Saturday, April 22, 1967: Birth of the Big Mac

The Big Mac -- advertised as a hamburger "made with 2 freshly ground patties, tangy melted cheese, crisp lettuce, pickle and our own Special Sauce" -- is added to the menu at the McDonald's in Uniontown, Pennsylvania, thanks to Jim Delligatti (the franchise owner who created it) and Esther Glickstein (the corporate secretary who named it). Following the Big Mac's success locally, the parent company would make it available nationwide starting in 1968. (The famous "twoallbeefpattiesspecialsaucelettucecheesepicklesonionsonasesameseedbun" ad campaign would follow in early 1975.)

-- Above: advertisement in The Morning Herald, Uniontown, April 21, 1967

-- Below: advertisement in The Morning Herald, September 28

* "A Meal Disguised as a Sandwich: The Big Mac" (Pennsylvania Center for the Book, 2009): @

* "McDonald's: Behind the Arches" (John F. Love, 1995): @

* "Golden Arch Angel" (Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, 1993): @

* "Michael James Delligatti, Creator of the Big Mac, Dies at 98" (New York Times, 2016): @

* "Woman Who Named Big Mac Finally Recognized" (Associated Press, 1985): @

* Big Mac Museum (North Huntingdon, Pennsylvania): @ (website) and @ (RoadsideAmerica.com) 

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Monday, April 18, 1966: AstroTurf

The Los Angeles Dodgers shelled veteran Robin Roberts with a barrage of singles Monday night and defeated the Houston Astros, 6-3, in the first official game played on the Astrodome's infield of synthetic grass. ... Neither club gave indication of concern about the pool table green infield made of tough nylon strips zippered together. There were three errors, but none could be blamed on the carpet-like material that Astro officials plan to extend into the outfield by mid-June.

     -- Story by Associated Press: @

     -- Image by Associated Press from July 1966, showing the installation of Astroturf in the Astrodome outfield.

* www.astroturf.com: @

* "Astroturf Applauded by Dodger" (Associated Press, April 19, 1966; from www.newspapers.com, subscription only): @
* "The Cool Bubble" (Roger Angell, 1966): @

* "The Rise and Fall of Artificial Turf" (Mark Armour, Baseball Analysts, 2006): @

* "MLB's turf wars are just about over" (Associated Press, September 2009): @

* "Materiality and Meaning: Synthetic Grass, Sport, and the Limits of Modern Progress" (Benjamin D. Lisle, 2012): @

* "Turf Wars" (Jennifer Weeks, Chemical Heritage Foundation, 2013): @

* "Movies, Bullfights, and Baseball, Too: Astrodome Built for Spectacle First and Sports Second" (Eric Robinson, Society for American Baseball Research, 2014): @

* "Monofilament Ribbon Pile Product" (Patent, 1967): @
* Earlier post on the Astrodome (April 1965): @

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Monday, April 11, 1966: LSD in the United States

Sandoz Pharmaceuticals, the nation's only licensed distributor of LSD, has ceased distribution of the hallucinatory drug in this country. LSD, or lysergic acid diethylamide, is produced by the company's parent concern, Sandoz Ltd., in Switzerland. ... The company had informed the federal food and drug administration in Washington that it was withdrawing its investigational drug application because of "unforeseen public reaction." Authorities said the drug produced extreme sensations of color, sight and taste, breaking down the sense of reality.

     -- From Associated Press: @

     -- Image from Life magazine, March 25, 1966: @

* LSD information (National Library of Medicine, National Institutes of Health): @

* LSD information (www.erowid.org): @

* "How LSD was popularized" (Schaeffer Library of Drug Policy): @

* "Legend of a Mind: Timothy Leary & LSD" (The Pop History Dig): @

* www.lysergia.com: @
* The Albert Hofmann Foundation: @
* "History of Sandoz Pharmaceuticals" (The Herb Museum): @

* "Acid Dreams: The Complete Social History of LSD: The CIA, The Sixties, and Beyond" (Martin A. Lee and Bruce Shlain, 1985): @

* "Storming Heaven: LSD and the American Dream" (Jay Stevens, 1987): @ 

* "Drugged: The Science and Culture Behind Psychotropic Drugs" (Richard J. Miller, 2014): @ 

* "Acid Hype: America News Media and the LSD Experience" (Steven Siff, 2015): @

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Friday, April 8, 1966: End of poll tax

Mississippi's $2-a-year poll tax was ruled unconstitutional by a special three-judge federal court which forbade the state to apply it as a requirement to vote.

     The judges ruled in favor of a Justice Department suit, brought under the 1965 Voting Rights Act, that contended Mississippi had used the 76-year-old tax to keep Negroes from voting.

     The suit also charged the tax discriminated economically against the poor of any color, and made a negligible contribution to public education revenues -- for which it was earmarked -- of only 0.43 percent.

     The decision forbids application of poll tax payment as a voting requirement in any "municipal, county or state or national election hereafter held within the state of Mississippi."

     The panel, Judge Walter P. Gewin of Tuscaloosa, Ala., of the Fifth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, and District Judges Harold Cox of Southern Mississippi and Claude F. Clayton of Northern Mississippi, noted the decision followed the Supreme Court's March 24 decision against the Virginia state board of elections in a poll tax case.

     Similar federal panels earlier ruled the poll tax unconstitutional in Alabama and Texas.

     -- Story by Associated Press: @

     -- Image taken from nameplate of The Delta Democrat Times (Greenville, Mississippi), January 15, 1964

Harper v. Virginia State Board of Elections (March 24, 1966)
* "Supreme Court Strikes Down Virginia Poll Tax" (United Press International, March 24): @

* "Mississippi Last State of Poll Tax" (UPI, March 25): @

* "Supreme Court Says Poll Tax Violates Economic Equality" (AP, March 28): @
* Decision and opinions (from FindLaw): @
* Oral arguments (from www.oyez.org): @

* Biography of Evelyn Thomas Butts (Encyclopedia of Virginia): @

Other resources
* "A Review of the Activities of the Department of Justice in Civil Rights, 1966" (Department of Justice, January 1967): @

* "Recalling an Era When the Color of Your Skin Meant You Paid to Vote" (Smithsonian magazine, March 2016): @

* Earlier post on 24th Amendment (January 23, 1964): @ 

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Friday, April 8, 1966: 'Is God Dead?'

Time magazine publishes a provocative article (with a controversial cover) by religion editor John T. Elson. It begins:

TOWARD A HIDDEN GOD

     Is God dead? It is a question that tantalizes both believers, who perhaps secretly fear that he is, and atheists, who possibly suspect that the answer is no. 

     Is God dead? The three words represent a summons to reflect on the meaning of existence. No longer is the question the taunting jest of skeptics for whom unbelief is the test of wisdom and for whom Nietzsche is the prophet who gave the right answer a century ago. Even within Christianity, now confidently renewing itself in spirit as well as form, a small band of radical theologians has seriously argued that the churches must accept the fact of God's death, and get along without him. How does the issue differ from the age-old assertion that God does not and never did exist? Nietzsche's thesis was that striving, self-centered man had killed God, and that settled that. The current death-of-God group believes that God is indeed absolutely dead, but proposes to carry on and write an theology without theos, without God. Less radical Christian thinkers hold that at the very least God in the image of man, God sitting in heaven, is dead, and -- in the central task of religion today -- they seek to imagine and define a God who can touch men's emotions and engage men's minds. 

     If nothing else, the Christian atheists are waking the churches to the brutal reality that the basic premise of faith -- the existence of a personal God, who created the world and sustains it with his love -- is now subject to profound attack.

* Complete text: @

* "Is God Dead?" (the Rev. G.H. Ashworth, for The Bryan, Ohio, Democrat, May 25, 1905): @
* "The God Is Dead Movement" (Time, October 22, 1965; subscription only): @
* John T. Elson obituary (New York Times, 2009): @
* "Is God Just a Human Invention? And Seventeen Other Questions Raised by the New Atheists" (Sean McDowell and Jonathan Morrow, editors, 2010): @

* "Methodist Heretic: Thomas Altizer and the Death of God at Emory University" (Christopher Demuth Rodkey, 2010): @
* "American Nietzsche: A History of an Icon and His Ideas" (Jennifer Ratner-Rosenhagen, 2012): @
* " 'God Is Dead' Controversy" (New Georgia Encyclopedia, 2013): @

* "Thomas J.J. Alitzer: On the Death of God Theology" (Jose L. Gutierrez, 2014): @

Time, December 26, 1969

The magazine publishes a three-year-later look at the subject with "The New Ministry: Bringing God Back to Life."
* Text (subscription only): @

motive magazine, February 1966
The official magazine of the Methodist Student Movement publishes a satirical obituary, written in the style of The New York Times, titled "God is Dead in Georgia."
* Complete text: @
* Note: Anthony Towne, who wrote the obituary, followed it up in 1968 with the book "Excerpts from the Diaries of the Late God." Short summary (from "Religion in America Since 1945: A History," Patrick Allitt, 2003): @
* motive magazine archives (Boston University School of Theology): @ and @

Sojourner Truth, 1852
During an anti-slavery meeting in Salem, Ohio, the abolitionist and social reformer replies to Frederick Douglass' speech on how to rid the country of slavery with the plaintive question (by some accounts), "Is God gone?" The phrase is more remembered as "Is God dead?", which is also inscribed -- without the question mark -- on her tombstone in Battle Creek, Michigan.
* Excerpt from "Sojourner Truth: Slave, Prophet, Legend" (Carleton Mabee and Susan Mabee Newhouse, 1995): @
* Exceprt from "Sojourner Truth as Orator: Wit, Story and Song" (Suzanne Pullon Fitch and Roseann M. Mandzuik, 1997): @

* Excerpt from "Sojourner Truth's America" (Margaret Washington, 2009): @ 

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April 1966: 'Frank Sinatra Has A Cold'

Gay Talese's profile of Frank Sinatra is published in the April 1966 issue of Esquire magazine. It stands as one of the high achievements of "New Journalism," in which writers use all manner of literary techniques to tell a nonfiction story. The profile is also noteworthy in that Talese did not interview Sinatra, talking instead to the people in the entertainer's circle.

-- Subhed reads: "And some of the most important people in some of the most important places in New York, New Jersey, Southern California and Las Vegas are suddenly developing postnasal drop"
-- Cover illustration by Edward Sorel

* Full story (www.esquire.com): @
* Annotated version, 2013 (niemanstoryboard.org): @

* Oral interview with Talese, 2015 (soundcloud.com): @

* "The Birth of 'The New Journalism' " (Tom Wolfe, New York magazine, February 14, 1972): @

* Complete issue of New York magazine (February 14, 1972): @
* Short summary of "New Journalism" (from "Culture Wars: An Encyclopedia of Issues, Viewpoints, and Voices," edited by Roger Chapman, 2010): @
* "The Gang That Wouldn't Write Straight: Wolfe, Thompson, Didion, Capote and the New Journalism Revolution" (Marc Weingarten, 2010): @
* "Literary Journalism in the Twentieth Century" (edited by Norman Sims, 2008): @
* "The Esquire Decade" (Frank Digiacoma, Vanity Fair magazine, January 2007): @
* "It Wasn't Pretty, Folks, But Didn't We Have Fun? Surviving the '60s with Esquire's Harold Hayes" (Carol Posgrove, 2001): @

* Talese biography (www.newjournalism.com): @

* Talese's website (via Random House): @

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Friday, April 30, 1965: 'Drama of Life Before Birth'

Lennart Nilsson's groundbreaking photography appears in Life magazine. The photos, depicting the development of a fetus from fertilization to age 28 weeks, would become enduring images for their scientific value as well as in the subsequent debate over abortion in the United States. (The magazine said at the time that most of the embryos "had been surgically removed for a variety of medical reasons.")

* April 30 edition: @

* Remembrance (life.time.com): @

* "A Child is Born" (www.lennartnilsson.com): @

* Q&A with Nilsson (www.lennartnilsson.com): @

* Embryo Project Encyclopedia (Arizona State University): @
* "The Lonesome Space Traveller" (from "Making Visible Embryos," University of Cambridge): @
* "Fetal Positions: Individualism, Science, Individuality" (Karen Newman, 1996): @
* "Fetal Subjects, Feminist Positions" (edited by Lynn W. Morgan and Meredith W. Michaels, 1999): @
* "Pregnant Pictures" (Sandra Matthews, 2000): @
* "The Social Worlds of the Unborn" (Deborah Lupton, 2013): @ 

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April-May 1965: Super 8

Eastman Kodak Co. introduces its Super 8 film format, with press releases in April followed by a public debut on May 1 at the International Photography Exposition in New York. One of the main selling points: the plastic cartridge that made loading the film much easier. (Around the same time, Fuji Photo Film Co. was launching a similar system known as Single 8.)

     -- Advertisement from Life magazine, August 6, 1965 (linked below)

* "Super 8 mm Film History" (Kodak): @
* www.super8data.com (database): @
* "Instamatic Technique Goes to the Movies" (J. Walter Thompson Company News, April 30, 1965, from Duke University Libraries): @

* "Bigger Format for Movie Fans" (United Press International, April 11, 1965): @
* Advertisements in Life magazine, June 11 and August 6, 1965: @ and @

* "Kodak's Revolution in Home Movies" (Popular Science, June 1965): @

* "War of the Photo Systems" (Popular Science, July 1965): @ 

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April-July 1965: 'Satisfaction'

April 1965 *

     I was between girlfriends at the time, in my flat in Carlton Hill, St. John's Wood. Hence maybe the mood of the song. I wrote "Satisfaction" in my sleep. I had no idea I'd written it, it's only thank God for the little Philips cassette player. The miracle being that I looked at the cassette player that morning and I knew I'd put a brand-new tape in the previous night, and I saw it was at the end. Then I pushed rewind and there was "Satisfaction." It was just a rough idea. There was just the bare bones of the song, and it didn't have all that noise, of course, because I was on acoustic. And forty minutes of me snoring. -- From "Life," by Keith Richards, 2010: @

     * According to other accounts, this occurred the night of May 6 in Clearwater, Florida, during the Rolling Stones' tour of North America. However, since Richards places it in London, this would have been before the tour, which began April 23 in Montreal, Canada. 

     Mick Jagger was also later quoted as saying that he and Richards worked on the song "half in Canada, half in Florida" (Melody Maker, June 26, 1965). Regardless, the opening riff and the phrase "I Can't Get No Satisfaction" are credited to Richards, while Jagger wrote most of the rest of the lyrics.

May 10-12
     The band records the song, first in Chicago (May 10) and then in Los Angeles (May 11-12).

May 20, May 26
     The band premieres the song on the television show "Shindig!" (The show was taped on May 20 and aired on ABC on May 26.)

Late May *
     The song is released in the United States.
     * Many accounts say the song was released June 5 or June 6, but the single was already on sale by then. The image above is from The Portsmouth (New Hampshire) Herald, June 3, 1965. Also, a music survey from KMEN in San Bernadino, California, indicates that the song was released on May 25; link: @.

June 5
     "Satisfaction" is first mentioned in Billboard magazine's "Singles Reviews," above.
     * June 5 issue: @

June 12
     The song debuts on Billboard's Hot 100 at No. 67.
     * June 12 issue: @

July 10
     "Satisfaction" reaches No. 1 on the Billboard charts; it stays at the top for four weeks, displaced on August 7 by "I'm Henry VIII, I Am" by Herman's Hermits.
     * Billboard chart for July 10 (from billboard.com): @
     * July 17 issue: @
     * July 24 issue: @
     * July 31 issue: @
     * August 7 issue: @

August 20 *
     "Satisfaction" is released in Britain. The B-side was "The Spider and The Fly," unlike the American release, whose B-side was "The Under Assistant West Coast Promotion Man."
     * Date approximate; from Billboard, August 21: "This week Decca rushes out in Britain the Stones' recent big American hit '(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction' ..."

Resources
* Entry from "Rocks Off: 50 Tracks That Tell the Story of the Rolling Stones" (Bill Janovitz, 2013): @

* Entry from "The Billboard Book of Number One Hits" (2003): @

* Entry from www.allmusic.com: @

* "The Rolling Stones' ('I Can't Get No) Satisfaction' " (Performing Songwriter, 2013): @

* "Behind the Song: 'Satisfaction' " (American Songwriter, 2012): @

* "Let It Read! The Ultimate Literary Guide to the Rolling Stones" (The Daily Beast, 2012): @
* "Rolling Stoned" (Andrew Loog Oldham, 2011): @
* "Stone Alone: The Story of a Rock 'n' Roll Band" (Bill Wyman, 1990): @

* "The Complete Works of the Rolling Stones" (database): @
* "The Rolling Stones: Off the Record" (Mark Paytress, 2003): @
* "The Rolling Stones: Fifty Years" (Christopher Sandford, 2012): @

* "1965: The Most Revolutionary Year in Music" (Andrew Grant Jackson, 2015): @

* Please Please Me: Sixties British Pop, Inside Out" (Gordon Thompson, 2008): @

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Monday, April 19, 1965: Moore's Law

Electronics magazine publishes Gordon Moore's paper, "Cramming More Components Onto Integrated Circuits." His observation -- "the amount of computing power available for a given cost has increased and continues to increase by a factor of two every 18 months to 2 years" -- came to be known as Moore's Law.

-- Quoted material from "The Encyclopedia of Cryptography and Security" (2011): @

-- Image (cost vs. time sketch from Moore's 1964 notebook) from Computer History Museum: @

* PDF of Electronics article: @
* "Moore's Law at 50: Its past and its future" (Extreme Tech): @

* "Moore's Law Hits Middle Age" (EE Times, April 2015): @

* "The Multiple Lives of Moore's Law" (IEEE Spectrum, March 2015): @
* "10 images that explain the incredible power of Moore's Law" (Washington Post, April 2015): @

* "Understanding Moore's Law: Four Decades of Innovation" (Chemical Heritage Foundation, 2006): @ 

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Saturday, April 17, 1965: March on Washington to End the War in Vietnam

Thousands of students demanding an end to the war in Viet Nam massed in Washington Saturday, picketing, singing and shouting for their case. The demonstration, one of the largest ever to take place around the White House, was billed by its sponsors, an organization calling itself Students for a Democratic Society, as the start of a national protest movement against U.S. policy in Viet Nam. Demonstration leaders said 20,000 students responded to the call they sent to colleges across the nation for support. Police estimated the number at 12,000 to 15,000.

-- Excerpt from Associated Press: @

-- Image of flier from  Students for a Democratic Society Papers, 1958-1970: @

* Summary from "Encyclopedia of Student and Youth Movements" via Facts on File: @

* Flier (The King Center): @

* Paul Potter's speech (www.sdsrebels.com): @

* "Paul Potter, 'The Incredible War' (17 April 1965)": @ (Jeffery P. Drury, Central Michigan University)
* www.sds-1960s.org: @ 

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Wednesday, April 14, 1965: 'In Cold Blood' killers executed

Lansing, Kas. -- Richard Eugene Hickock, 34, and Perry Edward Smith, 36, were hanged early Wednesday for the 1959 slayings of a family of four. They were convicted of the Nov. 14, 1959, robbery-murder of rancher Herbert W. Clutter, his wife, and the couple's two teen age children. The four victims had been bound, gagged and shot point blank in the head with a 12 gauge shotgun. Clutter was a farm adviser of the Eisenhower administration. The killers had been searching for a nonexistent fortune supposedly stashed away by the Clutter family in their Garden City (Kas.) home. All Hickock and Smith got for their efforts was $80 a portable radio and a pair of cheap binoculars. Their last hope of avoiding the noose died Tuesday when United States Supreme Court Justice Byron R. White took no action on a last minute appeal for a stay of execution.
     -- Story by United Press International
     -- Photo by Associated Press; Hickock is at left

Note: "In Cold Blood," Truman Capote's account of the killings, first appeared as a four-part series beginning with the September 25, 1965, issue of The New Yorker magazine, and was then published in book form in January 1966.

* 50th-anniversary story from The Topeka Capital-Journal: @

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Friday, April 9, 1965: The Astrodome

HOUSTON, Tex. -- There was a bomb scare but President Johnson showed no concern Friday night as he and 47,876 other fans watched air conditioned baseball. An anonymous report that a bomb had been placed in the $31.6 million Harris County Domed Stadium proved false but it caused the President and the first lady to be late for the opening of the all-weather structure. They saw 7 1/2 innings as the Houston Astros opened their astrodome by beating the New York Yankees 2-1 in 12 innings. The President told newsmen he was impressed with the stadium, which permits professional baseball to move indoors for the first time. Because of the bomb scare, the presidential party watched the game from the private suite of Roy Hofheinz and R.E. (Bob) Smith, owner of the Astros. The suite is 30 feet above the right field pavilion and the crowd saw the President and Mrs. Johnson only through its windows. They did not go down on the playing field.

     -- Story from Associated Press

     -- Photo from Houston Chronicle; caption reads: A photo taken from the Astrodome's gondola shows the stadium's baseball field on April 1, 1965.

* "First Game in the Astrodome" (www.astrosdaily.com): @

* "Rain or shine -- play ball!" (Life magazine, April 9, 1965): @
* "What a Wonder! What a Blunder!" (Life magazine, April 23): @
* Summary from Texas State Historical Association: @

* Summary from American Historic Engineering Record, National Park Service: @
* Overview from "Housing the Spectacle: Dome Case Studies" (Columbia University): @
* "Game Over for the Astrodome, 'Stadium of the Future' " (New York Times, March 2015): @ 

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Wednesday, April 7, 1965: 'Peace Without Conquest' speech

On the evening of April 7, 1965, Lyndon Johnson spoke before a television audience at Johns Hopkins University to offer his rationale for recently ramped up American military presence in Vietnam and to tell the world of U.S. intentions to come to the aid of the people of Southeast Asia in a bold new way. ... The president suggested the whole area be developed and modernized as an alternative to continued war. The speech was designed to encourage those in Hanoi to agree to stop warring and to take part in the development of the region, and also to put a good face on the new American measures implemented since February, including sustained aerial bombardment and combat troops.

     -- From "Inventing Vietnam: The United States and State Building, 1954-1968" (James M. Carter, 2008): @ 

* Video (LBJ Library): @

* Transcript (LBJ Library): @

* "Independent South Viet Must Follow Any Peace Discussion, Says Johnson" (United Press International): @

* National Security Action Memorandum No. 328 (April 6): @ (U.S. State Department) and @ (LBJ Library) 

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April 30, 1964: UHF

In July 1962 President John F. Kennedy signed into law legislation that required all television receiving sets shipped across state lines to able to adequately receive all UHF as well as VHF frequencies. The goal of this law was to put UHF channels (channels 14 through 83) on a more equal technological footing with the VHF channels (2 through 13). Until this time, virtually all sets manufactured in or imported into the United States were equipped to receive the VHF channels only. Viewers interested in watching UHF channels were required to purchase a cumbersome UHF converter and attach it to their sets. These converters, which resembled metal bow ties and sat atop the receiver, did not allow viewers to "click in" the desired channel. The tuning dial operated fluidly, like a radio tuning knob, and viewers had to literally "tune in" the desired channel. With the commercial networks occupying the VHF channels and viewers disadvantaged in receiving the UHF frequencies, UHF channels (primarily independent commercial and educational or noncommercial stations) were in danger of extinction. The immediate goal, then, of all-channel legislation was the preservation of these channels. The longer-term goal was the encouragement of diversity (or the creation of "a multitude of tongues"), which was a guiding force behind much Federal Communications Commission (FCC) rule making at the time. Therefore, on September 12, 1962, the commission proposed that any set manufactured in or imported into the United States after April 30, 1964, be all-channel equipped. The proposal became an official FCC order on November 21, 1962. Later amendments to FCC rules and regulations specified performance standards for the UHF circuit in the new receivers relating to sound and picture quality.
     -- From "Encyclopedia of Television" (2004)

* "All-channel television broadcast reception: Peak picture sensitivity" (U.S. Code of Federal Regulations, 1985): @

* The FCC and the All-Channel Receiver Bill of 1962" (Lawrence D. Longley, Journal of Broadcasting, 1969): @
* "The Impact of UHF Promotion: The All-Channel Television Receiver Law" (Douglas W. Webbink, Law and Contemporary Problems, Duke University, 1969): @

* "UHF" (from "The Federal Communications Commission: Front Line in the Culture and Regulation Wars," Kimberly A. Zarkin and Michael J. Zarkin, 2006): @ 
* "All Channel Receiver Act of 1962" (from "The Communications Act: A Legislative History of the Major Amendments, 1934-1996"): @ 
* "The ABCs of UHF-TV" (Popular Science, August 1964): @ 
* "All-Channel TV Deadline Set at May 1" (Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, November 24, 1962): @ 

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