1 : 1961
2 : Events
2.1 : January
2.2 : February-March
2.3 : April
2.4 : May
2.5 : July-October
2.6 : November-December
3 : Year in topic
4 : Births
4.1 : January-April
4.2 : May-December
5 : Deaths
6 : Nobel Prizes
7 : Heads of state in 1961
Centuries: 19th century - 20th century - 21st century
Decades: 1900s 1910s 1920s 1930s 1940s 1950s - 1960s - 1970s 1980s 1990s 2000s
Years: 1956 1957 1958 1959 1960 - 1961 - 1962 1963 1964 1965 1966
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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.
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Events
January
- 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 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-March
April
May
July-October
November-December
Year in topic
Births
January-April
- January 5 - Suzy Amis, actress
- 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 18 - Richard Biggs, actor (Days of Our Lives, ''Babylon 5'') (d. 2004)
- 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 15 - Dan Marino, football player
- September 22 - Scott Baio, actor
- September 25 - Heather Locklear, 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
- 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 30 - Lee DeForest - inventor
- July 17 - Ty Cobb, Baseball Hall of Famer (b. 1886)
- September 18 - Dag Hammarskjold, 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">
Heads of state in 1961
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