Year retrospective · 1960s

1961

1961 (MCMLXI) was a common year starting on Sunday of the Gregorian calendar, the 1961st year of the Common Era (CE) and Anno Domini (AD) designations, the 961st year of the 2nd millennium, the 61st year of the 20th century, and the 2nd year of the 1960s decade.

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Decade

1960s

Defining moment · 1961

The trial of Adolf Eichmann begins in Jerusalem.

Otto Adolf Eichmann was a German-Austrian official of the Nazi Party, an officer of the Schutzstaffel (SS), a convicted war criminal, and one of the major organizers of the Holocaust. He participated in the January 1942 Wannsee Conference, at which the implementation of the genocidal Final Solution to the Jewish Question was planned. Following this, he was tasked by SS-Obergruppenführer Reinhard Heydrich with facilitating and managing the logistics involved in the mass deportation of millions of Jews to Nazi ghettos and Nazi extermination camps across German-occupied Europe.

See april 11 in detail

Timeline

Defining events of 1961

1961 The trial of Adolf Eichmann begins in Jerusalem.

German SS officer and war criminal (1906–1962)

Otto Adolf Eichmann was a German-Austrian official of the Nazi Party, an officer of the Schutzstaffel (SS), a convicted war criminal, and one of the major organizers of the Holocaust. He participated in the January 1942 Wannsee Conference, at which the implementation of the genocidal Final Solution to the Jewish Question was planned. Following this, he was tasked by SS-Obergruppenführer Reinhard Heydrich with facilitating and managing the logistics involved in the mass deportation of millions of Jews to Nazi ghettos and Nazi extermination camps across German-occupied Europe.
1961 Space Race: The Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin becomes the first human to travel into outer space and perform the first crewed orbital flight, Vostok 1.

US–USSR spaceflight capability rivalry

The Space Race was a 20th-century competition between the Cold War rivals, the United States and the Soviet Union, to achieve superior spaceflight capability. It had its origins in the ballistic missile-based nuclear arms race between the two nations following World War II and the onset of the Cold War. The technological advantage demonstrated by spaceflight achievement was seen as necessary for national security, particularly in regard to intercontinental ballistic missile and satellite reconnaissance capability, but also became part of the cultural symbolism and ideology of the time.
1961 In a nationally broadcast speech, Cuban leader Fidel Castro declares that he is a Marxist–Leninist and that Cuba is going to adopt Communism.

Leader of Cuba from 1959 to 2008

Fidel Alejandro Castro Ruz was a Cuban politician and revolutionary who was the leader of Cuba from 1959 to 2008, serving as prime minister from 1959 to 1976 and president from 1976 to 2008. Ideologically a Marxist–Leninist and Cuban nationalist, he also served as the first secretary of the Communist Party of Cuba from 1965 until 2011. Under his administration, Cuba became a one-party communist state; industry and business were nationalized, and socialist reforms were implemented throughout society.
1961 Bay of Pigs Invasion: A group of Cuban exiles financed and trained by the CIA lands at the Bay of Pigs in Cuba with the aim of ousting Fidel Castro.

1961 failed landing operation of Cuba

S. government. The operation took place at the height of the Cold War, and its failure influenced relations between Cuba, the United States, and the Soviet Union.
1961 Cold War: Failure of the Bay of Pigs Invasion of US-backed Cuban exiles against Cuba.

1947–1991 geopolitical rivalry between US and USSR

The Cold War was a period of international geopolitical rivalry between the United States (US) and the Soviet Union (USSR) and their respective allies, the capitalist Western Bloc and communist Eastern Bloc. It began in the aftermath of the Second World War and ended with the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991. The term cold war is used because there was no direct fighting between the two superpowers, though each supported opposing sides in regional conflicts known as proxy wars.
1961 During the Algiers putsch by French generals, President Charles de Gaulle announces he has assumed emergency powers, and calls on troops and civilians to support him.

Attempted coup in French Algeria during the Algerian War

The Algiers putsch, also known as the putsch of the generals, was a failed coup d'état intended to force French President Charles de Gaulle not to abandon French Algeria, the resident European community and pro-French Algerians. Organised in French Algeria by retired French Army generals Maurice Challe, Edmond Jouhaud, André Zeller and Raoul Salan, it took place from the afternoon of 21 to 26 April 1961 in the midst of the Algerian War (1954–1962) and brought the nation to the brink of a civil war.
1961 Robert Noyce is granted a patent for an integrated circuit.
1961 LAN-Chile Flight 621 crashes in the Andes mountains, killing 21 people, including Argentinian football player Eliseo Mouriño.
1961 K-19, the first Soviet nuclear submarine equipped with nuclear missiles, is commissioned.
1961 U.S. Defense Secretary Robert McNamara orders the creation of the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), the nation's first centralized military espionage organization.