Wednesday, December 1, 1965: Freedom Flights

A new chapter in the long, often dangerous and always dramatic exodus of Cubans from their Communist homeland opens today with the start of a refugee airlift. The first plane, a Pan American World Airways DC7C, will leave Miami's International Airport at 7 a.m., carrying only its crew and two officials of the U.S. Public Health and Immigration departments. It will return three hours and 35 minutes later from Varadero, Cuba, with 90 refugees, the first of up to 100,000 expected in the new wave of immigration.

     -- Associated Press, December 1, 1965: @

     -- "First Cubans Begin Flights to US Haven" (AP, December 1): @

     -- "First Refugee Plane Lands" (AP, December 1): @

The last of more than 260,500 Freedom Flight refugees from Fidel Castro's Cuba limped off a plane here yesterday.

     -- Associated Press, April 6, 1973: @

-- 1965 photo from Public Health Image Library, U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

Resources
* "The Cuban Experience in Florida: Revolution and Exodus" (State Library & Archives of Florida): @

* Freedom Flight Memories and database (The Miami Herald): @

* "In Search of Freedom: Cuban Exiles and the U.S. Cuban Refugee Program" (University of Miami Libraries): @ 
* "Cuban Migration to the United States: Policy and Trends" (Ruth Ellen Wasem, Congressional Research Service, 2009): @

* "An Historic Overview of Latino Immigration and the Demographic Transformation of the United States" (David G. Gutierrez, National Park Service): @

* "Freedom Tower, Miami, Florida" (National Park Service): @

* "The 'Other' Boatlift: Camarioca, Cuba, 1965" (U.S. Coast Guard): @
* "The Cuban Refugee Program" (William L. Mitchell, Social Security commissioner, March 1962): @

* "Cuban Refugees in the United States" (John F. Thomas, The International Migration Review, 1967): @

* "Analysis of Federal Expenditures to Aid Cuban Refugees" (U.S. Department of Health, Education and Welfare, 1971): @ 
* "Cubans in the United States" (Pew Research Center, 2006): @

* Photos (The Miami Herald): @

* Photos (University of Miami Libraries): @

* Cuban Research Institute (Florida International University): @

Books

* "Desperate Crossings: Seeking Refuge in America" (Norman L. Zucker and Naomi Flink Zucker, 1996): @

* "Calculated Kindness: Refugees and America's Half-Open Door, 1945-Present" (Gil Loescher and John A. Scanlan, 1998): @
* "Cubans in America: A Vibrant History of a People in Exile" (Alex Anton and Roger E. Hernandez, 2003): @
* "Encyclopedia of Cuban-United States Relations" (Thomas M. Leonard, 2004): @

* "Americans at the Gate: The United States and Refugees During the Cold War" (Carl J. Bon Tempo, 2008): @
* "International Migration in Cuba: Accumulation, Imperial Designs, and Transnational Social Fields" (Margarita Cervantes-Rodriguez, 2011): @

* "American Immigration: An Encyclopedia of Political, Social, and Cultural Change" (James Ciment and John Radzilowski, editors, 2015): @ 

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Monday, October 11, 1965: Vinland Map

Yale University scholars sliced the frosting off Christopher Columbus' birthday cake Sunday. They've found an ancient map which they say proves that Leif Ericson and other Vikings had explored North America long before Columbus set sail. The map was drawn about 1440 A.D., half a century before Columbus' voyage -- probably by a monk in Basel, Switzerland, using source materials dating back at least to the 13th century, the Yale University Library announced. Greenland is drawn very accurately on the parchment map, and to the west is "Vinland." ... A handwritten notation reads "Discovered by Bjarni and Leif." 

     The map, measuring 11 by 16 inches, will go on display at the Yale library on Tuesday, Columbus Day. Today (October 11) Yale University Press is publishing a book, "The Vinland Map and the Tartar Relation," including reproductions of the map and a manuscript with which it was found.

     -- Associated Press, October 11: @

* "When America Was Called Vinlandia" (Life magazine, October 22, 1965): @

* "Vinland Re-Read" (Paul Saenger, Newberry Library, 1998): @
* "Map Linked to Vikings a Fake, Study Says" (New York Times, February 28, 2000): @

* "Scientists Determine Age of New World Map" (Brookhaven National Laboratory, 2002): @
* "Determination of the Radiocarbon Age of Parchment of the Vinland Map" (Donahue, Olin and Harbottle, Radiocarbon, 2002): @
* "Maps, Myths, and Men: The Story of the Vinland Map" (Kirsten A. Seaver, 2004): @

* "The Viking Deception" ("Nova," PBS, 2005): @ 
* "The Vinland Map -- Some 'Finer Points' of the Debate" (J. Huston McCulloch, Ohio State University, 2005): @
* "Secrets: A Viking Map?" (Smithsonian Channel, 2013): @
* "The Vinland Map" (McCrone Research Institute): @
* "Medieval or Modern?" (Institute for Dynamic Educational Advancement): @ 

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1965: LBJ's Amphicar

     Built in Germany from 1961 to 1968, the Amphicar is the only civilian amphibious passenger automobile ever to be mass produced. A total of 3,878 vehicles were produced in four colors: Beach White, Regatta Red, Fjord Green (Aqua) and Lagoon Blue -- the color of President Johnson's Amphicar. President Johnson enjoyed surprising unsuspecting guests when taking them for a ride in his Amphicar.

     "The President, with Vicky McCammon in the seat alongside him and me in the back, was now driving around in a small blue car with the top down. We reached a steep incline at the edge of the lake and the car started rolling rapidly toward the water. The President shouted, 'The brakes don't work! The brakes won't hold! We're going in! We're going under!' The car splashed into the water. I started to get out. Just then the car leveled and I realized we were in an Amphicar. The President laughed. As we putted along the lake then (and throughout the evening), he teased me. 'Vicky, did you see what Joe did? He didn't give a damn about his President. He just wanted to save his own skin and get out of the car.' Then he'd roar." -- Joseph A. Califano Jr. (special assistant to Johnson, 1965-1969).

     -- Text from "Presidential Vehicles" (Lyndon B. Johnson National Historical Park): @

     -- Photo from LBJ Library, dated April 10, 1965; passengers are Eunice Kennedy Shriver and Paul Glynn; photo by Yoichi Okamoto 

* "LBJ's Amphibious Car" (footage from LBJ Library): @

* "Remembering Amphicar, the swim-utility vehicle" (BBC, 2015): @

* "I Drove Through a Flood in a Car That 'Swims' " (Popular Science, August 1967): @
* "The Amphicar: What It's Like to Drive" (Popular Science, July 1960): @ 
* The International Amphicar Owner's Club: @
* www.amphicars.com: @

* www.amphicarbroker.com: @
* Amphicar forums: @ 

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Thursday, March 18, 1965: First spacewalk

A Soviet cosmonaut squeezed out of history's highest orbiting manned satellite today and took man's first slowly somersaulting, free-floating swim in outer space. Then he returned to the cabin of his two-man spacecraft, the Voskhod 2, as the Soviet Union took another giant stride in the race for the moon. ... It was the second Soviet team flight in one space capsule, following a three-man, 16-orbit trip last October. It came only five days before America's first planned attempt to orbit a spacecraft with more than one man aboard. ... Alexei Leonov, 30, a chunky lieutenant colonel and a gifted artist, became the first man in history to step into outer space. 

     -- Associated Press: @

     -- Photo from www.spacephys.ru

* "Learning to Spacewalk" (Leonov, for Air & Space magazine, January 2005): @
* " 'Our Walk in Space': The Russian Cosmonauts' Story of their bold first step" (Life magazine, May 14): @
* "Alexei Leonov: The artistic spaceman" (European Space Agency): @

* Short biography (International Space Hall of Fame): @
* Russian news report: @
* Black-and-white footage (French audio): @
* Black-and-white footage (no sound; from www.britishpathe.com): @
* Color footage: @

* Universal Newsreel (from www.criticalpast.com): @ 

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Thursday, October 1, 1964: Bullet train

TOKYO -- Japan's new electric "Dream Train" rolled out of Tokyo station this morning on its 347-mile maiden trip to Osaka. The train has a top speed of 125 mph. Japanese rail officials planned the fast service to start in time for the Olympic games opening here Oct. 10. (United Press International)

-- Photo from Kyodo News Service. Caption: A superexpress Hikari train passes by (Tokyo's) Nichigeki Theatre in Yurakucho district on Dec. 21, 1964. Tokaido Shinkansen line was inaugurated on Oct. 1 just before Tokyo and Shin-Osaka in four hours and emerging as the world's first high-speed rail for mass transport.

* "Japan's Bullet Train, the World's First (and Still Best) High-Speed Rail Network, Turns 50" (Next City): @

* "Japan's Shinkansen: Revolutionary design at 50" (BBC): @

* "Fifty Years Ago and Today, Japan Blazes Trails with Trains": @

* "About the Shinkansen" (Central Japan Railway Company): @

* Episode of "Richard Hammond's Engineering Connections" (2011): @
* "High Speed Rail in Japan: A Review and Evaluation of the Shinkansen Train" (University of California Transportation Center, 1992): @ 

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Sunday, June 14, 1964: The Merry Pranksters

Ken Kesey, the author of 1962's "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" (previous post here), followed it up with the novel "Sometimes a Great Notion." At the time he was living in La Honda, California.

     (Kesey) hosted parties that he referred to as acid tests, due to the participants' generous use of LSD surrounded by blaring music and Day-Glo colors. Surviving the party meant passing the test.
     When publication of "Sometimes a Great Notion" required a trip to New York, Kesey purchased a 1939 International Harvester school bus, gave it a psychedelic painting and stocked it with marijuana and LSD. Accompanied by a group of friends called the Merry Band of Pranksters (aka Merry Pranksters), Kesey took a circuitous route to New York and back. Kesey and his Pranksters punctuated their trip with performances on top of the bus. Kesey's combination of drug use, psychedelic colors, and a communal lifestyle, made all the more notable by his personal fame and flamboyance, helped to establish hallmarks of the hippie culture throughout the decade and into the 1970s.
     -- From "Beat Culture: Lifestyles, Icons, and Impact" (William Lawlor, 2005): @

     Kesey was really trying to go all the way without being exactly sure what that was. He was trying, through the use of LSD and other means, to get everyone in his group completely out of all of the drags and drawbacks of their own past. Free yourself of that and you could head off in some incredible direction. ... The side of Kesey which wasn't duplicated by any other psychedelic group was his attempt to harness all the totally California things -- gadgets, TV, movies, the car, the bus -- harness all of these things and take them beyond their immediate, rather limited use, out to some wild edge.
     -- From "Tom Wolfe on the Search for The Real Me" (New York magazine, August 19, 1968, page 42): @

      -- 1966 photo by Ted Streshinsky. Caption: "A man prepares the Merry Pranksters' bus Further for its drive to the Acid Test Graduation in San Francisco. This psychedelic motoring machine is famous for being driven by Ken Kesey and the Merry Pranksters from California to New York."

* Summary (from University of Virginia Library): @

* "On the Bus: The Complete Guide to the Legendary Trip of Ken Kesey and the Merry Pranksters and the Birth of the Counterculture" (Paul Perry and Ken Babbs, 1990): @

* "The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test" (Tom Wolfe, 1968): @

* Book review, New York Times: @

* "Magic Trip" (2011 documentary by Alex Gibney): @

* "Ken Kesey's Magic Trip: Merry Pranksters Redux" (film review, The Guardian): @

* "Mountain Girl and the 'Magic Trip': A Conversation with Carolyn Garcia" (from Jambands.com): @

* Ken Kesey & the Merry Pranksters (website by Patrick Lundborg): @

* Lundborg's Lysergia website: @
* Website of Kesey's son Zane: @
* "Sometimes a Great Notion" (Kesey, 1964): @

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

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

     -- Associated Press, May 19

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Friday, April 17, 1964: Ford Mustang

The gleaming red hood stretching back to the distant windshield is the business end of a new U.S.-built sports car. But unlike most other sports cars, this one -- a Ford subspecies called the Mustang, which goes on sale this week -- is not offered as a rich man's toy. The manufacturers produced it on the theory that a lot of people who would like to own a sports car hold back because of the generally prohibitive cost of most models. In its basic model with stick shift and standard 6-cylinder engine -- but without frills -- the Mustang is made to sell for $2,368 (F.O.B. Detroit), which puts it in the price range of sporty compacts. There are, of course, lots of optional doo-dads that can run up the price. With the addition of a hotter engine and other equipment, the Mustang can be turned into a racer. An an electrical device can be installed to allow the optional girl, who fits naturally into a sports car, to put the top down with a languid finger.

-- From "Sports Car for the Masses" (Life magazine, April 17; story: @)

-- Photo of Mustang on display at New York World's Fair; from FordOnline

* "Today in History: 1964 Ford Mustang Debuts" (from Fordautostore.com): @

* "Ford Mustang Introduced by Lee Iacocca at the 1964 World's Fair" (from FordOnline): @

* Text of Iacocca's speech (April 13): @

* Commercial (shown before debut): @

* Press kit: @

* "Ford Galloping Out a Mustang" (Miami News, April 13): @

* "New Mustang Looks Like Lot Of Car" (Pittsburgh Press, April 13): @

* "The Mustang" (Ford video on early stages of car's development): @

* Videos of first Mustang sold (April 15): @ and @
* Mustang YouTube channel: @

* "1964 1/2 Ford Mustang" (Car and Driver magazine, May 1964): @

* Happy 50th, Ford Mustang!" (Hot Rod magazine, 2014): @

* "The Ford Mustang Wasn't The First Pony Car" (Automobile magazine, 2013): @

* Mustang: Fifty Years: Celebrating America's Only True Pony Car" (Donald Farr, 2013): @

* "Mustang 1964 1/2 -- 1973" (Mike Mueller, 2000): @ 

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Wednesday, April 1, 1964: Plymouth Barracuda

Previewed for the press on April 1, the Plymouth Barracuda makes its public debut on April 4 at the International Auto Show in New York. Though touted as a rival to the Ford Mustang (which would be introduced two weeks later), Barracuda sales in 1964 were less than one-tenth that of the Mustang.

* "New Model Cars Pop Out Like Buds of Spring" (Associated Press, April 2, 1964): @

* "Family Car Taking on Sporty Look" (New York Herald Tribune, April 4): @

* Advertisement (Life magazine, May 15): @

* Brochure (from The Old Car Manual Project): @

* Entry from "The Complete Book of Dodge and Plymouth Muscle" (Mike Mueller, 2009): @

* "Happy 50th Birthday, Plymouth Barracuda" (from Hemmings Daily): @

* Entries from allpar.com: @ and @

* "Fish Story: The Plymouth Barracuda" (from Ate Up With Motor): @ 

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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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Monday, October 28, 1963: Penn Station

NEW YORK -- With not a pause for sentiment, wreckers Monday began demolishing lofty, drafty Pennsylvania Station to make way for a giant new Madison Square Garden.
     But the trains ran as usual, and they will continue to run during the wrecking, the construction and afterward. All the tracks are below ground.
     For 53 years, nine-acre Penn Station has stood, a monument of neoclassic architecture in which untold millions of travelers have moved.

     Leading New York architects fought to save the stately structure, designed after the Roman baths of Caracalla by Stanford White's noted architectural firm and built with tons of imported Italian marble.

     -- Associated Press. Full story: @

     -- 1962 photo from Library of Congress.

* "Farewell to Penn Station" (New York Times editorial, October 30): @

* Entry from New York Preservation Archive Project: @

* Entry from www.greatbuildings.com: @

* Entry from www.nyc-architecture.com: @

* Photos (from Business Insider): @

* Videos (from Gothamist): @

* "Conquering Gotham -- A Gilded Age Epic: The Construction of Penn Station and Its Tunnels" (Jill Jonnes, 2007): @

* "The Late, Great Pennsylvania Station" (Lorraine B. Diehl, 1985): @ and @

* "The Destruction of Penn Station" (photos by Peter Moore, 2000): @ 

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Friday, October 11, 1963: 'Nightmare at 20,000 Feet'

Mr. Wilson believes he sees a gremlin on the wing of the commercial aircraft he is taking back home ... from the sanitarium, where he has been committed for six months after a mental breakdown during a similar flight.

     -- TV.com

The "Twilight Zone" episode was based on a 1961 short story by Richard Matheson.

* Watch the episode (from imdb.com): @ 

* Interviews with actor William Shatner, writer Richard Matheson, director Richard Donner (from Archive of American Television): @ 

* Excerpt from "Up Till Now: The Autobiography" (Shatner, 2009): @ 

* "Ride the Nightmare: Richard Matheson's 'Nightmare at 20,000 Feet' " (from tor.com): @ 

* "Nightmare at 20,000 feet: Horror Stories by Richard Matheson": @ 

* "Spaceships and Politics: The Political Theory of Rod Serling" (Leslie Dale Felman, 2010): @ 

* Earlier post on "To Serve Man" (March 2, 1962; includes "Twilight Zone" links): @ 

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Monday, October 7, 1963: Lear Jet

Bill Lear wasn't an aeronautical engineer when he started the Lear Jet project at age 61; he was an inventor and entrepreneur, having created the 8-track stereo, a variety of car radios, and the first jet autopilot.
     In the early 1960s, Lear saw the potential need for a small executive transport, and founded the Swiss American Aviation Corporation (SAAC) to produce the Learjet 23. The Learjet 23 was inspired by the FFA P-16, a proposed fighter jet for Switzerland designed by Hans-Luzius Studer. Production of the Learjet 23 began in Wichita, Kansas, in February 1962, and the first flight took place on October 7, 1963. The Learjet 23 revolutionized the business transport world and created a new market for fast and efficient small jet transports.
     -- From Museum of Flight (Seattle, Washington)
* "Learjet: A Brief History" (from Bombadier Inc., now the owner of Learjet): @

* "History of Learjet" (from jonathanstrickland.com): @
* "Lear Jet 23" (Flying magazine, 1978; from WilliamPLear.com): @
* Specifications (from airliners.net): @
* "The Lear Jet Turns 50 -- But It Almost Didn't Make It Off the Ground" (wired.com, 2013): @
* "Learjet Turns 50" (from Aviation International News): @
* Lear Jet 23 at Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum: @ 

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Saturday, September 14, 1963: Tokyo Convention

This Convention, adopted at Tokyo on 14 Sepember 1963 (Tokyo Convention), was the first multilateral legal instrument to deal with the growing problem of hijacking. Its main objective is to establish primary jurisdiction of the State of registration over offences committed on board civil aircraft in flight or on the surface of the high seas or of any other area outside the territory of any State (articles 1 and 3). Although the Convention does not define nor list any particular offences or acts which must be suppressed, its article 11 deals with one specific form of terrorism, namely, aerial hijacking.
     -- From "International Law: Theory and Practice" (1998)

* "Convention on offences and certain other acts committed on board aircraft" (text): @

* "United Nations Treaties Against International Terrorism" (from www.un.org): @

* "Notes on the Tokyo Convention, 1963" (from www.airspacelaw.org): @

* "Jurisdiction Over Crimes On Board Aircraft" (Sami Shubber, 1973): @

* Aerial Piracy and International Terrorism: The Illegal Diversion of Aircraft and International Law" (Edward McWhinney, 1987): @ 
* Earlier post on Cuba hijacking (May 1, 1961): @

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