Games timeline
US boxer Sugar Ray Robinson beats Jake Lamotta to take the middleweight title (for the first of five times)
Argentinian driver Juan Manuel Fangio wins the first of five Grand Prix world championship titles
US boxer Rocky Marciano becomes world heavyweight champion, defeating 'Jersey Joe' Walcott
US golfer Ben Hogan wins the US Open, the US Masters and the British Open in a single year
Baseball star Joe Dimaggio marries Marilyn Monroe, but the marriage lasts only a year
Oxford medical student Roger Bannister runs the first four-minute mile, at the Iffley Road track
18-year-old English jockey Lester Piggott wins the first of a record nine Derbys
Seventeen-year-old English footballer Bobby Charlton begins a 19-year career playing for Manchester United
Melbourne hosts the Olympics, in what becomes known as 'the Friendly Games'
18-year-old Australian sprinter Betty Cuthbert wins three gold medals in the Melbourne Olympics, at 100m, 200m and 400m
Barbadian cricketer Garfield Sobers, playing in Kingston, Jamaica, against Pakistan, makes a record Test score of 365 not out
Eight members of the Manchester United football team die in an air crash when flying back to England from Belgrade via Munich
The baseball teams Brooklyn Dodgers and New York Giants move to California
Australian Grand Prix driver Jack Brabham wins the first of his three Formula One titles
Billy Wright becomes the first football player to win 100 caps for England
US golfer Jack Nicklaus turns professional and in the same year wins the first of four US Open titles
British Grand Prix driver Graham Hill wins the first of two world championship titles
Australian tennis players Margaret Court and Ken Fletcher achieve the grand slam in mixed doubles
Scottish Grand Prix driver Jim Clark wins the first of his two Formula One titles
Cassius Clay (later Muhammad Ali) becomes world heavyweight champion for the first time, defeating Sonny Liston
In a match at the Oval, England cricketer Freddie Trueman becomes the first bowler to take 300 Test wickets
18-year-old Dutch footballer Johann Cruyff joins Ajax, the club with which he will be associated in numerous successes
Stanley Matthews plays his last game for Stoke City after 34 years as a professional football player
Footballer Franz Beckenbauer plays his first international for West Germany
The US tennis player Billie Jean King wins the first of six Wimbledon singles titles