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Top Song(s)
• Ben E King - Stand By Me
• Chubby Checker - Let's Twist Again
• Elvis Presley - Surrender
• Del Shannon - Runaway
• The Marcels - Blue Moon
Top Film(s)
• Yojimbo
• The Hustler
• The Innocents
• Judgment at Nuremberg
• Last Year at Marienbad
Best Selling Book(s)
• Catch-22 - Joseph Heller
• James and the Giant Peach - Roald Dahl
• The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie - Muriel Spark
• The Phantom Tollbooth - Norton Juster
• Stranger in a Strange Land - Robert A. Heinlein
Famous Deaths
• January 9 – Emily Greene Balch, American writer and pacifist, recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize
• February 6 – Lawrence Dundas, 2nd Marquess of Zetland, British politician
• March 17 – Susanna M. Salter, first woman mayor in the United States
• April 9 – Zog I of Albania, Albanian political leader, 11th Prime Minister of Albania, and King of Albania
• June 4 – William Astbury, English physicist and molecular biologist
• July 30 – Sediqeh Dowlatabadi, Persian feminist, women's rights activist and journalist
• August 20 – Percy Williams Bridgman, American physicist, Nobel Prize laureate
• September 21 – Georgia Ann Robinson, first African American woman to be appointed a Los Angeles police officer
• October 30 – Luigi Einaudi, Italian economist and politician, 2nd President of Italy
• December 28 – Edith Wilson, First Lady of the United States from 1915 to 1921
Medical/Science/Technology
• The Drake equation is written by Frank Drake.
• Brattleboro rat strain first born.
• Leonard Ornstein first describes disc electrophoresis.
• Rolf Landauer first formulates Landauer's principle.
• Project Mohole begins.
• Francis Birch establishes Birch's law on compressional wave velocities.
• The non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drug Ibuprofen, derived from propanoic acid.
• Thalidomide is withdrawn from sale.
• Discovery of the chemical elements: Element 103, Lawrencium, is first synthesized at Berkeley, California.
• New Zealand cardiologist J. C. P. Williams identifies Williams syndrome.
Political
• January 3 - President Dwight Eisenhower announces that the United States has severed diplomatic and consular relations with Cuba.
• January 17 – President Dwight Eisenhower gives his Farewell Address, he warns of the increasing power of a "military-industrial complex".
• January 20 – John F. Kennedy is sworn in as the 35th president of the United States.
• January 25 - In Washington, D.C. John F. Kennedy delivers the first live presidential news conference.
• January 26 – John F. Kennedy appoints Janet G. Travell to be his physician, the first woman to hold this appointment.
• January 30 – President John F. Kennedy delivers his first State of the Union Address.
• February 15 - President Kennedy warns the Soviet Union to avoid interfering with the United Nations pacification of the Congo.
• March 1 – President of the United States John F. Kennedy establishes the Peace Corps.
• March 13 - President John F. Kennedy proposes a long-term "Alliance for Progress" between the United States and Latin America.
• March 29 – The Twenty-third Amendment to the United States Constitution is ratified.
National
• February 1 – The United States launches its first test of the Minuteman I ICBM.
• March 8 – The first U.S. Polaris submarines arrive at Holy Loch.
• March 30 – The Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs is signed at New York City.
• April 17 - The Bay of Pigs Invasion of Cuba begins; it fails by April 19.
• July 21 – Gus Grissom, becomes the second American to go into space (sub-orbital).
• August 5 – The Six Flags over Texas theme park officially opens to the public.
• August 7 – Cape Cod National Seashore is established.
• September 17 – The world's first retractable roof stadium, the Civic Arena, opens in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
• September 25 – Black voting rights activist Herbert Lee is murdered by Mississippi representative E. H. Hurst.
• November 18 – U.S. President John F. Kennedy sends 18,000 military advisors to South Vietnam.
Worldwide
• January 8 – In France, a referendum supports Charles de Gaulle's policies on independence for Algeria.
• February 4 – The Portuguese Colonial War begins in Angola.
• March 3 – Hassan II is crowned King of Morocco.
• April 11 – The trial of Nazi Adolf Eichmann begins in Jerusalem.
• May 22 – 1961 New South Wales earthquake.
• June 23 – The Antarctic Treaty comes into effect.
• July 8 – A mine explosion in Czechoslovakia leaves 108 dead.
• August 10 – The United Kingdom applies for membership in the European Economic Community.
• October 27 – A standoff between Soviet and American tanks in Berlin, Germany heightens Cold War tensions.
• December 10 – Albania–Soviet relations: The Soviet Union severs diplomatic relations with Albania.