1961 (As MAD Magazine pointed out on its first cover for the year) was the first "upside-down" year - i. e., one that looked the same upside down - since 1881, and the last until 6009.

Events

January

• January 1 - The farthing coin, used since the 13th century, ceases to be legal tender in the United Kingdom.
• January 3 - President Dwight Eisenhower announced that the United States had 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 7 - Following a four-day conference conference in Casablanca, five African chiefs of state announced plans for a NATO-type African organization to insure common defense. The Charter of Casablanca involved were Morocco, the United Arab Republic, Ghana, Guinea, and Mali.
• January 8 - Large spy ring exposed in Britain
• January 12 - 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
• January 24 - US B-52 bomber with two 24-megaton nuclear bombs crashes near Goldsboro, North Carolina
• 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 took 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 30 - President John F. Kennedy delivered his first State of the Union Address.
• 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.

February-March

• February 5 - The Sunday Telegraph publishes its first issue.
• February 11 - Trial of Adolf Eichmann begins in Jerusalem
• February 14 - Discovery of the chemical elements: Element 103, Lawrencium, is first synthesized (Berkeley, California)
• February 15 - A Boeing 707 crashes in Belgium killing 73, including the entire United States figure skating team and several coaches.
• February 26 - Hassan II is pronounced as the King of Morocco
• March 1 - President of the United States John F. Kennedy establishes the Peace Corps
• March 1 - first elections held in Uganda and it becomes self-governing
• 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 - A dam bursts on the Dnieper river in the USSR - 145 dead
• March 15 - South Africa withdraws from the British Commonwealth
• March 29 - The Twenty-third Amendment to the United States Constitution is ratified, allowing residents of Washington, DC to vote in presidential elections.

April

• 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 22 - Three French generals who oppose De Gaulle's policies in Algeria fail in a coup attempt
• April 23-24 - HMS Wasa raised in the Stockholm harbor
• April 25 - Robert Noyce is granted the first patent for an integrated circuit
• April 27 - Sierra Leone is granted its independence from the United Kingdom

May-June

• May 5 - Alan B. Shepard: is first American in space.
• May 8 - British George Blake is sentenced to 42 years inprisonment 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 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 17 - The New Democratic Party of Canada is founded with the merger of the Cooperative Commonwealth Federation (CCF) and the Canadian Labour Congress.
• June 21 - Russian ballet dancer Rudolf Nureyev requests asylum in France while in Paris with the Kirov Ballet
• June 22 - Moise Tshombe released
• June 25 - US philanthropist George Vanderbilt 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

July-October

• July 21 - Mercury program: Gus Grissom piloting the Mercury 4 capsule "Liberty Bell 7" becomes the second American to go into orbit around the Earth
• 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
• August 10 - Britain applies for membership of the EEC
• 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
• September 17-18 - Dag Hammarskjöld dies in an air crash enroute to Katanga, Congo
• 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 30 - Nuclear testing: The Soviet Union detonates a 58 megaton yield hydrogen bomb over Novaya Zemlya (this is still the largest nuclear device to ever be detonated)
• October 31 - In the Soviet Union, Joseph Stalin's body is removed from Lenin's Tomb
• October 31 - Hurricane Hattie hits Belize City. 400 dead, 65.000 made homeless

November-December

• November 12 - Stalingrad's name changed to Volgograd
• November 13 - Vladimir Yefimovich Semichastny succeeds Aleksandr Nikolayevich Shelepin as head of the KGB
• November 16 - British Conservative government introduces the Commonwealth Immigration Bill, limiting immigration from British Commonwealth countries to Britain
• November 29 - Mercury program: 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 2 - 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.
• December 5 – US president John F. Kennedy gives support to Volta Dam project in Ghana
• December 9 - Tanganyika gains independence and declares itself a republic with Julius Nyerere as its first President
• 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 15 - An Israeli war crimes tribunal sentences Adolph Eichmann to die for his part in the Jewish holocaust.
• December 19 - Goa ceded to India after 400 years of Portuguese rule
• 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.

• Change of US presidency from Dwight D. Eisenhower (1953-1961) to John F. Kennedy (1961-1963)
• John F. Kennedy begins the Apollo program of U.S. manned spaceflight
• The first quasar is discovered by Allan Sandage at Mt Palomar, California
• Euston Arch in London is demolished

Births

January-April

• January 2 - Sara Stewart, British actress
• January 5 - Suzy Amis, actress
• January 8 - Calvin Smith, American athlete
• January 13 - Julia Louis-Dreyfus, actress
• January 18 - Mark Messier, hockey star
• January 21 - Blaise Cendrars, writer
• January 26 - Wayne Gretzky, Hockey Hall of Famer
• February 9 - John Kruk, baseball player, commentator
• February 10 - George Stephanopoulos, political consultant, commentator
• February 11 - Mary Docter, American speed skater
• February 11 - Becky LeBeau, vocalist
• February 11 - Carey Lowell, actress
• February 13 - Henry Rollins, musician
• February 25 - Davey Allison, automobile racer (d. 1993)
• March 4 - Ray Mancini, boxer
• March 8 - Camryn Manheim, actress (The Practice)
• March 14 - Kirby Puckett, Baseball Hall of Famer
• March 15 - Fabio, model
• March 21 - Lothar Matthäus, German footballer
• April 3 - Eddie Murphy, actor and comedian
• April 6 - Gene Eugene, actor, lead singer of Adam Again
• April 18 - Jane Leeves, actress
• April 20 - Don Mattingly, baseball player
• April 23 - George Lopez, actor, comedian
• April 26 - Joan Chen, actress
• April 30 - Isiah Thomas, basketball player, coach, owner

May-December

• May 6 - George Clooney, actor
• May 13 - Dennis Rodman, basketball player, actor
• May 14 - Tim Roth, actor
• May 17 - Enya, singer, songwriter
• May 27 - Peri Gilpin, actress
• May 29 - Melissa Etheridge, rock musician
• June 1 - Paul Coffey, hockey star
• June 26 - Greg LeMond, cyclist, three-time Tour de France winner
• July 1 - Diana, Princess of Wales (d. 1997)
• July 1 - Carl Lewis, athletics legend
• August 8 - The Edge, U2 guitarist
• August 14 - Susan Olsen, actress, The Brady Bunch
• September 2 - Carlos Valderrama, footballer
• September 13 - Dave Mustaine, musician (Metallica/Megadeth)
• September 15 - Dan Marino, football player
• September 22 - Scott Baio, actor
• September 25 - Heather Locklear, actress
• September 27 - Diana Kleiman
• October 9 - Jean Sagal, actress
• October 9 - Liz Sagal, actress
• October 11 - Steve Young, football player
• October 18 - Wynton Marsalis, musician
• October 26 - Dylan McDermott, actor (The Practice)
• October 29 - Randy Jackson, American musician
• October 31 - Peter Jackson, director
• October 31 - Larry Mullen, Jr., U2 drummer
• October 31 - Alonzo Babers, American runner
• November 2 - k.d. lang, singer, songwriter
• November 19 - Meg Ryan, actress
• November 22 - Mariel Hemingway, actress
• November 22 - Randal L. Schwartz, computer professional
• December 8 - Ann Coulter, author, political commentator, attorney
• December 19 - Reggie White, football player
• December 25 - Ingrid Betancourt, Colombian senator
• December 30 - Douglas Coupland, author
• December 30 - Sean Hannity, talk radio host, political commentator
• December 30 - Ben Johnson, Canadian athlete

Deaths

• January 4 - Erwin Schrödinger, physicist
• January 10 - Dashiell Hammett, writer
• January 17 - Patrice Lumumba, Prime Minister of the Democratic Republic of the Congo
• January 21 - Blaise Cendrars, writer
• January 24 - Alfred Carlton Gilbert, gold medal winner at 1908 Summer Olympics, inventor of Erector Set (b. 1884)
• February 11 - Eduard R Verkade, Dutch actor/director
• February 11 - Patrice Lumumba, 1st premier of Congo (Kinshasa)?
• February 22 - Nick LaRocca, jazz musician (b. 1889)
• February 26 - King Mohammed V of Morocco
• March 3 - Paul Wittgenstein, pianist
• April 9 - Ahmet Zog, King of Albania
• May 13 - Gary Cooper, actor
• May 30 - Rafael Leónidas Trujillo, dictator of the Dominican Republic
• June 1 - Melvin Jones, founder of Lions Clubs International
• June 17 - Jeff Chandler, actor (b. 1918)
• June 30 - Lee DeForest - inventor
• July 2 - Ernest Hemingway - writer
• July 17 - Ty Cobb, Baseball Hall of Famer (b. 1886)
• September 18 - Dag Hammarskjöld, Secretary General of the United Nations
• October 11 - Chico Marx, member of the Marx Brothers (b. 1887)
• December 20 - Earle Page, eleventh Prime Minister of Australia

Nobel Prizes

• Physics - Robert Hofstadter, Rudolf Ludwig Mössbauer
• Chemistry - Melvin Calvin
• Medicine - Georg von Békésy
• Literature - Ivo Andric
• Peace - Dag Hjalmar Agne Carl Hammarskjöld - awarded posthumously

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