Sir Robert Menzies

Posted in 1968

Sir Robert suffers a small cerebral thrombosis when in London visiting his daughter Heather and spends four and a half weeks in the London Clinic. The press published photos of him coming down the steps on a walking stick. "I am not bad," he is reported as saying. "I am an old man and getting tired."
A W Martin, Robert Menzies: A Life. Vol 2 1944-1978, 1999 p 558.

Australian Events

Posted in 1968

Gorton Government, January 9.
Oil and gas are discovered in Bass Strait.
Population 12 million.
Mounted police charge 2,000 anti-Vietnam war demonstrators outside the American Consulate in Melbourne.
Commonwealth Office of Aboriginal Affairs is established.

Posted in 1968

US civil rights leader Martin Luther King is assassinated on April 4: The most successful and powerful of American black leaders, he led black moderates in campaigning for civil rights, preached non-aggression and adopted 'passive resistance' tactics. In 1963 he told 200,000 marchers in Washington: "I have a dream ... that one day this nation will rise up and live out its creed - 'We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal'." He won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1964.
US Presidential candidate Robert Kennedy is assassinated on June 6: Younger brother of President John F Kennedy and US Attorney-General from 1961-64, he had a special interest in promoting civil rights for blacks.
First manned spacecraft Apollo 8 journeys 384,000 kilometres to orbit the moon and back.
Antony Hewish co-discovers (with Jocelyn Bell) pulsars: radio stars emitting regular pulses of energy. He shares the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1974 with Sir Martin Ryle, discoverer of the quasar.