"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.
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Highway 61 Revisited is the sixth studio album by the American singer-songwriter Bob Dylan, released on August 30, 1965, by Columbia Records. Dylan continued the musical approach of his previous album Bringing It All Back Home (1965), using rock musicians as his backing band on every track of the album in a further departure from his primarily acoustic folk sound, except for the closing track, the 11-minute ballad "Desolation Row". Critics have focused on the innovative way Dylan combined driving, blues-based music with the subtlety of poetry to create songs that captured the political and cultural climate of contemporary America. Author Michael Gray argued that, in an important sense, the 1960s "started" with this album.
Chapman planned the killing over several months and waited for Lennon at the Dakota on the morning of 8 December. Early in the evening, Chapman met Lennon, who signed his copy of the album Double Fantasy and subsequently left for a recording session at the Record Plant. Later that night, Lennon and his wife, Yoko Ono, returned to the Dakota to say goodnight to their son before an impromptu date night. As Lennon and Ono approached the entrance of the building, Chapman fired five hollow-point bullets from a .38 specialrevolver, four of which hit Lennon in the back. Lennon was rushed to Roosevelt Hospital in a police car, where he was pronounced dead on arrival at 11:15 p.m. at age 40. Chapman remained at the scene reading The Catcher in the Rye until he was arrested by the police. It was later discovered that Chapman considered targeting several other celebrities as well as Lennon, including David Bowie. (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.
A graduate of the United States Naval Academy at Annapolis, Shepard saw action with the surface navy during World War II. He became a naval aviator in 1947, and a test pilot in 1950. He was selected as one of the original NASAMercury Seven astronauts in 1959, and in May 1961 he made the first crewed Project Mercury flight, Mercury-Redstone 3, in a spacecraft he named Freedom 7. His craft entered space, but was not capable of achieving orbit. He became the second person, and the first American, to travel into space. In the final stages of Project Mercury, Shepard was scheduled to pilot the Mercury-Atlas 10 (MA-10), which was planned as a three-day mission. He named Mercury Spacecraft 15B Freedom 7 II in honor of his first spacecraft, but the mission was canceled. (Full article...)
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Shankar performing in 1969
Ravi Shankar (Bengali pronunciation:[ˈrobiˈʃɔŋkor]; born Robindro Shaunkor Chowdhury, sometimes spelled as Rabindra Shankar Chowdhury; 7 April 1920 – 11 December 2012) was an Indian sitarist and composer. A sitar virtuoso, he became the world's best-known expert of North Indian classical music in the second half of the 20th century, and influenced many musicians in India and throughout the world. Shankar was awarded India's highest civilian honour, the Bharat Ratna, in 1999. He is also the father of American singer Norah Jones.
Shankar was born to a Bengali family in India, and spent his youth as a dancer touring India and Europe with the dance group of his brother Uday Shankar. At age 18, he gave up dancing to pursue a career in music, studying the sitar for seven years under court musician Allauddin Khan. After finishing his studies in 1944, Shankar worked as a composer, creating the music for the Apu Trilogy by Satyajit Ray, and was music director of All India Radio, New Delhi, from 1949 to 1956. He was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Original Score for scoring the blockbuster Gandhi (1982). (Full article...)
The first commercial recording was in 1962, by Pery Ribeiro. The Stan Getz recording featuring the vocal debut of Astrud Gilberto became an international hit. This version had been shortened from the version on the album Getz/Gilberto (recorded in March 1963, released in March 1964), which had also included the Portuguese lyrics sung by Astrud's then husband João Gilberto. In the US, the single peaked at number five on the Billboard Hot 100, and went to number one for two weeks on the Easy Listening chart. Overseas it peaked at number 29 on the UK Singles Chart, and charted highly throughout the world. (Full article...)
... that Suzie Zuzek's impactful 1960s and 1970s textile designs for Lilly Pulitzer dresses were recovered from under floorboards?
... 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?
... that during the 1960s and 1970s, American artist Robert Bauer painted figures that were a mixture of 20th-century avant-garde funk and 17th-century Dutch realism?
... that in the 1960s one could have tea and toast served to your changing room at the Carlisle Turkish baths in England?
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