1965

**1965** (MCMLXV) was a common year starting on Friday in the Gregorian calendar.

## Events

- January 30 – state funeral of Sir Winston Churchill in London
- February 18 – The Gambia becomes independent from the United Kingdom
- March 7 – Bloody Sunday: Alabama State Troopers attack civil rights demonstrators as they attempt to march to the state capitol of Montgomery
- May 25 – Muhammad Ali knocks out Sonny Liston in the first round of their championship boxing rematch
- June 15 - Victoria, Australia, coldest day on record -11.7°C at Omeo
- July 16 – The Mont Blanc tunnel opens
- August 9 – Singapore proclaims its independence from the Malaysian Federation.
- September 9 – Hurricane Betsy is in Louisiana
- October 3 – Fidel Castro announces that Che Guevara resigned and left Cuba
- November 5 – Martial law is announced in Rhodesia
- December 9 – _A Charlie Brown Christmas_ debuts on CBS.
- December 20 – World Food Programme is made a permanent agency of the United Nations
- The Left Banke forms
- Pete Best attempts suicide

## Births

- January 8 – John Catliff, Canadian footballer
- February 21 - Steve Lee, Sound effects wrangler and film historian
- February 1 – Brandon Lee, Chinese-American actor (d. 1993)
- March 1 – Booker Huffman, American professional wrestler
- March 23 - Jonathan Dow, British actor
- April 16 – Jon Cryer, American actor
- April 20 - Susan Cookson, British actress
- May 1 – Todd Spikes, American former police officer and convicted sex offender
- May 7 – Owen Hart, Canadian professional wrestler (died 1999)
- June 1 – Nigel Short, English chess player
- July 31 – J. K. Rowling, writer
- August 25 – Mia Zapata, singer
- August 28 – Shania Twain, singer
- September 2 – Lennox Lewis, British boxer
- October 2 – Ferhan and Ferzan Önder, Turkish-Austrian pianists
- October 5 – Patrick Roy, Canadian retired ice hockey player
- November 20 – Ben Stiller, actor
- December 31 – Nicholas Sparks, American author

### January

- January 4 – T. S. Eliot, American poet (b. 1888)
- January 24 – Winston Churchill, British statesman, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom (b. 1874)

### February

- February 15 – Nat King Cole, American singer and musician (b. 1919)
- February 21 – Malcolm X, American civil rights activist (b. 1925)
- February 23 – Stan Laurel, English actor and comedian (b. 1890)

### March

- March 18 – King Farouk of Egypt (b. 1920)

### April

- April 18 – Guillermo González Camarena, Mexican inventor (b. 1917)

### May

- May 1 – Spike Jones, American musician and bandleader (b. 1911)

### June

- June 5 – Eleanor Farjeon, English author of children's literature (b. 1881)

### July

- July 1 – Wally Hammond, English cricketer (b. 1903)
- July 7 – Moshe Sharett, 2nd Prime Minister of Israel (b. 1894)

### August

- August 13 – Hayato Ikeda, Prime Minister of Japan (b. 1899)
- August 27 – Le Corbusier, Swiss architect (b. 1887)

### September

- September 16 – Fred Quimby, American animated film producer (b. 1886)
- September 27 – Clara Bow, American actress and sex-symbol (b. 1905)

### November

- November 24 – Abdullah III Al-Salim Al-Sabah, Emir of Kuwait (b. 1895)
- November 25 – Dame Myra Hess, English pianist (b. 1890)

### December

- December 5 – Joseph Erlanger, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1874)

## Nobel Prizes

- Nobel Prize in Physics shared by Sin-Itiro Tomonaga, Julian Schwinger, and Richard P. Feynman for work in the development of quantum electrodynamics
- Nobel Prize in Chemistry won by Robert B. Woodward, American chemist (for his synthetic work with natural products)
- Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine shared by François Jacob, André Lwoff, and Jacques Monod
- Nobel Prize in Literature won by Michail Aleksandrovich Sholokhov, Russian novelist
- Nobel Peace Prize won by UNICEF