October 1961


The following events occurred in October 1961:

[October 1], 1961 (Sunday)

[October 2], 1961 (Monday)

  • The ABC network medical drama Ben Casey, starring Vince Edwards in the title role, premiered in the evening, four days after the premiere of the NBC medical drama Dr. Kildare and began a run of five seasons. Comparing the two, Associated Press critic Cynthia Lowry noted that "While there's a marked family resemblance to NBC's new 'Dr. Kildare,' this one is more clinical, more pre-occupied with operating room scenes and medical procedures."
  • French President Charles de Gaulle delivered a televised address in France and French Algeria, outlining his plans to allow Algerian residents to determine their own future, and pledged to work toward the creation of a "strictly Algerian" security force. He also stated that, if necessary, he would again invoke the national emergency powers that he had allowed to expire two days earlier.
  • The Shipping Corporation of India, one of India's largest companies, was created by the merger of the Eastern Shipping Corporation and the Western Shipping Corporation.
  • The television game show Password was first telecast, with Allen Ludden as its host.
  • WETA-TV, the first public television station in Washington, D.C., went on air.

[October 3], 1961 (Tuesday)

[October 4], 1961 (Wednesday)

[October 5], 1961 (Thursday)

[October 6], 1961 (Friday)

[October 7], 1961 (Saturday)

[October 8], 1961 (Sunday)

[October 9], 1961 (Monday)

[October 10], 1961 (Tuesday)

[October 11], 1961 (Wednesday)

  • U.S. President John F. Kennedy announced the appointment of the President's Panel on Mental Retardation, stating "We as a nation have, for too long, postponed an intensive search for solutions to the problems of the mentally retarded. That failure should be corrected." The President's Panel would make 95 recommendations, many of which would be passed into law, bringing to an end the common practice of institutionalizing mentally disabled individuals.
  • In a press conference at the Marshall Space Flight Center at Huntsville, Alabama, Future Projects Office Director Heinz-Hermann Koelle delivered the Space Flight Report to the Nation, predicting that commercial spaceflights to and from the Moon could begin as early as 1975, with a permanent moonbase by 1970 and crewed expeditions to other planets beginning in 1972.
  • Flying an X-15, USAF Major Robert Michael White set a record for highest flight by an airplane, reaching an altitude of, more than above the Earth, higher than the previous record. On his descent, the outer windshield of the X-15 cracked, but White was unharmed.
  • The United States increased its presence in South Vietnam as President Kennedy authorized the deployment of an entire U.S. Air Force unit, the 4400th Combat Crew Training Squadron, to fly combat missions from the Bien Hoa Air Base.
  • After years of atmospheric tests, the Soviet Union conducted an underground nuclear explosion for the first time. Based on the success of the test, the Soviets joined other nuclear nations four months later in doing underground tests only.
  • The Bob Newhart Show, a variety show not to be confused with a later sitcom of the same name, premiered on NBC. It would run for one season.
  • The Cherry Hill Mall opened in Cherry Hill, New Jersey, near Philadelphia, as the first American indoor shopping mall east of the Mississippi River.
  • Born: Steve Young, American football quarterback Pro Football Hall of Fame inductee, player in the NFL and USFL; in Salt Lake City
  • Died:
  • *Chico Marx, 74, American comedian, the oldest of the Marx Brothers and the first to pass away
  • *Princess Dagmar of Denmark, 71, youngest child of King Frederik VIII and the last of his children to pass away

[October 12], 1961 (Thursday)

  • The New Zealand House of Representatives voted 41–30 to amend the Crimes Bill of 1961 to abolish the death penalty for all crimes except for treason. Capital punishment for murder had been abolished in 1941 and then restored in 1950, and the last hanging was carried out in 1957. The maximum penalty for aggravated murder was set at life imprisonment.
  • The National Bowling League, with 10 teams, made its debut as the Dallas Broncos defeated the visiting New York Gladiators, 22–2, before a crowd of 2,000. The NBL folded two months after it crowned its first and only champion, the Detroit Thunderbirds, who beat the Twin Cities Skippers on May 6, 1962.
  • The 1961 Coppa Italia motor race was won by Giancarlo Baghetti.
  • Died:
  • *Eugene Bullard, 67, the first African-American combat pilot, who served with the French Foreign Legion during World War I
  • *Maria Valtorta, 64, Italian writer who wrote of her visions of Mary and Jesus

[October 13], 1961 (Friday)

  • Marjorie Michelmore, a 26-year-old volunteer for the Peace Corps in newly independent Nigeria, caused an international incident when she accidentally dropped a postcard that she had intended to send to a friend back in the United States. The card, which read in part, "we were really not prepared for the squalor and absolutely primitive living conditions rampant both in the cities and the bush", was found by a student, mimeographed and distributed, and led to protests by university students against the presence of the Corps. However, another volunteer recalled later, "A dialogue began between students and the Volunteers — more valuable than if the incident had not taken place."
  • Prince Louis Rwagasore, the popular eldest son of King Mwambutasa who had been selected by the new legislature to be the first Prime Minister of Burundi in advance of the African nation's independence from Belgium, was assassinated. Rwagasaore was dining with his cabinet at a restaurant on Lake Tanganyika, when he was killed by a single shot fired by Jean Kageorgis, a Greek national. "Perhaps no other event has weighed more heavily on the destinies of Burundi," noted one historian, adding that "many believe that if only fate had given him a chance, he might have spared his nation the traumas that would soon tear it apart."
  • After three years as part of the United Arab Republic, the nation of Syria resumed its membership in the United Nations General Assembly as the Syrian Arab Republic.
  • NASA Headquarters approved construction projects for what would become the Johnson Space Center installation in Texas at Clear Lake, southeast of Houston.
  • arrived at Tristan da Cunha to find a mound in height, emitting smoke and red-hot lava.
  • Died:
  • *Maya Deren, 44, Ukrainian-born avant-garde American filmmaker known for Meshes of the Afternoon, died of a cerebral hemorrhage
  • *Zoltán Korda, 66, Hungarian and British filmmaker
  • *Dun Karm Psaila, 89, Maltese writer

[October 14], 1961 (Saturday)

[October 15], 1961 (Sunday)

[October 16], 1961 (Monday)

[October 17], 1961 (Tuesday)

[October 18], 1961 (Wednesday)

[October 19], 1961 (Thursday)

[October 20], 1961 (Friday)

[October 21], 1961 (Saturday)

  • In a speech to business executives in Hot Springs, Virginia, Assistant U.S. Secretary of Defense Roswell Gilpatric revealed that there was no "missile gap" between the United States and the Soviet Union, and that the U.S. actually had the superior nuclear strike force. Gilpatric was authorized by President Kennedy to make the announcement, in response to Soviet Premier Khrushchev's statements four days earlier, stating in part, "we have a second strike capability which is at least as extensive as what the Soviets can deliver by striking first," adding "their Iron Curtain is not so impenetrable as to force us to accept at face value the Kremlin's boasts." At the same time, Gilpatric's speech revealed to the Soviets that the U.S. intelligence had discovered the Soviet shortcomings, and "provoked an embarrassing defeat for Khrushchev's reform program".
  • Project West Ford, a U.S. Air Force experiment in putting 480,000,000 copper dipoles into orbit around the Earth to facilitate communication, was carried out with the launch of the Midas 4 satellite. Each "needle" was long and 25.4 micrometers thick. However, the payload failed to deploy. A second experiment, launched on May 9, 1963, would succeed in dispersing the "Westford Needles". "Due to the small overall mass involved," it has been noted, "and due to the high orbit altitudes in which they reside, the effects of Westford Needle clusters on the space debris environment are of minor importance."
  • The U-1, first German submarine built since the end of World War II, and the first for the West German Navy, was launched from the Kiel shipyard.
  • The Pervomayskaya Moscow Metro station opened.
  • Died:
  • *John Peabody Harrington, 77, American linguist who gathered "the greatest collection of linguistic and ethnographic information about North American Indians ever compiled by one man."
  • *Karl Korsch, 75, German Marxist theorist

[October 22], 1961 (Sunday)

  • The Berlin Crisis began with a minor matter, as E. Allan Lightner, Jr., Deputy Chief of the U.S. Mission in West Berlin, and his wife, were stopped when he tried to drive his car across the border into East Berlin. Lightner refused to produce identification while crossing at Checkpoint Charlie, to attend the opera in East Berlin. General Lucius Clay dispatched troops, backed up by several tanks and military vehicles, to the Checkpoint. The Lightners were escorted into East Berlin by eight U.S. military policemen. Over the next three days, what started as a trivial incident escalated into a confrontation between the U.S. and the Soviet Union.
  • Presidential and legislative elections were allowed to take place in Haiti by dictator François Duvalier, but only Duvalier supporters were allowed to run for office. Duvalier had his name printed on each ballot paper, with the result that he was re-elected unanimously.
  • Chubby Checker performed his 1960 #1 hit, "The Twist" on The Ed Sullivan Show, reigniting the popularity of both the dance and the record. The song returned to the Top 100 three weeks later, and became the first and only hit single to reach #1 twice.
  • The Mizo National Front was founded in India by Pu Laldenga, converting from a famine relief organization to a political party advocating secession of the Mizo people from India.
  • Died: Joseph Schenck, 84, Russian-born film studio executive who served as president of United Artists and later Twentieth Century Pictures, forerunner of 20th Century Fox.

[October 23], 1961 (Monday)

  • China's Prime Minister Zhou Enlai abruptly left Moscow, a week before the conclusion of the 22nd Communist Party Congress held in Moscow, four days after bitterly criticizing Soviet First Secretary Nikita Khrushchev over the issue of Albania. Zhou's departure was seen as a sign that the rift between the two Communist superpowers was widening, and the Soviets halted delivery of exports to China soon afterward.
  • In a speech given in Bombay, India's Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru referred to increasing reports of "terror and torture" by the Portuguese authorities in Goa and declared that "the time has come for us to consider afresh what method should be adopted to free Goa from Portuguese rule."
  • In New York, Thurgood Marshall, an African-American attorney who was the chief legal adviser to the NAACP, was sworn in as a federal judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. He would become the first black U.S. Supreme Court justice in 1967.
  • NASA presented Freedom 7, the first capsule to take an American astronaut into space, to the National Air Museum of the Smithsonian Institution. Alan Shepard had been launched in the capsule on the Mercury 3 space mission on May 5, 1961.
  • Born: Laurie Halse Anderson, bestselling American young-adult novelist known for Speak; in Potsdam, New York

[October 24], 1961 (Tuesday)

  • As part of an X-ray astronomy experiment, the first attempt was made to detect non-solar X-ray radiation in outer space, with the launch of a rocket from White Sands by astronomer Riccardo Giacconi. The launch was successful, but no data was returned in attempting to detect X-rays reflecting from the Moon. Analogous to a lens cap remaining on a camera, the doors that protected the data recording equipment failed to open. A second attempt on June 18, 1962, proved that the Moon did not reflect X-rays.
  • A group of prominent campaigners for the preservation of the Euston Arch, including James Maude Richards, went to see British prime minister Harold Macmillan to argue for it to be dismantled and rebuilt elsewhere. Their arguments were unsuccessful, and the arch was demolished two months later.
  • Construction work began on the Manic-2 dam over the Manicouagan River in Quebec, Canada.
  • Malta gained a new constitution to support its independence.
  • Born: Susan Still-Kilrain, American astronaut and shuttle pilot of two missions for Columbia; in Augusta, Georgia
  • Died: Clem Stephenson, 71, English international footballer

[October 25], 1961 (Wednesday)

[October 26], 1961 (Thursday)

[October 27], 1961 (Friday)

  • The Berlin Crisis almost erupted into war. Five days after the initial standoff at the border between East and West Berlin, 33 Soviet tanks drove to the Brandenburg Gate to confront American tanks on the other side of the border. Ten of the tanks continued to Friedrichstraße, stopping to from the checkpoint on the Soviet side of the sector boundary. The standoff between the tanks of the two nations continued for 16 hours before both sides withdrew.
  • The eight-team American Basketball League, founded by Harlem Globetrotters owner Abe Saperstein after he was refused an NBA franchise, played its first game, as the San Francisco Saints defeated the visiting Los Angeles Jets, 99–96. The ABL was the first to use the three-point field goal, with baskets shot from further away than worth 3 points instead of 2. The ABL would fold partway through its second season, on December 31, 1962. The first three-point goals were scored by Mike Farmer for the Saints, and George Yardley and Larry Friend for the Jets.
  • At 10:06 a.m., the Saturn I rocket booster, essential for the Apollo missions to the Moon, was first tested. The high rocket lifted off from Cape Canaveral and reached an altitude of, proving that the "clustered engine concept" could be successful.
  • The Space Task Group, directed by Robert R. Gilruth, finished its Project Development Plan for U.S. human spaceflight for the years 1963 to 1965, including the "Mark II" Mercury spacecraft that could carry two astronauts rather than a single astronaut. The Mark II program would soon be renamed "Project Gemini". The two-person capsule was to be designed by McDonnell Aircraft Corporation and to use Mercury program technology. General Dynamics would create the Atlas launch rocket and Martin-Marietta would modify the Titan II rocket. Lockheed Missiles and Space Company was to design the Agena target vehicle for the Mark II to dock. Project Gemini was forecast to start with an uncrewed flight as early as May 1963, with 12 Gemini flights altogether, each to be longer than the Mercury limit of 18 orbits. A goal of Gemini was to eventually achieve a space rendezvous, the docking of two Gemini vehicles in orbit. After the first launch, succeeding flights would take place at two-month intervals from July 1963 to March 1965. The first year's budget for FY1962 was estimated to be $530,000,000, and the staffing requirement was 177 people. The first Gemini launch would take place on April 8, 1964, and the first with astronauts on March 23, 1965.
  • Mongolia and Mauritania were admitted as the 102nd and 103rd members, respectively, of the United Nations, doubling the original membership of 51.
  • An armistice between separatist rebels and U.N. Peacekeeping forces began in Katanga, which had seceded from the Congo.
  • Fahri Özdiilek became the acting Prime Minister of Turkey.

[October 28], 1961 (Saturday)

[October 29], 1961 (Sunday)

[October 30], 1961 (Monday)

  • The Soviet Union detonated a 50-megaton yield hydrogen bomb known as Tsar Bomba over Novaya Zemlya, in the largest man-made explosion ever. Too large to be fit inside even the largest available warplane, the weapon was suspended from a Tupolev Tu-95 piloted by A.E. Durnovtsev, a Hero of the Soviet Union. A parachute slowed the bomb's descent so that the airplane could have time to climb away from the fireball, and at an altitude of four kilometers, was exploded at 8:33 a.m. GMT. Although the news drew protests around the world, the event was not reported in the Soviet press.
  • Died:
  • *Margherita Sarfatti, 81, Italian journalist and socialite, former mistress of Benito Mussolini
  • *Luigi Einaudi, 87, 2nd President of Italy from 1948 to 1955

[October 31], 1961 (Tuesday)