On this day in 1964, two incidents happened that changed history.

In Vietnam, the Tonkin Gulf Incident occurred. Maybe something happened, maybe something didn’t. President Johnson used the incident to get Congressional authorization to conduct combat operations in Vietnam. This was the authorization that fueled the Vietnam War and marked a generation.

Also in 1964, the FBI pulled the bodies of 3 young, idealistic civil rights workers out of a mud dam in Mississippi. The savage murder of these men put a backbone into President Johnson over civil rights, and may have been a tipping point in the fight over federal civil rights legislation.