What happened in 1961

World5

• Feb 4The Portuguese Colonial War begins in Angola.
• Feb 15The total solar eclipse of February 15, 1961, visible in the southern part of Europe, occurs.
• Jul 4Soviet submarine K-19 suffers a reactor leak in the North Atlantic.
• Aug 11An annular solar eclipse is visible from the Southern Ocean.
• Dec 19The Portuguese surrender Goa to India, after 400 years of Portuguese rule.

North America19

• Jan 31Ham, a 37-pound (17-kg) male chimpanzee, is rocketed into space aboard Mercury-Redstone 2, in a test of the Project Mercury spacecraft, designed to carry United States astronauts into space.
• Feb 1The United States tests its first Minuteman I intercontinental ballistic missile.
• Mar 1United States President John F. Kennedy establishes the Peace Corps.
• Mar 8The first U.S. Polaris submarines arrive at Holy Loch in Scotland.
• Mar 30The Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs is signed at New York.
• Apr 17The 33rd Academy Awards ceremony is held in Santa Monica, California: The Apartment (1960) wins most awards, including Best Picture.
• May 4U.S. Freedom Riders begin interstate bus rides, to test the new U.S. Supreme Court integration decision.
• May 5Mercury program: Alan Shepard becomes the first American in space, aboard Mercury-Redstone 3.
• May 14Civil rights movement: A Freedom Riders bus is fire-bombed near Anniston, Alabama, and the civil rights protestors are beaten by an angry mob of Ku Klux Klan members.
• May 24Civil rights movement: Freedom Riders are arrested in Jackson, Mississippi for "disturbing the peace", after disembarking from their bus.
• May 25Apollo program: U.S. President Kennedy announces, before a special joint session of Congress, that the United States "should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the Moon and returning him safely to the Earth".
• Jun 17The New Democratic Party of Canada is founded, with the merger of the Cooperative Commonwealth Federation (CCF) and the Canadian Labour Congress.
• Jul 21Mercury program: Gus Grissom, piloting the Mercury-Redstone 4 spacecraft Liberty Bell 7, becomes the second American to go into space (sub-orbital). After splashdown, the hatch prematurely opens, and the spacecraft sinks (it is recovered in 1999).
• Jul 25U.S. President John F. Kennedy gives a widely watched TV speech on the Berlin Crisis, warning "we will not be driven out of Berlin." Kennedy urges Americans to build fallout shelters, setting off a four-month debate on civil defense.
• Aug 30The Convention on the Reduction of Statelessness is signed at the United Nations in New York, coming into effect December 13, 1975.

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Europe21

• Jan 8In France, a referendum supports Charles de Gaulle's policies on independence for Algeria.
• Mar 13Cyprus joins the Commonwealth of Nations, becoming the first small country in the Commonwealth.
• Apr 22Algiers putsch: Four French generals who oppose de Gaulle's policies in Algeria fail in a coup attempt.
• May 28Peter Benenson's article "The Forgotten Prisoners" is published in several internationally read newspapers. This is later considered the founding of the human rights organization Amnesty International.
• Aug 13Berlin Crisis of 1961: Construction of the Berlin Wall begins, restricting movement between East Berlin and West Berlin, and forming a clear boundary between West Germany and East Germany, Western Europe and Eastern Europe (until 1989, when Berlin and Germany both reunified in 1990, following the Fall of the Berlin Wall). On August 22 Ida Siekmann jumps from a window in her tenement building trying to flee to the West, becoming the first of at least 138 deaths at the Wall.
• Sep 1The first meeting of the Non-Aligned Movement is held in Belgrade. The Soviet Union resumes nuclear testing, escalating fears over the ongoing Berlin Crisis.
• Sep 181961 Ndola United Nations DC-6 crash: Secretary-General of the United Nations Dag Hammarskjöld is one of 16 to die in an air crash en route to Katanga, Congo.
• Sep 21In France, the Organisation de l'armée secrète (OAS) slips an anti-de Gaulle message into TV programming.
• Sep 30The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) is formed to replace the Organisation for European Economic Co-operation (OEEC).
• Oct 171961 Paris massacre: French police in Paris attack about 30,000 people protesting against a curfew applied solely to Algerians. The official death toll is 3, but human rights groups claim 240 dead.
• Oct 27Berlin Crisis: Confrontation at Checkpoint Charlie – A standoff between Soviet and American tanks in Berlin, Germany, heightens Cold War tensions.
• Nov 14The Yves Saint Laurent luxury fashion brand is founded in Rue La Boetie, Paris (France), by Yves Saint Laurent and Pierre Bergé.
• Nov 24The World Food Programme (WFP) is formed as a temporary United Nations program.
• Dec 181961 Indian annexation of Goa: India opens hostilities in its annexation of Portuguese India, the colonies of Goa, Damao and Diu.
• Dec 31Ireland's first national television station, Telefís Éireann (later Raidió Teilifís Éireann), begins broadcasting.

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USSR / Russia6

• Feb 12The USSR launches Venera 1 towards Venus.
• Mar 131961 Kurenivka mudslide: A dam bursts in Kiev, USSR, killing 145.
• AprGagarin's spaceflightOn April 12, he circled the Earth once in the Soviet Vostok 1. It was the first human spaceflight. He is remembered for saying that the Earth was blue.
• May 19Venera 1 becomes the first man-made object to fly-by another planet by passing Venus (however, the probe lost contact with Earth a month earlier, and does not send back any data).
• Aug 6Vostok 2: Soviet cosmonaut Gherman Titov becomes the second human to orbit the Earth, and the first to be in outer space for more than one day.
• Oct 30Nuclear weapons testing: The Soviet Union detonates a 58-megaton yield hydrogen bomb known as Tsar Bomba, over Novaya Zemlya (it remains the largest ever man-made explosion).

Asia2

• Oct 27Mongolia and Mauritania join the United Nations.
• Oct 29DZBB-TV Channel 7, the Philippines' third TV station, is launched.

Middle East3

• Jan 5After the 1960 military coup, General Cemal Gürsel forms the new government of Turkey (25th government).
• Sep 17Military rulers in Turkey hang former prime minister Adnan Menderes, together with the former Minister of Foreign Affairs Fatin Rüştü Zorlu and former Minister of Finance Hasan Polatkan.
• Sep 281961 Syrian coup d'état: A military coup in Damascus, Syria effectively ends the United Arab Republic, the union between Egypt and Syria.

Latin America4

• Jan 23Congress of Venezuela adopts a new constitution (in force until 1999).
• Apr 17The U.S.-backed Bay of Pigs Invasion of Cuba begins; it fails by April 19.
• Apr 20Fidel Castro announces that the Bay of Pigs Invasion has been foiled.
• May 30Rafael Leónidas Trujillo, ruler of the Dominican Republic since 1930, is killed in an ambush.

Africa12

• Jan 7Following a four-day conference in Casablanca, five African chiefs of state announce plans for a NATO-type African organization to ensure common defense. The Charter of Casablanca involves the Casablanca Group: Morocco, the United Arab Republic, Ghana, Guinea, and Mali.
• Jan 17Patrice Lumumba of the Republic of Congo is assassinated.
• Feb 5In Congo, President Joseph Kasa-Vubu names Joseph Iléo as the new Prime Minister.
• Feb 13The Congo government announces that villagers have killed Patrice Lumumba.
• Apr 12Albert Kalonji takes the title Emperor Albert I Kalonji of South Kasai.
• Jun 22Moise Tshombe is released for lack of evidence of his connection to the murder of Patrice Lumumba.
• Sep 1The Eritrean War of Independence begins with the Battle of Adal in which Hamid Idris Awate and his companions shoot at Ethiopian police and military. The war will continue until 1991.
• Oct 1Unification Day (Cameroon): The formerly British Southern Cameroons gains independence from the United Kingdom by vote of the UN General Assembly and joins with formerly French Cameroun to form the Federal Republic of Cameroon.
• Oct 27An armistice begins in Katanga, Congo.
• Dec 9Tanganyika gains independence from the United Kingdom as a Commonwealth realm, with Julius Nyerere as its first Prime Minister, with Queen Elizabeth II as Queen of Tanganyika, and represented locally by the Governor-General of Tanganyika.
• Dec 21In Congo, Katangan prime minister Moise Tshombe recognizes the Congolese constitution.
• Dec 30Congolese troops capture Albert Kalonji of South Kasai (who soon escapes).

Oceania3

• Apr 5The New Guinea Council of Western Papua is installed.
• Dec 1Netherlands New Guinea raises the new Morning Star flag, and changes its name to West Papua.
• Dec 91961 Australian federal election: Robert Menzies' Liberal/Country Coalition Government is re-elected with a one-seat majority, narrowly defeating the Labor Party led by Arthur Calwell. One of the closest election results in Australian history, such a result will not be replicated again until 2016. Notably, former Prime Minister Earle Page loses his seat, although he dies a few days later, never knowing the result.