1967

Decades: 1910s 1920s 1930s 1940s 1950s - 1960s - 1970s 1980s 1990s 2000s 2010s

Years: 1962 1963 1964 1965 1966 - 1967 - 1968 1969 1970 1971 1972

Events

• January 6 - Vietnam War: USMC and ARVN troops launch "Operation Deckhouse Five" in the Mekong River delta.
• January 18 - Albert DeSalvo, the "Boston Strangler," is convicted of numerous crimes and is sentenced to life in prison.
• January 27 - Apollo 1 destroyed in a fire on the launch pad.
• January 27 - USA, Soviet Union and UK sign the Outer Space Treaty.
• February 2 - Aleksei Kosygin visits UK.
• February 2 - The American Basketball Association is formed.
• February 5 - Lunar Orbiter 3 is launched.
• February 5 - General Anastasio Somoza Debayle becomes a president of Nicaragua.
• February 7 - Massive brush fires in Tasmania.
• February 10 - The 25th Amendment to the United States Constitution is ratified.
• February 22 - Suharto takes power from Sukarno in Indonesia.
• February 27 - Dominica gains independence from the United Kingdom.
• March 4 - The first North Sea gas pumped ashore at Easington Co Durham.
• March 9 - Stalin's daughter Svetlana Alliluyeva defects to USA by US Delhi Embassy.
• March 12 - Indonesian State Assembly takes all presidential powers from Sukarno and names Suharto as acting president.
• March 13 - Indira Gandhi becomes prime minister of India.
• March 14 - The body of President John F. Kennedy is moved to a permanent burial place at Arlington National Cemetery
• March 18 - Supertanker Torrey Canyon runs aground off Lands End, English Channel.
• March 21 - Military coup in Sierra Leone.
• April 7 - Six-Day War: Israeli fighters shoot down seven Syrian MIG-21s.
• April 17 - Blizzards begin in Southern Alberta.
• April 20 - Surveyor 3 probe lands on the Moon.
• April 21 - Greece taken over by military dictatorship led by George Papadopoulos, forcing King Constantine II to flee.
• April 24 - Soviet cosmonaut Vladimir Komarov is killed during the landing of Soyuz 1.
• April 28 - Boxer Muhammad Ali refuses military service.
• April 28 - Montreal hosts Expo '67; it is to coincide with the centennial of Canadian Confederation.
• April 30 - Moscow's 537m-tall TV tower is finished.
• May 3 - Big gold robbery in London.
• May 4 - Lunar Orbiter 4 launched.
• May 6 - Zakir Husain is the first Muslim to become president of India.
• May 8 - The Philippine province of Davao was split into three: Davao del Norte, Davao del Sur, and Davao Oriental.
• May 17 - President Gamal Abdal Nasser of Egypt demands withdrawal of the peacekeeping UN Emergency Force in Sinai. UN secretary-general U Thant complies (May 18). On May 23 Egypt closes the Strait of Tiran, blockading Israel's southern port of Eilat.
• May 22 - The Innovation department store in the centre of Brussels (Belgium) burns down. It is the most devastating fire in Belgian history, which results in 323 dead and missing and 150 wounded.
• May 30 - Biafra, in Eastern Nigeria, announces independence.
• May 30 - At the Ascot Speedway in Gardena, California, daredevil Evel Knievel jumps his motorcycle over 16 cars lined-up in a row.
• June 1 - Moshe Dayan becomes Israel's Secretary of Defense.
• June 2 - Shah of Iran visits West Germany and faces left-wing student demonstrations.
• June 5-June 10 - Israel defeats Arab neighbours in Six-Day War, occupying West Bank, Gaza Strip, Sinai peninsula and Golan Heights.
• June 10 - Soviet Union severs diplomatic relations to Israel.
• June 10 - Margrethe, heir apparent to the throne of Denmark, marries French count Henri de Laborde de Monpezat.
• June 17 - The People's Republic of China announces a successful hydrogen bomb test.
• June 23-June 24 - U.S. president Lyndon Johnson and Soviet premier Alexei Kosygin confer at Glassboro, New Jersey.
• June 26 - Pope ordinates 276 new cardinals (one of them Karol Wojtyla).
• June 27 - First automatic cash machine (voucher-based) is installed in the office of the Barclay's Bank in Enfield, England.
• June 28 - Israel declares annexation of East Jerusalem.
• June 30 - Moise Tsombe, former prime minister of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, is kidnapped to Algeria.
• July 1 - Canada celebrates its first one hundred years of Confederation.
• July 3 - A military rebellion lead by a Belgian mercenary Jean Schramme begins in Katanga, Democratic Republic of the Congo.
• July 6 - Nigerian forces invade Biafra following latter's secession (May 30): beginning of the Biafran War.
• July 13 - Newark, New Jersey race riots.
• July 15 - Detroit race riots.
• July 18 - Humberto Castelo Branco, ex-president of Brazil, dies in a plane accident near Fortaleza
• July 23 - 12th Street Riot: In Detroit, Michigan, one of the worst riots in United States history begins on 12th Street in the predominantly African American inner city (43 killed, 342 injured and ~1,400 buildings burned).
• July 24 - During his visit to Canada, Charles De Gaulle supports Quebec's separation attempts, angering Canadian government.
• July 29 - Explosion and fire in U.S. Navy carrier Forrestal in Gulf of Tonkin leaves 134 dead.
• August 1 - Race riots in USA spread to Washington DC.
• August 3 - Sweden switches to right-hand traffic.
• August 7 - Vietnam War: The People's Republic of China agrees to give North Vietnam and undisclosed amount of aid in the form of a grant.
• August 7 - General strike in the old quarter of Jerusalem protests Israel's unification of the city.
• August 8 - The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) was founded.
• August 9 - Vietnam War: Operation Cochise initiated - United States Marines begin a new operation in the Que Son Valley.
• August 15 - British Labour Government bans pirate radio stations.
• August 19 - West Germany receives 36 East Germany prisoners it has "purchased" through the border posts of Herleshausen and Wartha.
• August 21 - Truce in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
• August 21 - The People's Republic of China announces that it has shot down American planes violating its airspace.
• August 25 - Leader of American Nazi Party, George Lincoln Rockwell, is shot dead.
• September 1 - Ilse Koch, also known as the "Bitch of Buchenwald", commits suicide in the Bavarian prison of Aichach.
• September 2 - Roughs Tower claimed by Paddy Roy Bates, declared Principality of Sealand
• September 3 - Nguyen Van Thieu is elected President of South Vietnam.
• September 4 - Vietnam War: Operation SWIFT begins - The United States Marines launch a search and destroy mission in Quang Nam and Quang Tin Provinces. The ensuing 4-day battle in Que Son Valley kills 114 Americans and 376 North Vietnamese.
• September 10 - In Gibraltar, only 44 out of 12.182 voters support union with Spain.
• September 17 - Riot in a football match in Kaysei, Turkey - 44 dead, about 600 injured.
• September 30 - BBC Radio 1 launched.
• October - Patterson-Gimlin film of a purported bigfoot taken.
• October 2 - Thurgood Marshall becomes the first black member of the U.S. Supreme Court.
• October 3 - The X-15 research aircraft with Chuck Yeager establishes a speed record of Mach 6.7.
• October 8 - Guerrilla leader Che Guevara and his men are captured in Bolivia. The next day Guevara is executed for attempting to incite a revolution.
• October 12 - Vietnam War: US Secretary of State Dean Rusk states during a news conference that proposals by the United States Congress for peace initiatives were futile because of North Vietnam's opposition.
• October 17 - Premiere of the musical Hair on Broadway.
• October 19 - Mariner 5 probe flies by Venus.
• October 21 - Egyptian surface-to-surface missile sinks the Israeli destroyer Eilat, killing 47 Israeli sailors. Israel retaliates by shelling Egyptian refineries along the Suez Canal.
• October 21 - Ten of thousands of Vietnam War protesters march in Washington DC.
• October 25 - Abortion bill passes in British parliament.
• October 26 - Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi of Iran is officially crowned.
• October 27 - Charles De Gaulle vetoes British entry into EEC – again.
• October 30 - British troops and Chinese demonstrators clash in the border of China and Hong Kong.
• November 2 - Vietnam War: US President Lyndon B. Johnson holds a secret meeting with a group of the nation's most prestigious leaders ("the Wise Men") and asks them to suggest ways to unite the American people behind the war effort. They conclude that the American people should be given more optimistic reports on the progress of the war.
• November 3 - Vietnam War: Battle of Dak To begins - Around Dak To (located about 280 miles north of Saigon near the Cambodian border) heavy casualties are suffered on both sides (the Americans narrowly won the battle on November 22).
• November 6 - Rhodesian parliament passes pro-Apartheid laws.
• November 7 - US President Lyndon B. Johnson signs the Public Broadcasting Act of 1967, establishing the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.
• November 9 - Apollo program: NASA launches a Saturn V rocket carrying the unmanned Apollo 4 test spacecraft from Cape Kennedy.
• November 11 - Vietnam War: In a propaganda ceremony in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, three American prisoners of war are released by the Viet Cong and turned over to "new left" antiwar activist Tom Hayden.
• November 17 - Vietnam War: Acting on optimistic reports he was given on November 13, US President Lyndon B. Johnson tells his nation that, while much remained to be done, "We are inflicting greater losses than we're taking...We are making progress." (two months later the Tet Offensive made him regret his words).
• November 21 - Vietnam War: American General William Westmoreland tells news reporters: "I am absolutely certain that whereas in 1965 the enemy was winning, today he is certainly losing."
• November 22 - UN Security Council Resolution 242 is adopted by the UN Security Council, establishing a set of the principles aimed at guiding negotiations for an Arab-Israeli peace settlement.
• November 29 - Vietnam War: US Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara announces his pending resignation and that he will become president of the World Bank. This action was the result of US President Lyndon B. Johnson's outright rejection of McNamara's early November recommendations to freeze troop levels, stop bombing North Vietnam and handing over ground fighting to South Vietnam.
• November 30- The People's Republic of South Yemen becomes independent from the United Kingdom.
• December 1 - So-called Russell Tribunal in Sweden condemns USA for a mass murder in Vietnam.
• December 3 - At Groote Schuur Hospital in Cape Town, South Africa, 53-year-old Lewis Washkansky becomes the first human to receive a heart transplant (however he died 18 days later from double pneumonia). The transplant team was headed by Christiaan Barnard.
• December 3 - The luxury train 20th Century Limited completes its last run from New York City to Chicago, Illinois (the train was inaugurated on June 15, 1902).
• December 4, 1850 hours - A volcano erupts on Deception Island in Antarctica.
• December 4 - Vietnam War: US and South Vietnamese forces engage Viet Cong troops in the Mekong Delta (235 of the 300-strong Viet Cong battalion were killed).
• December 9 - Nicolae Ceaucescu becomes the Chairman of the Romanian State Council - that is, de-facto dictator of Romania.
• December 15 - Silver Bridge over Ohio River in Point Pleasant, West Virginia, collapses - 46 dead. It has been linked to the so-called Mothman mystery.
• December 17 - Harold Holt, Australian prime minister, disappears when swimming at a beach 60 km from Melbourne.
• December 19 - Professor John Archibald Wheeler uses the term Black Hole for the first time.
• Influential science fiction anthology Dangerous Visions published.
• LSD declared a Schedule I drug by the United States government.
• Lonsdaleite (the rarest allotrope of carbon) first discovered in Barringer Crater, Arizona.
• Lost city discovered on the island of Thera, buried under volcanic debris. It has been suggested that Plato may have heard legends about this, and used them as the germ of his story of Atlantis.
• PAL first introduced in Germany.
• Summer of Love
• 25th Amendment of the United States Constitution enacted.
• First Pulsar discovered by Jocelyn Bell and Antony Hewish.
• British defence minister Denis Healey announces a decision to pull out British troops from Singapore.
• First cryogenic corpsicles are placed in ice.
• Arno River floods in Florence.
• Citizens of New South Wales in Australia vote for the equality of Australian aborigines.
• Desmond Morris – The Naked Ape.
• Lech Walesa goes to work in Gdansk shipyards.
• Benjamin Netanyahu joins Israeli army.
• Greek military junta exiles Melina Mercouri.

Births

• January 9 - Dave Matthews, South Africa-born American musician
• February 11 - Barbara Byrne, American rower
• February 11 - Chris Reohr, American fencer
• February 11 - John Patterson US baseball player
• February 18 - Roberto Baggio, Italian football player
• February 20 - Kurt Cobain, rock musician (d. 1994)
• March 4 - Evan Dando, musician
• March 13 - Billy Corgan, musician, songwriter
• April 27 - Prince Willem-Alexander of the Netherlands
• May 15 - Madhuri Dixit
• May 24 - Heavy D
• May 24 - Margaret Crowley
• May 24 - Steve McDonald
• May 25 - Poppy Z. Brite, author
• July 27 - Juliana Hatfield, guitarist/songwriter
• September 11 - Harry Connick, Jr.
• September 22 - Félix Savón, Cuban boxer
• October 28 - Julia Roberts, actress
• November 22 - Boris Becker, tennis player
• November 28 - Anna Nicole Smith, model and actress
• December 9 - Joshua Bell, violinst
• December 21 - Mikhail Saakashvili, Georgian politician, President of the Republic of Georgia since January 4, 2004.
• LTJ Bukem, musician

Deaths

• January 3 - Jack Ruby, killer of Lee Harvey Oswald
• January 4 - Donald Campbell, waterspeed/ landspeed record seeker
• January 17 - Barney Ross, American boxing champion
• January 27 - Edward White, Gus Grissom and Roger Chaffee, Apollo 1 crew
• February 8 - Victor Gollancz, British publisher
• February 15 - J. Frank Duryea, automobile pioneer
• February 18 - J. Robert Oppenheimer, physicist
• February 21 - Charles Beaumont, writer
• March 6 - Zoltán Kodály, composer
• March 6 - Nelson Eddy, singer, actor
• March 7 - Alice B. Toklas, personality
• April 5 - Hermann Joseph Muller geneticist (b. 1890)
• April 19 - Konrad Adenauer, German statesman
• April 24 - Vladimir Komarov, cosmonaut on Soyuz 1
• May 22 - Langston Hughes, writer
• July 7 - Vivien Leigh, actress
• July 17 - John Coltrane, jazz musician, liver failure
• July 22 - Carl Sandburg, poet
• August 15 - Rene Magritte, painter
• August 19 - Hugo Gernsback, editor, publisher
• August 29 - Brian Epstein, the original manager for The Beatles
• September 13 - Varian Fry, ran an escape network in wartime Marseille, France
• September 27 - Feliks Feliksovits Jusupov, killer of Grigori Rasputin
• October 3 - Woody Guthrie, folk musician
• October 8 - Clement Attlee, former British prime minister
• October 9 - Che Guevara, revolutionary, executed
• October 17 - Ai-xin-jue-luo Pu-yi or Henry Pu Yi, last emperor of Qing China
• November 13 - Harriet Cohen, pianist
• November 19 - Charles Watters, US Army Chaplain
• December 10 - Otis Redding, singer
• Daniel Jones, phonetician
• Joe Orton, satirical modern playwright
• Kazimierz Funk, biochemist
• Alfried Krupp, head of the Krupp business empire
• Ossip Zadkine, sculptor, painter and lithographer

Nobel Prizes

• Physics - Hans Albrecht Bethe
• Chemistry - Manfred Eigen, Ronald George Wreyford Norrish, George Porter
• Medicine - Ragnar Granit, Haldan Keffer Hartline, George Wald
• Literature - Miguel Angel Asturias
• Peace - Not Awarded.

Referenced By