1969 Was The Year When.......

US GDP : $982.2 billion
Federal spending: $183.64 billion
Federal debt: $365.8 billion
Median Household Income
(current dollars): $8,389
Consumer Price Index: 36.7
Unemployment: 3.6%
Cost of a first-class stamp: $0.06

• Richard M. Nixon is inaugurated 37th president of the U.S. (Jan. 20).
• Stonewall riot in New York City marks beginning of gay rights movement (June 28).Apollo 11 astronauts—Neil A. Armstrong, Edwin E. Aldrin, Jr., and Michael Collins—take man's first walk on moon (July 20).
• Sen. Edward M. Kennedy pleads guilty to leaving scene of fatal accident at Chappaquiddick, Mass. (July 18), in which Mary Jo Kopechne was drowned—gets two-month suspended sentence (July 25).
• Woodstock Festival (Aug. 15–17).
• Sesame Street debuts.
• Internet (ARPA) goes online.
  

Pulitzer Prizes
Fiction: House Made of Dawn, N. Scott Momaday
Music: String Quartet No. 3, Karel Husa
Drama: The Great White Hope, Howard Sackler

Oscars awarded in 1969
Academy Award, Best Picture: Oliver!, John Woolf, producer (Columbia)

Nobel Prize for Literature: Samuel Beckett (Ireland)

Grammys awarded in 1969

Record of the Year: "Mrs. Robinson," Simon and Garfunkel
Album of the Year: By the Time I Get to Phoenix, Glen Campbell (Capitol)
Song of the Year: "Little Green Apples," Bobby Russell, songwriter

Miss America: Judith Anne Ford (IL)

In Science

Nobel Prizes:
Chemistry: Derek H. R. Barton (UK) and Odd Hassel (Norway), for study of organic molecules

Physics: Murray Gell-Mann (US), for study of subatomic particles

Physiology or Medicine: Max Delbruck, Alfred D. Hershey, and Salvador E. Luria (all US), for study of mechanism of virus infection in living cells

• Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin become the first humans to walk on the moon.
• The first in vitro fertilization of a human egg is performed in Cambridge, England.
• ARPA (Advanced Research Projects Agency) goes online in December, connecting four major US universities. Designed for research, education, and government organizations, it is the foundation upon which the Internet will eventually be built.
• The scanning electron microscope is developed.
• The use of DDT is banned in residential areas.

Events

• In August, more than half a million people gather in the small, upstate New York town of Bethel (near Woodstock, N.Y.) for four days of rain, sex, drugs and rock 'n' roll. Performers include Janis Joplin, Jimi Hendrix, The Who, Joan Baez, Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young, Jefferson Airplane and Sly and the Family Stone.
• A Rolling Stones fan is killed at the group's Altamont, California, concert by members of Hell's Angels.
• The FCC bans all cigarette advertising on television and radio.
• Children's Television Workshop introduces Sesame Street.

Movies

• Midnight Cowboy, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, The Wild Bunch, Easy Rider, Anne of the Thousand Days

Books

• Robert Coover, Pricksongs and Descants
• John Fowles, The French Lieutenant's Woman
• Mario Puzo, The Godfather
• Philip Roth, Portnoy's Complaint
• Jean Stafford, Collected Stories
• Kurt Vonnegut, Slaughterhouse-Five

From: http://www.infoplease.com/year/1969.html