It was also a year which saw Fred Trueman play cricket at Sheffield United’s Bramall Lane, and saw Sheffield Wednesday start to recover from by a coach crash the team suffered on Boxing Day the previous year.
The Star covered these at these at the time, sending out our photographers.
But the reports and pictures of those memorable events in The Star were in black and white – we would not print the paper with colour pictures for around another 30 years.
But the world around us was still as bright and colourful as it is today.
However, modern technology now allows us to transform some of those pictures into colour. We have used pictures showing people and places, including West Street, Fargate and The Moor.
We have used technology to transform them and breathe fresh life into them.
It means you can now see them close to how they would have looked at the time, in a era before Joe Cocker had rocked Woodstock.
We have put together 32 pictures in gallery, which means you can now see these pictures in a way you never could before.

29. Recovering
Sheffield Wednesday coach crash, 1961, players at home after the crash . Picture: Sheffield Newspapers Photo: Sheffield Newspapers

30. Fargate
"The lights of the new Goodwin Fountain etch out a delicate tracery of water jets after the offical switch on" - 1961. Fargate, Sheffield. Picture: Sheffield Newspapers Photo: Sheffield Newspapers

31. S.A. Ward & Co
The interior of S.A. Ward & Co. 'The total manpower does not exceed 40, which has given the management a reputation for excellent and close labour relations' - 8th June 1961. Picture: Sheffield Newspapers Photo: Sheffield Newspapers

32. Shopping festival
Sheffield Shopping Festival - 3-11th November 1961. Spot the Window at John Atkinson's. Picture: Sheffield Newspapers Photo: Sheffield Newspapers