1969 - APRIL

• April 1 – The Hawker Siddeley Harrier enters service with the Royal Air Force.
• April 4 – Dr. Denton Cooley implants the first temporary artificial heart.
• April 9
  • The Harvard University Administration Building is seized by close to 300 students, mostly members of the Students for a Democratic Society. Before the takeover ends, 45 will be injured and 184 arrested.
  • Fermín Monasterio Pérez is murdered by the ETA in Biscay, Spain; the 4th victim in the name of Basque nationalism.
• April 13 – Queensland: The Brisbane Tramways end service after 84 years of operation.
• April 15 – The EC-121 shootdown incident: North Korea shoots down the aircraft over the Sea of Japan, killing all 31 on board.
• April 20
  • British troops arrive in Northern Ireland to reinforce the Royal Ulster Constabulary.
  • A grassroots movement of Berkeley community members seizes an empty lot owned by the University of California, to begin the formation of "People's Park".
• April 22 – Robin Knox-Johnston becomes the first person to sail around the world solo without stopping.
• April 24 – Recently formed British Leyland launches their first new model, the Austin Maxi in Portugal.
• April 28 – Charles de Gaulle steps down as president of France after suffering defeat in a referendum the day before.

 

1968 - APRIL

• April 2
  • Bombs explode at midnight in two department stores in Frankfurt-am-Main; Andreas Baader and Gudrun Ensslin are later arrested and sentenced for arson.
  • The film 2001: A Space Odyssey premieres in Washington, D.C.
• April 3 – The American movie Planet of the Apes is released in theaters.
• April 4
  • Martin Luther King, Jr. is shot dead at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennessee. Riots erupt in major American cities, lasting for several days afterwards.
  • 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 6
  • La, la, la by Massiel (music and lyrics by Manuel de la Calva and Ramón Arcusa) wins the Eurovision Song Contest 1968 for Spain, at the Royal Albert Hall in London.
  • A shootout between Black Panthers and Oakland police results in several arrests and deaths, including 16-year-old Panther Bobby Hutton.
  • A double explosion in downtown Richmond, Indiana kills 41 and injures 150.
• April 7 – Racing driver Jim Clark is killed in a Formula 2 race at Hockenheim.
• April 8 – The Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs (under Department of Justice) (BNDD) is created.
• April 10 – The ferry TEV Wahine strikes a reef at the mouth of Wellington Harbour, New Zealand, with the loss of 53 lives, in Cyclone Giselle, which created the windiest conditions ever recorded in New Zealand.
• April 11
  • Josef Bachmann tries to assassinate Rudi Dutschke, leader of the 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.
  • German left-wing students blockade the Springer Press HQ in Berlin and many are arrested (one of them Ulrike Meinhof).
  • U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson signs the Civil Rights Act of 1968.
  • MGM's classic film The Wizard of Oz makes its NBC debut after being telecast on CBS since 1956. It will remain on NBC for the next 8 years.
• April 20
  • English politician Enoch Powell makes his controversial Rivers of Blood speech.
• April 23
  • President Mobutu releases captured mercenaries in the Congo.
  • Surgeons at the Hôpital de la Pitié, Paris, perform Europe's first heart transplant, on Clovis Roblain.
  • The United Methodist Church is created by the union of the former Methodist and Evangelical United Brethren churches.
• 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 26 – The nuclear weapon "Boxcar" is tested at the Nevada Test Site in the biggest detonation of Operation Crosstie.
• April 29 – The musical Hair officially opens on Broadway.

 

1967 - APRIL

• April 2 – A United Nations delegation arrives in Aden due to approaching independence. They leave April 7, accusing British authorities of lack of cooperation. The British say the delegation did not contact them.
• April 4 – Martin Luther King, Jr. denounces the Vietnam War during a religious service in New York City.
• April 6 – Georges Pompidou begins to form the next French government.
• April 7 – Six-Day War (approach): Israeli fighters shoot down 7 Syrian MIG-21s.
• April 8 – Puppet on a String by Sandie Shaw (music and lyrics by Bill Martin and Phil Coulter) wins the Eurovision Song Contest 1967 for the United Kingdom.
• April 9 – The first Boeing 737 (a 100 series) takes its maiden flight.
• April 10
  • The AFTRA strike is settled just in time for the 39th Academy Awards ceremony to be held, hosted by Bob Hope. Best Picture goes to A Man for All Seasons.
  • Oral arguments begin in the landmark U.S. Supreme Court case Loving v. Virginia, 388 U.S. 1 (1967), challenging the State of Virginia's statutory scheme to prevent marriages between persons solely on the basis of racial classifications.
• April 12 – The Ahmanson Theatre opens in Los Angeles.
• April 13 – Conservatives win the Greater London Council elections.
• April 14 – In San Francisco, 10,000 march against the Vietnam War.
• April 15
  • Large demonstrations are held against the Vietnam War in New York City and San Francisco.
  • Scotland defeats England 3-2 at Wembley Stadium, with goals from Law, Lennox and McCalligog, in the British Championships. This is England's first defeat since they won the World Cup, and ends a 19-game unbeaten run.
• April 20
  • The Surveyor 3 probe lands on the Moon.
  • A Globe Air Bristol Britannia turboprop crashes at Nicosia, Cyprus, killing 126 people.^[2][3]
• April 21
  • Greece is taken over by a military dictatorship led by George Papadopoulos; future-Prime Minister Andreas Papandreou remains a political prisoner to December 25. The dictatorship ends in 1974.
  • An outbreak of tornadoes strikes the upper Midwest section of the United States (in particular the Chicago area, including the suburbs of Belvidere and Oak Lawn, Illinois, where 33 people are killed and 500 injured).
• April 23 – A group of young radicals are expelled from the Nicaraguan Socialist Party (PSN). This group goes on to found the Socialist Workers Party (POS).
• April 24
  • Soyuz 1: Vladimir Komarov becomes the first Soviet cosmonaut to die, when the parachute of his space capsule fails during re-entry.
  • In the NBA, the Philadelphia 76ers defeat the San Francisco Warriors 125-122 in game six to win the title. Some say this team is arguably the greatest of all time.
• April 27 – Montreal, Quebec, Expo 67, a World's Fair to coincide with the Canadian Confederation centennial, officially opens with Prime Minister Lester B. Pearson igniting the Expo Flame in the Place des Nations.
• April 28
  • In Houston, Texas, boxer Muhammad Ali refuses military service. He is stripped of his boxing title and not allowed to fight for three years.
  • Expo 67 opens to the public, with over 310,000 people attending. Al Carter from Chicago is the first visitor as noted by Expo officials.
  • The U.S. aerospace manufacturer McDonnell Douglas is formed through a merger of McDonnell Aircraft and Douglas Aircraft (it becomes part of The Boeing Company three decades later).
• April 29 – Fidel Castro announces that all intellectual property belongs to the people and that Cuba intends to translate and publish technical literature without compensation.
• April 30 – Moscow's 537m-tall TV tower is finished.