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April 1 - Carl Brashear, the first African American
United States Navy diver, becomes the first amputee certified to
make diving missions, after a long battle which started with the
accident which amputated his leg in 1966.
April 2 - Bombs placed by Andreas Baader and
Gudrun Ensslin explode at midnight in 2 department stores in
Frankfurt-am-Main; they are later arrested and sentenced for arson.
April 4 - Martin Luther King, Jr. is assassinated
at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennessee. Riots erupt in major
American cities for several days afterward.
April 4 - Apollo Program: Apollo-Saturn
mission 502 (Apollo 6)
is launched, as the second and last unmanned test-flight of the
Saturn V launch vehicle.
April 4 -
La,
la, la by Massiel (music and text by
Manuel de la Calva and Ramón Arcusa) wins the Eurovision Song
Contest 1968 for Spain.
April 6 - Double explosion rocks Richmond,
Indiana in downtown area. The explosion killed 41 people and injured
more than 150.
April 6 - A shootout between Black Panthers and
Oakland police results in several arrests and deaths, including
16-year-old Panther Bobby Hutton.
April 7 - Racing driver Jim Clark is killed in a
Formula 2 race at Hockenheim.
April 11 - Joseph Bachmann tries to assassinate
Rudi Dutschke, leader of a left-wing movement (APO) in Germany, and
tries to commit suicide afterwards, failing in both, although
Dutschke dies of his brain injuries 11 years later.
April 11 - German left-wing students blockade the
Springer Press HQ in Berlin and many are arrested (one of them is
Ulrike Meinhof).
April 11 - U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson signs
the Civil Rights Act of 1968.
April 12 - The First Cathedral, a megachurch in
Bloomfield, Connecticut is founded.
April 20 - Pierre Elliott Trudeau becomes
Canada's 15th Prime Minister.
April 20 - English politician Enoch Powell makes
his controversial Rivers of Blood Speech.
April 20 - The film
The Wizard of Oz
temporarily moves to NBC, after a rights dispute between CBS, which
had previously telecast it, and MGM. NBC will telecast the film for
the next seven years. CBS telecasts of the film will resume in 1976,
and will last until 1998, when Turner Broadcasting will win the
rights to telecast it.
April 23 - President Mobutu releases captured
mercenaries in Congo.
April 23 - Surgeons at the Hôpital de la Pitié,
Paris, perform Europe's first heart transplant, on Clovis Roblain.
April 23 - April 30 - Vietnam War: Student
protesters at Columbia University in New York City take over
administration buildings and shut down the university.
See main article
Columbia University protests of 1968
April 29 - The musical
Hair officially opens on Broadway |
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