The temperature on June 24, 1961 was between 12.0 °C and 25.1 °C and averaged 18.5 °C. There was 11.1 hours of sunshine (66%). The partly clouded was. The average windspeed was 2 Bft (weak wind) and was prevailing from the southwest. Source: KNMI
January 9 » British authorities announce they have uncovered the Soviet Portland Spy Ring in London.
January 17 » Former Congolese Prime Minister Patrice Lumumba is murdered in circumstances suggesting the support and complicity of the governments of Belgium and the United States.
May 14 » Civil rights movement: A white mob twice attacks a Freedom Riders bus near Anniston, Alabama, before fire-bombing the bus and attacking the civil rights protesters who flee the burning vehicle.
June 16 » While on tour with the Kirov Ballet in Paris, Rudolf Nureyev defects from the Soviet Union.
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 » Typhoon Nancy, with possibly the strongest winds ever measured in a tropical cyclone, makes landfall in Osaka, Japan, killing 173 people.
Day of burial June 26, 1961
The temperature on June 26, 1961 was between 12.1 °C and 25.3 °C and averaged 18.7 °C. There was 2.7 mm of rain during 3.6 hours. There was 8.3 hours of sunshine (50%). The partly clouded was. The average windspeed was 2 Bft (weak wind) and was prevailing from the west-southwest. Source: KNMI
April 20 » Cold War: Failure of the Bay of Pigs Invasion of US-backed Cuban exiles against Cuba.
May 9 » FCC Chairman Newton N. Minow gives his Wasteland Speech.
May 19 » Venera program: Venera 1 becomes the first man-made object to fly by another planet by passing Venus (the probe had lost contact with Earth a month earlier and did not send back any data).
July 4 » On its maiden voyage, the Soviet nuclear-powered submarine K-19 suffers a complete loss of coolant to its reactor. The crew are able to effect repairs, but 22 of them die of radiation poisoning over the following two years.
September 16 » The United States National Hurricane Research Project drops eight cylinders of silver iodide into the eyewall of Hurricane Esther. Wind speed reduces by 10%, giving rise to Project Stormfury.
September 28 » A military coup in Damascus effectively ends the United Arab Republic, the union between Egypt and Syria.
When copying data from this family tree, please include a reference to the origin: Peter John Oswald, "Pop Oswald Tree", database, Genealogy Online (https://www.genealogieonline.nl/pop-oswald-tree/P3083.php : accessed February 5, 2026), "Laura Evelyn MCMURRAY (1908-1961)".
Copy warning
Genealogical publications are copyright protected. Although data is often retrieved from public archives, the searching, interpreting, collecting, selecting and sorting of the data results in a unique product. Copyright protected work may not simply be copied or republished.
Please stick to the following rules
Request permission to copy data or at least inform the author, chances are that the author gives permission, often the contact also leads to more exchange of data.
Do not use this data until you have checked it, preferably at the source (the archives).
State from whom you have copied the data and ideally also his/her original source.