McDonald's Big Mac was introduced in 1968

In 1968 to be precise, the Big Mac was launched on to the French market. It was the same year as the McDonald's 1000th highly successful franchised outlet was opened in Des Plaines, Illinois, USA.

McDonald’s flagship sandwich, the Big Mac was introduced on McDonald’s national menu in 1968. Big Mac, the iconic burger, has a strong appeal among Asian consumers. The introduction of the Big Mac in Asia was so successful that a lot of Asian consumers viewed the Big Mac as the benchmark of all hamburgers – the Big Mac is how a classic, original hamburger should be. In fact, McDonald’s Big Mac was the first burger many Asian consumers tried. Ever since then, Big Mac has become a meal preference whenever they crave for burgers.

The Western Sicily Earthquake of 1968

January 14, 1968– An earthquake in Sicily kills 231 and injures 262.

Summary of the 1968 Disaster in Sicily

The Sicilian earthquakes of 1968 were relatively modest for disaster-inducing earthquakes, the magnitudes ranging from 4.1 to 5.4. There were many of them, however, at least seventeen separate occurrences in this range of magnitude being recorded in twenty-three days. Perhaps it was the number of occurrences in arelatively short length of time, as much as their magnitude, that resulted in the great human disaster. Rescue workers came in rather quickly after the first few earthquakes (the afternoo and evening of  January 14 and the early morning of January 15), but they were frequently caught in the further collapse of the buildings brought on by later quakes. Furthermore, the repetition of the earthquake at relatively short intervals of time had a strong psychological effect on the inhabitants akin to repeated physical torture. No sooner had the people partially forgotten their fears after one earthquakes then another occured. The effect was terrifying to a great many persons. There is good evidence to indicate that this was so even in the city of Palermo which is located a considerable distance from the center of the activity.

At least four other factors also contributed to the disaster. One was the unussually severe winter weather and the lack of safe shelter; another was the superstition, poverty and low level of education found among the villagers of interior Sicily; a third was the frequent lack of effective town government and adequate services even in the best of times, and fourth was the lack of advance planning.

Source:  http://books.google.com/ : The Western Sicily Earthquake of 1968 by J. Eugene Hass, Proffesor of Sociology and Robert S. Ayre, proffesor and chairman of civil Engineering of the University of Colorado.

1968 film 2001: A Space Odyssey

2001: A Space Odyssey (occasionally referred to as simply 2001) released on April 6, 1968 is a 1968 science fiction film directed by Stanley Kubrick and written by Kubrick and Arthur C. Clarke. The film deals with thematic elements of human evolution, technology, artificial intelligence, and extraterrestrial life, and is notable for its scientific realism, pioneering special effects, ambiguous and often surreal imagery, sound in place of traditional narrative techniques, and minimal use of dialogue.

The film has a memorable soundtrack — the result of the association which Kubrick made between the rotary motion of the satellites and the dancers of waltzes, which led him to use the Blue Danube waltz by Johann Strauss II, and the famous symphonic poem Also sprach Zarathustra, by Richard Strauss, to portray the philosophical evolution of Man theorized in Nietzsche's homonymous work.

Despite receiving mixed reviews upon release, 2001: A Space Odyssey is today recognized by many critics and audiences as one of the greatest films ever made; the 2002 Sight & Sound poll of critics ranked it among the top ten films of all time. It was nominated for four Academy Awards, and received one for visual effects. In 1991, it was deemed "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant" by the United States Library of Congress and selected for preservation in The National Film Registry.

Lucy Liu born December 1968

Lucy Alexis Liu (born December 2, 1968) is an American actress. She became known for her role in the television series Ally McBeal (1998–2002) as the vicious and ill-mannered Ling Woo, and has also appeared in several notable film roles, including Charlie's Angels, Kill Bill and Kung Fu Panda.

Lucy Liu was born and was raised with her brother John in Jackson Heights, Queens, New York, by Taiwanese immigrant parents. Liu has said that she grew up in a "diverse" neighborhood. Her family spoke Mandarin at home and she did not learn English until she was five years old. Her father, Tom, was a civil engineer and her mother, Cecilia, a biochemist, but they sacrificed those careers in Taiwan to come to the United States. Liu, at her parents' insistence, devoted her spare time to studying. She attended the Joseph Pulitzer Middle School (I.S.145) and she graduated from New York City's prestigious Stuyvesant High School in 1986. She attended New York University for one year, before transferring to the University of Michigan, where she joined the Chi Omega sorority and graduated with a Bachelor of Science degree in Asian Languages and Cultures. At one point, Liu worked as a waitress in Michigan.

Civil Rights Act of 1968

On April 11, 1968 President Lyndon Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act of 1968 (commonly known as the Fair Housing Act, or as CRA '68), which was meant as a follow-up to the Civil Rights Act of 1964. While the Civil Rights Act of 1866 prohibited discrimination in housing, there were no federal enforcement provisions. The 1968 act expanded on previous acts and prohibited discrimination concerning the sale, rental, and financing of housing based on race, religion, national origin, and as of 1974, gender; as of 1988, the act protects the disabled and families with children. It also provided protection for civil rights workers.

Victims of discrimination may use both the 1968 act and the 1866 act (via section 1982) to seek redress. The 1968 act provides for federal solutions while the 1866 act provides for private solutions (i.e., civil suits).

1968 Viet Cong execution

February 1, 1968 –  A Viet Cong officer named Nguyễn Văn Lém is executed by Nguyễn Ngọc Loan, a South Vietnamese National Police Chief. The event is photographed by Eddie Adams. The photo makes headlines around the world, eventually winning the 1969 Pulitzer Prize, and sways U.S. public opinion against the war.

1968 Indonesia's President

Suharto (8 June 1921 – 27 January 2008) was the second President of Indonesia. He held the office from 1967 following Sukarno's removal up to his resignation in 1998.

Suharto was born in a small village near Yogyakarta, during the Dutch colonial controera. His Javanese peasant parents divorced not long after his birth, and for much of his childhood he was passed between foster parents. During the Japanese occupation of Indonesia, Suharto served in Japanese-organised Indonesian security forces. During Indonesia's independence struggle, he joined the newly-formed Indonesian army. Following Indonesian independence, Suharto rose to the rank of Major General. An attempted coup on 30 September 1965 was countered by Suharto-led troops, was blamed on the Indonesian Communist Party. An army led anti-communist purge, killed over half a million people, and Suharto wrested power from Indonesia's founding president, Sukarno. He was appointed acting president in 1967 and President the following year. Support for Suharto's presidency eroded following the hardship of 1997–98 Asian financial crisis. He was forced to resign from the presidency in May 1998 and he died in 2008.

The legacy of Suharto's 32-year rule is debated both in Indonesia and abroad. Under his "New Order" administration, Suharto constructed a strong, centralised and military-dominated government. An ability to maintain stability over a sprawling and diverse Indonesia and an avowedly anti-Communist stance won him the economic and diplomatic support of the West during the Cold War. For most of his presidency, Indonesia experienced significant economic growth and industrialisation, dramatically improving health, education and living standards. Indonesia's 24-year occupation of East Timor during Suharto's presidency, resulted in at least 100,000 deaths. By the 1990s, the New Order's authoritarianism and widespread corruption was a source of discontent. In the years since his presidency, attempts to try him on charges of corruption and genocide failed because of his poor health.

Like many Javanese, Suharto had only one name. In religious contexts, he is sometimes called “Haji” or “el-Haj Mohammed Suharto”, but this Islamic title is not part of his formal name or generally used. The spelling "Suharto" reflects current Indonesian spelling, but people's names were always exempt from this. The English-language press generally uses the spelling 'Suharto', but Suharto and his family, as well as the Indonesian government and media, use 'Soeharto'.