July 1961

[July 1], 1961 (Saturday)

• At the request of the Emir of Kuwait, 7,000 British troops and 1,200 Saudi troops arrived to protect the small nation against a possible invasion by Iraq.
• The Dowry Prohibition Act went into effect in India, prohibiting the solicitation or payment of money from one family to another as consideration for a marriage.
• Fantasy Island, a theme park on Grand Island near Buffalo, New York, opened.
• Responsibility for the operation of the Mercury global network was assigned to the Goddard Space Flight Center. During active mission periods, network control would revert to Space Task Group personnel.
• Born:
• *Diana Spencer, later Diana, Princess of Wales, shortly after marrying Charles III in 1981; at Park House, Sandringham, England
• *Carl Lewis, American track athlete; in Birmingham, Alabama
• *Dominic Keating, British television actor known for Star Trek: Enterprise; in Leicester, Leicestershire
• Died: Louis-Ferdinand Céline, 67, French doctor and writer

  [July 2], 1961 (Sunday)

• In a meeting at the Kremlin, Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev warned Sir Frank Roberts, the British Ambassador, that Britain and France should avoid joining the United States in going to war over West Berlin, telling him, "Six hydrogen bombs would be quite enough to annihilate the British Isles, and nine would take care of France."
• In elections for the Chamber of Deputies in Mexico, voters went to the polls to elect 178 members to serve for three-year terms. The ruling PRI party won a majority of the seats.
• Died: American novelist Ernest Hemingway, 61, committed suicide at his home in Ketchum, Idaho, two days after returning home to Idaho from a course of treatment for depression at the Mayo Clinic. After shooting himself, Hemingway reportedly died shortly after 7:30 in the morning. His wife, Mary, told reporters initially that the renowned author had accidentally died while cleaning a double-barrelled shotgun.

  [July 3], 1961 (Monday)

• General Douglas MacArthur, 81, returned to the Philippines for the first time since the end of World War II, and received a tumultuous welcome. MacArthur, who had led the liberation of the islands from the Japanese, had been given honorary citizenship, and declared, "You have no more loyal and devoted a Filipino."
• Major General Park Chung Hee forced the resignation of Korean leader Chang Do-Young and became chief of the military junta that had taken over in May. Chang's job of Prime Minister of South Korea was assigned to Lt. Gen. Song Yo-chan.
• Dan Ingram, considered by many in broadcasting to be the greatest Top 40 disc jockey of all time, joined 77 WABC in New York. Ingram remained with WABC for 21 years until the station switched to a talk format in 1982.
• The stage première of the opera Krapp, ou, La dernière bande by Marcel Mihalovici with libretto by Samuel Beckett, took place at the Théâtre des Nations in Paris.
• Invoking the Taft–Hartley Act, a U.S. federal court ordered a temporary halt to the 19-day-old, nationwide maritime strike that had held up freight shipping.
• As a result of the lobbying of Dr. Harold Griffith, the Queen Elizabeth Hospital of Montreal opened the first intensive care unit in Canada.
• Malcolm Arnold conducted the first performance of his Symphony No. 5 at the Cheltenham Music Festival.
• Died: Edwin Perkins, 72, American inventor of Kool-Aid

  [July 4], 1961 (Tuesday)

• At 4:15 a.m., the Soviet submarine K-19 developed a leak in its nuclear reactor, while conducting exercises in the North Atlantic near the Norwegian island of Jan Mayen. The rupture of the primary coolant system caused the water pressure in the aft reactor to drop to zero and causing failure of the coolant pumps. Eight crew members died within three weeks of the accident, and others were successfully treated for deadly doses of radiation.
• La Notte by Michelangelo Antonioni won the Golden Bear Award for Best Film at the 11th Berlin International Film Festival.
• Born:
• *Hesham Mohamed Hadayet, Egyptian terrorist who carried out the 2002 Los Angeles Airport shooting and was killed in the shootout
• *Andrew Zimmern, American chef and television host; in New York City

  [July 5], 1961 (Wednesday)

• The first Israeli rocket, Shavit 2, was launched. At 4:41 a.m., the missile, ostensibly for "meteorological research" rather than for carrying warheads, was sent up "from a secret installation on the Mediterranean".
• Tunisia announced that it was claiming the French military base located at Bizerte, which had been the only base remaining after France had withdrawn all of its forces in 1958.

  [July 6], 1961 (Thursday)

• In Moscow, North Korea and the Soviet Union signed a "Treaty of Friendship, Cooperation and Mutual Assistance", providing that if one of the nations was in a state of war, the other one would extend military assistance. Five days later, North Korea signed a similar treaty with the People's Republic of China.
• Morocco signed a treaty with Algerian rebels led by Ferhat Abbas, pledging support for the independence movement against France, and agreeing that any further negotiations on the border between the two nations would be made after independence.
• Born: Benita Fitzgerald-Brown, American track athlete and 1984 Olympic gold medalist; in Warrenton, Virginia
• Died:
• *Edwin Bush, 21, British murderer who had been the first to be convicted based on the identikit system, was hanged at HM Prison Pentonville in London.
• *Scott LaFaro, 25, American jazz bassist who was one third of the Bill Evans Trio, was killed in an auto accident near Avon, New York.
• *Cuno Amiet, 92, Swiss artist

  [July 7], 1961 (Friday)

• A mine explosion in Czechoslovakia killed 108 coal miners. The blast, which happened at the Dukla mine at Karviná, Czech Republic, caused an underground fire that prevented rescuers from reaching the trapped men.
• Tennis star Rod Laver of Australia defeated American Chuck McKinley in straight sets, 6–3, 6–1 and 6–4 to win the championship at Wimbledon.
• McDonnell Aircraft Corporation briefed NASA's Space Task Group about three configurations for a redesign of the Mercury spacecraft. The three options were a slight modification to improve accessibility; the installation of an ejection seat; and a capsule that could carry two astronauts. In all cases, the capsule would be returned to Earth with two main parachutes, but with the ejection seat serving as a backup.
• Born:
• *Welshman Ncube, Zimbabwean politician, founder of the Movement for Democratic Change – Ncube and former Minister of Industry and Commerce from 2009 to 2013; in Gwelo, Southern Rhodesia
• *Eric Jerome Dickey, American author; in Memphis, Tennessee
• *Michael Kieran Harvey, Australian pianist; in Sydney
• Died: Georgy Aleksandrov, 53, Soviet Marxist philosopher

  [July 8], 1961 (Saturday)

• A series of explosions killed 237 people on the Portuguese ship Save after the vessel ran aground on a sandbar in Mozambique.
• John Profumo, the British Secretary of State for War, was introduced to Christine Keeler at a party. The extramarital affair that followed, and Profumo's false statements about it to Parliament, caused a scandal in 1963 that led to his resignation; and may have been a factor in the retirement later that year of Prime Minister Harold Macmillan and the defeat of the Conservative Party in the 1964 elections.
• Dissatisfied with life in the Soviet Union, American defector Lee Harvey Oswald flew from Minsk to Moscow, then went to the American Embassy to ask for the return of his U.S. Passport, #1733242. His passport was returned, and he, his wife, and his daughter departed for the United States the following year.
• The United Klans of America was created by the merger of several different racist groups meeting at Indian Springs, Georgia, seeking a revival of the Ku Klux Klan. Alabama Knights leader Robert Shelton became the first Grand Wizard of the new UKA.
• No Briton had won the women's championship at Wimbledon in 24 years, but in an all-British final, Angela Mortimer beat Christine Truman, 4–6, 6–4 and 7–5.
• Born:
• *Andy Fletcher, English keyboard player and founding member of the electronic band Depeche Mode ; in Nottingham
• *Kelly Kryczka, Canadian synchronized swimmer; gold medalist, 1982 World Aquatic Championships; in Calgary
• *Toby Keith, American country music singer ; in Clinton, Oklahoma
• Died: Julián Bautista, 60, Spanish classical music composer

  [July 9], 1961 (Sunday)

• Greece, represented by Deputy Prime Minister Panagiotis Kanellopoulos, and the European Economic Community, represented by West German Vice-Chancellor Ludwig Erhard signed a treaty making Greece the first nation to become an associate member of the Common Market, effective November 1, 1962. Similar agreements followed between the EEC and Turkey, Malta and Cyprus.
• The Turkish Constitution of 1961 was approved by voters in a referendum. With an 81% turnout rate, there were 6,348,191 votes in favor and 3,934,370 against.
• Died: Whittaker Chambers, 60, former American Communist who later became a staunch anti-Communist after testifying against Alger Hiss

  [July 10], 1961 (Monday)

• In a secret meeting with Soviet nuclear scientists, Nikita Khrushchev announced his decision to resume nuclear testing and to end the moratorium that the U.S. and the USSR had observed since 1958. Khrushchev gave the go-ahead for physicists Andrei Sakharov and Yakov Zeldovich to test a 100 megaton hydrogen bomb, the largest up to that time, which, Sakharov would say later, Khrushchev would call a device that would "hang over capitalists like the sword of Damocles".
• Mildred Gillars, nicknamed "Axis Sally", was released from the women's federal prison in Alderson, West Virginia, after serving 12 years of a sentence for treason. An American citizen, she moved to Berlin in 1934; during World War II, she was "the starring voice of Nazi propaganda" in English-language radio broadcasts aimed at American troops in Europe.
• The German Banking Act was passed, creating a federal bank regulating agency, the Bundesaufsichtsamt für das Kreditwesen.
• Born: Liyel Imoke, Nigerian politician and state governor; in Ibadan