Nation: Top of the Decade: The Nation

With the 1960s approaching their end, TIME’s editors have looked back to recall, in each department, the ten biggest, most consequential events of those turbulent years. Herewith the top news stories in national affairs:

> Bay of Pigs, 1961.

> Freedom rides start in South, 1961.

> Civil rights march on Washington, 1963.

>John Kennedy assassinated, 1963.

> Race riot in Watts, 1965.

> President Johnson announces that he will not seek reelection, orders partial bombing halt in Viet Nam, 1968.

> The Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. assassinated, 1968.

> Robert Kennedy assassinated, 1968.

> Disorders in Chicago during Democratic National Convention, 1968.

> Nixon’s political comeback, 1968.