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| No. 1 |
June 16, 1961 |
Volume 1 |
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Major Events in 1961 - a pictorial and narrative
display for the Class of 1961
The American School In Japan, Tokyo, Japan |
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Headlines |
| King of Twist |
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| Peace Corps |
| Bay of Pigs |
| Vietnam Advisors |
| Berlin Wall |
| IBM Selectric |
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NEWSWORTHY ITEMS IN |
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Washington News |
Art and Entertainment |
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Betting
on John F.:
TOKYO - June 16, 1961, having a user friendly administration in
Washington is a welcome change for the students in the Class of
1961 faced with tough life choices in the years to come. Unfortunately,
this change will be short-lived. |
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King of the Twist
Chubby Checker, known as the
"King of the Twist," exploded onto the music scene in 1960 and
never looked back. The "Twist" topped the US chart on two
separate occasions, in 1960 and 1961. |
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Kennedy Administration Establishes The Peace
Corps |
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The first group of Peace Corps Volunteers departs for
Ghana in 1961.
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WASHINGTON, DC - March 1, 1961. The date was October 14, 1960
and it was the day presidential candidate
John F. Kennedy stood on the steps of the University of Michigan's
student Union and challenged the 10,000 students present to volunteer
their skills overseas. Less than five months later, on March 1, 1961 the
Peace Corps was created and the first Volunteers left for Africa that
August. |
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Weather |
Military
Advisors |
To Vietnam |
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SAIGON
- May 1961 - President Kennedy sends 400 American Green Beret
"Special Advisors" to South Vietnam to train South Vietnamese
soldiers in methods of "counter - insurgency" in the fight
against Viet Cong guerrillas.
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IBM Selectric Typewriter |
Soba |
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NEW YORK - IBM introduces the "Selectric"
typewriter, an electric typewriter which uses a replaceable golf
ball-shaped typing element rather than type bars or movable carriages.
The Selectric becomes a popular piece of office and school equipment because of its
ease in changing fonts and because it was available in a variety of
colors.
The Selectric, especially the correcting
version, is so noteworthy because, without it, many of us will
never get out of graduate school. |
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New typing
element
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Food for the soul! |
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US Politics: Other
Foreign Entanglements in 1961 |
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The Berlin Wall Goes
Up |
The Bay Of Pigs
Invasion |
Haunting Images |
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BERLIN, EAST GERMANY - On 13th August
1961, a holiday Sunday, at 1.11 in the morning, the official East German
press agency announced that the Warsaw Pact countries had asked the East
German government to set up "effective controls" in
and around Berlin. Within an hour, 67 of the 81 crossing points were
sealed off, soon followed by another seven. All traffic was stopped
between East Germany and West Berlin. The underground and the S-Bahn
linking the two sections of the city were no longer in operation. Under
the watchful eye of the police and the army, barbed wire and wire
entanglements were placed across access points to West Berlin. Roads
were dug up and barricades erected. Within a matter of hours, the entire
border around West Berlin was under control. |
HAVANA, CUBA - The Bay of Pigs invasion of April
1961, started a few days before on April 15th with the bombing of Cuba
by what appeared to be defecting Cuban air force pilots. At 6 a.m. in
the morning of that Saturday, three Cuban military bases were bombed by
B-26 bombers. The airfields at Camp Libertad, San Antonio de los Baos
and Antonio Maceo airport at Santiago de Cuba were fired upon. Seven
people were killed at Libertad and forty-seven people were killed at
other sites on the island.
The grand idea was that the dissidents would spark
off a popular uprising against Castro and his government. But it never
came, most Cubans supported Castro, and the Cuban military quickly dealt
with the landing. The United States was publicly humiliated and had to
agree to send $50 million of equipment in exchange for the release of
the dissidents.
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Bay of Pigs
The Berlin Wall goes up. |
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Motion Pictures and Sound
Recordings |
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Best Actor |
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34th Academy Awards |
4th Annual Grammy Awards
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Best Movie: West
Side Story
Best Actress: Sophia Loren
Best Actor: Maximilian Schell
Sophia Loren won the Best Actress award for
playing a mother trying to protect her 13 year-old daughter
against the horrors of war in Two Women.
West Side Story was a musical version of "Romeo
and Juliet" updated to New York's Puerto-Rican neighborhood with
the "Jets" vs. the "Sharks" and with Tony (Richard
Beymer) and Maria (Natalie Wood) as the star-crossed lovers.
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The record and song of the year (1961) was Moon
River by Johnny Mercer and Henry Mancini. Beginning a long and very productive
film partnership, Blake Edwards hired Henry Mancini to do the music for
his 1961 film, Breakfast at Tiffany's. Mancini and lyricist
Johnny Mercer wrote Moon River for a reflective scene with Audrey
Hepburn, and the song became a huge hit. The song won a
Grammy Award and received an Oscar in the Music (song) category in 1961.
Andy Williams' album outsold
the original movie score, and Moon River eventually became one of the
biggest sellers of the 1960s, with over 500 covers.
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Maximilian Schell received his Oscar for playing the
German lawyer who passionately defended four Nazi generals [correction:
"Judges"] at the war
crime trials in Nuremberg.
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