March 19 – The Texas Western Miners defeat the Kentucky Wildcats with five African American starters, ushering in desegregation in athletic recruiting.
March 22 – In Washington, D.C., General Motors President James M. Roche appears before a Senate subcommittee, and apologizes to consumer advocate Ralph Nader for the company's intimidation and harassment campaign against him.
March 29 – The 23rd Communist Party Conference is held in the Soviet Union; Leonid Brezhnev demands that American troops leave Vietnam, and announces that Chinese-Soviet relations are unsatisfactory.
May 19 – Murder of Sylvia Likens: Gertrude Baniszewski is found guilty of torturing and murdering 16-year-old Sylvia Likens in Indiana and is sentenced to life in prison (she is released on parole in December 1985).[3]
1966 Topeka tornado: Topeka, Kansas is devastated by a tornado that registers as an F5 on the Fujita Scale, the first to exceed US$100 million in damages. Sixteen people are killed, hundreds more injured, and thousands of homes damaged or destroyed.[4]
The Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) endorses the goal of Black Power at a well attended convention in Baltimore, Maryland. Martin Luther King, Jr., and Roy Wilkins criticize this declaration.
September 1 – While waiting at a bus stop Ralph Baer, an inventor with Sanders Associates, writes a four-page document that lays out the basic principles for creating a video game to be played on a television: the beginning of a multibillion-dollar industry.
September 8–10 – State visit to the U.S. by the dictator General Ne Win, Chairman of the Revolutionary Council of the Union of Burma. He is honored by a 21-gun salute and given the key to the city of Washington D.C., "a long-standing American tradition of welcome". He holds talks with President Lyndon Johnson and with the highest ranking U.S. officials at the State Department who reaffirm support for Burmese neutrality. Further talks are held with George Ball, acting Secretary of State, and with Averell Harriman, U.S. Ambassador at Large.[6][7] Talks included an exchange of views on world issues and Burmese-American relations, and were officially described as "cordial", and the U.S. president and the General expressed mutual regard, according to a communiqué composed before the visit.[8] The General also visits Williamsburg in Virginia, the United Nations in New York City (where he is greeted by the Burmese Secretary General U Thant) and Hawaii.[9]
Valerie Percy, the 21-year-old daughter of Illinois Republican senatorial candidate Charles H. Percy, is stabbed and bludgeoned to death in the family mansion on Chicago's North Shore. The crime remains unsolved.
LSD is made illegal in the United States and controlled so strictly that not only are possession and recreational use criminalized, but all legal scientific research programs on the drug in the country are shut down as well.
The Love Pageant Rally takes place in the Panhandle of Golden Gate Park (a narrow section that projects into San Francisco's Haight-Ashbury district).
ABC broadcasts a highly acclaimed 90-minute television adaptation of the musical Brigadoon, starring Robert Goulet, Peter Falk, and Sally Ann Howes. It wins many Emmy Awards and inaugurates a short-lived series of special television adaptations of famous Broadway musicals on ABC. Goulet stars in all but one of these specials.
^Dyar, Ken (1966-05-08). "Dream Realized: Hidden Valley Oasis Opens". The Wichita Eagle. p. 9A. Retrieved 2023-08-10 – via Newspapers.com.
^Sylvia Likens: The 1965 torture and murder of the 16-year-old girl
^"The Topeka Tornado - June 8, 1966 - NWS Topeka, KS". Archived from the original on 2006-04-23.
^"On This Day", New York Times, retrieved 25 August 2016
^Joint Statement Following Discussions With General Ne Win of Burma The American Presidency Project, 1966-09-09.
^American Welcome The United States Information Agency. Retrieved: 2013-05-27.
^Memorandum From Secretary of State Rusk to President Johnson Office of the Historian, U.S. Department of State, 1966-09-03.
^Visits By Foreign Leaders of Burma Office of the Historian, U.S. Department of State. Retrieved: 2013-05-27.
^Aircraft Accident Report. West Coast Airlines, Inc DC-9 N9101. Near Wemme, Oregon Archived 2008-02-16 at the Wayback Machine, Adopted: 11 December 1967
^"Top celebrity birthdays for January 14, 2015 include LL Cool J, Dave Grohl". The Plain Dealer. Cleveland. January 14, 2015.
^"Deborah OCHS - Olympic Archery | United States of America". International Olympic Committee. 14 June 2016. Retrieved 23 April 2019.
^"Today in History". Philadelphia Tribune. March 14, 2010.
^California Births, 1905 – 1995, Michael A. Ines (Birth Date: May 14, 1966, County of Birth: Los Angeles)
^"Janet Jackson | Biography, Songs, & Facts | Britannica". www.britannica.com. Retrieved 16 December 2021.
^"UPI Almanac for Sunday, July 14, 2020". United Press International. July 14, 2020. Retrieved May 21, 2021.