October 1961

The following events occurred in October 1961:

October 1, 1961 (Sunday)

*Baseball player Roger Maris of the New York Yankees hit his 61st home run in the last game of the season, against the Boston Red Sox, beating the 34-year-old record held by Babe Ruth. The homer was made at 2:43 p.m. at Yankee Stadium, off of Boston pitcher Tracy Stallard, in the game's fourth inning. The run won the game, 1–0. Sal Durante, a 19-year-old spectator, got the baseball and won $5,000 and other prizes.
* CTV Television Network was launched at 6:30 p.m. on eight stations across Canada, with the one-hour program "Sneak Preview- glimpses of things to come", followed by ''77 Sunset Strip'' at 7:30. The first Canadian program shown, after the 10:30 news and sports, was the game show ''Scrimmage'' at 10:50.
*Evangelist Pat Robertson began religious broadcasting on WTFC Channel 27, a UHF television station in Portsmouth, Virginia. He would later beam the programming by satellite to cable systems nationwide as the Christian Broadcasting Network.
*Advertising executive Lester Wunderman coined the phrase "direct marketing" in a speech in New York to the Hundred Million Club, an organization of businesspeople using direct mail.
*The Federal Republic of Cameroon came into existence with the merger of the Republic of Cameroun, former French Cameroon and part of the former British Cameroons.
*Factory roll-out inspection was made of an Atlas booster for the Mercury-Atlas 5 (MA-5) mission, and the booster was delivered on October 9.
*The United States Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), the country's first centralized military espionage organization, was formed.
*In the UK soap '' Coronation Street'', two major characters, Harry Hewitt and Concepta Riley, married on screen.
*The first SIP1 launch by the U.S. Navy was successful, reaching an apogee of .
*Died:
** David Pratt, 53, South African farmer who shot and wounded South African Prime Minister Hendrik Verwoerd on April 9, 1960, committed suicide.
** Donald Cook, 60, American stage and film actor

October 2, 1961 (Monday)

*The ABC network medical drama ''Ben Casey'', starring Vince Edwards in the title role, premiered in the evening, four days after the premiere of the NBC medical drama ''Dr. Kildare'' and began a run of five seasons. Comparing the two, Associated Press critic Cynthia Lowry noted that "While there's a marked family resemblance to NBC's new 'Dr. Kildare,' this one is more clinical, more pre-occupied with operating room scenes and medical procedures."
*French President Charles de Gaulle delivered a televised address in France and French Algeria, outlining his plans to allow Algerian residents to determine their own future, and pledged to work toward the creation of a "strictly Algerian" security force. He also stated that, if necessary, he would again invoke the national emergency powers that he had allowed to expire two days earlier.
*The Shipping Corporation of India, one of India's largest companies, was created by the merger of the Eastern Shipping Corporation and the Western Shipping Corporation.
*The television game show ''Password'' was first telecast, with Allen Ludden as its host.
*WETA-TV, the first public television station in Washington, D.C., went on air.

October 3, 1961 (Tuesday)

*''The Dick Van Dyke Show'', starring Dick Van Dyke, Mary Tyler Moore, Rose Marie and Morey Amsterdam, was shown for the first time, making its debut at 8:00 p.m. EST on CBS. Although the show would go on to become very popular, the initial telecast, competing against '' Bachelor Father'' (ABC) and '' Laramie'' (NBC) attracted so few viewers that it was not even among the Top 70 most popular programs that week.
*The Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA), which gives its stamp of approval and restrictions on films in the United States, changed its production code, declaring that "In keeping with the culture, the mores and the values of our time, homosexuality and other sexual aberrations may now be treated with care, discretion and restraint," adding that such "aberrations" "could be suggested but not actually spelled out". The change was believed to have been prompted by the filming of the Allen Drury novel ''Advise and Consent''.
*Born: Vittorio Colao, Italian business executive and CEO of the Vodafone Group; in Brescia

October 4, 1961 (Wednesday)

*Police in McComb, Mississippi, United States, arrested and jailed 113 African-American high school and junior high school students, after the group walked out of Burgland High School and marched to City Hall, protesting the expulsion of two students who had participated in a sit-in earlier in the year.
*In the Irish general election, Fianna Fáil, led by Seán Lemass, lost its majority of 77 out of 144 seats, dropping to 70, but still retained the plurality and was able to form a government. Lemass continued as the Taoiseach (Prime Minister).
*''The Alvin Show'', the first TV series to feature Alvin and the Chipmunks, premiered on CBS in the United States.
*Born:
**Kazuki Takahashi, Japanese manga artist best known as the author of ''Yu-Gi-Oh!''; in Tokyo (died by drowning, 2022)
**Jon Secada, Cuban-born American singer, winner of two Grammy Awards; in Havana

October 5, 1961 (Thursday)

*Starting with the federal income tax returns filed after December 31, 1962, all American taxpayers were required to supply social security numbers for themselves and their claimed dependents, as President Kennedy signed public law 87–398, an amendment to the United States Tax Code. People who did not have a social security number could apply to the Internal Revenue Service for a separate identifying number, and the initial failure to comply with the law in 1963 would be punishable by "a penalty of $5 for each such failure". The Code would further be amended on October 4, 1976, to require that everyone have a social security number.
*Maurice Papon, the Paris Chief of Police, issued a religion-specific curfew against all "Muslim Algerian workers" within the jurisdiction of his prefecture, even though they were considered citizens of France. The curfew order decreed that the Muslims were "advised most urgently" to stay indoors between 8:30 p.m. and 5:30 a.m. A protest by 30,000 of those affected twelve days later led to the Paris massacre of 1961.
*The Ninth Hague Conference on Private International Law concluded in The Hague, Netherlands, with the signing of the Hague Convention Abolishing the Requirement for Legalisation for Foreign Public Documents and the Hague Convention of 1961 Concerning the Powers of Authorities and the Law Applicable in Respect of the Protection of Minors.
*King Mahendra of Nepal and China's President Liu Shaoqi signed an agreement in Beijing defining the border between the mountain kingdom and its large Communist neighbor.
*Died:
** Don Barbour, 34, vocalist of the jazz vocal group "The Four Freshmen"; in an auto accident
**Booker Little

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