60s 1960s - History

1960s

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.

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 in 1963. Kennedy had wanted Keynesian 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.

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.