 | President: Lyndon B Johnson, Vice President: Hubert H. Humphrey |
 | The population of the United States is 195,576,000 |
| National Debt is 328.5 Billion (+6.2 billion) |
| Unemployment is 4.5% |
| Life Expectancy: 70.2 years |
| Family median income = $7,400 (up $500. from 1965) |
| Academy Award : The Sound of Music (click to buy)  (Best Picture) |
| Grammy Award : Shadow of Your Smile (click to buy)  (Best Song); A Taste of Honey (click to buy)  (Best Album) |
| Pulitzer Prize : The Collected Stories of Katherine Anne Porter (click to buy)  (Fiction) |
| Cost of a first-class stamp is $0.05 |
| Pakistan and India reach a Peace Agreement thus ending their 17-day war |
| Indira Gandhi is elected Prime Minister of India after the death of Prime Minister Shastri |
| The unmanned Soviet Luna 9 spacecraft makes the first controlled rocket-assisted landing on the Moon |
| 20,000 Buddhists march in demonstrations against the policies of the military government in South Vietnam |
| The Uniform Time Act is enacted setting daylight savings time standards for the whole country |
| President Johnson increases troop strength in Vietnam throughout the year, first to 190,000 and eventually up to 389,000 by years end |
| President Johnson orders the bombing of targets in and around Hanoi in North Vietnam |
| The Communist Party of China issues the “May 16 Notice”, marking the beginning of the Cultural Revolution |
| The Supreme Court rules that the police must inform suspects of their rights before questioning them called Miranda rights (Miranda v. Arizona) |
| The Freedom of Information Act, is passed by Congress |
| Caesars Palace hotel and casino opens in Las Vegas |
| The Beatles give their last public performance in the U.S. at Candlestick Park in San Francisco (click for more Beatles) |
| Grace Slick performs live with Jefferson Airplane for the first time |
| Tokyo officially becomes the largest city in the world, taking the lead from New York City |
| The Cuban Adjustment Act allows 123,000 Cuban exiles to apply for permanent residency |
| Actor Ronald Reagan is elected Governor of California |
| Dynamic Random Access Memory (DRAM) in a single cell is developed paving the way for more powerful computers |
| The complete decipherment of the genetic code (DNA) is achieved by Har Gobind Khorana |
| Human Sexual Response by Masters and Johnson is the first comprehensive scientific study of human sexual activity |
| The Supreme Court rules that material which, taken as a whole, appeals to a prurient interest to be obscene |
| Nestle introduces Taster’s Choice freeze-dried instant coffee |
| Left foot to red, right hand to yellow, everybody was all tied up over the game called Twister |
| Star Trek (the original series) created by Gene Roddenberry debuts on NBC (click show title for more info) |
| Also new on the little screen : the Monkees, Batman and Mission Impossible (click show title for more info) |
See also Celebrity Birthdays 1966
