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A 60's Timline

A Timeline of 1960-1969

1960
Aboriginal Canadians living on reserves are allowed to vote in federal elections. In August, after over a decade of harassment and pressure from American labour unions, the Canadian Seafarers Union is expelled from the Canadian Labour Union.
Psycho
Computer network Internet is born
Sharpeville massacre in South Africa
Lee, H.: "To Kill a Mockingbird"
Liberals under Jean Lesage win provincial election in Québec (June 22), inaugurating the Quiet Revolution which pressed for special status within Confederation.
A Canadian Bill of Rights is approved.
Native people win the right to vote in federal elections.
1961
America invades Cuba in the unsuccessful Bay of Pigs invasion. America supports the formation of the Central American Common Market is formed providing a "free trade zone"in El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua and Costa Rica.
December 19
A telephone conversation between Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II and the Prime Minister of Canada, John Diefenbaker, officially inaugurates CANTAT-1. The new cable links Canada (Corner Brook, Newfoundland) with Great Britain and has an initial capacity of 80 circuits. COTC later extends CANTAT to Grosses Roches on the Gaspé Peninsula.
Berlin Wall separates West and East Berlin
US Pres. John F. Kennedy and the Bay of Pigs fiasco
Yuri Gagarin and the first manned space flight
The New Democratic Party replaces the CCF.
1962
Avro is sold.
American Airlines inaugurate a system (SABER) for airline reservation, thus linking thousands of agencies, reservation terminals and ticket desks. By now the US military had 11,000 men in Vietnam. The book "Silent Spring" by Rachel Carson warns of dangers of DDT.
Cuban missile crisis
Solzhenitsyn, A.: "One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovitch" describing Gulag system in Russia
Mandela jailed for sabotage in South Africa
June 18
The Conservatives are returned to minority status in a federal election.
June 24
The government announced a major economic and financial program aimed at restoring confidence in the Canadian dollar and indicated its determination to defend the currency's new par value.
Socialized medicine is introduced in Saskatchewan (July 1), leading to a doctors' strike.
Sept. 3
The Trans- Canada Highway opens.
Sept. 29
Canada becomes the third nation in space with the launch of the satellite Alouette I.
Dec. 11
Canada's last executions take place in Toronto.
1963
During the Vietnam war Canada supplied the Americans with some $12.5 billion worth of war materials including napalm and agent orange. Canadian observers acted as informers for the CIA and as spotters for American bombers. Some 10,000 Canadians served in the US Forces.
Between 1963 and 1974 the US dropped 10 million tons of bombs on Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia.
January 1
Inauguration of the ICECAN cable linking Canada with Iceland and Greenland. Due to the presence of icebergs off the coast of Greenland, cable laying operations prove extremely difficult.
President John F. Kennedy murdered
France vetoes British entry into EEC
Apr. 8
Liberals under Pearson win a minority government.
Apr.-May
The separatist Front de libération du Québec (FLQ) sets off bombs in Montréal
1964
The once large Canadian fleetof merchant ships has only two remaining ships.
The Civil Rights Act is passed. The CIA funnels up to $20 million dollars into Chile to insure that Eduardo Frei is elected as President instead of Allende (a Marxist). In USA poll taxes for Federal elections are finally ended. Fighting in Vietnam extends into North Vietnam after an American destroyer was allegedly attacked by Vietnamese gunboats.
January 23
Broadcast of COTC's first TV commercial.
August 1
COTC becomes one of the founding members of Intelsat, the International Telecommunications Satellite Organization.
North Vietnam attacks US destroyers in Gulf of Tonkin
"War on Poverty": Policy declared by US President Lyndon B. Johnson
April
Canadians get social insurance cards.
Northern Dancer is the first Canadian horse to win the Kentucky Derby.
1965
The Canada-US Automotive Products Trade Agreement allows for the tariff free export of cars into Canada as long as one quarter of the cars a company sells were manufactured in Canada with a certian amount of Canadian content.
Feb. 15
The new flag is inaugurated. Canada adopts its official, red and white flag with the centred singular maple leaf.
Mar.7
Roman Catholic churches begin to celebrate masses in English.
April 6
COTC participates in the launch of "Early Bird", the first commercial communications satellite. To operate circuits to Europe, the Corporation uses an American earth station, pending completion of an experimental earth station to be built at Mill Village by the Department of Transport and operated commercially by COTC.
May 31
Christening of the CCGS John Cabot, the world's first icebreaking cable repair ship. The Canadian Coast Guard owns the ship but it is chartered by the Corporation.
Bombing of N. Vietnam ordered by US President Lyndon B.Johnson
Racial riots in Watts, Los Angeles
Jan.
Canada and the U.S. sign the Auto Pact.
Nov.9
The Hydro-Electric Power Commission of Ontario inadvertently causes a major power blackout in North America.
1966
March 30
Inauguration of the SEACOM cable which establishes direct links with Japan and other countries of the Far East.
In USA poll taxes for state elections prohibited. The man, Walt Disney, dies of lung cancer at age 65. The National Organization for Women (NOW) is founded.
Cultural Revolution in China (1966-1976)
The Beatles: "Yesterday"
Mar. 4
The Munsinger affair (in which the Associate Minister of National Defence, Pierre Sévigny, had a liaison with a German divorcée suspected by the RCMP) becomes Canada's first political sex scandal.
Oct. 1
The Canada Pension Plan is established. The CBC introduces some colour broadcasts.
1967
The Royal Commission on the Status of Women is established. The Canadian government realizes it can't support the dollar, so it floats the dollar. The maximum interest rate allowed on a mortgage is removed.
Grissom, White and Chaffe burned to death in Apollo 1. The link between the CIA and the National Students Association is discovered by the media.
March 14
Official opening of the first satellite communications earth station at Mill Village, Nova Scotia. The station actually began operating in 1966 as a Department of Transport experimental facility. Mill Village will later be chosen as the site for the CANBER cable terminal.
Christiaan Barnard performs first heart transplant surgery
Apr.25
The air force, army, and navy are unified as the Canadian Armed Forces.
Apr.27
World attention is turned to Expo '67 in Montréal.
July 1
Centennial celebrations officially begin.
1968
Pierre Elliott Trudeau is elected Prime Minister of Canada.
The Viet Cong attack all American bases in Vietnam - the Tet Offensive. The US, USSR and Britain sign the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.
January 25
The Halifax telegraph cable terminal closes down, ending 78 years of communications history, which began in 1890 when Halifax and Barbados were successfully linked by an underwater cable. The station was subsequently acquired by Cable and Wireless and then transferred to the COTC upon its creation.
Murder of Martin Luther King and Robert Kennedy
Vietnamese offensive at New Year ("Tet")
Student riots in Paris and other cities all over Europe
Prague spring. Political liberalization. Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia
Pierre Trudeau succeeds Pearson as leader of the Liberals and wins a majority in a federal election (June 25) in an atmosphere like a media circus.
A Royal Commission on the Status of Women is appointed.
Canadian divorce laws are reformed.
1969
Canada legalizes abortion and homosexuality in omnibus criminal code bill.
Apollo 11 lands on the moon. By this time the US had 630,000 soldiers in the Vietnam war, plus mercenary troops from elsewhere.
July 1
A worldwide television audience estimated at 500 million watches the investiture of the Prince of Wales via satellite.
July 20
Another 500 million people witness Neil Armstrong's historic walk on the moon, thanks once again to television pictures broadcast via satellite.
Feb.1
Postal reforms end Saturday deliveries.
May
Abortion laws are liberalized.
July 9
English and French are both recognized as official languages by the federal government.
Dec.1
The breathalizer is put into use to test for drunken drivers.

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