Fifty Years Ago Today, February 15, 1966

Russian authors Convicted in USSR

Soviet writers Yuli Daniel and Andrei Sinyavsky were convicted of authoring "anti-Soviet" books and sentenced to five and seven years hard labor, respectively. Judge Lev Smirnov described the authors' work as "a mockery of the ideas of communist construction".

Tunnel Disaster Seventeen people were killed in a tunnel near Locarno, Switzerland, when a drilling crew for a hydroelectric plant pierced a pocket of poisonous underground gas. Two of the dead were part of a Locarno rescue team.

Coup Foiled

The United Arab Republic (Egypt) indicted 45 members of the Muslim Brotherhood, accused of plotting to overthrow President Abdel Nasser.

This story was originally published February 15, 2016 at 12:00 AM with the headline "Fifty Years Ago Today, February 15, 1966 ."