The News of 1961.

January:

• President Dwight D Eisenhower announced that the US has severed diplomatic relations with Cuba (relations won’t be restored until 2015)
• Finnish Aero Flight 311 crashes near Kvevlax killing all 25 people on board. An investigation finds that the captain and first officer were both exhausted from lack of sleep and had consumed excessive amounts of alcohol at the time of the crash
• General Cemal Gürsel forms the new government of Turkey, following the previous year’s military coup
• African chiefs of state announce plans for a NATO-type African organisation involving Morocco, the United Arab Republic, Ghana, Guinea and Mali
• A French referendum supports Charles de Gaulle’s policies on Algerian independence
• British authorities uncover a large Soviet spy ring, the Portland spy ring, in London
• Dwight D Eisenhower gives his final State of the Union Address
• Congolese politician and independence leader, Patrice Lumumba, is assassinated
• John F Kennedy is sworn in as the 35th President of the United States
• Soviet submarine S-80 sinks in the Barents Sea, killing all 68 crew
• Ham, a male chimpanzee, is rocketed into space aboard Mercury-Redstone 2 in a test of the Project Mercury spacecraft, designed to carry US astronauts into space
• The farthing, used since the thirteenth century, ceases to be legal tender in the UKB
• Betting and Gaming Act 1960 comes into force, permitting operation of commercial bingo halls

February:

• The US tests its first Minuteman I intercontinental ballistic missile
• The Portuguese Colonial War begins in Angola
• President Joseph Kasa-Vubu names Joseph Iléo as the new Prime Minister of the Congo
• The Beatles perform at The Cavern Club for the first time under that name; George Harrison makes his first appearance at the venue
• The USSR launches Venera 1 towards Venus
• Lawrencium is first synthesised in Berkeley, California
• Sabena Flight 548 crashes near Brussels, killing 73, including the entire US figure skating team and several coaches
• Soul singer Jackie Wilson is shot and seriously wounded at his Manhattan apartment by girlfriend Juanita JonesT
• The Sunday Telegraph is first published

March:

• US President John F Kennedy establishes the Peace Corps
• Hassan II is crowned King of Morocco
• Max Conrad circumnavigates the earth by plane in 8 days, 18 hours and 49 minutes, setting a new world record
• Barbie’s boyfriend, Ken, is introduced in the US
• Cyprus joins the Commonwealth of Nations
• Black and white £5 notes cease to be legal tender in the UK
• A ceasefire takes place in the Algerian War of Independence
• Jean-Claude Pascal wins the Eurovision Song Contest for Luxembourg with “Nous les amoureux”
• The twenty-third Amendment to the US Constitution is ratified, allowing residents of Washington DC to vote in presidential elections
• The Jaguar E-type is launched

April:

• The passenger ship MV Dara blows up and sinks off Dubai, killing 238 passengers and crew
• South African golfer Gary Player becomes the first non-American to win the Masters
• Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin becomes the first human in space
• The Bay of Pigs invasion takes place
• At the 33rd Academy Awards, The Apartment wins 5 awards including Best Picture
• Sierra Leone becomes independent from the UK

May:

• Alan Shepard becomes the first American in space aboard Mercury-Redstone 3
• Tottenham Hotspur become the first team in the 20th century to win the English league and cup double after a 2-0 win over Leicester City in the FA Cup Final
• George Blake is sentenced to 42 years imprisonment, having been found guilty of being a double agent for the Soviet Union; the longest non-life sentence ever handed down by a British court
• A Freedom Riders bus is fire-bombed in Alabama; the civil rights protestors are beaten by a mob of KKK members; Governor John Patterson later declares martial law in an attempt to restore order after race riots break out
• J Heinrich Matthaei performs the Poly-U-Experiment, becoming the first person to recognise and understand the genetic code
• Park Chung Hee seizes power in a military coup in South Korea
• Tunku Abdul Rahman, Prime Minister of Malaya, announces his idea to form the Federation of Malaysia, comprising Malaya, Singapore, Sarawak, Brunei and North Borneo
• Peter Benenson’s article “The Forgotten Prisoners” is published in several internationally read newspapers; this is later considered the founding of Amnesty International
• Ruler of the Dominican Republic, Rafael Leónidas Trujillo, is killed in an ambush
• South Africa officially leaves the Commonwealth of Nations upon becoming a republic (rejoining again in 1994)
• Benfica beat Barcelona 3-2 to win the European Cup
• Betting shops become legal under the Betting and Gaming Act 1960

June:

• 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, and 5,000 people are left homeless
• JFK and Nikita Khrushchev meet in Vienna; they discuss nuclear tests, disarmament and Germany
• Soviet ballet dancer Rudolf Nureyev defects to the West while on tour with the Kirov Ballet
• The New Democratic Party of Canada is founded with the merger of the Cooperative Commonwealth Federation and the Canadian Labour Congress
• The British protectorate ends in Kuwait and it becomes an emirate
• The Antarctic Treaty comes into effect
• Iraqi President Abd al-Karim Qasim announces his intention to annex Kuwait (an annexation eventually occurs in 1990)
• Prince Edward, Duke of Kent, marries Katharine Worsley
• Michael Ramsey becomes the hundredth Archbishop of Canterbury

July:

• The first Israeli rocket, Shavit 2, is launched
• Two dams that supply water to the city of Pune burst, causing the deaths of more than 1,000 residents
• Trans World Airlines becomes the first airline to show regularly scheduled movies during its flights, presenting By Love Possessed to first class passengers
• Ireland submits the first application from a non-founding country to join the European Economic Community
• Angela Mortimer beats Christine Truman in an all-British women’s final at Wimbledon

August:

• The US founds the Alliance for Progress
• The Six Flags Over Texas theme park officially opens to the public
• The UK applies for membership in the European Economic Community
• Construction of the Berlin Wall begins, restricting movement between East and West Berlin; Ida Siekmann jumps from her window trying to flee to the West, becoming the first of at least 138 deaths at the Wall
• The future first President of Kenya, Jomo Kenyatta, is released from prison
• João Goulart replaces Jânio Quadros as President of Brazil
• The Convention on the Reduction of Statelessness is signed at the United Nations in New York
• Suicide Act 1961 decriminalises acts of, or attempts at suicide in England and Wales

September:

• The Eritrean War of Independence begins; the war will continue until 1991
• The first meeting of the Non-Allied Movement is held
• During the F1 Italian Grand Prix at Monza, Ferrari driver Wolfgang von Trips crashes into a stand, killing 14 spectators and himself
• The African and Malagasy Union is founded
• The Focolare Movement opens its first North American centre in New York
• Turkish military rulers hang former prime minister Adnan Menderes, together with former Foreign Affairs Minister Fatima Rüştü Zorlu and former Finance Minister Hasan Polatkan
• London police arrest over 1,300 protestors in Trafalgar Square during a Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament rally
• The worlds first retractable roof stadium, the Civic Arena, opens in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
• Secretary-General of the UN, Dag Hammarskjöld, dies in an air crash en route to Katanga, Congo
• American couple Barney and Betty Hill claim to have been abducted by aliens, among the first claimants of such an abduction
• A military coup in Damascus effectively ends the United Arab Republic, the union between Egypt and Syria

October:

• The formerly British Southern Cameroons gains independence from the UK and joins either formerly French Cameroon to form the Federal Republic of Cameroon
• A volcanic eruption on Tristan da Cunha causes the whole population to evacuate to Britain
• The death penalty is abolished in New Zealand
• French police in Paris attack about 30,000 protesting a curfew applied to Algerians; the official death toll is 3, but human rights groups claim 240 dead
• The first edition of Private Eye is published
• Cemal Gürsel becomes the fourth president of Turkey; Fahrettin Özdilek becomes the acting prime minister
• Mongolia and Mauritania join the UN
• A confrontation between Soviet and American tanks at Checkpoint Charlie in Berlin heightens Cold War tensions
• The Soviet Union detonates a 58-megaton yield hydrogen bomb known as Tsar Bomba; it remains the largest ever man-made explosion
• The Soviet Union issues a diplomatic note to Finland proposing military cooperation
• Hurricane Hattie devastates Belize City killing over 270; after the hurricane, the capital of Belize moves to the inland city of Belmopan
• Joseph Stalin’s body is removed from the Lenin Mausoleum in Moscow
• Songs of Praise is first broadcast on BBC television

November:

• The UN General Assembly elects Burmese diplomat U Thant to the position of acting Secretary-General
• Russia’s longest running TV show, KVN, airs for the first time on Soviet television
• Robert White records a world air speed record of 4,093 mph
• Catch-22 by Joseph Heller is published
• Congolese soldiers murder 13 Italian UN pilots
• Stalingrad is renamed Volgograd
• The fashion brand Yves Saint Laurent is founded in Rue La Boetie, Paris
• Michael Rockefeller, son of New York Governor and future Vice President Nelson Rockefeller, disappears in the jungles of New Guinea
• A military uprising overthrows the Trujillo regime in the Dominican Republic
• The La Ronde opens in Honolulu, the first revolving restaurant in the US
• The World Food Programme is formed as a temporary UN programme
• The Soviet Union vetoes Kuwait’s application for UN membership

December:

• Netherlands New Guinea raises the new Morning Star flag, and changes its name to West Papua
• Fidel Castro announces he is a Marxist-Leninist and that Cuba will adopt socialism
• Tanganyika gains independence from the UK as a Commonwealth realm, with Julius Nyerere serving as its first prime minister
• Robert Menzies’ Liberal/Country coalition is re-elected with a one-seat majority in the Australian federal election
• The Soviet Union severs diplomatic relations with Albania
• American involvement in the Vietnam War officially begins, as helicopters arrive in Saigon
• Adolf Eichmann is pronounced guilty of crimes against humanity for his part in The Holocaust by a war crimes tribunal of three Israeli judges, and sentenced to death
• India opens hostilities in its annexation of Portuguese India, the colonies of Goa, Damao and Diu; Goa is surrendered ending 400 years of Portuguese rule
• Luxembourg’s national holiday, the Grand Duke’s Official Birthday, is set on 23rd June by Grand Ducal decree
• Ireland’s first national television station, Telefís Éireann, begins broadcastingB
• Birth control pills become available on the NHS

Other:

• Elvis Presley had the best-selling single of 1961 with “Wooden Heart”, which spent eleven weeks in the top 10, six of which at number one
• The highest-grossing film of the year was West Side Story, which made $44.1m at the box office; including reissues, One Hundred and One Dalmatians eclipses the musical, grossing $303m worldwide