Uganda became self-governing by holding its first general elections a year in advance of full independence. With 90% of the 1.3 million eligible voters participating, the
Democratic Party, led by
Benedicto Kiwanuka, won 43 of the 81 seats in the National Assembly. The
Uganda People's Congress received more votes overall, but won only 35 seats.[1]
Algerian nationalist leader
Ferhat Abbas announced in
Rabat,
Morocco, that the
FLN had agreed to French President
Charles de Gaulle's proposal to begin peace talks on Algerian independence. By then, the
Algerian War was in its seventh year.[3]
At the age of 79, artist
Pablo Picasso married 35-year-old
Jacqueline Roque. The two would remain together until his death in 1973.[4]
Twenty-two coal miners were killed in an underground explosion at the Viking Coal Company near
Terre Haute, Indiana.[5]
Elsie May Batten, a 59-year-old shop assistant and wife of sculptor Mark Batten, was found stabbed to death with an antique dagger at the London curiosity shop where she worked.[7] Her killer,
Edwin Bush, was the first British murderer to be caught by use of the
Identikit facial composite system.[8]
The Soviet Union made its first successful test of its V-1000
anti-ballistic missile system, proving that it could intercept an
intercontinental ballistic missile. The ICBM, an
R-12 Dvina (referred to by NATO as the SS-4), was fired from the
Kapustin Yar in southwest Russia. The V-1000 was launched from the
Sary Shagan range thousands of miles to the east, and the intercept took place at an altitude of 80,000 feet (24,000 m) over the
Kazakh SSR.[14]
The centennial of the presidential inauguration of
Abraham Lincoln was observed with a re-enactment at the east front of the U.S. Capitol. A crowd of 20,000 people watched, twice as many as had witnessed the actual event in 1861.[15]
Died:Pudge Wyman, 65, American pro football player credited with the first NFL touchdown. Wyman played for the Rock Island Independents in their 45-0 win over the Muncie Flyers on October 3, 1920.
At a press conference at
Andrews Air Force Base, spokesmen for the U.S. Air Force Research and Development command announced that they had developed an
atomic clock "so accurate that its biggest error would not exceed one second in 1271 years", and, at 62 pounds (28 kg), light enough that it could be used on aircraft in place of the existing system of crystal oscillators. Conventional atomic clock units, though more accurate, weighed over 600 pounds (270 kg) and were impractical for flight.[18]
The crash of a U.S. Air Force
Boeing KB-50 refueling plane killed all ten men on board.[19]
The phrase "
affirmative action" was first used to refer to a governmental requirement to promote equal opportunity by giving preferences in order to remedy prior discrimination. President Kennedy used the term with the issuance of
Executive Order 10925.[20] The original context was in Section 301 of the order, providing that federal government contracts include a provision that "The contractor will take affirmative action to ensure that applicants are employed, and that employees are treated during employment, without regard to their race, creed, color, or national origin."[21]
The British soap opera Coronation Street was fully networked by
ITV, with a new schedule of Monday and Wednesday evenings at 19:30.
The successful test firing of the engines of a
Titan I missile, as it stood inside the underground SLTF (Silo Test Launch Facility) at California's
Vandenberg Air Force Base, demonstrated that a missile could be successfully and safely fired, before launch, within a
missile silo. An actual launch from the silo would not take place until May 3.[23]
Flying a
North American X-15 airplane, U.S. Air Force Captain
Robert White became the first person to travel faster than Mach 4, reaching Mach 4.43, or 2,650 miles per hour (4,260 km/h).[24] White would become the first person to break Mach 5 on
June 23, and Mach 6 on
November 9.[25]
Redstone launch vehicle number 5 was delivered to Cape Canaveral for the
Mercury-Redstone Booster Development flight that would be launched on March 24 as the last space shot before the launch of the first U.S. astronaut,
Alan Shepard, on Mercury 3.[9]
Max Conrad, "the Flying Grandfather", circumnavigated the Earth in 8 days, 18 hours and 49 minutes, setting a new world record for a light airplane, breaking the previous mark, set in 1959, of 25 days.[27]
Mercury spacecraft number 10 was accepted and delivered to the
McDonnell altitude test facility on March 31, 1961, for an
orbital-flight environmental test.[9]
Sputnik 9 was launched by the USSR from Baikonur LC1, carrying "
Ivan Ivanovich" (the nickname for a mannequin cosmonaut), the dog
Chernushka, some mice, and a guinea pig. The spaceship made several orbits of the Earth at an average altitude of 135 miles (217 km), and then was recovered.
NASA spokesman George M. Law said that the test showed that the Russians were "about ready to put a man up" into outer space.[28]
An underground fire killed 71 Japanese coal miners at the Ueda Mine Company at
Kawara,
Fukuoka Prefecture, in Japan's worst
coal mine disaster since World War II.[29]
The first definite proof that a signal could be sent to Venus and returned to Earth, using
radar astronomy, was made by the
Jet Propulsion Laboratory. Transmission was sent from the
Goldstone Tracking Station in California at a 2,388 megacycle frequency, traveling 35 million miles to Venus and then back to Earth, in a little more than six minutes. Signals had been bounced off of Venus before, but never received back clearly enough to be "immediately detectable".[30]
Richard Sullivan, a staffer at the
Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, delivered a feasibility study to the Authority, entitled "A World Trade Center in the Port of New York", outlining the justification for building what would become the Twin Towers and five other buildings in the
World Trade Center complex.[31]
Born:
Laurel Clark, NASA astronaut, medical doctor, United States Navy captain, and Space Shuttle mission specialist who was killed along with her six fellow crew members in the
Space Shuttle Columbia disaster in 2003; in
Ames, Iowa[32]
Plans for an invasion of
Cuba were presented by CIA official
Richard M. Bissell, Jr. for the approval of President Kennedy. In a meeting attended by the President, Secretary of State
Dean Rusk, Defense Secretary
Robert McNamara, CIA Director
Allen Dulles, and General
Lyman Lemnitzer, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staffs, Bissell outlined the proposed "Operation Trinidad", with an invasion force storming the beaches of
Trinidad, Cuba by sea and by air. Kennedy rejected the plan as "too spectacular", and directed Bissell to come up with a less obvious placement of troops. Only four days later, Bissell had drawn up a new plan, with the force to strike at the
Bay of Pigs within a month. "The Kennedy team was impressed," one historian would say later, "when they should have been incredulous."[33]
Died:William A. Morgan, 33, former American soldier who later became an advisor to
Fidel Castro, was executed by a firing squad in
Havana after being found guilty of conspiring against the government.[35]
Miami mobster
John Roselli, who was assisting the CIA in its plans to assassinate Fidel Castro, met with a Cuban contact at the
Fontainebleau Hotel in
Miami Beach. Roselli would testify before the U.S. Senate, 14 years later, about the delivery of money and poisoned pills for the contact to place in Castro's food. Columnist
Jack Anderson would break the story in his column of January 18, 1971.[36] The CIA would acknowledge its involvement 46 years after the fact, with the declassification of documents in 2007.[37]
The long-running BBC radio music show Your Hundred Best Tunes moved to the 9–10 p.m. Sunday night timeslot with which it would be associated for the next 45 years.
One hundred forty-five people in
Kiev were killed in the
Kurenivka mudslide, after a dam burst on the
Dnieper River at the capital of the
Ukrainian SSR. The disaster was not reported in the Soviet press until March 31, when it was mentioned in Pravda.[38]
The first phase of the creation of the
New English Bible, begun in 1946 by the Joint Committee on the New Translation of the Bible, was completed with the publication of the revised
New Testament. Relying on a re-examination of the oldest texts and conveyance of original meanings into modern English, the "new New Testament" was released to coincide with the 350th anniversary of the March 1611 publication of the King James Version of the Bible.[43][44]
The patent application for the lifesaving opioid antidote
naloxone (more commonly known as
Narcan) was filed by
Jack Fishman and Mozes J. Lewenstein. U.S. Patent #3,254,088 was granted on May 31, 1966.[46]
Atlas launch vehicle 100-D was delivered to Cape Canaveral for the Mercury-Atlas 3 mission.[9]
The
Union of Peoples of Angola, led by
Holden Roberto, crossed over from the Congo into
Angola, and murdered European and African residents living near the northern border of the Portuguese colony.[47] Portuguese forces killed tens of thousands of African residents in retaliation and the
war continued for 14 years.[48]
Died:Sir Walter Womersley, 1st Baronet, 83, British M.P.; as Minister of Pensions from 1939 to 1945, he was the only British government minister to hold the same post throughout World War II.
The Space Task Group advised the
Goddard Space Flight Center that for all Mercury orbital missions, beginning with Mercury-Atlas 3,
trajectory data would be required for postflight analysis.[9]
Mercury spacecraft No. 10 was withdrawn from the flight program and was allocated to a ground test simulating orbital flight environmental conditions at the McDonnell plant site.[9]
Albert DeSalvo was arrested in
Cambridge, Massachusetts, while trying to break into a house. Confessing to be a sexual predator who had been nicknamed "the Measuring Man", DeSalvo spent a year in jail. For 18 months following his release, thirteen local women were sexually assaulted and murdered. DeSalvo, arrested later in 1964, confessed to being the "
Boston Strangler".[53]
Israel staged a dress rehearsal for a military parade in the Israeli-occupied part of Jerusalem, in which heavy military armament took part. Following a complaint by
Jordan about the display of military might, the Mixed Armistice Commission decided that "this act by Israel is a breach of the General Armistice Agreement".[citation needed]
Died:Susanna M. Salter, 101, first woman mayor in the United States; in 1887, she was elected to a two-year term as mayor of the small town of
Argonia, Kansas, after being placed on the ballot as a prank.
Little Joe 5A, the sixth in the series of
Little Joe missions, was launched from
Wallops Island to demonstrate the structural integrity of the spacecraft and escape system during an escape maneuver initiated at the
highest dynamic pressure anticipated during an Atlas launch for orbital flight. LJ-5A lifted off normally, but 19 seconds later the escape tower fired prematurely, a situation resembling the
Little Joe 5 flight in
November 1960. The signal to initiate the abort maneuver was given, and the launch vehicle-adapter clamp ring was released, but the spacecraft remained on the launch vehicle since the escape motor was already expended. The separation was effected by using the
retrorockets, but this command was transmitted before the flight had reached its apex, where separation had been planned. Therefore, the separation was rather violent. The parachutes deployed at about 40,000 feet (12,000 m), and after recovery it was found that the spacecraft had incurred only superficial structural damage. This spacecraft was used for the subsequent
Little Joe 5B flight test. Test objectives of LJ-5A were not met.[9]
Tornadoes swept through four districts of
East Pakistan (now
Bangladesh), killing more than 250 people. The dead included 32 people who had taken refuge in a Catholic church in Dacca after attending Sunday mass.[54]
Died:Ada Cornaro, 79, Argentinian tango dancer and actress
Phase III of testing of the Mercury spacecraft airdrop program was conducted and lasted for four weeks, until April 13. Primary objectives of the drops were to study further the spacecraft suitability and flotation capability after water impact. Six drops were made, but later (April 24–28, 1961) the tests were extended for two additional drops to monitor hard-surface landing effects.[9]
Dwight D. Eisenhower was restored to the United States Army and to his rank as a five-star
General of the Army, two months after completing his term as the 34th
President of the United States.[58] General Eisenhower had resigned his commission on July 18, 1952, after accepting the Republican Party nomination for the Presidency.[59]
Died:Gideon Mer, 66, Israeli physician and scientist who guided the eradication of malaria in the Jewish state
The
Soviet Union lifted
censorship restrictions for foreign news correspondents that had been in place since 1917. Except for two occasions in 1939 and 1946, non-Soviet reporters had been required to have their dispatches reviewed before transmission. Foreign office press director Mikhail Kharlamov cautioned that, although pre-approval of reports would no longer be required, foreigners were still required to keep copies of all dispatches for future review, and that persons who "circulated unfounded rumors about the Soviet Union" were still subject to expulsion.[60]
An American
C-47 transport plane with eight men aboard disappeared over the war-torn nation of
Laos after taking off from
Vientiane toward
Saigon. The U.S. Air Force did not announce the incident until two days later.[61] The sole survivor, Major Lawrence R. Bailey, Jr., was captured and became the first American
POW of the
Vietnam Era. He would be released on August 15, 1962.[62]
Valentin Bondarenko, 24, Russian
cosmonaut, was burned to death in a training accident. His death would be concealed by the Soviet government for more than 25 years, finally being revealed in 1986 in an article in the daily newspaper Izvestia.[63][64]
Heinrich Rau, 61, East German politician and Minister of Foreign Trade
The
Mercury-Redstone BD (Mercury-Redstone Booster Development) rocket was launched from Cape Canaveral on one final test flight to certify its safety for human transport. As with earlier Soviet tests, the American space capsule carried a test dummy. The spacecraft reached an altitude of 115 miles (185 km) and was recovered in the Atlantic 8 minutes after launch.[9][65] Stopped by
Wernher von Braun from going,
Alan Shepard had volunteered to take the flight, and would have become the first human to travel into outer space. Less than three weeks later, Soviet cosmonaut
Yuri Gagarin would reach the milestone on April 12. Shepard would reach space, though not orbit, on May 5.[66]
The day after the U.S. launch of a test dummy into space, the Soviets made one final launch of their own Ivan Ivanovich dummy into space, along with the last dog in space, Zvezdochka. Both went up on
Korabl-Sputnik 5 (called "Sputnik 10" in the West), which made one orbit and safely returned to Earth.[68]
Born:Reginald Fils-Aimé, American businessman best known for being the president and chief operating officer of
Nintendo of America, the North American branch of the Japanese video game company
Nintendo, from 2006 to 2019; in
New York City
Nine African-American students from Mississippi's
Tougaloo College made the first effort of passive resistance to end segregation in the state capital,
Jackson, by walking into the whites-only main branch of the municipal public library. After beginning the "read-in", the students declined to leave and were arrested by police. The next day, black students at
Jackson State College marched to the city jail to protest the arrest of the "Tougaloo Nine", and more demonstrations followed.[70]
In a
NASA Headquarters note to editors of magazines and newspapers, procedures and a deadline were established for submitting the applications of accredited correspondents to cover the
Mercury-Redstone 3 mission. As of April 24, 1961, the deadline date, 350 correspondents were accredited to cover the launch, the first crewed suborbital flight of
Project Mercury.[9]
U.S. President
John F. Kennedy informed Congress that, as part of the proposed $43.8 billion defense budget, he was cancelling the
Pye Wacket project, an experimental lenticular-form air-to-air missile, and the
B-70 nuclear-powered airplane.[72] Kennedy declared that "As a power which will never strike first, our hopes for anything close to an absolute deterrent must rest on weapons which come from hidden, moving, or invulnerable bases which will not be wiped out by a surprise attack," and lobbied instead for ten additional Polaris nuclear submarines and an increased Minuteman nuclear arsenal.[73]
Air Afrique was founded by agreement of ten West African nations that had gained independence from France.[76] The airline operated until 2001, when its fleet and routes were acquired by
Air France.[77]
Actor
Ronald Reagan gave a speech entitled "Encroaching Control" to the Phoenix Chamber of Commerce. This speech was considered by some historians to be his finest and the moment his political career truly began.[citation needed]
NASA's worldwide
Mercury tracking network, designed by the
Western Electric Company at a cost of $60,000,000 became fully operational. Western Electric would turn over the global network of 18 ground tracking stations to NASA in a formal ceremony later in the year.[9] Electronics on two ships in the Atlantic and Indian Oceans were used to close gaps between ground stations.
^Reed, Thomas C.; Stillman, Danny B. (2009). The nuclear express: a political history of the bomb and its proliferation.
MBI Publishing Company. p. 190.
^Sobel, Robert, ed. (1990). "Eisenhower, Dwight David". Biographical Directory of the United States Executive Branch, 1774–1989.
Greenwood Publishing Group. p. 116.
^Hobbs, David (2014), British Aircraft Carriers: Design, Development & Service Histories, Seaforth Publishing, p. 203,
ISBN978-1-4738-5369-0
^"Clock Is Perfect". Spokane Spokesman-Review. March 6, 1961. p. 3.
^"10 Air Force Men die In KB50 Crash". Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. March 6, 1961. p. 1.
^Asante, Molefi K.; Mazama, Ama, eds. (2005). "Affirmative Action". Encyclopedia of Black Studies. SAGE. p. 3.
^"X15 Rocket Ship Streaks To Recod 2,650 MPH; Super Engine Is Giant New Step Into Space", UPI report by Stanley Hall in The Fresno Bee, March 7, 1961, p.1-A
^John C. Fredriksen, The United States Air Force: A Chronology (ABC-CLIO, 2011) pp.224-226
^Conrad, 57, had taken off in his twin-engine Piper from
Miami at 8:07 a.m. on February 27, and landed at 2:46 a.m. after a 25,457-mile (40,969 km) journey around the world. "Grandfather Holds New Flight Mark", Spokane Spokesman-Review, March 9, 1961, p15
^"Russia Lands Third Dog From Orbit". Milwaukee Sentinel. March 9, 1961. p. 1.
^"71 Miners Killed In Japan". Calgary Herald. March 10, 1961. p. 1.
^"Venus Sends Back Clear Radio Beam", Spokane Spokesman-Review, March 17, 1961, p1
^James Glanz and Eric Lipton, City in the Sky: The Rise and Fall of the World Trade Center (Macmillan, 2003) p52
^"145 Killed By Landslide In Ukraine-- News Withheld From Soviet Press For Over 2 Weeks". Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. April 1, 1961. p. 2.
^Isserman, Maurice; Weaver, Stewart (2010). Fallen Giants: A History of Himalayan Mountaineering from the Age of Empire to the Age of Extremes.
Yale University Press. p. 352.
^Higginbotham, A. (2019). Midnight in Chernobyl: the untold story of the world's greatest nuclear disaster. New York: Simon & Schuster. p. 416.
ISBN9781501134630.
^Susan Kelly, The Boston Stranglers (Pinnacle Books, 2002) pp69-70
^"Tornado Kills 180 in Pakistan", Milwaukee Journal, March 22, 1961, p1; "Tornado Death Toll Said 266", Lakeland (FL) Ledger, March 23, 1961, p5
^Sawyers, June Skinner, ed. (2006). Read the Beatles: Classic and New Writings on the Beatles, Their Legacy, and Why They Still Matter.
Penguin. pp. xxi–xxii.
^D. S. Mehta, Mass Communication and Journalism in India (Allied Publishers, 1992) p.93
^"Newspapers", in Land and People of Indian States and Union Territories, ed. by S. C. Bhatt and Gopal K. Bhargava (Kalpaz Publications, 2005) p.435
^"Kennedy Signs Bill Restoring Eisenhower's Rank", Lewiston (ID) Morning Tribune, March 23, 1961, p2
^"Army Accepts Resignation of Eisenhower", Schenectady (NY) Gazette, July 21, 1952, p7
^"Soviets Abolish News Censorship". Milwaukee Journal. March 23, 1961. p. 4.
^"Eight Yanks Are Missing in US Aircraft Over Laos". Milwaukee Journal. March 25, 1961. p. 1.
^Howren, Jamie; Kiland, Taylor Baldwin (2005). Open Doors: Vietnam POWs Thirty Years Later.
Potomac Books.
^"Soviets acknowledge death in '61 of rookie cosmonaut". Philadelphia Inquirer. April 4, 1986. p. 18.
^Burgess, Colin; Hall, Rex (2009). The First Soviet Cosmonaut Team: Their Lives, Legacy, and Historical Impact. Praxis Publishing. p. 119.
^"U.S. Shoots A Dummy Into Space". Miami News. March 24, 1961. p. 1.
^Allday, Jonathan (2000). Apollo in Perspective: Spaceflight Then and Now.
CRC Press. p. 89.
^"Cincinnati Topples Ohio State, 70-65, In Overtime Game", Miami News, March 26, 1961, p2C
^Rex Hall and David Shayler, The Rocket Men: Vostok & Voskhod, the First Soviet Manned Spaceflights (Springer, 2001) p132
^"Rugby Title Won By French Team", Montreal Gazette, March 27, 1961, p20
Uganda became self-governing by holding its first general elections a year in advance of full independence. With 90% of the 1.3 million eligible voters participating, the
Democratic Party, led by
Benedicto Kiwanuka, won 43 of the 81 seats in the National Assembly. The
Uganda People's Congress received more votes overall, but won only 35 seats.[1]
Algerian nationalist leader
Ferhat Abbas announced in
Rabat,
Morocco, that the
FLN had agreed to French President
Charles de Gaulle's proposal to begin peace talks on Algerian independence. By then, the
Algerian War was in its seventh year.[3]
At the age of 79, artist
Pablo Picasso married 35-year-old
Jacqueline Roque. The two would remain together until his death in 1973.[4]
Twenty-two coal miners were killed in an underground explosion at the Viking Coal Company near
Terre Haute, Indiana.[5]
Elsie May Batten, a 59-year-old shop assistant and wife of sculptor Mark Batten, was found stabbed to death with an antique dagger at the London curiosity shop where she worked.[7] Her killer,
Edwin Bush, was the first British murderer to be caught by use of the
Identikit facial composite system.[8]
The Soviet Union made its first successful test of its V-1000
anti-ballistic missile system, proving that it could intercept an
intercontinental ballistic missile. The ICBM, an
R-12 Dvina (referred to by NATO as the SS-4), was fired from the
Kapustin Yar in southwest Russia. The V-1000 was launched from the
Sary Shagan range thousands of miles to the east, and the intercept took place at an altitude of 80,000 feet (24,000 m) over the
Kazakh SSR.[14]
The centennial of the presidential inauguration of
Abraham Lincoln was observed with a re-enactment at the east front of the U.S. Capitol. A crowd of 20,000 people watched, twice as many as had witnessed the actual event in 1861.[15]
Died:Pudge Wyman, 65, American pro football player credited with the first NFL touchdown. Wyman played for the Rock Island Independents in their 45-0 win over the Muncie Flyers on October 3, 1920.
At a press conference at
Andrews Air Force Base, spokesmen for the U.S. Air Force Research and Development command announced that they had developed an
atomic clock "so accurate that its biggest error would not exceed one second in 1271 years", and, at 62 pounds (28 kg), light enough that it could be used on aircraft in place of the existing system of crystal oscillators. Conventional atomic clock units, though more accurate, weighed over 600 pounds (270 kg) and were impractical for flight.[18]
The crash of a U.S. Air Force
Boeing KB-50 refueling plane killed all ten men on board.[19]
The phrase "
affirmative action" was first used to refer to a governmental requirement to promote equal opportunity by giving preferences in order to remedy prior discrimination. President Kennedy used the term with the issuance of
Executive Order 10925.[20] The original context was in Section 301 of the order, providing that federal government contracts include a provision that "The contractor will take affirmative action to ensure that applicants are employed, and that employees are treated during employment, without regard to their race, creed, color, or national origin."[21]
The British soap opera Coronation Street was fully networked by
ITV, with a new schedule of Monday and Wednesday evenings at 19:30.
The successful test firing of the engines of a
Titan I missile, as it stood inside the underground SLTF (Silo Test Launch Facility) at California's
Vandenberg Air Force Base, demonstrated that a missile could be successfully and safely fired, before launch, within a
missile silo. An actual launch from the silo would not take place until May 3.[23]
Flying a
North American X-15 airplane, U.S. Air Force Captain
Robert White became the first person to travel faster than Mach 4, reaching Mach 4.43, or 2,650 miles per hour (4,260 km/h).[24] White would become the first person to break Mach 5 on
June 23, and Mach 6 on
November 9.[25]
Redstone launch vehicle number 5 was delivered to Cape Canaveral for the
Mercury-Redstone Booster Development flight that would be launched on March 24 as the last space shot before the launch of the first U.S. astronaut,
Alan Shepard, on Mercury 3.[9]
Max Conrad, "the Flying Grandfather", circumnavigated the Earth in 8 days, 18 hours and 49 minutes, setting a new world record for a light airplane, breaking the previous mark, set in 1959, of 25 days.[27]
Mercury spacecraft number 10 was accepted and delivered to the
McDonnell altitude test facility on March 31, 1961, for an
orbital-flight environmental test.[9]
Sputnik 9 was launched by the USSR from Baikonur LC1, carrying "
Ivan Ivanovich" (the nickname for a mannequin cosmonaut), the dog
Chernushka, some mice, and a guinea pig. The spaceship made several orbits of the Earth at an average altitude of 135 miles (217 km), and then was recovered.
NASA spokesman George M. Law said that the test showed that the Russians were "about ready to put a man up" into outer space.[28]
An underground fire killed 71 Japanese coal miners at the Ueda Mine Company at
Kawara,
Fukuoka Prefecture, in Japan's worst
coal mine disaster since World War II.[29]
The first definite proof that a signal could be sent to Venus and returned to Earth, using
radar astronomy, was made by the
Jet Propulsion Laboratory. Transmission was sent from the
Goldstone Tracking Station in California at a 2,388 megacycle frequency, traveling 35 million miles to Venus and then back to Earth, in a little more than six minutes. Signals had been bounced off of Venus before, but never received back clearly enough to be "immediately detectable".[30]
Richard Sullivan, a staffer at the
Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, delivered a feasibility study to the Authority, entitled "A World Trade Center in the Port of New York", outlining the justification for building what would become the Twin Towers and five other buildings in the
World Trade Center complex.[31]
Born:
Laurel Clark, NASA astronaut, medical doctor, United States Navy captain, and Space Shuttle mission specialist who was killed along with her six fellow crew members in the
Space Shuttle Columbia disaster in 2003; in
Ames, Iowa[32]
Plans for an invasion of
Cuba were presented by CIA official
Richard M. Bissell, Jr. for the approval of President Kennedy. In a meeting attended by the President, Secretary of State
Dean Rusk, Defense Secretary
Robert McNamara, CIA Director
Allen Dulles, and General
Lyman Lemnitzer, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staffs, Bissell outlined the proposed "Operation Trinidad", with an invasion force storming the beaches of
Trinidad, Cuba by sea and by air. Kennedy rejected the plan as "too spectacular", and directed Bissell to come up with a less obvious placement of troops. Only four days later, Bissell had drawn up a new plan, with the force to strike at the
Bay of Pigs within a month. "The Kennedy team was impressed," one historian would say later, "when they should have been incredulous."[33]
Died:William A. Morgan, 33, former American soldier who later became an advisor to
Fidel Castro, was executed by a firing squad in
Havana after being found guilty of conspiring against the government.[35]
Miami mobster
John Roselli, who was assisting the CIA in its plans to assassinate Fidel Castro, met with a Cuban contact at the
Fontainebleau Hotel in
Miami Beach. Roselli would testify before the U.S. Senate, 14 years later, about the delivery of money and poisoned pills for the contact to place in Castro's food. Columnist
Jack Anderson would break the story in his column of January 18, 1971.[36] The CIA would acknowledge its involvement 46 years after the fact, with the declassification of documents in 2007.[37]
The long-running BBC radio music show Your Hundred Best Tunes moved to the 9–10 p.m. Sunday night timeslot with which it would be associated for the next 45 years.
One hundred forty-five people in
Kiev were killed in the
Kurenivka mudslide, after a dam burst on the
Dnieper River at the capital of the
Ukrainian SSR. The disaster was not reported in the Soviet press until March 31, when it was mentioned in Pravda.[38]
The first phase of the creation of the
New English Bible, begun in 1946 by the Joint Committee on the New Translation of the Bible, was completed with the publication of the revised
New Testament. Relying on a re-examination of the oldest texts and conveyance of original meanings into modern English, the "new New Testament" was released to coincide with the 350th anniversary of the March 1611 publication of the King James Version of the Bible.[43][44]
The patent application for the lifesaving opioid antidote
naloxone (more commonly known as
Narcan) was filed by
Jack Fishman and Mozes J. Lewenstein. U.S. Patent #3,254,088 was granted on May 31, 1966.[46]
Atlas launch vehicle 100-D was delivered to Cape Canaveral for the Mercury-Atlas 3 mission.[9]
The
Union of Peoples of Angola, led by
Holden Roberto, crossed over from the Congo into
Angola, and murdered European and African residents living near the northern border of the Portuguese colony.[47] Portuguese forces killed tens of thousands of African residents in retaliation and the
war continued for 14 years.[48]
Died:Sir Walter Womersley, 1st Baronet, 83, British M.P.; as Minister of Pensions from 1939 to 1945, he was the only British government minister to hold the same post throughout World War II.
The Space Task Group advised the
Goddard Space Flight Center that for all Mercury orbital missions, beginning with Mercury-Atlas 3,
trajectory data would be required for postflight analysis.[9]
Mercury spacecraft No. 10 was withdrawn from the flight program and was allocated to a ground test simulating orbital flight environmental conditions at the McDonnell plant site.[9]
Albert DeSalvo was arrested in
Cambridge, Massachusetts, while trying to break into a house. Confessing to be a sexual predator who had been nicknamed "the Measuring Man", DeSalvo spent a year in jail. For 18 months following his release, thirteen local women were sexually assaulted and murdered. DeSalvo, arrested later in 1964, confessed to being the "
Boston Strangler".[53]
Israel staged a dress rehearsal for a military parade in the Israeli-occupied part of Jerusalem, in which heavy military armament took part. Following a complaint by
Jordan about the display of military might, the Mixed Armistice Commission decided that "this act by Israel is a breach of the General Armistice Agreement".[citation needed]
Died:Susanna M. Salter, 101, first woman mayor in the United States; in 1887, she was elected to a two-year term as mayor of the small town of
Argonia, Kansas, after being placed on the ballot as a prank.
Little Joe 5A, the sixth in the series of
Little Joe missions, was launched from
Wallops Island to demonstrate the structural integrity of the spacecraft and escape system during an escape maneuver initiated at the
highest dynamic pressure anticipated during an Atlas launch for orbital flight. LJ-5A lifted off normally, but 19 seconds later the escape tower fired prematurely, a situation resembling the
Little Joe 5 flight in
November 1960. The signal to initiate the abort maneuver was given, and the launch vehicle-adapter clamp ring was released, but the spacecraft remained on the launch vehicle since the escape motor was already expended. The separation was effected by using the
retrorockets, but this command was transmitted before the flight had reached its apex, where separation had been planned. Therefore, the separation was rather violent. The parachutes deployed at about 40,000 feet (12,000 m), and after recovery it was found that the spacecraft had incurred only superficial structural damage. This spacecraft was used for the subsequent
Little Joe 5B flight test. Test objectives of LJ-5A were not met.[9]
Tornadoes swept through four districts of
East Pakistan (now
Bangladesh), killing more than 250 people. The dead included 32 people who had taken refuge in a Catholic church in Dacca after attending Sunday mass.[54]
Died:Ada Cornaro, 79, Argentinian tango dancer and actress
Phase III of testing of the Mercury spacecraft airdrop program was conducted and lasted for four weeks, until April 13. Primary objectives of the drops were to study further the spacecraft suitability and flotation capability after water impact. Six drops were made, but later (April 24–28, 1961) the tests were extended for two additional drops to monitor hard-surface landing effects.[9]
Dwight D. Eisenhower was restored to the United States Army and to his rank as a five-star
General of the Army, two months after completing his term as the 34th
President of the United States.[58] General Eisenhower had resigned his commission on July 18, 1952, after accepting the Republican Party nomination for the Presidency.[59]
Died:Gideon Mer, 66, Israeli physician and scientist who guided the eradication of malaria in the Jewish state
The
Soviet Union lifted
censorship restrictions for foreign news correspondents that had been in place since 1917. Except for two occasions in 1939 and 1946, non-Soviet reporters had been required to have their dispatches reviewed before transmission. Foreign office press director Mikhail Kharlamov cautioned that, although pre-approval of reports would no longer be required, foreigners were still required to keep copies of all dispatches for future review, and that persons who "circulated unfounded rumors about the Soviet Union" were still subject to expulsion.[60]
An American
C-47 transport plane with eight men aboard disappeared over the war-torn nation of
Laos after taking off from
Vientiane toward
Saigon. The U.S. Air Force did not announce the incident until two days later.[61] The sole survivor, Major Lawrence R. Bailey, Jr., was captured and became the first American
POW of the
Vietnam Era. He would be released on August 15, 1962.[62]
Valentin Bondarenko, 24, Russian
cosmonaut, was burned to death in a training accident. His death would be concealed by the Soviet government for more than 25 years, finally being revealed in 1986 in an article in the daily newspaper Izvestia.[63][64]
Heinrich Rau, 61, East German politician and Minister of Foreign Trade
The
Mercury-Redstone BD (Mercury-Redstone Booster Development) rocket was launched from Cape Canaveral on one final test flight to certify its safety for human transport. As with earlier Soviet tests, the American space capsule carried a test dummy. The spacecraft reached an altitude of 115 miles (185 km) and was recovered in the Atlantic 8 minutes after launch.[9][65] Stopped by
Wernher von Braun from going,
Alan Shepard had volunteered to take the flight, and would have become the first human to travel into outer space. Less than three weeks later, Soviet cosmonaut
Yuri Gagarin would reach the milestone on April 12. Shepard would reach space, though not orbit, on May 5.[66]
The day after the U.S. launch of a test dummy into space, the Soviets made one final launch of their own Ivan Ivanovich dummy into space, along with the last dog in space, Zvezdochka. Both went up on
Korabl-Sputnik 5 (called "Sputnik 10" in the West), which made one orbit and safely returned to Earth.[68]
Born:Reginald Fils-Aimé, American businessman best known for being the president and chief operating officer of
Nintendo of America, the North American branch of the Japanese video game company
Nintendo, from 2006 to 2019; in
New York City
Nine African-American students from Mississippi's
Tougaloo College made the first effort of passive resistance to end segregation in the state capital,
Jackson, by walking into the whites-only main branch of the municipal public library. After beginning the "read-in", the students declined to leave and were arrested by police. The next day, black students at
Jackson State College marched to the city jail to protest the arrest of the "Tougaloo Nine", and more demonstrations followed.[70]
In a
NASA Headquarters note to editors of magazines and newspapers, procedures and a deadline were established for submitting the applications of accredited correspondents to cover the
Mercury-Redstone 3 mission. As of April 24, 1961, the deadline date, 350 correspondents were accredited to cover the launch, the first crewed suborbital flight of
Project Mercury.[9]
U.S. President
John F. Kennedy informed Congress that, as part of the proposed $43.8 billion defense budget, he was cancelling the
Pye Wacket project, an experimental lenticular-form air-to-air missile, and the
B-70 nuclear-powered airplane.[72] Kennedy declared that "As a power which will never strike first, our hopes for anything close to an absolute deterrent must rest on weapons which come from hidden, moving, or invulnerable bases which will not be wiped out by a surprise attack," and lobbied instead for ten additional Polaris nuclear submarines and an increased Minuteman nuclear arsenal.[73]
Air Afrique was founded by agreement of ten West African nations that had gained independence from France.[76] The airline operated until 2001, when its fleet and routes were acquired by
Air France.[77]
Actor
Ronald Reagan gave a speech entitled "Encroaching Control" to the Phoenix Chamber of Commerce. This speech was considered by some historians to be his finest and the moment his political career truly began.[citation needed]
NASA's worldwide
Mercury tracking network, designed by the
Western Electric Company at a cost of $60,000,000 became fully operational. Western Electric would turn over the global network of 18 ground tracking stations to NASA in a formal ceremony later in the year.[9] Electronics on two ships in the Atlantic and Indian Oceans were used to close gaps between ground stations.
^Reed, Thomas C.; Stillman, Danny B. (2009). The nuclear express: a political history of the bomb and its proliferation.
MBI Publishing Company. p. 190.
^Sobel, Robert, ed. (1990). "Eisenhower, Dwight David". Biographical Directory of the United States Executive Branch, 1774–1989.
Greenwood Publishing Group. p. 116.
^Hobbs, David (2014), British Aircraft Carriers: Design, Development & Service Histories, Seaforth Publishing, p. 203,
ISBN978-1-4738-5369-0
^"Clock Is Perfect". Spokane Spokesman-Review. March 6, 1961. p. 3.
^"10 Air Force Men die In KB50 Crash". Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. March 6, 1961. p. 1.
^Asante, Molefi K.; Mazama, Ama, eds. (2005). "Affirmative Action". Encyclopedia of Black Studies. SAGE. p. 3.
^"X15 Rocket Ship Streaks To Recod 2,650 MPH; Super Engine Is Giant New Step Into Space", UPI report by Stanley Hall in The Fresno Bee, March 7, 1961, p.1-A
^John C. Fredriksen, The United States Air Force: A Chronology (ABC-CLIO, 2011) pp.224-226
^Conrad, 57, had taken off in his twin-engine Piper from
Miami at 8:07 a.m. on February 27, and landed at 2:46 a.m. after a 25,457-mile (40,969 km) journey around the world. "Grandfather Holds New Flight Mark", Spokane Spokesman-Review, March 9, 1961, p15
^"Russia Lands Third Dog From Orbit". Milwaukee Sentinel. March 9, 1961. p. 1.
^"71 Miners Killed In Japan". Calgary Herald. March 10, 1961. p. 1.
^"Venus Sends Back Clear Radio Beam", Spokane Spokesman-Review, March 17, 1961, p1
^James Glanz and Eric Lipton, City in the Sky: The Rise and Fall of the World Trade Center (Macmillan, 2003) p52
^"145 Killed By Landslide In Ukraine-- News Withheld From Soviet Press For Over 2 Weeks". Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. April 1, 1961. p. 2.
^Isserman, Maurice; Weaver, Stewart (2010). Fallen Giants: A History of Himalayan Mountaineering from the Age of Empire to the Age of Extremes.
Yale University Press. p. 352.
^Higginbotham, A. (2019). Midnight in Chernobyl: the untold story of the world's greatest nuclear disaster. New York: Simon & Schuster. p. 416.
ISBN9781501134630.
^Susan Kelly, The Boston Stranglers (Pinnacle Books, 2002) pp69-70
^"Tornado Kills 180 in Pakistan", Milwaukee Journal, March 22, 1961, p1; "Tornado Death Toll Said 266", Lakeland (FL) Ledger, March 23, 1961, p5
^Sawyers, June Skinner, ed. (2006). Read the Beatles: Classic and New Writings on the Beatles, Their Legacy, and Why They Still Matter.
Penguin. pp. xxi–xxii.
^D. S. Mehta, Mass Communication and Journalism in India (Allied Publishers, 1992) p.93
^"Newspapers", in Land and People of Indian States and Union Territories, ed. by S. C. Bhatt and Gopal K. Bhargava (Kalpaz Publications, 2005) p.435
^"Kennedy Signs Bill Restoring Eisenhower's Rank", Lewiston (ID) Morning Tribune, March 23, 1961, p2
^"Army Accepts Resignation of Eisenhower", Schenectady (NY) Gazette, July 21, 1952, p7
^"Soviets Abolish News Censorship". Milwaukee Journal. March 23, 1961. p. 4.
^"Eight Yanks Are Missing in US Aircraft Over Laos". Milwaukee Journal. March 25, 1961. p. 1.
^Howren, Jamie; Kiland, Taylor Baldwin (2005). Open Doors: Vietnam POWs Thirty Years Later.
Potomac Books.
^"Soviets acknowledge death in '61 of rookie cosmonaut". Philadelphia Inquirer. April 4, 1986. p. 18.
^Burgess, Colin; Hall, Rex (2009). The First Soviet Cosmonaut Team: Their Lives, Legacy, and Historical Impact. Praxis Publishing. p. 119.
^"U.S. Shoots A Dummy Into Space". Miami News. March 24, 1961. p. 1.
^Allday, Jonathan (2000). Apollo in Perspective: Spaceflight Then and Now.
CRC Press. p. 89.
^"Cincinnati Topples Ohio State, 70-65, In Overtime Game", Miami News, March 26, 1961, p2C
^Rex Hall and David Shayler, The Rocket Men: Vostok & Voskhod, the First Soviet Manned Spaceflights (Springer, 2001) p132
^"Rugby Title Won By French Team", Montreal Gazette, March 27, 1961, p20