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| Home | The 1970's | 1975
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The 1970's 1975 A brief history of the events that shaped 1975.
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January April July October
February May August November
March June September December

 

1st John N. Mitchell, H. R. Haldeman and John Ehrlichman are found guilty of the Watergate cover-up
1st Work is abandoned on the British end of the Channel Tunnel
5th The bulk ore carrier MV Lake Illawarra strikes the Tasman Bridge in Tasmania, Australia, killing 12
7th OPEC agrees to raise crude oil prices by 10%
8th U.S. President Gerald Ford appoints Vice President Nelson Rockefeller to head a special commission looking into alleged domestic abuses by the CIA
10th Japanese soldier Teruo Nakamura surrenders on the Indonesian island of Morota
14th Heiress Lesley Whittle, 17, is kidnapped from her home in Shropshire, England by Donald Neilson
15th International Women's Year launched in Britain by Princess Alexandra and Barbara Castle
15th Portugal grants independence to Angola
20th In Hanoi, North Vietnam, the Politburo approves the final military offensive against South Vietnam
20th Michael Ovitz founds the Creative Artists Agency
29th The Weather Underground bombs the U.S. State Department main office in Washington, D.C.

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1st The Intercontinental Broadcasting Corporation is launched, becoming the first TV network in the Philippines
4th Haicheng earthquake, the first successfully predicted earthquake, occurred in Haicheng, Liaoning, China. Chinese government official report, killing 2,041, injuring 27,538
9th The Soyuz 17 crew (Georgi Grechko, Aleksei Gubarev) returns to Earth after 1 month aboard the Salyut 4 space station
11th Margaret Thatcher defeats Edward Heath for the leadership of the UK Conservative Party in the United Kingdom
11th Colonel Richard Ratsimandrava, President of Madagascar, is assassinated
13th A "Turkish Federated State of North Cyprus" is declared as an unsuccessful first step to international recognition of a Turkish Cypriot separatist state in Cyprus
13th Fire breaks out in the World Trade Centre
21st Former United States Attorney General John N. Mitchell, and former White House aides H. R. Haldeman and John Ehrlichman, are sentenced to between 30 months and 8 years in prison
26th A fleeing Irish Republican Army member shoots and kills off-duty London police officer Stephen Tibble, 22, as he gives chase
27th The Movement 2 June kidnaps West German politician Peter Lorenz. He is released on March 4 after most of the kidnappers' demands are met
28th A major tube train crash at Moorgate station, London kills 43 people
28th In Lomé, Togo, the European Economic Community and 46 African, Caribbean and Pacific countries sign a financial and economic treaty, known as the first Lomé Convention

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1st Aston Villa win the Football League Cup at Wembley, beating Norwich City 1-0 in the final
4th Charlie Chaplin is knighted by Queen Elizabeth II
4th First television coverage of a Canadian parliamentary committee
6th Iran and Iraq announce a settlement in their border dispute
6th A bomb explodes in the Paris offices of the Springer Press. The 6 March Group (connected to the Red Army Faction) demands amnesty for the Baader-Meinhof Group
7th The body of teenage heiress Lesley Whittle, kidnapped 7 weeks earlier by the Black Panther, is discovered in Staffordshire, England
8th The United Nations proclaims International Women's Day
9th Construction of the Trans-Alaska Pipeline System begins
10th North Vietnamese troops attack Ban Me Thuot, South Vietnam, on their way to capturing Saigon
10th The Rocky Horror Show opens on Broadway in New York City with 4 performances
11th The leftist military government in Portugal defeats a rightist coup attempt
13th South Vietnam President Nguyen van Thieu orders the Central Highlands evacuated. This turns into a mass exodus involving troops and civilians, (the Convoy of Tears)
15th In Brazil, the Estado da Guanabara (State of Guanabara) merges with the state of Rio de Janeiro, under the name of Rio de Janeiro. The state's capital moves from the city of Niterói to the city of Rio de Janeiro
22nd Ding-a-dong by Teach-In (music by Dick Bakker, text by Will Luikinga and Eddy Ouwens) wins the 20th Eurovision Song Contest 1975 for the Netherlands
25th King Faisal of Saudi Arabia is shot and killed by a nephew with a history of mental illness; the killer is beheaded on June 18. (King Khalid succeeds Faisal)

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3rd Bobby Fischer refuses to play in a chess match against Anatoly Karpov, giving Karpov the title
4th The first military Operation Babylift flight, C5A 80218, crashes 27 minutes after takeoff, killing 138 on board; 176 survive the crash
4th Bill Gates founds Microsoft in Albuquerque, New Mexico, USA
13th 27 Palestinians killed by the kataeb militia during an attack on their bus in Ain El Remmeneh, Lebanon, the incident triggered the Lebanese civil war
13th A coup d'état in Chad led by the military overthrows and kills the President François Tombalbaye
17th Following the Khmer Rouge capture of Phnom Penh, Pol Pot proclaims the Democratic Republic of Kampuchea in Cambodia and becomes its Prime Minister (1975-1979)
24th Six Red Army Faction terrorists take over West German embassy in Stockholm, take 11 hostages and demand the release of the group's jailed members; shortly after, they are captured by Swedish police. (See West German embassy siege)
25th As North Vietnamese Army forces close in on the South Vietnamese capital Saigon, the Australian Embassy is closed and evacuated, almost 10 years to the day since the first Australian troop commitment to South Vietnam
30th The Vietnam War ends as Communist forces take Saigon, resulting in mass evacuation of Americans and South Vietnamese. As the capital is taken, South Vietnam surrenders unconditionally

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5th The Busch Gardens Williamsburg Theme Park opens in Virginia, USA
10th West Ham won The FA cup
12th Khmer Rouge forces in Cambodia seize the United States merchant ship SS Mayaguez in international waters
15th The American merchant ship Mayaguez, seized by Cambodian forces, is rescued by the U.S. Navy and Marines; 38 Americans are killed
16th Sikkim accedes to India after a referendum
16th Junko Tabei becomes the first woman to reach the summit of Mount Everest
27th Dibble's Bridge coach crash near Grassington, North Yorkshire, England killed 32 (highest ever death toll in a United Kingdom road accident)
28th Fifteen West African countries sign the Treaty of Lagos, creating the Economic Community of West African States

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5th The Suez Canal opens for the first time since the Six-Day War
5th The United Kingdom votes yes in a referendum to remain in the European Community
10th In Washington, DC, the Rockefeller Commission issues its report on CIA abuses, recommending a joint congressional oversight committee on intelligence
19th Richard Bingham, 7th Earl of Lucan is found guilty in absentia of the murder of nanny Sandra Rivett
25th Prime Minister Indira Gandhi declares Emergency in India, suspending civil liberties and elections
25th Mozambique gains independence from Portugal
26th Two FBI agents and 1 AIM member die in a shootout, at the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota

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1st The Postmaster-General's Department is disaggregated into the Australian Telecommunications Commission (trading as Telecom Australia) and the Australian Postal Commission (trading as Australia Post)
4th Sydney newspaper publisher Juanita Nielsen disappears, and is presumed to have been murdered
5th Cape Verde gains independence after 500 years of Portuguese rule
6th The Comoros declare their independence from France
9th The National Assembly of Senegal passes a law that will pave way for a multi-party system(albeit highly restricted)
12th São Tomé and Príncipe declare independence from Portugal
17th An American Apollo and Soviet Soyuz spacecraft dock in orbit, marking the first such link-up between spacecraft from the 2 nations
31st In Detroit, Michigan, Teamsters Union president Jimmy Hoffa is reported missing

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1st The Helsinki Accords, which officially recognize Europe's national borders and respect for human rights, are signed in Finland
5th U.S. President Ford posthumously pardons Robert E. Lee, restoring full rights of citizenship
8th The Banqiao Dam, in China's Henan Province, fails after a freak typhoon; over 200,000 people perish
8th Samuel Bronfman, son of the president of Seagram's, is kidnapped in Purchase, New York
11th British Leyland Motor Corporation comes under British government control
11th Governor Mário Lemos Pires of Portuguese Timor abandons the capital Dili, following a UDT coup and the outbreak of civil war between UDT and Fretilin
15th The Birmingham Six are wrongfully sentenced to life imprisonment in Great Britain
15th President Mujibur Rahman of Bangladesh is killed during a coup
20th NASA launches the Viking 1 planetary probe toward Mars
24th Officers responsible for the military coup in Greece in 1967 are sentenced to death in Athens. The sentences are later commuted to life imprisonment
29th Eamon DeValera, three time taoiseach of Ireland, dies in Linden Convalescent Home, Blackrock, County Dublin aged 92

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5th In Sacramento, California, Lynette Fromme, a follower of jailed cult leader Charles Manson, attempts to assassinate U.S. President Gerald Ford, but is thwarted by a Secret Service agent
5th The London Hilton hotel is bombed by the Provisional Irish Republican Army; 2 people are killed and 63 injured
6th A Richter Scale 6.7 magnitude earthquake kills at least 2,085 in Diyarbakir and Lice, Turkey
14th Elizabeth Seton is canonized becoming the first American Roman Catholic saint
14th Rembrandt's painting "The Night Watch" is slashed a dozen times at the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam
15th The French department of Corse, comprising the entire island of Corsica, is divided into two departments: Haute-Corse and Corse-du-Sud
16th Papua New Guinea gains its independence from Australia
18th Fugitive Patricia Hearst is captured in San Francisco
19th General Vasco Goncalves is ousted as Prime Minister of Portugal
22nd U.S. President Gerald Ford survives a second assassination attempt, this time by Sara Jane Moore in San Francisco
30th The Hughes Helicopters (later McDonnell-Douglas, now Boeing IDS) AH-64 Apache makes its first flight

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1st In the fight billed as the "Thrilla in Manila" Muhammad Ali defeats Joe Frazier in a boxing match in the Philippines
9th A bomb explosion outside Green Park tube station near Piccadilly in London kills 1 and injures 20
11th NBC airs the first episode of Saturday Night Live (George Carlin is the first host; Billy Preston and Janis Ian the first musical guests)
16th Five Australian-based journalists are killed at Balibo by Indonesian forces, during an incursion into Portuguese Timor
27th Robert Poulin kills 1 and wounds 5 at St. Pius X High School in Ottawa, Canadabefore shooting himself
29th Peter Sutcliffe (the "Yorkshire Ripper") commits his first murder, Wilma McCann
30th Juan Carlos I of Spain becomes acting Head of State after dictator Francisco Franco concedes that he is too ill to govern

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3rd An independent audit of Mattel, one of the United States' largest toy manufacturers, reveals that company officials fabricated press releases and financial information to "maintain the appearance of continued corporate growth."
3rd The first petroleum pipeline opens from Cruden Bay to Grangemouth, Scotland
6th 300,000 unarmed Moroccans converge on the southern city of Tarfaya and wait for a signal from King Hassan II of Morocco to cross into Western Sahara
10th By a vote of 72 to 35 (with 32 abstentions), the United Nations General Assembly approves a resolution equating Zionism with racism. The resolution provokes an outcry among Jews around the world
10th The 729-foot-long freighter SS Edmund Fitzgerald sinks during a storm 17 miles from the entrance to Whitefish Bay on Lake Superior, killing all 29 crew on board (an event immortalized in song by Gordon Lightfoot)
10th Lev Leshchenko revives Den Pobedy, one of the most popular World War II songs in the USSR
11th Angola becomes independent from Portugal, sparking a civil war in the country
11th Governor-General of Australia Sir John Kerr dismisses the government of Gough Whitlam and commissions Malcolm Fraser as Prime Minister
14th Spain abandons Western Sahara
20th Former California Governor Ronald Reagan enters the race for the Republican presidential nomination, challenging incumbent President Gerald Ford
20th The Spanish dictator Francisco Franco dies in Madrid
22nd Juan Carlos is declared King of Spain following the death of dictator Francisco Franco
25th Suriname gains independence from the Kingdom of the Netherlands
25th The Irish Republican Army is outlawed in the United Kingdom
27th Ross McWhirter, co-founder of the Guinness Book of Records, is shot dead by the Provisional Irish Republican Army for offering reward money to informers
28th Portuguese Timor declares its independence from Portugal as East Timor
29th The name "Micro-soft" (for microcomputer software) is used by Bill Gates in a letter to Paul Allen for the first time (Microsoft becomes a registered trademark on November 26, 1976)
29th While disabled, the submarine tender USS Proteus (AS-19) discharges radioactive coolant water into Apra Harbor, Guam. A Geiger counter at 2 of the harbor's public beaches shows 100 millirems/hour, 50 times the allowable dose

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2nd The communist Pathet Lao takes power in Laos
3rd The wreck of the HMHS Britannic is found in the Kea Channel by Jacques Cousteau
7th Indonesia invades East Timor
21st Six people, including Carlos (the Jackal), kidnap delegates of an OPEC conference in Vienna
29th A bomb explodes at LaGuardia Airport, killing 11
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