1969 – Vietnam War: The first draft lottery in the United States is held since World War II. The United States ran a draft, a system of conscription, during the late 1950s and early 1960s, the peacetime years before the Vietnam War. It was administered by the Selective Service System. In the second half of 1965, with American troops pouring into Vietnam, there was a substantial expansion of the US armed forces, and this required a dramatic increase in the number of men drafted each month. There were complaints that the process by which the system chose which young men were to be drafted was biased against the poor and the uneducated. The government decided in 1969 to reduce this bias by introducing a random element into the selection process. A lottery based on birth dates was conducted by the Selective Service System on December 1, 1969, to determine the order of conscription for men born between January 1, 1944, and December 31, 1950. In principle, the function of the first draft was to select dates within a calendar year at random, with men whose birthdays matched those dates being drafted according to the sequence the dates were selected. The 366 days of the year (including February 29) were printed on slips of paper. These pieces of paper were then each placed in opaque plastic capsules, which were then mixed in a shoebox and then placed into a deep glass jar. Capsules were drawn from the jar one at a time and opened. The outcome of the draft process was the subject of controversy. As with any truly random process, the results of the draft were not evenly distributed and appeared to cluster together. The draft lottery had social and economic consequences because it generated further resistance to military service. Those who resisted were generally young, well-educated, healthy men. Reluctance to serve in Vietnam led many young men to try to join the National Guard, state-based military reserve forces, as they were aware that the National Guard would be less likely to send soldiers to the war in Vietnam. Many men were unable to join the National Guard even though they had passed their physicals, because in many states National Guards had long waiting lists to enlist. Others chose to serve in military branches like the Navy or the Coast Guard as to avoid active combat. Still other men chose legal sanctions such as imprisonment, showing their disapproval by illegally burning their draft cards or draft letters, or simply not presenting themselves for military service. Others left the country, usually moving to Canada.
