February 1961

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February 1, 1961: U.S. launches first Minuteman ICBM

File:Electron shell 103 Lawrencium.svg

February 14, 1961: New element created

The following events occurred in February 1961:

February 1, 1961 (Wednesday)

• The push-button telephone was put into public service for the first time, as Bell Telephone test marketed its "Touch-Tone" service for its customers in the cities of Carnegie, Pennsylvania and Findlay, Ohio .
• The United States launched its first test of the Minuteman I intercontinental ballistic missile. The rocket lifted off from Cape Canaveral at 11:00 am, and traveled 4,000 miles in less than 15 minutes to a target in the Atlantic Ocean.
• Moore Air Base became inactive, along with the 78th Fighter Group of the US Air Force.

February 2, 1961 (Thursday)

• At Wailuku, Hawaii, Stanley Ann Dunham, an 18-year-old student at the University of Hawaii, married Barack Obama, Sr., a 25-year-old graduate student from Kenya. Six months later, their son, Barack Obama, who would become the 44th President of the United States, was born in Honolulu.
• Santa Maria hijacking: After ten days of being held captive on an ocean liner, nearly 600 passengers from the cruise ship Santa Maria were freed, and were taken ashore by various boats to the Brazilian port of Recife.
• Betty Curtis won the Sanremo Music Festival with the song "Al di là"
• Born: Erna Solberg, Norwegian politician, in Bergen
• Died: Victor Danielsen, 66, Faroese translator and missionary

February 3, 1961 (Friday)

• Operation Looking Glass began, as the first of a series of Boeing EC-135 jets went into the air on orders of the Strategic Air Command. For more than 30 years, an EC-135 was always in the air, with the capability of taking direct control of the United States' bombers and missiles in the event of the destruction of the SAC's command post near Omaha. As one jet "Doomsday Plane" was preparing to land, another was already aloft. The program continued, with E4A jets later replacing the EC-135s, until the fall of the Soviet Union.
• French interior designer Stéphane Boudin made his first visit to the White House, to plan the refurnishing of the U.S. President's residence at the request of the new First Lady, Jacqueline Kennedy.
• China bought $60 million worth of grain from Canada.
• Died: Anna May Wong, 56, Chinese-American movie star

February 4, 1961 (Saturday)

• The Portuguese Colonial War began in Angola with a co-ordinated attack by 180 MPLA guerillas in Luanda. In a morning raid, armed groups attacked the prison, the police barracks, a police patrol and the radio station. The attacks failed, and armed white Angolan residents exacted revenge on Luanda's black neighborhoods, but the battle inspired a 14-year-long campaign to liberate Portugal's colonies.
• Sputnik 7 was launched by the Soviet Union and placed into Earth orbit. Although reported as a success, in that it was the heaviest object (14,300 pounds) into orbit at that time, the Soviets did not mention that their intent had been to send the first Earth craft to the planet Venus, a detail revealed in 1962 by the American space agency, NASA.
• Died: Alphonse Picou, 82, American jazz clarinetist

February 5, 1961 (Sunday)

• In Congo, President Joseph Kasavubu named Joseph Ileo as the new Prime Minister.

February 6, 1961 (Monday)

• KOPB-TV began operating in Portland, Oregon under the name KOAP.

February 7, 1961 (Tuesday)

• Born: Prince François, Count of Clermont, dauphin of the Orleanist claimant to the French throne

February 8, 1961 (Wednesday)

• At a press conference to announce that Prime Minister John Diefenbaker of Canada would be coming to the United States on February 20, President Kennedy mispronounced the Canadian leader's name multiple times. Kennedy had asked Secretary of State Dean Rusk, who in turn had asked Assistant for European Affairs Foy D. Kohler, who suggested the German pronunciation "Dee-fen-bawk-er"; Diefenbaker's name was misspelled by various news sources as "Diffenbaker", "Diefenbacker", "Diefenbacon" and even (by UPI) "Fifenbaker". Privately, the Prime Minister, whose name was pronounced "Dee-fen-bay-ker", was enraged at what he viewed as being mocked by the American president.

February 9, 1961 (Thursday)

• An IL-18 plane carrying future Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev. At the time Brezhnev was the ceremonial President of the Soviet Union, to the Guinea Republic for a state visit, was attacked by three French Vautour fighter jets. One of the Vautours fired bursts of tracer bullets as a warning across. The French Foreign Ministry apologized, but said that Brezhnev's plane, which landed safely in Morocco, had strayed into French Algerian airspace.
• The Beatles performed at the Cavern Club for the first time.
• Died: Millard Tydings, 70, American politician

February 10, 1961 (Friday)

• The Robert Moses Niagara Hydroelectric Power Station went online, completing a project to use Niagara Falls to generate electricity from what was, at the time, the largest hydroelectric power plant in the world, generating 2,400,000 million kilowatts (or 2.4 gigawatts) of electricity per hour.
• Artist Oskar Kokoschka was made an honorary citizen of Vienna.
• Born: George Stephanopoulos, American presidential adviser and television journalist, in Fall River, Massachusetts

February 11, 1961 (Saturday)

• Melbourne Cricket Ground had its largest ever crowd for a cricket match, 90,800 people, attending the test match between Australia and West Indies.
• A plebiscite was conducted in the north and south parts of the British Cameroons over whether to join the Federation of Nigeria or the Republic of Cameroon that had recently become independent of France. Residents of the Southern Cameroons voted 233,571 to 97,741 in favor of union with Cameroon, while in the Northern Cameroons, the result was 146,296 to 97,659 in favor of integration with Nigeria.
• Robert C. Weaver became the first African-American to lead a major U.S. government agency, becoming Administrator of the Housing and Home Finance Agency on appointment by President Kennedy. When the HHFA was raised to cabinet-level status on January 18, 1966, Weaver became the first African-American cabinet member, under President Lyndon Johnson, as the first U.S. Secretary of Housing and Urban Development.
• Died: Kate Carew, 91, American caricaturist

February 12, 1961 (Sunday)

• Eight days after launching the seven ton Sputnik 5, the U.S.S.R. used the orbiting satellite as a launch platform from which to fire a rocket carrying the interplanetary space probe, Venera 1, towards the planet Venus. The U.S. had launched Pioneer V toward Venus in March to Contact with the satellite was lost after it traveled 4,650,000 miles, but the probe came within 62,000 miles of the second planet, and is believed to still be in orbit around the Sun.

February 13, 1961 (Monday)

• At Elisabethville, The Congo, Katangan Interior Minister Godefroid Munongo informed reporters, "I have called you together to announce the death of Patrice Lumumba and his accomplices," then went on to say that the group had been massacred the day before "by the inhabitants of a little village" days after escaping from prison. As it turned out, Lumumba had been executed by a Katangan firing squad a month earlier, on January 17. The confirmation of Lumumba's death stirred rioting in the Congo and around the world.
• Hunting for geodes in the Coso Mountains near Olancha, California, rock collectors Wally Lane, Mike Mikesell and Virginia Maxey found a 500,000-year-old rock containing the "Coso artifact", a metal object that resembled, anachronistically, a spark plug. The rock and the ancient spark plug have not been seen since 1969.

February 14, 1961 (Tuesday)

• Element 103, Lawrencium, was first synthesized by a team of scientists at the University of California, Berkeley. Using the cyclotron at the Lawrence Radiation Laboratory, scientists Albert Ghiorso, Torbjorn Sikkeland, Almon E. Larsh and Robert M. Latimer bombarded Californium with Boron-10 and Boron-11 nuclei, combining the protons of the 98th and 5th elements to create a new element with 103 protons. After spending two months confirming their finding, the team made their announcement on April 13.
• A day after the news of Patrice Lumumba's death, thousands of protesters attacked Belgium's embassies worldwide. The embassy in Moscow was attacked by a mob of thousands of Russian, Asian and African students, while the one in Belgrade was ransacked following a protest by 30,000 people. African students in New Delhi wrecked furniture at the embassy there. The next day, a group of 24 protestors fought with guards at the United Nations Security Council One reporter felt that the Moscow riots, with marchers from that city's People's Friendship University, "showed signs of careful planning" and that it had been orchestrated by the Soviet government.
• The Zuid-Afrikaanse Rand (ZAR) became the official currency of South Africa, replacing the South African pound at a 2:1 ratio.
• James E. Webb took office as administrator of NASA, serving until 1968.

February 15, 1961 (Wednesday)

• A total solar eclipse was visible in parts of the Northern Hemisphere.
• President John F. Kennedy warned the Soviet Union to avoid interfering with the United Nations pacification of the Congo.
• Sabena Flight 548 crashed as it was approaching Brussels on a flight from New York City, killing all 72 people on board, including all of the United States figure skating team and its coaches. It was the first fatal crash of a Boeing 707 passenger jet.
• Died in the crash of Sabena Flight 548: Maribel Vinson, 49, nine-time US national figure skating champion, and her two daughters: Laurence Owen, 16, US national ladies' singles champion, and Maribel Owen, 20, US national pairs champion; Dudley Richards, 29 Maribel Owen's pairs partner; Dona Lee Carrier, 20, and her ice dance partner Roger Campbell, 19; Patricia Dineen, 25, and her husband and ice dance partner Robert Dineen, 25; Ray Hadley, Jr., 17, and his sister Ila Ray Hadley, 18, ice dance competitors; Harold Hartshorne, 69, skating judge and former ice dancer; Laurie Hickox, 15, and her brother and pairs partner William Hickox, 19; Gregory Kelley, 16, US junior men's singles champion; Edward LeMaire, skating judge, and his 14-year-old son; Bradley Lord, 21, US men's singles champion; Rhode Lee Michelson, 17, ladies' singles competitor; Douglas Ramsay, 16, men's singles competitor; Edi Scholdan, Austrian figure skater and coach, and his 13-year-old son; Diane Sherbloom, 18, and her ice dance partner Larry Pierce, 24; Stephanie Westerfeld, 17, ladies' singles competitor;

February 16, 1961 (Thursday)

• Cyprus's first nationality law was enacted.
• The Sunday Lake mine at Wakefield, Michigan, closed.
• The Congress of Confédération Africaine de Football delegates took place in Cairo.

February 17, 1961 (Friday)

• Born: Angela Eagle and Maria Eagle, British politicians, in Bridlington
• Died: Nita Naldi, 66, silent film star

February 18, 1961 (Saturday)

• The USS South Dakota (ACR-9) sank in Powell River, British Columbia, Canada.
• Led by British author and activist Bertrand Russell, the Committee of 100 and a crowd of 5,000 people staged a sit-down protest at the Ministry of Defence in Whitehall, London, demanding that the U.K. call off its agreement to bring nuclear missiles to the British Isles. As one author notes, "Somewhat to the distress of Russell ... police took no action on this occasion."
• Kwame Nkrumah laid the foundation stone of the Kwame Nkrumah Ideological Institute in Winneba, Ghana.
• After 22 years of publication, the British comic strip Radio Fun was merged into Buster.

February 19, 1961 (Sunday)

• A seven-year-old boy in Arizona survived a 275-foot fall into an irrigation well, and was rescued after ranch employees tied together multiple ropes. Harry Stage had broken both legs and his pelvis after falling through the 16 inch pipe.
• Belgium's King Baudouin dissolved Parliament and ordered new elections to be conducted on March 26.
• Born: Justin Fashanu, English footballer, in Hackney, London (died 1998)

February 20, 1961 (Monday)

• Jerry Garcia, an 18-year old drifter who had been discharged from the U.S. Army, survived a car accident in Palo Alto, California. He would later describe the event as "the slingshot for the rest of my life". "Before then I was always living at less than capacity," he would write later. "Then I got serious." Garcia would go on to found the Grateful Dead.
• Born: Imogen Stubbs, British actress, in Newcastle upon Tyne
• Died: Percy Grainger, 78, Australian composer; and Romany Marie, 75, American restaurateur and bohemian personality

February 21, 1961 (Tuesday)

• United Nations Security Council Resolution 161 was adopted by a 9-0 vote, authorizing United Nation forces to take "all appropriate measures to prevent the occurrence of civil war in the Congo, including ... the use of force, if necessary, as a last resort".
• The African state of Gabon adopted a new constitution. Léon M'ba became President, with significant additional powers.
• Born: Ranking Roger, English ska vocalist, in Birmingham; and Rhonda Sing, Canadian wrestler, in Calgary (died 2001)
• Died: Frederick M. Jones, 68, African-American inventor specializing in refrigeration technology, co-founder of Thermo King Corporation

February 22, 1961 (Wednesday)

• Come Blow Your Horn, the first play written by Neil Simon, made its debut at the Brooks Atkinson Theatre on Broadway. Running for 677 performances, the play was the first in a string of hits for Simon.
• Fans of the television soap opera The Edge of Night were horrified when Sara Lane Karr, the show's leading female character, died of injuries sustained on the Monday episode. After CBS received multiple calls from distressed viewers, the actress who played the role, Teal Ames, appeared as herself the next day to explain that she was alive, and that her character had been written out of the series at her own request.
• Born: Clifford Meth, American writer, in Queens, New York; and Jean-Christophe Novelli, French celebrity chef, in Arras
• Died: Nick LaRocca, 71, jazz cornettist

February 23, 1961 (Thursday)

• Duncan Carse was dropped off alone at the British Antarctic island of South Georgia, for an eighteen-month attempt to become a latter-day Robinson Crusoe. HMS Owen brought him to the uninhabited south side of the island with 12 tons of supplies and a prefabricated hut, at Ducloz Head. The hut and much of the supplies would be swept away by a wave on May 20, forcing Carse to survive on what he had been able to save. He would finally be able to signal a ship, the Petrel, on September 13.
• Geoffrey Charles Lawrence became acting Chief Minister of Zanzibar, then still under British control.

February 24, 1961 (Friday)

• The bodies of former Hungarian Prime Minister Imre Nagy, Colonel Pál Maléter and journalist Miklós Gimes - all of whom had been executed for treason on June 16, 1958, after the failure of the 1956 Hungarian revolution - were exhumed from the courtyard of the prison where they had been hanged, taken from their coffins, rolled up in tar paper, and buried in an unmarked grave in Budapest. Even their names were altered in cemetery records, with Nagy identified as a woman named Piroska Borbiro. After the downfall of Communism in Hungary in 1989, the three bodies were exhumed, and buried with full honors on June 16, 1989, thirty-one years after their executions.
• Iranian Airways and Pars Airways merged to form a single national airline for the nation, Iran Air.

February 25, 1961 (Saturday)

• Paul Bikle set a record for altitude for a sailplane, reaching 46,266 feet (14,102 meters) after catching a Sierra Wave in the skies near California's Mount Whitney. The record remained unbroken more than 50 years later.
• The last public trams in Sydney, Australia, ceased operation, bringing to an end the Southern Hemisphere's largest tramway network.
• India's Orissa state was placed under president's rule after Chief Minister Harekrushna Mahatab resigned because of non-cooperation among the state's political parties. Direct rule continued for 14 months until new state legislature elections could be held.
• Born: Davey Allison, American NASCAR driver, in Hollywood, Florida (killed in helicopter crash, 1993)

February 26, 1961 (Sunday)

• Tyazhely Sputnik (literally "heavy satellite"), at seven tons the largest object to be launched into outer space when it went up on February 4, reentered the atmosphere over Siberia. The failure of the mission was disguised as a test by the Soviet Union authorities.
• Died: King Mohammed V of Morocco, 51, suffered a fatal heart attack after undergoing a minor operation at the clinic in his palace at Rabat. His son, Hassan II was proclaimed his successor.

February 27, 1961 (Monday)

• Professor Henry Kissinger of Harvard University was appointed by President Kennedy as a consultant to the National Security Agency. The 37-year-old Kissinger, who would later serve as U.S. Secretary of State for two Republican Presidents, Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford, had been the author of the 1958 book Nuclear Weapons and Foreign Policy.
• The Roman Catholic Diocese of Tula was created.
• The first congress of the Spanish Trade Union Organisation (OSE) opened.

February 28, 1961 (Tuesday)

• Under United States law, 38 U.S.C. §101 (29)(A), the Vietnam Era refers to "The period beginning on February 28, 1961, and ending on May 7, 1975, in the case of a veteran who served in the Republic of Vietnam during that period."
• East Germany abruptly ended its program of researching, designing and building aircraft, with the passage of a resolution by the Central Committee of the ruling SED Party. "Huge resources were wasted as a result of this about-face," noted one commentator.
• The Saarlouis electric tramway closed after nearly 48 years in operation.
• Born: Mark Ferguson, New Zealand actor and TV presenter, in Sydney, Australia