50 Fun Facts About 1961

Which cosmonaut became the first human in space on 12 April, ejecting from Vostok 1 to parachute down separately?

Yuri Gagarin's ejection was kept quiet because record rules said a pilot had to land inside his craft, and once the truth came out the rules were rewritten to fit him.

Which club completed the first League and FA Cup double of the 20th century by beating Leicester 2–0 at Wembley?

Tottenham Hotspur faced what was in effect ten men, because Leicester right-back Len Chalmers was hurt early on and substitutes were not yet allowed.

Which 150 mph sports car, launched at the Geneva Motor Show, did Enzo Ferrari reputedly call the most beautiful ever made?

Jaguar E-Type fever at the show was such that the factory sent for a second car, and a test engineer dashed it from Coventry to Geneva with minutes to spare.

Which Yankees outfielder broke Babe Ruth's home-run record with his 61st on the last day of a newly lengthened season?

Roger Maris never actually got the famous asterisk, because commissioner Ford Frick had no say over the record books and publishers listed the new mark without one.

Which musical, released in October and inspired by Romeo and Juliet, was the highest-grossing film of 1961?

West Side Story won ten Academy Awards from eleven nominations, a record for a musical, and Natalie Wood's songs were dubbed by Marni Nixon, who had to re-record them to fit Wood's filmed performances.

Which Joseph Heller novel had its number changed from 18 to avoid confusion with Leon Uris's Mila 18?

Catch-22 had its opening chapter printed in 1955 as Catch-18; Heller signed for $1,500 and the book became very popular among teenagers.

Which future royal bride was born at Park House on the Sandringham estate on 1 July, a daughter of Viscount Althorp?

Diana Spencer began life as the Queen's tenant, since her father rented Park House from the royal estate, and twenty years later she married the landlady's eldest son.

Which campaigning group grew from Peter Benenson's Observer article 'The Forgotten Prisoners', published on 28 May?

Amnesty International was planned only as a press campaign called Appeal for Amnesty, 1961, but the flood of offers to help turned it into a permanent organisation that July.

Which astronaut became the first American in space on 5 May, a 15-minute suborbital hop in the capsule Freedom 7?

Alan Shepard flew again ten years later as commander of Apollo 14, and ended his moonwalk by hitting two golf balls with a makeshift club.

Which East German leader insisted that 'no one has the intention of building a wall', weeks before sealing Berlin?

Walter Ulbricht raised the wall himself, since the West German reporter had only asked whether the state border would be drawn at the Brandenburg Gate.

At which Berlin crossing did Soviet and American tanks face each other on 27 October before both pulled back?

Checkpoint Charlie's standoff grew out of a night at the theatre, after East German police stopped a senior US diplomat heading to a show in East Berlin and asked for his papers.

Which Holocaust organiser, seized by Mossad in Argentina, sat in a bulletproof glass booth at his trial in Jerusalem?

Adolf Eichmann was hanged the following year, and his ashes were scattered at sea beyond Israel's territorial waters, leaving no grave on land.

Which UN Secretary-General died when his DC-6 crashed near Ndola, flying to negotiate a Congo ceasefire?

Dag Hammarskjöld's crash is still an open question, since the UN's own 1962 inquiry could not find the cause and half a century later a panel of jurists urged it to look again.

Over which Arctic archipelago did a Tu-95 drop Tsar Bomba, the most powerful weapon ever tested, on 30 October?

Novaya Zemlya got only half the intended blast, because the bomb was a 100-megaton design whose uranium layer was swapped for lead to cut the fallout.

Which country became a republic and left the Commonwealth, not rejoining until 1994?

South Africa had asked to stay in as a republic, but Hendrik Verwoerd withdrew the request in London once it was clear fellow members would refuse it over apartheid.

Which Kirov Ballet star defected at Le Bourget airport in Paris in June, slipping away from his KGB escorts?

Rudolf Nureyev was stopped at the gate and told he was wanted in Moscow for a special Kremlin performance, a story he refused to swallow as the company boarded for London.

Which novelist died by suicide in Ketchum, Idaho on 2 July, days after leaving the Mayo Clinic?

Ernest Hemingway's death was first reported as an accident, because his wife Mary told the press he had been cleaning the gun, and she acknowledged the truth publicly only five years later.

Whose embalmed body, displayed beside Lenin's since 1953, was quietly removed from the Red Square mausoleum in October?

Joseph Stalin's eviction was urged at the party congress by an old Bolshevik, Dora Lazurkina, who said Lenin had appeared to her and complained about lying next to him.

Which 86-year-old poet, unable to read his poem in the glare at Kennedy's inauguration, recited 'The Gift Outright'?

Robert Frost had even let the president-elect edit him, agreeing to alter the poem's last line so that it looked ahead with more confidence.

Which chimpanzee flew a Mercury capsule on 31 January, three months before any American astronaut did?

Ham worked his levers in flight almost as fast as he had on the ground, which showed that an astronaut would be able to operate controls in space.

Where did Kennedy first pledge, on 25 May, to land a man on the Moon within the decade?

A joint session of Congress heard a goal picked for its distance, since his advisers judged a Moon landing far enough off that America could still get there first.

In which Alabama town did a Klan mob firebomb a Freedom Riders bus on Mother's Day, 14 May?

Anniston's mob was kept at bay by an unlikely guard, an undercover Alabama highway patrolman riding the bus, who stood in the doorway with his revolver drawn.

Which drug, sold for morning sickness, was pulled from the German market in November after being linked to birth defects?

Thalidomide never went on sale in America, because a new FDA reviewer, Frances Kelsey, kept refusing the application until its maker could prove the drug safe.

Which Mercury capsule, flown by Gus Grissom, sank in the Atlantic when its hatch blew after splashdown in July?

Liberty Bell 7's pilot was long suspected of panicking, yet the hatch plunger kicked back hard enough to injure Wally Schirra's hand when he fired his on purpose, and Grissom's hands were unmarked.

Which race did the grey outsider Nicolaus Silver win under jockey Bobby Beasley?

The Grand National winner dodged a doping gang, because trainer Fred Rimell grew suspicious of a visitor to his yard and put another grey in the horse's stable as a decoy.

Which young heavyweight learned how to sell tickets from wrestler Gorgeous George after the two shared a Las Vegas radio show?

Cassius Clay, the future Muhammad Ali, saw the wrestler's bragging sell out an arena and decided that the more he talked, the more people would pay to see him.

Which Swedish warship, sunk less than a mile into her maiden voyage in 1628, was raised after 333 years on the seabed?

Vasa was lopsided from the start, because her builders worked with two kinds of ruler, some marked in Swedish feet of twelve inches and some in Amsterdam feet of eleven.

Which Gulf state, a British protectorate until June, asked for British troops within days when Iraq claimed it?

Kuwait's appeal worked, since Iraq backed down once British forces arrived, but the claim never died, and in 1990 Saddam Hussein's army crossed the border to enforce it.

Which Minister of Health announced that the pill could be prescribed on the NHS for two shillings a month?

Enoch Powell had told a mental health conference that March that most of the old asylums would close, the speech now seen as the start of care in the community.

Which MI6 officer turned double agent was jailed for 42 years, then escaped from Wormwood Scrubs over a rope ladder?

George Blake's rescuers included two peace campaigners who thought 42 years inhuman, and when they finally stood trial in 1991 the jury acquitted them.

Which coin, used since the 13th century and bearing a wren on its reverse, stopped being legal tender as the year began?

The farthing's name is Old English for a fourth part, because before the coin existed people simply cut a silver penny into quarters to make small change.

Which artist's Portrait of the Duke of Wellington was stolen in August as ransom in a campaign for free TV licences?

Goya's duke was handed back four years later by a former bus driver, who was convicted only of stealing the frame, and police files opened in 2012 point to his son as the man who climbed in.

Which South Atlantic island's population of 264 was evacuated to England after a volcanic eruption on 10 October?

Tristan da Cunha's islanders were housed in an old RAF camp at Calshot in Hampshire, and after most of them sailed home in 1963 the island's new harbour was named after it.

Which conservation body, conceived on 29 April, took its logo from Chi Chi, a giant panda at London Zoo?

World Wildlife Fund founders had a practical motive too, since Peter Scott wanted an animal that kept its impact when printed in plain black and white.

Which satirical magazine, named and bankrolled by Andrew Osmond, first appeared in October?

Private Eye did not stay his for long, because the following year Osmond sold the title to the comedian Peter Cook and a business partner.

At which Kent station did Mick Jagger and Keith Richards meet again on 17 October, Jagger carrying blues records?

Dartford had first thrown the two together as pupils at Wentworth Primary School, and they recognised each other on the platform, one bound for the London School of Economics and the other for art college.

Which Hancock episode, first shown on 23 June, is still counted among the greatest British television comedies?

The Blood Donor has Hancock agree to give blood and then balk at the amount, protesting that a pint is very nearly an armful.

Which ITV series began in January with Ian Hendry's Dr David Keel aided by Patrick Macnee's John Steed?

The Avengers was built to make Ian Hendry a star, yet he left after one series to pursue films, and Steed, his mysterious sidekick, took over the lead and carried the show to 1969.

Which London schoolgirl, 14 when the hits began, topped the UK chart twice, with 'You Don't Know' and 'Walkin' Back to Happiness'?

Helen Shapiro was still the bigger name two years later, when the Beatles made their first national tour of Britain as one of her support acts.

Which clarinettist wrote 'Stranger on the Shore' for his daughter, a tune that went on to top the American charts?

Acker Bilk first called the tune Jenny, after the daughter he wrote it for, and it only got its famous name when the BBC picked it as the theme for a children's serial.

Which folk singer was signed to Columbia by John Hammond after playing harmonica on a Carolyn Hester album?

Bob Dylan was no sure thing, and around Columbia's offices the scruffy newcomer was soon being called Hammond's Folly.

Which actress won her first Oscar that spring for BUtterfield 8, weeks after near-fatal pneumonia and a tracheotomy?

Elizabeth Taylor detested the part and never changed her mind about the prize, which she always put down to a sympathy vote for not dying.

Which striker, sold by Chelsea to AC Milan, was brought back to England within months for a fee of £99,999?

Jimmy Greaves cost a pound under six figures on purpose, because his new manager did not want him saddled with the label of British football's first £100,000 player.

Angela Mortimer won three majors, but at which did she beat fellow Briton Christine Truman in the final?

Wimbledon's champion that year was partially deaf and could not hear the ball leave the strings, which she said only helped her concentrate by shutting out distractions.

Which golfer became the first Masters champion from outside the United States, after rain forced a Monday finish?

Gary Player had stumbled home and thought his chance gone, until Arnold Palmer, needing only a par at the last to win, found a bunker and could not even make the bogey for a play-off.

At which circuit did American Phil Hill clinch the world title, in the race that killed his Ferrari teammate von Trips?

Monza crowned him with a race to go, but Ferrari stayed away from the season's final round at Watkins Glen, so the new champion lost his chance to drive before his home crowd.

Which Dominican Republic dictator, in power since 1930, was shot dead on 30 May when plotters ambushed his car outside the capital?

Rafael Trujillo's son had almost everyone in the plot rounded up and killed, yet one gunman who hid for six months was later declared a national hero and made a general.

Where did CIA-trained Cuban exiles land in April, only to be beaten by Castro's forces within days?

The Bay of Pigs left more than a thousand invaders in Cuban jails, and twenty months later Castro swapped them for $53 million worth of food and medicine.

Which Australian captain bowled round the wicket into the footmarks to take 6–70 in the decisive Ashes Test?

Richie Benaud was nursing a damaged bowling shoulder and England were cruising at 150 for one, chasing 256, when his gamble turned the match and Australia won by 54 runs.

Which Swiss founder of analytical psychology, who described the introvert and extravert types, died at Küsnacht?

Carl Jung left a red leather journal of his visions that his family kept from scholars for decades, much of that time in a Swiss bank vault, until it was finally published in 2009.