WHAT ALL HAPPENED FEBRUARY TO AUGUST 1961
Find out what all happened February to August 1961

Pune floods due to failure of the Khadakwasla and Panshet dams. Half of Pune is submerged, more than 100,000 families need to be relocated and the death toll exceeds 2,000. (12. July 1961)

An allegedly 500,000-year-old rock is discovered near Olancha, California, US, that appears to anachronistically encase a spark plug. (13. February 1961)

The Mercury program: Mercury-Redstone 3 – Alan Shepard becomes the first American to travel into outer space, on a sub-orbital flight. (5. May 1961)

Cyprus joins the Council of Europe. (24. May 1961)

Rudolf Nureyev defects from the Soviet Union. (16. June 1961)

Turkish voters approve the Turkish Constitution of 1961 in a referendum. (9. July 1961)

Bay of Pigs Invasion: A group of Cuban exiles financed and trained by the CIA lands at the Bay of Pigs in Cuba with the aim of ousting Fidel Castro. (17. April 1961)

American President John F. Kennedy establishes the Peace Corps. (1. March 1961)

American civil rights movement: The Freedom Riders bus is fire-bombed near Anniston, Alabama, and the civil rights protesters are beaten by an angry mob. (14. May 1961)

The Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin becomes the first human to travel into outer space and perform the first manned orbital flight, in Vostok 3KA-2 (Vostok 1). (12. April 1961)

Park Chung-hee leads a coup d'état to overthrow the Second Republic of South Korea. (16. May 1961)

The Twenty-third Amendment to the United States Constitution is ratified, allowing residents of Washington, D.C., to vote in presidential elections. (29. March 1961)

Algiers putsch by French generals. (23. April 1961)

American civil rights movement: Alabama Governor John Malcolm Patterson declares martial law in an attempt to restore order after race riots break out. (21. May 1961)

American civil rights movement: The "Freedom Riders" begin a bus trip through the South. (4. May 1961)

The New Democratic Party of Canada is founded by the merger of the Cooperative Commonwealth Federation and the Canadian Labour Congress. (3. August 1961)

First use in Vietnam War of the Agent Orange by the U.S. Army. (10. August 1961)

The Leadbeater's Possum is rediscovered in Australia after 72 years. (3. April 1961)

President Jânio Quadros of Brazil resigns after just seven months in power. (25. August 1961)

In the Vienna summit, the Soviet premier Nikita Khrushchev sparks the Berlin Crisis by threatening to sign a separate peace treaty with East Germany and ending American, British and French access to East Berlin. (4. June 1961)