January 1 » Nigeria becomes a British protectorate.
January 1 » The British colonies of New South Wales, Queensland, Victoria, South Australia, Tasmania, and Western Australia federate as the Commonwealth of Australia; Edmund Barton is appointed the first Prime Minister.
June 11 » The boundaries of the Colony of New Zealand are extended by the UK to include the Cook Islands.
September 2 » Vice President of the United States Theodore Roosevelt utters the famous phrase, "Speak softly and carry a big stick" at the Minnesota State Fair.
October 29 » In Amherst, Massachusetts, nurse Jane Toppan is arrested for murdering the Davis family of Boston with an overdose of morphine.
December 10 » The first Nobel Prize ceremony is held in Stockholm on the fifth anniversary of Alfred Nobel's death.
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
January 3 » A protest by agricultural workers in Baixa de Cassanje, Portuguese Angola, turns into a revolt, opening the Angolan War of Independence, the first of the Portuguese Colonial Wars.
January 23 » The Portuguese luxury cruise ship Santa Maria is hijacked by opponents of the Estado Novo regime with the intention of waging war until dictator António de Oliveira Salazar is overthrown.
September 17 » The world's first retractable roof stadium, the Civic Arena, opens in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
October 20 » The Soviet Union performs the first armed test of a submarine-launched ballistic missile, launching an R-13 from a Golf-class submarine.
October 30 » The Soviet Union detonates the Tsar Bomba, the most powerful explosive device ever detonated.
December 31 » RTÉ, Ireland's state broadcaster, launches its first national television service.
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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