A conversation with my granddaughter regarding the 1960's is to blame for this post. It seems that some much younger people don't understand the fascination, we who lived back then, find in our memories. It was a time of growing up and change for me and a few others here in Blogstream. She started her question to me by asking "What was so great about the 60's?" Well, Courtney, I guess you'll just have to read Grandma's post...won't you?
The following information is brought to you by Wikipedia and Sherry's copy/paste abilities.
Technology
The Soviet Union and the United States were involved in the space race. This led to an increase in spending on science and technology during this period. The space race heated up when Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin orbited the Earth and President Kennedy announced Project Apollo in 1961. The Soviets and Americans were then involved in a race to put a man on the Moon before the decade was over. America won the race when it placed the first men on the Moon: Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin, in July 1969.
American automobiles evolved through the stream-lined, jet-inspired designs for sports cars such as the Pontiac GTO and the Plymouth Barracuda, Ford Mustang, and the Chevrolet Corvette.
1960 - With the availability of the pill people started having a freer attitude towards sex, and an increase in unsafe sex as well.[citation needed]
1960 - The first working laser was demonstrated in May by Theodore Maiman at Hughes Research Laboratories.
1961 - First human spaceflight to orbit the Earth: Yuri Gagarin, Vostok 1.
1962 - First trans-Atlantic satellite broadcast via the Telstar satellite.
1962 - The first computer video game, Spacewar!, is invented.
1963 - The first geosynchronous communications satellite, Syncom 2 is launched.
1963 - Touch-Tone telephones introduced.
1964 - The first successful Minicomputer, Digital Equipment Corporation’s 12-bit PDP-8, is marketed.
1964 - The first known programming language—BASIC—was created.
1965 - Sony markets the CV-2000, the first home video tape recorder.
1966 - The Soviet Union launches Luna 10, which later becomes the first space probe to enter orbit around the Moon.
1967 - First heart transplantation operation.
1967 - PAL and SECAM broadcast color TV systems start publicly transmitting in Europe.
1967 - The first minibank is opened in Barclays Bank, London.
1968 - First humans to leave Earth's gravity influence and orbit another world: Apollo 8.
1968 - The first public demonstration of the computer mouse, the paper paradigm Graphical user interface, video conferencing, teleconferencing, email, and hypertext.
1969 - Arpanet, the research-oriented prototype of the Internet, was introduced.
1969 - First humans to walk on the Moon: Apollo 11.
1969 - CCD invented at AT&T Bell Labs, used as the electronic imager in still and video cameras.
Popular culture
The overlapping, but somewhat different, movement of youth cultural radicalism was manifested by the hippies and the counter-culture, whose emblematic moments were the Summer of Love in San Francisco in 1967 and the Woodstock Festival in 1969. The sub-culture, associated with this movement, spread the recreational use of cannabis and other drugs, particularly new semi-synthetic drugs such as LSD. The era heralded the rejection and a reformation by hippies of traditional Christian notions on spirituality, leading to the widespread introduction of Eastern and ethnic religious thinking to western values and concepts concerning one's religious and spiritual development. Psychedelic drugs, especially LSD, were popularly used medicinally, spiritually and recreationally throughout the 1960s. Psychedelic influenced the music, artwork and movies of the decade.
Music
Popular music mokeys an era of "all hits" as numerous artists released recordings, beginning in the 1950s, as 45-rpm "singles" (with another on the flip side), and radio stations tended to play only the most popular of the wide variety of records being made. Also, bands tended to record only the best of their songs as a chance to become a hit record. The developments of the Motown Sound, "folk rock" and the British Invasion of bands from the U.K. (The Beatles, The Dave Clark Five, The Rolling Stones and so on), are major examples of American listeners expanding from the folksinger, doo-wop and saxophone sounds of the 1950s and evolving to include psychedelic music.
The rise of the counterculture, particularly among the youth, created a huge market for rock, soul, pop and blues music produced by drug-culture, influenced bands such as The Beatles, The Doors, The Rolling Stones, Led Zeppelin, Cream, The Grateful Dead, Jefferson Airplane, Janis Joplin, The Who, Sly and the Family Stone, Jimi Hendrix Experience, and The Incredible String Band, also for radical music in the folk tradition pioneered by Bob Dylan, The Mamas and the Papas, and Joan Baez in the United States, and in England, Donovan was helping to create folk rock.
Significant events in music in the 1960s:
The Four Seasons released 4 straight number 1s
Motown Record Corporation founded in 1960. Its first Top Ten hit was "Shop Around" by the Miracles in 1960. "Shop Around" peaked at number-two on the Billboard Hot 100, and was Motown's first million-selling record.
The Marvelettes scored Motown Record Corporation's first US #1 pop hit, "Please Mr. Postman" in 1961. Motown would score 110 Billboard Top-Ten hits during its run.
The Supremes scored twelve number one hit singles between 1964 and 1969, beginning with Where Did Our Love Go.
The Beatles went to America in 1964, spearheading the first British Invasion.
Bob Dylan goes electric at the 1965 Newport Folk Festival.
The Beach Boys release Pet Sounds in 1966, ushering in the era of album-orientated rock.
Bob Dylan is called "Judas" by an audience member during the legendary Manchester Free Trade Hall concert, the start of the Bootleg recording industry follows, with recordings of this concert circulating for 30 years – wrongly labeled as – The Royal Albert Hall Concert before a legitimate release in 1998 as The Bootleg Series Vol. 4: Bob Dylan Live 1966, The "Royal Albert Hall" Concert.
In February of 1966, Nancy Sinatra's song "These Boots Are Made for Walkin'" became very popular.
In 1966, The Supremes A' Go-Go was the first album by a female group to reach the top position of the Billboard magazine pop albums chart in the United States.
Jefferson Airplane release the influential Surrealistic Pillow in 1967.
The Velvet Underground release their influential self-titled debut albumThe Velvet Underground and Nico in 1967.
The Doors release their self-tilted debut album The Doors.
Love release their masterpiece Forever Changes in 1967.
The Jimi Hendrix Experience release two successful albums during 1967 Are You Experienced and Axis: Bold as Love that innovate both guitar, trio and recording techniques.
The Beatles release the seminal concept album Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band in June 1967.
The Moody Blues release the album Days of Future Passed in November 1967.
Pink Floyd releases their debut record The Piper at the Gates of Dawn.
Bob Dylan releases the Country Rock album John Wesley Harding in December 1967.
The Monterey Pop Festival in 1967 was the apex of the so-called "Summer of Love".
Johnny Cash releases At Folsom Prison in 1968
After The Yardbirds had folded, Jimmy Page and manager Peter Grant, met with Robert Plant and they together with John Bonham and John Paul Jones called themselves Led Zeppelin and released their début album Led Zeppelin.
The Band releases the roots rock album Music from Big Pink in 1968.
Big Brother and the Holding Company, with Janis Joplin as lead singer, becomes an overnight sensation after their performance at Monterey Pop in 1967 and release their massively successful second album Cheap Thrills in 1968.
The Jimi Hendrix Experience release the highly influential double LP Electric Ladyland in 1968 that furthered the guitar and studio innovations of the previous two albums.
Sly and the Family Stone revolutionize black music with their massive 1968 hit single Dance to the Music and by 1969 became international sensations with the release of their phenomenal hit record Stand!. The band cemented their position as a vital counterculture band when they performed at the Woodstock Festival.
The Rolling Stones film the TV special Rock and Roll Circus in December 1968 which was never broadcast during its contemporary time. Considered for decades as a fabled 'lost' performance until released in North America on Laserdisc and VHS in 1995. Features performances from The Who; The Dirty Mac featuring John Lennon, Eric Clapton and Mitch Mitchell; Jethro Tull and Taj Mahal.
The Who release and tour the first rock opera Tommy in 1969.
Captain Beefheart and his Magic Band release the avant garde Trout Mask Replica in 1969.
The Woodstock Festival, and four months later, the Altamont Free Concert in 1969.
Film
Popular American movies of the 1960s include Psycho, Breakfast at Tiffany's, To Kill a Mockingbird, My Fair Lady, The Pink Panther, Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb; The Sound of Music; Doctor Zhivago, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid; Bonnie and Clyde; Cool Hand Luke; The Graduate; Rosemary's Baby; Midnight Cowboy; Head; Medium Cool; 2001: A Space Odyssey; Easy Rider.
The Counterculture Revolution had a big effect on cinema. Movies began to break social taboos such as sex and violence causing both controversy and fascination. They turned increasingly dramatic, unbalanced, and hectic as the cultural revolution was starting. This was the beginning of the New Hollywood era that dominated the next decade in theatres and revolutionized the movie industry. Films such as Arthur Penn's Bonnie and Clyde (1967), Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968), and Roman Polanski's Rosemary's Baby (film) (1968) are examples of this new, edgy direction. Films of this time also focused on the changes happening in the world. Dennis Hopper's Easy Rider (1969) focused on the drug culture of the time. Movies also became more sexually explicit, such as Roger Vadim's Barbarella (1968) as the counterculture progressed.
The sixties were about experimentation. With the explosion of light-weight and affordable cameras, the underground avant-garde film movement thrived. Canada's Michael Snow, Americans Kenneth Anger. Stan Brakhage, Andy Warhol, and Jack Smith. Notable films in this genre are: Dog Star Man; Scorpio Rising; Wavelength; Chelsea Girls;Blow Job; Vinyl; Flaming Creatures.
Significant events in the film industry in the 1960s:
Removal of the Motion Picture Association of America's Production Code in 1967.
The decline and end of the Studio System.
The rise of 'art house' films and theaters.
The beginning of the New Hollywood Era due to the counterculture.
The rise of independent producers that worked outside of the Studio System.
Move to all-color production in Hollywood movies.
The invention of the Nagra 1/4", sync-sound, portable open-reel tape deck.
Expo 67 where new film formats like Imax were invented and new ways of displaying film were tested.
Flat-bed film editing tables appear, like the Steenbeck, they eventually replace the Moviola editing platform.
Most of the technology we use today in our daily lives finds it's roots in the 60's. I wonder if anyone envisioned the direction that this technology and all the changes that occured in the 60's would take our lives?
