1966
France announces its withdrawal of troops from NATO • UN votes sanctions against Rhodesia • Mrs Indira Ghandi becomes Prime Minister of India • The Tashkent Declaration restores friendly relations with India and Pakistan • China denounces Soviet collaboration with theWest • Vietnam War continues, interrupted only by a 48-hour truce at Christmas • The USA’s first black senator, Edward Brooke (Rep, Mass) is elected; meanwhile, race riots rage in American cities • Marc Chagall (Fr) paints mural The Triumph of Music for the Met Opera, New York City

1967
Right-wing military coup in Greece • The ‘Six Day War’: fearing attack from the Arab countries, the Israeli’s strike first, and inflict a humiliating defeat on the Arab forces; Israeli troops occupy the Sinai Peninsula and the Gaza strip (Egyptian), the Golan Heights (Syrian), and all Jordanian territory west of the Jordan River, including eastern Jerusalem • Civil war breaks out in Nigeria (to 1970) • Christiaan Barnard (S. Afr) performs the world’s first heart transplant operation • Film: Disney’s The Jungle Book • David Hockney (Eng) paints A Bigger Splash • V. S. Naipaul (Trin/UK): A Flag on the Island • Gabriel Garcia Marquez (Colomb): One Hundred Years of Solitude

1968
In USA, Civil Rights leader Dr. Martin Luther King Junior is assassinated; Senator Robert L. Kennedy assassinated • The Vietnam War continues to escalate: more than 500,000 US troops are now involved • The USA, USSR, Britain and 58 other countries sign a treaty on the non-proliferation of nuclear weapons • Mass student protests (anti-war and injustice; pro-civil liberties) around Europe and the Americas • USSR invades Czechoslovakia to reverse a new liberal reform programme • Apollo 8, crewed by three US astronauts, makes the first orbit of the Moon • Max Perutz (Austria/UK) establishes the structure of the haemoglobin molecule • Three-Piece No. 3: Vertebrae  by Henry Moore •  Alexander Solzhenitsyn (USSR): The First Circle

1969
Richard M. Nixon takes office as 37th President of the USA • The Vietnam War continues • IRA (Irish Republican Army) terrorist activities grow; troops from mainland Britain move in to restore order • French President Charles de Gaulle resigns; succeeded by Georges Pompidou • US astronauts Neil Armstrong and Edwin Aldrin become the first men to set foot on the Moon • The supersonic Anglo-French airliner Concorde makes its first flight from Toulon (Fr) • The US Supreme Court rules that segregation in schools must end immediately • Voting age is reduced from 21 to 18 in Britain • Film: 2001: A Space Odyssey (Stanley Kubrick) • Mario Puzo (US): The Godfather

1970
The Vietnam War continues: US and South Vietnamese forces briefly enter Cambodia, President Richard M. Nixon announces that 150,000 US troops will be withdrawn from Vietnam • Communist leader Salvador Allende becomes President of Chile • Violence continues in Northern Ireland • The civil war in Nigeria ends with the collapse of the breakaway province of Biafra • Middle East tension increases when Palestinian guerrillas hijack and blow up four airliners; Civil war between Jordanian army and Palestinian guerrillas ensues • The Aswan High Dam in Egypt is completed • Henri Charriere (Fr): Papillon • Richard Bach (US): Jonathan Livingston Seagull • Ted Hughes (Eng): poems Crow

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