02 September – Sir Harry Hylton-Foster, Speaker of the House of Commons, dies in office.
16 September – UK Release of the film Darling starring Julie Christie.
21 September – British Petroleum's oil platform Sea Gem strikes natural gas in the North Sea oil field.
24 September – The British governor of Aden cancels the Aden constitution and takes direct control of the protectorate, due to the bad security situation.
30 September – First episode of ATV 'Supermarionation' series Thunderbirds airs.
02 October – Corgi Toys introduce the all-time best selling model car, James Bond's Aston Martin DB5 from the film Goldfinger.
07 October – Ian Brady, a 27-year-old stock clerk from Hyde in Cheshire, is charged with the murder of 17-year-old apprentice electrician Edward Evans to death at a house on the Hattersley housing estate last night.
08 October – The Post Office Tower opens in London.
16 October – Police find a girl's body on Saddleworth Moor near Oldham in Lancashire. The body is quickly identified as that of Lesley Ann Downey, who disappeared on Boxing Day last year from a fairground in the Ancoats area of Manchester, at the age of 10. Ian Brady, arrested last week for the murder of a 17-year-old man in nearby Hattersley, is suspected of murdering Lesley, as is his 23-year-old girlfriend Myra Hindley, who on 11 October was also charged with the murder of Edward Evans. Police suspect that other missing people from the Manchester area, including 12-year-old John Kilbride (who was last seen alive nearly three years ago) could also be buried there; some reports state that as many as 11 murder victims may have been buried in the area.
20 October – It is reported that suspected mass murderer Ian Brady tortured his victims and tape- recorded the attacks on them. Detectives in Brady's native Scotland are also reportedly investigating the disappearance of 12-year-old Moira Anderson in Lanarkshire eight years ago as a possible link to Brady.
21 October – Ian Brady and Myra Hindley are charged with the murder of Lesley Ann Downey and remanded in custody.
22 October – African countries demand that the United Kingdom use force to prevent Rhodesia from declaring unilateral independence.
24 October -- Prime Minister Harold Wilson and Arthur Bottomley travel to Rhodesia for negotiations. Police find the decomposed body of a boy on Saddleworth Moor. The body is identified as that of John Kilbride, a 12-year-old boy who disappeared from Ashton-Under-Lyne in November 1963.
29 October – Ian Brady and Myra Hindley appear in court, charged with the murders of Edward Evans (17), Lesley Ann Downey (10) and John Kilbride (12).
01 November – Three cooling towers at the uncompleted Ferrybridge electricity generating station in West Yorkshire collapse in high winds.
05 November – Martial law is announced in Rhodesia. The UN General Assembly accepts British intent to use force against Rhodesia if necessary by a vote of 82-9.
08 November -- The British Indian Ocean Territory is created, consisting of Chagos Archipelago, Aldabra, Farquhar and Des Roches islands (on 23 June 1976 Aldabra, Farquhar and Des Roches are returned to Seychelles).
The Murder (Abolition of Death Penalty) Act suspends capital punishment for murder in England, Scotland and Wales, for five years in the first instance, replacing it with a mandatory sentence of life imprisonment.
The Race Relations Act outlaws public racial discrimination.
11 November – In Rhodesia, the white minority regime of Ian Smith unilaterally declares independence.
13 November – The word "fuck" is spoken for the first time on British television by the theatre critic Kenneth Tynan.
20 November – The UN Security Council recommends that all states stop trading with Rhodesia.
29 November – Mary Whitehouse founds the National Viewers' and Listeners' Association.
01 December -- EMI release Jacqueline du Pré's recording of Elgar's Cello Concerto with John Barbirolli and the London Symphony Orchestra.
National Coal Board closes the last deep coal mine in the Forest of Dean (Northern United at Cinderford).
03 December – The first British aid flight arrives in Lusaka; Zambia has asked for British help against Rhodesia.
12 December – The Beatles' last live U.K. tour concludes with two performances at the Capitol, Cardiff.
15 December – Tanzania and Guinea sever diplomatic relations with the United Kingdom.
17 December – The British government begins an oil embargo against Rhodesia; the United States joins the effort.
22 December -- A 70 mph speed limit is imposed on British roads.
A reorganisation of the cabinet sees Roy Jenkins appointed Home Secretary and Barbara Castle as Minister of Transport.
24 December – A meteorite shower falls on Barwell, Leicestershire.
27 December – The British oil platform Sea Gem collapses in the North Sea, killing 13 of the 32 men on it.
30 December – President Kenneth Kaunda of Zambia announces that Zambia and the United Kingdom have agreed to a deadline before which the Rhodesian white government should be ousted.
THE FALL SEMESTER HEADLINES FOR THE CLASS OF 1966
THE SPRING SEMESTER HEADLINES FOR THE CLASS OF 1966
03 January -- British Rail begins full electric passenger train services over the West Coast Main Line from Euston to Manchester and Liverpool with 100 mph (160 km/h) operation from London to Rugby. Services officially inaugurated 18 April.[1]
Stop-motion children's television series Camberwick Green first shown on BBC1.
04 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 by supporters of Rhodesian Prime Minister Ian Smith.[2]
20 January -- The Queen commutes the death sentence on a black prisoner in Rhodesia, two months after its abolition in Britain.
Radio Caroline South pirate radio ship MV Mi Amigo runs aground on the beach at Frinton.
21 January – The Smith regime in Rhodesia rejects the Royal Prerogative commuting death sentences on two Africans.
31 January – United Kingdom ceases all trade with Rhodesia.
09 February – A prototype Fast Reactor nuclear reactor opens at Dounreay on the north coast of Scotland.
17 February – Britain protests to South Africa over its supplying of petrol to Rhodesia.
19 February – Naval minister Christopher Mayhew resigns.
28 February – Harold Wilson calls a general election for 31 March, in hope of increasing his single- seat majority.
01 March – Chancellor of the Exchequer James Callaghan announces the decision to embrace decimalization of the pound (which will be effected on 15 February 1971).
04 March -- In an interview published in The Evening Standard, John Lennon of The Beatles comments, "We're more popular than Jesus now".
Britain recognized the new regime in Ghana.
05 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.
09 March – Ronnie, 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, a crime for which he is finally convicted in 1969.
11 March – Chi-Chi, the London Zoo's giant panda, is flown to Moscow for a union with An-An of the Moscow Zoo.
20 March – Theft of football's FIFA World Cup 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 south London garden.
30 March - Opinion polls show that the Labour government is on course to significantly increase its parliamentary majority in the general election tomorrow.
31 March – The Labour Party under Harold Wilson win the general election with a majority of 96 seats. At the 1964 election they had a majority of five but subsequent by-election defeats had led to that being reduced to just one seat before this election. The Birmingham Edgbaston seat is retained for the Conservatives by Jill Knight in succession to Edith Pitt, the first time two women MPs have followed each other in the same constituency.
06 April – Hoverlloyd inaugurate the first Cross-Channel hovercraft service, from Ramsgate harbour to Calais using passenger-carrying SR.N6 craft.
07 April – The United Kingdom asks the UN Security Council authority to use force to stop oil tankers that violate the oil embargo against Rhodesia. Authority is given on 10 April.
11 April – The Marquess of Bath, in conjunction with Jimmy Chipperfield, opens Longleat Safari Park, with "the lions of Longleat", at his Longleat House, the first such drive-through park outside Africa.
15 April – Time magazine uses the phrase "Swinging London".
19 April – Ian Brady and Myra Hindley go on trial at Chester Crown Court, charged with three so- called Moors Murders.
30 April -- Regular hovercraft service begins over the English Channel (discontinued in 2000 due to competition with the Channel Tunnel.)
Liverpool win the Football League First Division title for the second time in three seasons.
03 May – Swinging Radio England and Britain Radio commence broadcasting on AM with a combined potential 100,000 watts from the same ship anchored off the south coast of England in international waters.
06 May – The Moors Murderers Ian Brady and Myra Hindley are sentenced to life imprisonment for three child murders committed between November 1963 and October 1965. Brady is guilty of all three murders and receives three concurrent terms of life imprisonment, while Hindley is found guilty of two murder charges and an accessory charge which receives two concurrent life sentences alongside a seven-year fixed term.
12 May – African members of the UN Security Council say that the British army should blockade Rhodesia.
14 May – Everton defeat Sheffield Wednesday 3-2 in the FA Cup final at Wembley Stadium, overturning a 2-0 Sheffield Wednesday lead during the final 16 minutes of the game.
16 May – A strike is called by the National Union of Seamen, ending on 16 July.
18 May – Home Secretary Roy Jenkins announces that the number of police forces in England and Wales will be cut to 68.
26 May – Guyana achieves independence from the United Kingdom.
06 June – BBC1 television sitcom Till Death Us Do Part begins its first series run.
