1971

1971
January

•Television and radio cigarette adverts came into action in the United States on 2nd January.

•On 3rd January the BBC Open University opened in the United Kingdom.

•Jorge Pacheco Areco, president of Uraguay, demanded emergency powers for 90 days due to kidnappings on 9thh January, he received them the next day.

•Television sitcom all in the Family debuted on CBS on 12th January.

• On 15th January, The Aswan High Dam officially opened in Egypt.

•Negotiations began on 19th January, representatives of 23 western oil companies with OPEC in Tehran to stabilise oil prices. They signed the treaty on 14th February with 6 Persian Gulf countries.
•92 Guineans are sentenced to death on 24th January, by the Guinean government, for helping Portuguese troops in the failed attempts in November 1970. 72 were sentenced to hard labour for life, 58 were hung the next day.
•Idi Amin deposes Milton Obote in a revolution, in Uganda and becomes president, on 25th January.
•Himachal Pradesh became the 18th Indian state on 25th January.
•On 31st January, Apollo 14 lifted off on the 3rd successful lunar landing mission.
February
•Rolls-Royce went bankrupt in Britain and was nationalised on 4th February.
•Apollo 14 landed on the moon on 5th February.
•31 people were left dead after an earthquake hit the city of Tuscania, Italy on 7th February.
•Women were given voting rights in Switzerland state elections, but not in all canton specific ones on 7th February.
•Nasdaq, stock market index debuted on 8th February.
•Apollo 14 returned to Earth after the 3rd manned Moon landing on 9th February.
•Also on 9th February, Satchel Paige became t he first Negro League player to become voted into the Baseball Hall of Fame.
•The Seabed Treaty was signed by, the US, UK, USSR and others, which outlawed nuclear weapons on the ocean floor on 11th February.
•50 raging tornadoes hit Mississippi, killing 74 people on 20th February.
•Evel Knievel set a world record by jumping 19 cars on 28th February.
March
•The British postal workers strike, led by UPW General Secretary Tom Jackson ended on 7th March after 47days of strikes.
•Joe Frazier defeated Muhammad Ali in boxing at Madison Square Garden on 8th March.
• A landslide at Chungar, Peru crashed into Lake Yanahuani, and killed 200 people on 18th March.
• Independence was declared in East Pakistan (Bangladesh) by local Awami League leader, Hannan Sarker on behalf of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, from Kalurghat Radio station in Chittagong on 26th March.
• The final episode of The Ed Sullivan Show was aired on 28th March.
April
• The UK lifted all restrictions on gold ownership on 1st April.
• Séverine sung Un banc, un arbre, une rue and won the Eurovision Song Contest on 3rd April for Monaco.
• Mount Etna, in Sicily erupted on 5th April.
• On 19th April the government of Bangladesh fled to India.
• Also on 19th April the Soviet Union launched Salyut 1.
• A 20 second earthquake in Bingöl, Turkey destroyed most of Bingöl and killed more than 1,000 people, leaving another 10,000 homeless on 22nd May.
• On 27th March, 6 armed passengers hijacked a Romanian passenger plane and forced it to fly to Vienna.
• Also on 27th May an artificially coloured diamond known as Deepdene was auctioned.
• Mariner 9, part of the Mariner program, was launched towards Mars on 30th May.
• On 31st May the birth of Bangladesh is declared by the exile, in territory formerly part of Pakistan.
June
• Soyuz 11 was launched as part of the Soyuz program on 6th June. However after a successful mission the crew of the Soyuz 11 spacecraft were killed, due to their air supplies leaking out, through a faulty valve.
• Also on 6th June. 50 lives were lost after a midair collision between Hughes Airwest Flight 706 Douglas DC-9 jetliner and a U.S. Marine Corps McDonnell Douglas F-4 Phantom jet fighter near Duarte, California.
• Norway began oil productions in the North Sea on 14th June.
• Low cost carrier, Southwest Airlines, began its first flight between Dallas, Houston and San Antonio on 18th June.
July
• Lead singer of The Doors, Jim Morrison, was found dead on 3rd July, in his bathtub in Paris, France.
• The 26th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which was formally certified by Richard Nixon, lowered the voting age from 21 to 18 on 5th July.
• On 9th July the U.K. increased their troops in Northern Ireland to 11,000.
• Gloria Steinem held her Address to the Women of America Speech on 10th July.
• A government was formed in Iceland by Ólafur Jóhannesson on 13th July.
• Jordanian army troops launch an offensive against Palestinian guerrillas in Jordan on 13th July.
• The South Tower of the World Trade Centre is topped out at 1,362 feet on 19th July. This made it the second tallest building in the world.
• Apollo 15 was launched on 26th July.
August
• On 6th August, a lunar eclipse that lasted 1 hour and 40 minutes was observed.
• Apollo 15 returned to Earth on 7th August.
• British troops were stationed on the Ireland border to stop arms smuggling on 14th August.
• Bahrain declared independence as the State of Bahrain on 14th August.
• The number of British troops in Northern Ireland was increased to 12,500 on 15th August.
• Also on 15t August, it was announced by Richard Nixon that the U.S. would no longer be converting dollars to gold at a fixed value. He also imposed a 90 day freeze on wage, prices and rents.
• Australia and New Zealand decided to withdraw their troops from Vietnam on 18th August.
• On 21st August, the first orca to be named “Shamu” died.
• There were border clashes on 25th August between Tanzania and Uganda.
• Greece introduced a civilian government on 26th August.
September
• Qatar gained its independence from the United Kingdom on 3rd September.
• Pakistan declared state of emergency on 21st September.
October
• Walt Disney World was opened on 1st October in Orlando, Florida.
• The Democratic Republic of the Congo was renamed Zaire on 27th October.
• The United Kingdom became the 6th nation to launch a satellite into orbit, the Prospero X-3, using a Black Arrow carrier rocket on 28th October.
• A fire in Cairo resulted in the Egyptian Opera House burning down on 28th October.
• A record low number of American troops (196,700) were still in Vietnam on 29th October. This was the lowest number since January 1966.
• A bomb exploded at the top of the Post Office Tower in London on 31st October.
November
• The UNIX Programmer’s Manual was published on 3rd November.
• Led Zeppelin released their Fourth Studio album "Led Zeppelin IV" on 8th November, which sold 23,000,000 copies.
• The Mariner 9 was the first spacecraft to enter Mars orbit successfully. It entered on 13th November.
• Pope Shenouda III of Alexandra was enthroned on 14th November.
• Intel released the world’s first microprocessor, the Intel 4004 on 15th November.
December
• Six Persian Gulf sheikdoms founded the United Arab Emirates on 2nd December.
• The Indo-Pakistan War of 1971 began on 3rd December. It began with Pakistan attacking 9 Indian airbases. The next day India launched a massive invasion of East Pakistan.
• The 34th government was formed on 11th December. The new government of Turkey was formed by Nihat Erim.
• The U.S. dollar was devalued for the second time in history on 18th December.
• Operations for the world’s largest hydroelectric plant began on 18th December, in Krasnoyarsk.
• Intelsat IV (F3) was launched on 19th December. It entered commercial service over the Atlantic Ocean on February 18, 1972.
• Giovanni Leone was elected President of the Italian Republic on 24th December.
• The United Kingdom gave up its military bases in Malta on 29th December.