August 1966: The Beatles

"Revolver"

     The album was released on August 5 in Britain and August 8 in the United States.

* Summary from www.thebeatles.com: @

* Summary from The Beatles Bible: @

* "UK Album Release" (The Beatles Bible): @

* "U.S. Album Release" (The Beatles Bible): @

* "The Beatles: U.S. vs. UK Album Guide" (Ultimate Classic Rock): @

* Album review (Kevin Courrier, Critics At Large): @

* Album review (Scott Plagenhoef, Pitchfork): @

* "Classic Album Dissection" ("Sound Opinions," 2006): @

* "The Kinks vs. The Beatles: Ray Davies Thought 'Revolver' was Garbage" (dangerousminds.net): @

* "How I drew a pop art masterpiece for the Beatles" (The Guardian, 2016): @

* " 'Revolver': How the Beatles Reimagined Rock 'n' Roll" (Robert Rodriguez, 2012): @

"We're more popular than Jesus now"

* Post from March 4, 1966, when the story was originally published in the London Evening Standard: @

Candlestick Park, San Francisco

     The band's August 29 show marked their last live performance until their rooftop concert in London on January 30, 1969.

* Summary from The Beatles Bible: @

* "The Beatles at Candlestick in 1966: An oral history from the fans" (San Francisco Chronicle, 2014): @

* "Listen to cassette recording of The Beatles' final concert at Candlestick Park" (Consequence of Sound): @ 

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Monday, August 1, 1966: University of Texas Tower shooting

A puff of smoke is visible at the University of Texas Tower during the sniper attack on August 1, 1966, by Charles Whitman. (Texas Student Publications photo by Richard Kidd; courtesy of the Barker Texas History Center)

Charlotte Darehshori, then a secretary in the office of the dean of graduate studies, crouching behind the base of a flagpole in a grassy area just south of the Tower. She was trapped nearly 1 1/2 hours by the sniper fire. The photograph was one of the first transmitted from the Tower sniping incident and was one of the most widely published photographs from the incident. (Staff photo by Tom Lankes, American-Statesman)
     -- Photos from Austin American-Statesman archives: @

A crazed student went on an 80-minute campus rampage with an armful of weapons Monday in the worst mass killing in U.S. history. He killed 15 persons, including his mother and his wife, and gunned down 30 others before a shaken off-duty policeman shot him dead atop the 27-story University of Texas tower.
     -- United Press International: @

* Stories from Austin American-Statesman: @

* Summary (Finding Dulcinea): @
* Short biography of Charles Whitman (Texas State Historical Association): @
* Resources (Austin History Center): @

* "Texas Sniper Kills 15, Wounds 31, Then Slain" (Associated Press, published August 2, 1966): @
* "Campus Sniper Slays 13, Wounds 30" (UPI, August 2, 1966): @ 
* "Death Spree Carefully Planned, Executed" (UPI, August 3, 1966): @
* Life magazine (August 12, 1966): @

* "A Sniper in the Tower: The Charles Whitman Murders" (Gary M. Lavergne, 1997): @
* "University of Texas reopens tower's deck" (Associated Press, September 15, 1999): @

* "Sniper 66" (2006 documentary by Whitney Milam) first of 5 parts: @ (other 4 parts also available on YouTube)
* "96 Minutes" (Pamela Colloff, Texas Monthly, 2006): @
* A Buried Memory is Preserved: The Unborn Victim of a Texas Sniper's Shot in 1966" (Reeve Hamilton, New York Times, 2014): @
* Fifty years after the first campus massacre, a question lingers: Who killed the killer?" (Molly Hennessy-Fiske, Los Angeles Times, 2016): @
* "Tower" (2016 documentary): @

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Saturday, August 28, 1965: 'Ask CBS News About Gemini 5'

CBS airs what is believed to be radio's first nationwide call-in show, "Ask CBS News About Gemini 5," taking questions from listeners about the spaceflight. The show was originally scheduled to air on August 21, but aired instead on the 28th after Gemini's launch was delayed.

-- Top image from (Long Beach, Calif.) Independent (August 28)

-- Bottom image from Broadcasting magazine (September 6): @

* "Media, NASA, and America's Quest for the Moon" (Harlen Makemson, 2009): @

* Gemini 5 summary (NASA): @

* Gemini 5 summary (Encyclopedia Astronautica): @

* Gemini 5 summary (Drew ex machina): @ 

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August 1965: Super Ball

This invention relates to a toy and more particularly to a ball or sphere having extremely high resilience and a high coefficient of friction.

     -- "Highly Resilient Polybutadiene Ball" (U.S. Patent Office; filed August 25, 1965; patented March 22, 1966): @

Here's the new SUPER-BALL that bounces like nothing you've ever seen before. Its strange, lively antics will distract classrooms and disrupt the dignity of business offices. Everybody is fascinated by SUPER-BALL, the handball-sized black ball that mysteriously leaps high into the air, darts this way and that, or bounces back in unlikely directions with a new twist.
     -- Advertisement (Family Weekly, November 14, 1965): @ 

Note: The earliest ad I could find was dated August 4, 1965.

* Wham-O product site: @

* www.superballs.com (tribute site): @

* "Kinematics of an Ultraelastic Rough Ball" (Richard L. Garwin, Columbia University, published in American Journal of Physics, January 1969): @

* "How Super Balls Work" (www.howstuffworks.com, 2011): @

* "A Boom with a Bounce" (Life magazine, December 3, 1965): @

* "Can You Invent a Million-Dollar Fad?" (Popular Science, January 1966): @

* "Corny Name, 'Super' Game" (Associated Press, January 6, 1970): @
* Entry from "Toys and American Culture: An Encyclopedia" (Sharon M. Scott, 2010): @

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Sunday, August 22, 1965: Juan Marichal and John Roseboro

Photo by Neil Leifer: @

From Sarasota Herald-Tribune: @

Photo by Neil Leifer: @

* "Marichal Clubs Roseboro With a Bat" (New York Times): @

* "The Fight of Their Lives: How Juan Marichal and John Roseboro Turned Baseball's Ugliest Brawl into a Story of Forgiveness and Redemption" (John Rosengren, 2014): @

* Excerpt from "The Fight of Their Lives" (Sports Illustrated, 2014): @

* 2005 story by Gwen Knapp, San Francisco Chronicle: @
* "Incident at Candlestick" (MLB Network, 2009): @

* "What Baseball's Most Famous Brawl Photo Didn't Show You" (Deadspin, 2014): @
* "Juan Marichal clubbed John Roseboro 50 years ago in ugly, iconic incident" (ESPN, 2015): @

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Sunday, August 15, 1965: The Beatles at Shea Stadium

     The sound was unbelievable and more than a little terrifying.

     What started as a joyful shriek quickly became a steady scream, then a deafening howl and finally an ear-splitting roar like the takeoff noise of a giant jet or the launching of a rocket.

     It was the hysterical sound of more than 55,000 Beatles fans -- almost all of them sobbing teen-age girls. And it went on and on and on for the full 30 minutes that the four mop-top minstrels from Liverpool, England, performed Sunday night at Shea Stadium.

     -- United Press International (full story: @)

     -- Photo from New York Daily News

* Summary from Beatles Bible: @

* "There Were Howls at Shea Stadium as Beatles Sang" (Associated Press, August 16, 1965): @

* "Beatlemonium at Stadium -- Youngsters Get Carried Away" (Billboard magazine, August 28, 1965): @
* Excerpt from "Beatles-Discography.com: Day-by-Day Song-by-Song Record-by-Record" (Craig Cross, 2004): @
* "The Beatles at Shea Stadium: The Story Behind Their Greatest Concert" (Dave Schwensen, 2014): @

* "The Shea Stadium Concert" (www.beatlesource.com): @ 

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Wednesday, August 11, 1965: Watts riots begin

Wednesday, August 11

     An estimated 1,000 persons rioted in the Watts district Wednesday night and attacked police and motorists with rocks, bricks and bottles before some 100 officers attempted to quell the five-hour melee by sealing off an eight-block area. ...
     The incident began with a minor disturbance about 7:19 p.m. when California Highway Patrol officers Lee Minikus and Bob Lewis stopped an auto near 116th St. and Avalon Blvd.
     The officers said they attempted to arrest driver Marquette Frye, 21, of 11620 S. Towne St., on suspicion of drunk driving along with his brother, Ronald, 22. 
     But their mother, Rena, 49, who lives near by, approached the scene and began scolding her sons, the officers said.
     The two suspects began resisting arrest and their mother joined them in berating the officers along with a crowd of about 200, they said. The shirt was torn from the back of one of the officers in the ensuing disturbance.
     Minikus and Lewis and radioed for assistance and about 20 city officers responded under a hail of rocks. The officers succeeded in leaving with the three suspects, but a large crowd began to gather at the intersection.
     -- Los Angeles Times: @ 

Thursday, August 12

     Fierce rioting again gripped the Negro section of south Los Angeles tonight. Officials called it the worst racial incident in the city's history.

     Crowds of up to 5,000 Negroes gathered in a 20-block area that had been sealed off by some 100 policemen and more than 300 deputy sheriffs. ...

     Officials were at a loss to explain the cause of the rioting, which started last night after a routine drunken driving arrest. The unusually hot, smoggy weather was doubtless a contributing factor.

     Many Negroes at the scene complained about alleged police brutality but few cited specific instances to support their charges.

     -- New York Times: @ 

Friday, August 13

     National Guardsmen with fixed bayonets marched Friday night into a Negro district where arsonists and looters were out of control and flying bullets killed both police and civilians.

     Four persons, one a deputy sheriff, were reported slain by gunshot just before the first wave of 400 steel-helmeted troops rolled into the community of Watts and quickly took over without incident.

     The area, focal point of rioting for two days, was quiet when guardsmen arrived. All the action was farther north where thousands of Negroes raced through darkness breaking into stores, looting them and igniting many.

     -- Associated Press: @

Saturday, August 14

     The nation's worst Negro uprising in two decades was crushed Saturday by 2,000 rifle-carrying National Guardsmen and armed police but sporadic violence and nearly uncontrolled looting went on throughout the area.

     At least 17 persons were killed, a thousand arrested and "astronomical" damage in the millions was caused in the three days of rioting.

     Police cautioned store owners not to risk lives by defending their property as devastated supermarkets, department stores and shops became targets again for ransacking when troops pulled back to bivouacs. Police rounded up the looters as fast as they could catch them.

     -- United Press International: @

     -- Timeline, Wednesday-Saturday (Australian Associated Press): @ 

Sunday, August 15

     A vast military maneuver Sunday seized, occupied and almost completely controlled a Negro district wracked by five days' violence. But a police officer was shot to death as rampaging Negro mobs carried violence to other areas.

     -- Associated Press: @

Monday, August 16

     Comparative calm settled over the city's troop-encircled Negro riot zone today after a wild night in which violence spread for the first time to other Southern California cities. ...

     After five straight nights of rioting by uncounted thousands of Negroes, police removed most of the barricades in a 42-square-mile "unsafe" zone and this morning residents moved about freely for the first time since Wednesday night.

     -- Associated Press: @ 

Tuesday, August 17

     Violence dwindled today in Los Angeles' vast Negro district after six days of rioting which evangelist Billy Graham called "a dress rehearsal for a revolution." ...

     Courts processed the first of more than 3,000 suspected rioters arrested.

     Food markets opened and clears, wearing pistols, sold food as troops stood guard.

     City and county offices were opened, buses rolled again, mail delivery was resumed, and clean-up crew tackled wreckage left by six days of turmoil.

     Gov. Edmund G. Brown declared the riots ended.

     But 15,000 National Guardsmen still held the 46-square-mile heart of the Los Angeles Negro district sealed within a perimeter of guns.

     -- Associated Press: @

Wednesday, August 18

     Police and National Guardsmen today unleashed a barrage of gunfire into a Black Muslim mosque in the heart of a Negro neighborhood where weeklong rioting had been declared ended. 

     Officers opened up with pistols, rifles and shotguns after several heavily-armed Negroes were reported to have entered the building and fired on police. Eight Negroes suffered head injuries in scuffling with police who charged into the temple.

     -- United Press International: @

Other resources
* "Violence in the City: An End or a Beginning? / A Report by the Governor's Commission on the Los Angeles Riots" (December 1965): @

* Summary from www.findingdulcinea.com: @

* Summary from www.blackpast.org: @

* Summary from Civil Rights Digital Library: @

* Summary from "Encyclopedia of Political Communication" (edited by Lynda Lee Kaid and Christina Holtz-Bacha, 2008): @
* "Watts Annotations" (Los Angeles Times): @
* KTLA audio, August 13, 1965 (pastdaily.com): @

* Life magazine, August 27, 1965: @
* Jet magazine, September 2, 1965: @
* Ebony magazine, October 1965: @
* Newsreel: @ 
* "There's Still Hell to Pay in Watts" (Life magazine, July 15, 1966; excerpt from "Burn, Baby, Burn!," Jerry Cohen and William S. Murphy): @
* Origins of "Burn, Baby! Burn!" (www.magnificentmontague.com): @
* Radio interview with Magnificent Montague (Public Radio Exchange, 2009): @
* "Report Takes Myth Out of That Watts Rioting" (United Press International, September 1, 1966): @

* "A Stranger in the City" (Robert Conot, 1967; from "Perspectives on Black America," 1970): @
* Marquette Frye obituary (Los Angeles Times; 1986): @

* Rena Price obituary (Los Angeles Times; 2013): @

* "Watts Riots Changed the Black Movement for Years Afterward" (United Press International, August 1990): @
* "Fire This Time: The Watts Uprising and the 1960s" (Gerald Horne, 1995): @

* "Burn Baby Burn: Small Business in the Urban Riots of the 1960s" (Jonathan J. Bean, Independent Review, 2000): @

* "Watts Riots, 40 Years Later" (Los Angeles Times, August 11, 2005): @

* "Troubled Pasts: News and the Collective Memory of Social Unrest" (Jill A. Edy, 2006): @ 

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Friday, August 6, 1965: Voting Rights Act

WASHINGTON -- President Johnson signed his monumental Negro voting rights bill today, treading the century-old path of Abraham Lincoln, and declaring the new law is a triumph for freedom as great as any won on the battlefield.

     First, in the vaulted rotunda of the Capitol, Johnson said the measure will "strike away the last major shackles of those fierce and ancient bonds" which have bound American Negroes. ... Then he moved to the ornate President's Room off the Senate chamber, to etch his signature with dozens of souvenir pens, writing on a desk that Secretary Felton Johnson said Lincoln used in signing a measure to free slaves impressed into war service by the Confederacy. ... 

     By next week, he said, federal officials will be at work in the South, registering Negroes who have been kept from the polling place.

     -- Story from Associated Press (full story: @)

     -- Top photo, Johnson signing bill into law (Corbis); bottom photo, Camden, Alabama, 1966 (Flip Schulke)

* First and last page (www.ourdocuments.gov): @
* Full text (U.S. Statutes at Large, Volume 79, 89th Congress, 1st Session): @

* Text of LBJ speech (LBJ Library): @

* Video of LBJ speech (LBJ Library): @

* Universal Newsreel (Critical Past): @

* Photos (LBJ Library; search for "Voting Rights Act"): @ 
* Photos ("50th Anniversary of the Voting Rights Act," Corbis Images): @
* "Voting Rights Legislation Means Changes For South" (James Marlow, Associated Press, August 9, 1965): @ 
* "A Million New Negro Voters?" (U.S. News & World Report, August 16, 1965; from Library of Congress): @
* "LBJ Signs Voting Bill; Attacks Poll Tax" (Jet magazine, August 19, 1965): @
* "The New Voting Law Goes into Action" (Life magazine, August 20, 1965): @
* "Introduction to Federal Voting Rights Law" (U.S. Department of Justice): @
* "Civil Rights in America: Racial Voting Rights" (National Historic Landmarks Program): @

* "Bending Toward Justice: The Voting Rights Act and the Transformation of American Democracy" (Gary May, 2013): @

* "The Most Fundamental Right: Contrasting Perspectives on the Voting Rights Act" (edited by Daniel McCool, 2012): @
* "Quiet Revolution in the South: The Impact of the Voting Rights Act, 1965-1990" (edited by Chandler Davidson and Bernard Grofman, 1994): @ 

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Thursday, August 5, 1965: CBS report on Cam Ne, South Vietnam

CBS airs Morley Safer's report on U.S. Marines setting fire to houses in Cam Ne, a village southwest of Da Nang Air Base in South Vietnam. Reaction ranges from unease to outrage (by viewers angry at CBS, as well as by President Johnson in a blistering phone call to CBS President Frank Stanton). The report is considered a milestone moment in media coverage of the Vietnam War.

     -- The incident at Cam Ne took place on August 3, while Safer's report aired on August 5. The story at top appeared August 3 in the Logansport (Indiana) Pharos-Tribune; the photo ran August 7 in The La Crosse (Wisconsin) Tribune.

* Watch the segment (CBS News): @

* Video interview with Safer (Archive of American Television, 2000): @

* Account from Safer (from "Reporting America at War," PBS, 2003): @
* "Marines Ordered to Stop Burning Viet Nam Villages" (Los Angeles Times, August 23, 1965): @

* "What Really Happened at Cam Ne" (www.historynet.com, 2006): @

* "When The World Began Watching" (The Alicia Patterson Foundation, 2011): @

* "The Power and The Profits: Part II" (David Halberstam, The Atlantic magazine, February 1976): @

* "The Powers That Be" (Halberstam, 1975): @

* Video interview with Halberstam (WGBH, 1979): @
* "The 6:00 Follies: Hegemony, Television News, and the War of Attrition" (Elizabeth J. Burnette, American Studies at the University of Virginia, 2005): @
* Excerpt from "The Uncensored War: The Media and Vietnam" (Daniel C. Hallin, 1986): @

* Excerpt from "The Legacy: The Vietnam War in the American Imagination" (from chapter titled "Vietnam and the Press," Michael X. Delli Carpini; book edited by D. Michael Shafer, 1990): @
* Excerpt from "The Sixties: From Memory to History" (from chapter titled "And That's The Way It Was: The Vietnam War on the Network Nightly News," Chester J. Pach Jr.; book edited by David Farber, 1994): @
* "Excerpt from "The U.S. Government and the Vietnam War: Executive and Legislative Roles and Relationships, Part IV" (William C. Gibbons, 1995): @

* Excerpt from "The End of Victory Culture: Cold War America and the Disillusioning of a Generation" (Tom Engelhardt, 1995): @

* Excerpt from "Encyclopedia of Media and Propaganda in Wartime America" (edited by Martin J. Manning and Clarence R. Wyatt, 2011): @ 

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August 1965: Up with People

Moral Re-Armament was an international religious movement that developed in 1938 from the ideas of an American, Rev. N.D. Buchman, and his students called the Oxford Group. Buchman headed the MRA until his death in 1961. The Oxford Group believed the world in the late 1930s needed moral re-armament, not military re-armament. Initially based in Christian roots, the group grew to encompass people of various backgrounds and faith who believed in the "Four Absolutes" -- absolute honesty, absolute purity, absolute unselfishness and absolute love. (From Clarke Historical Library, Central Michigan University: @)

Up with People -- essentially the Moral Re-Armament doctrine set to upbeat songs -- emerged from the group's annual conference at Mackinac Island, Michigan, in June 1965. The show by the troupe of young people, called "Sing-Out '65," was first staged in Stamford, Connecticut, in early August. Among the songs was "Up with People!", which the touring group later took as its name.

     -- Images from program for "The Colwell Brothers in Sing-Out '65" (University of Arizona): @

* Up with People website: @

* Timeline (From UWP): @

* Up with People alumni website: @
* Up with People Digital Collection (University of Arizona): @
* "Up with People!" song (audio): @
* Up with People YouTube channel: @
* "Change Yourself -- And You Can Change the World" (Kiplinger's Personal Finance, June 1953): @
* "Escalation of an Answer" (Moral Re-Armament advertisement, The Desert Sun, Palm Springs, Calif.; July 12, 1965): @

* "Sing-Out Turns Into Big Thrust" (King Features Syndicate, September 23, 1965): @
* "Moral Re-Armament Plans Revolution of Love, Purity" (United Press International, October 20, 1965): @

* "Smile 'Til It Hurts" (website for 2009 documentary): @

* "Moral Re-Armament: The Reinventions of an American Religious Movement" (Daniel Sack, 2009): @

* "Frank Buchman: A Life" (Garth Lean, 1985): @

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Thursday, September 3, 1964: Wilderness Act

President Johnson today signed into law the wilderness conservation bill -- a gift from the present generation to the future of 9 million acres of woodland recreation areas. In a White House bill-signing ceremony, Johnson termed the event "a very happy and history occasion for all who love the out of doors, and that includes me." Under the wilderness bill, 61 million acres of woodland eventually could be preserved in the same state as when Indians roamed the land. Most of the 9 million acres immediately covered is in the Western states.

     -- United Press International (story: @)

* Text: @

* "Johnson Signs Wilderness and Recreation Bills" (Associated Press): @

* Johnson's remarks (The American Presidency Project): @
* Summary (The Wilderness Society): @

* Summary (U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service): @
* Summary (U.S. Department of Justice, Environmental and Natural Resources Division): @

* Locations (www.wilderness.net): @
* "America's Public Lands: From Yellowstone to Smokey Bear and Beyond" (Randall K. Wilson, 2014): @ 

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Friday, August 28, 1964: Spaghetti Westerns

Directed by Sergio Leone and starring Clint Eastwood as The Man With No Name, "Per un pugno di dollari" ("A Fistful of Dollars") opens in Florence, Italy. The movie, shot in Spain, was influential in the genre that came to be known as the "Spaghetti Western." From the Spaghetti Western Database:

The spaghetti western was born in the first half of the sixties and lasted until the second half of the seventies. It got its name from the fact that most of them were directed and produced by Italians, often in collaboration with other European countries, especially Spain and Germany. The name "spaghetti western" originally was a depreciative term, given by foreign critics to these films because they thought they were inferior to American westerns. Most of the films were made with low budgets, but several still managed to be innovative and artistic, although at the time they didn't get much recognition, even in Europe. In the eighties the reputation of the genre grew and today the term is no longer used disparingly, although some Italians still prefer to call the films western all'italiana (westerns Italian style). In Japan they are called macaroni westerns, in Germany Italowestern.

Notes:

* The movie's early success led to its opening in Rome on September 12, but it was not released in the United States until 1967.

* The Sergio Leone biography linked below quotes him as saying the film opened on August 27. However, he goes on to talk about the film's poor attendance on Friday (August 28) and Saturday; also, most Italian websites list the date as August 28.

* "A Fistful of Dollars" entry from Turner Classic Movies: @

* "Westerns ... All'Italiana!" (blog): @

* "Spaghetti Westerns: The Good, the Bad and the Violent" (Thomas Weisser, 1992): @

* "Once Upon A Time in the Italian West: The Filmgoers' Guide to Spaghetti Westerns" (Howard Hughes, 2004): @
* "Sergio Leone: Something to Do with Death" (Christopher Frayling, 2000): @

* "The Films of Sergio Leone" (Robert C. Cumbow, 2008): @
* www.fistful-of-leone.com: @ 

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