21 January – The White minority-ruled regime in Rhodesia rejects the royal prerogative commuting death sentences on two Africans.
27 January – The Labour Party unexpectedly retains the parliamentary seat of Hull North in a by-election, with a swing of 4.5% to their candidate from the opposition Conservatives, and a majority up from 1,181 at the 1964 General Election to 5,351.
30 January – Action Man toy figure launched in the UK.
31 January – The United Kingdom ceases all trade with Rhodesia.
9 February – A prototype Fast Reactor nuclear reactor opens at Dounreay on the north coast of Scotland.[3]
17 February – The UK protests to South Africa over its supplying of petrol to Rhodesia.
19 February – Naval minister Christopher Mayhew resigns over a government policy to abandon an aircraft carrier project.
28 February – Harold Wilson calls a snap general election for 31 March, in hope of increasing his vulnerable single-seat majority in Parliament.
27 March – Pickles, a mongrel dog, finds the FIFA World Cup Trophy wrapped in newspaper in a garden in South London.
30 March – Opinion polls show that the Labour government is on course to significantly increase its parliamentary majority at the general election tomorrow.[7]
31 March – The Labour Party led by Harold Wilson win the general election with a landslide majority of 96 seats. At the 1964 election held just 17 months earlier, Labour had a narrow majority of five seats but subsequent by-election defeats had led to that being reduced to just one seat prior to this election.[8] The Birmingham Edgbaston seat is retained for the Conservatives by Jill Knight in succession to Edith Pitt, the first time two female MPs have followed each other in the same constituency.
April–June
1 April – Local government reorganisation sees the reduction in the number of local authorities, with many smaller urban districts and boroughs being absorbed into newly created and expanded boroughs. The reorganisation also sees a number of county boundaries altered. The West Midlands region sees some of the most notable changes, with most of Sedgley and Brierley Hill being added to an expanded Dudley borough, which also takes in the southern part of Coseley. Warley County Borough is created from the former boroughs of Oldbury, Smethwick and Rowley Regis as well as parts of Dudley, Tipton and Halesowen. Dudley is transferred from Worcestershire to Staffordshire, while Smethwick and Rowley Regis are both transferred from Staffordshire to Worcestershire.
3 May – "Pirate" radio stations Swinging Radio England and Britain Radio commence broadcasting on AM with a combined potential 100,000 watts from the same ship anchored off the south coast of England in international waters.
6 May – The Moors murderers, Ian Brady and Myra Hindley, are sentenced at Chester Crown Court to life imprisonment for three child murders committed between November 1963 and October 1965 in the north west of England. Brady is guilty of all three murders and receives three concurrent terms of life imprisonment, while Hindley is found guilty of two murder charges and an accessory charge in connection to the third. She is sentenced to two concurrent life sentences alongside a seven-year fixed term.[12]
12 May – African members of the UN Security Council say that the British Army should blockade Rhodesia.
16 June – The Beatles perform live on BBC television's Top of the Pops, the UK's major television pop music show, for the first and only time, miming to both "Paperback Writer" and its b-side, "Rain".[16][17][18][19] The appearance is subsequently lost due to the BBC's habit of wiping expensive video tape for reuse,[20] but in 2019 a collector unearths 11 seconds of the performance[21] and a longer 92 seconds is found later in the year.[22]
The Fire, Auto & Marine Insurance Company enters the liquidation process leaving 400,000 motorists uninsured.[26]Emil Savundra will later be jailed for fraud in connection with the company's trading and collapse.[27]
Scotsman Angus Barbieri ends a 382-day fast; during the fast, he consumed only water, vitamins, salts, yeast and a small amount of milk and sugar, and lost 276 lb (125 kg).
14 July – Gwynfor Evans is elected as the Member of Parliament for Carmarthen, the first ever Plaid Cymru MP, after his victory at a by-election, overturning the previous Labour majority with an 18% swing.
15 July – West Indian-born Asquith Xavier is appointed as a guard at Euston railway station after the opposition of the local staff committee is overturned, ending a colour bar in Euston Station that is rumoured to have been in place for the last 12 years.[28]
16 July – Prime Minister Harold Wilson flies to Moscow to try to start peace negotiations over the Vietnam War. The Soviet Government rejects his ideas.
20 July – Start of six-month wage and price freeze.
12 August – Shepherd's Bush murders: Three plain clothes policemen are shot dead in West London while investigating a suspicious vehicle in Braybrook Street.
15 August – John Whitney is arrested and charged with the Shepherd's Bush murders.
17 August – John Duddy is arrested in Glasgow and charged with the Shepherd's Bush murders. A third suspect is still at large.
20 December – Harold Wilson withdraws all his previous offers to the Rhodesian government and announces that he will agree to independence for the country only after the establishment of Black majority government there.
22 December – Rhodesian Prime minister Ian Smith declares that he considers that Rhodesia is already a republic.
25 December – Marionette sci-fi series Thunderbirds airs its final episode on ITV with a Christmas special.
31 December – Eight paintings worth millions of pounds are stolen from Dulwich Picture Gallery in London, but are recovered locally within a week.
The motorway network continues to grow as the existing M1, M4 (including the Severn Bridge on the border of England and Wales), and M6 motorways are expanded, and new motorways emerge in the shape of the M32 linking the M4 with Bristol, and the M74 near Hamilton in Scotland.[1]
Japanese manufacturer Nissan begins importing its range of Datsun branded cars to the United Kingdom.[43]
^Nock, O. S. (1965). Britain's New Railway: Electrification of the London-Midland main lines from Euston to Birmingham, Stoke-on-Trent, Crewe, Liverpool and Manchester. Shepperton: Ian Allan Publishing. OCLC59003738.
^Marshall, Prince (1972) (1972). Wheels of London. The Sunday Times Magazine. pp. 110–111. ISBN0-7230-0068-9.((cite book)): CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link) Retrieved 7 March 2021.