1968 in the United States

On December 21, 1968, NASA launched Apollo 8, sending astronauts Frank Borman, Jim Lovell, and William A. Anders into lunar orbit. On December 24, astronauts became the first humans to see the far side of the Moon and Earthrise, a photograph that captured Earth in full, altering humanity’s perspective on our planet.

On November 5, 1968, Republican Richard M. Nixon won the U.S. presidential election, defeating Democrat Hubert Humphrey and third-party candidate George Wallace. Running on a platform promising law and order and a ‘secret plan’ to end the Vietnam War, Nixon’s victory reflected national fatigue from unrest and conflict.

On May 11, 1968, in the wake of MLK’s assassination, leaders of the Poor People's Campaign established a protest encampment—Resurrection City—on the National Mall in Washington, D.C. The encampment drew over 2,500 participants advocating economic justice for poor Americans and continued until early June.

Between April 23 and 30, 1968, students at Columbia University occupied multiple administration buildings in protest of the university’s ties to defense projects and plans to build a gym in a nearby Harlem park. The occupation ended in a forceful police eviction, a flashpoint in student activism and opposition to institutional complicity in the war.

From April 5 onward, widespread riots engulfed many U.S. cities, notably Washington, D.C., and Chicago, fueled by outrage and grief over MLK’s assassination. Washington, D.C. experienced four days of violent unrest with over a thousand injuries and numerous arrests; Chicago, among more than 100 affected locales, suffered heavy damage too.

On April 4, 1968, at 6:01 p.m. CST, civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated by a sniper at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennessee. Rush to the hospital proved futile, and King was declared dead at 7:05 p.m. His death ignited nationwide grief, outrage, and civil unrest across more than 100 cities.

On March 31, 1968, President Lyndon B. Johnson delivered a pivotal televised address announcing he would not seek re‑election. Amid mounting domestic unrest and controversial escalation of Vietnam, his withdrawal reshaped the Democratic primary contest, opening the door for challengers like Robert Kennedy and Eugene McCarthy.

On March 16, 1968, American troops in Vietnam carried out what became known as the My Lai Massacre, killing hundreds of unarmed civilians. Though the atrocity remained secret initially, when revealed in November 1969 it deeply eroded public support for the war and became a symbol of moral outrage and protest against U.S. military conduct.

On February 8, 1968, at Orangeburg, South Carolina, a demonstration by African American students protesting segregation at a bowling alley escalated. Highway patrol officers fired on the crowd, killing three students and injuring many others. The Orangeburg Massacre was among the first instances of police killing student protesters on a U.S. campus, striking a sorrowful chord in the civil rights movement.

On January 30, 1968, North Vietnamese and Viet Cong forces launched the Tet Offensive, a widespread coordinated series of attacks against key cities in South Vietnam including Hue and Saigon. Although militarily repelled, the offensive shocked the American public, as media coverage brought war realities into homes, undermining confidence in the U.S. government’s optimistic assessments and fueling growing antiwar sentiment.