* 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 )

* In 1961, the entire United States Figure Skating team died in the crash of Sabena Flight 548.

The World Figure Skating Championships have been cancelled 15 times in its history: from 1915 – 1921 due to World War I, from 1940 – 1946 due to World War II, and in 1961 as a result of the loss of the entire American team in the crash of Sabena Flight 548.

The initial aircraft type operated was the Douglas DC-7C, the first of which was leased from Sabena in November 1961.

* The entire 1961 United States figure skating team died in the crash of Sabena Flight 548 on their way to the World Championships.

Sabena Flight 548, registration OO-SJB, was a Boeing 707 aircraft that crashed en route to Brussels, Belgium, from New York City on February 15, 1961, killing the entire United States Figure Skating team on its way to the 1961 World Championships in Prague, Czechoslovakia.

In Congo, in 1961, the Indian troops clashed with a Katangan column moving from Jadotville towards Elisabethville, near Sabena Guesthouse.

The last three complete Tintin adventures were produced at a much-reduced pace: The Castafiore Emerald in 1961, Flight 714 to Sydney in 1968, and Tintin and the Picaros in 1976.

* 1961 – Finland's worst civilian aviation accident takes place when Aero Flight 311 crashes near Kvevlax, resulting in the deaths of all 25 people aboard.

Moncton is mentioned several times in the 1961 Twilight Zone episode " The Odyssey of Flight 33 ", in which the lost aircraft desperately tries to contact Moncton Air Traffic Control, as well as the air traffic control in Gander and Boston.

Tragically, one of SABENA's aircraft became the first Boeing 707 to crash while in commercial service when Flight 548 crashed while preparing to land at Brussels on 15 February 1961.

Today, Paramount ( through Republic, which the studio's parent company, Viacom, acquired in 1999 ), in a twist of irony, now owns the original elements to its 1927 – September 1950 output they themselves originally released ( in addition to the April 1962 – 1967 non-Comic King shorts ( except Frog's Legs, starring Little Lulu, which Paramount still owns ) they have retained the rights to and the 1961 Noveltoon, Alvin's Solo Flight, also starring Little Lulu ).

Flight to afar, translated by Michael Bullock ( 1961 ).

* Lightning-" The Best Fighter in the World " a 1961 Flight article by Bill Gunston

* Lightning Squadron Flight 1961

Lebret ( 1961 ) calls this behaviour " Attempted Rape Flight " and Cramp & Simmons ( 1977 ) speak of " rape-intent flights ".

Flight path of Hammarskjöld's aircraft ( pink line ) and the decoy ( black line ), September 1961

* On July 11, 1961, United Airlines Flight 859, a DC-8-12 tail number N8040U, was destroyed after landing.

The most tense involved the Berlin Blockade ( 1948 – 1949 ), the Korean War ( 1950 – 1953 ), the Suez Crisis ( 1956 ), the Berlin Crisis of 1961, the Cuban Missile Crisis ( 1962 ), the Vietnam War ( 1959 – 1975 ), the Yom Kippur War ( 1973 ), the Soviet war in Afghanistan ( 1979 – 1989 ), the Soviet downing of Korean Air Lines Flight 007 ( 1983 ), and the “ Able Archer ” NATO military exercises ( 1983 ).

* Saturn SA-1 Flight Evaluation ( PDF ) December 1961

* 1961: Jimmy Guiffre-Emphasis & Flight 1961 ( live recordings of " Jesus Maria " and " Postures ")

Air Force Astronaut Wings ; NASA Space Flight Medal with one Oak Leaf Cluster ; NASA Exceptional Public Service Medal ; Fédération Aéronautique Internationale-Komarov Diploma ; Defense Superior Service Medal with one Oak Leaf Cluster, Legion of Merit, Defense Meritorious Service Medal, Air Force Meritorious Service Medal ; French Legion of Honor, Saudi Arabian King Abdul Aziz Medal ; Air Medal with 2 Oak Leaf Clusters ; Air Force Commendation Medal ; Washington State University Sloan Engineering Award ( 1961 ); Air Training Command Academic Training Award ( 1966 ); Squadron Officer School Commandant's Trophy ( 1968 ); Squadron Officer School Chief of Staff Award ( 1968 ); Washington State University Distinguished Alumnus Award ( 1983 ); University of Washington Distinguished Alumnus Award, Aeronautics and Astronautics, ( 1984 ); Washington State Service to Humanity Award ( 1983 ); Distinguished Alumnus Award ( 1985 ); Medallion of Merit ( 1987 ); Phi Sigma Kappa ; Leonov Medal ( Association of Space Explorers )( 1992 ); Magnuson Puget Sound Legacy Award ( People for Puget Sound )( 2010 ).

* Vivckers Golden Jubilee Flight 1961

In 1961 the Marshall Space Flight Center began the process to find the contractor to build the stage.

From 1959 to 1961 he served as a Flight Surgeon in the United States Navy stationed at the Keflavík naval base in Iceland.

The first of only two all-new Little Lulu cartoons after the character's 16-year hiatus off-screen, Alvin's Solo Flight, was released as part of the Noveltoons series in 1961, while twelve of the King Features Trilogy cartoons, starring characters such as Krazy Kat, Little Lulu, Beetle Bailey, and Snuffy Smith, were released theatrically by Paramount in 1962 under the title Comic Kings.

By 1961, after unexpectedly fast-paced progress on the part of Project Rover, NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center began to use nuclear thermal rockets in their mission plans.

The RL10 was the first liquid hydrogen rocket engine to be built in the United States, and development of the engine by Marshall Space Flight Center and Pratt & Whitney began in the 1950s, with the first flight occurring in 1961.