1960s Trivia Quiz Questions About 1961 With Answers
President Dwight D. Eisenhower announces that the United
States has done what?
A: Severed diplomatic and consular relations with
Cuba.
What happened at the National Reactor Testing Station near
Idaho Falls?
A: Atomic reactor SL-1 explodes, killing 3 military technicians.
John F. Kennedy is inaugurated as what?
A: President of the U.S.
January 24 – A B-52 Stratofortress, with two nuclear bombs
does what?
A: Crashes near Goldsboro,
North Carolina.
The United States tests its first what?
A: Minuteman I intercontinental ballistic missile.
Where do the Beatles perform for the first time?
A: At The Cavern Club.
A Sabena Boeing 707 crashes near Brussels, Belgium, killing
73, including the entire what?
A: United States figure skating team and several coaches.
What does President Kennedy establish?
A: The Peace Corps.
The Twenty-third Amendment to the United States
Constitution is ratified, allowing what?
A: Residents of Washington, D.C. to vote in presidential
elections.
Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin becomes the first human to go
where?
A: Into space, orbiting the Earth once.
The Bay of Pigs Invasion of what country begins?
A: Cuba.
Where does Judy Garland perform in a legendary comeback
concert?
A: At Carnegie Hall in
New York City.
The Swedish ship Vasa is removed from the water after being
sunk how much earlier?
A: 333 years.
U.S. Freedom Riders begin interstate bus rides to test
what?
A: The new U.S. Supreme Court integration decision.
Alan Shepard becomes the first American to go where?
A: Into space.
A Freedom Riders bus is fire-bombed near Anniston,
Alabama
and the civil rights protestors are what?
A: Beaten by an angry mob.
Venera 1 becomes the first man-made object to do what?
A: Fly-by another planet by passing Venus.
Freedom Riders are arrested in Jackson,
Mississippi for
"disturbing the peace" after what?
A: Disembarking from their bus.
President Kennedy announces before a special joint session
of Congress his goal to put a man where?
A: On the Moon before the end of the decade.
President John F. Kennedy meets with whom in
Paris?
A: Charles de Gaulle.
What Russian ballet dancer requests asylum in France while
in Paris with the Kirov Ballet?
A: Rudolf Nureyev.
Where does the Soviet submarine K-19 reactor leak occur?
A: In the North Atlantic.
Gus Grissom, piloting the Mercury-Redstone 4 capsule
Liberty Bell 7, becomes the second American to do what?
A: To go into space (sub-orbital).
The Six Flags Over Texas theme park officially what?
A: Opens to the public.
Construction of the Berlin what begins?
A: The Berlin Wall.
The Tom and Jerry cartoons make a return with their first
episode since when?
A: 1957.
Military rulers in Turkey hang whom?
A: Former prime minister Adnan Menderes.
Roger Maris of the New York Yankees hits his 61st what?
A: Home run in the last game of the season.
What is abolished in New Zealand?
A: The death penalty.
Catch-22 is first published by whom?
A: Joseph Heller.
Stalingrad is renamed to what?
A: Volgograd.
Who disappears in the jungles of New Guinea?
A: Michael Rockefeller, son of New York Governor and later Vice President
Nelson Rockefeller.
President Kennedy sends how many military advisors to South
Vietnam?
A: 18,000.
The American involvement in the Vietnam War officially
what?
A: Begins, as the first American helicopters arrive in Saigon along with 400
U.S. personnel.
An Israeli war crimes tribunal sentences Adolf Eichmann to
what?
A: To die for his part in The Holocaust.
"Barbie" gets a boyfriend when what is introduced?
A: The "Ken" doll is introduced.