Significant Events this month — Astronaut John Glenn orbits the earth three times in the space capsule Friendship 7 of the Project Mercury space program (2/20). This milestone in the United States’ space rivalry with the Soviet Union would later be dramatized in two films, Philip Kaufman’s The Right Stuff (1983), and Hidden Figures (2016), both Best Picture Oscar nominees. 
St. Jude’s Children Research Hospital in Memphis, Tennessee opens on 2/4 (and celebrates a 60th anniversary in 2022). The charity medical facility for children with cancer is founded by comedian Danny Thomas, whose television sitcom The Danny Thomas Show (aka Make Room for Daddy) would finish #8 among all TV programs for the 1961-62 season. Special note for Black History Month is that the hospital was designed by preeminent Black architect Paul R. Williams, who donated his fee as a gift to the child patients.
Three westerns, Wagon Train, Bonanza, and Gunsmoke, rank 1-2-3 overall in the TV ratings. The month’s major TV event is the 2/14 broadcast of A Tour of the White House with Mrs. John F. Kennedy, aired on the CBS and NBC networks simultaneously. First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy takes CBS reporter Charles Collingwood on a tour of the newly decorated Presidential mansion and scores the highest TV ratings in history up to that time, watched by 46,000,000 million viewers, 75% of TV households in that era.
On the pop music scene, Peppermint Twist by Joey Dee and the Starliters and Duke of Earl by Gene Chandler finish #1 and #2 for the month on the Billboard charts. Dee and the Starliters and the New York nitery Peppermint Lounge are featured in the low-budget movie release Hey Let’s Twist!, rushed into theaters to capitalize on the twist dance craze. Other notable records peaking in the top ten include Can’t Help Falling in Love by Elvis Presley, Baby It’s You by the Shirelles, The Wanderer by Dion, and A Little Bitty Tear by prior Oscar winner Burl Ives. The movie soundtrack to Breakfast at Tiffany’s by Henry Mancini reaches #1 on the album chart on February 10, spending 12 non-consecutive weeks at the top. 
At the movies, the Doris Day-Rock Hudson romantic comedy Lover Come Back is the champion for the month by a wide margin over runner-up Sergeants 3, a comedy western remake of 1939’s Gunga Din, starring Frank Sinatra and his “Rat Pack” cronies. In a rousing month at the box office, and amidst all the ’61 holdovers, newcomer Tender is the Night and the Walt Disney reissue Pinocchio (1940) round out the top ten.
Happy Birthday to Jennifer Jason-Leigh (2/5), Garth Brooks (2/7), and Sheryl Crow (2/11), all born this month.
