March 1967

The following events occurred in March 1967:

March 1, 1967 (Wednesday)

• The city of Hatogaya, Saitama, Japan, is founded.
• Hankyū Senri Line, Osaka, opens on Japanese railways.
• Brazilian police arrest Franz Stangl, ex-commander of Treblinka and Sobibór concentration camps.
• The Red Guards return to schools in China.
• The Queen Elizabeth Hall is opened in London.^[1]
• Óscar Gestido is sworn in as President of Uruguay after 15 years of collegiate government.
• The Royal Australian Navy replaces the British White Ensign flag on all its ships with the Australian White Ensign.^[2]

March 2, 1967 (Thursday)

• Seventeen-year-old Mar Sargis Yosip is consecrated a bishop of the Assyrian Church of the East. He would be exiled from his diocese of Baghdad, Iraq, in 2002.^[3]

March 3, 1967 (Friday)

• The Fourth Assembly of Madras State is constituted in India, following elections.^[4] It is the first non-Indian National Congress government of the state.

March 4, 1967 (Saturday)

• The first North Sea gas is pumped ashore at Easington, East Riding of Yorkshire.
• Queens Park Rangers become the first 3rd Division side to win the League Cup at Wembley Stadium, defeating West Bromwich Albion 3–2.

March 5, 1967 (Sunday)

• Varig Airlines Flight 837, a Douglas DC-8-33, crashes on approach to Roberts International Airport in Monrovia, Liberia, killing 51 of the 90 people on board and five people on the ground.
• Connington South rail crash on the British Rail East Coast Main Line near Conington, Huntingdonshire: 5 passengers killed and 18 injured as the result of a deliberate act by the signalman.^[5]
• A propeller fails aboard Lake Central Flight 527, a Convair CV-580, causing its blades to penetrate the cabin and sever control cables. The airliner crashes near Marseilles, Ohio, killing all 38 people on board.
• Died: Mohammad Mosaddegh, 84, Iranian politician (after fourteen years under house arrest)

March 6, 1967 (Monday)

• Railways between Cambridge and Sudbury via Haverhill are closed by the Eastern Region of British Rail following the Beeching Report.
• Died: Nelson Eddy, 65, US singer and actor (cerebral haemorrhage); Zoltán Kodály, 84, Hungarian composer^[6]

March 7, 1967 (Tuesday)

• Jimmy Hoffa begins an 8-year prison sentence for attempting to bribe a jury.
• Died: Alice B. Toklas, 89, US-born member of the Parisian avant-garde

March 8, 1967 (Wednesday)

• The Italian ship Laura Scotti capsizes and runs aground off Caparica, Portugal.^[7]

March 9, 1967 (Thursday)

• Joseph Stalin's daughter, Svetlana Alliluyeva, defects to the United States via the U.S. Embassy in New Delhi.
• Trans World Airlines Flight 553, a McDonnell Douglas DC-9-15, collides in mid-air with a Beechcraft Baron over Concord Township near Urbana, Ohio. All 25 people on the DC-9 and the Beechcraft's sole occupant die. The accident leads the Federal Aviation Administration to place speed restrictions on aircraft flying below 10,000 feet (3,048 m) and contributes to its decision to create Terminal Control Areas.
• Sweden changes from left hand driving to right hand driving.

March 10, 1967 (Friday)

• American aircraft attack the steel and iron works at Thái Nguyên, North Vietnam, for the first time.
• After the F-4 Phantom of his wingman, Captain Earl Aman, suffers damage from antiaircraft fire over North Vietnam and loses almost all of its fuel, U.S. Air Force Captain Robert Pardo has Aman lower his tailhook and pushes Aman's F-4 by maneuvering to place Aman's tailhook against the base of his own windscreen. With one of his own F-4's engines on fire, Pardo pushes Aman' powerless plane for 90 miles (145 km), and all four men aboard the two fighters eject over Laos, where they can avoid capture, rather than North Vietnam.^[8]
• West Coast Airlines Flight 720, a Fokker F27 Friendship, crashes on Stukel Mountain just after takeoff in a mix of snow and rain from Klamath Falls Airport in Klamath Falls, Oregon, due to icing of its wings and control surfaces, killing all four people on board.

March 11, 1967 (Saturday)

• The first phase of the Cambodian Civil War begins between the Kingdom of Cambodia and the Khmer Rouge.

March 12, 1967 (Sunday)

• The Indonesian State Assembly takes all presidential powers from Sukarno and names Suharto as acting president (Suharto resigned in 1998).
• The Velvet Underground's groundbreaking first album, The Velvet Underground & Nico, is released. Initially a commercial failure, it receives widespread critical and commercial acclaim in later years.
• The Liberian collier SS Balmoral runs aground in the Weser Estuary, West Germany. It later breaks in two, a total loss.
• The Liberian cargo ship SS Dias sinks off Portugal. All crew are saved.^[9]

March 13, 1967 (Monday)

• Moise Tshombe, ex-prime minister of Congo, is sentenced to death in absentia.
• The pilot of South African Airways Flight 406, a Vickers Viscount 818, suffers a heart attack while the airliner is on approach to East London, South Africa. The co-pilot is unable to regain control of the Viscount, and it crashes into the Indian Ocean off the Eastern Cape province of South Africa, killing all 25 people on board.

March 14, 1967 (Tuesday)

• The body of U.S. President John F. Kennedy is moved to a permanent burial place at Arlington National Cemetery.
• Nine executives of the German pharmaceutical company Grunenthal are charged for breaking German drug laws because of thalidomide.
• The Polish ship SS Kolno collides with Danish ship MV Østbornholm in the Odense River.

March 15, 1967 (Wednesday)

• The 1967 All England Badminton Championships open at Wembley Arena, London.^[10]

March 16, 1967 (Thursday)

• In the ASPIDA scandal in Greece, 15 officers are sentenced to 2–18 years in prison, accused of treason and intentions of staging a coup.
• Sardar Hukam Singh completes his term as speaker of the 3rd Lok Sabha.

March 17, 1967 (Friday)

• A general election in Sierra Leone results in victory for the opposition All People's Congress,^[11] marking the first time that a ruling party had lost an election in sub-Saharan Africa (excluding white-ruled South Africa and Southern Rhodesia).^[12]
• Raghavji Leuva replaces Fatehali Palejwala as Speaker of the Gujarat Legislative Assembly.

March 18, 1967 (Saturday)

• The supertanker Torrey Canyon runs aground on Pollard's Rock in the Seven Stones reef between the Cornish mainland and the Isles of Scilly, loaded with 120,000 tonnes of crude oil. The vessel releases 32, illion gallons of oil, much of which washes up on the Cornish coast.^[13]

March 19, 1967 (Sunday)

• A referendum in French Somaliland favors the connection to France.
• The final of the Torneio dos Campeões 1967 football competition ends in victory for Bangu Atlético Clube.

March 20, 1967 (Monday)

• British Rail reopens the remaining section of line on the Isle of Wight, from Ryde Pier Head to Shanklin, after electrification to the Southern Region standard (750 V DC third rail) using former London Underground "Tube" stock.^[14]

March 21, 1967 (Tuesday)

• A military coup takes place in Sierra Leone.
• Charles Manson is released from Terminal Island. Telling the authorities that prison had become his home, he requested permission to stay. Upon his release, he relocates to San Francisco where he spends the Summer of Love.^[15]

March 22, 1967 (Wednesday)

• Born: Mario Cipollini, Italian cyclist, in Lucca

March 23, 1967 (Thursday)

• Died: Lalla Carlsen, 77, Norwegian singer and actress^[16]

March 24, 1967 (Friday)

• Canadian coaster SS Myalls catches fire and sinks off Shelburne, Nova Scotia.^[17]
• The Soo Line Railroad discontinues passenger train operations.^[18]

March 25, 1967 (Saturday)

• Following the death of Georges Vanier, Roland Michener becomes Governor General of Canada.

March 26, 1967 (Sunday)

• In New York City, 10,000 gather for the Central Park be-in.
• Jim Thompson, co-founder of the Thai Silk Company, disappears from the Cameron Highlands.

March 27, 1967 (Monday)

• Died: Jaroslav Heyrovský, 76, Czech chemist, inventor and Nobel laureate^[19]

March 28, 1967 (Tuesday)

• Pope Paul VI issues the encyclical Populorum progressio.

March 29, 1967 (Wednesday)

• The first French nuclear submarine, Le Redoutable, is launched.
• The SEACOM telephone cable is inaugurated.
• The Fleet Air Arm and Royal Air Force aircraft bomb and sink the Torrey Canyon.
• The 1967 World Ice Hockey Championships, held in Vienna, Austria, are won by the Soviet Union for the fifth year in a row.
• A 13-day TV strike begins in the U.S.

March 30, 1967 (Thursday)

• The Beatles pose with a photographic collage and wax figures from Madame Tussaud's famous museum for the cover artwork of Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band album at Chelsea Manor Studios in London.

March 31, 1967 (Friday)

• U.S. President Lyndon Johnson signs the Consular Treaty.
• Kicking off a tour with The Walker Brothers, Cat Stevens and Engelbert Humperdinck at The Astoria London, Jimi Hendrix sets fire to his guitar on stage for the first time. He is taken to hospital suffering burns to his hands. The guitar-burning act would later become a trademark of Hendrix's performances.

References