Needless to say 1966 was a big year, not only for Volkswagen Beetles, but also for the world in general.  Below are just a few of the events that transpired during the year.  There were so many news worthy events in 1966 it was hard to decide what to include in this monthly list so I tried to select the events that I thought were significant.

January 29th – The Road Safety Act is passed which leads to the use of the Breathalyzer. The Road Safety Act empowered the federal government to create and administer new safety standards for motor vehicles and for roads. The Act created the National Highway Safety Bureau which is now known as the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. The Act was created to deal with the increasing number of vehicles on US roadways when had resulted in increasing accident fatalities. In 1966 there were eleven times more vehicles on the road than in 1925 resulting in 6 times more fatalities.

February 3rd – Soviet Probe Luna 9 is the first artificial satellite to ‘land’ on the moon. It survived it’s moon landing on the 3rd of February and began sending information in addition to three pictures of the moon’s surface. The last contact with Luna 9 was on February 9th.

March 31st – The USSR launches Luna 10, which will become the first space probe to orbit the moon. Luna 10 operated for 460 lunar orbits and performed 219 active data transmissions before radio signals were discontinued on 30 May 1966. Luna 10 conducted extensive research in lunar orbit, gathering important data on the Moon’s magnetic field, radiation, lunar rocks, and more.

April 21st – An artificial heart is installed in the chest of Marcel DeRudder in a Houston hospital.

May 28th – Fidel Castro announces martial law in Cuba because of a possible US attack.

June 13th – The US Supreme Court rules in the Miranda case that police must inform suspects of their rights before questioning them.   This restricted prosecutors from using a person’s statements made in response to their interrogation while they were in police custody, unless they were informed of the right to consult with an attorney before and during their interview. It also protected them from self incrimination. The defendant not only had to have their rights explained to them but also had to acknowledge that they understood them.

July 28th – Florence Nagle was a British trainer and breeder of racehorses, pedigree dogs, and an active feminist. At age 70, and after court appeals, becomes the first licensed female racehorse trainer.

August 5th – Groundbreaking on the World Trade Center takes place. The original World Trade Center was a large complex of seven buildings located in New York’s Financial District in Lower Manhattan. It opened on April 4, 1973, and was later destroyed on 9/11/2001 by terrorists. They were the tallest buildings in the world when they were completed.

September 16th – The Metropolitan Opera house opens in New York City .

October 6th – The ‘hippie’ drug LSD is made illegal in California. The governors of Nevada and California each signed bills outlawing the drug on May 30, 1966. The law went into effect immediately for Nevada, and on October 6th for California.

November 25th – J. Edgar Hoover announces all evidence suggests that Lee Harvey Oswald was acting alone. The results of the CIA and FBI investigation as well as the Warren Report are disputed to this day.

December 15th – Cartoon genius Walt Disney dies at age 65.

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