By ISKCON Communications Ministry
Washington, D.C.—1966 was a significant year. Chairman Mao Tse-Tung’s “Little Red Book” was published for the first time. Despite mass protests, the United States began to bomb Hanoi, North Vietnam’s capital. The Soviet Union’s Luna 9 made the first soft landing on the Moon. Actor Ronald Reagan was elected governor of California. Indira Gandhi visited Washington. Walt Disney died. The Beatles performed their very last concert in San Francisco’s Candlestick Park. And, on New York City’s lower east side, surrounded by a handful of young followers in a small storefront temple on 2nd Avenue, His Divine Grace A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada incorporated a fledgling religious society. He named it the International Society for Krishna Consciousness, or ISKCON. On that hot summer day, the 13th of July, the Hare Krishna movement was born. Few noticed the event. Fewer still would have expected this 70-year old swami and his band of reformed hippies to be more than a blip in the avant-garde history of New York City. But, fifty years later the society Prabhupada created is arguably the largest and most influential of global Vedic (Hindu) organizations, and the 600 plus Hare Krishna temples around the world attract an estimated nine million worshippers per year.