January
January 1 - The farthing, used since the 13th century, ceases to be legal tender in the United Kingdom.
January 3
President Dwight Eisenhower announces that the United States has severed diplomatic and consular relations with Cuba.
At the National Reactor Testing Station near Idaho Falls, Idaho, SL-1, an atomic reactor explodes, killing 3 military technicians.
January
January 5 - Italian sculptor Alfredo Fioravanti marches into the U.S. Consulate in Rome, and confesses that he was part of the team that forged the Etruscan terracotta warriors in the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
January 7 - Following a 4-day conference in Casablanca, 5 African chiefs of state announce plans for a NATO-type African organization to ensure common defense. The Charter of Casablanca involves the Casablanca Group - Morocco, the United Arab Republic, Ghana, Guinea, and Mali.
January 8 - In France, a referendum supports Charles de Gaulle's policies in Algeria.
January 9 - British authorities announce that they have discovered a large Soviet spy ring in London.
January 17
President Dwight Eisenhower gives his final State of the Union Address to Congress. In a Farewell Address the same day, he warns of the increasing power of a "military-industrial complex".
Patrice Lumumba is assassinated.
Jan. 20: John F. Kennedy inaugurated as President of the U.S.January 20 - John F. Kennedy becomes the 35th President of the United States.
January 24
A U.S. B-52 Stratofortress, with two roughly 2.4 megaton nuclear bombs, crashes near Goldsboro, North Carolina.
Musician Bob Dylan reportedly makes his way to New York City after bumming a ride in Madison, Wisconsin. Dylan is likely on his way to visit his idol Woody Guthrie. He later finds fame in the Greenwich Village protest folk music scene.
January 25 - In Washington, DC John F. Kennedy delivers the first live presidential news conference. In it, he announces that the Soviet Union has freed the 2 surviving crewmen of a USAF RB-47 reconnaissance plane shot down by Soviet flyers over the Barents Sea July 1, 1960. (see RB-47H shot down)
January 25 - Acting to halt 'leftist excesses,' a junta composed of 2 army officers and 4 civilians takes over El Salvador, ousting another junta that had ruled for 3 months.
January 26 - John F. Kennedy appoints Janet G. Travell to be his physician, the first woman to hold this appointment.
January 30 - President John F. Kennedy delivers his first State of the Union Address.
January 31 - Ham, a 37 pound male chimpanzee, is rocketed into space aboard Mercury-Redstone 2, in a test of the Project Mercury capsule, designed to carry United States astronauts into space.
February
February 3 - China buys grain from Canada for $60 million.
February 4 - The Portuguese Colonial War begins in Angola.
February 5 - February 9 - In Congo, President Joseph Kasavubu names Joseph Ileo as the new Prime Minister.
February 9 - The Beatles perform for their first time at the Cavern Club.
February 12 - U.S.S.R. launches Venera 1 towards Venus.
February 13 - The Congo government announces that villagers have killed Patrice Lumumba.
February 14 - Discovery of the chemical elements: Element 103, Lawrencium, is first synthesized in Berkeley, California.
February 15 - A Sabena Boeing 707 crashes near Brussels, Belgium, killing 73, including the entire United States figure skating team and several coaches.
February 25 - The last public tram operates in Sydney, Australia, bringing to an end the Southern Hemisphere's largest tramway network.
February 26 - Hassan II is pronounced King of Morocco.
March
March 1
President of the United States John F. Kennedy establishes the Peace Corps.
Uganda becomes self-governing by holding its first general elections.
March 3 - Hassan II is crowned King of Morocco.
March 8
Max Conrad circumnavigates the earth in 8 days, 18 hours and 49 minutes, setting a new world record.
The first U.S. Polaris submarines arrive at Holy Loch.
March 13
Black and white £5 notes cease to be legal tender in the UK.
A dam bursts on the Dnieper River in the USSR, killing 145.
USA delegate to the UNSC Adlai Stevenson votes against Portuguese policies in Africa.
March 15
South Africa withdraws from the Commonwealth of Nations.
The Union of Peoples of Angola, led by Holden Roberto, attacks strategic locations in the north of Angola. These events result in the beginning of the colonial war with Portugal.
March 18 - A ceasefire takes effect in the Algerian War of Independence.
March 18 - Nous les amoureux by Jean-Claude Pascal (music by Jacques Datin, text by Maurice Vidalin) wins the Eurovision Song Contest 1961 for Luxembourg.
March 29 - The Twenty-third Amendment to the United States Constitution is ratified, allowing residents of Washington, DC to vote in presidential elections.
March 30 - The Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs is signed at New York.
April
April 5 - The New Guinea Council of Western Papua is installed.
April 11 - The trial of Adolf Eichmann begins in Jerusalem.
April 12
Vostok 1: Yuri Gagarin, a Soviet cosmonaut, becomes the first human in space.
Albert Kalonji takes the title Emperor Albert I Kalonji of South Kasai.
April 13 - Portugal: failed coup attempt against Salazar.
April 17
The Bay of Pigs Invasion of Cuba begins; it fails by April 19.
33rd Academy Awards ceremony
April 18 - Portugal sends to Angola the first military reinforcement.
April 20 - Fidel Castro announces that the Bay of Pigs invasion has been defeated.
April 22 - Algiers putsch: Four French generals who oppose de Gaulle's policies in Algeria fail in a coup attempt.
April 23 - Judy Garland performs in a legendary comeback concert at Carnegie Hall in New York City.
April 24 - Regalskeppet Vasa is removed from the water after being sunk 333 years earlier.
May
May 3 - French phenomenological philosopher Maurice Merleau-Ponty dies, age 53, of a stroke, apparently while preparing for a class on Descartes.
May 4 - Freedom Riders: 13 black and white students with the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) leave Washington DC on 2 buses, to test integration laws in bus stations throughout the deep South.
May 5 - Mercury program: Alan Shepard becomes the first American in space aboard Mercury-Redstone 3.
May 6 - Tottenham Hotspur F.C. become the first team in the 20th century to win the league and cup double.
May 8 - Briton George Blake is sentenced to 42 years imprisonment for spying.
May 14 - American civil rights movement: A Freedom Riders bus is fire-bombed near Anniston, Alabama and the civil rights protestors are beaten by an angry mob.
May 16 - A military coup in South Korea - Park Chung Hee takes over.
May 19 - Venera program: Venera 1 becomes the first man-made object to fly-by another planet by passing Venus (however, the probe had lost contact with Earth a month earlier and did not send back any data).
May 21 - American civil rights movement: Alabama Governor John Patterson declares martial law in an attempt to restore order after race riots break out.
May 24 - American civil rights movement: Freedom Riders are arrested in Jackson, Mississippi for "disturbing the peace" after disembarking from their bus.
May 25 - Apollo program: President Kennedy announces before a special joint session of Congress his goal to put a man on the Moon before the end of the decade.
May 27 - Tunku Abdul Rahman, Prime Minister of Malaya, holds a press conference in Singapore, announcing his idea to form the Federation of Malaysia, comprising Malaya, Singapore, Sarawak, Brunei and North Borneo (Sabah).
May 28 - Peter Benenson's article "The Forgotten Prisoners" is published in several internationally read newspapers. This will later be thought of as the founding of the human rights organization Amnesty International.
May 30 - Rafael Leónidas Trujillo, totalitarian despot of the Dominican Republic since 1930, is killed in an ambush, putting an end to the second longest-running dictatorship in Latin American history.
May 31
In France, rebel generals Maurice Challe and Andre Zelelr are sentenced to 15 years in prison.
South Africa officially leaves the Commonwealth of Nations.
President John F. Kennedy and Charles De Gaulle meet in Paris.