Sino-Soviet relations disintegrate; Albania, alone among the…

Sino-Soviet relations disintegrate; Albania, alone among the European communist governments, supports the Chinese.

Moscow’s relations with the other eastern European satellites disintegrate also as Czechoslovakia revolts, Romania pursues an independent course, and Yugoslavia leads twenty-one African and Asian states in the nonaligned movement.

Similarly, the era sees the disintegration of relations between Greece and the western democracies (with the exception of the United States.)

as a military coup stifles liberal democracy in that country.

This era also sees the collapse of the elaborate power-sharing arrangements between the Greek majority and the Turkish minority on Cyprus.

Egypt's President Gamal Abdel Nasser, who champions the creation of a multi-state Arab “superpower” in the Near East, gives substance to the Arab nationalist movement known as Pan-Arabism, which smolders throughout the twentieth century.

Regime changes in Iraq and Syria, at the hands of those countries' respective branches of the Ba'th Party, which advocates the formation of a single Arab socialist nation, reinforce Nasser's aggressive posture.

The Palestinians meanwhile find a voice in the Palestinian Liberation Organization, or PLO, established under Arab League auspices.

Yasir 'Arafat's Fatah, which has merged with smaller groups to form the PLO, initiates small-scale military operations against Israel; Israel responds in kind, staging raids on Jordanian territory.

After border tensions with Egypt and Syria escalate in 1967, Israel, whose right to exist as a state has gone unrecognized by its Arab neighbors since its birth as a modern nation, abruptly launches a sneak attack on Egypt, Syria and Jordan in 1967.

Called the Six-Day War, the conflict results in an Israeli victory and the occupation of the Sinai Peninsula, the Gaza Strip, the Golan Heights and the West bank of the Jordan, Thus, the Israeli Jews, now numbering three million, come to rule some one million two hundred thousand Arabs, including the three hundred thousand already living in the State of Israel.

Egypt, in early 1969, initiates what becomes known in 1970 as the “war of attrition” against Israel.

Using heavy artillery, new MiG aircraft, Soviet advisers, and an advanced Soviet-designed surface-to-air missile system, the Egyptians inflict heavy losses on the Israelis.

Golda Meir, who had become Israel's prime minister following the sudden death of Levi Eshkol in February 1969, escalates the war by ordering massive air raids deep into Egypt.

The increased agricultural yields of the Third World’s green revolution stem from research into soil fertility and plant genetics.

Canada and Japan attempt to control narcotics in much the same manner as the United States, with much the same consequence in terms of high rates of addiction.