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1966
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Everything about 1966 totally explained

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 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.
  • March 1 - 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 4 - 124 killed BOAC Boeing 707 jetliner crashed Mount Fuji, Japan.
  • March 5 - A massive theft of nuclear materials is revealed in Brazil.
  • March 5 - 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.
  • March 8 - Ronald Kray, one of the Kray twins, shoots rival gangster George Cornell; the incident leads to the brother's incarceration.
  • March 8 - Vietnam War: Australia announces it'll substantially increase its number of troops in Vietnam.
  • March 8 - An Irish Republican Army bomb destroys Nelson's Pillar in Dublin.
  • March 9 - Ronnie Kray murders George Cornell in the Blind Beggar pub.
  • March 10 - Crown Princess Beatrix of the Netherlands marries Claus von Amsberg. Some spectators demonstrate against the groom because he's German.
  • March 11 - Indonesian President Sukarno gives all executive powers to General Suharto (see Transition to the New Order and Supersemar).
  • March 11 - 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 Black Hawks 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.
  • March 17 - Off the coast of Spain in the Mediterranean, the DSV Alvin submarine finds a missing American hydrogen bomb.
  • 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.
  • March 31 - 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 hasn't 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
  • April 21 - An artificial heart is installed in the chest of Marcel DeRudder in a Houston, Texas hospital.
  • April 21 - The opening of the Parliament of the United Kingdom is televised for the first time.
  • April 21 - Haile Selassie visits Jamaica for the first time, meeting with Rastafarian leaders.
  • April 21 - 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).
  • April 30 - The Church of Satan is formed by Anton Szandor LaVey in San Francisco
  • April 30 - 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.
  • May 12 - Opening of the Busch Memorial Stadium in St Louis, Missouri.
  • May 12 - 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.
  • May 15 - The South Vietnamese army besieges Da Nang.
  • May 15 - 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.
  • May 16 - The legendary album Pet Sounds by The Beach Boys is released.
  • May 16 - Bob Dylan's seminal album, Blonde on Blonde is released in the USA.
  • May 16 - 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.
  • May 24 - The Nigerian government forbids all political activity in the country (until January 17, 1969).
  • May 25 - Explorer program: Explorer 32 is launched.
  • May 25 - 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.
  • May 28 - 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.
  • June 2 - Surveyor program: Surveyor 1 lands in Oceanus Procellarum on the Moon, becoming the first spacecraft to soft-land on another world.
  • June 2 - 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 - Brian Flemming, American film director and playwright
  • 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.
  • June 8 - 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. (External Link)
  • 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 - French President Charles De Gaulle starts visit to 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.
  • June 29 - Vietnam War: U.S. planes begin bombing Hanoi and Haiphong.
  • June 30 - France formally leaves NATO.
  • June 30 - 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.
  • July 4 - President Lyndon B. Johnson signs the Freedom of Information Act, which goes into effect the following year.
  • July 4 - 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.
  • July 12 - Zambia threatens to leave the Commonwealth of Nations because of British peace overtures to Rhodesia.
  • July 12 - U.S. Lieutenant Major W.H. Whalen is arrested for spying.
  • July 14 - Israeli and Syrian jet fighters clash over the Jordan River.
  • July 14 - Richard Speck murders 8 student nurses in their Chicago dormitory.
  • July 14 - 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).
  • July 18 - 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 isn't 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.
  • July 29 - Bob Dylan is injured in a motorcycle accident near his home in Woodstock, New York. He isn't 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.
  • August 1 - 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's struck by a rock thrown from an angry white mob.
  • August 5 - The Beatles release the legendary Revolver album in the United Kingdom.(External Link)
  • August 5 - 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.
  • August 6 - Rene Barrientos takes office as the president of Bolivia.
  • August 6 - 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.
  • August 10 - 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're later sentenced to life imprisonment.
  • August 13 - In the People's Republic of China, Mao Zedong begins the Cultural Revolution.
  • August 13 - An earthquake in Turkey kills 2,394 and injures 10,000.
  • August 15 - Syrian and Israeli troops clash over Lake Genesaret for 3 hours.
  • August 15 - It is announced that the New York Herald Tribune won't 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, 6th Battalion of the Royal Australian Regiment, meets and defeats a Viet Cong force estimated to be 4 times larger, at the Battle of Long Tan in Phuoc Tuy Province, Republic of Vietnam.
  • August 19 - An earthquake in eastern Turkey destroys whole cities.
  • August 21 - Seven men are sentenced to death in Egypt, for anti-Nasser agitation.
  • August 22 - The United Farm Workers Organizing Committee (UFWOC), predecessor of the United Farm Workers of America (UFW), is formed.
  • August 26 - Riots occur in French Somaliland.
  • August 29 - The Beatles play their very last concert at Candlestick Park in San Francisco, California.
  • August 30 - France offers independence to French Somaliland.

    September

  • September 1 - United Nations Secretary-General U Thant declares that he won't seek re-election, because U.N. efforts in Vietnam have failed.
  • September 1 - 98 British tourists die in an air crash in Ljubljana, Yugoslavia.
  • September 6 - In Cape Town, the South African architect of Apartheid, Prime Minister Hendrik Verwoerd, is stabbed to death by Dimitri Tsafendas during a parliamentary meeting.
  • September 8 - Star Trek, the classic science fiction television series, debuts with its first episode, titled "The Man Trap."
  • September 9 - NATO decides to move SHAPE headquarters to Belgium.
  • September 12 - Gemini 11 (Richard Gordon, Pete Conrad) docks with an Agena target vehicle.
  • September 12 - Five Star General Omar Bradley marries actress Esther "Kitty" Buhler in San Diego, California.
  • September 12 - Balthazar Johannes Vorster becomes the new South African Prime Minister.
  • September 13 - TASS reports on clashes between the Chinese Communist Party and the Red Guards.
  • September 16 - In South Vietnam, Thich Tri Quang begins a 100-day hunger strike.
  • September 16 - The Metropolitan Opera House opens at Lincoln Center in New York City to the world premiere of Samuel Barber's opera, Antony and Cleopatra.
  • September 18 - Valerie Percy, the 21-year-old daughter of Senator Charles H. Percy, is stabbed and bludgeoned to death in the family mansion on Chicago's North Shore.
  • September 19 - Scotland Yard arrests Ronald Edwards, suspected of involvement in the Great Train Robbery.
  • September 30 - Baldur von Schirach] and Albert Speer are released from Spandau Prison.
  • September 30 - Botswana achieves independence.

    October

  • October - Bobby Seale and Huey P. Newton found the Black Panther Party.
  • October 1 - West Coast Airlines Flight 956 crashes with eighteen fatal injuries and no survivors 5.5 miles south of Wemme, Oregon. This accident marks the first loss of a DC-9.
  • October 3 - Tunisia severs diplomatic relations with the United Arab Republic.
  • October 4 - Israel applies for the outer membership of the EEC.
  • October 4 - Basutoland becomes independent and takes the name Lesotho.
  • October 5 - UNESCO signs the Recommendation Concerning the Status of Teachers. This event is now celebrated as World Teachers' Day.
  • October 7 - The Soviet Union declares that all Chinese students must leave the country before the end of October.
  • October 9 - The Baltimore Orioles defeat the Los Angeles Dodgers in Game 4 of the World Series, 1–0, to sweep the series for their 1st World Championship.
  • October 11 - France and the Soviet Union sign a treaty for cooperation in nuclear research.
  • October 14 - The city of Montreal inaugurates its metro system (see Montreal Metro).
  • October 15 - U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson signs a bill creating the United States Department of Transportation.
  • October 15 - U.S. Congress passes a bill for the creation of Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore to be created.
  • October 15 - ABC-TV telecasts a highly-acclaimed ninety-minute television adaptation of the musical Brigadoon, starring Robert Goulet, Peter Falk, and Sally Ann Howes. It wins many Emmy Awards, is repeated just five months later, and inaugurates a short-lived series of special television adaptations of famous Broadway musicals on ABC. Goulet stars in all but one of these specials.
  • October 16 - Grace Slick performs live for the first time with Jefferson Airplane.
  • October 17 - Lesotho and Botswana are admitted to the United Nations.
  • October 21 - The Aberfan disaster occurs in South Wales, United Kingdom.
  • October 22 - British spy George Blake escapes from Wormwood Scrubs prison; he's next seen in Moscow.
  • October 22 - Spain demands that the United Kingdom stop military flights to Gibraltar; Britain refuses the next day.
  • October 24 - Negotiations about the Vietnam War begin in Manila, Philippines.
  • October 25 - A military court in Jakarta sentences ex-foreign minister Subandrio to death.
  • October 25 - Spain closes its Gibraltar border to non-pedestrian traffic.
  • October 26 - NATO moves its HQ from Paris to Brussels.
  • October 27 - The United Nations takes Namibia from South Africa.
  • October 29 - The Guinean delegation to the OAU meeting in Ethiopia, become hostages of the Ghanaian government in Accra.

    November

  • November 2 - The Cuban Adjustment Act comes into force, allowing 123,000 Cubans the opportunity to apply for permanent residence in the United States.
  • November 4 - The Arno river floods Florence, damaging many art treasures.
  • November 5 - Thirty-eight African states demand that the United Kingdom use force against the Rhodesian government.
  • November 6 - Lunar Orbiter 2 is launched.
  • November 8 - Former Massachusetts Attorney General Edward Brooke becomes the first African American elected to the United States Senate since Reconstruction.
  • November 8 - Actor Ronald Reagan, a Republican, is elected Governor of California.
  • November 9 - John Lennon meets Yoko Ono at the Indica Gallery
  • November 11 - A mine kills 3 Israeli paratroopers on the West Bank border.
  • November 11 - Spain declares general amnesty for crimes committed during the Spanish Civil War (effective only for the Falangists' side).
  • November 15 - Gemini 12 (James A. Lovell, Buzz Aldrin), splashes down safely in the Atlantic Ocean, 600 km east of the Bahamas.
  • November 15 - Harry Maurice Roberts, who killed 3 policemen in August, is caught near London.
  • November 15 - A Boeing 727 carrying Pan Am Flight 708 crashes near Berlin, Germany, killing all three people on board.
  • November 16 - U.S. doctor Sam Sheppard is acquitted in his second trial for the murder of his pregnant wife in 1954.
  • November 17 - The U.N. General Assembly decides to found the United Nations Industrial Development Organization.
  • November 17 - A spectacular Leonid meteor shower passes over Arizona, at the rate of 2,300 a minute for 20 minutes.
  • November 21 - The army crushes an attempted coup in Togo.
  • November 28 - Truman Capote's Black and White Ball ('The Party of the Century') is held in New York City.
  • November 30 - Barbados achieves independence.

    December

  • December 1 - Kurt Georg Kiesinger is elected Chancellor of West Germany.
  • December 1 - British Prime Minister Harold Wilson and Rhodesian Prime minister Ian Smith negotiate on HMS Tiger in the Mediterranean.
  • December 2 - U Thant agrees to serve a second term as U.N. Secretary General.
  • December 3 - Anti-Portuguese demonstrations occur in Macau; a curfew is declared the next day.
  • December 7 - Syria offers weapons to rebels in Jordan.
  • December 7 - Barbados is admitted to the United Nations.
  • December 8 - The Typaldos Line's ferry Heraklion sinks in rough seas, in the Aegean Sea near Crete - 217 dead.
  • December 15 - In Los Angeles, Walt Disney dies of lung cancer at age 65.
  • December 16 - The U.N. Security Council approves an oil embargo against Rhodesia.
  • December 16 - The International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural rights and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights were adopted by the General Assembly by its resolution 2200 A (XXI).
  • December 17 - South Africa doesn't join the trade embargo against Rhodesia.
  • December 20 - Harold Wilson withdraws all his previous offers to the Rhodesian government, and announces that he'll agree to independence only after the founding of a Black majority government
  • December 22 - Prime Minister Ian Smith declares that Rhodesia is already a republic.
  • December 23 - How the Grinch Stole Christmas, narrated by Boris Karloff, is shown for the first time on CBS. It will become an annual Christmas tradition.
  • December 26 - The first Kwanzaa is celebrated by Maulana Karenga, the chair of Black Studies, at California State University, Long Beach.
  • December 31 - East German Premier Walter Ulbricht discusses negotiations about German reunification.
  • December 31 - Thieves steal millions worth of paintings from the Dulwich Art Gallery in London.
  • December 31 - The Congolese government takes over the Union Minière du Haut Katanga.

    Undated

  • Konstantin Chernenko, later leader of Soviet Union, becomes candidate member of the Central Committee.
  • Surrealist Movement in the United States founded by Franklin and Penelope Rosemont.
  • Lise Meitner and Otto Hahn are awarded the Fermi Prize.
  • Congress of the United States creates National Council for Marine Resources and Engineering Development.
  • Will Lang Jr. begins Life (magazine)'s investigation into the assassination of John F. Kennedy and the Warren Commission. Will Lang Jr. is stopped by Holland McCombs a few months later.
  • Martin Richards designs the BCPL programming language.
  • The DKW automobile goes out of production.
  • World Buddhist Sangha Council convened by Theravadins in Sri Lanka with the hope of bridging differences and working together.
  • Long-term potentiation (LTP), the putative cellular mechanism of learning and memory, is first observed by Terje Lømo in Oslo, Norway.
  • Actress Saira Banu marries actor Dilip Kumar.
  • Kwanzaa was created by Dr. Maulana Karenga.

    Ongoing

  • First Sudanese Civil War (1955–72)
  • Guatemalan Civil War (1960–96)
  • Indochina Wars
  • Indonesia-Malaysia confrontation (1962–76)
  • Laotian Civil War (1962–75)
  • Marshall Plan
  • North Yemen Civil War (1962–70)
  • Portuguese Colonial War (1961–74)
  • Shifta War (1963–67)

    Births

    January

  • January 1 - Anna Burke, Australian politician and member for Chisholm in the House of Representatives
  • January 1 - Crazy Legs, Puerto Rican Breakdancer, President of Rock Steady Crew
  • January 1 - Michael Imperioli, American actor
  • January 3 - Martin Galway, Northern Irish composer
  • January 4 - Deana Carter, American singer
  • January 5 - Kate Schellenbach, American musician, drummer for The Beastie Boys from 1981 to 1984, and Luscious Jackson
  • January 7 - Carolyn Bessette-Kennedy, American actress and model, wife of John F. Kennedy, Jr. (died 1999)
  • January 8 - Igor Vyazmikin, Russian ice hockey player
  • January 12 - Rob Zombie, American musician, artist, and writer
  • January 13 - Patrick Dempsey, American actor
  • January 14 - Marco Hietala, bassist in the Finnish Metal Band Nightwish
  • January 17 -