,
William Anders) being the first crewed mission to orbit another celestial body (the Moon) during Christmas of 1968.
On 20 July 1969, the
first humans landed on the Moon. The
Apollo 11 mission, launched on 16 July 1969, carried mission Commander
Neil Armstrong, Command Module Pilot
Michael Collins, and Lunar Module Pilot
Buzz Aldrin, and Aldrin and Armstrong flew the Lunar Module Eagle to the lunar surface. Apollo 11 fulfilled President
John F. Kennedy's goal of reaching the Moon by the end of the 1960s, which he had expressed during a speech given before a joint session of Congress on 25 May 1961: "I believe that this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the Moon and returning him safely to the Earth."
The Soviet program lost its sense of direction with the death of chief designer
Sergey Korolyov in 1966. Political pressure, conflicts between different design bureaus, and engineering problems caused by an inadequate budget would doom the Soviet attempt to land men on the Moon. Shortly after the American Apollo 1 disaster, tragedy struck the Soviet program when cosmonaut
Vladimir Komarov was killed when the parachutes on his
Soyuz 1 flight failed.
A succession of uncrewed American and Soviet probes traveled to the Moon,
Venus, and
Mars during the 1960s, and commercial satellites also came into use.
1963 – The measles vaccine was released after being approved by the FDA
1964 – The discovery and confirmation of the
Cosmic microwave background in 1964 secured the Big Bang as the best theory of the origin and evolution of the universe.
As the 1960s began, American cars showed a rapid rejection of 1950s styling excess, and would remain relatively clean and boxy for the entire decade. The horsepower race reached its climax in the late 1960s, with
muscle cars sold by most makes. The compact
Ford Mustang, launched in 1964, was one of the decade's greatest successes. The "
Big Three" American automakers enjoyed their highest ever sales and profitability in the 1960s, but the demise of
Studebaker in 1966 left
American Motors Corporation as the last significant independent. The decade would see the car market split into different size classes for the first time, and model lineups now included
compact and
mid-sized cars in addition to
full-sized ones.
The popular modern hatchback, with front-wheel-drive and a two-box configuration, was born in 1965 with the introduction of the
Renault 16, many of this car's design principles live on in its modern counterparts: a large rear opening incorporating the rear window, foldable rear seats to extend boot space. The
Mini, released in 1959, had first popularised the front wheel drive two-box configuration, but technically was not a hatchback as it had a fold-down bootlid.
Japanese cars also began to gain acceptance in the Western market, and popular economy models such as the
Toyota Corolla,
Datsun 510, and the first popular Japanese sports car, the
Datsun 240Z, were released in the mid- to late-1960s.
Canada celebrated its 100th anniversary of
Confederation in 1967 by hosting
Expo 67, the World's Fair, in
Montreal, Quebec. During the anniversary celebrations, French president
Charles De Gaulle visited Canada, and caused a considerable uproar by declaring his support for Québécois independence.
The Beatles (consisting of
John Lennon,
Paul McCartney,
Ringo Starr,
George Harrison) released music throughout the 1960s, and are often considered the most popular band in global history.
Beatlemania was/is the fanaticism surrounding The Beatles. The Beatles experienced intense fan worship during the '60s era.
Bob Dylan is often considered the greatest songwriter of all time, and through a process of mutual influence with The Beatles and other artists helped define the explosion of musical ideas in the 1960s.
The
counterculture movement dominated the second half of the 1960s, its most famous moments being the
Summer of Love in San Francisco in 1967, and the
Woodstock Festival in
upstate New York in 1969.
Psychedelic drugs, especially
LSD, were widely used medicinally, spiritually and recreationally throughout the late 1960s, and were popularized by
Timothy Leary with his slogan "
Turn on, tune in, drop out".
Ken Kesey and the
Merry Pranksters also played a part in the role of "turning heads on".
Psychedelic influenced the music, artwork and films of the decade, and a number of prominent musicians died of drug overdoses (see
27 Club). There was a growing interest in Eastern religions and philosophy, and many attempts were made to found communes, which varied from supporting free love to religious puritanism.
Music
The arrival of
the Beatles in the U.S. during 1964, and particularly their appearance on television's The Ed Sullivan Show, marked the beginning of the
British Invasion in the history of music, in which a large number of rock and pop music acts from the United Kingdom gained enormous popularity in the U.S.
Around the same time, record producer
Phil Spector began producing girl groups and created a new kind of pop music production that came to be known as the
Wall of Sound. This style emphasized higher budgets and more elaborate arrangements, and more melodramatic musical themes in place of a simple, light-hearted pop sound. Spector's innovations became integral to the growing sophistication of popular music from 1965 onward.
Also during the early 1960s,
surf rock emerged, a rock subgenre that was centered in Southern California and based on beach and surfing themes, in addition to the usual songs about teenage romance and innocent fun.
The Beach Boys quickly became the premier surf rock band and almost completely and single-handedly overshadowed the many lesser-known artists in the subgenre. Surf rock reached its peak in 1963–1965 before gradually being overtaken by bands influenced by the
British Invasion and the counterculture movement.
In the early 1960s, Britain became a hotbed of rock 'n' roll activity during this time. In late 1963, the Beatles embarked on their first US tour and cult singer
Dusty Springfield released her first solo single. A few months later, rock 'n' roll founding father
Chuck Berry emerged from a 2+1⁄2-year prison stint and resumed recording and touring. The stage was set for the spectacular revival of rock music.
In the UK, the Beatles played raucous rock 'n' roll – as well as doo wop, girl-group songs, show tunes – and wore leather jackets. Their manager
Brian Epstein encouraged the group to wear suits.
Beatlemania abruptly exploded after the group's appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show in 1964. Late in 1965, the Beatles released the album Rubber Soul which marked the beginning of their transition to a sophisticated power pop group with elaborate studio arrangements and production, and a year after that, they gave up touring entirely to focus only on albums. A host of imitators followed the Beatles in the so-called British Invasion, including groups like
the Rolling Stones,
the Who and
the Kinks who would become legends in their own right.
As the counterculture movement developed, artists began making new kinds of music influenced by the use of psychedelic drugs. Guitarist
Jimi Hendrix emerged onto the scene in 1967 with a radically new approach to electric guitar that replaced Chuck Berry, previously seen as the gold standard of rock guitar. Rock artists began to take on serious themes and social commentary/protest instead of simplistic pop themes.
A major development in popular music during the mid-1960s was the movement away from singles and towards albums. Previously, popular music was based around the 45 single (or even earlier, the 78 single) and albums such as they existed were little more than a hit single or two backed with filler tracks, instrumentals, and covers. The development of the AOR (album-oriented rock) format was complicated and involved several concurrent events such as Phil Spector's Wall of Sound, the introduction by Bob Dylan of "serious" lyrics to rock music, and the Beatles' new studio-based approach. In any case, after 1965 the vinyl LP had definitively taken over as the primary format for all popular music styles.
Blues also continued to develop strongly during the '60s, but after 1965, it increasingly shifted to the young white rock audience and away from its traditional black audience, which moved on to other styles such as soul and funk.
Jazz music and
pop standards during the first half of the 1960s was largely a continuation of 1950s styles, retaining its core audience of young, urban, college-educated whites. By 1967, the death of several important jazz figures such as
John Coltrane and
Nat King Cole precipitated a decline in the genre. The takeover of rock in the late 1960s largely spelled the end of jazz and standards as mainstream forms of music, after they had dominated much of the first half of the 20th century.
In July 1964, a plane crash claimed the life of another country music legend,
Jim Reeves, when the plane he was piloting crashed in a turbulent thunderstorm while on final approach to
Nashville International Airport.
Sam Cooke was shot and killed at a motel in Los Angeles, California [11 December 1964] at age 33 under suspicious circumstances.
The Marvelettes scored Motown Record Corporation's first US
No. 1 pop hit, "
Please Mr. Postman" in 1961. Motown would score 110 Billboard Top-Ten hits during its run.
The Byrds released a cover of Bob Dylan's "
Mr. Tambourine Man", which reached No. 1 on the U.S. charts and repeated the feat in the U.K. shortly thereafter. The extremely influential track effectively creates the musical subgenre of
folk rock.
Bob Dylan's "
Like a Rolling Stone" is a top-five hit on both sides of the Atlantic during the summer of 1965.
Country music newcomer
Jeannie C. Riley released the country and pop hit "
Harper Valley PTA" in 1968, which is about a
miniskirt-wearing mother of a teenage girl who was criticized by the local
PTA for supposedly setting a bad example for her daughter but turns the tables by exposing some of the PTA members' wrongdoings. The song, along with Riley's
mod persona in connection with it, apparently gave country music a "sexual revolution" of its own, as hemlines of other female country artists' stage dresses began rising in the years that followed.
Sly & the Family Stone revolutionized black music with their 1968 hit single "
Dance to the Music" and by 1969 became international sensations with the release of their hit record Stand!. The band cemented their position as a vital counterculture band when they performed at the
Woodstock Festival.
The Gun released "Race with the Devil" in October 1968.
After a long performance drought,
Elvis Presley made a successful return to TV and live performances after spending most of the decade making movies, beginning with his '68 Comeback Special in December 1968 on
NBC, followed in 1969 by a summer engagement in
Las Vegas. Presley's return to live performing set the stage for his many concert tours and continued Vegas engagements throughout the 1970s until his death in 1977.
The counterculture movement had a significant effect on cinema. Movies began to break social taboos such as
sex and
violence causing both controversy and fascination. They turned increasingly dramatic, unbalanced, and hectic as the cultural revolution was starting. This was the beginning of the
New Hollywood era that dominated the next decade in theatres and revolutionized the film industry. Films of this time also focused on the changes happening in the world.
Dennis Hopper's Easy Rider (1969) focused on the
drug culture of the time. Movies also became more sexually explicit, such as
Roger Vadim'sBarbarella (1968) as the
counterculture progressed.
The
hippie movement late in the decade also had a strong influence on clothing styles, including
bell-bottom jeans,
tie-dye and
batik fabrics, as well as
paisley prints.
The
bikini came into fashion in 1963 after being featured in the film Beach Party.
Mary Quant popularised the
miniskirt, which became one of the most popular fashion rages in the late 1960s among young women and teenage girls. Its popularity continued throughout the first half of the 1970s and then disappeared temporarily from mainstream fashion before making a comeback in the mid-1980s.
Men's mainstream hairstyles ranged from the
pompadour, the
crew cut, the
flattop hairstyle, the tapered hairstyle, and short, parted hair in the early part of the decade, to longer parted hairstyles with
sideburns towards the latter half of the decade.
Women's mainstream hairstyles ranged from
beehive hairdos, the bird's nest hairstyle, and the
chignon hairstyle in the early part of the decade, to very short styles popularized by
Twiggy and
Mia Farrow in
Rosemary's Baby towards the latter half of the decade.
African-American hairstyles for men and women included the
afro.
Members of Argentine rock band
Los Gatos sporting
mop-top haircuts, which were considered at the time a rebellious hairstyle.
The
bikini became a fashionable item in the Western world during the decade
In 1969, the
American League expanded when the
Kansas City Royals and
Seattle Pilots, were admitted to the league prompting the expansion of the post-season (in the form of the
League Championship Series) for the first time since the creation of the World Series. The Pilots stayed just one season in Seattle before moving and becoming the
Milwaukee Brewers in 1970. The National League also added two teams in 1969, the
Montreal Expos and
San Diego Padres. By 1969, the New York Mets won the
World Series in only the 8th year of the team's existence.
At the
NCAA level, the
UCLA Bruins also proved dominant. Coached by
John Wooden, they were helped by
Lew Alcindor and by
Bill Walton to win championships and dominate the American college basketball landscape during the decade.
Disc sports (Frisbee)
Alternative sports, using the flying disc, began in the mid-sixties. As numbers of young people became alienated from social norms, they resisted and looked for alternatives. They would form what would become known as the
counterculture. The forms of escape and resistance would manifest in many ways including social activism, alternative lifestyles, experimental living through foods, dress, music and alternative recreational activities, including that of throwing a
Frisbee.[57] Starting with promotional efforts from
Wham-O and
Irwin Toy (Canada), a few tournaments and professionals using
Frisbee show tours to perform at universities, fairs and sporting events, disc sports such as
freestyle,
double disc court,
guts,
disc ultimate and
disc golf became this sports first events.[58][59] Two sports, the team sport of
disc ultimate and
disc golf are very popular worldwide and are now being played semiprofessionally.[60][61] The
World Flying Disc Federation,
Professional Disc Golf Association and the Freestyle Players Association are the official rules and sanctioning organizations for flying disc sports worldwide.
Major League Ultimate (MLU) and the
American Ultimate Disc League (AUDL) are the first semi-professional ultimate leagues.
Racing
In
motorsports, the
Can-Am and
Trans-Am series were both established in 1966. The
Ford GT40 won outright in the
24 Hours of Le Mans. Graham Hill edged out Jackie Stewart and Denny Hulme for the World Championship in Formula One.
People
Activists
Some activist leaders of the 1960s period include:
^"The Economy: We Are All Keynesians Now". Time. 31 December 1965. Archived from
the original on 21 September 2007. Retrieved 1 January 2011. Keynesianism made its biggest breakthrough under John Kennedy, who, as Arthur Schlesinger reports in A Thousand Days, "was unquestionably the first Keynesian President."
^Arthur Marwick, The Sixties: Cultural Revolution in Britain, France, Italy, and the United States, c.1958-c.1974 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998,
ISBN978-0-19-210022-1), 247–248.
^Saputra, Amrizal, Wira Sugiarto, Suyendri, Zulfan Ikhram, Khairil Anwar, M. Karya Mukhsin, Risman Hambali, Khoiri, Marzuli Ridwan Al-bantany, Zuriat Abdillah, Dede Satriani, Wan M. Fariq, Suwarto, Adi Sutrisno, Ahmad Fadhli (15 October 2020).
PROFIL ULAMA KARISMATIK DI KABUPATEN BENGKALIS: MENELADANI SOSOK DAN PERJUANGAN (in Indonesian). CV. DOTPLUS Publisher. p. 156.
ISBN978-623-94659-3-3.{{
cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (
link)
^U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, All Employees, Total Nonfarm [PAYEMS], retrieved from FRED, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis;
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/PAYEMS, January 3, 2024.
^Holland, Susan S. “Long-Term Unemployment in the 1960’s.” Monthly Labor Review, vol. 88, no. 9, 1965, pp. 1069–76. JSTOR,
http://www.jstor.org/stable/41836225. Accessed 4 Jan. 2024.
^U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Unemployment Rate [UNRATE], retrieved from FRED, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis;
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/UNRATE, January 3, 2024
^U.S. Office of Management and Budget and Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, Federal Surplus or Deficit [-] as Percent of Gross Domestic Product [FYFSGDA188S], retrieved from FRED, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis;
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/FYFSGDA188S, January 3, 2024.
^Peter B.R. Hazell (2009).
The Asian Green Revolution. Intl Food Policy Res Inst.
Archived from the original on 28 October 2020. Retrieved 18 February 2022. {{
cite book}}: |work= ignored (
help)
Anastakis, Dimitry, ed. The Sixties: passion, politics, and style (McGill-Queen's Press-MQUP, 2008.) Canadian emphasis
Baugess, James S., and Abbe Debolt, eds. Encyclopedia of the Sixties: A Decade of Culture and Counterculture (2 vol, 2012; also E-book) 871pp; 500 entries by scholars
excerpt and text search;
online review
Berton, Pierre. 1967: the Last Good Year (Toronto: Doubleday Canada, 1997). Canadian events
Brooks, Victor. Last Season of Innocence: The Teen Experience in the 1960s (Rowman & Littlefield, 2012) 207 pp.
Brown, Timothy Scott. West Germany and the Global Sixties (2013)
Christiansen, Samantha and Zachary Scarlett, ed. The Third World and the Global 1960s (New York: Berghahn, 2013)
Introduction
Farber, David, and Beth Bailey, eds. The Columbia guide to America in the 1960s (Columbia University Press, 2003).
Farber, David, ed. The Sixties: From Memory to History (1994), Scholarly essays on the United States
Flamm, Michael W. and David Steigerwald. Debating the 1960s: Liberal, Conservative, and Radical Perspectives (2007) on USA
Isserman, Maurice, and Michael Kazin. America divided: The civil war of the 1960s (6th ed. Oxford UP, 2020).
Marwick, Arthur. The Sixties: Cultural Revolution in Britain, France, Italy, and the United States, c.1958-c.1974 (Oxford University Press, 1998,
ISBN978-0-19-210022-1)
Matusow, Allen, The Unraveling of America: A History of Liberalism in the 1960s (1984)
excerpt
Padva, Gilad. Animated Nostalgia and Invented Authenticity in Arte's Summer of the Sixties. In Padva, Gilad, Queer Nostalgia in Cinema and Pop Culture, pp. 13–34 (Palgrave Macmillan, 2014,
ISBN978-1-137-26633-0).
Palmer, Bryan D. Canada's 1960s: The Ironies of Identity in a Rebellious Era. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2009.
Sandbrook, Dominic. Never Had It So Good: A History of Britain from Suez to the Beatles (2006) 928pp;
excerpt and text search
Sandbrook, Dominic. White Heat: A History of Britain in the Swinging Sixties (2 vol 2007)
Strain, Christopher B. The Long Sixties: America, 1955–1973 (Wiley, 2017). xii, 204 pp.
Unger, Debi, and Irwin Unger, eds. The Times Were a Changin': The Sixties Reader (1998)
excerpt and text search
Historiography
DeKoven, Marianne. The Sixties and the Emergence of the Postmodern (Duke University Press, 2004)
Heale, Michael J. (March 2005). "The Sixties as History: A Review of the Political Historiography". Reviews in American History. 33 (1): 133–152.
doi:
10.1353/rah.2005.0009.
JSTOR30031497.
S2CID145537005.
Hunt, Andrew. "When Did the Sixties Happen? Searching for New Directions", Journal of Social History (1999) 33#1 pp 147–161.
Meyer, James. The Art of Return: The Sixties and Contemporary Culture (University of Chicago Press, 2019).
ISBN9780226521558
Pensado, Jaime. "The (forgotten) Sixties in Mexico." The Sixties: A Journal of History, Politics and Culture(2008) 1#1: 83–90.
Rising, George Goodwin. "Stuck in the sixties: Conservatives and the legacies of the 1960s." (PhD U. of Arizona, 2003).
hdl:10150/280496