Includes bibliographical references.

In the span of twelve months, America experienced the Woodstock Music Festival, Easy Rider, Kurt Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse-Five, the Battle of Hamburger HIll, the birth of punk music, the Led Zeppelin invasion, the occupation of Alcatraz, and death at the Altamont Speedway. 1969 pushed the boudaries of stage (Oh!Calcutta!), screen (Midnight Cowboy), and print (Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex). We witnessed the genesis of gay rights at Stonewall, put a man on the moon, demonstrated against war and battled with police, performed the first artificial heart transplant, watched as the Manson family and the Zodiac Killer terrorized parts of the country, made the first computer network connection, started the era of "no fault" divorce, and followed the Cinderella sports stories of the Jets and the Mets. Now is the perfect time to look back to 1969, a year of landmark acheivements, cataclysmic episodes, and generation-defining moments.