This brief text explores the significant political, foreign policy, and social events from the 1960 Greensboro sit-ins and presidential campaign to the high tide of women's liberation and U. S. withdrawal from Vietnam in 1973. By examining the dramatic era chronologically and thematically, the author demonstrates that what really made the period unique were the various "movements" that merged with the counterculture to form a "sixties culture. After 1968 these same movements advocated liberation and empowerment—and changed America forever.