November 28, 1966: Soyuz program beginsNovember 30, 1966: Barbados becomes independentNovember 30, 1966: NASA releases first "bird's eye view" of the lunar surfaceNovember 15, 1966: Lovell and Aldrin complete the last Gemini mission
Hospital administrators at the Riverdell Hospital in Oradell, New Jersey, opened an investigation of one of the staff physicians, Dr. Mario Jascalevich, after a hospital surgeon discovered 18 open bottles, most of them almost empty, of the poison curare in Dr. Jascalevich's locker. Suspicion had arisen after nine of Dr. Jascalevich's patients had died after minor surgeries in the previous eleven months, the most recent victim being a 36-year-old mother who had died on October 23 after a Cesarean section. The doctor's explanation for the curare was that he had been "engaged in personal experiments on dogs", and he would continue to practice until 1976, when his indictment for five murders in what would become known as the "Dr. X killings" because of efforts to protect his anonymity during the trial. Jascalevich would be acquitted in 1978, and the case remains unsolved.[1]
Inventor Candido Jacuzzi of Lafayette, California, was granted U.S. Design Patent No. 206,143 for a large "Hydrotherapy Tub" that would bear his family's surname. Jacuzzi, who had immigrated to the United States from Italy at the age of 17, had developed the initial technology, a pump that could create a swirling whirlpool within a standard bathtub, in 1947. The invention had arisen from necessity, to ease the rheumatoid arthritis of Candido's child, who would document the history in a 2005 book.[2]
Twelve firefighters in California were trapped and burned to death while fighting a blaze inside a canyon in the Pacoima area of the San Fernando Valley. All were members of the "El Coriso hot shots", a service crew for the U.S. Forestry Service in the nearby Cleveland National Forest.[3] Ten died in the fire and two died a few days later in hospital from injuries sustained in the blaze. This event is known as the Loop Fire.
George E. Mueller told the Directors of Marshall Space Flight Center (MSFC) and Manned Spacecraft Center (MSC) that he now had a "reasonable plan" to proceed with the Apollo Applications Program (AAP). First, Mueller stated that the Orbital Workshop mission could best achieve AAP objectives by launching the complete airlock, Workshop, and multiple docking adapter uncrewed into a one-year orbit, with activation to be accomplished by a separately launched crew. The first two AAP missions, said Mueller, would thus provide a three-person, 28-day flight and, at the same time, would establish a large clustered space configuration for use during subsequent missions. Secondly, Mueller posited that the ATM to be developed by MSFC could be integrated into an Apollo Lunar Module (LM) ascent stage and could be scheduled for launch during 1968. Mueller planned to present AAP planning along these lines during discussions regarding NASA's planning for human spaceflight in the post-Apollo era.[7]
Israel moved one step closer to developing its own nuclear bomb when its armaments agency, RAFAEL (an acronym based upon Reshut l'pituah Emtzaei L'ehima, Hebrew for "Authority for the Development of Means of Warfare")[8] achieved a successful test implosion of a nuclear device. RAFAEL Director Munya Mador would later describe the date as the moment that "a test of special import" was achieved, representing "unambiguous experimental proof of the efficacy of the system" that "we had waited many years for."[9]
Che Guevara, who had helped Fidel Castro take power in Cuba before setting off on fomenting similar popular uprisings in other nations, arrived in La Paz, Bolivia, with plans to help lead a guerrilla war against the Bolivian government. Clean-shaven, bald and wearing glasses, Guevara, entered the country with a passport from Uruguay as "Adolfo Mena Gonzalez", and was identified as a "Special Envoy of the Organization of American States".[17] Within two months after his arrival, however, he found that the Bolivian Communist Party had no wish to start a violent revolution, and set off to conduct his own fight, eventually being captured and executed in 1967.[18]
The Nobel Committee announced in Stockholm that Professor Robert Mulliken of the United States would receive the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for "his fundamental work concerning chemical bonds and the electronic structure of molecules by the molecular orbital method", and Professor Alfred Kastler of France would get the Nobel Prize in Physics for "the discovery and development of optical methods for studying Hertzian resonances in atoms".[19]
Died:Fritz Baumgarten, 83, German illustrator of children's books
A flash flood killed 149 people when the Arno River swept through the city of Florence in Italy. Shortly after 9:00p.m., the Arno's waters swept through the city. Exacerbated by the ancient city's narrow streets, the water level rose 18ft (5.5m) within two hours.[20] With "a combination of moderately high tide, the runoff of torrential rain from the day before, and a sirocco wind blowing northward up the Adriatic",[21] the river brought the highest recorded water level in Florence, peaking at 22ft (6.7m). Besides the death toll (with 35 of the deaths in Florence itself, and another 114 in the surrounding countryside), the flood of the Arno destroyed millions of dollars worth of Renaissance art masterpieces and rare books, and causing more damage than had been suffered during World War II.[22] The basements and first floor of the renowned Uffizi Gallery were inundated with water and mud, and water filled the Convent of St. Mark and the Florence Cathedral. Damaged also were the holdings of the Santa Croce Basilica, and six million books in the Italian national library and state archives (Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale).[23] The previous recorded high had been exactly 633 years earlier, on November 4, 1333.[24] In Venice, which suffered its worst flooding in several centuries, the rise of the waters to more than six feet above normal "cut the country virtually in half", destroyed gondolas and boats, and damaged many of the foot bridges over the canals.[25]
In Cairo, Prime Minister Yusuf Zuayyin of Syria signed a mutual defense pact with Egypt, committing each nation to coming to the other's aid in the event of a war with Israel. The treaty had been proposed by Egypt's President Gamel Abdel Nasser, who believed that Syrian provocation of Israel would end up bringing the entire Middle East into a war, as an attempt to bring Syria's incursions under control by requiring that the two nations consult with each other before undertaking military action.[26]
Ghana released the Foreign Minister of Guinea, General Joseph Ankrah, and 18 other Guineans who had been held as prisoners in Accra since being taken off of an airliner while on their way to the meeting of the Organization of African Unity (OAU) in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. The arrest and detention of the Guinean delegates had taken place on October 29 after Ghana alleged that many of its nationals were being held as prisoners by Guinea. The government of Ethiopia and the OAU negotiated the release of the Ghana delegation, which then proceeded to the summit in Ethiopia.[27]
KADS 103.5 FM, the first radio station devoted to have programming that consisted entirely of ads, went on the air in Los Angeles, after radio broadcaster Gordon McLendon came up with the idea for a service where listeners would pay for classified advertising ("want ads") to be read over the radio. In March 1968, McLendon would drop the "K-Ads" in favor of an all-music format, and was allowed to change the station name to KOST-FM.[28]
George E. Mueller, NASA Associate Administrator for Manned Space Flight, recommended to Robert C. Seamans, Jr., the lunar module ascent stage/half-rack Apollo telescope mount (LM/ATM) as the baseline configuration for development of the ATM.[7]
Born:Chester Turner, American serial killer and sex offender who was sentenced to death for sexually assaulting and murdering fourteen women in Los Angeles between 1987 and 1998; in Warren, Arkansas[29]
Died:Dietrich von Choltitz, 71, Nazi German military governor of Paris in World War II. After being installed as Military Governor on August 2, 1944, General von Choltitz defied a direct order, from Adolf Hitler, to destroy Paris rather than to let it fall to the Allied invasion force. Instead, he surrendered the city "relatively intact" when troops arrived, and was ostracized after his post-war return home. A fellow general once said, "He has more friends in France than he has in Germany." His self-published 1950 autobiography, Is Paris Burning?, inspired a bestselling book by the same name.[30]
Lunar Orbiter 2 was launched by the United States from Cape Kennedy at 6:21p.m. local time.[31] After initially orbiting at 122 miles (196 kilometers) above the surface, the probe was guided to a lower orbit of only 30 miles (50km) over the Moon by November 15, and during the week of November 18 to November 25, took 609 high resolution photographs of landing sites.[32]
Thirty-eight African nations unanimously passed a resolution at the OAU summit in Addis Ababa, demanding that the United Kingdom use force to retake control of its former colony of Rhodesia, which had declared its independence with a white minority government in 1965.[33]
Died:Hugh Fraser, 63, Scottish baron and entrepreneur who created the House of Fraser department store chain in the United Kingdom.
Saturn/Apollo Applications Deputy Director John H. Disher notified Apollo Applications Program Managers at MSC, Kennedy Space Center (KSC), and MSFC of the approved mission sequence for missions 209 through 212.
SAA-209: crewed block II CSM flight of 28-day duration.
SAA-210: launch of the uncrewed airlock Orbital Workshop multiple docking adapter combination.
SAA-211: crewed CSM flight of 56-day duration.
SAA-212: uncrewed lunar module-Apollo telescope mount flight.[7]
Levi Eshkol, the Prime Minister of Israel (as well as its Minister of Defense), announced the end of military government over the Arab-minority regions of the nation in Galilee (Al-Jalil), the Negev (Naqab), and the "Little Triangle" (HaMeshulash or al-Muthallath). The Knesset gave its approval by a 48–7 vote, and military administration formally terminated on December 1.[47]
The scheduled launch of Gemini 12 was postponed by malfunctions, first from November 9 to November 10 and then to November 11.[48]
Guinea's President Sekou Toure ordered all Peace Corps volunteers to leave the African nation within one week.[49]
Died:Bernhard Zondek, 75, German-born Israeli gynecologist, developer of the first reliable pregnancy test
In one of the variations of the "Paul is dead" rumors that would begin in 1967 following the retirement of The Beatles from live performances, the story would later be spread that Paul McCartney had been killed in an auto accident on November 9, 1966.[51][52] The rumor, which aided the sale of Beatles records, would ultimately be debunked by the Beatles' press agent on October 21, 1969,[53] followed by an interview by BBC reporter Chris Drake and photographs published in LIFE magazine's November 7, 1969 issue.
On the third round of balloting, Kurt Georg Kiesinger was selected as the successor to Chancellor Ludwig Erhard as leader of West Germany's CDU/CSU party, ahead of rival candidate Rainer Barzel. Leadership of West Germany's majority party meant that Kiesinger would become the next Chancellor of West Germany when Erhard resigned on November 30.[58]
November 11, 1966: Astronauts Lovell and Aldrin commemorate the end of Project Gemini
Generalissimo Francisco Franco issued a general pardon to everyone who had been convicted of political crimes during the Spanish Civil War, declaring an amnesty for those Spanish residents who had been with the Republicans who had been defeated by Franco's Falangist troops. It was unclear whether the amnesty extended to tens of thousands of Republican fighters who had gone into exile after Franco became Spain's leader.[60] At the same time, Franco's cabinet also approved a decree that would dissolve the "Special Commission on Political Crimes" effective December 31.[61]
Born:Stewart Wilken, South African serial killer who used the alias "Boetie Boer"; in Boksburg
November 12, 1966: Demonstrators protesting outside a nightclub during the curfew riots
The Sunset Strip curfew riots began in West Hollywood, California as 1,000 demonstrators, many of them hippies and other young people, erupted in protest against the strict 10:00 p.m. curfew and strictly-enforced loitering laws. Earlier in the year, the city council had implemented a handful of measures, including the curfew to prevent people from entering into night clubs late at night. Celebrities, including Jack Nicholson and Peter Fonda joined the protesters in the demonstrations against the city government.[64][65]
Inspired by the press coverage of the University of Texas tower shooting, an 18-year-old Robert Benjamin Smith walked into the Rose-Mar College of Beauty in Mesa, Arizona and murdered four women and a 3-year-old girl. Smith told police that "he was inspired by mass murderers Charles Whitman and Richard Speck" who had carried out mass murders earlier the same year. Smith also told police that "he simply sought infamy and wanted to be known and remembered". Police said afterward that if Smith had walked into the shop half an hour later, the death toll would have been much higher when more student beauticians and customers normally would have arrived.[66] He would be convicted of the five murders on October 24, 1967, and sentenced to execution in Arizona's gas chamber,[67] but the conviction would be reversed on appeal. Tried and convicted again, he would be sentenced to life imprisonment in 1972.[68]
The legend of the "Mothman" began when five grave diggers in Clendenin, West Virginia, said that they had witnessed what "looked like a brown human being flying out of the trees".[69] A similar sighting by another group of people, in another part of West Virginia, would happen three days later.
A land mine killed three Israeli paratroopers, and injured six other soldiers, as their convoy was driving on patrol north of the town of Arad near the West Bank and the border with Jordan.[70] The incident would lead to an attack by Israel against Jordan.
A total solar eclipse took place, and was observed by scientists in Peru, Bolivia, Argentina and Brazil.[71] For the first time, photos of the eclipse were taken from outer space as Edwin Aldrin made photographs while the cockpit was open on Gemini 12.[72]
The first of two periods of standup EVA began at 19 hours 29 minutes into the Gemini 12 flight and lasted for 2 hours 29 minutes.[48]
Tanks of the Israeli Army swept across the border from Israel and attacked three towns located 2 miles (3.2km) inside Jordan. Four Royal Jordanian Air ForceHawker Hunter aircraft attacked an Israeli unit that was engaged in blowing up buildings in as-Samu, Jordan, a town that the terrorist group Fatah had used for staging commando attacks into Israel. Israeli Air Force aircraft responded, shot down one of the Jordanian planes and drove off the other three during the dogfight.[74] The other villages attacked by Israel were Hirbeit Karkaz and Jimba. Jordan's ambassador to the United Nations told reporters that 13 Jordanian soldiers and 13 civilians had been killed in the attack, which came the day after four Israeli Army personnel had been killed by a land mine on their side of the border. Prime Minister Levi Eshkol of Israel said later, "We trust that the lesson will not go unheeded in Damascus."[75][76]
During a more than two-hour umbilical EVA which began at 42 hours 48 minutes into the Gemini 12 mission, astronaut Aldrin attached a 100-foot (30m) tether from the GATV to the spacecraft docking bar. He spent part of the period at the spacecraft adapter, evaluating various restraint systems and performing various basic tasks. The tether evaluation began at 47 hours 23 minutes after liftoff, with the crew undocking from the GATV. The tether tended to remain slack, although the crew believed that the two vehicles did slowly attain gravity-gradient stabilization. The crew jettisoned the docking bar and released the tether at 51 hours 51 minutes.[48]
Died:Dick Atkins, 30, collided with Don Branson's overturned car the previous day[78]
Jack L. Warner, the co-founder and largest stockholder of Warner Bros. Pictures, signed a contract to sell his one-third interest in the motion picture company to Seven Arts Productions, a Toronto-based distributor of films for television. Warner's 1,573,861 million shares of stock were sold for twenty dollars apiece,[79] for a total of $31,477,220.[80]
Despite having been away from boxing for more than 15 months while recovering from being shot by a police officer, Cleveland Williams fought world heavyweight champion Cassius Clay (later Muhammad Ali) in front of a crowd of 35,460 fight fans at the Houston Astrodome. Williams, who had worked his way back to health after four surgeries, a broken hip and the loss of a kidney,[81] was felled in the third round after one of the most unusual career comebacks in athletic history.[82] Dale Witton, the highway patrolman who had shot Williams in 1964, had been given tickets to two ringside seats by the challenger, who said, "I have no hard feelings for him."[83]
A U.S. Air Force C-141 Starlifter, part of the 86th Military Airlift Squadron and piloted by Captain Howard Geddes, became the first jet aircraft to land in Antarctica, touching down on a runway carved out of the ice, at Williams Field on McMurdo Sound. The jet had completed a roundtrip flight of the 2,200-mile (3,543-km) each way to and from Christchurch, New Zealand.[84][85]
The Italian cargo ship Marina di Sapri struck the sunken wreckage of the SS Ada, which had gone down on November 6 in the Adriatic Sea, and sank as well.
The second standup EVA of the Gemini 12 mission lasted 55 minutes, ending at 67 hours 1 minute ground elapsed time.[48]
The second and most famous "Mothman" sighting took place when a pair of married couples in Point Pleasant, West Virginia reported seeing "a flying man with a 10-foot wingspan who flies after cars at 100 miles per hour".[87] The experience of Steve and Mary Mallette and Roger and Linda Scarberry, along with subsequent sightings, would lead to a 1975 bestselling book by John Keel, The Mothman Prophecies.[88] In 2002, a horror film of the same title would star Richard Gere and Debra Messing as the first people to witness the Mothman.[89]
Maurice J. Raffensperger, Earth Orbital Mission Studies Director in NASA Headquarters, spelled out revised criteria for design of a one-year Workshop in space:
This "interim space station" should be ready for launch in January 1971. The design had to be a minimum-cost structure capable of a two-year survival in low Earth orbit. (Raffensperger speculated that a "dry-launched" S-IVB stage could be employed without major structural changes.)
Initial vehicle subsystems were to consist of flight-qualified Apollo and Manned Orbiting Laboratory hardware capable of one-year operation.
Operation of the station during the second year was to be accomplished by means of a long-duration "developmental systems" module that would be attached to the original space station structure (and would be developed separately as part of the long-duration space station program).
Initial launch of the station would be with a Saturn V (and include CSM).
This interim space station must be suited for operation in either zero-g or with artificial gravity (using the "simplest, least expensive" approach).
Cost of the hardware must not exceed $200 million (excluding launch vehicle and the long-duration subsystems module).
Cargo resupply and crew changes were to be carried out using Apollo Applications-modified CSMs (limited to three Saturn IBs per year).[7]
In a major AAP mission planning session at Houston, Texas, George M. Low and Eberhard F. M. Rees, Deputy Center Directors at MSC and MSFC, respectively, and Robert F. Thompson and Leland F. Belew, the respective AAP Managers at those Centers, established a joint approach for implementing missions identified with the first four AAP flights. Their planning saw two separate AAP missions, each comprising two Saturn IB dual launches: (1) S/AA 209–210, primarily a crewed Workshop operation; (2) S/AA 211–212, a flight consisting of solar astronomy and orbital assembly operations and lasting up to 56 days.[7]
U.S. doctor Sam Sheppard was acquitted in his second trial for the murder of his pregnant wife in 1954. The jury of seven men and five women spent nearly 12 hours deliberating before returning their verdict of not guilty at 10:18p.m.[93] Sheppard, who had been in the Ohio State Penitentiary from 1955 until he was allowed to post a bond in 1964 while his conviction was being reviewed, was eligible to have his osteopathic medicine license restored.
In order to help pay for an estimated 800 million dollars for reconstruction from flooding, the cabinet of Prime Minister Aldo Moro of Italy voted for a 10 percent increase in income taxes for one year. The tax boost was expected to raise $264,000,000 and was supplemented by a 6 cent per gallon increase on the price of gasoline.[96]
The Earth's orbit took it into the path of the debris of Comet Tempel–Tuttle, providing the most spectacular display of meteors in 133 years. The Leonids shower peaked with a 20-minute display that began at 1155 UTC (4:55 in the morning at the Kitt Peak National Observatory in Arizona), where the meteors passed through the atmosphere at the rate of 40 per second.[97] The spectacle, anticipated as the "Show of the Century" and the largest shower of record since the Leonids of November 12 and 13, 1833.[98] However, overcast skies blocked the view for millions of other observers in the United States and Japan.[99] The 1966 event is still described as "the last primary maximum" of the Leonids.[100]
Reita Faria, a medical student who had won the Femina Miss India title, was crowned Miss World in London, becoming the first person from India to win the title. Faria told reporters that she had never appeared in a bathing suit prior to the world pageant. The 1966 competition marked the first time that a Communist nation sent a contestant, and Mikica Marinovic of Yugoslavia was the runner up.[101][102]
U.S. Air Force Colonel James "Jabby" Jabara, 43, American aviator, the first American jet fighter ace, was killed in a car crash along with his 16-year-old daughter, when the car in which he was riding overturned on the Florida Turnpike. Jabara, a veteran of World War II, the Korean War and the Vietnam War, had three distinguished flying crosses, 19 air medals and two distinguished service crosses.[106][107]
Adem Reka, 38, Albanian dockworker who was proclaimed a "Hero of Socialist Labor" in Albania after he was killed saving his fellow workers from a loading crane vessel that capsized in a violent storm. A statue would be erected in his honor at Durrës, pilgrimages were made to his shrine, and a postage stamp would be issued by the government for Reka, who was virtually unknown outside of the Communist nation.[108]
November 18, 1966: Archbishop Hannan announces end of meatless Fridays for CatholicsNicholas I, Pope from 858 to 867
Roman Catholics in the United States would no longer be required to abstain from meat on Fridays, as a national conference of Roman Catholic cardinals, archbishops and bishops voted in Washington to revoke a requirement of abstinence that had been in effect for 11 centuries. As part of the recognition of Friday as a day of penance, Pope Nicholas I had decreed in the 9th century that adherents to Roman Catholic faith would be required to abstain from the eating of meat, although the consumption of fish on Fridays was permitted. Friday, December 2, 1966, would mark the first day that 45,000,000 American Roman Catholics could consume beef, chicken, pork, or other meats without violating Church doctrine. Philip Hannan, Archbishop of New Orleans, and Clarence George Issenmann, the Bishop of Cleveland, jointly made the announcement at a press conference.[109]
Baseball pitching legend Sandy Koufax surprised the sporting world when he confirmed a report by San Diego Union reporter Phil Collier that he was retiring from the sport at the height of his career, because of severe arthritis in his elbow. The story was front-page news, particularly in papers that covered Koufax's Los Angeles Dodgers team. Koufax, at the time the highest paid pitcher in the game's history, told a press conference, "I've had a few too many shots and too many pills because of my arm trouble."[110] For the preceding 15 months, Collier had been keeping the secret that Koufax planned to quit baseball following the 1966 season, and Koufax returned the favor by giving Collier the chance to break the story.[111]
U.S. Air Force Major William J. Knight flew the North American X-15 to a record speed of Mach 6.33 (4,250mph, 6,840km/h).[112] Major Knight began the flight after he had climbed to an altitude of 98,000 feet (30,000m), after the X-15 had been released by a B-52 over Mud Lake, Nevada, and covered a distance of 637 miles (1,025km) in nine minutes.
J. Pemble Field, Jr., Director, Saturn/Apollo Applications Control, notified program officials in NASA Headquarters of Acting Director David M. Jones' decision to designate AAP missions in numerical sequence, starting with AAP-1 (rather than the former designation of S/AA-209).[7]
The 10–10 tie
Billed as "The Game of the Century" for college football,[113] the meeting between the nation's two unbeaten and untied teams, #1 ranked Notre Dame Fighting Irish and the #2 ranked Michigan State Spartans, ended anti-climatically when the teams played to a 10–10 tie.[114] Televised nationally, and witnessed by more viewers than any American football game, college or pro, before that time, the game ended in controversy. Notre Dame took over on its own 30-yard line with a little more than a minute left to play, and instead of risking a turnover, Notre Dame's coach ordered the team to run out the clock to preserve the tie, rather than to go for the win.[115]
The HARP gun
Project HARP, the High Altitude Research Project and a collaboration of the U.S. and Canadian armed forces, achieved its highest success when it used a large cannon ("the HARP gun") to fire a projectile into outer space. The "shell" was the Martlet 3 rocket, and the cannon, designed by Gerald Bull, sent it to an altitude of 178.6 kilometers (111 miles). As a military historian would note in 2011, "It was, and remains, a world record for any fired projectile."[116]
A planned invasion of Haiti by several hundred well-armed exiles was halted at the last moment after an intervention by the United States government. The force, led by Rolando Masferrer and Father Jean Baptiste Georges, was preparing to embark from Florida and was prepared to overthrow the government of Haitian dictator Francois "Papa Doc" Duvalier, and had raised $300,000 in donations, filled several warehouses in Miami with weapons, and had "a number of ships and four or five planes including one B-26". The B-26 bomber was prepared to bomb the capital, Port-au-Prince, in advance of the invasion. U.S. government intervention had initially been held off because the exiles' plan was for "converting Haiti to a base for Cuban exile operations against Fidel Castro's communist Cuba".[117]
More than 40 people were killed near Durban, South Africa, when their bus plummeted 200 feet (61m) down an embankment and landed in the rain-swollen Mdloti River. Another 31 were injured but rescued alive from the crash.[118]
Born:
Gail Devers, American track and field athlete who overcame Graves' disease to become the women's world champion in both the 100-meter dash and the 100-meter hurdles, winning three Olympic gold medals, and world championships in 1993, 1995, 1997 and 1999; in Seattle
Shmuley Boteach, American rabbi and author best known for the book Kosher Sex: A Recipe for Passion and Intimacy (1999) and the film Kosher Jesus (2012); in Los Angeles
Died:
Mendel Balberyszski, 72, Lithuanian-Polish historian and survivor of the Holocaust
The 17th Chess Olympiad concluded in Havana, Cuba. The Soviet team won its eighth consecutive gold medal, with 39½ points to 34½ for the silver medalist, the United States. Tigran Petrosian of Russia had the highest winning percentage (88.46%) from 11½ wins out of 13 games, narrowly edging Bobby Fischer of the U.S. (88.23%) with 15 points out of 17 games.[120]
The photographs of "Blair Cuspids", "an unusual arrangement of seven spirelike objects of varying heights" at the western edge of the Mare Tranquillitatis that is cited in pseudoscience as the product of extraterrestrial intelligence.[121] Reactions to the photo varied.[122]
Cabaret, one of the most popular musicals on Broadway, opened at the Broadhurst Theatre. In its initial run, the Tony Award-winning Kander and Ebb production would have 1,165 performances, and a 1998 revival would be staged 2,377 times.[123]
In what would later be described as "the first instance of a spacecraft imaging an archaeological site on the Moon", Lunar Orbiter 2 photographed Ranger 8 and its impact point in Mare Tranquillitatis (the "Sea of Tranquility").[124]
In Togo, the nation's army crushed an attempted coup against the government of President Nicolas Grunitzky. Calling themselves "Congress Unite Togolaise", a 25-member group of insurgents seized the radio station in the capital, Lomé. Noe Kutuklui, the coup leader and the group's spokesman, interrupted the music and told listeners, "The revolution has just begun. The Togolese people want their rights. The people want the immediate dissolution of the unpopular Grunitzky government and of parliament," then promised that "new and democratic elections will be held." By noon, the Togolese Army had taken back the station and Lieutenant Colonel Etienne Eyadema called on demonstrators to "go back to work".[129]
All 25 passengers and three crew of an Aden AirwaysDC-3 were killed in the assassination of Amir Mohammed bin Said, the deputy ruler of the Sultanate of Wahidi in the Federation of South Arabia. A terrorist bomb exploded in the baggage compartment of airplane before it took off from Maifa'a on a flight to Khormaksar. When the plane reached an altitude of 6,000 feet (1,800m), the bomb detonated.[134][135]
A group of businessmen in Seattle held a press conference to announce their plans to create a 976-acre (1.5 square mile) artificial island, followed by a micronation called "Taluga", on the Cortes Bank, 97 miles off of the coast of San Diego, California. The plans of the O.S.D. Company were to spend $8,800,000 to transport rock and topsoil from Mexico to the site, followed by another $5,000,000 for infrastructure and buildings. The new nation, placed outside of U.S. territorial waters, would have a capital ("Aurora"), and a resort area ("Triana") and a port ("Bonaventura").[136] The plans for Taluga and similar artificial island ventures would become moot in April when a federal district attorney, Edwin Miller, pointed out that the Cortes Bank was on the continental shelf off the shore of the United States, and therefore American territory under the Rivers and Harbors Act of 1899.[137]
Smog began to cover New York City and its surrounding areas during the Thanksgiving holiday weekend, filling the city's air with damaging levels of several toxic pollutants.[138][139][140]
Died:Ramón Amaya Amador, 50, Honduran writer and journalist; in crash of TABSO Flight 101[143]
During an ongoing smog event, New York City was placed under a "first-stage alert" by New York Governor Nelson Rockefeller because of heavy air pollution that had been held over the metropolitan area by a stagnant air mass. Residents were ordered to drive "only when necessary", to maintain minimum temperatures in all buildings heated by oil or coal, to avoid open fires and to not run incinerators until the alert ended. The alert was triggered by smog that had risen to 400% above normal levels on Thanksgiving Day, measured at 0.5 parts per million of sulphur dioxide, nine parts per million of carbon monoxide and 7.5 parts per million of haze for four consecutive hours.[144][145] The days of smog were later credited with causing 169 additional deaths in New York City, lower than the estimate for a prior period in November 1953.[146]
Led by Prime Minister Lester B. Pearson, the Cabinet of Canada voted to create the Order of Canada. Pearson would state later that "I pointed out to my colleagues that nearly all countries of the world, excepting Switzerland, had some system of honors and awards" for civilians. Although the Canada Medal had been created in 1943 for that purpose, it had never been awarded (and never would be, after the Cabinet voted to abolish it).[149]
At Empire Stadium in Vancouver, the 54th Grey Cup was "Roughriders vs. Rough Riders" as the Saskatchewan Roughriders broke a 14–14 tie in the final quarter with two touchdowns and a single for a 29–14 win over the Ottawa Rough Riders, winning the Cup for the first time in team history.[150]
Norval Baptie, 87, Canadian-born American professional skater. In 1912, he held the world records for speed skating at 440 yards, one-half mile, and one mile (2 minutes, 8 seconds).[152]
Voters in Uruguay turned out for what the Associated Press called "just about the most complicated election Latin America has yet seen", a referendum on the nation's constitution. In addition to deciding among five possibilities (keeping the existing council of government, or four separate presidential proposals marked by an orange, yellow, pink or gray ballot), the voters also had to decide on an alternative set of leaders, depending on which system went into place. This meant voting for nine members of the National Council, if the council system remained, as well as for a President of Uruguay in case a presidential system was approved. Moreover, the voters had to pick their representatives in both houses of the legislature, provincial executives and legislators, mayors and local officials, and a ballot had to have at least 12 choices in order to be valid. Finally, the vote would not count unless at least 35% of the registered voters participated and unless one of the choices won an absolute majority.[153] Ultimately, the old system was rejected, the "Reforma Naranja" (orange proposal for a presidential system) got 65% of the vote, and Óscar Diego Gestido was selected as the nation's first President since 1951.[154][155]
The Washington Redskins defeated the New York Giants 72–41 in the highest scoring game in NFL history.[156] Washington led 13-0 after one quarter, 34–14 at halftime, and 48-28 after three quarters. The 113 points came from 16 touchdowns, 14 conversions and, with three seconds left, a field goal by Charlie Gogolak, on orders from Redskins coach Otto Graham. "In a crazy game like this," Graham said, "what's another three points?"[157]
William J. Barnes shot a rookie Philadelphia policeman, Walter Barclay, Jr., during a burglary, leaving Barclay partially paralyzed.[158] Almost 41 years later, after Barclay's death from a urinary tract infection on August 19, 2007, Barnes would be indicted for murdering a police officer. A jury would acquit Barnes in 2010, concluding that the prosecution failed to prove a direct link between the 1966 shooting and the 2007 infection.[159]
Reclusive billionaire Howard Hughes moved from Boston to Las Vegas, where he leased the top two floors of the Desert Inn. Never venturing downstairs, Hughes would buy the hotel in 1967 and live there for several years before moving onward.[160][161][162]
King Ntare V of Burundi was overthrown by his Prime Minister, Army Captain Michel Micombero, who had helped him plot the coup that deposed Ntare's father, King Mwambutsa IV, less than five months earlier. The 18-year-old King and the 26-year-old Prime Minister had been friends when Micombero suggested that they take over the nation together. Micombero, a member of the Tutsi tribe, abolished the monarchy and declared himself to be the first President of Burundi. He would then begin a campaign to purge all Hutu tribesmen from the government, ultimately leading to the First Burundian Genocide.[163][164] The coup was bloodless, as King Ntare V was out of the country, visiting Kinshasa in the Congo.[165]
The Soyuz program began in the Soviet Union with the unmanned launch of a new series of space vehicles. In order to disguise the mission's true purpose, the launch was initially referred to as Kosmos 133.[171] Eventually, the first capsule would be automatically destroyed in orbit after experiencing problems with its orientation system.[172] Nearly fifty years later, Soyuz rockets would continue to be flown, by the Russian Space Agency, as a shuttle to the International Space Station.[173]
SS Daniel J. Morrell
The Great Lakesore freighterSSDaniel J. Morrell sank in a storm on Lake Huron, killing 28 of its 29 crewmen. Gale-force winds broke the 600-foot (180m) ship into two sections at 2:30 in the morning near Harbor Beach, Michigan, before a distress call could be sent. Dennis Hale, the lone survivor, was rescued after 36 hours in a life raft during near freezing weather after the ship failed to arrive as scheduled. He and three other crewmen had been the only ones able to get onto a life raft before the Morrell sank, but his companions died of hypothermia.[174]
Confucius (551 BC–479 BC)
Twenty-four centuries after his death in 479 BC, the tomb of the Chinese philosopher Confucius (K'ung Fu-tzu) was destroyed by members of the Red Guards in Qufu in China's Shandong Province. The teachings of Confucius had come under criticism during the Cultural Revolution as a symbol of China's feudal past, and the students destroyed his statue and a memorial tablet, then dug up his grave "only to find nothing inside it".[175]
The existence of "Gatorade" was revealed to readers of the Miami Herald by sports columnist Neil Amdur, after Amdur had noticed that the University of Florida Gators football team had been drinking from what appeared to be milk cartons. Surprised, Amdur asked coach Ray Graves, "Are you giving your players milk?" and Graves showed him the beverage and said, "No. We've been fooling around with this stuff for a while now," then told him about the invention of Florida medical professor Robert Cade. Days after the game, Amdur's story, headlined "Florida's Pause That Refreshes: 'Nip of Gatorade'".[176] The story was soon spread nationwide by UPI about the team's "bitter beverage... designed to keep the players from wearing down as they lose body fluid on a hot day",[177] and would be marketed nationwide in 1967.
The United States, South Vietnam, and their other allies in the Vietnam War agreed to a proposal from the Viet Cong and from North Vietnam for three cease fires to coincide with holidays. All fighting would halt from 7:00a.m., Christmas Eve, until 7:00a.m. on December 26, as well as from the morning of New Year's Eve until the morning of January 2, 1967. LIn addition, there would be a four-day ceasefire during the 1967 Tết holidays, celebrated in both North Vietnam and South Vietnam, that marked the traditional start of the Vietnamese new year, with a truce to last between February 8 and February 12, 1967.[178] A similar cease-fire a year later, during the Tết holiday of 1968, would be broken by the Viet Cong during the Tet Offensive.
At a meeting of the American Medical Association in Las Vegas, Dr. Ralph Greenson, a psychiatry professor at UCLA, told his fellow physicians of a university survey that found that more than 100 people wanted to change their gender. "What is shocking," said Dr. Greenson, "is that this is more widespread than was believed." He also noted that American males were becoming "indifferent to sex", blaming the increased assertiveness of women as something that "repulses some males". "It's horrifying," he told his audience, "a danger to the future of the human race. Our only hope is that basic instincts will eventually win out, that a true equality of the sexes will emerge, and sex will be fun again."[179]
Barbados was granted independence from the United Kingdom after 341 years, following the passage of the Barbados Independence Act 1966.[180] Present at the flag raising ceremonies in Bridgetown were Prince Edward, Duke of Kent, appearing on behalf of his cousin, Queen Elizabeth II, and Earl Warren, Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court.[181] Prime Minister Errol Barrow said that he wanted his Caribbean island nation to be the first British Commonwealth Member to join the Organization of American States.
NASA released three high resolution photographs, taken by Lunar Explorer 2, that showed the depth of lunar craters, giving an unprecedented "bird's-eye view" that had been taken on November 23 of details of the Copernicus crater. The crater itself, 60 miles (97km) in diameter and 2 miles (3.2km) deep, can be seen clearly from the Earth with binoculars. The photos also showed the Montes Carpatus mountain range and the Gay-Lussac promontory.[182]
NASA Headquarters announced the appointment of Charles W. Mathews, Gemini Program Manager at MSC, to the post of Director of Saturn/Apollo Applications, replacing Acting Director David M. Jones. Mathews assumed direction of the agency's effort to use Apollo vehicles to extend scientific and technical exploration of space.[7]
LeoGrande, William M.; Kornbluh, Peter (2014). Back Channel to Cuba: The Hidden History of Negotiations between Washington and Havana. University of North Carolina Press. pp.107–108.
This article incorporates text from this source, which is in the public domain. Grimwood, James M.; Hacker, Barton C.; Vorzimmer, Peter J. "PART III (B) Flight Tests January 1966 through February 1967". Project Gemini Technology and Operations - A Chronology. NASA Special Publication-4002. NASA. Retrieved 14 March 2023.
Michael J. Kennedy, Division and Consensus: The Politics of Cross-border Relations in Ireland, 1925-1969 (Institute of Public Administration, 2000) p279
Priore 2007, p.11 harvnb error: no target: CITEREFPriore2007 (help): "...across the span of three months, from November1966 to January1967, a series of curfews, crackdowns, and harassment by local authorities resulted in unrest, youth riots, and, ultimately, the closing of the clubs themselves."
Tucker, Spencer C.; Roberts, Priscilla (2008). "Samu Raid, West Bank". The Encyclopedia of the Arab-Israeli Conflict: A Political, Social, and Military History. ABC-CLIO. p.888.
"Arosemena Gómez, Nuevo Presidente de Ecuador" [Arosemena Gómez, New President of Ecuador]. El Tiempo (in Spanish). Bogotá, Colombia. November 17, 1966. p.1.
"From Religious to Secular and Back Again: Christian Pilgrimage Space in Albania", by Konstantinos Giakoumis, in Pilgrimage, Politics and Place-Making in Eastern Europe: Crossing the Borders (Ashgate Publishing, 2014) p111
"Six Mysterious Statuesque Shadows Photographed on the Moon by Orbiter", The Washington Post, November 22, 1966; "Orbiter 2 Pictures 'Columns' on Moon", The New York Times, November 23, 1966; "Orbiter Records Strange Pillars", Fitchburg (MA) Sentinel, November 23, 1966, p13; "Orbiter photos reveal tall skinny pyramids", Redlands (CA) Daily Facts, November 23, 1966, p5; "Protuberances Rise on Moon Like Stalagmites", Winona (MN) Daily News, November 23, 1966, p2; "What Are Those Things Up There On The Moon?", Lawton (OK) Constitution, November 23, 1966, p4
"A Changing of Sex by Surgery Begun at Johns Hopkins— Johns Hopkins Becomes First U.S. Hospital to Undertake Program of Sex Change Through Surgery". The New York Times. November 21, 1966. p.1.
"Smog Here Nears the Danger Point; Patients Warned; Air Gets Purer During Day, but Pollution Rises Again to a High in Evening", The New York Times, November 25, 1966, p.1
Smog would continue to affect the city's air until November 26."Smog Swept Away by Cool Air Mass; Emergency Ended", The New York Times, November 27, 1966, p.1