Chris Amon and Bruce McLaren win the Le Mans 24 hour race in a Ford GT40. 1965 New Zealand troops are sent to Vietnam . 1964 Peter Snell wins Gold Medals in the 1500m and 800m at the Tokyo Olympics. Bob Charles wins the British Golf Open, the only left-hander ever to do so. Arthur Lydiard invents jogging.
Television broadcasts begin in black and white.
New Zealand's first computer is installed, an IBM 650 for the Treasury in Wellington. Colin Murdoch invents the tranquilliser gun. Edmund Hillary reaches the South Pole by land, the first person to do so since Scott. William Pickering and two colleagues from NASA successfully launch the first satellite bearing rocket into space. Sir Harold Gillies writes The Principles and Art of Plastic Surgery , which becomes the standard work on the subject.