Composed from internet sources

1-The People's Revolutionary Party was founded as a Marxist-Leninist

political party in South Vietnam, and its leaders receiving

instruction directly from the Lao Dong Party of North Vietnam.

1961 college football season: #1 ranked Alabama defeated #9 Arkansas

in the Sugar Bowl, 10-3, in New Orleans.

2-In his annual report to the NAACP, Executive Secretary Roy Wilkins

praised U.S. President John F. Kennedy's "personal role" in advancing

civil rights, but said that he was "sorely disappointed" by the

President's failure to honor his promise to ban racial discrimination

in federally assisted housing.

3-A spokesman for Pope John XXIII revealed that Cuban leader Fidel

Castro and several other officials had received a decree of

excommunication from the Roman Catholic Church in 1961 under two

sections of canon law, for impeding bishops in their work and for

violence against clergymen. In September, Cuban bishop Eduardo Boza

Masvidal and 135 priests had been forced to leave Cuba.

6-A bomb exploded at the Paris apartment building where controversial

existentianalist author Jean-Paul Sartre lived. Sartre was not home at

the time, and his mother was not injured, but the fire destroyed most

of his unpublished manuscripts.

9-Cuba and the Soviet Union signed a trade pact.

11-Eleven coal miners were killed in an explosion at a mine near

Carterville, Illinois.

Nelson Mandela secretly left South Africa for the first time, as he

was driven across the border to Botswana. From there, he went to

Ethiopia to speak at a conference in Addis Ababa. He would tour the

continent for the next six months. Upon his return to South Africa on

August 5, he would be arrested.

Born: Kim Coles, American actress, in Brooklyn, New York.

12-Operation Chopper, the first American combat mission in Vietnam,

began as the American pilots transported hundreds of South Vietnamese

troops to fight against a Viet Cong force near Saigon. Three days

later, President Kennedy told reporters at a press conference that

American troops were not being used in combat.

13-First Lady Jackie Kennedy brought Charles Collingwood and a CBS

News television crew into the White House for an unprecedented look at

the American presidential residence. The tape of the visit was edited

into the program "A Tour of the White House with Mrs. John F.

Kennedy", and shown on CBS and NBC on Feb. 14.

Born: Trace Adkins, American country music singer, in Springhill, Louisiana.

14-The NFL Pro Bowl, described by some as one that "may have been the

best in history",[39] was won by the all-stars of the NFL Western

Conference, 31-30, on the last play of the game, before a crowd of

57,409 in Los Angeles.

15-After the United Kingdom sought to join the European Economic

Community, the Meteorological Office first began using

centigradetemperature values in its public weather information,

following the Farenheit values. In October, the centigrade values were

listed first, and by Jan. 1, 1973, when the government entered the EEC

and completed its conversion to the metric system, Fahrenheit numbers

were only used occasionally.

Portugal abandoned the U.N. General Assembly due to the debate over

its East African colony in Angola.

Died: Kenneth MacKenna, 62, American actor and film director.

16-The Jackson State Times, an afternoon daily newspaper in Jackson,

Mississippi, published its last issue, leaving the city with the two

dailies owned by Mississippi Publishers, the Daily News and the The

Clarion-Ledger.

17-United States government workers were given the right of collective

bargaining by President Kennedy, in Executive Order 10988.

Frank Sinatra completed the recording of his album All Alone, in Los Angeles.

Born: Jim Carrey, Canadian-American actor and comedian, in Newmarket, Ontario.

18-In the lead-up to the opening of negotiations on Ireland's entry to

the European Community, Irish Prime Minister Sean Lemass addressed the

members of the other EC governments at their headquarters in Brussels.

Died: Snub Pollard, 72, American silent film comedian.

20-Died: Robinson Jeffers, 75, American poet; and J. Spencer Love, 65,

who went from being a payroll clerk at a cotton manufacturer, to being

the founder of Burlington Industries.

21-The Organization of American States (OAS) began its Eighth Meeting

of Consultation of the Ministers of Foreign Affairs in Punta del Este,

Uruguay, in the course of which the United States agreed to resume aid

to Haiti in return for its support of sanctions against Cuba. Haiti's

participation was essential because the United States was a vote short

of having the 2/3rds majority of the 21 member nations.

22-While cast in the film Cleopatra, Richard Burton and Elizabeth

Taylor fell in love on the first day of filming the re-enactment of

the romance between Mark Antony and Queen Cleopatra, which had taken

place in 40 BC. They divorced their respective spouses, Sybil Burton

and Eddie Fisher, and married in 1964, divorcing in 1974, remarrying

in 1975, and divorcing again in 1976.

The Organization of American States (OAS) suspended Cuba's

membership. Whilst technically still a member, the Cuban government

was denied the rights of representation and attendance at meetings.

23-In his first year of eligibility, Jackie Robinson was elected to

the Baseball Hall Of Fame, receiving 124 of the 160 ballots cast and

becoming the first African-American to be enshrined at Cooperstown.

Singer Tony Bennett first recorded what would become his signature

song, I Left My Heart in San Francisco.

Physicist Thomas Townsend Brown received U.S. Patent 3,018,394 for

the Electro-kinetic Transducer, a means of using an electric field as

a means of propulsion of aircraft against gravity.

24-The East German government instituted conscription into its armed

forces, which formerly had been filled by volunteers. Western sources

speculated that the East Germans had waited until the completion of

the Berlin Wall before announcing the draft.

An attempt by the United States, to launch five satellites into orbit

from the same rocket, failed when the final stage of the

Thor-Able-Star rocket failed to provide sufficient thrust to break the

pull of gravity.

26-The American space probe Ranger 3 was launched to from Cape

Canaveral at 3:30 pm local time with the objective of duplicating the

Soviet feat of landing a satellite on the Moon. Hours later, NASA

announced that the Atlas rocket had hurled Ranger 3 into its

trajectory too quickly, and that the probe would miss its target by

22,000 miles. Intersecting the Moon's orbit after 50 hours instead of

the planned 66 hours the spacecraft arrived too soon, got no closer

than 22,862 miles from the Moon and went into orbit around the sun.

27-At a major conference in Beijing, Liu Shaoqi, President of the

People's Republic of China, criticized the "Great Leap Forward"

economic policies of Party Chairman Mao Zedong. "People do not have

enough food, clothes or other essentials… agricultural output has

dropped tremendously," Liu told the assembly, adding "There is not

only no Great Leap Forward, but a great deal of falling backward."

Chairman Mao made a rare self-criticism three days later, and

eventually took revenge on Liu, who disappeared in 1968 and reportedly

died in 1969.

28-The last streetcar in Washington, D.C. ran for the final time at

2:00 am, as the transit company retired its 27 car fleet. The day

before, free rides were offered for all children accompanied by a

paying adult and thousands took advantage of the offer. By 1962, only

ten American cities still had trolleys.

29-The Automobile Manufacturers Association of the U.S. announced that

all 1963 model American vehicles would be equipped withamber-colored

turn signals on the front, rather than being the same color as the

headlights, which had been the standard since the signals had first

been introduced in 1938 The change was made after the manufacturers

had lobbied for the repeal of bans in 25 states against amber-colored

lights.

30-Born: Prince Abdullah of Jordan, to King Hussein and Princess Muna

al-Hussein, formerly Antoinette Avril Gardiner of Britain. He would

succeed his father as King Abdullah II in 1999.