Some major 1968 events we already missed.

 USS Pueblo.

This blog won't become the This Day In 1968 Blog, like it threatened to become for 1915, 16, 17, and 18.

But it is 50 years ago, and it was quite a year, as already noted.  We may, therefore, take note of some things that occurred during it.

Here's what we already missed:

January 4:  Mattel introduced Hot Wheels.

I, and every boy I knew, loved those little cars.

Shoot, I still do.

January 5:  Alexander Dubcek chosen as the leader of the Czech Communist party, ushering in the Prague Spring.

This seemed to usher in some hope that Communism in Eastern Europe would evolve into Democratic Socialism, something, it would would soon show, that the USSR was not prepared to accept.

January 21.  The Battle of Khe Sanh, a diversion of for the Tet Offensive, commences.

The battle was one of the few real sieges of the American war in Vietnam.  The Marine Corps defended the base valiantly, supplied from the air by the United States Air Force.  In April the siege ended when the U.S. Army reestablished ground connection with the base.  While an American victory of a sort, the fact that the NVA was capable of laying an American force to siege, would be a factor in the change in the public's mind on the war.   And, we started to look like the French, in a way, with there being shades of Dien Bien Phu.

January 22:  Rowan & Martin's Laugh In debuts. 

Funny, and irreverent, and featuring a mild form of the exist humor that characterized a lot of American humor at the time, it was hugely popular.

January 23. The USS Pueblo taken.

As if there wasn't enough grim news, the seizure of an American vessel, and the poor performance of the Navy's officer corps as it happened, made the Americans look anemic and caused concern that the Korean War was about to revive.

The ship is still held by North Korea.

January 30.  The Tet Offensive launched.

We'd win the battle, but the public's mind was lost by the fact that the NVA and VC could launch such a major offensive after years of war.  A desperate gamble on their part, it proved to be a gamble that would pay off.

January 31:  The US embassy in Saigon attacked by the Viet Cong.

Part of the Tet Offensive, of course.

February 1:  Viet Cong terrorist Nguyễn Văn Lém is executed by Nguyễn Ngọc Loan,  South Vietnamese National Police Chief.   The famous photograph by photographer Eddie Adams would go on to be a factor in the turn of American opinion against the war, but Adams regretted taking it and in fact held Nguyễn Ngọc Loan in high regard.

All that and 1968 was just a month old.