| 1973-11-08
The right ear of John Paul Getty III is delivered to a newspaper together with a ransom note, convincing his father to pay 2.9 million USD.
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| 1973-11-02
The Communist Party of India (Marxist) and the Communist Party of India forms a 'United Front' in the state of Tripura.
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| 1973-07-10
The Bahamas gain full independence within the Commonwealth of Nations.
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| 1973-10-06
Egypt launches a coordinated attack against Israel to reclaim land lost in the Six Day War. The Ramadan War Yom Kippur War starts at 2:05 pm that day.
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| 1973-05-03
The Sears Tower in Chicago is topped out as the world's tallest building.
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| 1973-09-18
The Bahamas, East Germany and West Germany are admitted to the United Nations.
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| 1973-07-28
Summer Jam at Watkins Glen: 600,000 people attend a rock festival at the Watkins Glen International Raceway.
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| 1973-11-16
Skylab program: NASA launches Skylab 4 with a crew of three astronauts from Cape Canaveral, Florida for an 84-day mission.
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| 1973-12-21
The Geneva Conference on the Arab-Israeli conflict opens.
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| 1973-10-14
Thammasat student uprising over 100,000 people, protested in Thailand against the Thanom military government; 77 are killed and 857 are injured by soldiers.
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| 1973-07-25
Soviet Mars 5 space probe launched.
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| 1973-06-20
Ezeiza massacre in Buenos Aires, Argentina. Snipers fire upon left-wing Peronists. At least 13 are killed and more than 300 are injured.
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| 1973-09-26
Concorde makes its first non-stop crossing of the Atlantic in record-breaking time.
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| 1973-11-01
Watergate Scandal: Leon Jaworski is appointed as the new Watergate Special Prosecutor.
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| 1973-07-21
In the Lillehammer affair in Norway, Israeli Mossad agents kill a waiter whom they mistakenly thought was involved in 1972's Munich Olympics Massacre.
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| 1973-07-20
The US Senate passes the War Powers Act.
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| 1973-11-22
The Italian Fascist organization Ordine Nuovo is disbanded.
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| 1973-07-12
A fire destroys the entire 6th floor of the National Personnel Records Center of the United States.
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| 1973-10-15
The diplomatic relations between the Soviet Union and Gabon are established.
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| 1973-07-10
National Assembly of Pakistan passes a resolution on the recognition of Bangladesh.
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| 1973-12-03
Pioneer program: Pioneer 10 sends back the first close-up images of Jupiter.
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| 1973-09-28
The ITT Building in New York City is bombed in protest at ITT's alleged involvement in the September 11 1973 coup d'état in Chile.
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| 1973-01-15
Vietnam War: Citing progress in peace negotiations, President Richard Nixon announces the suspension of offensive action in North Vietnam.
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| 1973-01-22
The Supreme Court of the United States delivers its decision in Roe v. Wade, legalizing elective abortion in all fifty states.
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| 1973-07-20
Vietnam War: In testimony by Assistant Secretary of Defense Jerry Friedheim to the US Senate Committee on Armed Services, the US Defense Department admits it lied to US Congress about bombing Cambodia .
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| 1973-10-20
The Sydney Opera House opens.
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| 1973-06-09
Secretariat wins the Triple Crown.
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| 1973-10-27
The Cañon City meteorite, a 1.4 kg chondrite type meteorite, strikes in Fremont County, Colorado.
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| 1973-11-01
The Indian state of Mysore is renamed as Karnataka to represent all the regions within Karunadu.
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| 1973-04-30
Watergate Scandal: U.S. President Richard Nixon announces that top White House aids H.R. Haldeman, John Ehrlichman and others have resigned.
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| 1973-01-07
Mark Essex fatally shoots 10 people and wounds 13 others at Howard Johnson's Hotel in New Orleans, Louisiana before being shot to death by police officers.
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| 1973-05-17
Watergate scandal: Televised hearings begin in the United States Senate.
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| 1973-08-14
The constitution of 1973 comes into effect in Pakistan
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| 1973-04-03
The first portable cell phone call is made in New York City, United States.
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| 1973-06-03
A Soviet supersonic Tupolev Tu-144 crashes near Goussainville, France, killing 14, the first crash of a supersonic passenger aircraft.
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| 1973-11-25
George Papadopoulos, head of the military Regime of the Colonels in Greece, is ousted in a hardliners' coup led by Brigadier General Dimitrios Ioannidis.
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| 1973-04-16
Masada, a Jewish fortress, falls to the Romans after several months of siege, ending the Jewish Revolt.
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| 1973-07-16
Watergate Scandal: former White House aide Alexander P. Butterfield informs the United States Senate that President Richard Nixon had secretly recorded potentially incriminating conversations.
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| 1973-11-16
U.S. President Richard Nixon signs the Trans-Alaska Pipeline Authorization Act into law, authorizing the construction of the Alaska Pipeline.
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| 1973-03-05
Donald DeFreeze, the future Symbionese Liberation Army leader, escapes from Vacaville Prison.
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| 1973-02-21
Over the Sinai Desert, Israeli fighter aircraft shoot down Libyan Arab Airlines Flight 114 jet killing 108.
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| 1973-11-27
The Twenty-fifth Amendment: 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).
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| 1973-05-29
Tom Bradley is elected the first black mayor of Los Angeles, California.
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| 1973-10-10
Vice President of the United States Spiro Agnew resigns after being charged with federal income tax evasion.
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| 1973-10-08
Yom Kippur War: Gabi Amir's armored brigade attacks Egyptian occupied positions on the Israeli side of the Suez Canal, in hope of driving them away. The attack fails, and over 150 Israeli tanks are destroyed.
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| 1973-03-17
The Pulitzer Prize-winning photograph Burst of Joy is taken, depicting a former prisoner of war being reunited with his family.
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| 1973-04-02
The Liberal Movement breaks away from the Liberal and Country League in South Australia.
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| 1973-09-24
Guinea-Bissau declares its independence from Portugal.
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| 1973-08-02
A flash fire kills 51 at the Summerland amusement centre at Douglas, Isle of Man.
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| 1973-10-17
OPEC starts an oil embargo against a number of western countries, considered to have helped Israel in its war against Syria.
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| 1973-12-15
John Paul Getty III, grandson of American billionaire J. Paul Getty, is found alive near Naples, Italy, after being kidnapped by an Italian gang on July 10, 1973.
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| 1973-10-20
"Saturday Night Massacre": President Richard Nixon fires U.S. Attorney General Elliot Richardson and Deputy Attorney General William Ruckelshaus after they refuse to fire Watergate special prosecutor Archibald Cox, who is finally fired by Robert Bork.
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| 1973-07-20
First coast-to-coast black-owned and operated radio network: The National Black Network (NBN) begins operations.
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| 1973-04-04
The World Trade Center in New York is officially dedicated.
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| 1973-06-27
The President of Uruguay dissolves Parliament and heads a coup d'état.
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| 1973-02-09
Biju Patnaik of the Pragati Legislature Party is elected leader of the opposition in the state assembly in Orissa, India.
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| 1973-04-06
The American League of Major League Baseball begins using the designated hitter.
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| 1973-03-24
Kenyan athlete Kip Keino defeats Jim Ryun at the first-ever professional track meet in Los Angeles, California.
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| 1973-12-20
The Spanish Prime Minister, Admiral Luis Carrero Blanco, is assassinated by a car bomb attack in Madrid.
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| 1973-10-23
The Watergate Scandal: US President Richard M. Nixon agrees to turn over subpoenaed audio tapes of his Oval Office conversations.
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| 1973-06-28
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.
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| 1973-12-24
District of Columbia Home Rule Act is passed, allowing residents of Washington, D.C. to elect their own local government.
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| 1973-11-17
Watergate scandal: In Orlando, Florida, US President Richard Nixon tells 400 Associated Press managing editors "I am not a crook".
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| 1973-04-01
Project Tiger, a tiger conservation project, is launched in the Corbett National Park, India.
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| 1973-10-16
Henry Kissinger and Le Duc Tho are awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.
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| 1973-06-21
In handing down the decision in Miller v. California 413 US 15, the Supreme Court of the United States establishes the Miller Test for obscenity in U.S. law.
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| 1973-12-01
Papua New Guinea gains self government from Australia.
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| 1973-03-29
Vietnam War: The last United States combat soldiers leave South Vietnam.
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| 1973-05-14
Skylab, the United States' first space station, is launched.
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| 1973-12-18
Soviet Soyuz Programme: Soyuz 13, crewed by cosmonauts Valentin Lebedev and Pyotr Klimuk, is launched from Baikonur in the Soviet Union.
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| 1973-01-08
Watergate scandal: The trial of seven men accused of illegal entry into Democratic Party headquarters at Watergate begins.
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| 1973-04-10
A British Vanguard turboprop crashes during a snowstorm at Basel, Switzerland killing 104.
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| 1973-06-10
John Paul Getty III, grandson of billionaire J. Paul Getty, is kidnapped in Rome, Italy.
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| 1973-05-24
Earl Jellicoe resigns as Lord Privy Seal and Leader of the House of Lords.
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| 1973-02-27
The American Indian Movement occupies Wounded Knee, South Dakota.
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| 1973-01-23
President Richard Nixon announces that a peace accord has been reached in Vietnam.
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| 1973-12-06
The Twenty-fifth Amendment: The United States House of Representatives votes 387 to 35 to confirm Gerald Ford as Vice President of the United States (on November 27, the Senate confirmed him 92 to 3).
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| 1973-01-08
Soviet space mission Luna 21 is launched.
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| 1973-10-21
John Paul Getty III's ear is cut off by his kidnappers and sent to a newspaper in Rome; it doesn't arrive until November 8.
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| 1973-06-23
A fire at a house in Hull, England which kills a six year old boy is passed off as an accident; it later emerges as the first of 26 deaths by fire caused over the next seven years by arsonist Peter Dinsdale.
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| 1973-07-05
Catastrophic BLEVE (Boiling Liquid Expanding Vapor Explosion) in Kingman, Arizona, following a fire that broke out as propane is being transferred from a railroad car to a storage tank, kills 11 firefighters.
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| 1973-09-23
Juan Perón returns to power in Argentina.
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| 1973-09-20
Billie Jean King beats Bobby Riggs in The Battle of the Sexes tennis match at the Houston Astrodome in Houston, Texas.
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| 1973-10-30
The Bosporus Bridge in Istanbul, Turkey is completed, connecting the continents of Europe and Asia over the Bosporus for the first time.
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| 1973-10-23
A United Nations sanctioned cease-fire officially ends the Yom Kippur War between Israel and Syria.
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| 1973-06-26
At Plesetsk Cosmodrome 9 people are killed in an explosion of a Cosmos 3-M rocket.
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| 1973-10-21
Fred Dryer of the then Los Angeles Rams becomes the first player in NFL history to score two safeties in the same game.
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| 1973-11-24
A national speed limit is imposed on the Autobahn in Germany due to the 1973 oil crisis. The speed limit lasted only four months.
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| 1973-11-04
The Netherlands experiences the first Car Free Sunday caused by the 1973 oil crisis. Highways are deserted and are used only by cyclists and roller skaters.
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| 1973-01-17
Ferdinand Marcos becomes "President for Life" of the Philippines.
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| 1973-01-01
Denmark, the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, and the Republic of Ireland are admitted into the European Community.
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| 1973-04-17
German counter-terrorist unit GSG 9 founded.
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| 1973-01-23
A volcanic eruption devastates Heimaey in the Vestmannaeyjar chain of islands off the south coast of Iceland.
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| 1973-12-28
The Endangered Species Act is passed in the United States.
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| 1973-02-11
Vietnam War: First release of American prisoners of war from Vietnam takes place.
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| 1973-10-31
Mountjoy Prison helicopter escape. Three Provisional Irish Republican Army members escape from Mountjoy Prison, Dublin, Republic of Ireland aboard a hijacked helicopter that lands in the exercise yard.
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| 1973-05-08
A 71-day standoff between federal authorities and the American Indian Movement members occupying the Pine Ridge Reservation at Wounded Knee, South Dakota ends with the surrender of the militants.
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| 1973-10-19
President Richard Nixon rejects an Appeals Court decision that he turn over the Watergate tapes.
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| 1973-07-17
King Mohammed Zahir Shah of Afghanistan is deposed by his cousin Mohammed Daoud Khan while in Italy undergoing eye surgery.
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| 1973-04-06
Launch of Pioneer 11 spacecraft.
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| 1973-12-17
Terrorism: 30 passengers are killed in an attack by Palestinian terrorists on Rome's Leonardo da Vinci Airport.
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| 1973-08-08
Kim Dae-Jung, a South Korean politician and later president of South Korea, is kidnapped.
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| 1973-03-01
Black September storms the Saudi embassy in Khartoum, Sudan, resulting in the assassination of three Western hostages.
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| 1973-06-04
A patent for the ATM is granted to Donald Wetzel, Tom Barnes and George Chastain.
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| 1973-11-07
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.
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| 1973-07-20
Palestianian terrorists hijack a Japan Airlines jet en route from Amsterdam to Japan and force it down in Dubai.
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| 1973-08-08
U.S. Vice President Spiro Agnew appears on television to denounce accusations he had taken kickbacks while governor of Maryland.
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| 1973-01-22
A chartered Boeing 707 explodes in flames upon landing at Kano Airport, Nigeria killing 176.
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| 1973-08-15
Vietnam War: The United States bombing of Cambodia ends.
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| 1973-10-05
Signature of the European Patent Convention.
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| 1973-10-24
Yom Kippur War ends
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| 1973-05-11
Citing government misconduct, Daniel Ellsberg has charges for his involvement in releasing the Pentagon Papers to The New York Times dismissed.
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| 1973-01-27
The Paris Peace Accords officially end the Vietnam War. Colonel William Nolde is killed in action becoming the conflict's last recorded American combat casualty.
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| 1973-07-11
A Brazilian Boeing 707 crashes near Paris on approach to Orly Airport, killing 123 of the 134 on-board.
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| 1973-02-22
Cold War: Following United States President Richard Nixon's visit to the People's Republic of China, the two countries agree to establish liaison offices.
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| 1973-02-12
Vietnam War: The first United States prisoners of war are released by the Viet Cong.
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| 1973-04-02
Launch of the LexisNexis computerized legal research service.
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| 1973-11-17
The Athens Polytechnic Uprising against the military regime ends in a bloodshed in the Greek capital.
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| 1973-07-13
Alexander Butterfield reveals the existence of the Nixon tapes to the special Senate committee investigating the Watergate break in.
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| 1973-09-19
King Carl XVI Gustaf of Sweden has his investiture.
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| 1973-07-31
A Delta Air Lines jetliner crashes while landing in fog at Logan Airport, Boston, Massachusetts killing 89.
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| 1973-11-14
In the United Kingdom, Princess Anne marries Captain Mark Phillips, in Westminster Abbey.
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| 1973-05-31
The United States Senate votes to cut off funding for the bombing of Khmer Rouge targets within Cambodia, hastening the end of the Cambodian Civil War.
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| 1973-11-03
Mariner program: NASA launches the Mariner 10 toward Mercury. On March 29, 1974, it becomes the first space probe to reach that planet.
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