February 4, 1969. In Cairo, Yasser Arafat is elected Palestine Liberation Organization leader at the Palestinian National Congress.

March 7, 1969. 70 year old Golda Meir, head of the Israeli Labor Party, becomes Israel’s new prime minister.

April 4, 1969. In Houston, Dr. Denton Cooley implants the first temporary artificial heart in a man, Hanskell Karp, who lives for 65 hours.

April 9, 1969. The supersonic airliner Concorde 002 takes to the air in the UK for a maiden flight of 21 minutes.

July 21, 1969. Neil Armstrong becomes the first man to walk on the moon.

August 15, 1969. The British government sends troops into Derry, Northern Ireland to restore the peace between groups of Protestant and Catholic street fighters in the war-torn city. Troops will also be sent to Belfast to break up fighting there.

August 15-17, 1969. The world’s biggest rock festival is held at Woodstock in upstate New York. Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Joan Baez, The Who, and Santana are a few of he many performers at the festival.

September, 1969. North Vietnamese president Ho Chi Minh dies as the war in Vietnam continues.

September, 1969. In Libya, a group of army officers, led by Colonel Muammar Gaddafi, seize powere while King Idris of Libya is out of the country. Gaddafi will rule Libya until his death in 2011.

September 28, 1969. The Social Democrats and the Free Democrats receive a majority of votes in the German parliamentary elections, and decide to form a common government. Willy Brandt becomes chancellor, the first Social Democrat to be elected in 39 years.

October, 1969. Civil war rages in Nigeria as the rebel republic of Biafra fights for independence from Nigerian rule. 300,000 civilian refugees in Biafra are facing starvation as the Nigerian government has stopped Red Cross flights carrying relief aid. Nigeria says that the Biafran rebels are using the flights to get arms as well as food.