THURSDAY BACKTRACK: Music and news from 60 years ago - week ending 1 July 1961

Elvis and Del Shannon still occupy the top two places; at third, for the second week, comes 'Temptation':

Some memorable events (via Wikipedia):

25 June: American neo-Nazi George Lincoln Rockwell, discharged from the US Navy two years earlier for his political views, attends a Washington, D.C. rally of Elijah Mohammed's Nation of Islam.The strange connection is based on both parties' belief in racial segregation, and vehement antisemitism. Malcolm X (who six months before had been sent in secret to broker a truce with the Ku Klux Klan in Atlanta) gives a speech there;  Rockwell himself speaks at another NOI rally in Chicago in February 1962 (in 1967 he is murdered by John Patler, a former member of Rockwell's party who had been expelled a few months earlier for trying to introduce Marxist ideas.) In 1964, Malcolm X leaves the NOI, disillusioned with its leader, and is assassinated the next year by NOI member Talmadge Hayer.

27 June: Arthur Michael Ramsey is enthroned as 100th Archbishop of Canterbury.

28 June: following the April failure of the Central Intelligence Agency-sponsored 'Bay of Pigs' invasion of Cuba, President Kennedy issues a trio of directives to transfer the responsibility for the planning of peacetime paramilitary operations to the Joint Chiefs of Staff. 'The directives... were so secret that copies were not released to either the CIA or to the U.S. Department of State' (pic source.)

1 July: Fantasy Island opens: a theme park on Grand Island near Buffalo, New York

UK chart hits, week ending 1 July 1961

Htp: Clint's labour-of love compilation https://www.sixtiescity.net/charts/61chart.htm

1	Runaway	Del Shannon	London
2	Surrender	Elvis Presley	RCA
3	Temptation	The Everly Brothers	Warner Brothers
4	Pasadena	The Temperance Seven	Parlophone
5	A Girl Like You	Cliff Richard and The Shadows	Columbia
6	Hello Mary Lou / Travellin' Man	Ricky Nelson	London
7	Halfway To Paradise	Billy Fury	Decca
8	But I Do	Clarence 'Frogman' Henry	Pye
9	The Frightened City	The Shadows	Columbia
10	You'll Never Know	Shirley Bassey	Columbia
11	Pop Goes The Weasel / Bee*Bom	Anthony Newley	Decca
12	Runnin' Scared	Roy Orbison	London
13	Well I Ask You	Eden Kane	Decca
14	I Told Every Little Star	Linda Scott	Columbia
15	Little Devil	Neil Sedaka	RCA
16	Have A Drink On Me	Lonnie Donegan	Pye
17	More Than I Can Say	Bobby Vee	London
18	Marcheta	Karl Denver	Decca
19	Ring Of Fire	Duane Eddy	London
20	Weekend	Eddie Cochran	London