1965

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• On 24 January, Winston Churchill dies. His state funeral on 30 January is watched on television by an estimated 350 million people worldwide.

• On 21 February, black militant Malcolm X is assassinated in New York.

• On 8 March, 3,500 US Marines arrive in Vietnam as the Vietnam War intensifies (ends 1975).

• On 21 March, Dr Martin Luther King heads a march of 4,000 civil rights demonstrators from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama, to deliver a petition on black people's grievances.

• In April, the Indo-Pakistan War begins over disputed territory in Kashmir (ends 1966).

• On 8 August, Singapore becomes independent, seceding from the Malaysian Federation.

• From 11 to 16 August, major riots break out in the black Watts neighbourhood of Los Angeles, an example of rising racial tensions in American cities.

• On 11 November, Prime Minister Ian Smith of Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) issues a Unilateral Declaration of Independence (UDI) from Britain, and excludes blacks from participation in government.

• Ferdinand Marcos becomes president of the Philippines.

• In October, the Indonesian army massacres hundreds of thousands of alleged Communists.

• On 25 November in the Congo (later Zaïre, now the Democratic Republic of the Congo), General Sese Seko Mobutu deposes President Kasavubu.

• Cassette tapes are launched by Philips Records at the Berlin Radio Show.

• John Schlesinger's Darling, starring Julie Christie, is one of the films that shows style-obsessed Sixties' society best.

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