1969: a Year of Triumph, Tragedy
Series of momentous Events Helped to Close the turbulent 1960s
Given all the social upheaval in America during the 1960s, it is only appropriate that the final year of 1969 was one that spawned events which flew in the face of convention.
From an achievement of profound historical significance, to mind-boggling sports feats, events of that year helped shape what was to come.
For all that happened, nothing overshadowed the first moon landing. The world was glued to the televised image of Neil Armstrong setting foot on the lunar surface on July 20 of that year.
It brought great joy to a nation involved in a space race with the then-Soviet Union. That sense of well-being was rocked the next month when seven people, and an unborn baby, were brutally murdered in California.
Charles Manson, and his so-called family, were eventually arrested and convicted for the parts in the grizzly deaths.
Death, of a different nature, took place two days before the moon landing at Chappaquiddick Island off the coast of Massachusetts. Ted Kennedy was driving a car that ran off a bridge and plunged into the channel below. Kennedy escaped, but his passenger, Mary Jo Kopechne, drowned.
Kopechne had worked on Robert Kennedy’s presidential campaign staff before he was assassinated the year before. Their older brother, John, had been assassinated as president in 1963.
Ted Kennedy went on to serve his country as a distinguished United States Senator, but the incident likely destroyed an presidential aspirations he might have had.
The play Oh! Calcutta! created quite a controversy when it opened off Broadway in June and featured full nudity for both its male and female performers. Given that censorship still existed in some measure in the arts, this was a ground-breaking event that helped bring down the walls that had stifled free speech for so long.
Nowhere was the idea of censorship flaunted more than at Woodstock, an outdoor anthem to sex, drugs and rock and roll. For three days in August in upstate New York, a crowd estimated at 500,000 listened to some of the best music of the period, partied hard and gave rise to a legendary event in the social fabric of America.
On a more tranquil note, and one that captivated the sporting public, the laughable and lovable losers of New York suddenly became the Miracle Mets. Created seven years earlier as the worst team in major league baseball history, the Mets suddenly became the best team of 1969.
It didn’t seem that way when the trailed the first-place Chicago Cubs by nine games on Aug. 16 with 43 to play. But in keeping with the spirit of unusual events, the Mets had surpassed by the Cubs by September and eventually defeated the Atlanta Braves for the National League pennant.
That wasn’t all, though. The Mets astounded most everyone by taking four of five games from the Baltimore Orioles in October to become 1969 World Series champions.
On hindsight, maybe it shouldn’t have been such a surprise. The sporting world already had been turned upside down in January of 1969 with the widely improbable outcome in professional football’s Super Bowl III.
Brash, young quarterback Joe Namath from the New York Jets of the American Football League guaranteed a victory against the National Football League champion Baltimore Colts.
Namath embodied the up and coming young athlete, who flew in the face of convention. The more traditional Johnny Unitas quarterbacked Baltimore until getting hurt.
Namath made good on his promise, and the Jets, won 16-7. That was but one in a series of events from 1969 that helped to usher in a new era in society.
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