September 20, 1964

That fall of 1964, gas ran $0.30 a gallon and Johnson was in the White House — the United States was keeping a close watch on Vietnam, where troops in Saigon were on alert as Vietcong ambushes continued to inflict casualties near the capital. On the radio, Roy Orbison's "Oh, Pretty Woman" was sitting at number one, while moviegoers were filling seats for the Peter Sellers comedy "A Shot in the Dark," and television audiences were tuning in weekly to "The Dick Van Dyke Show," which had just taken home the Emmy for comedy. The St. Louis Cardinals defeated the New York Yankees to win the World Series that October, and just weeks earlier, American athletes had returned from Tokyo — where the Summer Olympics were held for the first time on Asian soil — with 90 total medals, including 36 gold.