Getting your questions ready
Getting your questions ready
Beat the crowd
10 questions No timer
50 free 1965 trivia questions with answers — trivia quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
1965 was the year the sixties stopped being polite. American Marines waded ashore in Vietnam, a colony in southern Africa declared itself independent without asking, a new flag went up in Ottawa and an island city-state was thrown out of its federation and told to govern itself. In Britain the death penalty was suspended, motorways got their first speed limit and a critic said a four-letter word on live television. These 50 questions cover the news, sport, music, film and television of the year with a British lean: a first FA Cup for a famous club, a winger retiring at 50, a horse from Maryland at Aintree, a record price for an Old Master, a zoo escape that stopped the traffic, the year's best-selling single, a flop musical and a satellite named after a cartoon Gaul. There are births and deaths too, from a boy wizard's creator to a modernist architect who died swimming. It is built for pub quizzes, classrooms and anyone who was there, or wishes they had been. Every answer comes with an explanation and a source, so the arguments can be settled.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Which racquet sport was invented on Bainbridge Island, Washington, with leftover badminton and ping-pong kit?
Pickleball
Pickleball was invented at the summer home of Joel Pritchard, a future congressman, and one story says it was named after the family dog, Pickles. By 2021 it was America's fastest-growing sport.
Q 02Which novel, turned down by over twenty publishers, was finally issued by a printer of car-repair manuals?
Dune
Dune was published by Chilton Books, which treated it as a write-off and fired the editor who championed it; the book then won the first Nebula Award. Frank Herbert's desert epic has never been out of print since.
Q 03Which fibre, five times stronger than steel by weight, did DuPont's Stephanie Kwolek create in a petrol-shortage scare?
Kevlar
Kevlar first went to market in the early 1970s replacing steel in racing tyres, and only later lined bulletproof vests. Kwolek had to persuade a sceptical technician to spin her cloudy solution at all.
Q 04Which winter sport grew from the 'Snurfer', which Sherman Poppen built for his children's amusement on Christmas Day?
Snowboarding
Snowboarding grew out of Poppen's Snurfer, a monoski wider and shorter than skis with a lanyard at the front, licensed to Brunswick in 1966. Poppen himself only took up the sport at 67.
Q 05Which country ran up a new flag on 15 February, retiring its Red Ensign after a rancorous 'Great Flag Debate'?
Canada
Canada's maple leaf was inaugurated on Parliament Hill in Ottawa, and 15 February is now National Flag Day. Prime Minister Lester Pearson had forced the change through a divided Commons.
Q 06Which island state became independent on 9 August after being voted out of a federation it had joined in 1963?
Singapore
Singapore's expulsion from Malaysia passed 126–0 with no Singaporean MPs present, and Lee Kuan Yew fought back tears announcing it on television. He then governed the new republic until 1990.
Q 07Which driver skipped the Monaco Grand Prix to win the Indianapolis 500, then took that year's Formula One title as well?
Jim Clark
Jim Clark remains the only driver to win the Indy 500 and the world championship in one year, and his Lotus 38 was the first mid-engined car to win at the Brickyard. Graham Hill and Mario Andretti won both crowns, but in different years.
Q 08Which Fairchild research chief told Electronics magazine that chip components would keep doubling every year?
Gordon Moore
Gordon Moore's forecast became 'Moore's law', which he slowed to a doubling every two years in 1975; he went on to co-found Intel and run it. The magazine had simply asked him to guess the next decade.
Q 09Which author, born in Yate, Gloucestershire, on 31 July, later gave her own birthday to the boy wizard she created?
J. K. Rowling
J. K. Rowling's parents had married only that March and settled in Yate, where her father worked on a Bristol Siddeley assembly line. Harry Potter shares her 31 July birthday but, she insists, nothing else.
Q 10Whose portrait of his son Titus made a record 760,000 guineas at Christie's in March, bought by Norton Simon?
Rembrandt
Rembrandt's Titus was first knocked down to Marlborough Fine Art for 700,000 guineas because the auctioneer misread Simon's secret signals; Simon stormed the rostrum and bidding reopened. His museum now calls it a portrait of a boy.
Q 11Which club won the FA Cup for the first time on 1 May, beating Leeds 2–1 after extra time at Wembley?
Liverpool
Liverpool's goals came from Roger Hunt in the 93rd minute and Ian St John in the 117th, after a goalless ninety that the papers called boring. Bill Shankly's side had never lifted the trophy in 73 years of trying.
Q 12Which club beat 1860 Munich 2–0 at Wembley to win the Cup Winners' Cup, with both goals from Alan Sealey?
West Ham United
West Ham United's second came when the captain's cross was fumbled by goalkeeper Radenkovic; Sealey scored twice inside two minutes. A year later that same captain lifted the World Cup on the same pitch.
Q 13Which winger, knighted while still playing, made his last First Division appearance for Stoke on 6 February aged 50?
Q 21Which chain began when founder Boizot shipped an oven from Naples and a chef from Sicily to Wardour Street, Soho?
PizzaExpress
PizzaExpress grew from that single Soho room into a chain whose Dean Street branch became a celebrated jazz club; the original Wardour Street site finally closed in 2020. Boizot had simply missed the pizza he ate in Italy.
Q 22Which fast-food chain opened its first British branch at 92 Fishergate, Preston, on 1 May?
KFC
KFC beat McDonald's to Britain by nine years; the rival did not open until Woolwich in 1974. Colonel Sanders's chain was among the first American franchises to go abroad, reaching Mexico and Jamaica by the mid-1960s.
Q 23What kind of bird drew crowds to Regent's Park during nearly two weeks on the loose from London Zoo in March?
Stanley Matthews
Stanley Matthews played that last game only because injuries to Dobing and Bridgwood forced him back into a side that was already the League's oldest. He remains the only footballer knighted while active.
Q 14Which cyclist became Britain's first professional world road-race champion, two years before he died on Mont Ventoux?
Tom Simpson
Tom Simpson also won the Giro di Lombardia that autumn and became the first cyclist named BBC Sports Personality of the Year. The post-mortem after his 1967 Tour collapse found amphetamines and alcohol.
Q 15Which Dodgers pitcher skipped Game 1 of the World Series for Yom Kippur, then won Game 7 on two days' rest?
Sandy Koufax
Sandy Koufax had thrown a perfect game against the Cubs that September, his fourth no-hitter, a record at the time. The decision made him a hero to American Jews and he retired a year later with an arthritic elbow.
Q 16Six days of rioting that killed 34 people began in which Los Angeles neighbourhood after a drink-driving stop?
Watts
Watts erupted after Marquette Frye, aged 21, was pulled over in his mother's Buick; nearly 14,000 National Guardsmen were needed and damage topped $40 million. The area had gone from mixed to over 80 per cent Black in two decades.
Q 17Which colony declared independence from Britain on 11 November, the first such unilateral break since 1776?
Rhodesia
Rhodesia's Ian Smith signed the proclamation at 11 a.m. on Armistice Day, during the two minutes' silence, and the UN soon urged every state to stop trading with his regime. The rebellion lasted until 1979.
Q 18What national speed limit, imposed on 22 December as a four-month trial after motorway pile-ups in fog, still stands?
70 mph
The 70 mph limit was Transport Minister Tom Fraser's response to a run of fog crashes, and it was made permanent in 1967; until then British motorways had no limit at all. Road deaths still peaked at 7,985 the following year.
Q 19Which critic drew four Commons censure motions by saying 'fuck' on the BBC's late-night show BBC-3 on 13 November?
Kenneth Tynan
Kenneth Tynan, the National Theatre's literary manager, was arguing against stage censorship when he said no rational person found the word forbidden; 133 backbenchers signed the motions. Others had reputedly said it on air before.
Q 20After Ian Brady's October arrest for the axe killing of a 17-year-old, police dug up two graves on which upland?
Saddleworth Moor
Saddleworth Moor gave up the bodies of Lesley Ann Downey and John Kilbride that October; a third victim, Pauline Reade, was not found there until 1987, and a fourth never has been. Brady and Myra Hindley received whole-life sentences.
A golden eagle
The golden eagle slipped away on 28 February while his cage was being cleaned, shrugged off Royal Navy equipment, and was finally lured down on 11 March with a dead rabbit. He escaped again that December.
Q 24Who became Conservative leader on 27 July in the party's first election by ballot of MPs, beating Reginald Maudling?
Edward Heath
Edward Heath, then Shadow Chancellor, inherited a party that had picked Alec Douglas-Home through the old 'magic circle' of soundings two years earlier. Enoch Powell stood too and finished a distant third.
Q 25Which non-driver took over Transport in the 22 December reshuffle and went on to bring in the breathalyser?
Barbara Castle
Barbara Castle was asked on air 'You're only a woman, you don't drive, what do you know about it?'; road deaths fell 16.5 per cent in the breathalyser's first year. She also made seat belts compulsory fittings.
Q 26Which French stop-motion series reached BBC1 on 18 October with scripts Eric Thompson made up from the pictures alone?
The Magic Roundabout
The Magic Roundabout's Dougal was built without legs to make him easier to animate, and Zebedee was made from a giant pea found in the studio. Thompson's narration ran for 441 five-minute episodes until 1977.
Q 27Which Hammer horror star played the Doctor as a gentle human inventor in the first colour Doctor Who film?
Peter Cushing
Peter Cushing's film, shot in Technicolor and widescreen, remade the TV serial with a bumbling comic sidekick, and a sequel followed in 1966. William Hartnell was still playing the part on television.
Q 28Which Peanuts special, the first ever made, was scored by jazz pianist Vince Guaraldi and paid for by Coca-Cola?
A Charlie Brown Christmas
A Charlie Brown Christmas had no laugh track and real children doing the voices, which convinced CBS it had a disaster; it won an Emmy and ran on US television every year for 56 years. It was made in six months on a small budget.
Q 29Which comedian had the year's best-selling UK single with 'Tears', a 1930 Rudy Vallée waltz he revived?
Ken Dodd
Ken Dodd's 'Tears' sold over a million copies, the only non-Beatles record among the decade's five biggest sellers, and sat at number one for five weeks that autumn. It stayed on the chart for 24 weeks in all.
Q 30Which 17-year-old won Eurovision in Naples for Luxembourg with a Gainsbourg song, beating Kathy Kirby into second?
France Gall
France Gall chose 'Poupée de cire, poupée de son' from the ten songs offered to her, and the win kept the Gainsbourg hits coming for a singer who had started with jazz and children's songs. Kirby's 'I Belong' came second for the UK.