Centuries: 19th century - 20th century - 21st century
Decades: 1910s 1920s 1930s 1940s 1950s - 1960s - 1970s 1980s 1990s 2000s 2010s
Years: 1960 1961 1962 1963 1964 - 1965 - 1966 1967 1968 1969 1970
Events
- January 4 - United States President Lyndon Johnson proclaims his "Great Society" during his State of the Union address.
- January 26 - Hindi becomes the official language of India.
- February 9 - Vietnam War: The first United States combat troops are sent to South Vietnam
- February 15 - A new red and white maple leaf design is adopted as the flag of Canada replacing the old Red Ensign standard.
- February 18 - The Gambia becomes independent from the United Kingdom
- February 20 - Ranger 8 crashes into the moon after a successful mission of photographing possible landing sites for the Apollo program astronauts.
- February 21 - Malcolm X is assassinated at his mosque in New York City by Black Muslims.
- March 7 - Bloody Sunday in Selma, Alabama
- March 8 - Vietnam War: 3,500 United States Marines arrive in South Vietnam becoming the first American combat troops in Vietnam.
- March 18 - cosmonaut Aleksei Leonov becomes the first person to walk in space from spacecraft Voskhod 2
- August 9 - Singapore becomes an independent nation.
- September 14 - Opening of fourth and final period of Second Vatican Council
- December 8 - Closing of Second Vatican Council
- December 30 - Ferdinand Marcos becomes President of the Philippines
- TAT-4 cable goes into operation.
- Riots in Watts, a neighbourhood of Los Angeles, California.
- Mont Blanc tunnel between France and Italy completed.
- Medicaid is founded in the United States
Art, Culture & Fashion
- 1965 in film
- The Sound of Music
- Doctor Zhivago
- The Greatest Story Ever Told starring José Ferrer, Charlton Heston, Martin Landau, John Wayne, Angela Lansbury, Roddy McDowall, Shelley Winters, Pat Boone and others
- Help!, starring The Beatles
- 1965 in literature
- 1965 in music
- February 11 - Beatle Ringo Starr marries Maureen Cox.
- August - Paul Simon releases UK-only LP The Paul Simon Song Book.
- 1965 is the title of an Afghan Whigs album released in 1998.
- 1965 in sports
- 1965 in television
Births
- January 1 - John Carmack, programmer
- January 15 - Adam Jones, musician of Tool
- January 27 - Alan Cumming, actor
- February 1 - Brandon Lee, actor (+ 1993)
- February 1 - Sherilyn Fenn, actress
- February 1 - Princess Stephanie of Monaco
- February 11 - Angie Ridgeway, golfer
- February 11 - Stephen Gregory, actor
- February 18 - Dr. Dre, rap music performer, music producer
- May 9 - Steve Yzerman, ice hockey player
- May 17 - Trent Reznor, musician
- May 31 - Brooke Shields, actress
- June 10 - Elizabeth Hurley, actress
- July 31 - Joanne Kathleen Rowling, author
- August 14 - Emmanuelle Beart, Cesar Award winning actress
- August 28 - Shania Twain, musician
- September 9 - Adam Sandler American actor, comedian
- November 20 - Ben Stiller, actor
- December 3 - Katarina Witt, figure skater
Deaths
- January 4 - T. S. Eliot, American/British poet
- January 12 - Lorraine Hansberry, writer
- January 14 - Jeanette MacDonald, actress, singer
- January 20 - Alan Freed, disk jockey
- January 24 - Winston Churchill, British politician
- January 28 - Maxime Weygand, soldier
- February 15 - Nat King Cole, singer, musician
- February 21 - Malcolm X, writer, political activist
- February 22 - Felix Frankfurter, justice of the Supreme Court of the United States
- February 23 -Stan Laurel, British actor.
- March 6 - Margaret Dumont, actress
- Physics - Sin-Itiro Tomonaga, Julian Schwinger, Richard P. Feynman
- Chemistry - Robert Burns Woodward
- Medicine - François Jacob, André Lwoff, Jacques Monod
- Literature - Michail Aleksandrovich Sholokhov
- Peace - United Nation's Children's Fund (UNICEF)
Books
- On Escalation by Herman Kahn coins the term escalation, a word closesly associated with the Cold War.