1966

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Sir Robert Menzies

Posted in 1966

  • Sir Robert and Dame Pattie Menzies leave the LodgeRetires in January after a term of 16 continuous years as Prime Minister. It is the first time an Australian Prime Minister has resigned while in office.

TRANSCRIPT

SIR ROBERT MENZIES ANNOUNCING HIS RETIREMENT:

"I couldn't see myself at 72 after, by that time, 17 years of prime ministership, I couldn't see myself saying to the people of Australia, I want you to give me another term."

† Retirement announcement

  • Scholar-in-Residence at University of Virginia, USA: gives a series of seven lectures which are later published as "Central Power in the Australian Commonwealth". The lectures later became a model for the Sir Robert Menzies Memorial Trust's visiting fellowship scheme to the University of Virginia. Fellows included Sir Zelman Cowen, Malcolm Fraser, Sir Harry Gibbs, Sir Ninian Stephen and Professor D W Greig.
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Australian Events

Posted in 1966

  • Harold Holt with Sir Robert MenziesHolt Government, January 20: Sir Robert Menzies retires after 16 years as Prime Minister.
  • The Governor-General Lord Casey accepts Sir Robert's resignation as Prime Minister. This is the first time an Australian Prime Minister has resigned while in office.
  • Australia suffers its worst casualties of the Vietnam War: Eighteen Australian soldiers are killed in the battle of Long Tan, 20 are seriously injured.
  • US President Johnson visits Australia and is greeted with a mixture of enthusiasm and protest.
  • Decimal currency is introduced on 14 February when pounds, shillings and pence are replaced by dollars and cents.
  • Prince Charles arrives in Australia to attend school at Geelong Grammar's Timbertop campus in Victoria.
  • Sir Robert Menzies with the Governor-General, Lord Casey at Government HouseThe White Australia Policy ends, essentially through administrative means.

† Australia's Prime Ministers

  

 

 

Australia's decimal currency

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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.