This Week in Boomer History: John and Yoko ... AZT ... Who Shot J.R.?

By Steve Mencher, March 16, 2014 02:00 AM

Notable events from our shared experience

Bob Dylan's self-titled debut album is released March 19, 1962. The album contains only two original Dylan tunes.

In response to Soviet intervention in Afghanistan, Jimmy Carter announces on March 21, 1980, a U.S. boycott of that summer's Olympics in Moscow.

On March 19, 1987, the Food and Drug Administration approves the antiretroviral drug AZT to treat AIDS. It's the first drug to slow the development of the disease and opens the way to new therapies.

Who shot J.R. on March 21, 1980? America doesn't find out for eight months. (Spoiler alert: It's J.R.'s sister-in-law and mistress, Kristin Shepard, played by Bing Crosby's daughter, Mary.)

Soviet cosmonaut Aleksei Leonov leaves his spacecraft Voskhod 2 for 12 minutes on March 18, 1965, and becomes the first person to walk in space.

Congress sends the Equal Rights Amendment to the states for ratification on March 22, 1972. The amendment says: "Equality of rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged ... on account of sex." Thirty-five states will approve the amendment, three short of the 38 needed for adoption.

John Lennon and Yoko Ono marry on March 20, 1969, in Gibraltar. They invite the press to their honeymoon bedside at the Amsterdam Hilton. "In effect, we were doing a commercial for peace," Lennon later says.

Let us read This Week in Boomer History to you:

[soundcloud url="https://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/139393583" params="color=6ea6ab&auto_play=false&hide_related=false&show_artwork=true" width="100%" height="166" iframe="true" /]

Visit Boomers, the Generation That Changed the World from AARP.

Visit and contribute to our Boomer Tumblr.

Credits: John and Yoko in bed, 1969, Netherlands National Archive via WikiMedia; Larry Hagman as J.R.: CBS Photo Archive/Getty Images ; Bob Dylan album via BobDylan.com

Music: Test Drive: Zapac via ccMixter

>> Sign up for the AARP Leisure Newsletter

Also of Interest