1961

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• U.S. Population: 183,691,481
• Life expectancy: 70.2 years
• Average yearly income: $5,735
• Cost of a new home: $12,500
• Cost of a new car: $2,850
• Federal hourly minimum wage: $1.15
• Cost of a first-class stamp: $.04

In the World: Construction began in August on the Berlin Wall, which acted as a clear boundary between East and West Germany.

In the US: President John F. Kennedy announced the creation of the Peace Corps in a speech given at the University of Michigan on October 14th.

In the White House: The Twenty-third Amendment to the United States Constitution, which allows residents of Washington, D. C. to vote in presidential elections, was ratified.

In Space: Soviet astronaut Yuri Gagarin became the first human being to travel to outer space.

Also Born in 1961: George Stephanopoulos (February 10), Eddie Murphy (April 3), George Lopez (April 23), George Clooney (May 6), Michael J. Fox (June 9), Princess Diana (July 1), Barack Obama (August 4), Sean Hannity (December 30)

Board games became more innovative, with games like Operation taking advantage of new electronic technology.

Another innovative new game was Twister, the first game to use human bodies as the playing pieces. This radical concept led Milton Bradley’s competitors to accuse Twister’s manufacturer of selling “sex in a box.” Despite this initial controversy, the game has enjoyed steady popularity even to this day.

Originally invented in Franch in the late 1950s, in 1960 The Ohio Art Company brought the “L’Ecran Magique” over to US shores and sold it by its more familiar name - Etch A Sketch.

Stereotypes of young boys and girls were prevalent in the new toys of the 1960s. For girls, the Easy Bake Oven was introduced, furthering the “homebody” image that was being pushed on girls of the time. For boys, there was the GI Joe, a militaristic twist on dolls that catered to boys’ wild ambitions and curiosity about the war.

Best-selling children's’ books included The Giving Tree by Shel Silverstein, The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle, and Where the Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak. Dr. Seuss continued to release popular children’s books as well, and his contributions to the decade included Green Eggs and Ham, One Fish Two Fish Red Fish Blue Fish, and How the Grinch Stole Christmas.

The Silver Age of comic books was going strong, and many popular Marvel comics characters were introduced in the early 1960s. These include Spider-Man, the Fantastic Four, Iron Man, Thor, Daredevil, and the X-Men.

Prime time cartoons became very popular because they could be enjoyed by children and adults alike. Famous cartoons of the 1960s include The Flintstones, Alvin & The Chipmunks, The Jetsons, and Mr. Magoo.

Things were changing in American schools. They were steadily becoming more crowded, thanks to the post-WWII baby boom; and more racially integrated, thanks to 1953‘s landmark supreme court case Brown v. the Board of Education.