diff --git a/CHANGELOG.md b/CHANGELOG.md
index 17bc45350eba6f..c3f3f304aa1459 100644
--- a/CHANGELOG.md
+++ b/CHANGELOG.md
@@ -1,5 +1,29 @@
 # io.js ChangeLog
 
+## 2015-03-20, Version 1.6.1, @rvagg
+
+### Notable changes
+
+* **path**: New type-checking on `path.resolve()` [#1153](https://github.com/iojs/io.js/pull/1153) uncovered some edge-cases being relied upon in the wild, most notably `path.dirname(undefined)`. Type-checking has been loosened for `path.dirname()`, `path.basename()`, and `path.extname()` (Colin Ihrig) [#1216](https://github.com/iojs/io.js/pull/1216).
+* **querystring**: Internal optimizations in `querystring.parse()` and `querystring.stringify()` [#847](https://github.com/iojs/io.js/pull/847) prevented `Number` literals from being properly converted via `querystring.escape()` [#1208](https://github.com/iojs/io.js/issues/1208), exposing a blind-spot in the test suite. The bug and the tests have now been fixed (Jeremiah Senkpiel) [#1213](https://github.com/iojs/io.js/pull/1213).
+
+### Known issues
+
+* Possible remaining TLS-related memory leak(s), details at [#1075](https://github.com/iojs/io.js/issues/1075).
+* Surrogate pair in REPL can freeze terminal [#690](https://github.com/iojs/io.js/issues/690)
+* Not possible to build io.js as a static library [#686](https://github.com/iojs/io.js/issues/686)
+* `process.send()` is not synchronous as the docs suggest, a regression introduced in 1.0.2, see [#760](https://github.com/iojs/io.js/issues/760) and fix in [#774](https://github.com/iojs/io.js/issues/774)
+* Calling `dns.setServers()` while a DNS query is in progress can cause the process to crash on a failed assertion [#894](https://github.com/iojs/io.js/issues/894)
+
+### Commits
+
+* [[`3b9eab9779`](https://github.com/iojs/io.js/commit/3b9eab9779)] - **build**: make check aliases test (Johan Bergström) [#1211](https://github.com/iojs/io.js/pull/1211)
+* [[`4c731042d4`](https://github.com/iojs/io.js/commit/4c731042d4)] - **configure**: use cc and c++ as defaults on os x (Ben Noordhuis) [#1210](https://github.com/iojs/io.js/pull/1210)
+* [[`8de78e470d`](https://github.com/iojs/io.js/commit/8de78e470d)] - **path**: reduce type checking on some methods (cjihrig) [#1216](https://github.com/iojs/io.js/pull/1216)
+* [[`c9aec2b716`](https://github.com/iojs/io.js/commit/c9aec2b716)] - **querystring**: fix broken stringifyPrimitive (Jeremiah Senkpiel) [#1213](https://github.com/iojs/io.js/pull/1213)
+* [[`a89f5c2156`](https://github.com/iojs/io.js/commit/a89f5c2156)] - **querystring**: parse numbers correctly (Jeremiah Senkpiel) [#1213](https://github.com/iojs/io.js/pull/1213)
+* [[`2034137385`](https://github.com/iojs/io.js/commit/2034137385)] - **smalloc**: don't mix malloc() and new char\[\] (Ben Noordhuis) [#1205](https://github.com/iojs/io.js/pull/1205)
+
 ## 2015-03-19, Version 1.6.0, @chrisdickinson
 
 ### Notable changes
@@ -17,7 +41,6 @@
   * [`c56cfcd`](https://github.com/npm/npm/commit/c56cfcd79c) [#7525](https://github.com/npm/npm/issues/7525) `npm dedupe` handles scoped packages. ([@KidkArolis](https://github.com/KidkArolis))
   * [`4ef1412`](https://github.com/npm/npm/commit/4ef1412d00) [#7075](https://github.com/npm/npm/issues/7075) If you try to tag a release as a valid semver range, `npm publish` and `npm tag` will error early instead of proceeding. ([@smikes](https://github.com/smikes))
 
-
 ### Known issues
 
 * Possible remaining TLS-related memory leak(s), details at [#1075](https://github.com/iojs/io.js/issues/1075).
diff --git a/src/node_version.h b/src/node_version.h
index 1eaf244dc0548b..767015cc789441 100644
--- a/src/node_version.h
+++ b/src/node_version.h
@@ -5,7 +5,7 @@
 #define NODE_MINOR_VERSION 6
 #define NODE_PATCH_VERSION 1
 
-#define NODE_VERSION_IS_RELEASE 0
+#define NODE_VERSION_IS_RELEASE 1
 
 #ifndef NODE_STRINGIFY
 #define NODE_STRINGIFY(n) NODE_STRINGIFY_HELPER(n)