The Sixties

Television came of age in the 1960s and became the dominant factor in American culture. When Americans wanted to be entertained, informed or just follow their favourite sport, they turned on the tube. Whether the fare was highbrow or low, we spent more time watching television than any other waking activity. We'll look back at the sitcoms, dramas, news programmes and sporting events that shaped and reflected who we were as a nation.

The early 1960s were the tensest years of the Cold War. We will examine the early Kennedy presidency through the prism of the Cold War as reflected in the Bay of Pigs invasion, the building of the Berlin Wall and the Cuban Missile Crisis and its aftermath.

The Warren Report, the only official investigation of the assassination of President Kennedy, has engendered controversy since its release in 1964. We will explore the assassination by examining many of the Report's key conclusions.

Vietnam changed America in ways that reverberate even today. We begin our look at this turbulent time with LBJ taking office, the Tonkin Gulf Incident and consequent resolution, the introduction of ground forces, the beginning of the bombing of North Vietnam, the Fulbright hearings and the initial opposition to the war. We'll go on to cover the escalation of bombing in North Vietnam, the siege of Khe Sahn, the growth of domestic opposition, the Tet offensive, the beginning of the Paris Peace talks and the end of LBJ's presidency.

The Freedom rides, lunch counter sit-ins, the integration of both the university of Mississippi and Alabama, Birmingham, and Dr. Martin Luther King and the March on Washington will all be covered in the our look at the Civil Rights Movement. We'll also look at Bloody Sunday and the March from Selma to Montgomery, Freedom Summer and the murder of three civil rights workers in Mississippi, the passage of the Civil Rights and Voting Rights acts and the relationship of President Johnson and Dr. King, the rise and murder of Malcolm X, the urban riots in Watts, Newark and Detroit. Dr. King travels to Memphis.

In early 1964 Ed Sullivan uttered five simple words, Ladies and gentlemen, The Beatles. Nothing would be the same again. We'll look at how American culture and social mores were forever altered by the lads from Liverpool and their British and American musical counterparts.