1964 in the United Kingdom

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1964 in the United Kingdom:
Other years
1962 \| 1963 \| 1964 \| 1965 \| 1966
Sport and Music
British and Irish current events
1964 English cricket season
Football England \| Scotland
1964 in British music

Events from the year 1964 in the United Kingdom.

1 Incumbents
2 Events
- 2.1 Undated
3 Publications
4 Births
5 Deaths
6 References
7 See also

[edit] Incumbents

Monarch - HM Queen Elizabeth II
Prime Minister - Alec Douglas-Home, Conservative (until 16 October), Harold Wilson, Labour

[edit] Events

The Forth Road Bridge.

29 January–9 February - Great Britain and Northern Ireland compete at the 1964 Winter Olympics in Innsbruck, Austria, and win one gold medal.
6 February - The British and French governments agree a deal for the construction of a Channel Tunnel. The twin-tunneled rail link is expected to take five years to build.^[1]
28 March - Pirate radio station Radio Caroline begins broadcasting.^[2]
30 March - Violent disturbances between Mods and Rockers at Clacton beach.^[3]
1 April - Ministry of Defence takes over the duties of the War Office, Admiralty, and Air Ministry, which cease to exist.^[3]
16 April - 7 of the Great Train Robbers are sentenced to 30 years each for their role in the 1963 robbery.^[2]
21 April - The UK's third television channel BBC Two begins broadcasting; its first programme is Play School.^[2]
11 May - Terence Conran opens the first Habitat store on London's Fulham Road.^[2]
17 June - A missing persons investigation is launched in Fallowfield, Manchester, as police search for 12-year-old Keith Bennett, who went missing yesterday evening.
6 July
- Malawi gains its independence.^[4]
- The first The Beatles film, A Hard Day's Night, released.^[5]
15 July - The Post Office Tower in London is completed, although it does not open for business until October 1965.^[3]
4 September - Forth Road Bridge opens over the Firth of Forth, linking Fife and Edinburgh.^[2]
14 September - the Daily Herald ceases publication, replaced by The Sun.
21 September - Malta obtains independence from the UK.^[4]
October - Dorothy Crowfoot Hodgkin wins the Nobel Prize in Chemistry (the first British woman to win a Nobel) "for her determinations by X-ray techniques of the structures of important biochemical substances".^[6]
10 October–24 October - Great Britain competes at the 1964 Summer Olympics in Tokyo and wins 4 gold, 12 silver and 2 bronze medals.
15 October - General election: Labour Party defeats the Conservatives, ending 13 years of Conservative Party rule. Harold Wilson becomes Prime Minister, replacing Alec Douglas-Home.
18 October - Wilson creates the Welsh Office.^[3]
24 October - Northern Rhodesia, a former British protectorate, becomes the independent Republic of Zambia, ending 73 years of British rule.^[4]
2 November - ITV soap opera Crossroads aired for the first time.^[2]
9 November - House of Commons votes to abolish the death penalty for murder in Britain. The last execution took place in August and the death penalty is set to be officially abolished before the end of next year.
23 December - Richard Beeching announces his intention to resign as Chairman of the British Railways Board after three-and-a-half years, during which he ordered the closure of many smaller and financially non-viable railways.^[7]
26 December - Police launch a missing persons investigation after 10-year-old Lesley Ann Downey goes missing from a fairground in Ancoats, Manchester.
31 December - Donald Campbell sets the world speed record on water at 276.33 mph on Dumbleyung Lake in Australia.^[2]

[edit] Undated

The European Car of the Year award, in its second year, is again won by a British Motor Corporation product, this time the Austin 1800 large family saloon.