1969

January

• January 2
  • Australian media baron Rupert Murdoch purchases the largest selling British Sunday newspaper, The News of the World.
  • People's Democracy begins a march from Belfast to Derry, Northern Ireland in support of civil rights.
  • Ohio State defeats USC in the Rose Bowl to win the national title for the 1968 season.
• January 10
  • Members of the Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) damage property and assault occupants in the Bogside in Derry. In response, residents erect barricades and establish Free Derry.
  • The Soviet Union launches Venera 5 toward Venus.
• January 14 – An explosion aboard the USS Enterprise near Hawaii kills 27 and injures 314.

• January 18 – In Washington, D.C., the Smithsonian displays the art of Winslow Homer for 6 weeks.
• January 20
  • Richard Milhous Nixon succeeds Lyndon Baines Johnson as the 37th President of the United States of America.
  • After 147 years, the last issue of The Saturday Evening Post is published.
  • The Soviet Union launches Venera 6 toward Venus.
• January 24
  • Super Bowl III: The New York Jets of the American Football League defeat the heavily favored Baltimore Colts of the National Football League 16–7.
  • Led Zeppelin I, Led Zeppelin's first studio recorded album, is released.
  • Martial law is declared in Madrid, the University is closed and over 300 students are arrested.
• January 26 – Elvis Presley steps into American Studios in Memphis, Tennessee, recording "Long Black Limousine" thus beginning the recording of what becomes his landmark comeback sessions for the albums From Elvis in Memphis and Back in Memphis. The sessions yield the popular and critically acclaimed singles "Suspicious Minds," "In the Ghetto" and "Kentucky Rain."
• January 27
  • Fourteen men, nine of them Jews, are executed in Baghdad for spying for Israel.
  • Reverend Ian Paisley, hardline Protestant leader in Northern Ireland, is jailed for 3 months for illegal assembly.
  • The present-day Hetch Hetchy Moccasin Powerhouse, rated at 100,000 KVA, is completed and placed in operation.
• January 28
  • The Soviet Union launches Soyuz 4.
  • A blow-out on Union Oil's Platform spills 80,000 to 100,000 barrels of crude oil into a channel and onto the beaches of Santa Barbara County in Southern California inspiring Wisconsin Senator Gaylord Nelson to organize the first Earth Day in 1970
• January 30
  • The Soviet Union launches Soyuz 5, which will dock with Soyuz 4 for a transfer of crew.
  • The Beatles give their last public performance, on the roof of Apple Records. The impromptu concert was broken up by the police.

February

• February 2
  • Two cosmonauts transfer from Soyuz 5 to Soyuz 4 via a spacewalk while the two craft are docked together, the first time such a transfer takes place. The two spacecraft undock. Soyuz 4 will reenter Earth's atmosphere and land February 17 while Soyuz 5 will have a hard landing February 18.
  • Ten paintings are defaced in New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art.
  • Student Jan Palach sets himself on fire in Prague's Wenceslas Square to protest the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia; 3 days later he dies.
• February 4 – In Cairo, Yasser Arafat is elected Palestine Liberation Organization leader at the Palestinian National Congress.
• February 5 – A huge oil spill off the coast of Santa Barbara, California closes the city's harbor.
• February 7 – The original Hetch Hetchy Moccasin Powerhouse is removed from service.
• February 8 – The last issue of The Saturday Evening Post hits magazine stands.
• February 9 – The Boeing 747 makes its maiden flight.
• February 13 – FLQ terrorists bomb the Stock Exchange in Montreal, Quebec.
• February 14 – Pope Paul VI issues a motu proprio deleting names of many names from the Roman calendar of saints (including Valentine, who was celebrated on that day).
• February 24
  • The Mariner 6 Mars probe is launched.
  • Tinker v. Des Moines Independent Community School District: The U.S. Supreme Court rules that the First Amendment applies to public schools.