Henkels & McCoy adds Industrial Design to a growing list of Engineering services with a plant expansion design for Firestone Tire and Rubber, followed by major projects for Certain-Teed Corporation, St. Gobain, Diversified Printing, and others... Henkels & McCoy Engineering Division now offers Telecommunications, Corrosion Control, CATV, Electric Power, Project Engineering, Technical Services, and Special Services. The Division employs 350 engineers, draftsmen and technicians operating throughout the country... Ground is broken in Burlington, New Jersey for the new Division 07 Headquarters.

Photo: H&M engineers inspect an Industrial Construction project on-site at a Certain-Teed Corporation facility.

January 12
The New York Jets are the first AFL conference team to win the NFL Championship, in Super Bowl III, over the Baltimore Colts, 16-7.

February
Despite government restrictions, President Nixon authorizes Operation Menu, the bombing of North Vietnamese and Vietcong bases within Cambodia. During the next four years, US forces will drop more than a half million tons of bombs on Cambodia.

February 9
The first test flight of a Boeing 747. The air-going behemoth is 231 feet long and weighs some 710,000 pounds. It will be known as the Jumbo Jet.

March 2
First test flight of the Anglo-French designed and built Concorde supersonic transport, shown right, in its final years of service in British Airways livery. Due to its sonic boom when smashing through the sound barrier, and the extreme noise on takeoff and landing, the SST was permitted only several gates in US airports, including New York and Washington, DC, creating a serious blow to the craft's viability.

March
Sino-Soviet clash on their long, common border.

April
US combat deaths in Vietnam now exceed those of the 33,629 men killed in the Korean War.

June 8
President Nixon meets with South Vietnamese President Nguyen Van Thieu on Midway Island and announces that 25,000 American troops will be withdrawn from Vietnam immediately.

July 21
"Houston... Tranquility Base, here; the Eagle has landed."
The US wins the space race convincingly by landing a man on the moon. Neil Armstrong, Edwin "Buzz" Aldrin, and Michael Collins fly on board Apollo 11. Armstrong is the first human being to stand on the lunar surface. Buzz Aldrin plays Frank Sinatra's version of Fly Me to the Moon on a cassette recorder on the lunar surface. President Nixon congratulates the men upon landing on the moon with a live, ultra "long distance" telephone call.

July 25
Senator Edward M. Kennedy (D- Mass.) pleads guilty to leaving the scene of a fatal accident at Chappaquiddick, Mass. in which Mary Jo Kopechne was drowned -- gets a two-month suspended sentence. Kopechne had been a guest at a party held for campaign workers of Bobby Kennedy, who was killed in June of 1968.

August 9-10
Is it hot in here or am I crazy?
Actress Sharon Tate -- eight months pregnant --- and six others are brutally murdered in Tate's Los Angeles mansion by sociopath and self styled guru Charles Manson (left) and four of his "Family" members. "Death to Pigs" is written in the victims' blood on the walls of the home. The grisly murders shock un-shockable Hollywood, as well as the nation and the world. Manson and three other defendants will receive the death penalty, later reduced to life following the end of capital punishment in California. He will be repeatedly denied parole.

August 14-15
Sectarian violence erupts in the streets of Derry (aka Londonderry) in Northern Ireland. British troops are sent -- ostensibly to protect the Catholic minority in the northeast corner of the UK-controlled portion of the politically divided island. Violence erupts in Belfast the following day and additional troops are dispatched to that city, the capital. The modern era of "The Troubles" begins, a 300-year pattern of religious intolerance and lack of economic opportunity stemming from the 1690 defeat of Jacobean Catholic forces by armies of William of Orange at the Battle of the Boyne. 

For an Irish history timeline, click here.
For details on Irish history (Northern Aid), click here.
For the BBC version of modern Irish history, click here.
For a chronology of The Troubles in 1969, click here.

Photo, above right: a British soldier on guard duty happily accepts a flask of tea from a housewife in Northern Ireland. Welcomed initially, the troops will soon become a target of violence.



August 16-18
A rock music festival held on farmland belonging to Max Yasgur in upstate New York attracts about 500,000 young people. Among the artists appearing are Jimi Hendrix, Arlo Guthrie, Country Joe and the Fish, Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young, the Who, Joan Baez, Ravi Shankar, Canned Heat, the Grateful Dead, Richie Havens, Jefferson Airplane and Janis Joplin. The festival will be known as Woodstock, and is named for a nearby town.

What's On TV
Laugh-In still has the first and last laugh this season, followed by veteran horse operas Gunsmoke and Bonanza... Comedian Bill Cosby is star of his first sitcom, The Bill Cosby Show, while fellow cut-ups Red Skelton, Jim Nabors, and Carol Burnett star in Top 20 comedy variety shows...as do crooners Dean Martin, Doris Day and even Johnny Cash -- all hosting similar musical/comedy/variety format programs... Marcus Welby, MD debuts on US television... And now for something completely different: Monthy Python's Flying Circus makes its madcap debut on BBC television, in Britain; the US will have to wait five years to see the Ministry of Silly Walks, and to hear the Lumberjack song... A Children’s Television Workshop program, Sesame Street, debuts on public television.

Sports
Super Bowl III sees Joe Namath and the NY Jets defeat the Baltimore Colts (16-7)...New York continues to blast Baltimore as  in the '69 World Series, the Mets pluck the Orioles (4-1)... In the NBA Championship it's Boston again defeating the LA Lakers (4-3), while in the Stanley Cup, it's Montreal sweeping St. Louis four-zip... at Wimbledon, Ann Jones defeats Billie Jean King (3-6, 6-3, 6-2), and Rod Laver defeats J. Newcombe (6-4, 5-7, 6-4, 6-4)... NCAA Basketball Championship it's UCLA over Purdue (92-72), and the NCAA Football Champions are Texas with an unbeaten 11-0-0 record.

At the '69 Grammys
Record of the Year is Mrs. Robinson by Simon and Garfunkel
Album of the Year is By the Time I Get to Phoenix, Glen Campbell
Song of the Year is Little Green Apples, by Bobby Russell, songwriter

Deaths
Dwight David Eisenhower, former supreme allied commander, US President
Joseph P. Kennedy, financier, banker, political patriarch
Jack Kerouac, beat author (On The Road)