US tennis player Donald Budge becomes the first person to achieve the grand slam, winning all four majors in the same year

John von Neumann establishes game theory as a mathematical discipline with his book Theory of Games and Economic Behaviour

Maurice 'Rocket' Richard is the first to score 50 goals in a Canadian National Hockey League season

Baseball-player Jackie Robinson becomes the first African American in a major league team

Donald Bradman retires from Test cricket with a tantalizing career average of 99.94 runs

US boxer Sugar Ray Robinson beats Jake Lamotta to take the middleweight title (for the first of five times)

Argentinian driver Juan Manuel Fangio wins the first of five Grand Prix world championship titles

US boxer Rocky Marciano becomes world heavyweight champion, defeating 'Jersey Joe' Walcott

US golfer Ben Hogan wins the US Open, the US Masters and the British Open in a single year

Baseball star Joe Dimaggio marries Marilyn Monroe, but the marriage lasts only a year

Oxford medical student Roger Bannister runs the first four-minute mile, at the Iffley Road track

18-year-old English jockey Lester Piggott wins the first of a record nine Derbys

Seventeen-year-old English footballer Bobby Charlton begins a 19-year career playing for Manchester United

Melbourne hosts the Olympics, in what becomes known as 'the Friendly Games'

18-year-old Australian sprinter Betty Cuthbert wins three gold medals in the Melbourne Olympics, at 100m, 200m and 400m

Barbadian cricketer Gary Sobers, playing in Kingston, Jamaica, against Pakistan, makes a record Test score of 365 not out

Eight members of the Manchester United football team die in an air crash when flying back to England from Belgrade via Munich

The baseball teams Brooklyn Dodgers and New York Giants move to California

Australian Grand Prix driver Jack Brabham wins the first of his three Formula One titles

Billy Wright becomes the first football player to win 100 caps for England

Polish composer Witold Lutoslawski uses 'aleatory counterpoint' in his Venetian Games

US golfer Jack Nicklaus turns professional and in the same year wins the first of four US Open titles

British Grand Prix driver Graham Hill wins the first of two world championship titles

Australian tennis players Margaret Court and Ken Fletcher achieve the grand slam in mixed doubles

Scottish Grand Prix driver Jim Clark wins the first of his two Formula One titles