Okay, since no one seems to be helping me ill use the thread as my own personal online 'clipboard'. I shall paste images and notes here that may come in handy! :P
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Notes:
<a name="#">
Colours
It will probably be best to use psychadelic colours. All vivid.
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Film Notes
Top Moneymaking films of the decade
<table cellpadding="5" cellspacing="5" width="100%" align="center" valign="top">
<tr>
<td>Psycho</td>
<td>Dolce vita, La</td>
<td>The Alamo</td>
<td>G.I. Blues</td>
<td>Macumba Love</td>
</tr><tr>
<td>$32,000,000</td>
<td>$19,516,000</td>
<td>$7,910,000</td>
<td>$4,300,000</td>
<td>$3,000,000</td>
</tr>
</table>
Film Notes:
These films could be useful as reference points for great movie posters of the decade and also to find out what people were into back then.
I think i will certainly be depicting Psycho somewhere in my poster as it revelutionised todays horror genre as we know it. The posters for this film may be some of the best references I will be able to find for my design.
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Important People
Martin Luther King
The Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr. Ph.D., Boston University (January 15, 1929 – April 4, 1968) was an American Nobel Laureate, Baptist minister, and African American civil rights activist. He is one of the most significant leaders in U.S. history and in the modern history of non-violence, and is considered a hero, peacemaker and martyr by many people around the world. A decade and a half after his 1968 assassination, Martin Luther King Day, a U.S. holiday, was established in his honor.
"I have a dream speech"
I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: "We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal." I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at a table of brotherhood. I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a desert state, sweltering with the heat of injustice and oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice. I have a dream that my four children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character. I have a dream today.
I have a dream that one day the state of Alabama, whose governor's lips are presently dripping with the words of interposition and nullification, will be transformed into a situation where little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls and walk together as sisters and brothers. I have a dream today. I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted, every hill and mountain shall be made low, the rough places will be made plain, and the crooked places will be made straight, and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together. This is our hope.
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/4/46/Martin_luther_king.jpg
John Kennedy (JFK)
John Fitzgerald Kennedy (May 29, 1917 – November 22, 1963), often referred to as Jack Kennedy or JFK, was the 35th President of the United States (1961–1963).
Considered an icon of American Liberalism, Kennedy was the youngest person ever to be elected President of the U.S., at the age of 43 (Theodore Roosevelt was the youngest ever to serve as president). He is also the only Roman Catholic ever to become President, the last person from a Northern state to be elected President (as Gerald Ford was not elected), the first President to serve who was born in the 20th century, and the last to serve as a U.S. Senator immediately before becoming President.
Kennedy died the youngest of any American President, at 46 years and 177 days, when he was assassinated on November 22, 1963. The assassination is often considered a defining moment of 20th century American history in its traumatic impact on the entire nation, and his elevation as an icon for a new generation of Americans and American aspirations. Kennedy was the last president to die in office.
Major events during his presidency included the Cuban Missile Crisis, the building of the Berlin Wall, the Space Race, early events of the Vietnam War, and the Civil Rights Movement. He is rated highly in many surveys that rank presidents, but his political agenda was still incomplete at his death with most of his civil rights policies coming to fruition through his successor, Lyndon B. Johnson.
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/0/00/JFKofficial.jpg
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Slang
I thought a good way to get into the 'spirit' of things would be to look at the way they talked back then. I found the following webpage with an entire list of 1960s slang.
http://cougartown.com/slang.html
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The Berlin Wall
The Berlin Wall (German: Die Berliner Mauer separating ) was a long barrierWest Berlin from East Berlin and the surrounding territory of East Germany. The East German authorities called it the “antifaschistischer Schutzwall” (Anti-Fascist Protection Wall). Its purpose was to restrict access between West Berlin and East Germany. It was built in 1961 and fortified over the years, but was opened to unrestricted transit on November 9, 1989 and subsequently almost entirely demolished.
Germany's capital, Berlin, was deep within the area which Allied war planners expected to be overrun by the Soviet army during the closing months of World War II. As the capital, the city was specially divided by the Allies into four sectors, one for each, although Berlin was completely surrounded on all sides by the Soviet sector of Germany. The Soviet Union, the United States, the United Kingdom, and France each had a portion of the city under their control.
The city was initially governed jointly by a commission of all four occupying armies, with leadership rotating on a monthly basis. As the early phases of the Cold War unfolded, tensions between the Soviets and the western allies escalated. Conflict over a currency reform in 1948 prompted the Berlin Blockade by the Soviet Union and led to the Berlin Airlift by the Western Allies. The Soviets lifted the ineffective blockade the next year.
After 1949, the three sectors controlled by the United States, Britain and France (West Berlin), although nominally still under joint four-power Allied sovereignty, were in effect an exclave of West Germany, completely surrounded by East Germany. West Berlin's precarious position was a key factor in the decision to make Bonn the seat of government of West Germany in preference to either West Berlin or Frankfurt.
Initially the citizens of Berlin were allowed to move freely among all the sectors. However, as the Cold War developed, movement became restricted. The border between East and West Germany proper was closed in 1952, and only in Berlin did the border remain open. The border between East and West Berlin was temporarily sealed on June 17, 1953 during the June 17 Uprising. Around 2.5 million East Germans crossed into the West between 1949 and 1961; after 1952 this happened almost exclusively via West Berlin. The majority of professionally skilled workers were already leaving the east (for example, on one day the entire Mathematics Department of the University of Leipzig defected). Furthermore, many West Berliners travelled into East Berlin to do their shopping at state-subsidized stores, where prices for foodstuffs were much lower than in West Berlin. This drain of labour and economic output threatened East Germany with economic collapse. This had ramifications for the whole Communist bloc and particularly the Soviet Union, because East Germany's economy was being subsidized by the Soviet government.
The impetus for the creation of the Berlin Wall came from East German leader Walter Ulbricht, who sought the approval of Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev for its construction. Khrushchev agreed, but imposed strict conditions. Ulbricht's proposal for a second air blockade was refused, and the construction of a barrier was permitted only if it were composed at first of barbed wire. If the Allies challenged the barbed-wire barrier, the East Germans were to fall back and were not to fire first under any circumstances.
Construction of the 45 km (28 mi.) barrier around the three western sectors began on Sunday August 13, 1961 in East Berlin. That morning, at midnight, the zonal boundary had been sealed by East German troops. The barrier was built by East German troops and workers, not directly involving the Soviets. It was built a little way inside East German territory to ensure that it did not encroach on West Berlin at any point; if one stood next to the West Berlin side of the barrier (and later the Wall), one was actually standing on East Berlin soil. The streets along which the barrier ran were torn up to make them impassable to most vehicles and a barbed-wire fence was erected, which was later built up into the full-scale Wall. It physically divided the city and completely surrounded West Berlin. During the construction of the Wall, NVA and KdA soldiers stood in front of it with orders to shoot anyone who attempted to defect.
Many families were split, many East Berliners were cut off from their jobs and chances of a better life, and West Berlin became an isolated enclave in a hostile land. West Germans demonstrated against the wall, led by their mayor Willy Brandt, who strongly criticized the United States for failing to respond. Allied intelligence agencies had hypothesized about a wall to stop the flood of refugees but the main candidate for its location was around the perimeter of the city.
But John F. Kennedy had accepted in a speech [1] on July 25, 1961 that it could only really hope to defend West Berliners and West Germans: to attempt to stand up for East Germans would only result in an embarrassing climbdown. Accordingly, the administration made polite protests, at length, via "the usual channels", but without fervour, even though it was a violation of the postwar Four Powers Agreements, which gave the United Kingdom, France and the United States a say over the administration of the whole of Berlin. Indeed, a few months after the barbed wire went up, the U.S. government would inform the Soviet government that it accepted the Wall as "a fact of international life" and would not challenge it by force.
But it was clear both that West German morale needed more and that there was a serious potential threat to the viability of West Berlin. And if West Berlin fell, after all the efforts of the Berlin Airlift, how could any of America's allies rely on her? On the other hand, in the face of any serious Soviet threat, an enclave like West Berlin could not be defended except with nuclear weapons. So it was vitally important for the Americans to show the Soviets that they could push their luck no further.
Accordingly General Lucius D. Clay, who was deeply respected by Berliners after commanding the American effort during the Berlin Airlift (1948–9) and was known to have a firm attitude towards the Soviets, was sent to Berlin with ambassadorial rank (as JFK's special advisor). He and Vice-President Lyndon B. Johnson arrived at Templehof airport on the afternoon of Saturday 19 August. They arrived in a city defended by what would soon be known as the "Berlin Brigade", which then consisted of the 2nd and 3rd Battle Groups of the 6th Infantry, with Company F, 40th Armor. The battle groups were pentatomic, with 1362 officers and men each. On 16 August, Kennedy had given the order for them to be reinforced. Early on 19 August, the 1st Battle Group, 18th Infantry (commanded by Col. Glover S. Johns Jr.) was alerted.
On Sunday morning, lead elements in a column of 491 vehicles and trailers carrying 1500 men, divided into five march units, left the Helmstedt-Marienborn checkpoint at 0634. At Marienborn, the Soviet checkpoint next to Helmstedt on the West German/East German border, U.S. personnel were counted by guards. The column was 160 km (~100 mi) long, and covered 177 km (~110 mi) from Marienborn to Berlin in full battle gear, with VoPos (East German traffic police) watching from beside trees next to the autobahn all the way along. The front of the convoy arrived at the outskirts of Berlin just before noon, to be met by Clay and Johnson, before parading through the streets of Berlin to an adoring crowd. At 0400 on Monday 21 August, Lyndon Johnson left a visibly reassured West Berlin in the hands of Gen. Frederick O. Hartel and his brigade, now of 4224 officers and men. Every three months for the next three and a half years, a new American battalion was rotated into West Berlin—by autobahn, to demonstrate Allied rights.
The East German government claimed that the Wall was an "antifascist protection barrier", intended to dissuade aggression from the West. However, this position was viewed with scepticism even in East Germany; its construction had caused considerable hardship to families divided by the Wall, and the Western view that the Wall was a means of preventing the citizens of East Germany from entering West Berlin and West Germany was widely seen as being closer to the truth.
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/1/1f/Berlin_Wall.jpg
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Key Images
Here are all the images i thought were really important and all either are things that had a big impact on the decade, were a 'fad' at the time or are usually associated with the 1960s.
Buzz Aldrin on the moon ( July 20, 1969 )
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/9/98/Aldrin_near_Module_leg.jpg/594px-Aldrin_near_Module_leg.jpg (http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/9/98/Aldrin_near_Module_leg.jpg)
The Berlin Wall<center>
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/1/1f/Berlin_Wall.jpg</center>