January
01 – Britain, Denmark and Ireland join the European Economic Community (the “Common Market”) bringing the total number of member states to nine.
01 – Baseball star Roberto Clemente is killed in a light plane crash off Puerto Rico.
02 – US resumes bombing of North Vietnam following a 24-hour New Year’s truce.
04 – The Montreal Museum of Fine Arts in Canada is robbed of $2 million worth of art, including a Rembrandt valued at $1 million.
04 – 400 children attack British troops in Londonderry.
07 – Adolf Hitler’s bulletproof 1940 Mercedes 770 K touring car is sold for $153,000 at an auction in Arizona to Earl Clark, owner of the Dutch Wonderland Amusement Park in Lancaster, Pennsylvania.
07 – Henry Kissenger arrives in Paris for a last-ditch effort to achieve peace in Vietnam.
08 – The trial of the “Watergate Seven” in the bugging of the Democratic National Committee headquarters in Washington DC begins.
09 – Southern Rhodesia closes its border with Zambia after terrorist attacks.
11 – A USAF General Dynamics F-111E operated by the 20th Tactical Fighter Wing from RAF Upper Heyford crashes near North Crawley in Buckinghamshire. Both crew members survive, though the aircraft is destroyed. The capsule lands in an allotment on North Crawley High Street.
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.
12 – Yassir Arafat is re-elected as PLO leader.
13 – 13 Moroccan Air Force officers are executed for an assassination attempt on King Hassan.
13 – Eric Clapton stages his comeback with an all-star concert at The Rainbow Theatre in London.
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 one 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.
20 – President Nixon is sworn in for his second term.
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 that the US Constitution protects a pregnant person’s right to choose to have an abortion.
22 – George Foreman wins the world heavyweight boxing title by knocking out Smokin’ Joe Frazier in the second round at National Stadium in Kingston, Jamaica.
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. McCord later reveals to Judge Sirica that many top White House officials are involved.
30 – Pan Am and TWA scrap plans to buy 13 Concordes.
February
02 – After three more young men are killed in Belfast, the total number of deaths in Northern Ireland since the emergency began in 1969 rises to 701.
05 – 20,000 black workers go on strike in South Africa.
07 – 10 people are killed when a US Navy jet crashes into an apartment house in Alameda, California.
08 – US Federal prosecutors order a fresh inquiry into the Watergate burglary.
08 – Archbishop 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.
14 – David Bowie collapses from exhaustion during a midnight Valentine’s Day concert at Radio City Music Hall in New York City.
16 – A US Army court upholds the death sentence on Lieutenant Calley for the My Lai Massacre.
21 – 108 passengers are killed when Israeli F-4 Phantom II fighter planes shoot down a Libyan Boeing 727 in the Sinai desert after it flies off course due to bad weather and equipment failure.
23 – American B-52s resume bombing in Laos after North Vietnamese break the ceasefire pact.
24 – The Byrds call it a day after playing a final gig at the Capitol Theater in Passaic, New Jersey.
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 gunmen kill the US ambassador’s deputy, George Curtis Moore; the US ambassador to Sudan, Cleo Noel Jr; and Belgian charge d’affaires, Guy Eid. The gunmen eventually surrender and are sentenced to jail but leave the country before serving their sentences.
02 – Princess Anne says there is no romance between her and Captain 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.
03 – Slade reach #1 in the UK charts with their single Cum On Feel the Noize.
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.
12 – The final episode of Rowan & Martin’s Laugh-In is aired in the US.
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.
18 – Czech astronomer Luboš Kohoutek discovers a bright object, later dubbed Comet Kohoutek, near Jupiter’s orbit.
20 – The voting age for Federal elections in Australia is lowered from 21 to 18.
21 – Seven miners are killed at Lofthouse Colliery in Yorkshire, England when a mine shaft floods.
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.
26 – The US daytime soap opera The Young and the Restless debuts on CBS.
28 – Marlon Brando refuses his Oscar for his role in The Godfather in protest of 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 begins a campaign to save the tiger from extinction.
03 – The first cellular telephone call is made on a 1¾lb device in New York City by Motorola’s Martin Cooper, who conceived the original idea of the portable phone.
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.
06 – Ron Blomberg of the New York Yankees becomes the first designated hitter in Major League Baseball.
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 Lebanon and kill three high-level Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) leaders in Beirut and Sidon.
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.
21 – The singing group Dawn, fronted by Tony Orlando, reaches #1 simultaneously on the UK and US singles charts (and stays there for a month) with Tie a Yellow Ribbon Round the Ole Oak Tree. The song (and the actual tying of yellow ribbons around trees) is later adopted by families of homecoming American troops after serving in various conflicts abroad.
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
01 – ‘Marvin Gaye Day’ is proclaimed in Washington DC. During the day, Marvin performs twice in the city – first at Cardova High School, then at the Kennedy Center.
02 – The Lebanese civil war begins when 29 people die as the army clashes with Palestinian refugees.
03 – The Sears Tower in Chicago is topped out at 1,451 feet and becomes the tallest building in the world.
05 – ‘Secretariat’ wins the Kentucky Derby.
08 – Rebel Native American Indians end their occupation of Wounded Knee in South Dakota – the site of the 1890 massacre of 200 Sioux by Federal Troops. 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.
11 – The world’s first data protection law is enacted in Sweden.
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 a box formation.
21 – A British gunboat chases an Icelandic frigate in the first Royal Navy action of the “Cod War”.
22 – Nixon admits cover-up of Watergate.
23 – Clive Davis, the president of Columbia Records in the US, is fired for misusing company funds. He is alleged, for example, to have spent $20,000 of Columbia’s money on his son’s bar mitzvah.
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 groundbreaking album, Tubular Bells, is released.
28 – Ronnie Lane leaves The Faces and forms Slim Chance. His old band replaces him with Japanese bass player Tetsu Yamauchi.
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 – Robert Wyatt, drummer with Soft Machine, falls from a third-storey window while drunk at a party and causes permanent damage to his spine. After six months of convalescence, he continues his music career from a wheelchair.
01 – OPEC agrees to a 6.1% increase in oil prices 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 vast 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 the 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.
21 – Bread play their last ever concert at the Salt Palace in Salt Lake City, Utah.
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 a boycott of Wimbledon over the suspension of a Yugoslav player.
23 – 10cc reach #1 in the UK with Rubber Bullets.
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 United States. He becomes the first leader of the Soviet Union to address the American public on television.
24 – UpStairs Lounge, a gay bar in New Orleans, is deliberately set ablaze by unknown perpetrators, killing 32 and injuring dozens more.
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.
28 – The ‘British Re-Invasion Tour’ hits the US. The package includes Herman’s Hermits, Gerry & The Pacemakers, The Searchers and Wayne Fontana.
29 – A revolt against President Allende in Chile is crushed.
30 – A rare total solar eclipse that lasts over seven minutes occurs over Africa. The last one of such length was in 1098, and the next one will be in 2150.
July
01 – Colonel Yosef Alon, Israeli military attache in Washington, is fatally shot outside his Maryland home.
01 – Slade set a new UK gig attendance record when they draw 18,000 people to their show at Earl’s Court in London.
01 – The US Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) is formed.
02 – Actress and pin-up girl Betty Grable (b. 1916) dies from cancer, aged 57.
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.
06 – British band Queen release their first single, Keep Yourself Alive. Their debut LP is released a week later.
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 – Varig Flight 820, headed to Paris from Rio de Janeiro, catches fire and makes an emergency landing a few miles from its destination. The fire is suspected of being caused by a lit cigarette tossed in a lavatory waste bin. All but one of the 124 passengers onboard die.
12 – Nixon enters hospital for treatment of viral pneumonia.
12 – Researchers in Sweden develop a test to detect marijuana in human blood. Hippies the world over giggle uncontrollably and head for the fridge.
13 – American actor Lon Chaney Jr dies at the age of 67.
14 – Clarence White of The Byrds (29) is hit by a car and killed following a nightclub performance in Palmdale, California.
15 – The 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 in the Oval Office.
17 – Britain recognises the Hanoi government.
17 – Mohammad Daoud Khan (the king’s cousin) launches a coup d’etat, establishing the Republic of Afghanistan.
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. The official cause of death is a cerebral oedema – but rumours abound.
20 – A Japanese Boeing 747 with 123 passengers and 22 crew is hijacked over Holland and forced to fly to Dubai. Later, in 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.
21 – Agents from Mossad (the Israeli intelligence agency) mistakenly identify waiter Ahmed Bouchikhi as Ali Hassan Salameh, the chief of operations for Black September, and assassinate him in Lillehammer, Norway.
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.
28 – The 10th World Festival of Youth and Students begins in East Berlin. Sometimes referred to as the “Woodstock of the East”, it brings 8 million visitors from 140 countries to the city.
29 – Over $200,000 is stolen from Led Zeppelin‘s safe deposit box at the Drake Hotel in New York City. The crime is never solved.
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 while travelling to a concert in North Carolina when the car in which he is a passenger collides with a timber transport truck. Stevie is crushed by falling logs. He is in a coma for two days but 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”.
08 – South Korean government agents kidnap dissident Kim Dae-Jung in Tokyo and apparently plan to kill him until the US intervenes.
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”.
16 – President Nixon goes on television to deny any part in Watergate.
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.
23 – The Sveriges Kreditbank in Stockholm, one of Sweden’s largest banks, is robbed. The perpetrators take hostages who subsequently do not cooperate with the police. The event is the genesis for the term “Stockholm syndrome”.
28 – An 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.
31 – American movie director John Ford – best known for his Western adventures – dies aged 78.
September
01 – The world’s deepest undersea rescue frees two Britons trapped inside mini-sub Pisces III in the Atlantic Ocean.
01 – Paul McCartney and Wings begin recording the album Band On The Run in Lagos, Nigeria.
02 – British author J R R Tolkien (Lord Of The Rings) dies, aged 81.
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 gunmen seize the Saudi Arabian Embassy in Paris.
07 – Jackie Stewart becomes world champion racing driver for the third time.
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 (pictured below) is killed, though there is continuing debate as to whether it was suicide or he was killed by the military. After an exhumation and autopsy in 2011, it is finally concluded that Allende had shot himself with an AK-47 assault rifle.
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 – West Germany and East Germany are admitted to the United Nations.
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 in Natchitoches, Louisiana. 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.
23 – Nobel Prize-winning Chilean poet Pablo Neruda dies in Santiago under suspicious circumstances.
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 – Gerald Ford is nominated Vice President by Richard Nixon.
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 at Wembley Stadium and fails to qualify for the 1974 World Cup finals. England manager Sir Alf Ramsey is subsequently dismissed.
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 his first time in 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.
24 – Kojak premieres on CBS.
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.
26 – Yom Kippur War ends in the Middle East.
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.
31 – Colour television is officially introduced in New Zealand.
November
01 – Nixon appoints Leon Jaworski 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.
December
01 – David Ben-Gurion, Israel’s first Prime Minister, dies.
02 – Papua New Guinea achieves self-government.
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
- Margarita Moran (Philippines) is crowned Miss Universe
- 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.