What Day of the Week

1961 Calendar

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•  January 31, 1961 – Project Mercury: Mercury-Redstone 2 – Ham the Chimp travels into outer space.
•  February 15, 1961 – New Year’s Day in Chinese calendar. Start of the year of the Metal Ox in Chinese astrology.
•  March 1, 1961 – President of the United States John F. Kennedy establishes the Peace Corps.
•  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).
•  April 17, 1961 – Bay of Pigs Invasion: A group of CIA financed and trained Cuban exiles lands at the Bay of Pigs in Cuba with the aim of ousting Fidel Castro.
•  May 4, 1961 – American civil rights movement: The “Freedom Riders” begin a bus trip through the South.
•  May 24, 1961 – Cyprus joins the Council of Europe.
•  October 17, 1961 – Scores of Algerian protesters (some claim up to 400) are massacred by the Paris police at the instigation of Nazi collaborator Maurice Papon, then chief of the Prefecture of Police.
•  October 30, 1961 – Nuclear testing: The Soviet Union detonates the hydrogen bomb Tsar Bomba over Novaya Zemlya; at 50 megatons of yield, it is still the largest explosive device ever detonated, nuclear or otherwise.
•  October 31, 1961 – In the Soviet Union, Joseph Stalin’s body is removed from Lenin’s Tomb.

•  May 10, 1961 – Danny Carey, American drummer (Tool, Pigmy Love Circus)
•  August 2, 1961 – Graham Dye, English singer-songwriter and guitarist (Scarlet Party, The Alan Parsons Project)
•  August 7, 1961 – Brian Conley, English comedian
•  August 19, 1961 – Jonathan Coe, British author
•  August 22, 1961 – Debbi Peterson, American musician (The Bangles)
•  August 29, 1961 – Rodney McCray, American basketball player
•  September 29, 1961 – Julia Gillard, Australian politician, Prime Minister of Australia
•  November 4, 1961 – Les Sampou, American musician
•  November 16, 1961 – Corinne Hermès, French singer