Was That Month in 1969 the Most Eventful Ever?

Bill Marvel, in the Dallas Morning News (July 16, 2004):

Thirty-five years have passed. We've seen better and we've seen much, much worse.

But for anyone who was alive and paying attention during the summer of 1969, four images are etched in the memory:

• A wooden bridge in Massachusetts

• An astronaut, a flag and the surface of the moon

• A blood-smeared Hollywood mansion

• A hillside in upper New York state awash in trash, mud and happy rock 'n' rollers

For an extraordinary 30 days, from July 19 to Aug. 17, the old line from Dickens' A Tale of Two Cities seemed to be coming true: It was the best of times and the worst of times.

The things we did that summer...

Movies we saw:

• Monterey Pop • A Fistful of Dollars • Guess Who's Coming to Dinner • The Love Bug • True Grit • Midnight Cowboy

Music we listened to:

• Jefferson Airplane:"Volunteers" • The Rolling Stones:"Honky Tonk Woman" • Zager and Evans:"In the Year 2525" • Iron Butterfly:"In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida"

TV shows we watched:

• Rowan and Martin's Laugh-In • Beverly Hillbillies • Wagon Train • The Mod Squad • Gomer Pyle, U.S.M.C.

Books we read:

• Portnoy's Complaint, Philip Roth • The Godfather, Mario Puzo • The Love Machine, Jacqueline Susann • In Someone's Shadow, Rod McKuen • The Peter Principle, Laurence J. Peter, Raymond Hull • The Selling of the President, Joe McGinniss

The worst of times for Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, who after a night of partying drove his car off that bridge on Chappaquiddick Island, drowning a young campaign worker and ending forever his chances for the presidency. The best of times for America's space program, which, after a decade of second-bests, beat the Russians to the moon. The worst of times for actress Sharon Tate and her houseguests, victims of one of the most garish murder sprees in Hollywood history. The best of times for the hundreds of thousands at Woodstock – an incredible weekend of sex, drugs and rock 'n' roll.

There is always the temptation to sum up a decade, an era, a generation in a phrase: the Woodstock Generation, the Kennedy Era. As though one event could deflect history like a road turned aside by a hill or a swamp. July-August of 1969 was not like that. Too many events had already left their mark on the 1960s – the assassinations of John Kennedy, Martin Luther King Jr., Robert Kennedy. The Vietnam War. The Chicago Democratic Convention and Days of Rage. The course had been set.

But has there ever been a month in which hope rode such a roller coaster – down, up, down, up – from the lonely bridge on Chappaquiddick to that teeming pasture in New York state...?