That Was The Year That Was: 1961

Catch 22 published

The Agony and the Ecstasy published

Golfs's top money winner: Gary Player, $64,540

Houston Astros and New York Mets to be added to National League in 1962.

1/3 -- U.S. breaks diplomatic relations with Cuba

1/20 -- John F. Kennedy inaugurated as 35th President

1/31 -- Project Mercury: chimp launched into space and recovered successfully

3/13 -- Floyd Patterson knocks out Ingemar Johanssen

4/17 -- Bay of Pigs invasion

5/1 -- To Kill a Mockingbird wins Pulitzer Prize

5/5 -- Minimum wage set at $1.25 per hour

5/5 -- Alan Shepard launched into suborbital flight

5/9 -- FCC Chairman Newton N. Minnow calls television "a vast wasteland"

5/13 -- Gary Cooper dies at 60

5/14 -- "Freedom riders" attacked in Anniston and Birmingham, Alabama

7/7 -- James R. Hoffa reelected president of International Brotherhood of Teamsters

7/17 -- Ty Cobb dies at 74

7/17 -- Gene Littler wins U.S. Open

7/21 -- "Gus" Grissom launched into suborbital flight

7/30 -- Jerry Barber wins PGA

8/13 -- Construction of the Berlin Wall

9/8 -- JAMA holds that smoking is related to heart disease

10/1 -- Roger Maris hits 61st homer

10/6 -- President Kennedy advises families to build or buy a shelter against atomic fallout

10/11 -- Chico Marx dies at 70

11/2 -- James Thurber dies at 66

11/16 -- Sam Rayburn dies at 79

12/13 -- Grandma Moses dies at 101

12/31 -- NFL Championship: Packers 37, Giants 0