What happened in 1966

World10

• Jan 31The United Kingdom ceases all trade with Rhodesia.
• Mar 1Soviet space probe Venera 3 crashes on Venus, becoming the first spacecraft to land on another planet's surface.
• Mar 20Football's FIFA World Cup Trophy is stolen while on exhibition in London; it is found seven days later by a mongrel dog named "Pickles" and his owner David Corbett, wrapped in newspaper in a south London garden.
• Apr 3Luna 10 is the first manmade object to enter lunar orbit.
• Apr 7The United Kingdom asks the United Nations Security Council for authority to use force to stop oil tankers that violate the embargo against Rhodesia (authority is given April 10).
• Apr 26The magnitude 5.1 Tashkent earthquake affects the largest city in Soviet Central Asia with a maximum MSK intensity of VII (Very strong). Tashkent is mostly destroyed and 15–200 are killed.
• Aug 10Lunar Orbiter 1, the first U.S. spacecraft to orbit the Moon, is launched.
• Nov 6Lunar Orbiter 2 is launched.
• Dec 16The United Nations Security Council approves an oil embargo against Rhodesia.
• Dec 17South Africa does not join the trade embargo against Rhodesia.

Japan3

• Feb 4All Nippon Airways Flight 60 plunges into Tokyo Bay; 133 people are killed.
• Mar 4Canadian Pacific Air Lines Flight 402 crashes during a night landing in poor visibility at Tokyo International Airport in Japan, killing 64 of 72 people on board.
• Mar 5BOAC Flight 911 crashes in severe clear-air turbulence over Mount Fuji soon after taking off from Tokyo International Airport in Japan, killing all 124 people on board.

North America23

• Mar 16NASA spacecraft Gemini 8 (David Scott, Neil Armstrong) conducts the first docking in space, with an Agena target vehicle.
• Apr 18The 38th Academy Awards ceremony is held in Santa Monica, California: The Sound of Music wins Best Picture.
• May 16The Beach Boys releases the album Pet Sounds.
• May 19Gertrude Baniszewski is found guilty of torturing and murdering 16-year-old Sylvia Likens in Indianapolis, United States, and is sentenced to life in prison (she is released on parole in December 1985).
• Jun 2Surveyor program: Surveyor 1 lands in Oceanus Procellarum on the Moon, becoming the first U.S. spacecraft to soft-land on another world.
• Jun 5Gemini 9A: Gene Cernan completes the second U.S. spacewalk (2 hours, 7 minutes).
• Jun 30The National Organization for Women (NOW) is founded in Washington, D.C.
• Jul 18Gemini 10 (John Young, Michael Collins) is launched from the United States. After docking with an Agena target vehicle, the astronauts set a world altitude record of 474 miles (763 km).
• Aug 5The Caesars Palace hotel and casino opens in Las Vegas, United States.
• Sep 12Gemini 11 (Charles "Pete" Conrad Jr., Richard F. Gordon Jr) is launched from the United States. The crew performed the first direct-ascent (first orbit) rendezvous with an Agena Target Vehicle, docking with it.
• Oct 1West Coast Airlines Flight 956 crashes with 18 fatal injuries and no survivors south of Wemme, Oregon, the first loss of a DC-9.
• Oct 14The city of Montreal inaugurates the Montreal Metro system.
• Oct 15Bobby Seale and Huey P. Newton found the Black Panther Party in the United States.
• Oct 27Walt Disney records his final filmed appearance prior to his death, detailing his plans for EPCOT, a utopian planned city to be built in Florida.
• Dec 16The International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights are adopted by the General Assembly, as Resolution 2200 A (XXI).

8 more in the app

Europe19

• Jan 171966 Palomares B-52 crash: A U.S. Air Force B-52 bomber collides with a KC-135 Stratotanker over Spain, dropping three 70-kiloton hydrogen bombs near the town of Palomares, and one into the sea. Carl Brashear, the first African-American United States Navy diver, is involved in an accident during the recovery of the latter, which results in the amputation of his leg.
• Jan 24Air India Flight 101 crashes into Mont Blanc, killing all 117 people on board, including Homi J. Bhabha, chairman of the Indian Atomic Energy Commission.
• Mar 4In an interview with London Evening Standard reporter Maureen Cleave, John Lennon of the Beatles states: "We're more popular than Jesus now."
• May 26British Guiana achieves independence from the United Kingdom, becoming Guyana.
• Jul 11The 1966 FIFA World Cup begins in England.
• Jul 30England beats West Germany 4–2 to win the 1966 FIFA World Cup at Wembley after extra time.
• Aug 5the Beatles releases the album Revolver, in the UK.
• Aug 11the 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."
• Sep 198 British tourists die when Britannia Airways Flight 105 crashes in Ljubljana, Yugoslavia.
• Oct 21Aberfan disaster in South Wales (U.K.): 144 (including 116 children) are killed by a collapsing coal spoil tip.
• Nov 41966 flood of the Arno river in Italy hits Florence, flooding it to a maximum depth of, leaving thousands homeless and destroying millions of masterpieces of art and rare books. In addition, a severe tidal flood hits Venice.
• Nov 5Thirty-eight African states demand that the United Kingdom use force against the Rhodesian government.
• Nov 17The U.N. General Assembly decides to found the United Nations Industrial Development Organization.
• Dec 1British Prime Minister Harold Wilson and Rhodesian Prime minister Ian Smith negotiate aboard in the Mediterranean.
• Dec 20U.K. Prime Minister Harold Wilson withdraws all his previous offers to the Rhodesian government and announces that he will agree to independence for the country only after the establishment of a Black majority government there.

4 more in the app

USSR / Russia3

• Feb 3The unmanned Soviet Luna 9 spacecraft makes the first controlled rocket-assisted landing on the Moon.
• Mar 29The 23rd Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union is held: Leonid Brezhnev demands that U.S. troops leave Vietnam, and announces that Chinese-Soviet relations are not satisfactory.
• Mar 31The Soviet Union launches Luna 10, which becomes the first space probe to enter orbit around the Moon.

Asia10

• Jan 10Pakistani–Indian peace negotiations end successfully with the signing of the Tashkent Declaration, a day before the sudden death of Indian prime minister Lal Bahadur Shastri.
• Mar 11Transition to the New Order in Indonesia: President Sukarno gives all executive powers to General Suharto by signing the Supersemar order.
• Mar 22in the Chinese city of Xingtai a magnitude 6.8 earthquake leaves more than 8,000 dead and 38,000 injured.
• Apr 5During the Buddhist Uprising, South Vietnamese military prime minister Nguyễn Cao Kỳ personally attempts to lead the capture of the restive city of Đà Nẵng before backing down.
• May 16The Chinese Communist Party issues the 'May 16 Notice', marking the beginning of the Cultural Revolution.
• Aug 18Vietnam War – Battle of Long Tan: D Company, 6th Battalion of the Royal Australian Regiment, meets and defeats a Viet Cong force estimated to be four times larger, in Phuoc Tuy Province, Republic of Vietnam.
• Aug 22The Asian Development Bank (ADB) is established.
• Sep 13Cultural Revolution in China: Clashes between the Chinese Communist Party and the Red Guards are reported by TASS in the Soviet Union.
• Dec 6Vietnam War: Bình Hòa massacre.
• Dec 19The Asian Development Bank begins operations.

Middle East2

• Feb 231966 Syrian coup d'état: An intra-party military coup in Syria replaces the previous government of Amin al-Hafiz by one led by Salah Jadid.
• Aug 19The 6.8 Varto earthquake affects the town of Varto in eastern Turkey with a maximum Mercalli intensity of IX (Violent), killing at least 2,394–3,000 and injuring at least 1,420.

Latin America4

• May 29Sports stadium Estadio Azteca officially opens in Mexico City in advance of the 1968 Summer Olympics.
• Jun 28Argentine Revolution: In Argentina, a military junta calling itself Revolución Argentina deposes president Arturo Umberto Illia in a coup and appoints General Juan Carlos Onganía to power.
• Nov 15Gemini 12 (James A. Lovell, Buzz Aldrin) splashes down safely in the Atlantic Ocean, east of the Bahamas.
• Nov 30Barbados achieves independence from the United Kingdom.

Africa14

• Jan 31966 Upper Voltan coup d'état: President Maurice Yaméogo is deposed by a military coup in the Republic of Upper Volta (modern-day Burkina Faso).
• Jan 151966 Nigerian coup d'état: A bloody military coup is staged in Nigeria, deposing the civilian government and resulting in the death of Prime Minister Abubakar Tafawa Balewa.
• Jan 17The Nigerian coup is overturned by another faction of the military, led by Major General Johnson Aguiyi-Ironsi, leaving a military government in power and beginning a long period of military rule.
• Jan 22The military government of Nigeria announces that ex-prime minister Abubakar Tafawa Balewa was killed during the coup a week previously.
• Feb 24A coup led by the police and military of Ghana raises the National Liberation Council to power while president Kwame Nkrumah is abroad.
• Apr 28In Rhodesia, security forces kill seven ZANLA men in combat; Chimurenga, the ZANU rebellion, begins.
• Jun 2Four former cabinet ministers including Évariste Kimba are executed in the Democratic Republic of the Congo for alleged involvement in a plot to kill Mobutu Sese Seko.
• Jul 12Zambia threatens to leave the Commonwealth of Nations because of British peace overtures to Rhodesia.
• Jul 291966 Nigerian counter-coup: Army officers from the north of Nigeria execute head of state General Aguiyi-Ironsi and install Yakubu Gowon.
• Aug 26The first battle of the South African Air Force and the South African Police with PLAN, the armed wing of the South West Africa People's Organization (SWAPO), takes place at Ongulumbashe during Operation Blue Wildebeest, triggering the South African Border War which continues until 1989.
• Sep 6South African Prime Minister Hendrik Verwoerd is stabbed to death in Parliament by Dimitri Tsafendas.
• Sep 30The Bechuanaland Protectorate in Africa achieves independence from the United Kingdom as Botswana, with Seretse Khama as its first President.
• Oct 4Basutoland becomes independent of the United Kingdom and takes the name Lesotho.
• Oct 17Lesotho and Botswana are admitted to the United Nations.

Oceania2

• Jan 26Disappearance of the Beaumont children: Three children disappear on their way to Glenelg, South Australia, never to be seen again. Their fate remains unknown.
• Feb 14The Australian dollar is introduced at a rate of 2 dollars per pound, or 10 shillings per dollar.