Penguin Books are prosecuted for obscenity for publishing D.H. Lawrence's novel Lady Chatterley's Lover, and are acquitted

British artist Bridget Riley creates patterns that produce unexpected optical effects, in a style that becomes known as op art

Atmosphères, by the Hungarian composer György Ligeti, achieves a mysterious blend of sound in what he calls 'micropolyphony'

Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin becomes the first human to travel in space, orbiting the earth once in Vostok 1

British author Roald Dahl publishes a novel for children, James and the Giant Peach

Italian tenor Luciano Pavarotti makes his operatic debut in Reggio Emilia, as Rodolfo in La Bohème

British choreographer John Cranko becomes director of the Stuttgart Ballet

The drug Thalidomide, synthesized in West Germany, is shown to have been the cause of severe defects in about 12,000 children born in 46 countries

Russian dancer Rudolf Nureyev defects from the Kirov company at Le Bourget airport and seeks political asylum in France

In Babi Yar the dissident Soviet poet Yevgeny Yevtushenko tackles the subject of Russian anti-Semitism

Polish composer Witold Lutoslawski uses 'aleatory counterpoint' in his Venetian Games

The East German government erects the Berlin Wall to prevent an exodus of its citizens

French film director François Truffaut makes Jules et Jim, starring Jeanne Moreau and Oskar Werner

Largely under the influence of Tito, a summit is held by nations eager to be non-aligned in the Cold War

Rudolf Nureyev makes his first appearance in a western company, dancing in The Sleeping Beauty for the Marquis de Cuevas

British novelist Muriel Spark publishes The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, set in an Edinburgh school in the 1930s

Sean Connery creates on screen the role of 007 in the first James Bond film, Dr No

President de Gaulle makes a surprise appointment, selecting the little-known Georges Pompidou to be the French premier

The Rolling Stones, led by Mick Jagger, give their first performance as a group, in London's Marquee Club

A great tapestry by Graham Sutherland hangs above the altar in the newly consecrated Coventry cathedral

Benjamin Britten's War Requiem, setting poems by Wilfred Owen, is first performed in the rebuilt Coventry Cathedral

British author Doris Lessing publishes an influential feminist novel, The Golden Notebook

David Lean directs Peter O'Toole in the title role of the film Lawrence of Arabia

17-year-old English cellist Jacqueline du Pré creates a stir playing Elgar's concerto in the Royal Festival Hall

Khrushchev permits publication of Alexander Solzhenitsyn's first book, One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich, in the literary journal Novy Mir