1967 - You can't say that on Television

In 1967 the Smother Brothers Comedy Hour premiers on CBS.  Using the typical comedy/variety stick of the era, the Smother Brothers Comedy Hour became what the cool people watched on TV.  Pushing the envelope of what was considered permissible for television, the conservative looking Smother Brothers and their writers (including Steve Martin, Rob Reiner and Al Brooks) were often at odds with CBS censors.  While their parents watched Bonanza on NBC, kids in the 15 - 25 year old demographic were watching the likes of The Who, Jefferson Airplane, The Doors, Joan Baez, and Stephenwolf.  Once taboo topics like politics, sex, race, and drugs were openly discussed for the first time.

1974 - Patty Hearst kidnapped by the Symbionse Liberation Army

In the early morning hours of February 4, 1974, nineteen year old heiress Patty Hearst is kidnapped from her Berkeley apartment. 

Gamal Abdel Nassar

Political Instability rocks the Middle East

Before Mubarak there was Sadat.  Before Sadat there was Nassar. He was one of the leaders of the Egyptian Revolution of 1952 that overthrew the monarchy, and Nasar became the republics second president in 1956.  He quickly became on of the major players in the Arab world.  He is remembered for nationalizing the Suez Canal, building the Aswan high dam, and founding the short-lived United Arab Republic (1958 - 1961) linking Egypt and Syria.  Through much of the 1960s, his influence continued to grow throughout the Middle East until disastrous defeat in the Six Day War with Israel in 1967.  After loosing control of the Suez Canal to Israel, his star began to decline and he aligned himself with Soviet interests in the Cold War.  He died of a heart attack in 1970 and was succeeded by Vice President Anwar Sadat.  Sadat, who made peace with Israel in 1978, Sadat was assassinated by Egyptian military in 1981 when Vice President Mubarak became President.

Day Two of the Tet Offensive

Is this what we are fighting for?

Saigon Police Chief Nguyen Ngoc Loan tells reports "These guys kill a lot of our people, and I think Buddha will forgive me" and walks up to a captive Vietcong guerrilla and shots him in the head at point blank range.  This image, and the footage captured by an NBC News team, is published around the world.  America was stunned and the world gasped at the brutality.  Loan was never prosecuted.  He narrowly escaped South Vietnam in the closing days of the war in 1975, and eventually resettled in Virginia where he opened a pizzeria. He lived there quietly until 1991 when he identity was discovered and he closed the pizzeria.  He died of cancer in 1998.

1968 - Richard Nixon announces his candidacy for President.

On this date in 1968 Richard Millhouse Nixon announces he is a candidate for the President of the United States.  After losing the election of 1960 to John F. Kennedy, Nixon retired to his native California.  He ran unsuccessfully against incumbent Governor Pat Brown (father of the current governor Jerry “Governor Moonbeam” Brown) in 1962.  He was viewed as the moderate Republican alternative to the liberal Nelson Rockefeller and the conservative Ronald Reagan