1961 - What happened in 1961 ?

January 1961

Thursday 05:

Television: Mr. Ed debuts.

Friday 06:

A fire at the Thomas Hotel in San Francisco kills 20 people.

Wednesday 25:

In Washington, DC John F. Kennedy delivers the first live presidential television news conference.

Thursday 26:

John F. Kennedy appoints Janet G. Travell to be his physician. This is the first time a woman holds this appointment.

Tuesday 31:

Ham the Chimp travels into outer space.

February 1961

Sunday 05:

The Sunday Telegraph publishes its first issue.

Saturday 11:

Trial of Adolf Eichmann begins in Jerusalem.

Tuesday 14:

Discovery of the chemical elements: Element 103, Lawrencium, is first synthesized (Berkeley, California).

Wednesday 15:

A Boeing 707 crashes in Belgium, killing 73, including the entire United States figure skating team and several coaches.

Thursday 16:

Explorer 9 launched. (See Explorer program)

March 1961

Friday 03:

Hassan II becomes King of Morocco.

Wednesday 08:

Max Conrad circumnavigates the earth in eight days, 18 hours and 49 minutes setting a new world record.

Wednesday 15:

South Africa withdraws from the British Commonwealth.

Wednesday 29:

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

Thursday 30:

The Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs is signed at New York.<!--See http://www.incb.org/e/conv/1961/-->

April 1961

Tuesday 11:

Bob Dylan makes his singing début in New York City

Wednesday 12:

Yuri Gagarin becomes the first man to fly in space.

Monday 17:

Bay of Pigs Invasion: A group of CIA-financed and -trained Cuban refugees lands at the Bay of Pigs in Cuba with the aim of ousting Fidel Castro.

Tuesday 18:

CONCP is founded in Casablanca as a united front of African movements opposing Portuguese colonial rule.

Monday 24:

The 17th century Swedish ship Vasa is salvaged.

May 1961

Thursday 04:

American civil rights movement: The "Freedom Riders" begin a bus trip through the South.

Sunday 14:

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

Friday 19:

Venera program: Venera 1 becomes the first man-made object to fly-by another planet by passing Venus (the probe had lost contact with Earth a month earlier and did not send back data).

Wednesday 24:

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

Sunday 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.

June 1961

Sunday 04:

Lake Bodom murders in Finland.

Friday 16:

Rudolf Nureyev defects at Le Bourget airport in Paris

Saturday 17:

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

Monday 19:

Kuwait declares independence from the United Kingdom.

July 1961

Friday 21:

Mercury program: Gus Grissom piloting the Mercury 4 capsule "Liberty Bell 7" becomes the second American to go into space (in a suborbital mission).

Sunday 23:

Sandinista National Liberation Front (FSLN) founded in Nicaragua.

Monday 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.

August 1961

Tuesday 01:

Six Flags Over Texas, the first Six Flags park, opens.

Sunday 13:

The German Democratic Republic closes the border between the eastern and western sectors of Berlin, to thwart its inhabitants' attempts to escape to the West.

Tuesday 15:

Construction begins on the Berlin Wall, Conrad Schumann flees from East Germany.

September 1961

Monday 11:

Formation of the World Wildlife Fund.

Friday 15:

Hurricane Carla strikes Texas with winds of 175 miles per hour.

Sunday 24:

The old Deutsche Opernhaus in the Berlin neighborhood of Charlottenburg returns to its newly rebuilt house as the Deutsche Oper Berlin.

Thursday 28:

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

Friday 29:

The New York Times publishes music critic Robert Shelton's review of a performance from little known singer-songwriter Bob Dylan, which will lead to Dylan's discovery by Columbia Records representative John Hammond

October 1961

Sunday 01:

Baseball: Roger Maris sets new record for most home runs in a single season with 61, surpassing Babe Ruth's previous mark of 60.

Saturday 07:

"Bye Bye Birdie" closes at Martin Beck Theater New York City after 607 performances.

Tuesday 17:

Approximately 200 Algerian protesters (some claim up to 400) are massacred by the Paris police

Monday 30:

Due to "violations of Lenin's precepts", it is decreed that Josef Stalin's body be removed from its place of honour inside Lenin's tomb and buried near the Kremlin wall with a plain granite marker instead.

Tuesday 31:

In the Soviet Union, Joseph Stalin's body is removed from Lenin's Tomb.

November 1961

Thursday 09:

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

Monday 13:

Vladimir Yefimovich Semichastny succeeds Aleksandr Nikolayevich Shelepin as head of the KGB.

Wednesday 15:

Roger Maris is voted the American League MVP (baseball)

Sunday 19:

Michael Rockefeller, son of New York governor Nelson Rockefeller, disappears in the jungles near Atsj, Papua New Guinea.

Wednesday 29:

Mercury-Atlas 5 is launched with Enos the chimp aboard (the spacecraft orbited the Earth twice and splashed-down off the coast of Puerto Rico).

December 1961

Friday 01:

The independent Republic of West Papua is proclaimed in modern-day Western New Guinea.

Saturday 02:

Cold War: In a nationally broadcast speech, Cuban leader Fidel Castro declares that he is a Marxist-Leninist and that Cuba was going to adopt Communism.

Saturday 09:

Adolf Eichmann found guilty of war crimes in Israel

Friday 15:

An Israeli war crimes tribunal sentences Adolph Eichmann to die for his part in the Jewish holocaust

Sunday 17:

A fire at a circus in Niteroi, Brazil kills 323 people.