1961

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1961 (MCMLXI) was a common year starting on Sunday (the link is to a full 1961 calendar).

As MAD Magazine pointed out on its cover for the March issue, this was the first "upside-up" year—i.e., one that looked the same upside down—since 1881, and the last until 6009.

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Events

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January

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January 1 - The farthing coin, 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.
January 3 - SL-1, an atomic reactor, exploded at National Reactor Testing Station in Idaho Falls, Idaho, killing 3 military technicians.
January 5 - Italian sculptor Alfredo Fioravanti marches into US 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 four-day conference in Casablanca, five African chiefs of state announced plans for a NATO-type African organization to ensure common defense. The Charter of Casablanca involved were Morocco, the United Arab Republic, Ghana, Guinea, and Mali.
January 8 - In France, referendum supports Charles de Gaulle's policies in Algeria
January 9 - British authorities announce that they have discovered a large Soviet spy ring in London
January 17 - President Dwight Eisenhower gave his final State of the Union Address to Congress.
January 17 - Assassination of Patrice Lumumba
January 20 - John F. Kennedy becomes President of the United States. His close win against Nixon shows that America was influenced by his calm, composed appearance in the presidential debates. Nixon was very nervous and America superficially chose the more handome, younger candidate.
January 24 - US B-52 bomber with two 24-megaton nuclear bombs crashes near Goldsboro, North Carolina
January 24 - Musician Bob Dylan said to have made his way to New York City after bumming a ride in Madison, Wisconsin. Dylan was likely on his way to visit his idol Woody Guthrie. He later found 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 had freed the two 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 comprised of two army officers and 4 civilians takes over the rule of El Salvador, ousting another junta that had ruled for three months.
January 26 - John F. Kennedy appoints Janet G. Travell to be his physician. This is the first time a woman held this appointment.
January 26 - Wayne Gretsky, professional hockey player (Known as "The Great One") Born.
January 30 - President John F. Kennedy delivered his first State of the Union Address.
January 30 - Martin Luther King Jr. has a son - Dexter Scott King.
January 31 - Ham, a 37 pound male chimpanzee, was rocketed into space in a test of the Project Mercury capsule designed to carry U.S. astronauts into space.

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February

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February 3 - China buys grain from Canada with $60 million
February 4 - The Portuguese Colonial War begins in Angola.
February 5 - The Sunday Telegraph publishes its first issue.
February 9 - In Congo, president Joseph Kasavubu names Joseph Ileo as a new prime minister
February 11 - Trial of Adolf Eichmann begins in Jerusalem.
February 13 - Congo government announces that villagers have killed Patrice Lumumba
February 14 - Discovery of the chemical elements: Element 103, Lawrencium, is first synthesized (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 operated in Sydney, Australia, bringing to an end the southern hemisphere's largest tramway network.
February 26 - Hassan II is pronounced King of Morocco.

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March

March 1 - President of the United States John F. Kennedy establishes the Peace Corps.
March 1 - 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 eight days, 18 hours and 49 minutes setting a new world record.
March 8 - First US Polaris submarines arrive at Holy Loch.
March 13 - Black and white £5 notes cease to be a legal tender in the UK
March 13 - A dam bursts on the Dnieper river in the USSR - 145 dead.
March 15 - South Africa withdraws from the Commonwealth of Nations.
March 18 - Ceasefire in the Algerian War of Independence
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 - Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs signed at New York.

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April

April 5 - New Guinea Council of western Papua installed
April 11 - Trial of Adolf Eichmann begins in Jerusalem
April 12 - Albert Kalonji takes a title of Emperor Albert I Kalonji of South Kasai
April 12 - Yuri Gagarin is the first human in space.
April 17 - Bay of Pigs Invasion of Cuba begins, ending in failure April 19.
April 20 - Fidel Castro announces that all invaders of the Bay of Pigs invasion have been defeated
April 22 - Three French generals who oppose De Gaulle's policies in Algeria fail in a coup attempt.
April 23-24 - Vasa raised in the Stockholm harbor.
April 25 - Robert Noyce is granted the first patent for an integrated circuit.
April 25 - General Maurice Challe, who lead the Algerian army rebels, surrenders
April 26 - In Congo, soldiers arrest Moise Tsombe in a political conference
April 27 - Sierra Leone is granted its independence from the United Kingdom.
April 29 - NSW votes at referendum to retain Legislative Council

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May

May 5 - Alan B. Shepard becomes the first American in space.
May 8 - British 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 - Do Young Tsang 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 did not 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 initiate a project 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 of formation of 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 ja Andre Zelelr are sentenced to 15 years in prison
May 31 - South Africa officially leaves the Commonwealth of Nations
May 31 - President John F. Kennedy and Charles De Gaulle meet in Paris

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June

June 4 - John F. Kennedy and Nikita Khrushchev meet during two days in Vienna. They talk about nuclear tests, disarmament and Germany.
June 17 - Paris-Strassbourg train derails near Ventyr-le-Francois – 24 dead, 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 - British protectorate ends in Kuwait and it becames an emirate
June 21 - Russian ballet dancer Rudolf Nureyev requests asylum in France while in Paris with the Kirov Ballet
June 22 - Moise Tshombe released for lack of evidence to connection to murder of Patrice Lumumba
June 25 - US philanthropist George Washington Vanderbilt III is found dead at the base of a San Francisco skyscraper
June 25 - Iraqi president Abdul Karim Kassem announces he is going to annex Kuwait - Kuwaiti government ask British help in June 27. British army begin to send in troops.

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July

July 4 - Soviet submarine K-19 explodes in the North Atlantic - 22 dead
July 5 - The first Israeli rocket, Shavit 2 was launched.
July 8 - Mine explosion in Czechoslovakia - 108 dead
July 21 - Mercury program: Gus Grissom piloting the Mercury 4 capsule "Liberty Bell 7" becomes the second American to go into space (sub-orbital).
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.

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August

August 10 - Britain applies for membership of the EEC.
August 21 - Jomo Kenyatta released from prison in Kenya
August 13 - Construction of the Berlin Wall begins. Movement between East Berlin and West Berlin remains restricted for the next 28 years, until November 9, 1989.
August 21 – Jomo Kenyatta is fully released in Kenya.

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September

September 14 - New military government of Turkey sentences 15 members of the previous government to death
September 17 - Military rulers in Turkey publicly hang former president Adnan Menderes
September 17-18 - Dag Hammarskjöld dies in an air crash en route to Katanga, Congo.
September 21 - In France, OAS slips an anti-de Gaulle message to TV programming
September 24 - The old Deutsche Opernhaus in the Berlin neighborhood of Charlottenburg 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

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October

October 10 - Volcanic eruption on Tristan da Cunha - whole population evacuated.
October 12 - The death penalty abolished in New Zealand.
October 17 - "Battle of Paris": French police attack in Paris about 30,000 protesting a curfew applied solely to Algerians. Official death toll is 3, but human rights groups claim 240 dead.
October 19 - Arab League takes over protection of Kuwait - last British troops leave.
October 25 - The first edition of Private Eye, the British satirical magazine.
October 27 - Armistice begins in Katanga, Congo
October 27 - Mongolia and Mauretania join the United Nations
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 devastated Belize City, Belize killing over 270. After the hurricane, the capital was moved to the inland city of Belmopan.
October 31 - Stalin's body is removed from the Lenin mausoleum

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November

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 - UN General Assembly unanimously elects U Thant acting secretary general
November 6 - U.S. government issues a stamp honoring 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 11 - Congolese soldiers murder 13 Italian United Nations pilots
November 11 - Stalingrad renamed Volgograd
November 18 - Gay Life opens at Shubert Theater New York City for 113 performances
November 18 - US President John F. Kennedy sends 18,000 military advisors to South Vietnam
November 30 - Soviet Union vetoes Kuwaits' application for United Nations membership

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December

December 1 - Netherlands New Guinea raises new Morning Star flag and changes name to West Papua.
December 2 - Cold War: In a nationally broadcast speech, Cuban leader Fidel Castro declares he is a Marxist-Leninist and that Cuba is going to adopt Communism.
December 5 - US 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.
December 9 - The Australian government of Robert Menzies is re-elected for a sixth term.
December 10 - Soviet Union severs diplomatic relations with Albania.
December 11 - Vietnam War officially begins as the first American helicopters arrive in Saigon along with 400 U.S. personnel.
December 11 - Adolf Eichmann is pronounced guilty of crimes against humanity by a panel of three 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.
December 19 - Goa officially ceded to India after 400 years of Portuguese rule.
December 19 - Sukarno announces that he will take West Irian by force if necessary.
December 21 - In Congo, Katangan prime minister Moise Tshombe recognizes Congolese constitution.
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.
December 31 - Ireland's first national television station, Teilifís Éireann, (later RTÉ) begins broadcasting.