The following events occurred in December 1966:
December 1, 1966 (Thursday) Kurt Georg Kiesinger was elected Chancellor of West Germany by a 126–53 vote of the Bundestag. The vote to approve Kiesinger and his cabinet came in the early morning hours "after a long and bitter debate".
National Football League Commissioner Pete Rozelle announced the date and location of the first "Super Bowl", telling reporters in New York that the NFL champion would play against the American Football League champion on January 15, 1967, at the Los Angeles Coliseum. A NASA study group, chaired by John H. Disher, reported on using various modified Apollo Lunar Modules suitable for lunar exploration as part of the Apollo Applications Program (AAP). Modified modules could serve as a LM "taxi", a ferry and logistics craft, a LM shelter, and an "augmented" LM. Disher recommended an increase of the Saturn V's translunar injection capability to . Born: Larry Walker, Canadian baseball player, National League MVP in 1997; in Maple Ridge, British Columbia Died: Carter Stanley, 41, American bluegrass musician and co-founder of The Stanley Brothers, died from cirrhosis. His brother, Ralph Stanley, would outlive him by half a century.
December 2, 1966 (Friday) British Prime Minister Harold Wilson and Rhodesian Prime minister Ian Smith met for negotiations on board the British warship HMS Tiger in the Mediterranean."Wilson, Smith Meet on Rhodesian Crisis", Chicago Tribune, December 2, 1966, p1 After Smith's return, the Rhodesian government rejected the "Tiger Pact" proposed by the British, who had set a deadline of noon on December 5 for an answer. Among the British demands was a return of control of the armed forces and the police to Sir Humphrey Gibbs, and his restoration as Governor of the colony, as well as a dissolution of the Rhodesian parliament."Breakaway Premier Rejects British Pact", Chicago Tribune, December 6, 1966, p1 U Thant agreed to serve a second term as U.N. Secretary General. The UN General Assembly then voted, 120–0, to elect the diplomat from Burma to another five-year term, running from January 1, 1967 to December 31, 1971."U Thant Elected to Another 5-Year Term at U.N. Post", Chicago Tribune, December 3, 1966, p2 Abdallah El-Yafi resigned as Prime Minister of Lebanon. He would be replaced on December 7 by Rashid Karami."Lebanon", in The Middle East and North Africa 2004 (Europa Publications, 2003) p712 Died: L. E. J. Brouwer, 85, Dutch mathematician and philosopher, advocate of the branch of intuitionism Giles Cooper, 48, British radio dramatist was killed when he fell from a moving train after becoming intoxicated."Giles Cooper dies in fall from train", The Observer (London), December 4, 1966, p. 3 A coroner's inquest listed the cause as "death by misadventure"."Giles Cooper: 'Misadventure' after a night out", Evening Standard (London), December 14, 1966, p. 14
December 3, 1966 (Saturday) Following a luncheon hosted by the French Diplomatic Press Association in Paris, visiting Soviet Prime Minister Alexei N. Kosygin answered the questions of reporters in a press conference. One reporter asked Kosygin about whether the Soviet Union would allow Soviet Jews to emigrate to Israel, and Kosygin replied that "If there are some families divided by the war who want to meet their relatives outside the USSR or even to leave the USSR, we shall do all in our power to help them. The way is open to them and will remain open and there is no problem." Kosygin's statement was reprinted in Izvestia two days later (albeit without the statement that the government would do all in its power to help), and hundreds of Soviet Jews filed applications to depart. Kosygin's statement would also make the emigration issue part of future negotiations between Western nations and the Soviets. János Kádár was unanimously re-elected as the General Secretary of the Magyar Szocialista Munkáspárt (the Hungarian Socialist Workers' Party, Hungary's Communist Party) by the Central Committee, keeping him in power as the de facto leader of Hungary for a third term. The party's Politburo was reduced from 12 seats to 11, with the retirement of former President Ferenc Münnich and Miklos Somogyi, and the elevation of former Finance Minister Rezső Nyers. The day before, Kadar called for a "normalization of relations" with the United States, and told the Central Committee, "I, as a Communist, can add we wish the American people the very best, peace and prosperity and friendship." Anti-Portuguese demonstrations that would later be referred to as the "12-3 Incident" or the "123 Incident" because of the date of 12/3/1966 turned into a riot in the Portuguese colony of Macau, located on the mainland of China, and hundreds of people were injured, with eight Chinese protesters killed by Portuguese riot police. "Although the People's Republic of China did not assume formal control of Macau until 1999," a historian would write later, "many observers view the '123 Incident'... as the point at which the Portuguese lost effective sovereignty over the city." At 7:15 a.m., the United States carried out Project Sterling, a test to determine whether the sound of an underground nuclear explosion could be muffled. The test, made underground at a depth of below the Tatum Salt Dome in Lamar County, Mississippi, made "no audible sound", and no measurable increase in radiation, at the surface. Television pop group The Monkees made their live concert debut at the Honolulu International Center Arena.
December 4, 1966 (Sunday)
Working in the Ogoja Province in eastern Nigeria, Dr. William Foege first implemented the "surveillance and containment" strategy that would eventually eliminate smallpox throughout the world. An American epidemiologist as well as being a Lutheran missionary, Foege acted with the knowledge that smallpox was contagious for only two weeks, slow moving in its progress and, most importantly, that "infected people rarely transmitted the disease to more than a few others, mostly within the immediate household". Consulting with 14 other missionaries in the region, Foege arranged for a communications network in villages and marketplaces, looking for signs of a smallpox infection and, "When an infected person was found, a map of his or her likely social pathways was drawn, and everyone on it immunized". This course of action "demonstrated that smallpox could be treated and eliminated from large areas by immunizing as few as six percent of the people— if they were the right people at the right time!"Gary R. Gunderson and James R. Cochrane, Religion and the Health of the Public: Shifting the Paradigm (Springer, 2012) p34
Lew Alcindor (later Kareem Abdul-Jabbar) made his college basketball debut. In his very first game for UCLA, he broke the school record for most points scored in a game, pouring in 56 points in a 105–90 win over USC."Alcindor Gets 56 Pts. In His Varsity Debut", Newport (RI) Daily News, December 5, 1966, p12 His points came on 23 field goals and 10 free throws; the previous record, 42 points, had been set by Gail Goodrich in 1965."Alcindor Smashes UCLA Scoring Record in Varsity Debut", Humboldt Standard (Eureka CA), December 5, 1966, p20 The 1966 LPGA Tour ended with Kathy Whitworth having won the most tournaments (nine), making her Player of the Year. The following month, she would be voted the female athlete of the year in a poll of 428 sportswriters and broadcasters."Kathy Whitworth Wins Honor of Year's Best Female Athlete", Newport (RI) Daily News, December 5, 1966, p11 Born: Fred Armisen (Fereydun Armisen), American comedian; in Hattiesburg, Mississippi Died: Nicholas Afanasiev, 73, Russian Orthodox priest and theologian
December 5, 1966 (Monday) In a case frequently cited as an example of the phenomenon of spontaneous human combustion, John Irving Bentley, a 92-year-old retired physician and surgeon, was found dead in his home in Coudersport, Pennsylvania. An Associated Press report noted only that he was "found dead in his Potter County home Monday, apparently the victim of a fire" and that "His clothes and the floor were partially burned." The facts were more gruesome, because a meter reader found only a pile of ashes. The only identifiable portions of Bentley were "his lower right leg, still clad in its bedroom slipper, and his walker, which strangely enough suffered little damage", as seen in a famous photograph of the death scene. Some authors have blamed spontaneous combustion. Others point out that the leg was "lying at the edge of a hole about two and a half by four feet that had burned into the basement" and that Bentley was a pipe smoker who had previously been burned from dropping matches, or hot ashes, onto his clothes. A plausible theory was that Bentley had accidentally ignited his robe, attempted to douse the flames with water from a pitcher, and ignited the linoleum floor, the hardwood flooring and wooden beams beneath it. The United States Supreme Court ruled unanimously that African-American candidate Julian Bond had been improperly denied a seat in the Georgia House of Representatives after winning two elections to the state legislature. The Court concluded that the basis for the disqualification (Bond's criticism of American policies in the Vietnam War) had been a violation of Bond's right to free speech. "Legislators have an obligation to take positions on controversial political questions," Chief Justice Earl Warren wrote, "so that their constituents can be fully informed by them," and added that the denial of the seat "violated Bond's right of free expression under the First Amendment". The House would, reluctantly, administer the oath of office to Representative Bond, along with all the other members, on January 9, 1967. NASA Headquarters introduced the "cluster concept" in its plans for the Apollo Applications Program, with a schedule for launching the Orbital Workshop after launching a crew in an Apollo command and service module, to take place as early as June 1968, and the two units would be docked in orbit. Six months later, a Lunar Module and Apollo Telescope Mount (LM/ATM) would be launched soon after a second crewed flight, and the LM/ATM would be added as a third and fourth component of the orbiting cluster. The schedule called for 22 Saturn IB and 15 Saturn V launches. The successful musical I Do! I Do! opened on Broadway, at the 46th Street Theatre, and would run for 560 performances. The entire cast was limited to two actors, and only one set, as the play followed the course of a 50-year marriage. Mary Martin and Robert Preston were the first to perform the roles of Agnes and Michael Snow. Buffalo Springfield recorded their most famous single "For What It's Worth". The song was based on the curfew riots that took place on November 12. Born: Patricia Kaas, French singer and actress; in Forbach, Lorraine
December 6, 1966 (Tuesday)
The Bình Hòa massacre was purportedly carried out over the course of two days, as South Korean troops reportedly killed 456 men, women and children in two villages in the Quảng Ngãi Province of South Vietnam. On December 5, the village of Bình Hòa was surrounded at dawn by soldiers, and the inhabitants killed. The next day, troops moved to the nearby village of An Phuoc, away, and murdered its inhabitants. According to a 2000 Associated Press story, however, a commemorative monument in Bình Hòa says that the massacres took place from October 22 to October 26, 1966. The event was first reported in the late 1980s.