The year 1966 in science and technology involved some significant events, listed below.
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- February 3 – The unmanned Soviet Luna 9 spacecraft makes the first controlled rocket-assisted landing on the Moon.
- March 1 – Venera 3 Soviet space probe crashes on Venus becoming the first spacecraft to land on another planet's surface.
- March 16 – NASA spacecraft Gemini 8 (David Scott, Neil Armstrong) conducts the first docking in space, with an Agena target vehicle.
- March 31 – The Soviet Union launches Luna 10 which later becomes the first spacecraft to enter orbit around the Moon.
- April 3 – Luna 10 is the first manmade object to enter lunar orbit.
- May 25 – Explorer program: Satellite Explorer 32 (Atmosphere Explorer-B) is launched from the United States.
- July 18 – Gemini 10 (John Young, Michael Collins) is launched from the United States. After docking with an Agena target vehicle, the astronauts then set a world altitude record of 474 miles (763 km).
- August 10 – Lunar Orbiter 1, the first U.S. spacecraft to orbit the Moon, is launched.
- November 17 – Notable display of the Leonids over the Americas.[1]
- December 15 – Janus, one of the moons of Saturn, is identified by Audouin Dollfus (it had been first photographed on October 29).[2]
- December 18 – Epimetheus, another of the moons of Saturn, is discovered, but mistaken for Janus which shares its orbit and they are not distinguished until 1978.
- Mullard Space Science Laboratory established in England.
- September 1 – While waiting at a bus stop Ralph H. Baer, an inventor with Sanders Associates in the United States, writes a four-page document that lays out the basic principles for creating a video game to be played on a television: the beginning of a multibillion-dollar industry.
- Martin Richards designs the BCPL programming language.
- Roger MacGowan and Frederick Ordway first suggest the concept of machine superorganisms in Intelligence in the Universe.
- February 23 – Didier Queloz, Swiss astronomer.
- April 14 – Polina Bayvel, Ukrainian-born optical communications engineer.
- April 21 – Chris Whitty, English epidemiologist, Chief Medical Officer for England.
- May 17 – Adrian Owen, English neuroscientist.
- June 13 – Grigori Perelman, Russian mathematician.
- July 8 – Ralf Altmeyer, German virologist.
- August 7 – Jimmy Wales, American internet entrepreneur.
- September 10 – Carolyn Bertozzi, American winner of the Nobel Prize in Chemistry.[16]
- September 30 – Shankar Balasubramanian, Indian-born British biochemist.
- October 30 – Irene Tracey, English neuroscientist and academic administrator.
- Undated – Victor Vescovo, American explorer.
Turner, Vivienne; McKay, G. M. (1989). "27. Burramyidae". In Walton, D.W.; Richardson, B. J. (eds.). Fauna of Australia, Volume 1B: Mammalia. Canberra: Australian Government Publishing Service. ISBN 0-644-06056-5.
Crilly, Tony (2007). 50 Mathematical Ideas you really need to know. London: Quercus. p. 37. ISBN 978-1-84724-008-8.
Mumford, David (1966), "Families of abelian varieties", Algebraic Groups and Discontinuous Subgroups (Proc. Sympos. Pure Math. 9, Boulder, Colo., 1965), Providence, R.I.: American Mathematical Society, pp. 347–351, MR 0206003
"Postcoital contraception". IPPF Medical Bulletin. 1 (4): 3. 1967. PMID 12254703.
Rett, A. (September 1966). "On an unusual brain atrophy syndrome in hyperammonemia in childhood". Wiener medizinische Wochenschrift (in German). 116 (37): 723–6. PMID 5300597.
Komissarov, Sergey (2002). Russia's Ekranoplans: the Caspian Sea Monster and other WiG craft. Hinkley: Midland Publishing. ISBN 978-1857801460.