The Second Ecumenical Council of the Vatican begins, 94 years after the start of the First Vatican Council under Pius IX

British author P.D. James's first novel, Cover Her Face, introduces her poet detective Adam Dalgleish

A deal between President Kennedy and Soviet premier Khrushchev defuses the Cuban missile crisis

Dmitry Shostakovich's Thirteenth Symphony sets poems from Yevtushenko's Babi Yar I

Anthony Burgess publishes A Clockwork Orange, a novel depicting a disturbing and violent near-future

British surgeon John Charnley pioneers the technique of joint replacement, giving a patient a new hip in a small hospital in Wrightington

French president Charles de Gaulle vetoes Britain's application to join the European Economic Community

US poet Sylvia Plath commits suicide in London

English author John Le Carré publishes a Cold-War thriller The Spy Who Came in from the Cold

British choreographer Frederick Ashton creates Marguerite and Armand for Margot Fonteyn and her new partner, Rudolf Nureyev

Pope John XXIII dies, only a few month's after the start of the great Vatican council that he has summoned

Soviet cosmonaut Valentina Tereshkova becomes the first woman in space, flying solo in Vostok 6

Young British architects Norman Foster and Richard Rogers work together as Team 4

Italian cardinal Giovanni Montini is elected pope and takes the name Paul VI

British diplomat Kim Philby defects to the USSR and is discovered to have been a Soviet spy

President Kennedy, in divided Berlin, makes the dramatic declaration: Ich bin ein Berliner ('I am a Berliner')

English author Margaret Drabble publishes her first novel, A Summer Birdcage

The Partial Test Ban Treaty, signed by the USA, USSR and UK, is the first of many international attempts to limit the threat of nuclear war

Sexual intercourse begins in this year, according to Philip Larkin's 1974 poem Annus Mirabilis

Konrad Adenauer resigns after 14 years as Chancellor of West Germany and is succeeded by his economics minister, Ludwig Erhard

British film stars Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor marry

Anthony Dowell and Antoinette Sibley begin a famous partnership in Ashton's The Dream

Roald Dahl publishes a fantasy treat for a starving child, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory

Sergio Leone directs A Fistful of Dollars, the first of his three 'spaghetti westerns' starring Clint Eastwood

In a match at the Oval, England cricketer Freddie Trueman becomes the first bowler to take 300 Test wickets