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| | Home | The 1960's | 1965 |
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1965 A brief history of the events that shaped 1965. |
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| January |
| 4th |
U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson proclaims his "Great Society" during his State of the Union Address |
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| Winston Churchill |
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| 12th |
The bodies of two 15 year olds, Christine Sharrock and Marrine Schmidt, are found at Wanda Beach, Sydney |
| 14th |
The Prime Minister of Northern Ireland and the Taoiseach of the Republic of Ireland meet for the first time in 43 years |
| 19th |
The unmanned Gemini 2 is launched on a suborbital test of various spacecraft systems |
| 20th |
Lyndon B. Johnson is sworn in for his own full term as U.S. President after winning the US elections for the first time (he became President automatically, following the assassination of JFK) |
| 24th |
Winston Churchill dies at the age of 90, as the result of a stroke he suffered on January 15 |
| 26th |
Anti-Hindi agitations break out in India because of which Hindi does not get "National Language" status and remains one of the 23 Official Languages of India |
| 30th |
Winston Churchill's funeral is held in London |
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| February |
| 6th |
Sir Stanley Matthews plays his final First Division game, at the record age of 50 years and 5 days |
| 15th |
A new red and white maple leaf design is inaugurated as the flag of Canada, replacing the Union Flag and the Canadian Red Ensign |
| 18th |
The Gambia becomes independent from the United Kingdom |
| 20th |
Ranger 8 crashes into the Moon, after a successful mission of photographing possible landing sites for the Apollo program astronauts |
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| March |
| 8th |
3,500 United States Marines arrive in South Vietnam, becoming the first American combat troops in Vietnam |
| 10th |
Goldie, a London Zoo golden eagle, is recaptured after 13 days of freedom |
| 11th |
White Unitarian Universalist minister James J. Reeb, beaten by White supremacists in Selma, Alabama on March 9 following the second march from Selma, dies in a hospital in Birmingham, Alabama |
| 16th |
Police clash with 600 SNCC marchers in Montgomery, Alabama |
| 18th |
Cosmonaut Aleksei Leonov, leaving his spacecraft Voskhod 2 for 12 minutes, becomes the first person to walk in space |
| 19th |
Wreck of the SS Georgiana, reputed to have been the most powerful Confederate cruiser ever built and owned by the real Rhett Butler, is discovered off Isle of Palms, South Carolina, by teenage diver E. Lee Spence exactly 102 years after she was sunk with a million dollar cargo while attempting to run past the Union blockade into Charleston |
| 20th |
Poupée de cire, poupée de son sung by France Gall (music and text by Serge Gainsbourg) wins the Eurovision Song Contest 1965 for Luxembourg |
| 20th |
First fighting in the Indo-Pakistani War of 1965 |
| 21st |
NASA launches Ranger 9, which is the last in a series of unmanned lunar space probes |
| 21st |
Martin Luther King, Jr. leads 3,200 Civil rights activists in the third march from Selma, Alabama to the capitol in Montgomery |
| 22nd |
Nicolae Ceauşescu becomes first secretary of the Romanian Communist Party |
| 23rd |
NASA launches the United States' first 2-person crew (Gus Grissom, John Young) into Earth orbit |
| 25th |
Martin Luther King, Jr. and 25,000 civil rights activists successfully end the 4-day march from Selma, Alabama, to the capitol in Montgomery |
| 30th |
Funeral of Detroit homemaker Viola Liuzzo, shot dead by four Klansmen as she drove marchers back to Selma at night after the civil rights march |
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| April |
| 5th |
At the 37th Academy Awards, My Fair Lady received 8 Academy Awards, including Best Picture and Best Director. Rex Harrison won an Oscar for Best Actor. Mary Poppins took home 5 Oscars. Julie Andrews won an Academy Award for Best Actress, for her portrayal in the role. Sherman Brothers receive two Oscars including Best Song, "Chim Chim Cher-ee |
| 6th |
The Early Bird communications satellite is launched. It becomes operational May 2 and is placed in commercial service in June |
| 9th |
The West German parliament extends the statute of limitations on Nazi war crimes |
| 9th |
100th anniversary of the end of the American Civil War |
| 9th |
Charlie Brown and the Peanuts Gang appear on a cover of Time Magazine |
| 11th |
The Palm Sunday tornado outbreak of 1965: An estimated 51 tornadoes (47 confirmed) hit in 6 Midwestern states, killing between 256 to 271 people and injuring some 1,500 more |
| 23rd |
The Pennine Way officially opens |
| 24th |
The bodies of Portuguese opposition politician Humberto Delgado and his secretary Arajaryr Moreira de Campos are found in a forest near Villanueva del Fresno, Spain (they were killed February 12) |
| 28th |
U.S. troops are sent to the Dominican Republic by President Lyndon B. Johnson, "for the stated purpose of protecting U.S. citizens and preventing an alleged Communist takeover of the country", thus thwarting the possibility of "another Cuba" |
| 28th |
Prime Minister of Australia Robert Menzies announces that the country will substantially increase its number of troops in South Vietnam, supposedly at the request of the Saigon government. It is later revealed that Menzies had asked the leadership in Saigon to send the request at the behest of the Americans |
| 29th |
Australia announces that it is sending an infantry battalion to support the South Vietnam government |
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| May |
| 1st |
The Battle of Dong-Yin occurred as a conflict between Rublic Of China and People's Republic of China |
| 1st |
Liverpool win the FA Cup Final beating Leeds Utd 2 - 1 |
| 5th |
The first draft card burnings take place at the University of California, Berkeley, and a coffin is marched to the Berkeley Draft Board |
| 12th |
West Germany and Israel establish diplomatic relations |
| 13th |
A West German court of appeals condemns the behavior of ex-defense minister Franz Joseph Strauss during the Spiegel scandal |
| 17th |
Musician Trent Reznor, of Nine Inch Nails, is born |
| 18th |
The Spy, Eli Cohen, is publicly executed in Damascus |
| 21st |
The largest teach-in to date begins at Berkeley, California, attended by 30,000. The next day, several hundred participants again march to the Draft Board and burn more cards, and Lyndon Johnson in effigy |
| 29th |
A mining accident in Dhanbad, India kills 274 |
| 31st |
Racing driver Jim Clark wins the Indianapolis 500, and later wins the Formula One world driving championship in the same year. |
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| June |
| 1st |
An explosion in a coal mine in Fukuoka, Japan kills 237 |
| 2nd |
The first contingent of Australian combat troops arrives in South Vietnam |
| 3rd |
Astronaut Edward Higgins White makes the first U.S. space walk |
| 7th |
A mining accident in Kakanj, Bosnia and Herzegovina, results in 128 deaths |
| 10th |
The Battle of Dong Xoai begins - About 1,500 Vietcong mount a mortar attack on Dong Xoai, overrunning its military headquarters and the adjoining militia compound |
| 16th |
A planned anti-war protest at The Pentagon becomes a teach-in, with demonstrators distributing 50,000 leaflets in and around the building |
| 19th |
Houari Boumédienne's Revolutionary Council ousts Ahmed Ben Bella, in a bloodless coup in Algeria |
| 20th |
Police in Algiers break up demonstrations by people who have taken to the streets chanting slogans in support of deposed President Ben Bella |
| 24th |
Freddie Mills, former British boxing champion, is found shot in his car in Soho |
| 25th |
A U.S. Air Force Boeing C135-A bound for Okinawa crashes just after takeoff at MCAS El Toro in Orange County, CA, killing all 85 on board |
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| July |
| 14th |
U.S. spacecraft Mariner 4 flies by Mars, becoming the first spacecraft to return images from the Red Planet |
| 15th |
Greek Prime minister George Papandreou and his government are dismissed by King Constantine II |
| 16th |
The Mont Blanc Tunnel is inaugurated by presidents Giuseppe Saragat and Charles de Gaulle |
| 22nd |
Sir Alec Douglas-Home resigns as leader of the British Conservative Party |
| 24th |
Four F-4C Phantoms escorting a bombing raid at Kang Chi are targeted by antiaircraft missiles, in the first such attack against American planes in the war. One is shot down and the other 3 sustain damage |
| 25th |
Bob Dylan causes controversy among folk purists by "going electric" at the Newport Folk Festival |
| 26th |
The Maldives receives full independence from Great Britain |
| 27th |
Edward Heath becomes Leader of the British Conservative Party |
| 28th |
U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson announces his order to increase the number of United States troops in South Vietnam from 75,000 to 125,000, and to double the number of men drafted per month from 17,000 to 35,000 |
| 30th |
U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson signs the Social Security Act of 1965 into law, establishing Medicare and Medicaid |
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| August |
| 1st |
Cigarette advertising is banned on British television |
| 9th |
Singapore is expelled from the Federation of Malaysia, which recognises it as a sovereign nation. Lee Kuan Yew announces Singapore's independence and assumes the position of Prime Minister of the new island nation |
| 9th |
An explosion at an Arkansas missile plant kills 53 |
| 11th |
The Watts race riots begin in Los Angeles, California. These riots would leave 34 people dead, 1,032 injured, and 3,952 arrested |
| 13th |
Jefferson Airplane debuts at the Matrix in San Francisco, California and begins to appear there regularly |
| 15th |
The Beatles performed the first stadium concert in the history of rock, playing at Shea Stadium in New York |
| 18th |
Operation Starlite begins as 5,500 United States Marines destroy a Viet Cong stronghold on the Van Tuong peninsula in Quang Ngai Province, in the first major American ground battle of the war. The Marines were tipped-off by a Viet Cong deserter who said that there was an attack planned against the U.S. base at Chu Lai |
| 19th |
At the Auschwitz trial in Frankfurt, 66 ex-SS personnel receive life sentences, 15 others smaller ones |
| 21st |
Gemini 5 (Gordon Cooper, Pete Conrad) is launched on the first 1-week flight, as well as the first test of fuel cells for electrical power |
| 30th |
Bob Dylan releases his influential album Highway 61 Revisited, featuring the song "Like a Rolling Stone." |
| 30th |
An avalanche buries a dam construction site at Saas-Fee, Switzerland killing 90 workers |
| 31st |
President Johnson signs a law penalising the burning of draft cards with up to 5 years in prison and a $1,000 fine |
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| September |
| 2nd |
Pakistani troops enter the Indian sector of Kashmir |
| 6th |
Indian troops invade Lahore |
| 7th |
In a follow-up to August's Operation Starlite, United States Marines and South Vietnamese forces initiate Operation Piranha on the Batangan Peninsula, 23 miles south of the Chu Lai Marine base |
| 8th |
India opens 2 additional fronts against Pakistan |
| 9th |
Hurricane Betsy hits the coast near New Orleans, Louisiana with winds of 145 MPH, causing 76 deaths and $1.42 billion in damage. The storm is the first hurricane to cause $1 billion in unadjusted damages, giving it the nickname "Billion Dollar Betsy". It will be the last major hurricane to strike New Orleans until Hurricane Katrina 40 years later |
| 17th |
King Constantine II of Greece forms a new government with Prime Minister Stephanos Stephanopoulos, in an attempt to end a 2-year-old political crisis |
| 18th |
Soviet Premier Alexey Kosygin invites the leaders of India and Pakistan to meet in the Soviet Union to negotiate |
| 24th |
Fighting resumes between Indian and Pakistani troops |
| 28th |
Fidel Castro announces that anyone who wants to can emigrate to the United States |
| 28th |
Taal Volcano in Luzon, Philippines, erupts, killing hundreds |
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| October |
| 3rd |
Fidel Castro announces that Che Guevara has resigned and left the country |
| 4th |
At least 150 killed, a commuter train derailed at outskirt of Durban, KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa |
| 4th |
Pope Paul VI visits the United States. He appears for a Mass in Yankee Stadium and makes a speech at the United Nations |
| 6th |
Ian Brady, a 27-year-old stock clerk from Hyde in Cheshire, is arrested for allegedly hacking 17-year-old apprentice electrician Edward Evans to death at a house on the Hattersley housing estate |
| 7th |
Seven Japanese fishing boats sank off Guam by super typhoon Carmen, 209 are killed |
| 8th |
The International Olympic Committee admits East Germany as a member |
| 8th |
The Post Office Tower opens in London |
| 10th |
The first group of Cuban refugees travels to the U.S |
| 15th |
The student run National Coordinating Committee to End the War in Vietnam stages the first public burning of a draft card in the United States to result in arrest under the new law |
| 16th |
Police find a girl's body on Saddleworth Moor near Oldham in Lancashire. The body is quickly identified as that of 10-year-old Lesley Ann Downey, who disappeared on Boxing Day the previous year from a fairground in the Ancoats area of Manchester. Ian Brady arrested for the murder of a 17-year-old man in nearby Hattersley, is charged with murdering Lesley, as is his 23-year-old girlfriend Myra Hindley |
| 21st |
Comet Ikeya-Seki approaches perihelion, passing 450,000 kilometers from the sun |
| 22nd |
French authors André Figueras and Jacques Laurent are fined for their comments against Charles De Gaulle |
| 22nd |
African countries demand that the United Kingdom use force to prevent Rhodesia from declaring unilateral independence |
| 24th |
British Prime Minister Harold Wilson and Commonwealth Secretary Arthur Bottomley travel to Rhodesia for negotiations |
| 24th |
British police find the decomposed body of a boy on Saddleworth Moor |
| 27th |
Brazilian president Humberto de Alencar Castelo Branco removes power from parliament, legal courts and opposition parties |
| 28th |
Pope Paul VI announces that the ecumenical council has decided that Jews are not collectively responsible for the killing of Christ |
| 28th |
In St. Louis, Missouri, the 630-foot-tall parabolic steel Gateway Arch is completed |
| 29th |
Ian Brady and Myra Hindley appear in court, charged with the murders of Edward Evans (17), Lesley Ann Downey (10), and John Kilbride (12) |
| 30th |
Near Da Nang, United States Marines repel an intense attack by Viet Cong forces, killing 56 guerrillas. Among the dead, a sketch of Marine positions is found on the body of a 13-year-old Vietnamese boy who sold drinks to the Marines the day before |
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| November |
| 5th |
Martial law is announced in Rhodesia. The UN General Assembly accepts British intent to use force against Rhodesia if necessary by a vote of 82-9 |
| 6th |
Cuba and the United States formally agree to start an airlift for Cubans who want to go to the United States (by 1971 250,000 Cubans take advantage of this program) |
| 8th |
The 173rd Airborne is ambushed by over 1,200 Viet Cong in Operation Hump during the Vietnam War |
| 8th |
The Murder (Abolition of the Death Penalty) Act 1965 is given Royal Assent, formally abolishing the death penalty in the United Kingdom |
| 9th |
In New York City, 22-year-old Catholic Worker Movement member Roger Allen LaPorte sets himself on fire in front of the United Nations building in protest of the war (the second such incident in a week; on November 2 32-year-old Quaker member Norman Morrison did the same thing in front of The Pentagon) |
| 11th |
In Rhodesia (modern-day Zimbabwe), the white-minority government of Ian Smith unilaterally declares independence |
| 13th |
The SS Yarmouth Castle burns and sinks 60 miles off Nassau, with the loss of 90 lives |
| 14th |
Battle of the Ia Drang begins - In the Ia Drang Valley of the Central Highlands in Vietnam, the first major engagement of the war between regular United States and North Vietnamese forces begins |
| 15th |
U.S. racer Craig Breedlove sets a new land speed record of 600.601 mph |
| 16th |
The Soviet Union launches the Venera 3 space probe from Baikonur, Kazakhstan toward Venus (on March 1, 1966 it became the first spacecraft to reach the surface of another planet) |
| 20th |
The UN Security Council recommends that all states stop trading with Rhodesia |
| 22nd |
Man of La Mancha opens in a Greenwich Village theatre in New York and eventually becomes one of the greatest musical hits of all time, winning a Tony Award for its star, Richard Kiley |
| 26th |
At the Hammaguira launch facility in the Sahara Desert, France launches a Diamant-A rocket with its first satellite, Asterix-1 on board, becoming the third country to enter space |
| 27th |
Tens of thousands of Vietnam War protesters picket the White House, then march on the Washington Monument |
| 27th |
The Pentagon tells U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson that if planned major sweep operations to neutralize Viet Cong forces during the next year are to succeed, the number of American troops in Vietnam will have to be increased from 120,000 to 400,000 |
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| December |
| 3rd |
The first British aid flight arrives in Lusaka; Zambia had asked for British help against Rhodesia |
| 5th |
Charles de Gaulle is re-elected as French president with 10,828,421 votes |
| 9th |
A Charlie Brown Christmas, the first Peanuts television special, debuts on CBS, quickly becoming an annual tradition |
| 15th |
Tanzania and Guinea sever diplomatic relations with the United Kingdom |
| 15th |
Gemini 6 and Gemini 7 perform the first controlled rendezvous in Earth orbit |
| 17th |
The British government begins an oil embargo against Rhodesia; the United States joins the effort |
| 21st |
In West Germany, Konrad Adenauer resigns as chairman of the Christian Democratic Party |
| 22nd |
A 70 mph speed limit is imposed on British roads |
| 27th |
The British oil platform Sea Gem collapses in the North Sea |
| 30th |
President Kenneth Kaunda of Zambia announces that Zambia and the United Kingdom have agreed a deadline before which the Rhodesian white government should be ousted |
| 30th |
Ferdinand Marcos becomes President of the Philippines |
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