October 1961

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October 27–28, 1961: U.S. tanks and Soviet tanks face off for 16 hours at the border between East and West Berlin

The following events occurred in October 1961:

October 1, 1961 (Sunday)

  • CTV Television Network was launched at 6:30 pm on eight stations across Canada, with the one-hour program "Sneak Preview- glimpses of things to come", followed by 77 Sunset Strip at 7:30. The first Canadian program shown, after the 10:30 news and sports, was the game show Scrimmage at 10:50.
Roger Maris
  • Baseball player Roger Maris of the New York Yankees hit his 61st home run in the last game of the season, against the Boston Red Sox, beating the 34-year-old record held by Babe Ruth. The homer was made at 2:43 pm at Yankee Stadium, off of Boston pitcher Tracy Stallard, in the game's fourth inning. The run won the game, 1-0. Sal Durante, a 19-year-old spectator, got the baseball and won $5,000 and other prizes.
  • The United States Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), the country's first centralized military espionage organization, was formed.
  • Advertising executive Lester Wunderman coined the phrase "direct marketing" in a speech in New York to the Hundred Million Club, an organization of businesspeople using direct mail.
  • The first SIP1 launch by the U.S. Navy was successful, reaching an apogee of 20 kilometres (12 mi).
  • Evangelist Pat Robertson began religious broadcasting on WTFC Channel 27, a UHF television station in Portsmouth, Virginia. He would later beam the programming by satellite to cable systems nationwide as the Christian Broadcasting Network.
  • Factory roll-out inspection was made of an Atlas booster for the Mercury-Atlas 5 (MA-5) mission, and the booster was delivered on October 9.
  • Died:

October 2, 1961 (Monday)

  • 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.
  • 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.
  • 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.
  • WETA-TV, the first public television station in Washington, D.C., went on air.

October 3, 1961 (Tuesday)

Laura, Rob and Richie of the Petrie family on the The Dick Van Dyke Show
  • The Dick Van Dyke Show, starring Dick Van Dyke, Mary Tyler Moore, Rose Marie and Morey Amsterdam, was shown for the first time, making its debut at 8:00 pm EST on CBS. Although the show would go on to become very popular, the initial telecast, competing against Bachelor Father (ABC) and Laramie (NBC) attracted so few viewers that it was not even among the Top 70 most popular programs that week.
  • The Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA), which gives its stamp of approval and restrictions on films in the United States, changed its production code, declaring that "In keeping with the culture, the mores and the values of our time, homosexuality and other sexual aberrations may now be treated with care, discretion and restraint," adding that such "aberrations" "could be suggested but not actually spelled out". The change was believed to have been prompted by the filming of the Allen Drury novel Advise and Consent.
  • Born: Vittorio Colao, Italian business executive and CEO of the Vodafone Group; in Brescia

October 4, 1961 (Wednesday)

  • In the Irish general election, Fianna Fáil, led by Seán Lemass, lost its majority of 77 out of 144 seats, dropping to 70, but still retained the plurality and was able to form a government. Lemass continued as the Taoiseach (Prime Minister).
  • Police in McComb, Mississippi, United States, arrested and jailed 113 African-American high school and junior high school students, after the group walked out of Burgland High School and marched to City Hall, protesting the expulsion of two students who had participated in a sit-in earlier in the year.
  • The Alvin Show, the first TV series to feature Alvin and the Chipmunks, premiered on CBS in the United States.
  • Born: Jon Secada, Cuban-American singer; in Havana

October 5, 1961 (Thursday)

October 6, 1961 (Friday)

  • The "Schiessbefehl" (literally, "order to shoot") was formally issued by General Heinz Hoffmann, the Minister of National Defense for East Germany, spelling out the rules for shooting anyone who attempted to escape from the German Democratic Republic. After a shouted warning and the firing of a warning shot, guards were ordered to fire their weapons at anyone clearly planning "to violate the state frontier".
  • In leadership changes in the Lagting, Nils Hønsvald became President of the Lagting (composed of the senior one-fourth of the membership) and Per Borten became President of the Odelsting for the other three-fourths.

October 7, 1961 (Saturday)

  • All 34 people on board a British airliner were killed when the Douglas C47 Dakota crashed in the Pyrenees Mountains at Mont Canigou in France. The flight by Derby Aviation, a subsidiary of British Midland Airways, was primarily carrying British tourists who were on holiday to make a tour of Spain.
  • On United States television, the medical drama Ben Casey premiered on ABC; it would for five seasons. Nine days earlier, Dr. Kildare, a medical drama adapted from a radio series, began its run on NBC.

October 8, 1961 (Sunday)

October 9, 1961 (Monday)

October 10, 1961 (Tuesday)

  • The Tuvan Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic was created as part of the Russian Republic of the Soviet Union.
  • The United Kingdom began negotiations with the six-member European Economic Community to seek membership in the Common Market, with an opening speech in Paris by Prime Minister Harold Macmillan.
  • All 260 residents of the South Atlantic island of Tristan da Cunha were evacuated by two small fishing boats, following a volcanic eruption that destroyed the crayfish canning factory that was the source of many islanders' livelihood. The group then spent the night on Nightingale Island, an 0.75-square-mile (1.9 km2) patch of rock, 13 miles (21 km) away, to await the arrival of the Dutch liner MS Tjisadane, which took them to South Africa.
  • The day after stockholders approved a merger of two companies, the Martin Marietta Corporation was created from the merger of aircraft manufacturer Glenn L. Martin Company and the chemical manufacturer American-Marietta Corporation. It would on to become one of the 100 largest corporations in the United States.
  • Born: Jodi Benson, American actress and singer; in Rockford, Illinois

October 11, 1961 (Wednesday)

  • 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.
  • US 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 intellectually handicapped individuals.
  • The Cherry Hill Mall opened in Cherry Hill, New Jersey, near Philadelphia, as the first American indoor shopping mall east of the Mississippi River.
  • 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 215,000 feet (66,000 m), more than 40 miles (64 km) above the Earth, 8 miles (13 km) higher than the previous record. On his descent, the outer windshield of the X-15 cracked, but White was unharmed.
  • 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.
  • Born: Steve Young, American football quarterback Pro Football Hall of Fame inductee, player in the NFL and USFL; in Salt Lake City
  • Died:

October 12, 1961 (Thursday)

  • 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 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 1961 Coppa Italia motor race was won by Giancarlo Baghetti.
  • Died:

October 13, 1961 (Friday)

  • 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.
  • Marjorie Michelmore, a 26-year-old volunteer for the Peace Corps, 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."
  • HMS Leopard arrived at Tristan da Cunha to find a mound 250 ft (80 m) in height, emitting smoke and red-hot lava.
  • NASA Headquarters approved construction projects for what would become the Johnson Space Center installation in Texas at Clear Lake, southeast of Houston.
  • Died:

October 14, 1961 (Saturday)

  • For twelve hours, all commercial flights in the United States and Canada were grounded in order to conduct the NORAD exercise Operation Sky Shield II. Starting, as scheduled, at 1:00 pm Washington DC time, civilian airline flights were halted and military planes conducted an exercise simulating a foreign bombing attack on North American targets. Commercial flights were allowed to take off again twelve hours later. It was the longest scheduled halt of air traffic in United States history, exceeded only by the emergency grounding following September 11, 2001.
  • The Broadway musical How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying was first performed, opening at the 46th Street Theatre and would run for 1,417 shows, winning a Pulitzer Prize and seven Tony Awards along the way.
  • The Town of Seabrook, New Hampshire, which would later share its name with a nuclear power plant, was created, by a 198-13 vote of its residents.
  • Paul Morris became public address announcer for the Toronto Maple Leafs, remaining in the post for 38 years.
  • The Pittsburgh Hornets minor league ice hockey team returned to play after a five-year break, at the Civic Arena.
  • Died:

October 15, 1961 (Sunday)

October 16, 1961 (Monday)

October 17, 1961 (Tuesday)

October 18, 1961 (Wednesday)

October 19, 1961 (Thursday)

October 20, 1961 (Friday)

  • The first launch of an armed nuclear warhead on a submarine-launched ballistic missile took place, when a Soviet Golf-class submarine (Project 629) fired an R-13 (SS N-4 Sark) missile from underwater. The 1.45-megaton warhead detonated on the Novaya Zemlya Test Range in the Arctic Ocean. Although the U.S. had test-fired unarmed Polaris missiles, the first American SLBM nuclear detonation would not take place until May 6, 1962.
  • The mail ship MV Stirling Castle departed South Africa for the UK with the Tristan da Cunha islanders on board.

October 21, 1961 (Saturday)

  • The Pervomayskaya Moscow Metro station opened.
  • 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.
  • 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 1.78 centimetres (0.70 in) long and 25.4 micrometers (or 1/1000 of an inch) 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."
  • 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 (born Iosif Scheinker), 82, 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:

October 24, 1961 (Tuesday)

  • Malta gained a new constitution to support its independence.
  • Construction work began on the Manic-2 dam over the Manicouagan River in Quebec, Canada.
  • 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.
  • 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.
  • 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)

  • General Cemal Gürsel, who had led the military junta that had ruled since 1960, was elected in a joint session of the National Assembly and the Senate as the fourth President of Turkey, as that nation made its transition to civilian rule.
  • Grégoire Kayibanda, leader of the Hutu majority party, became President of Rwanda, which would be granted full independence on July 1, 1962. During his presidency, repression against the Tutsi minority would continue.
  • The Crucible, an English-language opera written by Robert Ward and based on the 1952 play by Arthur Miller, was given its first performance. It would win the Pulitzer Prize for Music in 1962.
  • On October 26 and 27, ship retrieval tests were conducted to establish procedures for recovery of a crewed Mercury spacecraft. No difficulties were encountered.
  • Born:

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 50 metres (160 ft) to 100 metres (330 ft) 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.
  • An armistice between separatist rebels and U.N. Peacekeeping forces began in Katanga, which had seceded from the Congo.
  • Mongolia and Mauritania were admitted as the 102nd and 103rd members, respectively, of the United Nations, doubling the original membership of 51.
  • Fahri Özdiilek became the acting Prime Minister of Turkey.
  • At 10:06 am, the Saturn I rocket booster, essential for the Apollo missions to the Moon, was first tested. The 162-foot (49 m) high rocket lifted off from Cape Canaveral and reached an altitude of 85 miles (137 km), proving that the "clustered engine concept" (with 8 large rocket engines) could be successful.
  • The Space Task Group (STG), directed by Robert R. Gilruth, finished the Project Development Plan for U.S. human spaceflight for the years 1963 to 1965, after having initiated the task on August 14. The plan relied on extensive use of Mercury program technology and components for the Mark II Mercury spacecraft, a two-man version of the one-man Mercury spacecraft, to be lifted by a modified Titan II booster. Contracts were to be negotiated with McDonnell Aircraft Corporation for spacecraft design; with General Dynamics for Atlas launch vehicles; with Martin-Marietta Space Systems for the modified Titan II; and with Lockheed Missiles and Space Company for the Agena target vehicles. Staffing requirements were for 177 people for fiscal year 1962, and the estimated cost was $530,000,000. The Mark II program (soon to be renamed Project Gemini) was to immediately follow Project Mercury, using Mercury equipment and vehicles as much as possible. Mark II objectives were for flights longer than the Mercury limit of 18 orbits, and to achieve rendezvous in orbit between two vehicles. Twelve flights were planned, beginning with an uncrewed flight in May 1963, and succeeding flights at two-month intervals from July 1963 to March 1965.
  • 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 25 feet (7.6 m) 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.

October 28, 1961 (Saturday)

October 29, 1961 (Sunday)

October 30, 1961 (Monday)

October 30, 1961: 50-megaton Tsar Bomba, largest ever, tested
  • 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 AM GMT. Although the news drew protests around the world, the event was not reported in the Soviet press.
  • Died:

October 31, 1961 (Tuesday)


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