Events from the year 1966 in the United Kingdom.
Incumbents
Monarch – Elizabeth II
Prime Minister – Harold Wilson (Labour) Parliament 43rd (until 10 March) 44th (starting 18 April)
Events
January–March
3 January
British Rail begins full electric passenger train services over the West Coast Main Line from Euston to Manchester and Liverpool with operation from London to Rugby. Services officially inaugurated 18 April. Stop-motion children's television series Camberwick Green first shown on BBC One as part of Watch with Mother. 4 January – More than 4,000 people attend a memorial service at Westminster Abbey for the broadcaster Richard Dimbleby, who died last month aged 52. 12 January – Three British MPs visiting Rhodesia (Christopher Rowland, Jeremy Bray and David Ennals) are assaulted there by supporters of Rhodesian Prime Minister Ian Smith. 20 January The Queen commutes the death sentence on a Black prisoner in Rhodesia, two months after its abolition in the UK. Radio Caroline South pirate radio ship runs aground on the beach at Frinton. 21 January – The White minority-ruled regime in Rhodesia rejects the royal prerogative commuting death sentences on two Africans. 27 January – The Labour Party unexpectedly retains the parliamentary seat of Hull North in a by-election, with a swing of 4.5% to their candidate from the opposition Conservatives, and a majority up from 1,181 at the 1964 General Election to 5,351. 30 January – Action Man toy figure launched in the UK. 31 January – The United Kingdom ceases all trade with Rhodesia. 9 February – A prototype Fast Reactor nuclear reactor opens at Dounreay on the north coast of Scotland. 17 February – The UK protests to South Africa over its supplying of petrol to Rhodesia. 19 February – Naval minister Christopher Mayhew resigns over a government policy to abandon an aircraft carrier project. 28 February – Harold Wilson calls a snap general election for 31 March, in hope of increasing his vulnerable single-seat majority in Parliament. 1 March – Chancellor of the Exchequer James Callaghan announces the decision to embrace decimalisation of the pound (which will be effected on 15 February 1971). 4 March In an interview published in the Evening Standard, John Lennon of The Beatles comments, "We're more popular than Jesus now". The UK gives recognition to the new regime in Ghana. 5 March – BOAC Flight 911 crashes in severe clear-air turbulence over Mount Fuji soon after taking off from Tokyo International Airport in Japan, killing all 124 on board. 9 March – Ronnie Kray, one of the Kray twins, shoots George Cornell (an associate of rivals The Richardson Gang) dead at The Blind Beggar pub in Whitechapel, East London. Cornell dies later in hospital, and Kray is finally convicted in 1969. 10 March – The Frost Report, which launches the television careers of John Cleese, Ronnie Barker and Ronnie Corbett and other writers and performers, is first broadcast on BBC One 11 March – Chi-Chi, London Zoo's giant panda, is flown to the Soviet Union for a union with An-An of Moscow Zoo. 20 March – Theft of football's Jules Rimet Trophy whilst on exhibition in London. 23 March – Pope Paul VI and Michael Ramsey, the Archbishop of Canterbury, meet in Rome. 27 March – Pickles, a mongrel dog, finds the FIFA World Cup Trophy wrapped in newspaper in a garden in South London. 30 March – Opinion polls show that the Labour government is on course to significantly increase its parliamentary majority at the general election tomorrow. 31 March – The Labour Party led by Harold Wilson win the general election with a landslide majority of 96 seats. At the 1964 election held just 17 months earlier, Labour had a narrow majority of five seats but subsequent by-election defeats had led to that being reduced to just one seat prior to this election. The Birmingham Edgbaston seat is retained for the Conservatives by Jill Knight in succession to Edith Pitt, the first time two female MPs have followed each other in the same constituency.