The Last Words of Robert F. Kennedy
In the months before he was assassinated, the Democratic presidential candidate insisted that Americans confront their country’s shortcomings—and live up to its potential.
1968
Revisiting the year that gave rise to modern America
Learning from 1968's Leading Anti-Immigration Alarmist
Enoch Powell gave his xenophobic “Rivers of Blood” speech 50 years ago—but the lessons of its reception still apply today.
Behind the Masterpiece: Van Morrison's Astral Weeks at 50
The album was conceived in the milieu of Timothy Leary, recorded with session musicians fresh off commercial-jingle gigs, and only gradually recognized as something like magic.
The Unlearned Lesson of My Lai
A half-century after a brutal massacre in Vietnam, the United States still struggles to hold itself accountable for atrocities.
The Graduate 50 Years After Its Oscar Win
Revisiting a film embraced by the 1968 generation
'Sex Invades the Schoolhouse'
Fifty years ago, panicked parents helped spread sex-ed programs to schools across the country, even as panicked critics mobilized to stop them.
Peggy Fleming and the 1968 Winter Olympics
Fifty years ago in Grenoble, France, American figure skating’s modern era was born.
The Battle of Khe Sanh and Its Retellings
What one Vietnam War battle, celebrated by the press and the military as a turning point towards an inevitable American victory, says about certainty and authoritativeness.
When the Army Planned for a Fight in U.S. Cities
In 1968, one retired colonel warned that urban insurrections could produce “scenes of destruction approaching those of Stalingrad.”
Doubting MLK During a Strike in Memphis
A retired Presbyterian pastor looks back on 1968, when he participated in the civil-rights struggle but hadn’t yet embraced the principles of nonviolence.