1961

Centuries: Year in Review 20th Century

19th century - 20th century - 21st century

Decades: 1890s - 1900s - 1910s - 1920s - 1930s - 1940s - 1950s - 1960s - 1970s - 1980s - 1990s - 2000s

1956 1957 1958 1959 1960 1961 1962 1963 1964 1965 1966

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Births

• February 11 - [Mary Docter]?, American speed skater.
• February 11 - [Becky LeBeau]?, vocalist.
• February 11 - [Carey Lowell]?, actress.
• July 1 - Diana, English princess
• September 2 - Carlos Valderrama, footballer

Deaths

• February 11 - [Eduard R Verkade]?, Dutch actor/director.
• February 11 - [Patrice Lumumba]?, 1st premier of [Congo (Kinshasa)]??.
• June 1 - Melvin Jones, founder of Lions Clubs International.
• October 11 - [Chico Marx]?, member of the Marx Brothers

Events

• February 11 - Trial of Adolf Eichmann begins in Jerusalem.
• August 13 - Construction of the Berlin Wall begins. Movement between East Berlin and West Berlin remains restricted for the next 28 years, until November 9 1989.
• Change of US presidency from Dwight D. Eisenhower (1953-1961) to John F. Kennedy (1961-1963)
• JFK begins the Apollo program of U.S. manned spaceflight
• The first quasar is discovered by [Allen Rex Sandage]? at [Mt Palomar]?, California.
• Baseball player [Roger Maris]? hits 61 home runs in a season, beating Babe Ruth's mark of 60, that had stood since 1927
• South Africa withdraws from the British Commonwealth.

Nobel Prizes

• Physics - [Robert Hofstadter]?, [[Rudolf Ludwig Mössbauer]]
• Chemistry - [Melvin Calvin]?
• Medicine - [Georg von Békésy]?
• Literature - [Ivo Andric]?
• Peace - [Dag Hjalmar Agne Carl Hammarskjöld]? - awarded posthumously