1968 was a year of revolt. Here are some of the major events that shook the world in those 12 tumultuous months:

1968

JANUARY: The massive Tet Offensive by communist North Vietnamese troops against towns in US-backed south Vietnam is a jolt for US public opinion which had believed US forces were infallible. It was the turning point in the war.

MARCH: A pro-democracy protest by students at Warsaw University on 8 March is used as a pretext for an anti-Semitic purge by Poland's communist regime.

APRIL: Black civil rights icon Martin Luther King is assassinated in a Memphis motel on April 4. Race riots break out across the country while on 23 April, students close down Columbia University in New York over links to institutions supporting US involvement in Vietnam.

MAY: French students take to the streets bringing the country to a near standstill. Students battle police in Paris and the country is paralysed by a general strike on 13 May. Student unrest spread to Italy, Germany, Turkey, Japan and Brazil.

JUNE: Senator Robert Kennedy, younger brother of assassinated President John F. Kennedy, is gunned down in Los Angeles on 5 June as he campaigns for the presidency.

JULY: Images of famine which killed millions during the Biafra war are beamed around the world, sparking an international humanitarian effort.

AUGUST: Warsaw Pact tanks crush the "Prague Spring" reforms, leaving scores dead, after Czechoslovakia's leader Alexander Dubcek attempts to create a "communism with a human approach".

OCTOBER: Ten days before the start of the Mexico City Olympics, and after months of political unrest, between 200 and 300 students are killed after police fire a hail of bullets to end a demonstration in Tlatelolco, Mexico City. Two US athletes who raised their fists as a symbol of "black power" at the Olympics also become a symbol of the year of revolt.

AFP