1973

history

,__NOTOC__ Year 1973 (MCMLXXIII) was a common year starting on Monday (link will display full calendar) of the 1973 Gregorian calendar.

The year 1973 has been designated the Year of the Ox in the Chinese Zodiac.

Events of 1973

January

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February

March

  • March 1 - Dick Taverne, who had resigned from the Parliament of the United Kingdom on leaving the Labour Party, is re-elected as a 'Democratic Labour' candidate.
  • March 3 - Tottenham Hotspur wins the Football League Cup final at Wembley, beating Norwich City 1-0.
  • March 7 - Comet Kohoutek is discovered.
  • March 8 - In the 'Border Poll', voters in Northern Ireland vote to remain part of the United Kingdom. Irish nationalists are encouraged to boycott the referendum.
  • March 8 - Provisional Irish Republican Army bombs explode in Whitehall and the Old Bailey in England.
  • March 11 - Sir Richard Sharples, Governor of Bermuda, is assassinated in Government House.
  • March 17 - Queen Elizabeth II opens the modern London Bridge.
  • March 17 - Many of the few remaining United States soldiers begin to leave Vietnam. One reunion of a former POW with his family is immortalized in the Pulitzer Prize-winning photograph Burst of Joy.
  • March 17 - Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon, one of rock's landmark albums, is released.
  • March 20 - A British government White Paper on Northern Ireland proposes the re-establishment of an Assembly elected by proportional representation, with a possible All-Ireland council.
  • March 21 - The Lofthouse Colliery disaster occurs in Great Britain.
  • March 23 - Watergate scandal (United States): In a letter to Judge John Sirica, Watergate burglar James W. McCord Jr. admits that he and other defendants have been pressured to remain silent about the case. He names former Attorney General John Mitchell as 'overall boss' of the operation.
  • March 29 - The last United States soldier leaves Vietnam.
  • March 31 - Carowinds opens in North Carolina.

April

May

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June

  • June 1 - The Greek military junta abolishes the monarchy and proclaims a republic.
  • June 3 - A Tupolev Tu-144 crashes at the Paris air show; 15 are killed.
  • June 4 - A patent for the ATM is granted to Donald Wetzel, Tom Barnes and George Chastain.
  • June 9 - Secretariat wins the Belmont Stakes, becoming the first Triple Crown of Thoroughbred Racing winner since 1948.
  • June 10 - The grandson of J. Paul Getty is kidnapped in Rome.
  • June 16 - U.S. President Richard Nixon begins several talks with Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev.
  • June 20 - The Ezeiza massacre occurs in Buenos Aires, Argentina. Snipers shoot on left-wing Peronists, killing at least 13 and injuring more than 300.
  • June 22 - W. Mark Felt ("Deep Throat") retires from the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
  • June 23 - A house fire in Kingston upon Hull, England, which kills a 6-year-old boy is passed off as an accident; it later emerges as the first of 26 fire deaths caused over the next 7 years by arsonist Peter Dinsdale.
  • June 24 - Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev addresses the American people on television, the first to do so.
  • June 25 - Erskine Hamilton Childers is elected the 4th President of Ireland.
  • June 25 - Watergate scandal: Former White House counsel John Dean begins his testimony before the Senate Watergate Committee.
  • June 26 - At Plesetsk Cosmodrome, 9 persons are killed in the explosion of a Cosmos 3-M rocket.
  • June 28 - Elections are held for the Northern Ireland Assembly, which will lead to power-sharing between unionists and nationalists in Northern Ireland for the first time.
  • June 30 - A very long total solar eclipse occurs. During the entire 2nd millennium, only 7 total solar eclipses exceeded 7 minutes of totality.

July

  • July 1 - The United States Drug Enforcement Administration is founded.
  • July 2 - The United States Congress passes the Education of the Handicapped Act (EHA) mandating Special Education federally.
  • July 5 - The Isle of Man Post begins to issue its own postage stamps.
  • July 5 - The catastrophic BLEVE (Boiling Liquid Expanding Vapor Explosion) in Kingman, Arizona, following a fire that broke out as propane was being transferred from a railroad car to a storage tank, kills 11 firefighters. This explosion has become a classic incident, studied in fire department training programs worldwide.
  • July 6 - St Andrew's Cathedral, Singapore is gazetted as a national monument.
  • July 10 - The Bahamas gains full independence within the Commonwealth of Nations.
  • July 11 - Varig Flight 820 crashes near Orly, France; 123 are killed.
  • July 12 - 1973 National Archives Fire: A major fire destroys the entire 6th floor of the National Personnel Records Center in St. Louis, Missouri.
  • July 16 - Watergate Scandal: Former White House aide Alexander Butterfield informs the United States Senate Watergate Committee that President Richard Nixon had secretly recorded potentially incriminating conversations.
  • July 17 - King Mohammed Zahir Shah of Afghanistan is deposed by his cousin Mohammed Daoud Khan while in Italy undergoing eye surgery.
  • July 20 - France resumes nuclear bomb tests in Mururoa Atoll, over the protests of Australia and New Zealand.
  • July 21 - The Philippines receives its second Miss Universe title, with Margarita Moran as the winner.
  • July 23 - The Avianca Building in Bogotá, Colombia suffers a serious fire.
  • July 25 - The Soviet Mars 5 space probe is launched.
  • July 28 - The Summer Jam at Watkins Glen, a massive rock festival featuring The Grateful Dead, The Allman Brothers Band and The Band, attracts over 600,000 music fans.
  • July 28 - Skylab 3 (Owen Garriott, Jack Lousma, Alan Bean) is launched, to conduct various medical and scientific experiments aboard Skylab.
  • July 29 - Formula One racing driver Roger Williamson dies in an accident, witnessed live on European television, during the 1973 Dutch Grand Prix.
  • July 30 - An 11-year legal action for the victims of Thalidomide ends.
  • July 31 - Militant protesters led by Ian Paisley disrupt the first sitting of the Northern Ireland Assembly.
  • July 31 - A Delta Air Lines Flight 173 DC9-31 aircraft lands short of Boston's Logan Airport runway in poor visibility, striking a sea wall about 165 feet (50 m) to the right of the runway centerline and about 3,000 feet (914 m) short. All 6 crew members and 83 passengers are killed, 1 of the passengers dying several months after the accident.

August

  • August 1 - The film American Graffiti is released.
  • August 2 - A flash fire kills 51 at the Summerland amusement centre at Douglas, Isle of Man.
  • August 5 - Black September members open fire at the Athens airport; 3 are killed, 55 injured.
  • August 8 - South Korean politician Kim Dae-Jung is kidnapped in Tokyo by the KCIA.
  • August 8 - The death of Dean Corll leads to the discovery of the Houston Mass Murders: 27 boys were killed by 3 men.
  • August 15 - The U.S. bombing of Cambodia ends, officially halting 12 years of combat activity in Southeast Asia.
  • August 23 - The Norrmalmstorg robbery occurs, famous for the origin of the term Stockholm syndrome.

September

October

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  • October 6 - Yom Kippur War: The fourth and largest Arab-Israeli conflict begins, as Egyptian and Syrian forces attack Israeli forces in the Sinai Peninsula and Golan Heights on Yom Kippur.
  • October 8 - LBC Radio begins broadcasting on 97.3 FM in London.
  • October 10 - Spiro T. Agnew resigns as Vice President of the United States and then, in federal court in Baltimore, Maryland, pleads no contest to charges of income tax evasion on $29,500 he received in 1967, while he was governor of Maryland. He is fined $10,000 and put on 3 years' probation.
  • October 14 - Students revolt in Bangkok, Thailand.
  • October 17 - The Arab Oil Embargo against several countries which support Israel triggers the 1973 energy crisis.
  • October 20 - The Saturday Night Massacre: U.S. President Richard Nixon orders Attorney General Elliot Richardson to dismiss Watergate Special Prosecutor Archibald Cox. Richardson refuses and resigns, along with Deputy Attorney General William Ruckelshaus. Solicitor General Robert Bork, third in line at the Department of Justice, then fires Cox. The event raises calls for Nixon's impeachment.
  • October 20 - The Sydney Opera House is opened by Elizabeth II after 14 years of construction work.
  • October 26 - The Yom Kippur War ends.
  • October 26 - The United Nations recognizes the independence of Guinea-Bissau.
  • October 27 - The Canon City meteorite, a 1.4 kilogram chondrite type meteorite, strikes Earth in Fremont County, Colorado.
  • October 30 - The Bosporus Bridge in Istanbul, Turkey is completed, connecting the continents of Europe and Asia over the Bosporus for the first time in history.
  • October 31 - Mountjoy Prison helicopter escape: Three Provisional Irish Republican Army members escape from Mountjoy Prison, Dublin, Republic of Ireland after a hijacked helicopter lands in the exercise yard.

November

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December

  • December - Chile breaks diplomatic contacts with Sweden.
  • December 1 - Papua New Guinea gains self government from Australia.
  • December 3 - Pioneer program: Pioneer 10 sends back the first close-up images of Jupiter.
  • December 6 - The United States House of Representatives votes 387-35 to confirm Gerald Ford as Vice President of the United States; he is sworn in the same day.
  • December 15 - Gay rights: The American Psychiatric Association removes homosexuality from its DSM-II.
  • December 16 - O.J. Simpson of the Buffalo Bills became the first running back to rush for 2,000 yards in a pro football season.
  • December 20 - Spanish prime minister Luis Carrero Blanco is assassinated in Madrid by the terrorist organization ETA.
  • December 23 - OPEC doubles the price of crude oil.
  • December 28 - The Endangered Species Act is passed.
  • December 30 - Terrorist Carlos fails in his attempt to assassinate British businessman Joseph Sieff.
  • December 31 - In the United Kingdom, due to coal shortages caused by industrial action, the Three-Day Week electricity consumption reduction measure comes into force.

Undated

  • The National House Building Council is formed in the United Kingdom.
  • The COSC The Swiss Official Chronometer testing Institute is founded in Switzerland by 5 Watch Cantons & Federation of the Swiss Watch Industry FH.
  • The title Queen of Australia is created by the Royal Style and Titles Act.
  • Confirming the descriptions of bulkhead hull compartments for Chinese sailing ships in Zhu Yu's Pingzhou Table Talks of 1119 A.D., a large Song Dynasty trade ship of c. 1277 A.D. is dredged up from the waters near the southern coast of China that had 12 bulkhead compartment rooms in its hull.

Ongoing

Births

January–February

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March–April

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May–June

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July–August

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September–October

November–December

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Deaths

January–March

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April–June

July–September

October–December

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  • December 1 - David Ben-Gurion, Prime Minister of Israel (b. 1886)
  • December 3 - Emile Christian, American musician (b. 1895)
  • December 5 - Robert Watson-Watt, Scottish engineer, inventor of radar (b. 1892)
  • December 20 - Bobby Darin, American singer (Mack The Knife) (b. 1936)
  • December 20 - Luis Carrero Blanco, first minister of Spain (assassinated) (b. 1907)
  • December 25 - Gabriel Voisin, French aviation pioneer (b. 1880)
  • December 25 - İsmet İnönĂĽ, Turkish general, prime minister, and president (b. 1884)
  • December 26 - Harold B. Lee, American president of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (b. 1899)

Undated

Nobel Prizes

Templeton Prize

Notes

External links


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