At the start of the new year, there were a total of 23,000 American military advisors in South Vietnam.
1965
Viet Cong guerrillas killed eight Americans, wounded 126 others and destroyed ten aircraft in an attack on an American compound at Pleiku, Vietnam.
Folk-singer and activist Judy Collins performed in Students’ Building for Freshman-Sophomore Weekend.
Beyond Vassar
Six hundred marchers, including Martin Luther King, Jr. and prominent members of his Southern Christian Leadership Council, in the first of three marches from Selma, AL, to Mongomery in support of efforts at voter registration by the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), were attacked by state and local police, using tear gas and billy clubs.
The first U. S. combat troops, 3,500 Marines, landed in Vietnam, joining 23,000 American advisors.
Vassar faculty and students, along with President Simpson and his family, joined 3,000 other marchers, including representatives of the NAACP, the Human Relations Council, local ministries and Congressman Joseph Resnick, in a march in Poughkeepsie, part of a “nationwide response…to protest recent events in Selma, Alabama.” The march was to object to the “the denial of suffrage and civil liberties to the Negro citizens and the brutal attacks upon civil rights demonstrators by the Alabama State Troopers.”
The Miscellany News
Vassar chemist Curt Beck demonstrated his innovative method of analyzing ancient amber, a key element in the tracing of the spread of the Bronze Age, to some 100 anthropologists from 38 colleges, universities and research centers, meeting at Vassar.
Viet Cong terrorists bombed the United States embassy in Saigon.
In response, President Johnson authorized sending another two Marine battalions, along with 20,000 more logistical personnel to Vietnam, secretly authorizing American combat troops to conduct offensive operations.
Fourteen Vassar students marched in a protest against the war in Vietnam in Washington, D.C.
Data published in The New York Times showed that applications to Vassar for the Class of 1969 totaled 1,597, an increase of 58 from the previous year.
The college announced that Associate Professor of English Elizabeth Adams Daniels ’41 would succeed Inez Nelbach as dean of studies.
“Modern art,” she continued, “is a very good way of finding out what the world looks like. Artists are more important than most people. The have a reach, a sensitivity. They alert men’s imaginations 10 years ahead of events…. But concepts of art history have changed so much that I worry constantly about people going around with all those wrong things in their heads that they learned 25 years ago.”
The New York Times
Asked why she had joined the annual event, she replied, “I came to Pamplona because I heard it was the greatest party in Europe.”
The New York Times
Professor of Geology John H. Johnsen conducted a 6-week summer institute for high school students on the “Principles of Geology.”
Rioting broke out in the Watts neighborhood of Los Angeles when police arrested first one, then the other of two Watts brothers and then their mother. Angry onlookers attacked the officers and longstanding racial tensions exploded. Despite the efforts of Black leaders in several community meetings, the crowds, the anger and the destruction continued to grow.
Police, firemen and nearly 14,000 National Guardsmen brought a curfew into effect on the 4th day, and the rioting subsided. Thirty-four people died, 1,032 were injured and 3,438 were arrested. Nearly 1,000 buildings were destroyed or damaged, and property damage was estimated at $40 million.
A consolidated department of biology moved into the Olmsted Hall of Biological Sciences in 1972, and the administrative computing center and its new mainframe were dedicated in 1967. All but the façade of Avery Hall was razed to make way for the Vogelstein Center for Drama and Film, which opened in 2003.
At a meeting in New York City of the American Chemical Society, Professor of Chemistry Curt Beck described his innovative use of infrared spectroscopic analysis of ancient amber to aid archeologists.
The Kendrick Jug Band, made up of members of the class of 1968, performed at several dorm parties.
“The New Scene,” six young art celebrities—Enrique Castro-Cid, Roy Lichtenstein, Claes Oldenburg, Ad Reinhardt, James Rosenquist and Andy Warhol—spoke about their work.