* 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 – 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 )

Maurice Merleau-Ponty () ( 14 March 1908 – 3 May 1961 ) was a French phenomenological philosopher, strongly influenced by Karl Marx, Edmund Husserl, and Martin Heidegger in addition to being closely associated with Jean-Paul Sartre ( who later stated he had been " converted " to Marxism by Merleau-Ponty ) and Simone de Beauvoir.

* 1961 Karl Hubenthal ( Los Angeles Examiner )

A debate launched in 1961 by Adorno and Karl Popper, later published as the Positivist Dispute in German Sociology, arose out of disagreements at the 1959 14th German Sociology Conference in Berlin.

* ENIAC chapter in Karl Kempf, Electronic Computers Within The Ordnance Corps, November 1961

The novel Põlev lipp ( The Burning Banner ) by Karl Ristikivi ( 1961 ; in Estonian ) depicts Conradin's Italian campaign.

* Karl Swenson played Bridger in the episode " The Jim Bridger Story " of NBC's Wagon Train, broadcast on May 10, 1961.

* Archduke Anton of Austria was the brother of Karl Pius and was Carlist claimant ( Carlos IX ) from 1953 to 1961.

* Archduke Franz Josef of Austria was the brother of Karl Pius and Anton and was Carlist claimant ( Francisco I ) from 1961 to 1975.

Later recipients include Arthur Compton ( 1954 ), Hermann Hesse ( 1954 ), Albert Schweitzer ( 1954 ), Thomas Mann ( 1955 ), Oskar Kokoschka ( 1955 ), Carl Orff ( 1956 ), Erwin Schrödinger ( 1956 ), Thornton Wilder ( 1956 ), Karl Schmidt-Rottluff ( 1956 ), Werner Heisenberg ( 1957 ), Gerhard Ritter ( 1957 ), Ludwig Mies van der Rohe ( 1957 ), Percy Ernst Schramm ( 1958 ), Carl Friedrich von Weizsäcker ( 1961 ), Karl Jaspers ( 1964 ), Otto Klemperer ( 1967 ), Carl Zuckmayer ( 1967 ), Henry Moore ( 1972 ), Raymond Aron ( 1973 ), George F. Kennan ( 1976 ), Friedrich Hayek ( 1977 ), Karl Popper ( 1980 ), Eugène Ionesco ( 1983 ), Hans Bethe ( 1984 ), Gordon A. Craig ( 1990 ), Rudolf Mößbauer ( 1996 ), Umberto Eco ( 1998 ), Hans Magnus Enzensberger ( 1999 ), and Wim Wenders ( 2005 ).

* Terrorism and communism: a reply to Karl Kautsky by Leon Trotsky, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press 1961 ( introduction only )

Such names as Karl Max von Bauernfeind, Rudolf Diesel, Claude Dornier, Walther von Dyck, Hans Fischer ( Nobel prize for Chemistry 1930 ), Ernst Otto Fischer ( Nobel prize for Chemistry 1973 ), August Föppl, Robert Huber ( Nobel prize for Chemistry 1988 ), Carl von Linde, Heinz Maier-Leibnitz, Walther Meissner, Rudolf Mössbauer ( 1961 Nobel prize for Physics ), Willy Messerschmitt ( aircraft designer ), Wilhelm Nusselt, Hans Piloty, Friedrich von Thiersch, Franz von Soxhlet are closely connected with the TUM.

# Karl Farr ( 1935 – 1961 ) lead guitar

Castroism is influenced by many ideologies but particularly the theories of Cuban revolutionary José Martí, and after 1961, Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels, Vladimir Lenin and according to some, fellow 26th of July Movement partner Che Guevara.

# Archduke Karl Salvator of Austria, Prince of Tuscany ( 1961 )

# Karl Habsburg-Lothringen, 1961 –

He studied painting at the Staatliche Akademie der Bildenden Künste Stuttgart from 1953 to 1956, then typography under Karl Rössing at the Düsseldorfer Kunstakademie from 1959 to 1961.

The 1961 edition includes an introduction by Karl Shapiro written in 1960 and titled " The Greatest Living Author.

From 1961 to 1967 he studied at the Düsseldorf Arts Academy under Karl Otto Götz, Gerhard Hoehme and deeply influenced by his teacher Joseph Beuys.

The, 33-storey, reinforced concrete tower was designed by Karl Lieser and was built from 1959 to 1961.

The method was developed in the 1930s by Gerhardt Lorimer ( Dec 20, 1894-Oct 19, 1961 ), a student of geotechnical pioneer Karl von Terzaghi.

Frederick Karl Gampper, Jr. ( 28 August 1893-3 March 1961 ) was a dirigible pilot with license # 53 issued by the Aero Club of America, and a licensed free balloon pilot.

Karl Sovanka ( Karol Šovánka ) ( 7 March 1893 in Uhrovec, near Trenčín, Slovakia – 1961 in Östringen, Germany ) was a painter and sculptor.