March 1966

[March 1], 1966 (Tuesday)

• At 6:56 UTC, the Soviet space probe Venera 3 crashed on Venus, becoming the first spacecraft to land on another planet's surface. Although it was able to transmit to Earth, its data capture system had failed earlier in transit and was unable to record any data. The vehicle had been launched on November 16, 1965.
• British Chancellor of the Exchequer James Callaghan announced the government's plans for the decimalisation of the pound sterling by February 1971, replacing traditional coinage. The British pound, formerly worth 240 pennies, would be divided into worth 100 cents. Since the reign of King Offa of Mercia in the 8th century, the pound had been worth 240 pennies. In 1504, the shilling, worth 12 pence, had been introduced; with 20 shillings to a pound, it would be superseded by the five pence. The florin would give way to the ten pence coin, and the crown would be eliminated, there being no 25 pence coin, along with the "big penny", the threepence and the six pence.
• "Operation Jericho", the Mizo National Front uprising, began in the Assam state of India, when insurgents made simultaneous attacks on government installations at Aizawl, Lunglei, Champhai, Vairengte, Chawngte, Chhimluang, Kolasib, Sairang and Demagiri shortly after midnight. At Aizawl, the insurgents raided the city treasury and severed all outside connections at the telephone exchange at Aizawl. MNF leader Pu Laldenga declared Mizo to be an independent nation, and exhorted all Mizos to join the revolt against the "illegal Indian occupation" of the Mizo territory.
• Both houses of Congress overwhelmingly approved the appropriation of an additional $4.8 billion for the American war in Vietnam, with votes of 392–4 in the House of Representatives and 93–2 in the U.S. Senate. The lone opposition came from Senators Wayne Morse of Oregon and Ernest Gruening of Alaska, and Congressmen John Conyers, Phillip Burton and George Brown, Jr. and William Fitts Ryan.
• Goals for the Apollo Applications Program were suggested by AAP Deputy Director John H. Disher for a station operating in synchronous and high-inclination Earth orbit, using crew for orbital assembly and resupply, extended duration for Earth orbits, extended lunar exploration; and a broad range of experiments in space.

  [March 2], 1966 (Wednesday)

• Former President of Ghana Kwame Nkrumah arrived in Guinea, where President Sekou Toure granted him asylum and gave him the honorary title of "Co-President of Guinea". The offer appeared to be made in the hope that if Nkrumah regained power, Toure would become "Co-President of Ghana".

  [March 3], 1966 (Thursday)

• A violent F5 tornado struck without warning at 4:33 p.m. and devastated the Candlestick Park Shopping Center in Jackson, Mississippi, killing 13 people. The storms wrought catastrophic damage in Mississippi and Alabama along a 202.5 mi track. Overall, 62 people were killed in the storm and hundreds injured.
• The Zond 3 space probe to Mars, launched on July 18, 1965, from the Soviet Union, stopped transmitting at a range of, in the third failure of a Soviet interplanetary probe in less than a month.
• NASA's George E. Mueller and Joseph F. Shea discussed a detailed technical description of progress toward a landing rocket system for Apollo spacecraft.
• Born: Tone Lōc, American hip hop artist and voice actor; in Los Angeles
• Died:
• *Alice Pearce, 47, Emmy-winning American television actress for her portrayal of the character "Gladys Kravitz" on Bewitched; of ovarian cancer that she had been battling since the series had started.
• *William Frawley, 79, American actor best known for portraying "Fred Mertz" on I Love Lucy; from a fatal heart attack as he was walking back from a movie to his apartment at the Knickerbocker Hotel in Hollywood.

  [March 4], 1966 (Friday)

• The London Evening Standard published Maureen Cleave's interview with John Lennon of The Beatles, in an article headlined "How Does a Beatle Live? John Lennon Lives Like This". One of the topics covered was his religious views, and the article, syndicated in papers worldwide, made little impact at first, including Lennon's statement that "Christianity will go. It will vanish and shrink. I needn't argue about that; I'm right and I will be proved right. We're more popular than Jesus now; I don't know which will go first— rock 'n' roll or Christianity. Jesus was all right but his disciples were thick and ordinary. It's them twisting it that ruins it for me." When the article appeared in the teen magazine Datebook in July, however, Lennon's statement proved a backlash against the popular British group in advance of their American tour. On August 2, the station manager of WAQY-AM radio in Birmingham, Alabama would begin urging listeners to boycott record stores and bookstores that sold Beatles' music and memorabilia.
• At 8:15 p.m. local time, Canadian Pacific Airlines Flight 402 from Hong Kong crashed while attempting to land in a fog at Tokyo International Airport, killing 64 of the 72 people on board. Coming in too low, the DC-8 struck one of the runway approach lights, then hit other lights before impacting a seawall and bursting into flames, Another plane taking off from the same airport the next morning would crash, killing all 124 passengers and crew on board.
• The Studebaker Corporation announced that it would close its last car factory and that all further production of Studebaker automobiles would cease. In 1965, the company— which had sold 268,229 cars at its peak year in 1950— had sold only 11,000 of its vehicles. The American factory, in South Bend, Indiana, had closed at the end of 1963.
• The burials of NASA astronauts Elliot See and Charles Bassett, who had died in a T-38 crash on February 28, took place at Arlington National Cemetery, two days after their memorial services in Texas.
• Born: Dav Pilkey, American children's author best known for the Captain Underpants book series; in Cleveland
• Died: Joseph Fields, 71, American playwright and film producer

  [March 5], 1966 (Saturday)

• For the first time, the secret, high speed Lockheed D-21 drone, codenamed "Tagboard", was successfully deployed in flight from a supersonic aircraft, after engineers overcame the problem of separating the two aircraft without damaging either one. The M-21 airplane released the drone over the Pacific Ocean off of the coast of California but the drone "stayed close to the M-21's back for a few seconds, which seemed like 'two hours' to the M-21 crew" before setting off on its assigned course. It was lost 120 miles from the launch point.
• One day after the Tokyo crash of Canadian Pacific Airlines Flight 402 as it was arriving from Hong Kong, BOAC Flight 911 crashed shortly after takeoff from the same airport on a flight to Hong Kong. Seventeen minutes after departing at 1:58 p.m., the Boeing 707 suddenly began breaking apart in severe clear-air turbulence and impacted on Mount Fuji at 2:15, killing all 124 passengers and crew on board. More than half of those killed were the 75 people on an Asian tour that had been sponsored by the Thermo King Corporation for employees and their families.
• On the fifth day of the Mizo uprising, the Indian Air Force began bombardment of the city of Aizawl, where MNF forces were stationed. The town's civilians had fled, while the MNF leadership maintained a headquarters at the Boys' English Middle School.
• "Merci, Chérie", sung by Udo Jürgens, won the Eurovision Song Contest 1966 for Austria.
• Born: Michael Irvin, American NFL wide receiver and member of Pro Football Hall of Fame; in Fort Lauderdale, Florida
• Died: Anna Akhmatova, 76, Russian poet

  [March 6], 1966 (Sunday)

• The Revolutionary Party won a surprise majority in elections for the Congress of Guatemala but none of the three presidential candidates obtained the necessary majority, so a runoff was scheduled. On the same day, 32 members of the outlawed Guatemalan Party of Labour, accused of aiding guerrillas, became desparecidos after being arrested by government security forces, in one of the earliest modern examples of "forced disappearance".
• Police in Japan responded to the seven-week-long "student strike" at Waseda University by occupying the campus and barring students from entering, effectively closing the prominent university until the dispute was settled on June 22.
• In elections in Austria, the Austrian People's Party, led by Chancellor Josef Klaus, gained four seats for a majority, with 85 of the 165 seats in the Nationalrat.
• Operation Masher came to an end in Vietnam after six weeks, with 288 American soldiers killed in action, and a reported 2,150 or more deaths of the North Vietnamese insurgents.
• Born: Alan Davies, English comedian and actor; in Loughton, Essex

  [March 7], 1966 (Monday)

• Two weeks after saying that he intended to withdraw from NATO by April 4, 1969, President Charles de Gaulle of France sent a letter to U.S. President Johnson, informing him that his nation intended to pull out of the alliance effective July 1, 1966, and that all member armies and equipment would need to be removed from France within a year. De Gaulle's letter arrived at the White House shortly after 3:00 p.m. Washington time, and at 7:15 p.m., French Ambassador Charles Lucet reported to the U.S. State Department to receive the president's reply from Undersecretary of State George Ball.
• Stephen Martin, a baseball player at Tulane University, became the first African American to play a varsity sport in the previously all-white Southeastern Conference. Martin, a walk-on who was attending the school on an academic scholarship, made his varsity debut for the Green Wave in the team's season opener against Spring Hill College. The 1966 season was Tulane's last as an SEC member.
• At the United Nations, the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination was signed by representatives of nine nations on the first day that it was opened for signature. Brazil, the Central African Republic, Greece, Israel, the Philippines, Poland, and the three members from the USSR.