1973: Encyclopedia II - 1973 - Events

1973 - Events

1973 - January

• January 1 - United Kingdom, Ireland, and Denmark enter the European Economic Community, now known as the European Union.
• January 3 - Columbia Broadcasting System (CBS) sells the New York Yankees for $10 million to a 12-person syndicate led by George Steinbrenner.
• January 14 - Elvis Presley does a concert in Hawaii for over a billion people live worldwide.
• January 15 - Vietnam War: Citing progress in peace negotiations, President of the United States Richard Nixon announces the suspension of offensive action in North Vietnam.
• January 17 - Ferdinand Marcos becomes President for Life of the Philippines.
• January 22 - Supreme Court of the United States rules on Roe v. Wade.
• January 22 - George Foreman breaks Joe Frazier's professional career undefeated heavyweight world boxing champion status.
• January 22 - Nigerian Airlines passenger plane from Mecca crashes in Kano, Nigeria - 176 dead. ^{Confirmation needed}
• January 23 - The eruption of Eldfell on the Icelandic island of Heimaey begins.
• January 23 - President Richard Nixon announces that a peace accord has been reached in Vietnam.
• January 25 - Derren Nesbitt convicted of assaulting Anne Aubrey
• January 27 - U.S. involvement in Vietnam War ends with the signing of peace pacts. See Paris Peace Accords.

1973 - February

• February 11 - Vietnam War: First release of American prisoners of war from Vietnam takes place.
• February 12 - Ohio becomes the first U.S. state to post distance in metric on signs. (See: Metric system in the United States)
• February 21 - Over the Sinai Desert, Israeli fighter aircraft shoot down a Libyan Arab Airlines jet killing 100.
• February 22 - Sino-American relations: Following President Richard Nixon's visit to mainland China, the United States and the People's Republic of China agree to establish liaison offices.
• February 27 - The American Indian Movement occupies Wounded Knee, South Dakota.

1973 - March

• March 1 - The New York Joffrey Ballet's Deuce Coupe Ballet opens. The ballet is set entirely around music by The Beach Boys.^{Confirmation needed}
• March 7 - Comet Kohoutek is discovered.
• March 8 - IRA bombs explode in the Whitehall and the Old Bailey.
• March 16 - Queen Elizabeth II opens the New London Bridge. ^{Confirmation needed}
• March 29 - The last United States soldiers leave Vietnam.
• March 31 - Paramount's Carowinds opens for the first time.

1973 - April

• April 2 - Launch of LexisNexis computerized legal research service.
• April 4 - World Trade Center officially opens in New York with a ribbon-cutting ceremony.
• April 6 - Launch of Pioneer 11 spacecraft.
• April 10 - Israeli commando raid on Beirut, in which three leaders of the Palestinian Resistance Movement were assassinated. The army's inaction brought the immediate resignation of Prime Minister Saib Salam, a Sunni Muslim leader from Beirut.
• April 17 -German GSG-9 group formed officially

1973 - May

• May 5 - Shambu Tamang becomes the youngest person to climb to the summit of Mount Everest.
• May 8 - A 71-day standoff between federal authorities and the American Indian Movement who were occupying the Pine Ridge Reservation at Wounded Knee, South Dakota, ends with the surrender of the militants.
• May 10 - Polisario formed.
• May 14 - Skylab, the United States' first space station, is launched.
• May 17 - Watergate scandal: Hearings begin in the United States Senate and are televised.
• May 27 - By the virtue of non-retroactiveness of the copyright laws of the USSR, all works published before this date are public domain. This applies worldwide.^{Confirmation needed}

1973 - June

• June 1 - Greek military junta abolishes the monarchy and proclaims a republic.
• June 3 - Tupolev Tu-144 crashes at the Paris air show - 15 dead.
• June 4 - patent for the ATM granted to Don 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 - Grandson of J. Paul Getty is kidnapped in Rome.^{Confirmation needed}
• June 22 - William Mark Felt retires from the FBI.
• June 25 - Erskine Hamilton Childers is elected the fourth President of Ireland.
• June 26 - On Plesetsk Cosmodrome 9 persons were killed at an explosion of a Cosmos 3-M rocket.
• June 30 - Very long total solar eclipse. During the entire Second Millennium, only seven total solar eclipses exceeded seven minutes of totality.

1973 - July

• July 1 - United States Drug Enforcement Administration founded.
• July 2 - Congress passes the Education of the Handicapped Act (EHA) mandating Special Education federally.
• July 5 - Isle of Man begins to issue its own postage stamps.^{Confirmation needed}
• July 10 - The Bahamas gain full independence within the British Commonwealth.
• July 12 - A major fire destroys the entire 6th floor of the National Personnel Records Center in St. Louis, Missouri. The disaster comes to be known as the 1973 National Archives Fire.
• July 16 - Watergate Scandal: Former White House aide Alexander Butterfield informs the United States Senate committee investigating the scandal that President Richard Nixon had secretly recorded potentially incriminating conversations.
• July 20 - France resumes nuclear bomb tests in Mururoa Atoll over protestations of Australia and New Zealand.
• July 25 - Soviet Mars 5 space probe launched.
• July 28 - Watkins Glen Summer Jam, a massive rock festival featuring The Grateful Dead, The Allman Brothers Band and The Band attracts over 600,000 music fans.
• July 30 - An 11-year legal action for the victims of Thalidomide ends.^{Confirmation needed}
• July 31 - Militant protesters of Ian Paisley disrupt the first sitting of the Northern Ireland Assembly^{Confirmation needed}

1973 - August

• August 2 - Flash fire kills 51 at the Summerland amusement centre at Douglas, Isle of Man.^{Confirmation needed}
• August 5 - Black September members open fire at Athens airport - 3 dead, 55 injured.^{Confirmation needed}
• August 8 - 1973 Kidnapping of Kim Dae-Jung
• August 13 - The film of Jesus Christ Superstar is released.
• August 15 - The U.S. bombing of Cambodia ends, marking the official halt to 12 years of combat activity in Southeast Asia.^{Confirmation needed}

1973 - September

• September 11 - Chile's democratically-elected government is overthrown in a military coup after serious instability. President Salvador Allende dies, and General Augusto Pinochet heads a military junta that will govern Chile for the next 16 years.
• September 15 - Sweden's king Gustav VI Adolf dies. Carl XVI Gustav becomes king.
• September 18 - The two German Republics, the BRD and the DDR, are admitted to the United Nations.
• September 20 - Billed as The Battle of the Sexes, Billie Jean King defeats Bobby Riggs 6-4, 6-4, 6-3.
• September 20 - American folk singer Jim Croce dies in a plane crash.
• September 22 - Henry Kissinger, United States National Security Advisor, starts his term as Secretary of State.
• September 28 - ITT was bombed in New York City as a protest of their involvement with the Coup in Chile.

1973 - October

• October 6 - Yom Kippur War - Fourth and largest Arab-Israeli conflict begins as Egyptian and Syrian forces attack Israel as Jews mark Yom Kippur.
• October 10 - Spiro T. Agnew resigns as vice president of the United States 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 he was governor of Maryland. He is fined $10,000 and put on three years' probation.
• October 17 - Arab Oil Embargo against several countries which gave support to Israel, triggerring the 1973 energy crisis.
• October 20 - The Saturday Night Massacre.
• October 20 - Sydney Opera House is opened by Elizabeth II.
• October 26 - Yom Kippur War ends.
• October 27 - The Canyon City meteorite, a 1.4 kg chondrite type meteorite struck earth in Fremont County, Colorado.^{Confirmation needed}

1973 - November

• November 1: Watergate scandal, acting Attorney General Robert Bork appointed Leon Jaworski as the new Watergate Special Prosecutor.^{Confirmation needed}
• November 3 - Mariner program: NASA launches the Mariner 10 toward Mercury (on March 29, 1974 it became the first space probe to reach that planet).
• November 7 - The U.S. Congress overrides President Richard M. Nixon's veto of the War Powers Resolution, which limits presidential power to wage war without congressional approval.
• November 11 - Egypt and Israel sign a United States-sponsored cease-fire accord.
• November 14 - In the United Kingdom, Princess Anne marries a commoner, Captain Mark Phillips, in Westminster Abbey (they divorced in 1992).
• November 16 - Skylab program: NASA launches Skylab 4 with a crew of three astronauts from Cape Canaveral, Florida for an 84-day mission.
• November 16 - US President Richard Nixon signs the Trans-Alaska Pipeline Authorization Act into law, authorizing the construction of the Alaska Pipeline.
• November 17 - Watergate scandal: In Orlando, Florida, US President Richard Nixon tells 400 Associated Press managing editors "I am not a crook."
• November 17 - Student uprising against the military regime in Athens, Greece.
• November 21 - President Nixon's attorney, J. Fred Bushardt, revealed the existence of an 18-and-a-half-minute gap in one of the White House tape recordings related to Watergate.
• November 25 - Greek Dictator George Papadopoulos is ousted in military coup led by Lieutenant General Phaidon Gizikis.
• November 27 - The United States Senate votes 92 to 3 to confirm Gerald Ford as Vice President of the United States (on December 6, the House confirmed him 387 to 35).

1973 - December

• December - Chile breaks diplomatic contacts with Sweden.^{Confirmation needed}
• 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 15 - Gay rights: The American Psychiatric Association removes homosexuality from its DSM-II.^{Confirmation needed}
• December 23 - The OPEC doubles the price of crude oil.^{Confirmation needed}
• December 30 - Terrorist Carlos fails in his attempt to assassinate British businessman Joseph Sieff.^{Confirmation needed}
• December 31 - In the UK, as a result of high coal and oil prices, the Three-Day Week officially comes into force.

1973 - Unknown dates

• The National House Building Council was formed in the United Kingdom.
• The COSC The Swiss Official Chronometer testing Institute was founded in Switzerland by 5 Watch Cantons & FH, Federation of the Swiss Watch Industry.
• Title Queen of Australia created

1973 - Fictional events

• December 6 - Susie Salmon murdered, in Alice Sebold's The Lovely Bones.

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Events", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki