The 1966 World Cup, and Olympic champions
Britain since 1945
Football supplied the next landmark moment in this story. Bobby Moore captained the England team that won its only World Cup, lifting the trophy at a tournament held in 1966 and still remembered as the proudest moment in English football.
Winter sport produced its own famous result later in the story, when Torvill and Dean won Olympic gold for ice dancing in 1984, a routine still replayed whenever British skating comes up. Running and sailing both had a strong year in 2004: Dame Kelly Holmes won Olympic gold medals on the track, while Ellen MacArthur became the fastest sailor to circle the globe alone. At the Paralympics a few years later, in 2008, Ellie Simmonds won her first swimming gold medals, an early sign of a career that kept growing.
What to remember
 The England football team that won the 1966 World Cup | Bobby Moore 1966 That 1966 tournament was hosted in the UK and remains England's only World Cup win. |
|---|
| England’s only international football tournament victory | 1966 That World Cup was hosted in the UK the same year England lifted the trophy. |
|---|---|
| Torvill and Dean’s Olympic ice dancing gold medal | 1984 The pair also won four consecutive ice dancing world championships around this time. |
| Dame Kelly Holmes’s Olympic gold medals for running | 2004 Both golds came from the same 2004 Games: a demanding double for any runner. |
| Ellen MacArthur becoming the fastest person to sail solo around the world | 2004 A yachtswoman's record: sailing around the world alone, without a crew, faster than anyone before her. |
| Ellie Simmonds’s first Paralympic swimming gold medals | 2008 She was the youngest member of the British team at these Games. |
| Won Olympic gold for ice dancing in 1984 | Torvill and Dean |
|---|---|
| Won Olympic gold medals for running in 2004 | Dame Kelly Holmes |
| Became the fastest person to sail solo around the world, in 2004 | Ellen MacArthur |
| Won Paralympic swimming gold medals in 2008 and again in 2012 | Ellie Simmonds |
Everything in Britain since 1945or the whole course, from the beginning