'61 to '65

When we were at GHS

I guess we could borrow the opening line from “A Tale of Two Cities” and say “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times” and it was our time at Girls High! The years 1961 to 1965 were full of historically and sociologically significant events. During these years we were changing the world. Things were turbulent and jubilant at the same time. Were you present and accounted for or was the world passing you by. It was a little bit of both for me.
In the interest of time and space, some of the highlights are listed below courtesy of Wikipedia (mostly). They are chronological for the most part.

In 1961: Did we know the significance?
• President Dwight D. Eisenhower announces that the United States has severed diplomatic and consular relations with Cuba.
• President John F. Kennedy appoints Janet G. Travell to be his physician, the first woman to hold this appointment.
• The Beatles perform for the first time at The Cavern Club
• United States President John F. Kennedy establishes the Peace Corps.
• The trial of Nazi Adolf Eichmann begins in Jerusalem
• The Bay of Pigs Invasion of Cuba begins and is defeated
• Sierra Leone becomes independent from the United Kingdom
• U.S. Freedom Riders begin interstate bus rides to test the new U.S. Supreme Court integration decision
• Mercury program: Alan Shepard becomes the first American in space aboard Mercury-Redstone 3.
• Apollo program: President Kennedy announces before a special joint session of Congress his goal to put a man on the Moon before the end of the decade.
• Russian ballet dancer Rudolf Nureyev requests asylum in France while in Paris with the Kirov Ballet.
• Iraqi president Abd al-Karim Qasim announces he is going to annex Kuwait
• Construction of the Berlin Wall begins, restricting movement between East Berlin and West Berlin and forming a clear boundary between West Germany and East Germany, Western Europe and Eastern Europe.
• Tom and Jerry make a return with their first episode since 1957
• United Nations Secretary-General Dag Hammarskjöld dies in an air crash en route to Katanga, Congo
• the Walt Disney anthology television series, renamed Walt Disney's Wonderful World of Color, moves from ABC to NBC after seven years on the air, and begins telecasting its programs in color for the first time. Years later, after Disney's death, the still-on-the-air program will be renamed The Wonderful World of Disney.
• Baseball player Roger Maris of the New York Yankees hits his 61st home run in the last game of the season, against the Boston Red Sox, beating the 34-year-old record held by Babe Ruth.
• West Side Story is released as a film
• The Arab League takes over protecting Kuwait; the last British troops leave
• The Soviet Union detonates a 58-megaton yield hydrogen bomb known as Tsar Bomba over Novaya Zemlya. It remains the largest ever man-made explosion.
• Catch-22 is first published by Joseph Heller
• The American involvement in the Vietnam War officially begins, as the first American helicopters arrive in Saigon along with 400 U.S. personnel

Though I did not find any mention of Motown Artists in any of the Wikipedia “year articles” I found the following in the “Motown” article:
• From 1961 to 1971, Motown had 110 top 10 hits. Top artists on the Motown label during that period included the Supremes (initially including Diana Ross), the Four Tops, and the Jackson 5, while Stevie Wonder, Marvin Gaye, the Marvelettes, and the Miracles had hits on the Tamla label. The company operated several labels in addition to the Tamla and Motown imprints. A third label, which Gordy named after himself (though it was originally called "Miracle") featured the Temptations, the Contours, and Martha and the Vandellas. A fourth, V.I.P., released recordings by the Velvelettes, the Spinners, the Monitors, and Chris Clark.
• A fifth label, Soul, featured Jr. Walker & the All Stars, Jimmy Ruffin, Shorty Long, the Originals, and Gladys Knight & the Pips (who had found success before joining Motown, as "The Pips" on Vee-Jay). Many more Motown-owned labels released recordings in other genres, including Workshop Jazz (jazz), Mel-o-dy (country, although it was originally an R&B label), and Rare Earth (rock), which featured the band Rare Earth themselves. Under the slogan "The Sound of Young America", Motown's acts were enjoying widespread popularity among black and white audiences alike.
• Smokey Robinson said of Motown's cultural impact:
Into the '60s, I was still not of a frame of mind that we were not only making music, we were making history. But I did recognize the impact because acts were going all over the world at that time. I recognized the bridges that we crossed, the racial problems and the barriers that we broke down with music. I recognized that because I lived it. I would come to the South in the early days of Motown and the audiences would be segregated. Then they started to get the Motown music and we would go back and the audiences were integrated and the kids were dancing together and holding hands.[7]

In 1962: What do you remember?
• New York City introduces a subway train that operates without a crew on board.
• Portugal abandons the U.N. General Assembly due to the debate over Angola
• The Sunday Times in the United Kingdom becomes the first paper to print a colour supplement.
• During a new moon and solar eclipse, an extremely rare grand conjunction of the classical planets occurs (it includes all 5 of the naked-eye planets plus the Sun and Moon), all of them within 16° of one another on the ecliptic. (who knew?)
• French President Charles de Gaulle calls for Algeria to be granted independence
• First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy takes television viewers on a tour of the White House.
• John Glenn becomes the first American to orbit the Earth, three times in 4 hours, 55 minutes.
• Wilt Chamberlain scores 100 points in a single National Basketball Association basketball game
• Flying Tiger Line Flight 739, a Lockheed L-1049H Super Constellation chartered by the United States Military Air Transport Service and carrying mainly United States Army personnel bound for South Vietnam, vanishes over the western Pacific Ocean with the loss of all 107 on board. No wreckage or bodies are ever found
• Bob Dylan releases his debut album, Bob Dylan, in the United States
• Leonard Bernstein causes controversy with his remarks before a concert featuring Glenn Gould with the New York Philharmonic, when he (Bernstein) announces that although he disagrees with Gould's style of playing the Brahms First Piano Concerto, he finds Gould's ideas fascinating and will conduct the piece anyway. Bernstein's action receives a withering review from New York Times music critic Harold C. Schonberg.
• Taco Bell is founded by Glen Bell in Downey, California
• In Los Angeles, the first MLB game is played at Dodger Stadium
• Dayton Hudson Corporation opens the first of its Target discount stores in Roseville, Minnesota.
• Drilling for the new Montreal subway commences.
• The United States Supreme Court rules that mandatory prayers in public schools are unconstitutional
• Rwanda and Burundi gain independence
• The first Walmart store, then known as Wal-Mart (which is still the corporate name), opens for business in Rogers, Arkansas
• American artist Andy Warhol premieres his Campbell's Soup Cans exhibit in Los Angeles
• AT&T's Telstar, the world's first commercial communications satellite, is launched into orbit and activated the next day
• Marilyn Monroe found dead from an overdose of sleeping pills and chloral hydrate, officially ruled a "probable suicide".
• The South African government arrests Nelson Mandela in Howick, and charges him with incitement to rebellion
• The Beatles record their first single, 'Love Me Do' at Abbey Road Studios in London
• Sonny Liston and Floyd Patterson fight for the boxing world title.
• Johnny Carson takes over as permanent host of NBC's Tonight Show, a post he would hold for 30 years
• The first black student, James Meredith, registers at the University of Mississippi, escorted by Federal Marshals
• Dr. No, the first James Bond film, premieres in UK theaters
• Cuban Missile Crisis ends: Soviet Union leader Nikita Khrushchev announces that he has ordered the removal of Soviet missile bases in Cuba. In a secret deal between Kennedy and Khrushchev, Kennedy agrees to the withdrawal of U.S. missiles from Turkey.
• The United Nations General Assembly passes a resolution condemning South Africa's racist apartheid policies, and calls for all UN member states to cease military and economic relations with the nation.
• An agreement is signed between Britain and France to develop the Concorde supersonic airliner
• Rachel Carson's book Silent Spring is released, giving rise to the modern
environmentalist movement.

In 1963: Where were you when this happened?
• Leonardo da Vinci's Mona Lisa is exhibited in the United States for the first time, at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C.
• George Wallace becomes governor of Alabama. In his inaugural speech, he defiantly proclaims "segregation now, segregation tomorrow, and segregation forever!"
• The publication of Betty Friedan's The Feminine Mystique launches the reawakening of the Women's Movement in the United States as women's organizations and consciousness raising groups spread
• Gideon v. Wainwright: The Supreme Court of the United States rules that state courts are required to provide counsel in criminal cases for defendants who cannot afford to pay their own attorneys.
• Director Alfred Hitchcock's film The Birds is released in the United States
• Southern Christian Leadership Conference volunteers kick off the Birmingham campaign (Birmingham, Alabama) against racial segregation in the United States with a sit-in
• The 35th Academy Awards ceremony is held. Lawrence of Arabia wins Best Picture
• Martin Luther King, Jr. issues his "Letter from Birmingham Jail".
• The Coca-Cola Company introduces its first diet drink, Tab cola.
• Medgar Evers is murdered in Jackson, Mississippi. (His killer, Byron De La Beckwith, is convicted in 1994.)
• The film Cleopatra is released.
• Vostok 6 carries Soviet cosmonaut Valentina Tereshkova, the first woman into space.
• ZIP codes are introduced by the United States Postal Service.
• James Meredith becomes the first black person to graduate from the University of Mississippi.
• Martin Luther King Jr. delivers his "I Have a Dream" speech on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial to an audience of at least 250,000, during the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom.
• The Pro Football Hall of Fame opens in Canton, Ohio with 17 charter members.
• Sam Cooke and his band are arrested after trying to register at a "whites only" motel in Louisiana. In the months following, he records the song "A Change Is Gonna Come".
• The car manufacturing firm Lamborghini is founded in Italy
• Malcolm X makes an historic speech in Detroit, Michigan ("Message to the Grass Roots").
• The first push-button telephone is made available to AT&T customers
• Assassination of John F. Kennedy: In a motorcade in Dallas, Texas, United States President John F. Kennedy is shot by Lee Harvey Oswald, and Governor of Texas John Connally is seriously wounded. A few hours later Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson is sworn in as the 36th President aboard Air Force One, as Kennedy's body is flown back to Washington, D.C. All television coverage for the next 4 days is devoted to the assassination and its aftermath, the November 24 procession of the horsedrawn casket to the United States Capitol rotunda, and the funeral. Stores and businesses shut down for the entire weekend and Monday, in tribute.
• Lee Harvey Oswald, assassin of John F. Kennedy, is shot dead by Jack Ruby in Dallas, an event seen on live national television. Later that night, a hastily arranged program, A Tribute to John F. Kennedy from the Arts, featuring actors, opera singers, and noted writers, all performing dramatic readings and/or music, is telecast on ABC-TV.
• Vietnam War: New U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson confirms that the United States intends to continue supporting South Vietnam militarily and economically.
• Tony Verna, a CBS-TV director, debuts an improved version of instant replay during his direction of a live televised sporting event, the Army–Navy Game of college football played in Philadelphia. This instance is notable as it was the first instant replay system to use videotape instead of film.
• The Beatles' "I Want to Hold Your Hand" and "I Saw Her Standing There" are released in the United States, marking the beginning of Beatlemania on an international level.
• Harvey Ball invents the ubiquitous smiley face symbol.
• The iconic Porsche 911 is first produced.

In 1964: What were the consequences of…
• United States Surgeon General Luther Terry reports that smoking may be hazardous to one's health (the first such statement from the U.S. government).
• Plans to build the New York City World Trade Center are announced.
• U.S. Senator Margaret Chase Smith, 66, announces her candidacy for the Republican presidential nomination
• The Beatles vault to the #1 spot on the U.S. singles charts for the first time, with "I Want to Hold Your Hand", The Beatles arrive from England at New York City's JFK International Airport, receiving a tumultuous reception from a throng of screaming fans, marking the first occurrence of "Beatlemania" in the United States. The Beatles appear on The Ed Sullivan Show, marking their first live performance on American television. Seen by an estimated 73 million viewers, the appearance becomes the catalyst for the mid-1960s "British Invasion" of American popular music.
• Protesting against alleged de facto school racial segregation, Black and Puerto Rican groups in New York City boycott public schools
• Cassius Clay (later Muhammad Ali) beats Sonny Liston in Miami Beach, Florida, and is crowned the heavyweight champion of the world
• The government of Italy asks for help to keep the Leaning Tower of Pisa from toppling over.
• The first Ford Mustang rolls off the assembly line at Ford Motor Company
• Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor marry (for the first time) in Montreal.
• Merv Griffin's game show Jeopardy! debuts on NBC; Art Fleming is its first host.
• IBM announces the System/360.
• Sidney Poitier is the first African-American to win an Academy Award in the category Best Actor in a Leading Role in Lilies of the Field
• A Delta rocket's third-stage motor ignites prematurely in an assembly room at Cape Canaveral, killing 3.
• U.S. President Lyndon Johnson in New York, and Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev in Moscow, simultaneously announce plans to cut back production of materials for making nuclear weapons.
• Nelson Mandela makes his "I Am Prepared to Die" speech at the opening of the Rivonia Trial, a key event for the anti-apartheid movement.
• The 1964 New York World's Fair opens to celebrate the 300th anniversary of New Amsterdam being taken over by British forces under the Duke of York (later King James II) and being renamed New York in 1664.
• Some 400–1,000 students march through Times Square, New York and another 700 in San Francisco, in the first major student demonstration against the Vietnam War. Twelve young men in New York City publicly burn their draft cards to protest the war; the first such act of war resistance
• Pablo Picasso paints his fourth Head of a Bearded Man.
• The Charter of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) is released by Arab League
• Three civil rights workers, Michael Schwerner, Andrew Goodman, and James Chaney, are murdered near Philadelphia, Mississippi, by local Klansmen and a deputy sheriff
• Jim Bunning pitches a perfect game for the Philadelphia Phillies, the first in the National League since 1880
• President Lyndon Johnson signs the Civil Rights Act of 1964 into law, abolishing racial segregation in the United States
• Philadelphia 1964 race riot: Tensions between African American residents and police lead to 341 injuries and 774 arrests
• Shindig! premieres on the ABC, featuring the top musical acts of the Sixties. Bewitched, starring Elizabeth Montgomery also premieres on ABC.
• The Shinkansen high-speed rail system, the world's first such system, is inaugurated in Japan, for the first sector between Tokyo and Osaka.
• American civil rights movement leader Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. becomes the youngest recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize, which was awarded to him for leading non-violent resistance to end racial prejudice in the United States.
• Nikita Khrushchev is deposed as leader of the Soviet Union; Leonid Brezhnev and Alexei Kosygin assume power.
• The People's Republic of China explodes an atomic bomb in Sinkiang.
• Jerome Horwitz synthesizes zidovudine (AZT), an antiviral drug which will later be used in treating HIV.
• The Pontiac GTO, the first vehicle to be officially dubbed a "muscle car", debuts

In 1965: The Future is Ours and this is the Foundation
• African-American Muslim minister and human rights activist Malcolm X is assassinated in New York City
• The film of The Sound of Music premieres at the Rivoli Theater in New York City.
• Joan Rivers makes her Tonight Show debut.
• The second attempt to march from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama, under the leadership of Martin Luther King, Jr., stops at the bridge that was the site of Bloody Sunday, to hold a prayer service and return to Selma, in obedience to a court restraining order. White supremacists beat up white Unitarian Universalist minister James J. Reeb later that day in Selma. In response to the events of March 7 and 9 in Selma, Alabama, President Lyndon B. Johnson sends a bill to Congress that forms the basis for the Voting Rights Act of 1965. It is passed by the Senate May 26, the House July 10, and signed into law by President Johnson August 6
• Cosmonaut Alexey Leonov, leaving his spacecraft Voskhod 2 for 12 minutes, becomes the first person to walk in space.
• In Houston, the Harris County Domed Stadium (more commonly known as the Astrodome) opens
• Charlie Brown and the Peanuts Gang appear on the cover of Time. A Charlie Brown Christmas, the first Peanuts television special, debuts on CBS, quickly becoming an annual tradition.
• Pianist Vladimir Horowitz returns to the stage after a 12-year absence, performing a legendary concert in Carnegie Hall in New York
• West Germany and Israel establish diplomatic relations
• The first skateboarding championship is held
• Sonny & Cher release I Got You Babe which would go on to #1 in the US, UK & Canada and establish them as international icons.
• July 14 U.S. spacecraft Mariner 4 flies by Mars, becoming the first spacecraft to return images from the Red Planet.
• Vietnam War: U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson announces his order to increase the number of United States troops in South Vietnam from 75,000 to 125,000, and to more than double the number of men drafted per month - from 17,000 to 35,000
• U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson signs the Social Security Act of 1965 into law, establishing Medicare and Medicaid
• U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson signs the Voting Rights Act of 1965 into law
• The Watts Riots begin in Los Angeles
• The rock group Jefferson Airplane debuts at the Matrix in San Francisco and begins to appear there regularly
• At the conclusion of the Frankfurt Auschwitz trials, 66 ex-SS personnel receive life sentences, 15 others smaller ones
• Sandy Koufax of the Los Angeles Dodgers pitches a perfect game in a baseball match against the Chicago Cubs. The opposing pitcher, Bob Hendley, allows only 1 run, which is unearned. It is Koufax's fourth no-hitter in as many seasons.
• Hurricane Betsy roars ashore near New Orleans with winds of 145 mph (233 km/h), causing 76 deaths and $1.42 billion in damage. The storm is the first hurricane to cause $1 billion in unadjusted damages, giving it the nickname "Billion Dollar Betsy". It is the last major hurricane to strike New Orleans until Hurricane Katrina 40 years later.
• U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson signs an immigration bill which abolishes quotas based on national origin.
• Pope Paul VI visits the United States. He appears for a Mass in Yankee Stadium and makes a speech at the United Nations.
• In St. Louis, Missouri, the 630-foot (190 m)-tall inverted catenary steel Gateway Arch is completed.
• Pillsbury's world-famous mascot, the Pillsbury Doughboy, is created.
• Northeast blackout of 1965: Several U.S. states (VT, NH, MA, CT, RI, NY and portions of NJ) and parts of Canada are hit by a series of blackouts lasting up to 13½ hours.
• Tens of thousands of Vietnam War protesters picket the White House, then march on the Washington Monument, The Pentagon tells U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson that if planned major sweep operations to neutralize Viet Cong forces during the next year are to succeed, the number of American troops in Vietnam will have to be increased from 120,000 to 400,000
• Tokyo officially becomes the largest city of the world, taking the lead from New York City.
• World Population: 3,334,874,000
• We graduated from the Philadelphia High School for Girls!

Researched and contributed by Marlene Jackson Jones.