June 1961

[June 1], 1961 (Thursday)

• LAFTA, the Latin American Free Trade Association came into existence under the terms of the 1960 Treaty of Montevideo and consisted of all South American and Central American nations except for Panama.
• The Canadian Bank of Commerce and Imperial Bank of Canada merged to form the Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce, in the largest bank merger in Canadian history.
• The birth control pill was introduced in West Germany, as Anovlar, developed by the Berlin pharmaceutical company Schering AG, became available for prescription.
• In the United States, WGFM of Schenectady, New York, on 99.5 MHz became the first radio station to broadcast FM stereo. The station is now WRVE.
• Capital Airlines, at the time the fifth largest carrier in the U.S., was acquired by United Airlines, making United the world's largest commercial airline.
• The northern part of the British Cameroons Trust Territory was incorporated into the Federation of Nigeria in accordance with a plebiscite.
• The Golden Knights were designated as the official demonstration and competition parachute team of the United States Army.
• Born: Yevgeny Prigozhin, Russian oligarch, mercenary chief, and restaurateur, founder of the Wagner Group, known for having attempted an uprising the Wagner Group rebellion on June 23, 2023, against Russian President Vladimir Putin; in Leningrad

  [June 2], 1961 (Friday)

• J. Millard Tawes, Governor of Maryland, dedicated a granite and bronze monument in the grounds of the State House at Annapolis to the memory of the USS Maryland, nicknamed the "Fighting Mary", and her crew.
• SS Canberra, with room for 2,198 passengers and, at 45,270 gross tons, the largest British ocean liner to be built after World War II, departed Southampton on its maiden voyage, bound for Australia.
• Born: Liam Cunningham, Irish actor; in Dublin
• Died:
• *Mikhail Khrunichev, 60, Soviet space program director
• *George S. Kaufman, 71, American playwright

  [June 3], 1961 (Saturday)

• The Vienna summit between U.S. President John F. Kennedy and Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev began in the capital of Austria, a neutral site. The two world leaders opened discussions with a 75-minute meeting at the U.S. Embassy in Austria. Although described in the press as "cordial", the first meeting between the young American president and the old Soviet leader was hostile, and Kennedy later described it to New York Times reporter James Reston as "the worst thing in my life", as Khrushchev lectured him and demanded that Western troops leave Berlin.
• Clarence Earl Gideon, a 50-year-old drifter, was arrested in Panama City, Florida, after being accused of burglary of the Bay Harbor Poolroom. Unable to afford an attorney, convicted and sentenced to five years in prison, Gideon filed his own petition for review in the United States Supreme Court. The Court's ruling in the landmark case of Gideon v. Wainwright established that state courts would be required to provide counsel for any criminal defendant unable to afford an attorney.
• Stirling Moss won the 1961 Silver City Trophy at Brands Hatch.
• Died: "G. I. Joe", 18, British war pigeon who was credited with saving the lives of 1,000 soldiers of the British 56th Infantry. On October 18, 1943, the division had taken control of the village of Calvi Vecchia in Italy, shortly before the RAF was preparing to make an air strike there. The pigeon flew to the airfield just as seven RAF bombers were preparing to depart, and the mission was aborted in time.

  [June 4], 1961 (Sunday)

• On the second day of the Vienna summit, Premier Khrushchev informed President Kennedy that the Soviet Union would, in December, sign a separate peace treaty with East Germany whereby "all commitments stemming from Germany's surrender will become invalid", including the stationing of occupation forces in the city, precipitating what would become known as the Berlin Crisis. In that Berlin was entirely within East Germany, all American, British and French access to the city, including the corridors across East Germany between West Germany and Berlin. Khrushchev added that "it is up to the U.S. to decide whether there will be war or peace", that the Soviet decision to sign the treaty was "firm and irrevocable", and that the treaty would be signed in December. As noted in the memorandum made at the time, and released in 1998, "The President concluded the conversation by observing that it would be a cold winter."
• Died: Former Dominican Army General Juan Tomas Diaz, 52, who masterminded the assassination of Dominican Republic dictator Rafael Trujillo five days earlier, was killed in a gunbattle with security agents.

  [June 5], 1961 (Monday)

• In separate 5–4 rulings, the United States Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of the McCarran Act, requiring the Communist Party of the United States of America to register the names of all of its members with the U.S. Justice Department, and the Smith Act, which made active Communist Party membership a federal crime "if the individual is aware of the party's subversive goals".
• Tony Castellitto, seen as a rival to Anthony Provenzano's leadership of the Teamsters Union Local 560 that served New York City, vanished after getting into a car with Provenzano's aide, Salvatore "Sally Bugs" Briguglio. "Tony Pro" was the chief suspect after Teamsters' Boss Jimmy Hoffa disappeared under similar circumstances on July 30, 1975. Provenzano was convicted in 1978 for Castellitto's murder, though Hoffa's killers were never found.
• Muhammad Shamte Hamadi became Chief Minister of Zanzibar.
• Born: Mary Kay Bergman, American voice actress and voice-over teacher; in Los Angeles

  [June 6], 1961 (Tuesday)

• South Korea's military leaders enacted the "Law Concerning Extraordinary Measures for National Reconstruction", replacing the legislative and executive branch with the "Supreme Council of National Reconstruction", consisting of 32 officers and chaired by Major General Park Chung Hee.
• Biomedical results of Mercury-Redstone 3, Alan Shepard's suborbital space flight, were reported in a Washington conference sponsored by NASA, the National Institute of Health, and the National Academy of Sciences.
• In the United Kingdom, the commercial television franchise for north and west Wales was awarded to Teledu Cymru, the Wales Television Association, and would go on the air on September 14, 1962. It failed in less than three years.
• The decennial census was taken in West Germany, and the final tally was that 56,174,826 people lived there. A census of East Germany had not been taken since 1950, but by 1964, after the exodus of more than one million East Germans had been halted by the government, the population of the DDR would be recorded at 17,003,655.
• Born: Carole Baskin, American animal rights activist profiled in the documentary series Tiger King; as Carole Stairs Jones at Lackland Air Force Base in Bexar County, Texas
• Died: Carl Jung, 85, Swiss psychiatrist, died ten days after completing his work on the book Man and His Symbols.

  [June 7], 1961 (Wednesday)

• California's war against the Japanese beetle began with the discovery, by an entomologist, of one of the pests feeding on a flower on the grounds of the California State Capitol in Sacramento. It was soon discovered that an infestation was imminent. For the next four years, the state worked on preventing the beetles from becoming established, with the risk of hundreds of millions of dollars being lost if even 5% of California's fruit crops were destroyed. After four years, the beetle was declared eradicated.
• The Sony Corporation made its first public stock offering in the United States, with two million shares offered at $1.75 a share on Wall Street. Within two hours, all shares had been sold.
• The United States Navy ships USS Ulysses and USS Diomedes were transferred to West German ownership and renamed the Odin and the Wotan, respectively.

  [June 8], 1961 (Thursday)

• A mob of 4,000 farmers seized control of the French town of Morlaix at dawn, blocking the roads in and around the 13,000-population town with tractors and trucks, occupying the city hall, and defying the town's 100-member police force. The Breton farmers were angry at the limits on the revenue they could receive from their products. The French Interior Ministry sent 130 riot police to disperse the group.
• Bell Laboratories test pilot Harold Graham made the first public demonstration of a jet pack, flying the Bell Rocket Belt at Fort Eustis, Virginia, before a crowd of several hundred military officers and their guests. Impractical for use on Earth, jet pack technology would prove useful in orbital space missions.
• The Milwaukee Braves became the first team in Major League Baseball history to hit four consecutive home runs in one inning, as Eddie Mathews, Hank Aaron, Joe Adcock and Frank Thomas scored four home runs in four at-bats in the 7th inning against pitcher Jim Maloney of the Cincinnati Reds. The Reds won anyway, 10–8. The feat would be duplicated twice in the next three years, on July 31, 1963 and May 2, 1964 ; then not again for 40 years until September 18, 2006 and, most recently, on April 22, 2007.
• The results of the 1961 population census of Great Britain were delivered to Parliament and showed the total population of the island to be 51,294,604 based on 43,430,972 in England, 5,223,000 in Scotland, and 2,640,632 in Wales.
• Ramón Mercader, who had served a 20-year prison sentence in Mexico for the August 20, 1940, assassination of Leon Trotsky, was awarded the honors of Hero of the Soviet Union and the Order of Lenin. The ceremony took place at the Kremlin in Moscow, and the medals were bestowed by Leonid Brezhnev.
• Prince Edward, Duke of Kent, the uncle of Queen Elizabeth II, married Katharine Worsley at York Minster. On the same day in London, Prince Vsevolod Ivanovich of Russia married Valli Knust, niece of German silent film star Valli Valli.
• Died: Olav Bjaaland, 88, Norwegian ski champion and Antarctic explorer