The following events occurred in December 1967:
December 1, 1967 (Friday) Georgia's Governor Lester Maddox gave an early release to 547 state prisoners — almost seven percent— so that the inmates could be with their families in time for Christmas. At the time, the number of adults and juveniles behind bars in the state was less than 8,000 and the 547 given the early reprieve had good conduct records and less than three months remaining on their sentences. Over a period of 50 years, the state prison population would be seven times higher, rising from 8,000 to more than 56,000.Georgia Center for Opportunity 2014 fact sheet NASA presented the Apollo Telescope Mount (ATM) program to the Astronomy Missions Board at Cambridge, Massachusetts. The Board recommended an early crew assignment for ATM, so that adequate training in solar physics could be provided, and also recommended that scientist astronauts be assigned as members of the ATM flight crew. The Jimi Hendrix Experience released their second album, Axis: Bold as Love. In 1994, Guitarist magazine would list the work as the seventh "most influential guitar album of all time" (with the band's debut album, Are You Experienced, at number one). The nations of Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda formally inaugurated the East African Community.
December 2, 1967 (Saturday) Full-time colour television programming began in the United Kingdom as BBC-2, which had inaugurated the service with a test broadcast from Wimbledon on July 1, showed its entire evening lineup in color starting at 6:30 in the evening with Billy Smart's Circus.Tony Currie, A Concise History of British Television, 1930–2000 (Kelly Publications, 2004) pp59-60 Denise Darvall, a 25-year-old bank employee in Cape Town, South Africa, became the first heart donor in history when she was fatally injured by a drunk driver. Denise and her mother had stopped to pick up a cake from the Wrensch Street Bakery in the Cape Town suburb of Salt River, and were walking across Main Road at 3:40 in the afternoon; Myrtle Darvall was killed instantly; Denise was rushed to the nearby Groote Schuur Hospital in critical condition with a fractured skull.Donald McRae, Every Second Counts: The Extraordinary Race to Transplant the First Human Heart (Simon and Schuster, 2013) Despite having lost both his wife and daughter, Edward Darvall gave consent to Dr. Christiaan Barnard to have Denise's heart transplanted into a seriously ill patient, and surgery started shortly after midnight.Dick Cheney and Jonathan Reiner, Heart: An American Medical Odyssey (Simon and Schuster, 2013) Perry Wallace became the first African-American athlete to compete in basketball for a college in the all-white Southeastern Conference (SEC), as the Vanderbilt University Commodores basketball team opened its season with an 88 to 84 overtime win against Southern Methodist University (SMU) in Dallas.Jessie Carney Smith and Linda T Wynn, Freedom Facts and Firsts: 400 Years of the African American Civil Rights Experience (Visible Ink Press, 2009) p326 Wallace had eight points and 10 rebounds in his opening game."Road Overtimes the Rule, But Vandy Keeps Its Cool", The Tennessean (Nashville), December 3, 1967, p7-C Malaysia became the first nation to introduce a trapezoidal postage stamp. The stamp was issued to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the first stamps issued for the Straits Settlements in 1867.Vadophil 2000: Silver Jubilee Souvenir (Baroda Philatelic Society, 2000) p31 The 20th Century Limited, which billed itself at one time as "The Greatest Train in the World", made its final run for New York Central Railroad from Chicago to New York City."20th Century Limited Makes Final Run Without Fanfare", Chicago Tribune, December 3, 1967, p1"20th Century Limited", by Val Ginter, in The Encyclopedia of New York City, ed. by Kenneth T. Jackson (Yale University Press, 2010) Albert Bernard Bongo was sworn in as the second President of Gabon. Died: Cardinal Francis Spellman, 78, Roman Catholic Archbishop of New York since 1939
December 3, 1967 (Sunday) Christiaan Barnard and a team of surgeons carried out the world's first heart transplant, at Groote Schuur Hospital in Cape Town, South Africa."MEDICAL TRIUMPH— First Human Heart Transplanted— South African Gets New Life From Woman Dead in Crash", Los Angeles Times, Chicago Tribune, December 4, 1967, p1 At 2:20 in the morning, local time, Denise Darvall's heart was removed from her chest, then rushed over to the operating room where 14 surgeons and nurses were ready to transplant it into retired grocer Louis Washkansky. Barnard then removed Washkansky's ailing heart, and Dr. Rodney Hewitson then placed Darvall's heart into Washkansky's chest; Barnard then worked at shaping the aorta, and, at 5:24, connected the new heart. At 5:43, blood was released into the heart muscle, and, at 6:45, the new heart was beating on its own. Greece and Turkey announced their agreement to UN Secretary General U Thant's request, mediated by Cyrus Vance of the United States, to withdraw their troops from Cyprus and that they would dismantle paramilitary forces on the island. Cyprus agreed the next day to the proposal; Greece returned its troop levels to the limits specified in agreements in 1960, and "Turkey canceled large-scale preparations for an invasion", bringing an end to the crisis that had started on November 15. Forty-two people were injured while riding on one of San Francisco's famed cable cars. The car was traveling in a driving rain on Hyde Street when the grip that held the car steady slipped, sending the vehicle hurtling down the steep hill. After ramming an automobile at the intersection with Bay Street, the car continued until stopping at North Point Street near Fisherman's Wharf. The automobile, which had caught fire, rolled down Hyde Street and struck eight other vehicles. Thirty-two people, most of them Thai university students who were on vacation during the birthday of the King, drowned in the sinking of a small river craft in the Gulf of Siam off the coast of the Rayong Province. Another 58 students and the pilot of the craft swam to shore or were rescued by fishing boats from the village of Ban Phe. The pilot was arrested upon arrival on land. An Arab terrorist group cut the main railway line between Jerusalem and Tel Aviv, with an explosive charge near Beth Shemesh, west of Jerusalem. Two of the saboteurs were killed in the blast. The government of Iraq revoked the licenses of all 12 of the nation's daily newspapers as a new press law went into effect.
December 4, 1967 (Monday) At 6:50 p.m., a volcano erupted on Deception Island, one of the South Shetland Islands of Antarctica. The dispute over whether the island was owned by Chile, Argentina or the United Kingdom was put aside as the research bases of all three nations were wrecked by the shower of rocks and ash. The scientists of the Argentinian and Chilean stations near Telefon Bay were moved to the British base. The next day, the Chilean Navy icebreaker Piloto Parda evacuated 20 Britons and 27 Chileans while the Argentine Navy evacuated 14 Argentine scientists to the Bahia Aruirre. The eruption came without warning, and there had been no volcanic disturbances on Deception Island for more than 120 years; notably, the penguins and skua gulls native to the island had fled the island in advance, leading a writer to note that "Those birds, often called the dumbest in the world, had sense enough to leave their rookeries on Deception Island four hours before the trained scientists on the island felt the first earth tremor." The Poor People's Campaign was announced by Martin Luther King Jr. at a meeting of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, with an objective to call attention to, and bring an end to, poverty among White, Hispanic, Native American and African American people in the United States. King would be assassinated on April 4, 1968, and not live to see the protest campaign's scheduled launch on May 12. A bridge collapse killed 21 construction workers near Mexico City. The center section of the Universidad Anahuac bridge gave way without warning and plunged into the deep Loma del Negro Canyon. Twelve workers had been on the span outside of Tecamachalco when it gave way, and another 50 had been working below. The U.S. Department of State sent a diplomatic note to Cambodia's ruler, Prince Norodom Sihanouk, pledging that the U.S. would not cross into Cambodia to pursue North Vietnamese and Viet Cong forces fleeing from South Vietnam, and promising to respect "Cambodian neutrality, sovereignty, independence and territorial integrity." The U.S. Army's 9th Infantry Division riverine force and 400 South Vietnamese forces engaged Viet Cong troops in the Mekong Delta, and killed 235 of the 300-strong Viet Cong battalion. The Federal Rules of Appellate Procedure were promulgated by order of the Supreme Court of the United States. Robert F. Thompson, Assistant Manager of Manned Spacecraft Center (MSC)'s Apollo Applications Program Office since its establishment in July 1966, was promoted to Manager, a position that had been vacant since April when MSC Deputy Director George M. Low had been moved to the Apollo Spacecraft Program Office. Died: Harry Wismer, 56, American broadcaster who had been the founder of the New York Titans (later the New York Jets) pro football team, died several hours after he fractured his skull when he fell down the steps of a restaurant. Daniel Jones, 86, British linguist and specialist in phonetics who authored the first comprehensive work on uniform pronunciation, An Outline of English Phonetics. Bert Lahr, 72, American stage and film actor, best known for his 1939 role as the Cowardly Lion in The Wizard of Oz
December 5, 1967 (Tuesday) Canada's Royal Commission on Bilingualism and Biculturalism, colloquially called "the Bi & Bi Commission", issued its final report after more than four years of study, setting recommendations for both English and French to be the official languages of Canada, and for bilingualism in portions of Canada with large French Canadian populations. Sometimes called the Laurendeau—Dunton Commission for its co-chairmen, Montreal newspaper publisher André Laurendeau and Carleton University president Davidson Dunton, the group published a 212-page report advising that New Brunswick and Ontario join Quebec in giving official recognition of French, and identifying specific "bilingual districts" where reform should take place. New Brunswick would become "Canada's only officially bilingual province", since French and English had long been used unofficially in Quebec politics, and Ontario declined to amend its laws. Of 54 districts identified by the commission, those with the largest percentage of French speakers in each province were Prince County, Prince Edward Island (16.3%); Bonnyville, Alberta (18.1%), Assiniboia, Saskatchewan (18.3%); Division No. 1, Manitoba (31.1%); Richmond, Nova Scotia (46.7%); Pontiac, Quebec (55%); Russell, Ontario (77.4%); and Madawaska County, New Brunswick (94%), while none were designated in Newfoundland and Labrador or British Columbia. Dr. Benjamin Spock, known to millions as the author of the bestselling guide to parenting, The Common Sense Book of Baby and Child Care, was among 263 antiwar protesters who were arrested for occupying the Whitehall induction center in New York City. Spock and poet Allen Ginsberg led a group of 1,000 demonstrators on the second day of the most recent Stop the Draft Week events. The Đắk Sơn massacre was carried out by Viet Cong guerrillas, killing 252 Montagnard men, women and children in the Đắk Lắk province of South Vietnam.