1970 (original) (raw)
Centuries: 19th century - 20th century - 21st century
Decades: 1920s 1930s 1940s 1950s 1960s - 1970s - 1980s 1990s 2000s
Years: 1965 1966 1967 1968 1969 - 1970 - 1971 1972 1973 1974 1975
Events
- January 1 - Construction begins on Arcosanti, by Paolo Soleri, in Mayer, Arizona, located 65, miles north of Phoenix, Arizona.
- January 1 - Unix epoch begins at 00:00:00 UTC.
- January 12 - Biafra capitulates, ending the Nigerian civil war.
- January 15 - After a 32-month fight for independence from Nigeria, Biafra surrenders.
- January 15 - Muammar al-Qaddafi is proclaimed premier of Libya
- January 16 - Buckminster Fuller receives the Gold Medal award from the American Institute of Architects.
- February 11 - John Lennon pays �1,344 in fines for 96 people who had protested against the South African rugby team playing in Scotland.
- February 11 - Japan becomes the fourth country to launch a satellite into orbit.
- February 18 - The Chicago Eight are found not guilty of conspiring to incite riots at the 1968 United States Democratic Party national convention.
- February 26 - National Public Radio incorporates as a non-profit corporation
- March 1 - Rhodesia severs its last tie with the British crown and declares itself a racially segregated republic.
- March 5 - A nuclear non-proliferation treaty goes into effect after ratification by 43 nations.
- March 17 - My Lai massacre: The United States Army charges 14 officers with suppressing information related to the incident.
- March 18 - Lon Nol ousts Prince Norodom Sihanouk of Cambodia
- March 23 - Del Lord, pioneer Hollywood director
- March 31 - Explorer I reentry (after 12 years in orbit)
- April 1 - President Richard Nixon signs the Public Health Cigarette Smoking Act into law banning cigarette television advertisements in the United States starting on January 1, 1971.
- April 11 - Apollo 13 ill-fated space mission launched
- April 17 - Apollo 13 returns safely to earth
- April 22 - First Earth Day celebrated
- April 29 - U.S. invades Cambodia to hunt out Viet Cong
- May 4 Four students at Kent State University in Ohio are killed by National Guardsmensmen at a demonstration protesting incursion into Cambodia.
- May 6 - Charles Haughey and Neil Blaney are dismissed as members of the Irish Government due to accusations of their involvement in a plot to import arms for use in Northern Ireland.
- May 17 - Thor Heyerdahl sets sail from Morocco on the papyrus boat Ra II to sail the Atlantic Ocean.
- May 26 - The Soviet Tupolev Tu-144 becomes the first commercial transport to exceed Mach 2.
- May 31 - Avalanche on Nevado Huascar�n in destroys town of Yungay, Peru
- June 24 - The United States Senate repeals the Gulf of Tonkin resolution.
- July 21 - - Aswan High Dam in Egypt completed.
- August 17 - Venera program: Venera 7 is launched. It will later becomes the first spacecraft to successfully transmit data from another planet.
- September 5 - Vietnam War: Operation Jefferson Glenn begins - The United States 101st Airborne Division and the South Vietnamese 1st Infantry Division initiate a new operation in Thua Thien Province (operation ends in October 1971).
- September 11 - The Ford Pinto is introduced
- September 13 - First running of the New York City Marathon
- October - the Front de Libération du Québec (FLQ) kidnap James Cross and murder Pierre Laporte, provoking Quebec's October Crisis
- October 8 - Vietnam War: In Paris, a Communist delegation rejects US President Richard Nixon's October 7 peace proposal as "a maneuver to deceive world opinion."
- October 9 - The Khmer Republic is proclaimed in Cambodia.
- October 10 - Fiji becomes independent.
- October 10 - October Crisis: In Montreal, Quebec, a national crisis hits Canada when Quebec Vice-Premier and Minister of Labour Pierre Laporte becomes the second statesman kidnapped by members of the FLQ terrorist group.
- October 12 - Vietnam War: US President Richard Nixon announces that the United States will withdraw 40,000 more troops before Christmas.
- October 15 - 35 construction workers are killed when a section of the new West Gate Bridge in Melbourne collapses into the river below.
- October 17 - Anwar Sadat becomes president of Egypt
- October 30 - In Vietnam, the worst monsoon to hit the area in six years causes large floods, kills 293, leaves 200,000 homeless and virtually halts the Vietnam War.
- November 4 - Vietnam War: Vietnamization - The United States turns control of the air base in the Mekong Delta to South Vietnam.
- November 5 - Vietnam War: United States Military Assistance Command in Vietnam reports the lowest weekly American soldier death toll in five years (24 soldiers died that week, which was the fifth consecutive week the death toll was below 50 ; 431 were reported wounded that week, however).
- November 9 - Vietnam War: The Supreme Court of the United States votes 6 to 3 to not hear a case by the state of Massachusetts asking to allow the state the ability to enforce its law granting Massachusetts residents the right to refuse military service in an undeclared war.
- November 10 - Vietnam War: Vietnamization - For the first time in five years, an entire week ended with no reports of American combat fatalities in Southeast Asia.
- November 13 - A 100-mph tropical cyclone hits the densely populated Ganges Delta region of East Pakistan (now Bangladesh)s, killing an estimated 500,000 people (this is regarded as the 20th century's worst cyclone disaster).
- November 17 - Vietnam War: Lieutenant William Calley goes on trial for the My Lai massacre.
- November 17 - Luna program: The Soviet Union lands Lunokhod 1 on Mare Imbrium (Sea of Rains) on the Moon. This is the first roving remote-controlled robot to land on another world and was released by the orbiting Luna 17 spacecraft.
- November 18 - US President Richard Nixon asks the United States Congress for US$155 million in supplemental aid for the Cambodian government (US$85 million was for military assistance in order to help prevent the overthrow of the government of Premier Lon Nol by the Khmer Rouge and North Vietnam).
- November 21 - Vietnam War: Operation Ivory Coast - A joint Air Force and Army team raids the Son Tay prison camp in an attempt to free American POWss thought to be held there (there were zero Americans killed, but the prisoners had already moved to another camp; All US POWs were moved to a handful of central prison complexes as a result of this raid).
- November 25 - In Japan, world-famous author Yukio Mishima commits ritualistic suicide after failing to sway public opinion toward his extreme political beliefs.
- December 2 - The United States Environmental Protection Agency begins operations.
- December 3 - October Crisis: In Montreal, Quebec, kidnapped British Trade Commissioner James Cross is released by the Front de Lib�ration du Qu�bec terrorist group after being held hostage for 60 days. Police negotiate his release and in return the Government of Canada grants five terrorists from the FLQ's Chenier Cell their request for safe passage to Cuba.
Year in topic
- 1970 in film
- 1970 in literature
- Deliverance by James Dickey (in 2001, named as one of the 100 best English-language novels of the 20th century, as chosen by the editorial board of the Modern Library.)
- I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou
- 1970 in music
- 1970 in sports
- 1970 in television
- January 5 - Soap opera: All My Children premieres.
Births
- January 13 - Keith Coogan, actor
- January 31 - Minnie Driver, actress
- March 18 - Queen Latifah, rapper, record producer, actress
- March 27 - Mariah Carey, singer
- March 28 - Vince Vaughn, actor, writer, producer
- March 30 - Secretariat, 1973 Triple Crown winner, two-time Horse of the Year (+ 1989)
- April 4 - Barry Pepper, actor
- April 13 - Rick Schroeder, actor
- April 29 - Andre Agassi, professional tennis star
- April 29 - Uma Thurman, actress
- May 12 - Mike Weir, Canadian professional golfer
- May 16 - Gabriela Sabatini, tennis player
- May 18 - Tina Fey, writer, comedienne, actress
- May 22 - Naomi Campbell, model, actress
- May 24 - Jeff Zgonina, football player
- May 24 - Tommy Page, singer
- May 27 - Joseph Fiennes, actor
- June 26 - Chris O'Donell, actor
- July 8 - Beck, rock and roll singer
- July 24 - Jennifer Lopez, actress, singer
- August 6 - M. Night Shyamalan, film director, writer, producer, actor
- August 13 - Alan Shearer, England and Newcastle soccer player
- August 18 - Malcolm-Jamal Warner, actor
- August 23 - Jay Mohr, actor, comedian
- August 25 - Claudia Schiffer, model
- August 31 - Debbie Gibson, singer
- September 4 - Daisy Dee, singer, actress
- September 9 - Macy Gray, singer
- September 23 - Ani DiFranco, musician
- September 28 - Isabelle Brasseur, figure skating champion
- October 2 - Kelly Ripa, actress, television host
- October 8 - Matt Damon, actor
- October 9 - Annika S�renstam, Swedish golfer
- October 15 - Eric Benet, singer
- November 5 - Jen Besemer, surrealist poet and painter
Deaths
- January 5 - Max Born, physicist and recipient of the Nobel Prize in physics 1954
- January 5 - Jock Yablonski, President of the United Mine Workers, death discovered of he and family)
- January 10 - Pavel Belyayev, cosmonaut
- January 25 - Jane Bathori, opera singer
- January 31 - Slim Harpo, blues singer
- February 2 - Bertrand Russell, logician and philosopher
- February 11 - Emil Abranyi, composer
- February 25 - Mark Rothko, painter
- March 11 - Erle Stanley Gardner, author
- March 16 - Tammi Terrell, singer
- March 23 - Del Lord, pioneer Hollywood director
- March 30 - Heinrich Br�ning, German Reichskanzler 1930-1932
- April 5 - Alfred Henry Sturtevant geneticist (+ 1891)
- April 26 - Gypsy Rose Lee, actress
- April 26 - John Knittel, dramatist
- April 27 - Gypsy Rose Lee, burlesque entertainer
- April 30 - Inger Stevens, actress
- May 6 - George Rivas, ringleader of the Texas 7
- May 9 - Walter Reuther, labor union leader
- May 14 - Billie Burke, actress, The Wizard of Oz
- May 12 - Nelly Sachs, writer and recipient of the Nobel Prize in Literature 1966
- May 31 - Terry Sawchuk, Hockey Hall of Fame goaltender
- June 8 - Abraham Maslow, psychologist
- June 16 - Brian Piccolo, American football star
- June 21 - Sukarno, Indonesian President
- July 4 - Barnett Newman, painter
- July 19 - Egon Eiermann, architect
- July 22 - Fritz Kortner, director
- July 22 - Grete Wiesenthal, dancer and choreographer
- July 29 - John Barbirolli, conductor
- August 1 - Frances Farmer, actress
- August 19 - Paweł Jasienica, Polish historian (* 1909)
- September 1 - Francois Mauriac, author
- September 3 - Vince Lombardi, American football coach
- September 5 - Jochen Rindt, Austrian racing driver
- September 11 - Ernst May, architect
- September 18 - Jimi Hendrix, rock musician
- September 25 - Erich Maria Remarque, author
- September 28 - Gamal Abdal Nasser, first president of Egypt
- September 28 - John Dos Passos, novelist
- September 29 - Edward Everett Horton, actor
- October 4 - Janis Joplin, blues and rock and roll singer
- October 10 - Grethe Weiser, actress
- October 17 - Pierre Laporte, statesman, murdered by FLQ terrorists
- October 24 - Richard Hofstadter, historian
- November 9 - Charles de Gaulle, French general, statesman
- December 7 - Rube Goldberg, cartoonist
Nobel Prizes
- Physics - Hannes Olof G�sta Alfv�n, Louis Eug�ne F�lix N�el
- Chemistry - Luis F Leloir
- Medicine - Sir Bernard Katz, Ulf von Euler, Julius Axelrod
- Literature - Aleksandr Isaevich Solzhenitsyn
- Peace - Norman E. Borlaug
- Economics - Paul Samuelson