1962 Heeere's Johnny! A 36-year-old comedian named Johnny Carson begins his 30-year career as the host of The Tonight Show.

1963 If everybody had an ocean/across the U.S.A./ Then everybody'd be surfin'/ Like Californi-a. The surf lifestyle goes national with the release of the Beach Boys' sun-splashed hit Surfin' USA.

1963 Model Kathy Ireland is born on March 20 in Glendale, Calif. She would appear in 11 consecutive issues from 1984 through '94.

1964 German designer Rudi Gernreich creates the topless bathing suit. Asked why he designed such a shocking piece of apparel, Gernreich replies, "It's an abstract idea of what I believed was going to happen."

1964 Elle Macpherson is born Eleanor Nancy Gow in Sydney on March 29.

1965 Kisses for everyone: The Dating Game debuts on Dec. 20. Naturally enough, The Newlywed Game makes its start the following year.

1968 Money talks: The first cash-dispensing machine is installed by First Philadelphia Bank.

1968 Touting the show as "swinging young people who live the beat scene," ABC debuts The Mod Squad, a hip cop drama with Michael Cole, Peggy Lipton and Clarence Williams III (left).

1969 Rocker Jimi Hendrix closes the Woodstock Festival with an earth-tingling rendition of The Star-Spangled Banner.

I have to add a very big one- 1960- January 29th- London N 19 UK, I was born. Thank you!

1967 - We had a major snowstorm in Chicago that year of approximately 5 feet accumulation - it covered the tops of the parked cars, and kept me out of school for about a week. Many people were snowed in their houses and couldn't get out except through windows. Traffic was at a standstill for several days and grocery store shelves were empty save for milk and bread, which was considered such a basic necessity that special effort was made to ensure that they were stocked.

That item about the topless bathing suit reminded me of the paper dresses that were also invented in the 60's. They looked like they were made of printed paper towels, but stronger somehow. Anyone remember them?

My memory is unusual in that it starts clearly from just before 2, so I have a pretty complete memory of the 1960s, and still believe it as the best decade of my life.
The hippy era, the psychedelic designs, new houses, music etc. have not been the same since, and apart from the addition of current science and technology, I would gladly change everything here to 1960s style from cars to fashions, houses to the old-style train tickets, and everything in between.
I don't believe it's nostalgia as apart from a few bits left over from the 60's that survived the 70s and 80s, I have little or no nostalgia for any date past 1975. It really does seem to be the total atmosphere, and I was lucky enough to tag along to some of the hippy type parties (only as on observer!) and they really were amazing. All the incense, elbow-length hair (both sexes), oil-wheel light projections with the appropriate music, and the people really did seem to be far more 'chilled-out' (to use a totally anachronistic phrase), though I suppose this wasn't all due to the era....
I'm sure I've been left with a lot of that philosophy and attitude, (no drugs though, full stop), and have seen UK society get harder and harder in attitude since the 80s and wonder if the cycle will ever turn again to the more laid back and trusting times of the hippy era.

I suppose thats my era.
My children were born in 1961 and 1962, and we lived in London. I used to wheel the pram down Carnaby Street, dressed in the style. I particularly recall a long velvet coat , black with a hood,(I lined it in white grosgrain) that I had bought in a junk shop in the East End. Worn over an incredibly short 'pelmet', I remember feeling great!
The music was incredible, everybody looked wonderful and the nights were out of this world. I can't think that there was a happier , more carefree time ever.

Ren - compared to the 50's austerity you have to be right - it was the first time that "youth" had a lttle bit of free range and the ability to pay for it and the freedom to enjoy it, condemned by authority we coouldn't care less and they had to cave in and go with the flow and "England Swings was the order of the day"..

They say your getting old when you remenisce about the good old days - well I'm old and I'd go back to then anytime (apart from my own family life since) best years of my life.!

Ren, that must have been so cool. I’m afraid to say that while I was born in 1961, like one of your children, my fondest memories are from that decade. The music was the best and you were in the right place (London). The music changed so much from 1960 to 1969 and most of the “edge” was in London or therabouts. How “turned on” was Jimi Hendrix”, knowing that the US was not the place to turn the music world upside, but London was! Everything that was groovy was in London, from fashion, to “attitude”. The 60’s changed the world so incredibly, I would much rather have been your age than mine.

Now I was a bit too young to remember the 60's, but sometimes I get the feeling that people look back to the time of their youth through rose-tinted specs. In 1966 Time magazine officially declared London 'Swinging'. But how much of this is really true? Ok for Mick Jagger, David Bailey and George Best, but for the rest of us?
A lot has changed socially since, and certainly not for the best, but even in the 60's you still had pain,death,disease and all the rest of the world's ills and what the hell was all that old money about?..240 pence to the pound ?..Einstein would have had trouble working that one out !
I remember the 70's with more affection, now that was a decade. Where are those rose-tinted specs?

Seems to me that I lived through a different 60s to that to which you refer, swinging? I was 13 in 1960 so in my early 20s at the end of the decade so you would have thought that I would have been in the midst of all this swinging since I was a teenager or in my very early 20s for the whole decade. I had a boyfriend who was a singer in a group, we used to go around with them from venue to venue, I can place my hand on my heart and swear that I never saw an illegal substance, nor did they, in fact I didn't know anyone who had so much as tried cannabis. I did wear some odd clothes but show me a teenager of any decade who doesn't.

Having said that, I think we did have a good time back then, we were sure of having employment which is a great help. I enjoyed the 60s but as has been said already, we tend to look back at the good times when we had little responsibility, free time and disposable income.

What we didn't have was the opportunities which are taken for granted these days, foreign travel for instance, I first went abroad when I was 21 and there was a restriction on the amount of money you could take out of the country, that included the amount to be paid on accommodation, the more expensive the accommodation the less spending money you could take. The total sum was £50 for the year, not a lot, you could also take about £10 in sterling (might have been £15). Fortunately the government soon scrapped that, it took the fun out of holidays to have to scrimp so much.

But , you see Sue, we didn't inhale...
I can't say I missed going abroad much, though. It all seemed so much fun to be there where it was all happening. We had all the foreign food we needed. In my case it was Spaghetti Bolognaise! We had plenty of foreign visitors in London and could chat with them an improve our languages. We had Soho which held any foreign experience we wanted, we didn't have to go to the Paris Left Bank to be
' existentialists' , we could sit outside the 'French' Pub in Dean Street , smoke Gauloises,drink coffee and discuss Sartre, waist length hair, stripy
teeshirt and jeans to the fore.
It all seemed so simple then. Yes there was crime, and some ugly situations, but not like now. I cannot remember being afraid to walk around London alone at night, I can't remember homeless people begging, or drug addicts reeling around. It all seems idyllic, I suppose it wasn't really.We didnt have money ,but we ate well, we didnt have cellphones(bliss) but we communicated. We didnt seem to need to get drunk or high every night. As I said, it was such a wonderful time.

The difference being perhaps that you lived in London, I lived in Southampton which as you will know is about 75 miles away, I guess it could have been on another planet! I have been offered far more cannabis since I turned 50, in fact I was ONLY offered cannabis after I turned 50 and I really don't want to try it.

I lived my late teens and early twenties during the 60s and I was never offered cannabis... and I still haven't. It was a great time, especially, as Fosse says, after the 1950s. Britain still had rationing until 1954 and it took until around 1960 for people to have spare money for frivolites. Perhaps we always look back to our youth as a golden era with no responsibilities and the excitement of exploring new sensations.

This made me think what nice/different things I remember that ended in or around the 60s. I was surprised to find that apart from the mostly different shops, most of my area hasn't really changed that much. But I have made a list of everything I thought of that has gone.

TV programmes I watched then: Take your pick, Double your money, Tingha and Tucker, plus a panel game which still had Groucho Marx on it, and William Hartnell as Dr Who.

TV sets with the old rotary channel changers (black and white of course), we had channel 1 for BBC and 9 for ITV.
Old English spangles, Liquorice fruit gums.
Old money until February 15th 1971
Trolleybuses until January 1963

Bradford Park Avenue, Barrow and Workington still in the football league.

Local features included Hendon greyhound stadium, with a literally massive neon sign in many colours of greyhounds racing down a track. Knocked down to be replaced by Brent Cross shopping centre which was opened for business in 1976
There was also a roundabout at the junction of the A1 and North Circular Road at Henly's Corner, Finchley, where I used to live, which few people remember until I remind them. Our favourite coffee bar was the Kenco in Golders Green, which became the Kardomah (we thought it wasn't as good, but was probably exactly the same!) which finally packed up some time in the 70s.

The original London telephone exchange names, for instance, ours was Highgate Wood, other locals included Mountview (grandparent's), Speedwell (half my friends), Tudor (half my road) and of course Finchley, which started at the top of my road. These are now the impersonal (plus a newish leading 8 for all) 444, 340, 455, 883,and 346. Anyone from London will remember these fondly but will be a total mystery for everyone else.