1970: Kent State, Earth Day, Apollo 13, Beatles BreakupBy Patrick Mondout
The year 1970 is remembered for the escalation of the Vietnam war, the tragedy
at Kent State, the breakup
of the Beatles, the deaths of Jimi
Hendrix and Janis
Joplin, the near-tragedy of Apollo
13, several terrorist
hijackings, and the deaths of Egyptian President Nasser and France's Charles
de Gaulle.
January 11: In the last game played between the
rival leagues, the Kansas City Chiefs upset the Minnesota Vikings 23-7 in
Super Bowl IV.
January 14: The U.S. Supreme Court rules six
southern states must integrate by February 1 in a school segregation case.
January 19: G. Harold Carswell is nominated to
the Supreme Court by President Nixon (see April 8).
January 22: The Boeing
747 begins commercial
service with a Pan Am
flight from New York to London.
February 16: Joe Frazier knocks out Jimmy Ellis
in the 5th round to win boxing's heavyweight championship.
February 18: The "Chicago Seven" are
acquitted on charges of plotting to incite riots.
February 19: Denny McLain of the Detroit Tigers
is suspended from baseball for alleged ties to gambling interests.
March 1: The Republic of Rhodesia formally
declares its independence from Britain.
March 3: A mob of angry white residents in
Lamar, South Carolina, attack three buses carrying black schoolchildren to
a desegregated school.
March 15: Expo '70 opens in Osaka Japan and is
attended by more than a quarter million on opening day.
March 26: Postal workers in New York City return
to work after an eight day strike which affected the entire country.
April 1: The Public Health Cigarette Smoking
Act, passed earlier by both the House and the Senate, is signed into law
by President Nixon. All cigarette and TV and radio advertising will cease
on January 1, 1971.
April 8: The Senate rejects Nixon Supreme Court
nominee G. Harold Carswell (see May 12).
April 13: Apollo
13 mission abandoned after minor explosion and power failure.
April 16: Second round of SALT talks between the
U.S. and the U.S.S.R. commence in Vienna, Austria.
April 17: Apollo
13 lands safely in the Pacific Ocean.
April 22: The first-ever Earth
Day is celebrated.
April 25: The Chinese officially join the space
race by placing their first satellite in orbit.
April 30: President Nixon announces U.S. troop
movements into Cambodia.
May 2: Dust Commander wins the 96th running of
the Kentucky Derby.
May 4: Four
students are killed by Ohio National Guardsmen during a war protest on
the campus of Kent State University.
May 12: The Senate unanimously approves Nixon's
second nominee for the Supreme Court, Harry A. Blackmun of Minnesota.
May 14: Mirroring the violence on May 4, two
black students are shot to death by police during unrest at Jackson State
in Mississippi.
May 15: The IOC officially bans South Africa
from all Olympic events.
May 27: The Dow-Jones industrial average rises a
whopping 32.04 points ending a nearly two-week slide in the largest-ever
one day point gain.
May 30: The 54th Indianapolis 500 is won by Al
Unser.
May 31: A powerful
earthquake strikes Peru leaving an estimated 700,000 homeless and
67,000 dead.
May 31: The Canadian government announces that
it will allow its dollar to float freely in the world market after eight
years of tying it at $.925 to the U.S. dollar.
June 2: Researchers at the University of
Wisconsin announce the first complete synthesis of a gene.
June 4: Tonga proclaims its independence from
Britain.
June 6: Elliot
Richardson is nominated by President Nixon to be Secretary of Health,
Education, and Welfare to replace Robert Finch, who is appointed to the
White House staff.
June 7: A constitutional amendment which would
have resulted in the deportation of at least 300,000 foreign workers was
rejected by Swiss voters.
June 8: A military coup in Argentina is
successful as President Juan Carlos Ongania is deposed.
June 10: President Nixon nominates James Hodgson
to succeed George Shultz as Secretary of Labor after Shultz is named
director of the new Office of Management and Budget (OMB).
June 16: Kenneth Gibson becomes the first black
mayor of a major Eastern Seaboard city.
June 19: Labour's upset loss in the general
election results in British Conservative party leader Edward Heath
replacing Harold Wilson as prime minister.
June 22: A new law giving 18-year-olds the right
to vote in federal elections is signed into law by President Nixon.
June 25: Syrian and Israeli forces fight over
the Golan Heights in the biggest battle since the 1967 war.
June 29: The movement of the last U.S. ground
troops out of Cambodia is announced by the army.
June 30: President Nixon's veto of a $2.7B
hospital construction aid bill is overridden by Congress.
July 31: The Israeli government agrees to a U.S.
plan for a cease-fire and talks in the Middle East.
August 2: A Pan Am 747 with 379 passengers
aboard is hijacked to Cuba while en route to San Juan, Puerto Rico, from
New York.
August 3: The military announces the first
successful underwater firing of a Poseidon missile.
August 4: Hurricane Celia hits Texas near Corpus
Christi killing 31.
August 18: Environmentalists are outraged when
the the navy intentionally scuttles the U.S. Liberty 250 miles of
Cape Kennedy with containers filled with nerve gas on board.
September 4: Soviet ballerina Natalia Makarova
receives political asylum in Britain.
September 6: Four passenger jets bound for New
York are hijacked by Arab terrorists. Three of the four land in the Middle
East while the fourth lands in London.
September 15: The UAW (United Automobile
Workers) announces a strike against GM involving over 340,000 workers.
September 18: Israeli Premier Golda Meir meets
with President Nixon in Washington.
September 18: Rock
guitarist Jimi Hendrix dies at age 27.
September 28: President Nasser of Egypt dies of
a heart attack at age 52. Anwar Sadat is named interim ruler.
September 28: The U.S. retains the America's Cup
as the Intrepid defeats Australian yacht Gretel II 4-1.
October 4: Rock
singer Janis Joplin dies at age 27.
October 8: Alexander Solzhenitsyn wins the Nobel
Prize for literature.
October 10: Fiji declares its independence from
Britain ending nearly 100 years of colonial rule.
October 12: President Nixon announces that
40,000 troops are to be withdrawn from Vietnam by Christmas.
October 15: The Baltimore Orioles win the World
Series by defeating the Cincinnati Reds 9-3 in game five.
October 18: The Canadian government invokes
emergency wartime powers in response to actions by the FLQ, a Quebec
extremist group . Hours later, Quebec Labor Minister Pierre Laporte, who
had been kidnapped by the FLQ, is found dead near Montreal.
October 27: Romanian President Nicolae Ceausescu
ends his two week U.S. visit.
November 1: A fire in a night club near Grenoble,
France, kills 145 who are trapped behind locked doors.
November 2: SALT talks between the U.S. and
Soviet Union resume in Helsinki, Finland.
November 3: The Democrats retain control of
Congress and gain a few governorships in mid-term elections.
November 9: Former President
Charles de Gaulle of France dies of a heart attack at age 79.
November 12: State University of New York
biologists announce the first artificial synthesis of a living cell.
November 13: A cyclone and tidal waves along the
coast of Bangladesh leaves an estimated 300,000 dead and three million
homeless.
November 15: Country-wide elections are held in
Brazil for the first time since 1966.
November 25: Japanese author and self-styled
militia leader Yukio Mishima commits hara kiri shortly after he and
his "army" had seized a self-defense headquarters in Tokyo.
November 26: Pope Paul VI narrowly escapes an
assassination attempt by a Bolivian artist wielding a knife.
December 1: The Italian Parliament approves the
nation's first divorce law.
December 3: The FLQ (see October 18) releases
British Trade Commissioner James Cross in exchange for allowing three
captured kidnappers passage to Cuba.
December 11: President Nixon announces George
Bush will succeed Charles Yost as the U.S. delegate to the United Nations.
December 20: A fire in a Tucson, Arizona, hotel
leaves 28 dead and 27 injured.
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