TIMELINE 1970-1974

TIMELINE FROM 1971 - 1974

1971

January 1, 1971 - Advertising of cigarettes on radio and television ceases as the Public Health Cigarette Smoking Act goes into effect.
January 25, 1971 - Uganda's President Milton Obote is overthrown by Idi Amin.
March 14, 1971 - Carole King is the big winner at the Grammy Awards
May 5, 1971 - More than 12,000 were arrested during three days of anti-war protests in the Washington, D.C.
June 30, 1971 - Three Soviet Soyuz 11 cosmonauts die when their oxygen supply leaks due to a faulty valve during re-entry.
June 30, 1971 - The Supreme Court gives the go ahead for the New York Times and Washington Post to resume publication of the Pentagon Papers.
July 1, 1971 - Ratification of the 26th Amendment to the Constitution, which granted voting rights to 18-year-olds.
August 15, 1971 - President Nixon orders a 90 day wage and price freeze.
September 13, 1971 - Over 1,000 state troopers storm and take back the state prison in Attica, New York, leaving 10 hostages and 30 convicts dead.
November 13, 1971 - Mariner 9 becomes the first space probe to orbit another planet as it encounters Mars.
November 15, 1971 - China is seated at the United Nations for the first time.
November 24, 1971 - Hijacker D.B. Cooper parachutes out of a 727 with $200,000 at 10,000 feet and is never seen again.
December 3, 1971 - War breaks out between Pakistan and India over Kashmir.
December 10, 1971 - William Rehnquist becomes the fourth Nixon Supreme Court appointee to be confirmed by Congress.
December 17, 1971 - A 15-day war between India and Pakistan over Bangladesh ends.
December 22, 1971 - Austrian Kurt Waldheim is chosen as secretary-general of the United Nations.

1972

January 26, 1972 - A bomb explodes aboard a Yugoslav Airlines DC-9 at 33,000 feet. Incredibly, a stewardess survives the crash.
February 3, 1972 - Japan becomes the first Asian nation to host the Winter Olympics.
February 21, 1972 - Richard Nixon becomes the first U.S. president to visit China.
April 15, 1972 - Bombing of North Vietnam by the U.S. begins again.
May 3, 1972 - J. Edgar Hoover dies ending a 48-year reign of terror as director of the FBI. L. Patrick Gray is named as acting FBI director.
May 15, 1972 - The island of Okinawa is returned to Japan by the United States.
May 15, 1972 - President candidate and noted-racist George C. Wallace is shot while campaigning in Maryland. He is left paralyzed but does not withdraw from the race, finishing third.
June 17, 1972 - Five "third-rate buglers" are arrested after breaking into the Democratic National Committee in the Watergate complex in Washington.
August 26, 1972 - The Summer Olympics are held in Munich, Germany. Arab terrorists murder 11 Israeli athletes and coaches.
September 1, 1972 - Temperamental Bobby Fischer becomes the first American to win the world chess title.
September 23, 1972 - Martial law is declared in the Philippines by President Ferdinand Marcos.
October 24, 1972 - Jackie Robinson, who was the first black baseball player to play in the major leagues, dies at age 53.
November 7, 1972 - Richard Nixon and Spiro Agnew easily win reelection over George McGovern and R. Sargent Shriver.
November 14, 1972 - The Dow-Jones Industrial Average reaches 1,000 for the first time.
December 19, 1972 - NASA's Apollo mission ends with the splash-down of Apollo 17. The Apollo 17 astronauts would be the last people of the century to walk on the moon.
December 29, 1972 - An Eastern Air Lines Lockheed L-1011 crashes into the Everglades killing 99 of 163 onboard.
December 31, 1972 - Baseball superstar Roberto Clemente is killed in an airplane crash while attempting to deliver disaster relief supplies to his homeland of Puerto Rico.

1973

January 20, 1973 - President Nixon is inaugurated for his second term.
January 22, 1973 - All state laws preventing a woman's right to an abortion during the first three months are ruled unconstitutional by the Supreme Court.
January 23, 1973 - Vietnam Peace Agreement Reached
January 27, 1973 - The cease-fire agreement is signed and the military draft ends in the United States.
February 14, 1973 - First POW's return home
March 28, 1973 - The last U.S. military personnel departed South Vietnam.
April 8, 1973 - Spanish artist Pablo Picasso dies at age 91.
April 30, 1973 - Nixon henchmen H.R. Haldeman and John D. Ehrlichman and Attorney General Richard Kleindienst resign while Nixon fires John Dean as White House counsel.
May 7, 1973 - Thanks to the Watergate efforts of Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, the Washington Post wins a Pulitzer Prize for investigative reporting.
May 17, 1973 - Senator Sam Ervin's Watergate hearings begin.
June 9, 1973 - Secretariat becomes the first horse since 1948 to win the Triple Crown.
July 16, 1973 - The White House admits that recording equipment has been used to tape virtually all presidential meetings.
August 22, 1972 - Henry Kissinger is named U.S. secretary of state.
September 2, 1973 - J.R.R. Tolkien dies. His books include "The Hobbit" and "Lord of the Rings."
September 6, 1973 - At Watergate hearings, Pat Buchanan admits to unethical 1972 Republican campaign.
September 11, 1973 - Military junta allegedly backed by the CIA overthrows Marxist government of Salvador Allende of Chile.
September 18, 1973 - The United Nations accepts East and West Germany as member nations.
September 19, 1973 - Graham Parsons of the Flying Burrito Brothers dies from a multiple drug overdose while rehearsing in the desert outside Los Angeles.
September 20, 1973 - Jim Croce dies in plane crash en route to a performance at Austin College in Sherman, Texas from Natchitoches, Louisiana two months after the release of his album "Time in a Bottle."
September 20, 1973 - Billie Jean King defeats Bobby Riggs in "battle of sexes" tennis match.
September 23, 1973 - Juan Peron re-elected president of Argentina.
September 29, 1973 - The DeFranco Family's "Heartbeat--It's a Lovebeat" hits #3 on Billboard's Top 40. Also on charts is Bob Dylan's "Knockin' On Heaven's Door" (#12), The Rolling Stones' "Angie" (#2), and Grand Funk Railroad's "We're an American Band" (#1).
October 5, 1973 - Oregon becomes the first state to decriminalize Marijuana.
October 6, 1973 - A war between Israel and both Egypt along the Suez Canal and Syria along the Golan Heights begins.
October 9, 1973 - Elvis and Priscilla Presley get a divorce
October 10, 1973 - Spiro Agnew resigns as vice president of the United States after pleading nolo contendere to a count of tax-evasion.
October 12, 1973 - President Nixon announces Gerald R. Ford as vice president.
October 15, 1973 - New talk show featuring Tom Snyder called The Tomorrow Show premieres on NBC-TV.
October 17, 1973 - OPEC begins its oil embargo against the West.
October 19, 1973 - At Watergate hearings, John Dean pleads guilty to his role in cover-up
October 20, 1973 - The Six Million Dollar Man premieres on ABC-TV. The show depicts the life of astronaut Steve Austin (played by Lee Majors) who has undergone a special life-saving bionic and cybernetic operation following a mishap during a test flight. Following the $6 million surgery he becomes an agent of the O.S.I (Office of Scientific Intelligence).
October 20, 1973 - President Nixon fires White House special prosecutor Archibald Cox, which results in resignations of Attorney General Richardson and his assistant William Ruckelhaus.
October 24, 1973 - Their militaries demoralized and decimated, Egypt and Syria accept a United Nations cease-fire agreement ending the 2nd Arab-Israeli war.
November 17, 1973 - President Nixon says, "I am not a crook."
November 20, 1973 - Comedian Alan Sherman ("Hello Muddah, Hello Faddah") dies
December 1, 1973 - The Carpenters "Top of the World" hits Number 1 on Billboard's Top 40.
December 3, 1973 - The first close-up color photos of Jupiter are transferred from Pioneer 10.
December 6, 1973 - Confirmed by the Senate, Gerald R. Ford becomes the first unelected vice-president of the United States.
December 8, 1973 - Brownsville Station's "Smokin' In The Boy's Room" hits Billboard's Top 40.
December 13, 1973 - "Brain Salad Surgery" by Emerson, Lake, and Palmer goes gold.
December 17, 1973 - Newsweek runs story "King Pong: Electronic video games."
December 20, 1973 - Bobby "Mack the Knife" Darin dies of heart failure.
December 25, 1973 - The Sting is released.

1974

January 2, 1974 - President Nixon signs into law a bill requiring states to limit speed limits to 55 mph to receive federal highway trust funds.
January 4, 1974 - President Nixon rejects subpoena by Senate to release more than 500 tapes.
January 11, 1974 - Last episode of Love American Style, a show, which depicts funny romantic entanglements, airs. It features a skit about two political opponents, James Hampton and Anne Randall, who fall in love; Arlene Golonka has a phobia about Larry Kent's apartment; Robert Morse and Elaine Joyce reunify after 50 years; a battle of the sexes between Bobby Riggs and Rosemary Casals; and finally, Larry Storch cannot sleep without a spacial clock, but Joyce Van Patten comes to the rescue
January 15, 1974 - Happy Days premieres on ABC-TV. This nostalgic comedy about raising a family in the Eisenhower era stars Tom Bosley as father Howard Cunningham, Marion Ross as mother Marion, and Ron Howard and their son Richie. In the opener, Richie is faced with a blonde bombshell (Kathy O'Dare). The show also features Anson Williams as Potsie Webber; Donny Most as Ralph Malph; Henry Winkler as Arthur "Fonzie" Fonzirelli; Gavin O'Herlihy as Chuck Cunningham; and Erin Moran as Joanie Cunningham.
January 15, 1974 - During on-going hearings on Watergate, court-appointed experts announce the 18.5 minutes of missing audio on the Watergate tapes were erased.
February 2, 1974 - "The Way We Were" by Barbara Streisand peaks at #1 on Billboard's Top 40.
February, 1974 - Blazing Saddles is released.
February 4, 1974 - Patricia Hearst is abducted by terrorists from her apartment in Berkeley, California.
February 6, 1974 - U.S. House votes to begin impeachment proceedings against President Nixon.
February 8, 1974 - Skylab 3 astronauts return to Earth after record 84 day space flight.
February 13, 1974 - Russian author Alexsandr Solzhenitsyn, known for his book "The Gulag Archipelago," is deported by USSR to West Germany.
February 15, 1974 - David Bowie releases "Rebel Rebel/Queen Bitch" single.
February 15, 1974 - Odd-even system for purchasing gasoline is adopted in seven states and Washington D.C. to cope with fuel shortages.
February 19, 1974 - Kiss makes its debut TV appearance on Don Kirschner's In Concert.
February 20, 1974 - Cher files for separation from Sonny Bono after 10 years of Marriage.
February 28, 1974 - The United States normalizes diplomatic relations with Egypt for the first time since 1967.
February 29, 1974 - Federal grand jury indicts eight former Ohio National Guard members on charges of violating the civil rights of four students who were shot to death and nine students who were injured during campus demonstration in May 1970 at Kent State University.
March 4, 1974 - People magazine begins publication.
March 6, 1974 - President Nixon says that he knew about Watergate hush money.
March 18, 1974 - The OPEC oil embargo against the United States ends.
March 25, 1974 - The Rolling Stones begin recording sessions for album Black and Blue at Musicland in Munich.
April 3, 1974 - Internal Revenue Service declares that President Nixon owes $432,787 in back taxes and interest penalties totaling $33,000.
April 8, 1974 - Henry "Hank" Aaron overcomes death threats to break Babe Ruth's record of 714 home runs with his 715th off Al Downing of the Los Angeles Dodgers in Atlanta.
April 11, 1974 - House Judiciary Committee orders President Nixon to turn over tapes and other materials related to 42 White House conversations.
April 13, 1974 - Elton John's "Bennie and the Jets" hits Number 1 on Billboard's Top 40.
April 24, 1974 - Bud Abbott (of Abbott and Costello) dies.
April 25, 1974 - Jim Morrison's widow Pamela dies from heroin overdose.
April 30, 1974 - White House releases 1,200 pages of tape transcripts.
May, 1973 - Paper Moon is released.
May 24, 1974 - The 100th Class from Greenville High School graduates.
May 24, 1974 - Duke Ellington dies.
May 29, 1974 - Sonny and Cher Comedy Hour airs last show - this is couple's first run at a variety show. This repeat episode stars Joe Namath, the Righteous Brothers, and features regulars Bobby Hatfield, Teri Garr, Billy Van, Peter Cullen, and Freeman King.
June, 1974 - Consumers' Research Magazine announces "the new Polaroid SX-70 camera," which is selling in the New York area for about $130.
June, 1974 - Roman Polanski's Chinatown is released.
June 11, 1974 - Secretary of State Kissinger threatens to resign following charges that he conducted wire-taps.
June 27, 1974 - Flip Wilson Show has its last telecast on NBC-TV. The repeat episode, which originally aired in 1972, stars Tim Conway, Bing Crosby, and Melba Moore; Flip and Bing do a duet of "Would You Like to Swing on a Star." The former star of Laugh-In, Flip Wilson is known for his "Geraldine" and "Here Come the Judge" characters.
July, 1974 - Lucille Ball announces her retirement from weekly TV after 23 years.
July, 1974 - High Times Magazine debuts.
July 1, 1974 - President Juan Peron of Argentina dies.
July 9, 1974 - Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young reunion tour begins.
July 7, 1974 - West Germany defeated the Netherlands 2-1 to win soccer's World Cup.
July 20, 1974 - Turkey invades Cyprus.
July 24, 1974 - U.S. Supreme Court rules that President Nixon must release all of his tapes.
July 27, 1974 - House Judiciary Committee votes 27 to 11 to recommend to the House of Representatives that President Nixon be impeached.
July 29, 1974 - Cass Elliot of the Mamas and Papas dies of a heart attack in London flat of Harry Nilsson. False rumors spread that she dies choking on a ham sandwich.
August 2, 1974 - John Dean sentenced to one-to-three years for his role in Watergate cover-up.
August 5, 1974 - Joan Jett forms an all-girl band, The Runaways.
August 8, 1974 - Facing certain impeachment, Richard Nixon becomes the first U.S. president to resign.
August 9, 1974 - Gerald Ford, the first unelected vice-president, becomes the only unelected president.
August 16, 1974 - The Ramones premiere at CBGBs after playing a private gig earlier the same day.
August 20, 1974 - President Ford announces appointment of Nelson Rockefeller as vice president.
August 30, 1974 - Last episode of The Brady Bunch airs on ABC-TV. This repeat episode, a pilot for a sequel series that never happened, features guest stars Ken Berry and Brooke Bundy as a childless couple who end up adopting three children.
August 31, 1974 - Last episode of The Partridge Family airs on ABC-TV. In this repeat episode Laurie Partridge (played by Susan Dey) is plagued by the undying love of two suitors. The show, which depicts the exploits of the musical Partridge family, also starred David Cassidy as Keith, Danny Bonaduce as Danny, Shirley Jones as Shirley, and Dave Madden as the band's manager, Reuben Kincaid.
September 7, 1974 - Land of the Lost premieres on NBC-TV Saturday morning line-up. While exploring the Colorado River on a raft, forest ranger Rick Marshall and his children Will and Holly are caught in a time vortex that transports them to the mysterious Land of the Lost where they are faced with, among many things, the Sleestak lizard people and Chaka, a monkey-boy.
September 8, 1974 - Daredevil Evil Knievel fails to jump Snake Canyon on his specially equipped motorcycle/rocket.
September 8, 1974 - President Ford grants Richard Nixon a "full, free, and absolute pardon."
September 9, 1974 - Rhoda, a spin-off from The Mary Tyler Moore Show, premieres. Set in New York, the show depicts incidents in the life of Rhoda Morganstern (played by Valerie Harper), a window designer; her husband Joe Gerard (played by David Groh), head of the New York Wrecking Company; her sister Brenda Morganstern (played by Julie Kavner, voice of Marge Simpson); and her parents Ida (played by Nancy Walker) and Martin (played by Harold Gould). The voice of Carlton, the never seen doorman, is played by Lorenzo Music.
September 11, 1974 - Little House on the Prairie premieres on NBC-TV. Based on the "Little House" books by Laura Ingalls Wilder, the series is set in the town of Walnut Grove in Plumb Creek, Minnesota during the 1870s and follows the lives of the pioneering Ingalls family. Their experiences as homesteaders in the unsettled frontier are through the eyes of Laura (Melissa Gilbert), who is the second born daughter. Show stars Michael Landon (of Bonanza fame) as Charles, the father, Karen Grassle as his wife Caroline, and Melissa Sue Anderson as Mary, the oldest daughter.
September 13, 1974 - The Rockford Files premieres on NBC-TV. The show depicts the exploits of Jim Rockford (played by James Garner), owner/operator of the Rockford Private Detective Agency, as he attempts to solve criminal cases that are considered unsolvable and labeled inactive by police.
September 16, 1974 - Bob Dylan begins recording sessions for "Blood On The Tracks" LP.
September 21, 1974 - Jacqueline Susann, author of "Valley of the Dolls," dies.
September 22, 1974 - Sonny returns to the airwaves with The Sonny Comedy Revue. Show stars Sally Struthers, who sings "In the Mood"; Howard Cossell, who does a commentary of the fight between David and Goliath; the Jackson 5, who sing "Life of the Party"; and Miss Teenage America Lori Lei Matsukawa.
September 23, 1974 - Robbie McIntosh of The Average White Band dies of a heroin overdose at a North Hollywood party--apparently he mistakes heroin for cocaine.
October, 1974 - Monty Python's Flying Circus first shown on PBS stations.
October 8, 1974 - President Ford distributes WIN buttons, which stand for "Whip Inflation Now."
October 13, 1974 - Ed Sullivan dies.
October 17, 1974 - President Ford pardons Richard Nixon for any crimes he may have committed.
October 30, 1974 - Muhammad Ali KO's George Foreman and regains heavyweight championship.
November, 1974 - Roxy Music's LP "Country Life" with controversial cover of semi-nude women is censored in United States with opaque green shrinkwrap.
November, 1974 - Earthquake is released utilizing new sound technology called sensoround.
November, 1974 - Bob Fosse's film biography of Lenny Bruce, Lenny, is released. It stars Dustin Hoffman.
November 8, 1974 - Former Lieutenant Bill Calley, who had been convicted of murdering 22 civilians in Mylai, Vietnam, is paroled.
November 13, 1974 - Trial of Billy Jack is released.
November 14, 1974 - Nuclear fuel facility laboratory technician Karen Silkwood is killed in an auto crash outside of Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. She is on her way to meet with a New York Times reporter and union official to document Kerr-McGee Nuclear Corporation's gross mishandling of plutonium and related products.
November 16, 1974 - "Whatever Gets You Thru The Night" by John Lennon and the Plastic Ono Nuclear Band hits Number 1 on Billboard's Top 40.
November 22, 1974 - The PLO obtains "observer" status at the United Nations.
December 1, 1974 - A TWA 727 crashes into hill on approach to Dulles Airport. All 92 aboard are killed.
December, 1974 - Among films released this month are The Towering Inferno, The Sting, and Young Frankenstein.
December 2, 1974 - House leader Wilbur Mills and stripper Fanne Fox discovered to be having an affair.
December 3, 1974 - Pioneer 11 heads toward Saturn after surviving pass within 26,000 miles of Jupiter.
December 12, 1974 - Citing creative differences and wanting to pursue a solo career, Mick Taylor leaves The Rolling Stones.
December 12, 1974 - Governor Jimmy Carter of Georgia begins bid for 1976 presidential election.
December 19, 1974 - Nelson Rockefeller becomes the second unelected vice president.
December 26, 1974 - Jack Benny dies.
December 29, 1974 - The Sonny Comedy Revue ends its run on TV. Last show stars Karen Valentine (whose comedy show takes over the slot), Clifton Davis of TV show That's My Mama, and Carrie McDowall.