1961

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

Events

   * January 3 - President Dwight Eisenhower announced that the United
     States had severed diplomatic and consular relations with Cuba.
   * January 3 - 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 12 - President Dwight Eisenhower gave his final State of the
     Union Address to Congress.
   * January 20 - John F. Kennedy becomes President of the United States
   * 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 plan
     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 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.
   * March 1 - President of the United States John F. Kennedy establishes
     the Peace Corps.
   * March 3 - Hassan II becomes King of Morocco
   * March 8 - Max Conrad circumnavigates the earth in eight days, 18 hours
     and 49 minutes setting a new world record.
   * 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 12 - Yuri Gagarin is the first human in space.
   * April 17 - Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba begins, ending in failure April
     19
   * 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 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 19 - Venera program: Venera 1 becomes the first manmade 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
   * 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 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.
   * 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.
   * December 31 - The Marshall Plan expires after having distributed more
     than $12 billion in foreign aid to rebuild Europe.

   * Change of US presidency from Dwight D. Eisenhower (1953-1961) to John
     F. Kennedy (1961-1963)
   * JFK begins the Apollo program of U.S. manned spaceflight
   * The first quasar is discovered by Allen Rex Sandage at Mt Palomar,
     California
   * South Africa withdraws from the British Commonwealth and declares
     itself an independent republic on May 31

Art, Culture & Fashion

   * 1961 in film
        o West Side Story
        o The Guns of Navarone
        o The Hustler
        o Two Rode Together, starring Jimmy Stewart and Richard Widmark
   * 1961 in literature
        o The Phantom Tollbooth, by Norton Juster
   * 1961 in television
        o January 5 - Mister Ed debuts.
        o The Dick Van Dyke Show premieres
        o John F. Kennedy holds the first live televised Presidential press
          conference

Births

   * January 5 - Suzy Amis, actress
   * January 13 - Julia Louis-Dreyfus, actress
   * January 21 - Blaise Cendrars, writer
   * January 26 - Wayne Gretzky, Ice hockey player
   * 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 21 - Davey Allison, automobile racer (+ 1993)
   * March 4 - Ray Mancini, boxer
   * March 14 - Kirby Puckett, Baseball Hall of Famer
   * March 15 - Fabio, model
   * April 3 - Eddie Murphy, actor and comedian
   * April 6 - Gene Eugene, actor, lead singer of Adam Again
   * April 26 - Joan Chen, actress
   * May 6 - George Clooney, actor
   * May 13 - Dennis Rodman, basketball player, actor
   * May 14 - Tim Roth, actor
   * May 17 - Enya, singer, songwriter
   * May 29 - Melissa Etheridge, rock musician
   * June 26 - Greg LeMond, cyclist, three-time Tour de France winner
   * July 1 - Diana, Princess of Wales (+ 1997)
   * July 1 - Carl Lewis, athletics legend
   * August 8 - The Edge, U2 guitarist
   * September 2 - Carlos Valderrama, footballer
   * September 25 - Heather Locklear, actress
   * October 31 - Larry Mullen, Jr., U2 drummer
   * November 2 - k.d. lang, singer, songwriter
   * November 19 - Meg Ryan, actress
   * December 30 - Douglas Coupland, author

Deaths

   * January 4 - Erwin Schršdinger, physicist
   * January 10 - Dashiell Hammett, writer
   * January 17 - Patrice Lumumba, Prime Minister of the Democratic Republic
     of the Congo
   * January 21 - Blaise Cendrars, writer
   * February 11 - Eduard R Verkade, Dutch actor/director
   * February 11 - Patrice Lumumba, 1st premier of Congo (Kinshasa)?
   * February 26 - King Mohammed V of Morocco
   * March 3 - Paul Wittgenstein, pianist
   * April 9 - Ahmet Zog, King of Albania
   * May 13 - Gary Cooper, actor
   * June 1 - Melvin Jones, founder of Lions Clubs International
   * June 30 - Lee DeForest - inventor
   * October 11 - Chico Marx, member of the Marx Brothers

Nobel Prizes

   * Physics - Robert Hofstadter, Rudolf Ludwig Mšssbauer
   * Chemistry - Melvin Calvin
   * Medicine - Georg von BŽkŽsy
   * Literature - Ivo Andric
   * Peace - Dag Hjalmar Agne Carl Hammarskjšld - awarded posthumously