50 Fun Facts About 1965

Which racquet sport was invented on Bainbridge Island, Washington, with leftover badminton and ping-pong kit?

Pickleball was improvised by Joel Pritchard, a future congressman, and a friend to entertain their bored children, using whatever equipment was lying around his summer home.

Which novel, turned down by over twenty publishers, was finally issued by a printer of car-repair manuals?

Dune was published by Chilton Books, which treated it as a write-off and fired the editor who championed it; the book then won the first Nebula Award for best novel.

Which fibre did DuPont's Stephanie Kwolek create while hunting for lighter tyres in a petrol-shortage scare?

Kevlar now lines bulletproof vests, but getting it made took persuasion: Kwolek had to talk a reluctant technician into spinning her thin, cloudy solution, which he feared would clog his machine.

Which winter sport grew from the 'Snurfer', which Sherman Poppen built for his children's amusement on Christmas Day?

Snowboarding grew out of a toy: Poppen lashed two skis together for his daughters, his wife named it the Snurfer, and Brunswick sold about a million of them as novelties over the next decade.

Which country ran up a new flag on 15 February, retiring its Red Ensign after a rancorous 'Great Flag Debate'?

Canada's maple leaf was inaugurated on Parliament Hill in Ottawa, and 15 February is now National Flag Day. Prime Minister Lester Pearson had forced the change through a divided Commons.

Which island state became independent on 9 August after being voted out of a federation it had joined in 1963?

Singapore's expulsion from Malaysia passed 126–0 with no Singaporean MPs present, and Lee Kuan Yew fought back tears announcing it on television. He then governed the new republic until 1990.

Which driver skipped the Monaco Grand Prix to win the Indianapolis 500, then took that year's Formula One title as well?

Jim Clark led 190 of the 200 laps in a rear-engined Lotus 38, the first such car to win at Indianapolis; the front-engined roadsters that had ruled the race were already down to six of the 33 starters.

Which Fairchild research chief told Electronics magazine that chip components would keep doubling every year?

Gordon Moore's forecast became 'Moore's law', which he slowed to a doubling every two years in 1975; he went on to co-found Intel and run it. The magazine had simply asked him to guess the next decade.

Which author, born in Yate, Gloucestershire, on 31 July, later gave that birthday to her most famous character?

J. K. Rowling gave Harry Potter her own 31 July birthday; the K is borrowed, taken from her grandmother Kathleen when her publisher feared boys would not read a book by a woman.

Whose painting, sold as a portrait of his son Titus, did Norton Simon buy at Christie's in March for 760,000 guineas?

Rembrandt's picture was first knocked down to another bidder; Simon protested that the auctioneer had missed his prearranged signal, and the bidding was reopened. His museum now doubts that the boy is Titus.

Which club won the FA Cup for the first time on 1 May, beating Leeds 2–1 after extra time at Wembley?

Liverpool's Gerry Byrne broke his collarbone in the opening minutes but, with no substitutes allowed, played on and set up Roger Hunt's opening goal in extra time; Ian St John headed the winner.

Which club beat 1860 Munich 2–0 at Wembley to win the Cup Winners' Cup, with both goals from Alan Sealey?

West Ham United's second came when the captain's cross was fumbled by goalkeeper Radenkovic; Sealey scored twice inside two minutes. A year later that same captain lifted the World Cup on the same pitch.

Which winger, knighted while still playing, made his last First Division appearance for Stoke on 6 February aged 50?

Stanley Matthews played only because injuries to two team-mates forced Stoke to recall him, five days after his 50th birthday; he later said he had retired too early.

Which cyclist became Britain's first professional world road-race champion, two years before he died on Mont Ventoux?

Tom Simpson also won the Giro di Lombardia that autumn and became the first cyclist named BBC Sports Personality of the Year. The post-mortem after his 1967 Tour collapse found amphetamines and alcohol.

Which Dodgers pitcher skipped Game 1 of the World Series for Yom Kippur, then won Game 7 on two days' rest?

Sandy Koufax had thrown a perfect game against the Cubs that September, his fourth no-hitter, a record at the time. The decision made him a hero to American Jews and he retired a year later with an arthritic elbow.

Six days of rioting that killed 34 people began in which Los Angeles neighbourhood after a drink-driving stop?

Watts erupted after onlookers watched police arrest Marquette Frye, 21, beside his mother's Buick and distorted rumours of brutality spread; nearly 14,000 National Guardsmen were sent in.

Which colony declared independence from Britain on 11 November without consent, in order to keep white-minority rule?

Rhodesia's Ian Smith signed the proclamation at 11 a.m. on Armistice Day, during the two minutes' silence, and Britain answered with sanctions rather than troops; white rule lasted until 1979.

Britain's 70 mph limit began on 22 December as a four-month trial after motorway pile-ups in which weather?

Fog crashes pushed Transport Minister Tom Fraser to cap speeds on roads that had no limit at all; the 'trial' was extended, and the limit was made permanent in 1967.

Which critic drew four Commons censure motions by saying the F-word on the BBC's late-night show BBC-3?

Kenneth Tynan, the National Theatre's literary manager, was arguing against stage censorship when he said no rational person found the word forbidden; 133 backbenchers signed the motions. Others had reputedly said it on air before.

After Ian Brady's October arrest for the axe killing of a teenager, police dug up two graves on which upland?

Saddleworth Moor gave up the bodies of Lesley Ann Downey and John Kilbride that October; a third victim, Pauline Reade, was not found there until 1987, and a fourth never has been. Brady and Myra Hindley were jailed for life in 1966.

Which restaurant chain began when founder Boizot fetched an oven from Italy and opened in Wardour Street, Soho?

PizzaExpress began after Boizot asked why good pizza was so hard to find in London and was told it took a proper oven, so he went and bought one; its Dean Street branch later became a noted jazz club.

Which fast-food chain opened its first British branch at 92 Fishergate, Preston, on 1 May?

KFC beat McDonald's to Britain by nine years; the rival did not open until Woolwich in 1974. Colonel Sanders's chain was among the first American franchises to go abroad, reaching Mexico and Jamaica by the mid-1960s.

What kind of bird drew crowds to Regent's Park during nearly two weeks on the loose from London Zoo in March?

The golden eagle slipped away on 28 February while his cage was being cleaned, shrugged off Royal Navy equipment, and was finally lured down on 11 March with a dead rabbit. He escaped again that December.

Who became Conservative leader on 27 July in the party's first election by ballot of MPs, beating Reginald Maudling?

Edward Heath's win was an upset: Maudling had been widely tipped as the favourite, but Heath took 150 votes to his 133, with Enoch Powell a distant third on 15.

Which non-driver took over Transport in a December reshuffle and went on to bring in the breathalyser?

Barbara Castle was asked on air 'You're only a woman, you don't drive, what do you know about it?'; road deaths fell 16.5 per cent in the breathalyser's first year. She also made seat belts compulsory fittings.

Which French stop-motion series reached BBC1 on 18 October with scripts Eric Thompson made up from the pictures alone?

The Magic Roundabout's Dougal was built without legs to make him easier to animate; Thompson's invented narration ran for 441 five-minute episodes until 1977.

Which Hammer horror star played the Doctor as a gentle human inventor in the first colour Doctor Who film?

Peter Cushing's film cashed in on the 'Dalekmania' craze: it retold the first Dalek serial in colour, and a sequel followed within a year, while William Hartnell carried on as the Doctor on television.

Which Peanuts special, the first ever made, was scored by jazz pianist Vince Guaraldi and paid for by Coca-Cola?

A Charlie Brown Christmas had no laugh track and real children doing the voices, which convinced CBS it had a disaster; it won an Emmy and ran on US television every year for 56 years. It was made in six months on a small budget.

Which comedian had the year's best-selling UK single with 'Tears', a 1930 Rudy Vallée waltz he revived?

Ken Dodd's 'Tears' outsold every Beatles single that year, passing a million copies; across the whole decade only two records, both by the Beatles, sold more in Britain.

Which 17-year-old won Eurovision in Naples for Luxembourg with a Gainsbourg song, beating Kathy Kirby into second?

France Gall chose 'Poupée de cire, poupée de son' from the ten songs offered to her, and the win kept the Gainsbourg hits coming for a singer who had started with jazz and children's songs. Kirby's 'I Belong' came second for the UK.

Which Australian group topped the UK chart with 'I'll Never Find Another You', written by Dusty Springfield's brother?

The Seekers had sailed to Britain planning a ten-week stay; they stayed on, met Tom Springfield, and he went on to write most of their later hits as 'the fifth Seeker'.

Which 20-year-old cellist's EMI recording of Elgar's concerto with John Barbirolli made her name around the world?

Jacqueline du Pré made her American debut with the same piece that year; multiple sclerosis ended her playing career in 1973, at 28. The concerto has been tied to her name ever since.

Which Lionel Bart musical opened at the Shaftesbury Theatre on 20 December and closed after 43 performances?

Twang!! lost its director Joan Littlewood before the London opening and played to near-empty houses, ruining the man who had written Oliver! only five years earlier. Ronnie Corbett and James Booth were in the cast.

Who won the Best Actress Oscar as Diana Scott, a model juggling Dirk Bogarde and Laurence Harvey in Darling?

Julie Christie got the part only because director John Schlesinger held out for her when the backers wanted Shirley MacLaine; by December she was on screen again as Lara in Doctor Zhivago.

Which Len Deighton adaptation introduced Michael Caine's Harry Palmer and won the BAFTA for best British film?

The Ipcress File was a deliberately downbeat answer to Bond from Bond's own producer, Harry Saltzman; Deighton's spy has no name in the novels, so the film gave him the plainest one it could find.

Which lost 1927 Lon Chaney film had its last print destroyed when fire swept an MGM vault in Culver City in August?

London After Midnight, directed by Tod Browning with Chaney in sharpened teeth and wire eye-fittings, is now one of the most sought-after lost silent films; the same blaze took Greta Garbo's The Divine Woman. Only stills survive.

Which stainless-steel monument by Eero Saarinen was completed on 28 October at a cost of $13 million?

The Gateway Arch grew from 580 to 630 feet in Saarinen's plans, but he never saw it rise: he died in 1961, before building work began in St Louis.

Which satellite, named after a comic-book Gaul, made the French the third nation to orbit one on their own rocket?

Astérix went up from Hammaguir in Algeria on 26 November, apparently rushed ahead of a more scientific sister satellite because de Gaulle wanted the prestige of a home-built launcher. It is still in orbit and should stay up for centuries.

Who faced the sitting French president in the December run-off of the first direct presidential election since 1848?

François Mitterrand lost that run-off on 19 December with about 45 per cent of the vote, then won the presidency at his third attempt in 1981.

Which architect, who called a house 'a machine for living in', died of a heart attack after swimming off the Riviera?

Le Corbusier, born Charles-Édouard Jeanneret, was 77; the designer of vast apartment blocks spent his own holidays in a tiny cabin he had built for himself beside the Mediterranean.

Which Nobel-winning poet, born in St Louis but a British subject from 1927, died in London on 4 January?

T. S. Eliot had renounced his American citizenship at 39 and joined the Church of England the same year; his ashes lie at East Coker, the Somerset village his ancestors left for America. Auden and Graves outlived him.

Which crooner died of lung cancer on 15 February, aged 45, shortly after his album L-O-V-E came out?

Nat King Cole's neighbours in all-white Hancock Park had tried to keep him out, and his dog died after eating poisoned meat; his daughter Natalie later turned his 'Unforgettable' into a posthumous duet.

Which boxer, born in east London on 2 September, won 1988 Olympic gold for the country he grew up in?

Lennox Lewis moved to Kitchener, Ontario, at 12 and boxed for his new home at two Olympics; he unified the belts by beating Evander Holyfield in 1999 after their first fight was scored a draw. He retired as champion in 2004.

Which singer, born on 21 November, fronted the Sugarcubes before going solo with an album called Debut?

Björk, born in Reykjavík, was no newcomer when Debut arrived in 1993, the year after the Sugarcubes split: she had begun her music career in Iceland at the age of 11.

Which Guns N' Roses guitarist, born Saul Hudson in Hampstead on 23 July, spent his first years in Stoke-on-Trent?

Slash left Stoke for Los Angeles at about six and has joked that, as a musician, he is amused to be both British and Black. He entered the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame with the band in 2012.

Which Charlton midfielder became the Football League's first ever substitute, replacing an injured goalkeeper at Bolton?

Keith Peacock came on after 11 minutes because the keeper was hurt, the only reason then allowed: substitutes arrived that season for injured players alone, and tactical changes came only later.

In which city did cardiologist Frank Pantridge fit his first portable defibrillator, a 70 kg unit, into an ambulance?

Belfast's Royal Victoria Hospital was Pantridge's base, and by 1968 he had shrunk the machine to 3 kg using a miniature capacitor made for NASA; America took up his idea quickly, while British medicine stayed sceptical for years.

Which BP rig found Britain's first offshore gas in September, then collapsed off Lincolnshire in December, killing 13?

Sea Gem was a converted 5,600-ton barge and Britain's first jack-up rig; the inquiry into its collapse gave offshore rigs stand-by rescue boats and the post of offshore installation manager.

Which archipelago was split from Mauritius on 8 November to form a British territory that a UN resolution opposed weeks later?

The Chagos Islands became the British Indian Ocean Territory; from 1971 only British and American military personnel could live there, with Diego Garcia as a joint base, and the islanders were expelled to Mauritius and the Seychelles.

Which British model scandalised Melbourne's Victoria Derby in an above-the-knee shift, with no hat, gloves or stockings?

Jean Shrimpton's hemline was partly an accident: DuPont, which flew her out to promote its Orlon fabric, gave dressmaker Colin Rolfe too little material, and she owned neither hat nor gloves.