Smoking Gun (January): A report from U.S. Surgeon General Luther Terry says that smoking may be hazardous to a person's health and cause lung cancer. Tobacco companies balk at the report's contents. Congress later orders that a warning about the dangers of smoking appear on all domestic cigarette packages.

	Cassius Clay

Poetic Champ (Feb. 25): Cassius Marcellus Clay is an 8-1 underdog as he gets in the ring with heavyweight champ Charles "Sonny" Liston. But Clay stays true to his strategy -- "float like a butterfly, sting like a bee" -- and hammers Liston in a bout in Miami Beach. Two days later, Clay announces he is a member of the Black Muslims and that his name is Cassius X, later to become Muhammad Ali.

Bystanders (March 13): A man attacks Catherine "Kitty" Genovese as she walks to her apartment in Queens, N.Y. Thirty-eight neighbors hear her calls for help, and some watch from their windows, but nobody wants to get involved. The police aren't called until she is dead.

	Johnson

Taking Action (July 2): President Lyndon Baines Johnson signs the Civil Rights Act of 1964 into law. Johnson also declares "war on poverty," wins approval for a tax-cut bill, oversees a settlement in a railroad strike and achieves an agreement with the Soviets on curbing nuclear-arms production. His full-speed-ahead approach helps nurse the nation back to normality after Kennedy's assassination.

Tonkin Spark (Aug. 7): Congress passes the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, which allows President Johnson to freely intervene militarily in Vietnam. Congress takes action after U.S. destroyers off the coast of Vietnam allegedly had come under attack by North Vietnamese torpedo boats. The resolution sets in motion a cycle of escalation. Johnson begins to send more U.S. forces to fight for South Vietnam.

Non-Violence Honored (Oct. 14): Civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. is awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.