In a match at the Oval, England cricketer Freddie Trueman becomes the first bowler to take 300 Test wickets

English author A.S. Byatt publishes her first novel, Shadow of a Sun

The Beatles reach number one in both the UK and the US with their single 'Can't Buy Me Love'

Margot Fonteyn and Rudolf Nureyev dance together in the premiere of Kenneth MacMillan's Romeo and Juliet

Winston Churchill dies, and lies in state in London's ancient Westminster Hall

David Lean directs Omar Sharif and Julie Christie in a film of Pasternak's Dr Zhivago

The General Assembly of the UN asks Argentina and Britain to enter negotiations on their long-running dispute over the Falklands

Terence O'Neill and Séan Lemass, prime ministers of Northern Ireland and Ireland, have two unprecedented meetings

Maria Callas gives her last performance, as Tosca at Covent Garden in London

British actor Michael Caine makes his name starring in two outstanding films within the year, Alfie and The Ipcress File

English novelist Paul Scott publishes The Jewel in the Crown, the first volume in his 'Raj Quartet'

Irish poet Seamus Heaney wins critical acclaim for Death of a Naturalist, his first volume containing more than a few poems

British fashion designer Mary Quant launches the miniskirt

The US tennis player Billie Jean King wins the first of six Wimbledon singles titles

After a long period of obscurity, Wide Sargasso Sea brings novelist Jean Rhys back into the literary limelight

Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead, by Tom Stoppard, is produced at the Edinburgh Festival

The Whale, a cantata by English composer John Tavener, has its premiere at the inaugural concert of the London Sinfonietta

A Bigger Splash, by English painter David Hockney, casts a new light on sunlit swimming pools

English yachtsman Francis Chichester completes a record round-the-world voyage, sailing 29,600 miles solo in 226 days

British research student Jocelyn Bell and her Cambridge supervisor Antony Hewish identify the first known pulsar

British composers Harrison Birtwistle and Peter Maxwell Davies found the Pierrot Players

English author Angela Carter wins recognition with her quirky second novel, The Magic Toyshop

English playwright Alan Ayckbourn has his first success with Relatively Speaking

Three young Liverpool poets publish a shared anthology under the title The Mersey Sound

A Day in the Death of Joe Egg, by English dramatist Peter Nichols, has its premiere in London