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Born in 1965? Here's the world you arrived into

In 1965, "Wooly Bully" topped the charts, The Sound of Music packed theaters, a stamp cost 5¢, the average home went for about $20,000.

What things cost in 1965

A $0.31 gallon of gas in 1965 has the buying power of roughly $3.10 in 2024 dollars. A 5¢ stamp is around 50¢ today, and a $1.01 movie ticket is about $10.

The biggest moments of 1965

• The Sound of Music premiered in March 1965 and became one of the most beloved movie musicals of all time.
• Astronaut Ed White made the first American spacewalk during the Gemini 4 mission in June 1965.
• President Johnson signed the Voting Rights Act into law on August 6, 1965.

• Houston's Astrodome opened in April 1965 as the world's first domed stadium — the "Eighth Wonder of the World."
• The final piece of the 630-foot Gateway Arch was set in place in St. Louis in October 1965.
• The Great Northeast Blackout on November 9, 1965 left some 30 million people without power from New York to Ontario.

Toys, TV & trends of 1965

• Wham-O's Super Ball bounced onto the scene and sold millions in 1965.
• The skateboarding craze rolled across America, with homemade boards in every neighborhood.
• Get Smart and I Dream of Jeannie both premiered in the fall of 1965.

• The buzzing game Operation arrived in 1965, daring kids to remove the funny bone without touching the sides.
• Lost in Space premiered in September, and "Danger, Will Robinson!" entered the vocabulary.
• Scientists at the University of Florida invented Gatorade in 1965 to keep the Gators football team hydrated.

The music scene

Bob Dylan shocked the folk faithful by "going electric" at the Newport Folk Festival in July 1965, weeks after releasing the six-minute "Like a Rolling Stone." The Byrds' jangly cover of his "Mr. Tambourine Man" hit #1 and launched folk-rock. Over at Motown, the Temptations' "My Girl" — written for them by Smokey Robinson — topped the chart in March, and Sonny & Cher's "I Got You Babe" became the summer's sweetheart anthem.

At the movies

The Sound of Music was more than a hit — within a year it overtook Gone with the Wind as the highest-grossing film of all time. At the April ceremony, My Fair Lady collected eight Oscars including Best Picture. And Lee Marvin's hilarious dual role as a drunken gunfighter and his silver-nosed twin in the comedy western Cat Ballou would win him Best Actor.

Cartoons kids loved

• A Charlie Brown Christmas
• The Beatles cartoon series
• Atom Ant and Secret Squirrel

CBS executives fretted that A Charlie Brown Christmas was too slow, too jazzy, and too religious for prime time — then nearly half of American viewers tuned in on December 9, 1965, and it won both an Emmy and a Peabody. Vince Guaraldi's piano score became one of the best-loved holiday albums ever recorded.

The world in 1965

• World population: about 3.3 billion
• U.S. President: Lyndon B. Johnson
• The world paused in January 1965 for the state funeral of Sir Winston Churchill in London.

• Soviet cosmonaut Alexei Leonov made the first spacewalk in history in March 1965, floating outside his capsule for about 12 minutes.
• Singapore became an independent nation on August 9, 1965, after separating from Malaysia.
• The Beatles received their MBE medals from Queen Elizabeth II at Buckingham Palace in October.

1965 birthday questions

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