01 - In Britain, Alf Ramsey is knighted and Bobby Moore gets an
OBE in the New Years Honours.
02 - Ronald Reagan is sworn in as Governor of California.
03 - Jack Ruby, killer of Lee Harvey
Oswald, dies of a blood clot
in the lung.
03 - The Beach Boys' Carl Wilson refuses to comply with a draft
notice enlisting him into the armed forces. A five year legal
battle ensues with Wilson eventually being acquitted of draft
evasion.
DONALD CAMPBELL DIES WHEN BLUEBIRD SOMERSAULTS AT 300mph
January 4
- Donald Campbell died today when his jet powered Bluebird
leapt into the air and plunged into Coniston Water in Lancashire
during an attempt to break the world water-speed record. Frogmen
have not yet found his body. Campbell was within a fraction of a
second of beating his own record of 276.33 mph when the disaster
occurred.
Donald Campbell. Died on Coniston Water during World Water
Speed record attempt
The boat reared into the air as over the radio he said
"She's going - she's going. I'm almost on my back". His
helmet, shoes, oxygen mask and teddy bear mascot were found at the
spot where the boat plunged - but there was no sign of Campbell.
09 - Open rebellion against Mao breaks out in China.
10 - Anti-segregationist Lester Maddox sworn in as Governor of
Georgia.
17 - Jeremy Thorpe becomes leader of the British Liberal Party on
the resignation of Jo Grimond.
27 - Maltese Premier Olivier tells Britain to "get out".
27 - Lone British yachtsman Francis Chichester is awarded a
knighthood.
FLASH FIRE KILLS ASTRONAUTS ON LAUNCH PAD
Jan 27- Three American astronauts died today in a fire which swept
through their spacecraft during a launch pad rehearsal. Col.
Virgil "Gus" Grissom, Col. Edward White II and Lt. Cmdr.
Roger B Chaffee were in their
Apollo 1 spacecraft going through a simulation of the launch which
was to have put them into Earth orbit next month.
The fire, probably started by a spark from faulty electrical
equipment, was boosted by the pure oxygen atmosphere in the
capsule and engulfed its interior within minutes. The ground crew
were unable to open the hatch, which could not be freed from
inside, in time for the astronauts to escape. The disaster is a
serious setback to the Apollo
programme, with its goal of landing
men on the moon before 1970.
27 - A space demilitarisation treaty, forbidding the orbiting
of nuclear weapons and territorial claims on celestial bodies, is
signed by the US and USSR.
Ronald Ryan goes to gallows in Melbourne, Australia
February 03 - Not even the pleas of church leaders and the
condemnation of the Australian people could convince Victorian
Premier Sir Henry Bolte to spare the life of Ronald Ryan.
Ryan, 41, a convicted murderer, became the last person to be
hanged in Australia when the hangman slipped the noose over his
head today at Melbourne's notorious Pentridge prison on an
unbearably hot summer morning.
Ryan had been convicted of killing warder George Hodson during
an escape from the prison in 1965. The hanging caused outrage
across the nation and ultimately ended capital punishment in
Australia.
03 - Visionary British record producer Joe Meek shoots his
landlady then turns the gun on himself. His suicide occurs on the
8th anniversary of Buddy Holly's death (3 Feb 1959) which is no
coincidence given Meek's fascination with Holly.
08 - Gough Whitlam is new Australian Labor Party leader.
11 - Red Army takes over Peking.
12 - Police raid Rolling
Stones' Keith Richards' house in Sussex
and arrest Richards, Mick Jagger and Marianne Faithfull.
18 - Robert Oppenheimer, father of the Atom Bomb, dies.
25 - 'Boston Strangler' is recaptured after escaping from a mental
hospital.
01 - Prince Philip visits Australia.
09 - Brian Jones of The Rolling Stones enters hospital with
respiratory problems.
10 - US steps up Vietnam bombing raids.
12 - Indira Gandhi re-elected as Indian PM.
30 - RAF drops bombs and napalm on stricken giant tanker Torrey
Canyon off the Cornish coast in an attempt to halt a giant oil
spill. 30,000 tonnes of oil spread over 270 square miles after the
tanker broke in half during salvage attempts.
04 - The Australian government says it will not ban the
contraceptive pill (which may cause thrombosis) as the risk is
"very slight".
08 - Sandie Shaw becomes the first UK performer to win the
Eurovision Song Contest, with Puppet on a String
15 - More than 200,000 protest in New York and San Francisco
against the Vietnam War.
17 - President Liu Shao-chi of China is accused of leading a coup
against Mao in February.
21 - Stalin's daughter, Svetlana Alliluyeva Stalin, defects to
the West and arrives in the US to "seek self-expression".
SOVIET COSMONAUT PLUNGES TO HIS DEATH
April 24
- Vladimir Komarov. aged 40, the Soviet cosmonaut, was
killed today when his Soyuz I spacecraft crashed to Earth after
coming out of orbit. A Kremlin commission will investigate the
tragedy, the world's first space-flight disaster.
The spin of the capsule, after it had re-entered the Earth's
atmosphere, may have caused the parachute to snarl up, but why
Komarov did not use the automatic ejector is unexplained. All 47
American astronauts have signed a telegram of sympathy to Russia's
cosmonauts.
ALI STRIPPED OF TITLE FOR REFUSING DRAFT
April 30
- Muhammad Ali, previously Cassius Clay, has been
stripped of his world heavyweight title by all the US boxing
associations for formally refusing to be inducted into military
service.
Ali, aged 25, who has rejected the name Clay since
joining the Black Moslem sect, faces a minimum jail sentence of
five years if he is found guilty of draft evasion.
He says that as
a minister in the Black Moslem faith he "cannot be true to my
belief in my religion" by taking up arms. "I aint got no
quarrel with them Viet Congs" he said.
01 - Elvis Presley marries Priscilla Beaulieu in Las Vegas.
10 - Compulsory alcohol breath testing introduced in UK.
ROLLING STONES IN COURT ON DRUGS CHARGES
May 10
- In two separate incidents, three members of the Rolling
Stones rock group are facing trials for drug use.
After
a raid on February 12 on guitarist Keith Richard's home in Sussex,
Richard, the lead singer Mick Jagger and an art gallery owner,
Robert Fraser, all appeared today before Chichester magistrates
charged with drug offences. After pleading not guilty, they await
a jury trial.
Another member of the band, the guitarist Brian Jones, was
arrested today in London after police raided his Kensington
apartment; with another man, he too faces drugs charges.
13 - 70,000 people attend a pro-Vietnam War parade in New York
City.
27 - Australia gives Aborigines the vote.
28 - British yachtsman Francis Chichester, 65, completes solo
round-the-world voyage.
29 - Five dollar note goes into circulation in Australia.
30 - Ibo leader Colonel Ojukwu declares the independence of
Nigeria's Eastern Region as the Republic of Biafra.
01 - The Beatles' Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band LP is
released.
05 - Israeli air strikes spark Six-Day War with Arab states.
10 - Israel triumphs in 6 day war with Arab neighbours. Israel
have captured extensive territory from Egypt, Jordan and Syria,
including all of Jerusalem, the West Bank, the Gaza Strip and the
Golan Heights.
16 - Monterey International Pop Festival in USA.
17 - China announces explosion of its first hydrogen bomb.
25 - 26 countries and 400 million people are linked by satellite
to witness The Beatles and friends perform
All You Need Is Love
broadcast from the Abbey Road studios in London in a television
spectacular.
07 - Nigeria invades Biafra.
08 - Actress Vivien Leigh dies of tuberculosis. Aged 53.
09 - Sheila Scott lands at Cape Town breaking the women's solo
flight record set by Amy Johnson in 1936.
18 - Australia introduces Postcodes.
RACE RIOTS SWEEP THROUGH AMERICAN CITIES
July 27
- As paratroops from the 101st and 84th Airborne Divisions
restored order in the riot-torn streets of Detroit, President
Lyndon Johnson today announced the appointment of a high-level
commission to look into the causes of the recent urban rioting in
American cities.
The Detroit riot began on July 24th when police were called to a
noisy party at a "Blind Pig" or illegal drinking shop,
to welcome a black soldier home from Vietnam.
Before the rioting
was brought under control, at least 38 people had been shot, most
of them black rioters and looters shot by police, aided by 7,000 National Guardsmen. The Presidential commission will be led by Otto Kerner, the
Governor of Illinois, with Mayor Lindsay of New York as
vice-chairman.
Similar
outbreaks occurred in New York City's Spanish Harlem, Rochester (NY),
Birmingham, Alabama, and New Britain, Connecticut. During the
summer, race riots occurred in 127 different cities
01 - Canadian PM Lester Pearson dismisses de Gaulle's challenge
on Quebec.
02 - £8 million Dartford Tunnel under River Thames in London
opens.
03 - Inquiry into the Welsh Aberfan disaster blames the Coal Board.
03 - Liza Minnelli begins a nightclub season in Sydney, Australia.
12 - LBJ authorises a new list of bombing targets in
North Vietnam.
15 - Belgian artist Rene Francois-Ghislain Magritte dies (b. 1898).
15 - The British Marine Offences Bill is passed banning Pirate
Radio stations.
17 - Muhammad Ali marries an orthodox Muslim and reaffirms his
commitment to Islam.
20 - Three gunmen attack the US embassy in London with automatic
rifles.
25 - George Rockwell, founder of the US Nazi Party, is shot dead
by a sniper.
BEATLES MANAGER, EPSTEIN, IS FOUND DEAD
Aug 27
- Brian Epstein, the former Liverpool record store owner
who discovered and then managed The
Beatles, is dead He was found
this afternoon when his butler broke into the locked bedroom of
his house in London's Belgravia. Mr Epstein appeared to have taken
an overdose of sleeping pills.
As crowds of pop fans filled the street outside, and many of
Epstein's friends and associates arrived to speak to police, The
Beatles, who have been involved in five days of meditation with
the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi in Wales, broke off their retreat to
return immediately to London.
John Lennon, visibly shocked, said: "I do not know where
we would have been without Brian".
29 - Ex-child film star Shirley Temple Black announces she is
standing for Congress.
03 - Sweden changes from driving on the left side of the road,
to the right.
10 - Gibraltar votes overwhelmingly to remain British: 12,138
votes for British rule and 44 for Spanish rule.
11 - Harry Connick Junior is born.
12 - Ronald Reagan calls for escalation of
Vietnam War (hopefully
not as a result of the birth of Harry Connick Junior!).
QUEEN LAUNCHES QE2 AT CLYDEBANK
Sept 20
- Bellowing sirens mixed with the cheers of 100,000 people
today as the Queen named the new £29 million Cunard liner, Queen
Elizabeth II, at Clydebank near Glasgow. She pressed a button to
release a bottle of champagne as the 58,000 ton liner moved down
the slipway. She said the liner, which 2,000 workmen will
transform into a floating town over the next 14 months,
represented the best standards of British engineering, management
and workmanship. The first liner named Queen Elizabeth, weighing
80,000 tons, was launched 29 years ago in 1938.
QEII - represents the best standards of British engineering
& workmanship
30 - BBC Radio One, Britain's long-awaited national pop
network, begins broadcasting. The first single played on the
station is Flowers In The Rain by The Move.
02 - Thurgood Marshall sworn in as first black Supreme Court
justice.
03 - US musician Woody Guthrie dies.
08 - Clement Attlee, Labour prime minister of Britain
immediately after WWII, dies.
09 - Cuban revolutionary hero (and Fidel
Castro's right-hand man
in the Cuban revolution) Ernesto "Che" Guevara is shot
dead in Bolivia.
18 - The Soviet Venera 4 capsule sinks slowly
through the thick atmosphere of Venus using a special parachute.
It is the first probe to return direct measurements from another
planet's atmosphere, and reveals that surface temperature climb as
high as 280°C and that the atmosphere is almost entirely carbon
dioxide.
20 - Australia breaks with British currency.
21 - Israeli destroyer Eilat is sunk by Egyptian missiles.
21/22 - Anti-war protesters clash with police outside the
Pentagon. 647 are arrested.
24 - Israeli artillery destroys a petrol refinery at Port Suez.
25 - British Parliament passes Abortion Bill.
26 - The Shah of Iran and his Queen are crowned in Teheran.
29 - The international exhibition EXPO 67 is opened in Montreal.
08 - Britain's first local radio station, Radio Leicester, goes
on the air.
US STEPS UP VIETNAM BOMBING RAIDS
Nov 21
- Despite the growing protests in the United States against
the war in Vietnam, American warplanes have returned to the attack
on North Vietnam with increased ferocity. B-52 heavy bombers based
in Thailand have bombed a large military supply depot three miles
from the centre of Hanoi, and carrier-based aircraft have struck
at a shipyard at Haiphong. It has been admitted that these raids
have caused civilian casualties.
Other aircraft operating from several bases in South Vietnam are
supporting US troops engaged in fierce fighting in the Central
Highlands near the Cambodian border. Using napalm, bombs and
machine-gun fire, they are clearing the ground for the advancing
troops and protecting them with close range bombing when they are
attacked.
27 - General de Gaulle says he is not prepared at present to
negotiate the entry of Great Britain into the Common Market.
29 - First Australian satellite launched at Woomera.
01 - The Isaac Newton telescope, the largest in Western Europe,
is inaugurated at the Royal Greenwich Observatory in London.
MAN IS GIVEN NEW HEART
Dec 3
- The first human heart transplant has been successfully
carried out in Groote Schuur Hospital, Cape Town, by a team of 30
doctors and nurses led by Christiaan N Barnard, Professor of
Cardiothoracic Surgery, who gave a new heart to Louis Washkansky,
a 53 year old grocer who was suffering grave heart failure.
The transplant was made possible when Denise Darvall, a 25 year
old bank clerk, was brought in dying after a road accident and
agreed to her heart being used. Her kidneys were transplanted into
a coloured boy in another hospital. Professor Barnard said it was
not the transplant that was a problem, but tissue rejection.
Footnote: Washkansky died 18 days later but the breakthrough
subsequently saved many lives.
04 - Britain announces a ban on meat from countries with foot
and mouth disease.
09 - Nicolae Ceaucescu becomes premier of Rumania.
10 - Soul star Otis Redding dies when his plane crashes into Lake
Monoma in Madison, Wisconsin.
11 - The prototype of the supersonic airliner Concorde is shown
for the first time in Toulouse, France.
17 - Australian PM Harold Holt, disappears at sea while swimming
(b. 1908).
18 - USSR hails British "Third Man" spy Kim Philby a
hero.
19 - John McEwen sworn in as acting Australian Prime Minister.
20 - McEwen says he won't serve under McMahon.
21 - Heart transplant recipient Louis Washnasky dies as a result
of lung complications.
22 - Holt memorial service held in Melbourne, Australia.
22 - Wimbledon tennis champion Boris Becker is born.
26 - The Beatles' Magical Mystery Tour screens on the BBC to
disappointing reviews. Even devoted Beatles fans are confused by
the seemingly plotless film.
30 - Ho Chi Minh sends a new year greeting from Hanoi to US
anti-war protesters.
"No Viet Cong ever called me nigger"
- Muhammad Ali, refusing to fight in Vietnam
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