- The Federal Hourly Minimum Wage is $1.60 an hour
- Average Cost of new house $14,950.00
- Average Income per year $7,850.00
- Average Monthly Rent $130.00
- Average Cost of a new car $2,822.00
- Gasoline 34¢ per Gallon
- 1st class US postage stamp raised from 5¢ to 6¢
- Movie Ticket $1.50
January 1: Evel Knievel fails in his attempt to jump Caesar’s Palace Fountain
January 5: Dr Benjamin Spock indicted for conspiring to violate draft law
January 6: Beatles’ “Magical Mystery Tour,” album goes #1 & stays #1 for 8 weeks
January 6: Dr N E Shumway performs 1st US adult cardiac transplant operation
January 6: 1st ABA All-Star Game: East 126 beats West 120 at Indiana
January 12: Nighttime version of “Hollywood Squares” premieres on NBC TV
January 14: Super Bowl II: Green Bay Packers beat Oakland Raiders, 33-14 in Miami
January 20: Actress Sharon Tate (24) weds actor/director Roman Polanski (34) in Chelsea, London
January 22: Rowan & Martin’s Laugh-In” premieres on NBC
January 23: US B-52 bomber with nuclear bomb on board crashes in Greenland
January 23: Vietnam War: Battle of Khe Sanh – One of the most publicized and controversial battles of the war begins.
January 23: North Korea captures the USS Pueblo
When North Korea captured the American surveillance ship USS Pueblo, it sparked an 11-month crisis that threatened to worsen already high Cold War tensions in the region.
The trouble started with the Pueblo. It had been nearly 15 years since the Korean War between U.S.-led forces and the North. The Navy intelligence ship was monitoring North Korea from the Tsushima Strait, an ocean channel dividing Korea and Japan.
January 26: Israeli submarine Dakar sinks in Mediterranean Sea, 69 die
January 30: North Vietnam launches the Tet Offensive against the United States and South Vietnam
In many ways, the bloody Tet Offensive signified the beginning of the end of U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War.
The coordinated attack by 85,000 Viet Cong and North Vietnamese targeted 36 major cities and towns in South Vietnam. It caught U.S.-led forces by surprise.
April 4: Martin Luther King Jr. assassinated in Memphis, Tennessee
The Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. was standing on the second floor balcony of room 306 at the Lorraine Motel when he was struck by a bullet at 6:01 p.m.
The 39-year-old civil rights leader was rushed to nearby St. Joseph’s Hospital but never regained consciousness. He was pronounced dead at 7:05 p.m.
June 5: Robert F. Kennedy assassinated in Los Angeles
Just two months later, Kennedy himself was gunned down by an assassin at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles.
The attack took place shortly after Kennedy had wrapped up a speech in the hotel ballroom. As he cut through a kitchen corridor on his way to another part of the building, a Jordanian born Palestinian named Sirhan Sirhan opened fire, hitting Kennedy in the head and back.
Kennedy collapsed and was rushed to the hospital, where he underwent brain surgery. Twenty-six hours after the attack, Kennedy died. He was 42.
September 30: Boeing introduces the first 747 “Jumbo Jet”
When demand for air travel reached sky-high levels in the 1960s, the world’s then-largest passenger aircraft — the Boeing 747 Jumbo Jet — was a game changer. The ability to carry far more passengers than previous airliners suddenly made globetrotting a feasible option for would-be wanderers who previously thought they would never afford such exotic sojourns.
Boeing continues to produce new versions of its historic 747 model airliner more than 40 years after the original. This 747-8 Intercontinental was the 1,500th to come off the production line earlier this year.
The massive aircraft was indeed an aviation design milestone. More than six stories tall, it seated 374 passengers and weighed 300 tons.
October 16: U.S. athletes take a stand at the Summer Olympics
During the 1968 Summer Olympics in Mexico City, two black athletes staged a silent demonstration against racial discrimination in the United States.
For the simple defiant act of raising their fists during the National Anthem, the International Olympic Committee condemned American medalists Tommie Smith and John Carlos.
http://www.onthisday.com/date/1968/january/31