50th anniversaries in 2011

20/1 JFK sworn in
6/3 George Formby dies
8/3 Sir Thomas Beecham dies
15/3 Dr Richard Beeching appointed head of BR
26/3 Leigh Bowery born
31/3 Sir Geoffrey Faber died (there was no other Faber)
11/4 Adolf Eichmann put on trial
12/4 Yuri Gagarin first man in space
19/4 Bay of Pigs fails
23/4 De Gaulle broadcasts appeal in face of Algerian coup
8/5 George Blake gaoled for 42 years for spying
8/5 Anthony Wedgwood Benn barred from Parliament as Viscount Stansgate
10/5 Beyond The Fringe opens
13/5 Gary Cooper dies
31/5 South Africa leaves Commonwealth
27/6 Michael Ramsey enthroned as Archbishop of Canterbury
1/7 Woman called Diana born
2/7 Ernest Hemingway shoots himself
13/8 Berlin Wall goes up
17/9 Ban the Bomb demo in Trafalgar Square (850 arrests - plus ça change)
18/9 Dag Hammarskjöld dies in plane crash
1/10 Last steam train runs on the London Underground
11/10 Chico Marx dies
18/10 West Side Story opens
25/10 Private Eye starts publication
2/11 James Thurber dies
9/11 Jill Dando born
4/12 Contraceptive pill approved for NHS by Enoch Powell
24/12 Frank Richards (author of Billy Bunter) dies

Oh, and it's my 50th too. Bloody Hell, how did THAT happen!