page_title: October 1966
section_title: October 17, 1966 (Monday)
hierarchical_section_title: October 1966 / October 17, 1966 (Monday)
caption_attribution_description: English: Publicity photo of Hollywood Squares celebrating its eighth year/ beginning its ninth year. Pictured are Paul Lynde, Rose Marie, host Peter Marshall and Cliff Arquette as Charlie Weaver.
context_page_description: The following events occurred in October 1966:
context_section_description: An earthquake struck Peru, killing more than 100 people.  The Huaura Province reported 72 deaths, most of them in the provincial capital at Huacho, while the port city of Callao, and the capital, Lima, also suffered fatalities.
  At 11:30 a.m. Eastern time, The Hollywood Squares made its television debut as a new game show on the NBC television network.  The show, hosted by Peter Marshall, featured nine celebrities (mostly comedians) as panelists appearing on a set evocative of the game tic-tac-toe, and regularly featuring suggestive jokes and double entendres; although Paul Lynde would become identified with his place on the board, Ernest Borgnine occupied the center square on the first broadcast.  The Squares format would inspire similar shows in other nations, starting with Celebrity Squares on Network Ten in Australia.
  In Denver, Colorado, an American organization called Housewives for Lower Food Prices began a boycott of five major supermarket chains in the area, including Safeway, Red Owl, King Soopers, and Furr's groceries.  Publicity from the boycott led other groups in North America to begin their own campaigns to avoid overpriced food chains, spreading to cities like Dallas, Albuquerque, New Mexico, Charlotte, North Carolina and Windsor, Ontario. and then to nearly half of the states in the U.S.  The protests (which included complaints about prices being driven up by giveaways and trading stamps programs would lead to Congressional investigations and ultimately stricter penalties for anti-competitive measures by grocers.
  The 165 square mile Lochinvar Ranch was acquired by the government of Zambia from brothers Harry Wulfsohn and Edwin Wulfsohn, for 40,000 British pounds, and transformed from a former cattle ranch into a wildlife preserve, which would reopen as the Lochinvar National Park in 1972.  The park, with 420 different species of animals, is one of the most popular tourist attractions in the southern African nation.
  Twelve New York firefighters were killed, and 17 others injured, in what was, at that time, the worst disaster in the history of the New York City Fire Department.  Most were members of Engine Company 18, and were on the ground floor of the Wonder Drug Store on East 23rd street when the terrazzo floor beneath them collapsed, plunging them into the fire in the basement and bringing down the walls on top of them.
  Died:
  Karel Hruška, 75, Czech opera tenor, actor and radio personality
  Wieland Wagner, 49, German opera director, from lung cance
  Dhammalok Mahasthavir, 76, Nepalese Buddhist monk who revived the Theravada branch
  Bob Swift, 51, former American League baseball catcher, three months after having to retire from managing the Detroit Tigers because of lung cancer
caption: Some Hollywood squares
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