1961 Totally Explained

Everything about 1961 totally explained

Year 1961 (MCMLXI) was a common year starting on Sunday (link will display full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar.
As MAD Magazine pointed out on its cover for the March 1961 issue, this was the first "upside-up" year—for example, one in which the numerals that form the year look the same as when the numerals are rotated upside down—since 1881, and the last until 6009.

Events of 1961

January

January 1 - The farthing, used since the 13th century, ceases to be legal tender in the United Kingdom.
January 3
- President Dwight Eisenhower announces that the United States has severed diplomatic and consular relations with Cuba.
- At the National Reactor Testing Station near Idaho Falls, Idaho, SL-1, an atomic reactor explodes, killing 3 military technicians.
January 5 - Italian sculptor Alfredo Fioravanti marches into the U.S. Consulate in Rome, and confesses that he was part of the team that forged the Etruscan terracotta warriors in the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
January 7 - Following a 4-day conference in Casablanca, 5 African chiefs of state announce plans for a NATO-type African organization to ensure common defense. The Charter of Casablanca involves the Casablanca Group - Morocco, the United Arab Republic, Ghana, Guinea, and Mali.
January 8 - In France, a referendum supports Charles de Gaulle's policies in Algeria.
January 9 - British authorities announce that they've discovered a large Soviet spy ring in London.
January 17
- President Dwight Eisenhower gives his final State of the Union Address to Congress. In a Farewell Address the same day, he warns of the increasing power of a "military-industrial complex".
- Patrice Lumumba is assassinated.
January 20 - John F. Kennedy becomes the 35th President of the United States.
January 24
- A U.S. B-52 Stratofortress, with two roughly 2.4 megaton nuclear bombs, crashes near Goldsboro, North Carolina.
- Musician Bob Dylan reportedly makes his way to New York City after bumming a ride in Madison, Wisconsin. Dylan is likely on his way to visit his idol Woody Guthrie. He later finds fame in the Greenwich Village protest folk music scene.
January 25 - In Washington, DC John F. Kennedy delivers the first live presidential news conference. In it, he announces that the Soviet Union has freed the 2 surviving crewmen of a USAF RB-47 reconnaissance plane shot down by Soviet flyers over the Barents Sea July 1, 1960. (see RB-47H shot down)
January 25 - Acting to halt 'leftist excesses,' a junta composed of 2 army officers and 4 civilians takes over El Salvador, ousting another junta that had ruled for 3 months.
January 26 - John F. Kennedy appoints Janet G. Travell to be his physician, the first woman to hold this appointment.
January 30 - President John F. Kennedy delivers his first State of the Union Address.
January 31 - Ham, a 37 pound male chimpanzee, is rocketed into space aboard Mercury-Redstone 2, in a test of the Project Mercury capsule, designed to carry United States astronauts into space.

February

February 3 - China buys grain from Canada for $60 million.

February 4 - The Portuguese Colonial War begins in Angola.

February 5 - February 9 - In Congo, President Joseph Kasavubu names Joseph Ileo as the new Prime Minister.

February 9 - The Beatles perform for their first time at the Cavern Club.

February 12 - U.S.S.R. launches Venera 1 towards Venus.

February 13 - The Congo government announces that villagers have killed Patrice Lumumba.

February 14 - Discovery of the chemical elements: Element 103, Lawrencium, is first synthesized in Berkeley, California.

February 15 - A Sabena Boeing 707 crashes near Brussels, Belgium, killing 73, including the entire United States figure skating team and several coaches.

February 25 - The last public tram operates in Sydney, Australia, bringing to an end the Southern Hemisphere's largest tramway network.

February 26 - Hassan II is pronounced King of Morocco.

March

March 1

President of the United States John F. Kennedy establishes the Peace Corps.
Uganda becomes self-governing by holding its first general elections.

March 3 - Hassan II is crowned King of Morocco.

March 8

Max Conrad circumnavigates the earth in 8 days, 18 hours and 49 minutes, setting a new world record.
The first U.S. Polaris submarines arrive at Holy Loch.

March 13

Black and white £5 notes cease to be legal tender in the UK.
A dam bursts on the Dnieper River in the USSR, killing 145.
USA delegate to the UNSC Adlai Stevenson votes against Portuguese policies in Africa.

March 15

South Africa withdraws from the Commonwealth of Nations.
The Union of Peoples of Angola, led by Holden Roberto, attacks strategic locations in the north of Angola. These events result in the beginning of the colonial war with Portugal.

March 18 - A ceasefire takes effect in the Algerian War of Independence.

March 18 - Nous les amoureux by Jean-Claude Pascal (music by Jacques Datin, text by Maurice Vidalin) wins the Eurovision Song Contest 1961 for Luxembourg.

March 29 - The Twenty-third Amendment to the United States Constitution is ratified, allowing residents of Washington, DC to vote in presidential elections.

March 30 - The Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs is signed at New York.

April

April 5 - The New Guinea Council of Western Papua is installed.

April 11 - The trial of Adolf Eichmann begins in Jerusalem.

April 12

Vostok 1: Yuri Gagarin, a Soviet cosmonaut, becomes the first human in space.
Albert Kalonji takes the title Emperor Albert I Kalonji of South Kasai.

April 13 - Portugal: failed coup attempt against Salazar.

April 17

The Bay of Pigs Invasion of Cuba begins; it fails by April 19.
33rd Academy Awards ceremony

April 18 - Portugal sends to Angola the first military reinforcement.

April 20 - Fidel Castro announces that the Bay of Pigs invasion has been defeated.

April 22 - Algiers putsch: Four French generals who oppose de Gaulle's policies in Algeria fail in a coup attempt.

April 23 - Judy Garland performs in a legendary comeback concert at Carnegie Hall in New York City.

April 24 - Regalskeppet Vasa is removed from the water after being sunk 333 years earlier.

May

May 3 - French phenomenological philosopher Maurice Merleau-Ponty dies, age 53, of a stroke, apparently while preparing for a class on Descartes.

May 4 - Freedom Riders: 13 black and white students with the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) leave Washington DC on 2 buses, to test integration laws in bus stations throughout the deep South.

May 5 - Mercury program: Alan Shepard becomes the first American in space aboard Mercury-Redstone 3.

May 6 - Tottenham Hotspur F.C. become the first team in the 20th century to win the league and cup double.

May 8 - Briton George Blake is sentenced to 42 years imprisonment for spying.

May 14 - American civil rights movement: A Freedom Riders bus is fire-bombed near Anniston, Alabama and the civil rights protestors are beaten by an angry mob.

May 16 - A military coup in South Korea - Park Chung Hee takes over.

May 19 - Venera program: Venera 1 becomes the first man-made object to fly-by another planet by passing Venus (however, the probe had lost contact with Earth a month earlier and didn't send back any data).

May 21 - American civil rights movement: Alabama Governor John Patterson declares martial law in an attempt to restore order after race riots break out.

May 24 - American civil rights movement: Freedom Riders are arrested in Jackson, Mississippi for "disturbing the peace" after disembarking from their bus.

May 25 - Apollo program: President Kennedy announces before a special joint session of Congress his goal to put a man on the Moon before the end of the decade.

May 27 - Tunku Abdul Rahman, Prime Minister of Malaya, holds a press conference in Singapore, announcing his idea to form the Federation of Malaysia, comprising Malaya, Singapore, Sarawak, Brunei and North Borneo (Sabah).

May 28 - Peter Benenson's article "The Forgotten Prisoners" is published in several internationally read newspapers. This will later be thought of as the founding of the human rights organization Amnesty International.

May 30 - Rafael Leónidas Trujillo, totalitarian despot of the Dominican Republic since 1930, is killed in an ambush, putting an end to the second longest-running dictatorship in Latin American history.

May 31

In France, rebel generals Maurice Challe and Andre Zelelr are sentenced to 15 years in prison.
South Africa officially leaves the Commonwealth of Nations.
President John F. Kennedy and Charles De Gaulle meet in Paris.

June

June 4 - Vienna summit: John F. Kennedy and Nikita Khrushchev meet during 2 days in Vienna. They discuss nuclear tests, disarmament and Germany.
* June 17 - A Paris-to-Strasbourg train derails near Vitry-le-François; 24 are killed, 109 injured.

June 17 - The New Democratic Party of Canada is founded with the merger of the Cooperative Commonwealth Federation (CCF) and the Canadian Labour Congress.

June 19 - The British protectorate ends in Kuwait and it becomes an emirate.

June 21 - Russian ballet dancer Rudolf Nureyev requests asylum in France while in Paris with the Kirov Ballet.

June 22 - Moise Tshombe is released for lack of evidence of connection to the murder of Patrice Lumumba.

June 24 - The Ayrshire (Earl of Carrick's Own) Yeomanry, a British Yeomanry Cavalry Regiment is presented its first Guidon by General Sir Horatius Murray KBE CB DSO at Culzean Castle, Ayrshire.

June 25

U.S. philanthropist George Washington Vanderbilt III is found dead at the base of a San Francisco skyscraper.
Iraqi president Abdul Karim Kassem announces he's going to annex Kuwait.

June 27 - Kuwait requests British help; the United Kingdom sends in troops.

July

July 2 - Ernest Hemingway commits suicide by gunshot in Ketchum, Idaho.

July 4 - The Soviet submarine K-19 reactor leak occurs in the North Atlantic.

July 5 - The first Israeli rocket, Shavit 2, is launched.

July 8 - A mine explosion in Czechoslovakia leaves 108 dead.

July 13 - Charlie Brown successfully flies his kite

July 21 - Mercury program: Gus Grissom, piloting the Mercury-Redstone 4 capsule Liberty Bell 7, becomes the second American to go into space (sub-orbital). Upon splashdown, the hatch prematurely opens, and the capsule sinks (it will be recovered in 1999).

July 31

At Fenway Park in Boston, Massachusetts, the first All-Star Game tie in major league baseball history occurs when the game is stopped in the 9th inning due to rain. It will be the only tie (until 2002) in MLB All-Star Game history.
Ireland submits the first ever application to join the then European Economic Community.

August

August 5 - The Six Flags over Texas theme park officially opens to the public.

August 10 - Britain applies for membership in the European Economic Community.

August 13 - Construction of the Berlin Wall begins, restricting movement between East Berlin and West Berlin and forming a clear boundary between West Germany and East Germany, Western Europe and Eastern Europe.

August 21 - Jomo Kenyatta is released from prison in Kenya.

September

September 10 - During the F1 Italian Grand Prix on the circuit of Monza, the German driver Wolfgang Von Trips in a Ferrari crashes into a stand killing 14 spectators and himself.

September 14 - The new military government of Turkey sentences 15 members of the previous government to death.

September 17 - Military rulers in Turkey hang former president Adnan Menderes.

September 17-September 18 - UN Secretary-General Dag Hammarskjöld dies in an air crash en route to Katanga, Congo.

September 19- The first Grey alien is reported.

September 21 - In France, OAS slips an anti-de Gaulle message into TV programming.

September 24 - The old Deutsche Opernhaus in the Berlin neighborhood of Charlottenburg is returned to its newly rebuilt house as the Deutsche Oper Berlin.

September 28 - A military coup in Damascus, Syria effectively ends the United Arab Republic, the union between Egypt and Syria.

October

October 1 - Baseball player Roger Maris of the New York Yankees hits his 61st home run in the last game of the season, against the Boston Red Sox, beating the 34-year-old record held by Babe Ruth.

October 9 - Digital photography invented by Eugene F. Lally presented in a technical paper at the American Rocket Society's Space Flight Report to the Nation in New York.

October 10 - A volcanic eruption on Tristan da Cunha causes the whole population to be evacuated.

October 12 - The death penalty is abolished in New Zealand.

October 17 - Paris massacre of 1961: French police attack in Paris about 30,000 protesting a curfew applied solely to Algerians. The official death toll is 3, but human rights groups claim 240 dead.

October 19 - The Arab League takes over protecting Kuwait; the last British troops leave.

October 25 - The first edition of Private Eye, the British satirical magazine, is published.

October 27

An armistice begins in Katanga, Congo.
Mongolia and Mauritania join the United Nations.
A standoff between Soviet and American tanks in Berlin, Germany heightens Cold War tensions.

October 29 - RBS Channel 7, the Philippines' third TV station, is launched.

October 30 - Nuclear testing: The Soviet Union detonates a 58 megaton yield hydrogen bomb known as Tsar Bomba over Novaya Zemlya. It remains the largest ever (man-made) explosion.

October 31

Hurricane Hattie devastates Belize City, Belize killing over 270. After the hurricane, the capital moves to the inland city of Belmopan.
Joseph Stalin's body is removed from the Lenin Mausoleum.

November

November - The Fantastic Four #1 debuts, launching the Marvel Universe and revolutionizing the American comic book industry.

November 1 - The Interstate Commerce Commission's federal order banning segregation at all interstate public facilities officially comes into effect.

November 2 - Kean opens at Broadway Theater New York City for 92 performances.

November 3 - The UN General Assembly unanimously elects U Thant acting Secretary General.

November 6 - The U.S. government issues a stamp honoring the 100th birthday of James Naismith.

November 9 - Neil Armstrong records a world record speed in a rocket plane of 6,587km/h flying a X-15.

November 10 - Catch-22 is first published by Joseph Heller.

November 11

Congolese soldiers murder 13 Italian United Nations pilots.
Stalingrad is renamed Volgograd.

November 17 - Michael Rockefeller, son of New York Governor, and later Vice President Nelson Rockefeller, disappears in the jungles of New Guinea.

November 18 - U.S. President John F. Kennedy sends 18,000 military advisors to South Vietnam.

November 20 - The funeral of longtime House Speaker Sam Rayburn is held in Washington, DC. Two former Presidents (Truman, Eisenhower) and one future one (Lyndon B. Johnson) join President Kennedy in paying their respects.

November 30 - The Soviet Union vetoes Kuwait's application for United Nations membership.

December

December 1 - Netherlands New Guinea raises the new Morning Star flag and changes its name to West Papua.

December 2 - Cold War: In a nationally broadcast speech, Cuban leader Fidel Castro declares he's a Marxist-Leninist, and that Cuba will adopt Communism.

December 5 - U.S. President John F. Kennedy gives support to the Volta Dam project in Ghana.

December 9

Tanganyika gains independence and declares itself a republic, with Julius Nyerere as its first President.
The Australian government of Robert Menzies is re-elected for a sixth term.

December 10

The Soviet Union severs diplomatic relations with Albania.
Nobel Prize: Melvin Calvin is awarded the Nobel Prize for the process of photosynthesis.

December 11

The Vietnam War officially begins, as the first American helicopters arrive in Saigon along with 400 U.S. personnel.
Adolf Eichmann is pronounced guilty of crimes against humanity by a panel of 3 Israeli judges.

December 15 - An Israeli war crimes tribunal sentences Adolf Eichmann to die for his part in the Jewish Holocaust.

December 17

India occupies Goa.
Circus tent fire in Niteroi, Brazil kills 323.

December 18 - India occupies Portuguese colonies of Goa, Damao and Diu

December 19

Goa is officially ceded to India after 400 years of Portuguese rule.
Sukarno announces that he'll take West Irian by force if necessary.

December 21 - In Congo, Katangan prime minister Moise Tshombe recognizes the Congolese constitution.

December 23 - Luxembourg's national holiday, the Grand Duke's Official Birthday, is set on June 23 by Grand Ducal decree.

December 30 - Congolese troops capture Albert Kalonji of South Kasai (who soon escapes).

December 31

The Marshall Plan expires, after having distributed more than $12 billion in foreign aid to rebuild Europe.
Ireland's first national television station, Telefís Éireann (later RTÉ), begins broadcasting.