1975
Year 1975 (MCMLXXV) was a common year starting on Wednesday (link will display full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar.
The year 1975 was declared International Women's Year by the United Nations and has been designated a year of the Rabbit in the Chinese Zodiac.
Events of 1975
January
- January 2 - The Federal Rules of Evidence are approved by the United States Congress.
- January 5 - The bulk ore carrier MV Lake Illawarra strikes the Tasman Bridge in Tasmania, Australia, killing 12.
- January 6 - Wheel of Fortune premieres on NBC.
- January 6 - AM America makes its television debut on ABC.
- January 7 - OPEC agrees to raise crude oil prices by 10%.
- January 8 - Ella Grasso becomes Governor of Connecticut, the first woman U.S. governor who did not succeed her husband.
- January 8 - U.S. President Gerald Ford appoints Vice President Nelson Rockefeller to head a special commission looking into alleged domestic abuses by the CIA.
- January 10 - Japanese soldier Teruo Nakamura surrenders on the Indonesian island of Morota.
- January 12 - The Pittsburgh Steelers defeat the Minnesota Vikings 16-6 in Super Bowl IX played at Tulane Stadium in New Orleans, Louisiana.
- January 14 - Heiress Lesley Whittle, 17, is kidnapped from her home in Shropshire, England by Donald Neilson.
- January 15 - International Women's Year launched in Britain by Princess Alexandra and Barbara Castle.
- January 15 - Portugal grants independence to Angola.
- January 20 - In Hanoi, North Vietnam, the Politburo approves the final military offensive against South Vietnam.
- January 20 - Michael Ovitz founds the Creative Artists Agency.
- January 29 - The Weather Underground bombs the U.S. State Department main office in Washington, D.C..
- January - Altair 8800 is released, sparking the era of the microcomputer.
February
- February 1 - The Intercontinental Broadcasting Corporation is launched, becoming the first TV network in the Philippines.
- February 4 - Haicheng earthquake, the first successfully predicted earthquake, occurred in Haicheng, Liaoning, China. Chinese government official report, killing 2,041, injuring 27,538.
- February 9 - The Soyuz 17 crew (Georgi Grechko, Aleksei Gubarev) returns to Earth after 1 month aboard the Salyut 4 space station.
- February 11 - Margaret Thatcher defeats Edward Heath for the leadership of the UK Conservative Party in the United Kingdom.
- February 11 - Colonel Richard Ratsimandrava, President of Madagascar, is assassinated.
- February 13 - 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.
- February 13 - Fire breaks out in the World Trade Center.
- February 21 - Watergate scandal: 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.
- February 23 - In response to the energy crisis, daylight saving time commences nearly 2 months early in the United States.
- February 26 - A fleeing Irish Republican Army member shoots and kills off-duty London police officer Stephen Tibble, 22, as he gives chase.
- February 27 - The Movement 2 June kidnaps West German politician Peter Lorenz. He is released on March 4 after most of the kidnappers' demands are met.
- February 28 - A major tube train crash at Moorgate station, London kills 43 people.
- February 28 - 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.
March
- March 1 - Aston Villa win the Football League Cup at Wembley, beating Norwich City 1-0 in the final.
- March 4 - Charlie Chaplin is knighted by Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom.
- March 4 - First television coverage of a Canadian parliamentary committee.
- March 6 - Algiers Accord: Iran and Iraq announce a settlement in their border dispute.
- March 6 - 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.
- March 7 - The body of teenage heiress Lesley Whittle, kidnapped 7 weeks earlier by the Black Panther, is discovered in Staffordshire, England.
- March 8 - The United Nations proclaims International Women's Day.
- March 9 - Construction of the Trans-Alaska Pipeline System begins.
- March 10 - Vietnam War: North Vietnamese troops attack Ban Me Thuot, South Vietnam, on their way to capturing Saigon.
- March 10 - The Rocky Horror Show opens on Broadway in New York City with 4 performances.
- March 10 - Shinkansen opens between Osaka and Fukuoka.
- March 11 - The leftist military government in Portugal defeats a rightist coup attempt.
- March 13 - Vietnam War: 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).
- March 15 - 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.
- March 22 - 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.
- March 25 - King Faisal of Saudi Arabia is shot and killed by his nephew; the killer is beheaded on June 18. (King Khalid succeeds Faisal.)
- March 28 - A fire in the maternity wing at Kucic Hospital in Rijeka, Yugoslavia, kills 25 babies.
April
- April 3 - Bobby Fischer refuses to play in a chess match against Anatoly Karpov, giving Karpov the title.
- April 4 - Vietnam War: The first military Operation Babylift flight, C5A 80218, crashes 27 minutes after takeoff, killing 138 on board; 176 survive the crash.
- April 4 - Bill Gates founds Microsoft in Albuquerque, New Mexico, USA
- April 9 - Asia's first professional basketball league, the Philippine Basketball Association, plays its first game at the Araneta Coliseum.
- April 13 - Bus massacre: 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.
- April 13 - A coup d'état in Chad led by the military overthrows and kills the President François Tombalbaye.
- April 17 - 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).
- April 24 - 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)
- April 25 - Vietnam War: 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.
- April 30 - Vietnam War: The Fall of Saigon: 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.
May
June
July
August
- August 1 - The Helsinki Accords, which officially recognize Europe's national borders and respect for human rights, are signed in Finland.
- August 5 - U.S. President Ford posthumously pardons Robert E. Lee, restoring full rights of citizenship.
- August 8 - The Banqiao Dam, in China's Henan Province, fails after a freak typhoon; over 200,000 people perish.
- August 8 - Samuel Bronfman, son of the president of Seagram's, is kidnapped in Purchase, New York.
- August 11 - British Leyland Motor Corporation comes under British government control.
- August 11 - 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.
- August 15 - The Birmingham Six are wrongfully sentenced to life imprisonment in Great Britain.
- August 15 - President Mujibur Rahman of Bangladesh is killed during a coup.
- August 20 - Viking program: NASA launches the Viking 1 planetary probe toward Mars.
- August 24 - Officers responsible for the military coup in Greece in 1967 are sentenced to death in Athens. The sentences are later commuted to life imprisonment.
- August 29 - Eamon DeValera, three time taoiseach of Ireland, is found dead.
September
- September 1 - Mount Neighbour Primary School is opened.
- September 5 - 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.
- September 5 - The London Hilton hotel is bombed by the Provisional Irish Republican Army; 2 people are killed and 63 injured.[1]
- September 6 - A Richter Scale 6.7 magnitude earthquake kills at least 2,085 in Diyarbakir and Lice, Turkey.
- September 14 - Elizabeth Seton is canonized becoming the first American Roman Catholic saint.
- September 14 - Rembrandt's painting "The Night Watch" is slashed a dozen times at the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam.
- September 15 - The French department of Corse, comprising the entire island of Corsica, is divided into two departments: Haute-Corse and Corse-du-Sud.
- September 16 - Papua New Guinea gains its independence from Australia.
- September 18 - Fugitive Patricia Hearst is captured in San Francisco.
- September 19 - General Vasco Goncalves is ousted as Prime Minister of Portugal.
- September 20 - The term of Tuanku Al-Mutassimu Billahi Muhibbudin Sultan Abdul Halim Al-Muadzam Shah ibni Almarhum Sultan Badlishah, as the 5th Yang di-Pertuan Agong of Malaysia, ends.
- September 21 - Sultan Yahya Petra ibni Almarhum Sultan Ibrahim Petra, Sultan of Kelantan becomes the 6th Yang di-Pertuan Agong of Malaysia.
- September 22 - U.S. President Gerald Ford survives a second assassination attempt, this time by Sara Jane Moore in San Francisco.
- September 27 - The Norwood Football Club beats the Glenelg Football Club in the SANFL Australian Rules Football Grand Final.
- September 28 - The Spaghetti House siege takes place in London.
- September 30 - The Hughes Helicopters (later McDonnell-Douglas, now Boeing IDS) AH-64 Apache makes its first flight.
October
November
- November 3 - 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."
- November 3 - The first petroleum pipeline opens from Cruden Bay to Grangemouth, Scotland.
- November 6 - The Green March begins: 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.
- November 10 - United Nations General Assembly Resolution 3379: 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.
- November 10 - 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).
- November 10 - Lev Leshchenko revives Den Pobedy, one of the most popular World War II songs in the USSR.
- November 11 - Angola becomes independent from Portugal; civil war soon erupts.
- November 11 - Australian constitutional crisis of 1975: Governor-General of Australia Sir John Kerr dismisses the government of Gough Whitlam and commissions Malcolm Fraser as Prime Minister.
- November 11 - The first annual Vogalonga rowing "race" is held in Venice, Italy.
- November 14 - Spain abandons Western Sahara.
- November 20 - Former California Governor Ronald Reagan enters the race for the Republican presidential nomination, challenging incumbent President Gerald Ford.
- November 20 - The Spanish dictator Francisco Franco dies in Madrid.
- November 22 - Juan Carlos is declared King of Spain following the death of dictator Francisco Franco.
- November 25 - Suriname gains independence from the Kingdom of the Netherlands.
- November 25 - The Irish Republican Army is outlawed in the United Kingdom.
- November 27 - 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.
- November 28 - Portuguese Timor declares its independence from Portugal as East Timor.
- November 29 - 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).
- November 29 - 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.
December
Undated
- January - Volkswagen introduces the Golf, its new front-wheel-drive economy car, in the United States and Canada as the Volkswagen Rabbit.
- In New Zealand, Maori leader Whina Cooper leads a march of 5000 people in support of Maori claims to their land.
- The Third Cod War between UK and Iceland lasted between November 1975 - June 1976.
- Government of Colombia announces finding of Ciudad Perdida.
- Spanish army quits Spanish (Western) Sahara. Sahrawi Republic (RASD) is created. Morocco invades ex-Spanish Western Sahara.
- First use of the term fractal.
- Victoria (Australia) abolishes capital punishment.
- South Australia becomes first Australian state to decriminalize homosexual acts between consenting adults.
- Some members of Jehovah's Witnesses, based on the group's chronology,[2] thought that Armageddon would happen in 1975 and a few of them sold their houses and businesses to prepare for the new world paradise which they believe will exist when Jesus sets up God's Kingdom on earth.
Ongoing
Fictional
World population
| World population |
|
1975 |
1970 |
1980 |
| World |
4,068,109,000 |
3,692,492,000 |
 375,617,000 |
4,434,682,000 |
366,573,000 |
| Africa |
408,160,000 |
357,283,000 |
50,877,000 |
469,618,001 |
61,458,000 |
| Asia |
2,397,512,000 |
2,143,118,000 |
254,394,000 |
2,632,335,000 |
234,823,000 |
| Europe |
675,542,000 |
655,855,000 |
19,687,000 |
692,431,000 |
16,889,000 |
| Latin-America |
321,906,000 |
284,856,000 |
37,050,000 |
361,401,000 |
39,495,000 |