8 January – Prime MinisterHarold Wilson endorses the 'I'm Backing Britain' campaign, encouraging workers to work extra time without pay or take other actions to help competitiveness, which is spreading across the United Kingdom.[3]
11 January–4 February – Hull triple trawler tragedy: three fishing trawlers from the port of Hull sink in separate incidents, killing 58 crew with just one survivor and leading to major changes to safety practice in the industry.[4]
16 January – Prime Minister Wilson announces that the Civil Defence Corps is being stood down.[5]
Februaryedit
4 February – 96 Indians and Pakistanis arrive in the United Kingdom from Kenya. Some 1,500 Asians have now arrived in the UK from Kenya, where they have been forced out by increasingly draconian immigration laws.[6]
Northampton, the county town of Northamptonshire, is designated as a new town, with the Labour Government hoping to double its size and population by 1980.[7]
12 March – The island of Mauritius achieves independence from the UK.[14]
14 March – In the early hours, the Prime Minister convenes a meeting of the privy council to declare the following day a non-statutory bank holiday, allowing the government to suspend the London Gold Pool to stem the losses being suffered by the pound sterling. George Brown, the Foreign Secretary, apparently drunk, cannot be located in time for the meeting.
15 March – George Brown resigns from the government.[15]
17 March – A demonstration in London's Grosvenor Square against U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War leads to violence – 91 police injured, 200 demonstrators arrested.
7 April – Motor racing world champion Jim Clark, 32, is killed when his car leaves the track at 170 mph and smashes into a tree during a Formula 2 race at Hockenheim.[16]
21 April – Enoch Powell is dismissed from the Shadow cabinet by Opposition leader Edward Heath due to the Rivers of Blood Speech, despite several opinion polls stating that the majority of the public shares Mr Powell's fears.[20]
3 May – Mr. Frederick West (aged 45) becomes the United Kingdom's first heart transplant patient, in London.[21]
8 May – The Kray Twins, 34-year-old Ronnie and Reggie, are among 18 men arrested in dawn raids across London. They stand accused of a series of crimes including murder, fraud, blackmail and assault. Their 41-year-old brother Charlie Kray is one of the other 16 men under arrest.[22]
7 June – Start of Ford sewing machinists strike at the Dagenham assembly plant: women workers strike to have their work valued as 'skilled' (Grade C) rather than 'unskilled' (Grade B). The machinists feel that they are skilled as they have had to pass a test to gain employment making car seats. They do not achieve full wage parity but are given 92% of the men's rate rather than 85%.[27][28] This influences the Equal Pay Act 1970.
18 June – Frederick West, the United Kingdom's first heart transplant patient, dies 46 days after his operation.
20 June – Austin Currie, Member of Parliament at Stormont in Northern Ireland, along with others, squats a house in Caledon to protest against discrimination in housing allocations.
29 June – The Keighley & Worth Valley Railway runs its "Re-Opening Special", the first public service since the line's closure in 1961 on what becomes a popular heritage railway
The new school year in England sees the first local authorities adopt three tier education, where 5–7 infant, 7–11 junior schools are replaced by 5–8 or 5–9 first schools and 8–12 or 9–13 middle schools, with the transfer age to grammar and secondary modern schools being increased to 12 or 13.[32]
A woman from Birmingham gives birth to the first recorded instance of live sextuplets in the UK; 5 survive.[37]
The Sound of Music soundtrack album exceeds 2 million sales in the UK, meaning that one in four homes with a record player has the recording.[8]
5 October – A civil rights march in Derry, Northern Ireland, which includes several Stormont and British MPs, is batoned off the streets by the Royal Ulster Constabulary.[38]
26 November – The Race Relations Act is passed, making it illegal to refuse housing, employment or public services to people in the United Kingdom because of their ethnic background.[46]
29 November – Dawley New Town (Designation) Amendment (Telford) Order extends the boundaries of Dawley New Town in Shropshire and renames it Telford.
30 November – The Trade Descriptions Act comes into force, preventing shops and traders from describing goods in a misleading way.[47]
Late December – Cases of Hong Kong flu, sporadic since summer in the UK, begin to rise. Over the coming year the pandemic will kill approximately 80,000.[49][50][51]
^Marshall, Rita (2 January 1968). "C. Day Lewis Is Poet Laureate". The Times. No. 57138. p. 1.
^Stephenson, Hannah (24 September 2007). "Gardeners' World at 40". Bedford Today. Retrieved 10 November 2015.[permanent dead link]
^Chartres, John (9 January 1968). "Wilson Joins 'I Back Britain'". The Times. p. 1.
^Creed, Rupert (1998). Turning the Tide: The 1968 Trawler Tragedy and the Wives' Campaign for Safety. Hull: Back Door Press. ISBN 0-9534555-0-5.
^Raine-Allen, Frank (2005). "1968 Stand-Down". In Essex-Lopresti, Tim (ed.). A Brief History of Civil Defence(PDF). Matlock: Civil Defence Association. pp. 53–58. ISBN 0-9550153-0-8.
^"1968: More Kenyan Asians flee to Britain". On This Day. BBC News. 4 February 1968. Retrieved 12 August 2011.
^"Historic Background" (PDF). Northamptonshire County Council. Archived from the original (PDF) on 27 September 2011. Retrieved 12 August 2011.
^ abGross, Nigel; et al. (1999). 1960s. Collins Gem. Glasgow: HarperCollins. ISBN 0-00-472310-4.
^Hewish, A.; Bell, S. J.; Pilkington, J. D. H.; Scott, P. F.; Collins, R. A. (24 February 1968). "Observation of a Rapidly Pulsating Radio Source". Nature. 217 (5130): 709–713. doi:10.1038/217709a0. S2CID 4277613.
^Vocal Selections: Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat. Milwaukee, WI: Hal Leonard. 1994. ISBN 978-0-7935-3427-2.
^"About The Show". The Really Useful Group. Archived from the original on 25 December 2008. Retrieved 29 December 2008.
^"Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat". AndrewLloydWebber.com. 1991. Archived from the original on 23 October 2010. Retrieved 8 October 2010.
^"The closing of Baggeridge Colliery". Black Country Society. Archived from the original on 19 July 2011. Retrieved 12 August 2011.
^ abThe Hutchinson Factfinder. Helicon. 1999. ISBN 978-1-85986-000-7.
^"Statesman who bottled out: 'Tired and Emotional: The Life of Lord George Brown'". The Independent. London. 9 May 1993. Archived from the original on 1 May 2022.
^"1968: Jim Clark killed in car smash". BBC News. 7 April 1968. Archived from the original on 19 February 2008. Retrieved 5 February 2008.
^Marr, Andrew (2007). A History of Modern Britain. London: Macmillan. p. 281. ISBN 978-1-4050-0538-8.
^"1968: Race discrimination law tightened". 26 November 1968 – via news.bbc.co.uk.
^"1968: Shops told to stop conning customers". BBC News. 30 November 1968. Archived from the original on 2 December 2007. Retrieved 15 January 2008.
^"1968: Mary Bell found guilty of double killing". BBC News. 17 December 1968. Archived from the original on 19 December 2007. Retrieved 15 January 2008.
^Roden, A. T. (1969). "National experience with Hong Kong influenza in the United Kingdom, 1968-69". Bulletin of the World Health Organization. 41 (3-4-5): 375–80. Retrieved 19 March 2022.
^"History of major virus outbreaks in the UK in recent times". Express and Star. Wolverhampton. 3 March 2020. Retrieved 13 December 2020.
^Bennett, Asa (2 May 2020). "Half a century ago stoic Britons battle a similar health crisis without any lockdown". The Telegraph. London. Retrieved 13 December 2020.
^Allan, David B; Waddell, Gordon (1 January 1989). "An historical perspective on low back pain and disability". Acta Orthopaedica Scandinavica. 60 (sup234): 1–23. doi:10.3109/17453678909153916. ISSN 0001-6470. PMID 2533783. S2CID 22502801.