When I heard that 80's pop icon George Michael died on Christmas day, I thought that was the black bow on that present that was this miserable year for America. But I spoke too soon. Two days later we suffered another dagger in the heart when the great Carrie Fisher, who will forever be known as Princess Leia from Star Wars, died of a heart attack at only sixty years old. I was shell-shocked and thought that was the final nail in the coffin of this year. But then I spoke too soon again, because her mother, Debbie Reynolds, who possessed an ecstatic glow when she starred in arguably the greatest movie musical of all time, Singin' in the Rain, died of a stroke literally the next day. That was when I realized that the last week of the year gave us a black bow on a black bow on a black bow that was Pandora’s Box of 2016.

Therefore on New Year’s Eve, I expected that when the clock would strike midnight for 2017 at Times Square, the great monster Cthulhu would rise from the Hudson River and devour all of civilization and send us into the Mountains of Madness. And in this apocalyptic scene of chaos I would stand on my rooftop and proclaim onto all who could hear: “Our sweet chariot has come for to carry us home!”

Ok, so maybe that’s a bit dramatic. But in the last days of the year, we were all crawling and limping towards the New Year as last year (which shall no longer be named) has been a demoralizing and unqualified disaster akin to the darkest of Ancient Greek tragedies. If the great philosopher Socrates were to observe the path society took this year he would uncontrollably weep for a fortnight while Satan and the Grim Reaper stand and laugh while drinking of endless wine.

But enough about last year, because it will finally be in the past and traumatized into our minds and history books. And while a different year on the calendar won’t change the world’s problems or our concerns about the future, it is still better to move forward without having that cloud hang over us. Yet even as last year managed to find ways of stripping our faith in humanity and eviscerating our hope over and over again like the eagle who ate Prometheus’s spleen every day while damned to an eternal prison, I believe it was not as bad as another year a lot of young adults don’t know a lot of about: 1968. That year was forty-nine years ago and the only people who were old enough to know how horrendous that year was for society are now in their sixties. People believe it was a just a year of hippies and the peace movement, but underneath that was a darkness and hopelessness in America which took years to recover from.

As an eighteen year old young man, how would you feel if you were forced to go to a country in Southeast Asia you knew nothing about, fighting in a war you didn’t care about or believed in, and you couldn’t even vote yet because you had to be twenty-one at the time? As a black person, how would you feel if you had to live everyday worried if you or people close to you would be attacked or denied the simple rights we take for granted today? How would it feel if you’re advocacy for peace and love in the free world was disposed and mocked at by the "Silent Majority" who made Richard Nixon president and they had little issue with young men dying in vain? And how would it feel if the two major pillars of hope and peace were murdered in the same year? That was 1968.

Some of the issues of last year have similarities to ’68: black people are uneasy about being attacked by police without a legitimate cause, and no matter how unnecessary the brutality no justice or accountability will be served. Women struggling to gain the respect and independence from a society that sees them only as disposable products. Young adults, or as old people call them with the same demonization for “hippies” with “millennials”, pour their bleeding hearts to the world advocating a society for peace and equality and without prejudice, only to be stabbed by the masses over and over again until their soul is crushed. And the only way to cope with the misery is to be resigned with the reality and grow a heart of stone. Those same issues happened in 1968, but the consequences for having a heart were even worse.

Instead of like today, where we can at least escape the depressing reality of the world we live in with books, television and video games, most young men of 1968 were sent to Vietnam where they endured unpredictable weather conditions and fought an enemy who used their home field advantage to sabotage and attack soldiers without even being seen. In January of that year the Vietnam War reached it's peak in American soldier casualties with the Tet Offensive, and it was the turning point of the war where America realized that their stay in Vietnam was much worse than they thought. We might not have been there, but if you’ve seen war movies such as Apocalypse Now, Platoon, and Full Metal Jacket, you get a taste at the psychological and physical horrors of the Vietnam War.

North Saigon during the Tet Offensive

While there were dozens of icons and celebrities who died last year, those combined were nothing compared to two assassinations which occurred in 1968. Martin Luther King Jr., the inspirational leader of the Civil Rights movement and maybe the most influential American of the 20th century, was shot and killed walking out of his motel room in Memphis in April of that year. Only two months later, Senator Robert F. Kennedy, who was considered a candidate for the 1968 presidential election, and represented the hopes and dreams for ending the war and bringing back peace and normalcy in America, was gunned down in the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles. Less than five years earlier his brother and former President John F. Kennedy was killed in a moment many consider the loss of innocence in American society. What those two individuals meant to America at the time and the impact of their deaths meant is indescribable. The closest possible comparison I can think of for today is if President Barack Obama and Senator Bernie Sanders were both shot and killed in 2016 *knock on wood*. And even that isn’t near what Martin Luther King Jr. and Robert F. Kennedy’s deaths meant for a dream being crushed in America.

(Left) Headline of Robert F. Kennedy assassination

(Right) Coretta Scott King consoling her daughter at Martin Luther King's funeral

So with the death of Robert Kennedy, who became president in 1968? Richard Millhouse Nixon. While Nixon may seemed soft-spoken and calm like FDR compared to the President elect of 2016, he ran his campaign similarly. Nixon appealed to the “Silent Majority”: Conservative areas who were more content with the state of the country. He did not appeal to Democrats and younger voters and throughout his presidency became a polarizing figure. Though he slowly drew troops out of Vietnam, the war was not officially over until after his presidency. Looking back and hearing the audio recordings of private meetings in the oval office unveiled some of the backstabbing and shady schemes of politics not seen by the public before. And of course those recordings led to the biggest event of them all: Watergate. The scandal in which Nixon advisers broke into the Democratic National Committee Headquarters at the Watergate hotel, unveiling a large conspiracy throughout the Oval office. He would have been the first president to have been impeached but instead became the first to resign from office. Overall, Nixon has a mixed and complex legacy, but is generally viewed as a president with villainous intentions. It almost sounds too familiar to what we’re going through now and what we may go through again, and it all started in 1968.

With RFK gunned down, Nixon took over and won the presidency in 1968.

So amidst all this darkness and gloom, were there good things to come out in 1968? Yes there were: The Beatles White Album came out. "Hey Jude" was the number one song on the charts for nine straight weeks, the Detroit Tigers defeated Bob Gibson and the St. Louis Cardinals in the World Series in what was known as “The Year of the Pitcher.” A low budget science fiction show called Star Trek first aired, Planet of the Apes was released, Apollo 8 orbited the moon, which set the stage for the 1969 moon landing, and Stanley Kubrick released the one of the most ambitious films ever made in 2001: A Space Odyssey.

At least 1968 brought us this

And were there good things in 2016 also? Of course: Unemployment rates were at their lowest since 2009, a peace deal was made in Columbia, Game of Thrones Season 6, the Chicago Cubs won the World Series for the first time in 108 years, the Giant Panda was taken off the endangered list, Simon Biles, Katie Ledecky, and Michael Phelps each dominated the Olympics, and Deadpool made R rated comic book movies popular.

And even though last year and 1968 were both dumpster fires, I still believe they were better times to live in than any year in world history pre-dating the end of World War II. Forget all of the un-advanced technology and entertainment society had back then, but until the end of World War II each generation of Americans had a great war to fight in and many unlucky men had to give their lives for it. Imagine the cold winters of fighting in the Revolutionary War with hardly any food to eat, or the enduring the violence of the Civil War, when you didn’t know what you’re country would become.

Imagine the awful and sickening experiences of fighting in the trenches of World War I. Imagine not having to wait to buy drinks until 21 but instead not being able to buy drinks at all during the Prohibition Era! Imagine driving your family around in the Dust Bowl or standing in lines for soup because you couldn’t afford anything during the Great Depression. And finally, imagine going to the islands of the Pacific, or the dead winter of Russia, or the violent beaches of Normandy and fighting for the fate of the world during World War II. And if you were a woman or a minority in those days? Equal Rights and Opportunities? Yeah right. Those days were nightmares compared to 2016.

The tragic and shocking events of last year will undoubtedly be remembered throughout recorded history, but it will not lead to the end of the world. People thought the world would end with the Civil War, World War I, The Great Depression, Pearl Harbor, World War II, The Cold War, The JFK Assassination, The Vietnam War, Everything that happened in 1968, Watergate, The Aids Epidemic, 9/11, and everything that happened in 2016. But it did not and will not, and someday we will look back at last year with interest and fascination as we do towards everything before.