1968 History, Trivia and Fun Facts

• Politics: Violence erupted between Vietnam War protesters and police at Democratic National Convention in Chicago
• The Top Song was Hey Jude by The Beatles
• The Big Movies included Funny Girl, 2001: A Space Odyssey and The Love Bug
• Minimum Wage in 1968: $1.60 per hour
  A Borg-Warner Eight track stereo: $99.88
  McDonald's Big Mac: 49 cents
• The World Population was ~ 3,526,000,000
• US Life Expectancy: Males: 66.6 years, Females: 74.0 years
• Don't Break the Ice and Score Fore games were introduced in 1968.
• The US Patent for Lava Lamps was permitted in 1968.
• And... Mattel made a toy called the Toot Sweet that shaped Tootsie Rolls candy into actual working whistles.

Johnny Cash’s guitar player, Luther Perkins, died in 1968. Cash found himself at a show where the temporary replacement, Carl Perkins (no relation), couldn’t make it. An audience member asked Cash if he could fill in for the night, and he said yes. Bob Wootton then became Cash’s guitar player for the next 29 years

Olympic long jumper Bob Beamon's first attempt exceed the limit of the official measuring equipment. It took over 15 minutes before a distance was posted, and only then did he realize he had broken the world record by nearly 2 feet.

Robert Kennedy was assassinated during the exact same week that the Rolling Stones were recording Sympathy for the Devil. The original lyrics were "I shouted out 'Who killed Kennedy?'" but Jagger changed it to "I shouted out 'Who killed the Kennedys?'"

Harlem Globetrotters were formed in Chicago and didn't play a game of basketball in Harlem until 1968, forty years after they were founded.

On December 24, 1968, the crew of Apollo 8 broadcast themselves reciting the first ten verses of the book of Genesis. The founder of American Atheists sued the US government for violation of the First Amendment, but the Supreme Court dismissed the case due to lack of jurisdiction. This will have interesting ramifications as Americans go futher into space.

In Mattoon, Illinois, a small restaurant called "Burger King" won a lawsuit against the giant fast food chain of the same name because they had trademarked the name first. Today, there are no Burger Kings legally allowed within 20 miles if the Mattoon location.

The star of the 1968 film adaptation of Romeo Juliet, Olivia Hussey, was only 15 years old when she appeared nude in the film - and was unable to attend the Great Britain premiere as a result.

The catch phrase "who's your daddy?" originated from the 1968 song Time of the Season, by The Zombies.

Ringo Starr temporarily quit the Beatles during the recording of the White Album. The drum track for Back In the U.S.S.R. was played by Paul McCartney. "On August 22, 1968, following an argument with McCartney over the drum part for this song, Ringo walked out on The Beatles. He flew to Sardinia for a holiday to consider his future. While there he received a telegram from his bandmates saying, 'You're the best rock 'n' roll drummer in the world. Come on home, we love you.' On his return, he found his drum kit covered with flowers. A banner above read, 'Welcome Back.'"

The television program Laugh-in had a comedy bit called 'News from the Future' where they correctly predicted Ronald Reagan would be President in 1988 and the Berlin Wall would collapse in 1989.

Dorothy, Betty and Helen Wiggin, The Shaggs, were reviewed by Rolling Stones as "sounding like lobotomized Trapp Family singers" and proclaimed to be "better than the Beatles" by Frank Zappa. Kurt Cobain ranked "Philosophy of the World" album as #5 on his 50 best albums list.

Radical feminist Valerie Solanas shot and wounded Andy Warhol and two others at his New York City studio "The Factory" in 1968.

Two boys playing in a deserted and rat-infested tenement found the body of a 31 years old drug addict. A year and a half later was the body identified as that of child actor Bobby Driscoll, Academy Award winner and voice of Peter Pan.

Night of the Living Dead (1968) is a public domain film because when distributors changed the name from "Night of the Flesh Eaters" to "Night of the Living Dead", they accidentally removed the copyright indication on the prints.

Stanley Kubrick asked journalists to refer to 2001: A Space Odyssey as "two thousand and one" instead of "twenty-oh-one" hoping it would influence the pronunciation of that year.

Roy Jacuzzi invented the first self-contained, fully integrated whirlpool bath, and named it the Jacuzzi®.

William J. Meister discovered a fossilized sandal print which is now called the "Meister Print". Within the right-sided print was housed a trilobite, supposedly 500 million years extinct before man arrived on the face of the Earth.

From 1942 to 1976 pinball machines were illegal in New York City. The 1968 film, The Odd Couple, features a scene in a pool hall with illegal pinball machines to demonstrate to the audience how seedy and unreputable of a hall it was.

Pink Floyd's original managers Peter Jenner and Andrew King decided to represent Syd Barrett when he left the band in 1968, dissolving their agreement with the others as they could see no future in the band.

Pachelbel's Canon remained relatively unknown for almost 300 years until it was recorded by Jean-François Paillard chamber orchestra in 1968 and played on a San Francisco radio station in the 70s.

A researcher, Michel Gauquelin, placed an ad offering free personal horoscope readings. Everyone received the same data, the chart of France's worst mass murderer. Of the first 150 replies 94% found the reading to accurately fit their life; 90% found its accuracy confirmed by family and friends.

Cost of a Superbowl ad in 1968: $54,000

Until the late 1960s, 'gender' was used solely to refer to masculine and feminine words, like 'le' and 'la' in French. In 1968 the psychologist Robert Stoller began using the terms 'sex' for biological traits and 'gender' to pick out the amount of femininity and masculinity a person exhibited.

Don't Break The Ice, Hot Wheels, Battling Tops, Silly Putty, Whirlee Twirlee

Weight Watchers Magazine began publication

VFW Magazine began publication

Essence began publication