Global protests of 1968 and France's May Revolt

Date

May 1968 (global protests of 1968)

Category

Social & demographic

Region

Global (esp. France, United States, Western Europe, Mexico)

Era

Contemporary

Significance

The year 1968 saw a wave of interconnected protests, strikes and uprisings across the world, driven by opposition to the Vietnam War, demands for civil rights and democratic reform, and a generational rejection of established authority.

Its most dramatic expression was France's 'May 68', when student demonstrations in Paris escalated into a nationwide general strike involving roughly ten million workers, briefly paralysing the country and threatening the government of Charles de Gaulle. Parallel movements erupted across the globe: anti-war and civil rights protests in the United States, student revolts in West Germany and Italy, the violently suppressed student movement in Mexico City (the Tlatelolco massacre), the beginning of the Troubles in Northern Ireland, and protests in Soviet-bloc states. Although most uprisings did not topple governments, 1968 reshaped political culture worldwide, energising new social movements and signalling a crisis of authority on both sides of the Cold War divide.

Empires active in May 1968 (global protests of 1968)

• Soviet Union
  1922 CE – 1991 CE
• British Empire
  1583 CE – 1997 CE
• Spanish Empire
  1492 CE – 1976 CE
• Portuguese Empire
  1415 CE – 1999 CE
• Solomonic dynasty
  1270 CE – 1974 CE
• Dutch Empire
  1581 CE – 1975 CE

Related social & demographic events

• The Great Leap Forward and the Great Chinese Famine
  1958–1962
• The AIDS Epidemic Is First Identified
  1981
• The COVID-19 pandemic
  11 March 2020
• March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom
  28 August 1963
• FDA approves the oral contraceptive pill
  9 May 1960
• Sharpeville massacre
  21 March 1960

Further reading

Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind

The wider story

Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind

Yuval Noah Harari

Global best-seller on how our species, its populations and societies remade the world.

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