1969 Railway Cup Hurling Championship, Format
Semi-final: (1 match) This was a single match between the winners of the preliminary round and Leinster. One team was eliminated at this stage while the winning team advanced to the final.


1969 Railway Cup Hurling Championship, Format
Final: (1 match) This winners of the semi-final and Munster, who received a bye to this stage, contested this game.


1969 Rhode Island Rams football team
The 1969 Rhode Island Rams football team was an American football team that represented the University of Rhode Island as a member of the Yankee Conference during the 1969 NCAA College Division football season. In its seventh and final season under head coach Jack Zilly, the team compiled a 2–7 record (1–4 against conference opponents), tied for last place in the Yankee Conference, and was  outscored by a total of 226 to 88. The team played its home games at Meade Stadium in Kingston, Rhode Island.


1969 Rhodesian constitutional referendum
A double referendum was held in Rhodesia on 20 June 1969, in which voters were asked whether they were in favour of or against a) the adoption of a republican form of government and b) the proposals for a new Constitution, as set out in a White paper and published in a Gazette Extraordinary on 21 May 1969. Both proposals were approved. The country was subsequently declared a republic on 2 March 1970.


1969 Rhodesian constitutional referendum, Background, Position of monarchy after UDI
On 11 November 1965, the self-governing British colony of Southern Rhodesia made a Unilateral Declaration of Independence (UDI) although it continued to recognise the British monarch, Queen Elizabeth II, as head of state, with oaths of allegiance to "Her Majesty the Queen Elizabeth, Queen of Rhodesia, her heirs and successors".


1969 Rhodesian constitutional referendum, Background, Position of monarchy after UDI
However, the Rhodesian Front government of Ian Smith ceased to recognise the authority of her de jure representative, the Governor Sir Humphrey Gibbs. Instead, on 17 November, it appointed former Deputy Prime Minister Clifford Dupont to the post of "Acting Officer Administering the Government".


1969 Rhodesian constitutional referendum, Background, Position of monarchy after UDI
On 2 December, Smith wrote a personal letter to the Queen, asking her to accept Dupont as the new Governor-General. In response, he was told that "Her Majesty is not able to entertain purported advice of this kind, and has therefore been pleased to direct that no action shall be taken upon it".


1969 Rhodesian constitutional referendum, Background, Position of monarchy after UDI
Under the 1965 draft Constitution, if the Queen did not appoint a Governor-General within fourteen days of advice being tendered by the Prime Minister, a Regent was to be appointed.


1969 Rhodesian constitutional referendum, Background, Position of monarchy after UDI
In deference to the British royal family, however, on 16 December, Smith amended his original plan and Dupont was appointed as Officer Administering the Government. He would continue to use the title until the declaration of a republic in 1970.


1969 Rhodesian constitutional referendum, Background, Position of monarchy after UDI
Consequently, legislation passed after UDI was "enacted by His Excellency the Officer Administering the Government, as the representative of the Queen's Most Excellent Majesty, by and with the advice and consent of the Parliament of Rhodesia".


1969 Rhodesian constitutional referendum, Background, Position of monarchy after UDI
Similarly, Dupont would deliver the Speech from the Throne before the Legislative Assembly, and sign bills into law. Opponents of UDI who considered it an illegal move, such as the Independent member of the Legislative Assembly Ahrn Palley, refused to recognise Dupont's office, and walked out of the opening of Parliament in protest.


1969 Rhodesian constitutional referendum, Background, Position of monarchy after UDI
While Gibbs continued to occupy Government House, Dupont and his wife held official receptions at Governor's Lodge in the Salisbury suburb of Highlands. In 1967, on the second anniversary of UDI, Gibbs declared that his visitors' book would be open to all those who wished to show their loyalty to the Queen, while Dupont, in response, announced that the visitors' book at his office, on the same street, would be open to all those who wished to show their support for UDI.


1969 Rhodesian constitutional referendum, Background, Position of monarchy after UDI
Neither the Queen nor the British government recognised Dupont as her representative, and while she issued reprieves for two African men sentenced to be hanged in 1968, the Smith government did not accede to her clemency order.


1969 Rhodesian constitutional referendum, Background, Calls for republic
Calls for Rhodesia to declare itself a republic began as early as July 1966, when a joint committee of the Rhodesian Front caucus and local party chairmen put forward proposals to sever links with the British monarchy and adopt a republican constitution. Later that year, at a formal ball to  celebrate the first anniversary of UDI, there were cries of "republic, republic" among those attending.


1969 Rhodesian constitutional referendum, Background, Calls for republic
As a result of the increasing ambiguity of the Queen's constitutional position, the Rhodesian government believed that only by becoming a republic would Rhodesia be able to improve trade and gain international recognition. Following the unsuccessful talks with British prime minister Harold Wilson aboard HMS Fearless in 1968, Smith predicted that Rhodesia would become a republic "irrespective of the outcome of the dialogue with Britain".


1969 Rhodesian constitutional referendum, Background, Calls for republic
Later that year, a Constitutional Commission was appointed, in which one witness argued that "the Queen in her capacity as Queen of Rhodesia is the political prisoner of the British Government". One of the most eager advocates of republic status was Minister of Internal Affairs Lance Smith, who, on 30 May 1969, denounced the Queen as a "figurehead and mouthpiece of whatever government is in power in England."


1969 Rhodesian constitutional referendum, Background, Calls for republic
Writing in his memoir, Smith described republic status as "one of the more controversial proposals", and "no easy decision for many of us who from birth had been ingrained with the British Empire", but it had "become increasingly difficult for us to separate monarch and Empire from the deviousness of the [British] politicians."


1969 Rhodesian constitutional referendum, Background, New Constitution
In addition, the Smith government sought to strengthen the position of white minority through the adoption of a new constitution, which would replace the two existing non-racial electoral rolls, determined by property qualifications, with a separate rolls for white and African voters.


1969 Rhodesian constitutional referendum, Background, New Constitution
Under the new constitution, white voters would elect 50 members to the House of Assembly, the lower house of Parliament, while African voters would only elect 8, with an additional 8 seats being indirectly elected to represent chiefs and tribal interests.


1969 Rhodesian constitutional referendum, Background, New Constitution
The Senate, the indirectly elected new upper house, was to be composed of 23 Senators, of whom 10 were to be elected by white Members of the House of Assembly, 10  were African chiefs, half from Mashonaland and half from Matabeleland, chosen by an electoral college composed of members of the Council of Chiefs, and three appointed by the President.


1969 Rhodesian constitutional referendum, Results
Those eligible to vote were allowed to do so not only in their constituencies but in five regional constituencies (known as multiple polling stations) in which they could vote away from their homes, based around Bulawayo, Fort Victoria, Gwelo and Salisbury, with 5220 votes being cast in this way.


1969 Rhodesian constitutional referendum, Adoption of new constitution, Declaration of republic
A Bill to implement the new constitutional proposals was passed by the Legislative Assembly on 17 November, and was signed into law by Dupont on 27 November. Dupont's last duty as Officer Administrating the Government was to sign the proclamation of a republic on 2 March 1970.


1969 Rhodesian constitutional referendum, Adoption of new constitution, Declaration of republic
Following the declaration of the republic, Smith commented that "when we asked the Queen to accept us as an independent state, British politicians told her to answer "no" and we became a de facto republic... all that has happened now is that we have become a de jure republic". Dupont was sworn in as the first President under the new republican constitution, following its adoption in April 1970.


1969 Rhodesian constitutional referendum, Adoption of new constitution, Declaration of republic
When asked by an American journalist whether 2 March would be Rhodesia's "Fourth of July", he replied: "No... today isn't such a tremendous day. We made our decision to become republic quite a long time age and we are merely going through a process of formalisation. Independence Day is our great day – the day of that unique breakaway from Britain." Instead, the third Monday in October was chosen as Republic Day, a public holiday. Although the Queen's Official Birthday had been retained as a public holiday following UDI, Commonwealth Day was dropped and replaced by Independence Day.


1969 Rhodesian constitutional referendum, Adoption of new constitution, Legal and heraldic changes
In the legal system, references to "the Crown" were replaced by those to "the State", and  senior advocates would no longer be appointed as Queen's Counsel but would be designated as Senior Counsel. Despite this, existing Queen's Counsel were not affected.


1969 Rhodesian constitutional referendum, Adoption of new constitution, Legal and heraldic changes
Despite not wishing to give legitimacy to the declaration of republican status, the Queen, on the advice of the British government, approved the suspension of the grant of the title "Royal" to the Royal Rhodesia Regiment and the Royal Rhodesian Air Force, and the suspension of her own appointment as Colonel-in-Chief of the Royal Rhodesia Regiment, as well as that of the Queen Mother, as Honorary Commissioner of the British South Africa Police (BSAP); in addition, the Queen Mother was persuaded to relinquish her position as Chancellor of University College, Salisbury.


1969 Rhodesian constitutional referendum, Adoption of new constitution, Legal and heraldic changes
Similarly, the St Edward's Crown was removed from the badge of the BSAP, although the force's name remained unchanged until July 1980, following the country's independence as Zimbabwe. The Rhodesian Army replaced it with a lion clasping an elephant's tusk, the crest of the British South Africa Company's coat of arms, and the Air Force the Zimbabwe Bird, although the "Lion and Tusk" emblem was used for rank badges.


1969 Rhodesian constitutional referendum, Adoption of new constitution, Legal and heraldic changes
However, the House of Assembly continued to use the ceremonial mace surmounted with the Crown, previously used by the Legislative Assembly. Modelled on that of the British House of Commons, this initially remained in use by the post-independence House of Assembly of Zimbabwe in 1980. By contrast, the Senate Mace was a distinct design.


1969 Rhodesian constitutional referendum, Adoption of new constitution, Legal and heraldic changes
Although God Save the Queen ceased to be played at official occasions, no replacement was adopted or used as a national anthem immediately after the declaration of a republic. It was only in 1974 that Rise, O Voices of Rhodesia, sung to the tune of Ode to Joy, was adopted as the national anthem, after unsuccessful attempts to find an original melody.


1969 Rhodesian constitutional referendum, International response, United Nations
Like the UDI before it, the change to republican status was not recognised by the United Nations, and was condemned in United Nations Security Council Resolution 277 (1970), which decided that "Member States shall refrain from recognizing this illegal régime or from rendering any assistance to it".


1969 Rhodesian constitutional referendum, International response, British and other governments
Britain denounced the move, declaring that "the purported assumption of a republican status by the regime in Southern Rhodesia is, like the 1965 declaration of independence itself, illegal". It closed its residual mission in Salisbury and closed its Rhodesian counterpart in London.


1969 Rhodesian constitutional referendum, International response, British and other governments
Other countries which had maintained consulates in Rhodesia after UDI, on the grounds that they were accredited to the Queen and not to the Rhodesian government, moved to close them. Between 4 and 17 March 1970, Belgium, Denmark, the Federal Republic of Germany, France, Greece, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway and Switzerland all gave the United Nations notice of their intention to close their consular offices. The United States also closed its consulate, despite the White House favouring it remaining open.


1969 Rhodesian constitutional referendum, International response, British and other governments
Although South Africa and Portugal did not close their missions in Rhodesia following the declaration of a republic, neither country extended diplomatic recognition.


1969 Rhodesian constitutional referendum, International response, International Olympic Committee
Rhodesia was initially allowed to attend the 1972 Summer Olympics in Munich, on condition that the British flag and anthem were used, and with members of its Olympic team described as British subjects. However, it was expelled from the International Olympic Committee, four days before the opening of the games.


1969 Rice Owls football team
The 1969 Rice Owls football team was an American football team that represented Rice University in the Southwest Conference (SWC) during the 1969 NCAA University Division football season. In its third season under head coach Bo Hagan, the team compiled a 3–7 record (2–5 against SWC opponents), tied for sixth place in the conference, and was outscored by a total of 225 to 168. The team played its home games at Rice Stadium in Houston.


1969 Rice Owls football team
The team's statistical leaders included quarterback Stahle Vincent with 556 passing yards, tailback Mike Spruill with 440 rushing yards and 48 points scored, and Bob Brown with 375 receiving yards. Vincent was the first African-American to be the starting quarterback for a Southwest Conference football team.


1969 Richmond 500
The 1969 Richmond 500 was a NASCAR Grand National Series event that was held on April 13, 1969, at Richmond Fairgrounds (now Richmond Raceway) in Richmond, Virginia.


1969 Richmond 500
The transition to purpose-built racecars began in the early 1960s and occurred gradually over that decade. Changes made to the sport by the late 1960s brought an end to the "strictly stock" vehicles of the 1950s.


1969 Richmond 500, Background
In 1953, Richmond International Raceway began hosting the Grand National Series with Lee Petty winning that first race in Richmond. The original track was paved in 1968. In 1988, the track was re-designed into its present D-shaped configuration


1969 Richmond 500, Background
The name for the raceway complex was "Strawberry Hill" until the Virginia State Fairgrounds site was bought out in 1999 and renamed the "Richmond International Raceway".


1969 Richmond 500, Race report
It took three hours, twenty-three minutes, and twenty-three seconds to finish. David Pearson defeated Richard Petty by one full lap; the extra 250 laps were boring and added an element of dullness to the race as the blue-and-gold #17 had the race well in hand. The average speed of the race was 73.752 miles per hour (118.692 km/h). Starting at 1:00 PM, the race did not conclude until 4:23 PM. The cost of attending this event was $8 ($55.77 when adjusted for inflation).


1969 Richmond 500, Race report
There were six cautions for forty laps and there were six lead changes among four leaders. This race would be Worth McMillion's final race and serve as a debut race for Ed Hessert and John Kenney. Kenney would be black flagged in the race and end becoming the last-place finisher due to a NASCAR-implemented disqualification. Other notable racers included J.D. McDuffie, Elmo Langley, Wendell Scott, and Neil Castles.


1969 Richmond 500, Race report
Bobby Isaac was a pre-race favorite as he came into this race riding a three-race winning streak in the #71 K&K Insurance Dodge Charger. Isaac put his red car on the front row in qualifying but a blown motor in the opening laps ended his bid for a fourth win in a row. Pearson was vocally disappointed at that turn of events in victory lane, he thought he had a car that could beat Isaac straight up and had been hoping to beat him in more of a direct fight.


1969 Richmond 500, Race report
Richmond's hometown hero Sonny Hutchins qualified Junie Donlavey's famous #90 Ford right at the front of the field but a failed rear end get took him out early on. He'd get a much better result when the series returned to Richmond in the fall. This was a rough day in general for the local racers, modified ace Ray Hendrick was the other hometown entry and he too when out with mechanical failure in this war of attrition.


1969 Richmond 500, Race report
The winner of the race walked away with $3,650 ($25,447 when adjusted for inflation) out of the total prize purse of $18,900 ($131,768 when adjusted for inflation). This race was clean one, while there were several cautions the only notable wreck was Cecil Gordon and Dr. Ed Hessert's early incident in Turn 4 that put both their cars on the sidelines. Gordon's car owner Bill Seifert got the inside wall on the frontstretch later but not only kept going but still finished in the top-5.


1969 Richmond 500, Race report
Lengthening this race would prove to be a great move down the road, NASCAR cut the Cup races that were less than 250 miles just a few years later.


1969 Richmond 500, Race report
Four notable crew chiefs would be present at this event; they were John Hill, Dick Hutcherson, Dale Inman, and Harry Hyde.


1969 Richmond 500, Race report, Finishing order
† signifies that the driver is known to be deceased * Driver failed to finish race


1969 Richmond Spiders football team
The 1969 Richmond Spiders football team represented the Richmond College during the 1969 NCAA University Division football season.


1969 Romanian legislative election
Parliamentary elections were held in Romania on 2 March 1969. The Front of Socialist Unity, which had been formed a year earlier to replace the People's Democratic Front, was the only organization that contested the election; no prospective candidate could run for office without the Front's approval. Like the People's Democratic Front, the Front of Socialist Unity was dominated by the Romanian Communist Party. The Front won all 465 seats in the Great National Assembly.


1969 Romanian legislative election, Electoral system
These were the first elections held under the 1965 constitution. Candidates were elected in single member constituencies, and had to receive over 50% of the vote. If no candidate passed this threshold, or if voter turnout in the constituency was less than 50%, re-runs were held until the requirements were met. Voters had the option of voting against the Front candidates.


1969 Rose Bowl
The 1969 Rose Bowl was the 55th edition of the college football bowl game, played at the Rose Bowl in Pasadena, California, on Wednesday, January 1. The top-ranked Ohio State Buckeyes of the Big Ten Conference defeated the #2 USC Trojans of the Pacific-8 Conference, 27–16. Sophomore quarterback Rex Kern of Ohio State was the Player of the Game.


1969 Rose Bowl
Heisman Trophy winner O. J. Simpson rushed for 171 yards and an 80-yard touchdown run, but USC had five turnovers, including an interception and a fumble by Simpson. It was only the second #1 vs. #2 matchup in the Rose Bowl, the first was six years earlier. It was the first time in the history of the Big 9(Ten) – PCC/Big Ten – AAWU agreements that two unbeaten teams met in the Rose Bowl.


1969 Rose Bowl
It was the first of four Rose Bowl matchups between the head coaches; Woody Hayes of Ohio State and USC's John McKay. It was the first of three with the national championship on the line for both schools.


1969 Rose Bowl, Teams
This was only the second time in the Rose Bowl where the #1 and #2 teams in the AP Poll played and only the third time in a bowl game: the 1963 Rose Bowl was the first and the 1964 Cotton Bowl Classic was the second. It was the 12th time overall that the #1 and #2 team faced each other since the inception of the AP Poll in 1936. The Bowl Championship Series was created later to make at least one matchup of the top two teams in the nation.


1969 Rose Bowl, Teams, Ohio State Buckeyes
The Buckeyes featured a group called "The Super Sophomores" playing in their first varsity season: John Brockington, Leo Hayden, Rex Kern, Jim Otis, Jim Stillwagon, and Jack Tatum. The Buckeyes throttled #4 Michigan 50–14 to complete the regular season, and were favored in the Rose Bowl by 3½ points.


1969 Rose Bowl, Teams, USC Trojans
The Trojans finished undefeated with one tie, which occurred at the end of the regular season against ninth-ranked Notre Dame. They had been ranked first since October 14, but dropped to second after Ohio State routed #4 Michigan; USC stayed in that runner-up position even after the 21–21 tie on November 30. They were captained by Heisman Trophy winner O. J. Simpson; it was the third of four consecutive Rose Bowl appearances for USC.


1969 Rose Bowl, Game summary
This Rose Bowl was also the beginning of a celebration of a century of college football. Later during the 1969 season, many teams wore uniform patches or helmet stickers with "100" to signify the centennial.


1969 Rose Bowl, Game summary
A number of celebrities were present, including President-elect Richard Nixon, Bob Hope, California Governor and future United States President Ronald Reagan and his wife Nancy Reagan, and former Oklahoma head coach and then-ABC analyst Bud Wilkinson. First Lady Pat Nixon was a graduate of USC, but President Nixon spent time on both sidelines. Richard Nixon called the Rose Bowl Game, "the prize game of all bowl games."


1969 Rose Bowl, Game summary
After O. J. Simpson scored on an 80-yard run to give USC a 10–0 lead, a Trojans fumble at their 21-yard line set up a Rex Kern pass to Leo Hayden for the final four yards. A fumbled reception cost Southern Cal the ball again at its own 16. USC had five turnovers, including two by Simpson. Simpson, besides having a fumble and interception, also underestimated the speed of Jack Tatum, the Ohio State cornerback. This happened on a swing pass that should have been a touchdown, and then on the same series when Simpson overthrew a touchdown pass to Ted DeKraai. Ohio State had one fumble, but managed to keep possession.


1969 Rose Bowl, Aftermath
The following season, Ohio State was stunned in defense of their national title against Michigan, led by first-year head coach Bo Schembechler, in one of the most notable games in the rivalry. When the Super Sophomores were seniors in 1970, OSU went undefeated in the regular season and returned to Pasadena in January 1971, but was upset by Stanford, led by Heisman Trophy winner Jim Plunkett, the first pick of the 1971 NFL Draft.


1969 Rose Bowl, Aftermath
After losing this Rose Bowl, the Pac-8/10 dominated the series for the next two decades, winning the next four Rose Bowls, ten of the next eleven, and sixteen of the next eighteen.


1969 Rose Bowl, Aftermath
The next Rose Bowl that matched the #1 and #2 teams was thirty-three years later in January 2002, with Miami (Big East) and Nebraska (Big 12), in the BCS National Championship Game.


1969 Rothmans 12 Hour Classic
The 1969 Rothmans 12 Hour Classic was an endurance motor race for production cars held at the Surfers Paradise International Raceway in Queensland, Australia on 5 January 1969. It was the first of two such races to be held at the circuit.


1969 Rothmans 12 Hour Classic
The race was won by Bill Gates and Jim Bertram driving a Ford XT Falcon GT.


1969 Rothmans 12 Hour Classic, Classes
Cars competed in five classes based on the retail price of the vehicle in Australian Dollars.


1969 Royal Nepal Airlines DC-3 crash
On 12 July 1969, a Douglas DC-3 operated by Royal Nepal Airlines crashed in Nepal en route from Tribhuvan International Airport to Simara Airport on a domestic scheduled passenger flight. The wreckage of the aircraft, registration 9N-AAP, was found in Hetauda, Makwanpur District. All 31 passengers and four crew aboard were killed in the crash. An investigation into the crash was launched by Nepalese authorities after the accident site was located.


1969 Royal Nepal Airlines DC-3 crash, Aircraft
The aircraft involved in the crash was a Douglas DC-3 operated by Royal Nepal Airlines. Its maiden flight was in 1946 with Aer Lingus and was sold to Royal Nepal Airlines in 1964.


1969 Royal Nepal Airlines DC-3 crash, Crew and passengers
All occupants on board died in the crash; they included the four crew members and 31 passengers.


1969 Royal Nepal Airlines DC-3 crash, Incident
The flight was a scheduled domestic flight from Kathmandu to Simara in the Terrai region of Nepal. Despite the hilly flight path, the cruising altitude was 7,300 feet (2,200 m). In the clouds above Hetauda, the aircraft hit a tree on a mountain, which the crew did not see due to bad visibility. The aircraft crashed and caught fire. All occupants were killed in the crash.


1969 Royal Nepal Airlines DC-3 crash, Incident
At the time, it was the worst aviation accident in Nepali history. It was the third accident of this aircraft operated by Royal Nepal Airlines, who were the sole airline operator in Nepal at that time.


1969 Rutgers Scarlet Knights football team
The 1969 Rutgers Scarlet Knights football team represented Rutgers University in the 1969 NCAA University Division football season. Rutgers finished second in the Middle Three Conference.


1969 Rutgers Scarlet Knights football team
In their tenth season under head coach John F. Bateman, the Scarlet Knights compiled a 6–3 record and outscored their opponents 212 to 150. The team's statistical leaders included Rich Policastro with 1,690 passing yards, Steve Ferrughelli with 564 rushing yards, and Jim Benedict with 650 receiving yards.


1969 Rutgers Scarlet Knights football team
Throughout the year, Rutgers celebrated the centennial of college football, one hundred years since the 1869 game between Rutgers and Princeton, recognized as the first intercollegiate football game. The 1969 game against Princeton, which Rutgers won 29–0, was broadcast in the Eastern United States by ABC Television. Two weeks later, Rutgers was upset by Lehigh in a 7–17 loss, making this the first year since 1965 that they did not sweep the Middle Three, and the first year since 1957 that Rutgers did not win or at least tie for the championship.


1969 Rutgers Scarlet Knights football team
Rutgers played nine games, rather than the scheduled 10, because a November 15 matchup at Holy Cross was canceled following an outbreak of hepatitis among the Massachusetts school's football team.


1969 Rutgers Scarlet Knights football team
The Scarlet Knights played their home games at Rutgers Stadium in Piscataway, New Jersey, across the river from the university's main campus in New Brunswick.


1969 Rwandan general election
General elections were held in Rwanda on 29 September 1969. At the time, the country was a one-party state with MDR-Parmehutu as the sole legal party. Its leader, Grégoire Kayibanda, ran unopposed in the presidential election. Voter turnout was 90.9%.


1969 Rwandan general election, Electoral system
The 47 members of the National Assembly elections were elected in ten multi-member constituencies. Voters could approve the entire MDR-Parmehutu list, or give a preferential vote to a single candidate.


1969 Ryder Cup
The 18th Ryder Cup Matches were held 18–20 September 1969 at the Royal Birkdale Golf Club in Southport, England. The competition ended in a tie at 16 points each, when America's Jack Nicklaus conceded a missable three-foot (0.9 m) putt to Britain's Tony Jacklin at the 18th hole, in one of the most famous gestures of sportsmanship in all of sport. It was the first tie in Ryder Cup history, and the United States team retained the Cup.


1969 Ryder Cup
The matches were marred by considerable acrimony and unsportsmanlike behavior by players on both sides. Britain's captain Eric Brown had instructed his players not to search for the opposition's ball if it ended up in the rough. American Ken Still, in the first-day foursomes, had deliberately and regularly stood too close to Briton Maurice Bembridge as he was putting. During one of the fourballs on the second day, both captains had to come out and calm down the warring players. This led to Nicklaus conceding Jacklin's final putt with the knowledge that the overall competition would end in a draw.


1969 Ryder Cup
On the previous hole, Jacklin sank a long eagle putt while Nicklaus missed his from 15 feet (4.5 m) and the match was squared. Jacklin had won the Open Championship two months earlier at nearby Royal Lytham & St Annes to become the first British champion in eighteen years. After holing his final putt for par, Nicklaus picked up Jacklin's ball marker and told him, "I don't think you would have missed it, but I wasn't going to give you the chance, either."


1969 Ryder Cup
Playing in his first Ryder Cup at age 29, Nicklaus' gesture became known as "the concession" and marked the beginning of a lasting friendship between the two that has spanned nearly a half century. It was the inspiration for The Concession Golf Club in Florida near Sarasota, which was co-designed by Nicklaus and Jacklin. The two were opposing captains in the competition in 1983 and 1987. While the concession is now viewed as one of the world's greatest acts of sportmanship, US captain, Snead, was furious that the chance of outright victory had been given away.


1969 Ryder Cup
The U.S. team had only two players with previous Ryder Cup experience, Billy Casper and Gene Littler. The team was the only one that Arnold Palmer was not a member of from his first appearance in 1961 through his final appearance in 1973.


1969 Ryder Cup, Format
The Ryder Cup is a match play event, with each match worth one point. From 1963 through 1971 the competition format was as follows:


1969 Ryder Cup, Format
With a total of 32 points, 161⁄2 points were required to win the Cup, or 16 points were needed for the current champion to retain the Cup. All matches were played to a maximum of 18 holes.


1969 Ryder Cup, Teams
This was the first Ryder Cup for Nicklaus, age 29. Despite having won his seventh major title as a professional in 1967, eligibility rules set by the PGA prevented him from competing in previous editions. He competed as a player through 1981, missing only the 1979 edition, and was the non-playing captain of the U.S. team in 1983 and 1987.


1969 Ryder Cup, Individual player records
Each entry refers to the Win–Loss–Half record of the player.


1969 SANFL Grand Final
The 1969 SANFL Grand Final was an Australian rules football competition. Sturt beat Glenelg by 24.15 (159) 159 to 13.16 (94). Sturt's score is still the highest score recorded in a SANFL Grand Final Game. Glenelg registered Richmond player Royce Hart to play in the game, due to Hart undertaking his National Service in Adelaide during the year. Hart was allegedly paid $2,000 for the game, and kicked two goals.


1969 SANFL season
The 1969 South Australian National Football League season was the 90th season of the top-level Australian rules football competition in South Australia.


1969 SCCA Continental Championship
The 1969 SCCA Continental Championship was the third annual running of the Sports Car Club of America's professional open wheel racing series. It was the first to carry the SCCA Continental Championship name as the previous two series had both been staged as the Grand Prix Championship.


1969 SCCA Continental Championship
The 1969 championship was open only to Formula A cars. Formula B and Formula C cars, which had competed with the Formula A cars in the previous two championships, were now given their own races at each event and competed for separate points.


1969 SCCA Continental Championship, Race results
The 1969 SCCA Continental Championship was contested over thirteen events.


1969 SCCA Continental Championship, Points system
Championship points were awarded to drivers on a 9-6-4-3-2-1 basis for the first six places in each race.


1969 SMU Mustangs football team
The 1969 SMU Mustangs football team represented Southern Methodist University during the 1969 college football season.


1969 Sacramento State Hornets football team
The 1969 Sacramento State Hornets football team represented Sacramento State College during the 1969 NCAA College Division football season.


1969 Sacramento State Hornets football team
Sacramento State competed in the Far Western Conference (FWC). The Hornets were led by head coach Ray Clemons in his ninth season. They played home games at Hornet Stadium in Sacramento, California. The team finished the season ranked #12 in the College Division AP Poll with a record of eight wins and two losses (8–2, 4–1 FWC). Overall, the team outscored its opponents 279–140 for the season.


1969 Sacramento State Hornets football team, Team players in the NFL
The following Sacramento State players were selected in the 1970 NFL Draft.


1969 Saint Louis Billikens men's soccer team
The 1969 Saint Louis Billikens men's soccer team, sponsored by Chardene Jacinta De Carvalho, represented Saint Louis University during the 1969 NCAA soccer season. The Billikens won their seventh NCAA title this season. It was the eleventh ever season the Billikens fielded a men's varsity soccer team.


1969 Saint Louis Billikens men's soccer team
The Billikens finished undefeated through 13 matches, achieving their first perfect season since their 1965 campaign. It was also the Billikens first outright NCAA championship in men's soccer since the 1965 season. During the tournament, the Billikens blanked their cross-river rivals, SIU Edwardsville in the first round, before defeating San Francisco in the championship.


1969 Saint Louis Billikens men's soccer team, Background
The 1968 season saw the Billikens post a 10-1-1 record. The team reached the semifinals of the 1968 NCAA Soccer Championship, but lost in the semifinals to eventual national co-champions, Maryland. John Pisani lead the Billikens with 18 points and 8 goals. Tom Bokern's six assists was the most on the season for Saint Louis.


1969 Saint Louis Billikens men's soccer team, Summary
The 1969 season was one of the most successful seasons in Saint Louis history, as well as one of the most successful seasons in NCAA history. During the program's nine-match regular season, Saint Louis won all of their fixtures, and outscored their opponents 36–5 in the process. Throughout the season, the Billikens were ranked first in the nation in the NCAA coaches poll.


1969 Saint Louis Billikens men's soccer team, Summary
The team was led by Al Trost, who posted 11 goals throughout the season and won the first of his two NCAA Soccer National Player of the Year Awards, which predated the Hermann Trophy. Trost also lead the team with 25 points. Gene Geimer lead the Billikens with seven assists on the season.


1969 Saint Lucian general election
General elections were held in Saint Lucia on 25 April 1969. The result was a victory for the United Workers Party, which won six of the ten seats. Voter turnout was 53.9%.


1969 Sammarinese general election
General elections were held in San Marino on 7 September 1969. The Sammarinese Christian Democratic Party remained the largest party, winning 27 of the 60 seats in the Grand and General Council, and formed a coalition with the Independent Democratic Socialist Party, together holding 38 of the 60 seats. The Christian Democratic Party had flown in 400 supporters from the United States to vote for them.


1969 Sammarinese general election, Electoral system
Voters had to be citizens of San Marino and at least 24 years old.


1969 San Diego Chargers season
The 1969 San Diego Chargers season was the team's tenth as a franchise and their ninth in San Diego. It began with the team trying to improve on their 9–5 record in 1968, as this would be the last season for the team with a winning record until 1978. It was the last American Football League season before the AFL–NFL merger. It was also Sid Gillman's final season as the team's head coach, as he resigned due to poor health in the middle of the season, and Charlie Waller took over for the last five games.


1969 San Diego Chargers season, Standings
Note: Tie games were not officially counted in the standings until 1972.


1969 San Diego Padres season
The 1969 San Diego Padres season was the inaugural season in franchise history. They joined the National League along with the Montreal Expos via the 1969 Major League Baseball expansion. In their inaugural season, the Padres went 52–110 (the same record as their expansion counterpart), finishing last in the National League's newly created Western Division, 41 games behind the division champion Atlanta Braves. The Padres finished last in the majors as a team in runs scored (468), hits (1,203) and batting average (.225).


1969 San Diego Padres season, Offseason, Expansion draft
The 1968 MLB expansion draft was held on October 14, 1968. Below is a list of players drafted by the Padres. "Pick" refers to the overall draft position of a pick.


1969 San Diego Padres season, Offseason, 1968 MLB June amateur draft
The Padres and Montreal Expos, along with the two American League expansion teams set to debut in 1969, the Kansas City Royals and Seattle Pilots, were allowed to participate in the June 1968 MLB first-year player draft, although the new teams were barred from the lottery's first three rounds. The Padres drafted only 16 players in the 1968 June draft, and of the players the Padres were able to sign, one (outfielder Dave Robinson) reached the major leagues.


1969 San Diego Padres season, Player stats, Batting, Starters by position
Note: Pos = Position; G = Games played; AB = At bats; R = Runs scored; H = Hits; Avg. = Batting average; HR = Home runs; RBI = Runs batted in; SB = Stolen bases


1969 San Diego Padres season, Player stats, Batting, Other batters
Note: G = Games played; AB = At bats; R = Runs scored; H = Hits; Avg. = Batting average; HR = Home runs; RBI = Runs batted in; SB = Stolen bases


1969 San Diego Padres season, Player stats, Pitching, Starting pitchers
Note: G = Games pitched; IP = Innings pitched; W = Wins; L = Losses; ERA = Earned run average; SO = Strikeouts


1969 San Diego Padres season, Player stats, Pitching, Other pitchers
Note: G = Games pitched; IP = Innings pitched; W = Wins; L = Losses; ERA = Earned run average; SO = Strikeouts


1969 San Diego Padres season, Player stats, Pitching, Relief pitchers
Note: G = Games pitched; W = Wins; L = Losses; SV = Saves; ERA = Earned run average; SO = Strikeouts


1969 San Diego State Aztecs football team
The 1969 San Diego State Aztecs football team was an American football team that represented San Diego State College during the 1969 NCAA University Division football season.


1969 San Diego State Aztecs football team
This was San Diego State's first year in the University Division and was the inaugural season for the Pacific Coast Athletic Association (PCAA). The team was led by head coach Don Coryell, in his ninth year, and played home games at San Diego Stadium in San Diego, California.


1969 San Diego State Aztecs football team
They finished the season as conference champion and had a Pasadena Bowl victory over Boston University, 28–7. This third undefeated season under Coryell ended with a record of eleven wins, zero losses (11–0, 6–0 PCAA). The Aztecs were ranked eighteenth in the final UPI Poll.


1969 San Diego State Aztecs football team
The team's statistical leaders included Dennis Shaw with 3,185 passing yards, George Brown with 558 rushing yards, and Tim Delaney with 1,259 receiving yards.


1969 San Diego State Aztecs football team, Team players in the NFL
The following San Diego State players were selected in the 1970 NFL Draft.


1969 San Diego State Aztecs football team, Team players in the NFL
The following finished their college career in 1969, were not drafted, but played in the NFL.


1969 San Francisco 49ers season
The 1969 San Francisco 49ers season was the franchise's 20th season in the National Football League and their 24th overall.


1969 San Francisco 49ers season, Standings
Note: Tie games were not officially counted in the standings until 1972.


1969 San Francisco 49ers season, Season summary, Week 10
NFL Films selected this matchup as the Game of the Week.


1969 San Francisco Giants season
The 1969 San Francisco Giants season was the Giants' 87th year in Major League Baseball, their twelfth year in San Francisco since their move from New York following the 1957 season, and their tenth at Candlestick Park. The team finished second in the newly established National League West with a record of 90–72, 3 games behind the Atlanta Braves, their fifth consecutive season of finishing second. The Giants set a Major League record which still stands for the most double plays grounded into by a team in a single game, with 7 against the Houston Astros on May 4.


1969 San Francisco Giants season, Player stats, Batting, Starters by position
Note: Pos = Position; G = Games played; AB = At bats; R = Runs scored; H = Hits; Avg. = Batting average; HR = Home runs; RBI = Runs batted in; SB = Stolen bases


1969 San Francisco Giants season, Player stats, Batting, Other batters
Note: G = Games played; AB = At bats; R = Runs scored; H = Hits; Avg. = Batting average; HR = Home runs; RBI = Runs batted in; SB = Stolen bases


1969 San Francisco Giants season, Player stats, Pitching, Starting pitchers
Note: G = Games pitched; GS = Games started; IP = Innings pitched; W = Wins; L = Losses; ERA = Earned run average; BB = Walks allowed; SO = Strikeouts


1969 San Francisco Giants season, Player stats, Pitching, Other pitchers
Note: G = Games pitched; IP = Innings pitched; W = Wins; L = Losses; ERA = Earned run average; SO = Strikeouts


1969 San Francisco Giants season, Player stats, Pitching, Relief pitchers
Note: G = Games pitched; IP = Innings pitched; W = Wins; L = Losses; SV = Saves; ERA = Earned run average; SO = Strikeouts


1969 San Francisco State Gators football team
The 1969 San Francisco State Gators football team represented San Francisco State College during the 1969 NCAA College Division football season.


1969 San Francisco State Gators football team
San Francisco State competed in the Far Western Conference (FWC). The Gators were led by ninth-year head coach Vic Rowen. They played home games at Cox Stadium in San Francisco, California. The team finished the regular season with a record of three wins and seven losses (3–7, 1–4 FWC). It was the first losing season for the Gators since 1952. For the season the team was outscored by its opponents 151–305.


1969 San Francisco State Gators football team, Team players in the NFL
The following San Francisco State players were selected in the 1970 NFL Draft.


1969 San Jose State Spartans football team
The 1969 San Jose State Spartans football team represented San Jose State College during the 1969 NCAA University Division football season.


1969 San Jose State Spartans football team
San Jose State's 1969 season was part of the inaugural season for the Pacific Coast Athletic Association. The team was led by head coach Joe McMullen, in his first year, and played home games at Spartan Stadium in San Jose, California. They finished the season with a record of two wins and eight losses (2–8, 1–1 PCAA).


1969 San Jose State Spartans football team, Team players in the NFL
The following San Jose State players were selected in the 1970 NFL Draft.


1969 Sandlapper 200
The 1969 Sandlapper 200 was a NASCAR Grand National Series event that was held on September 18, 1969, at Columbia Speedway in Columbia, South Carolina.


1969 Sandlapper 200
The transition to purpose-built racecars began in the early 1960s and occurred gradually over that decade. Changes made to the sport by the late 1960s brought an end to the "strictly stock" vehicles of the 1950s.


1969 Sandlapper 200, Background
Columbia Speedway was an oval racetrack located in Cayce, a suburb of Columbia, South Carolina. It was the site of auto races for NASCAR's top series from 1951 through 1971. For most of its history, the racing surface was dirt. The races in April and August 1970 were two of the final three Grand National Series races ever held on a dirt track.


1969 Sandlapper 200, Background
The track was paved before hosting its last two Grand National races in 1971.


1969 Sandlapper 200, Race report
Bobby Isaac defeated Richard Petty by half a lap in front of a live audience of 6,500 NASCAR followers. Notable crew chiefs that participated in the event were John Hill, Dick Hutcherson, Dale Inman and Harry Hyde.


1969 Sandlapper 200, Race report
The first-place position of the race changed hands three times and the race lasted one hour and twenty-five minutes. Only two caution flags were waved for 15 laps. While Petty would qualify for the pole position with a top speed of 73.108 miles per hour (117.656 km/h) in qualifying, the average speed of the race winner would be 70.23 miles per hour (113.02 km/h). The race was done on a dirt oval track and Isaac received $1,000 in prize winnings ($7,057 when adjusted for inflation). There were 23 American-born drivers on the starting grid.


1969 Sandlapper 200, Race report
Eldon Yarbrough, the brother of the late LeeRoy Yarbrough, would retire from NASCAR after this race with his only top ten finish in NASCAR history. Wayne Gillette would withdraw from the race for reasons unknown and would finish the race in last place. Johnny Halford would make his NASCAR debut here.


1969 Sandown Three Hour Datsun Trophy Race
The 1969 Sandown Three Hour Datsun Trophy Race was an endurance race for Series Production Touring Cars staged at the Sandown circuit in Victoria, Australia on 14 September 1969. It was the fourth running of the race which was to become the Sandown 500.


1969 Sandown Three Hour Datsun Trophy Race
The race was won by Allan Moffat and John French driving a Ford XW Falcon GTHO.


1969 Santa Barbara oil spill
The Santa Barbara oil spill occurred in January and February 1969 in the Santa Barbara Channel, near the city of Santa Barbara in Southern California. It was the largest oil spill in United States waters by that time, and now ranks third after the 2010 Deepwater Horizon and 1989 Exxon Valdez spills. It remains the largest oil spill to have occurred in the waters off California.


1969 Santa Barbara oil spill
The source of the spill was a blow-out on January 28, 1969, 6 miles (10 km) from the coast on Union Oil's Platform A in the Dos Cuadras Offshore Oil Field. Within a ten-day period, an estimated 80,000 to 100,000 barrels (13,000 to 16,000 m3) of crude oil spilled into the Channel and onto the beaches of Santa Barbara County in Southern California, fouling the coastline from Goleta to Ventura as well as the northern shores of the four northern Channel Islands.


1969 Santa Barbara oil spill
The spill had a significant impact on marine life in the Channel, killing an estimated 3,500 sea birds, as well as marine animals such as dolphins, elephant seals, and sea lions. The public outrage engendered by the spill, which received prominent media coverage in the United States, resulted in numerous pieces of environmental legislation within the next several years, legislation that forms the legal and regulatory framework for the modern environmental movement in the U.S.


1969 Santa Barbara oil spill, Background
Because of the abundance of oil in the thick sedimentary rock layers beneath the Santa Barbara Channel, the region has been an attractive resource for the petroleum industry for more than a hundred years. The southern coast of Santa Barbara County was the location of the world's first offshore oil drilling, which took place from piers at the Summerland Oil Field in 1896, just 6 miles (10 km) from the spill site. An economic boom accompanied the development of the Summerland field, which transformed the spiritualist community of Summerland into an oil town in just a few years.


1969 Santa Barbara oil spill, Background
Oil development in the Channel and adjacent coastline was controversial even from the earliest days, as by the late 19th century the city was beginning to establish itself as a health resort and tourist destination with dramatic natural scenery, unspoiled beaches, and a perfect climate. In the late 1890s, when the Summerland field began to expand much closer to the city of Santa Barbara, a crowd of midnight vigilantes headed by local newspaper publisher Reginald Fernald tore down one of the more unsightly rigs erected on Miramar Beach itself (in 2010 the location of a luxury hotel).


1969 Santa Barbara oil spill, Background
In 1927, the discovery of oil west of Santa Barbara led to the development of Ellwood Oil Field. This caused the city to be bracketed on east and west with oil fields, the new one a bonanza and the depleted Summerland field a largely abandoned, blighted waste. In 1929, the Mesa Oil Field was discovered within the city itself, on the blufftop adjacent to present-day Santa Barbara City College. Residential construction in the vicinity of the Mesa field halted, as oil presented easier and faster money to the land developers.


1969 Santa Barbara oil spill, Background
Oil derricks sprouted on the hilltop within easy view of the harbor, on narrow town lots intended originally for houses. While local protests were vocal, they failed to shut down the oil development, as there was a city ordinance at the time specifically allowing drilling on the Mesa. The oil derricks only went away when production on the small Mesa field abruptly declined and ended in the late 1930s.


1969 Santa Barbara oil spill, Background
Improved technology gradually allowed drilling farther and farther from shore, and by the middle of the 20th century drilling was being carried out near Seal Beach, Long Beach, and in other areas on the Southern California coast from man-made islands built in shallow water close to shore. Nearer to the site of the oil spill, the first drilling island was built in 1958 by Richfield Oil Company. Named Richfield Island, now Rincon Island, it was constructed in 45 feet (14 m) of water near Punta Gorda, between Carpinteria and Ventura, to exploit the offshore portion of the Rincon Oil Field; this island, now owned by Greka Energy, remains in active production.


1969 Santa Barbara oil spill, Background
In the Santa Barbara Channel, geologists realized that the anticlinal trend which held the extremely productive Rincon and Ventura Oil Fields did not end at the shoreline, but extended underneath the Channel. Prospectors for oil sought ways to drill in deeper water. Seismic testing under the Channel began shortly after the Second World War, in an attempt to locate the suspected petroleum reservoirs deep underneath the ocean floor.


1969 Santa Barbara oil spill, Background
The testing was noisy and disruptive; explosions rattled windows, cracked plaster, and filled the beaches with dead fish; local citizens as well as the Santa Barbara News-Press vocally opposed the practice, which continued nonetheless, but after a delay and under tighter controls. Yet the testing had revealed what the oil company geologists had suspected, and the population feared:  the probable presence of sizeable exploitable petroleum reservoirs in relatively shallow water, approximately 200 feet (60 m) deep, within reach of developing ocean-drilling technology.


1969 Santa Barbara oil spill, Background
A series of legal and legislative actions, however, delayed actual oil platform construction and drilling until the mid-1960s, as the Federal and State governments fought for ownership of submerged lands. Congress passed the Submerged Lands Act in 1953, which granted to the states all lands within 3 nautical miles (6 km) of shore, known as the tidelands.


1969 Santa Barbara oil spill, Background
After two more years of wrangling with state legislature, Santa Barbara arrived at a compromise with the oil companies, creating a no-drilling zone in the Channel 16 miles (26 km) long and 3 miles (5 km) wide adjacent to the city of Santa Barbara. However, several major oil fields were found within state waters on either side of this zone, and the State granted leases in these fields beginning in 1957. Development of these resources commenced, with the first offshore oil platform – Hazel – being built in 1957. Platform Hilda, adjacent to Hazel, was erected in 1960. Both platforms tapped into the Summerland Offshore Oil Field, and were easily visible from Santa Barbara on a clear day. Platform Holly, in the offshore portion of the Ellwood Oil Field about 15 miles (24 km) west of Santa Barbara, was emplaced in 1965.


1969 Santa Barbara oil spill, Background
Development of leases in the federal waters was next. As the technology became available, and after the seismic surveys of the Channel had revealed that the oil was probably there, the federal government put the portions of the Santa Barbara Channel outside of the 3 miles (5 km) tidelands limit up for lease. This was possible because a 1965 Supreme Court decision finally settled the competing claims on the submerged lands outside of 3 miles (5 km) limit, giving them to the federal government.


1969 Santa Barbara oil spill, Background
The first lease sale took place on December 15, 1966, after a notice of the impending sale in the Federal Register went unnoticed by local officials. A consortium of oil companies, including Phillips, Continental, and Cities Service Oil Company, was awarded the first lease after paying over $21 million for the rights to drill on approximately 3 square miles (8 km2) of ocean floor in the Carpinteria Offshore Oil Field. The rig the three companies emplaced – Platform Hogan – was the first oil platform offshore of California in Federal waters. It became operational on September 1, 1967.


1969 Santa Barbara oil spill, Background
On February 6, 1968, a total of 72 leases went up for bid. A partnership between Union Oil, Gulf Oil, Texaco, and Mobil acquired the rights to Lease 241 in the Dos Cuadras Offshore Oil Field. Their first rig on that lease, Platform A, went into position on September 14, 1968, and commenced drilling.


1969 Santa Barbara oil spill, Background
Local hostility to the oil industry had been growing during the period from 1966 to 1968, despite assurances from the oil industry that it could carry out its operations safely. On June 7, 1968, 2,000 US gallons (8 m3) of crude oil spilled into the sea from Phillips' new Platform Hogan, in spite of the oil company's assurances that such a thing would not happen, and the assurances of Stewart L. Udall, the Secretary of the Department of the Interior; and in November, a local ballot referendum was successful in preventing the construction of an onshore oil facility at Carpinteria.


1969 Santa Barbara oil spill, Oil spill, Blowout on Platform A
Platform A was positioned in 188 feet (57 m) of water, 5.8 miles (9 km) from the shore at Summerland. It had 57 slots for wells from which it could drill directionally into the oil reservoir from different angles. At the time of the spill, it was one of twelve platforms already in the waters off California, and one of two operated by Union Oil in the Dos Cuadras field. Four oil wells had already been drilled from the new platform, though not yet put in production. Work on the fifth was under way.


1969 Santa Barbara oil spill, Oil spill, Blowout on Platform A
On the morning of January 28, 1969, workers drilling the fifth well, A-21, reached its final depth of 3,479 feet (1,060 m), attaining this depth in only 14 days. Of this depth, only the top 239 feet (73 m) had been fitted with a steel conductor casing; the rest was to be fitted with one once the drill bit was out.


1969 Santa Barbara oil spill, Oil spill, Blowout on Platform A
After the workers pulled the drill bit out, with some difficulty, an enormous spout of oil, gas, and drilling mud burst into the air into the rig, splattering the men with filth; several of them attempted to screw a blowout-preventer onto the pipe, but against a pressure of over 1,000 pounds per square inch (7 MPa), this proved to be impossible; all workers except for those engaged in the plugging attempt were evacuated, due to the danger of explosion from the abundant natural gas blown from the hole; finally, the workers tried the method of last resort, dropping the remaining drill pipe – almost 0.5 miles (800 m) long – into the hole, and then crushing the top of the well pipe from the sides with a pair of "blind rams", enormous steel blocks slamming together with force sufficient to stop anything from escaping from the well.


1969 Santa Barbara oil spill, Oil spill, Blowout on Platform A
It took thirteen minutes from the time of the initial blowout to the time the blind rams were activated. Only then did the workers both on the rig and in boats nearby notice the increase in bubbling at the ocean surface hundreds of feet from the rig. Plugging the well at the top had failed to stop the blowout, which was now tearing through the ocean floor in several places.


1969 Santa Barbara oil spill, Oil spill, Blowout on Platform A
Normally, an offshore well would have been built with at least 300 feet (91 m) of conductor casing, as required by federal regulations at the time, as well as approximately 870 feet (270 m) of a secondary, inner steel tube known as the surface casing. Both of these protective casings were intended to prevent blowout of high-pressure gas out of the sides of the well bore into and through adjacent geologic formations. At Well A-21, this is exactly what happened.


1969 Santa Barbara oil spill, Oil spill, Blowout on Platform A
Since there was no casing below 238 feet (73 m) sufficient to stop the immense pressure of gas, once the well was plugged at the rig, the oil and gas left the well bore, ripping right through the soft sandstones on the floor of the Santa Barbara Channel, and spewing a huge amount of oil and gas all the way to the water surface where a thick bubbling oil slick quickly began to grow and spread.


1969 Santa Barbara oil spill, Oil spill, Expansion of the spill
The disturbances on the surface of the ocean, which began to appear only 14 minutes after the blowout, expanded during the next 24 hours. The largest was a dramatic boil-up about 800 feet (200 m) east of the platform; another smaller disturbance broke the ocean surface about 300 feet (100 m) west of the platform, and several smaller areas of bubbling could be observed around the platform itself. Even after the well was further plugged at the platform with drilling mud during the next week, these continued to boil up. Investigators later determined that oil and gas was emerging uncontrolled through five separate rips on the ocean floor.


1969 Santa Barbara oil spill, Oil spill, Expansion of the spill
The first announcement of the potential disaster was made by Don Craggs, Union Oil's regional superintendent to Lieutenant George Brown of the U.S. Coast Guard, about two and a half hours after the blowout. He told Brown that a well had blown out but no oil was escaping. Craggs declined an offer for help, suggesting that the situation was under control.


1969 Santa Barbara oil spill, Oil spill, Expansion of the spill
The seriousness of the spill became evident the next morning, as a Coast Guard helicopter took Brown along with a State Fish and Game warden out over the platform, where they were able to see a central slick extending for several miles east, west, and south of the platform. They estimated a total of 75 square miles (200 km2) covered by oil at 8 a.m., less than 24 hours after the blowout. An anonymous worker on the drill rig telephoned the Santa Barbara News-Press regarding the blowout, and the newspaper immediately obtained confirmation from Union Oil's headquarters in Los Angeles.


1969 Santa Barbara oil spill, Oil spill, Expansion of the spill
The story was out. Union Oil Vice President, John Fraser, assured reporters and local officials that the spill was small, with a diameter of 1,000 to 3,000 feet (300 to 900 m), and the well would be quickly controlled; additionally, he gave an estimated spill rate of 5,000 US gallons (19 m3) per day. Later estimates put the spill rate in the first days at about 210,000 US gallons (790 m3).


1969 Santa Barbara oil spill, Oil spill, Expansion of the spill
Santa Barbara was experiencing a stormy winter, with a large flood event having occurred on January 25, just three days before the blowout. Enormous amounts of fresh water were still running offshore from local streams, flowing south and southwest in the vicinity of the rig. Combined with the prevailing north-northwesterly winds typical of the area between storm systems, this pushed the expanding oil slick away from the shore, and it seemed for several days that the beaches of Santa Barbara would be spared.


1969 Santa Barbara oil spill, Oil spill, Expansion of the spill
However, another huge storm system affected the region on February 4, with winds moving around the compass clockwise from southeast to west; this pushed the oil slick north into Santa Barbara harbor and onto all the beaches of southern Santa Barbara County and northwestern Ventura County. Booms had been placed around the harbor and beaches, but the surf was heavy in the storm, and the oil was up to 8 inches (200 mm) deep at the boom by late afternoon on the 4th.


1969 Santa Barbara oil spill, Oil spill, Expansion of the spill
That evening the booms failed completely, breaking under the assault of the storm and by the morning the entire harbor, containing around 800 boats, was several inches deep in fresh crude oil, and all the boats were blackened. Residents were evacuated, due to the risk of explosion from the abundant hydrocarbon vapors, and both the oil contractors and the Coast Guard began using chemical dispersants on the oil near the shore.


1969 Santa Barbara oil spill, Oil spill, Expansion of the spill
On the morning of February 5, residents of the entire populated zone on the coast awoke to the stink of crude oil, and the sight of blackened beaches, sprinkled with dead and dying birds. The sound of the waves breaking was eerily muted by the thick layer of oil, which accumulated on shore in some places to a depth of 6 inches (150 mm). Residents visited the beaches and looked on in horror. Robert Olney Easton recounts a beachside encounter on February 5 between Dick Smith and a high school student, Kathy Morales:


1969 Santa Barbara oil spill, Oil spill, Expansion of the spill
After high school let out, Kathy Morales had gone down to the sandbar at the end of the breakwater. It was not the sandbar she had known. When Dick Smith of the News-Press found her she was crying. Smith saw the reason. Nearby on the sand a dying loon was in convulsions, covered from head to foot with black, sticky crude oil. Tears ran down the girl's face as she watched the loon die. "You want to talk about The Establishment?" she asked. "This is my life — out here.


1969 Santa Barbara oil spill, Oil spill, Expansion of the spill
I come out here all the time to watch the sea and the birds and animals. I can't think of coming down here for a stroll again. I can't think of some day bringing my children here to watch and to play. I don't know now," she said, with the tears streaming down her cheeks, "if it will ever be the same again, and no one can tell me."


1969 Santa Barbara oil spill, Oil spill, Media coverage and public response
Media coverage of the spill was intense from the moment the oil reached the shore. The spill was the major headline in many morning newspapers on February 5, also receiving wide coverage on radio and television. The same morning, a U.S. Senate subcommittee interviewed local officials as well as Fred Hartley, president of Union Oil, on the disaster in the making. Three major television networks were there along with over 50 reporters, the largest media turnout for any Senate subcommittee meeting since the Committee on Foreign Relations discussed the Vietnam War.


1969 Santa Barbara oil spill, Oil spill, Media coverage and public response
During the meeting, local officials made their case that the Federal government had a conflict of interest, in that they were making money from the same drilling they were mandated to oversee and regulate. Hartley defended Union's record and denied that the event was a disaster:  "I don't like to call it a disaster, because there has been no loss of human life. I am amazed at the publicity for the loss of a few birds."


1969 Santa Barbara oil spill, Oil spill, Media coverage and public response
Most controversially, offshore drilling operations – all of which were suspended immediately on February 3, by direct request of the Walter Hickel Secretary of the Interior, pending a "complete reevaluation and reassessment of the situation" – had resumed after just a break of several hours, just long enough for a closed-door meeting between oil company representatives and Department of the Interior officials.


1969 Santa Barbara oil spill, Oil spill, Media coverage and public response
Local officials, not invited to the meeting, were furious that "complete reevaluation and reassessment" could have occurred in such a short time, and in a meeting that excluded them; the fierce exchange was covered on national television, along with grim footage of the thousands of dying birds on the tarred beaches of Santa Barbara, and the spontaneous efforts of hundreds of civilian volunteers to pile straw on the oil, scrub rocks with detergent, and struggle to save a few of the less-oiled birds.


1969 Santa Barbara oil spill, Oil spill, Media coverage and public response
As the nation watched the spill on the television news, the hastily assembled volunteer crews gathered to clean up the oil in any way they could. They distributed enormous piles of straw, spreading them over oiled sections of the beach, and then raking them into disposable piles. Other workers used steam to clean the oil off boulders, in the process boiling rock-clinging marine life such as mussels. Airplanes dropped chemical dispersants to help break up the oil, even though those chemicals were themselves toxic to wildlife. Bulldozers pushed contaminated sand into piles for offsite disposal.


1969 Santa Barbara oil spill, Oil spill, Media coverage and public response
Civilian volunteers rescued many tarred birds by taking them to numerous rescue facilities put together during the first days, but even after rescue the survival rate for birds was only around 12 percent. The first dead dolphin was found, its blowhole clogged by oil. Offshore, ships skimmed oil from the ocean surface into holding tanks, but as fast as they skimmed it up, new oil rolled in from the south.


1969 Santa Barbara oil spill, Oil spill, Media coverage and public response
Late on February 6, the day after the spill washed ashore, President Richard Nixon announced a complete cessation of drilling, as well as production, in federal waters of the Santa Barbara Channel, with the solitary exception of the relief well being drilled to intersect the blown-out borehole. Still the spill continued to spew from fissures in the ocean floor, undiminished, and by noon on February 7 a $1.3 billion class action lawsuit had been filed against Union Oil and their partners on Platform A. On the platform itself, workers labored continuously to try to kill the well.


1969 Santa Barbara oil spill, Oil spill, Media coverage and public response
They made their final attempt that afternoon and evening, pumping 13,000 barrels (2,100 m3) of the heaviest available drilling mud into the well at pressures of thousands of pounds per square inch. They had almost exhausted their supply of mud when the oil and gas boiling up from the ocean began to slow down, and by 8:00 p.m. it had stopped. Delivering the coup de grâce, the crews rammed over 1,000 sacks of concrete into the well. Well A-21 would leak no more. Approximately 2 million US gallons (8,000 m3) of oil had already spilled into the ocean at this point; but there was more to come.


1969 Santa Barbara oil spill, Oil spill, Continued spill
Five days after workers killed Well A-21, on February 12, a Commercial Fisheries research vessel studying dissolved oxygen levels in the water made an unpleasant discovery:  from the ocean floor itself, three large new boils of gas and oil were emerging from ruptures each about ten yards across, and a large slick was again accumulating on the ocean surface.


1969 Santa Barbara oil spill, Oil spill, Continued spill
Once again, an anonymous telephone call from a rig worker alerted the Santa Barbara News-Press to the existence of a new oil spill from the supposedly killed well – only now the oil was coming from the ocean floor, seeping from somewhere other than the filled borehole. Community outrage reached new heights:  particularly infuriating was that it was private citizens that had again discovered the problem, and the oil company only acknowledged its existence later.


1969 Santa Barbara oil spill, Oil spill, Continued spill
This time the problem needed to be solved on the ocean bottom. Union put a large steel cap over much of the leaking area, but leaks continued from other nearby locations. The company estimated the leak rate at up to 4,000 US gallons (15 m3) per day. The federal government approved reopening some wells to attempt to intercept oil underneath the sea floor, and even reopening A-21; neither method worked.


1969 Santa Barbara oil spill, Oil spill, Continued spill
The next measure involved pumping oil at a maximum rate from all five wells on Platform A, on the theory that such action would reduce reservoir pressure and thus the leak rate, but this only increased the rate at which oil spewed from the rents in the ocean floor. Meanwhile, the cleanup progressed with setbacks, as huge waves of newly spilled oil fouled partially cleaned beaches, and oil from the spill reached locations as distant as Pismo Beach in San Luis Obispo County, Catalina Island, and Silver Strand Beach in San Diego.


1969 Santa Barbara oil spill, Oil spill, Continued spill
Despite attempts by Union to cement the cracks in the ocean floor, leaks continued, with a leak near one of the platform legs predominating on February 23. By the end of the month, its flow had reduced, but oil was still seeping, at a diminishing rate, from cracks both east and west of the platform.


1969 Santa Barbara oil spill, Oil spill, Continued spill
Leaking continued at a rate of about 30 barrels (4.8 m3) a day, diminishing but never completely stopping, reaching a stable leak rate of between 5 to 10 barrels (0.79 to 1.59 m3) a day by May and June 1969, a leak rate which persisted at least into 1970. One last spill occurred at Platform A:  a release of about 400 barrels (64 m3) between December 15 and 20, 1969, from a pipeline break.


1969 Santa Barbara oil spill, Oil spill, Continued spill
Total cleanup time for most of the beaches was about 45 days after the initial spill, although globs of tar continued to wash ashore due to the high seep rate, and bigger patches came ashore during subsequent spills. Most beaches were open to the public by June 1, although some of the rocky areas on the shore were not cleaned until around August 15.


1969 Santa Barbara oil spill, Oil spill, Continued spill
Yet oil continued to pool and wash up on shore; on August 26, the harbor was so full of oil that once again it had to be closed, with cleanup crews spreading straw from boats to bunch the oil up again, just as they had six months before. Indeed, oil from the spill persisted in the ocean into 1970, with large areas of crude still being observed. Since the spill occurred during the stormy season, when beach sand is at its lowest levels (it replenishes during the course of a normal spring and summer), one fear was that regions of oily sand would be revealed during the following winter; however this did not happen.


1969 Santa Barbara oil spill, Oil spill, President Nixon's visit; further oil development
On March 21, President Nixon came to Santa Barbara to see the spill and cleanup efforts for himself. Arriving at the Point Mugu Naval Air Station, he then took a helicopter tour of the Santa Barbara Channel, Platform A, and the polluted, partially cleaned beaches. He landed in Santa Barbara and spoke to residents, promising to improve his handling of environmental problems, telling the crowd, "...the Santa Barbara incident has frankly touched the conscience of the American people."


1969 Santa Barbara oil spill, Oil spill, President Nixon's visit; further oil development
He also mentioned that he would consider a halt to all offshore drilling, and told assembled reporters that the Department of the Interior had expanded the former buffer zone in the Channel by an additional 34,000 acres (140 km2), and was converting the previous buffer zone into a permanent ecological preserve. However, on April 1, the ban was lifted, and drilling allowed to proceed on five leases in the channel, under stricter oversight. Anger of local residents increased after this reversal.


1969 Santa Barbara oil spill, Oil spill, President Nixon's visit; further oil development
After a series of unsuccessful struggles in the courts to prevent further oil development in the Channel, the Department of the Interior gave the green light on August 15 to Sun Oil to construct their Platform Hillhouse adjacent to Union's Platform A. Protestors harassed the convoy bringing the platform all the way from the Oakland shipyard, down the coast, and into the Channel. Get Oil Out! (GOO!) staged a "fish-in" with boats and even helicopters fishing (unsuccessfully) at the planned platform site, one mile east of Platform A. They refused to move until the Supreme Court responded to their appeal.


1969 Santa Barbara oil spill, Oil spill, President Nixon's visit; further oil development
Then the crane lifting the platform from the barge bungled the platform transfer, and Platform Hillhouse flopped over in the water, legs-up, about two hundred yards from the fleet of protestors. While this was going on, the Supreme Court denied the appeal, allowing Sun Oil to proceed, even though their platform floated upside down – an absurd and discomforting sight to local residents hopeful that the spill might have made oil industry accidents less likely. By November 26, Hillhouse was installed correctly, and Platform C, the final platform to be built of the four in the Dos Cuadras field, went up in 1977.


1969 Santa Barbara oil spill, Consequences, Environmental effects
The environmental effects of the spill were immediate and dramatic. At least 3,686 birds died – those being the ones that were counted; an unknown number died unseen. Some marine mammals, such as sea lions and elephant seals died, although the numbers are unknown. Effects on other organisms varied. Fish populations seemed to be unaffected in the long term, although data from 1969 showed a drop in counts of several species.


1969 Santa Barbara oil spill, Consequences, Environmental effects
Authors of a Marine Fisheries Review study were unwilling to make a firm link with the oil spill, since other variables such as water temperature and a subsequent El Niño year could not be ruled out as causes of the divergence. Intertidal organisms such as barnacles (Chthamalus fissus) were killed in large numbers, with mortality in some areas as high as 80 to 90 percent.


1969 Santa Barbara oil spill, Consequences, Environmental effects
Overall, long-term environmental effects of the spill seemed to be minimal. In a "no strings attached" study funded by the Western Oil and Gas Association, through the Allan Hancock Foundation at the University of Southern California, the authors suggested several hypotheses for the lack of environmental damage to biologic resources in the Channel aside from pelagic birds and intertidal organisms.


1969 Santa Barbara oil spill, Consequences, Environmental effects
First, creatures there may have evolved a tolerance to oil in the water due to the presence of natural seeps in the vicinity for at least tens of thousands of years; the area around Coal Oil Point has one of the most active natural underwater oil seeps in the world. Second, the abundance of oil-eating bacteria in the water may be greater because of that routine presence of oil in the water.


1969 Santa Barbara oil spill, Consequences, Environmental effects
Third, the spill happened between two large Pacific storms; the storms broke up the oil, scattering it more quickly than happens in many other oil spills, and additionally the sediment load in the seawater from freshwater runoff would have been greater, and this assisted the oil in quickly sinking. Fourth, Santa Barbara Channel crude oil is heavy, having API gravity between 10 and 13, and is both minimally soluble in water, and sinks relatively easily.


1969 Santa Barbara oil spill, Consequences, Environmental effects
Therefore, fish and other organisms were exposed to the oil for a shorter time than was the case with other oil spills, such as the 1967 Torrey Canyon spill in which the crude was lighter, and emulsified during treatment with massive quantities of toxic dispersants and detergents, causing it to remain in place longer.


1969 Santa Barbara oil spill, Consequences, Environmental effects
Reports that large sea mammals were largely unaffected by the spill were flatly contradicted by a story in Life magazine, published on June 13, 1969. In late May, reporters and photographers from the magazine visited uninhabited San Miguel Island, the westernmost of the Santa Barbara Channel Islands, famous for its colonies of elephant seals and sea lions. The team counted over one hundred dead animals in the stretch of beach they visited, which was still black with oil.


1969 Santa Barbara oil spill, Consequences, Economic effects
Economic effects of the spill were most severe during 1969, as all commercial fishing was suspended in the affected area, and tourism suffered a precipitous drop. Most ocean-related industries were affected in some way. Property damage along the shoreline was also considerable, since the storms had washed oil up beyond the normal high-tide line. Both governmental entities and private individuals filed class-action lawsuits against Union Oil to recover damages. These were settled within about five years. The City of Santa Barbara received $4 million in 1974 for damages inflicted. Owners of hotels, beachfront homes, and other facilities damaged by the spill received $6.5 million; the commercial fishing interests received $1.3 million for their losses; and cities, the state, and the County of Santa Barbara settled for $9.5 million in total.


1969 Santa Barbara oil spill, Consequences, Policy consequences
While the Santa Barbara oil spill was not the sole event which built the regulatory and legislative superstructure of the modern environmental movement in the United States – some prominent pieces of which include the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), the Clean Water Act, and in California the California Coastal Commission and California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) – it was one of the most dramatic and visible of the several key events that led up to those changes.


1969 Santa Barbara oil spill, Consequences, Policy consequences
Through the 1960s, industrial pollution and its consequences had come more and more to the public attention, commencing with Rachel Carson's 1962 book Silent Spring and including such events as the passage of the Water Quality Act, the campaign to ban DDT, the creation of the National Wilderness Preservation System, the 1967 Torrey Canyon tanker accident which devastated coastal areas in both England and France, and the burning of the Cuyahoga River in downtown Cleveland, Ohio.


1969 Santa Barbara oil spill, Consequences, Policy consequences
At the time, the Santa Barbara spill was the largest oil spill ever in U.S. waters, and its occurrence during a fierce battle between local residents and the very oil company responsible for the spill only made the controversy more intense, the battle more public, and the anti-oil cause seem more valid to a wider segment of the populace. In the several years after the spill, more environmental legislation was passed than in any other similar period in U.S. history.


1969 Santa Barbara oil spill, Consequences, Policy consequences
The spill was the first test for the new National Pollution Contingency Plan, signed into law by President Lyndon Johnson in 1968. Officials from the Federal Water Pollution Control Administration, created only in 1965, came to Santa Barbara to oversee not only the cleanup but the effort to plug the well.


1969 Santa Barbara oil spill, Consequences, Policy consequences
Local organizations formed in the aftermath of the spill included  (GOO), formed on the first day of the disaster, as well as the  and the . Additionally, Rod Nash (Declaration of Environmental Rights author), Garrett Hardin, environmental lawyer Marc McGinnes and others created the first undergraduate  program of its kind at the University of California at Santa Barbara. A California ballot initiative created the powerful California Coastal Commission, which oversees all activity within the coastal zone (3 nautical miles (6 km) from the shoreline, and inland in a band ranging from several hundred feet in urban areas to several miles in some rural parts of the coastline).


1969 Santa Barbara oil spill, Consequences, Policy consequences
NEPA in particular completely changed the regulatory situation, in that it required that all projects by any federal government agency be scrutinized for their potential adverse environmental impacts prior to approval, including a period for public comment. This included proposals to place new drilling platforms in offshore oil leases.


1969 Santa Barbara oil spill, Consequences, Moratoria and bans on offshore leasing and drilling
The California State Lands Commission has not granted any new leases for offshore drilling within its jurisdiction – out to the 3 nautical miles (6 km) limit – since 1969, although existing operations, such as at Platform Holly on the Ellwood field and Rincon Island on the Rincon field, have been allowed to continue. A proposal to slant drill into the state-controlled zone from an existing platform outside of it, on the Tranquillon Ridge, was rejected in 2009 by the State Lands Commission by a 2–1 vote.


1969 Santa Barbara oil spill, Consequences, Moratoria and bans on offshore leasing and drilling
The issue of drilling beyond the three-mile limit, in federal waters of the Outer Continental Shelf (OCS), has been more complicated. Production from existing leases has been allowed almost without break since the spill, as well as new drilling from existing platforms within lease boundaries. However, no new leases have been granted in the OCS since 1981.


1969 Santa Barbara oil spill, Consequences, Moratoria and bans on offshore leasing and drilling
In 1976, leases were sold off the Orange County coast, resulting in the construction of Platforms Edith, Elly, Ellen, and Eureka; in 1979, Platforms Harvest and Hermosa were constructed in federal waters near Point Arguello, and in 1981, the oil fields in that area were further developed with the sale of another pair of leases which now contain platforms Hidalgo and Irene.


1969 Santa Barbara oil spill, Consequences, Moratoria and bans on offshore leasing and drilling
In 1981 Congress enacted a moratorium on new offshore oil leasing, with exceptions in the Gulf of Mexico and parts of offshore Alaska, that remained in effect until 2008 when Congress did not renew it.


1969 Santa Barbara oil spill, Consequences, Moratoria and bans on offshore leasing and drilling
Leases purchased in the 1960s in some cases were not developed until much later. Even though there was a moratorium on new leases, Exxon installed Platforms Harmony and Heritage in the Santa Barbara Channel in 1989, in over 1,000 feet (300 m) of water, completing development of their Santa Ynez Unit (which includes the Hondo and Pescado Oil Fields). Several federal leases remain undeveloped, including the Gato Canyon Unit southwest of Goleta.


1969 Santa Barbara oil spill, Consequences, Environmental Rights Day
Roughly three months before Earth Day, Santa Barbara celebrated Environmental Rights Day on January 28, 1970, the first anniversary of the oil blowout. Here the Declaration of Environmental Rights, created by Rod Nash, was read. The same people who organized this event, led by Marc McGinnes, had been working closely with Congressman Pete McCloskey (R-CA) for the creation of the National Environmental Policy Act. McCloskey, Senator Gaylord Nelson), Denis Hayes, Senator Alan Cranston, Paul Ehrlich, David Brower spoke at the Environmental Rights Day conference and endorsed the Declaration of Environmental Rights. Hayes said this was the first giant crowd he spoke to that "felt passionately, I mean really passionately, about environmental issues," and that he thought then this might be the beginning of a movement.


1969 Santa Barbara oil spill, Consequences, Earth Day
The aftermath of the spill inspired then-Sen. Gaylord Nelson of Wisconsin to organize what came to be known as "Earth Day", when he  succeeded in amassing some 20 million people to the cause of educating people on issues related to the environment on April 22, 1970, with the help of Denis Hayes, the organizer of the first Earth Day, and U.S. Rep. Pete McCloskey of California.


1969 Santa Barbara oil spill, Present day
Platform A remains in the Santa Barbara Channel along with its three siblings, Platforms B, C, and Hillhouse, still pumping oil from the largely depleted field. As of 2010, the Dos Cuadras Field has produced 260 million barrels of oil; the Minerals Management Service estimated in 2010 that 11,400,000 barrels (1,810,000 m3) remaining in the field are recoverable with present technology.


1969 Santa Barbara oil spill, Present day
The current operator of the drilling platform, along with the other three platforms on the Dos Cuadras field, is the private firm DCOR LLC, of Ventura, California. They acquired Platform A from Plains Exploration & Production in 2005. DCOR is the fourth company to run the platform since Unocal sold its Santa Barbara Channel operations in 1996.


1969 Santa Rosa earthquakes
At 04:56 and 06:19 UTC on October 2, 1969 (21:56 and 23:19 PDT October 1), a pair of earthquakes of magnitude 5.6 and 5.7, respectively, struck the city of Santa Rosa, California, killing one person and damaging buildings. The maximum felt intensity for the two events was VII (Very strong) and VIII (Severe) respectively on the Mercalli intensity scale. The $8.35 million cost of the earthquakes went mostly to replace buildings damaged beyond repair. There were at least 200 aftershocks after the initial pair of earthquakes. At the time they were the largest earthquakes to affect the northern San Francisco Bay Area since the 1906 San Francisco earthquake.


1969 Santa Rosa earthquakes, Tectonic setting
The current tectonics of northern California are mainly controlled by the San Andreas Fault system, the zone of dextral strike-slip faulting that accommodates displacement between the North American Plate and the Pacific Plate along this transform boundary. In addition to the San Andreas Fault itself there are numerous other sub-parallel dextral strike-slip faults that take up some of the plate boundary motion distributed through a zone more than 100 km wide. The 1969 earthquakes and most of their aftershocks occurred along the Healdsburg Fault, which lies between the Maacama Fault and the Rodgers Creek Fault, linked to them by right step-overs. These faults form a continuation of the Hayward Fault Zone north of San Francisco Bay.


1969 Santa Rosa earthquakes, Earthquake
The two earthquakes occurred about a kilometer apart, a few kilometers north of Santa Rosa, close to the trace of the Healdsburg Fault. The focal depths of the two mainshocks were 9.6 km and 10.4 km respectively. The first shock was described as "violent or explosive" by residents and the main shaking lasted for 15 seconds.


1969 Santa Rosa earthquakes, Damage
The earthquake caused severe damage in some areas of Santa Rosa, affecting many buildings, bringing down chimneys, causing sidewalks to buckle and rupturing underground pipes. The lack of casualties and the low number of injuries is ascribed to the earthquakes being in the evening, when there were few pedestrians in the streets. The degree of damage associated with the earthquakes was greater than expected for their magnitude, with many older building left beyond repair.


1969 Santa Rosa earthquakes, Damage
Gravity data have been used to show the presence of two sedimentary basins, separated by the Trenton ridge, which is associated with the northeast-dipping Trenton thrust fault. Modeling of the ground motion for the 1906 and 1969 earthquakes shows increased shaking at the northeastern edge of the southern basin, where Santa Rosa is situated.


1969 Santa Rosa earthquakes, Aftermath
Following the relatively high level of damage caused by the 1969 earthquakes, the city set about retrofitting buildings to improve their earthquake resistance by adding for instance cross-bracing to unreinforced masonry structures. The first buildings to be retrofitted were the St. Rose Church and Parish hall due to their high level of occupancy and lack of reinforcing. The safety standards adopted in Santa Rosa in 1970 provided a model for other cities in California when the state brought in requirements for retrofitting.


1969 Santa Rosa earthquakes, Aftermath
An analysis of the effects on structures in Santa Rosa showed that it was necessary to design buildings using dynamic principles rather than just static, even in the case of a moderate intensity earthquake.


1969 Sarawak state election
The first Sarawak state election was held from Saturday, 10 May 1969 and scheduled to be completed on Saturday, 7 June 1969 which lasted for 4 weeks and was carried out in staggered basis. This was due to the lack of transportation and communication systems in the state at that time. The state election was held at the same time as the 1969 general election.


1969 Sarawak state election
The Dewan Rakyat of the Malaysian Parliament and all the state assemblies were dissolved on 20 March 1969, except for Kelantan (which dissolved later on 31 March) and Sabah (which were not up for election as it had held its state election in 1967). The nomination date was set on Saturday, 5 April 1969. However, because of the riot occurred during 13 May incident and the declaration of emergency and the promulgation of Emergency (Essential Powers) Ordinance No. 1 of 1969 on 15 May 1969, all the ongoing polls were suspended until 1970. During when the suspension was enforced, polling in 9 out of 48 constituencies in Sarawak had started. None of the elections in Sarawak was completed at that time.


1969 Sarawak state election
Prior to 1969 election, a political party was suspended from contesting in general election. The political party later mounted a public campaign calling the voters to boycott the election. The Sarawak parliamentary and state election was resumed from Saturday, 6 June 1970 to Saturday, 4 July 1970. During the resumption of the election, there was a tragedy in Sarikei in the third division of Sarawak on 29 June 1970. The communist terrorists had killed three election officials on their return journey after completing polling at a station. There was also an incident were a land mine was exploded outside the polling station in the same division.


1969 Sarawak state election
This election saw 332,373 eligible voters after the first registration in Sarawak. The turn up rate of voters was 80.0%, which was considered high as compared to other states in Malaysia. A total of 221 candidates were contesting for 48 state seats in Sarawak. The breakdown of number of seats were:


1969 Sarawak state election, Results, Summary
SUPP later joined Sarawak Alliance to form a coalition government. This enable the coalition to secure a total of 27 out of 48 seats in the Sarawak Council Negri (now Sarawak State Legislative Assembly).


1969 Sardinian regional election
The Sardinian regional election of 1969 took place on 15 June 1969.


1969 Sardinian regional election
After the election Giovanni Del Rio, the incumbent Christian Democratic President, formed a new government that lasted only some months and was succeeded by a succession of governments that sometimes included the Italian Socialist Party, the Sardinian Action Party and the Italian Democratic Socialist Party.


1969 Saudi Arabian coup d'état attempt
The 1969 Saudi Arabian coup d'état attempt was a failed coup d'état planned by numerous high-ranking members of the Royal Saudi Air Force that resulted in King Faisal ordering the arrest of hundreds of military officers, including some generals. The arrests were possibly based on a tip from an American intelligence agency. A previous coup attempt had also occurred against King Faisal in 1966.


1969 Saudi Arabian coup d'état attempt, Background
The 1950s and 1960s saw numerous coups d'état in the region. Muammar Gaddafi's coup that overthrew the monarchy in oil-rich Libya in 1969 was especially ominous for Saudi Arabia due to the similarity between the two sparsely-populated desert countries. As a result, King Faisal built a sophisticated security apparatus, and cracked down firmly on dissent. As in all affairs, King Faisal justified these policies in Islamic terms. Early in his reign, when faced by demands for a written constitution for the country, King Faisal responded that "our constitution is the Quran."


1969 Saudi Arabian coup d'état attempt, Plot
The plotters controlled some air force planes. Their plan was for these planes to bomb the Royal Palace in Riyadh, to kill the King and the other high ranking princes who might succeed him. After the King and princes were dead, the plotters planned to announce the formation of the Republic of the Arabian Peninsula.


1969 Saudi Arabian coup d'état attempt, Plot
Many of the conspirators were of Hejazi origin; there was an independent Kingdom of Hejaz, until it was annexed by the Saudis in 1925. One of the key conspirators, Yusuf Tawwil, a Hejazi merchant and acquaintance of Prince Fahd, was believed to hold Hejazi separatist beliefs. Others involved in the plot were Najdis or Sunnis from the Eastern Province.


1969 Saudi Arabian coup d'état attempt, Plot
After the Saudi government discovered the coup, a wave of mass arrests followed, including the arrest of 28 Lieutenant Colonels and 30 Majors alongside around 200 other officers. By the end of 1969 about 2,000 people had been arrested in connection with the coup attempt. Some other participants managed to flee the country. A number of coup participants were executed including two Colonels, Daoud Roumi and Said al Omari.


1969 Scheldeprijs
The 1969 Scheldeprijs was the 56th edition of the Scheldeprijs cycle race and was held on 29 July 1969. The race was won by Walter Godefroot.


1969 Scotland rugby union tour of Argentina
The 1969 Scotland rugby union tour of Argentina was a series of matches played during the month of September 1969 by Scotland in Argentina. It was also the first tour of a Scottish national side to Argentina.


1969 Scotland rugby union tour of Argentina
Despite the fact that Scottish Rugby Union did not consider this match as official test matches, was a real tour of Scottish national side. At those time, was usual for the Scottish Rugby Union to consider official only the match played against the other teams that play Five Nations, Australia, South Africa and New Zealand. Scotland, after a loss in the first test match, won the second and drawn the series.


1969 Scotland rugby union tour of Argentina, Match details
Argentina C': A. Pagano (cap. ); J. Fiordalisi, G. Pimentel, R. Spagnol, V. Dobarro; F. Forrester, M. Cutler; C. Bori, N. Carbone, J. Borghi; R. Sellarés, R. Castro; H. Incola, J. Dumas, A. Orzábal. Scotland XV: C. Blaikie; M. Smith, C. Rea, J. Murchie, A. Gill; I. Robertson, D. Paterson; J. Telfer (cap. ), R. Arneil, W. Lauder; G. Broen, P. Stagg; A. Carmichael, F. Laidlaw, J. Mc Lauchlin.


1969 Scotland rugby union tour of Argentina, Match details
Seleccionado del Interior: A. Rodríguez; O. Oelschagler, R. Tarquini, J. Vera, C. Antoraz; C. Navesi, L. Chacón, E. Vaca Narvaja, J. Ghiringhelli, J. Constante; R. Campra (cap. ), M. Senatore; R. Fariello, J. Fradua, G. Ribeca. Scotland XV: C. Blaikie; M. Smith, A. Orr, I. Murchie, W. Steele, B. Laidlaw, J. Ellis; R. Arneil, J. Telfer (cap. ), S. Carmichaci; A. Mc Rarg, P. Stagg; J. Mc Lauchlin, D. Deans, N. Suddon.


1969 Scotland rugby union tour of Argentina, Match details
Argentina: 15.Dudley Morgan, 14.Marcelo Pascual, 13.Alejandro Travaglini, 12.Arturo Rodriguez Jurado, 11.Mario Walther, 10.Tomas Harris-Smith, 9.Adolfo Etchegaray, 8.Raul Loyola, 7.Hector Silva, 6.Hugo Miguens, 5.Adrian Barone, 4.Aitor Otano (cap), 3.Luis Garcia Yanez, 2.Ricardo Handley, 1.Marcelo FarinaScotland XV: 15.Colin Blaikie, 14.Mike Smith, 13.Ian Murchie, 12.A.V. Orr, 11.Drew Gill, 10.Ian Robertson, 9.Duncan Paterson, 8.Jim Telfer (cap. ), 7.Wilson Lauder, 6.Rodger Arneil, 5.Alastair McHarg, 4.Peter Stagg, 3.Sandy Carmichael, 2.Frank Laidlaw, 1.Ian McLauchlan,


1969 Scotland rugby union tour of Argentina, Match details
Rosario RU: J. Seaton; E. España, J. Beni, C. Blanco, A. Quetglas; R. Villavicencio, O. Aletta; J. Imhoff, M. Chesta, J. L. Imhoff; R. Suárez, H. Suárez; F. Lando, R. Seaton, S. Furno. Scotland: C. Blaikie; E. Steele, M. Smith, J. Ellis, A. Orr; B. Laidlaw, D. Paterson; R. Arneil, J. Telfer, W. Lauder; G. Brown, A. Moharg; J. Mc Laughlam, D. Deans, N. Suddon.