On this day
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WASHINGTON, July 20 -- An eleven-man scientific committee will report to President Kennedy tomorrow or Monday what it has learned about the possible testing of nuclear weapons by the Soviet Union.
Wagner, Lefkowitz, Levitt agree on Cahill comm proposal to increase minority representation, statements, pub hearing; Lefkowitz urges plan be voted with rest of Charter as single question; view backed by Liberal party and several civic groups
US Treas recommends tax rise to meet costs of crisis
NYS Comr Allen dissatisfied with reorgn efforts
Dir Hershey repts plans to double draft pool to 100,000
1961Morris Iemma, Australian politician, 40th Premier of New South Wales[†]
Morris Iemma is an Australian former politician who was the 40th Premier of New South Wales, serving from 3 August 2005 to 5 September 2008.
1961Jim Martin, American singer-songwriter and guitarist[†]
James Blanco Martin is an American guitarist who played with the rock band Faith No More from 1983 to late 1993.
1961Mercury program: Mercury-Redstone 4 Mission: Gus Grissom piloting Liberty Bell 7 becomes the second American to go into space (in a suborbital mission).[†]
Project Mercury was the first human spaceflight program of the United States, running from 1958 through 1963. An early highlight of the Space Race, its goal was to put a man into Earth orbit and return him safely, ideally before the Soviet Union. Taken over from the US Air Force by the newly created civilian space agency NASA, it conducted 20 uncrewed developmental flights, and six successful flights by astronauts. The program, which took its name from Roman mythology, cost $2.76 billion. The astronauts were collectively known as the "Mercury Seven", and each spacecraft was given a name ending with a "7" by its pilot.
1961Alaska Airlines Flight 779 crashes near Shemya Air Force Base in Shemya, Alaska killing six.[†]
Alaska Airlines Flight 779 was a contract cargo flight operated on 21 July 1961 by an Alaska Airlines Douglas DC-6A that crashed short of the runway at Shemya Air Force Base with the loss of all six crew members on board.
In 1961, the world population was approximately 3,064,869,675 people[†]