History

1968 Unique Year Mark Kurlansky tries to help us understand what was happening in the year 1968 in terms of cultural and political history of that world changing year in terms of social upheaval. This year is remembered because of issues such as rebel, TV, lights and cameras fear of the cold war, all the same, the year of the Kennedy Bobby and Martin Luther king assassinations, sacking of the democratic convention, people were rising up over issues and all the people had a desire to rebel. Something that was not planned this are some of the issues that contributed 1968 to be a unique year (Mark 324).
This year is considered unique because people started to rebel over very little issues. All the people had the same capacity to desire to rebel and it was something that had not been planned or organized. The issue rebel wasantipathy for authoritarianism and a sense of estranged from the established order. According Kurlansky this is the year television was shaping most of the events apart from reporting of events all around then whole world. This is the time public demonstrationswere being presented… for television. It is very few people were that were needed to fill the frame of a TV camera . It happens that Martin Luther king together with his media understanding brothers had got the message first and demonstrations had become a common events on American campus by 1968. Mingle the worry of the cold war. Horror against the men that were old in power and the crippled society that sustained them, fundamental distaste to the Vietnamese conflict, and someone had a cocktail of requests ready mixed . People met through the television viewing picture of each other on the screen. There was no established relationship between each other but there was a relationshipwith what their imagination gave from viewing pictures of each other. The action of cameras and lights made young people to have moods; some people ended up to pave stones lunged at an established order too foolish to convert the other side. Bobby Kennedy already saw his followers sliding when he died. This made everyone to believe that Bobby Kennedy could not have won. On 4th April 1968 after Martin Luther King was killed howlers started in the areas of black inhabitants all across the America. Unlike in inidianapolls where there was a lot of peace, may be in some parts because another national leader who was respected by the blacks was in the city the day of riots. On 4th April 1968 Bobby Kennedy decided to speak and he called a meeting and informed the people that he had bad news that Martin Lutherking had been shot killed the previous night. It followed that two months later Bobby Kennedy was also killed by the assassin (Mark 333).
It was 35thDemocratic National Convention in 1968 and this is when the delegates arrived in Chicago. There was an army full protesters from all across the country flowed in the city, campingeverywhere. What came after all this was very serious and most pessimists could not foresee. The Chicago convention turned in riots assassinations and collapse in law and order and this made people to conclude that the country was coming apart. it destroyed politicians faith in their political systems in their countries and all the institutions of the country.
All this main issues had not been witnessed again in all years it happens to make this year a unique one in the world history and it will live to linger in peoples mind in all the days the days of their life.
References
Mark Kurlansky. 1968: The year that Rocked the world. New York: Random house, 2010. Print.