50 Years Ago: A Look Back at 1967 - The Atlantic

50 Years Ago: A Look Back at 1967

A half-century ago, protests erupted around the world against the Vietnam War, Montreal hosted Expo ‘67, race riots in the U.S. destroyed parts of Detroit and other northern cities, Elvis Presley married Priscilla in Las Vegas, O.J. Simpson was a running back for the University of Southern California, Israel fought and won the Six- Day War against Egypt, Jordan, and Syria, the 20th Century Limited passenger train made its final run from New York to Chicago, and much more.

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  • From left, veteran astronaut Virgil Grissom, first American spacewalker Ed White and rookie Roger Chaffee, stand for a photograph at Cape Kennedy, Florida. During a launch pad test on January 27, 1967, a flash fire erupted inside their capsule killing the three Apollo crew members.

    NASA via AP
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  • A large portion of the estimated 5,000 who listened intently to Dr. Martin Luther King speak at Sproul Hall, University of California administration building in Berkeley, California, on May 17, 1967. Dr. King reiterated his stand for non-violence and urged that young people support a peace bloc that would influence the 1968 elections.

    AP
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  • Festive Shopping. Moscow, U.S.S.R.: Toy cosmonauts line a shelf in the Moskva Department Store, one of the largest and most modern in Moscow. The toy dolls were among several suggest gifts displayed in the stores as shoppers prepared for the 50th anniversary of Russia's revolution celebrations.

    Bettmann / Getty
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  • "Dirty Fascist!" An enraged University of Wisconsin student yells at a policeman after Madison police used riot clubs and tear gas to break up an anti-war protest on October 18, 1967. Dozens of persons, including policemen, were injured in the rioting.

    Dennis Connor / Bettmann / Getty
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  • U.S. troops use their rifles in an encounter with antiwar demonstrators outside the Pentagon in Washington, DC, on October 21, 1967.

    AP
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  • Sammy Davis Jr., sings along with Diana Ross & The Supremes on the " Hollywood Palace" television show on October 2, 1967. From left: Mary Wilson, Davis Jr., Diana Ross, leader of the group and Cindy Birdsong. She replaced Florence Ballard who had left the group recently.

    Bettmann / Getty
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  • The Statue of Liberty, seen through a broken window on Ellis Island, New York, January 19, 1967.

    AP
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  • Boston Marathon race official Jock Semple (in street clothes) enters the field of runners to try to pull Kathy Switzer (261) out of the race. At the time, women were not allowed to compete in the marathon, and Semple was yelling at Switzer to "Get the hell out of my race". Male runners, including Switzer's boyfriend, moved in to form a protective curtain around the female track hopeful until Semple was finally wedged out of the race

    Bettmann / Getty
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  • A young woman dances at the The Avalon, a club in San Francisco, California, where musicians such as Janis Joplin gained their fame.

    Ted Streshinsky / Corbis via Getty
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  • In Vietnam, a Navy lieutenant aims a flaming arrow at a hut across the river that concealed a Viet Cong bunker during the Vietnam War.

    Bettmann / Getty
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  • A female Viet Cong suspect is questioned at gunpoint by a South Vietnamese national police officer at Tam Ky, about 350 miles north of Saigon, on November 1967. The M-16 rifle was held by a U.S. soldier during an operation of the 101st Airborne Brigade, searching villages of the coastal plains for suspected Viet Cong enclaves.

    AP
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  • Split-seconds after a U.S. Caribou transport plane had been hit by American artillery, UPI photographer Miromichi Mine recorded this remarkable picture as the plane plummeted to earth at Ha Phan, 45 miles north of Duc Pho. The three crew members were killed.

    Bettmann / Getty
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  • A photo taken in 1967 shows US Navy Lieutenant Commander John McCain being examined by a Vietnamese doctor. John McCain was captured in 1967 in a lake in Hanoi after his Navy warplane was downed by Northern Vietnamese army. McCain said that upon capture he was beaten by an angry mob and bayoneted in the groin. Editor's note: The caption has been updated - the original caption from AFP incorrectly gave McCain's rank as "US Navy Airforce Major"

    AFP / Getty
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  • Picture taken on December 25, 1967, of soldiers taking rest close to a small Christmas tree, on their position at the Hill 875 near Dakto, few days after the North Vietnamese Army made a massive assault.

    AFP / Getty
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  • Raquel Welch dances on stage with a group of soldiers during a Bob Hope USO show in Da Nang, Vietnam.

    Bettmann / Getty
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  • Comedian Bob Hope entertains U.S. troops on an outdoor stage.

    Bettmann / Getty
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  • Navy crewmen try to put out a fire aboard the USS Forrestal in the Tonkin Gulf off the coast of Vietnam, on July 29, 1967, after an F-4 Phantom accidentally fired a zuni rocket into an A-4 Skyhawk which caused massive explosions on the aft end of the flight deck. This tragic accidental launch damaged the aircraft and claimed the lives of 134 crewmen.

    AP
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  • Professor Paul Moller of the University of California sits in the cockpit of the flying saucer he invented after the craft landed successfully from a flight three feet above the ground. Moller could not take the saucer any higher because he is not a licensed pilot. He predicted, however, that saucers will soon move from city to city at 150 m.p.h.

    Bettmann / Getty
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  • Boston Celtics' Bill Russell (left) and 76ers Wilt Chamberlain (right) battles for the ball during 2nd period action in the fourth game of the NBA playoffs in Boston Garden.

    Bettmann / Getty
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  • Russian leaders, from left, Leonid Brezhnev, Alexey Kosygin, Nikolai Podgorny and Mikhail Suslov, in Moscow in May of 1967.

    AP
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  • This Japanese Executive communicates with one of his subordinates via a new video telephone in his office. The multi channel videophone was invented and installed by the Nippon Electric Company and cost $1,300 U.S. dollars for a one-channel set up in 1967.

    Bettmann / Getty
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  • New York City, West 42nd Street, looking west, 1967. See the same scene today on Google Maps Streetview here.

    Bettmann / Getty
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  • Habitat 67, a prefabricated housing structure designed by Israel born Canadian architect Moshe Safdie for Expo 67 in Montreal, Canada, is made up of a basic structural unit of precast concrete, 38 1/2 feet long, 17 1/2 feet wide and 10 feet high, which is finished off with a kitchen, bathroom, fixtures and other living features. The structure still stands today, see it on Google Maps Streetview.

    Bettmann / Getty
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  • O.J. Simpson, University of Southern California's running back, gives the victory sign as he is carried off the field by hundreds of cheering fans. Simpson scored two touchdowns, helping USC to beat UCLA, 21-20.

    Bettmann / Getty
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  • The Queen Mary arrives in Long Beach, California.

    Bettmann / Getty
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  • Original Caption: Bikini-clad Carol Herring of Anderson, South Carolina, shows hospitality to passengers on the Seaboard Coast Line's "Florida Special" train which runs between New York City and Florida. Besides pretty hostesses in bathing suits, this super-deluxe train service provides its guests with a recreation car for fashion shows, movies, television, song fests, and other diversions.

    Bettmann / Getty
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  • Prototype of the Concorde supersonic aircraft, shown at Toulouse, France, on December 12, 1967.

    Bettmann / Getty
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  • Original Caption: Klan Kaffee Klatsch. William M. Chaney (far left) of Greenwood, Indiana, Grand Dragon of the Klu Klux Klan for Indiana and Imperial Representative for Kentucky, dines with other Klansmen on October 15, 1967. A Klan motorcade which crisscrossed Indiana ended late October 15 near this Kentucky town.

    Bettmann / Getty
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  • Residents watch as fire consumes a building on Detroit's West Side during race riots in July of 1967.

    Bettmann / Getty
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  • A National Guardsman moves a civilian towards the wall as police search others tonight in riot-torn Newark, New Jersey, on July 15, 1967. It wasn't known why the group was stopped and searched. None were arrested. Sniper fire continued throughout the evening in the fourth night of racial rioting.

    AP
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  • Original Caption: Tough-looking Michigan National Guardsmen push rioting Negroes back from a burning building with fixed bayonets on Detroit's riot-torn west side on July 26, 1967. National Guard tank crews blasted away at entrenched snipers with .50-caliber machine guns early July 26 after sniper fire routed policemen from a square-mile area of the motor city.

    Bettmann / Getty
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  • A black shop owner hopes to protect his business with big "Soul Brother" notices outside his shop, seen during the Detroit riots, in July of 1967.

    AP
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  • The scene after a race riot in New Jersey, in which windows were smashed and stores looted. A soldier crouches in the doorway amid the devastation.

    Hulton-Deutsch / Corbis via Getty
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  • A National Guardsman stands at the ready at a Detroit intersection during the summer riots of 1967. Frustration and despair erupted from the sidewalks of northern U.S. cities where blacks saw little change following the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

    AP
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  • Italian fashion in 1967. Creations by the Farsoni fashion house of Rome.

    AP
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  • Part of a crowd of some 25,000 people that attended a mass rally in support of American troops in Vietnam in Wakefield, Massachusetts. The anti-demonstration demonstration was sponsored by a 19-year-old high school senior, Paul Christopher, who became tired of Anti-Vietnam War demonstrations.

    Bettmann / Getty
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  • Original caption: After a raid on a village in Southern Sudan in 1967, suspected government sympathizers were rounded up, questioned and invariably shot.

    AP
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  • Singer Elvis Presley and his bride Priscilla Ann Beaulieu pose for a photograph following their wedding at the Aladdin Hotel in Las Vegas on May 1, 1967.

    Bettmann / Getty
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  • A French aerotrain monorail--a rocket-boosted hovertrain--sets new world railway speed record in 1967.

    Hulton-Deutsch / Corbis via Getty
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  • Original caption: About 12,000 fans turned out for a performance by the Rolling Stones on their first visit to Zurich on April 16, 1967. All of a sudden, "chaos." The tumult started when several frenzied fans tried to climb onto the stage. One of them fell, resulting in a skull fracture. Suddenly hundreds of fans "joined in" and started smashing stools and furniture, followed by various smoke bombs. During the performance and melee, 250 policemen and 150 security guards understandably were kept quite busy. Fifteen fans were arrested and ten were injured. Here pandemonium,.as furniture is broken and smoke bombs fill the air.

    Bettmann / Getty
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  • Guitar players and dancers at a discotheque in Tokyo, Japan, in January of 1967. Such young people represent the new Westernized generation of Japan.

    AP
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  • An Egyptian military transport vehicle goes up in flames in an unknown location after being hit by an Israeli tank shell during the Six-Day War, on June 5, 1967. Fifty years ago Israel won a six-day war with Egypt, Syria and Jordan, capturing the Sinai peninsula, the Golan Heights, the Gaza Strip and the West Bank.

    David Rubinger / Israeli Government Press Office / Reuters
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  • Egyptian prisoners put their hands on their heads after they were captured in an Israeli advance during the Six-Day War.

    Hulton-Deutsch Collection / Corbis via Getty
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  • An Egyptian warplane lays destroyed following an attack by Israeli aircraft in June of 1967.

    AP
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  • Destroyed Egyptian armour lines the sides of a Sinai road after it was hit by Israeli jet fighters during the 1967 Six Day War.

    Reuters
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  • Israeli soldiers celebrate during the 1967 Middle East War, widely known as the Six Day War.

    Israeli Defence Ministry / Reuters
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  • “Robert Q”, a computer programmed to play chess, was beaten in its first competition with a human in the monthly Boylston Chess Club Tournament in Boston on January 21, 1967. The computer was at MIT in Cambridge, Massachusetts, while Carl Wagner, its opponent, made his moves at the YMCU, several miles away in Boston. The moves were relayed into the computer by teletype. Operating “Robert Q” is Allen Moulton, seated foreground, of Cumberland, Maryland, and R. William Gosper, right rear, of Pennsauken, New Jersey,

    AP
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  • Policemen are shown among a crowd in Rome, Italy, on November 29, during protest against the war in Vietnam. Demonstrations culminated a 25-day pilgrimage from Milan to Rome, which was led by the socialist reformer Danilo Dolci.

    Bettmann / Getty
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  • An adventurous sightseer braves heavy rains and blowing water for a close-up view of two shrimp boats aground near Port Isabel, Texas, on September 25, 1967. The vessels were forced to the beach by the violent winds of Hurricane Beulah. Floodwaters from Beulah broke through a concrete flood diversion dam at Mercedes on September 24, drawing a watery trap around thousands of persons living along the normally grassy little floodway. 688 deaths were blamed on Hurricane Beulah.

    Bettmann / Getty
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  • The Twentieth Century Limited passenger train of the New York Central System is shown after its final run in Chicago, Illinois, on December 4, 1967. The Century began its run between Chicago and New York in 1902.

    AP
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