May 1964: Freeze-dried coffee

Maxwell House, a division of General Foods, begins test-marketing Maxim, a freeze-dried coffee, in and around Albany, New York. It would be introduced nationally in 1968.

* "A New Coffee Product" (The Knickerbocker News, May 21, 1964): @

* Advertisement (The Knickerbocker News, June 1964): @

* "Freeze-Dried Process Locks In Flavour" (The Montreal Gazette, May 11, 1968): @

* "Coffee, Instant" (from "The Oxford Companion to American Food and Drink," 2007): @

* "History of Instant Coffee" (from www.espressocoffeeguide.com): @

* "Uncommon Grounds: The History of Coffee and How It Transformed Our World" (Mark Pendergrast, 2010): @

* "Is There a Future for Instant Coffee?" (Smithsonian magazine, June 2014): @ 

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Thursday, May 28, 1964: Palestine Liberation Organization

Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), umbrella political organization claiming to represent the world's Palestinians -- those Arabs, and their descendants, who lived in mandated Palestine before the creation there of the State of Israel in 1948. It was formed in 1964 to centralize the leadership of various Palestinian groups that previously had operated as clandestine resistance movements.
     -- from Encyclopedia Britannia

* Statement of Proclamation of the Organization and Palestine National Charter of 1964 (from Haaretz): @

* PLO summary (from State of Palestine Mission to the United Nations): @

* PLO summary (from Embassy of the state of Palestine in Malaysia): @

* PLO summary (from Oxford Islamic Studies Online): @
* PLO summary (from Maps of World): @

* "What is the Palestine Liberation Organization?" (from procon.org): @

* Summary of Palestinian National Covenant (from wordvia.com): @

* "The Middle East 1916-2001: A Documentary Record" (The Avalon Project, Yale University): @ 

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1964: Blue-eyed soul

"Blue-eyed soul" refers to soul and R&B music performed and sung by white musicians. The term first came into play during the mid-'60s, when acts like The Righteous Brothers had hits with soulful songs like "You've Lost That Lovin' Feelin'." Throughout the late '60s, blue-eyed soul thrived, as acts like The Rascals, The Box Tops, Mitch Ryder, Tony Joe White and Roy Head had a series of hits.

     -- From "All Music Guide to Soul" (2003)

Note: Philadelphia DJ Georgie Woods is generally credited with popularizing the term "blue-eyed soul" in 1964, specifically in describing The Righteous Brothers and their hit "You've Lost That Lovin' Feelin'." That song, released in December 1964, reached No. 1 on the Billboard charts in February 1965. (Also in December 1964, The Righteous Brothers released the album "Some Blue-Eyed Soul," though it did not include "Lovin' Feelin'.") 

Bill Medley of The Righteous Brothers writes in his memoir "The Time of My Life" that the term dates back a little earlier, to the duo's song "Little Latin Lupe Lu" from 1963. "We were enough of a hit that Atlantic Records, led by the legendary Ahmet Ertegun, picked up the national distribution rights for "Lupe Lu" and that's where the term 'blue-eyed soul' really came from. Atlantic was pretty much an all-black R&B label. When their public relations guy Red Schwartz took us out to promote it on radio stations, we found that most of them were black stations. In those days, radio was really divided like that. Unfortunately, Atlantic forgot to mention that we were white. When we showed up to do interviews, they were stunned. They'd still do the interview, but when we left, they'd quit playing the record. It wasn't a racial thing. It was like 'we play black artists.' ... Of course when 'Lovin' Feelin' came around, they said, 'Screw it, these guys are black. They're black enough.' One DJ in Philadelphia started saying, 'Here's my blue-eyed soul brothers.' In the 1950s and 1960s black guys would use the term 'blue-eye' to refer to a white guy. He was hipping his audience to the fact that we were two white guys. It was like a secret code and it caught on."

* Entry from "All Music Guide to Rock" (2002): @
* Back cover of "Some Blue-Eyed Soul": @
* Hot Rhythm & Blues Singles (Billboard magazine, February 6, 1965): @

* "R&B Stations Open Airplay Gates to 'Blue-Eyed Soulists' " (Billboard, October 9, 1965): @

* "Blue-Eyed Soul Artists Herald Musical Integration on Airways" (Billboard, April 2, 1966): @

* Georgie Woods biography (from The Broadcast Pioneers of Philadelphia): @
* Woods biography (from The Living Legends Foundation): @
* "Joy Ride! The Stars and Stories of Philly's Famous Uptown Theater" (Kimberly C. Roberts, 2013): @
* WDAS history: @ 

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Saturday, May 23, 1964: Solway Spaceman

This famous photograph, taken by British firefighter Jim Templeton of his daughter, purports to show a "spaceman." What it actually shows has been debated ever since.

* Overview from spacemancentral.com: @

* Overview from thinkaboutitdocs.com: @

* "The Mystery of the Solway Spaceman" (BBC News): @

* "The Solway Spaceman photograph" (David Clarke and Andy Roberts, 2012): @ 

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May 1964: 'Great Society' speeches

In the wake of President Kennedy's assassination in 1963, a wave of sympathy and public support enabled President Johnson to pass a number of Kennedy administration proposals, including the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Building on this momentum, Johnson introduced his own vision for America: "the Great Society" -- in which America ended poverty, promoted equality, improved education, rejuvenated cities, and protected the environment. This became the blueprint for the most far-reaching agenda of domestic legislation since the New Deal.

     -- From PBS (link: @)

Thursday, May 7, Ohio University

     So to you of this student body, I say merely as a statement of fact, America is yours, yours to make a better land, yours to build the Great Society. ... And with your courage and with your compassion and your desire, we will build the Great Society. It is a Society where no child will go unfed, and no youngster will go unschooled. Where no man who wants work will fail to find it. Where no citizen will be barred from any door because of his birthplace or his color or his church. Where peace and security is common among neighbors and possible among nations.

* "Johnson Lists Objectives for U.S." (Associated Press, May 7): @

Friday, May 22, University of Michigan

     For in your time we have the opportunity to move not only toward the rich society and the powerful society, but upward to the Great Society. The Great Society rests on abundance and liberty for all. It demands an end to poverty and racial injustice, to which we are totally committed in our time. But that is just the beginning. The Great Society is a place where every children can find knowledge to enrich his mind and to enlarge his talents. It is a place where leisure is a welcome chance to build and reflect, not a feared cause of boredom and restlessness. It is a place where the city of man serves not only the needs of the body and the demands of commerce but the desire for beauty and the hunger for community. It is a place where man can renew contact with nature. It is a place which honors creation for its own sake and for what it adds to the understanding of the race. It is a place where men are more concerned with the quality of their goals than the quantity of their goods. But most of all, the Great Society is not a safe harbor, a resting place, a final objective, a finished work. It is a challenge constantly renewed, beckoning us toward a destiny where the meaning of our lives matches the marvelous products of our labor.

* " 'Great Society' Johnson's Goal" (The Toledo Blade, May 22): @

     -- Photo from May 22 speech (from Bentley Historical Library, University of Michigan)

* Text of May 7 speech (The American Presidency Project): @

* Text and audio of May 22 speech (American Rhetoric): @

* "The Anatomy of a Speech: Lyndon Johnson's Great Society Address" (Michigan Historical Collections, December 1978): @
* "Great Society Emerging As Johnson's Key Slogan" (Associated Press, June 2): @

* "The Great Society at 50" (The Washington Post): @
* Entry from "Safire's Political Dictionary" (William Safire, 2008): @ 

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1964: Action Office

Action Office was the world's first open-plan office system and resulted from more than three years of research by the Herman Miller Research Corporation under the direction of Robert Propst. Extensive studies on human behavior in the office, environmental influences on productivity, health, and enthusiasm at work, led Propst to propose a furniture system that challenged traditional, hierarchically office organization with an open, less rigidly structured one. Desks of differing heights were to encourage alternation between sitting and standing to promote concentration and creativity and thus increase efficiency. Desks with a closable rolltop would allow unfinished work to simply remain on the desk in the evening, to be resumed the next morning without delay. Shielded and soundproof telephone tables facilitated phoning within the open office.

     -- Summary and image from George Nelson Foundation

* Action Office summary (Vitra Design Museum, Weil am Rhein, Germany): @

* "The Cubicle Turns 50 (from Men's Journal): @

* "The Origin of Cubicles and the Open-Plan Office" (Scientific American, 2009): @

* "How the office became what it is today" (Stylepark, 2012): @

* "Cutting Up the Cube" (Henry Ford Museum): @

* "Where Your Cubicle Came From" (Tim Sullivan, Harvard Business Review, 2013): @

* "The Org: The Underlying Logic of the Office" (Ray Fisman and Tim Sullivan, 2013): @

* "An Idea Whose Time Has Come" (Metropolitan magazine, 2013): @

* "The Office Documented" (from Herman Miller Inc.): @ 

* Short biography of Robert Propst (from Herman Miller Inc.): @ 

* "George Nelson: The Design of Modern Design" (Stanley Abercrombie, 2000): @

* "The Cubicle You Call Hell Was Designed To Set You Free" (Nikil Saval for Wired, 2014): @

* "Cubed: A Secret History of the Workplace" (Nikil Saval, 2014): @

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Tuesday, May 19, 1964: U.S. Embassy microphones

More than 40 secret microphones were found in the U.S. Embassy in Moscow when U.S. security men tore into walls of the building in April. The State Department disclosed the find Tuesday, and said a strong protest was delivered in Moscow on Tuesday morning. Officials said the microphones were imbedded 8 to 10 inches deep in the walls of the 10-story building, and obviously had been installed before the Russians turned the building over for U.S. occupancy in 1952.

     -- Associated Press (full article: @)

     -- Photo from Associated Press; original caption: "A State Department security person holds one of the more than 40 microphones found in the American Embassy in Moscow when walls of the building were torn down in April 1964. On display May 19, 1964 at the State Department in Washington are other listening devices uncovered in other American embassies behind the "Iron Curtain."

* "The Walls Have Ears" (Newsweek, June 1): @

* "Estimate of Damage to U.S. Foreign Policy Interests (From Net of Listening Devices in U.S. Embassy Moscow" (U.S. State Department, October 2, 1964): @

* "Spies, Leaks, Bugs, and Diplomats (Diplomatic Security in the 1960s" (State Department): @

* Earlier post on "The Great Seal Bug" (May 26, 1960): @ 

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Sunday-Monday, May 17-18, 1964: Mods vs. Rockers

LONDON -- About 1,000 teen-agers battled at the Coastal resort of Margate on Sunday, shattering shop windows and breaking into holiday villas. The new outbreak of youthful holiday violence began when the youngsters arrived at the southern England resort for the Whitsun -- Pentecost -- holiday weekend. They camped on the beach all night and fighting soon broke out between "mods" and "rockers." The first are young people who dress stylishly, the second in leather outfits for motorcycling.

     -- Associated Press, May 19

The Rockers were usually in their 20s or 30s; Elvis-loving bikers rooted in 1950s Teddy Boy culture. The teenage Mods' culture, which flourished in the early '60s, was based on continental clothes, Italian Vespa and Lambretta scooter and the music of soul and jazz musicians.

     -- "Mods v. Rockers!" (Daily Mirror, April 2014; link: @)

Note: The rivalry and violence were the basis of The Who's 1973 album, "Quadrophenia" (official site: @)

-- Photo by Terrence Spencer, Time Life Pictures/Getty Images. Original caption: Pair of Rockers, British youths into leather & motorcycles, zip past a rival group of Mods, British youths into fashionable clothes and fancy scooters.

* "I Predict A Riot: Panorama on Mods and Rockers" (BBC): @

* "1964: Mods and Rockers jailed after seaside riots" (BBC): @

* "Wild Ones 'Beat Up' Margate" (Daily Mirror, May 18, 1964): @

* "Charge of the Mods at Margate" (Daily Mirror, May 18): @

* "Wildest Ones Yet" (Daily Sketch, May 19): @

* " 'astings hain't 'ad it so bad since 1066" (Life magazine, September 18, 1964): @

* "Mods and Rockers" (British Library): @

* "Mods and Rockers" (Subculture list): @

* "Folk Devils and Moral Panics" (Stanley Cohen, 1972): @

* "Mods, Rockers, and the Music of the British Invasion" (James E. Perone, 2009): @

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May 1964: 'Quotations From Chairman Mao'

In December 1963, a department of the People's Liberation Army started work on a book of quotations by the Communist Party leader, Mao Zedong. It was to be used in drill sessions with recruits; short excerpts without context or analysis designed to be memorized and chanted. This was a difficult time for Mao. His Great Leap Forward, an attempt to propel a peasant society into the Industrial Age in a few years, had failed, resulting in mass famine. Mao had been criticized by his fellow leaders. By May 1964, under the guidance of Defence Minister, Lin Biao, the first edition appeared with the title "Quotations from Chairman Mao Tse-Tung." Over the next decade the book was to be printed in more than a billion official copies and countless other versions, becoming a symbol of revolution in China and youthful rebellion around the world.

     -- "Date with History ... Mao's Little Red Book, May 1964" (Chatham House: The Royal Institute of International Affairs)

On 16 May 1964, the first regular print edition of the "Quotations from Chairman Mao" appeared, classified as "internal" military reading. Its size, in accordance with feedback from study activists, had been reduced to neatly fit into the pockets of military uniforms. The "Quotations" appeared in two print versions: an ordinary edition with a white paper cover imprinted with red characters for the ordinary readership, and a special edition clad in a red plastic covering. 

     -- from "Mao Cult: Rhetoric and Ritual in China's Cultural Revolution" (Daniel Leese, 2011)

     

-- Image from International Institute of Social History

* PDF of Second Edition (December 1966; from www.marx2mao.com): @

* "Mao's Little Red Book: A Global History" (Alexander C. Cook, 2014): @

* "Mao's Way" (Edward E. Rice, 1974): @
* "Turbulent Decade: A History of the Cultural Revolution" (Jiaqi Yan and Gao Gao, 1996): @
* "The A to Z of the Chinese Cultural Revolution" (Jian Guo, Yongyi Song and Yuan Zhou, 2009): @
* "China After the Cultural Revolution" (Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, February 1969): @
* "Sources and Early Printing History of Chairman Mao's 'Quotations' " (Oliver Lei Han, The Bibliographical Society of America): @ 

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Monday, May 4, 1964: Bourbon whiskey

WASHINGTON, May 5 -- Congress yesterday called bourbon whisky a distinctive American drink and asked President Johnson to stop all foreign pretenders from trickling into this country. Congressional action was completed when the House passed a resolution containing praises for bourbon and pleas to stop importation of any foreign portion that tries to use the same name. The Senate passed the same resolution last September. The resolution is not a law -- but only an expression of congressional sentiment for bourbon -- and it does not require the signature of President Johnson, whose taste is reputed to run to scotch.
     -- Associated Press, May 5 (link: @)
     -- Image from Bourbon & Banter

* Text of resolution (Government Printing Office): @

* National Bourbon Heritage Month resolution, 2007 (Library of Congress): @
* "Standards of Identity for Distilled Spirits" (Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau, U.S. Department of the Treasury): @

* "The Definition of Bourbon" (bourbonsbistro.com): @

* "About Bourbon" (www.jimbeam.com): @

* "Bourbon Whiskey" (www.barnonedrinks.com): @

* "Is Bourbon Officially America's Native Spirit?" (chuckcowdery.blogspot.com): @

* "Kentucky Bourbon Whiskey: An American Heritage" (Michael R. Veach, 2013): @ 

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Saturday, May 2, 1964: Vietnam protests

Four hundred college students protested yesterday United States involvement in the war in South Vietnam. The students, mostly from Columbia University, New York University, City College and Haverford College, called for the withdrawal of United States troops from South Vietnam and an end to United States military aid. The two-hour rally at 110th Street and Eighth Avenue was sponsored by the May 2d Committee, an ad hoc student group set up six weeks ago at Yale University. Among the groups participating in the protest were the Socialist Workers Party and the Young Socialist Alliance. The rally was followed by a march to Times Square and the United Nations. On Broadway there were slight traffic delays as thousands of passersby stopped and stared at the demonstrators. There were no incidents.

     -- New York Times, May 3

The May 2nd movement stands opposed to all armed intervention by the U.S. government, anywhere, anytime, in the world ... On May 2nd, 1964, the Movement held the first mass protest in this country against the War in Vietnam. One thousand students and youth rallied in New York and marched to the United Nations. ... Students further from New York held simultaneous demonstrations in Boston, San Francisco, Madison, Wisconsin, and other cities.
     -- May 2 leaflet (McMaster University, Hamilton, Canada; link: @)

* "The Duffy Square Arrests" (late 1964; McMaster University): @ and @

* "What is the May 2nd Movement?" (September 1965; The Sixties Project, University of Virginia): @
* Leaflet, 1965 (Duke University Libraries): @
* "Anti-Vietnam War Protests in the San Francisco Bay Area & Beyond" (Pacifica Radio/UC Berkeley): @ 
* Excerpt from "The Cause That Failed: Communism in American Political Life" (Guenter Lewy, 1990): @

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Friday, May 1, 1964: BASIC programming language

At 4 a.m. on May 1, 1964, Dartmouth professor John Kenemy and a student programmer simultaneously typed RUN on neighboring terminals. When they both got back answers to their simple programs, time-sharing and BASIC were born.
     -- From "BASIC Begins at Dartmouth" (link: @)

BASIC (Beginners' All-purpose Symbolic Instruction Code) was invented at Dartmouth College in 1964 by John Kenemy and Thomas Kurtz to allow students to write simple programs. The students used BASIC on a time-sharing system, which allowed them to reach the computer using terminals in their dorms. The computers of that era were expensive and hard to use and there were only a few computer languages to choose from, Fortran and Algol being two of the most common. BASIC came into being partly because these other languages seemed too hard for most students to learn.
     -- From "Concise Encyclopedia of Computer Science" (2004; link: @)

     -- Image from first BASIC instruction manual (Dartmouth, May 1964; link: @)

* BASIC instruction manual, October 1964 (from bitsavers.org): @
* BASIC instruction manual, January 1968 (from bitsavers.org): @
* Entry on John Kenemy (CIS Graduate School, Dartmouth): @
* Entry on Thomas E. Kurtz (IEEE Computer Society): @
* "50 Years of BASIC, the Programming Language That Made Computers Personal" (Time magazine): @
* "50 years of BASIC" (Network World): @

* Excerpt from "Encyclopedia of Microcomputers" (1988): @ 

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