The Hollies

Stay with The Hollies (American title: Here I Go Again) is the debut album by the British rock band The Hollies. It was released in January 1964 on Parlophone Records.

The Animals

The Animals is the self-titled debut album by the British band the Animals. It was released in the UK in October 1964 on Columbia Records. That same year an American version of the album was released.

Manfred Mann

The Five Faces of Manfred Mann is the debut UK studio album by British based band Manfred Mann. It was first released in the UK in September 1964 by HMV.

The Manfred Mann Album was the debut American studio album, released the same month on Ascot Records. It contains the hit single "Do Wah Diddy Diddy", as well as covers of various R&B hits.

Kinks

The self-titled debut album by British band the Kinks was released in 1964. It was released with three tracks omitted as You Really Got Me in the United States.

Death of Edith Sitwell

Dame Edith Louisa Sitwell DBE died on December 9, 1964, having been born September 7, 1887. She was a British poet and critic and the eldest of the three literary Sitwells. She reacted badly to her eccentric, unloving parents and lived much of her life with her governess. She never married but became passionately attached to Russian painter Pavel Tchelitchew, and her home was always open to London's poetic circle, to whom she was generous and helpful

She published poetry continuously from 1913, some of it abstract and set to music. With her dramatic style and exotic costumes, she was sometimes labelled a poseur but her work was praised for its solid technique and painstaking craftsmanship. She was a recipient of the Benson Medal of the Royal Society of Literature.

General Election UK

On October 15 there was a general election in the UK and Harold Wilson (Labour) replaced Sir Alec Douglas-Home (Tory). Wilson's majority was only five seats but it ended 13 years of Conservative rule. Sir Alec had only been PM for 12 months. Among the retiring MPS was Sir Winston Churchill, who had been an MP for 63 of the previous 65 years. He had, of course, also been PM.

Earthquake in Alaska

The Great Alaskan earthquake, the second-most powerful known (and the most powerful earthquake recorded in North American history) at a magnitude of 9.2, struck Southcentral Alaska, killing 125 people and inflicting massive damage to the city of Anchorage on March 27 (Good Friday).

Gemini I Launched

 

The Americans launch Gemini 1, the first unmanned test of the 2-man spacecraft, on April 7

Nobel Prize for Peace Martin Luther King

The Nobel Peace Prize 1964 was awarded to the Afro-American civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. "for his non-violent struggle for civil rights for the Afro-American population."

Born in Atlanta in 1929, he was assassinated in Memphis in 1968.

King adhered to Gandhi's philosophy of nonviolence. In 1955 he began his struggle to persuade the US Government to declare the policy of racial discrimination in the southern states unlawful. The racists responded with violence to the black people's nonviolent initiatives.

In 1963, 250,000 demonstrators marched to the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, where King gave his famous "I have a dream" speech. The following year, President Johnson got a law passed prohibiting all racial discrimination.

But King had powerful opponents. The head of the FBI, John Edgar Hoover, had him placed under surveillance as a communist, and when King opposed the administration's policy in Vietnam, he fell into disfavour with the President. It has still not been ascertained whether King's murderer acted on his own or was part of a conspiracy.

Nobel Prize for Literature Jean-Paul Sartre

The 1964 Nobel Prize in Literature was awarded the French writer Jean-Paul Sartre "for his work which, rich in ideas and filled with the spirit of freedom and the quest for truth, has exerted a far-reaching influence on our age."

Sartre declined the prize, saying that he never accepted any official honours and that he did not want the writer to become an institution. The Swedish Academy said in announcement: "It will be recalled that the laureate has made it known that he did not wish to accept the prize. The fact that he has declined this distinction does not in the least modify the validity of the award. Under the circumstances, however, the Academy can only state that the presentation of the prize cannot take place." It is the only known occasion when a Laureate has voluntarily declined to accept the Nobel Prize in literature.