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Scroll down to 1960-1964 RHS Alumni for names and contact information.
"The Sixties", as they are known in popular culture, is a term used by historians, journalists, and other objective academics; in some cases nostalgically to describe the counter-culture and social revolution near the end of the decade; and pejoratively to describe the era as one of irresponsible excess and flamboyance. The decade was also labeled the Swinging Sixties because of the libertine attitudes that emerged during this decade. Rampant drug use has become inextricably associated with the counter-culture of the era, as Jefferson Airplane co-founder Paul Kantner mentions: "If you can remember anything about the sixties, then you weren't really there."
The 1960s have become synonymous with all the new, exciting, radical, and subversive events and trends of the period, which continued to develop in the 1970s, 1980s, 1990s and beyond.
Some commentators have seen in this era a classical Jungian nightmare cycle, where a rigid culture, unable to contain the demands for greater individual freedom, broke free of the social constraints of the previous age through extreme deviation from the norm.
1960 - The first debate for a presidential election was televised. It was between Senator John F. Kennedy and Richard M. Nixon. NASA sent up ECHO, the first communications satellite to be seen with the naked eye. American "U2" spy plane shot down over the USSR.
1961 - John F Kennedy moves into the White House. He gives his famous speech - "Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country." The soviets have sent the first man into space and the Americans need a man in space, too. The event came on May 5, 1961. Alan Sheppard was sent to space in the "Freedom 7". On May 25, Kennedy wanted to have a man on the moon and back before the decade was over.
1962 - John Glenn became the first man to orbit the earth - 3 times. It was a five hour flight.
1963 - Martin Luther King Jr. made the speech, "I have a Dream" on August 28, 1963. More than 200,000 peaceful demonstrators came to Washington DC to demand equal rights for Black and Whites. Part of the speech was - "I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character…"
President Kennedy is assassinated in Dallas, Texas on November 22. Kennedy's assassin, Lee Harvey Oswald, was never sent to trial. While being moved by police to a different jail, a man named Jack Ruby shot Oswald. Who killed President Kennedy nobody knows for sure.
1964 - The Beatles, a British rock and roll band became VERY popular. The "Fab Four", John, Paul, George, and Ringo, were played on radio stations all over the world. They were seen on the "Ed Sullivan Show". They performed concerts that were quickly sold out. All the frenzy over the group became known as "Beatlemania", which was only the beginning. The first Civil Rights bill was passed to stop racial discrimination.
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