September 1961

[September 1], 1961 (Friday)

• The Eritrean War of Independence began in northeastern Africa with the Battle of Adal. The first shot was fired by an Eritrean Liberation Front member Hamid Idris Awate, leader of a group of 11 fighters, against Ethiopian government forces at the Barka district. Awate would be killed in 1962, but the ELF would continue to gather members.
• All 78 people on TWA Flight 529 were killed when the airline crashed at 2:05 a.m. local time, four minutes after taking off from Chicago's Midway Airport. The Constellation airplane impacted in a cornfield near Hinsdale, Illinois. At the time, the accident was the worst single plane disaster in American history. A later investigation concluded that the accident happened after a bolt fell off of the elevator boost system, causing the plane to suddenly pitch upward and stall.
• The first meeting of the Non-Aligned Movement took place in Belgrade as the leaders of 24 nations, aligned to neither the U.S. nor the USSR, gathered for a five-day conference hosted by Yugoslavia's President Josip Broz Tito.
• The Soviet Union resumed nuclear testing after a moratorium of three years. Neither the U.S. nor the USSR had exploded a nuclear bomb since 1958. The Soviets exploded 45 bombs over 65 days.
• The Federation of Malaya signed an agreement giving Singapore the right to draw up to gallons of water per day collectively from the Tebrau River, the Scudai River, the Pontian Reservoir, and the Gunung Pulai Reservoir, until 2011.
• The Jülich radio transmitter was handed over to the Deutsche Bundespost to establish the German foreign broadcasting service, "Deutsche Welle".
• Born: Dee Dee Myers, U.S. journalist and first woman to serve as the White House Press Secretary from 1993 to 1994; in Quonset Point, Rhode Island
• Died:
• *Eero Saarinen, 51, Finnish-born American architect and designer known for the Gateway Arch in St. Louis and the Dulles International Airport Main Terminal outside Washington, D.C.; Saarinen, who had been hospitalized since August 21, died the day after undergoing an operation for a brain tumor at the University of Michigan Medical Center in Ann Arbor, Michigan.
• *William Z. Foster, 80, American politician and former General Secretary of the Communist Party USA from 1924 to 1957. In the 1932 U.S. presidential election, Foster received 103,307 votes. Foster had been hospitalized in Moscow at the time of his death.

  [September 2], 1961 (Saturday)

• Meeting in Brasília, Brazil's Chamber of Deputies voted 233 to 55 to amend that nation's constitution to create a parliamentary system of government, to provide for a Prime Minister of Brazil, and to weaken the powers of the President to no more than a figurehead. The vote took place after an all-night debate, in that the ruling military junta refused to allow Vice-president João Goulart, believed to be a leftist, to succeed recently resigned President Jânio Quadros. The parliamentary system of Brazilian government, unique in South America, lasted for 16 months until abolished in a plebiscite in 1963.
• Bangladesh Agricultural University was formally created as East Pakistan Agricultural University, with a College of Veterinary Science and Animal Husbandry at Mymensingh.
• Born: Eugenio Derbez, Mexican actor, comedian and filmmaker; in Mexico City

  [September 3], 1961 (Sunday)

• United Kingdom Prime Minister Harold Macmillan and United States President John F. Kennedy issued a joint proposal to Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev, "that their three governments agree, effective immediately, not to conduct nuclear tests which take place in the atmosphere and produce radioactive fall-out", and dropping previous requests for inspection. Khrushchev rejected the proposal, but the U.S., USSR and the UK would later sign the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty in 1963.
• The minimum wage in the United States was raised to $1.15 an hour. All covered persons hired on or after that date would still receive the previous minimum of $1.00 an hour. Minimum wage 50 years later would be $7.25 an hour.
• The Vencedor, a boat carrying more than 200 persons on a Sunday excursion to a festival in La Bocana, Colombia, sank off the coast of Buenaventura, drowning an estimated 150 people.
• Australian racing driver Bill Pitt, driving a Jaguar Mark 1 3.4, won the 1961 Australian Touring Car Championship at the Lowood circuit in Queensland.
• Died: Richard Mason, 26, a British explorer who had been leading the 10-man Iriri River Expedition in Central Brazil, was ambushed by a hunting party of at least 15 members of the Panará tribe, who had had no previous contact with the outside world. In accordance with their customs, the Panará laid their weapons next to Mason's body— 15 clubs, and 40 "seven foot long bamboo arrows".

  [September 4], 1961 (Monday)

• The United States Agency for International Development was authorized by the signing into law of the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961, which authorized the spending of $4,253,500,000 for economic development and non-military aid to foreign nations. USAID itself was established on November 3.
• Richard M. Nixon, former U.S. vice-president and future president of the United States, made a hole-in-one while playing golf at the Bel-Air Country Club, on the 155-yard third hole. Nixon joked, "It's the greatest thrill of my life. Even better than being elected." The only other U.S. president to accomplish the rare feat was Gerald R. Ford, who, like Nixon, aced within a year after losing a presidential election, on June 8, 1977.
• Born: Cédric Klapisch, French film director; in Neuilly-sur-Seine, Hauts-de-Seine département
• Died: Charles D. B. King, 85, President of Liberia from 1920 to 1930

  [September 5], 1961 (Tuesday)

• Marxist Cheddi Jagan was sworn in as the first Premier of British Guiana, after his Progressive Peoples Party won the nation's first general elections since Britain had allowed the colony internal self-government.
• The first Football League Cup competition in England was won in Birmingham by Aston Villa over Rotherham United in the second leg of the two-match series. Playing at Millmoor in Rotherham, South Yorkshire, Rotherham had won the first match, 2–0, on August 22. Because scoring was based on the aggregate of the scores of the two matches, Aston Villa needed to score at least two goals more than Rotherham to avoid losing. At the end of 90 minutes, Aston Villa was ahead 2–0 and the aggregate was 2–2, requiring extra time. Peter McParland scored in the 109th minute for Aston Villa's 3–2 victory in the sum of two games.
• Skyjacking, the act of hijacking an airplane, was made a federal crime by the United States, punishable by 20 years to life in prison, and, in some cases, execution. The law also provided a penalty of $1,000 for illegally carrying a concealed weapon onto an aircraft, and up to five years in prison for giving false information to investigators.
• U.S. President John F. Kennedy announced that the United States would end its own moratorium on nuclear testing after three years, stating, "We have no other choice." The announcement followed the third atomic test in the Soviet Union in one week.
• The first of three rocket sled tests were conducted by NASA at the Naval Ordnance Test Station to study the Project Mercury launch vehicle-spacecraft, clamp-ring separation.
• The United States reactivated Phalsbourg-Bourscheid Air Base in response to the Berlin Crisis.
• Born: Marc-André Hamelin, Canadian pianist and composer; in Montreal

  [September 6], 1961 (Wednesday)

• Afghanistan broke off diplomatic relations with Pakistan. With the border closed at the time that the Afghans were preparing to ship their two major export crops through Pakistan to India, the Soviet Union offered to ship the perishables by air. Relations were restored in May 1963, but Afghanistan had become dependent on the Soviets for aid.
• A secured telephone line between the White House in Washington, D.C., and the Admiralty House in London, was set up in order for the U.S. president and the British prime minister to communicate directly, in real time, with their conversations scrambled. President Kennedy and Prime Minister Macmillan would use the line for the first time in October.
• The National Reconnaissance Office began operations in Chantilly, Virginia as a secret U.S. intelligence agency, jointly operated by the CIA and the U.S. Air Force to coordinate satellite surveillance. The existence of the NRO was not publicly revealed until 1992, after the end of the Cold War.
• The Soviet Union began high-altitude nuclear tests, by launching two missiles from Kapustin Yar. A 10.5-kiloton weapon was exploded at an altitude of, and a 40-kiloton weapon at above the Earth. The United States had done similar testing in 1958.

  [September 7], 1961 (Thursday)

• American comedian Jack Paar, host of The Tonight Show on NBC television, taped part of his show in front of the Berlin Wall, bringing with him seven U.S. Army officers and another 50 soldiers, along with jeeps and guns. The incident outraged members of Congress and prompted an investigation by the U.S. Department of Defense. A lieutenant colonel was removed from command, and another colonel admonished, but both were cleared three weeks later after a later investigation "showed the two had done nothing wrong". The Tonight Show broadcast on September 12, using the footage, was called by one critic "as dreary and dull as the Berlin weather".
• Tom and Jerry returned to theaters with their first cartoon short since 1958, Switchin' Kitten. The new creator, Gene Deitch, made 12 more Tom and Jerry shorts through 1962.
• Died: Pieter Gerbrandy, 76, Prime Minister of the Netherlands from 1940 to 1945