Bahrain gains independence in 1961.

The New Zealand Antarctic Expedition of 1960—62 maps the trans-Antarctic routes to the South Pole blazed by Roald Amundsen in 1911 and Robert Falcon Scott in 1912.

Michael Rockefeller disappears in New Guinea in 1961.

The U.S. Navy’s bathyscaphe Trieste explores the Mariana Trench to a record-setting depth of 10, 912 meters (35,800 feet).

In 1961, the US Military Advisor Group begins a defoliation project in Vietnam which eventually covers over 12% of land area.

Concurrently, Laos experiences a covert US military buildup during the US guerilla war there.

A 1961 famine in China, in which millions die of starvation, results from three years of crop failure and flooding.

In 1961, during the de-Stalinization period in the USSR, the Tadzhik capital city of Stalinabad reassumes its original name, Dushanbe.

Independence does not ensure peace in Cyprus.

Serious problems concerning the working and interpretation of the constitutional system appear immediately.

These problems reflect the sharp bi-communal division in the constitution and the historical and continuing distrust between the two communities.

Turkish Cypriots, after eight decades of passivity under the British, have become a political entity. In the words of political scientist Nancy Crawshaw, "Turkish Cypriot nationalism, barely perceptible under British rule, came to equal that of the Greeks in fanaticism."

One major point of contention concerns the composition of units under the six-to-four ratio decreed for the Cypriot army.

Makarios wants complete integration; Kuciik favors segregated companies.

On October 20, 1961 , Kuciik uses his constitutional veto power as vice president to halt the development of an integrated force.

Makarios now states that the country cannot afford an army anyway; planning and development of the national army ceases.

Other problems develop in the application of the seven-to-three ratio of employment in government agencies.

Kuwaiti independence comes in 1961.

Ayub Khan, after examining the report of the legal commission established in 1955 to suggest reforms of the family and marriage laws, issues the Family Laws Ordinance in 1961.

Among other things, it restricts polygyny and "regulates" marriage and divorce, giving women more equal treatment under the law than they had had before.

It is a humane measure supported by women's organizations in Pakistan, but the ordinance could not have been promulgated if the vehement opposition to it from the ulama and the fundamentalist Muslim groups had been allowed free expression.

However, this law, which was similar to the one passed on family planning, is relatively mild and does not seriously transform the patriarchal pattern of society.

Communal strife is constantly present in the subcontinent.

In January 1961, several thousand Muslims are massacred in Madhya Pradesh state in India, and there were reprisals in Pakistan