This Year in History:
1961
Discover what happened in this year with HISTORY’s summaries of major events, anniversaries, famous births and notable deaths.
In the climax of deteriorating relations between the United States and Fidel Castro’s government in Cuba, President Dwight D. Eisenhower closes the American embassy in Havana and severs diplomatic relations. The action signaled that the United States was prepared to take extreme measures to oppose Castro’s regime, which U.S. officials worried was a beachhead of […]
On January 17, 1961, Dwight D. Eisenhower ends his presidential term by warning the nation about the increasing power of the military-industrial complex. His remarks, issued during a televised farewell address to the American people, were particularly significant since Ike had famously served the nation as military commander of the Allied forces during WWII. Eisenhower […]
On January 20, 1961, on the newly renovated east front of the United States Capitol, John Fitzgerald Kennedy is inaugurated as the 35th president of the United States. It was a cold and clear day, and the nation’s capital was covered with a snowfall from the previous night. The ceremony began with a religious invocation […]
On January 25, 1961, President John F. Kennedy becomes the first U.S. president to hold a live televised news conference. From a podium in the State Department auditorium, Kennedy read a prepared statement regarding the famine in the Congo, the release of two American aviators from Russian custody and impending negotiations for an atomic test […]
On January 26, 1961, just about a week after his inauguration, President John F. Kennedy appoints Janet Travell, 59, as his personal physician, making her the first woman in history to hold the post. Dr. Travell possessed an impressive resume that included graduating with honors from Wellesley College, internships in cardiology, a professorship in clinical […]
The Misfits, a flawed but moving meditation on the vanishing spirit of western independence, opens in theaters on February 1, 1961. The Misfits had all the right ingredients to become a truly great western. The director, John Huston, was one of the most talented in Hollywood. The screenwriter, Arthur Miller, was a celebrated playwright. The […]
On February 15, 1961, the entire 18-member U.S. figure skating team is killed in a plane crash in Berg-Kampenhout, Belgium. The team was on its way to the 1961 World Figure Skating Championships in Prague, Czechoslovakia. Among those killed in the crash was 16-year-old Laurence Owen, who had won the U.S. Figure Skating Championship in […]
On February 21, 1961, Christian Karl Gerhartsreiter, a con man who went by the alias Clark Rockefeller and passed himself off as an American blueblood, is born in Germany. Gerhartsreiter gained the public spotlight in 2008, when he kidnapped his young daughter and became the target of an international manhunt. The attention the case sparked […]
On March 1, 1961, President John F. Kennedy issues Executive Order #10924, establishing the Peace Corps as a new agency within the Department of State. The same day, he sent a message to Congress asking for permanent funding for the agency, which would send trained American men and women to foreign nations to assist in […]
President John F. Kennedy proposes a 10-year, multibillion-dollar aid program for Latin America. The program came to be known as the Alliance for Progress and was designed to improve U.S. relations with Latin America, which had been severely damaged in recent years. When Kennedy became president in 1961, U.S. relations with Latin America were at […]
On April 7, 1961, President John F. Kennedy sends a letter to Congress in which he recommends the U.S. participate in an international campaign to preserve ancient temples and historic monuments in the Nile Valley of Egypt. The campaign, initiated by UNESCO, was designed to save sites threatened by the construction of the Aswan High […]
On April 10, 1961, Gary Player, a 25-year-old South African, beats defending champion Arnold Palmer and amateur Charles Coe by a stroke to become the first international champion at the Masters. Palmer double-bogeys the 18th hole at Augusta National to give Player the win. As part of golf’s “Big Three” with Palmer and Jack Nicklaus, […]
On April 11, 1961, Bob Dylan plays his first major gig in New York City, opening for bluesman John Lee Hooker at Gerde’s Folk City. Who knows how many other young men arrived in New York City in the winter of 1961 looking like James Dean and talking like Jack Kerouac? It would have been […]
On April 12, 1961, aboard the spacecraft Vostok 1, Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Alekseyevich Gagarin becomes the first human being to travel into space. During the flight, the 27-year-old test pilot and industrial technician also became the first man to orbit the planet, a feat accomplished by his space capsule in 89 minutes. Vostok 1 orbited […]
The Bay of Pigs invasion begins when a CIA-financed and -trained group of Cuban refugees lands in Cuba and attempts to topple the communist government of Fidel Castro. The attack was an utter failure. Fidel Castro had been a concern to U.S. policymakers since he seized power in Cuba with a revolution in January 1959. […]
On April 23, 1961, Judy Garland performs a gig at Carnegie Hall, often referred to as “the greatest night in showbiz history.” She was one of the biggest and most popular movie stars of all time, making her first film appearance at the age of seven and earning the first of three Oscar nominations at […]
On May 4, 1961, a group of thirteen young people departs Washington, D.C.’s Greyhound Bus terminal, bound for the South. Their journey is peaceful at first, but the riders will meet with shocking violence on their way to New Orleans, eventually being forced to evacuate from Jackson, Mississippi but earning a place in history as […]
In This Day in History video clip – May 5, 1961: The first American in space – Cape Canaveral, Florida, Navy Commander Alan Bartlett Shepard Jr. is launched into space aboard the Freedom 7 space capsule, becoming the first American astronaut to travel into space. The suborbital flight, which lasted 15 minutes and reached a […]
On May 5, 1961, Navy Commander Alan Bartlett Shepard Jr. is launched into space aboard the Freedom 7 space capsule, becoming the first American astronaut to travel into space. The suborbital flight, which lasted 15 minutes and reached a height of 116 miles into the atmosphere, was a major triumph for the National Aeronautics and […]
President John F. Kennedy approves sending 400 Special Forces troops and 100 other U.S. military advisers to South Vietnam. On the same day, he orders the start of clandestine warfare against North Vietnam to be conducted by South Vietnamese agents under the direction and training of the CIA and U.S. Special Forces troops. Kennedy’s orders […]
