April 1961

[April 1], 1961 (Saturday)

• With the approval of the Food and Drug Directorate, the morning sickness suppressant thalidomide went on sale for the first time in Canada, marketed by Richardson-Merrill under the name Kevadon. The Horner Company would begin sales of its own version, Talimol, in October. Despite evidence later in the year that the drug caused birth defects, sales would not be halted in Canada until March 21, 1962, after the sale of four million tablets to expectant mothers.
• The white-minority government of South Africa opened its maximum security prison at Robben Island, off of the coast of Cape Town. Reporters would not be allowed to visit the facility until 16 years later, in 1977, when the prison housed 370 non-white political prisoners, including Nelson Mandela, Walter Sisulu, and Govan Mbeki, members of the African National Congress who had been imprisoned on the island since 1964.
• Jim Bakker, 21, and Tamara Faye LaValle, 19, who had met while students at North Central Bible College in Minneapolis, were married. As Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker, the two would become America's most famous televangelist couple, but would separate after scandal ended their PTL Club ministry. The couple divorced in 1992.
• Television commercials were introduced to New Zealand, which had one station in Auckland, and TV was allowed for 28 hours per week, spread over five days.
• The codename "Bumpy Road" was assigned to the U.S. Navy operation in the Bay of Pigs Invasion plan.
• In Australia, Roger Nott replaced James Archer as Administrator of the Northern Territory.
• Born:
• *Susan Boyle, Scottish singer who became a worldwide sensation after singing "I Dreamed a Dream" on the TV show Britain's Got Talent; in Blackburn, West Lothian
• *Anders Forsbrand, Swedish professional golfer; in Filipstad

  [April 2], 1961 (Sunday)

• The first simulated Project Mercury orbital mission, with the spacecraft in the altitude chamber, was conducted.
• In Tokyo, Australian swimmer Jan Andrew broke the world record for the Women's 100 m butterfly.
• Born:
• *Emmanuel Issoze-Ngondet, 10th prime minister of Gabon from 2016 to 2019 and former Minister for Foreign Affairs ; in Makokou
• *Christopher Meloni, American TV actor; in Washington, D.C.

  [April 3], 1961 (Monday)

• Believed to have become extinct in 1909, the Leadbeater's possum was rediscovered in Australia by naturalist Eric Wilkinson. Later in the month, the first specimen found in more than 50 years was captured.
• The Twenty-third Amendment to the United States Constitution, granting citizens in the District of Columbia the right to vote in national elections, officially took effect upon certification by John L. Moore, U.S. Administrator of General Services. The amendment had been ratified by 38 states as of March 29.
• Country music star Spade Cooley, nicknamed "The King of Western Swing", murdered his wife Ella Mae after she admitted to having an affair. Cooley would remain in prison until 1969 and died on November 23 of that year after performing a concert while on furlough.
• The National Educational Radio Network, funded with a grant from the Ford Foundation, began broadcasting on six radio stations. The network would give way to government funded National Public Radio on March 3, 1970.
• The Soviet government approved sending a man into space on an April 12 rocket launch and made a choice between the two remaining candidates for first cosmonaut, Yuri Gagarin and Gherman Titov.
• To satisfy the national interest in Project Mercury, Robert R. Gilruth designated the Public Affairs Office as the point of contact for Space Task Group activities to supply information, within the limits of security, for news dissemination.
• John Surtees won the 9th Glover Trophy at Goodwood in a Cooper T53.
• Born:
• *Eddie Murphy, American comedian and film actor known for Beverly Hills Cop and its sequels; in Brooklyn
• *Elizabeth Gracen, American actress who won the title of Miss America in 1982; in Ozark, Arkansas
• *Angelo d'Arrigo, Italian aviator; in Catania
• Died: Florence Cole Talbert, 70, African-American operatic soprano

  [April 4], 1961 (Tuesday)

• Carlos Marcello, boss of the Mafia in New Orleans, was arrested after making a required check-in with the local office of the Immigration and Naturalization Service, driven to the airport and placed as the only passenger on an airplane bound for Guatemala City. Marcello's deportation, ordered by U.S. Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy, was done immediately, without affording him the benefit of a phone call, money or even a change of clothes. Marcello, outraged by the surprise move, would sneak back into the United States two months later. Some conspiracy theorists suggest that Marcello conspired in the 1963 assassination of President Kennedy in revenge for the act.
• Final plans for a U.S.-supported invasion of Cuba at the Bahía de los Cochinos were presented starting at 6:00 p.m. in a conference room at the office of U.S. Secretary of State Dean Rusk, convened by President John F. Kennedy. U.S. Senator William Fulbright of Arkansas, who argued against the operation, was invited to participate at the meeting, which also included Defense Secretary Robert McNamara, CIA Director Allen Dulles, and three members of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. The meeting ended at 8:18 p.m. with Kennedy approving the mission.
• Mercury spacecraft No. 14A was delivered to Wallops Island for the Little Joe 5B maximum dynamic-pressure abort mission. This spacecraft was first used in the Little Joe 5A mission and was then refitted for the LJ-5B flight. John Glenn, Virgil Grissom, and Alan Shepard began a refresher course on the Aviation Medical Acceleration Laboratory human centrifuge in preparation for the first crewed Mercury-Redstone suborbital flight.
• Born: Tom Byron, American pornographic film star; in Orange, Texas
• Died: Simion Stoilow, 73, Romanian mathematician

  [April 5], 1961 (Wednesday)

• Singer Barbra Streisand made her national television debut, as a guest on Tonight Starring Jack Paar. In TV listings, both of her names were misspelled, as "Barbara Strysand".
• The New Guinea Council of Western Papua took office with 28 members, 23 of whom were indigenous residents.

  [April 6], 1961 (Thursday)

• New York Governor Nelson Rockefeller signed the bill authorizing the construction of the World Trade Center and a rehabilitation of the Hudson & Manhattan Railroad. The original plan for the WTC called for construction of several buildings in the east side of Manhattan, near the Brooklyn Bridge, the two tallest being 72 stories and 30 stories. New Jersey, which shared the Port Authority with New York, protested the location and the site was relocated to Manhattan's west side, where the H&M's office buildings stood.
• New York Times reporter Tad Szulc filed a two column story reporting that an invasion of Cuba was "imminent". Times publisher Orvil Dryfoos chose not to run the news after consulting with the paper's Washington bureau. Dryfoos's decision would be revealed five years later, in 1966, by editor Clifton Daniel in a speech at Macalester College.
• American author Fritz Leiber suggested the term "sword and sorcery" as "a good popular catchphrase for the field" of fantasy fiction.
• Graduated pensions were introduced in the UK at the beginning of the tax year.
• Joseph C. Satterthwaite became the U.S. ambassador to South Africa.
• Died: Jules Bordet, 90, Belgian microbiologist

  [April 7], 1961 (Friday)

• In Montevideo, Uruguay, the Treaty between the Argentine Republic and the Eastern Republic of Uruguay concerning the boundary constituted by the River Uruguay was signed by the leaders of Argentina and Uruguay. Effective January 19, 1966, the channels of navigation and the islands within the river would be divided along the river on a line running from the southwest headland of the Isla Brasilera to the point where the Uruguay River merged with the Paraná River to form the Río de la Plata.
• Vladimir Ilyushin, according to contemporary rumours, supposedly became the first man in space. Dennis Ogden, at the time an American reporter for the U.S. Communist Party newspaper, the Daily Worker, would later note that Soviet papers reported that cosmonaut Ilyushin had been seriously injured in a car accident, and speculated that the news was a cover for a mission that had gone wrong.
• Born:
• *DONDI American graffiti artist ; in Brooklyn
• *Luigi De Agostini, Italian footballer; in Udine
• Died:
• *Marian Jordan, 62, radio comedian who, with her husband, starred in the title roles of Fibber McGee and Molly
• *H. Rowan Gaither, 59, American businessman who authored the controversial Gaither Report in 1957
• *Vanessa Bell, 81, English artist

  [April 8], 1961 (Saturday)

• The explosion of the passenger ship MV Dara and subsequent fire and panic killed 238 passengers and crew, while another 565 were rescued. Shortly after 4:00 a.m., the British India Steam Navigation Company passenger ship was rocked by a blast that would later be blamed by British Admiralty court on an anti-tank mine, "deliberately placed by a person or persons unknown". After the evacuation, the ship sank on April 10 while it was being towed.
• The leadership of the Malta Labour Party, readers, advertisers and distributors of Party papers as well as its voters were placed under an interdict, which lasted until 1969.
• Born: Richard Hatch, American reality show contestant who won the first competition in the TV series Survivor; in Middletown, Rhode Island
• Died: Princess Kapiolani Kawananakoa Field, 58, pretender to the throne of Hawaii. Mrs. Field "would have been Queen of Hawaii had the monarchy continued," an obituary noted, but she "would not listen to talk of reinstating the monarchy." She was quoted as saying "If America wanted to do something on her own accord to restore the monarchy, that would be all right. But no Hawaiian would do anything to hurt America. We love America too much." Her son, Edward A. Kawananakoa, identified by monarchists as the new pretender, Kawananakoa II, would live until 1997.