175 Fun Facts About The 1960s

To end the Cuban Missile Crisis, the US secretly agreed to remove its Jupiter missiles from which country?

Publicly, Washington only pledged not to invade Cuba; its promise to pull the Jupiter missiles out of Turkey was kept secret at the time.

Which agency enforces the job-discrimination rules of the 1964 Civil Rights Act?

The EEOC (Equal Employment Opportunity Commission) opened in July 1965 with no power to sue: until Congress amended the law in 1972 it could only investigate charges and try to conciliate.

Which Black nationalist leader, a year after breaking with the Nation of Islam, was shot dead at Manhattan's Audubon Ballroom in 1965?

Malcolm X was suspended by the Nation of Islam after calling President Kennedy's assassination a case of 'chickens coming home to roost', and announced his break with it in March 1964.

Who was the first woman in space, launching aboard Vostok 6 in 1963?

Valentina Tereshkova was a textile-mill worker whose hobby helped win her the seat: she was an amateur skydiver, and Vostok cosmonauts had to eject and come down by parachute.

What sparked the six-day Watts riots in Los Angeles in August 1965?

A traffic stop began it: a highway patrolman pulled over Marquette Frye for drunk driving on 11 August 1965, a crowd gathered as the arrest turned rough, and six days of rioting left 34 dead.

The Equal Pay Act of 1963 was passed as an amendment to which earlier federal statute?

The Equal Pay Act of 1963 amended the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938; a 1973 public service announcement starring Yvonne Craig as Batgirl demanded equal pay with Robin.

Which author of The Feminine Mystique co-founded a major women's rights group in 1966?

Betty Friedan co-founded the National Organization for Women at a 1966 Washington conference, scribbling its acronym, NOW, on a paper napkin; she became its first president.

The Stonewall Inn, where a June 1969 raid sparked riots, was in which Manhattan area?

The Stonewall Inn stands on Christopher Street in Greenwich Village; the Mafia-owned bar was raided early on 28 June 1969 without the usual tip-off to its owners.

In April 1968, Martin Luther King Jr. was in Memphis supporting a strike by which city workers?

King came to Memphis to back its striking sanitation crews, who had walked out in February 1968 after two workers, Echol Cole and Robert Walker, were crushed to death in a garbage truck.

Which two men founded the Black Panther Party in Oakland in October 1966?

Huey P. Newton and Bobby Seale drew up a ten-point program and began armed patrols that followed Oakland police to watch for brutality.

Reported attacks on US destroyers in which gulf led Congress to authorise force in Vietnam in 1964?

The Gulf of Tonkin clash of 2 August 1964 was real, but the destroyer Maddox's task-group commander soon cabled that freak weather on the radar may have accounted for many reports of the second attack two days later.

In February 1964, 73 million Americans watched the Beatles' live US television debut on whose Sunday-night show?

Ed Sullivan took an interest after seeing some 1,500 fans greet the band at a London airport in October 1963; the audience for their first show was a record for American television.

On whose dairy farm in Bethel, New York, was the Woodstock Music & Art Fair held in August 1969?

Max Yasgur rented part of his dairy farm to the organizers, who had told Bethel officials to expect no more than 50,000 people; more than 400,000 came.

Who founded Motown Records in Detroit, Michigan, in 1959?

Berry Gordy Jr. bought a former photography studio on Detroit's West Grand Boulevard in 1959 and turned it into Hitsville U.S.A., whose Studio A turned out the Motown sound.

Where was Kennedy's successor sworn in hours after the 1963 shooting in Dallas?

Aboard Air Force One, still on the ground at Dallas's Love Field: federal judge Sarah T. Hughes, a friend of the new president, was called to the plane to give the oath before it left for Washington.

Which category did Virginia congressman Howard Smith add to the 1964 Civil Rights Act's job-discrimination ban during House debate?

Sex was added on the House floor two days before the vote by Howard W. Smith, a segregationist who opposed the bill; whether he meant to sink it or to help women is still debated.

The Cuban Missile Crisis, the October 1962 standoff over nuclear missiles in Cuba, lasted how many days?

The crisis lasted 13 days, from 16 October, when Kennedy was shown U-2 photos of the missile sites, to Khrushchev's climbdown on 28 October; Robert Kennedy titled his memoir of it Thirteen Days.

What was Apollo 11's lunar module, which landed Armstrong and Aldrin in the Sea of Tranquility in July 1969, called?

'The Eagle has landed,' Armstrong radioed from the Sea of Tranquility on 20 July 1969; Michael Collins stayed in lunar orbit aboard the command module Columbia.

The 1963 March on Washington that ended with the "I Have a Dream" speech was formally a march for what?

Jobs and Freedom was A. Philip Randolph's banner: he had planned a march on Washington in 1941 and called it off when Roosevelt barred hiring discrimination in the defence industries.

Which science-fiction series premiered on NBC in September 1966?

Star Trek, created by Gene Roddenberry, premiered on NBC on 8 September 1966 and ran only three seasons before syndication turned it into a phenomenon.

Which British designer is credited with the 1960s miniskirt?

Mary Quant sold the look from Bazaar, her boutique on the King's Road in Chelsea; who first raised hems that far is disputed, and Paris couturier André Courrèges is the other usual claimant.

The term 'hippie' became widely used in the 1960s to describe members of which cultural movement?

Counterculture youth were dubbed hippies from 'hip', slang for being in the know since the early 1900s; where 'hip' itself came from, nobody knows.

What protest did John Lennon and Yoko Ono stage at the Amsterdam Hilton in March 1969?

A bed-in: five days after their wedding, the couple invited the world's press into their Amsterdam Hilton suite from 9 am to 9 pm each day and talked about peace from bed.

The Mamas & the Papas were a popular folk rock group in the 1960s, known for which hit song?

'California Dreamin'' was released as a single in December 1965; its alto flute solo by jazz player Bud Shank was reportedly improvised in the studio.

Under which US president did American forces in Vietnam grow from 16,000 advisers to more than 500,000 troops?

Lyndon B. Johnson sent the first combat troops in March 1965; three years later, with the war in stalemate, he announced he would not seek re-election.

The 1967 'Summer of Love' drew tens of thousands of young people to one neighbourhood of which U.S. city?

San Francisco's Haight-Ashbury district was the magnet; a 'Human Be-In' in Golden Gate Park that January had put the city's hippies in the national spotlight.

Which classic novel, dealing with racial injustice in the American South, was published in 1960?

'To Kill a Mockingbird' won Harper Lee the 1961 Pulitzer Prize, yet she published no second novel for 55 years, until Go Set a Watchman in 2015.

Which Soviet cosmonaut became the first human in space in April 1961?

Yuri Gagarin never flew in space again; he later served as backup for the Soyuz 1 mission that killed his friend Vladimir Komarov, and died in a 1968 jet crash.

Which group, formed in April 1960 out of the lunch-counter protests, became the main channel of student activism?

SNCC, the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, grew out of an April 1960 meeting at Shaw University organised by Ella Baker of King's SCLC, who urged the students to stay independent of it.

Which Alabama city was the starting point of the 1965 voting-rights marches to Montgomery?

The marches set out from Selma; state troopers beat marchers on its Edmund Pettus Bridge on 'Bloody Sunday', 7 March 1965, and the completed march reached Montgomery on 25 March.

Which astronaut became the first American to orbit the Earth, aboard Friendship 7 in February 1962?

John Glenn's flight lasted 4 hours 55 minutes, and he had the name Friendship 7 hand-painted on the capsule; he returned to space at 77 in 1998.

In the Six-Day War of June 1967, Israel captured the Golan Heights from which country?

Israel took the Golan Heights from Syria on 9-10 June 1967, the war's last two days; Syrian artillery on the plateau had shelled northern Israel for years.

Which 1961 novel had the number in its title changed because Leon Uris was about to publish Mila 18?

Catch-22 was Catch-18 when its first chapter ran in a magazine in 1955; Joseph Heller then proposed Catch-14, but his editor wasn't sold, and they settled on 22.

At which June 1967 festival, a Woodstock precursor, did Jimi Hendrix set his guitar on fire?

At Monterey Pop on 18 June 1967, Hendrix closed his set with 'Wild Thing', then knelt over his guitar, doused it in lighter fluid and set it alight before smashing it on the stage.

Which car debuted at the New York World's Fair in April 1964?

The Ford Mustang drew almost 22,000 orders on its first day, 17 April 1964, and sold more than 400,000 in a year, far beyond Ford's forecasts, launching the 'pony car' class.

Whose 1967 recording of "Respect", a rearranged cover of an Otis Redding song, became her signature hit?

Aretha Franklin cut the track on Valentine's Day 1967; her version added the spelled-out 'R-E-S-P-E-C-T' hook and became an anthem of the civil rights and feminist movements.

Which Soviet cosmonaut performed the first spacewalk, in March 1965, during the Voskhod 2 mission?

Alexei Leonov spent about 12 minutes outside Voskhod 2 on 18 March 1965; his suit ballooned in the vacuum and he had to bleed off air to squeeze back through the airlock.

Which protest tactic did four students begin at a Greensboro Woolworth's lunch counter in February 1960?

Sit-ins spread across the South within weeks; the four freshmen came back with more students the next morning, and that July the Greensboro Woolworth's quietly integrated its lunch counter.

Where did US and Soviet tanks face off in Berlin in October 1961?

Checkpoint Charlie saw American and Soviet tanks sit muzzle to muzzle from 27 October 1961 until Kennedy and Khrushchev quietly agreed that both sides would pull back.

Which groundbreaking children's series of puppets and humans premiered in 1969?

Sesame Street was the brainchild of producer Joan Ganz Cooney, who wanted television to teach preschoolers as well as entertain them, and hired puppeteer Jim Henson to create its Muppets.

Who directed the highly influential 1960 psychological horror film 'Psycho'?

Alfred Hitchcock made Psycho on a low budget in black and white, using the crew from his television series rather than a feature-film unit.

Which 1960 US satellite was a 30-metre balloon that inflated in orbit?

Echo 1 was a passive reflector: after its launch on 12 August 1960, a signal beamed from Goldstone, California, simply bounced off its Mylar skin to Holmdel, New Jersey.

Kennedy's 1962 'We choose to go to the Moon' speech was delivered at which Texas university's stadium?

Kennedy spoke at Rice Stadium on 12 September 1962 before about 40,000 people; his pencilled-in line 'Why does Rice play Texas?' drew cheers that nearly drowned out what followed.

Peter Blake and Jann Haworth built a crowd of cardboard celebrities for which 1967 album cover?

Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band has a crowd picked by the band and the artists; John Lennon's choices of Hitler and Jesus were ruled out as too controversial.

What is the nickname for the generation born after World War II, who came of age in the 1960s?

Baby Boomers were numerous enough that Time magazine named the whole generation aged 25 and under its "Man of the Year" for 1966.

In December 1962, Mariner 2 became the first spacecraft to report back from a flyby of which planet?

Mariner 2 flew past Venus on 14 December 1962 at about 35,000 kilometres, and its microwave radiometer showed a scorching surface beneath the clouds rather than a temperate one.

Who was the first African American Supreme Court Justice, appointed in 1967?

Thurgood Marshall, who as NAACP chief counsel had argued Brown v. Board of Education, joined the Court in October 1967 and served until 1991, when Clarence Thomas succeeded him.

Who wrote the acclaimed 1962 play 'Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?'?

Edward Albee's play was picked for the 1963 Pulitzer by the drama jury, but the prize's advisory board rejected the choice, and no drama award was given that year.

Which art movement of bright colours and commercial imagery emerged in the 1950s and boomed in the 1960s?

Pop Art took the supermarket shelf as its subject: Andy Warhol's 1962 paintings of Campbell's soup cans caused a stir that turned him into a celebrity.

Which team won the first AFL-NFL World Championship Game, later known as Super Bowl I, in January 1967?

The Green Bay Packers led the Chiefs only 14-10 at half-time, then scored 21 unanswered points to win 35-10 at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum.

Norman Mailer's Pulitzer-winning book about the 1967 March on the Pentagon is called what?

The Armies of the Night (1968) won both a Pulitzer Prize and a National Book Award; Mailer, arrested at the march, made himself the book's main character and wrote of himself in the third person.

About how many people joined the August 1963 March on Washington?

About 250,000 people came, the figure most histories cite; as Martin Luther King Jr. spoke, the singer Mahalia Jackson called out "Tell 'em about the dream, Martin", and he soon left his prepared text.

Philharmonic Hall, the first building of which New York arts complex, opened in 1962?

Lincoln Center rose on the cleared San Juan Hill neighbourhood, whose demolition site doubled as an outdoor set for the film West Side Story in 1960, two years before Philharmonic Hall opened.

Which spy-film series began in 1962 with Dr. No?

James Bond's run began with Dr. No in October 1962; the rival spy hits Mission: Impossible and The Man from U.N.C.L.E. were 1960s TV series before they were films.

Who was the poetic, wild lead singer of The Doors?

Jim Morrison took the band's name from Aldous Huxley's The Doors of Perception, a memoir of his experiments with a psychedelic drug.

Slaughterhouse-Five draws on Vonnegut surviving the firebombing of which German city?

Vonnegut survived the February 1945 bombing of Dresden as a prisoner of war sheltering in an underground meat locker at Schlachthof Fünf, the slaughterhouse of the book's title; the novel appeared in 1969.

Who performed the world's first human heart transplant in December 1967?

Christiaan Barnard performed the operation at Groote Schuur Hospital in Cape Town on 3 December 1967; the patient, Louis Washkansky, lived 18 days before dying of pneumonia.

Which English model was dubbed 'The Face of '66' by the Daily Express?

Twiggy, born Lesley Hornby, got her famous crop from Leonard of Mayfair at 16, and in February 1966 the Daily Express declared her 'The Face of '66'.

Which groundbreaking science fiction film, directed by Stanley Kubrick, was released in 1968?

Stanley Kubrick's '2001: A Space Odyssey' (1968), co-written with Arthur C. Clarke, won Kubrick his only Oscar, for visual effects; Planet of the Apes opened the same year.

Which city hosted the 1960 Summer Olympics?

Rome had been due to host in 1908 but handed those Games back, citing the cost of Vesuvius's 1906 eruption; in 1960 it staged wrestling in the ancient Basilica of Maxentius.

Which Ethiopian runner won the 1960 Olympic marathon barefoot?

Abebe Bikila ran barefoot to a world-best time, then defended the title four years later only weeks after an emergency appendectomy, becoming the first to win the Olympic marathon twice.

Tokyo's 1964 Olympic cauldron was lit by a runner born on the day which city was destroyed?

Hiroshima: Yoshinori Sakai, born in Hiroshima Prefecture on the day of the atomic bomb, was chosen to light the cauldron to show how far Japan had recovered, at the first Olympics held in Asia.

Which two US sprinters raised black-gloved fists on the podium in Mexico City in 1968?

Tommie Smith (gold) and John Carlos (bronze) raised their fists after the 200 m on 16 October 1968; Australian silver medallist Peter Norman wore an Olympic Project for Human Rights badge in solidarity.

Whose long jump at the 1968 Olympics beat the world record by 55 cm?

Bob Beamon collapsed in shock when teammate Ralph Boston told him how far he had jumped; his 8.90 m lasted as the world record until Mike Powell reached 8.95 m in 1991.

Which high jumper won 1968 Olympic gold with a back-first technique that now bears his name?

Dick Fosbury won in Mexico City by clearing 2.24 m head-first and backwards; by 1980 most Olympic high-jump finalists were using the Fosbury flop.

Who scored a hat-trick for England in the 1966 World Cup final against West Germany?

Geoff Hurst scored three as England won 4-2 after extra time at Wembley; his second bounced down off the crossbar and stood only after the referee consulted his Soviet linesman.

Where did CIA-trained Cuban exiles land in April 1961?

The Bay of Pigs landing collapsed within days after Kennedy withheld further air support; the captured exiles were later freed in exchange for $53 million in food and medicine.

Which CIA pilot was captured when his U-2 was shot down over the USSR in May 1960?

Francis Gary Powers was shot down near Sverdlovsk on 1 May 1960; Washington first called the U-2 a NASA weather plane until Khrushchev produced the captured pilot, and Powers was swapped for Rudolf Abel in 1962.

The March 1960 Sharpeville massacre in South Africa began as a protest against what?

Pass laws made Black South Africans carry reference books; the Pan Africanist Congress told protesters to leave them at home and invite arrest, and police opened fire on the crowd at Sharpeville.

The 1963–64 trial that jailed Nelson Mandela for life is named after a suburb of which city?

Johannesburg's suburb of Rivonia named the trial after police raided Liliesleaf Farm there in 1963; from the dock, Mandela called a free society an ideal for which he was prepared to die.

Which reformist leader's election in January 1968 began the Prague Spring?

Alexander Dubček became First Secretary of the Czechoslovak Communist Party on 5 January 1968 and promised 'socialism with a human face'; Warsaw Pact forces invaded in August to crush the reforms.

Che Guevara was captured and executed in October 1967 while leading guerrillas in which country?

Bolivia's army caught Guevara near La Higuera and shot him the next day; his hidden grave was not found until 1997, when his remains were dug up near Vallegrande and sent to Cuba.

Robert F. Kennedy was shot in June 1968 at which Los Angeles hotel?

Kennedy was shot by Sirhan Sirhan in the Ambassador Hotel's kitchen pantry just after midnight on 5 June 1968, minutes after claiming victory in the California primary; he died the next day.

The Tet Offensive of January 1968 was named after what?

Tet is the Vietnamese Lunar New Year; the communists attacked on 30-31 January 1968 during a holiday truce, when many South Vietnamese troops were on leave.

Which December 1968 mission was the first crewed spaceflight to reach and orbit the Moon?

Apollo 8's Frank Borman, Jim Lovell and Bill Anders circled the Moon ten times, read from Genesis in a Christmas Eve telecast, and Anders shot the colour photograph known as Earthrise.

A January 1967 launch-pad fire killed Grissom, White and Chaffee while rehearsing which mission?

The Apollo 1 crew, Gus Grissom, Ed White and Roger Chaffee, died on 27 January 1967 when fire swept their pure-oxygen cabin during a plugs-out test at Launch Complex 34.

Which satellite, launched in July 1962, relayed the first live transatlantic television feed?

Telstar 1, built by Bell Labs for AT&T, carried the first public live transatlantic broadcast on 23 July 1962; radiation from high-altitude nuclear tests knocked it out by February 1963, though it remained in orbit.

Which company introduced the Compact Cassette at the 1963 Berlin Radio Show?

Philips unveiled Lou Ottens's pocket-sized cassette in August 1963 and licensed the format to rivals such as Sony, a move that made it the worldwide standard.

ARPANET, the forerunner of the Internet, was set up by an agency of which US body?

Department of Defense money, through its research agency ARPA, paid for the network; its first message, typed at UCLA in October 1969, was meant to be 'login', but the system crashed after two letters.

Which airline's demand for a jet more than twice the size of the 707 led to the Boeing 747?

Pan Am chief Juan Trippe pressed Boeing for the giant jet and ordered 25 in 1966; Boeing had to build a vast new plant at Everett, Washington, just to assemble it.

Which actor was the first to play the Doctor when Doctor Who began on the BBC in 1963?

William Hartnell played the Doctor from 1963 until failing health forced him out in 1966; the writers invented regeneration so that Patrick Troughton could take over the same character.

The Sound of Music (1965) is set in which Austrian city?

Salzburg was the real von Trapps' home, but they never hiked over the Alps as the film shows; in 1938 they simply took a train to Italy.

Who played T. E. Lawrence in David Lean's 1962 epic Lawrence of Arabia?

Peter O'Toole, then little known, won the role after Albert Finney turned it down; Alec Guinness played Prince Faisal and Robert Bolt co-wrote the screenplay with Michael Wilson.

Which duo recorded the soundtrack to The Graduate (1967), including 'Mrs. Robinson'?

Simon & Garfunkel's 'Mrs. Robinson' began as an unfinished song about Mrs. Roosevelt; Paul Simon renamed it when director Mike Nichols wanted it for the film.

Who starred as the outlaw couple in the 1967 film Bonnie and Clyde?

Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway played the outlaws in a script first offered to French director François Truffaut, who passed; Beatty then produced it himself with Arthur Penn directing.

Who directed the 1969 road film Easy Rider?

Dennis Hopper directed and co-starred with Peter Fonda as two bikers; made on a tiny budget, the film was a hit that helped launch the New Hollywood of low-budget, director-led pictures.

Who won an Oscar as Anita in 1961's West Side Story?

Rita Moreno's Oscar was one of the film's 10; co-director Jerome Robbins was fired partway through the shoot as it ran over budget, yet still shared the directing Oscar with Robert Wise.

Mary Poppins (1964) marked the feature film debut of which actress?

Julie Andrews, passed over for the film of My Fair Lady, made her screen debut as Poppins and won the Best Actress Oscar; the Sherman Brothers wrote the songs and the film was shot entirely in Burbank.

Which 1969 album was the last the Beatles recorded, though Let It Be was released later?

Abbey Road was recorded mostly in the summer of 1969; its cover was photographed in about ten minutes outside the studio while a policeman held up the traffic.

Brian Wilson produced and largely composed which landmark 1966 Beach Boys album?

Pet Sounds, released in May 1966, was Wilson's answer to Rubber Soul, built on Phil Spector's Wall of Sound with the Wrecking Crew session players; 'God Only Knows' is among its tracks.

Which motorcycle club provided security at the violent Altamont Free Concert in December 1969?

The Hells Angels, reportedly paid in beer, worked the stage front at Altamont Speedway on 6 December 1969; concertgoer Meredith Hunter was stabbed by an Angel during the Rolling Stones' set.

Whose cover of 'The Twist' turned the dance into a worldwide craze in the early 1960s?

Chubby Checker's 1960 cover outsold Hank Ballard's original after Dick Clark put it on American Bandstand; Clark's wife coined his stage name as a play on Fats Domino.

The development of which 1960s Hasbro toy led to the coining of the term 'action figure'?

Hasbro coined 'action figure' for G.I. Joe in 1964 so that boys would not think they were buying a doll; the first 12-inch line represented the Army, Navy, Air Force and Marines.

Spider-Man made his 1962 debut in which comic book?

Amazing Fantasy #15 was the last issue of a series headed for cancellation; by Stan Lee's account his publisher only reluctantly allowed the teenage hero, whose strong sales earned him his own title.

Who played Batman in the camp ABC television series that ran from 1966 to 1968?

Adam West's Batman aired twice weekly in its first two seasons, with Burt Ward as Robin and Cesar Romero refusing to shave his moustache under the Joker's white makeup.

Cassius Clay won the world heavyweight title in February 1964 by upsetting which champion?

Sonny Liston, the heavy favourite, stayed on his stool at the start of the seventh round in Miami Beach; days later Clay announced he had joined the Nation of Islam, and he soon became Muhammad Ali.

Wilt Chamberlain scored 100 points in an NBA game in 1962 in which Pennsylvania town?

Hershey hosted the game because the Philadelphia Warriors played a few home dates there; only 4,124 fans saw it, and no film exists, just a radio recording of the fourth quarter.

Which Yankee outslugged teammate Mickey Mantle in 1961 to break Babe Ruth's single-season home run record?

Roger Maris hit his 61st on the season's final day; because the schedule had grown from 154 games to 162, Commissioner Ford Frick wanted Ruth's 60 kept in the record books as a separate mark.

Which member of the 1963 Great Train Robbery gang escaped prison in 1965 and spent decades as a fugitive in Brazil?

Ronnie Biggs went over the wall of Wandsworth Prison on a rope ladder; Brazil could not extradite him because he had fathered a Brazilian child, and he flew home voluntarily in 2001.

John Profumo, at the centre of the 1963 British scandal, held which government post?

As Secretary of State for War, Profumo lied to the Commons in March 1963 about his affair with Christine Keeler, then resigned in June; the scandal badly damaged Macmillan's government.

The 1966 Aberfan disaster, which killed 116 children, was caused by the collapse of what?

Rain-saturated colliery spoil tip No. 7 slid down the mountainside above Aberfan on 21 October 1966, burying Pantglas Junior School; 116 children and 28 adults died.

Which UN envoy, unseated from the Senate by John F. Kennedy in 1952, was Nixon's running mate in 1960?

Henry Cabot Lodge Jr. lost to Kennedy a second time when the Nixon ticket fell short by about 112,000 votes; in 1963 President Kennedy sent him to Saigon as America's envoy to South Vietnam.

The Supreme Court's 1967 ruling in the Loving case struck down state laws banning what?

Interracial marriage was still banned in 16 states when the Court ruled; police had burst into Richard and Mildred Loving's bedroom in 1958, and a judge ordered them out of Virginia for 25 years.

In the US postal ZIP Code, introduced in 1963, what does ZIP stand for?

Zone Improvement Plan was chosen so the acronym would suggest mail zipping along; the five-digit codes arrived on 1 July 1963, promoted by a cartoon mail carrier called Mr. ZIP.

Sam Walton and his brother Bud founded Walmart in 1962 in which state?

Arkansas is where Walton lost the lease on his first store, in Newport, and started again in Bentonville; the first Walmart opened in nearby Rogers on 2 July 1962.

The Gateway Arch in St. Louis, completed in 1965, was designed by which architect?

Eero Saarinen won the 1947-48 design competition but died of a brain tumour in 1961, before construction of the arch had even begun, so he never saw it rise.

The Verrazzano-Narrows Bridge, opened in 1964, links Staten Island with which borough?

Brooklyn gave Staten Island its first road link to the rest of New York City when the bridge opened in November 1964; until then the only way across was by ferry, and the island's population roughly doubled by 2000.

Which Australian prime minister disappeared while swimming in December 1967?

Harold Holt vanished in heavy surf at Cheviot Beach, Victoria, and his body was never found; a Melbourne swimming centre then under construction was named in his memory.

Expo 67, the world's fair marking Canada's centennial, was held in which city?

Montreal built Île Notre-Dame for the fair, partly from rock dug out for its new Metro, and its baseball team, founded in 1969, was named the Expos in the fair's honour.

Which militant youth movement enforced Mao's Cultural Revolution from 1966?

The Red Guards were told to smash the 'Four Olds' of custom, culture, habit and ideas; once their factions began fighting each other, many were sent to the countryside.

The May 1968 unrest in France began with demonstrations by which group?

Students at Nanterre and the Sorbonne set it off; within weeks some ten million workers had joined a general strike, and de Gaulle slipped away to a French army base in Germany.

Edward Craven Walker's 'Astro', launched in Britain in 1963, became which icon of 1960s decor?

The lava lamp was inspired by a homemade egg timer, a contraption of bubbling liquids that Walker saw in a pub; the firm he set up to make it was later renamed Mathmos.

Which 1960 Hanna-Barbera show was the first animated sitcom in a prime-time TV slot?

The Flintstones, modelled on The Honeymooners, ran on ABC from 1960 to 1966 and was pitched at adults at first: Fred and Barney even appeared in adverts for Winston cigarettes.

Which actress played the witch Samantha Stephens in Bewitched, which began in 1964?

Elizabeth Montgomery played Samantha for all eight seasons; a back injury forced Dick York out in 1969, and Dick Sargent took over as her husband Darrin for the last three.

Which pop group was assembled in 1965 by TV producers, through auditions, for an NBC sitcom of the same name?

The Monkees at first only sang over session players' tracks; they fought for control, music supervisor Don Kirshner was fired, and they played their own instruments on the 1967 album Headquarters.

Which song was the Beatles' first number one on the US Billboard Hot 100?

'I Want to Hold Your Hand' topped the chart for seven weeks in early 1964; Capitol Records had declined to release the band's earlier singles in America before finally backing this one.

Whom did the 'Miracle Mets' beat to win the 1969 World Series?

The Mets beat the heavily favoured Baltimore Orioles four games to one in October 1969; managed by Gil Hodges, they had never had a winning season before that year.

Capote's 1966 non-fiction novel In Cold Blood concerns a family murdered in which state?

The Clutter family was murdered at their farm outside Holcomb, Kansas, in November 1959; Harper Lee accompanied Capote there to help with the research.

Which former British prime minister died in January 1965 and was given a state funeral?

Winston Churchill's funeral had been planned for years under the code name Operation Hope Not; as a boat carried his coffin up the Thames, dockers dipped their cranes in salute.

Who became Israel's first female prime minister in 1969?

Golda Meir, raised in Milwaukee, took office after Levi Eshkol died suddenly; in 1948 she had slipped into Amman disguised as an Arab woman for secret talks with King Abdullah.

Who became India's first female prime minister in 1966?

Indira Gandhi served from 1966 to 1977 and again from 1980 until her assassination in 1984, and was no relation to Mahatma Gandhi; the surname came from her husband Feroze.

Which country was hit by the 20th century's strongest earthquake on 22 May 1960?

The Valdivia earthquake in southern Chile is put at magnitude 9.4 to 9.6; shaking lasted about ten minutes and its tsunami reached Hawaii and Japan.

Sirimavo Bandaranaike became the world's first elected female prime minister in 1960 in which country?

Bandaranaike took office in Ceylon, renamed Sri Lanka in 1972, in July 1960 after her husband's assassination; she served three separate terms, the last ending in 2000, the year she died.

From which city in southwest France did the supersonic Concorde make its first flight in March 1969?

Toulouse saw test pilot André Turcat take the first prototype up for under half an hour on 2 March 1969; the flight stayed subsonic, and Concorde did not break the sound barrier until October.

The first Shinkansen bullet train line, opened in October 1964, ran between Tokyo and which city?

Osaka was brought within four hours of Tokyo; the line, built with the help of a World Bank loan, was timed to open nine days before the Tokyo Olympics.

Which Dr. Seuss book, published in 1960, was written on a bet that he could not use just 50 words?

Green Eggs and Ham settled a $50 wager with his editor, Bennett Cerf, who doubted it could be done. The Cat in the Hat, by comparison, had needed 236 distinct words.

Which cartoon Great Dane, new to CBS in 1969, was named after a scat line in a Frank Sinatra song?

Scooby-Doo got his name after CBS executive Fred Silverman heard the 'doo-be-doo-be-doo' that ends 'Strangers in the Night' on a red-eye flight. In early drafts the dog was a bongo player called Too Much.

Which film star sang a breathy 'Happy Birthday' to President Kennedy at Madison Square Garden?

Marilyn Monroe wore a sheer dress sewn with 2,500 rhinestones for the May 1962 gala, held ten days before his real 45th birthday. It was one of her last major public appearances.

Which brand's soup did Andy Warhol paint on 32 canvases, one per variety, for a 1962 exhibition?

Campbell's tomato soup had been a staple of Warhol's childhood lunches in Pittsburgh. He later said he had eaten the same lunch every day for twenty years.

What kind of animal was Ham, whom NASA launched on a suborbital Mercury flight in January 1961?

A chimpanzee trained to push a lever whenever a blue light flashed, Ham did it in space only a fraction of a second slower than on Earth. He later lived for 17 years at the National Zoo in Washington.

Which landmark does Charlton Heston find in ruins on a beach at the end of Planet of the Apes?

The Statue of Liberty tells him that the supposedly alien world is Earth, long after a nuclear war. The 1968 film shot the wreck in a secluded cove at Westward Beach in Malibu.

Which state's admission gave the US flag its 50th star, adopted on 4 July 1960?

Hawaii became a state in August 1959, and President Eisenhower ordered the new flag that same month. The 50-star design is now the longest-used version of the US flag.

Which folk singer drew boos at the 1965 Newport Folk Festival by playing with electric instruments?

Bob Dylan was known to fans as a man alone with an acoustic guitar, so his plugged-in band, with three members of the Paul Butterfield Blues Band, split the crowd. Some sections of the audience booed.

Which sitcom's boat, the S.S. Minnow, was named after an FCC chief who called TV a 'vast wasteland'?

Gilligan's Island creator Sherwood Schwartz borrowed the name of Newton Minow, whose 1961 speech attacked 'formula comedies about totally unbelievable' characters. The fish had nothing to do with it.

Which future country star wrote 'Crazy', the 1961 ballad that Patsy Cline turned into a standard?

Willie Nelson wrote it in less than an hour and first called it 'Stupid'. Cline's recording went on to become the most played song on American jukeboxes.

Which comedian took over NBC's Tonight Show from Jack Paar in October 1962 and stayed 30 years?

Johnny Carson hosted until 22 May 1992, with announcer Ed McMahon as his sidekick throughout, before Jay Leno took the desk.

Which band's guitarist came up with the riff of '(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction' in his sleep in 1965?

The Rolling Stones' Keith Richards taped a rough version of the riff during the night. The finished single gave the band its first number one in the US.

Which actress wore a black Givenchy dress as Holly Golightly in the 1961 film Breakfast at Tiffany's?

Audrey Hepburn also sang 'Moon River' in the film, sitting on a fire escape with a guitar. The song won an Oscar, though a studio executive had wanted it cut after a tepid preview.

Which New York Jets quarterback publicly guaranteed victory three days before winning Super Bowl III?

Joe Namath made the boast at the Miami Touchdown Club, and the Jets' win is regarded as one of the greatest upsets in American football. He was named MVP without throwing a touchdown pass.

The Ken doll, launched by Mattel in 1961, was named after the son of which Barbie creator?

Ruth Handler had already named Barbie after her daughter two years earlier. In the toy's own storyline, Ken met Barbie on the set of a TV commercial.

Which singer, after years of making Hollywood films, starred in NBC's 1968 'Comeback Special'?

Elvis Presley had been steered into films and away from touring by his manager, Colonel Tom Parker, who wanted a Christmas show. Instead, 42% of the TV audience watched him go back to rock and roll.

Which fictional North Carolina town was the setting of The Andy Griffith Show from 1960 to 1968?

Mayberry is said to be modelled on Andy Griffith's hometown of Mount Airy, whose residents now use both names. The town returned in the spin-off Mayberry R.F.D.

Which McDonald's sandwich did Pittsburgh-area franchisee Jim Delligatti invent and first sell for 45 cents?

The Big Mac debuted in Uniontown, Pennsylvania, and went nationwide in 1968. Delligatti said he had merely copied the double-deck hamburger of the Big Boy chain.

Which astronaut circled the Moon alone in July 1969 while Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin walked on it?

Michael Collins lost radio contact with Earth for 48 minutes of each orbit as Columbia passed behind the Moon. He recalled feeling not fear or loneliness but 'almost exultation'.

Which NBA team, built around centre Bill Russell, won eight consecutive championships starting in 1959?

The Boston Celtics' run of eight is the longest in NBA history. When coach Red Auerbach retired he made Russell player-coach, and the team won back-to-back titles again in 1968 and 1969.

Which actor became the first Black winner of the Best Actor Oscar for the 1963 film Lilies of the Field?

Sidney Poitier had already been the first African American nominated for the award, for The Defiant Ones (1958). He was also the first Bahamian to win it.

Which Motown group, formed in 1959 as the Primettes, had twelve number ones on the Billboard Hot 100?

The Supremes began as a sister act to the Primes, a male group whose members went on to form the Temptations. They became the most commercially successful act on Motown.

Which animated feature, the last that Walt Disney supervised, reached cinemas only after his death?

The Jungle Book began with a dark, sinister treatment closer to Rudyard Kipling's stories, which Disney did not want in a family film. He replaced its writer and its songwriter before he died.

Which writer created and presented The Twilight Zone, writing or co-writing 92 of its 156 episodes?

Rod Serling chose science fiction because he thought it would let him air controversial ideas with less interference. A sponsor that sold lighters had once cut the line 'Got a match?' from one of his plays.

Which Federico Fellini film gave English the word 'paparazzi', after its news photographer Paparazzo?

La Dolce Vita won the Palme d'Or at Cannes in 1960. It is also the film in which Anita Ekberg wades into the Trevi Fountain, a scene shot over a week in winter.

Which country singer recorded a live album inside California's Folsom State Prison in January 1968?

Johnny Cash had wanted to record in a prison ever since his 1955 song 'Folsom Prison Blues'. The album topped the country chart and revitalised his career after several years of limited success.

Which style of hat, designed for her by Halston, became Jacqueline Kennedy's signature as First Lady?

Pillbox hats made Halston's name after she wore one to her husband's inauguration in 1961. Natalie Portman put one on to play her in the 2016 film Jackie.

Which Lerner and Loewe musical, a bedtime favourite of John F. Kennedy, gave his presidency its nickname?

Camelot became the label after Jackie Kennedy told Life magazine, in an interview published in December 1963, that he loved the cast recording's closing lines about 'one brief, shining moment'.

Which cook began hosting The French Chef on public television station WGBH in February 1963?

Julia Child got the series after viewers warmed to a cooking demonstration she gave on another WGBH programme. It ran for ten years and won her an Emmy.

Which painting did France lend to the United States in 1962, sending it over on the liner SS France?

The Mona Lisa was valued for insurance at a record $100 million that year. It was displayed in Washington and New York City until March 1963.

Which Gothic sitcom of the mid-1960s featured a towering butler named Lurch and a hand called Thing?

The Addams Family grew out of Charles Addams's cartoons for The New Yorker. Thing was a servant too, popping out of wooden boxes dotted around the house.

Which American sprinter, who had survived polio as a child, won three gold medals at the 1960 Olympics?

Wilma Rudolph caught the disease at five and lost strength in her left leg and foot. She became the first American woman to win three track and field golds at a single Games.

Which superhero team, created by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby, debuted in a comic cover-dated November 1961?

The Fantastic Four was the first superhero team that Lee and Kirby created, and it helped usher a new level of realism into comics. The title also made the 'Marvel method' of production prominent.

Which book of the Bible supplies nearly all the words of the Byrds' 1965 hit 'Turn! Turn! Turn!'?

Ecclesiastes provides the first eight verses of its third chapter, set to music by Pete Seeger. He added only the title and the final two lines.

Which star of The Great Escape played Hilts, the American prisoner in the famous motorcycle chase?

Steve McQueen was barred by insurers from the famous leap over the fence, so his friend and fellow rider Bud Ekins performed it. From a distance Ekins looked just like him.

Which tycoon did Jacqueline Kennedy marry in October 1968 on his private Greek island of Skorpios?

Aristotle Onassis had been a friend of the former First Lady before their romance began. The shipping magnate had also carried on a long-standing affair with the opera singer Maria Callas.

Which horror star narrated the animated special How the Grinch Stole Christmas! and voiced the Grinch?

Boris Karloff did not sing 'You're a Mean One, Mr. Grinch', however. That deep voice belonged to Thurl Ravenscroft, who went uncredited.

Which Dodgers ace refused to pitch Game 1 of the 1965 World Series because it fell on Yom Kippur?

Sandy Koufax came back later in the series and was named its Most Valuable Player. His stand made him a revered figure in the American Jewish community.

Which Kenner toy of 1963 worked using the heat of two ordinary light bulbs?

The Easy-Bake Oven was inspired by the ovens that New York street vendors used for pretzels. Kenner sold 500,000 of them in the first year of production.

Which language had the Catholic Mass used for centuries before Vatican II allowed local tongues?

Latin was to be preserved, but the council of 1962–65 let bishops bring in the vernacular for the readings and the people's parts. The priest facing the congregation came afterwards.

Which 'tribal love-rock musical' about hippies of the Age of Aquarius opened on Broadway in April 1968?

Hair defined the rock musical and ran for 1,750 performances, with a racially integrated cast and a finale that invited the audience on stage. Its nude scene and irreverence for the flag caused controversy.

Which Brazilian music style reached a worldwide audience through the mid-1960s hit 'The Girl from Ipanema'?

Bossa nova met jazz on the Stan Getz recording, which was the vocal debut of Astrud Gilberto. It won the Grammy for Record of the Year in 1965.

For which 1969 Western did John Wayne, as one-eyed marshal Rooster Cogburn, win his only Oscar?

True Grit gave him an eye patch made of gauze, so that he could see through it. The film's success led to a 1975 sequel named after his character, and the Coen brothers remade it in 2010.

Which Houston stadium opened in 1965 as the world's first multi-purpose domed sports arena?

The Astrodome was nicknamed the 'Eighth Wonder of the World'. When its natural grass died, it became the first major sports venue to install artificial turf, which became known as AstroTurf.

Which Kingsmen hit, rumoured to hide profanity in its slurred lyrics, drew a 31-month FBI investigation?

'Louie Louie' beat the agents, who concluded they were 'unable to interpret any of the wording in the record'. Indiana's governor had asked for the song to be banned all the same.

Which car rental firm adopted the motto 'We Try Harder' in 1962 to make a virtue of trailing Hertz?

Avis took up the line under chief executive Robert Townsend, who transformed the company. It had become the second largest car rental firm in the United States by 1953.

The 1960 Western The Magnificent Seven is an Old West remake of a samurai film by which Japanese director?

Akira Kurosawa's 1954 original, Seven Samurai, had itself first been released in the United States as The Magnificent Seven. The Western swaps its warriors for gunfighters guarding a village in Mexico.

Which film about a Texan hustler in New York is the only X-rated winner of the Best Picture Oscar?

Midnight Cowboy won three Oscars for 1969, Best Director among them. Dustin Hoffman and Jon Voight play two lost and lonely hustlers, the ailing con man 'Ratso' Rizzo and the naive Joe Buck.

Which Canadian media theorist coined the expressions 'the medium is the message' and 'global village'?

Marshall McLuhan became a fixture of media debate in the late 1960s. He was famous enough to appear as himself in a cameo in Woody Allen's Annie Hall.

Which Japanese-language hit by Kyu Sakamoto topped the Billboard Hot 100 in 1963 under the name of a dish?

'Sukiyaki' is really titled 'Ue o Muite Arukō', or 'I Look Up as I Walk'. A Newsweek columnist likened the renaming to issuing 'Moon River' in Japan under the title 'Beef Stew'.