A year that looks different from each side
Few years are remembered as vividly as 1967, and few are remembered so unevenly. To some people it was the Summer of Love, a season of flowers, concerts and new freedoms. To others it was the year of burning streets in Newark and Detroit, of rising casualty lists from Vietnam, and of a short war in the Middle East that redrew a map. All of these were happening at once, often within weeks of each other, and that overlap is what makes it a true year of change rather than a single story.
This overview runs through the year in order. Each section points to a theme that is covered in more depth elsewhere on the site.
January to March: new rules and early warnings
On 14 January, thousands gathered in Golden Gate Park in San Francisco for the Human Be-In, an early public sign of a youth movement that had been growing in the city’s neighbourhoods. The next day, the first Super Bowl was played in Los Angeles. In California, Ronald Reagan took office as governor, one of several signs that American politics was shifting in more than one direction.
On 27 January, a fire during a launch rehearsal killed the three Apollo 1 astronauts: Virgil Grissom, Edward White and Roger Chaffee. The Apollo 1 fire slowed America’s lunar programme and forced a serious redesign of the spacecraft. The same day, many nations signed the Outer Space Treaty, which set out basic principles for the use of space.
In February, the 25th Amendment, dealing with presidential succession and disability, was ratified, and the federal minimum wage rose. In March, the tanker Torrey Canyon ran aground off the southwest coast of England, in what was then among the worst oil spills in history.
April to June: protest, coups and a short war
April brought a cluster of events. On 4 April, Martin Luther King Jr. delivered his Beyond Vietnam address at Riverside Church in New York, linking the war to poverty and civil rights at home. Large antiwar marches took place in New York and San Francisco later that month. On 21 April, army officers seized power in Athens, beginning the Greek junta that ruled for seven years. Late in the month, the Soviet cosmonaut Vladimir Komarov died when Soyuz 1 crashed on its return, and Expo 67 opened in Montreal. On 28 April, the boxer Muhammad Ali refused induction into the US Army, an act that cost him his title and, for years, his ability to fight.
In May, Biafra’s leaders declared independence from Nigeria, and the Straits of Tiran crisis escalated tensions between Egypt and Israel. The Six-Day War followed, from 5 to 10 June, and left Israel in control of the Sinai, Gaza, the West Bank and East Jerusalem. The war’s aftermath still shapes the region, and UN Security Council Resolution 242 in November became a lasting diplomatic reference point.
Music reached a high point in these same weeks. The Beatles’ Sgt. Pepper album appeared in late May and early June, and the Monterey Pop Festival took place on 16 to 18 June. On 12 June, the US Supreme Court’s decision in Loving v. Virginia struck down state bans on interracial marriage.
July to September: heat, music and new institutions
July was the hardest month for American cities. Rioting in Newark began on 12 July, and the Detroit uprising began on 23 July and lasted several days, with large numbers of deaths, injuries and arrests, and with federal troops brought in. In response, President Johnson created what became the Kerner Commission to study the causes.
Elsewhere, the Summer of Love drew young people to Haight-Ashbury and to other cities. In Britain, the Sexual Offences Act partly decriminalised homosexual acts between consenting men over 21 in England and Wales, and the offshore stations of the pirate radio era were outlawed by legislation that took effect in August. In late August, the Senate confirmed Thurgood Marshall as the first Black justice of the Supreme Court. Brian Epstein, the Beatles’ manager, died on 27 August.
September brought the rollout of the Boeing 747 and, at the end of the month, the launch of BBC Radio 1, which absorbed much of what the pirates had pioneered.
October to December: confrontation and closing shocks
On 9 October, Che Guevara was killed in Bolivia, instantly becoming a symbol for many young people far from his own struggle. Twelve days later, tens of thousands marched on Washington, and many crossed the Potomac to the March on the Pentagon. In Britain, breathalyser tests for drivers began in October, and Parliament passed the Abortion Act.
November was crowded. Rolling Stone magazine published its first issue on 9 November, the same day as the unmanned Apollo 4 test of the Saturn V. Carl Stokes in Cleveland and Richard Hatcher in Gary, Indiana, were elected mayors. In Britain, the government devalued the pound on 18 November. General Westmoreland told audiences in Washington that progress was being made in Vietnam, just weeks before the Tet Offensive would undercut that optimism. Defence Secretary Robert McNamara announced his departure at the end of the month.
December ended with a medical landmark. On 3 December, Christiaan Barnard’s team in Cape Town carried out the first human-to-human heart transplant; the patient, Louis Washkansky, survived for about eighteen days. Otis Redding died in a plane crash on 10 December, and the year closed with the release of The Graduate and the broadcast of the Beatles’ Magical Mystery Tour film on Boxing Day in Britain.
Why the year still matters
The usual way to remember 1967 is through a headline: love, war or riot. The calendar suggests something more complicated. The same months that saw the Human Be-In and Monterey also saw Newark and Detroit; the same year that produced the first cash machine in London also produced the first ugly doubts about whether the Vietnam War could be won. Many of the movements that peaked in 1968, from student protest to the backlash against it, were already visible by the end of 1967.
The sections of this site follow those threads one by one, so that a reader can pick the part of the year that interests them and go deeper.