May 1965

[May 1], 1965 (Saturday)

• Two new world records for flight speed were set by a Lockheed YF-12A jet interceptor on the same day by two different crews. On one flight, the crew broke the 2,000 mph barrier, flying at 2,070.102 miles per hour and shattering the previous speed record of 1,665.8 miles per hour that had been set on July 7, 1962, by a Soviet Ye-166. The YF-12A also broke the record for a closed course flight averaging per hour by flying in 22 minutes, and breaking the record set by the Soviets in the Ye-166 the previous month. A new record was also set for highest sustained altitude, as the YF-12A flew for several minutes at 80,258 feet.
• The Battle of Dong-Yin took place between Taiwan and Mainland China. A Republic of China Navy destroyer was patrolling the Taiwan Strait near Dongyin Island on its side of the border, when it encountered eight gunboats from the Navy of the People's Republic of China, and two sides exchanged fire as the PRC combatants attempted to encircle the ROC ship. Four of the gunboats were sunk, and two others damaged, while the destroyer returned to Taiwan with minimal damage. The news, announced from Taipei by the ROC Navy, "did not identify the Nationalist ship further".
• Liverpool won the FA Cup in extra time, beating Leeds United 2–1 before a crowd of 100,000 at Wembley Stadium. Neither side had been able to score in the 90 minutes of regulation time; three minutes into the extra time, Liverpool's Roger Hunt headed the ball in after a cross from Gerry Byrne ; Billy Bremner equalised the score to 1–1 ten minutes later. After 113 minutes of play, Ian St John headed in the game-winner on a pass from Ian Callaghan for Liverpool's first FA cup ever.
• The Montreal Canadiens won the Stanley Cup in the seventh and deciding game of the National Hockey League best-of-seven series, beating the Chicago Black Hawks, 4–0. All seven of the series games were won by the home team; only 14 seconds after the final started, Jean Béliveau scored the first goal, and before the first 20 minutes were completed, three more were added.
• Died: Spike Jones, 53, American comedian, musician, and bandleader, died from emphysema.

  [May 2], 1965 (Sunday)

• U.S. president Lyndon Johnson made a nationally televised speech to explain the invasion of the Dominican Republic by American troops, and said that "There are time in the affairs of nations when great principles are tested in an ordeal of conflict and danger. This is such a time for the American nations. At stake are the lives of thousands, the liberty of a nation, and the principles and the values of all the American Republics." He added that the Dominican revolution had "taken a tragic turn" and that "what began as a popular democratic revolution" was "seized and placed into the hands of a band of Communist conspirators." Johnson announced that he had ordered "2,000 extra men" to the Dominican Republic and for an additional 4,500 men to be deployed "at the earliest possible moment." "The American nations cannot, must not, and will not permit the establishment of another Communist government in the Western Hemisphere.... This is what our beloved President John F. Kennedy meant when, less than a week before his death, he told us: 'We in this hemisphere must also use every resource at our command to prevent the establishment of another Cuba in this hemisphere.'"
• South Korea President Park Chung Hee gave a speech chastising student protesters. "Dear students!" he said, "Whenever the politicians wrangle over a big issue in the National Assembly, you, without knowing the real point of the issue, take to the streets or hold discussion meetings on the campus with placards saying 'Down with the Government'... But I say this to you frankly, that you are the future masters of the nation, but you must train yourself for the job 10 or 20 more years. Then comes the time for your generation, not now..."
• Wagon Train, the popular television Western drama ended after eight seasons with the broadcast of its 272nd and final original episode. The series closer was also a television pilot with Frank McGrath's character telling Terry Wilson's Bill Hawks about Charlie's days working at a trading post. The pilot, Bend of the River, would not be picked up by any of the networks.
• The Intelsat I communications satellite, launched on April 6, was moved to a stationary geosynchronous orbit, 22,300 miles above the Atlantic Ocean and began regular operations.
• The Soviet Union lost all contact with Zond 2, the interplanetary probe that it had launched toward Mars on November 30, 1964.

  [May 3], 1965 (Monday)

• An earthquake measuring 7.5 on the Mercalli scale struck El Salvador at dawn. Heaviest damage was in the Cisneros district of the capital, San Salvador, and the neighboring cities of Delgado and Mejicanos. The official death toll was 120 people; more than 1,500 would die in a second earthquake on October 10, 1986, and "a significant number of the victims" would be "killed by the collapse of engineered structures that had been weakened in the 1965 event", most notably the 300 people dying in a five-story building that had been condemned after the 1965 earthquake.
• An article in Newsweek magazine prompted the breaking of diplomatic relations by Cambodia with the United States. Prince Norodom Sihanouk cited a report about his mother, Queen Kossamak, that had accused her of involvement in "various money-making schemes".
• President Sukarno of Indonesia called for volunteers to "dissolve the puppet state of Malaysia", both on the island of Java and on the Malay peninsula.
• The 1965 Cannes Film Festival opened.
• Born:
• *Red Rum, Irish champion Thoroughbred racehorse; in Kells, County Kilkenny
• *Gary Mitchell, Northern Irish playwright; in Rathcoole
• Died:
• *Árpád Szakasits, 76, President of Hungary, and chairman of the Presidential Council after the post of president was abolished.
• *Howard Spring, 76, British novelist and journalist

  [May 4], 1965 (Tuesday)

• Pope Paul VI literally gave his blessing to the Italian space program, granting an audience to Luigi Broglio and a group of technicians and managers at the Vatican to discuss Broglio's successful effort in making Italy the third nation to place an artificial satellite into orbit. The Pontiff of the Roman Catholic Church praised the San Marco project, saying, "You do have this deep faith; your presence here, with the humble Vicar of Jesus Christ, tells us that. The name San Marco tells us that, the name you gave your project as well as both satellites you produced, destined to carry into sidereal spaces, together with the presence of Italy, a sincere expression of complete and joyous confidence in heavenly protection too."
• Colonel Francisco Caamaño was sworn in as President of the Dominican Republic at the presidential palace in Santo Domingo, after rebel forces convened a constitutional congress and voted to have him govern until the return of exiled ex-President Juan Bosch. Addressing a crowd of 2,500 supporters in Independence Plaza, Caamaño called for the immediate withdrawal of the 14,000 American troops that had arrived in the Caribbean nation during the past week.
• The split capital investment trust, a form of investment that allows investors to choose between two or more classes of shares of stock, was introduced. The New York City offices of the British firm Samuel Montagu & Co. launched the program as the Dualvest Limited Fund.
• The American version of That Was the Week That Was, hosted by David Frost on the NBC television network, was shown for the last time.

  [May 5], 1965 (Wednesday)

• Forty male students at the University of California in Berkeley stood in front of the city's draft board office and burned their draft cards, introducing what would become a common form of antiwar protest and a refusal to join the war effort. The 40 UC students were among hundreds who marched to the draft board after a noon rally on the Berkeley campus. "While Berkeley police photographers snapped their photos," an Associated Press report noted, "the students squatted in a huddle like a football team and placed their burning cards in a small pile." Although future draft-card burnings would be made in opposition to the Vietnam War, the initial protest was against the U.S. invasion of the Dominican Republic. A spokesman for the Selective Service System noted that U.S. law required "that a registrant must have his draft card with him at all times" and that the general practice when a registrant was unable to produce his draft card was to have him "reported to his local draft board, which sometimes treats me as a delinquent and speeds up his induction."
• "Boss Radio", a music programming format that relied on less talking by the disc jockeys, shorter commercials, and more frequent play of the most popular songs of the week, was introduced by a Los Angeles radio station, KHJ-AM. The concept, developed by Bill Drake and Gene Chenault, along with Gary Mack and Les Turpin, relied on playing of the same 33 songs throughout the day, punctuated occasionally by older records. The planned debut had actually been for May 19, but a disgruntled news announcer at KHJ revealed the plan to rival radio station KFWB, so KHJ disc jockey Don Steele rushed the Boss Radio format on the air the same afternoon; KFWB retreated from stealing the KHJ idea. The "more music, less talk" format would quickly be adopted by other radio stations in the United States.
• Iberia Airlines Flight 401 from Madrid crashed while attempting to land at the airport at Tenerife in the Canary Islands, killing 30 of the 49 people on board. The Super Constellation plane had aborted one landing attempt in heavy fog, and on the second approach, it struck farm equipment located about from the edge of the runway.
• The Organization of American States voted 14 to 5 to create an "Inter-American Peace Force" to occupy the Dominican Republic until order could be restored. Opposing the measure were Chile, Ecuador, Mexico, Peru and Uruguay.