Jump on our Virtual Newsstand as we journey back to 1961. See and read the comic books on sale month by month, and find out the major news of the day.

January: Aged just 43, John F. Kennedy succeeds Dwight Eisenhower as the 35th President of the United States of America

February: The Beatles perform for the first time at the Cavern Club in Liverpool, England. They'd make a total of 292 appearances there

March: With Executive Order 10924 President Kennedy establishes the volunteer Peace Corps with the aim to promote world peace

April: On his only flight, Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin becomes the first human in space, orbiting the Earth once in Vostok 1

May: As a swift response to the Soviets, Alan Shepard becomes the first American in space aboard Mercury-Redstone 3

June: Ballet dancer Rudolf Nureyev defects from the Soviet Union requesting asylum while in Paris with the Kirov Ballet

July: Gus Grissom, piloting the Mercury-Redstone 4 capsule Liberty Bell 7, becomes the second American to go into space

August: Soviet cosmonaut Gherman Titov becomes second human to orbit the Earth, & first to be in outer space for more than a day

September: United Nations Secretary-General Dag Hammarskjöld dies in air crash en route to cease-fire negotiations in Katanga, Congo

October: Joseph Stalin's preserved body is removed from the Lenin Mausoleum & instead buried in the Kremlin Wall Necropolis

November: The United Nations General Assembly unanimously elects U Thant to the position of acting Secretary-General

December: After being found guilty of war crimes an Israeli tribunal sentences Adolf Eichmann to die for his part in The Holocaust