July 1966

[July 1], 1966 (Friday)

• The League of Communists of Yugoslavia, the nation's Communist Party organization, began a purge of members, firing Vice-President Aleksandar Ranković, who had been viewed as a likely successor to President Josip Broz Tito, but was accused of wiretapping Tito's home. Dropped also was Svetislav Stefanovic, former Deputy Prime Minister and a former director of Yugoslavia's secret police, the UDBA, who was fired from his post in the Central Committee. The meeting of the Central Committee took place at the Hotel Istra on the island of Brioni, where Tito resided during the summer.
• The Medicare program went into operation in the United States, as the new federal health insurance program for people 65 years and older started. Patients who were already in American hospitals became the first people to be transferred over to the new system. That date, and the implementation of the Medicaid program for low-income families and disabled younger individuals six months later, one author notes, "were the key dates after which Americans began outspending the rest of the world on health care".
• The first American attempt to put a satellite into lunar orbit failed when Explorer 33's speed was calculated to be off by 17/10,000ths. The probe needed a velocity of and was too fast. In that an orbit around the Moon could no longer be achieved, ground control fired braking rockets and set the Explorer 33 into a wide Earth orbit.
• Five cities in the Democratic Republic of Congo were renamed on the sixth anniversary of the nation's independence from Belgium. The capital, Leopoldville, became Kinshasa, and Stanleyville changed to Kisangani. Elisabethville changed to Lubumbashi, Coquilhatville to Mbandaka, and Paulis to Isiro.
• The South African cargo liner South African Seafarer ran aground in Table Bay and broke in two. All 76 people on board were rescued by South African Air Force helicopters.
• Manuel Santana became the first Spanish winner of the Wimbledon tournament, defeating American finalist Dennis Ralston in straight sets, 6–4, 11–9 and 6–4.
• Joaquín Balaguer was inaugurated as President of the Dominican Republic.
• Died: Pauline Boty, 28, British pop artist; of cancer

  [July 2], 1966 (Saturday)

• France began the first of 44 atmospheric tests of nuclear weapons in the South Pacific Ocean, detonating a 28-kiloton weapon that had been mounted on a barge in the lagoon of the Mururoa Atoll in an experiment codenamed "Aldebaran". Two more tests would be performed that month, on the 19th and the 21st of July. Atmospheric tests would continue until September 14, 1974. On June 5, 1975, the French started underground testing.
• The Beatles became the first musical group to perform at the Nippon Budokan Hall in Tokyo. The performance ignited protests from local citizens who felt that it was inappropriate for a rock and roll band to play at Budokan.
• Billie Jean King of the United States won the first of her six Wimbledon singles championships, and her first of 12 events in the "Grand Slam" of tennis, defeating Maria Bueno of Brazil, 6–3, 3–6 and 6–1.
• Died:
• *John Maximovich, 70, Ukrainian-born Archbishop of San Francisco of the Russian Orthodox Church Outside Russia, who would later be venerated as a saint within the church.
• *Jan Brzechwa, 67, Polish poet

  [July 3], 1966 (Sunday)

• René Barrientos, who had resigned from his position as Chief of the Bolivian Armed Forces and from the ruling military junta in order to run as a civilian, was elected as President of Bolivia, defeating four other candidates by a 3 to 1 majority. Running with Luis Adolfo Siles on the ticket of the Bolivian Revolutionary Front, Barientos captured more than 491,000 votes compared to a total of 115,000 for the opposition candidates, and would take office on August 6. Barrientos, who was fluent in the Quechua language as well as Spanish and who had campaigned by helicopter as he traveled from one rally to the next, would be killed in a helicopter crash on April 27, 1969, and be succeeded by Siles.
• Thirty-one people were arrested when a demonstration by approximately 4,000 anti-Vietnam War protesters in front of the U.S. Embassy in London's Grosvenor Square turned violent.

  [July 4], 1966 (Monday)

• Queen Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom and her consort, Prince Philip, were attacked twice as their car traveled through Donegal Square in Belfast in Northern Ireland. As they were being driven from the City Hall at the conclusion of a luncheon, a woman smashed a beer bottle against their Rolls-Royce limousine. Two minutes later, a concrete block was hurled from the fourth floor of a building, and struck the bonnet of the car. "Had it fallen a few feet farther back," an Associated Press report noted, "it would have shattered the glass top over the queen's head."
• American President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the Freedom of Information Act, which went into effect on July 4, 1967. "For the first time," an author would note in 1967, "the Congress has declared— and the President has accepted— the principle that inherent in the citizen's right to speak and right to print is the right to know."
• Edward Short replaced Tony Benn as Postmaster General in the United Kingdom. Benn was shifted over to become Minister of Technology, replacing Frank Cousins who had resigned the previous day.

  [July 5], 1966 (Tuesday)

• Sukarno, the founder of the modern republic of Indonesia, was stripped of his title of "President for Life", and of all responsibilities except for ceremonial duties, in the closing session of the Provisional People's Consultative Assembly. In addition, a committee was appointed to review all of his decrees, proclamations and teachings, and Lieutenant General Suharto, who had been the de facto leader since March, was authorized to serve as "acting President" for most purposes.
• Public shares of the fast food magnate McDonald's Corporation began trading on the New York Stock Exchange, with 2,587,000 shares of common stock for the 11-year-old restaurant chain that had 800 locations, and opening at $32 per share. Over five years, with stock splits and increasing prices on more shares, the value of an investment made that day would increase to 68.75 times its original worth within six years, so that an original $32 investment would be worth $2,200.
• On their way back home after their Asian concert tour, The Beatles arrived in India for the first time, after having experimented with Indian instruments such as the sitar. Earlier in the day, they had been permitted to depart the Philippines, where they had faced a hostile reception from the government and the public, and flew from Manila to Delhi. During their two-day stay, there was minimal protection from the police as thousands of fans followed them everywhere.
• Died: George de Hevesy, 80, Hungarian chemist, 1943 Nobel Prize laureate and co-discoverer of the element hafnium

  [July 6], 1966 (Wednesday)

• The Hanoi March was conducted, with 52 American prisoners of war forced to walk for through the streets of the capital of North Vietnam to be shown off before tens of thousands of North Vietnamese civilians. The action came in the wake of the bombing raids near Hanoi a week earlier. The U.S. servicemen were drawn from two prison camps, with 16 from the Briarpatch at Xom Ap Lo and 36 from "The Zoo" at Cu Loc. They were chained in pairs, and were paraded along Tràng Tiền Street, and then along Hàng Bông and Nguyễn Thái Học streets in front of an increasingly angry mob. Over the next hour, many of the men were beaten by civilians as the planned event went out of control before the group finally reached the relative safety of the Hàng Đây Stadium, before being returned to the prison camps. Among the 52 were U.S. Navy pilot Jeremiah Denton of Alabama, U.S. Air Force Captain Charles G. Boyd, and U.S. Navy pilot Everett Alvarez, Jr., who would spend more than eight years in captivity.
• "Operation Washington" began in the Vietnam War as U.S. Army Lieutenant Colonel Arthur J. Sullivan, battalion commander of 1st Recon Battalion, moved his battalion headquarters to Hau Doc, west of Chu Lai. In eight days his reconnaissance teams would cover of his area of operation, sighting 46 enemy forces scattered throughout the dense jungle terrain, roughly equating to 200 soldiers at most. The ground combat and supporting elements resulted in 13 of the enemy soldiers dead, with four prisoners. Because of the poor results, General Lewis J. Fields, the commanding general of the Chu Lai TOAR, ended the operation on July 14, 1966.
• The east African nation of Malawi became a republic, two years after it had been granted independence from the United Kingdom. Dr. Hastings Kamuzu Banda, the Prime Minister, was sworn in as the first President of Malawi. Glyn Smallwood Jones, the British colonial administrator whose post as the first and only Governor-General of Malawi was abolished, returned to England, but would continue to work for the Malawian government as director of its Malawi Buying and Trading Agency in London.
• At Houston, Manned Spacecraft Center Deputy Director George M. Low was appointed Acting Manager of the newly established Apollo Applications Program Office. Robert F. Thompson was named Assistant Manager. Leland F. Belew was designated Manager of the Manned Spaceflight Center. The two new offices were responsible for all "activities concerned with projects using Apollo hardware for purposes in addition to the manned lunar landing."

  [July 7], 1966 (Thursday)

• The U.S. Department of Defense declared a new policy, to take effect immediately, of a hardship discharge from American military service for any men "who become qualified sole surviving sons subsequent to their enlistment or induction", but only if the applicant's brother or father had been in the military and had died "as a result of hazards incident to their service in the armed forces".
• Jimmy Hoffa was re-elected, without opposition, to a third five-year term as president of the Teamsters Union, despite having been convicted of jury tampering and mail fraud in court verdicts that were stayed pending review on appeal. Delegates in Miami Beach also elected Frank Fitzsimmons as first vice-president, to become President "if Hoffa has to serve a jail term".
• The Warsaw Pact conference in Bucharest ended with a joint declaration by the European Communist nations to send volunteers to Vietnam if requested for such support by the North Vietnamese government. The members making the pledge were the Soviet Union, Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, East Germany, Hungary, Poland and Romania.
• Air-to-air missiles were used in combat for the first time as American F-105 fighters found themselves being fired upon by rockets from two MiG-21 jets in the skies over North Vietnam.
• McDonnell Aircraft Corporation delivered Gemini spacecraft No. 11 to Cape Kennedy. After fuel and pyrotechnic installation and preliminary checks, the spacecraft was moved to the Merritt Island Launch Area for Plan X integrated tests with the target vehicle on July 25.