STAR WEEKLY
That’s one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.” On July 21, 1969, an estimated 500 million people worldwide tuned in to watch in awe as Neil Armstrong took his historic first steps on the moon and uttered that famous phrase.
That was just one of many big things that happened in 1969. It was the year the Boeing 747 jumbo jet flew for the first time, taking off from the Boeing airfield at Everett, in Washington state in the US.
Richard Nixon was sworn in as the 37th President of the United States in 1969. He was the only president to ever resign from the position, following the 1974 Watergate scandal.
In July of that year, Charles was officially invested as Prince of Wales at Caernarfon Castle. He has become the longest-serving prince with that title in history.
In entertainment, it was the year of the famed Woodstock music festival. Big movies included Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, Midnight Cowboy and Valley of the Dolls, while on television, Scooby Doo, Sesame Street, The Brady Bunch and Monty Python’s Flying Circus first aired. It was also the year that kids’ favourite The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle hit bookstore shelves.
The Beatles released their famous Abbey Road album, and Yoko Ono and John Lennon tied the knot in Gibraltar.
In politics, Yasser Arafat was elected leader of the Palestine Liberation Organization, the Indian National Congress split into two factions, and El Salvador and Honduras began a conflict that lasted 100 hours and would come to be known as the Football War.
It was also the year that followers of Charles Manson invaded the
Los Angeles home of actress Sharon Tate and her husband Roman Polanski. They killed Sharon (who was eight months pregnant) and her friends, coffee heiress Abigail Folger, Wojciech Frykowski, and Hollywood hairstylist Jay Sebring, along with 18-year-old student
Steven Parent.
In New Zealand, our population reached 2,804,000. The voting age was lowered from 21 to 20, clip-ons from Japan widened the Auckland Harbour Bridge from four lanes to eight and the first TV Network News bulletin, presented by Dougal Stevenson, was broadcast around the country.