The Movie Timeline - be obsessive, be very obsessive
Sunday 1st May: American U-2 spy plane shot down. (Francis Gary Powers: The True Story of the U-2 Spy Incident)
Saturday 7th May: Leonid Brezhnev becomes President of the USSR. (Brezhnev)
Monday 23rd May: Israeli Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion announces to the world that Nazi war criminal Adolf Eichmann has been captured and will stand trial in Israel. (The Man Who Captured Eichmann)
Thursday 16th June: Psycho premiers with positive reception. (New York City, New York - Hitchcock)
Wednesday 13th July: Senator John F. Kennedy is nominated for the presidency by the Democratic Party Convention. (Los Angeles, California - The Rat Pack)
Wednesday 10th August: 'Ocean's Eleven' opens in cinemas. (The Rat Pack)
Wednesday 17th August: The Beatles arrive in Hamburg. (Hamburg, Germany - In His Life: The John Lennon Story)
Wednesday 17th August: John Lennon calls his aunt Mimi as soon as he gets to Hamburg, and will call her every week since then until he dies. (Hamburg, Germany - Nowhere Boy)
September: Fumio Sugihara, sworn brother to ailing yakuza boss Muraoka, is shot to death in a bold daylight attack; this leads to Muraoka's decision to step down. (Kure, Japan - The Yakuza Papers 3: Proxy War)
Monday 26th September: Kennedy and Nixon square off in a televised presidential debate. (Nixon)
Tuesday 25th October: Holly Golightly receives a cheque. (Breakfast at Tiffany's)
Tuesday 8th November: John F. Kennedy is ahead in the presidential election. (Washington D.C. - Killing Kennedy)
Tuesday 8th November: John F Kennedy elected U.S. President. (The Rat Pack)
Wednesday 16th November: Clark Gable dies of a heart attack. (Los Angeles, California - Gable and Lombard)
Friday 25th November: Maria Minerva Argentina Mirabal, Patria Mercedes Mirabal, and Maria Teresa Mirabal are assassinated by henchmen of dictator Rafael Trujillo. (Dominican Republic - Rains of Injustice)
Thursday 1st December: Sandra Dee marries Bobby Darin. (Beyond the Sea)
Sunday 25th December: Zachary Beaulieu born. (Quebec - C.R.A.Z.Y.)
Less than 100 1961 Ferrari 250 GT California cars are made. (California - Ferris Bueller's Day Off)
Kathryn Krueger is born (Freddy's Dead: The Final Nightmare)
Grease 2. (Grease 2)
Laurie Myers is born. (Haddonfield, Illinois - Halloween II)
Mastering the Art of French Cooking by Julia Child is released. (Julie & Julia)
K-19 The Widowmaker. (K-19: The Widowmaker)
Piscine Molitor Patel is born. (Pondicherry, India - Life of Pi)
At the American Association of Forensic Science awards dinner, Dr Donald Harper relates the tale of Sidney Barringer's suicide/murder in 1958. (Magnolia)
Howard W. Campbell, Jr., while awaiting execution in Israel, recounts his life as an American Spy posing as a Nazis propagandist, before committing suicide. (Haifa, Israel - Mother Night)
Mothra rampages through Tokyoto get two small girls. (Tokyo - Mothra)
A German who will fly a plane into Moscow's Red Square 19 years later is born. (Germany - Now You See Me)
Edward Bailey develops on weaponry. (Cuba - Red 2)
Project Mercury begins. (Cape Canaveral, Fla - The Right Stuff)
A photo of a Russian spy named Alek is taken. (Russia - Salt)
A Raisin in the Sun is released. (Six Degrees of Separation)
An impact on the Moon caused by a Cybertronian spacecraft called the Ark is detected. (VLA Radio Observatory, New Mexico - Transformers: Dark of the Moon)
Elijah Prince, aka Mr Glass, born in a department store. (Philadelphia, PA - Unbreakable)
Edwin Partridge resigns from the U.S. Army. (X-Men: Days of Future Past)
Tuesday 10th January: Dashiell Hammett dies. (New York, New York - Julia)
Friday 20th January: John F. Kennedy takes office. (Washington, D.C. - X-Men: Days of Future Past)
Tuesday 24th January: Marilyn Monroe divorces Arthur Miller. (The Rat Pack)
Saturday 18th February: Llewyn Davis signs his name to a contract dated February 18th, 1961 to receive his $200 fee for guitar work and backing vocals on the single Please, Mr. Kennedy. (New York City recording studio - Inside Llewyn Davis)
Thursday 2nd March: 7 MIB agents, an astronomer and a dumb kid who went down the wrong back road encounter aliens outside New York. (Men in Black)
Sunday 2nd April: Diarmuid Russell convinces Pamela "P.L." Travers to meet with Walt Disney about a film adaptation of her literary character, Mary Poppins. (London, England - Saving Mr. Banks)
Wednesday 12th April: First Manned Space Flight, Yuri Gagarin. (Soviet Union - The Right Stuff)
Thursday 20th April: Mickey Mantle hits 2 Home Runs. (New York City, New York - 61*)
Wednesday 3rd May: Upset that Disney wants an animated sequence in Mary Poppins, P.L. Travers leaves for London. (Burbank, California - Saving Mr. Banks)
Thursday 25th May: John F. Kennedy delivers his "I Believe We Should Go To The Moon" speech. (Transformers: Dark of the Moon)
Tuesday 30th May: Mickey Mantle and Roger Maris each hit 2 Home Runs. (Boston, Massachuestts - 61*)
Saturday 3rd June: Clarence Gideon is arrested and charged with breaking into a poolroom. (Florida - Gideon's Trumpet)
Monday 17th July: Ty Cobb dies. (Atlanta, Georgia - Cobb)
Friday 21st July: Gus Grissom's "Liberty Bell 7" capsule has a malfunction with the hatch and it explodes prematurely and takes on water. The capsule sinks and is not recovered until July 20, 1999, 30 years after the first moon landing. (Atlantic Ocean - The Right Stuff)
Wednesday 16th August: Roger Maris hits 2 Home Runs. (New York City, New York - 61*)
Thursday 7th September: "Mark" is born. (Gatlin, Nebraska - Children of the Corn)
Monday 25th September: "Rose" is born. (Gatlin, Nebraska - Children of the Corn)
Thursday 12th October: Bill Marks is born (ireland - Non-Stop)
Friday 13th October: Fox William Mulder is born. (Martha's Vineyard, Massachusetts - The X-Files Movie)
Saturday 2nd December: Fidel Castro openly declares that he is a Marxist-Leninist. (Che!)
Midtown Science High School is established. (New York City, New York - The Amazing Spider-Man 2)
Dean Vernon Wormer attempts to close down the Delta House Fraternity at Faber College. (Tennessee - Animal House)
Cuban Missile Crisis; a family goes into hiding. (Blast from the Past)
'To Kill A Mockingbird' released in cinemas. (Capote)
David Collins is born. (Collinsport, Maine - Dark Shadows)