May 1967

[May 1], 1967 (Monday)

• With aspirations to become the fourth United States commercial television network, the United Network began broadcasting on more than 100 independent stations at 11:00 p.m. Eastern Time with its first and only program, The Las Vegas Show, a two-hour long weeknight variety show telecast in color. Comedian Bill Dana was the regular host, and his first guests were comedian Milton Berle, singer Abbe Lane, and the comedy team of Allen & Rossi. Lacking sufficient national sponsors and facing the enormous costs of using overland coaxial cables to relay the program to affiliates, the network would fold after 23 performances of The Las Vegas Show, with the last one ending at 1:00 in the morning Eastern time on June 1, after the May 31 program that featured singer Gilbert Price.
• Anastasio Somoza Debayle was sworn in as the new President of Nicaragua, succeeding Lorenzo Guerrero.
• Elvis Presley and Priscilla Beaulieu were married in a brief civil ceremony at the Aladdin Hotel in Las Vegas.
• Born: Tim McGraw, American country singer; in Delhi, Louisiana
• Died: Klavdia Andreyevna Kosygin, 58, wife of Soviet Premier Alexei Kosygin, collapsed and died while she, her husband, and other Soviet leaders were reviewing the annual May Day military parade in Moscow. Mrs. Kosygin had been seriously ill and undergoing cancer treatment for nearly six months, although her illness had not been disclosed in the Soviet press.

  [May 2], 1967 (Tuesday)

• Led by Huey P. Newton, a group of 40 members of the Black Panthers, armed with shotguns, rifles and pistols, forced their way into a session of the California House of Representatives at the state capitol building in Sacramento, as a protest against gun control. The California Assembly was debating passage of a bill that would forbid the carrying of a loaded firearm into any public place in the state. No violence took place, other than scuffling between some of the Panthers and the state police who responded to the incident. Sacramento city police stopped five cars that were bringing another 26 armed men join the 40 inside the capitol, and confiscated 15 weapons. As for the men in the capitol building, the police declined to make arrests because there was no violation of the law, and the weapons were returned to the group.
• The Toronto Maple Leafs won the Stanley Cup for the last time of the 20th century. More than 50 years later, the Leafs have not returned to the Stanley Cup Finals. The game also marked the last for the National Hockey League as a six-team league, as six expansion teams would begin play in the fall.
• Harold Wilson announced in the House of Commons that the United Kingdom would apply for EEC membership. Four years earlier, in 1963, France's President Charles de Gaulle had vetoed the UK's attempt to join the EEC.
• In the Democratic primary election in Gary, Indiana, Mayor A. Martin Katz was defeated for renomination by an African-American challenger, city councilman Richard G. Hatcher, by a wide margin.

  [May 3], 1967 (Wednesday)

• The U.S. Marines captured the heavily fortified peaks of "Hill 881" near Khe Sanh, south of the demilitarized zone between North Vietnam and South Vietnam after a three-day battle between the 3rd brigade of the USMC 9th Infantry, and the 514th Viet Cong battalion. Ninety-six of the Marines were killed in the battle, and an estimated 181 Viet Cong died. During the 16-day fight in the Khe Sanh hills, 168 Americans and 824 Viet Cong were killed between April 24 and May 9.
• In the South Korean presidential election, incumbent President Park Chung Hee of the Democratic Republican Party received 5,688,666 votes to the 4,526,541 for Yun Bo-seon of the New Democratic Party. Four other candidates split the remaining 7.7%.
• Kuwait granted the Spanish government-owned oil exploration company Hispanoil, a 49% interest in a 33-year oil exploration concession for 10,000 square kilometers of Kuwaiti land, with the Kuwait National Petroleum Company having the other 51%.
• The Convention of the International Hydrographic Organization was signed in Monaco.
• Born: Kenny Hotz, Canadian TV producer and actor; in Toronto

  [May 4], 1967 (Thursday)

• A 16-month old boy, Rupert Burtan of Pittsford, New York, survived an 8-story fall from the 14th floor of the Essex Inn in Chicago, where his father, a physician, was attending the American Industrial Hygiene conference. The boy landed on the sundeck of the fifth floor, beside a swimming pool, and was conscious and crying. Four days later, he was reported to be "doing quite well" at a hospital. His father would later sue the hotel for the child's serious injuries.
• Lunar Orbiter 4 was launched by the United States from Cape Kennedy at 6:25 p.m. and would become, on May 8, the first probe to enter into a polar orbit around the Moon. In addition to getting the first pictures of the lunar south pole, the probe was also able to photograph 99% of the near side of the Moon.
• The U.S. state of Wisconsin became the last in the United States to end its criminal ban on the sale of yellow margarine, which was legal in the other 49 states, as the state Senate joined the House in voting to end the prohibition.

  [May 5], 1967 (Friday)

• The World Journal Tribune, a New York City evening newspaper formed eight months earlier in a merger of the World-Telegram & Sun, the Journal-American and the Herald Tribune during the city's newspaper strike, ceased publication. During its brief existence, the WJT was nicknamed "the Widget"; Hendrik Hertzberg, commentator for The New Yorker, would later comment that "This ghastly amalgam— which contained, one way or another, the bones of a dozen once great newspapers— expired like an overfed cannibal".
• NASA announced its revision of the Apollo program and its Apollo Applications Program, with plans to have the Apollo orbiter ready to support the first four launches; to have the Orbital Workshop space station ready in early 1969, the Apollo Telescope Mount in mid-1969; and to launch two more AAP flights in 1969 to revisit the orbital workshop, refurbishing and reusing refurbished command modules flown in 1968's earth-orbiting Apollo flights in 1968. AAP missions for 1970 low Earth orbit missions would launch a crewed command module and an unmanned experiment module at the same time, and two other launches of CSMs in order to maintain operation of the OWS station.

  [May 6], 1967 (Saturday)

• Rioting broke out in Hong Kong that would ultimately see 51 people killed and more than 800 injured during a clash between police and 650 workers who had been fired from the Hong Kong Artificial Flower Works. A historian of the riots would later comment that "the sacking of the workers was the immediate trigger for Hong Kong's worst political violence that would claim 51 lives and prompt a huge social shake-up." The event that started the violence was when 150 workers blocked trucks attempting to ship out the day's production of goods at 4:00 in the afternoon. At 4:20, when non-striking workers attempted to load a truck, strikers rushed at foreman Hung Biu and scuffling broke out, followed half an hour later by the arrival of the police.
• In a game marked by fan violence, visiting Manchester United clinched the title of The Football League in England in its penultimate game of the regular 1966–67 season, with a 6-1 win over West Ham United at Upton Park. Manchester U fans "were rapidly gaining notoriety for their violent exploits", and over 20 people were hospitalized for injuries during and after the match. "The interaction with Manchester United fans that day", an author would note later, "marked an important change in young West Ham fans' commitment to confronting opposing fan groups." In September, when Manchester United and its fans returned to East London, West Ham fans were ready for retaliation.
• The escalation of aerial bombardment in the Vietnam War reached a milestone with the flying of the 10,000th bombing sortie by a B-52. During the first 10,000 missions, 190,000 tons of bombs had been dropped on North Vietnam and on Viet Cong strongholds in South Vietnam.
• Boats carrying about 200 people to a rally at Chengtu in support of CCP Chairman Mao Zedong were rammed and sunk by anti-Maoist members of the Red Guards on the Yangtze River. According to Japan's Kyodo News Agency, "all except 20 drowned in the swift-flowing river".
• Dr. Zakir Husain, the candidate of the ruling Congress Party, became the first Muslim to be elected President of India, defeating former Chief Justice of India K. Subba Rao.
• Died: Zhou Zuoren, 82, Chinese essayist

  [May 7], 1967 (Sunday)

• A CIA-sponsored U-2 reconnaissance aircraft, flown from Taiwan by a Nationalist Chinese pilot, flew at high altitude over the People's Republic of China, and dropped a package of instruments designed to monitor nuclear testing by the Communist nation. It was the only known instance, in 102 Taiwanese piloted U-2 missions over the Mainland, where a package was deployed. The sensor package failed, and Nationalist Chinese overflights of the People's Republic would halt in 1968.
• In Tel Aviv, Prime Minister Levi Eshkol's Ministerial Committee on Security conditionally approved commencing a war with an attack on Syria.
• Born: Martin Bryant, Australian mass shooter who murdered 35 people and injured 23 others in the Port Arthur massacre between 28 and 29 April 1996; in Hobart, Tasmania

  [May 8], 1967 (Monday)

• In a 7–2 decision in the case of Redrup v. New York, the United States Supreme Court reversed convictions, for sale and distribution of obscene books and magazines, for defendants from New York, Kentucky, and Arkansas, concluding that under the First Amendment, the state "may not constitutionally inhibit distribution of literary material as obscene" unless three conditions were met: the dominant theme must appeal to "a prurient interest in sex"; the material must be "patently offensive"; and the material must be "utterly without redeeming social value."
• The International Olympic Committee announced that all athletes competing in the 1968 Olympic Games would be required to undergo a gender verification test as well as a test for "doping" with performance enhancing drugs such as anabolic steroids.
• The Philippine province of Davao was ordered split into three separate provinces, with the creation of Davao del Norte, Davao del Sur, and Davao Oriental, effective July 1, 1967; on June 17, 1972, the name of Davao del Norte would be changed back to Davao.
• The Soviet Union unveiled its Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in Moscow, near the walls of the Kremlin, in commemoration of the 22nd anniversary of V-E Day and the Great Patriotic War, the Soviet triumph over Nazi Germany during World War II.
• Canada's National Defence Act was passed into law, providing for the unification of the Royal Canadian Navy, the Canadian Army and the Royal Canadian Air Force into a single service, the Canadian Armed Forces.
• The revised Apollo Applications Program canceled plans for the September 15, 1968 launch of an Earth-orbital test of the lunar mapping and scientific survey equipment, which would have been jettisoned after the test.
• Died:
• *LaVerne Andrews, 55, oldest of the American singing trio The Andrews Sisters died of cancer.
• *Elmer Rice, 74, American playwright and Pulitzer Prize winner, died of a heart attack.
• *Barbara Payton, 39, American film actress, died from liver failure.