President Lyndon Johnson states that the United States should stay in South Vietnam until Communist aggression there is ended. He adds 8,000 more U.S. soldiers in February to total 190,000 and another 60, 000 by April to make the total U.S. troops in Vietnam total 250,000.
B-52's begin drops on Hanoi and Haiphong
.
On March 26 demonstrations are held across the United States against the Vietnam War. On May 15 Tens of thousands demonstrators picket the White House, then rally at the Washington Monument where Martin Luther King Jr. makes his first public speech denouncing the Vietnam War.
Civil rights activist James Meredith is shot while trying to march across Mississippi. A few weeks later Martin Luther King is struck by a rock thrown from an angry white mob in a civil rights march in Chicago .
And is it any wonder that Bobby Seale and Huey Newton found the Black Panther Party?
In June, 1966, Betty Friedan and 27 other women and men founded The National Organization for Women (NOW) in Washington, DC.
Richard Speck is arrested in the deaths of 8 student nurses in their Chicago dormitory.
After Charles Whitman murdered his mother and his wife he entered the tower at the University of Texas in Austin and with an arsenal of weapons shot 45 people killing 14. He played with guns from an early age and was a Marine. He had been complaining of headaches and an autopsy found a brain tumor the size of a baseball.
Miranda- The U.S. Supreme Court rules that the police must inform suspects of their rights before questioning them.
The Baby Boomers. The first generation of Americans who grew up safe, secure and middle class. Shunning cultural, political and religious tradition they moved us forward and into trouble.
The World 1966
The Palomares Incident. While fueling over over Spain, a B-52 collides with a KC-135 Stratotanker dropping four 1.5 megaton hydrogen bombs near the town of Palomares. The one in the sea was recovered and the three disintegrated and dispersed plutonium around Palomaies. 2000 tons of radio active earth were scraped up and sent to America.
The unmanned Soviet Luna 9 spacecraft makes the first controlled rocket-assisted landing on the Moon. Later in the year they launch Luna 10, which becomes the first space probe to enter orbit the Moon. And their launch of Venera 3 crashes on Venus, becoming the first spacecraft to land on another planet's surface.
Indira Gandhi is elected Prime Minister of India. She held the position until 1977 when she was ousted for political shenanigans. She overcame the problems and was elected again in 1980 only to be assassinated by religious extremists in 1984.
At the bequest of President Charles DeGaule, France formally withdraws from the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. NATO Headquarters are moved from Paris to Brussels.
The Vatican abolishes the Index Librorum Prohibitorum (index of banned books).
Nobel
Prizes 1966
Physics - Alfred Kastler Chemistry - Robert S. Mulliken Physiology or Medicine - Peyton Rous, Charles Brenton Huggins Literature - Shmuel Yosef Agnon, Nelly Sachs Peace - n/a
Civil rights activist 
