Directory

1961 CE

Yuri Gagarin becomes the first human in space aboard Vostok 1; the Tsar Bomba is detonated by the Soviet Union; the Bay of Pigs invasion is launched against Cuba; the Berlin Crisis of 1961 heightens Cold War tensions between the United States and the Soviet Union; the Sino-Soviet split deepens divisions between the People's Republic of China and the Soviet Union; the Assassination of Patrice Lumumba intensifies the Congo Crisis; the Portuguese Colonial War begins in Angola against Portugal; the Sabena Flight 548 crash occurs in Belgium; and the Freedom Rides challenge segregation in the American South.

Geopolitics & Diplomacy

  • January 3 – United States President Dwight D. Eisenhower announces that the United States has severed diplomatic and consular relations with Cuba (Cuba–United States relations are restored in 2015).source
  • January 5 – After the 1960 military coup, General Cemal Gürsel forms the new government of Turkey (25th government).source
  • January 7 – Following a four-day conference in Casablanca, five 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.source
  • 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."source
  • January 20 – John F. Kennedy is inaugurated as the 35th President of the United States, becoming the second-youngest president to be sworn in.source
  • January 25 – Acting to halt 'leftist excesses', a junta composed of two army officers and four civilians takes over El Salvador, ousting another junta that had ruled for three months.source
  • January 30 – President John F. Kennedy delivers his first State of the Union Address.source
  • February 15 – United States President John F. Kennedy warns the Soviet Union to avoid interfering with the United Nations' pacification of the Congo.source
  • March 1 – United States President John F. Kennedy establishes the Peace Corps.source
  • March 13 – United States President John F. Kennedy proposes a long-term "Alliance for Progress", between the United States and Latin America.source
  • March 29 – The Twenty-third Amendment to the United States Constitution is ratified, allowing residents of Washington, D.C. to vote in presidential elections.source
  • April 12 – Albert Kalonji takes the title Emperor Albert I Kalonji of South Kasai.source
  • 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).source
  • June 4 – Vienna summit: John F. Kennedy and Nikita Khrushchev meet during two days in Vienna. They discuss nuclear tests, disarmament and Germany.source
  • June 17 – The New Democratic Party of Canada is founded, with the merger of the Cooperative Commonwealth Federation (CCF) and the Canadian Labour Congress.source
  • June 25 – Iraqi president Abd al-Karim Qasim announces his intention to annex newly independent Kuwait (such an annexation will occur in 1990).source
  • August 25 – João Goulart replaces Jânio Quadros as President of Brazil (he is ousted in 1964).source
  • August – The United States founds the Alliance for Progress.source
  • October 1 – Unification Day (Cameroon): The formerly British Southern Cameroons gains independence from the United Kingdom by vote of the UN General Assembly and joins with formerly French Cameroun to form the Federal Republic of Cameroon.source
  • November 24 – The World Food Programme (WFP) is formed as a temporary United Nations program.source
  • December 2 – Cold War: In a nationally broadcast speech, Cuban leader Fidel Castro announces he is a Marxist–Leninist, and that Cuba will adopt socialism.source
  • December 9 – Tanganyika gains independence from the United Kingdom as a Commonwealth realm, with Julius Nyerere as its first Prime Minister, with Queen Elizabeth II as Queen of Tanganyika, and represented locally by the Governor-General of Tanganyika.source
  • December 10 – Albania–Soviet relations: The Soviet Union severs diplomatic relations with Albania.source
  • December 18 – 1961 Indian annexation of Goa: India opens hostilities in its annexation of Portuguese India, the colonies of Goa, Damao and Diu.source

Conflict & Security

  • January 17 – Patrice Lumumba of the Republic of Congo is assassinated.source
  • January 25 – In Washington, D.C., President John F. Kennedy delivers the first live presidential news conference. In it, he announces that the Soviet Union has freed the two surviving crewmen from the July 1 1960 RB-47 shootdown incident involving a USAF reconnaissance aircraft and a MiG-19 over the Barents Sea.source
  • February 4 – The Portuguese Colonial War begins in Angola.source
  • March 15 – 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.source
  • March 18 – A ceasefire takes effect in the Algerian War of Independence.source
  • April 17 – The U.S.-backed Bay of Pigs Invasion of Cuba begins; it fails by April 19.source
  • April 20 – Fidel Castro announces that the Bay of Pigs Invasion has been defeated.source
  • April 22 – Algiers putsch: Four French generals who oppose de Gaulle's policies in Algeria fail in a coup attempt.source
  • May 14 – Civil rights movement: A Freedom Riders bus is fire-bombed near Anniston, Alabama, and the civil rights protestors are beaten by an angry mob of Ku Klux Klan members.source
  • May 16 – Park Chung Hee takes over in a military coup, in South Korea.source
  • May 21 – Civil rights movement: Alabama Governor John Patterson declares martial law in an attempt to restore order, after race riots break out.source
  • July 25 – U.S. President John F. Kennedy gives a widely watched TV speech on the Berlin Crisis, warning "we will not be driven out of Berlin." Kennedy urges Americans to build fallout shelters, setting off a four-month debate on civil defense.source
  • July 31 – At Fenway Park in Boston, the first Major League Baseball All-Star Game tie occurs, when the game is stopped in the 9th inning due to rain (the only tie until 2002).source
  • September 1 – The first meeting of the Non-Aligned Movement is held in Belgrade. The Soviet Union resumes nuclear testing, escalating fears over the ongoing Berlin Crisis.source
  • September 1 – The Eritrean War of Independence begins with the Battle of Adal in which Hamid Idris Awate and his companions shoot at Ethiopian police and military. The war will continue until 1991.source
  • September 17 – Military rulers in Turkey hang former prime minister Adnan Menderes, together with the former Minister of Foreign Affairs Fatin Rüştü Zorlu and former Minister of Finance Hasan Polatkan.source
  • September 17 – London police arrest over 1,300 protesters in Trafalgar Square during a Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament rally.source
  • September 21 – In France, the Organisation de l'armée secrète (OAS) slips an anti-de Gaulle message into TV programming.source
  • September 28 – 1961 Syrian coup d'état: A military coup in Damascus, Syria effectively ends the United Arab Republic, the union between Egypt and Syria.source
  • October 17 – 1961 Paris massacre: French police in Paris attack about 30,000 people protesting against a curfew applied solely to Algerians. The official death toll is 3, but human rights groups claim 240 dead.source
  • October 27 – Berlin Crisis: Confrontation at Checkpoint Charlie – A standoff between Soviet and American tanks in Berlin, Germany, heightens Cold War tensions.source
  • October 30 – Nuclear weapons 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).source
  • December 19 – Indonesian president Sukarno announces that he will take West Irian by force, if necessary.source
  • December 19 – The Portuguese surrender Goa to India, after 400 years of Portuguese rule.source

Exploration & Expansion

  • March 8 – Max Conrad circumnavigates the earth by light plane in 8 days, 18 hours and 49 minutes, setting a new world record.source
  • March–April – Drilling for Project Mohole is undertaken off the coast of Guadalupe Island, Mexico.source
  • May 4 – U.S. Freedom Riders begin interstate bus rides, to test the new U.S. Supreme Court integration decision.source

Religion & Belief

  • February 26 – Hassan II is pronounced King of Morocco.source
  • March 3 – Hassan II is crowned King of Morocco.source
  • April 5 – The New Guinea Council of Western Papua is installed.source
  • September 14 – The religious Focolare Movement opens its first North American center in New York (state).source

Economy & Finance

  • January 1 – Monetary reform in the Soviet Union.source
  • March 13 – Black and white £5 notes cease to be legal tender in the UK.source
  • July 31 – Ireland submits the first application from a non-founding country to join the European Economic Community.source
  • September 30 – The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) is formed to replace the Organisation for European Economic Co-operation (OEEC).source
  • November 14 – The Yves Saint Laurent luxury fashion brand is founded in Rue La Boetie, Paris (France), by Yves Saint Laurent and Pierre Bergé.source

Technology & Infrastructure

  • March 13 – 1961 Kurenivka mudslide: A dam bursts in Kiev, USSR, killing 145.source
  • May 9 – In a speech on "Television and the Public Interest" to the National Association of Broadcasters in the United States, FCC chairman Newton N. Minow describes commercial television programming as a "vast wasteland".source
  • June 12 – A patent for the body electrode invented by Richard M. Berman and Bernard Schwartz is applied for.source
  • August 1 – The Six Flags Over Texas theme park officially opens to the public.source
  • August 13 – Berlin Crisis of 1961: 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 (until 1989, when Berlin and Germany both reunified in 1990, following the Fall of the Berlin Wall). On August 22 Ida Siekmann jumps from a window in her tenement building trying to flee to the West, becoming the first of at least 138 deaths at the Wall.source
  • October 29 – Devrim, the first ever car designed and produced in Turkey, is released. The project has been completed in only 130 days almost from scratch, a period including decision on the project, research, design, development and production of four vehicles.source
  • October 29 – DZBB-TV Channel 7, the Philippines' third TV station, is launched.source
  • November 2 – Kean opens at Broadway Theater in New York City for 92 performances.source
  • December 5 – U.S. President John F. Kennedy gives support to the Volta Dam project in Ghana.source
  • December 31 – Ireland's first national television station, Telefís Éireann (later Raidió Teilifís Éireann), begins broadcasting.source

Science & Discovery

  • January 31 – Ham, a 37-pound (17-kg) male chimpanzee, is rocketed into space aboard Mercury-Redstone 2, in a test of the Project Mercury spacecraft, designed to carry United States astronauts into space.source
  • February 1 – The United States tests its first Minuteman I intercontinental ballistic missile.source
  • February 12 – The USSR launches Venera 1 towards Venus.source
  • February 14 – Discovery of the chemical elements: Element 103, Lawrencium, is first synthesized in Berkeley, California.source
  • February 15 – The total solar eclipse of February 15, 1961, visible in the southern part of Europe, occurs.source
  • March 8 – The first U.S. Polaris submarines arrive at Holy Loch in Scotland.source
  • April 12 – Vostok 1: Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin becomes the first human in space, orbiting the Earth once before parachuting to the ground.source
  • May 5 – Mercury program: Alan Shepard becomes the first American in space, aboard Mercury-Redstone 3.source
  • May 15 – J. Heinrich Matthaei alone performs the Poly-U-Experiment, and is the first person to recognize and understand the genetic code. This is the birthdate of modern genetics.source
  • May 19 – Venera 1 becomes the first man-made object to fly-by another planet by passing Venus (however, the probe lost contact with Earth a month earlier, and does not send back any data).source
  • May 25 – Apollo program: U.S. President Kennedy announces, before a special joint session of Congress, that the United States "should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the Moon and returning him safely to the Earth".source
  • June 16 – Soviet ballet dancer Rudolf Nureyev defects to the West at Paris–Le Bourget Airport while on tour with the Kirov Ballet.source
  • July 5 – The first Israeli rocket, Shavit 2, is launched.source
  • July 19 – Trans World Airlines becomes the first airline to show regularly scheduled movies during its flights, presenting By Love Possessed to 1st-class passengers.source
  • July 21 – Mercury program: Gus Grissom, piloting the Mercury-Redstone 4 spacecraft Liberty Bell 7, becomes the second American to go into space (sub-orbital). After splashdown, the hatch prematurely opens, and the spacecraft sinks (it is recovered in 1999).source
  • August 6 – Vostok 2: Soviet cosmonaut Gherman Titov becomes the second human to orbit the Earth, and the first to be in outer space for more than one day.source
  • August 7 – Vostok 2 lands in the Soviet Union.source
  • August 11 – An annular solar eclipse is visible from the Southern Ocean.source
  • September 19 – American couple Barney and Betty Hill claim that they saw a UFO as they returned from a trip to Canada through New Hampshire where they live. They later claim that they were abducted by aliens, among the first claimants of such an abduction.source
  • November 9 – Robert White records a world air speed record of 6587 km/h, in an X-15.source

Health & Medicine

  • March 30 – The Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs is signed at New York.source
  • November 1 – The U.S. Interstate Commerce Commission's federal order banning segregation at all interstate public facilities officially comes into effect.source
  • November 1 – The Hungry generation Movement is launched in Calcutta, India.source

Crime & Justice

  • January 9 – British authorities announce they have uncovered a large Soviet spy ring, the Portland spy ring, in London.source
  • February 13 – The Congo government announces that villagers have killed Patrice Lumumba.source
  • April 11 – The trial of Nazi Adolf Eichmann begins in Jerusalem.source
  • May 8 – British intelligence officer George Blake is sentenced to 42 years imprisonment for spying, having been found guilty of being a double agent in the pay of the Soviet Union, the longest non-life sentence ever handed down by a British court.source
  • May 24 – Civil rights movement: Freedom Riders are arrested in Jackson, Mississippi for "disturbing the peace", after disembarking from their bus.source
  • May 30 – Rafael Leónidas Trujillo, ruler of the Dominican Republic since 1930, is killed in an ambush.source
  • June 22 – Moise Tshombe is released for lack of evidence of his connection to the murder of Patrice Lumumba.source
  • August 21 – Jomo Kenyatta is released from prison in Kenya.source
  • October 12 – The death penalty is abolished in New Zealand.source
  • October 31 – Joseph Stalin's body is removed from the Lenin Mausoleum in Moscow.source
  • November 11 – Congolese soldiers murder 13 Italian United Nations pilots.source
  • December 11 – Adolf Eichmann is pronounced guilty of crimes against humanity for his part in The Holocaust by a war crimes tribunal of three Israeli judges. On December 15 he is sentenced to death.source
  • December 30 – Congolese troops capture Albert Kalonji of South Kasai (who soon escapes).source

Disasters & Accidents

  • January 3 – Aero Flight 311 (Koivulahti air disaster): Douglas DC-3C OH-LCC of Finnish airline Aero crashes near Kvevlax (Koivulahti), on approach to Vaasa Airport in Finland, killing all 25 on board, due to pilot error: an investigation finds that the captain and first officer were both exhausted for lack of sleep, and had consumed excessive amounts of alcohol at the time of the crash.source
  • January 24 – 1961 Goldsboro B-52 crash: A B-52 Stratofortress, carrying two nuclear bombs, crashes near Goldsboro, North Carolina.source
  • January 27 – Soviet submarine S-80 sinks in the Barents Sea, killing all 68 crew.source
  • February 15 – Sabena Flight 548 crashes near Brussels, Belgium, killing 73, including the entire United States figure skating team and several coaches.source
  • March 13 – A second B-52 crashes near Yuba City, California, after cabin pressure is lost and the fuel runs out. Two nuclear weapons are found unexploded.source
  • April 8 – British India Steam Navigation Company passenger ship ' blows up and sinks off Dubai; 238 passengers and crew are killed.source
  • April 24 – Swedish warship Vasa, sunk on her maiden voyage in 1628, is recovered from Stockholm Harbor.source
  • May 1 – National Airlines Flight 337, internal to Florida, is forced by an armed hijacker to fly to Cuba, the first of a spate of such aircraft hijackings.source
  • June 17 – A Paris-to-Strasbourg train derails near Vitry-le-François; 24 are killed, 109 injured.source
  • July 7 – A coal mine in Czechoslovakia has one of its sections closed off in order to extinguish a fire and prevent an explosion, causing the suffocation of 108 miners still present.source
  • July 12 – A Czechoslovak Ilyushin Il-18 crashes while attempting to land at Casablanca, Morocco, killing all 72 on board.source
  • August 29 – A French military aircraft clips a cable of the aerial tramway connecting Pointe Helbronner and the Aiguille du Midi in the French Alps. Three cars of the tramway fall, killing five people, but the remaining 63 cable car passengers are rescued and the pilot lands his plane safely.source
  • September 10 – During the F1 Italian Grand Prix on the circuit of Monza, German Wolfgang von Trips, driving a Ferrari, crashes into a stand, killing 14 spectators and himself.source
  • September 18 – 1961 Ndola United Nations DC-6 crash: Secretary-General of the United Nations Dag Hammarskjöld is one of 16 to die in an air crash en route to Katanga, Congo.source
  • November 8 – Imperial Airlines Flight 201/8 crashes while attempting to land at Richmond, Virginia, United States, killing 77 people on board.source
  • December 17 – A circus tent fire in Niterói, Brazil kills 323.source

Climate & Environment

  • May 22 – 1961 New South Wales earthquake.source
  • June 1 – Ethiopia experiences its most devastating earthquake of the 20th century, with a magnitude of 6.7. The town of Majete is destroyed, 45% of the houses in Karakore collapse, 17 km mi of the main road north of Karakore are damaged by landslides and fissures, and 5,000 inhabitants in the area are left homeless.source
  • October 10 – A volcanic eruption on Tristan da Cunha causes the whole population to be evacuated to Britain, where they will remain until 1963.source
  • October 31 – Hurricane Hattie devastates Belize City, Belize killing over 270. After the hurricane, the capital moves to the inland city of Belmopan.source
  • November 17 – Michael Rockefeller, son of Governor of New York and later Vice President Nelson Rockefeller, disappears in the jungles of New Guinea.source

Culture & Society

  • January 5 – Italian sculptor Alfredo Fioravanti enters 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.source
  • January 28 – Supercar, the first family sci-fi TV series filmed in Supermarionation, debuts on ATV in the UK.source
  • March 13 – Monash University in Melbourne, Australia takes in its first students.source
  • March 18 – "Nous les amoureux" sung by Jean-Claude Pascal (music by Jacques Datin, lyrics by Maurice Vidalin) wins the Eurovision Song Contest 1961 (staged in Cannes) for Luxembourg.source
  • April 10 – South African golfer Gary Player becomes the first non-American to win the Masters Tournament.source
  • April 17 – The 33rd Academy Awards ceremony is held in Santa Monica, California: The Apartment (1960) wins most awards, including Best Picture.source
  • April 23 – Judy Garland performs in a legendary comeback concert at Carnegie Hall in New York City.source
  • April 27 – President Kennedy urges newspapers to consider national interest in times of struggle against "a monolithic and ruthless conspiracy", in an address before the American Newspaper Publishers Association.source
  • May 6 – Tottenham Hotspur F.C. becomes the first team in the 20th century to win the English league and cup double. , this is the last time Tottenham have won the English League.source
  • May 28 – Peter Benenson's article "The Forgotten Prisoners" is published in several internationally read newspapers. This is later considered the founding of the human rights organization Amnesty International.source
  • May 31 – Benfica beats FC Barcelona 3–2 at Wankdorf Stadium, Bern and wins the 1960–61 European Cup in association football.source
  • September 12 – The African and Malagasy Union is founded.source
  • September 17 – The world's first retractable roof stadium, the Civic Arena, opens in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States.source
  • September 24 – In the U.S., the Walt Disney anthology television series, renamed Walt Disney's Wonderful World of Color, moves from ABC to NBC after seven years on the air, and begins telecasting its programs in color for the first time. Years later, after Disney's death, the still-on-the-air program will be renamed The Wonderful World of Disney.source
  • September 24 – The old Deutsche Opernhaus in the Berlin neighborhood of Charlottenburg is returned to its newly rebuilt house, as the Deutsche Oper Berlin.source
  • October 25 – The first edition of Private Eye, the British satirical magazine, is published.source
  • December 14 – Walt Disney's first live-action Technicolor musical, Babes in Toyland, a remake of the famous Victor Herbert operetta, is released, but flops at the box office.source
  • December 23 – Luxembourg's national holiday, the Grand Duke's Official Birthday, is set on June 23 by Grand Ducal decree.source

Births

  • March 26 – William Hague, leader of the Conservative Party (UK), Foreign Secretarysource
  • April 18 – Élisabeth Borne, French politician, Prime Minister of Francesource
  • June 1 – Yevgeny Prigozhin, Russian oligarch, mercenary chief and restaurateur (d. 2023)source
  • June 20 – Joko Widodo, 7th President of Indonesiasource
  • June 25 – Ricky Gervais, English comedian, actor, writer, director, and singer in Seona Dancingsource
  • July 1 – Diana, Princess of Wales, born The Hon. Diana Spencer, English princess consort as first wife of Charles, Prince of Wales (d. 1997)source
  • July 17 – António Costa, Portuguese politician, 119th Prime Minister (2015–present)source
  • August 20 – Manuel Merino, Peruvian politician, 68th President of Perusource
  • September 13 – Dave Mustaine, American singer-songwriter and guitaristsource
  • September 29 – Julia Gillard, 27th Prime Minister of Australiasource
  • October 30 – Dmitry Muratov, Russian campaigning journalist, recipient of the Nobel Peace Prizesource
  • December 8 – Ann Coulter, American author, conservative commentator and attorneysource
  • December 24 – Ilham Aliyev, 7th Prime Minister of Azerbaijan and 4th President of Azerbaijansource
  • December 30 – Sean Hannity, American radio/television host and conservative commentatorsource

Deaths

  • January 4 – Erwin Schrödinger, Austrian physicist, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1887)source
  • January 17 – Patrice Lumumba, 1st Prime Minister of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (b. 1925)source
  • April 9 – Zog I of Albania, Albanian political leader, 11th Prime Minister of Albania, 7th President of Albania and King of Albania (b. 1895)source
  • July 2 – Ernest Hemingway, American writer, Nobel Prize laureate (suicide) (b. 1899)source
  • July 12 – Two dams that supply water to the city of Pune in India burst, causing the death of more than 1000 residents.source
  • July 17 – Ty Cobb, American baseball player and a member of the Baseball Hall of Fame (b. 1886)source
  • September 18 – Dag Hammarskjöld, Swedish diplomat, politician and author, 2nd Secretary General of the United Nations, recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize (b. 1905)source
  • October 19 – Sergio Osmeña, Filipino politician, 4th President of the Philippines (b. 1878)source
  • November 16 – Sam Rayburn, Speaker of the United States House of Representatives (b. 1882)source
  • November 19 – Michael Rockefeller, son of Nelson Rockefeller (disappeared on date) (born 1938)source
  • December 2 – Dulcie Mary Pillers, English medical illustrator (b. 1891)source
  • December 9 – 1961 Australian federal election: Robert Menzies' Liberal/Country Coalition Government is re-elected with a one-seat majority, narrowly defeating the Labor Party led by Arthur Calwell. One of the closest election results in Australian history, such a result will not be replicated again until 2016. Notably, former Prime Minister Earle Page loses his seat, although he dies a few days later, never knowing the result.source
  • December 20 – Sir Earle Page, Australian politician, 11th Prime Minister of Australia (b. 1880)source
  • December 28 – Edith Wilson, First Lady of the United States from 1915 to 1921 (b. 1872)source