1961 Calendar
What Happened In Year 1961?
- January 3, 1961 – The United States severs diplomatic relations with Cuba.
- January 24, 1961 – 1961 Goldsboro B-52 crash: A bomber carrying two H-bombs breaks up in mid-air over North Carolina. The uranium core of one weapon remains lost.
- February 3, 1961 – A protest by agricultural workers in Baixa de Cassanje, Portuguese Angola, turns into a revolt, opening the Angolan War of Independence, the first of the Portuguese Colonial Wars.
- February 15, 1961 – New Year’s Day in Chinese calendar. Start of the year of the Metal Ox in Chinese astrology.
- February 16, 1961 – The DuSable Museum of African American History is chartered.
- March 1, 1961 – President of the United States John F. Kennedy establishes the Peace Corps.
- March 9, 1961 – Sputnik 9 successfully launches, carrying a human dummy nicknamed Ivan Ivanovich, and demonstrating that Soviet Union was ready to begin human spaceflight.
- April 18, 1961 – The Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations, a cornerstone of modern international relations, is adopted.
- April 19, 1961 – The Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba ends in success for the defenders.
- April 23, 1961 – Algiers putsch by French generals.
- May 9, 1961 – Jim Gentile of the Baltimore Orioles becomes the first player in baseball history to hit grand slams in consecutive innings.
- May 21, 1961 – American civil rights movement: Alabama Governor John Malcolm Patterson declares martial law in an attempt to restore order after race riots break out.
- May 24, 1961 – American civil rights movement: Freedom Riders are arrested in Jackson, Mississippi for “disturbing the peace” after disembarking from their bus.
- May 31, 1961 – The Union of South Africa becomes the Republic of South Africa.
- August 15, 1961 – Conrad Schumann flees from East Germany while on duty guarding the construction of the Berlin Wall.
- August 22, 1961 – Ida Siekmann died attempting to cross the Berlin Wall.
- September 11, 1961 – Hurricane Carla strikes the Texas coast as a Category 4 hurricane, the second strongest storm ever to hit the state.
- September 27, 1961 – Sierra Leone joins the United Nations.
- October 20, 1961 – The Soviet Union performs the first armed test of a submarine-launched ballistic missile, launching an R-13 from a Golf class submarine.
- November 29, 1961 – Project Mercury: Mercury-Atlas 5 Mission – Enos, a chimpanzee, is launched into space. The spacecraft orbited the Earth twice and splashed-down off the coast of Puerto Rico.
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