1960s Timeline

Sept. 15, 1961 - President Kennedy is spurring Americans to build home fallout shelters to cut the nation's losses in case of nuclear...

Sept. 12, 1961 - The Cuban Government launched a fresh attack against the Roman Catholic Church today. It accused priests and nuns of...

Sept. 12, 1961 - The Soviet Union conducted the seventh atomic test in its current series by detonating a multi-megaton device in the...

Sept. 10, 1961 - Pope John XXIII called on the leaders of the East and West today to negotiate their differences and remove the threat of...

Sept. 9, 1961 - Premier Khrushchev declared today that nuclear testing could be ended only by Western acceptance of Soviet proposals for...

Sept. 8, 1961 - Five rebel prisoners taken after the unsuccessful landings at the Bay of Pigs in Cuba last April were sentenced to death...

Sept. 7, 1961 - Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru of India talked for two hours today with Premier Khrushchev at the Kremlin and came out...

Sept. 6, 1961 - The Atomic Energy Commission announced today that the Soviet Union had detonated a fourth nuclear device in the...

Sept. 5, 1961 - President Kennedy ordered today the resumption of nuclear weapons tests by the United States. He specified that the tests...

Sept. 4, 1961 - From New York to Los Angeles, civil defense authorities report a rise in the American citizen's fear of nuclear war....

Sept. 4, 1961 - A new Soviet nuclear test took place early today over Central Asia, the Atomic Energy Commission announced. It was the...

Sept. 3, 1961 - Gen. Minoru Genda (pictured), chief of staff of Japan's air defense force, said in London today he had no regrets about...

Sept. 2, 1961 - If the respondents to a New York Times survey are typical, Americans feel that protection against a Russian super-bomb at...

Sept. 2, 1961 - Harry S. Truman said today that he did not believe that the Soviet Union's resumption of nuclear weapons tests would lead...

Aug. 31, 1961 - The White House declared tonight that the Soviet Union's announcement that it would resume tests of nuclear weapons was...

Aug. 31, 1961 - Communist China issued a statement today expressing support for the Soviet Union's decision to resume nuclear tests. The...

Aug. 31, 1961 - The U.S. declared itself freed today from its promise not to conduct nuclear tests, but it withheld any decision on the...

Aug. 28, 1961 - Cuban Premier Fidel Castro today urged Brazil to set up a guerrilla war against what he termed "reactionary militarists"...

Aug. 25, 1961 - The Pentagon today ordered to active duty 76,500 members of the reserve military forces - 46,500 in the Army, 23,600 in...

Aug. 20, 1961 - The South Vietnamese Army, equipped and trained by the U.S. in new jungle warfare tactics, is reported to have assumed...