May 1961: Freedom Rides

United Press International photo. The original caption reads:

JACKSON, MISS.: Jackson police and their police dogs watch from sidewalk as Trailways bus carrying "Freedom riders" arrives here 5/24. There were no incidents of violence, but "riders" were arrested and jailed almost immediately.

Thursday, May 4

Aboard two buses, 13 civil rights activists leave Washington, D.C., en route to the American South to test those states' acceptance of and adherence to Boynton v. Virginia, the 1960 Supreme Court ruling that had extended desgregation on interstate travel. The plan was to arrive in New Orleans, Louisiana, on May 17, the seventh anniversary of the Brown v. Board of Education ruling.

The Associated Press reports: "Thirteen members of an interracial group headed for the Deep South today on a bus trip to challenge segregation. Traveling by regular interstate buses, they planned to reach New Orleans on May 17 after numerous stops. Among the seven Negroes on the journey was James Farmer, 41 years old, of New York, national director of the sponsoring organization, the Congress of Racial Equality. At a news conference, Mr. Farmer indicated the project would be a sit-in on wheels, designed to discourage segregation at interstate bus terminal restaurants, rest rooms and similar facilities. "If there is arrest, we will accept that arrest," he said, "and if there is violence, we are willing to receive that violence without responding in kind."

* April 26 letter from James Farmer to President Kennedy (from JFK Library): @

* Original itinerary (from visionaryproject.org): @

* "Pilgrimage Off On Racial Test" (Washington Post, May 5, 1961): @

Monday, May 8

First arrest: Joseph Perkins is charged with trespassing after trying to have his shoes shined at a barber shop in Charlotte, North Carolina. He spends two nights in jail, then is released when a local judge cites Boynton v. Virginia.

Tuesday, May 9

First violence: John Lewis, Albert Bigelow and Genevieve Hughes are roughed up by a group of white men at the bus terminal in Rock Hill, South Carolina. They decline to press charges.

Sunday, May 14

Anniston, Alabama: The first of two buses arrives in Anniston, en route to Birmingham. A white mob attacks at the bus station, smashing windows and slashing tires. After 20 minutes the bus leaves, stopping six miles outside town because of the flat tires -- but the crowd has followed, with cars in front and behind. A firebomb is thrown into the bus, and as it burns, the passengers are beaten as they scramble to get out. (Photo taken by Joe Postiglione of The Anniston Star.)

* Account from "Freedom Riders" book: @

* Anniston Star newspaper (stories, photos, documents): @

* Historical marker: @

Birmingham, Alabama: Running an hour behind the first bus, a second bus also stops in Anniston, where several whites board and attack the riders. They leave Anniston for Birmingham, but it only gets worse there. Bull Connor, the commissioner of public safety, had agreed to let the attackers have a free hand for 15 minutes before police would intervene. Another, more vicious attack follows.

* Birmingham Civil Rights Institute: @

* "Alabama Mob Ambush Bus, Beat Biracial Group and Burn Bus" (Jet magazine, May 25): @

* "But for Birmingham: The Local and National Movements in the Civil Rights Struggle": (book by Glenn T. Eskew) @

* Historical marker: @

* Telegram from James Farmer to President Kennedy: @

Monday, May 15

End of first Freedom Ride: The Birmingham riders are unable to leave for Montgomery, Alabama, their next planned stop; bus drivers are unwilling to make the trip if they are aboard. The U.S. government finally arranges a late-night flight to New Orleans.

* "Eyewitness Report on Dixie 'Freedom Ride' " (Jet magazine, June 1): @

* Phone conversation between Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy and George Cruit, superintendent of the Greyhound Bus Depot in Birmingham (from Birmingham History Center): @

Wednesday, May 17

Birmingham: College students in Nashville, Tennessee, decide to keep the Rides going. They travel to Birmingham, where several are held in "protective custody," then driven to the Alabama-Tennessee border just after midnight on May 18, left by the side of the road and advised to return to Nashville. Instead they make their way back to Birmingham.

Saturday, May 20 - Tuesday, May 23

Mongomery, Alabama: The riders leave Birmingham on May 20. They are accompanied by state troopers to the Montgomery city limits and no farther. As was the case in Birmingham, there is no immediate police protection at the Montgomery bus station, and the Riders are attacked. James Zwerg (above) is beaten unconscious, his teeth fractured and several vertebrae cracked. John Seigenthaler, an assistant to Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy, is in Montgomery to try to ensure the Riders' safety, but cannot ensure his own as he is knocked out by a lead pipe to the head. The Riders take refuge in the First Baptist Church; outside, federal marshals (sent in by Kennedy) and then the Alabama National Guard (after Gov. John Patterson declares martial law) keep the white mob at bay. On May 21, the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. speaks at the church during a rally for the riders. (Click here for transcript). State and federal officials, thoroughly at odds, wrestle with how to get the riders out of town.

* Account from "Parting the Waters: America in the King Years, 1954-63" (book by Taylor Branch): @

* New York Times front page (May 21): @

* "Trouble in Alabama" (Time magazine, May 26): @

* "Bloody beatings, burning bus in the South" (Life magazine, May 26): @

* James Zwerg, speaking from hospital bed: @

* Interview with Zwerg (from pbs.org): @

* 2011 story on Zwerg (from CNN): @

* Account from Susan Herrman (as told to Los Angeles Times, 1961): @

* Photos from opening of Freedom Rides Museum (Montgomery Advertiser, May 20, 2011): @

* Summary of all Alabama incidents (from Encyclopedia of Alabama): @

* Newspaper clippings (from Birmingham Public Library Digital Collections; Freedom Riders coverage starts on Page 49): @

* Historical marker: @

Wednesday, May 24

Jackson, Mississippi: The first busload of Riders travels from Montgomery to Jackson. National Guardsmen, the highway patrol and local police line the route and travel alongside -- and aboard -- the bus. (A second busload would arrive later in the day.) Riders are arrested and charged with breach of peace, inciting to riot and failure to obey a police officer. In the coming months, new Riders would answer a nationwide call and descend on Jackson; more than 300 would be arrested at bus and train stations and at the airport. Employing the strategy of "jail, no bail," they would overflow Jackson's city and county jails, and some would be sent to the Mississippi State Penitentiary at Parchman.

* Mugshots of people arrested in Jackson (from Mississippi Sovereignty Commission): @

* Time magazine, June 2 (click on "Crisis in Civil Rights," "Three Questions of Law" and "Four Freedom Riders"): @

* Time magazine, June 9: @

* Life magazine, June 2: @

* Jet magazine, June 8: @

* Newspaper clippings (from Birmingham Public Library Digital Collections; Freedom Riders coverage starts on Page 8): @

* The Citizens' Council newspaper (organization originally known as White Citizens' Council; coverage of events in Jackson is in June edition): @

* Letter from Parchman superintendent Fred Jones to mother of Joan Trumpower, arrested June 8 (from "Breach of Peace" blog): @

* Bus station historical marker (dedicated May 24, 2011): @ 

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May 1961: Archigram

Six London architects publish their ideas for transforming cities in a series of influential magazines, the first of which appeared in May 1961 (left). The collective and the magazine, both titled Archigram (combining ARCHItecture and teleGRAM), outlined projects that mixed urban planning with pop culture, futurism and fun.

* Summary from London's Design Museum: @

* Summary from School of Architecture, University College London: @

* Official website: @

* The Archigram Archival Project: @

* "Archigram: Architecture without Architecture" (book by Simon Sadler): @

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Thursday, May 11, 1961: Vietnam

President Kennedy approves National Security Action Memorandum 52 "to prevent Communist domination of South Vietnam; to create in that country a viable and increasingly democratic society, and to initiate, on an accelerated basis, a series of mutually supporting actions of a military, political, economic, psychological and covert character." It authorizes several means to that end, including sending in 400 U.S. Special Forces soldiers and 100 military advisers to teach the South Vietnamese guerrilla-type tactics.

* Contents of memorandum (from JFK library): @

* "A Program of Action to Prevent Communist Domination of South Vietnam" (from Vietnam Task Force, May 1961): @

* "Guerrilla Warfare and Special Forces Operations" (U.S. Army publication, September 1961): @

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Tuesday, May 9, 1961: 'Vast wasteland' speech

Newton Minow, newly appointed chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, gives a provocative speech to the National Association of Broadcasters convention in Washington, D.C. The speech is titled "Television and the Public Interest." In it, Minow says:

"... When television is good, nothing -- not the magazines or newspapers -- nothing is better.

"But when television is bad, nothing is worse. I invite each of you to sit down in front of your own television set when your station goes on the air and stay there, for a day, without a book, without a magazine, without a newspaper, with a profit and loss sheet or a rating book to distract you. Keep your eyes glued to that set until the station signs off. I can assure you that what you will observe is a vast wasteland.

"You will see a procession of game shows, formula comedies about totally unbelievable families, blood and thunder, mayhem, violence, sadism, murder, western bad men, western good men, private eyes, gangsters, more violence, and cartoons. And endlessly commercials -- many screaming, cajoling and offending. And, most of all, boredom."

* Text and audio of speech: @

* Biography (from Museum of Broadcast Communications): @

* 1999 interview (from Archive of American Television): @

* "The Vast Wasteland Revisited" (Federal Communications Law Journal, 2003): @

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Friday, May 5, 1961: First American in space

Three weeks after Yuri Gagarin of the Soviet Union made history as the first man in space, the United States launches Alan Shepard aboard the Freedom 7. The flight lasts 15 minutes and takes Shepard to an altitude of 116 miles.

* Short biography: @

* More from nasa.gov (click on "links" for flight summary): @

* NASA's "This New Ocean: A History of Project Mercury" (go to Chapter 11, "Suborbital Flights Into Space"): @

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Monday, May 1, 1961: Legalized betting in England

A portion of the Betting and Gaming Act of 1960 is enacted as betting shops open throughout England. (They had been outlawed since 1853.) Within six months 10,000 shops would appear.

* Summary (from information-britain.co.uk): @

* Summary (from BBC): @

* 2008 article from The Independent: @

* "An Act for the Suppression of Betting Houses" (from 1853): @

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Monday, May 1, 1961: Hijacked to Cuba

The first hijacking of a U.S. flight occurs when Antulio Ramirez Ortiz, armed with a gun and a knife, takes control of a National Airlines flight en route from Miami to Key West, Florida, and redirects it to Cuba. Ortiz, an electrician in Miami, said he had been offered $100,000 to assassinate Cuban leader Fidel Castro and wanted to reach Cuba to warn Castro. Ortiz was allowed to stay, while the plane, crew and passengers would return to the United States.

* Summary from "The Encyclopedia of Kidnappings" (book by Michael Newton): @

* Account from "Terrorism on American Soil" (book by Joseph T. McCann): @

* Account from flight attendant: @

* History of the Federal Air Marshal Service (from propublica.org): @

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Monday, May 1, 1961: "To Kill a Mockingbird" wins Pulitzer Prize

Click here for entry of July 11, 1960, when the book was first published. Other Pulitzer winners include the photo from a political assassination in Japan (click here for that entry from October 12, 1960), and a special citation for "The American Heritage Picture History of the Civil War."

* Full list of winners: @

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Wednesday-Friday, June 29-July 1, 1960: Cuba nationalizes oil companies

Cuba nationalizes (i.e., confiscates without compensation) the refineries of the U.S. oil companies Texaco and Esso as well as Shell's British facility after their refusal to refine Soviet oil. (Nationalization of all U.S. businesses and commercial properties would follow in the coming weeks.) It's the latest incident in steadily increasing tensions involving the United States, the Soviet Union and Cuba. Preceding events included:

* February: Soviets agree to buy 5 million tons of Cuban sugar over 5 years.

* March 17: President Eisenhower approves an anti-Castro plan.

* April 19: Soviet oil begins to arrive in Cuba.

* May 8: Cuba establishes diplomatic relations with the Soviet Union.

* May 17: Radio Swan, financed by the CIA and broadcasting anti-Castro propaganda, goes on the air.

* May 27: U.S. says it will cut off economic aid to Cuba within 180 days.

* June 7: U.S. oil companies refuse to refine Soviet oil.

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* Video of Esso takeover (click on clip 7): @

* More about Radio Swan: @ and @

* Fidel Castro meets writer Ernest Hemingway at a fishing tournment in Cuba on May 15, 1960. More about Hemingway's ties to Cuba: @ and @ and @

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Friday-Sunday, May 27-29, 1960: Daughters of Bilitis

The first national lesbian conference is held in San Francisco. It's organized by the Daughters of Bilitis (DOB), an organization formed in 1955 and taking its name from a character in a series of poems by France's Pierre Louys. "The Ladder" is the name of the DOB's magazine.

* More on the DOB: @

* "The Songs of Bilitis," complete text by Pierre Louys: @

* "Different Daughters: A History of the Daughters of Bilitis and the Rise of the Lesbian Rights Movement" (book): @

* "Lesbians in the Twentieth Century" (from course in Lesbian History at the University of Michigan): @

* "Beebo Brinker" and lesbian pulp fiction: @ and @

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Thursday, May 26, 1960: The Great Seal bug

During a United Nations debate over the U-2 incident and U.S. spy operations, Henry Cabot Lodge Jr. (the U.S. ambassador to the U.N.) displays a wooden carving of the Great Seal of the United States. It contains a listening device planted there by the Soviet Union, which had given the carving to the U.S. Embassy in Moscow in 1946. After the revelation, the U.N. Security Council votes 7-2 against censuring the United States for the U-2 incident.

* Summary (from www.history.com): @

* Summary (from www.spybusters.com): @

* "U.N. Spy Debate: Reds ' Bugged' American Embassy Lodge Claims" (newsreel): @

* Front page of Los Angeles Mirror: @

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Tuesday, May 24, 1960: Radiation experiments on humans

Physicians at Cincinnati General Hospital, part of the University of Cincinnati College of Medicine, carry out experiments on at least 100 terminally ill cancer patients by subjecting them to varying doses of full-body irradiation. Among the purposes of the experiments was to see how much radiation a soldier could withstand before becoming incapictated. The work, first funded by the Defense Atomic Support Agency of the Department of Defense, would continue until 1971; many patients would die shortly after exposure. (The experiments began in the spring of 1960; I used May 24 as the date because it appears to be the date when the first subject who died was first subjected to radiation.)

* More about experiments (from website of Department of Energy's Office of Health, Safety and Security): @ and @

* Text of April 1994 congressional hearings: @

* Advisory Committee on Human Radiation Experiments: @

* "Report on Search for Human Radiation Experiment Records" (From DoD website): @

* 2007 obituary of lead researcher Dr. Eugene Saenger (pictured above): @

* About the book "The Treatment: The Story of Those Who Died in the Cincinnati Radiation Tests": @ and @

* Excerpts from the book: @ and @

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Tuesday, May 24, 1960: Pan Am's Worldport

Pan American World Airways opens Terminal 3 at New York's Idlewild Airport. The futuristic-looking building is variously described as an umbrella (Time magazine), a parasol and a mushroom (New York Times) and a flying saucer. It was designed to keep passengers dry as they go from the terminal to the airplane (in the days before boarding bridges). Pan Am would rename it the Worldport in 1971.

* Pan Am history websites: @ and @

* Maps: @

* Pictures: @

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Undated: I adore you like tomato sauce

With its smorgasbord of languages and ethnic rhythms, Bob Azzam's "Mustapha" is a hit in Europe. "Chefs abandon soufflés to hear it," says Time magazine.

* Time article (May 30, 1960): @

* Other versions: @

* Translated lyrics: @

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Sunday, May 22, 1960: The Great Chilean Earthquake

The most powerful earthquake ever recorded, magnitude 9.5, struck the south-central coast of Chile. Its force was such that 15 hours later tsunami waves devastated Hilo, Hawaii, and two days later the Puyuhue volcano, about 125 miles from the epicenter, erupted. The death toll was relatively small (estimates range from 2,000 to 6,000), owing to the low population density and the prevalence of earthquake-resistant structures.

* Summary and links from U.S. Geological Survey: @

* Impacted areas: @

* Commemorative website (translated from Spanish): @

* Travel time of tsunami waves (in hours): @

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Undated: Origin of the word 'cyborg'

The term was coined by two scientists presenting a paper at the Symposium on Psychophysiological Aspects of Spaceflight, held in May 1960 at Brooks Air Force Base in San Antonio, Texas. The original term, combining the words CYBernetic and ORGanism, refers to mechanical or electronic devices aiding or controlling the human body's processes as a way for people to better survive in space. (In current usage, someone with a pacemaker might be considered a cyborg).

* The original paper: @

* Cyborg website: @

* Blogs about cyborgs: @ and @

* Radio segment on word's origins (go to "Happy Birthday Cyborg"): @

* "50 Posts About Cyborgs": @

* Course syllabus for "Cyborg Society" at the University of California at Santa Cruz: @

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Thursday, May 19, 1960: Payola

Following congressional hearings the year before, eight disc jockeys (included the famous Alan Freed, left, credited with inventing the term "rock and roll") were arrested and charged with accepting money and gifts from record labels to play certain songs on their radio stations. The term "payola" is a combination of the words "pay" and "Victrola."

* More about the payola scandal: @ and @

* Alan Freed website: @

* More about Alan Freed: @

* Federal Communications Commission's payola rules (enacted in 1960): @ and @

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Wednesday, May 18, 1960: The end of 'Playhouse 90'

The last original episode of "Playhouse 90" airs on CBS. It began in 1956 as 90 minutes of live drama, but by 1960 was being pre-recorded, yet it often remained more theater than television. Its notable productions included "Requiem for a Heavyweight" (the series' second show, left, written by Rod Serling), "The Miracle Worker," "The Days of Wine and Roses" and "Judgment at Nuremberg."

* Summary from Museum of Broadcast Communications (cached link): @

* Review of last episode: @

* More about Rod Serling: @ (cached link) and @ and @

* Watch "The Plot to Kill Stalin": @ (Part 1) and @ (Part 2)

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Monday, May 16, 1960: The first working laser

Thomas Maiman (left), working at Hughes Research Laboratory in Malibu, California, succeeds in "firing" a device that produces a very narrow, very powerful beam of light. The breakthrough takes place amid a "laser race," as scientists elsewhere were working along similar lines at the time. Laser stands for Light Amplification by Stimulated Emission of Radiation.

* Short summary: @

* How a laser works: @

* American Institute of Physics online exhibit: @

* History of Bell Labs' work: @

* 50 facts about lasers: @

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Monday, May 16, 1960: Paris summit falls apart

The mood of the meeting among the leaders of the United States, Soviet Union, USSR, Britain and France almost immediately turns hostile as Soviet leader Khrushchev, left, demands the U.S. apologize for the U-2 incident (see May 1, 5, 7, 11). Not only does U.S. President Eisenhower refuse to do so, he accuses Khrushchev of trying to sabotage the entire summit, which was to have taken up the issues of disarmament, East-West tensions and Berlin and the fate of Germany. Khrushchev withdraws his invitation for Eisenhower to visit the USSR.

* Short summary: @

* Newsreels: @ and @

* Khrushchev and Eisenhower statements, May 16: @

* Report from a CIA intelligence officer: @

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