11 – The first graduates from the Open University (OU) are awarded their degrees after two years of studying from home. Out of the 1,000 students who sat the final exams, 867 were successful.
13 – 13 Moroccan Air Force officers are executed for an assassination attempt on King Hassan.
14 – The Miami Dolphins defeat the Washington Redskins 14-7 in Super Bowl VII, after a perfect 16-0 season.
14 – Elvis Presley‘s television special Aloha From Hawaii is transmitted to over 1 billion viewers worldwide.
15 – President Nixon orders a halt to all bombing, shelling and mining in Vietnam following peace talks in Paris.
16 – The USSR launches Luna XXI which lands by the Le Monnier crater on the Sea of Serenity. The remote-controlled eight-wheeled Moon vehicle Lunokhod 2 is used.
17 – President Marcos proclaims a new constitution in the Philippines under which he rules indefinitely.
17 – Daniel Ellsberg and Anthony Russo again face charges for leaking state secrets as the second Pentagon Papers trial opens.
19 – The Statesman, a British super tug is sent to protect British trawlers from Icelandic gunboats as the dispute over cod fishing rights intensifies.
19 – Actress Jane Fonda marries political activist Tom Hayden.
22 – Former US President Lyndon B Johnson dies of a heart attack in Texas. He is 64.
22 – The US Supreme Court legalises abortion during the first three months of pregnancy in the landmark Roe Vs Wade decision.
22 – George Foreman wins the world heavyweight boxing title by knocking out Smokin’ Joe Frazier in the second round.
23 – An agreement to end the war in Vietnam is reached at the Paris peace talks. The treaty stipulates that all American troops and military advisers will be withdrawn within 60 days, and all military prisoners on either side will be freed.
23 – 7,000 people are evacuated in Iceland as a volcano erupts.
26 – Australian Prime Minister Gough Whitlam announces a $5,000 competition to choose a new national anthem.
27 – USA, North and South Vietnam and the Viet Cong sign a peace treaty in Paris bringing the Vietnam War to an end. Lieutenant Colonel William Nolde is the last US casualty in the Vietnam War.
27 – US Defence Secretary Melvin Laird announces the end of the military draft.
30 – James W McCord and Gordon Liddy (two former officials of Nixon‘s re-election campaign committee) are convicted of breaking into and illegally wiretapping Democratic Party Headquarters at the Watergate apartment complex in Washington DC.
30 – Pan Am and TWA scrap plans to buy 13 Concordes.
February
02 – After three more young men are killed in Belfast, the total deaths in Northern Ireland since the emergency began in 1969 rises to 701.
05 – 20,000 black workers go on strike in South Arica.
07 – 10 people are killed when a US Navy jet crashes into an apartment house at Alameda, California.
08 – US Federal prosecutors order a fresh inquiry into the Watergate burglary.
08 – Arch Bishop Makarios is re-elected for a third term as President in Cyprus (pictured at right).
08 – Max Yasgur, whose farm housed the 1969 Woodstock Festival, dies aged 53 from a heart ailment.
09 – Britain and East Germany establish diplomatic relations.
10 – Australia’s first legal casino opens, at Wrest Point in Hobart, Tasmania.
12 – The first American prisoners-of-war from North Vietnam are flown out.
13 – Australian Prime Minister Gough Whitlam says the citizenship oath will be changed and migrants will no longer have to swear allegiance to The Queen.
14 – The exchange of prisoners of war captured on battlefields in Vietnam commences when a plane carrying 20 former POWs touches down at Travis Air Force Base in California.
16 – A US Army court upholds the death sentence on Lieutenant Calley for the My Lai Massacre.
21 – 104 die as Israeli fighter planes force down a Libyan Boeing 727 in the Sinai desert.
22 – Israeli jets shoot down a civilian Libyan Boeing 727 airliner killing 74 passengers and the French captain and his crew. The doomed plane crashes into the Sinai desert.
23 – American B-52s resume bombing in Laos after North Vietnamese break the ceasefire pact.
25 – The Israeli government agrees to pay compensation for shooting down the Libyan airliner which they say was an “error in judgement”.
26 – A publisher and eleven reporters from three newspapers are subpoenaed to testify in the Watergate case.
27 – 120 protesting American Indians take ten hostages at Wounded Knee, South Dakota, demanding an investigation of the federal treatment of Native Americans. Within a week the US government dispatches more than 300 federal officers to surround the town, while other Indian tribes and Vietnam Veterans Against the War send support. Gunshots are exchanged continuously for several weeks.
March
01 – Palestinian ‘Black September’ gunmen storm the Saudi Arabian embassy in Khartoum, holding five diplomats hostage.
02 – At the Saudi Arabian embassy, Palestinian terrorists murder the US ambassador’s deputy, George Curtis Moore; the US ambassador to Sudan, Cleo Noel Jr; and Belgian charge d’affaires, Guy Eid. The terrorists eventually surrender and are sentenced to jail but leave the country prior to serving their sentences.
02 – Princess Anne says there is no romance between her and Mark Phillips. They will eventually announce their engagement on 29 May.
03 – One person is killed and about 250 injured when IRA bombs explode in London outside the Old Bailey and at the Agriculture Ministry in Whitehall.
03 – The Soviet Union launches Venera 2, an unmanned space probe that will become the second to land on Venus and transmit information back to Earth.
05 – 68 die in a collision between two Spanish planes (a Spanish Airlines DC9 and a chartered Coronado 990) in mid-air over France where air traffic controllers are on strike.
08 – The IRA place four car bombs in London. Two of them – outside the Post Office in Broadway and at the BBC’s armed forces radio studio in Dean Stanley Street – are defused, but the other two explode – one near the Old Bailey and the other at the Ministry of Agriculture off Whitehall. Ten IRA operatives are arrested at Heathrow Airport trying to leave the country.
08 – 15 die in an arson attack at the Whisky Au Go Go nightclub in Brisbane, Australia. The bomber smears grease over the fire escapes and handles of the fire escape doors to trap as many people as possible in the worst mass murder in Australia’s history. John Stuart and James Finch are charged with the bombing.
08 – Grateful Dead co-founder and keyboardist Ronald Charles “Pigpen” McKernan dies of a gastrointestinal haemorrhage brought on by years of alcohol abuse. He is just 26.
08 – Paul McCartney is arrested for growing marijuana on his Scottish estate. He later pleads guilty and pays a £100 fine after his attorney claims the seeds were gifts from fans, and the amateur horticulturist planted them without knowing what they were.
08 – In a Northern Ireland referendum, voters choose 90-1 to remain part of the UK, but only 59% of citizens vote, with the referendum boycotted by most Catholics.
10 – Governor Sir Richard Sharples and his aide-de-camp Captain Hugh Sayers are assassinated in Bermuda as they stroll in the grounds of Government House. A state of emergency is declared.
12 – President Nixon announces his staff’s intention to invoke executive privilege in refusing to cooperate with any congressional committee probing Watergate.
13 – 10,000 commuters go on the rampage in Japan in protest at a railway strike.
14 – British Liberal leader Jeremy Thorpe marries the Countess of Harewood.
16 – Australian Commonwealth police raid ASIO (Australian Security and Intelligence Organisation) offices under direction from the Federal Attorney General, Lionel Murphy. They are seeking files on Croatian extremists in Australia.
16 – The Queen opens the new London Bridge.
20 – The voting age for Federal elections in Australia is lowered from 21 to 18.
23 – Watergate judge John J Sirica publicises a letter written to him by James W McCord, which claims that Nixon Administration officials had applied political pressure to him and other defendants to plead guilty and keep quiet about the break-in.
23 – Yoko Ono is granted permanent residence in the USA but John Lennon is ordered to leave the country within 60 days.
26 – Women are allowed on the floor of the London Stock Exchange for the first time in the institution’s 200 year history.
26 – English playwright, composer, director and actor Noel Coward dies at home in Jamaica from heart failure, aged 73.
28 – Marlon Brando rejects his Oscar in protest at Hollywood’s degradation of American Indians.
29 – The last US prisoners of war are released from Vietnam.
31 – Muhammad Ali is defeated by unknown Ken Norton in 12 rounds in San Diego.
31 – Red Rum wins the Grand National in record time of 9 minutes 1.9 seconds.
April
01 – VAT (Value Added Tax) introduced in the UK.
01 – John Lennon and Yoko Ono announce the founding of Nutopia, a new country with no laws or borders (though nobody can find it on any map). It is no accident that the press conference is held on April 1st.
01 – The Indian government begin a campaign to save the tiger from extinction.
03 – The first cellular telephone call is made by Martin Cooper, who conceived the original idea of the portable phone, in New York City.
03 – Soviet scientists launch space lab Salyut 2 into orbit.
04 – The official opening of the World Trade Center in New York.
04 – Official documents released by the Vatican show how much the Church knew about the Holocaust. One report reveals a meeting took place between Archbishop Roncalli (later John XXIII) and a Hitler envoy which referred to Polish death camps.
06 – NASA launches Pioneer 11 on a mission to fly near Jupiter and Saturn.
06 – The finance ministers of the EEC countries establish a European fund for monetary cooperation.
08 – Spanish artist Pablo Picasso (b. 1881) dies from a heart attack, aged 91, at his chateau at Mougins.
08 – Indian troops annexe the independent Himalayan Kingdom of Sikkim.
09 – Arab terrorists attempt to hijack an Israeli plane at Nicosia. One Arab is killed and seven are captured.
10 – Israeli commandos land in Beirut and kill three Palestinian guerrilla leaders.
10 – A chartered British airliner carrying 144 people crashes in Switzerland, killing 96 people, mostly young English housewives on a shopping trip.
11 – West Germany closes its file on Nazi war criminal Martin Bormann after his death is confirmed.
16 – IRA chief Sean MacStiofain is freed from jail.
17 – A republic is proclaimed in Afghanistan after an Army-backed coup ousts the government.
18 – Three Royal Navy frigates begin patrolling in waters near Iceland following a dispute between Britain and Iceland over cod fishing.
21 – Former Australian PM and Treasurer Arthur McFadden dies.
23 – President Nixon allows his staff to testify before the Watergate Committee and former Attorney General John Mitchell admits that he knew of political espionage, but not specific bugging operations.
26 – An Icelandic gunboat shells and damages a British trawler.
27 – Acting FBI Director L Patrick Gray resigns after revelations surface that he had intentionally destroyed records involving the Watergate break-in.
30 – On national TV, President Nixon accepts responsibility (but not blame) for Watergate. He accepts the resignations of advisers H. R. “Bob” Haldeman (the President’s Chief of Staff), John D. Ehrlichman (Nixon’s chief domestic affairs adviser) and Richard Kleindienst (the Attorney General), and fires John W. Dean III as his legal counsel.
May
05 – ‘Secretariat’ wins the Kentucky Derby.
08 – Rebel American Indians end their occupation of Wounded Knee. Two men – an American Indian and a Vietnam Veteran – are fatalities of the 71-day standoff.
10 – Nixon aides John Mitchell and Maurice Stans are indicted for perjury in Washington.
10 – The New York Knicks take the NBA title again, defeating the Los Angeles Lakers 102-93.
11 – A US Federal judge dismisses all charges against Dr Daniel Ellsberg and Anthony Russo in the Pentagon Papers case.
14 – US launches their first space station, Skylab. Its solar panels are damaged during the launch. Teams of astronauts in subsequent Skylab missions will repair the space station.
17 – The Senate Select Committee on Presidential Campaign Activities, headed by North Carolina Senator Sam Ervin, opens televised hearings to explore the alleged cover-up of the Nixon administration’s involvement in the Watergate affair.
19 – Nine die in violent clashes in Northern Ireland.
20 – Britain sends in three Royal Navy frigates – the HMS Cleopatra, the HMS Plymouth and the HMS Lincoln – to protect trawlers in the disputed Icelandic 50-mile zone as the so-called “cod war” escalates. Three frigates are sailing alongside the British trawlers now fishing in box formation.
21 – A British gunboat chases an Icelandic frigate in the first Royal Navy action of the “cod war”.
24 – Two British government ministers – Earl Jellicoe, the Lord Privy Seal and Tory Leader in the House of Lords, and Lord Lambton, a Defence Under-Secretary – resign after admitting they associated with prostitutes.
24 – The British Embassy in Iceland is stormed by rioters protesting at the Royal Navy’s action three days ago.
25 – Skylab 2 carries astronauts Charles Conrad, Joseph Kerwin and Paul Weitz to rendezvous with Skylab. The three repair the solar panels damaged in Skylab‘s launch and conduct scientific experiments, before returning to Earth on 22 June.
25 – Mike Oldfield‘s successful and ground-breaking album Tubular Bells is released.
29 – Thomas Bradley becomes the first black Mayor of Los Angeles.
29 – Princess Anne (22), the only daughter of The Queen, announces her engagement to Lieutenant Mark Phillips (24) of the Dragoon Guards.
29 – Columbia Records president Clive Davis is fired for inappropriate use of company funds (such as spending $20,000 for his son’s bar mitzvah). Davis will later bounce back to head Arista Records.
31 – The US Senate votes to cut off funding for the bombing of Cambodia.
June
01 – In Greece, the monarchy is abolished and George Papadopoulos becomes the first president of the republic.
01 – OPEC agrees to a 6.1% oil price increase with the oil companies.
03 – A Russian Tupelov-144 supersonic airliner explodes in mid-air at the Paris Air Show and crashes on the town of Goussainville. 14 lives are lost.
04 – Murry Wilson, father of Beach Boys‘ Brian, Carl and Dennis, dies of a heart attack aged 55.
06 – The 25-1 outsider ‘Morston’ wins the Derby.
07 – Famine threatens wide areas of Latin America, Asia, Africa and the Middle East following the worst prolonged droughts for 25 years.
08 – General Franco appoints Admiral Luis Blanco as President, after ruling Spain for 34 years.
11 – 1,500 students are expelled from university in South Africa after demanding appointment of a coloured Rector.
12 – Marlon Brando lets fly with his fists in anger at a photographer in New York, breaking his jaw. Brando himself has to be hospitalised with a swollen hand.
16/25 – USSR Party Secretary Leonid Brezhnev visits the USA.
21 – The US Supreme Court gives individual states the power to censor obscene material.
22 – Applications by West and East Germany to join the UN are accepted.
22 – The International Court of Justice at The Hague orders France to cease nuclear tests in the Pacific after Australian representations.
22 – Tennis stars announce boycott of Wimbledon over the suspension of a Yugoslav player.
24 – President Eamon de Valera resigns in Ireland, aged 90, the world’s oldest Head of State.
24 – Soviet premier Brezhnev attends a summit conference in the US.
25 – Erskine Childers becomes president of Ireland, succeeding Eamon De Valera.
25/29 – Former White House counsel John Dean testifies before the Senate Watergate Committee, implicating himself, White House Chief of Staff H R Haldeman, Assistant of Domestic Affairs John Ehrlichman, former Attorney General John Mitchell, and President Richard Nixon in the cover-up.
26 – Keith Richard and Anita Pallenberg are arrested on firearms and drugs charges.
29 – A revolt against President Allende in Chile is crushed.
July
01 – Colonel Yosef Alon, Israeli military attache in Washington, is fatally shot outside his Maryland home.
03 – A spokesman for Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor announces that the couple have decided to separate, despite numerous attempts at a reconciliation.
04 – Eight soldiers, four warders and 21 prisoners are injured during a riot at Maze Prison in Northern Ireland.
04 – Don Powell, the drummer with British glam-rockers Slade, is badly injured in a car crash that kills his girlfriend.
06 – Bob Hawke is elected to head the Australian Labor Party.
07 – President Nixon says he will not appear before the Watergate committee or give it access to White House files.
07 – Film star Veronica Lake dies aged 53.
08 – Australian Labor stalwart Arthur Calwell dies aged 76 (hopefully not as a result of the news that Bob Hawke was the new party leader).
09 – Idi Amin orders the arrest and expulsion of 112 Peace Corps workers in Uganda.
10 – Prince Charles observes the final lowering of the Union Jack overlooking Nassau Harbour on the Bahamas’ last day as a British colony. The Bahamas remain a part of the British Commonwealth.
10 – The French Navy is ordered to clear HMNZ Otago and other protest ships from the nuclear test area in the South Pacific.
11 – Brazilian airliner crashes near Paris, killing 122 of 134 people aboard.
12 – Nixon enters hospital for treatment of viral pneumonia.
14 – Clarence White of The Byrds (29) is hit by a car and killed following a nightclub performance in Palmdale, California.
15 – Grandson of US oil billionaire Paul Getty is kidnapped.
16 – Former White House aide Alexander Butterfield reveals the existence of secret recordings Nixon made of White House conversations.
17 – Britain recognises the Hanoi government.
18 – 43 Belgian tourists are killed when their coach plunges from a mountain road into a river in the French Alps.
19 – Nixon says he will not hand over White House tapes to the Watergate investigation, despite being subpoenaed for them.
20 – Actor and Martial Arts expert Bruce Lee dies in mysterious circumstances in Hong Kong.
20 – A Japanese Boeing 747 with 123 passengers and 22 crew is hijacked over Holland and forced to fly to Dubai. Later, at Benghazi, the plane is blown up by the hijackers. A girl hijacker is killed by a grenade explosion, but all passengers and crew escape.
21 – The USSR launches Mars IV on a mission to reach Mars.
22 – France explodes test H-bomb 2000 feet above Mururoa Atoll in the Pacific Ocean despite protests from Australia and New Zealand and the presence of the New Zealand Navy frigate Otago within the 72-mile danger zone declared by France.
23 – Watergate committee and special prosecutor Archibald Cox serve subpoenas on the White House after Nixon formally refuses to turn over tapes and documents related to the case.
25 – The USSR launches Mars V on a mission to Mars.
26 – Nixon defies subpoenas for tape recordings of White House Watergate conversations and the case goes to the US District Court.
28 – Skylab 3 makes a rendezvous with the orbiting Skylab station. Astronauts Captain Alan Bean, Dr Owen Garriott, and Major Jack Lousma perform further repairs and experiments.
30 – Eleven-year battle over thalidomide compensation ends with a £20 million court settlement.
30 – 18 miners die and 16 are injured when a pit cage crashes over 1400 feet to the bottom of a shaft at Markham Colliery near Chesterfield.
31 – 89 die and one passenger survives a Delta Airlines crash in Boston.
31 – The Northern Ireland Assembly meets for the first time in Stormont, Belfast. But proceedings are disrupted by loud protest and interruptions from a group of hardline loyalists led by Reverend Ian Paisley.
31 – Australian Prime Minister Gough Whitlam tells US leaders that his government is not hostile to the US, but stresses Australia is “not an American satellite”.
August
01 – East German head of state Walter Ulbricht dies at the age of 80.
02 – 50 people are killed and 80 seriously injured when fire engulfs the seven-storey Summerland entertainment centre at Douglas on the Isle of Man. The complex is destroyed within minutes. It is later revealed that the fire was started by three boys illicitly smoking.
05 – ‘Black September’ Arab terrorists armed with sub-machine guns and hand grenades kill three people and injure 55 at Athens Airport.
05 – The USSR launches Mars VI on a mission to Mars.
06 – US bombers accidentally bomb a friendly village in Cambodia.
06 – Stevie Wonder suffers life-threatening head injuries in a car accident in North Carolina and spends four days in a coma. He survives (minus his sense of smell) and resumes performing the following March.
08 – Vice President Spiro Agnew reveals he is under investigation on charges of bribery by government contractors in his home state of Maryland. He denounces the charges as “damned lies”.
09 – The USSR launches Mars VII on a mission to Mars.
12 – Jack Nicklaus wins PGA championship for his 14th major golf title.
15 – The USSR denounces children’s TV show Sesame Street as “imperialistic”.
17 – Police find singer Paul Williams, the original Temptations‘ baritone, dead in an apparent suicide in Detroit. He was 34.
18 – The IRA sends a series of letter bombs which disrupts the postal service on the British mainland.
19 – President Papadopoulos ends martial law in Greece.
19 – The Portuguese Army admits to the massacre of civilians in Mozambique.
20 – IRA bombs explode in two West End stores in London.
28 – Earthquake in Mexico kills an estimated 500 people and injures 1,000.
29 – Nixon is ordered to give up secret Watergate tapes to Judge John Sirica. Nixon refuses to comply and appeals the decision.
31 – An IRA bomb explodes in Old Quebec Street at Marble Arch (London) damaging two hotels.
31 – The Gainesville 8, members of the Vietnam Veterans Against the War on trial for planning a violent disruption of the 1972 Republican National Convention in Miami, are acquitted.
September
01 – The world’s deepest undersea rescue frees two Britons trapped inside mini-sub Pisces III in the Atlantic Ocean.
02 – British author J R R Tolkien (Lord Of The Rings) dies.
04 – John Ehrlichman and G Gordon Liddy are indicted in connection with the burglary of the office of Daniel Ellsberg’s psychiatrist. Following Ellsberg’s release of The Pentagon Papers, the two were allegedly looking for evidence that would link Ellsberg (a former Defense Department analyst) to the KGB.
05 – Black September terrorists seize the Saudi Arabian Embassy in Paris.
07 – The crew of a Royal Navy frigate are accused of throwing carrots at an Icelandic gunboat in the North Sea.
08 – An IRA bomb explodes in the ticket office at Victoria Station in London, injuring four people.
10 – IRA bomb blasts at King’s Cross and Euston stations injure 13 people and bring chaos to central London.
10 – Biba re-opens for business in the seven-floor Derry and Toms building on Kensington High Street, West London. The Art Deco department store is known as “Big Biba”.
11 – A military junta headed by General Pinochet and backed by the CIA seizes power in Chile in a bloody coup. Thousands of people are rounded up for interrogation. Many are never seen again. President Salvador Allende is killed (pictured below), though there is continuing debate as to whether he committed suicide or was killed by the military.
11 – During a riot at a gold mine near Johannesburg, 11 African miners are shot and killed.
15 – King Gustaf Adolf of Sweden dies. He is succeeded by his grandson Carl Gustaf, who becomes King Carl XVI Gustav.
15 – Manly-Warringah defeat Cronulla-Sutherland 10-7 in the Australian Rugby League Grand Final.
16 – UNICEF reports that over 50,000 have died in a famine in Ethiopia.
18 – Senior PLO representative Abdul Azzam gets six months in jail for illegal entry to Australia.
19 – US musician (ex-The Byrds) Gram Parsons dies in California after collapsing in a motel from an overdose of tequila and morphine. He was 26.
20 – US singer/songwriter Jim Croce dies when the plane he is flying in crashes into a tree. His guitarist, Maury Mulheisen is also killed.
20 – In a much-publicised battle of the sexes, tennis star Billie Jean King defeats Bobby Riggs in the Houston Astrodome in front of more than 30,000 spectators.
23 – General Juan Peron is re-elected President of Argentina, 18 years after being ousted.
24 – The second Skylab crew returns to Earth after their 59-day mission.
26 – Concorde flies from Washington DC to Paris in three hours 33 minutes, cutting the previous record for a transatlantic airliner journey in half, flying the plane at an average speed of 954 mph (1,535 kph).
26 – 18 pensioners are killed and 21 are injured when their bus plunges 300 feet into the freezing waters of the Tumut Ponds Dam in the Snowy Mountains in Australia.
27 – In Darwin, Miss North Australia, 17-year-old Judy Gee, is banned from the Miss Australia quest because she is an unmarried mother.
28 – Palestinian terrorists attack a train in Vienna and seize hostages.
28 – Poet W H Auden (b. 1907) dies.
October
01 – Denis Healey vows Labour will tax the rich until “the pips squeak”.
06 – Egypt and Syria launch a joint attack on Israel on Yom Kippur – the holiest day in the Jewish calendar – marking the beginning of the Yom Kippur War. The war ends on 26 October when Israel wins, just as a UN ceasefire comes into effect.
08 – Britain’s first commercial radio station, the London Broadcasting Company (LBC), goes on the air. The radio station is the first to challenge the BBC’s 50-year radio monopoly.
09 – Elvis Presley and his wife Priscilla divorce amicably in Santa Monica, California. Priscilla is awarded just under $1.5 million, a year of generous monthly alimony, half the couple’s Los Angeles home and 5% of Elvis’s two publishing companies.
09 – $50 note comes into circulation in Australia.
10 – Spiro Agnew resigns as US Vice President and then, in federal court in Baltimore, pleads no contest to charges of evasion of income taxes on $29,500 he received in 1967, while governor of Maryland. He is fined $10,000 and put on three years probation.
11 – The Middle East conflict breaks out again as an Israeli tank force breaks through Syrian defences and pushes past 1967 cease-fire lines.
11 – 2,000 are feared dead following a military coup in Chile.
12 – US Court of Appeal orders Nixon to hand over the Watergate tapes.
12 – The US begins ‘Operation Nickel Grass’, airlifting weapons and supplies to Israel.
12 – OPEC begins oil price negotiations with the oil companies.
13 – German President Gustav Heinemann is attacked by an insane assailant during a business leaders meeting in Augsburg. Heinemann is not seriously injured.
14 – 77 people, mostly students from Thammasat University, are killed in the Thai capital of Bangkok when government troops open fire on demonstrators. Prime minister Field Marshal Thanom and two of his senior officers resign later in the day, restoring democratic rule.
15 – South African government extends racial segregation to all private gatherings.
16 – The Nobel Peace Prize is awarded to Henry Kissinger for his part in the Vietnam peace talks.
16 – Legendary jazz drummer Gene Krupa dies.
17 – Eleven Arab OPEC states agree to cut oil production and raise prices by over 70% in protest at US support of Israel. Countries affected included the US, UK, Canada, Japan and the Netherlands.
17 – Queen Elizabeth opens the Sydney Opera House.
17 – England draws 1-1 with Poland and fail to qualify for the World Cup finals.
18 – President Richard Nixon capitulates to the courts and agrees to hand over all the White House Watergate tapes. His surrender comes after Judge John J Sirica threatens to hold the President in contempt unless he obeys the law of the United States.
19 – 500 drown in Spanish floods in the Granada, Murcia and Almeria provinces.
20 – In the “Saturday Night Massacre,” Nixon fires special Watergate prosecutor Archibald Cox and Deputy Attorney General William D. Ruckelshaus. Attorney General Elliot L. Richardson resigns.
20 – The Queen opens the distinctive sail-shaped Sydney Opera House in Australia.
20 – The Dalai Lama arrives in London as part of his European tour. It is the first time he has been to the UK.
21 – The Oakland A’s defeat the New York Mets in seven games and win their second consecutive World Series.
23 – Vietnamese envoy Le Duc Tho refuses a Nobel Peace Prize saying there is still no peace in his country.
24 – Syria accepts UN ceasefire.
24 – An underground oil storage tank explodes in Sheffield, Yorkshire, killing three workmen and causing extensive damage.
25 – US forces are put on worldwide alert as fears rise of USSR involvement in the Middle East conflict.
25 – John Lennon begins a lawsuit against the US government alleging his telephone was tapped at a time when he was fighting a deportation order for his political leanings.
29 – Nazi fugitive Klaus Barbie is released after eight months detention in Bolivia.
31 – Three Provisional IRA leaders are snatched from Mountjoy Prison in Dublin in a hijacked helicopter.
31 – Australian PM Whitlam begins an official visit to Red China, the first by an Australian premier.
November
01 – Nixon appoints Leon Jaworksi as special Watergate prosecutor.
01 – The last issue of the underground Oz magazine.
03 – A worldwide oil crisis sees prices raised, and ration books printed up for use in the UK. They are never used.
03 – NASA launches Mariner 10 on a mission to Venus and Mercury.
04 – Arab oil producers tighten their embargo with a further 25% cut in supplies.
06 – The Symbionese Liberation Army – a radical group that sprang from a Bay Area prisoner support group – introduces itself by killing a black school superintendent in Oakland.
06 – New York Dolls drummer Billy Murcia dies of a heroin overdose in London.
06 – ‘Gala Supreme’ wins the Melbourne Cup.
09 – Six Watergate burglars are convicted and jailed.
11 – Egypt and Israel accept a US plan for a ceasefire and sign the first-ever pact between the two countries.
12 – Britain’s 300,000 miners begin an overtime ban. The government declares a State of Emergency the following day.
13 – Iceland agrees to a plan to end the ‘cod war’ with Britain.
13 – Jerry Lee Lewis Jr dies aged 19 in a road accident near Hernando, Mississippi, days after playing drums with his father‘s band.
14 – Princess Anne marries Captain Mark Phillips at Westminster Abbey in a full military ceremony. An estimated 500 million television viewers around the world watch the ceremony.
14 – Eight IRA terrorists – Dolours Price, Marian Price, Hugh Feeney, Gerald Kelly, Robert Walsh, Martin Brady, William Armstrong and Paul Holmes – are found guilty of London car bombings and jailed for life.
17 – During a speech in Florida, Nixon insists “I am not a crook”
25 – A military coup in Greece ousts the hated government of self-appointed President George Papadopoulos.
26 – A released White House tape is revealed to have had eighteen minutes erased from it. President Nixon‘s secretary Rose Mary Woods accepts responsibility for accidentally causing the erasure, but technical experts state that neither an electric typewriter nor a high-intensity light could have erased the portion, as a White House lawyer suggested.
26 – Bass player John Rostill of The Shadows is electrocuted while playing guitar in his home studio.
27 – The PLO is recognised in Algiers as the sole legal representative of the Palestinian people.
29 – A fire in a department store in Kumamoto, Japan, causes the death of over 100 people.
02 – Following a show at the Montreal Forum, The Who and some friends are jailed overnight for an estimated $6,000 worth of hotel destruction.
03 – In Australia, smooth lawyer Neville Wran is to lead NSW opposition.
05 – UK government impose 50 MPH speed limit to reduce fuel consumption.
05 – Inauguration in Las Vegas of the MGM Grand, the biggest hotel and casino complex in the US.
06 – Representative Gerald Ford is sworn in as US Vice-President after Spiro Agnew resigns over tax evasion charges
09 – Prime Minister Edward Heath, Irish premier Liam Cosgrave and representatives of the Ulster Unionist Party, the Social Democratic and Labour Party and the Alliance Party of Northern Ireland, sign an agreement to set up a Council of Ireland, which is expected to be set up and active from the beginning of next year.
10 – Hilly Kristal opens legendary rock venue CBGB on New York’s Lower East Side.
12 – A pilot and three midshipmen are killed when a Royal Navy helicopter crashes near Dartmouth, Devon.
13 – Edward Heath announces his government’s plans to reduce the consumption of electricity in the UK. Strict controls are imposed on business and industry, with the promise of more to come. Heath announces, “We shall have a harder Christmas than we have known since the war.”
14 – John Paul Getty III, the teenage grandson of the American oil tycoon, is freed by Italian kidnappers who have held him for six months. At one point they cut off his right ear and sent it through the mail to further their demand for a ransom of about $750,000.
14 – Idi Amin starts “Save Britain” fund to help Britain out of economic crisis.
15 – The American Psychiatric Association declares that homosexuality is not a mental disorder, reversing its almost century-old stand on the issue.
17 – British PM Edward Heath initiates a three-day working week in response to crippling disputes in the coal, railway and power sectors.
17 – Arab terrorists kill 32 people at Rome Airport, hijack a Lufthansa aircraft and fly to Kuwait. The crew and hostages are released and the five guerrillas surrender.
18 – An IRA car bomb explodes in Thorney Street, off Horseferry Road in London, outside a building occupied by the Home Office, and opposite the Department of Trade and Industry. Both buildings are extensively damaged and at least 40 people are injured.
18 – The USSR launches Soyuz 13 whose crew carry out biological experiments.
19 – Paddington to Oxford express derails at Ealing. Ten people are killed and more than 50 injured.
20 – Spain’s prime minister Admiral Luis Carrero Blanco is assassinated when a huge bomb hurls his car over the 65-foot tall San Francisco de Borga Church where he has just attended mass. The car lands on a second-floor terrace of a building on the other side of the church. The Basque underground separatist movement claims responsibility.
20 – 1950’s US pop star Bobby Darin dies following open-heart surgery at the Cedars of Lebanon Hospital in Los Angeles, aged 37.
23 – Arab oil producers double the price of oil.
24 – At least six people are injured when IRA bombs explode at the North Star pub in Swiss Cottage, London, and the nearby Swiss Cottage Tavern.
25 – Three trawlermen from Hull are drowned in a Norwegian fjord when their trawler sinks after hitting rocks.
31 – Scottish brothers Angus and Malcolm Young debut their newly-formed rock outfit AC/DC at a club in Sydney, Australia.
Also this year . . .
Roger Moore makes his debut as James Bond
IBM releases the “self-correcting” Selectric typewriter
Quotes of the year
“Two months ago when he held a hand in front of his face and confessed that he could only just distinguish the fingers, I would not have given him a price”. Sports Columnist Ian Wooldridge after watching Gordon Banks begin his comeback in Athens.
“There will be no whitewash in the White House”. Richard Nixon in TV speech, 30 April.
“I must go now while I’m on top. I don’t want to become an embarrassment to my club, my family or myself”. Bobby Charlton announcing his retirement from football.
“When you are a guest in someone’s house, you do not start criticising the wallpaper or moving the furniture around”. Roger Moore, in South Africa to make the film Gold responding to a question about his attitude to apartheid.
“That’s why we have all that funny spelling on our records like “Coz I Luv You”. That’s the way people speak up here and it’s the way we’ve always talked”. Noddy Holder of Slade on why he wouldn’t swap Wolverhampton for London.
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