The last cigarette advertisement on television or radio were broadcast in the United States. A ban went into effect at midnight. The last commercial was a 60-second ad for Virginia Slims cigarettes, shown at 11:59 during a break on The Tonight Show. [1]
The Uniform Monday Holiday Act became law in the United States, changing the dates for Washington's Birthday (formerly February 22), Memorial Day, (formerly May 30), and Labor Day and making Columbus Day a federal holiday for the first time.
The International Investment Bank (IIB) began operations as a lending institution for members tates of the Soviet Union’s allies in Comecon, the Council for Mutual Economic Assistance.
No-fault insurance went into effect within the United States for the first time, as an innovation in Massachusetts. Under the scheme, now universal in the U.S., a person's own insurance would pay for the initial medical expenses and damages for lost work for an injured person up to a limit (initially $2,000 USD) and the carrier would then seek recovery from the insurance carrier of the driver at fault,
Project VOLAR (an abbreviation for Volunteer Army) began as an experiment at Fort Benning, Fort Carson, and Fort Ord to improve conditions within the United States Army in order to encourage soldiers to enlist into military service. The VOLAR project would lead to reforms marketed as “The New Army”.
American serial killer Charlie Brandt, suspected in the murder of eight victims, took his first life at the age of 13, shooting both parents and killing his pregnant mother.
The New York Daily Mirror, reviving the name of an unrelated daily paper that had ceased publishing in 1963, went on sale as a new tabloid published by Robert W. Farrell. The tabloid would last less than 14 months, ceasing entirely on February 28, 1972.
Carlos Camacho took office as the first elected Governor of Guam, after having been the last appointed governor of the U.S. territory.
Philadelphia’s “Black Mafia” gang committed the brutal robbery of the Dubrow Furniture store. Eight of its members entered the store at different times and then rounded up the employees after closing time and then began torturing them, shooting three people and setting fire to another. The inexplicably sadistic crime later was dramatized in the novel ‘’The Witness’’, by W.E.B. Griffin.
Former world heavyweight boxing champion Sonny Liston was found dead in his Las Vegas home, after having last been heard from a week earlier. A coroner determined that Liston had probably died on December 30 after falling while alone. The date was arrived at based on the number of newspapers and milk that had been delivered to his home but not picked up.
In one of the few instances of a referee dying during a professional sporting event, Andy Hershock collapsed during an American Basketball Association game between the New York Nets and the visiting Memphis Pros. The ABA later staged a doubleheader with two games as a fundraiser for the Hershock family.
A group of Canadian parents in Vancouver, who would be nicknamed the Militant Mothers of Raymur, began a successful campaign to stop the Canadian National Railroad from running its freight cars during the hours that about 400 children were walking to and from Admiral Seymour Elementary School in the Strathcona neighborhood.
The environmental organization Milieudefensie was founded in the Netherlands.
All nine crew were killed in the crash of a U.S. Air Force B-52 Stratofortress, the worst-ever domestic accident of an American B-52. The bomber was on a training mission when it plunged into Lake Michigan off of the coast of Charlevoix. Parts of the aircraft were found in waters at a depth of 225 feet (69 m) four months later, but no remains of any of the nine officers aboard were located.
The French Line cruise ship SS Antilles, which had carried passengers on Caribbean tours since 1953, was irreparably damaged after her captain sailed into a narrow, shallow and reef-filled strait at Lansecoy Bay in the Grenadines set of islands. Striking a reef north of the island of Mustique, SS Antilles caught fire. All of her passengers and crew were safely evacuated, but the ship could not be pulled free of the reef and was abandoned. It later broke in half and sank in the strait. Partially scrapped, the remains of the ship were towed to deeper waters and sunk.
The New Andy Griffith Show, a situation comedy unrelated the popular sitcom about the fictional town of Mayberry, premiered on CBS at 8:30 as comedian Andy Griffith's second attempt to reprise his earlier TV success. The new show appeared in the 8:30 Friday night time slot on CBS that had been filled the week before by Griffith's low-rated drama, Headmaster. After being "Andy Taylor" and "Andy Thompson", Griffith played the role of "Andy Sawyer", mayor of the fictional North Carolina city of "Greenwood". Despite guest appearances in the debut episode by Don Knotts and George Lindsey, viewership fell over the next few weeks and The New Andy Griffith Show was canceled after its 10th episode on March 12.
Voyageurs National Park, Minnesota's first and only national park, was created by legislation signed into law by U.S. President Richard Nixon to set aside the 218,200 acres or 341 square miles (880 km2) of land on the Kabetogama Peninsula. The park would open on April 8, 1975.
Tupamaros kidnapped Geoffrey Jackson, British ambassador to Uruguay, in Montevideo, keeping him captive until September.[8]
Masterpiece Theatre (now called Masterpiece), a drama anthology television series produced by WGBH Boston, premiered in the U.S. on the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS).[9] The initial offering was a BBC drama, The First Churchills, introduced by series host Alistair Cooke.
The landmark television sitcom All in the Family premiered on CBS at 9:30 in the evening, opposite the ABC and NBC made-for-TV movies. Based on the British television comedy series Till Death Us Do Part),[13], the TV series starred Carroll O'Connor as Archie Bunker, an openly-racist factory worker in Queens, with Jean Stapleton, Sally Struthers and Rob Reiner as his wife, daughter and son-in-law living in the same house. The show was also the first to be videotaped in front of a live audience, as opposed to being filmed with a laugh track added in editing. Though not highly-rated in its first season, the topical and controversial themes of the show drew notice and viewers tuned into the summer reruns of All in the Family. By the end of the 1971-72 season, it was the #1 most-watched show on American TV, with a 34.0 rating in its position at 8:00 on Saturday evening.
Jimmy Carter was inaugurated as the 76th Governor of Georgia at the age of 46. A relatively obscure Georgia state senator and operator of a peanut-growing business, Carter failed in a 1966 bid for the Democratic party nomination for Governor, but succeeded in 1970. [14]
In the U.S., Congress passed legislation to prohibit the transportation and storage of specific chemical weapons (including nerve gas, mustard gas and Agent Orange defoliant) within the 50 states, moving many of them to overseas U.S. territories including the Johnston Atoll.
The first classes were held for Criswell College, located in Dallas, with an enrollment of 329 students studying theology. The school, founded by Baptist pastor W.A. Criswell, was originally named Criswell Bible Institute. [15].
A C-7 Caribou aircraft, C-7B 62-12584, belonging to the U.S. 459th Tactical Airlift Squadron, 483d Tactical Airlift Wing, crashed in South Vietnam; all 4 crewmen survived the accident.
Seventy Brazilian political prisoners were released in Santiago, Chile. Giovanni Enrico Bucher was released January 16]].
Ten elderly residents were killed in a fire at the Westminster Terrace Presbyterian Home, nursing home in Louisville, Kentucky.
Born:Lasse Kjus, Norwegian alpine skier, 1994 Winter Olympics gold medalist and three time gold medalist the skiing world championships; in in Siggerud
The Beijing Subway, the first underground train line in the history of China, opened to the public, almost nine years ahead of the Hong Kong's Mass Transit Railway. The initial section, 10.7 kilometres (6.6 mi) long, operated between the main train station and Gongzhufen station, with eight stops in between.
Construction of the Cross Florida Barge Canal, intended to be an east-west ship canal across the Everglades of the U.S. state of Florida, was halted with the structure only one-third complete. First authorized in 1933, excavation had halted in 1936 but resumed in 1964 before the injunction was granted to prevent further destruction to the state's wetlands.. U.S. President Nixon signed an executive order four days later suspending the work permanently, after roughly $74,000,000 had already been spent.
Born:Regina King, American TV and film actress and three time Emmy Award winner and 2018 Academy Award winner for Best Supporting Actress; in Los Angeles
The Baltimore Colts defeated the Dallas Cowboys 16–13, with a field goal in the last five seconds of Super Bowl V in Miami. The game was the first NFL championship to be played on artificial turf, and the first after NFL and AFL had merged into a single league.
Novelist and nonfiction author Merle Miller became one of the first gay celebrities to "come out of the closet", publishing the article "What It Means to Be a Homosexual" in the New York Times Magazine section of the Sunday paper.
Born:
Kid Rock (stage name for Robert Ritchie), white American rapper, singer, songwriter and record producer; in Romeo, Michigan
Lil John (Stage name for Jonathan Smith), African-American rapper, DJ, songwriter and record producer; in Atlanta
Strikers in Poland demanded the resignation of Interior Minister Kazimierz Switala. Switala resigned January 23 and was replaced by Franciszek Szlachcic.
Regulations went into effect in Canada requiring AM radio stations to devote 30% of the songs played each day to recordings by Canadian artists. The rules promulgated by the governing Canadian Radio and Television Commission (CRTC) enabled Canadian singers, songwriters and bands to get more notice in North America.
U.S. Senator George McGovern of South Dakota became the first person to announce his candidacy for the 1972 presidential election, a year ahead of the 1972 Democratic Party primaries. McGovern's announcement was the earliest declaration by a candidate in modern times up to that point. He would win the nomination, but would lose in a landslide to Uthe Republican nominee, U.S. President Richard Nixon
Born:
Pep Guardiola, Spanish soccer football manager who coached teams to win the titles in Spain's La Liga (with Barcelona), Germany's Bundesliga (Bayern Munich) and England's Premier League (for Manchester City); 2011 FIFA World Coach of the Year; also a midfielder for the Spanish national team and then the Catalonian national team in international play; in Santpedor, Catalonia
The largest oil spill in the United States up to that time, with 800,000 US gallons (3,000,000 L; 670,000 imp gal) dumped into San Francisco Bay and the California coast, happened as two oil tanker ships collided. Both the Arizona Standard and the Oregon Standard were carrying shipments for the Standard Oil Company of California (now the Chevron Corporation). The spill, worst in the history of the Bay Area, also prompted the largest volunteer cleanup effort up to that time, with thousands of residents cleaning beaches and rescuing birds that had been soaked in oil.
Representatives of 23 western oil companies began negotiations with OPEC in Tehran to stabilize oil prices. The negotiations led to a treaty with six Persian Gulf countries, signed in February.
Died:Antonio Bacci, 85, Italian Roman Catholic Cardinal known for his opposition to removing Latin from the Mass, and for writing the Lexicon Eorum Vocabulorum Quae Difficilius Latine Redduntur, a dictionary for rendering modern terms in Latin.
U.S. Representative Carl Albert of Oklahoma was elected as the Speaker of the United States House of Representatives on the opening day of the 92nd Congress, succeeding Speaker John McCormack, who had retired upon the expiration of his term on January 3. After Albert was nominated by his Democratic colleagues as McCormack's successor, the vote went along party lines, with Democrat Albert receiving 250 votes and Republican U.S. Representative (and future U.S. President) Gerald Ford of Michigan receiving 176.
Died:
Leonard I. Schiff, 55, American physicist known for writing the influential book Quantum Mechanics
The lowest temperature in United States history up to that time, −80 °F (−62 °C), was recorded in Alaska, breaking the previous record set by Montana of −70 °F (−57 °C) set on January 20, 1954, before Alaska was a U.S. state.
In Guinea, Father Raymond-Marie Tchidimbo, the Roman Catholic Archbishop of Conakry, was sentenced to life imprisonment after being convicted of disloyalty to the government of President Sékou Touré. Tchidimbo, arrested as part of the Christmas Eve purge by Touré of personal enemies, would be imprisoned at Camp Boiro for almost nine years before being freed on August 7, 1979 as part of an agreement between the Vatican and Guinea.
The anti-rape movement in the United States, an effort to raise awareness of the problem and to reform police policy toward the victims, held its first major event as the New York Radical Feminists held the Speak-Out at St. Clement's Episcopal Church in New York.
The government of Guinea sentenced to death 92 Guineans who helped Portuguese troops in the failed landing attempts in November 1970. The first 50 were hanged the next day. Another 72 were sentenced to hard labor for life.
Minutes after the end of the first AFC-NFC Pro Bowl game for NFL all-stars, Oakland Raiders receiver Warren Wells was met by Los Angeles Police Department officers in the L.A. Coliseum locker room and placed under arrest. Wells, on probation after a 1969 conviction for aggravated assault, was picked up after violating the terms of his release by drinking in a bar during the 1970 NFL season. The arrest ended the football career of Wells.
Died: Martha Baird Rockefeller, 75, American concert pianist, widow of John D. Rockefeller, Jr. and philanthropist who endowed a large portion of a $48,000,000 inheritance to supporting the arts.
A coup d'état in Uganda, led by General Idi Amin Dada, toppled the government of President Milton Obote. General Amin had been commander in chief of the Ugandan Armed Forces until 1970, when President Obote appointed himself to the position and reduced Amin's responsibilities to commander in chief of the Ugandan Army. Amin learned that Obote was planning to have him arrested for embezzlement of Army funds, and organized the coup while Obote was out of the country attending the British Commonwealth summit in Singapore.
The murder trial of serial killer Charles Manson and three of his "Manson Family" followers ended with the jury returning guilty verdicts against all four. Manson, Patricia Krenwinkel and Susan Atkins were convicted of seven counts of first degree murder in the Tate–LaBianca murders of August 9 and 10, 1969, and Leslie Van Houten was found guilty of the five murders committed on August 9.
The day before it was to be "topped out" (the placement of the very last beam of a structure under construction) the planned 2000 Commonwealth Avenue luxury condominium building collapsed, destroying the 15-story building. The disaster happened as workers were pouring the concrete on the top floor of the building, located in the Brighton neighborhood of Boston. Despite the height of the building, only four construction workers were killed, all in the basement garage. Another 30 workers were injured. [17][18]
General Hermann Hoth, 85, Nazi German war criminal and officer known for carrying out the Commissar Order of 1941 to arrest execute of captured Soviet political operatives.
An Australia Day flash flood in the Canberra area killed seven people, including four children, injured another fifteen and affected 500 people altogether.[19]
Intelsat IV F-2, part of the eight geostationary communications satellites in the new Intelsat generation, was launched into orbit from Cape Kennedy. It entered commercial service over the Atlantic Ocean on March 26.
Born:Fann Wong (stage name for Fann Woon Fong), Singaporean film and TV actress and singer, multiple Star Awards winner; in Singapore
Died:
Jacobo Árbenz Guzmán, 57, former President of Guatemala who was overthrown in 1954 in a coup sponsored by the American CIA. Árbenz was found dead in his bathtub at his home in Mexico City, and observers have disagreed on whether the death was accidental, or by suicide or from a heart attack.
Alwatan made its debut as the first newspaper of the Sultanate of Oman, which had previously relied on Arabic-language publications from neighboring nations.
The strict "Comics Code" of the Comics Code Authority was revised for the first time since its promulgation in 1954, with the ease of restrictions on certain prohibitions. The revision allowed for depictions of horror fiction characters that had a background in classical literature, permitting "vampires, ghouls and werewolves... when handled in the classic tradition."
The Briley Brothers of Richmond, Virginia, serial killers who would terrorize the city in 1979, committed their first murder. Linwood Briley, 16 at the time, fired a rifle from his bedroom window, killing his next-door neighbor, Orline Christian, while she was putting laundry on a clothesline.
Samuel H. Gottscho, 95, American photographer who pioneered architectural photography and developed new approaches to pictures of landscapes and nature.
The UCLA Bruins college basketball team began a winning streak of 88 consecutive games, defeating UC-Santa Barbara 74-61, seven days after losing to the Fighting Irish of Notre Dame, 89-82. Ironically, Notre Dame would end the streak, defeating UCLA 71-70 on January 19, 1974.
Apollo 14, carrying astronauts Alan B. Shepard, Jr., Stuart Roosa, and Edgar Mitchell on the first manned lunar mission since the failure of Apollo 13, lifted off from Cape Kennedy at 4:03 p.m. local time (2103 UTC). Shepard, who had been the first American to travel into outer space, would become the oldest person to walk on the Moon on February 4.
^Pletcher, Larry (2017). "Sixteen-Story Rescue: Building Collapse in Brighton (1971)". Massachusetts Disasters: True Stories of Tragedy and Survival. With additional stories by David J. Krajicek. Guilford, Connecticut: Globe Pequot. pp. 176–183. ISBN978-1-4930-2876-4.
