August 1971

[August 1], 1971 (Sunday)

• In New York City, 40,000 people attended the Concert for Bangladesh, a pair of fundraising concerts organized by former Beatle George Harrison and Indian sitar player Ravi Shankar in order to raise money for UNICEF to provide humanitarian relief to refugees of Bangladesh. Other musical performers for the concerts at New York's Madison Square Garden were Ringo Starr, Bob Dylan, Eric Clapton, Billy Preston, Leon Russell and the band Badfinger.
• The Sonny & Cher Comedy Hour, starring husband-and-wife singing duo Sonny & Cher, premiered as a summer replacement series on the CBS network, to run for six consecutive summer nights. The variety show was popular enough that it would be added to the CBS regular schedule in December.
• The Fallen Astronaut sculpture and plaque, honoring American astronauts and Soviet cosmonauts who had been killed, was placed on the surface of the Moon by the Apollo 15 astronauts. Mission commander Dave Scott disclosed on August 12, after the return of Apollo 15, that "In a small subtle crater, there is a simple plaque with 14 names — the names of all the astronauts and cosmonauts who have died in the pursuit of exploration of space." He added that the plaque had been left in a small crater north of the Rover lunar car that was left on the Moon.
• The archivists of the yet-to-be-built John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum announced that it was making available almost all of the late President Kennedy's White House files, consisting of 3.3 million pages of documents at the Federal Records Center in Waltham, Massachusetts, and covering the period of Kennedy's presidency from January 20, 1961, to November 22, 1963. The only exception was papers still classified as secret.
• The German Grand Prix at the Nürburgring was won by Jackie Stewart.
• The Nullity of Marriage Act 1971 came into effect in the United Kingdom and provided three different bases for annulment of a marriage that had been approved in a marriage ceremony.

  [August 2], 1971 (Monday)

• Hours before Apollo 15's lunar module Falcon lifted off from the Moon, U.S. astronaut David Scott gave a demonstration of Galileo Galilei's 1589 discovery regarding free fall, specifically that "in the absence of air resistance, all objects experience the same acceleration due to gravity". During a telecast back to Earth, Scott released a hammer and a feather simultaneously to show that both would fall at the same rate and strike the ground at the same time. The lunar module lifted off with astronauts Scott and Irwin at 17:11 GMT, docked with the lunar orbiter two hours later at 19:10.
• By a margin of one vote, the U.S. Senate approved legislation for the government to guarantee one quarter of a billion dollars in bank loans to the financially ailing Lockheed Aircraft Corporation, three days after the House of Representatives had approved the measure by only three votes. The vote in the Senate was 49 to 48 in favor, and the vote in the House on July 30 had been 192 to 189. The bill was then sent on to U.S. President Richard M. Nixon, who had advocated the $250,000,000 rescue of Lockheed, for his signature.
• U.S. Secretary of State William P. Rogers announced that the United States would support the entry of the People's Republic of China as a member of the United Nations, reversing a policy of almost 22 years of opposing representation by China's Communist government in the UN. Rogers declared that the U.S. would oppose the expulsion from the UN of the Republic of China, based on the island of Taiwan, which had claimed to represent the interests of the world's most populous nation even after being forced to abandon the mainland.
• Born: Ruth Lawrence, English child prodigy who graduated Oxford University at the age of 13 and became a mathematician; in Brighton
• Died: W. O. Bentley, 82, English car designer who founded Bentley Motors Ltd.

  [August 3], 1971 (Tuesday)

• BOAC Flight 600, a Boeing 747 flying from Montreal to London, was diverted to Denver, Colorado, because of a bomb hoax inspired by the recent showing on TV of a 1966 film, The Doomsday Flight, and perhaps by a similar hoax involving Qantas Flight 755 on May 26. The aircraft, with 361 passengers and 22 crew, travelled out of its way to land in Denver, because the extortionist claimed that the bomb would be triggered if the altimeter fell below. Denver's Stapleton International Airport was built at an elevation of, a plot point in the film, which had been shown on July 24 on Montreal's CFCF-TV station.
• Died:
• *Georgy Babakin, 56, Russian space engineer;
• *Yanka Maur, 88, Belarusian writer

  [August 4], 1971 (Wednesday)

• Morocco's King Hassan II announced the firing of his entire cabinet of advisors and the abolition of the office of Director General of the Royal Cabinet, higher in rank than the Prime Minister. Director General Driss Slaoui, Prime Minister Ahmed Laraki and Interior Minister Mohammed Oufkir were all fired, less than a month after the attempted coup d'état against King Hassan.
• Apollo 15 and its three astronauts left lunar orbit after having spent additional time, following the end of the crewed landing on the lunar surface, to make detailed photographs of the Moon from orbit.
• Born: Jeff Gordon, U.S. NASCAR driver and four-time NASCAR Cup Series champion ; in Vallejo, California

  [August 5], 1971 (Thursday)

• The DC-10 jumbo jet went into commercial service, starting with an American Airlines flight from Los Angeles to Chicago.
• The Industrial Relations Act 1971 was given royal assent and became law in the United Kingdom, creating a process similar to the U.S. National Labor Relations Act of 1935 that created a National Industrial Relations Court. The new Court was empowered to order a "cooling off period" for strikes and to require secret balloting on the continuation or ending of a strike.
• The 1971 Draft Lottery for the Vietnam War was held in the United States. The first 1952 birthday to be selected for priority on the draft was for 18-year-old men who had been born on December 4, 1952.
• Born: Sally Nugent, English journalist, on the Wirral Peninsula
• Died: Jorge Antonio Ibañez, 17, Argentine rapist and murderer who was the accomplice of Carlos Robledo Puch on his first four serial killings, was killed in a car accident in Buenos Aires. Robledo, who had been driving, escaped uninjured and fled the scene.

  [August 6], 1971 (Friday)

• Chay Blyth, a Scottish yachtsman who was nicknamed "Wrong Way Chay" by the British press, completed his trip around the world, becoming the first person to make a "solo nonstop sea voyage in a westerly direction", sailing against, rather than in the same direction as, the wind and prevailing sea currents. On his ketch, British Steel, Blyth had departed the Royal Southern Yacht Club center on October 18, 1970, 292 days earlier, and was greeted by UK prime minister Edward Heath on his return, along with Prince Philip, Prince Charles and Princess Anne.
• A total lunar eclipse lasting 1 hour and 40 minutes was observed over Africa and Asia, rising over South America, and setting over Australia.

  [August 7], 1971 (Saturday)

• The South Africa national rugby union team finished their tour of Australia with an 18–6 win in their test match against the Wallabies at the Sydney Cricket Ground. The close of the Springboks' tour was frequently interrupted by anti-apartheid protesters.
• Apollo 15 returned to Earth. On re-entry, one of the capsule's three main parachutes was found to have deflated; but the safety of astronauts David Scott, James Irwin and Alfred Worden was not compromised. The splashdown point was north of Honolulu.
• The astronauts brought back with them 400 stamped envelopes to be sold to stamp collectors by Herman Sieger of West Germany, based on an increased value for having been taken to the Moon.
• Died:
• *Joseph W. Frazer, 79, U.S. auto manufacturer and co-founder of the Kaiser-Frazer Automobile Company
• *Henry D. "Homer" Haynes, 51, American country musician and comedian who was half of the Homer and Jethro duo, from a heart attack

  [August 8], 1971 (Sunday)

• The KGB attempted to poison dissident Soviet author Alexander Solzhenitsyn by putting an unidentified chemical agent on candy that Solzhenitsyn was purchasing at a department store in Novocherkassk, an event later referred to by KGB Colonel Boris Ivanov. Solzhenitsyn was ill for several months but survived the poisoning attempt.
• Elections were held in the Islamic Republic of Mauritania in North Africa. President Moktar Ould Daddah and the candidates of his Mauritanian People's Party, the only legal political party, were unopposed.
• Born: Naoko Kumagai, Japanese kickboxer and 3-time women's world champion of the World Kickboxing Association; in Yamanashi

  [August 9], 1971 (Monday)

• The government of Northern Ireland, led by Prime Minister Brian Faulkner, began an ultimately unsuccessful policy of preventive detention of suspected terrorists, implementing the "Special Powers Act". In a two-day operation, Operation Demetrius, British security forces arrested 337 Northern Irish nationalists on suspicion of affiliation with the Irish Republican Army terrorist organization and detained them without trial in Long Kesh prison. About 70 of the 337 were released soon after the roundup, and after five weeks, Faulkner signed internment orders for 219 of the suspects, directing that they be held indefinitely in prison. The policy would continue until December 5, 1975, during which 1,981 people would be arrested and detained in prison without trial, of whom 94.6% were Roman Catholic.
• India and the Soviet Union signed a "Treaty of Friendship and Nonagression" on the day that Soviet Premier Alexei Kosygin arrived in New Delhi, with both nations agreeing to support each other if either was the target of military aggression. Minister for External Affairs, Swaran Singh, signed on behalf of India, after which Kosygin met with India's prime minister Indira Gandhi.
• Died: Otto Wagener, 83, German general and former economic advisor to Adolf Hitler