After President Kennedy's assassination, direct tensions between the US and Soviet Union cooled and the superpower confrontation moved into a contest for control of the Third World, a battle characterized by proxy wars, funding of insurgencies, and puppet governments. The confrontation between the US and the Soviet Union dominated geopolitics during the '60s, with the struggle expanding into developing nations in Latin America, Africa, and Asia as the Soviet Union moved from being a regional to a truly global superpower and began vying for influence in the developing world. Thus, the overall worldwide economic trend in the 1960s was one of prosperity, expansion of the middle class, and the proliferation of new domestic technology. Real GDP growth averaged 6% a year during the second half of the decade. Meanwhile, the East such as the Soviet Union and other Warsaw Pact countries were improving quickly after rebuilding from WWII. There was a major expansion of the middle class in western European countries and by the 1960s, many working-class people in Western Europe could afford a radio, television, refrigerator, and motor vehicle. World War II had brought about a huge leveling of social classes in which the remnants of the old feudal gentry disappeared. Norms of all kinds were broken down, especially in regards to civil rights and precepts of military duty.īy the end of the 1950s, war-ravaged Europe had largely finished reconstruction and began a tremendous economic boom. The decade was also labeled the Swinging Sixties because of the fall or relaxation of social taboos that occurred during this time, but also because of the emergence of a wide range of music from the Beatles-inspired British Invasion and the folk music revival, to the poetic lyrics of Bob Dylan. Some use the term to describe the decade's counterculture and revolution in social norms about clothing, music, drugs, dress, sexuality, formalities, and schooling others use it to denounce the decade as one of irresponsible excess, flamboyance, and decay of social order. The term "the Sixties" is used by historians, journalists, and other academics in scholarship and popular culture to denote the complex of inter-related cultural and political trends around the globe during this era.
Kennedy assassination, the Beatles' arrival in the United States and their meeting with Bob Dylan, and ends around 1969– 1970 with the Altamont Free Concert, the Beatles' breakup and the Kent State shootings, or with the withdrawal of troops from Vietnam and the resignation of U.S. It begins around 1963– 1964 with the John F.
The "cultural decade" of the 1960s is more loosely defined than the actual decade. The 1960s (pronounced "nineteen-sixties", shortened to " the '60s" or " the Sixties") was a decade of the Gregorian calendar that began on January 1, 1960, and ended on December 31, 1969.