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1960: Nuclear fire Flames rip through a defense missile-launching site on Fort Dix property, creating fear of an atomic blast and leaving a radioactive plume in the water below. 1961: The first robot Without public notice, the first industrial robot starts work molding door handles at the GM plant in Ewing. Before long, they're handling the most dangerous assembly-line jobs here and in Japan. 1962: Babe Ruth baseball A bunch of teenagers on Trenton's youth baseball team become heroes for life by winning the league's world series. 1963: Civil rights march A generation of blacks from Trenton take inspiration from the immortal speech of Martin Luther King, and are heartened to launch protests of their own here in the capital city. 1964: Arthur Holland and Mill Hill The mayor moves his family to Trenton's run-down, if historic, Mill Hill section, helping to transform it into a trendy neighborhood. 1965: Bradley Ball The Princeton Tigers basketball squad makes the Final Four, propelled by their earnest and brainy superstar, Bill Bradley. 1966: Vietnam hits home Military cars start showing up in the neighborhood, and people come to know it means a son has been killed in Southeast Asia. By war's end, it happens 246 times in Greater Trenton. 1967: Twin Rivers Conceived a self-sufficient town, the "garden city" in East Windsor is born with passage of New Jersey's landmark Planned Unit Development act. 1968: Trenton aflame The infamous riots that followed Martin Luther King's assassination tear the city apart, leave a divinity student dead and kill off downtown as a viable business center. 1969: Princeton's first women A musty old tradition is broken when the unversity becomes a coed school. Some of the first female students are university leaders today. |
The 1960s |
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