Circa 1961

It all started when…

The Royal Palms first opened in 1961 at the dawn of a decade of culture change, musical transformation, and scientific exploration.

 
 
 

Notable Events in 1961

  • Battery Garland, the former gun battery and magazine, became the Tybee Island museum. Rooms which once stored six hundred pound projectiles and two hundred pound bags of gun powder, now hold the collections and exhibits of over four hundred years of Tybee History. Now part of the Tybee Island Lighthouse and Museum, you can still explore the history of Tybee today.

  • March 1, 1961, President John F. Kennedy issues Executive Order #10924, establishing the Peace Corps as a new agency within the Department of State.

  • April 10, 1961, Gary Player, a 25-year-old South African, beats defending champion Arnold Palmer and amateur Charles Coe by a stroke to become the first international champion at the Masters.

  • April 11, 1961, Bob Dylan plays his first major gig in New York City, opening for bluesman John Lee Hooker at Gerde’s Folk City.

  • April 12, 1961, aboard the spacecraft Vostok 1, Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Alekseyevich Gagarin becomes the first human being to travel into space.

  • April 17, 1961, The Bay of Pigs invasion begins when a CIA-financed and trained group of around 1,200 Cuban refugees lands in Cuba and attempts to topple the communist government of Fidel Castro.

  • April 23, 1961, Judy Garland performs a gig at Carnegie Hall, often referred to as “the greatest night in showbiz history.”

  • May 4, 1961, a group of thirteen young people departs Washington, D.C.’s Greyhound Bus terminal, bound for the South. Their journey is peaceful at first, but the riders will meet with shocking violence on their way to New Orleans, eventually being forced to evacuate from Jackson, Mississippi but earning a place in history as the first Freedom Riders.

  • May 5, 1961, Navy Commander Alan Bartlett Shepard Jr. is launched into space aboard the Freedom 7 space capsule, becoming the first American astronaut to travel into space. The suborbital flight, which lasted 15 minutes and reached a height of 116 miles into the atmosphere, was a major triumph for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA).

  • October 1, 1961, in New York's final game of the regular season, Yankees slugger Roger Maris hits his 61st home run, becoming the first player in Major League Baseball to hit more than 60 in a season. He tops former Yankees great Babe Ruth, who hit 60 home runs in 1927.

  • October 3, 1961, a future television classic called “The Dick Van Dyke Show” debuts on CBS.

  • December 6, 1961, Syracuse running back Ernie Davis becomes the first Black player to win the Heisman Trophy—college football's top individual award—beating Ohio State fullback Bob Ferguson.

  • December 18, 1961, the Tokens' version of “The Lion Sleeps Tonight” becomes not just a #1 song but an instant classic—one of the most-covered, most successful pop songs of all time.