February 1967

[February 1], 1967 (Wednesday)

• The federal minimum wage in the United States increased from $1.25 an hour to $1.40 an hour for 30,000,000 workers. An additional 8,000,000 workers in retail work, hotels, restaurants, construction, laundries and hospitals were guaranteed at least $1.00 an hour, to increase to $1.60 by 1971, and 400,000 farm workers were covered by minimum wage for the first time as a new law took effect.
• The British rock group Pink Floyd got its first professional recording contract when it was signed by EMI.
• Jefferson Airplane released their second studio album, Surrealistic Pillow, to critical success. The album is considered to be one of quintessential works to the psychedelic rock and 1960s counterculture eras.
• A the opening of the final two-day Gemini Summary Conference at NASA's Manned Spacecraft Center, MSC Director Robert R. Gilruth announced that the Gemini Program Office was abolished, but that wrapping up the program would require several years of gradually decreasing effort. The conference featured presentation of 22 papers on the results of the final Gemini missions, and discussion of orbital rendezvous and docking operations, extravehicular activities, operational experience, and the results of experiments carried aboard the Gemini missions.
• Born: Meg Cabot, American novelist best known for her books in The Princess Diaries series; in Bloomington, Indiana

  [February 2], 1967 (Thursday)

• At a press conference in New York, California lawyer Gary Davidson announced the formation of the 10-team American Basketball Association, set to be a competitor to the 10-team National Basketball Association. Former NBA star George Mikan was introduced as the first ABA Commissioner. The ten franchises identified were Indianapolis, Minneapolis, New Orleans, New York and Pittsburgh in an eastern division, and Anaheim, Dallas, Houston, Kansas City, and Oakland in a western division. Before the season opener, an 11th team would be added in Louisville, and the Kansas City franchise would be shifted to Denver.
• Bolivia's new constitution was approved by the Bolivian Constituent Assembly of 1966–67.

  [February 3], 1967 (Friday)

• East Germany released four Americans who had been imprisoned in the Communist nation for more than a year and allowed them to cross into West Berlin without completing their full sentences, after negotiation between the city attorneys of both East and West Berlin, in cooperation with U.S. State Department officials. Mary Hellen Battle of Oak Ridge, Tennessee; Moses Herrin of Akron, Ohio; and Frederick Matthews of Ellwood City, Pennsylvania had been arrested in 1965 and charged with helping East Germans escape to the west, while William Lovett of San Francisco had been jailed in the same year after a traffic accident in Leipzig.
• At his recording studio in Holloway, North London, British record producer Joe Meek murdered his landlady, Violet Shenton, after she came by to collect his past due rent. He then committed suicide by shooting himself in the head. Meek was best known for composing the 1962 popular instrumental "Telstar"; he was 35, and Shenton was 52.
• Died: Ronald Ryan, 41, Australian convicted murderer, was hanged at Pentridge Prison in Melbourne, becoming the last man executed in Australia. On December 19, 1965, Ryan had killed George Hodson, a guard at the same prison, during an escape.

  [February 4], 1967 (Saturday)

• The Chinese Communist Party issued its "Circular Concerning the Great Proletariat Cultural Revolution in Elementary Schools", instructing that all teachers and students must return to schools and that classes, suspended since June 1966, must start back after the end of the annual Spring Festival. Emphasis was placed on children studying the Little Red Book, Quotations from Chairman Mao. Schools would resume on March 20.
• Preparing for the possibility of a war between the Soviet Union and China, the Politburo of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union adopted a resolution to station troops in Mongolia, and to increase the Soviet military presence in the Soviet socialist republics bordering China.
• NASA launched the unmanned satellite Lunar Orbiter 3 at 8:17 in the morning from Florida on a mission to photograph the exact sites where crewed Moon missions would be able to land.
• The 1967 World Sportscar Championship season opened with the 24 Hours of Daytona. When the race finished the next day, the Italian Ferrari racers had finished in first, second and third place, with Chris Amon and Lorenzo Bandini alternating the driving duties on the winner. Only one of the six Ford Mark II cars finished the race, behind the first-place car.
• The German Democratic Republic made proposals for an informal agreement by Warsaw Pact representatives to support their position on West Berlin.
• Born: Sergei Grinkov, Soviet skater; in Moscow

  [February 5], 1967 (Sunday)

• General Anastasio Somoza Debayle was elected President of Nicaragua in a contest that his opponents said was marked by fraud, including the confiscation of ballot boxes in some precincts. As the son of one President and the brother of another, he was the third member of the powerful Somoza family to be declared President. According to official returns, Somoza won more than 70% of the vote, with 380,162 ballots, compared to 157,432 for the second-place finisher, Fernando Agüero.
• The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour made its debut on the CBS television network. Hosted by 30-year old Tom Smothers and his 27-year-old brother Dick Smothers, the comedy variety show was a ratings success with the 15-to-24-year-old demographic, and would be renewed for a second season. From its September 1 season premiere onward, it would become more controversial because of its radical political and countercultural views and would be canceled on April 3, 1969.
• Zealous supporters of China's Communist Party Secretary Mao Zedong proclaimed the "Shanghai People's Commune", taking control of China's largest city government from the Shanghai communists and forming their own government, inspired by the Paris Commune of 1871. Zhang Chunqiao and Yao Wenyuan, half of the hated "Gang of Four", were proclaimed the Director and the Deputy Director of the Commune.
• Italy's first guided missile cruiser, the Vittorio Veneto, was launched.
• Born: Freddie Pitcher, Nauruan politician who briefly served as the President of Nauru in the second week of November, 2011

  [February 6], 1967 (Monday)

• WBC world heavyweight boxing champion Muhammad Ali defeated the WBA's heavyweight champ, Ernie Terrell, at the Houston Astrodome. In the publicity leading up to the unification bout, Terrell had repeatedly used Ali's former name, Cassius Clay. Starting in the 8th round, Ali repeatedly shouted at Terrell, "What's my name? What's my name?" as he threw punches. The bout went the full 15 rounds, and Ali won in a unanimous decision. American newspapers remained divided about which name to use and sometimes compromised by using both in headlines. Ali would be stripped of both titles on April 28 for refusing induction into the U.S. Army.
• Albania's Communist Party chairman and de facto leader, Enver Hoxha, made a speech which he called "Programmatic Discourse against Religion and Backward Habits", beginning a campaign to make Albania what he called "the world's first atheist state". By the end of the year, 2,200 churches, mosques and other places of worship were closed or even burned down, clerics were arrested, and professing to have a particular faith was derided as "religious superstition".
• Soviet Premier Alexei Kosygin arrived in London to begin the first of five private conferences with British Prime Minister Harold Wilson.
• Born: Izumi Sakai, popular Japanese female recording artist ; in Kurume, Fukuoka
• Died:
• *Martine Carol, 46, French film actress described as "a French version of America's Marilyn Monroe", died of a heart attack hours after filming scenes for her final movie, Bernard Knowles's Hell is Empty.
• *Henry Morgenthau Jr., 76, U.S. Secretary of the Treasury from 1934 to 1945 during the Great Depression and World War II.

  [February 7], 1967 (Tuesday)

• A fire killed 25 people at an upscale restaurant located on the 11th floor of a hotel in Montgomery, Alabama. About 75 diners and employees were at Dale's Penthouse Restaurant when a fire in the restaurant's cloakroom, "started in a laundry bag apparently by a discarded cigarette or match". During the minutes that it took to locate a fire extinguisher, the flames spread across the thick and flammable carpeting. Many of the dead ignored smoke until they were unable to escape. The Alabama State Legislature would later vote to honor the restaurant's African-American chef, Jesse Williams, and posthumously honor the restaurant's hostess, Rose Doane, for their heroism in directing guests to safety.
• Bushfires in the Australian state of Tasmania claimed 62 lives, destroyed more than 1,200 homes and 1,700 buildings, and burned 2,642.7 square kilometres of land.
• The Chinese government announced that it could no longer guarantee the safety of Soviet diplomats outside the Soviet Embassy building in Beijing.
• The British National Front, an extreme right-wing political party, was founded at Caxton Hall in London.
• Mazenod College, Victoria, opened in Australia.
• Died: David Unaipon, 94, Indigenous Australian author and preacher of the Ngarrindjeri aboriginal nation; Unaipon's portrait would later be placed on the Australian fifty-dollar note.

  [February 8], 1967 (Wednesday)

• Gough Whitlam defeated Dr Jim Cairns and Frank Crean to replace the retiring Arthur Calwell as leader of the federal Australian Labor Party. After getting 32 of the 68 votes on the first ballot, Whitlam got a majority on the third ballot, with 39 votes, and 15 and 14 for Cairns and Crean, respectively. After nearly six years as Leader of the Opposition, Whitlam would become Prime Minister on the ALP's victory in 1972 elections.
• U.S. President Lyndon Johnson sent a letter to North Vietnam's President Ho Chi Minh, by way of Moscow, that began "Dear Mr. President: I am writing to you in the hope that the conflict in Viet Nam can be brought to an end," and outlining his proposal that "I am prepared to order a cessation of bombing against your country... as soon as I am assured that infiltration into South Viet Nam by land and by sea has stopped." President Ho would receive the message on February 10 and prepare a response.
• Born: Adelir Antônio de Carli, Brazilian Catholic priest who died during an attempted cluster ballooning flight on April 20, 2008; in Pelotas, Rio Grande do Sul