April 2 » Dmitry Sipyagin, Minister of Interior of the Russian Empire, is assassinated in the Marie Palace, Saint Petersburg.
April 18 » The 7.5 Mw Guatemala earthquake shakes Guatemala with a maximum Mercalli intensity of VIII (Severe), killing between 800–2,000.
May 8 » In Martinique, Mount Pelée erupts, destroying the town of Saint-Pierre and killing over 30,000 people. Only a handful of residents survive the blast.
August 22 » Cadillac Motor Company is founded.
October 24 » Guatemala's Santa María Volcano begins to erupt, becoming the third-largest eruption of the 20th century.
Day of death January 31, 1961
The temperature on January 31, 1961 was between 5.3 °C and 7.8 °C and averaged 6.3 °C. There was 0.9 mm of rain during 1.5 hours. There was 1.0 hours of sunshine (11%). The almost completely overcast was. The average windspeed was 4 Bft (moderate breeze) and was prevailing from the southwest. Source: KNMI
January 3 » The SL-1 nuclear reactor is destroyed by a steam explosion in the only reactor incident in the United States to cause immediate fatalities.
March 1 » Uganda becomes self-governing and holds its first elections.
May 16 » Park Chung-hee leads a coup d'état to overthrow the Second Republic of South Korea.
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).
May 28 » Peter Benenson's article The Forgotten Prisoners is published in several internationally read newspapers. This will later be thought of as the founding of the human rights organization Amnesty International.
December 9 » Tanganyika becomes independent from Britain.
When copying data from this family tree, please include a reference to the origin: Peter J van Oss, "Van Oss tree", database, Genealogy Online (https://www.genealogieonline.nl/van-oss-tree/I0392.php : accessed January 4, 2026), "Petronella Gertruda Hoefnagel (1902-1961)".
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