July 4 » William Howard Taft becomes American governor of the Philippines.
July 24 » O. Henry is released from prison in Columbus, Ohio, after serving three years for embezzlement from a bank.
August 6 » Kiowa land in Oklahoma is opened for white settlement, effectively dissolving the contiguous reservation.
August 28 » Silliman University is founded in the Philippines. It is the first American private school in the country.
October 24 » Annie Edson Taylor becomes the first person to go over Niagara Falls in a barrel.
October 29 » In Amherst, Massachusetts, nurse Jane Toppan is arrested for murdering the Davis family of Boston with an overdose of morphine.
Day of death March 23, 1961
The temperature on March 23, 1961 was between 6.7 °C and 11.4 °C and averaged 8.2 °C. There was 1.6 hours of sunshine (13%). The heavily clouded was. The average windspeed was 3 Bft (moderate breeze) and was prevailing from the west. Source: KNMI
May 9 » FCC Chairman Newton N. Minow gives his Wasteland Speech.
May 30 » The long-time Dominican dictator Rafael Trujillo is assassinated in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic.
May 31 » The South African Constitution of 1961 becomes effective, thus creating the Republic of South Africa, which remains outside the Commonwealth of Nations until 1 June 1994, when South Africa is returned to Commonwealth membership.
August 10 » Vietnam War: The U.S. Army begins Operation Ranch Hand, spraying an estimated 20million US gallons (76,000m) of defoliants and herbicides over rural areas of South Vietnam in an attempt to deprive the Viet Cong of food and vegetation cover.
September 16 » Pakistan establishes its Space and Upper Atmosphere Research Commission with Abdus Salam as its head.
December 19 » India annexes Daman and Diu, part of Portuguese India.
When copying data from this family tree, please include a reference to the origin: Hendrik Dreyer, "Dreyer Tree", database, Genealogy Online (https://www.genealogieonline.nl/dreyer-tree/I21230.php : accessed January 27, 2026), "Richard Gerald Dreyer (Richard Gerald Dreyer ) Steyn (1901-1961)".
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