1960s

The 1960s was a decade of anger and energy, and the big hair of singers and politicians' wives. The decade started in 1960 with the invention of lasers and the release of Psycho. (It shocked us to see the heroine butchered halfway through the movie.) The next year, 1961, we watched the trial of Adolf Eichmann, the erection of the Berlin Wall with dramatic last effort escapes to freedom, and were stunned when the Russians sent the the first man into space on April 12, 1961. The next year Marilyn Monroe's death ended an era of glamour on the screen, Andy Warhol's soup cans confused the art world, and John Kennedy held his ground until the Russians flinched during the Cuban Missile Crisis, bringing the world closer than ever to nuclear war.

Environment issues went into full steam with the publication of Silent Spring. The next year, JFK was assassinated and Betty Friedan Published the Feminine Mystique. In 1964, the Beatles exploded onto the North American scene, opening the door to a tidal wave of outstanding British rock. GI Joe walked onto the dolls for boys stage at the dawning of a new war. 1965 saw Malcolm X assassinated. US troops entered Viet Nam, and the great Eastern seaboard blackout extended from USA to Canada. In 1966, Star Trek was born while the first mass protesting of the Viet Nam war began along with the exodus to Canada and Mexico of draft dodgers. 1967 brought us the first heart transplant, the death and immortalization of Che Guevera, and the death of three US astronauts in a simulated launch. 1968 saw the assassination of Martin Luther King and Robert Kennedy, and Russian tanks rolling into Prague in an attempt to contain westernization of Communist states. In 1969 the US put the first man on the moon and sixties rock reached its zenith at Woodstock. 1960s fashions started the decade as the innocent fifties styles came to an end and rode a rocky roller coaster ride through innovation and oddness and grunge. Hair was everywhere from Audrey Hepburn short to long blonde shoulder length, with a flash of Dusty Springfield beehives and ended with hippy unkemptness and back to short again with Mary Quant. The ponytail disappeared. We saw hot pants, mini skirts and vinyl fashions, including the contrasting colors of Pop art Mod fashions, and the pleated plaid skirt. There was a dramatic rise in the concept of television as the poor man's fashion show and promoter of moral values, with entries such as Patty Duke and Gidget, but it was the rock world that led the way, sometimes down rocky and hallucinatory paths. Television tried so hard to be a leader and innovator but had to settle for the role as just another follower. 15hqql.