September 1967

[September 1], 1967 (Friday)

• The eight member nations of the Arab League passed the Khartoum Resolution as their leaders met in Khartoum, the capital of the Sudan. The United Arab Republic, Syria and Jordan, all of whom lost territory in the Six-Day War, were joined by Algeria, Lebanon, Iraq, Kuwait and the Sudan in approving a series of pledges regarding a common policy toward the nation of Israel. In the process, the existence of a common enemy brought the Arab states closer together and allowed them to resolve their own disputes. Egypt's President Gamal Abdel Nasser dropped further plans to overthrow the monarchies in Saudi Arabia and its neighbors. The adherents to the resolution agreed on seven points—continued planning for war against Israel, ending the boycott of oil exports to the United States and the United Kingdom, ending participation in the Yemen Civil War, rebuilding of Egypt and Jordan, and "the three no's"—"no peace with Israel, no recognition of Israel, and no negotiations with the Israelis".
• Thurgood Marshall was sworn into office as the first African-American justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, after being confirmed by the U.S. Senate. The event, not announced in advance took place in the office of the oldest justice on the Court, Hugo Black, who administered the oath office and congratulated his new colleague. A second, public ceremony was held again on October 2 when the Court began its new term.
• At a rally in Beijing, leaders of the Chinese Communist Party reprimanded the Red Guards for burning both the Soviet and British diplomatic missions in August and told the crowd that violence had done "great damage to the Cultural Revolution." According to a radio broadcast made two days later, the Guards were directed to cease violence entirely, an order to which the revolutionaries were slow to respond.
• At the close of a nine-day meeting in Prague, the delegates to the International Astronomical Union voted to delay the naming of locations on the far side of the Moon for three years, and to set up a special committee that would consider names and deliver its recommendations at the next IAU conference, scheduled for 1970 at the University of Sussex in England.
• Louis Armstrong released "What a Wonderful World", his most famous single during his career. It topped the pop chart in the United Kingdom in April 1968, but performed poorly in the United States because Larry Newton, the president of ABC Records, disliked the song and refused to promote it.
• NASA conditionally approved the "Orbital Workshop", made by McDonnell Douglas and designed to be put into Earth orbit with a Saturn IV-B rocket, with design changes to create a space laboratory designed for use by astronauts as part of the Apollo Applications Program. The orbital workshop would become the basis for the first U.S. space station, Skylab.
• Died:
• *Ilse Koch, 60, German war criminal known as "The Bitch of Buchenwald", hanged herself in the Bavarian prison of Aichach
• *James Dunn, 65, American film actor and 1945 Academy Award winner for Best Supporting Actor for A Tree Grows in Brooklyn
• *Siegfried Sassoon, 80, English poet and soldier

  [September 2], 1967 (Saturday)

• Roy Bates, a retired British Army major, proclaimed the location Principality of Sealand, an independent micronation, at an abandoned anti-aircraft platform in international waters on the North Sea, formerly HM Fort Roughs, that had not been used since World War II. Bates made the decision after learning that the UK had no jurisdiction over the platform, located off of the coast of Felixstowe, Suffolk, is not recognized by any other nation. The sovereignty of Sealand is not recognized by any nation.
• Died: Francis Ouimet, 74, American golfer and winner of the 1913 U.S. Open

  [September 3], 1967 (Sunday)

• At 5:00 in the morning local time, all road traffic in Sweden switched from driving on the left hand side of the road to driving on the right hand side. Preparation for Dagen H had been made for the past four years. Beginning at 1:00 in the morning, all non-essential traffic had been barred from the roads. At 4:50, all remaining vehicles were brought to a stop at checkpoints. Ten minutes later, police directed vehicles to move to the other side of the road.
• Nguyen Van Thieu was elected President of South Vietnam after receiving a plurality of 4.74 million votes. Thiệu and his running mate, vice-presidential candidate Nguyen Cao Ky got 1,649,561 of the votes cast, or 34.8% of the total. The runner-up, Truong Dinh Dzu, had campaigned on a platform of negotiating with the Viet Cong and got 817,120 votes or 17.2%; former President Phan Khac Suu received 513,374 and former Prime Minister Tran Van Huong had 474,100.
• The game show What's My Line? broadcast its last episode after having been a television mainstay on CBS since February 2, 1950. John Charles Daly, the last of the original members, not only moderated, but was also the myster guesyt on the last episode, which included longtime panelists Arlene Francis and Bennett Cerf.
• Born: Luis Gonzalez, American baseball player; in Tampa
• Died: Muhammad bin Ladin, 59, Saudi Arabian billionaire, construction magnate, and father of future al-Qaeda terrorist leader Osama bin Laden, was killed when the Beechcraft airplane he was in crashed during a landing near the village of Oom, along with his American pilot, Jim Harrington, and two other passengers.

  [September 4], 1967 (Monday)

• Michigan Governor George Romney, who was considering a run for the Republican Party nomination for the presidency in 1968, appeared on "The Lou Gordon Show" on Detroit's WKBD-TV for an interview, and was asked to explain why he had changed his position from support to opposition of the Vietnam War and said that when he and other American politicians were given a tour of South Vietnam in 1965, "I just had the greatest brainwashing that anybody can get when you go over to Vietnam, not only by the generals, but also by the diplomatic corps." "For all practical purposes", a historian would write later, "that single honest remark removed Romney from serious presidential consideration."
• In Centreville, Mississippi, 25 armed members of the African-American group Deacons for Defense intervened when a mob of white supremacists attempted to disrupt a demonstration for black voting rights in Wilkinson County. When one of the white members pointed a gun at the demonstrators, the group from Natchez began unloading weapons and the mob dispersed without incident. According to one activist, "hearing the name 'Deacons for Defense' invoked was almost as effective in scattering the racist mob as the guns".
• Operation Swift began as the 1st and 3rd battalions of the United States Marines 5th Regiment engaged the North Vietnamese Army and the Viet Cong in the Que Son Valley in the Quảng Nam and Quảng Tín provinces of South Vietnam. Over a period of five days, 114 Americans and 376 North Vietnamese were killed. A former Viet Cong soldier would observe 30 years later, "in the Que Son Valley in 1967, we killed more Americans than at any time or place during the war."
• West Germany amended its patent law to allow protection for chemical patents, including those for pharmaceutical medicines.
• Died: Father Vincent R. Capodanno, 38, U.S. Navy chaplain and Roman Catholic priest, was killed in battle while rendering aid to U.S. Marines who had been ambushed by the North Vietnamese Army in the Que Son Valley. Lt. Capodanno would be awarded the Medal of Honor posthumously for his heroism in rushing into the battle zone despite being wounded by an exploding mortar round. A Navy frigate, the, would later be named in his honor.

  [September 5], 1967 (Tuesday)

• CSA Flight 523, an Ilyushin Il-18D Czechoslovak airliner on its way from Prague to Havana, crashed shortly after taking off from Gander International Airport in Newfoundland in Canada, killing 37 of the 69 people on board. As "a gesture of gratitude for the help of rescue workers and medical staff", the Czechoslovak government would donate the main part of its Expo 67 pavilion to the provincial government of Newfoundland.
• The People's Republic of China signed an agreement with the African nations of Tanzania and Zambia for the construction of the TanZam Railway line, with an interest free loan that would eventually be for 406 million U.S. dollars. The long line would be constructed from Kapiri Mposhi in Zambia to the Tanzanian capital, Dar es Salaam, and would open in 1975.
• The British science fiction television series The Prisoner, created by and starring Patrick McGoohan, was broadcast for the first time, premiering in Canada on the CTV Television Network. The show would not appear in the United Kingdom until September 29. Syndication in the United States would begin on June 1, 1968.
• Hurricane Beulah formed in the Caribbean Sea and then began traveling a west-northwest course. Over a period of 17 days, it would grow and diminish as it swept across Mexico and Texas, killing 59 people and causing more than one billion dollars in property damage.
• Chairman Mao ordered the People's Liberation Army to disarm China's Red Guards, a move that would culminate in the massacre of thousands of the revolutionaries on August 8, 1968.
• Born:
• *Matthias Sammer, German soccer football star, midfielder on the East Germany national team and the Germany national team, and 1996 European Footballer of the Year; in Dresden
• *Jane Sixsmith, English field hockey star for the England and Great Britain teams; in Sutton Coldfield

  [September 6], 1967 (Wednesday)

• Walter E. Washington was appointed as the first African-American mayor of a major American city, as President Lyndon Johnson announced his nomination as Mayor-Commissioner of Washington, D.C. For the previous 93 years, there had been no mayor for the nation's capital, which was administered instead by three appointed commissioners.
• On the single bloodiest day of the battle in the Que Son Valley, 69 U.S. Marines and 149 of the North Vietnamese and Viet Cong forces were killed. In addition, 201 Marines and an undetermined number of the North Vietnamese were wounded.
• Born:
• *Macy Gray, American R&B singer and actress; in Canton, Ohio
• *Milan Lukić, Bosnian Serb war criminal; in Foča, SR Bosnia and Herzegovina, Yugoslavia
• *William DuVall, American musician for Alice in Chains; in Washington, D.C.
• Died:
• *U.S. Marine Sergeant Rodney Maxwell Davis, 25, was killed when he jumped upon a live grenade to protect his fellow Marines from the blast. Davis, an African-American and one of the casualties of the battle of Que Son Valley, was credited with saving five other soldiers in the 2nd Platoon from death, and at least seven others from serious injury. He would be awarded the Medal of Honor, posthumously, in 1969. A U.S. Navy missile frigate,, would later be named in his honor.
• *William Francis Gibbs, 81, American naval architect who designed the mass-produced Liberty ship freighters during World War II