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    LIFE The 1960s: The Decade When Everything Changed
    LIFE The 1960s: The Decade When Everything Changed
    LIFE The 1960s: The Decade When Everything Changed
    Ebook216 pages1 hour

    LIFE The 1960s: The Decade When Everything Changed

    By The Editors of LIFE

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    Join the editors of LIFE Magazine as they revisit the 1960s.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherLife
    Release dateSep 2, 2016
    ISBN9781683305354
    LIFE The 1960s: The Decade When Everything Changed

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      LIFE The 1960s - The Editors of LIFE

      war.

      1960: The World as It Stands

      SOVFOTO/UIG/GETTY

      THE FINAL FRONTIER? It would not necessarily prove to be so— there were other frontiers to come, including whether Soviet authoritarianism could last forever in Europe—but at the outset of the 1960s, the United States senses it is falling behind its adversary because, when the space race lifts off, the U.S.S.R. is unquestionably first out of the blocks. In October 1957, Sputnik 1, a petite 184-pound capsule, above, is launched, then circles the earth every hour and a half, scaring the bejeezus out of freethinking folks below. By 1961 there will be eight more Sputnik satellites, and Soviet scientists are sending animals on some of the trips so they can gauge the effects of radiation, pressure and temperature on living creatures. Sputnik 5 takes with it the dogs Belka (Russian for squirrel) and Strelka (little arrow), seen in the photo below. At a June 1961 dinner in Vienna for President John Kennedy and Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev, Khrushchev boasts to Jacqueline Kennedy about how Strelka has had some puppies and promises to send her one. Two months later, Soviet ambassador Mikhail Menshikov surprises the First Lady with little Pushinka (Fluffy). It is a cute dog, but, to play it safe (and in a sign of the times) the White House has Pushinka examined to ensure that she isn’t carrying microphones or a bomb. She isn’t, and quickly becomes a beloved pet of Kennedy daughter Caroline.

      BETTMANN/CORBIS

      The world population in 1960 is approximately 2,915,383,000 (today it has reached 7 billion) . . . In 1960, the United States says that there are 179,323,175 of us (the 2013 estimate has 319,089,369 of us) . . . In 1960, New York is the world’s third biggest city behind Tokyo and London with 7,781,984 stories being told daily (today in the so-called Asian Century, NYC is eighth behind Tokyo and the fast-growing Djakarta, Seoul, Delhi, Shanghai, Manila and Karachi, though there are now more than 8.4 million stories in the Naked City) . . . And, nonstatistically, America is in 1960 growing in the exciting postwar period as a world power, having assumed the leadership role (for democracies) from Great Britain . . . There is an ongoing face-off with the Soviet Union, in what is becoming known as a cold war . . . Where Western firepower has been openly evident, as in the recent Korea conflict and also in France’s effort to cling to its colonies in Southeast Asia, people are confused about whether Western goals are a preservation of the past or a hope for the future . . . Same, too, with simmering civil rights arguments in the United States . . . And the baby boomers are starting to come of age (or to become a problem, depending on your view).

      The 1950s had seemed relatively stable, with newspapers showing Ike at the helm, and offering—for those who disapproved of Elvis and Brando—solace in Connie Francis and Doris Day. On January 1, 1960, even as Americans gazed skyward fretfully—knowing the Sputnik satellite had been orbiting up there a few years earlier, and being told that outer space would either be a new frontier or a new battleground—these same citizens trusted in the resolve and general success shown by their leaders in the prior two decades, and still felt—most of them—that this was my country, right or wrong. They also felt that their country was in fact hardly ever wrong, or never had been, and also, despite the confusing aspects and denouement of the conflict in Korea, had never lost a war.

      The year would bring, as all years do to a greater or lesser extent, disaster, political foment, technological and medical advancements (some of which always change the world in subtle or immediate ways—improving or saving or destroying lives), plus new entertainments. Before March was out, earthquakes and tidal waves had killed tens of thousands in northwestern Africa and southwestern South America, and, closer to home in September, Hurricane Donna would rip across Puerto Rico and up the U.S. East Coast, causing a billion dollars in damage. On May

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