World Events

Posted in 1966

  • Museum of the Revolution, ChinaFirst soft landing of a spacecraft on the moon.
  • International Day of protest is held against US policy in Vietnam.
  • US President Johnson visits Australia and is greeted with a mixture of enthusiasm and protest against the Vietnam War.
  • Mao instigates China's "Cultural Revolution" (1966-76): emphasises rejection both of western capitalist technological society and of "revisionism". It develops into violent struggles between revolutionaries and reactionaries, and then between the revolutionaries themselves.
  • Chairman Mao with his wife Jiang Qing (c 1943) Mao's third wife, Jiang Qing, is appointed deputy director of the Cultural Revolution. She incites radical youths against senior party and government officials, and replaces works of art with revolutionary Maoist works.