March-April - Drilling for Project Mohole is undertaken off the coast of Guadalupe Island, Mexico.

March 1 - President of the United States John F. Kennedy establishes the Peace Corps.

March 3 - Hassan II is crowned King of Morocco.

March 8 - Max Conrad circumnavigates the earth in 8 days, 18 hours and 49 minutes, setting a new world record. - The first U.S. Polaris submarines arrive at Holy Loch.

March 13 - Black and white £5 notes cease to be legal tender in the UK. - A dam burst in Kiev, USSR, killing 145. - United States delegate to the United Nations Security Council Adlai Stevenson votes against Portuguese policies in Africa. - President of the United States John F. Kennedy proposes a long-term "Alliance for Progress" between the United States and Latin America. - Cyprus joins the Commonwealth of Nations, becoming the first small country in the Commonwealth. - Monash University in Melbourne, Australia, takes in its first students. - A second B-52 crashes near Yuba City, California after cabin pressure is lost and the fuel runs out. Two nuclear weapons are found unexploded.

March 15 - South Africa withdraws from the Commonwealth of Nations. The nation rejoins the organization in 1994. - The Union of Peoples of Angola, led by Holden Roberto, attacks strategic locations in the north of Angola. These events result in the beginning of the colonial war with Portugal.

March 18 - A ceasefire takes effect in the Algerian War of Independence. - Nous les amoureux by Jean-Claude Pascal (music by Jacques Datin, text by Maurice Vidalin) wins the Eurovision Song Contest 1961 for Luxembourg.

March 29 - The Twenty-third Amendment to the United States Constitution is ratified, allowing residents of Washington, D.C. to vote in presidential elections.

March 30 - The Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs is signed at New York. (source: Wikipedia)