Skip to main content Skip to navigation

A snapshot of 1966

In this year at Warwick:

  • The University received its grant of Arms by virtue of Letters Patent from the college of arms dated 5 October 1966. The coat of arms features the symbols of both Coventry and Warwickshire, with the latin motto translating to: "mind moves matter". Its English counterpart is the phrase "mind over matter".
  • Rootes Social Building, Benefactors Hall of residence, the Science Block and the Library were all opened.

Marilyn Monroe died in 1962. In 1966, the film ‘The Legend of Marilyn Monroe’ was released. Richard Hamilton made this silkscreen print in the same year but asserts it as his own image of the star: “My Marilyn”. The images come from a publication by George Barris which included unauthorised photographs that Monroe had rejected with a cross or suggested retouching with arrows and lines.

Hamilton commented, "The aggressive obliteration of her own image has a self-destructive implication that her death made all the more poignant. There is also a fortuitous narcissism, for the negating cross is also the childish symbol for a kiss." This piece can be viewed on the first floor of Millburn House.

And in the world:

  • England won the world cup.
  • British Prime Minister Harold Wilson called a General Election in the United Kingdom, to be held on 31 March.
  • The British Labour Party, led by Harold Wilson, won the United Kingdom General Election.
  • The British Government announced plans for the decimalisation of the pound sterling (to be implemented in 1971).
  • The Soviet Union launched Luna 10, which later became the first space probe to enter orbit around the Moon.
  • The first ever regeneration in Doctor Who of the Doctor: William Hartnell's face transformed into that of Patrick Troughton.
  • Walt Disney died.

 crest

The University's coat of arms

 

marilyn

Richard Hamilton | My Marilyn | Screenprint | 707 x 809 mm | 1966