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

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

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

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

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

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

Nikita Khrushchev is forced from office as Soviet leader by a conservative faction that includes Leonid Brezhnev

The USSR enters a brief period of coalition leadership by Alexei Kosygin as prime minister and Leonid Brezhnev as Party First Secretary

Surgeons Michael Bakey in the USA and Vasilii Kolesov in the USSR pioneer coronary bypass surgery, using the patient's mammary artery

Soviet cosmonaut Aleksei Leonov is the first to walk in space, moving round outside the Voshkod 2 spacecraft for more than ten minutes

The Soviet spacecraft Luna 9 is the first to achieve a soft-landing on the moon and to send back photographic data from the surface

The Soviet spacecraft Luna 10 orbits the moon and broadcasts the Internationale to the 23rd Congress of the Communist Party

Leonid Brezhnev, taking the title General Secretary (last used by Stalin), makes it plain that he is the Soviet leader

Alexander Solzhenitsyn's novel Cancer Ward is smuggled to New York for publication

Russian chess player Boris Spassky beats Tigran Petrosian to become world champion

Russian ballerina Natalia Makarova defects to the west while on tour with the Kirov company in London

Alexander Solzhenitsyn wins the Nobel Prize for Literature but declines collecting it in Stockholm for fear of being denied re-entry to Russia

The Soviets put into orbit the first space station, Salyut 1, but the crew of three die on returning to earth

The SALT 1 treaty is signed by the US and USSR, limiting anti-ballistic missiles

Russian composer Alfred Schnittke's First Symphony alarms the Soviet authorities and is denied a Moscow premiere

The first volume of Alexander Solzhenitsyn's The Gulag Archipelago, an exposé of Stalin's labour camps, is published in Paris

Alexander Solzhenitsyn is deported from the USSR to West Germany for publishing The Gulag Archipelago

Soviet dancer Mikhail Baryshnikov defects from the Kirov company while on tour in Canada

Anatoly Karpov becomes world chess champion by default when Bobby Fischer fails to defend his title