50 Fun Facts About 1967

Which Nordic country switched to driving on the right in September 1967, on a day known as Dagen H?

Sweden made the switch even though 83 percent of voters had rejected it in a 1955 referendum. All non-essential traffic was banned from the roads between 1 a.m. and 6 a.m. that Sunday.

Where did surgeon Christiaan Barnard perform the first human-to-human heart transplant in December 1967?

Cape Town's Groote Schuur Hospital was where Louis Washkansky received the heart of accident victim Denise Darvall. He woke and talked with his wife, but died of pneumonia 18 days later.

Which NFL team beat the Kansas City Chiefs 35–10 in January 1967 to win the first Super Bowl?

The Green Bay Packers won the only Super Bowl that was not a sellout. CBS and NBC both televised the game, each with its own announcers.

Which band debuted a song on Our World, the first live multi-satellite TV broadcast, in June 1967?

The Beatles sang All You Need Is Love for the first time to an audience estimated at 400 to 700 million people in 24 countries, the largest television audience up to that date.

Which lawyer who won the Brown school case became the first Black US Supreme Court justice in 1967?

Thurgood Marshall had won 29 of the 32 civil rights cases he argued before the court as a lawyer. He went on to serve as a justice until 1991.

Which McDonald's item did Jim Delligatti first sell in Uniontown, Pennsylvania, in April 1967?

The Big Mac sold for 45 cents after failing under two earlier names, the Aristocrat and the Blue Ribbon Burger. A 21-year-old secretary at McDonald's headquarters, Esther Glickstein Rose, coined the name.

Which Disneyland attraction opened in March 1967, the last one Walt Disney personally oversaw?

Pirates of the Caribbean was first planned as a walk-through wax museum. The success of the boat ride It's a Small World at the 1964 New York World's Fair changed the plan.

Which daredevil crashed trying to jump the fountains at Caesars Palace on New Year's Eve 1967?

Evel Knievel placed his last $100 on a blackjack table that morning and lost it. He paid actor and director John Derek out of his own pocket to film the jump.

Which podium ritual did driver Dan Gurney start after winning the Le Mans 24 Hours in June 1967?

Spraying champagne began as a pointed joke: handed a magnum on the podium, Gurney shook it and aimed at the journalists crowding around him. It is now a custom across motorsport.

Which children's author wrote the screenplay for the 1967 James Bond film You Only Live Twice?

Roald Dahl was a close friend of Ian Fleming but had never finished a screenplay. He called the novel Fleming's worst and kept only four or five of its ideas.

Which country's leader, Harold Holt, vanished while swimming at Cheviot Beach in December 1967?

Australia never recovered Holt's body, and the disappearance spawned a number of conspiracy theories. Melbourne later named a swimming centre in his memory.

Which heavyweight champion lost his title in 1967 after refusing to be drafted into the US Army?

Muhammad Ali cited his religious beliefs and his opposition to the Vietnam War. He was convicted of draft evasion but stayed out of prison on appeal, and the Supreme Court overturned the verdict in 1971.

Which 1967 film stars Dustin Hoffman as Benjamin Braddock, who is seduced by an older married woman?

The Graduate was the highest-grossing film of 1967 in North America. Hoffman had already been cast in Mel Brooks's The Producers and begged to be let go so that he could audition.

Which singer's 1967 cover of Respect became her signature hit and won her two Grammy Awards?

Aretha Franklin rearranged the song with her sisters, and her engineer Tom Dowd credited the spelled-out title to her sister Carolyn. The original 1965 recording has no such passage.

Which banking device did actor Reg Varney unveil at Barclays in Enfield, north London, in June 1967?

The cash machine at Enfield beat a rival Swedish device into service by nine days. It took single-use paper vouchers, which the machine kept, rather than plastic cards.

Which Argentine-born revolutionary was captured and executed by Bolivian forces in October 1967?

Che Guevara had qualified as a doctor in Argentina before he ever fought. He left Cuba in 1965 to start new revolutions, first in the Congo and then in Bolivia.

Which name is given to the June 1967 conflict in which Israel defeated Egypt, Jordan and Syria?

The Six-Day War opened with a surprise air strike that destroyed nearly all of Egypt's air force. Israel ended the fighting in control of the Sinai, the West Bank and the Golan Heights.

Which guitarist ended a set at the Monterey Pop Festival in June 1967 by setting his guitar on fire?

Jimi Hendrix had hidden a can of lighter fluid behind his amplifiers before the set, because he knew the Who planned an explosive finale and did not want to be upstaged.

Which Canadian city hosted the 1967 world's fair Expo 67, which was originally awarded to Moscow?

Montreal got the fair only because the Soviet Union cancelled its plans to host. The city's baseball team, founded two years later, was named the Expos in tribute.

Which animated film, released in October 1967, was the last produced by Walt Disney himself?

The Jungle Book lost its first writer, Bill Peet, because Disney found his faithful version of Kipling too dark and sinister for a family film.

Which former actor took office as governor of California in January 1967 after defeating Pat Brown?

Ronald Reagan was sworn in at ten minutes past midnight, an early start meant to stop his predecessor from naming judges at the last minute.

Which future Nirvana frontman was born in Aberdeen, Washington, in February 1967?

Kurt Cobain was introduced to punk rock by Buzz Osborne of the Melvins, a friend he made through art and electronics classes at school.

Which Pretty Woman star was born in Atlanta in October 1967 to parents who ran an acting school?

Julia Roberts's hospital bill was paid by Coretta Scott King, in thanks for her father's work running the only racially integrated theater troupe in the region.

Which 1967 crime film stars Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway as Depression-era outlaws in love?

Bonnie and Clyde is counted among the first films of the New Hollywood era, and its success prompted other filmmakers to be more open about showing sex and violence.

Which magazine did Jann Wenner launch in San Francisco in 1967 with John Lennon on its first cover?

Rolling Stone was started with $7,500 that Wenner borrowed from his own family and from the parents of his future wife. It then came out every two weeks.

Which Mercury Seven astronaut died with two crewmates in the Apollo 1 cabin fire of January 1967?

Gus Grissom was the second American to fly in space, in a capsule he named Liberty Bell 7 and painted with a crack. Ed White and Roger Chaffee died beside him in the cabin's pure oxygen atmosphere.

Which crooner topped the US chart in 1967 with Somethin' Stupid, a duet with his daughter Nancy?

Frank Sinatra took second billing on the label, behind his daughter's full name. The song had been recorded a year earlier by its writer, Carson Parks, and his wife.

Which basketball shot did the NCAA ban in 1967, a rule often linked to UCLA star Lew Alcindor?

The slam dunk stayed banned in college and high school basketball until 1976. Alcindor, later known as Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, improved his hook shot instead and won three straight national titles.

Which Soviet leader's daughter defected to the West in 1967 through the US embassy in New Delhi?

Joseph Stalin's daughter, Svetlana Alliluyeva, had been let out of the country only to carry her late partner's ashes to India. In New York she denounced her father's legacy at a press conference.

In which city did Elvis Presley marry Priscilla Beaulieu at the Aladdin Hotel in May 1967?

Las Vegas hosted the wedding more than seven years after the couple first met in Germany, where Presley was serving in the army and she was 14 years old.

Which US president met Soviet premier Alexei Kosygin at Glassboro, New Jersey, in June 1967?

Lyndon B. Johnson wanted to meet in Washington and Kosygin in New York, so they settled on a college president's house roughly halfway between the two.

Which Moulin Rouge star was born in Honolulu in June 1967 and given the Hawaiian name Hōkūlani?

Nicole Kidman's parents were in Hawaii on student visas. Her Hawaiian name, meaning heavenly star, was inspired by a baby elephant born at the Honolulu Zoo around the same time.

Which actor starred in both To Sir, with Love and Guess Who's Coming to Dinner in 1967?

Sidney Poitier had a third hit that year, In the Heat of the Night. Guess Who's Coming to Dinner opened six months after the Supreme Court struck down state bans on interracial marriage.

In which 1967 prison film does Paul Newman's character win a bet by eating fifty hard-boiled eggs?

Cool Hand Luke won George Kennedy the Oscar for Best Supporting Actor. Newman was nominated for Best Actor, one of the film's four nominations.

Which band topped the US chart in 1967 with Light My Fire, written mainly by guitarist Robby Krieger?

The Doors were told they would never appear on The Ed Sullivan Show again after singing a drug-tinged line from the song that the producers had asked them to change.

Which kitchen appliance did Amana first sell as a countertop model in 1967, named the Radarange?

The microwave oven had been on sale since 1947, but the early Radarange units were leased to hotels and restaurants and fitted on trains and ocean liners.

Which planet's atmosphere did a Soviet probe sample directly in October 1967, a first for another world?

Venus turned out to be extremely hot, with an atmosphere far denser than expected and made mostly of carbon dioxide. The probe that reported it was Venera 4.

Which US city saw five days of rioting in July 1967 after police raided an unlicensed bar?

Detroit's unrest left 43 people dead and led to more than 7,200 arrests. The Michigan National Guard was ordered in, and federal troops followed.

Which primatologist founded Rwanda's Karisoke Research Center in 1967 to study mountain gorillas?

Dian Fossey coined the name Karisoke by joining the names of the two volcanoes on either side of the camp, Karisimbi and Bisoke.

Which Boston Red Sox outfielder won the Triple Crown in 1967, a feat nobody matched until 2012?

Carl Yastrzemski hit .326 with 44 home runs and 121 RBIs, carrying a team that had finished ninth the year before to its first pennant since 1946.

Which soul singer died in December 1967 when his plane crashed into Lake Monona in Wisconsin?

Otis Redding had recorded (Sittin' On) The Dock of the Bay shortly before the crash. Released the next month, it became the first posthumous number one on the Billboard Hot 100.

Which TV drama about convicted doctor Richard Kimble ended in August 1967 with a record audience?

The Fugitive drew more than 78 million viewers to its last part, a 72 percent share of the audience. No series episode beat that record until Dallas in 1980.

Which NHL team won the 1967 Stanley Cup, the last before the league expanded beyond six teams?

The Toronto Maple Leafs had the oldest average age of any team to have won the Cup up to that point, and they took the series in six games.

Which pop artist designed the banana cover of the 1967 album The Velvet Underground & Nico?

Andy Warhol was also the band's manager and the album's co-producer. Early copies carried a banana-skin sticker that could be peeled off.

Which Colombian author published One Hundred Years of Solitude, a saga of the Buendía family, in 1967?

Gabriel García Márquez thought of the opening while driving his family to Acapulco on holiday. He turned the car around and went home to Mexico City to write.

Which French president cut short a visit to Canada in July 1967 after a speech backing a free Quebec?

Charles de Gaulle was publicly rebuked by Prime Minister Lester Pearson, who said that Canadians did not need to be liberated. He flew home without making his planned stop in Ottawa.

Which kind of object did student Jocelyn Bell discover in 1967 from radio signals 1.337 seconds apart?

The pulsar brought a Nobel Prize in Physics in 1974, but Bell was not among its recipients. Her team had nicknamed the signal LGM-1, for little green men.

Which European country fell to a colonels' coup in April 1967, a month before scheduled elections?

Greece stayed under the Regime of the Colonels for seven years. The junta fell in July 1974 under the pressure of the Turkish invasion of Cyprus.

Which African country's civil war began in July 1967 after its Eastern Region seceded as Biafra?

Nigeria blockaded the breakaway state, and the famine that followed killed far more people than the fighting did. The war ended in January 1970 with the country reunified.

Which cosmonaut became the first person to die during a spaceflight when Soyuz 1 crashed in April 1967?

Vladimir Komarov was killed when his capsule's parachutes failed on the way down. His backup for the flight was Yuri Gagarin, the first man in space.