In history, year 1961 has its own importance and known for many memorable events like famous birthdays, inventions, natural disaster, treaties, change of rulers, special days etc. Find below a list of important historical events which happened during the year 1961.
Top Historical Events of the Year 1961:
| Date/Month | Event / Incidence / Incident |
|---|---|
| 03 january | Twenty-five people died in Finland's worst civilian airaccident when Aero Flight 311 crashed near Kvevlax. |
| 17 january | Former Congolese Prime Minister Patrice Lumumba was murdered in circumstances suggesting the support and complicity of the government of Belgium and the United States. |
| 24 january | A Boeing B-52 Stratofortress carrying two Mark 39 nuclear weapons broke up in mid-air near Goldsboro, North Carolina; one bomb was recovered intact, the other disintegrated. |
| 31 january | Aboard NASA's Mercury-Redstone 2, Ham the Chimp became the first hominid launched into outer space. |
| 13 february | American geode prospectors discovered what they claimed was a500,000-year-old rock with a spark plug encased inside it. |
| 14 february | Lawrencium, the metallic radioactive synthetic element withatomic number 103, was first made at the Lawrence Radiation Laboratoryon the campus of the University of California, Berkeley. |
| 16 february | The DuSable Museum, the first museum dedicated to the study andconservation of African American history, culture, and art, waschartered. |
| 03 april | An individual Leadbeater's possum, thought to have been extinctfor over 50 years, was discovered in New South Wales, Australia. |
| 12 april | Aboard Vostok 3KA-3, Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin became the first man to enter outer space, completing one orbit in a time of 108 minutes. |
| 17 april | Armed Cuban exiles backed by the CIA invaded Cuba, landing in the Bay of Pigs, with the aim of overthrowing the Cuban government under Fidel Castro. |
| 23 april | In the midst of the Algerian War, French President Charles de Gaulle delivered a televised speech calling on military personnel and civilians to oppose a coup d'état attempt against him. |
| 27 april | Milton Margai took office as the first Prime Minister of Sierra Leone upon the nation's independence from the United Kingdom. |
| 04 may | Civil right activist of Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) organized first Freedom Ride of interstates buses into the segregated southern United States on May 4, 1961 to challenge local laws and customs that enforced segregation in seating. |
| 05 may | Project Mercury-Aboard the American spacecraft Freedom 7, Alan Shepard made a sub-orbital flight, becoming the second person to travel into outer space. |
| 09 may | In a speech to the National Association of Broadcasters, FCCchairman Newton N. Minow described commercial television programming as'a vast wasteland'. |
| 14 may | In Anniston, Alabama, US, a mob of Ku Klux Klansmen attackedthe buses of the Freedom Riders, who were riding interstate buses in theSouth in mixed racial groups to challenge local segregation laws. |
| 16 may | The Military Revolution Committee, led by Park Chung-hee,carried out a bloodless coup against the government of Yun Bo-seon,ending the Second Republic of South Korea. |
| 21 may | John Malcolm Patterson, Governor of Alabama in United States, declared martial law on May 21, 1961 in an attempt to restore the order following rae riots outbreak during American civil rights movement. |
| 25 may | During a speech to a joint session of the United States Congress, U.S. President John F. Kennedy announced his support for theApollo space program, with 'the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the Moon and returning him safely to the Earth'. |
| 30 may | Dominican strongman Rafael Trujillo was ambushed by a group ofgenerals and assassinated. |
| 31 may | The Union of South Africa became the Republic of South Africa. It came into being with the unification of four previously separate British colonies: Cape Colony, Natal Colony, Transvaal Colony and Orange River Colony. |
| 04 june | U.S. President John F. Kennedy and Soviet Premier NikitaKhrushchev unsuccessfully met in Vienna to discuss numerous issues inthe relationship between their countries. |
| 16 june | Pioneering Russian ballet dancer Rudolf Nureyev defected fromthe Soviet Union at Paris–Le Bourget Airport with the help of Frenchpolice and a Parisian socialite friend. |
| 17 june | The HF-24 Marut supersonic fighter, designed by German engineer Kurt Tank, made its maiden flight. The Hindustan Aeronautics HF-24 Marut was an Indian fighter-bomber aircraft of the 1960s. It was India's first jet aircraft. |
| 19 june | Kuwait declared independence from the United Kingdom. It was a British Protectorate between 1899 and 1961. After the independence, Sheikh Abdullah Al-Salim Al-Sabah became the king. |
| 19 june | Kuwait declared independence from the United Kingdom. |
| 30 july | 43rd PGA Championship has been completed. Jerry Barber shoots a 277 at Olympia Fields IL. This was a grand achievement made by him. |
| 10 september | At the Italian Grand Prix at Monza, German driver Wolfgang vonTrips's car collided with another, causing it to become airborne andcrash into a side barrier, killing him and 15 spectators. |
| 13 september | Following more nuclear tests by the Russians the United States will resume underground testing of Nuclear weapons within the next ten days. |
| 16 september | The United States' National Hurricane Research Project soughtto weaken Hurricane Esther by seeding it with silver iodide, leading tothe establishment of Project Stormfury. |
Famous birthdays in the year 1961:
| Date/Month | Name / Profession / Country |
|---|---|
| 02 November | k.d. lang / Singer / Canada |
| 02 July | Clark Kellogg / Basketball Player / United States of America |
| 03 November | Dave Hahn / Journalist / United States of America |
| 04 May | Marg Downey / Actress / Australia |
| 11 March | Elias Koteas / Actor / Canada |
| 11 December | Steve Nicol / Footballer / Scotland |
| 12 April | Magda Szubanski / Actress / United Kingdom |
| 13 February | cEvin Key / Singer / Canada |
| 13 December | Harry Gregson-Williams / Composer / United Kingdom |
| 14 May | Tim Roth / Actor / United Kingdom |
| 15 September | Terry Lamb / Rugby Player / Australia |
| 16 May | Kevin McDonald / Actor / Canada |
| 20 November | Dave Watson / Footballer / United Kingdom |
| 22 January | Quintin Dailey / Basketball Player / United States of America |
| 22 September | Vince Coleman / Baseball Player / United States of America |
| 23 July | Martin Gore / Writer / United Kingdom |
| 27 December | Guido Westerwelle / Politician / Germany |
| 27 August | Helmut Winklhofer / Footballer / Germany |
| 29 September | Julia Gillard / Politician / Australia |
| 30 May | Bob Yari / Producer / United States of America |
Famous Indian Personalities Birthdays in the year 1961:
| Year | Name / Profession / Country |
|---|---|
| 19 July | Harsha Bhogle / Author / India |
| 15 August | Suhasini Maniratnam / Actress / India |
| 28 August | Deepak Tijori / Actor / India |
| 14 October | Parmeet Sethi / Actor / India |
| 19 October | Sunny Deol / Actor / India |
| 01 January | N. Biren Singh / Politician / India |
| 16 April | Jarbom Gamlin / Politician / India |
| 04 August | Bhagyashree Thipsay / Chess Player / India |
| 23 July | Milind Gunaji / Actor / India |
| 23 July | Milind Gunaji / Actor / India |
| 05 June | Ramesh Krishnan / Tennis Player / India |
| 06 July | Vandana Chavan / Politician / India |
| NA NA | Raj Kanwar / Director / India |
| 11 August | Sunil Shetty / Actor / India |
| 21 August | V. B. Chandrasekhar / Cricketer / India |
| 12 July | Shiva Rajkumar / Actor / India |
| 17 April | Geet Sethi / Player / India |
| 24 November | Arundhati Roy / Writer / India |
| 24 November | Arundhati Roy / Author / India |
