* 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 – Enedina Arellano Félix, Mexican drug trafficker

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

* 1961 – Charles Mann, American football player

* 1961 – Magda Szubanski, Australian actress

* 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 )

Nuclear-powered submarine mishaps include the K-19 reactor accident ( 1961 ), the K-27 reactor accident ( 1968 ), and the K-431 reactor accident ( 1985 ).

In 1961, the Soviet Union launches its first ballistic missile nuclear submarine, the K-19 — nicknamed " The Widowmaker " due to the many deaths that occurred during its construction.

Nuclear-powered submarine mishaps include the K-19 reactor accident ( 1961 ), the K-27 reactor accident ( 1968 ), and the K-431 reactor accident ( 1985 ).

* K-19 ( 1961 ; Hotel-class submarine ; two loss of coolant accidents, 27 killed due to one accident )

In 1961 the first important legislative victory of the Kennedy Administration came when the principle of national responsibility for local economic distress won out over a `` state's-responsibility '' proposal -- provision was made for payment for unemployment relief by nation-wide taxation rather than by a levy only on those states afflicted with manpower surplus.

I would expect that sales at retail in the first half of 1961 might be below 1960 by some 10 - 15% but that second-half levels should show a favorable comparison, with a possibility of quite strong demand late in the year if business conditions recover as some recent forecasts suggest they will.

Although the pause in the advance of general business activity this year has thus far been quite modest, it is hard to escape the conclusion that the softening process will continue into the first quarter of 1961 and possibly somewhat longer.

If Barnett doesn't call a special session in 1961, it will be the first year in the last decade that the Legislature has not met in regular or special session.

Mississippi's relations with the national Democratic party will be at a crossroads during 1961, with the first Democratic president in eight years in the White House.

Over the first five frames, Jack Fisher, the big righthander who figures to be in the middle of Oriole plans for a drive on the 1961 American League pennant, held the A's scoreless while yielding three scattered hits.

Tonight at 8 o'clock the Cardinals, who gave the Pirates as much trouble as anyone did in 1960, breaking even with them, will get their first 1961 shot at baseball's world champions.

The cumulative total of construction contracts for the first ten months of 1961 amounted to $634,517,000, a 4 per cent increase compared to the corresponding period of last year.

On a quarter-to-quarter comparison, the first quarter of 1961 total of 9,273 cars was 21 per cent behind the previous year's 3-month total of 11,744.

This year-to-year decline for Dallas County closely follows the national trend -- estimated sales of domestic cars in the U.S. for first three months of 1961 were about 1,212,000 or 80 per cent of the total in the first quarter a year earlier.

Operating revenues were off in the first three months of 1961, but up for the 12 months ending in March.

In the first two months of 1961, earnings of the Illinois highway available for interest payments were up 55 per cent from early 1960.

The 1961 theme is the Dakota Territorial Centennial, with the pictures including the Lewis and Clark expedition, the first river steamboat, the 1876 gold rush, a little red schoolhouse on the prairie, and today's construction of large Missouri River reservoirs.

Murder, She Said ( 1961, directed by George Pollock ) was the first of four British MGM productions starring Rutherford.

First conceived during the Presidency of Dwight D. Eisenhower as a three-man spacecraft to follow the one-man Project Mercury which put the first Americans in space, Apollo was later dedicated to President John F. Kennedy's national goal of " landing a man on the Moon and returning him safely to the Earth " by the end of the 1960s, which he proposed in a May 25, 1961 address to Congress.

On April 12, 1961, Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin became the first person to fly in space, reinforcing American fears about being left behind in a technological competition with the Soviet Union.

On May 25, 1961, twenty days after the first US manned spaceflight Freedom 7, Kennedy proposed the Apollo program to Congress in a special address to a joint session:

* 1961 – Motown releases what would be its first # 1 hit, " Please Mr. Postman " by The Marvelettes.

Aalto first presented his scheme in 1961, but it went through various modifications during the early 1960s.

* 1961 – Sierra Leone is granted its independence from the United Kingdom, with Milton Margai as the first Prime Minister.

In 1961, Sony Corporation was the first Japanese company to be listed on the New York Stock Exchange, in the form of American Depositary Receipts ( ADRs ), which are traded over-the-counter.