| 1975-01-05
The Tasman Bridge in Tasmania, Australia, is struck by the bulk ore carrier Lake Illawarra, killing twelve people.
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| 1975-04-13
Bus Massacre in Lebanon: Attack by the Phalangist resistance kill 26 militia members of the P.F.L. of Palestine, marking the start of the 15-year Lebanese Civil War.
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| 1975-03-26
The Biological Weapons Convention comes into force.
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| 1975-07-20
India expels three reporters from The Times, The Daily Telegraph, and Newsweek because they refused to sign a pledge to abide by government censorship.
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| 1975-02-13
A fire breaks out in the World Trade Center in New York City, New York.
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| 1975-11-14
Spain abandons Western Sahara.
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| 1975-08-04
The Japanese Red Army takes more than 50 hostages at the AIA Building housing several embassies in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. The hostages include the U.S. consul and the Swedish chargé d’affaires. The gunmen win the release of five imprisoned comrades and fly with them to Libya.
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| 1975-11-12
The Comoros joins the United Nations.
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| 1975-11-25
Suriname gains independence from the Netherlands.
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| 1975-11-22
Juan Carlos is declared King of Spain following the death of Francisco Franco.
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| 1975-12-06
Balcombe Street Siege: An IRA Active Service Unit takes a couple hostage in Balcombe Street, London.
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| 1975-04-28
General Cao Van Vien, chief of the South Vietnamese military, departs for the US as the North Vietnamese Army closed in on victory.
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| 1975-04-19
India's first satellite Aryabhata is launched.
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| 1975-11-10
The 729-foot-long freighter SS Edmund Fitzgerald sinks during a storm on Lake Superior, killing all 29 crew on board.
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| 1975-08-03
A privately chartered Boeing 707 crashes into the mountainside near Agadir, Morocco killing 188.
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| 1975-03-06
For the first time, ever, the Zapruder film of the assassination of John F. Kennedy was shown in motion to a national TV audience by Robert J. Groden and Dick Gregory.
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| 1975-11-27
The Provisional IRA assassinates Ross McWhirter, after a press conference in which McWhirter had announced a reward for the capture of those responsible for multiple bombings and shootings across England.
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| 1975-06-25
Mozambique achieves independence.
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| 1975-10-01
The Seychelles gain internal self-government. The Ellice Islands split from Gilbert Islands and take the name Tuvalu.
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| 1975-01-04
Elizabeth Ann Seton becomes the first American-born saint.
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| 1975-04-04
Vietnam War: Operation Baby Lift – A United States Air Force C-5A Galaxy crashes near Saigon, South Vietnam shortly after takeoff, transporting orphans – 172 die.
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| 1975-08-23
Successful Communist coup in Laos.
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| 1975-12-26
The Tupolev Tu-144 goes into service in Soviet Union.
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| 1975-06-24
An Eastern Air Lines Boeing 727 crashes at John F. Kennedy Airport, New York. 113 people die.
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| 1975-08-11
East Timor: Governor Mário Lemos Pires of Portuguese Timor abandons the capital Dili, following a coup by the Timorese Democratic Union (UDT) and the outbreak of civil war between UDT and Fretilin.
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| 1975-10-16
The Australian Coalition opposition parties using their senate majority, vote to defer the decision to grant supply of funds for the Whitlam Government's annual budget, sparking the 1975 Australian constitutional crisis.
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| 1975-02-21
Watergate scandal: Former United States Attorney General John N. Mitchell and former White House aides H. R. Haldeman and John Ehrlichman are sentenced to prison.
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| 1975-06-05
The United Kingdom holds its first and only country-wide referendum, on remaining in the European Economic Community (EEC).
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| 1975-03-22
A fire at the Browns Ferry Nuclear Power Plant in Decatur, Alabama causes a dangerous reduction in cooling water levels.
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| 1975-11-06
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.
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| 1975-01-08
Ella Grasso becomes Governor of Connecticut, the first woman to serve as a Governor in the United States other than by succeeding her husband.
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| 1975-04-29
Vietnam War: Operation Frequent Wind: The U.S. begins to evacuate U.S. citizens from Saigon prior to an expected North Vietnamese takeover. U.S. involvement in the war comes to an end.
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| 1975-12-07
Indonesia invades East Timor.
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| 1975-03-06
Algiers Accord: Iran and Iraq announce a settlement of their border dispute.
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| 1975-12-29
A bomb explodes at La Guardia Airport in New York City, killing 11 people and injuring 74.
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| 1975-02-28
A major tube train crash at Moorgate station, London kills 43 people.
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| 1975-07-05
Arthur Ashe becomes the first black man to win the Wimbledon singles title.
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| 1975-10-11
The NBC sketch comedy/variety show Saturday Night Live debuts with George Carlin as the host and Andy Kaufman, Janis Ian and Billy Preston as guests.
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| 1975-05-16
India annexes Sikkim after the mountain state holds a referendum in which the popular vote is in favour of merging with India.
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| 1975-07-30
Jimmy Hoffa disappears from the parking lot of the Machus Red Fox restaurant in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan, a suburb of Detroit, at about 2:30 p.m. He is never seen or heard from again.
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| 1975-05-28
Fifteen West African countries sign the Treaty of Lagos, creating the Economic Community of West African States.
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| 1975-08-20
Viking Program: NASA launches the Viking 1 planetary probe toward Mars.
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| 1975-04-04
Microsoft is founded as a partnership between Bill Gates and Paul Allen in Albuquerque, New Mexico
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| 1975-05-16
Junko Tabei becomes the first woman to reach the summit of Mount Everest.
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| 1975-04-17
The Cambodian Civil War ends. The Khmer Rouge captures the capital Phnom Penh and Cambodian government forces surrender.
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| 1975-07-12
São Tomé and Príncipe declare independence from Portugal.
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| 1975-09-16
Papua New Guinea gains its independence from Australia.
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| 1975-09-22
Sara Jane Moore tries to assassinate U.S. President Gerald Ford, but is foiled by Oliver Sipple.
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| 1975-07-17
Apollo-Soyuz Test Project: An American Apollo and a Soviet Soyuz spacecraft dock with each other in orbit marking the first such link-up between spacecraft from the two nations.
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| 1975-09-05
Sacramento, California: Lynette Fromme attempts to assassinate U.S. President Gerald Ford.
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| 1975-11-11
Australian constitutional crisis of 1975: Australian Governor-General Sir John Kerr dismisses the government of Gough Whitlam, appoints Malcolm Fraser as caretaker Prime Minister and announces a general election to be held in early December.
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| 1975-04-21
Vietnam War: President of South Vietnam Nguyen Van Thieu flees Saigon, as Xuan Loc, the last South Vietnamese outpost blocking a direct North Vietnamese assault on Saigon, falls.
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| 1975-06-07
Sony introduces the Betamax videocassette recorder for sale to the public.
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| 1975-10-21
Game 6 of the World Series is played between the Boston Red Sox and Cincinatti Reds. The game would be won on a home run off the left field foul pole at Fenway Park hit by Carlton Fisk in the bottom of the 12th inning, ending perhaps the greatest baseball game played in World Series history.
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| 1975-09-04
The Sinai Interim Agreement relating to the Arab-Israeli conflict is signed.
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| 1975-04-25
As North Vietnamese forces close in on the South Vietnamese capital Saigon, the Australian Embassy is closed and evacuated, almost ten years to the day since the first Australian troop commitment to South Vietnam.
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| 1975-03-17
The Chicago, Rock Island and Pacific Railroad enters its third and final bankruptcy, and William M. Gibbons is selected as receiver and bankruptcy trustee.
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| 1975-09-18
Patty Hearst is arrested after a year on the FBI Most Wanted List.
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| 1975-08-15
Miki Takeo makes the first official pilgrimage to Yasukuni Shrine by an incumbent prime minister on the anniversary of the end of World War II.
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| 1975-04-30
Fall of Saigon (or Liberation of Saigon from the Communist perspective): Communist forces gain control of Saigon. The Vietnam War formally ends with the unconditional surrender of South Vietnamese president Duong Van Minh.
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| 1975-06-05
The Suez Canal opens for the first time since the Six-Day War.
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| 1975-09-28
The Spaghetti House siege, in which nine people are taken hostage, takes place in London.
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| 1975-04-02
Vietnam War: Thousands of civilian refugees flee from the Quang Ngai Province in front of advancing North Vietnamese troops.
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| 1975-10-01
Thrilla in Manila: Muhammad Ali defeats Joe Frazier in a boxing match in Manila, Philippines.
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| 1975-10-10
Papua New Guinea joins the United Nations.
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| 1975-07-26
Formation of a military triumvirate in Portugal.
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| 1975-04-02
Construction of the CN Tower is completed in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. It reaches 553.33 metres (1,815.4 ft) in height, becoming the world's tallest free-standing structure.
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| 1975-11-28
East Timor declares its independence from Portugal.
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| 1975-01-19
An earthquake strikes Himachal Pradesh, India
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| 1975-06-26
Indira Gandhi establishes emergency rule in India.
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| 1975-09-29
WGPR in Detroit, Michigan, becomes the world's first black-owned-and-operated television station.
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| 1975-09-30
The Hughes (later McDonnell-Douglas, now Boeing) AH-64 Apache makes its first flight.
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| 1975-02-04
Haicheng earthquake (magnitude 7.3 on the Richter scale) occurs in Haicheng, Liaoning, China.
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| 1975-03-25
Faisal of Saudi Arabia is shot and killed by a mentally ill nephew.
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| 1975-02-09
The Soyuz 17 Soviet spacecraft returns to Earth.
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| 1975-06-25
The State of Emergency is declared in India.
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| 1975-03-27
Construction of the Trans-Alaska Pipeline System begins.
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| 1975-10-16
The Balibo Five, a group of Australian television journalists based in the town of Balibo in the then Portuguese Timor (now East Timor), are killed by Indonesian troops.
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| 1975-08-01
CSCE Final Act creates the Conference for Security and Co-operation in Europe.
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| 1975-11-07
In Bangladesh, a joint force of people and soldiers took part in an uprising led by Col. Abu Taher that ousted and killed Brig. Khaled Mosharraf. The uprising, hailed as National Revolution and Solidarity Day, also helped Gen. Ziaur Rahman (later President of Bangladesh) to get freed from the house arrest that was enforced by Mosharraf four days ago amid a coup d'état.
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| 1975-12-04
Suriname joins the United Nations.
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| 1975-11-10
United Nations Resolution 3379: United Nations General Assembly approves a resolution equating Zionism with racism (the resolution is repealed in December 1991 by Resolution 4686).
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| 1975-09-16
The first prototype of the MiG-31 interceptor makes its maiden flight.
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| 1975-07-06
The Comoros declare independence from France.
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| 1975-03-10
Vietnam War: North Vietnamese troops attack Ban Me Thuot, South Vietnam, on their way to capturing Saigon.
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| 1975-12-01
Lambda Theta Phi - The first latino fraternity is established in New Jersey.
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| 1975-11-20
Francisco Franco, Caudillo of Spain, dies after 36 years in power.
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| 1975-09-15
The French département of Corse (the entire island of Corsica) is divided into two: Haute-Corse and Corse-du-Sud.
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| 1975-09-16
Cape Verde, Mozambique and Sao Tome and Principe join the United Nations.
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| 1975-05-12
Mayagüez incident: the Cambodian navy seizes the American merchant ship SS Mayaguez in international waters.
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| 1975-08-15
Bangladesh's founder Sheikh Mujibur Rehman is killed along with most members of his family during a military coup.
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| 1975-11-28
As the World Turns and The Edge of Night, the final two American soap operas that had resisted going to pre-taped broadcasts, air their last live episodes.
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| 1975-09-08
Gays in the military: US Air Force Tech Sergeant Leonard Matlovich, a decorated veteran of the Vietnam War, appears in his Air Force uniform on the cover of Time magazine with the headline "I Am A Homosexual". He is later given a general discharge.
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| 1975-12-19
John Paul Stevens is appointed a justice of The United States Supreme Court.
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| 1975-04-03
Bobby Fischer refuses to play in a chess match against Anatoly Karpov, giving Karpov the title of World Champion by default.
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| 1975-07-30
The Troubles: three members of a popular cabaret band and two gunmen are killed during a botched paramilitary attack in Northern Ireland (see Miami Showband killings).
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| 1975-10-22
The Soviet unmanned space mission Venera 9 lands on Venus.
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| 1975-03-05
First meeting of the Homebrew Computer Club
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| 1975-04-09
8 people in South Korea, who were involved in People's Revolutionary Party Incident, are hanged.
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| 1975-09-14
The first American saint, Elizabeth Ann Seton, is canonized by Pope Paul VI.
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| 1975-04-08
Frank Robinson manages the Cleveland Indians in his first game as major league baseball's first African American manager.
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| 1975-10-30
Prince Juan Carlos becomes Spain's acting head of state, taking over for the country's ailing dictator, Gen. Francisco Franco.
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| 1975-05-27
The Dibble's Bridge coach crash near Grassington, North Yorkshire, England kills 32 – the highest ever death toll in a road accident in the United Kingdom.
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| 1975-10-16
Rahima Banu, a 2-year old girl from the village of Kuralia in Bangladesh, is the last known person to be infected with naturally occurring smallpox.
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| 1975-04-09
The first game of the Philippine Basketball Association, the second oldest professional basketball league in the world.
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| 1975-06-26
Two FBI agents and a member of the American Indian Movement are killed in a shootout on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota; Leonard Peltier is later convicted of the murders in a controversial trial.
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| 1975-07-05
Cape Verde gains its independence from Portugal.
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| 1975-08-27
The Governor of Portuguese Timor abandons its capital, Dili, and flees to Atauro Island, leaving control to a rebel group.
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| 1975-12-02
Pathet Lao seizes power in Laos, and establishes the Lao People's Democratic Republic.
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