* 1961 – Rory Bremner, Scottish comedian

* 1961 – The Russian ( 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 ).

* 1961 – Lisa Gerrard, Australian singer, musician, and composer ( Dead Can Dance )

* 1961 – Charles Mann, American football player

* 1961 – Magda Szubanski, Australian actress

* 1961 – K-19, the first Soviet nuclear submarine equipped with nuclear missiles, is commissioned.

* 1961 – Isiah Thomas, American basketball player

* 1961 – Yolanda Adams, American singer, producer, and actress

* 1961 – Tom Ford, American fashion designer and director

* 1961 – Helmut Winklhofer, German footballer

* 1881 – Leo Carrillo, American actor ( d. 1961 )

* 1961 – Brad Gilbert, American tennis player

* 1961 – John Key, New Zealand politician, 38th Prime Minister of New Zealand

* 1961 – Amy Stiller, American comedian and actress

* 1961 – East Germany closes the border between the eastern and western sectors of Berlin to thwart its inhabitants ' attempts to escape to the West.

* 1961 – Sam Champion, American weatherman

* 1961 – Christos Christodoulou, Greek basketball player

* 1961 – Dawnn Lewis, American actress

* 1961 – Stuart Maconie, English journalist, author, and broadcaster

* 1961 – Neil Mallender, England cricketer

* 1961 – Tom Perrotta, American novelist

* 1961 – Sunil Shetty, Indian actor and producer

* 1961 – Cary Stayner, American serial killer

* 1886 – John Alexander Douglas McCurdy Canadian pilot and engineer ( d. 1961 )

* Ciudad Guayana, Venezuela, officially founded in 1961 is actually composed of the old town of San Félix at the east and the new modern planned town of Puerto Ordaz at the west of Caroní river in Bolívar state.

Partly due to efforts of Félix Morisseau-Leroy, since 1961 Haitian Creole has been recognized as an official language along with French, which had been the sole literary language of the country since its independence in 1804.

Rodríguez directed many major stars, including Pedro Infante, Dolores del Río, María Félix, and even Toshirō Mifune, the favorite actor of Japanese director Akira Kurosawa, as a Mexican Indian in the film Ánimas Trujano ( 1961 ).

The city, officially founded in 1961, is actually composed of the old town of San Félix at the east and the new town of Puerto Ordaz at the west, which lie either banks of the Caroní and are connected by three bridges.

Alfonso Cuarón Orozco (; born 28 November 1961 ) is a Mexican film director, screenwriter and film producer, best known for his films Children of Men, Y tu mamá también, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, and A Little Princess.

* 1961 – Alfonso Cuarón, Mexican film director

On the other hand, in 1961 an Italian company co-produced the French Taste of violence, with a Mexican Revolution theme.

In later years, her films were inspired by the Mexican Revolution as Juana Gallo ( 1961 ), La Valentina ( 1966 ), and La Generala ( 1970 ), her last film.

From 1959 to 1961 the Texas League and the Mexican League formed the Pan American Association.

In some of his other roles during the 1960s and 1970s, Bogarde played opposite renowned stars, yet several of the films were of uneven quality, down to demands or limitations set by the studio or their scripts: The Angel Wore Red ( 1960 ), playing an unfrocked priest who falls in love with cabaret entertainer Ava Gardner during the Spanish Civil War ; Song Without End ( 1960 ), as Hungarian composer and virtuoso pianist Franz Liszt, a flawed film made under the initial direction of Charles Vidor ( who died during shooting ), and completed by Bogarde's friend George Cukor, the actor's only disappointing foray into Hollywood ; the campy The Singer Not the Song ( 1961 ), as a Mexican bandit co-starring John Mills as a priest ; H. M. S.

* Isidro Rico ( born 1961 ), Mexican marathon runner

Adalberto Javier Ramones Martínez ( born December 3, 1961 ) is a Mexican television show host and comedian who is known for his comments on Mexican and international social life.

After his release from serving a 20-year sentence in a Mexican prison for the assassination of Leon Trotsky, Ramon Mercader moved to the Soviet Union in 1961 and was awarded the Hero of the Soviet Union medal from the then head of the KGB Alexander Shelepin.

Victoria Ruffo ( born Victoria Eugenia Guadalupe Martínez del Río Moreno-Ruffo on May 31, 1961 in Mexico City ) is a Mexican actress.

In 1961 he recorded Sergey Prokofiev's Peter and the Wolf, with the Orquesta Sinfónica de México and Carlos Pellicer, narrator, released on Mexican CBS MC 1360.

* Frederick W. Davis ( 1877 – 1961 ), operator of antiques and folk art shop in Mexico where Mexican Modern artists met

* Leonardo Carrera ( a. k. a. Damián 666 ) ( 1961 –), Mexican professional wrestler

Frankie Billy Randall ( born September 25, 1961 in Birmingham, Alabama ) is a three-time world champion boxer, who is best known as the man who handed Mexican legend Julio César Chávez his first professional defeat.

The instrumental rock and roll pioneered by performers such as Duane Eddy, Link Wray, and The Ventures was developed by Dick Dale who added distinctive " wet " reverb, rapid alternate picking, as well as Middle Eastern and Mexican influences, producing the regional hit " Let's Go Trippin '" in 1961 and launching the surf music craze.

Elpidia Carrillo ( born August 16, 1961 ) is a Mexican actress who has appeared in various acclaimed Latin-American films and television shows, in addition to some Hollywood films.

In the Mexican film Juventide y rebeldes ( 1961 ), he is playing either a Gibson ES-345 or ES-355 Stereo.

The Children of Sanchez is a 1961 book by American anthropologist Oscar Lewis about a Mexican family living in the Mexico City slum of Tepito, which he studied as part of his program to develop his concept of culture of poverty.

* Isidro Rico ( b. 1961 ), Mexican marathon runner

Ricardo Rodríguez de la Vega ( 14 February 1942 – 1 November 1962 ) was a Mexican racing driver who competed in the 1961 and 1962 Formula One seasons.

Cadena returned to the law faculty at St. Mary's from 1961 until 1965, when Texas governor John Connolly appointed him an associate justice on the 4th Court of Appeals, the first Mexican American to hold such a high ranking.

Santo contra los Zombis ( also known as Santo vs. the Zombies ) is a 1961 Mexican movie directed by Benito Alazraki.