January 12 – Super Bowl III: The New York Jets of the American Football League defeat the heavily favored Baltimore Colts of the National Football League 16–7.

January 13 – Elvis Presley steps into American Studios in Memphis, Tennessee, recording "Long Black Limousine" thus beginning the recording of what becomes his landmark comeback sessions.

January 20 – Richard M. Nixon succeeds Lyndon B. Johnson as the 37th President of the United States.

January 28 – 1969 Santa Barbara oil spill: A blowout on Union Oil's Platform A in the Dos Cuadras Offshore Oil Field spills 80,000 to 100,000 barrels of crude oil into a channel and onto the beaches of Santa Barbara County in Southern California; on February 5 the oil spill closes Santa Barbara's harbor. The incident inspires Wisconsin Senator Gaylord Nelson to organize the first Earth Day in 1970.

February 8 – The last issue of The Saturday Evening Post in its original form hits magazine stands after 147 years.

February 24 - The Mariner 6 Mars probe is launched from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station.

March 3 - In a Los Angeles court, Sirhan Sirhan admits that he killed presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy.

March 28 – Former United States General and President Dwight D. Eisenhower dies after a long illness in the Walter Reed Army Medical Center, Washington, D.C..

April – A grassroots movement of Berkeley community members seizes an empty lot owned by the University of California to begin the formation of "People's Park."

April 9 – The Harvard University Administration Building is seized by close to 300 students, mostly members of the Students for a Democratic Society.

May 15 – A teenager known as 'Robert R.' dies in St. Louis, Missouri, of a baffling medical condition. In 1984 it will be identified as the first confirmed case of HIV/AIDS in North America.

May 18 – Apollo program: Apollo 10 (Tom Stafford, Gene Cernan, John Young) is launched, on the full dress-rehearsal for the Moon landing.

May 26 – Apollo program: Apollo 10 returns to Earth, after a successful 8-day test of all the components needed for the upcoming first manned Moon landing.

June 8 – U.S. President Richard Nixon and South Vietnamese President Nguyễn Văn Thiệu meet at Midway Island. Nixon announces that 25,000 U.S. troops will be withdrawn by September

June 28 – The Stonewall riots in New York City mark the start of the modern gay rights movement in the U.S.

July 8 – Vietnam War: The very first U.S. troop withdrawals are made.

July 16 – Apollo program: Apollo 11 (Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin, Michael Collins) lifts off toward the first human landing on the Moon.

July 18 – Chappaquiddick incident – Edward M. Kennedy drives off a bridge on his way home from a party on Chappaquiddick Island, Massachusetts. Mary Jo Kopechne, a former campaign aide to his brother, dies in the early morning hours of July 19 in the submerged car.

July 20–21 – Apollo program: The Lunar Module Eagle lands on the lunar surface. The world watches in awe as Neil Armstrong takes his historic first steps on the Moon.

July 24 – Apollo program: Armstrong, Aldrin, and Collins return safely to Earth after the first landing on the Moon.

July 25 – Vietnam War: U.S. President Richard Nixon declares the Nixon Doctrine, stating that the United States now expects its Asian allies to take care of their own military defense.

August 9 – Members of a cult led by Charles Manson murder Sharon Tate, (who was 8 months pregnant), and her friends: Folgers coffee heiress Abigail Folger, Wojciech Frykowski, and Hollywood hairstylist Jay Sebring at Roman Polanski's home in Los Angeles.

August 10 – The Manson Family kills Leno and Rosemary LaBianca.

August 15–18 – The Woodstock Festival is held in upstate New York, featuring some of the top rock musicians of the era.

August 17 – Category 5 Hurricane Camille, the most powerful tropical cyclonic system at landfall in history, hits the Mississippi coast, killing 248 people and causing US$1.5 billion in damage (1969 dollars).

September 5 – My Lai Massacre: Lieutenant William Calley is charged with 6 counts of premeditated , for the deaths of 109 Vietnamese civilians in My Lai.

September 23 – Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid directed by George Roy Hill, written by William Goldman, and starring Paul Newman and Robert Redford opens to limited release in the U.S.

September 24 – The Chicago Eight trial begins in Chicago, Illinois

September 26 – The Brady Bunch premieres on ABC.

October 15 – Vietnam War: Hundreds of thousands of people take part in antiwar demonstrations across the United States.

November 3 – Vietnam War: U.S. President Richard M. Nixon addresses the nation on television and radio, asking the "silent majority" to join him in solidarity with the Vietnam War effort, and to support his policies.

November 14 – Apollo program: NASA launches Apollo 12 (Pete Conrad, Richard Gordon, Alan Bean), the second manned mission to the Moon.

November 17 – Cold War: Negotiators from the Soviet Union and the United States meet in Helsinki, to begin the SALT I negotiations aimed at limiting the number of strategic weapons on both sides.

November 25 – John Lennon returns his MBE medal to protest the British government's support of the U.S. war in Vietnam.

December 1 – Vietnam War: The first draft lottery in the United States is held since World War II.

December 6 – The Altamont Free Concert is held at the Altamont Speedway in northern California. Hosted by the Rolling Stones, it is an attempt at a "Woodstock West" and is best known for the uproar of violence that occurred. It is viewed by many as the "end of the sixties

Ongoing

• Cold War (1945–1991)

• Space Race (1957–1975)

• Vietnam War, U.S. involvement (1962–1973)

• Détente (c. 1969–1979)

​