TIME 1968 - WAR ABROAD, RIOTS AT HOME, FALLEN LEADERS AND LUNAR DREAMS - THE YEAR THAT CH. THE WORLD

Forty years later, America is still feeling the aftershocks of that earth-shaking year, 1968. It was a time when history seemed to accelerate, and the nation hurtled, full speed, into chaos and division. Two symbols of hope, Sen. Robert F. Kennedy and Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., were assassinated. Lyndon B. Johnson, beaten by the war in Vietnam - where 450,000 young Americans fought for their lives in the jungle - declared he would not run for the presidency again. Rioters battled police in Chicago, while rockers and hippies shook, rattled and rolled the culture. The year ended on a final note of blessing, when three U.S. astronauts, the first men to orbit the moon, read from the book of Genesis on Christmas Eve.