Aero Flight 311 (Koivulahti air disaster): Douglas DC-3C OH-LCC of Finnish airline Aero crashes near Kvevlax (Koivulahti), on approach to Vaasa Airport in Finland, killing all 25 on board, due to pilot error: an investigation finds that the captain and first officer were both exhausted for lack of sleep, and had consumed excessive amounts of alcohol at the time of the crash.
Acting to halt 'leftist excesses', a junta composed of two army officers and four civilians takes over El Salvador, ousting another junta that had ruled for three months.
South Africa announces it will withdraw from the Commonwealth of Nations, upon becoming a republic (31 May). The nation rejoins the organization in 1994.
Sierra Leone becomes independent from the United Kingdom.
President Kennedy urges newspapers to consider national interest in times of struggle against "a monolithic and ruthless conspiracy", in an address before the American Newspaper Publishers Association.[12]
May 6 – Tottenham Hotspur F.C. becomes the first team in the 20th century to win the English league and cup double. As of 2025[update], this is the last time Tottenham have won the English League.
May 8 – British intelligence officer George Blake is sentenced to 42 years imprisonment for spying, having been found guilty of being a double agent in the pay of the Soviet Union, the longest non-life sentence ever handed down by a British court.
May 19 – Venera 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).
June 1 – Ethiopia experiences its most devastating earthquake of the 20th century, with a magnitude of 6.7. The town of Majete is destroyed, 45% of the houses in Karakore collapse, 17 kilometers (11 mi) of the main road north of Karakore are damaged by landslides and fissures, and 5,000 inhabitants in the area are left homeless.
July 5 – The first Israeli rocket, Shavit 2, is launched.[16]
July 7 – A coal mine in Czechoslovakia has one of its sections closed off in order to extinguish a fire and prevent an explosion, causing the suffocation of 108 miners still present.
July 21 – Mercury 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).
July 25 – U.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.
August 6 – Vostok 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.
August 29 – A French military aircraft clips a cable of the aerial tramway connecting Pointe Helbronner and the Aiguille du Midi in the French Alps. Three cars of the tramway fall, killing five people, but the remaining 63 cable car passengers are rescued and the pilot lands his plane safely.[18]
September 19 – American couple Barney and Betty Hill claim that they saw a UFO as they returned from a trip to Canada through New Hampshire where they live. They later claim that they were abducted by aliens, among the first claimants of such an abduction.
In the U.S., the Walt Disney anthology television series, renamed Walt Disney's Wonderful World of Color, moves from ABC to NBC after seven years on the air, and begins telecasting its programs in color for the first time. Years later, after Disney's death, the still-on-the-air program will be renamed The Wonderful World of Disney.
October 17 – 1961 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.
October 25 – The first edition of Private Eye, the British satirical magazine, is published.
October 26 – Cemal Gürsel becomes the fourth president of Turkey (his former title is head of state and government; he is elected as president by constitutional referendum).
Devrim, the first ever car designed and produced in Turkey, is released. The project has been completed in only 130 days almost from scratch, a period including decision on the project, research, design, development and production of four vehicles.
American involvement in the Vietnam War officially begins, as the first American helicopters arrive in Saigon, along with 400 U.S. personnel. On December 22 the first U.S. soldier is killed in Vietnam.
Adolf Eichmann is pronounced guilty of crimes against humanity for his part in The Holocaust by a war crimes tribunal of three Israeli judges. On December 15 he is sentenced to death.
December 14 – Walt Disney's first live-action Technicolor musical, Babes in Toyland, a remake of the famous Victor Herbert operetta, is released, but flops at the box office.
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