The year that was 1964...

• On 11 June in South Africa, Nelson Mandela is sentenced to life imprisonment for sabotage and conspiracy to overthrow the government • The US government claims that, in the Gulf of Tonkin on 2 August, North Vietnamese torpedo boats fired on US ships. It is now known that this incident probably never occurred. However, the Americans used it to escalate the war in Vietnam • On 15 October, Labour wins the British general election. Harold Wilson takes over from Sir Alec Douglas-Home as prime minister • Also on 15 October, Nikita Khrushchev is replaced as first secretary of the Soviet Communist party by Leonid Brezhnev and as premier by Alexei Kosygin • In the US elections on 3 November, incumbent Lyndon Johnson wins as president against right-wing Republican Barry Goldwater • In the US, the Warren Commission report concludes that Lee Harvey Oswald was alone responsible for the assassination of President John F Kennedy • British pop group The Beatles star in their first film, A Hard Day's Night, and appear on The Ed Sullivan Show on US television • American singer Bob Dylan causes controversy when he begins to sing accompanied by electric guitar, which offends folk music purists. During a transition period, large numbers walk out of his concerts at the beginning of the second 'electric' part •

 Sporting 1964...