On this day

January 16, 1969

Revisit the music, news, notable people, and historical moments connected to this date.

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Headlines from January 16, 1969

COURT REINSTATES 3 PRINCIPALS HERE; City Board Backed on Hiring Policies and Suspension of Ocean Hill School Unit Ocean Hill Principals Reinstated By a State Appeals Court Ruling

By Bill Kovachspecial To the New York Times

Appeals Ct, in cases related to decentralization controversy stemming from Ocean Hill-Brownsville dispute, reverses lower ct order that Educ Bd acted illegally in bypassing Civil Service lists to appt principals in dist; in related decision upholds lower ct ruling that city bd can suspend local school bds without notice, charges or hearing; Ocean Hill-Brownsville bd was suspended, Oct, for refusing to obey Educ Bd orders; reaction of Nordos, Shanker and Degnan noted

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Music on My Birthday

Billboard 200

The Top 50 albums for the chart week of January 15, 1969, covering January 16, 1969.

  1. 1
    Album cover for The Beatles [White Album] by The Beatles

    The Beatles [White Album]

    The Beatles

    Last week
    1
    Peak
    1
    Weeks
    6
  2. 2
    Album cover for TCB by Diana Ross & The Supremes With The Temptations

    TCB

    Diana Ross & The Supremes With The Temptations

    Last week
    16
    Peak
    2
    Weeks
    4
  3. 3
    Album cover for Diana Ross & The Supremes Join The Temptations by Diana Ross & The Supremes

    Diana Ross & The Supremes Join The Temptations

    Diana Ross & The Supremes

    Last week
    2
    Peak
    2
    Weeks
    8
  4. 4
    Album cover for Fool On The Hill by Sergio Mendes

    Fool On The Hill

    Sergio Mendes

    Last week
    3
    Peak
    3
    Weeks
    7
  5. 5
    Album cover for Beggars Banquet by The Rolling Stones

    Beggars Banquet

    The Rolling Stones

    Last week
    5
    Peak
    5
    Weeks
    6

Notable Births

1969Marinus Bester, German footballer[†]

Marinus Bester is a German former professional footballer who played as a striker.

Stevie Jackson

1969Stevie Jackson, Scottish guitarist and songwriter[†]

Stephen Thomas Jackson is a Scottish musician and songwriter. He plays lead guitar and sings in the Glasgow-based indie band Belle and Sebastian.

Roy Jones Jr.

1969Roy Jones Jr., American boxer[†]

Roy Levesta Jones Jr. is an American professional boxer. He has held multiple world championships in four weight classes, including middleweight, super middleweight, light heavyweight and heavyweight. As an amateur he represented the United States at the 1988 Summer Olympics, winning the light middleweight silver medal.

Notable Deaths

Vernon Duke

1969Vernon Duke, Russian-American composer and songwriter (born 1903)[†]

Vernon Duke was a Russian-born American composer and songwriter who also wrote under his birth name, Vladimir Dukelsky. He is best known for "Taking a Chance on Love," with lyrics by Ted Fetter and John Latouche (1940), "I Can't Get Started," with lyrics by Ira Gershwin (1936), "April in Paris," with lyrics by E. Y. ("Yip") Harburg (1932), and "What Is There To Say," for the Ziegfeld Follies of 1934, also with Harburg. He wrote the words and music for "Autumn in New York" (1934) for the revue Thumbs Up! In his book, American Popular Song, The Great Innovators 1900-1950, composer Alec Wilder praises this song, writing, “The verse may be the most ambitious I’ve ever seen." Duke also collaborated with lyricists Johnny Mercer, Ogden Nash, and Sammy Cahn.

Historical Events

Czechs

1969Czech student Jan Palach commits suicide by self-immolation in Prague, Czechoslovakia, in protest against the Soviets' crushing of the Prague Spring the year before.[†]

The Czechs, or the Czech people, are a West Slavic ethnic group and a nation native to the Czech Republic in Central Europe, who share a common ancestry, culture, history, and the Czech language.

Space Race

1969Space Race: Soviet spacecraft Soyuz 4 and Soyuz 5 perform the first-ever docking of crewed spacecraft in orbit, the first-ever transfer of crew from one space vehicle to another, and the only time such a transfer was accomplished with a space walk.[†]

The Space Race was a 20th-century competition between the Cold War rivals, the United States and the Soviet Union, to achieve superior spaceflight capability. It had its origins in the ballistic missile-based nuclear arms race between the two nations following World War II and the onset of the Cold War. The technological advantage demonstrated by spaceflight achievement was seen as necessary for national security, particularly in regard to intercontinental ballistic missile and satellite reconnaissance capability, but also became part of the cultural symbolism and ideology of the time. The Space Race brought pioneering launches of artificial satellites, robotic landers to the Moon, Venus, and Mars, and human spaceflight in low Earth orbit and ultimately to the Moon.

Historical Context for January 16, 1969

In 1969, the world population was approximately 3,619,491,579 people[†]