February 17, 1966

1966Luc Robitaille, Canadian ice hockey player, manager, and actor^[†]

Luc Jean-Marie Robitaille is a Canadian-American professional ice hockey executive and former player who serves as president of the Los Angeles Kings of the National Hockey League (NHL).

1966Hans Hofmann, German-American painter (born 1880)^[†]

Hans Hofmann was a German-born American painter, renowned as both an artist and teacher. His career spanned two generations and two continents, and is considered to have both preceded and influenced Abstract Expressionism. Born and educated near Munich, he was active in the early twentieth-century European avant-garde and brought a deep understanding and synthesis of Symbolism, Neo-impressionism, Fauvism, and Cubism when he emigrated to the United States in 1932. Hofmann's painting is characterized by its rigorous concern with pictorial structure and unity, spatial illusionism, and use of bold color for expressive means. The influential critic Clement Greenberg considered Hofmann's first New York solo show at Peggy Guggenheim’s Art of This Century in 1944 as a breakthrough in painterly versus geometric abstraction that heralded abstract expressionism. In the decade that followed, Hofmann's recognition grew through numerous exhibitions, notably at the Kootz Gallery, culminating in major retrospectives at the Whitney Museum of American Art (1957) and Museum of Modern Art (1963), which traveled to venues throughout the United States, South America, and Europe. His works are in the permanent collections of major museums around the world, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Tate Modern, Germanisches Nationalmuseum, National Gallery of Art, and Art Institute of Chicago.

1966Aeroflot Flight 065 crashes during take-off from Sheremetyevo International Airport, killing 21.^[†]

Aeroflot Flight 065 was a scheduled passenger flight operated by the International Civil Aviation Directorate division of Aeroflot. On 17 February 1966 at 1:38 am local time a Tupolev Tu-114 crashed during take-off from Sheremetyevo International Airport in Moscow, killing 21 of the 47 passengers and 19 crew members on board. This was the only fatal incident involving a Tu-114. A committee investigating the accident found that the crash was due to multiple crew and ATC failures.