1966

1966 was a common year starting on Saturday (link goes to calendar)

Events

January

• January 1 - In a coup, Colonel Jean-Bédel Bokassa ousts president David Dacko and takes over the Central African Republic.
• January 2 - Strike of public transportation workers in New York City - ends January 13
• January 3 - First Acid Test at the Fillmore, San Francisco
• January 4 - Military coup in Upper Volta (later Burkina Faso).
• January 4 - Prime ministers of India and Pakistan meet in Moscow
• January 5 - Fire due to a gas leak in Feyzin oil refinery near Lyon, France - 12 dead, 80 injured
• January 10 - Pakistani-Indian peace negotiations end successfully in Moscow
• January 10 - French paper L'Express publishes a story of Georges Figon, who took part of the kidnapping of Mehdi Ben Barka. January 18 French police announces that Figon has committed suicide just before he was about to be arrested
• January 11 - Conference about the situation in Rhodesia begins in Lagos
• January 11 - Indian prime minister Lal Bahadur Shastri dies
• January 12 - Lyndon Johnson states that the United States should stay in South Vietnam until Communist aggression there is ended.
• January 13 - Robert C. Weaver becomes the first African American Cabinet member by being appointed United States Secretary of Housing and Urban Development.
• January 15 - A violent military coup in Nigeria
• January 15 - Moscow announces that Sergei Korolev is dead
• January 17 - The Nigerian coup is overturned
• January 17 - A B-52 bomber collides with a KC-135 jet tanker over Spain, dropping three 70-kiloton hydrogen bombs near the town of Palomares and one into the sea
• January 17 - Carl Brashear, the first African American United States Navy diver, is involved in an accident on a routine mission which amputates his leg.
• January 18 - About 8000 US soldiers land in South Vietnam - numbers of US troops total 190.000
• January 19 - Indira Gandhi is elected Prime Minister of India - sworn in January 24
• January 19 - Australian Prime Minister Robert Menzies resigns
• January 20 - Demonstrations against high food prices in Hungary
• January 21 - Italian Prime Minister Aldo Moro resigns due to a power struggle in his party
• January 22 - Military government of Nigeria announces that ex-prime minister Abubakar Tafawa Balewa has been killed during the coup
• January 26 - Harold Holt becomes Prime Minister of Australia when Robert Menzies retires
• January 26 - Three Beaumont chrildren disapper on their way to Glenelg Beach Adelaide SA, Australia. Never to be seen again
• January 27 - British government promises USA that British troops in Malaysia stay until more peaceful conditions in the region
• January 29 - The first of 608 performances of Sweet Charity opens at the Palace Theatre in New York City.
• January 31 - United Kingdom ceases all trade with Rhodesia
• January - First SR-71 spy plane goes into service.

February

• February 1 - West Germany has purchased 2600 political prisoners from East Germany
• February 3 - The unmanned Soviet Luna 9 spacecraft makes the first controlled rocket-assisted landing on the Moon
• February 4 - Japanese passenger jet crashes into Tokyo Bay - 133 dead
• February 6 - Fidel Castro blames China for spreading anti-Soviet propaganda among Cuban soldiers
• February 10 - Soviet writers Yuli Daniel and Andrei Sinjavski are sentenced for five and seven years, respectively, for anti-Soviet writings
• February 11 - Belgian government resigns
• February 14 - The Australian Dollar was introduced at a rate of two dollars per pound, or ten shillings per dollar.
• February 19 - Naval minister of United Kingdom, Christopher Mayhew, resigns
• February 20 - When Valeri Tarsis, Soviet author and translator is abroad, Soviet Union negates his citizenship
• February 23 - A military coup in Syria replaces the previous government with a Ba'athist regime.
• February 24 - A military coup in Ghana raises sacked general Ankrah to power while president Kwame Nkrumah is abroad.
• February 26 - Curfew in Jakarta
• February 28 - US astronauts Charles Bassett and Elliott See are killed in an aircraft accident in St. Louis, MO

March

• March 1 - Soviet space probe Venera 3 crashes on Venus, becoming the first spacecraft to land on another planet's surface.
• March 1 - The Ba'ath Party takes power in Syria
• March 2 - Kwame Nkrumah arrives in Guinea and is granted an asylum
• March 4 - The Beatles: In an interview published in The Evening Standard, John Lennon comments, "We're more popular than Jesus now," eventually sparking a controversy in the United States.
• March 5 - Massive theft of nuclear materials revealed in Brazil
• March 7 - Charles De Gaulle asks US president Johnson for negotiations about the state of NATO equipment in France
• March 8 - Anti-communist demonstrations in Indonesian foreign ministry
• March 8 – Ronald Kray, one of the Kray twins, shoots rival gangster George Cornell; the incidents leads to brother's incarceration
• March 8 - Vietnam War: Australia announces it is going to substantially increase its number of troops in Vietnam
• March 8 - A IRA bomb destroys Nelson's Pillar in Dublin
• March 10 - Crown Princess Beatrix of the Netherlands marries Claus von Amsberg.
• March 10 - Wedding of Beatrix, the crown princess of Netherlands and Claus von Amsberg. Some spectators demonstrate against the groom, because he is German
• March 11 – Indonesian president Sukarno gives all executive powers to general Suharto
• March 11 - French president Charles De Gaulle states that French troops will be taken out of NATO and that all French NATO bases and HQ's must be closed within a year
• March 16 - Gemini 8 docks with Agena target satellite
• March 17 - More anti-communist demonstrations in Indonesia
• March 17 - Off the coast of Spain in the Mediterranean, the Alvin submarine finds a missing American hydrogen bomb.
• March 23 - Pope Paul VI and Dr Arthur Michael Ramsey, the Archbishop of Canterbury, meet in Rome - the first official meeting for 400 years between the Catholic and the Anglican Churches
• March 26 - Demonstrations again the Vietnam War in USA
• March 27 - In South Vietnam, 20.000 Buddhists march in demonstrations against the policies of the military government
• March 28 - Indira Gandhi visits Washington DC
• March 29 - 23rd Communist party conference in Soviet Union - Leonid Brezhnev demands that US troops leave Vietnam and announces that Chinese-Soviet relations are not satisfying
• March 31 - The Labour Party under Harold Wilson win the British General Election
• March 31 - The Soviet Union launches Luna 10 which later becomes the first space probe to enter orbit around the moon

April

• April 2 - Indonesian army demands that the country rejoin the United Nations
• April 4 - Luna 10 enters orbit around the moon
• April 7 - The United Kingdom asks the UN Security Council authority to use force to stop oil tankers that violate oil embargo against Rhodesia. Authority is given April 10
• April 8 - Buddhists in South Vietnam protest against the fact that the new government has not set a date for free elections
• April 12 - Jan Berry of Jan & Dean suffers brain damage in a serious automobile accident in Beverly Hills, California
• April 14 - South Vietnamese government promises free elections in 3-5 months
• April 15 - anti-Nasser conspiracy exposed in Egypt
• April 18 - China declares that it stops economic aid to Indonesia
• April 21 - Artificial heart installed to the chest of Marcel DeRudder in Houston hospital
• April 21 - The opening of Parliament of the United Kingdom is televised for the first time
• April 27 - Pope Paul VI and Soviet premier Gromyko meet in the Vatican - the first meeting between representatives of the Catholic Church and Soviet Union
• April 29 - US troops in Vietnam total 250.000
• April 30 - regular hovercraft service begins over the English Channel (discontinued 2000 due to Channel Tunnel)

May

• May 1 - Floods in Finnish coast
• May 4 - Fiat signs a contract with Soviet government to build a car factory in Soviet Union
• May 6 - The Moors Murderers Ian Brady and Myra Hindley sentenced for life imprisonment
• May 12 - African members of the UN Security Council say that British army should blockage Rhodesia
• May 12 - Radio Peking claims that US planes have shot down a Chinese plane over Yunnan - US denies the story the next day
• May 14 - Turkey and Greece intend to start negotiations about the situation in Cyprus
• May 15 - Indonesia asks Malaysia for peace negotiations
• May 16-July 1 - Seamen's strike in Britain
• May 15 - South Vietnam army besieges Da Nang
• May 24 - Troops of Uganda army arrest Edward Mutesa II of Buganda and occupy his palace
• May 24 - Nigerian government forbids all political activity in the country (until the January 17, 1969)
• May 25 - Explorer program: Explorer 32 launches
• May 25 - In St. Louis, Missouri, US Vice-President Hubert Humphrey and US Secretary of the Interior Stewart Udall dedicate the Gateway Arch as part of the Jefferson National Expansion Memorial
• May 26 - Guyana achieves independence.
• May 28 - Fidel Castro announces a martial law in Cuba because of possible US attack
• May 28 – Indonesian and Malayan governments declare that Indonesian Confrontation is over. Treaty signed in August 11
• May 31 - Philippines reform diplomatic relations with Malaysia

June

• June 2 - US space probe Surveyor lands on the Moon
• June 2 - Eamon de Valera re-elected as Irish president
• June 2 - Surveyor program: Surveyor 1 lands in Oceanus Procellarumon the Moon, becoming the first spacecraft to soft land on another world
• June 3 - Joacim Balaguer elected president of Dominican Republic
• June 5 - Gene Cernan completes second U.S. spacewalk (which lasted 2 hours, 7 minutes) on the Gemini 9 mission.
• June 6 - James Meredith, civil rights activist, is shot while trying to march across Mississippi
• June 13 - The U.S. Supreme Court rules in Miranda v. Arizona that the police must inform suspects of their rights before questioning them
• June 17 - Air France personnel strike begins
• June 18 - CIA chief William F. Raborn resigns - Richard Helms will be his successor
• June 20-July 1 - Charles De Gaulle visits Soviet Union
• June 21- Opposition leader Arthur Calwell injured when shot after attending a political meeting in Mosman, Sydney, Australia
• June 28 - In Argentina a Junta deposes president Arturo Umberto Illia in a coup and appoints general Juan Carlos Ongania to lead
• June 29 - Sailors' strike, organised by the National Union of Seamen ends in the United Kingdom
• June 29 - Vietnam War: US planes begin bombing Hanoi and Haiphong
• June 30 - France formally leaves NATO

July

• July 1 - Joaquin Balaguer becomes president of the Dominican Republic.
• July 3 - Rene Barrientos elected president of Bolivia
• July 4 - North Vietnam declares general mobilization
• July 4 - President Lyndon B. Johnson signs the Freedom of Information Act into law. The act goes into effect the following year.
• July 6 - Malawi becomes a republic
• July 7 - Conference of Warsaw Pact ends with a promise to support North Vietnam
• July 12 - Indira Gandhi visits Moscow
• July 12 - Zambia threatens to leave British Commonwealth because of British peace overtures to Rhodesia
• July 12 - US lieutenant major W.H. Whalen arrested for spying
• July 14 - Israeli and Syrian jet fighters fight over the Jordan River
• July 14 - In Chicago, Illinois, Richard Speck murders eight student nurses in their dormitory
• July 14 - Gwynfor Evans becomes member of Parliament for Carmarthen, the first Plaid Cymru MP in the UK.

• July 16 - British Prime Minister Harold Wilson flies to Moscow to try to start peace negotiations about Vietnam War - Soviet Government refutes his ideas
• July 17 - Richard Speck arrested - he tries to commit suicide but fails
• July 18 - Gemini X lifts off for earth orbit with astronauts John Young and Michael Collins, setting a world altitude record of 474 miles.
• July 19 - Chinese delegate in Netherlands, Liu en-Tsiu, is declared persona non grata because of death of a Chinese engineer in unclear circumstances; there are claims that he was kidnapped and taken to the delegate's office
• July 22 - Chinese government announces Dutch delegate G. J. Jongejans persona non grata but tells him not to leave the country before group of Chinese engineers has left the Netherlands
• July 24 - U Thant visits Moscow
• July 26 - Lord Gardiner issues the Practice Statement in the House of Lords stating that the House is not bound to follow its own previous precedent
• July 28 - USA announces that U-2 reconnaissance plane has disappeared over Cuba
• July 29 - Nigerian army rebels and execute the head of state general Irons, Richard Steven Horvitz is born.
• July 30 - England beat West Germany 4-2 to win the World Cup at Wembley

August

• August 1 - Sniper Charles Whitman kills 13 from the University of Texas at Austin Main Building.
• August 1 - Military coup in Nigeria - general Yakubu Gowon takes over
• August 2 - Spanish government forbids overflights of British military aircraft
• August 5 - Martin Luther King leads a civil rights march in Chicago
• August 6 - Rene Barrientos takes office as the president of Bolivia
• August 6 - Bridge over Tajo River in Lisbon, Portugal, is opened
• August 7 - Race riots occur in Lansing,Michigan.
• August 10 - East German court sentences Günter Laudahn to life imprisonment for espionage for USA
• August 10 - Lunar Orbiter 1, the first US spacecraft to orbit another world, is launched
• August 12 - In the Massacre of Braybrook Street, Harry Roberts, John Duddy and Jack Witney shoot dead three plain clothes policemen in London - they are later sentenced to life imprisonment
• August 13 - China begins Cultural Revolution
• August 13 - An earthquake in Turkey - 2394 dead, 10000 injured
• August 15 - Syrian and Israeli troops clash over Lake Genesaret for three hours
• August 15 - New York Herald Tribune stops publication
• August 16 - Vietnam War: The House Un-American Activities Committee begins investigations of Americans who have aided the Viet Cong with the intent to introduce legislation making these activities illegal. Anti-war demonstrators disrupt the meeting and 50 are arrested.
• August 17 - Saudi Arabia and United Arab Republic begin negotiations in Kuwait to end the war in Yemen
• August 18 - Vietnam War: D Company, 6th Battalion of the Royal Australian Regiment meets and defeats a Viet Cong force estimated to be four times larger, at the Battle of Long Tan in Phuoc Tuy Province, Republic of Vietnam
• August 19 - Earthquake in eastern Turkey destroys whole cities
• August 21 - Seven men sentenced to death in Egypt for anti-Nasser agitation
• August 22 - Formation of the United Farm Workers Organizing Committee (UFWOC), predecessor of the United Farm Workers of America (UFW)
• August 26 - Riots in French Somaliland
• August 30 - France offers independence to French Somaliland

September

• September 1 - United Nations Secretary-General U Thant declares that he is not going to seek re-election because UN efforts in Vietnam have failed
• September 6 - In Cape Town, the South African architect of Apartheid, Prime Minister Hendrik Verwoerd is stabbed to death by Dimitri Tsafendas during a parliamentary meeting
• September 9 - NATO decides to move SHAPE headquarters to Belgium.
• September 13 - Balthazar Johannes Vorster becomes new South African prime minister
• September 13 - TASS reports about clashes between members of the Chinese Communist Party and the Red Guard
• September 16 - In South Vietnam, Thich Tri Quang begins a 100-day hunger strike
• September 16 - Metropolitan Opera house opened in New York City
• September 18 - Valerie Percy, the 21 year old daughter of Senator Charles Percy, is stabbed and bludgeoned to death in the family mansion on Chicago's North Shore.
• September 19 - Scotland Yard arrests Ronald Edwards suspected of being involved of the great train robbery
• September 30 - October 1 (midnight) - Baldur von Schirach and Albert Speer released from Spandau Prison
• September 30 - Botswana achieves independence.

October

• October 3 - Tunisia severs its diplomatic relations to United Arab Republic
• October 4 - Israel applies for the outer membership of EEC
• October 4 - Basutoland becomes independent and takes the name Lesotho
• October 5 - UNESCO signs the Recommendation Concerning the Status of Teachers. This even is now celebrated as World Teachers' Day.
• October 7 - Soviet Union declares that all Chinese students must leave the country before the end of October
• October 11 - France and Soviet Union sign a treaty about cooperation in nuclear research
• October 14 - The city of Montreal inaugurates its metro system (see Montreal Metro)
• October 15 - US President Lyndon B. Johnson signs a bill creating the United States Department of Transportation.
• October 17 - Lesotho and Botswana accepted to join United Nations
• October 21 – Aberfan disaster in South Wales, United Kingdom
• October 22 - British spy George Blake escapes from HM Prison Wormwood Scrubs prison; he is next seen in Moscow
• October 22 - Spain demands that United Kingdom stop military flights to Gibraltar - Britain says no the next day
• October 24 - Negotiations about the Vietnam War begin in Manila, Philippines
• October 25 - Military court in Jakarta sentences ex-foreign minister Subandrio to death
• October 25 - Spain closes its Gibraltar border against non-pedestrian traffic
• October 26 - NATO moves its HQ from Paris to Brussels
• October 28 - US artist Lynne Seemayer paints the Pink Lady, a 60-feet tall picture of a naked woman, above a tunnel on Malibu Canyon Road. Authorities have it painted over in November 3 (see [1])
• October 29 - Guinean delegation en route to OAU meeting in Ethiopia is made hostages of Ghana government in Accra

November

• November 2 - The Cuban Adjustment Act enters force, allowing 123,000 Cubans the opportunity to apply for permanent residence in the United States
• November 4 - The Arno river floods Florence, damaging many art treasures
• November 5 - 38 African states demand that United Kingdom use force against Rhodesian government
• November 6 - Lunar Orbiter 2 is launched.
• November 8 - Former Massachusetts Attorney General Edward Brooke becomes the first African American elected to the United States Senate.
• November 11 - A mine kills three Israeli paratroopers on the West Bank border.
• November 11 - Spain declares general amnesty about crimes committed during the Spanish Civil War (effectively only for Falangists side)
• November 12 - Birthdate of Stuart King, popular American TV actor beginning in the 1990's.
• November 15 - Gemini program: Gemini 12, carrying astronauts James A. Lovell and Buzz Aldrin, splashes down safely in the Atlantic Ocean 600 km east of the Bahamas.
• November 15 - Harry Maurice Roberts, who had killed three policemen in August, is caught near London
• November 16 - US doctor Samuel Sheppard is acquitted in his second trial of murder of his pregnant wife in 1954
• November 17 - UN General Assembly decides to found United Nations Industrial Development Organization
• November 21 - Army crushes an attempted coup in Togo
• November 28 Truman Capote's Black and White Ball -- dubbed The Party of the Century -- is held in New York City.
• November 30 - Barbados achieves independence.

December

• December 1 - Kurt Georg Kiesinger is elected Chancellor of West Germany
• December 1 - British Prime Minister Harold Wilson and Rhodesian Prime minister Ian Smith negotiate on HMS Tiger in Mediterranean
• December 2 - U Thant agrees to serve a second term as UN Secretary general
• December 3 - Anti-Portuguese demonstrations in Macau. Curfew declared the next day
• December 7 - Syria offers weapons to rebels in Jordan
• December 7 - Barbados is accepted into United Nations
• December 16 - UN Security council approves oil embargo against Rhodesia
• December 17 - South Africa does not join the trade embargo against Rhodesia
• December 20 - Harold Wilson withdraws all his previous offers to Rhodesian government and announces that he agrees to the independence only after the founding of black majority government
• December 22 - Rhodesian Prime minister Ian Smith declares that he considers that Rhodesia is already a republic
• December 26 - The first Kwanzaa is celebrated by Maulana Karenga, the chair of Black Studies at California State University, Long Beach
• December 31 - Walter Ulbricht talks about negotiations about German unification
• December 31 - Thieves steal millions worth of paintings from Dulwich Art Gallery in London
• December 31 - Congolese government takes over the Union Minière du Haut Katanga.

Unknown dates

• Cultural Revolution declared in mainland China.
• In Burundi, King Mwambutsa IV is deposed by his son Ntare V, who is in turn deposed by prime minister Michel Micombero.
• Bobby Seale and Huey P. Newton found Black Panther Party.
• Haile Selassie visits Jamaica for the first time, meeting with Rastafarian leaders
• Konstantin Chernenko, later leader of Soviet Union, becomes candidate member of the Central Committee.
• Surrealist Movement in the United States founded by Franklin and Penelope Rosemont.
• Lise Meitner and Otto Hahn are awarded the Fermi Prize.
• Congress of the United States creates National Council for Marine Resources and Engineering Development.
• Martin Richards designs the BCPL programming language.
• The DKW automobile goes out of production.
• World Buddhist Sangha Council convened by Theravadins in Sri Lanka with the hope of bridging differences and working together.
• Long-term potentiation (LTP), the putative cellular mechanism of learning and memory, is first observed by Terje Lømo in Oslo, Norway.
• Actress Saira Banu marries actor Dilip Kumar.

Births

January-April

• January 1 - Michael Imperioli, actor
• January 12 - Rob Zombie, musician, artist, writer
• January 13 - Patrick Dempsey, actor
• January 17 - Shabba Ranks, singer
• January 20 - Tracii Guns, guitarist
• January 29 - Romário, Brazilian football (soccer) player
• February 1 - Michelle Akers, American soccer star
• February 6 - Rick Astley, British singer
• February 9 - Ellen van Langen, Dutch athlete
• February 11 - Stephen Gregory, actor
• February 11 - Patrick Kuhnen, German tennis player
• February 11 - Anthony Parker, American football player
• February 20 - Cindy Crawford, model
• February 22 - Brian Andrew Greig, statesman
• February 24 - Billy Zane, actor
• February 25 - Samson Kitur, Kenyan athlete
• March 3 - Tone-Loc, musician
• March 4 - Kevin Johnson, basketball player
• March 6 - Yahya Ayyash, Palestinian terrorist (d. 1996)
• March 10 - Edie Brickell, singer
• March 25 - Tom Glavine, baseball pitcher
• March 31 - Roger Black, British athlete
• April 2 - Teddy Sheringham, English footballer
• April 14 - Greg Maddux, baseball pitcher
• April 18 - Trine Hattestad, Norwegian javelin thrower
• April 28 - John Daly, American golfer
• April 29 - Phil Tufnell, cricketer

May-August

• May 10 - Jonathan Edwards, British athlete
• May 12 - Stephen Baldwin, actor
• May 13 - Darius Rucker, musician Hootie & The Blowfish frontman
• May 16 - Janet Jackson, singer
• May 16 - Thurman Thomas, American football player
• May 24 - Eric Cantona, French footballer
• May 26 - Helena Bonham Carter, actress
• May 26 - Zola Budd, athlete
• June 4 - Cecilia Bartoli, Italian mezzo-soprano
• June 4 - Tiffany Million, actress
• June 8 - Julianna Margulies, actress
• June 18 - Kurt Browning, figure skater
• June 21 - Rudi Bakhtiar, journalist
• June 25 - Dikembe Mutombo, basketball player
• June 27 - J. J. Abrams, television writer and producer
• June 28 - John Cusack, actor
• June 30 - Mike Tyson, boxer
• July 3 - Moises Alou, Major League Baseball player
• July 7 - Gundula Krause, violinist
• July 13 - Gerald Levert, singer
• July 14 - Matthew Fox, actor
• July 15 - Irène Jacob, actress
• August 7 - Jimmy Wales, American founder of Wikipedia
• August 11 - Juan Maria Solare, composer
• August 14 - Halle Berry, actress
• August 19 - Lee Ann Womack, musician

September-December

• September 4 - Yanka Dyagileva, Russian punk-rock singer
• September 9 - Georg Hackl, German luger
  • Adam Sandler, actor, comedian (Saturday Night Live, Happy Gilmore, 50 First Dates)
• September 21 - Kiefer Sutherland, actor (24 (television))
• October 3 - Rabbi Binyamin Ze'ev Kahane, Israeli settler leader (d. 2000)
• October 8 - Aaron Callaghan, Irish football club assistant manager
• October 24 - Roman Abramovich, Russian oligarch and oil magnate
• October 27 - Matt Drudge, Internet journalist
• October 28 - Steve Atwater, American football player
• November 6 - Peter DeLuise, American actor
• November 12 - David Schwimmer, American actor (Friends)
• November 14 - Curt Schilling, baseball pitcher
• November 17 - Jeff Buckley, American singer (d. 1997)
  • Sophie Marceau, actress
• November 20 - Kevin Gilbert, singer, composer and instrumentalist
• December 1 - Larry Walker, Canadian baseball player
• December 7 - C. Thomas Howell, actor
  • Linn Ullmann, Norwegian journalist and author

Deaths

January-March

• January 1 - Vincent Auriol, President of France (b. 1884)
• January 11 - Alberto Giacometti, Swiss sculptor (b. 1910)
• January 11 - Hannes Kolehmainen, Finnish runner (b. 1889)
• January 14 - Barry Fitzgerald, Irish actor (b. 1888)
• January 14 - Bill Carr, American athlete
• January 15 - Sergei Korolev, space scientist
• January 18 - Kathleen Norris, writer
• February 1 - Buster Keaton, American actor and film director
• February 1 - Hedda Hopper, American gossip columnist
• February 10 - Billy Rose, composer and band leader
• February 10 - Lal Bahadur Shastri, Prime Minister of India
• February 20 - Chester Nimitz, American admiral
• March 1 - Fritz Houtermans, physicist (b. 1903)
• March 3 - Maxfield Parrish, American artist
• March 5 - Anna Akhmatova, Russian poet
• March 8 - William Waldorf Astor, 3rd Viscount Astor, British politican
• March 10 - Frits Zernike, Dutch physicist, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1888)

April-September

• April 2 - C.S. Forester, English author (b. 1899)
• April 3 - Battista Pininfarina, Italian car designer (b. 1893)
• April 10 - Evelyn Waugh, English author (b. 1903)
• April 11 - Maximiliano Hernández Martínez, military dictator of El Salvador (assassinated) (b. 1882)
• April 13 - Georges Duhamel, French author (b. 1884)
• April 13 - Abdul Salam Arif, President of Iraq (b. 1921)
• April 23 - Georges Ohsawa, Japanese diet founder (b. 1893)
• May 22 - Tom Goddard, English cricketer (b. 1900)
• June 1 - Papa Jack Laine, American jazz musician (b. 1873)
• June 7 - Jean Arp, Alsatian sculptor, painter, and poet (b. 1887)
• June 8 - Anton Melik, Slovenian geographer (b. 1890)
• June 12 - Hermann Scherchen, Austrian conductor (b. 1891)
• June 19 - Ed Wynn, American actor (b. 1886)
• June 30 - Giuseppe Farina, Italian race car driver (b. 1906)
• July 2 - Jan Brzechwa, Polish poet (b. 1900)
• July 5 - George de Hevesy, Hungarian chemist, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1885)
• July 6 - Sad Sam Jones, baseball player (b. 1892)
• July 24 - Montgomery Clift, American actor (b. 1920)
• August 3 - Lenny Bruce, American comedian (b. 1925)
• August 6 - Cordwainer Smith, American author (b. 1913)
• September 5 - Dezső Lauber, Hungarian sportsman and architect (b. 1879)
• September 6 - Margaret Sanger, American birth control advocate (b. 1879)
• September 6 - Hendrik Verwoerd, Dutch-born Prime Minister of South Africa (b. 1901)
• September 11 - C. E. Woolman, American airline founder (b. 1889)
• September 17 - Fritz Wunderlich, German tenor (b. 1930)
• September 19 - Valerie Percy, daughter of former Sen. Charles Percy and would-be sister-in-law of Sen Jay Rockefeller
• September 28 - Andre Breton, French writer (b. 1896)

October-December

• October 18 - Elizabeth Arden, Canadian-born beautician and cosmetics entrepreneur (b. 1878)
• November 2 - Peter Debye, Dutch chemist, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1884)
• November 2 - Mississippi John Hurt, American singer and guitarist (b. 1893)
• November 23 - Sean T. O'Kelly, second President of Ireland (b. 1882)
• December 15 - Walt Disney, American animated film producer (b. 1901)

Nobel Prizes

• Physics - Alfred Kastler
• Chemistry - Robert S. Mulliken
• Medicine - Peyton Rous, Charles Brenton Huggins
• Literature - Shmuel Yosef Agnon, Nelly Sachs
• Peace - Not Awarded

Fields Medalists

• Michael Francis Atiyah, Paul Joseph Cohen, Alexander Grothendieck, Stephen Smale