1968: Off the field

A partial list of significant news developments during the year

JAN. 23: The North Korean military seizes the USS Pueblo, accusing the crew of spying in North Korean territorial waters. Officers and crew were held captive for a months before being released. Jan. 30: Viet Cong and North Vietnamese troops launch a military offensive against South Vietnam and U.S. forces in conjunction with Tet, the Vietnamese New Year’s holiday. MARCH 16: U.S. forces in South Vietnam kill more than 300 civilians in two hamlets in what will become known as the My Lai Massacre. After details become public in 1969, 26 soldiers and officers initially faced charges and one, Lt. William Calley, was convicted. MARCH 31: President Lyndon B. Johnson announced he will not seek re-election. APRIL 4: Martin Luther King Jr. is shot to death in Memphis, Tenn., where he was supporting a strike by public sanitation workers. Riots and protests follow in more than 100 U.S. cities. APRIL 22: Students at Columbia University seize administration buildings to protest the Vietnam War and the university’s association with a Defense Departmentrelated research group. MAY 13: More than a million people take part in a march and general strike in support of student anti-government protesters in Paris. JUNE 5: Democratic presidential candidate U.S. Sen. Robert F. Kennedy is shot during a campaign appearance in Los Angeles and dies the next day. AUG. 20: Warsaw Pact troops invade Czechoslovakia to suppress government reforms led by Czech Communist Party first secretary Alexander Dubcek. AUG. 23-28: Chicago police clash with anti-war protesters during the Democratic National Convention. OCT. 2: An estimated 200 to 300 people are killed and more than a thousand arrested during antigovernment protests at Plaza de las Tres Culturas in Mexico City, less than two weeks before the Opening Ceremony of the Olympic Games. NOV. 5: Richard Nixon is elected president of the United States, defeating Democrat Hubert Humphrey and independent George Wallace. DEC. 24: Apollo 8 astronauts Frank Borman, Jim Lovell and William Anders become the first to orbit the moon and stage a live Christmas Eve broadcast from their spacecraft, reading from the book of Genesis.