1961 Calendar
What Happened In Year 1961?
- January 3, 1961 – Finland’s worst civilian aviation accident takes place when Aero Flight 311 crashes near Kvevlax, resulting in the deaths of all 25 people aboard.
- February 15, 1961 – Sabena Flight 548 crashes in Belgium, killing 73, including the entire United States figure skating team, several coaches and family members.
- March 30, 1961 – The Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs is signed in New York City.
- April 9, 1961 – The Pacific Electric Railway in Los Angeles, once the largest electric railway in the world, ends operations.
- April 12, 1961 – The Russian (Soviet) cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin becomes the first human to travel into outer space and perform the first manned orbital flight, in Vostok 3KA-2 (Vostok 1).
- May 1, 1961 – The Prime Minister of Cuba, Fidel Castro, proclaims Cuba a socialist nation and abolishes elections.
- May 4, 1961 – American civil rights movement: The “Freedom Riders” begin a bus trip through the South.
- May 5, 1961 – The Mercury program: Mercury-Redstone 3 – Alan Shepard becomes the first American to travel into outer space, making a sub-orbital flight of 15 minutes.
- June 17, 1961 – The New Democratic Party of Canada is founded by the merger of the Cooperative Commonwealth Federation and the Canadian Labour Congress.
- July 12, 1961 – Pune floods due to failure of the Khadakwasla and Panshet dams. Half of Pune is submerged, more than 100,000 families need to be relocated and the death tally exceeds 2,000.
- July 31, 1961 – 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 because of rain.
- August 10, 1961 – First use in Vietnam War of the Agent Orange by the U.S. Army.
- August 22, 1961 – Ida Siekmann died attempting to cross the Berlin Wall.
- September 5, 1961 – The first conference of the Non Aligned Countries is held in Belgrade.
- September 16, 1961 – The United States National Hurricane Research Project drops eight cylinders of silver iodide into the eyewall of Hurricane Esther. Wind speed reduces by 10%, giving rise to Project Stormfury.
- September 17, 1961 – The world’s first retractable-dome stadium, the Civic Arena, opens in Pittsburgh.
- September 28, 1961 – A military coup in Damascus effectively ends the United Arab Republic, the union between Egypt and Syria.
- October 30, 1961 – Because of “violations of Lenin’s precepts”, it is decreed that Joseph Stalin’s body be removed from its place of honour inside Lenin’s tomb and buried near the Kremlin wall with a plain granite marker instead.
- December 9, 1961 – The trial of Nazi Adolf Eichmann in Israel ends with verdicts of guilty on 15 criminal charges, including charges of crimes against humanity, crimes against the Jewish people and membership of an outlawed organization.
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