WHAT ALL HAPPENED SEPTEMBER TO DECEMBER 1961
Find out what all happened September to December 1961

A military coup in Damascus effectively ends the United Arab Republic, the union between Egypt and Syria. (28. September 1961)

Greek general Konstantinos Dovas becomes Prime Minister of Greece. (20. September 1961)

India annexes Daman and Diu, part of Portuguese India. (19. December 1961)

Foundation of the World Wildlife Fund. (11. September 1961)

Tanganyika becomes independent from Britain. (9. December 1961)

The United States National Hurricane Research Project drops eight cylinders of silver iodide into the eyewall of Hurricane Esther. Wind speed reduces by 10%, giving rise to Project Stormfury. (16. September 1961)

RTÉ, Ireland's state broadcaster, launches its first national television service. (31. December 1961)

Italian Grand Prix, a crash causes the death of German Formula One driver Wolfgang von Trips and 13 spectators who are hit by his Ferrari. (10. September 1961)

U.N. Secretary-General Dag Hammarskjöld dies in a plane crash while attempting to negotiate peace in the war-torn Katanga region of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. (18. September 1961)

Sierra Leone joins the United Nations. (27. September 1961)

The African and Malagasy Union is founded. (12. September 1961)

Nuclear testing: The Soviet Union detonates the hydrogen bomb Tsar Bomba over Novaya Zemlya; at 50 megatons of yield, it is still the largest explosive device ever detonated, nuclear or otherwise. (30. October 1961)

In a nationally broadcast speech, Cuban leader Fidel Castro declares that he is a Marxist-Leninist and that Cuba is going to adopt Communism. (2. December 1961)

United States President John F. Kennedy sends 18,000 military advisors to South Vietnam. (18. November 1961)

East and West Cameroon merge to form the Federal Republic of Cameroon. (1. October 1961)

Tanganyika joins the United Nations. (14. December 1961)

In the Soviet Union, Joseph Stalin's body is removed from Vladimir Lenin's Tomb. (31. October 1961)

Because of "violations of Lenin's precepts", it is decreed that Joseph Stalin's body be removed from its place of honour inside Lenin's tomb and buried near the Kremlin wall with a plain granite marker instead. (30. October 1961)

Scores of Algerian protesters (some claim up to 400) are massacred by the Paris police at the instigation of former Nazi collaborator Maurice Papon, then chief of the Prefecture of Police. (17. October 1961)

The United States Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) is formed, becoming the country's first centralized military espionage organization. (1. October 1961)