Timeline
1960
January End of Mau Mau uprising in Kenya.
February Prime Minister Harold Macmillan’s ‘Wind of Change’ speech.
August First performance of satirical stage revue Beyond the Fringe.
September Betting and Gaming Act legalises betting shops.
November Lady Chatterley trial ends.
December First episode of soap opera Coronation Street on ITV. National conscription ends.
1961
August Berlin Wall divides the city.
September More than 1,300 arrested at CND rally in Trafalgar Square, London.
October Launch of satirical magazine Private Eye.
December Birth-control pills made available on the National Health Service.
1962
February Sunday Times publishes first colour supplement.
June Beatles play their first session at Abbey Road studios.
July Rolling Stones make their debut at the Marquee Club in London. Macmillan sacks a third of his cabinet in the ‘Night of the Long Knives’.
September First broadcast of TV quiz show University Challenge.
October John Vassall jailed for spying. Cuban Missile Crisis.
November Launch of satirical TV revue That Was The Week That Was.
December Crick, Wilkins and Watson win Nobel Prize for their work on DNA.
1963
January Double agent Kim Philby defects to the USSR.
March Beatles’ first LP, Please Please Me. Beeching Report recommends extensive rail closures.
April Nuclear weapons protesters march from Aldermaston to London.
June War minister John Profumo resigns over the Christine Keeler affair.
August The Great Train Robbery.
September Robbins Report recommends expansion of universities.
October Harold Macmillan resigns; Sir Alec Douglas-Home becomes prime minister.
November Dartford Tunnel (a road tunnel under the Thames east of London) opens. Assassination of US President John F. Kennedy.
1964
January Launch of Jackie magazine.
March Radio Caroline begins broadcasting. Mods and Rockers fight at Clacton.
April Launch of BBC 2 television.
May Terence Conran opens first Habitat store. Mods and Rockers fight at Brighton.
August First Match of the Day on BBC TV.
September Final edition of the Daily Herald and first edition of the Sun.
October Harold Wilson wins general election for Labour.
1965
January State funeral of Sir Winston Churchill.
July Great Train Robber Ronald Biggs escapes from Wandsworth prison.
August Cigarette advertising banned on TV. Documentary The War Game (depicting a nuclear strike on Britain) pulled from TV schedules for political reasons.
October Ian Brady and Myra Hindley charged with the sadistic Moors murders.
November Kenneth Tynan uses the F-word on British TV. Rhodesian government declares independence from the UK. Death penalty for murder abolished for five years.
December Race Relations Act.
1966
January Britain stops trade with Rhodesia.
March Labour wins increased majority at general election.
April Time magazine praises ‘swinging London’.
June Barclays Bank introduces the first British credit card.
July Violent anti-Vietnam War protests in London. Ban on black workers at Euston Station is overturned. England wins the World Cup.
October Aberfan disaster: 144 people, including 116 children, are killed by a collapsing spoil tip in South Wales. Spy George Blake escapes from prison and travels to Moscow.
November Broadcast of drama-documentary Cathy Come Home.
1967
February British National Front founded.
May UK and Ireland apply to join the EEC.
June The Beatles release Sgt Pepper album. Rolling Stones Mick Jagger and Keith Richards jailed for drug possession. ‘Summer of Love’ in California.
July First colour TV broadcasts in UK. Sexual Offences Act decriminalises homosexual acts between consenting adults. British steel industry nationalised.
September Launch of the liner QE2 and of Radio 1.
October Abortion Act. St Pancras station given Grade I listing. Che Guevara killed.
1968
January Beginning of the Prague Spring. ‘I’m Backing Britain’ campaign launched. Ford Escort introduced.
March Hundreds arrested at anti-Vietnam War protest in Grosvenor Square.
April US civil rights activist Martin Luther King assassinated. Enoch Powell MP makes ‘Rivers of Blood’ speech.
May Protest sit-ins at UK universities.
June US Senator Robert Kennedy assassinated.
July Dad’s Army sitcom first broadcast.
August Britain’s last mainline steam railway service runs from London to Carlisle.
September Theatres Act ends censorship. Musical Hair opens in London.
October Beginning of the ‘Troubles’ in Northern Ireland. Anti-Vietnam protests outside the US embassy in London.
November Race Relations Act passed.
1969
January Rupert Murdoch buys the News of the World. Student riots close London School of Economics.
March Maiden flight of Concorde. Kray twins convicted of murder. Opening of London underground’s Victoria Line.
May Open University established.
June Divorce Reform Act establishes no-fault divorce.
July First Moon landing.
August British troops deployed in Northern Ireland to restore law and order.
October First episode of Monty Python’s Flying Circus.
November Regular colour broadcasts begin on BBC and ITV.
December Death penalty permanently abolished for murder.