Monday, February 7, 1966: Crawdaddy magazine

Paul Williams, a student at Pennsylvania's Swarthmore College, publishes the first issue of Crawdaddy magazine, "intelligent writing about pop music." (Williams said it was actually printed on January 30 and given a publication date of February 7.) Though at first the magazine consisted entirely of record reviews, over time it added more in-depth coverage of the artists as well as of the era itself. Crawdaddy preceded such magazines as Rolling Stone (1967) and Creem (1969). 

     -- Image: First paragraph of first issue

* Selections from archives (Paste magazine): @

* Selections from archives (Rock's Back Pages; subscription required): @

* Selections from archives (complete issues from February 7, 1966, through October 1968): @

* Paul Williams website (Williams died in 2013): @
* "The Crawdaddy! Book: Writings (and Images) from the Magazine of Rock" (edited by Williams, 2002): @

* "Very Seventies: A Cultural History of the 1970s, from the Pages of Crawdaddy" (edited by Peter Knobler and Greg Mitchell, 1995): @
* Excerpt from "Understanding Popular Music Culture" (Roy Schuker, 2016): @

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Thursday, February 3, 1966: Luna 9

A Soviet space station made history's first soft landing on the moon Thursday, Moscow announced. British scientists in England said the unmanned capsule, Luna 9, sent pictures back to earth from the moon's surface. A Tass announcement said the landing was made ... after the ship, launched Jan. 31, had hurtled through space for more than three days. The first American attempt at a soft landing, a key step in putting a man on the moon, is not expected before May. A soft landing means bringing an instrument package down on the surface slowly enough so that there is no crash and resultant destruction.

     -- Associated Press: @

     -- Image from Jodrell Bank Centre for Astrophysics, University of Manchester: @  (More from Jodrell Bank: @)

* "Soviets Soft Land on Moon" (St. Petersburg Times): @
* "Soviet's Luna 9 Lands on Moon, Photos Sent" (United Press International): @

* Summary from BBC: @

* Summary from NASA: @ and @
* Summary from Zarya: @

* "The Search for Luna 9" (Air & Space magazine, September 2015): @

* "The forgotten moon landing that paved the way for today's space adventures" (The Conversation, February 2016): @

* "How Russia Beat the U.S. to the Moon" (The Daily Beast, February 2016): @ 

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February 1966: Southern Living magazine

Begun as a section in The Progressive Farmer titled "The Progressive Home" (retitled "Southern Living" in 1963), a new monthly magazine made its debut as a separate publication, Southern Living, in February 1966. At a time when the South was changing rapidly from a rural to a more urban region, Southern Living targeted families who often lived in suburbs, owned their homes, and enjoyed cooking, gardening, entertaining, travel and home-improvement projects.

     -- From "The Companion to Southern Literature: Themes, Genres, Places, People, Movements, and Motifs" (2002): @

* Southern Living 50th Anniversary Headquarters: @

* Entry from Encyclopedia of Alabama: @

* Entry from North Carolina History Project: @

* "Azalea Death Trip: A Journey Through the Land of Southern Living" (Allen Tullos, Southern Changes, 1979): @

* "Living Southern in Southern Living" (Diane Roberts, in "Dixie Debates: Perspectives on Southern Cultures," 1996): @
* "Life at Southern Living: A Sort of Memoir" (John Logue and Gary McCalla, 2000): @

* "Whitewashing Southern Living: The Sociocultural Significance of the 1966 Magazine Launch in Birmingham, Alabama" (Summer Hill-Vinson, 2011): @

* "A Timely Invention: The Evolution of The Progressive Farmer and Southern Living" (Jamie Cole, 2012): @
* "Southern Living at 50: Editors reflect and look toward the future" (Alabama News Center, 2016): @ 

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Saturday, February 27, 1965: Vietnam 'white paper'

The United States published a new "white paper" on Viet Nam today that charged North Viet Nam with waging an aggressive war against South Viet Nam as if it were an open invasion. ... An evident purpose of the report, too, is to lend support to the Johnson administration's policy of striking against targets in North Viet Nam. These bombings, undertaken three weeks ago, are expected to continue. ... The white paper was designed to show with precise figures the extent to which Viet Cong guerrillas in the south are supported and controlled by North Viet Nam. Thereby it sought to refute any suggestion that it is simply a civil war being fought in South Viet Nam.

     -- Associated Press (link to story: @)

* "Aggression From the North: The Record of North Viet-Nam's Campaign to Conquer South-Vietnam" (complete report; from The Vietnam Center and Archive, Texas Tech University): @ 

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Thursday, February 18, 1965: 'Grave but by no means hopeless'

Presenting the military budget to Congress, Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara states: "The present situation in South Viet Nam is grave but by no means hopeless." His words echo exactly those of Secretary of State John Foster Dulles in describing the situation in Indochina in 1954.

Dulles, June 4, 1954 (Associated Press story: @) 

* "The Threat of Direct Communist Chinese Intervention in Indochina" (Dulles, June 1954; from The Avalon Project, Yale Law School): @ 
* "The French Indochina War 1946-54" (Martin Windrow, 1998): @ 

McNamara, February 18, 1965 (Associated Press story: @)

* Full text of statement (from Department of Defense): @
* "Extracts of Statements by Robert S. McNamara on the Outlook in South Vietnam" (from The Harold Weisberg Archive): @
* "Leaders' Statements on Southeast Asia Examined" (Associated Press, February 21): @
* Excerpt from "Johnson's War/Johnson's Great Society: The Guns and Butter Trap" (Jeffrey W. Helsing, 2000): @ 

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Saturday, February 13, 1965: Tiros-9

The Tiros-9 satellite (also known as Tiros IX) produces the first photomosaic of the world's cloud cover.

Caption: This global photomosaic was assembled from 450 individual pictures taken by Tiros IX during the 24 hours of February 13, 1965. The horizontal white line marks the equator. Special photographic processing was used to increase the contrast between major land areas, outlined in white, and the surrounding oceans. The brightest features on the photographs are clouds; ice in the Antarctic, and snow in the north are also very bright. The clouds are associated with many different types of weather patterns. The scalloping at the bottom shows how the Earth's horizon appears in individual pictures.

(Photo from National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration; link to larger image: @)

* "U.S. Has Big Wheel Satellite In Orbit" (Associated Press, January 22): @

* NASA summary of Tiros-9: @

* NASA summaries of all Tiros missions: @

* Tiros-9 summary (Florida State University): @

* "Catalogue of Meteorological Satellite Data -- Tiros IX" (Environmental Science Services Administration): @ and @

* "Observation of the Earth and Its Environment: Survey of Missions and Sensors" (Herbert J. Kramer, 2002): @

* "Earth Observations from Space" (National Academy of Sciences): @

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February 1964: Pierre Brassau

A 4 1/2-year-old chimpanzee namd Peter lives in an animal park in Goteborg, Sweden. Last fall a couple of newspapermen on the Goteborgs-Tidningen got the idea that maybe Peter could paint pictures. On the sly, they gave the chimp a palette, paints, brushes and canvas, and Peter promptly set to work. Recently the newspapermen picked out four of Peter's better paintings and slipped them into a local art show to see what the critics would say. The paintings were signed Pierre Brassau, who was described as an unknown French painter. The critics fell for the monkey business, especially Rolf Anderberg of the morning Posten, who wrote rapturously: "Pierre Brassau paints with powerful strokes but also with clear determination. His brush strokes twist with a furious fastidiousness on the canvas." Critic Anderberg then went on to compare Pierre with another painter in the show. The other painter, Anderberg wrote, was ponderous but "Pierre is an artist who performs with the delicacy of a ballet dancer." When the hoax was revealed, Anderberg was bitter. He insisted that Pierre's work was "still the best painting in the exhibition." He may be right. A private collector bought one canvas for $90.

     -- "Monkey Business," Sports Illustrated, February 24, 1964

* Summary from The Museum of Hoaxes: @

* Winners of 2013 Chimpanzee Art Contest (from The Humane Society of the United States): @ 

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Tuesday, February 25, 1964: Cassius Clay

Jabbing, jabbering Cassius Clay ruled as heavyweight champion of the world today in an unbelievable upset at Miami Beach because of one punch -- and he didn't even throw it. Sonny Liston, the supposedly unconquerable "killer," threw the punch and when it missed the follow-through, twisted a tendon in his massive left shoulder.

     -- The Miami News (link: @)

Tuesday night was the night that was for Cassius Clay. He became heavyweight boxing champion of the world -- just like he said he would. He didn't do it so much with his fists, or his fast talk for which he is noted, but with an "injury" to his opponent, Charles "Sonny" Liston. 

     -- United Press International (link: @)

Cassius Clay, a 7-1 longshot, scored one of the major upsets in boxing history Tuesday night when Sonny Liston gave up the world heavyweight title in his corner because of a strained left shoulder.

     -- Associated Press (link: @)

Incredibly, the loud-mouthed bragging, insulting youngster had been telling the truth all along. Cassius Clay won the world heavyweight title tonight when a bleeding Sonny Liston, his left shoulder injured, was unable to answer the bell for the seventh round.
     -- The New York Times (link to PDF: @)

Like the Lord High Executioner getting ready for another payday, Sonny Liston fixed a fresh victim with his famous full-whammy stare. Cassius Clay didn't pay much attention. Taunting, jabbing and above all, staying out of range of the champ's left hook, Clay simply kept his mind on proving that, as he had so often noted, "I am the greatest!"
     -- Life magazine (March 6; link: @)

There is no terror, Cassius, in your threats.
-- Julius Caesar, Act IV, Scene 3
     But there was. In Miami Beach last week, Cassius Marcellus Clay Jr. acted out a scene that was worthy of the Old Bard himself -- or maybe P.T. Barnum. Just as he said he would, he took the heavyweight championship of the world away from Charles ("Sonny") Liston, thereby proving that the mouth is faster than the eye.
     -- Time magazine (March 6; subscription-only link: @)

It was, no matter what you have read or heard, an enormously exciting fight. It matched the classic contenders for a heavyweight championship of the world -- a beautiful, controlled boxer against a man who could hit with deadly power. The fight -- Clay against Liston -- restored balance and intelligence to the concept of boxing. The boxer, using his skills with aplomb and courage and forethought, confounded and defeated the slugger.
     -- Sports Illustrated magazine (March 9; link: @)

The February 25 midnight "Victory Party" planned for Sonny Liston at Miami Beach's luxurious Fontainebleau Hotel was canceled due to the lack of a guest of honor. 
     -- Jet magazine (March 12; link: @)

     -- Photo by Associated Press

January 27
"Fighter Cassius Clay Has Keen Interest in Muslims" (New York Herald Tribune): @

February 28
"Cassius Clay Admits Adoption of Black Muslim Membership" (Associated Press): @

"Cassius Clay Admits He's a Black Muslim" (Associated Press): @
"Clay Admits Joining Black Muslims Sect" (United Press International): @

March 7
Elijah Muhammad, leader of the Black Muslims, Friday night bestowed upon heavyweight champion Cassius Clay the name "Muhammad Ali." (Associated Press): @

* Video of fight: @
* Excerpt from "Bert Sugar on Boxing" (2003): @
* "Ali and Liston: The Boy Who Would Be King and the Ugly Bear" (Bob Mee, 2011): @
* "The Devil and Sonny Liston" (Nick Tosches, 2000): @ 

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Friday, February 7, 1964: Byron De La Beckwith mistrial

An all-white jury was unable to reach a decision Friday after trying for 11 hours to decide if Byron De La Beckwith assassinated Negro leader Medgar Evers and a mistrial was declared. 
     -- United Press International; full story: @
     
     -- Photo from Corbis Images. Caption reads: Jackson, Mississippi: Byron De La Beckwith, 43, went on trial here early January 27 for the ambush slaying last year of Negro leader Medgar Evers. Sheriff Fred Pickett, recalling the racial bitterness in the city after the slaying, has placed heavy security on trial arrangements. This photo was made last June as Beckwith was taken to the State Mental Hospital at Whitfield for tests. No pictures will be made during the trial of him.

* "Mistrial Declared in Beckwith Case" (UPI, February 7): @
* "Beckwith Case Ruled Mistrial" (Associated Press, February 7): @

* Earlier post on the death of Medgar Evers (June 12, 1963): @ 

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Tuesday, February 4, 1964: Drinking and driving

"The Role of the Drinking Driver in Traffic Accidents," also known as the Grand Rapids Study, is published by Robert F. Borkenstein et al. for Indiana University's Department of Police Administration. A summary of its findings, from "Alcohol and Road Accidents" (Australia Legislative Council, 1970; link: @):

The probability of accident involvement increases rapidly at alcohol levels over .08 percent and becomes extremely high at levels over .15 percent. ... Drivers with an alcohol level of .06 percent have an estimated probability of causing an accident double that of a sober driver. Drivers with .10 percent B.A.L. are from six to seven times as likely to cause an accident as one with .00 percent alcohol level. When the .15 percent alcohol level is reached, the probability of causing an accident is estimated at more than 25 times the probability for that of a sober driver.

* Robert F. Borkenstein papers, Indiana University (follow link to see entire study): @

* "Professor Robert F. Borkenstein -- An Appreciation of His Life and Work" (from The Robert F. Borkenstein Course, Center for Studies of Law in Action, Indiana University): @

* "Grand Rapids Effects Revisited: Accidents, Alcohol and Risk" (Kruger et al., 1995, from Schaffer Library of Drug Policy): @

* "Driver Characteristics and Impairment at Various BACs" (from National Highway Traffic Safety Administration): @
* "Alcohol-Related Morbidity and Mortality" (from National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, 2003): @ 

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February 1963: Vietnam

Armed with U.S. rifles, women paramilitary volunteers salute as they march past Vietnam's first lady Madame Ngo Dinh Nhu during a military school graduation in Saigon, Feb. 27, 1963. South Vietnam had about 3,000 trained women at the time, with about 1,000 active in the country's military or social service. (AP Photo/Horst Faas)

* From "Vietnam War Almanac" (James H. Willbanks, 2009): Senior White House aide Michael V. Forrestal advises President Kennedy to expect a long and costly war. ... He warns that, in his opinion, Viet Cong recruitment in South Vietnam is effective enough to continue the war even without infiltration from the North. (Forrestal's report was written in late January and apparently presented to Kennedy in early February.)

--  Text of report (from U.S. Department of State): @

* February 24. From The New York Times: A Senate study group warned today the struggle for Vietnamese independence was fast becoming an "American war" that could not be justified by present United States security interests in the area. The four-man panel, headed by Senator Mike Mansfield, the majority leader, called for a "a thorough reassessment of our over-all security requirements on the Southeast Asian mainland" with a view to the orderly curtailment of United States aid programs ... (The) group questioned whether the $5,000,0000,000 spent in aiding Southeast Asia since 1950 had been justified by the results. It was even more doubtful about the wisdom of continuing present policies indefinitely. ... "There is no interest of the United States in Viet Nam which would justify, in present circumstances, the conversion of the war in that country primarily into an American war, to be fought primarily with American lives."

* Summary of report (from U.S. Department of State): @

* Text of report (from Vietnam Center and Archive, Texas Tech University): @

* February 25. From United Press International: The United States has decided to permit its soldiers to shoot first in the Vietnamese guerrilla war without waiting to be fired on by the Communists, it was reported today. The move is aimed at checking the growing U.S. casualty rate in the undeclared jungle war, according to informed sources. Another young American died yesterday. A young machine gunner was killed when two U.S. Army H-21 helicopters were downed by Communist Viet Cong ground fire. The machine gunner, a private first class, was not indentified. His death brought to 52 the number of Americans killed in combat since the United States began its military buildup in South Vietnam in 1961. Informed military sources said the new "rules of engagement" will permit the U.S. Army's new HU-1 gas turbine helicopters to open fire on "positively identified" guerrillas without waiting to be fired on first as heretofore.

-- Memorandum from the Joint Chiefs of Staff to the Secretary of Defense (dated February 16; from U.S. Department of State): @ 

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Thursday, February 21, 1963: The end of Telstar 1

The pioneering communications satellite, launched on July 10, 1962, stops transmitting. From a United Press International story dated February 28, 1963:

   NEW YORK -- Telstar has turned silent again, apparently succumbing to a radiation sickness that afflicts it every three months, Bell Telephone Laboratories reported Thursday.

   Engineers had restored the commnications satellite to working order Jan. 3 after a 40-day absence. Last Thursday it apparently misinterpreted a ground command, disconnected its storage batteries and quit working, Bell Labs said.

   Both failures occurred as Telstar's changing orbit edged into strong sections of the Van Allen radiation belt. This pattern makes Bell Engineers "suspect that the continued inhibiting effects of radiation on transistors" is to blame, Bell spokesman Bruce Strasser said.

* Earlier post on Telstar: @

* "How the U.S. Accidentally Nuked Its Own Communications Satellite" (Scientific American, July 2012): @

Note: The satellite's demise happened the same week that the otherworldly hit song "Telstar" dropped off Billboard's Hot 100 music chart after a 16-week run. The song, which had been No. 1 in the U.S. for three weeks in December 1962-January 1963, was still a Top 10 hit around the world, including No. 2 in France, No. 7 in South Africa and No. 8 in Holland.

* Listen to the song: @

* Entry from "The Billboard Book of No. 1 Hits" (Fred Bronson): @

* Billboard magazine (February 16, 1963): @

* Billboard magazine (February 23): @

* The Tornados (from www.allmusic.com): @ 

* The Joe Meek Society: @

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Tuesday, February 19, 1963: 'The Feminine Mystique'

Betty Friedan's "The Feminine Mystique" is published by W.W. Norton and Co. From the Jewish Women's Archive:

   The book highlighted Friedan's view of a coercive and post-World War II ideology of female domesticity that stifled middle-class women's opportunities to be anything but homemakers.

   A survey she conducted of her Smith College classmates indicated that many felt depressed even though they supposedly enjoyed ideal lives with husbands, homes, and children. Enlargin her inquiry, Friedan found what she called "the problem that has no name" was common among women far beyond the educated East Coast elite. ... She showed how women's magazine's, advertising, Freudian psychologists, and educators reflected and perpetuated a domestic ideal that left many women deeply unhappy. In suppressing women's personal growth, Friedan argued, society lost a vast reservoir of human potential.

   Friedan's book is credited with sparking second-save feminism (see note) by directing women's attention to the broad social basis of their problems, stirring many to political and social activism.

Note: "Second-wave feminism" is defined in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy as the period in the late 1960s and early 1970s "when feminists pushed beyond the early quest for political rights to fight for greater equality across the board, e.g., in education, the workplace, and at home."

Photo from Corbis Images, dated October 1963; caption reads, "Betty Friedan attends to Abraham Lincoln bust in her home."

* 50th-anniversary edition: @

* New York Times review (April 1963): @

* Advertisement in The New York Times Book Review (June 1963): @
* "The Skeptical Early Reviews of Betty Friedan's 'The Feminine Mystique' " (The Atlantic, 2013): @

* " 'The Feminine Mystique' at 50" (New York Times, January 2013): @

* C-SPAN programs: @

* Entry from "Encyclopedia of Leadership" (Berkshire Publishing Group, 2004): @

* "Betty Friedan and the Making of 'The Feminine Mystique' " (Daniel Horowitz, 1998): @

* "A Strange Stirring: 'The Feminine Mystique' and American Women at the Dawn of the 1960s" (Stephanie Coontz, 2011): @
* Episode of BBC's "Witness" series (2013): @
* "The Second Wave: A Reader in Feminist Theory" (edited by Linda Nicholson, 1997): @ 

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Monday, February 18, 1963: San Francisco coffee

The San Francisco Chronicle publishes a front-page story on the city's coffee "crisis" -- the poor quality of coffee served to restaurant patrons. It would make famous the headline "A Great City's People Forced to Drink Swill." (The Chronicle would report in 1995: "The crusade continued for several weeks. The results: Street sales of the newspaper soared -- and the coffee served in upscale restaurants improved markedly.")

* Text of story: @

* Anniversary story from the Chronicle's The Big Event site: @
* "The State of the American Newspaper: The Battle of the Bay" (American Journalism Review, 1999): @

* Excerpt from "Season of the Witch: Enchantment, Terror and Deliverance in the City of Love" (David Talbot, 2012): @

* Excerpt from "Fat Man on the Left: Four Decades in the Underground" (Lionel Rolfe, 1998): @ 

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Friday, February 15, 1963: Irradiation

   The process of irradiating food is approved by the U.S. government, with the first food being canned bacon (to preserve it longer). In August, wheat and wheat powder would be added (to kill insects). The labeling symbol for irradiated foods would be adopted in 1986.

   From a U.S. Department of Agriculture fact sheet (link below):
   Food irradiation is a technology for controlling spoilage and eliminating foodborne pathogens. The result is similar to pasteurization. The fundamental difference between food irradiation and pasteurization is the source of the energy used to destroy the microbes. While conventional pasteurization relies on heat, irradiation relies on the energy of ionizing radiation. Food irradiation is a process in which approved foods are exposed to radiant energy, including gamma rays, electron beams and X-rays. ... Irradiation of meat and poultry is done in a government-approved irradiation facility. Irradiation is not a substitute for good sanitation and process control in meat and poultry plants. It is an added layer of safety.
* USDA fact sheet: @
* Summary from U.S. Food and Drug Administration: @
* Summary from Cooperative Extension Service, University of Georgia: @
* Historical milestones (also from University of Georgia): @
* U.S. Code of Federal Regulations (pages 548-549; 1964): @
* "Irradiated Food Questioned" (FDA news release, 1965): @
* "Irradiation of Foods -- An FDA Perspective" (1986): @
* Safety of Irradiated Foods" (J.F. Diehl, 1995): @
* "Food Irradiation: A Reference Guide" (Vanessa M. Wilkinson and Grahame Warwick Gould, 1996): @ 
* "Food Irradiation: Available Research Indicates That Benefits Outweigh Risks" (General Accounting Office, 2000): @

* "Irradiation and the 'Ick Factor' " (New York Times, 2011): @ 

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Tuesday, February 12, 1963: Gateway Arch

Construction begins on the Gateway Arch in St. Louis, Missouri, symbolizing the westward expansion of the United States in the 19th century. (The structure would be completed in October 1965; photo from July 1965.)

* www.gatewayarch.com: @

* Jefferson National Expansion Memorial (from National Park Service): @

* "The Incredible Gateway Arch" (Popular Mechanics, December 1963): @

* Exhibit on Eero Saarinen, who designed the arch (www.eerosaarinen.net): @

* "Eero Saarinen: An Architecture of Multiplicity" (Antonio Roman, 2006): @ 

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