Observations — 1965, USSR Has Trouble Shooting The Moon

LBJ made his famous “Great Society” speech.  U.S. Marines were sent to the Dominican Republic.  Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was arrested in Selma. Malcolm X was killed.  Watts riot erupted.  Bill Cosby became the first black actor to take a TV lead role (“I Spy”).  The Big Bang Theory was confirmed. The U. S. admitted using chemical weapons against the Viet Cong.  U.S. troops in Vietnam reached 190,000. The U.S. Supreme Court made contraception legal. The “Today Show” premiered on TV, as did “Get Smart.” Singapore officially became a country. Epcot Center opened. Pop Tarts were invented. India and Pakistan clashed at the border. The USSR’s Luna 6 missed the moon. USSR’s Luna 8 crashes into the moon. The Catholic Church and the Orthodox Patriarch Athenagoras Church agreed to stop excommunicating each other. The December 17th issue of The New York Times was 946 pages. The Who released its first album, while simultaneously covering first base. We also listened to: ”Wooly Bully” by Sam the Sham and the Pharaohs, “I Can’t Help Myself” by the Four Tops, “I Can’t Get No Satisfaction” by The Rolling Stones, “You Were On My Mind” by We Five, “You’ve Lost That Lovin’ Feeling” by The Righteous Brothers, “Downtown” by Petula Clark, “Help” by The Beatles, “Can’t You Hear My Heart Beat” by Herman’s Hermits, “Crying in the Chapel” by Elvis Presley, and “My Girl” by The Temptations. We watched Dr. Zhivago, The Sound of Music, A Thousand Clowns and Darling.  My Fair Lady won the Academy Award for Best Film. John le Carré won the Mystery Writers of America’s Best Mystery prize for The Spy Who Came In From The Cold. Other big books of the year included Going To Meet The Man by James Baldwin, At Play In The Fields of The Lord by Peter Matthiessen, The Clown by Henrich Böll, Thirteen Stories by Eudora Welty and such non-fiction books as Autobiography of Malcolm X by Alex Haley and Ralph Nader’s exposé, Unsafe At Any Speed.  Coming into the world were Robert Downey Jr., J. K. Rowling, Reggie Miller, Bjork and Diane Lane.  The following made their final appearance:  Winston Churchill, Nat King Cole, T. S. Eliot, Adlai Stevenson, Stan Laurel, Clara Bow, Dorothy Kilgallen, W. Somerset Maugham, Shirley Jackson, Spike Jones, Edward R. Murrow, Trigger and Dorothy Dandridge. If you were around, what were you doing during the year of the Wood Snake?