Politics in the Sixties

When you think of the sixties, I'm sure you think of hippies and "love" and "peace." But all was not peaceful during the sixties. (Nature had her way of telling people that all was not peaceful during the sixties.) The Cold War between the United States and The Soviet Union continued, and though young Americans everywhere protested, the Vietnam War took place. Vietnam, like the Korean War, was a proxy war. The country was divided into two parts: Communist North Vietnam and Capitalist South Vietnam. U.S. troops were sent in to stop North Vietnam from taking over South Vietnam and by the end of the decade, almost 50,000 Americans had died in the war.

In 1960, as U.S. spy plane was shot down over the Soviet Union and Gary Powers was captured.

In 1961, the Soviets built a wall going through Berlin to separate the Communist east part of the city and the NATO-controlled west side. Many died trying cross the Berlin Wall, so they could escape to West Berlin.

In 1962, U.S. planes discovered that Soviet missiles were being kept in Cuba, a communist country ruled by harsh dictator Fidel Castro. John F. Kennedy, the U.S. president, demanded that the Soviet Union get rid of the Missiles and The Soviet eventually agreed. This became known as the Cuban Missile Crisis.

1963, President John F. Kennedy was assasinated. Americans were devastated and some suspected a conspiracy, but as it turned out, Kennedy was killed by one man, named Lee Harvey Oswald, who was shot two days later, in police custody. Meanwhile, a woman named Betty Friedan was fighting for her rights and the rights of all women. She founded the National Organization for Women, also known as NOW. But Women weren't the only ones fighting for equal rights. Martin Luther King beacame a symbol for the African American Civil Rights movement. In 1963, he led the March on Washington and gave his I Have a Dream speech.

In 1965, a Soviet Cosmonaut named Alexei Leonov became the first human to walk in space, but in 1969, American astronaut Lance Armstrong became the first human to step foot on the moon.