THE YEAR 1968

Various surveys can be found ranking the ten worst years for Humanity.  Here is one from The Top Tens.

• #1    1939:  Nazi Germany invaded Poland, starting World War II.
• Few remember that Hitler declared war on Poland with the Soviet Union  The Union of Soviet Socialist Republicans first formed in 1922.
• How this year so high is a mystery to me.
• #2    1350:  The Black Death ravaged Europe, killing perhaps 50% the population.  99% of the world was in extreme poverty.
• #3    1941:  Japan attacked Pearl Harbor and Nazi Germany invaded ally Soviet Union.  Genocide of Jews and peak of World War II.
• #4    1914:  Beginning of World War 1.  
• #5    2016:  Terrorist attacks in Europe and the United Kingdom voted to leave the European Union.
• #6  2020:  Australia was on fired, Donald Trump was elected president of the USA and the Coronavirus Pandemic struck.
• #7  2001:  Terrorists destroyed the World Trade Center and part of the Pentagon, killing 3000 people.  The U.S. started the Afghanistan war.
• #8    2014:  ISIS attacks began, and Russia began to annex Crimea.
• #9    1929:  Stock market crashed, triggering the Great Depression.
• #10   536:  A volcanic eruption in Iceland led to Little Ice Age, crossing worldwide crop failures and famine.  The world went dark dark for half the year.  There was the Yersinia plague, which was the first serious Black Death incident.

I thought the above selections were weak, so I asked Google Ai what were the ten worst years in history.  The answer I received was not exactly by exact year, but here they are.

• #1    The Mid-6th Century, from 536 to 545.  This was #10 for the above rating.  Google called it the Justinian Plague, which wiped out 34% to 50% of the Eastern Roman Empire, accelerating its collapse.
• #2    The Mid-14th Century from 1347 to 1356.  Also #2 above.  
• #3    The 1940s.  World War II and the Holocaust, although also cited was the up to 85 million killed, the Bengal famine of 1943 and the use of atomic weapons.
• #4    The 16th Century Americas from 1510 to 1528 when invading Europeans brought smallpox and other diseases, and a conquering mentality to wipe out 90% (55 million) of the indigenous population.
• #5    1914 to 1923, bringing World War I, the Spanish Flu and Russian Civil War.
• #6    The 1860s:  The Taiping Rebellion in China, with a death toll of 30 million and the U.S. Civil War, which "only" suffered up to 750,000 deaths, with disease killing more soldiers than direct combat.  40% of military deaths were never identified.
• #7    1815 to 1824:  Another (#10 above occurred in 536) year without a summer from the 1815 eruption of Mount Tambora in Indonesia, leading to crop failures, famine and food riots across Europe and North America.
• #8    1929-1938, initiated by the 1929 crash, global starvation, rise of Nazi Germany and Stalinist purges, paving the way for World War II.
• #9    2020-2025:  COVID-19 Pandemic.
• #10  Around 73,000 BC:  A massive volcanic eruption of Mount Toba, Indonesia, caused a volcanic winter, reducing the ENTIRE HUMAN POPULATION TO PERHAPS AS FEW AS 1,000 TO 10,000 BREEDING PAIRS.  You would think this should be #1, but this event is controversial as to actually happening or not.  Yet, most experts think that something like this occurred in that period, and an extreme suggestion was as few as 40 breeding pairs, leading more than 8 billion people today.

I won't be so bold as to pick the worst year in history for Humanity, but I can suggest that 1968 was a most pivotal year of social and political trauma in the 20th century for the USA.

• Assassinations of Martin Luther King Jr and Robert F. Kennedy.
• The killing of Dr. King sparked major uprisings in over 100 cities.
• The Tet Offensive shattered illusions of progress in trying to win the Vietnam War.
• The Democratic National Convention Chicago saw violent protests, sparked by the above deaths and unpopularity of the Vietnam War.
• Worldwide, the USS Pueblo crew and ship were captured by North Korea, political liberalization of Czechoslovakia was crushed by Soviet tanks and there were massive student protests in Paris, demanding educational reforms, social justice and the like.

But there was an important upbeat event, Apollo 8, launched at the end of the year, 21December1968.

• Astronauts Frank Borman, Jim Lovell and William Anders were the first to travel beyond the Earth's orbit, experience Earthshine and witness an Earthrise (to the right, as taken by Anders on 24December1968).  Inspired the first Earth Day in 1970.

• 
  Were the first to see the other side of the Moon.
• Was the first crewed flight of the Saturn V rocket, the type that took Neil Armstrong to walk on the Moon 11 months later.

• 
  The crew's live Christmas Eve reading from the Book Genesis was viewed by over a billion people, offering unity in this tumultuous year.

• During their return, achieved the highest speed relative to Earth ever traveled by humans at the time.
• There was a documentary, First to the Moon:  The Journey of Apollo 8.  Click on that link to watch the entire 2-hour film.  Got a 100 rating from Rotten Tomatoes.

Artemis II was scheduled to first launch earlier this month, from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. but was delayed to March, a date not yet selected, but possibly on March 6 or 7.

• The last crewed space trip beyond low Earth orbit, was, can you believe this, in 1972, 54 years ago.

• 
  Apollo 8 was a Cold War moon race that introduced the Saturn V rocket.  Artemis II will validate the Orion spacecraft for long-term deep-space exploration, the eventual goal being Mars.

• 
  Like Apollo 8 did, Artemis II is expected to break records.
• A8 carried 3 astronauts, all white males.  AII will carry four:  Reid Wiseman (commander), Jeremy Hanson (a Canadian, and first non-American),  Victor Glover (first astronaut of color) and Christina Koch (will become first female to fly to the Moon).

So on to the Winter Olympics.  Team USA did well yesterday, with the Women's Ice Hockey team barely defeating Canada 2-1 in overtime to win the gold medal.  Also, Alysa Liu won a gold in Women's Singles Figure Skating.  She has a most non-traditional family.

• What a life.
• Her father, Arthur Liu, a lawyer, fled China after the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests.
• When he was 40, utilized anonymous egg donors and two surrogates to have five children, Alysa was the oldest, with sister Selina and triplets, Julia, Joshua and Justin.  He intentionally chose Caucasian donors so that his children could have a diverse gene pool for a multicultural upbringing.
• Raised them  in Richmond, California as a single father after separating from Yan Zingxin, who remains as a legal guardian.
• Arthur's mother, Shu, moved from China to California for eight years to help raise the family.
• 
  Her father, recognizing something, started her into ice skating at the age of five.  At 13 she became the youngest-ever U.S. figure skating champion, being the first U.S. woman to land three triple axels.  She and her father that year to the right.
• Lived modestly.  At one point all five children shared a single bedroom with three bunk beds in a one-bedroom apartment.  Alysa recalls that life was fun and full of laughter.

• 
  In 2021, he was targeted by Chinese government spies, intimating him for his previous political activism, endangering the entire family.
• Alysa competed in the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics under high-level protection from the U.S. State Department.  She finished sixth in the women's figure skating individual event.
• However there was intense pressure, leading to burnout.  She retired at age 16, from April 2022.  Enrolled at UCLA in 2023.  Returned to train from March 2024 with an intention to compete in the 2026 winter Olympics.

• 
  Her gold medal was the first one for a U.S. figure skater in women's individual figure skating since 2002.
• She is 20 years old.

Team USA is now in second place:

• 1. Norway: 37 Total (17 Gold, 10 Silver, 10 Bronze)
• 2. United States: 27 Total (9 Gold, 12 Silver, 6 Bronze)
• 3. Italy: 26 Total (9 Gold, 5 Silver, 12 Bronze)
• 4. Netherlands: 17 Total (7 Gold, 7 Silver, 3 Bronze)
• 5. Germany: 22 Total (6 Gold, 8 Silver, 8 Bronze)
• 6. France: 20 Total (6 Gold, 8 Silver, 6 Bronze)
• 7. Switzerland: 16 Total (6 Gold, 6 Silver, 4 Bronze)
• 7. Sweden: 16 Total (6 Gold, 6 Silver, 4 Bronze)
• 9. Austria: 18 Total (5 Gold, 8 Silver, 5 Bronze)
• 10. Japan: 24 Total (5 Gold, 7 Silver, 12 Bronze)
• 11. Canada: 16 Total (4 Gold, 5 Silver, 7 Bronze)
• 12. China: 12 Total (4 Gold, 3 Silver, 5 Bronze)
• 13. Australia: 6 Total (3 Gold, 2 Silver, 1 Bronze)
• 14. Great Britain: 3 Total (3 Gold, 0 Silver, 0 Bronze)
• 15. Republic of Korea: 7 Total (2 Gold, 2 Silver, 3 Bronze)
• 16. Czech Republic: 4 Total (2 Gold, 2 Silver, 0 Bronze)
• 17. Slovenia: 4 Total (2 Gold, 1 Silver, 1 Bronze)
• 18. Spain: 2 Total (1 Gold, 0 Silver, 1 Bronze)
• 19. Brazil: 1 Total (1 Gold, 0 Silver, 0 Bronze)
• 20. Kazakhstan: 1 Total (1 Gold, 0 Silver, 0 Bronze)

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