November 30: suffers a severe stroke which disables Sir Robert, paralysing him on one side. Dame Pattie's "acknowledgement of his new physical incapacities and her response to them and to his other medical needs, and her efforts - wonderfully successful in helping him sustain his accustomed social life, his cricket and football watching, his West Brighton Club dinners, and even his travelling, must not go unremarked. The strain of them was fearful. I would like to say that Sir Robert was a good patient. But he was not. He was often a rebel, and at best a passive resister." Sir John Bunting, R G Menzies, A Portrait, 1988 p 151.

	McMahon Government, March 22. Government announces Australian troop withdrawals from South Vietnam. Neville Bonner is the first Aboriginal member of Parliament. The first Australian census to fully include all Aborigines is conducted. "The 1971 census showed that the percentage of the population born in Australia fell from 90.8% in 1947 to 80.5%, while the percentage of European-born rose 8.6% to 17.2%. Although increasing, Asian-born people comprised only 1.3% of the population." The Macquarie Book of Events, 1983 p 71.

	Indo-China war spreads to Laos and Cambodia. USA and China begin talks. China is admitted to the United Nations; Taiwan (Formosa) is expelled. Women in Switzerland gain the vote. In the USA the vote is extended to all over 18. US astronomers discover two 'new' galaxies adjacent to the Earth's own Galaxy, the Milky Way.