Centuries:	19th century - 20th century - 21st century
Decades:	1930s  1940s  1950s  - 1960s -  1970s  1980s  1990s
Years:	1963 1964 1965 - 1966 - 1967 1968 1969

1966 by topic:

Subject:      Archaeology - Architecture - Art

Aviation - Film - Literature (Poetry) Meteorology - Music (Country) Rail transport - Radio - Science

Sports - Television

Countries:      Australia - Canada - India - Ireland

Malaysia - New Zealand - Norway - Pakistan - Singapore South Africa - Soviet Union - UK - Wales - Zimbabwe

Leaders:    Sovereign states - State leaders

Religious leaders - Law

Categories: Births - Deaths - Works - Introductions

Establishments - Disestablishments - Awards v â€¢ d â€¢ e

Year 1966 (MCMLXVI) was a common year starting on Saturday (link will display full calendar) of the 1966 Gregorian calendar.

Events of 1966

January

• January 1 - In a coup, Colonel Jean-Bédel Bokassa takes over as military ruler of the Central African Republic, taking out President David Dacko.
• January 2 - A strike of public transportation workers in New York City begins (it will end January 13).
• January 3 - The first Acid Test is conducted at the Fillmore, San Francisco.
• January 4
  • A military coup occurs in Upper Volta (later Burkina Faso).
  • The prime ministers of India and Pakistan meet in Moscow.
  • A gas leak fire at the Feyzin oil refinery near Lyon, France kills 18 and injures 84.
• January 10
  • Pakistani-Indian peace negotiations end successfully in Tashkent.
  • The French paper L\'Express publishes a story of Georges Figon, who took part in the kidnapping of Mehdi Ben Barka.
• January 11
  • A conference on Rhodesia begins in Lagos, Nigeria.
  • The first SR-71 Blackbird spy plane goes into service at Beale AFB.
• January 12 - United States President Lyndon Johnson states that the United States should stay in South Vietnam until Communist aggression there is ended.
• January 13 - Robert C. Weaver becomes the first African American Cabinet member, by being appointed United States Secretary of Housing and Urban Development.
• January 15 - A violent military coup is staged in Nigeria.
  • Moscow announces the death of rocket designer Sergei Korolev.
• January 17
  • The Nigerian coup is overturned.
  • A B-52 bomber collides with a KC-135 Stratotanker over Spain, dropping three 70-kiloton hydrogen bombs near the town of Palomares, and 1 into the sea, in the Palomares hydrogen bombs incident.
  • Carl Brashear, the first African American United States Navy diver, is involved in an accident during the recovery of a lost h-bomb which results in the amputation of his leg.
• January 18
  • French police announce that Georges Figon committed suicide, prior to his arrest for the kidnapping of Mehdi Ben Barka.
  • About 8,000 U.S. soldiers land in South Vietnam; U.S. troops now total 190,000.
• January 19
  • Indira Gandhi is elected Prime Minister of India; she is sworn in January 24.
  • Australian Prime Minister Robert Menzies resigns.
• January 20 - Demonstrations occur against high food prices in Hungary.
• January 21 - Italian Prime Minister Aldo Moro resigns due to a power struggle in his party.
• January 22
  • The military government of Nigeria announces that ex-prime minister Abubakar Tafawa Balewa was killed during the coup.
  • The Chadian Muslim insurgent group FROLINAT is founded in Sudan, starting the Chadian Civil War.
• January 26
  • Harold Holt becomes Prime Minister of Australia when Robert Menzies retires.
  • Beaumont children disappearance: Three children disappear on their way to Glenelg Beach, South Australia, never to be seen again.
• January 27 - The British government promises the U.S. that British troops in Malaysia will stay until more peaceful conditions occur in the region.

• January 29 - The first of 608 performances of Sweet Charity opens at the Palace Theatre in New York City.
• January 31 - The United Kingdom ceases all trade with Rhodesia.

February

• February 1 - West Germany procures some 2,600 political prisoners from East Germany.
• February 3 - The unmanned Soviet Luna 9 spacecraft makes the first controlled rocket-assisted landing on the Moon.
• February 4 - All Nippon Airways Flight 60 plunge into Tokyo Bay (133 dead).
• February 6 - Fidel Castro blames China for spreading anti-Soviet propaganda among Cuban soldiers.
• February 10 - Soviet writers Yuli Daniel and Andrei Sinyavsky are sentenced to 5 and 7 years, respectively, for \'anti-Soviet\' writings.
• February 11 - The Belgian government resigns.
• February 14 - The Australian dollar is introduced at a rate of 2 dollars per pound, or 10 shillings per dollar.
• February 19 - The naval minister of the United Kingdom, Christopher Mayhew, resigns.
• February 20 - While Soviet author and translator Valery Tarsis is abroad, the Soviet Union negates his citizenship.
• February 23 - A military coup in Syria replaces the previous government with a Ba\'athist regime.
• February 24 - A military coup in Ghana raises sacked General Ankrah to power while president Kwame Nkrumah is abroad.
• February 26 - A curfew is declared in Jakarta, Indonesia.
• February 28 - U.S. astronauts Charles Bassett and Elliott See are killed in an aircraft accident in St. Louis, Missouri.

March

• March 1
  • Soviet space probe Venera 3 crashes on Venus, becoming the first spacecraft to land on another planet\'s surface.
  • The Ba\'ath Party takes power in Syria.
• March 2 - Kwame Nkrumah arrives in Guinea and is granted asylum.
• March 4 - The Beatles: In an interview published in The London Evening Standard, John Lennon comments, "We\'re more popular than Jesus now," eventually sparking a controversy in the United States.
• March 5
  • A massive theft of nuclear materials is revealed in Brazil.
  • Merci Chérie by Udo Jürgens (music by Udo Jürgens, text by Udo Jürgens and Thomas Hörbiger) wins the Eurovision Song Contest 1966 for Austria.
• March 7 - Charles De Gaulle asks U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson for negotiations about the state of NATO equipment in France.
• March 8
  • Anti-communist demonstrations occur at the Indonesian Foreign Ministry.
  • Ronald Kray, one of the Kray twins, shoots rival gangster George Cornell; the incident leads to the brother\'s incarceration.^{[citation needed]}
  • Vietnam War: Australia announces it will substantially increase its number of troops in Vietnam.
  • An Irish Republican Army bomb destroys Nelson\'s Pillar in Dublin.
• March 9 - Ronnie Kray murders George Cornell in the Blind Beggar pub.^{[citation needed]}
• March 10 - Crown Princess Beatrix of the Netherlands marries Claus von Amsberg. Some spectators demonstrate against the groom because he is German.
• March 11
  • Indonesian President Sukarno gives all executive powers to General Suharto (see Transition to the New Order and Supersemar).
  • French President Charles De Gaulle states that French troops will be taken out of NATO and that all French NATO bases and HQ\'s must be closed within a year.
• March 12 - Bobby Hull of the Chicago Blackhawks sets the NHL single season scoring record against the New York Rangers with his 51st goal.
• March 13 - The 1956 film version of Rodgers and Hammerstein\'s Carousel, adapted from their stage musical, is shown on network TV for the first time by ABC-TV. It will be repeated just three months later.
• March 16 - Gemini 8 (David Scott, Neil Armstrong) docks with an Agena target satellite.
• March 17
  • More anti-communist demonstrations occur in Indonesia.
  • Off the coast of Spain in the Mediterranean, the DSV Alvin submarine finds a missing American hydrogen bomb.

Archbishop of Canterbury meeting the Catholic Pope

• March 19 - The Texas Western Miners defeat the Kentucky Wildcats with 5 black starters, ushering in desegregation in athletic recruiting.
• March 22 - In Washington, DC, General Motors President James M. Roche appears before a Senate subcommittee, and apologizes to consumer advocate Ralph Nader for the company\'s intimidation and harassment campaign against him.
• March 23 - Pope Paul VI and Arthur Michael Ramsey, the Archbishop of Canterbury, meet in Rome.
• March 26 - Demonstrations are held across the United States against the Vietnam War.
• March 27 - In South Vietnam, 20,000 Buddhists march in demonstrations against the policies of the military government.
• March 28 - Indira Gandhi visits Washington, DC.
• March 29 - The 23rd Communist Party Conference is held in the Soviet Union; Leonid Brezhnev demands that U.S. troops leave Vietnam, and announces that Chinese-Soviet relations are not satisfying.
• March 31
  • The Labour Party under Harold Wilson wins the British General Election.
  • The Soviet Union launches Luna 10, which later becomes the first space probe to enter orbit around the Moon.

April

• April 2 - The Indonesian army demands that the country rejoin the United Nations.
• April 4 - Luna 10 enters orbit around the Moon.
• April 7 - The United Kingdom asks the UN Security Council for authority to use force to stop oil tankers that violate the embargo against Rhodesia. Authority is given April 10.
• April 8 - Buddhists in South Vietnam protest against the fact that the new government has not set a date for free elections.
• April 9 - Norwich City F.C. captain Barry Butler is killed in a car accident.
• April 13 - United States president Lyndon Johnson signs the 1966 Uniform Time Act act dealing with Daylight Saving Time.
• April 14 - The South Vietnamese government promises free elections in 3-5 months.
• April 15 - An anti-Nasser conspiracy is exposed in Egypt.
• April 18 - China declares that it will stop economic aid to Indonesia.
• April 21
  • An artificial heart is installed in the chest of Marcel DeRudder in a Houston, Texas hospital.
  • The opening of the Parliament of the United Kingdom is televised for the first time.
  • Haile Selassie visits Jamaica for the first time, meeting with Rastafarian leaders.
    • Ian Brady and Myra Hindley go on trial at Chester Crown Court, for the murders of 3 children who vanished between November 1963 and October 1965.
• April 27 - Pope Paul VI and Soviet Foreign Minister Andrei Gromyko meet in the Vatican (the first meeting between leaders of the Roman Catholic Church and the Soviet Union).
• April 28 - In Rhodesia, security forces kill 7 ZANLA men in combat; Chimurenga, the ZANU rebellion, begins.
• April 29 - U.S. troops in Vietnam total 250,000.
• April 30
  • Regular hovercraft service begins over the English Channel (discontinued in 2000 due to the Channel Tunnel).
  • The Church of Satan is formed by Anton Szandor LaVey in San Francisco
  • Uniform Daylight Saving Time first observed in most parts of North America.

May

• May 1 - Floods occur on the Finnish coast.
• May 3 - Swinging Radio England and Britain Radio commence broadcasting on AM, with a combined potential 100,000 watts, from the same ship anchored off the south coast of England in international waters.
• May 4 - Fiat signs a contract with the Soviet government to build a car factory in the Soviet Union.
• May 6 - The Moors Murderers trial at Chester Crown Court ends with Ian Brady being found guilty on all 3 counts of murder. He is sentenced to 3 concurrent terms of life imprisonment. Myra Hindley is convicted on 2 counts of murder and cleared on a third charge, but is guilty of being an accessory in the third murder committed by Brady. She receives 2 concurrent terms of life imprisonment for murder and a 7-year fixed term for being an accessory.
• May 12
  • African members of the UN Security Council say that the British army should blockade Rhodesia.
  • Opening of the Busch Memorial Stadium in St Louis, Missouri.
  • Radio Peking claims that U.S. planes have shot down a Chinese plane over Yunnan (the U.S. denies the story the next day).
• May 14 - Turkey and Greece intend to start negotiations about the situation in Cyprus.
• May 15
  • Indonesia asks Malaysia for peace negotiations.
  • The South Vietnamese army besieges Da Nang.
  • Tens of thousands of anti-war demonstrators again picket the White House, then rally at the Washington Monument.
• May 16
  • A seamen\'s strike is called in Britain.
  • The legendary album Pet Sounds by The Beach Boys is released.
  • Bob Dylan\'s seminal album, Blonde on Blonde is released in the USA.
  • In New York City, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. makes his first public speech on the Vietnam War.
• May 24
  • Ugandan army troops arrest Mutesa II of Buganda and occupy his palace.
  • The Nigerian government forbids all political activity in the country (until January 17, 1969).
• May 25
  • Explorer program: Explorer 32 is launched.
  • In St. Louis, Missouri, U.S. Vice-President Hubert Humphrey and U.S. Secretary of the Interior Stewart Udall dedicate the Gateway Arch, as part of the Jefferson National Expansion Memorial.
• May 26 - Guyana achieves independence.
• May 28
  • Fidel Castro delcares martial law in Cuba because of a possible U.S. attack.
  • The Indonesian and Malayan governments declare that the Indonesian Confrontation is over (a treaty is signed on August 11).
• May 31 - The Philippines reestablishes diplomatic relations with Malaysia.

June

• June 1 - The final new episode of The Dick Van Dyke Show airs (the first episode aired on October 3, 1961).
• June 2
  • Éamon de Valera is re-elected as Irish president.
  • Surveyor program: Surveyor 1 lands in Oceanus Procellarum on the Moon, becoming the first spacecraft to soft-land on another world.
  • Four former cabinet ministers are executed in Zaire, for alleged involvement in a plot to kill Mobutu Sese Seko.
• June 3 - Joaquín Balaguer is elected president of the Dominican Republic.
• June 5 - Gemini 9: Gene Cernan completes the second U.S. spacewalk (2 hours, 7 minutes).
• June 6 - Civil rights activist James Meredith is shot while trying to march across Mississippi.
• June 8
  • An XB-70 Valkyrie prototype is destroyed in a mid-air collision with a F-104 Starfighter chase plane during a photo shoot. NASA pilot Joseph A. Walker and USAF test pilot Carl Cross are both killed.
  • Topeka, Kansas is devastated by a tornado that registers as an "F5" on the Fujita Scale: the first to exceed US $100 million in damages. Sixteen people are killed, hundreds more injured, and thousands of homes damaged or destroyed. [1]
• June 13 - Miranda v. Arizona: The Supreme Court of the United States rules that the police must inform suspects of their rights before questioning them.
• June 14 - The Vatican abolishes the Index Librorum Prohibitorum (index of banned books).
• June 17 - An Air France personnel strike begins.
• June 18 - CIA chief William Raborn resigns - Richard Helms becomes his successor. (2)- Phyllis and Joe Miele are Married.
• June 20-July 1 - French President Charles De Gaulle visits the Soviet Union.
• June 21 - Opposition leader Arthur Calwell is shot after attending a political meeting in Mosman, Sydney, Australia.
• June 28 - In Argentina, a junta deposes president Arturo Umberto Illia in a coup, and appoints General Juan Carlos Ongania to lead.
• June 29
  • A sailors\' strike, organised by the National Union of Seamen, ends in the United Kingdom.
  • Vietnam War: U.S. planes begin bombing Hanoi and Haiphong.
• June 30
  • France formally leaves NATO.
  • The National Organization for Women (NOW) is founded in Washington, DC.

July

• July 1 - Joaquin Balaguer becomes president of the Dominican Republic.
• July 3 - Rene Barrientos is elected president of Bolivia.
• July 4
  • North Vietnam declares general mobilization.
  • President Lyndon B. Johnson signs the Freedom of Information Act, which goes into effect the following year.
  • Romania\'s premier Nicolae Ceausescu proposes dissolution of both NATO and the Warsaw Pact alliance in a meeting of Warsaw Pact powers at Bucharest.
• July 6 - Malawi becomes a republic.
• July 7 - A Warsaw Pact conference ends with a promise to support North Vietnam.
• July 8 - King Mwambutsa IV Bangiriceng of Burundi is deposed by his son Ntare V, who is in turn deposed by prime minister Michel Micombero.
• July 11 - The 1966 FIFA World Cup begins in England.
• July 12
  • Indira Gandhi visits Moscow.
  • Zambia threatens to leave the Commonwealth of Nations because of British peace overtures to Rhodesia.
  • U.S. Lieutenant Major W.H. Whalen is arrested for spying.
• July 14
  • Israeli and Syrian jet fighters clash over the Jordan River.
  • Richard Speck murders 8 student nurses in their Chicago dormitory.
  • Gwynfor Evans becomes member of Parliament for Carmarthen, the first Plaid Cymru MP in the UK.
• July 16 - British Prime Minister Harold Wilson flies to Moscow to try to start peace negotiations about the Vietnam War (the Soviet government refutes his ideas).
• July 17 - Richard Speck is arrested; he tries to commit suicide but fails.
• July 18
  • Gemini 10 (John Young, Michael Collins) launched. After docking with an Agena rocket stage, they then set a world altitude record of 474 miles (763 km).
  • The Hough Riots break out in Cleveland, Ohio, the city\'s first race riot.
• July 19 - A Chinese delegate in the Netherlands, Liu en-Tsiu, is declared persona non grata because of the death of a Chinese engineer in unclear circumstances; there are claims that he was kidnapped and taken to the delegate\'s office.
• July 22 - The Chinese government declares Dutch delegate G. J. Jongejans persona non grata, but tells him not to leave the country before a group of Chinese engineers has left the Netherlands.
• July 23 - Katangese troops in Stanleyville, Congo, revolt for several weeks in support of the exiled minister Moise Tshombe.
• July 24 - U.N. Secretary General U Thant visits Moscow.
• July 26 - Lord Gardiner issues the Practice Statement in the House of Lords, stating that the House is not bound to follow its own previous precedent.
• July 28 - The U.S. announces that a Lockheed U-2 reconnaissance plane has disappeared over Cuba.
• July 29
  • The Nigerian army rebels and executes head of state General Aguiyi-Ironsi.
  • Bob Dylan is injured in a motorcycle accident near his home in Woodstock, New York. He is not seen in public for over a year.
• July 30 - England beats West Germany 4-2 to win the 1966 FIFA World Cup at Wembley after extra time.

August

• August 1
  • Sniper Charles Whitman kills 13 people from the University of Texas at Austin Main Building.
  • A military coup occurs in Nigeria; General Yakubu Gowon takes over.
• August 2 - The Spanish government forbids overflights of British military aircraft.
• August 5
  • Martin Luther King Jr. leads a civil rights march in Chicago, during which he is struck by a rock thrown from an angry white mob.
  • The Beatles release the legendary Revolver album in the United Kingdom.[2]
  • Mao Zedong launches a Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution to purge and reorganize China\'s Communist Party.
• August 6
  • Braniff Airlines Flight 250 crashes in Falls City, Nebraska, killing all 42 on board.
  • Rene Barrientos takes office as the president of Bolivia.
  • The Tagus River Bridge opens in Lisbon, Portugal.
• August 7 - Race riots occur in Lansing, Michigan.
• August 10
  • An East German court sentences Günter Laudahn to life imprisonment for spying for the United States.
  • Lunar Orbiter 1, the first U.S. spacecraft to orbit another world, is launched.
• August 11 - The Beatles hold a press conference in Chicago, during which John Lennon apologizes for his "more popular than Jesus" remark, saying, "I didn\'t mean it as a lousy anti-religious thing."
• August 12 - Massacre of Braybrook Street: Harry Roberts, John Duddy and Jack Witney shoot dead 3 plain clothes policemen in London; they are later sentenced to life imprisonment.
• August 13
  • In the People\'s Republic of China, Mao Zedong begins the Cultural Revolution.
  • An earthquake in Turkey kills 2,394 and injures 10,000.
• August 15
  • Syrian and Israeli troops clash over Lake Genesaret for 3 hours.
  • It is announced that the New York Herald Tribune will not resume publication.
• August 16 - Vietnam War: The House Un-American Activities Committee starts investigating Americans who have aided the Viet Cong, with the intent to make these activities illegal. Anti-war demonstrators disrupt the meeting and 50 are arrested.
• August 17 - Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Republic begin negotiations in Kuwait to end the war in Yemen.
• August 18 - Vietnam War: D Company,