Explore 1298 historical events from 1970–1979.
Amedeo "Amédée" Gordini was an Italian-born race car driver and sports car manufacturer in France.
Amédée Gordini, Italian-born French racing driver and sports car manufacturer (born 1899)
Asa Philip Randolph was an American railwayman, trade unionist and civil rights activist. In 1925, he organized and led the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters, the first successfu…
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John Arthur Spenkelink was an American convicted murderer. He was executed in 1979, the first convicted criminal to be executed in Florida after capital punishment was reinstated i…
John Spenkelink, American murderer (born 1949)
George Brent was an Irish-American stage, film, and television actor. He is best remembered for the eleven films he made with Bette Davis, which included Jezebel and Dark Victory.
George Brent, Irish-American actor (born 1904)
Gladys Louise Smith, baptised as Gladys Marie Smith, known professionally as Mary Pickford, was a Canadian American film actress and producer. A pioneer in the American film indust…
Mary Pickford, Canadian-American actress, producer, and screenwriter, co-founder of United Artists (born 1892)
John Howland Wood Jr. was an American lawyer and judge from Texas. He served as a United States district judge of the United States District Court for the Western District of Texas…
John H
Werner Theodor Otto Forßmann was a German researcher and physician from Germany who shared the 1956 Nobel Prize in Medicine for developing a procedure that allowed cardiac catheter…
Werner Forssmann, German physician and academic, Nobel Prize laureate (born 1904)
Dana Scott James Hutton was an American actor in film and television best remembered for his role as Ellery Queen in the 1970s TV series of the same name, and his screen partnershi…
Jim Hutton, American actor (born 1934)
Clement Blair Peach was a New Zealand teacher who was killed during an anti-racism demonstration in Southall, London, England. A campaigner and activist against the far right, in A…
Blair Peach, a New Zealand teacher, was fatally injured while taking part in an Anti-Nazi League demonstration against a
Margaret Hilda Thatcher, Baroness Thatcher, was a British stateswoman who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1979 to 1990 and Leader of the Conservative Party from…
Margaret Thatcher became the first female prime minister of the United Kingdom
Iranian Jews constitute one of the oldest communities of the Jewish diaspora. Dating back to the biblical era, they originate from the Jews who arrived in Iran as Babylonian captiv…
Prominent Iranian Jew Habib Elghanian was executed after having been convicted by a revolutionary tribunal of various ch
Etan Kalil Patz was a six-year-old American boy who disappeared on May 25, 1979, on his way to his school bus stop in the SoHo neighborhood of Lower Manhattan. His disappearance he…
Six-year-old Etan Patz disappeared on his way to school in New York City, and later became one of the first missing chil
Chicago O'Hare International Airport is the primary international airport serving Chicago, Illinois, United States, located on the city's Northwest Side, approximately 17 miles (27…
During takeoff from O'Hare International Airport in Chicago, an engine detached from American Airlines Flight 191, causi
Awon'go Idi Amin Dada Oumee was a Ugandan military officer and politician who seized and held power as the third president of Uganda from 1971 until his overthrow in 1979. In 1971,…
Having invaded Uganda and deposed President Idi Amin, Tanzanian forces secured Uganda's western border, ending a seven-m
Jerry John Rawlings was a Ghanaian military officer, aviator, politician, and revolutionary who led the country briefly in 1979 and then from 1981 to 2001. He led a military regime…
Jerry Rawlings came to power in Ghana as chairman of the Armed Forces Revolutionary Council
The President of Afghanistan was constitutionally the head of state and head of government of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan and Commander-in-Chief of the Afghan Armed Forces.
The President of Afghanistan, Mohammad Daoud Khan, is overthrown and assassinated in a coup led by pro-communist rebels
Naomi Uemura was a Japanese adventurer who was known particularly for his solo exploits. For example, he was the first person to reach the North Pole solo, the first person to raf…
Japan's Naomi Uemura, travelling by dog sled, becomes the first person to reach the North Pole alone
Mount Everest is the highest mountain on Earth above sea level. It lies in the Mahalangur Himal sub-range of the Himalayas and marks part of the China–Nepal border at its summit. I…
The first ascent of Mount Everest without supplemental oxygen, by Reinhold Messner and Peter Habeler
Mir Akbar Khyber was an Afghan left-wing intellectual and a leader of the Parcham faction of People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan (PDPA). His assassination by an unidentified p…
Mir Akbar Khyber is assassinated, provoking the Saur Revolution in Afghanistan
John Daniel Ehrlichman was an American political aide who served as White House Counsel and Assistant to the President for Domestic Affairs under President Richard Nixon. Ehrlichma…
John Ehrlichman, a former aide to U
The Tupolev Tu-144 is a Soviet supersonic passenger airliner designed by Tupolev that operated commercially from 1975 to 1983, including 1977–1978 passenger service.
A Tupolev Tu-144 crashes near the Russian town of Yegoryevsk, killing two
Theodore John Kaczynski, also known as the Unabomber, was an American mathematician and domestic terrorist. A mathematics prodigy, he abandoned his academic career in 1969 to pursu…
The first of a series of bombings orchestrated by the Unabomber detonates at Northwestern University resulting in minor
The Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT) is an international patent law treaty, concluded in 1970. It provides a unified procedure for filing patent applications to protect inventions i…
The first international applications under the Patent Cooperation Treaty are filed
The Saur Revolution, also known as the April Revolution or the April Coup, was a violent coup d'état and uprising staged on 27 and 28 April 1978 by the People's Democratic Party of…
The Saur Revolution begins in Afghanistan, ending the following morning with the murder of Afghan President Mohammed Dao