1974

1974 is a common year starting on Tuesday (click on link for calendar).

align="center" colspan=2 | Years:
1971 1972 1973 - 1974 - 1975 1976 1977

align="center" colspan=2 | Decades:
1940s 1950s 1960s - 1970s - 1980s 1990s 2000s

align="center" | Centuries:
19th century - 20th century - 21st century

Events

January-February

January 5 - Dungeons & Dragons officially released.
February 4 - Patricia Hearst, the 19 year old granddaughter of publisher William Randolph Hearst, is kidnapped by the Symbionese Liberation Army
February 7 - Grenada becomes independent from the United Kingdom
February 8 - After 84 days in space, the crew of the temporary American space station Skylab return to Earth
February 12 - US District Court Judge George Boldt rules that Native American tribes in Washington State are entitled to half of the legal salmon and steelhead catches, based on treaties signed by the tribes and the US government.
February 13 - Nobel Prize winner writer Alexander Solzhenitsyn expelled from the Soviet Union (he returns May 27 1994)
February 23 - The Symbionese Liberation Army demand $4 million more to release kidnap victim Patty Hearst.
February 27 - People magazine is published for the first time
February 28 - United Kingdom general election results in an almost dead-heat.

March

March 1 - Watergate scandal: Seven are indicted for their role in the Watergate break-in and charged with conspiracy to obstruct justice.
March 1 - Pierre Messmer finishes his first office as Prime Minister of France
March 3 A DC-10 of Turkish Airlines from Paris to London crashes in a wood near Paris. All 346 dead
March 8 - Charles de Gaulle Airport opens in Paris, France
March 18 - Oil embargo crisis: Most OPEC nations end a five-month oil embargo against the United States, Europe and Japan.
March 10 - Ten miners die in a methane gas explosion at Golborne Colliery near Wigan, Lancashire
March 20 - Ian Balls fails in his attempt to kidnap Her Royal Highness Princess Anne and her husband Captain Mark Phillips in The Mall, outside Buckingham Palace, London.
March 29 - Mariner 10 approaches Mercury

April-May

April 1 - the Local Government Act 1972 comes into effect in England and Wales, creating six new metropolitan counties and completely redrawing the administrative map
April 3 - The Super Outbreak, the largest series of tornadoes in history, hits 13 U.S. states and one Canadian province. By the time the last of 148 tornadoes hit early the following morning, 315 died and over 5,000 were injured.
April 10 - In Israel, Golda Meir resigns as Prime Minister
April 25 - Coup in Portugal restores democracy (see Carnation Revolution)
April 28 - Last Americans evacuated from Saigon
May 4 - All female Japanese team summits Manaslu and become the first women to climb an 8,000 metre peak.
May 9 - The United States House of Representatives Judiciary Committee opens formal and public impeachment hearings against President Richard M. Nixon
May 17 - Los Angeles, California police raid Symbionese Liberation Army headquarters, killing six members, including Camilla Hall
May 17 - Thirty-three people die in the Dublin and Monaghan Bombings in Ireland
May 18 - Nuclear test: Under project Smiling Buddha, India successfully detonates its first nuclear weapon becoming the sixth nation to do so.
May 18 - Completition of Warsaw radio mast. The Warsaw radio mast was the tallest construction ever built. It collapsed on August 8, 1991
May 19 - In the second round of the presidential elections in France, Valry Giscard d'Estaing wins from Franois Mitterrand, but by a close margin.

June

June 1 - Flixborough disaster: An explosion at a chemical plant in Flixborough, UK kills 28 people
June 6 - A new Instrument of Government is promulgated making Sweden a parliamentary monarchy
June 17 - A bomb explodes at the Houses of Parliament in London damaging Westminster Hall. The bomb had been planted by the Irish Republican Army
June 24 - The UPC label is used for the first time to ring up purchases at a supermarket.
June 30 - Assassination of Alberta King, mother of the late Martin Luther King, during a church service

July

July 7 - West Germany defeats Netherlands to win the Football World Cup 1974
July 14 - Chris Chubbuck, US radio presenter for Channel 40, draws a revolver and shoots herself in the head during a live broadcast. She dies in a hospital 14 hours later.
July 15 - Military coup overthrows President Makarios in Cyprus
July 17- A bomb planted by Irish Republican Army terrorists explodes in the White Tower at the Tower of London, killing one person and injuring 41. Another bomb explodes outside a government building in South London.
July 20 - Turkish occupation of Cyprus: Forces from Turkey invade Cyprus after Greek Cypriots' attempt at enosis.
July 23 - Greek military government collapses
July 24 - Watergate Scandal: The United States Supreme Court unanimously rule that President Richard Nixon did not have the authority to withhold subpoenaed White House tapes and they order him to surrender the tapes to the Watergate special prosecutor
July 27-30 - Watergate Scandal: The House of Representatives Judiciary Committee adopts three articles of impeachment charging President Richard M. Nixon with obstruction of justice, failure to uphold laws, and refusal to produce material subpoenaed by the committee. He announces he will resign the next day, the first president to do so.

August-October

August 3 Former Scottish Works team Ferranti Thistle joins the Profesional Scottish Leagues and changes its name to Meadowbank Thistle Football Club.
August 4 Bomb explodes in Italicus Expressen train between Italy and West Germany. Italian neo-fascist terrorists take responsibility
August 8 - Watergate scandal: US President Richard Nixon announces his resignation (effective August 9)
August 9 - Richard Nixon becomes the first President of the United States to resign from office, an action taken to avoid being removed by impeachment in response to his role in the Watergate scandal. His Vice President, Gerald Ford, takes the oath of office and becomes the 38th president
September 8 - Watergate Scandal: US President Gerald Ford pardons former President Richard Nixon for any crimes Nixon may have committed while in office.
September 13 Japanese Red Army members seize the French Embassy in the Hague, Netherlands. They receive release of member Yatuka Fumiya, $300.000 and flight to Aden
September 23 - Ceefax is started by the BBC - one of the first public service information systems
October 5 - The Guildford Pub Bombings - The Horse and Groom and The Seven Stars - lead to the wrongful conviction of the Guildford Four

November

November 7 - Lord Lucan disappears
November 7 - An IRA bomb explodes at the Kings Arms, Woolwich
November 8 - In Salt Lake City, Utah, Carol DaRonch narrowly escapes abduction by serial killer Ted Bundy
November 10 - Members of the Movement 2 June try to kidnap Gnter von Drenkmann, the president of West Germany's Superior Court of Justice, at his home but he is fatally shot during the attempt
November 16 - Arecibo radio telescope sends an interstellar radio message towards M 13 great globular cluster
November 17 - Irish President Childers dies suddenly of a heart attack in the Republic of Ireland in a middle of a public speech
November 20 - The United States Department of Justice files its final anti-trust suit against AT&T. This suit later leads to the break up of AT&T and the Bell System.
November 21 - In Birmingham, England, two pubs are bombed, killing 21 people (the Birmingham Six were later sentenced to life in prison for this)
November 21 - George W. Bush is discharged from the US Air Force Reserve
November 22 - The United Nations General Assembly grants the Palestine Liberation Organization observer status.
November 27 - The Prevention of Terrorism Act is passed in the United Kingdom

December

December 1 - A Boeing 727 carrying TWA Flight 514 crashes 25 miles (40 km) northwest of Dulles International Airport during bad weather, killing all 92 people on-board
December 19 - Cearbhall Dlaigh becomes the fifth President of Ireland, in a state inauguration in Dublin Castle
December 24 - Darwin, Australia almost completely destroyed by Cyclone Tracy

unknown date

The Milgram experiment first described by Yale University psychologist Stanley Milgram in his 1974 book Obedience to Authority; An Experimental View.
Baltimore police strike
Volkswagen's Golf automobile first enters production. VW will go on to sell 22 million Golfs, and the model is still very popular today. The car is credited with popularizing the transverse front engine, front wheel drive layout most often used today.

Year in topic

1974 in film

May - George Lucas creates the first draft of what would eventually become Star Wars.
The Godfather, Part II
Chinatown
The Conversation
The Towering Inferno

1974 in literature

Carrie by Stephen King

1974 in music

Band on the Run by Paul McCartney and Wings
Seasons in the Sun by Terry Jacks
I Honestly Love You by Olivia Newton-John
ABBA wins the 1974 Eurovision Song Contest on April 6 with their song "Waterloo." The group will go on to become the most commercially successful pop group of the decade.

1974 in politics
1974 in sports
1974 in television

Happy Days premieres on ABC
Little House on the Prairie, starring Michael Landon, premieres on NBC.
September 10 - The controversial TV movie Born Innocent, starring Linda Blair, was first screened on the NBC network in the United States. The film, which involved a fourteen-year-old being sent to what the television preview deemed a women's prison (when in reality it was a reform school), drew heavy criticism due to an all-female rape scene, the first ever seen on American television. The scene was deleted in subsequent re-airings after a group of girls assaulted an eight-year-old with a pop bottle, influenced by the scene in the film.