8.TT.1.2

Westmoreland was appointed Deputy commander of MACV. On January 30th General Minh was ousted fIn the 1960's there was the Space race and the Vietnam war. The Americans were trying to beat the Soviets in to getting into space, and they were trying to beat the Vietcong in northern Vietnam; there allies were the south Vietnamese, Australia, Britain, South Korean, and Canada. These were just a few events that made the 1960's such an important decade. In 1960, NASA's project ECHO was complete. It started soon after WWII ended in October 1946. Arthur C. Clarke, was on his way to becoming one of the preeminent figures of science fiction. He wrote an article suggesting that a device placed in orbit around the Earth could relay messages transmitted to it from one point on the planet to another. His idea found resonance with others, who in various forms kept the concept of a communications satellite alive during the following few years. Indeed individuals in a number of U.S. Government agencies noted in reports the value of such venture to both the public and private sectors of the country. On board of the ECHO was a thermometer, a battery, and a radio inside of a meatball. April 12th, 1961 was a huge day in space history. This was 20 years before the launch of the first shuttle mission. On that day Russian cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin became the first human in space, making a 108-minute orbital flight in his Vostok 1 spacecraft. Newspapers like The Huntsville Times trumpeted Gagarin's accomplishment. Yuri was born near Moscow, Russia on March 9, 1934. He died on March 27th, 1968, he was 64 years old. Yuri joined the soviet Air Force in 1955, when he was 21. By 1959, he was training to become a cosmonaut. The name of his spacecraft was Vostok 1. The spacecraft had two sections one for Yuri and one for supplies such as oxygen, and water. Vostok 1 circled Earth at a speed of 27,400 km. per hour. Instead of landing he parachuted out. John Herschel Glenn, Jr. (Colonel, USMC, Ret.) in 1962 became the first man to orbit the earth three times in one day. It was a five hour flight. He was born July 18, 1921 in Cambridge, Ohio. Glenn married Anna Margaret former Castor of New Concord, Ohio. They have two frown children and two grandchildren. He attended Muskingum college in New Concord and a Bachelor of science degree in Engineering. Glenn was commissioned in the Marine Corps in 1943. after advanced training, he joined Marine Fighter squadron 155 and spent a year flying F-40 fighters in the Marshall Islands. In April of 1959, he was selected as a Project Mercury Astronaut. The Space Task Group was moved to Houston, Texas and became a part of the NASA Manned spacecraft center in 1962. Glenn flew on Mercury-6 (February 20, 1962). He logged a total of over 218 hours in space. President John F. Kennedy was assassinated on the afternoon of November 22,1963. At the end of September, the president traveled west. He spoke in nine different states in less that a week. The first stop was San Antonio, Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson, Governor John B. Connolly, and Senator Ralph W. Yarborough led the welcoming party. Lee Harvey Oswald killed President Kennedy. Almost 30 years after his assassination congress enacted the President F. Kennedy Assassination records collection Act of 1992. The Act mandated that all assassination-related material be housed in a single collection in the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA). The resulting collection consists of more than 5 million pages of assassination-related records, photographs, motion, pictures, sound recordings and artifacts. There were many interesting facts on the Vietnam War in 1964. On January 14th Lt. General William Westmoreland was appointed Deputy commander of MACV. On January 30th General Minh was ousted fIn the 1960's there was the Space race and the Vietnam war. The Americans were trying to beat the Soviets in to getting into space, and they were trying to beat the Vietcong in northern Vietnam; there allies were the south Vietnamese, Australia, Britain, South Korean, and Canada. These were just a few events that made the 1960's such an important decade. rom power in a blood coup led by General Nguyen Khanh who became the new leader of South Vietnam. Irom power in a blood coup led by General Nguyen Khanh who became the new leader of South Vietnam. In March Secret U.S. Backed bombing raids against the Ho Chi Minh trail inside Laos, conducted by mercenaries flying old American fighter planes. On March 6th Defense Secretary McNamara visits South Vietnam and states that Gen. Kanh “has our admiration, our respect and our complete support...” and adds that, “we'll stay for as long as it takes. We shall provide whatever help that is required to win the battle against the communist insurgents.” On July 6th the Vietcong launch an attack on the U.S. Special Forces camp at Nam Dong. The Rolling Thunder campaign started in 1965. It was the longest sustained aerial bombing campaign in history. Also it was a microorganism of the problems the United States faced in the war as a whole. America air power doctrine was based on two fundamental assumptions. The first assumption was that any American war would be waged to destroy the enemy's ability to wage modern warfare. The second assumed that any enemy of the United States might engage would be a modern industrialized state. In Vietnam, neither assumption held true. The resulting aerial campaign, Rolling Thunder, was a far cry from that envision in plans developed before the American intervention. Rolling Thunder failed to persuade the North Vietnamese and it failed to destroy their ability to prosecute their war in South Vietnam. North Vietnam was anything but a modern industrialized state. Operation Crimp was a military operation in 1966. It was in the Vietnam War which conducted by American and Australian forces in Binh Duong Province, in South Vietnam, from January 8 until January 14 1966. Under the overall command of Major General Johnathon O. Seaman, about 8,000 troops of the US 1st infantry division, which included the US 173rd Airborne Brigade and the US 3rd infantry brigade, participated in Operation Crimp. The main objective of Operation Crimp was to destroy the Vietcong headquarters which lay in concealment underground in Cu Chi in the Province of Binh Duong. The first SLF Operation of 1967, Deckhouse V, was significant for two reasons. It was a sizable, combines U.S. Marine and Vietnamese Marine amphibious operation. D-day for deckhouse V was January 6th. Both BLT 1/9 and elements of Vietnamese Marine Brigade Force Bravo. The combines seaborne and heliborne force assaulted an area of suspected Vietcong concentrations on the coast between the Co Chien and ham Luong reaches of the Mekong River. The combined force killed only 21 Vietcong, it destroyed two small arms workshops, and captured 44 weapons and 42 tons of rice, seven U.S. Marines died accidentally. Some participants attributed Deckhouse V's failure to info leaks. Communications were bad, rough seas interfered, planning was hurried. The fighting around Khe Sanh began January 21st, 1968 and concluded around April 8, 1968. It lasted a total of 77 days. It is known as the “siege”. American and South Vietnamese forces suffered 703 were killed, 2,642 were wounded, and 7 missing. PAVN losses are not known with accuracy but are estimated at between 10,000-15,000 dead or wounded. Following the battle, Lownd's men were relieved and Westmoreland ordered the base occupied until he left Vietnam in June. 1969 Vietcong forces launch a new offensive with attacks on 150 cities, towns, and bases, including Da Nang and Hue. The heaviest attacks were aimed at the area adjacent to the Cambodian border northwest of Saigon; an estimated 2,000 Communist attacked Tay Ninh, Quan Loi, Loc Ning, and An Loc. Further north, North Vietnamese commandos fought their way into the U.S. First Marine Decision headquarters in Da Nang. They were eventually driven out by the Marines, who killed 40 Communist soldiers, sustaining five killed and 23 wounded in the process. This paper showed how important the 1960's were to America and the world. The fact that we went to the moon is the reason that we have space shuttles, and why we go to the moon so frequently.

The 1960's    Nick Bolduc 3/07/12   Mr. Reid Social Studies:3 **Works Sited:** **[]** **[]** **[]** **[]** **[][]** **[]** **[]** **[]** **[]**