Cassius Clay Boxing World Champion

On February 25 Cassius Clay (later Muhammad Ali) beat Sonny Liston in Miami Beach, Florida, and was crowned the heavyweight champion of the world.

Beatles on the Ed Sullivan Show

On February 9 The Beatles appeared on The Ed Sullivan Show, marking their first live performance on American television. Seen by an estimated 73,000,000 viewers, the appearance becomes the catalyst for the mid-1960s "British Invasion" of American popular music. (Ed Sullivan was cagey enough to put them on at both the beginning and the end of the program in order to keep the audience tuned in throughout). The idea that crime rates plummeted at the time is false and arose out of a sneering comment to the effect that all the criminals were watching the Beatles.

Beatles' First American Number One

On February 1 The Beatles sprang to the #1 spot on the US singles charts for the first time, with "I Want to Hold Your Hand". This marks the start of the British Invasion.

Hello, Dolly!

Hello, Dolly! is a 1964 musical with lyrics and music by Jerry Herman and a book by Michael Stewart, based on Thornton Wilder's 1938 farce The Merchant of Yonkers, which Wilder revised and retitled The Matchmaker in 1955. The musical follows the story of Dolly Gallagher Levi, a strong-willed matchmaker, as she travels to Yonkers, New York, to find a match for the miserly "well-known unmarried half-a-millionaire" Horace Vandergelder. The film (with Barbra Streisand and Louis Armstrong) came out in 1969.

Charlie and the Chocolate Factory

 

Roald Dahl's famous children's book was first published in 1964 (January US and November UK).

Winter Olympics Innsbruck

The Winter Olympics were held in January 1964 in Innsbruck. I was given a toy car made by Corgi like the one above for Christmas 1963.

JFK

On January 1 Idlewild Airport in New York City officially became John F. Kennedy International Airport after midnight. Baggage tags that had carried the code "IDL" would thenceforth be designated "JFK"

Rhodesia

On January 1 The Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland dissolved and was split into Northern Rhodesia (now Zambia), Southern Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) and Nyasaland (now Malawi). Byasaland became independent on July 6 and Northern Rhodesia on October 24.