* 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 )

* Adrian Heath ( born 1961 ), English football manager and former player

* Adrian Jones ( cricketer ) ( born 1961 ), English former cricketer

Carlos Alberto Valderrama Palacio (; born September 2, 1961 in Santa Marta, Colombia ), also known as El Pibe (" The Kid ") is a former Colombian football player.

There was also a conflict with Indonesia, which ended with the Dutch withdrawing completely from their former colonies there in 1961.

Henry Rollins ( born 13 February 1961 ) is an American spoken word artist, writer, journalist, publisher, actor, radio DJ, activist and former singer-songwriter.

Mr. Cole served only one term, after which the IAEA was headed by two Swedes for nearly four decades: the scientist Sigvard Eklund held the job from 1961 to 1981, followed by former Swedish Foreign Minister Hans Blix, who served from 1981 to 1997.

In 1961, U Thant, then Burma's Permanent Representative to the United Nations and former Secretary to the Prime Minister, was elected Secretary-General of the United Nations ; he was the first non-Westerner to head any international organization and would serve as UN Secretary-General for ten years.

Dag Hammarskjöld's former farm at Backåkra, close to Ystad in southern Sweden, was bought in 1957 as a summer residence by Hammarskjöld, then Secretary-General of the United Nations ( 1953 – 1961 ).

The armed forces were formed after independence in 1961, on the basis of elements of the former British Royal West African Frontier Force, then present in the country.

The former was a colony and part of German East Africa from the 1880s to 1919, when, under the League of Nations, it became a British mandate until independence in 1961.

In 1961, a volcanic eruption forced the evacuation of the entire population via Cape Town to wooden huts in the disused Pendell Army Camp in Merstham, Surrey, England, before moving to a more permanent site at a former Royal Air Force station in Calshot near Southampton, England, living mainly in a road called Tristan Close.

Wayne Douglas Gretzky, CC (; born January 26, 1961 ) is a Canadian former professional ice hockey player and former head coach.

The province also incorporated the former Omani enclave of Gwadar following its purchase in 1958, and the former Federal Capital Territory ( Karachi ) in 1961 ; the latter forming a new division in its own right.

Major League Baseball expansion in 1961 included the formation of the Los Angeles Angels, the move to Minnesota to become the Minnesota Twins by the former Washington Senators and the formation of a new franchise called the Washington Senators.

Although the IFC's shareholders initially only allowed it to make loans, the IFC was authorized in 1961 to make equity investments, the first of which was made in 1962 by taking a stake in FEMSA, a former manufacturer of auto parts in Spain that is now part of Bosch Spain.

* Irene Saez ( born 1961 ), Venezuelan politician and former Miss Universe

The flag of Yemen | flag of the former Yemen Arab Republic also looked like the UAR's flag, due largely to Egypt's support for the North Yemeni Revolution of 1962, and North Yemen's former membership of the United Arab States ( 1958 – 1961 ).

Astana ( Russian /, formerly known as Akmola ( Kazakh: Ақмола / Aqmola, until 1998 ), Целиноград / Tselinograd until 1992 ) and Akmolinsk ( Russian: Акмолинск, until 1961 ), has been the capital of Kazakhstan since 1997, and is the country's second largest city ( after Almaty, the former capital ) with an officially estimated population of 708, 794 as of 1 August 2010.

Belmopan was constructed just to the east of the Belize River, inland from the former capital, the port of Belize City, after that city's near destruction by Hurricane Hattie in 1961.

The Portuguese Colonial War ( Guerra Colonial ), also known as Overseas War ( Ultramar ) in Portugal or in the former colonies as War of liberation ( Guerra de Libertação ), was fought between Portugal's military and the emerging nationalist movements in Portugal's African colonies between 1961 and 1974.

It was founded in Spain, on January 1961, by former officers, Pierre Lagaillarde ( who led the 1960 Siege of Algiers ), General Raoul Salan ( who took part in the 1961 Algiers putsch or " Generals ' Uprising ") and Jean-Jacques Susini, along with other members of the French Army, including Yves Guérin-Sérac, and former members of the French Foreign Legion from the First Indochina War ( 1946 – 54 ).