50 Years Ago: A Look Back at 1966 - The Atlantic

50 Years Ago: A Look Back at 1966

A half-century ago, the war in Vietnam continued its escalation, NASA’s Project Gemini was completed after ten manned launches, and the USSR successfully landed a vehicle on the Moon. The first Automated Teller Machine (ATM) was introduced, along with miniaturized televisions, while race riots and anti-war protests swept the United States. Charles Whitman shot and killed 14 people from his perch atop a tower at the University of Texas at Austin, and doctors at the Veterans Administration hospital in New Jersey conducted medical tests on 10 beagles, attaching them to machines designed to let them smoke cigarettes for years. Let me take you 50 years into the past, for a look at the year 1966.

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  • Six-year-old Robin Arrington, daughter of a Miami Southern Christian Leadership Conference attorney, leans on Dr. Martin Luther King's shoulder as Dr. King holds a press conference, April 11, 1966, in Miami, Florida.

    AP
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  • Women and children crouch in a muddy canal as they take cover from intense Viet Cong fire at Bao Trai, about 20 miles west of Saigon, Vietnam, on January 1, 1966.

    Horst Faas / AP
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  • Italian fashion in 1966, from left: a cocktail dress of soft green yellow and sky blue, Ye-Ye fashions from Rome in front of the Colosseum, and a bright blue woolen coat with blue fedora hood.

    AP
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  • The Cuban Prime Minister Fidel Castro, right, President Osvaldo Dorticos, center, and Armed Forces Chief, Commander Raul Castro, watch as Cuban military units parade during a celebration of the 7th anniversary of the overthrow of the Batista regime, January 2, 1966, in Havana.

    AP
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  • Helmeted Mississippi Highway Patrolmen wearing gas masks move in on a tent set up by Mississippi Marchers and Canton Negroes in a schoolyard in Canton, Mississippi, on June 24, 1966. In background, clouds of tear gas drift around coughing demonstrators as they make their way out of the tent.

    Charles Kelly / AP
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  • The Beatles pose together before their performance in a TV studio in London, England, in 1966.

    AP
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  • Ham, the chimpanzee who took a 414-mile ride into space to a height of 156 miles, in a capsule fired from Cape Canaveral on January 31, 1961, grimaces on the eve of the 5th anniversary of his space performance. Ham was retired and a resident of the National Zoo in Washington, District of Columbia, on January 30, 1966.

    AP
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  • A Vietnamese fisherman keeps his line in the surf as a seemingly endless column of U.S. Marines file along the beach. Troops were part of force that landed at the beach south of Quang Ngai, Vietnam, on January 28, 1966. It was described as the biggest amphibious assault since Inchon in the Korean War. About 4,000 Marines came ashore for time a push against Viet Cong elements believed in the area which the Communists had long controlled.

    Eddie Adams / AP
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  • The faces of typical American soldiers fighting in the war in South Vietnam, January 5, 1966.

    AP
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  • The American Nazi Party leader George Lincoln Rockwell carries placards as he picketed a building in Dallas on January 29, 1966, to test a city law against picketing by groups such as his. Rockwell was not arrested.

    Fred Kaufman / AP
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  • On Sunset Strip, where lobster or squab at high prices were normal restaurant fare not long ago, some of the day's swinging kids dance on February 7, 1966.

    George Brich / AP
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  • A Nassau police rider, Garnet Lockhart, takes a fall in front of Queen Elizabeth II and her husband, Prince Philip, during a demonstration by the Bahamas Police Force, at Clifford Park, Nassau, Bahamas on February 28, 1966.

    AP
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  • The skyline of Portland, Oregon, with Mount Hood in the background, in 1966.

    AP
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  • Jose Augusto, Benfica, beats Manchester United goalkeeper Gregg to head in the first goal of the quarter-final first-leg match of the European Cup, at Old Trafford, Manchester, England, on February 2, 1966.

    AP
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  • U.S. Army F105 Thunderchief fighter-bombers drop bombs on military and strategic targets in north Vietnam on February 8, 1966.

    AFP / Getty
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  • Soldiers of the 173rd Airborne Brigade set off a smoke grenade in the jungle during Operation Silver City in Long Khanh Province, Vietnam, in March of 1966.

    AP
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  • The Army nurse 2nd Lieutenant Roberta Steele, 23, looks out from a medical helicopter with a hospital below in Qui Nhon, South Vietnam, on February 9, 1966.

    Eddie Adams / AP
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  • A helicopter lifts a wounded American soldier on a stretcher during Operation Silver City in Vietnam, on March 13, 1966.

    AP
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  • Marchers, estimated between 30,000 to 35,000, parade down New York’s Fifth Avenue on March 26, 1966, to demand a stop to American involvement in Vietnam.

    AP
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  • Trailing a trail of fire, the Atlas Agena rocket leaves pad at Cape Kennedy, Florida, on March 18, 1966. Later, Gemini 8 astronauts rendezvoused and docked with the orbiting Agena stage.

    AP
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  • A U.S. military policeman carries a victim from the Victoria Hotel, an officers' billet in Saigon, South Vietnam, after it was attacked on March 31, 1966. Viet Cong terrorists attacked with machine guns, grenades and a truck full of explosives. Three Americans died in an exchange of gunfire with the terrorists during and after the raid.

    Horst Faas / AP
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  • The pilot Leslie R. Leavoy is shown in flight with other jets in the background above Vietnam in 1966.

    Eddie Adams / AP
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  • The land is harsh, with none of America's great waterways to make it fertile. But it is magnificent and beautiful—and the Navajos cling to it, and to their own unique culture. Those who leave often return, and there are 100,000 Navajos on or near their reservation of 24,000 square miles in northeastern Arizona reaching into New Mexico and Utah. This scene is in Monument Valley looking across Ford's Point, on April 12, 1966. Sheep graze on what they can find near the high buttes.

    AP
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  • British actor Michael Caine poses for a photo during a visit to the back lot at Universal International Studios, during time off from filming Gambit in Los Angeles, California, on January 26, 1966.

    AP
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  • Bus captain Mrs. Marlene McIlvaine and Principal Hughes of the Edward P. Seaver School, Forest Hills, check children on a school bus as they wait to be bussed back to Roxbury in Boston on April 15, 1966.

    AP
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  • A Mississippi highway patrolman moves a young demonstrator who took refuge in a car when tear gas was used to disperse some 2,000 demonstrators at the entrance of Alcorn A&M College at Lorman, Mississippi, on April 6, 1966. Other patrolmen move in as the tear gas billows upward in the background.

    AP
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  • Main Street in Beijing with older-type housing estates on the right, on May 11, 1966.

    AP
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  • A napalm strike erupts in a fireball near U.S. troops on patrol in South Vietnam in 1966.

    AP
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  • A U.S. military policeman holds a pistol to the back of a Viet Cong suspect after a blast near the U.S. Bachelor Officers Quarters in Saigon, on May 10, 1966. The explosion set off a storm of machine gun and automatic rifle fire from American sentries; five people were reported killed, with 32 wounded and seven suspected terrorists in custody following the incident.

    Horst Faas / AP
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  • Buddhist nun Thich Nu Thanh Quang burns in an act of suicide protest against the government's Catholic regime at the Dieu de Pagoda in Hue, South Vietnam, on May 29, 1966.

    AP
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  • Children walk along the pond in Boston's Public Garden with the John Hancock building in the background, in 1966.

    AP
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  • The Civil Rights activist James Meredith grimaces in pain as he pulls himself across Highway 51 after being shot in Hernando, Mississippi, on June 6, 1966. Meredith, who defied segregation to enroll at the University of Mississippi in 1962 completed the march from Memphis, Tennessee, to Jackson, Mississippi, after treatment of his wounds.

    Jack Thronell / AP
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  • A 100-million-year-old battle atop a volcanic mountain is recreated in this scene from the new “Primeval World” display at Disneyland in Anaheim, California, on July 7, 1966. At the right is the greatly feared, huge Tyrannosaurus Rex, shaking his tooth-filled head at a smaller stegosaurus, who compensates for his size with two brains, armor plates, and a death-dealing tail.

    AP
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  • A tornado strikes the city of Enid, Oklahoma, on July 5, 1966.

    Leo Ainsworth / AFP / Getty
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  • A U.S. Marine CH-46 Sea Knight helicopter comes down in flames after being hit by enemy ground fire during Operation Hastings, just south of the Demilitarized Zone between North and South Vietnam, on July 15, 1966. The helicopter crashed and exploded on a hill, killing one crewman and 12 Marines. Three crewman escaped with serious burns.

    Horst Faas / AP
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  • A Marine, top, wounded slightly when his face was grazed by an enemy bullet, pours water into the mouth of a fellow Marine suffering from heat exhaustion during Operation Hastings, along the demilitarized zone between North and South Vietnam on July 21, 1966.

    AP
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  • Hydroplane driver Rene Andres (far left) cartwheels through the air after being thrown from his disintegrating boat on the Feather River in Oroville, California, on August 29, 1966. The West Covina, California, driver was hurled nearly 200 feet when his boat, Citation II, flipped and broke up. The accident occurred during a trial run before the start of race sanctioned by the National Drag Boat Association. Andres was later reported in fair condition in an Oroville hospital.

    AP
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  • The World Heavyweight Boxing Champion Muhammad Ali (Cassius Clay) in 1966.

    AP
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  • The Chicago radio news reporter Jeff Kamen is punched by a white man during demonstrations in Grenada, Mississippi, on August 10, 1966. Kamen was pushed to the ground and punched several times as he was covering a night march that was pelted by rocks and bottles thrown by angry whites.

    Jack Thornell / AP
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  • Smoke rises from a sniper's gun as he fires at people below from the tower of the University of Texas administration building in Austin, Texas, on August 1, 1966. Charles Whitman, an engineering student and former Marine, shot and killed 14 people and an unborn child and wounded 32 others, before being killed by law enforcement.

    AP
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  • A model looks at the Sinclair Microvision set, a pocket size television set designed by Clive Sinclair that can go anywhere and claims to be the world's smallest TV, at Earls Court, London, on September 1, 1966. The rectangular face plate of the cathode tube has a diagonal measurement of two inches.

    AP
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  • A volunteer undergoes an LSD research project at an honor camp in Viejas, California, on September 6, 1966.

    AP
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  • A South Vietnamese ranger forces a South Vietnamese prisoner into a mud-hole in the Mekong Delta, about 140 miles southwest of Saigon, on September 3, 1966. The rangers had landed in the area shortly before dawn in search of Viet Cong. When none were found, the rangers seized two suspects, beat them, and threatened them with drowning in the mud-hole.

    AP
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  • Astronaut Edwin E. Aldrin., Jr., pilot of the Gemini 12 spaceflight, performs standup extravehicular activity during the first day of a 4-day mission in space on November 11, 1966.

    NASA
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  • San Francisco police break up a large gathering at the Civic Center in San Francisco on October 22, 1966, to protest against the American Nazi leader George Lincoln Rockwell who held a rally. Rockwell was jeered and was ordered out of the area as some 4,000 people gathered. Anti-Nazi demonstrators carried signs declaring “Defeat fascism,” “Go home Nazis,” and “Keep racism out of San Francisco.” No one was injured in the brief scuffling.

    AP
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  • This new “banking” machine was displayed for the first time at the American Bankers Association annual meeting in San Francisco, California, on October 25, 1966. Banks of the future may have “automated tellers” installed in office and apartment lobbies. Richard Glyer demonstrated how to deposit a check in one. Through the medium of automation he can talk to a teller whom he sees on the television screen. She will answer his questions, cash checks, and issue currency from his account.

    Ernest K. Bennett / AP
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  • Passengers pack themselves like sardines in a subway car at the height of the rush hour in New York City in 1966.

    AP
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  • One of the 10 beagles involved in the first test of a Veterans Administration Hospital experiment, shown in East Orange, New Jersey, on November 28, 1966. The dogs “smoke” cigarettes through a machine linked to their windpipes by a plastic tube. In a test which may last several years, they will smoke to provide new information about any link between smoking and emphysema, a growing ailment which destroys lung tissue.

    AP
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  • Cindy Frink, a Video Data Interrogator operator for California’s Department of Motor Vehicles, demonstrates a key machine in the department’s planned computer system at Sacramento, California, on October 20, 1966. The operator types information about licenses, traffic records, and ownership into a computer, which stores it on magnetic tape “flakes”. Similar video screens or automatic transcribing machines will be installed in DMV and law enforcement offices in major metropolitan centers. Information can be immediately transmitted from the computer center in Sacramento to their offices by dialing a code.

    AP
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  • “The Korean Kittens,” a singing group, appear on stage at Cu Chi, Vietnam, during the Bob Hope Christmas show, to entertain U.S. troops of the 25th Infantry Division in 1966.

    Horst Faas / AP
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