Major Events
- Jan 30 State funeral for Winston Churchill at St Paul's Cathedral in London; at the time, the world's largest-ever state funeral
- Mar 18 Soviet cosmonaut Alexei Leonov leaves his spacecraft Voskhod 2 for 12 minutes and becomes the first person to conduct a spacewalk
- Mar 22 US confirms its troops used chemical warfare against the Vietcong
- May 5 First large-scale US Army ground units arrive in South Vietnam
- Jun 7 The Supreme Court of the United States decides on Griswold v. Connecticut, effectively legalizing the use of contraception by married couples
- Aug 6 US President Lyndon B. Johnson signs the Voting Rights Act prohibiting voting discrimination against minorities
- Aug 9 Singapore separates from the Federation of Malaysia and gains its independence
- Sep 22 India and Pakistan cease-fire goes into effect, ending the Indo-Pakistani War
- Dec 7 Roman Catholic Pope Paul VI and Orthodox Patriarch Athenagoras I simultaneously lift mutual excommunications that led to the split of the two churches in 1054 in the Great Schism.
- Dec 8 Pope Paul VI closes final session of the Second Vatican Council - an influential ecumenical council that significantly modernized church practices
- More 1965 Events
1965 in Film & TV
- Mar 2 One of the most popular musical films of all time, "The Sound of Music", starring Julie Andrews and Christopher Plummer, premieres (Academy Awards Best Picture - 1966)
- Apr 28 "My Name is Barbra", Barbra Streisand's first television special, premieres on CBS
- Sep 8 Small ads in Daily Variety and Hollywood Reporter attract 437 young men interested in forming the world’s first manufactured boy band, "The Monkees" - 3 are chosen with British actor-singer Davy Jones already having been cast
1965 in Music
- Feb 6 Righteous Brothers "You've Lost That Lovin' Feelin'" hits #1
- Apr 26 Charles Ives' 4th Symphony premieres at Carnegie Hall, New York, 11 years after the composer's death
- Jun 15 Bob Dylan records single "Like a Rolling Stone" (#1 in Rolling Stone magazine's "500 Greatest Songs of All Time")
- Jul 25 Bob Dylan is booed by sections of the crowd at the Newport Folk Festival for performing with an electric guitar, beginning of folk-rock
- Aug 27 The Beatles spend an evening with Elvis Presley, at his Los Angeles, California home
- Aug 28 Bob Dylan booed for playing electric guitar In concert at Forest Hills Tennis Stadium in Queens, New York City
- Sep 4 The Beatles' single "Help!" goes #1 & stays #1 for 3 weeks
- Sep 13 Beatles release single "Yesterday" - just Paul, with a strings arranged by George Martin
1965 in Sport
- Sep 2 Cubs slugger Ernie Banks hits his MLB 400th career HR (off Curt Simmons) in Chicago's 5-3 win v St. Louis at Wrigley Field; Simmons also gave up Willie Mays' 400th HR in 1963
- Sep 18 Mickey Mantle Day at Yankee Stadium: Mantle play his 2,000th game
Did You Know?
"Vinland Map" is introduced by Yale University as being the first known map of America, drawn about 1440
Michael Dell
Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus
Rodney King
Yahya Jammeh
J. K. Rowling
Bashar al-Assad
Chris Rock
Sarah Jessica Parker
Robert Downey Jr
John C. Reilly
Brooke Shields
Charlie Sheen
Dr. Dre
Trent Reznor
Slash
Shania Twain
Björk
Pat Cash
Andrea Jaeger
Lennox Lewis
Uta Pippig
Scottie Pippen
Mario LemieuxMore People Born in 1965
Fun Fact About 1965
The wreck of the SS Georgiana, valued at over $50,000,000, said to have been most powerful Confederate cruiser, discovered by then teenage diver and pioneer underwater archaeologist E. Lee Spence exactly 102 years after its destruction.
T. S. Eliot
Winston Churchill
Nat King Cole
Malcolm X
Jimmie Lee Jackson
Syngman Rhee
Stan Laurel
Edward R. Murrow
Judy Holliday
Clara Bow
Curly Lambeau
Branch RickeyMore 1965 Deaths
Articles About 1965
Funeral of Winston Churchill
Churchill's cortege in London during the funeralJanuary 30
Nat King Cole's Struggle With Racism
Sure, he had unique talent and a golden voice, but as Nat King Cole, who died on this day, was to discover, that wasn't enough for American racists.February 15
1st Person to Walk in Space
Soviet cosmonaut Alexey Leonov conducts the first spacewalk during the Voshkod 2 missionMarch 18
Ali Floors The Bear in Just Two Minutes
It was the Muhammad Ali punch that few people saw, but on this day ex-champion Sonny Liston, known as The Bear, certainly felt it in a first-round sensationMay 25
Singapore Leaves Malaysia
Front page of The Straits Times announcing Singapore IndependenceAugust 9
Hey, Hey – We're The Monkees
We have the formula, the music and the female fans standing by ready to scream. All we need now is four likely lads to form the band. Enter "The Monkees".September 8
Famous Weddings in 1965
- Jan 1 Novelist Michael Crichton (22) weds high school sweetheart Joan Radam
- Feb 11 Beatle drummer Ringo Starr (25) weds British hairdresser Maureen Cox (18) at the Caxton Hall Register Office, London; divorce in 1975
- Mar 26 Playwright Tom Stoppard (28) weds nurse Josie Ingle
More Weddings in 1965
Julie Christie
Lee Marvin
William Westmoreland
Leonid Brezhnev
Lyndon B. Johnson
Mao Zedong