"The Sixties", as they are known in both scholarship and popular culture, is a term used by historians, journalists, and other objective academics; in some cases nostalgically to describe the counterculture and revolution in social norms about clothing, music, drugs, dress, formalities and schooling. Conservatives denounce the decade as one of irresponsible excess and flamboyance, and decay of social order. The decade was also labeled the Swinging Sixties because of the fall or relaxation of social taboos especially relating to racism and sexism that occurred during this time.
The 1960s became synonymous with the new, radical, and subversive events and trends of the period. In Africa the 1960s was a period of radical political change as 32 countries gained independence from their European colonial rulers.
Some commentators have seen in this era a classical Jungian nightmare cycle, where a rigid culture, unable to contain the demands for greater individual freedom, broke free of the social constraints of the previous age through extreme deviation from the norm. Christopher Booker charts the rise, success, fall/nightmare and explosion in the London scene of the 1960s. However, this alone does not explain the mass nature of the phenomenon.
Several nations such as the U.S., France, Germany and Britain turned to the left in the early and mid 1960s. In the United States, John F. Kennedy, a Keynesian and staunch anti-communist, pushed for social reforms. His assassination in 1963 was a stunning shock. Liberal reforms were finally passed under Lyndon B. 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 reviled by the New Left at home and abroad. The heavy-handed American role in the Vietnam War outraged student protestors across the globe, as they found peasant rebellion typified by Ho Chi Minh and Che Guevara more appealing. Italy formed its first left-of-center government in March 1962 with a coalition of Christian Democrats, Social Democrats, and moderate Republicans. Socialists joined the ruling block in December 1963. In Britain, the Labour Party gained power in 1964. In Brazil, João Goulart became president after Jânio Quadros resigned.
Led by primary songwriters Lennon and McCartney, the Beatles evolved from Lennon's previous group, the Quarrymen, and built their reputation by playing clubs in Liverpool and Hamburg, Germany, over three years from 1960, initially with Stuart Sutcliffe playing bass. The core trio of Lennon, McCartney and Harrison, together since 1958, went through a succession of drummers, including Pete Best, before inviting Starr to join them in 1962. Manager Brian Epstein moulded them into a professional act, and producer George Martin guided and developed their recordings, greatly expanding their domestic success after they signed with EMI Records and achieved their first hit, "Love Me Do", in late 1962. As their popularity grew into the intense fan frenzy dubbed "Beatlemania", the band acquired the nickname "the Fab Four". Epstein, Martin or other members of the band's entourage were sometimes informally referred to as a "fifth Beatle". (Full article...)
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Water on Tratinska and Kranjčevićeva Street, Trešnjevka
On 25 October 1964, a devastating flood of the River Sava struck Zagreb, SR Croatia, SFR Yugoslavia (today the capital of Croatia). High rainfall upriver caused rivers and streams in the Sava catchment basin to swell and spill over their banks in many places throughout Slovenia and northern Croatia. The worst of the flooding occurred in Zagreb. Sava floods were a known hazard in the city, having affected the development of the area since the Roman times, and the 1964 flood did not have the largest extent. However, it occurred following several decades of large-scale industrialisation and urban growth which had caused the city to expand into the most flood-vulnerable areas. The quality of building construction and flood defences in the floodplain was mostly low. Regulation of the Sava and its tributaries upriver from Zagreb cut off many natural detention basins, such as fields and pastures, which caused water to pile up ahead of the city. To make matters worse, the soil was already saturated from a mid-month episode of fairly high rainfall. A second episode of high rainfall, during 22–25 October upriver in Slovenia, produced a record-high water wave in the Sava. At Zagreb's Sava River gauge, the water crested at 514 cm (16 ft 10 in) above zero level, exceeding the previous high water mark by more than half a metre (2 ft). This proved too much for the city's embankments. Around 60 km2 (23 sq mi) of the city was flooded, including most neighbourhoods on the western side of the floodplain.
The worst-stricken areas were the working-class suburbs of Trnje and Trešnjevka. A network of arterial roads raised on small embankments failed to hold the water. In some areas single-storey houses were submerged whole. The onset of the flood was quick, the warnings came late and the intensity and height of the flood was not communicated to the residents in time. Many were unable to save their belongings and ended up stranded in attics and on the rooftops. The brunt of the flood lasted from 25 to 28 October as the water progressed through the city from west to east, mostly on the more populous left (northern) bank. The neighbourhoods on the right bank only saw groundwater flooding for the most part. The railway embankment and sandbag dykes successfully protected the northern and eastern part of the floodplain, and Donji grad and much of Peščenica were spared. A total of 17 people died in the flood. The living quarters of 183,000 people were flooded; 40,000 of these lost their homes. The damage was estimated to 160 billion Yugoslav dinars, or, alternatively, over US$100 million. (Full article...)
Malcolm X was an AmericanBlack Muslim minister and a spokesman for the Nation of Islam. Born Malcolm Little, he changed his surname to "X" as a rejection of his "slave name". Tensions between him and the Nation of Islam caused him to break from the group in 1964. He claimed to have received daily death threats and his house was burned to the ground in February 1965. One week later, Malcolm X was assassinated, having been shot in the chest by a sawed-off shotgun and 16 times with handguns. Three members of the Nation of Islam were convicted.
Yellow Submarine (also known as The Beatles: Yellow Submarine) is a 1968 animated jukebox musicalfantasyadventurecomedy film inspired by the music of the Beatles, directed by animation producer George Dunning, and produced by United Artists and King Features Syndicate. Initial press reports stated that the Beatles themselves would provide their own character voices. However, apart from composing and performing the songs, the real Beatles' only participation was in the closing scene of the film; the voices of their animated counterparts were provided by voice actors.
The film received widespread acclaim from critics and audiences alike, in contrast to the Beatles' previous film venture Magical Mystery Tour. Pixar co-founder and former chief creative officer John Lasseter has credited the film with generating wider interest in animation as a serious art form, it had been generally considered a children's medium at the time. Time commented that it "turned into a smash hit, delighting adolescents and aesthetes alike". Half a century after its release, it is still regarded as a landmark of animation. (Full article...)
... that Patricia Davies and Jean Argles, two sisters who signed the Official Secrets Act as World War II codebreakers, did not find out about each other's top-secret work until the 1960s?
... that in the 1960s Kléber Dupuy campaigned to rehabilitate the reputation of Philippe Pétain, against whose Vichy regime he had fought as a member of the French Resistance?
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