50 Years Ago: A Look Back at 1966

A half-century ago, the war in Vietnam continued its escalation, NASA’s Project Gemini was completed after ten manned launches, and the USSR successfully landed a vehicle on the Moon. The first Automated Teller Machine (ATM) was introduced, along with miniaturized televisions, while race riots and anti-war protests swept the United States. Charles Whitman shot and killed 14 people from his perch atop a tower at the University of Texas at Austin, and doctors at the Veterans Administration hospital in New Jersey conducted medical tests on 10 beagles, attaching them to machines designed to let them smoke cigarettes for years. Let me take you 50 years into the past, for a look at the year 1966.

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