1968

Obituaries:
Tallulah Bankhead, Edna Ferber, Helen Keller, Upton Sinclair, John Steinbeck, Lurleen Wallace, Jess Willard.

Awards:

The Oscars:
Best Picture: Oliver!.
Best Actor: Cliff Robertson, Charly.
Best Actress: (tie) Katharine Hepburn, The Lion in Winter; Barbra Streisand, Funny Girl.

The Grammies:
Record/Group: Simon & Garfunkle, Mrs. Robinson.
Album: Glen Campbell, By the Time I Get to Phoenix.
Male Pop Vocalist: Jose Feliciano, Light My Fire.
Female Pop Vocalist: Dionne Warwick, Do You Know the Way to San Jose?.

Entertainment:

• Other Films of 1968: 2001: A Space Odyssey, The Subject Was Roses, Rosemary's Baby, Yellow Submarine, Night of the Living Dead, The Producers, The Odd Couple, In Cold Blood, The Thomas Crown Affair.

• The movie rating system first went into effect.

• Top TV Series, Fall, 1968: Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In, Gomer Pyle, U.S.M.C., Bonanza, Mayberry R.F.D., Family Affair, Gunsmoke, Julia, The Dean Martin Show, Here's Lucy, The Beverly Hillbillies.

• New TV Series of 1968: It Takes a Thief, Animal Kingdom, The Prisoner, One Life to Live, Hawaii Five-O, The Mod Squad, Land of the Giants, Adam-12, Lancer, The Doris Day Show.

• Bill Cosby became the first black to win a best actor Emmy, for I Spy.

• HemisFair 68 was held in San Antonio, Texas.

• The "midi" was introduced, and rejected by the public.

• Plays of 1968: George M!, The Boys in the Band, The Great White Hope.

• Saundra Williams was named the first Miss Black America.
  

Sports:

• The Summer Olympics were held in Mexico City; the Winter Olympics were in Grenoble, France.

• Dick Fosbury introduced the "Fosbury flop" to win the high jump.

• In what became known as the "Heidi game," NBC cut away from a game between the Jets and the Raiders. Oakland scored twice in 9 seconds to win, 43-32.

• The Green Bay Packers defeated the Oakland Raiders, 33-14, in Super Bowl II.

• O.J. Simpson won the Heisman Trophy.

• For the first time, a Kentucky Derby winner, Dancer's Image, was disqualified 3 days after the race when tests revealed traces of a pain killing drug.

• Bobby Unser won the Indianapolis 500 with a record average speed of 152.882 mph.

• The Boston Celtics defeated the Los Angeles Lakers for the NBA championship.

• Billie Jean King won her third straight title at Wimbledon.

• The San Diego and Montreal franchises were awarded in the National League.

• Jim "Catfish" Hunter of the Oakland A's pitched the first American League perfect game since 1922.

• The Detroit Tigers came back to beat the St. Louis Cardinals in the World Series.

Other Events of 1968:

• Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King, Jr. were assassinated.

• Surveyor 7 made a soft landing on the moon and began sending back photos.

• Hubert Humphrey and Edmund Muskie were the democratic nominees in the most violent convention in history.

• The United Auto Workers split from the AFL-CIO.

• Pediatrician Dr. Benjamin Spock and 3 others were convicted of conspiracy to aid and abet draft evasion.

• Shirley Chisolm became the first black woman elected to congress.

• North Vietnam suffered huge losses in the Tet offensive.

• In California, Dr. Norman Shumway performed the first heart transplant in America.

• Key phrases of 1968 included "student unrest" and "black power."

• The New York Stock Exchange set a new trading record of more than 2.3 million shares.

• Pulsars were discovered.

• The Poor People's March on Washington camped in "Resurrection City" near the Washington monument. Police later cleared the area, arresting 124 people.

• Richard Nixon won a narrow victory in the presidential election.

• Jacqueline Kennedy married Aristotle Onassin.

• Soviet troops and tanks crushed the democratic movement in Czechoslovakia.

• Readers Digest acquired the publishing company of Funk & Wagnalls.

• North Korean patrol boats captured the U.S.S. Pueblo and held it for most of the year.

• Lyndon Johnson signed the 1968 Civil Rights Act.

• An income tax surcharge was instituted to control inflation.

SMU in 1968:

• Department of Public Safety established.

• Bob Hope appears at the Pigskin Revue.

• Bob Hope Theatre opened.

• Owen Arts Center is completed, including the Sharp Drama, Forbes Music, and Mudge Art buildings.

JCPenney in 1968:

• William M. Batten was chairman; Cecil L. Wright was president.

• Sales exceeded $3 billion for the first time.

• Children's departments staged a promotion tied in with the film, Doctor Dolittle.

• There were 1,662 stores at the end of the year.

• The Company delivered the first air conditioner sold through the Fairbanks, Alaska, store.

• Mail order sale of rifles and shotguns was discontinued.

• The Company newspaper, Penney News, published a special issue devoted to civil rights and equal opportunity.

• The first JCPenney accident insurance was offered through catalog.

• San Juan, Puerto Rico, became the home of the first JCPenney store ouside the 50 states.

• Parties were thrown in New York and Dallas for Mr. Penney's 93rd birthday.

• JCPenney offered exclusive fashion lines by designers Mary Quant, Victoire, Ariel, and Susie.

• The Company acquired Thrift Drug.

• The Niles, Illinois, store sold 11 suits of armor for $675 to $850 apiece.

• A judge ordered a 15-year-old shoplifter caught in the Neenah, Wisconsin, store to write a report on the life of James Cash Penney.

• JCPenney outfitted the Mormon Tabernacle Choir for its first color TV appearance.

• The first JCPenney ads appeared in Seventeen magazine.

• JCPenney stock split two-for-one.

• The second Penney-Missouri Magazine Awards were confered.

• Nehru styling was popular in jackets for men, women, and boys.