New York Miracles: New York sports teams enjoy a banner year. First the Jets football team upset the Baltimore Colts in the NFL championship game in January. Later in the year, New York zaps Baltimore again, as the underdog Mets stun the baseball world by beating the heavily favored Orioles in the World Series.

	Feb. 8, 1969 issue

End of an Institution (Feb. 8): The Saturday Evening Post, which began in 1821, publishes its last issue.

King's Killer (March 10): James Earl Ray pleads guilty to the murder of Martin Luther King Jr. and is sentenced to 99 years in the Tennessee State Prison.

Kennedy's Killer (April 27): Sirhan Bishara Sirhan is convicted by a Los Angeles County jury of the 1968 murder of Sen. Robert Kennedy; eight days later, he is sentenced to death in the gas chamber.

	Kennedy

Chappaquiddick Scandal (July 19): A car driven by Sen. Edward M. Kennedy plunges off a bridge as he and aide Mary Jo Kopechne, 28, are leaving a cookout at Chappaquiddick Island off Martha's Vineyard, Mass. Kennedy pleads guilty to a charge of leaving the scene of an accident and is given a two-month suspended sentence and placed on probation for a year. On July 30, Kennedy, once poised for a presidential campaign, announces that he will remain in the Senate.

Rock Extravaganza (August): Counterculture reaches its apex as thousands of music fans attend a landmark concert at a farm in upstate New York. The Woodstock Music Festival attracts some of rock 'n' roll's hottest acts, including Jimi Hendrix, Jefferson Airplane, Janis Joplin, The Grateful Dead, The Who, Santana, and Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young.

Manson Murders (Aug. 9): Police go to a mansion in Benedict Canyon, Calif., and find the bodies of five people, including actress Sharon Tate, the pregnant wife of director Roman Polanski, stabbed and shot. The next day, suburban couple Leno and Rosemary LaBianca are brutally slain. Toward year's end, police link the slayings to Charles Manson, 35, and his band of followers, mostly women. On Dec. 8, a Los Angeles grand jury indicts Manson and five of his followers on murder charges.

Peace Protest (Oct. 15): The first of two Vietnam Moratorium Days is marked by millions with prayers, candlelight vigils and black armbands. The second day, on Nov. 14, features an anti-war march in Washington, with a crowd estimated at 250,000.