BRITAIN AND THE WORLD SINCE 1953
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| For a summary of the year as a whole please click here | |
| Jan1 | Stanley Matthews becomes the first professional soccer player to receive a knighthood |
| Jan4 | President Lyndon Johnson outlined the proposals of his "Great Society" in his State of the Union address |
| Jan14 | Prime Ministers of Northern Ireland and Ireland met for the first time in 43 years. |
| Jan24 | Sir Winston Churchill, statesman and British prime minister throughout World War II, dies aged 90 from a cerebral thrombosis. A State Funeral took place on 30th January |
| Feb7 | US begins regular bombing and strafing of North Vietnam's towns and villages. USSR promises Soviet support to North Vietnam in the advent of a major attack |
| Feb8 | UK Government announced a ban on cigarette advertising on TV. |
| Feb18 | Gambia declares independence |
| Feb21 | American Black Muslim leader Malcolm X was shot dead while addressing a meeting in New York. |
| Mar8 | First US combat forces arrive in Vietnam. Invasion by U.S. Marines commences at Da Nang |
| Mar9 | President Johnson, as one of his first acts to support "The Great Society", sends $1.4 billion of federal-state economic aid to Appalachia. |
| Mar11 | The Rev. James J. Reeb, a white minister from Boston, died after being beaten by whites during civil rights disturbances in Selma, Ala. |
| Mar18 | Soviet cosmonaut Aleksei Leonov became the first man to walk in space. Leonov spent 12 minutes outside the Voskhod 2 capsule, attached to a five-foot tether. After the walk, his spacesuit had inflated in the vacuum of space to the point where he could not re-enter the craft, so he had to dangerously lose pressure in his suit to return to safety. |
| Mar21 | Martin Luther King Jr. led the start of a civil rights march from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama. |
| Mar23 |
Bob Dylan releases his first 'electric guitar' album 'Bringing It All Back Home' (although it's only electric on one side, the other's acoustic). This heralded the start of a period when Dylan was at his creative peak |
| Apr6 | Launch of Early Bird commercial communications satellite |
| Apr9 | The West German parliament approves a law that extends the statute of limitations on Nazi War Crimes |
| Apr23 | The Penine Way is officially opened. It stretches from Edale in the Peak District to Kirk Yetholm in the Scottish Borders |
| Apr27 | RC Duncan patents the world's first disposable nappy/diaper |
| Apr29 | Australia announces that it is sending an infantry battalion to support the South Vietnamese government |
| May2 | President Johnson sends troops to the Dominican Republic to "prevent another Communist state in this hemisphere." |
| The first communications satellite for relaying television pictures went into operation; the "Early Bird" transmitted to 24 countries | |
| May29 | A mining accident in Dhambas, India kills 274 people. Nine days later a further 128 people die in a mining accident in Kakanji, Bosnia (7 June) |
| Jun3 | The anti-contraception law that was passed in 18979 by the state of Connecticut is declared unconstituional by the US Supreme Court on the grounds that it is an invasion of privacy |
| Jun5-7 | As part of Project Gemini Edward H. White II makes first US space walk |
| June19 | A bloodless coup in Algeria. Houari Boumedienne's Revolutionary Council peplaces Ben Bella |
| Jun24 | Former champion British boxer and night club owner Freddie Mills was found shot dead in his car in Soho. |
| Jul8 | Great Train Robber, Ronnie Biggs and three other prisoners escape from Wandsworth Prison. Biggs travels to Spain for plastic surgery and then to Brazil |
| Jul14 | American space probe "Mariner 4"sends back photographs of the surface of Mars |
| Jul16 | The Mont Blanc Tunnel is used for the first time |
| Jul25 | Bob Dylan goes electric at the Newport Folk Festival - the beginning of folk-rock |
| Jul27 | Edward Heath becomes Leader of the Conservative Party succeeeding Sir Alec Douglas Hume |
| Aug1 | TV ban on cigarette advertising in Britain |
| Aug9 | An explosion at a missile plant in Arkansas kills 53 people |
| Aug11 | LA Police arrest and beat Marquette Frye in the Watts district of Los Angeles for drunk driving, triggering a week of rioting and looting which resulted in the deaths of 34 people and the injuring of more than 1,000 other people(until 18 Aug) |
| Aug15 | The Beatles perform in front of 55,000 fans at the Shea Stadium in New York City setting a world record for a pop concert in the process |
| Aug19 | At the Auschwitz trial in Frankfurt, 66 ex- SS personnel receive life sentences for following and obeying orders. 15 receive smaller sentences |
| Sep2 | Pakistani troops enter the Indian sector of Kashmir. Four days later Indian troops march on Lahore, and despite an armistice the conflict flares up again on Sep 24 |
| Sep21 | Oil strike by BP in North Sea |
| Sep30 | Indonesian troops kill 500,000 people after an alleged coup fails |
| Oct8 | The Post Office Tower at 620 feet opens in London |
| Oct9 | "Vinland Map" was introduced by
Yale University as being the first known map of America,
drawn about 1440 by Norse explorer Lief Eriksson. |
| Oct26 | The four members of the Beatles receive their MBE's at Buckingham palace |
| Oct28 | Death penalty abolished in Britain for murder [some say 18 Dec 1969] |
| Gateway Arch (630' (190m) high) completed in St Louis, Missouri | |
| Nov9 | Power plants at Niagara fail leading to blackouts in New York,Ontario,Vermont, Connecticut,New Jersey,New Hampshire and Rhode Island. The blackout lasted 14 hours |
| Nov11 | Declaration of UDI by Rhodesian government led by Ian Smith |
| Nov16 | The Soviet Union launched its Venus III
spacecraft. It arrived at its destination, Venus, in
March, 1966, becoming the first spacecraft to land on another planet |
| Nov23 | Cassius Clay defeats Floyd Patterson to retain his title as heavyweight Champion of the World |
| Nov29 | Mary Whitehouse began her clean-up television campaign by forming the right wing National Viewers and Listeners' Association. |
| Dec22 | 70mph speed limit imposed on British roads |
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Last Updated 21/03/07 10:30