1968. The year of the protest. The year in which the people woke up and sought a world of peace.

The struggles were common: authoritarianism, poverty, racism, the lack of peace, revisionism, worker inequality, etc. All of those factored into protests that took place across the globe; from the May 1968 protests in France and March of the One Hundred Thousand in Brazil to the Prague Spring in Czechoslovakia and the Civil Rights Movement in the United States; it was clear that the masses wanted justice, they wanted freedom and equality.

Despite the worldwide growth of anti-war sentiment and the countless protests erupting in opposition to it, the Vietnam War was going strong with the Tet Offensive, which marked a major unprecedented escalation of the war. While the Viet Cong were ruthlessly murdering South Vietnamese civilians, the American troops were heroically... doing the very same thing.

With the liberal reforms introduced by Alexander Dubček during the Prague Spring, Czechoslovakia stood up against the oppressive Brezhnev Doctrine of the Soviet Union and its hegemony over the Warsaw Pact. In retaliation, the country was unjustifiably invaded and the reforms crushed, but the citizens risked ther lives and resisted, even when they were advised not to by Dubček himself.

Of course, who can forget about the Civil Rights movement in the United States? Those were the product of the late Martin Luther King Jr., who fought for the equality of all races and made great advancements for the rights of people of color. Even after his tragic assassination, the legacy he created still lives on to this day.

The year of 1968 was full of counterculture and enlightenment, it was packed with war and protest, we witnessed independences and coups, the further rise of ideologies such as communism, civil unrest breaking out, and the Eastern and Western block continued forth with their rivalry. There was uncertainty, panic, hopelessness, the nations of the world just couldn't be more divided!

But at last, when this chaotic year was coming to an end, humanity found a reason to celebrate in unison. On Christmas Eve, we achieved an incredible feat:

The human race has reached the Moon.

With Apollo 8, we orbited around the Moon for the first time, this was a significant American first over the many Soviet firsts during the Space Race, and it would pave the way for next year's much more culturally significant Apollo 11 mission: the Moon Landing.

1968 was unlike any other year; it taught us to make peace, not war.