1961 Year

Rain always frightened him, and on the night he was hanged in a military prison in Kansas, a rolling prairie thunderstorm was kicking up outside. That was four decades ago. Pvt. John Bennett had just turned 26. He went to his death perhaps more terrified of the thunder and lightning than of the gaunt hangman waiting upon the gallows. News of the hanging scarcely made the papers. Executions then, like today, were commonplace, so much so that his story has never been told.

Every fall the broadcast networks unveil their new series -- some will become hits, a lot more will disappear in a nanosecond. The same was true 50 years ago, though the TV universe was a lot smaller. In 1961, there were only three networks -- ABC, NBC and CBS -- and prime-time began at 7:30 p.m. (and 7 on Sundays) instead of 8 as it is now. Five decades ago, the fall season featured the arrival of several popular comedies, medical series, an acclaimed legal drama and even a circus variety show (you don't see much of that on TV anymore)

Every fall the broadcast networks unveil their new series -- some will become hits, a lot more will disappear in a nanosecond. The same was true 50 years ago, though the TV universe was a lot smaller. In 1961, there were only three networks -- ABC, NBC and CBS -- and prime-time began at 7:30 p.m. (and 7 on Sundays) instead of 8 as it is now. Five decades ago, the fall season featured the arrival of several popular comedies, medical series, an acclaimed legal drama and even a circus variety show (you don't see much of that on TV anymore)

Arriving to a hero's welcome Saturday, Ed Blankenheim said he still recalls the hatred on the faces of the men and women who surrounded and burned his bus in Alabama 40 years ago. Blankenheim, 67, one of the original Freedom Riders, rode in a bus caravan Saturday re-creating the event. He broke down in tears at a Birmingham museum when he saw a replica of the Greyhound bus that had been firebombed in Anniston. "Everything came back to me--the ugliness, the hate," Blankenheim said.

When Thomas "Pete" Ray's B-26 bomber was shot down by Cuban antiaircraft batteries near Playa Giron on April 19, 1961, he wasn't there. So said the CIA. And for decades, the U.S. government publicly denied that a top-secret squadron of civilians recruited from the Alabama Air National Guard ever existed, let alone was on a CIA mission to bomb Cuba in one of the agency's best-kept and most humiliating secrets.

Think of Mickey Mantle and Roger Maris and the year 1961 comes to mind. Think of Willie Kirkland, Willie Tasby, Ken Hunt and Steve Bilko, and what might come to mind is, "Who?" Mantle and Maris' pursuit of Babe Ruth's home run record, 60 in a season, overshadowed a host of other exploits in 1961, the first year of baseball's first expansion. But although the feats of Kirkland, Tasby, Hunt and Bilko didn't match the magnitude of Maris' 61 home runs, they achieved brief, shining moments.

Arriving to a hero's welcome Saturday, Ed Blankenheim said he still recalls the hatred on the faces of the men and women who surrounded and burned his bus in Alabama 40 years ago. Blankenheim, 67, one of the original Freedom Riders, rode in a bus caravan Saturday re-creating the event. He broke down in tears at a Birmingham museum when he saw a replica of the Greyhound bus that had been firebombed in Anniston. "Everything came back to me--the ugliness, the hate," Blankenheim said.

Sal Castro, a veteran Los Angeles Unified School District teacher who played a central role in the 1968 "blowouts," when more than 1,000 students in predominantly Latino high schools walked out of their classrooms to protest inequalities in education, died in his sleep Monday after a long bout with cancer. He was 79. Castro died at his home in the Silver Lake district, seven months after he was found to have stage 4 thyroid cancer, said his wife, Charlotte Lerchenmuller. In March 1968, Castro was a social studies teacher at Lincoln High School near downtown when he helped instigate the protests that became a seminal event in the development of the Chicano movement.

City Manager Karl Koski has announced he will retire June 30 from a public service career that spans three decades. Koski, 59, joined the city staff as an administrative assistant in 1961, a year after incorporation. He said he decided to retire to spend time with his family, travel and enjoy the outdoors. The City Council probably will begin with an in-house search for a new city manager, Koski said.

Marilyn Monroe's marriage contract to American playwright Arthur Miller fetched more than $14,000 on Thursday, Christie's auctioneers said. The ketubah, a Jewish wedding contract dated July 1, 1956, was witnessed in New York by Lee Strasberg, founder of New York's Actors' Studio. Monroe converted to Judaism for the marriage, Miller's second and her third. They divorced in 1961, the year before her death at 35.

Rain always frightened him, and on the night he was hanged in a military prison in Kansas, a rolling prairie thunderstorm was kicking up outside. That was four decades ago. Pvt. John Bennett had just turned 26. He went to his death perhaps more terrified of the thunder and lightning than of the gaunt hangman waiting upon the gallows. News of the hanging scarcely made the papers. Executions then, like today, were commonplace, so much so that his story has never been told.

When Thomas "Pete" Ray's B-26 bomber was shot down by Cuban antiaircraft batteries near Playa Giron on April 19, 1961, he wasn't there. So said the CIA. And for decades, the U.S. government publicly denied that a top-secret squadron of civilians recruited from the Alabama Air National Guard ever existed, let alone was on a CIA mission to bomb Cuba in one of the agency's best-kept and most humiliating secrets.

Think of Mickey Mantle and Roger Maris and the year 1961 comes to mind. Think of Willie Kirkland, Willie Tasby, Ken Hunt and Steve Bilko, and what might come to mind is, "Who?" Mantle and Maris' pursuit of Babe Ruth's home run record, 60 in a season, overshadowed a host of other exploits in 1961, the first year of baseball's first expansion. But although the feats of Kirkland, Tasby, Hunt and Bilko didn't match the magnitude of Maris' 61 home runs, they achieved brief, shining moments.

The passing of home run king Roger Maris brings to mind a trivia question: In 1961, the year Maris hit 61 home runs, how many times was he walked intentionally? Zero. He was followed in the lineup by Mickey Mantle. It is ironic that the man whose record Maris broke, Babe Ruth, was, in his prime, occasionally walked intentionally with the bases loaded. GREGORY PEARSON Santa Monica

Imagine a well-appointed table on a stone balcony overlooking Italy's storied Lake Como. Red wine, white roses, Rande Gerber and Cindy Crawford, perhaps a drop-in from Brad and Angelina — it's a possible scenario for Oscar-winner George Clooney, who will celebrate his 51st birthday Sunday and has a home there. Those Angelenos not invited to Italy can still enjoy a meal themed for the date, however, at Santa Monica's Locanda del Lago, which specializes in Italian cuisine. For the second year in a row (the 50th birthday was a big deal)