At A Glance

16 October 1968 at a glance

Day of the week
16 October 1968 was a Wednesday.
UK Number One
The UK Number One single was “Those Were the Days” by Mary Hopkin.
Top Film of 1968
The highest-grossing film worldwide released in 1968 was 2001: A Space Odyssey.
Star sign
The star sign for 16 October is Libra.
Chinese zodiac
In the Chinese zodiac, 16 October 1968 fell in the Year of the Monkey.
Birthstone
The birthstone for October is Opal.
Moon phase
The moon phase on 16 October 1968 was Waning Crescent.

On this day: 16 October

  • 1964 China detonates its first nuclear weapon.
  • 1964 Leonid Brezhnev becomes leader of the Soviet Communist Party, while Alexei Kosygin becomes the head of government.
  • 1968 Tommie Smith and John Carlos are ejected from the US Olympic team for participating in the Olympics Black Power salute.
  • 1968 Yasunari Kawabata becomes the first Japanese person to be awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature.
  • 1970 Canadian Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau invokes the War Measures Act during the October Crisis.

Famous people born on 16 October

  • Tim Robbins, American actor, director, and screenwriter (born 1958)
  • Naomi Osaka, Japanese tennis player (born 1997)
  • Angela Lansbury, English-American actress, singer, and producer (1925–2022)
  • Oscar Wilde, Irish playwright, novelist, and poet (1854–1900)

Source: Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0)

Choose your country: the charts, news and leaders change to match.

Events of 1968 in the United Kingdom

A selection from Wikipedia's '1968 in the United Kingdom'. Not a complete list.

  • 5 January – Gardeners' World debuts on BBC1 television, featuring Percy Thrower.
  • 1 March – First performance of an Andrew Lloyd Webber–Tim Rice musical, Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat in its original form as a "pop cantata", by pupils of Colet Court preparatory school in Hammersmith.
  • 12 March – The island of Mauritius achieves independence from the UK.
More events of 1968 →Source: Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0)

Life in 1968

Prime Minister

Harold Wilson

Monarch

Elizabeth II

Pint of Beer

15p

Loaf of Bread

9p

Average House

£4,640

Weekly Wage

£23.00

Or

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Famous Faces Born in the 1960s

Well-known people born in the same decade as you, not on your birthday.

Guy Ritchie10 September 1968FilmmakerView their day →Diana, Princess of Wales1 July 1961Member of the British royal familyView their day →Nigella Lawson6 January 1960Food writer & television cookView their day →Jason Statham26 July 1967ActorView their day →Catherine Zeta-Jones25 September 1969ActressView their day →Charles Spencer, 9th Earl Spencer20 May 1964Peer & authorView their day →Kenneth Branagh10 December 1960Actor & filmmakerView their day →George Michael25 June 1963SingerView their day →

Sources: Wikidata and Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0)

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