The General Assembly of the UN asks Argentina and Britain to enter negotiations on their long-running dispute over the Falklands

Terence O'Neill and Séan Lemass, prime ministers of Northern Ireland and Ireland, have two unprecedented meetings

Maria Callas gives her last performance, as Tosca at Covent Garden in London

British actor Michael Caine makes his name starring in two outstanding films within the year, Alfie and The Ipcress File

English novelist Paul Scott publishes The Jewel in the Crown, the first volume in his 'Raj Quartet'

Irish poet Seamus Heaney wins critical acclaim for Death of a Naturalist, his first volume containing more than a few poems

British fashion designer Mary Quant launches the miniskirt

The US tennis player Billie Jean King wins the first of six Wimbledon singles titles

After a long period of obscurity, Wide Sargasso Sea brings novelist Jean Rhys back into the literary limelight

Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead, by Tom Stoppard, is produced at the Edinburgh Festival

The Whale, a cantata by English composer John Tavener, has its premiere at the inaugural concert of the London Sinfonietta

A Bigger Splash, by English painter David Hockney, casts a new light on sunlit swimming pools

English yachtsman Francis Chichester completes a record round-the-world voyage, sailing 29,600 miles solo in 226 days

British research student Jocelyn Bell and her Cambridge supervisor Antony Hewish identify the first known pulsar

British composers Harrison Birtwistle and Peter Maxwell Davies found the Pierrot Players

English author Angela Carter wins recognition with her quirky second novel, The Magic Toyshop

English playwright Alan Ayckbourn has his first success with Relatively Speaking

Three young Liverpool poets publish a shared anthology under the title The Mersey Sound

A Day in the Death of Joe Egg, by English dramatist Peter Nichols, has its premiere in London

English cellist Jacqueline du Pré marries Israeli pianist Daniel Barenboim

The Beatles release an immensely successful album, Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, with a cover by British pop-artist Peter Blake

British actor Richard Attenborough makes his first film as a director, Oh! What a Lovely War

English biographer Michael Holroyd completes his two-volume life of Lytton Strachey

The first civil rights march in northern Ireland, in Derry, is halted by the police with batons and water cannon

The Provisional IRA reintroduces terrorism to northern Ireland after Protestants attack a civil rights march