January 1966 in History

Events in History

Jan 1 Military coup by Col. Jean-Bédel Bokassa in Central African Republic leads to his dictatorship

Jan 8 Georges Pompidou re-appointed French Prime Minister and forms new government

Jan 9 Polish government denies exit visa to Cardinal Wyszynski, barring him from travel abroad
Jan 10 India & Pakistan sign Tashkent Declaration peace accord
Jan 10 The Georgia House of Representatives votes 184-12 to deny Julian Bond his seat as a result of his opposition to the Vietnam War
Jan 11 550 die in landslides in mountains behind Rio de Janeiro after rain
Jan 12 12 day NYC transit strike ends
Jan 12 3 British Members of Parliament are attacked in a hotel in Salisbury, Rhodesia (now Harare, Zimbabwe)

Jan 12 LBJ says US should stay in South Vietnam until communist aggression ends

Jan 13 Robert C. Weaver, 1st Black person selected for cabinet by US President Lyndon B. Johnson (Housing and Urban Development - HUD)
Jan 13 US performs nuclear test at Nevada Test Site
Jan 15 Kaduna Nzeogwu and Emmanuel Ifeajuna lead a coup d'état in Nigeria, the Prime Minister of Nigeria and other senior political and military figures are killed
Jan 15 The First Nigerian Republic is overthrown in a military coup d'etat
Jan 16 Harold R Perry becomes 2nd black Roman Catholic bishop in US
Jan 16 Johnson Aguiyi-Ironsi seizes power in the chaos caused by a military coup and becomes the Nigerian Head of State
Jan 17 B-52/KC-135 tankers crash near Spanish coast at Palomares, 7 die

Jan 17 Martin Luther King Jr. opens campaign in Chicago

Jan 18 Robert C. Weaver, confirmed as 1st Black US presidential cabinet member (Housing and Urban Development - HUD)

Jan 19 Indira Gandhi elected India's 4th Prime Minister

Jan 24 117 passengers are killed after an Air India Boeing-707 plane crashes into Mont Blanc, France
Jan 26 The Beaumont Children go missing from Glenelg Beach near Adelaide, South Australia.
Jan 29 Snow storm in north east US kills 165
Jan 29 US male Figure Skating championship won by Scott Allen
Jan 30 -19°F (-28°C), Corinth, Mississippi (state record)
Jan 30 -27°F (-33°C), New Market, Alabama (state record)
Jan 31 Belgian state police kills 2 striking mine workers
Jan 31 USSR launches Luna 9 towards Moon

Jan 7 Carolyn Bessette Kennedy, American publicist & wife of John Kennedy Jr., born in White Plains, New York (d. 1999)
Jan 10 Steve Kramer, American politician, born in Baltimore, Maryland
Jan 13 Tabitha Stevens, fictional character (Bewitched)
Jan 21 Katrine Michaelsen, Gentokte Denmark, Miss Denmark (1984)
Jan 25 Chet Culver, American politician (Governor of Iowa), born in Washington, D.C.

Jan 9 an American patient in secret medical trials who survived the highest known radiation dose in a human, dies of heart disease at 79

Jan 10 Hermann Kasack, German writer (Die Stadt hinter dem Strom), dies at 69
Jan 11 Alberto Giacometti, Swiss-French painter and sculptor, dies at 64
Jan 11 Lal Bahadur Shastri, Indian politician and Prime Minister of India (1964-66), dies under suspicious circumstances at 61
Jan 14 Sergei Korolev, Soviet Russian rocket engineer & spacecraft designer (Sputnik; Voskhod), dies during surgery at 59
Jan 16 Margarete Susman, German-Jewish writer, dies at 91
Jan 17 Vincent J Donehue, director (Lonelyhearts), dies of Hodgkin's at 50
Jan 18 Kathleen Norris, American novelist and newspaper columnist, dies at 85
Jan 19 Frank Foyston, Canadian NHL Hall of Famer (Seattle), dies at 74
Jan 24 Homi J. Bhabha, Indian nuclear physicist, dies at 56
Jan 29 Josef Winckler, German dentist and writer (Tolle Bomberg), dies at 84