01 – 38 Italians die when an Italia Airlines Fokker Friendship crashes near Turin. There are four survivors.
02 – US legislation for a national speed limit of 55 mph is signed to save America 200,000 barrels of oil each day.
02 – 18 British museums begin charging admission.
06 – Football matches are played in the UK on Sunday for the first time due to the current power crisis and a ban on the use of floodlights.
07 – The Home Secretary, Robert Carr, announces that troops guarding Heathrow Airport have been given orders to shoot to kill if necessary.
09 – A three-day working week to save electricity and coal follows a go-slow by miners and rail workers in the UK. 885,000 people register for unemployment benefit as a result.
09 – Government troops in Cambodia launch an offensive against the Khmer Rouge.
09 – A Dutch Navy destroyer and a British freighter collide in fog in the Western Scheldt. A Dutch sailor is reported missing.
10 – A young Northern Ireland policeman who suffered brain damage after being shot in the head two years ago is awarded £60,000 in Belfast.
11 – Two civilian workers at Ebrington Barracks in Londonderry are killed when an IRA bomb explodes in the boot of their car.
13 – The Miami Dolphins win their second consecutive Super Bowl, defeating the Minnesota Vikings 24-7.
15 – Technicians determine that the 18-minute gap in Nixon‘s White House tapes, evidence in the Watergate investigation, is the result of several intentional erasures, not a single accidental re-recording as claimed.
15 – The first modern telephone-answering machine is made available to the American public by Dictaphone.
18 – Henry Kissinger negotiates a ceasefire between Israel and Egypt. The two countries agree to end their five-month conflict by separating their forces along the Suez Canal.
19 – France decides to float the Franc.
20 – A Gallup poll shows that 79% of American voters are in favour of impeaching President Nixon.
20 – A captain of the Ulster Defence Regiment, kidnapped from an Eire hotel on 19 January, is found dead in a field just across the Ulster border.
22 – Spain decides to float its currency.
24 – Prince Philip opens the 10th Commonwealth Games in Christchurch, New Zealand.
24 – Ex-White House aide Egil Krogh Jr. receives a six-month sentence for his part in breaking into Daniel Ellsberg’s psychiatrist’s office in the Pentagon Papers case.
25 – Dr Christiaan Barnard performs the first heart transplant without removal of the existing organ.
25 – A major oil find in the North Sea is disclosed by BP.
26 – In Australia, Brisbane is cut off after torrential rains and a cyclone cause flooding. Five people die and 8,000 are left homeless.
28 – Muhammad Ali defeats Joe Frazier in 12 rounds at Madison Square Garden in New York City.
30 – In his ‘State of The Union’ address Nixon urges America not to pursue the Watergate Affair.
31 – Two Catholic workers are killed in Belfast for refusing to kneel before hooded gunmen.
31 – Polish-born Hollywood producer Sam Goldwyn (b. 1882) dies in the US.
31 – 93 people lose their lives when a Pan American Boeing 707 crashes when approaching Pago Pago airport in the South Pacific. There are eight survivors.
February
01 – Great Train Robber Ronald Biggs, who escaped from London’s Wandsworth prison in 1965, is arrested in Rio de Janeiro, but extradition is refused. Biggs was serving 30 years for his part in the Great Train Robbery.
01 – 220 people die in a fire which sweeps through a 22-storey office building in Sao Paulo, Brazil.
02 – China launches a new Cultural Revolution against the teachings of Confucius and the policies of Lin Piao.
02 – Commonwealth Games close in Christchurch.
03 – Prisoners burn down Bathurst Gaol in Australia. Ten prisoners are injured and buildings worth about £4 million are destroyed.
04 – Heiress Patty Hearst is kidnapped by the Symbionese Liberation Army and goes on to rob a bank with them on 15 April, declaring herself an urban guerrilla. Arrested in September 1975, her jail sentence is commuted by President Carter and she is later pardoned by President Clinton.
04 – Twelve people – including eight off-duty soldiers and two young children – are killed when an IRA bomb explodes in the boot of a coach carrying more than 50 servicemen and their family members from Manchester to Catterick in North Yorkshire via the M62 (pictured below).
05 – The Mariner 10 space probe sends back pictures of Venus from as close as 26,000 miles.
06 – A House Judiciary Committee impeachment inquiry against Nixon is approved by the House of Representatives.
07 – Prime Minister Edward Heath calls a snap general election and appeals to miners to suspend their planned strike action during the three-week campaign.
07 – The 18-month-old British trawler Gaul disappears in a force ten gale 70 miles north of Norway, with a crew of 36 – mostly from Hull – onboard. Some believe the trawler was captured by the Soviets because it had spies on board, while others suspect that a British submarine became entangled in the vessel’s nets and dragged it underwater. An official report later in 1974 concludes that the ship was swamped by heavy seas.
07 – Grenada becomes independent.
08 – Skylab 3 astronauts splash down safely in the Pacific after their record stay of 85 days in orbit.
10 – British coal miners begin a national strike for a large pay increase.
10 – The Soviet Mars 4 spacecraft passes Mars at a distance of 1,367 miles, but it fails to go into orbit.
10 – Legendary music producer Phil Spector suffers multiple injuries in a mysterious car accident between Los Angeles and Phoenix and begins an extended period of seclusion.
11 – Top grade petrol rises to 50p a gallon, the fourth rise in a year.
12 – The Soviet Mars 5 spacecraft goes into orbit around Mars.
13 – Russian author Alexander Solzhenitsyn is stripped of his citizenship and sent into exile from the USSR following the publication of The Gulag Archipelago. It is the first forced expulsion since 1929 when Stalin exiled Leon Trotsky.
17 – A stolen US Army helicopter crash lands on the White House lawn in Washington DC when guards open fire with shotguns after it is chased by two police helicopters. The pilot, a 20-year-old Army mechanic, is overpowered and treated in hospital before being charged with unlawful entry into the White House grounds.
22 – The Hearst family begins a $2,000,000 food giveaway in compliance with the ransom demands of their daughter’s kidnappers, the Symbionese Liberation Army.
22 – The IRA plant nine incendiary bombs in a Woolworth’s store near the centre of Belfast. Five of them explode after a warning.
22 – Pakistan recognises the independence of Bangladesh.
23 – Saturday mail deliveries end in Australia.
23 – George Best is freed on £6,000 bail after being arrested and charged with breaking and entering. He spent 13½ hours being questioned about alleged offences committed against the reigning Miss World, 19-year-old Marjorie Wallace.
24 – Ivor Bell, leader of the Provisional IRA in Belfast, is captured by the Army in a house in Andersontown.
24 – A Vermeer painting worth £1 million is stolen from the Kenwood House gallery in London.
28 – The Labour Party win the British General Election, but the results mean there is no overall majority for any party. The seats are divided Labour 301, Tories 296, Liberals 12 and Others, 9.
March
01 – Seven of Nixon‘s former advisors are indicted on charges of conspiracy to obstruct investigations into the Watergate scandal.
01 – London singer Janie Jones, 36, is found guilty on seven charges of controlling prostitutes and three of attempting to pervert the course of justice by interfering with witnesses, and sentenced to seven years in prison. She is later immortalised in song on the debut album by punk group The Clash.
02 – Military rule in Burma ends as General Ne Win becomes president.
03 – In the world’s worst air disaster to date, a Turkish Airlines DC-10 crashes after takeoff from Orly Airport in Paris, with the loss of 346 lives. British trade union leader James Conway, general secretary of the Amalgamated Union of Engineering Workers, an Olympic silver medallist and four leading London models are among those killed in the crash.
03 – A British Airways VC10 en route from Bombay to London is hijacked by Arab terrorists after leaving Beirut. At Amsterdam, all passengers and crew are saved and the terrorists are arrested after setting fire to the plane.
04 – Edward Heath resigns as British Prime Minister and Labour party leader Harold Wilson forms a new government.
06 – British coal workers call off a four-week strike following a pay offer from the new Labour government in what is being seen as a resounding victory for the miners.
08 – With the Labour Party back in power and the miners accepting a 30% wage increase, the three-day week is cancelled and Britain returns to a full working week.
09 – The Soviet Mars 7 spacecraft reaches Mars and ejects a capsule, but misses the planet by 808 miles.
10 – Japanese Imperial Army Lieutenant Hiro Onoda surrenders on Lubang Island in the Philippines after maintaining a military vigil in the jungle for 29 years, unaware of the Japanese surrender in August 1945.
10 – The Hearst family receives a tape from abducted Patty urging them to do more to free her.
11 – Two British bank robbers – brothers Kenneth and Keith Littlejohn – escape from the top-security Mountjoy Prison in Dublin during an exercise period. Keith, 29, injures his ankle and is recaptured near the prison but Kenneth, 32, disappears without a trace.
12 – The Soviet Mars 6 spacecraft reaches Mars and ejects a capsule that parachutes to the surface. Unfortunately, it stops transmitting just before it lands.
13 – Inauguration of Charles de Gaulle Airport in Paris.
15 – Yorkshire architect John Poulson is jailed for five years for corruption after being found guilty of bribing public figures to win contracts.
18 – Arabs lift oil embargo against US following Henry Kissinger‘s diplomatic missions to Egypt and Israel.
20 – An armed attempt is made to kidnap Princess Anne and her husband Captain Mark Phillips as they drive down the Mall near Buckingham Palace. The gunman, 26-year-old Ian Ball – a man with a history of mental illness – forces the royal limousine to stop and then pours volleys of shots from a pistol through the rear side windows. Princess Anne and Captain Phillips are both unharmed but four other people are shot and wounded – the Princess’s bodyguard, Inspector James Beaton, her limousine driver, a police officer, Constable Hills, and a passing journalist, Mr McConnell, who intervenes. Two other passing civilians – Mr Glenmore Martin and Mr Ronald Russell – confront the gunman.
22 – American racing driver Peter Revson is killed in Johannesburg during practice for the South African Grand Prix.
24 – Mariner 10 photographs Mercury.
25 – 50 army officers are killed in a purge following a failed coup attempt in Uganda against Idi Amin.
26 – Heavyweight boxing champion George Foreman defeats Ken Norton in Caracas, Venezuela.
28 – Nicolae Ceausescu is elected president of Romania.
30 – In England, ‘Red Rum’ wins the Grand National for the second time.
31 – The airline British European Airways (BEA), founded in 1946, merges with the airline British Overseas Airways Corporation (BOAC), founded in 1939, to create British Airways (BA).
April
01 – Boundary changes are made in England and Wales which affect nearly all counties. Rutland disappears, but four new counties are created: Avon, Cleveland, Humberside and Cumbria.
01 – Patricia Cairns, a prison officer at Holloway pleads guilty of conspiring to effect the escape of Myra Hindley and is imprisoned for six years.
02 – French President, Georges Pompidou, dies of mysterious illness aged 62.
03 – Patricia Hearst announces that she has changed her name to Tania and is joining the Symbionese Liberation Army of her own free will.
04 – Tornadoes sweep across the USA resulting in more than 330 deaths.
06 – The ‘California Jam’ held at LA’s Ontario Speedway causes traffic chaos as police are forced to tow away over 700 cars. Deep Purple, Black Sabbath, The Eagles and many other major groups perform on a stage built atop four railway box cars.
08 – Nixon signs a bill to raise the minimum US wage to $2.30 an hour.
08 – At the Oscars ceremony Aretha Franklin performs Wherever Love Takes Me, then teams with Frankie Laine and Jack Jones for two more nominated songs
10 – Mick Ronson appears live at the Preston Guildhall.
11 – 18 die in Arab guerrilla raid on the village of Qiryat Shemona in Israel.
12 – Suzi Quatro kicks off her first US tour with a hometown gig at Detroit’s Michigan Palace.
14 – At London’s Roundhouse, Pete Townshend plays his first solo gig.
15 – A bank camera takes a picture of a heavily-armed Patricia Hearst committing a bank robbery.
16 – A blaze on Torquay Pier leaves some 50 people stranded for nearly two hours.
17 – Guitarist Vinnie Taylor, of US 50s revival rockers Sha Na Na, is found dead in a Holiday Inn in Charlottesville, VA.
19 – Gong and Hatfield & The North commence a tour at Reading University. The entrance fee for all gigs on the tour will be just 44p.
20 – A Catholic man is shot dead in Belfast, becoming the 1,000th victim of unrest in Northern Ireland.
22 – All 107 passengers in a Pan American Boeing 707 are killed when the plane crashes in the north of Bali Island, Indonesia, on a flight from Hong Kong.
24 – Pamela Morrison, the Lizard King‘s widow, succumbs to a heroin overdose in her Hollywood apartment.
24 – David Bowie‘s Diamond Dogs is released. The cover painting depicts Bowie as a genitally correct dog. RCA stickers out the offending parts.
25 – General Antoniio de Spinola assumes power in an almost bloodless coup in Portugal which overthrows Dr Marcello Caetano. The coup becomes known as the “Carnation Revolution” and Caetano spends the rest of his life in exile in Brazil.
26 – An armed gang steals paintings worth £8 million from a country house in Ireland.
27 – 100 people die in a Soviet airliner crash near Leningrad.
28 – The Bee Gees appear at the Batley Variety Club.
30 – In a televised speech, President Nixon surrenders 1,200 edited transcripts of White House tapes demanded by the Watergate Committee and by court order. The next day the Committee restates its desire for the tapes themselves, warning that further lack of cooperation may lead to impeachment.
May
01 – Sir Alf Ramsey, England football team manager for 11 years, is dismissed by the FA. Joe Mercer, general manager of Coventry City, is appointed as caretaker manager.
02 – Five people are killed and many injured when a bomb explodes in a Belfast public house without any warning being given.
04 – In England, Liverpool beat Newcastle 3-0 in the FA Cup Final.
08 – British R&B pioneer Graham Bond dies when he falls in front of a train at London’s Finsbury Park Station.
09 – In the US, the House Judiciary Committee begins active hearings on impeachment proceedings. White House press secretary Ron Ziegler reaffirms that President Nixon has no intention of resigning.
11 – Chinese earthquake kills 20,000.
14 – Dr Donald Coggan is named as the new Archbishop of Canterbury.
15 – 18 teenagers at an Israeli school in Ma’alot near the Lebanon border die along with three Palestinians holding them hostage when Israeli troops storm the building in an attempt to free the youngsters. As the troops enter the school the teenagers are attacked with hand grenades by the Palestinians.
16 – Helmut Schmidt is the new Chancellor of West Germany.
17 – Israeli planes retaliate for the hostage crisis at a school in Ma’alot by bombing seven Palestinian refugee camps and villages in southern Lebanon, killing at least 27 people and leaving 138 injured.
17 – Police open fire on Symbionese Liberation Army headquarters in LA leaving six of eight known members dead. Patty Hearst is not in the building at the time.
17 – 33 people are killed and 80 hospitalised when three car bombs explode in the centre of Dublin during the rush hour. All the cars used had Ulster registration plates and two of them had been hijacked in Protestant areas in Belfast.
18 – In Australia, Gough Whitlam has a narrow win in the election.
18 – India explodes her first nuclear bomb.
19 – A 100lb car bomb explodes in the car park at Heathrow Airport’s No. 1 terminal, causing heavy damage and injuring three people.
21 – Women’s libbers win a major battle in their ‘Call me Ms’ campaign. The Passport Office becomes the first British government department to give in to their demands. Now all women who object to having their marital status identified have the option of having Ms (pronounced ‘Miz’) written in their passports.
24 – Jazz musician Duke Ellington dies of cancer and pneumonia, aged 75.
26 – The teenage audience at a David Cassidy concert in London runs out of control. Six girls are taken to hospital and a 14-year-old girl dies four days later from injuries sustained in the crush.
27 – Valéry Giscard d’Estaing – the Gaulliste-backed Independent Republican candidate – is sworn in as president of France.
31 – Israel and Syria agree to disengage their territorial dispute in the Golan Heights.
June
01 – An explosion at the Nypro chemical plant at Flixborough, Lincolnshire (pictured below), kills 29 people, injures nearly a hundred others and wrecks the village. Others living in nearby communities are evacuated as fumes from the fire spread across the district.
01 – The Jam play at the Ripley British Legion Club
03 – Yitzhak Rabin becomes new Israeli Prime Minister.
04 – Idi Amin is accused of “a reign of terror” by the International Commission of Jurists. It has been revealed that 250,000 have been killed in Uganda since he took power.
08 – Dolly Parton tops the US country charts with her self-penned I Will Always Love You.
08 – Rick Wakeman announces he will quit Yes and start a solo career. He blames the split on Yes’s Tales Of Topographic Oceans album
10 – Duke of Gloucester (the last of The Queen’s uncles) dies aged 74.
10 – The Who play the first of four dates at Madison Square Garden in New York. Their previous gig in the city, three years before, saw the fatal stabbing of a guard at Forest Hills Stadium.
11 – 35 Army bandsmen escape unhurt in three bomb explosions at Strensall Training Camp near York.
13 – Prince Charles makes his maiden House of Lords speech in London.
15 – Maths student, Kevin Gately (21), is killed as rival demonstrators in central London clash with police and each other. The National Front was marching to protest against the government’s amnesty for illegal immigrants, and a counter-protest by the Liberation group and International Marxist Group (IMG) was organised to end in the same place (Conway Hall in Red Lion Square, Bloomsbury) on the same day.
17 – An IRA bomb explodes in the Houses of Parliament in London at 8.28 AM and damages Westminster Hall. 11 people are injured. The blast fractures a gas main and starts a number of fires (pictured below).
26 – The universal product code (now called a barcode) is first scanned on a pack of Wrigley’s chewing gum at a supermarket in Troy, Ohio, USA.
27 – Nixon arrives in Moscow for a meeting with Brezhnev.
28 – Bill Wyman appears on stage with Muddy Waters at the Montreux Jazz Festival. He also jams with Buddy Guy and the Junior Wells Allstars.
29 – Britain has an unlikely #1 single in Charles Aznavour’s She. The song was penned for a London Weekend TV series, The Seven Ages Of Woman. In 1999 Elvis Costello will sing it on the opening credits of the film Notting Hill.
30 – Mrs Martin Luther King, mother of the assassinated civil rights leader, is shot dead by a black gunman while playing the organ at a church service in Atlanta, Georgia.
July
01 – Argentinean President General Juan Perón dies, aged 78. He is succeeded by his third wife, Maria Estela Isabel Martinez de Perón – known to the Argentine public as ‘Isabelita’. She is the first non-royal female head of state in the western hemisphere.
03 – A two-man Soviet spacecraft launches into orbit.
04 – Leeds United manager Don Revie is confirmed as new England soccer manager in succession to Sir Alf Ramsey.
09 – The US House Judiciary Committee releases transcripts of White House tapes that differ substantially from those Nixon supplied.
11 – Sir John Kerr is new Governor-General of Australia.
12 – Bill Shankly, manager of Liverpool football club, retires after nearly 15 years at Anfield.
14 – IRA bombs explode in the centres of Birmingham and Manchester although nobody is injured.
15 – 29-year-old Christine Chubbuck, an anchorwoman on Miami’s WXLT-TV Sun Coast Digest, ends a news bulletin by saying “In keeping with the WXLT practice of presenting the most immediate and complete reports of local blood and guts news, TV 40 presents what is believed to be a television first. In living colour, an exclusive coverage of an attempted suicide.” Drawing a .38-caliber Smith & Wesson revolver she then shoots herself in the head on live television. She is pronounced dead 14 hours later at Sarasota Memorial Hospital.
15 – President Makarios of Cyprus is overthrown in a Greek-engineered coup. Nicos Sampson is installed as president.
17 – An IRA bomb explodes in the Mortar Room in the White Tower at the Tower of London, killing one person – Dorothy Household, 47, a librarian – and injuring 41, many of them losing limbs and suffering severe facial damage.
18 – The US Justice Department orders John Lennon out of America by September.
20 – Turkey invades Cyprus, declaring that the minority Turks on the island needed their protection. Turkey also claims that the constitution of Cyprus as a republic is under threat. The Turkish military operation is in response to a Greek military-backed coup in Cyprus that deposed the Cypriot President Makarios with the apparent intention of annexing the island to Greece.
22 – Greece and Turkey agree to a ceasefire.
23 – Greek military junta resigns and Constantin Karamanlis returns from exile.
23 – Nicos Sampson is replaced as president of Cyprus by Glafkos Clerides. 2,000 British and foreign nationals and tourists are evacuated by Royal Navy ships and helicopters.
24 – The US Supreme Court orders the White House to honour Leon Jaworski’s subpoena of tapes and documents, ruling that executive privilege does not apply to Watergate evidence.
26 – The US House Judiciary Committee recommends that the House of Representatives impeach Nixon.
29 – Mama Cass Elliot (from The Mamas & The Papas) dies in Harry Nilsson‘s London flat from a heart attack induced by choking on a ham sandwich, after which she inhaled her own vomit.
30 – The US House Judiciary Committee passes three articles of impeachment, including obstruction of justice and abuse of power, against President Nixon.
30 – A ceasefire is agreed in Cyprus.
30 – French becomes the official language of Quebec, Canada.
31 – IRA bombs are discovered in five Birmingham cinemas, four in the city centre. Three explosions in Oxford also cause slight damage.
August
04 – A bomb explodes on a Rome-Munich express train, killing 12 people and injuring 40.
05 – President Nixon releases tapes and transcripts which reveal his approval of the Watergate cover-up.
06 – A bomb explodes in a bank of luggage lockers at Los Angeles airport, killing four people and injuring 29 others.
08 – President Nixon is the first US president to resign. Watched by 100,000,000 people on television, he admits he made some wrong decisions but insists that the real reason he is leaving is that Congress no longer supports him.
09 – Vice President Gerald Ford is sworn in as 38th US President. He is the first man not to have been elected by ballot to either the vice presidency or the presidency.
11 – Monsoon floods in Bangladesh result in the deaths of over 2,000 people. Ten million are made homeless.
14 – Gaddafi arrests 500 Egyptian troops after Cairo refuses to return 40 planes.
14 – Now a private citizen, Richard Nixon is served papers to appear at John Ehrlichman’s Watergate trial.
15 – The wife of South Korean President Park Chung Hee is shot dead in an unsuccessful attempt to assassinate the President as he is making a speech at a crowded theatre in Seoul.
16 – A ceasefire is agreed between Turkish and Greek Cypriot forces.
19 – The US Ambassador to Cyprus, Rodger Paul Davies, is shot dead by Greek-Cypriot demonstrators outside the American Embassy.
23 – US Marshals attack spectators at trial of Indians for Wounded Knee occupation.
23 – Tony Miles, 19, a mathematics student at Sheffield University (England) wins the World Junior Chess Championship in Manila.
24 – 18-year-old Kevin Olsson is fatally stabbed during the Division 2 match between Blackpool and Bolton Wanderers at Blackpool. A 14-year-old schoolboy from Bolton is arrested and charged with his murder.
25 – A woman fired from a cannon in Bristol fails to break the English record for the second time. Mary Connors, 21, aimed to clear the River Avon and land in a safety net but fell short and ended up in the water.
29 – At least 200 people are arrested as rock fans clash with the police at the Windsor Free Festival. More than 50 people – including 22 police officers – are injured.
31 – New Zealand Prime Minister Norman Kirk dies from a heart attack, aged 51.
31 – An express train is derailed at Zagreb, Yugoslavia, with the loss of more than 120 lives.
September
01 – General Somoza is appointed President of Nicaragua.
01 – Radio and television licenses are abolished in Australia.
02 – A mass grave of 60 bodies of Turks is uncovered in Cyprus.
03 – Two crew members of Morning Cloud, the £45,000 yacht owned by Edward Heath, are lost at sea when the yacht is hit by huge freak waves and sinks during a gale off the Sussex coast.
05 – David Carmichael Stewart is arrested after he attempts to remove the Stone of Scone from beneath the Coronation Chair at Westminster Abbey.
08 – President Ford grants “full, free, and absolute pardon” to ex-president Nixon for all federal crimes he may have committed, although he is yet to be charged with any.
08 – 88 die in crash of US Boeing 707 in Greece. Palestinian guerrillas claim responsibility.
08 – Daredevil Evel Knievel fails to complete his much-publicised 1600-foot jump over the Snake River Canyon in Idaho when the parachute on his “Skycycle” opens prematurely.
10 – Chou En-lai resigns as Prime Minister of China.
12 – Emperor Haile Selassie of Ethiopia is deposed in a left-wing military coup after ruling since 1930. His son, Crown Prince Asfaw Wossen, is given the throne until resigning in 1975.
12 – Violence erupts in the US as white students and families opposed to integrated bussing boycott classes in South Boston. Schools call in police protection but fighting continues for weeks, peaking on 15 October.
12 – Six British Territorial Army soldiers from 15 Parachute Regiment are drowned when they parachute by night into the Kiel Canal during a NATO exercise. Eight other soldiers are saved by crews of German rescue boats.
14 – Giant pandas Chia-Chia and Ching-Ching arrive at London Zoo.
15 – Soviet authorities use bulldozers and anti-riot gear to crush an open-air “unofficial art” show in Moscow.
16 – IRA shoot dead a judge and a magistrate in Belfast.
16 – President Ford offers a limited amnesty to Vietnam War draft resisters and deserters, on the condition that they swear allegiance to the US and perform up to two years of public service.
16 – Strongly criticising the prosecutor of the case, a US federal judge dismisses all charges relating to the Wounded Knee occupation leaders Russell Means and Dennis Banks.
17 – US retains America’s Cup when the yacht Courageous beats the Australian challenger Southern Cross in four consecutive races.
18 – A sell-out crowd of followers of Korean preacher Rev. Sun Myung Moon flocks to New York’s Madison Square Garden. Approximately half of the ‘Moonies’ depart before the end of the speech.
21 – Floods in Honduras, caused by Cyclone Fifi, result in the deaths of more than 8,000 people.
23 – Robbie McIntyre of the Average White Band dies of a heroin overdose in his hotel room.
23 – CEEFAX, the BBC’s teletext service begins transmission. ITV’s answer, ORACLE, begins in July 1975.
October
01 – The first McDonald’s opens in London.
01 – Bankcard is introduced – The first plastic money in Australia.
05 – Five people are killed and 65 are injured by IRA bombs in two Guildford pubs packed with Saturday night revellers. The first bomb explodes in the Horse and Groom pub just before 2030 BST. A second bomb explodes half an hour later in the nearby Seven Stars.
Caroline Slater, 18, Ann Hamilton, 19, William Forsyth, 18, John Hunter, 17, and plasterer Paul Craig, 21, died in the first explosion at the Horse and Groom.
10 – At the second British general election of the year, Labour wins with a narrow majority of three seats.
11 – London rocked by series of IRA blasts as bombs go off in Pall Mall and Marble Arch.
12 – Watergate special prosecutor Leon Jaworski resigns.
13 – TV’s legendary variety show host Ed Sullivan dies.
14 – The UN recognises the PLO (Palestine Liberation Organisation) as the voice of the Palestinian people.
15 – British space satellite UK5, designed to conduct a series of experiments on X-rays, is launched from a converted oil rig off the coast of Kenya and goes into orbit 500 kilometres above the Earth.
16 – Rioting prisoners set fire to the Maze prison at Long Kesh near Belfast resulting in more than 130 injured prisoners. Troops are brought in to quell the violence but much of the camp – which houses 1,500 convicted prisoners and internees – is destroyed.
17 – The Oakland A’s defeat the Los Angeles Dodgers in five games and win their third consecutive World Series.
21 – 48 are killed in racial violence in Mozambique.
22 – An IRA bomb explodes in Brooks Club, London close to Edward Heath who is dining nearby. Three waiters are injured.
23 – A bomb explodes at Harrow School in Middlesex. A warning is given by a code used by the Provisional IRA and no one is injured.
23 – Moscow is chosen as the site for the 1980 Olympics and Lake Placid in the Adirondack Mountains in New York State as the location for the 1980 Winter Olympics.
25 – Soul singer Al Green suffers severe burns when his girlfriend Mary Woodson (who is suffering from depression) throws a pot of boiling grits on him. She then shoots herself in Green’s Memphis home.
28 – An IRA bomb explodes under the car of Sports Minister Denis Howell as his wife and young son reverse out of the driveway of their house in Birmingham. They both escape injury.
29 – Muhammad Ali regains the world heavyweight boxing title in Kinshasa, Zaire, by knocking out George Foreman, the champion, in the eighth round.
29 – Following surgery for phlebitis, former President Nixon suffers post-operative shock and falls into a critical condition in California. Judge Sirica will excuse him from two ongoing Watergate trials until February 1975. He will not testify at either.
November
04 – Judith Ward, 25, is found guilty of the bombing of a coach which exploded on the M62 in February this year killing 12 people. She receives one life term for each of those who died with the sentences to run concurrently with three other sentences of up to 20 years for causing explosions. Her conviction is overturned in 1992.
06 – 33 prisoners escape from the Maze prison in Northern Ireland. One is shot dead and 29 are captured after escaping through a 65-yard tunnel. The other three are later captured near the town of Lisburn.
07 – A bomb explodes without warning in the King’s Arms public house opposite the Royal Artillery Barracks at Woolwich. Two men die and 35 are injured.
08 – Detectives are searching for British aristocrat Lord Lucan following the murder of his children’s nanny, 29-year-old Sandra Rivett, and an attack on his estranged wife, 35-year-old Lady Veronica Lucan.
08 – Eight former Ohio National Guardsmen are acquitted of all charges for their roles in the Kent State demonstrations in 1970.
08 – British businessman Ronald Milhench – who forged Harold Wilson‘s signature to help pull off a property deal in Wigan, Cheshire – is jailed for three years.
11 – After 300 years on its present London site, Covent Garden market moves to new premises at Nine Elms, Vauxhall.
13 – Kerr-McGee Corporation lab technician Karen Silkwood, a vocal critic of safety procedures at her company’s nuclear power plant, dies in a mysterious car accident en route to a meeting with union officials and a New York Times reporter.
13 – Ronald DeFeo Jr murders his parents and his four younger siblings in Amityville, Long Island (pictured below). The case is the inspiration for the book and film entitled The Amityville Horror(1979).
17 – Erskine Childers, president of Ireland, dies aged 68.
17 – At the first democratic elections in Greece for 10 years, the new Democracy party of Karamanlis wins decisively.
21 – Twenty-one people die and 187 are injured in IRA bomb blasts in two crowded pubs in Birmingham – the worst mainland attacks by the IRA to date. As a result, the British government brings in the Prevention of Terrorism Act that allows for terrorist suspects to be held for extended periods before trial.
21 – Wilson Pickett is arrested in Andes, New York, for possession of a dangerous weapon.
21 – John Stonehouse, the Labour MP for Walsall North and former government minister, vanishes after apparently going for a swim off Miami Beach in Florida. His clothes are found in a changing room at the beach, and when they are not claimed it is assumed he has drowned. Australian police detain him on Christmas Eve in Melbourne but he is eventually released as he has not broken any laws in Australia.
22 – A British Airways VC10 is hijacked at Dubai and forced by four terrorists to fly to Tunis. The crew is released after seven Palestinians are freed from jails in Cairo and The Hague.
24 – A skeleton of the hominid Australopithecus afarensis that lived between 3.9 and 2.9 million years ago is discovered in Ethiopia. It is named ‘Lucy’.
25 – Eccentric British folk singer Nick Drake overdoses on antidepressants. His death is later ruled a suicide.
26 – Miss World, Helen Morgan, resigns, saying that she fears she will be named in a divorce case.
26 – Japanese prime minister Tanaka resigns following a corruption scandal.
29 – The House of Commons approves legislation outlawing the IRA.
29 – Terrorist leader Ulrike Meinhof is jailed in West Germany for eight years.
29 – The Prevention of Terrorism Act becomes law in the UK.
13 – Malta becomes a republic, severing the last formal links with Britain. Governor-General Sir Anthony Mamo is sworn in as the first President.
15 – Fire at an old people’s home at Edwalton near Nottingham, England, results in the loss of 18 lives.
17 – Three bombs explode in London. One explodes outside the Museum telephone exchange off Tottenham Court Road, killing one man. The second is a car bomb which explodes in New Compton Street. The third is attached to a motorcycle outside the Draycott Avenue telephone exchange in Chelsea.
18 – £42,000 compensation is paid to victims of ‘Bloody Sunday‘ in Northern Ireland.
19 – A 100lb bomb explodes in a car parked outside Selfridge’s in the centre of Oxford Street, London. A 20-minute warning is given but four people, including a policewoman, are injured.
19 – Nelson A Rockefeller, former Governor of New York, is sworn in as American Vice-President.
21 – A parcel bomb explodes on the second floor of top London store Harrods causing extensive damage. A 10-minute warning was given.
21 – The New York Times reports that the CIA had maintained files on 10,000 US citizens during the Nixon administration, as well as engaging in illegal domestic operations against opponents of the Vietnam War.
21 – Comedian Jack Benny dies.
22 – The London home of the Conservative leader and former Prime Minister Edward Heath is bombed by the IRA. Heath is not home at the time but his housekeeper, Mrs Crawford, and her daughter, both escape injury.
24 – Former British Labour MP John Stonehouse is arrested in Melbourne, Australia after ‘disappearing’ in Miami. He is eventually deported to Britain where in August 1976 he is convicted and sentenced to seven years imprisonment on 18 counts of theft, fraud and deception.
25 – The excitement of Christmas is turned into stark horror in Darwin, Australia, as the killer wind of Cyclone Tracy strikes in the night and rips the city apart. An army report describes the city as “looking as though it has been hit by an atom bomb”. The death toll is 71 and more than a thousand have been injured. Up to 25,000 of the population of 48,000 are reported to be homeless there. 90% of the buildings in the city are destroyed.
27 – 42 miners die after an explosion at a coal mine in Lieven in northern France.
28 – An earthquake in Pakistan kills more than 4,000 people and injures over 15,000.
Also This Year . . .
The 1,815 ft tall CN Tower opens in Toronto, Canada
10th Commonwealth Games held in Christchurch, New Zealand
British police begin using computers
50-1 outsider ‘Snow Knight’ wins the Derby
Liverpool beat Newcastle United 3-0 to win the FA Cup Final
‘Think Big’ wins Melbourne Cup
Eastern Suburbs defeat Canterbury Bankstown 19-4 in the Australian Rugby League Grand Final
Average 3 bedroom house in Australia costs $31,000 AUD
Quote of the year
“Who loves ya, baby?” Telly Savalas in the TV series Kojak
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