August 1973

[August 1], 1973 (Wednesday)

• Sheriff T. J. Flournoy reluctantly led deputies in closing "Edna's Fashionable Ranch Boardinghouse", in La Grange, Texas, United States. The house of prostitution had operated since 1844, before the Republic of Texas was admitted as a U.S. state. Texas Governor Dolph Briscoe had informed Flournoy that, if the county did not close the bordello, the Texas Rangers would do so, despite a petition to Briscoe from La Grange businessmen, the local newspaper and some residents. Flournoy told reporters, "It's been there all my life and all my daddy's life and never caused anybody any trouble. Every large city in Texas has things 1,000 times worse." The story of the "Chicken Ranch" would become popularized in the ZZ Top song "La Grange" and dramatized in the 1978 musical and 1982 film The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas.
• The Caribbean Community and Common Market was inaugurated by the nations of Barbados, Guyana, Jamaica and Trinidad and Tobago.
• Milo Butler was sworn into office as the new Governor-General of the Bahamas, three weeks after the islands became independent; he was the first native Bahamian to hold the office.
• William E. Colby was confirmed as the new Director of the Central Intelligence Agency by the U.S. Senate, 83 to 13, after Colby's pledge to not use the CIA solely against foreign nations and not within U.S. borders.
• The U.S. extended South Vietnam a loan of $50,000,000 for the purchase of industrial machinery, spare parts and other manufactured products as part of postwar economic reconstruction. The agreement was made between U.S. Ambassador Graham Martin and South Vietnam's Foreign Minister, Nguyen Phu Duc. On the same day, the Soviet Union pledged economic aid to the Viet Cong for machinery, food, medicine, consumer goods, and "other materials necessary for normalizing the population's life."
• Died: Walter Ulbricht, 80, East German head of state who had served as the Chairman of the State Council since 1960, and had been the de facto leader of the Communist nation as First Secretary of the Socialist Unity Party of Germany from 1950 to 1971.

  [August 2], 1973 (Thursday)

• A flash fire killed 50 people at the Summerland amusement centre at Douglas, Isle of Man. The four-level building had 4,000 people inside at the time, where hundreds had been attending a rock concert, when a series of explosions went off and the fires began.
• Spiro Agnew, the Vice President of the United States, was notified by a federal prosecutor in Baltimore, George Beall, of a federal investigation, unrelated to the Watergate scandal, for possible violations of bribery, conspiracy and tax fraud arising from receipt of "kickbacks" from persons who benefited from his help. The Washington Post broke revealed on August 7 that Agnew was being accused of federal crimes.
• The nine-day Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting 1973 opened with the prime ministers of 32 British Commonwealth nations, hosted at Ottawa by Canadian Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau. On the first full day of business, the leaders vote, 31 to 0, to seek a total ban on atomic bomb testing. On August 9, the ministers voted unanimously in favor of black majority rule in Rhodesia.

  [August 3], 1973 (Friday)

• Four residents were killed and 12 injured when the former Grand Central Hotel in New York City collapsed. At the time of its 1870 opening, it was New York City's most elegant lodging and the largest hotel in the U.S., but had deteriorated more than a century later and was a residential apartment building, the University Hotel, at the time of the accident. The eight-story, 400-room building fell shortly after 5:00 in the afternoon. Most of the 308 persons registered as living at the building had escaped after rumbling began and plaster began falling, but 16 failed to heed warnings to get out.
• James Dreymala of Pasadena, Texas, age 13, became the final murder victim of serial killer Dean Corll. Dreymala had left his home on a bicycle and telephoned his parents to tell them that he was "staying at an all night party." His body was found in a boat shed in Houston, along with the bicycle, five days later.
• Born:
• *Stephen Graham, English character actor known for This Is England and its sequels; in Kirkby, Lancashire
• *Chris Murphy, American politician, U.S. Senator from Connecticut, in White Plains, New York

  [August 4], 1973 (Saturday)

• The Justicialist Party nominated former Argentine president Juan Perón and his wife Isabel Perón as candidates for President and Vice President of Argentina in advance of Argentina's presidential election scheduled for September 23. Mr. and Mrs. Peron accepted the nominations on August 18.
• The Pekan Olahraga Nasional Games opened in Djakarta, Indonesia.
• Died: Sam Katzman, 72, American producer known for his successful low budget films

  [August 5], 1973 (Sunday)

• The Soviet Union launched the Mars 6 probe from Baikonur Cosmodrome. The spacecraft would reach the planet Mars seven months later on March 12, 1974, releasing a lander which would return data for 224 seconds during its descent through the Martian atmosphere before crashing on the surface. Much of the data that was transmitted was unusable.
• The Black September terrorist group threw a hand grenade into a crowded passenger lounge at the airport in Athens and fired pistols, killing three people and injuring 55.
• In Iceland, at a farm near Dragháls, a group of Norse worshipers revived the tradition of the "blót" for the first time since the violent blood sacrifice had been outlawed in the year 1000. The group, the Ásatrúarfélagið held ceremonies in front of a plaster statue of the Norse god Thor.
• Born: Sean Sherk, American mixed martial arts competitor and UFC Lightweight champion 2006 to 2007; in St. Francis, Minnesota
• Died: Vander Broadway, 74, American female impersonator, high-wire performer and trapeze artist who was billed as "Barbette", took an overdose of painkillers to commit suicide.

  [August 6], 1973 (Monday)

• With 10 days left before the halt of U.S. bombing of Cambodia, a U.S. Air Force B-52 bomber mistakenly bombed a Cambodian Navy base at Neak Luong, killing more than 137 Cambodian servicemen and their families, and wounding 208.
• Skylab 3 astronaut Jack R. Lousma almost doubled the record for a space walk, spending 6 hours and 31 minutes outside of the Skylab space station above the Earth. Lousma had only expected to spend 3½ hours in deploying a sun shield but encountered difficulties in getting it set up. The previous record had been on June 7 when Charles Conrad Jr. of Skylab 1 and spent 3 hours and 23 minutes outside the space station.
• The Senate of Pakistan, with 45 members, met for the first time after a new constitution changed the unicameral Constituent Assembly to a bicameral parliament. Samia Usman Fatah took the oath of office as the first woman Senator in Pakistan.
• Musician Stevie Wonder and his friend, John Harris, were injured when their vehicle collided with a truck loaded with logs near Salisbury, North Carolina. Wonder was being driven to Durham, where he was scheduled to perform a concert at the Duke University arena. For four days, Wonder was in a coma caused by severe brain contusion.
• Born: Vera Farmiga, American TV, stage and film actress; in Clifton, New Jersey
• Died:
• *Fulgencio Batista, 72, former Cuban dictator overthrown by Fidel Castro at the end of 1958.
• *James Beck, 44, British television and film actor and comedian known for the role of Private Walker in the BBC sitcom Dad's Army, died suddenly from an attack of pancreatitis after making a public appearance.
• *Wilmoth Houdini, 77, Trinidadian-born U.S. calypso singer and recording artist

  [August 7], 1973 (Tuesday)

• A plea for help over citizens band radio, by a boy by the name of Larry purporting to be stranded inside an overturned truck with his dead father in New Mexico, sparked a search-and-rescue mission in Albuquerque, New Mexico. A massive search would be undertaken for five days before being called off on August 12 with no further calls after that, and the Federal Communications Commission would eventually conclude that the broadcast had been a hoax.
• Zhores Medvedev, a biologist exiled from the Soviet Union and living in London, had his Soviet citizenship revoked and was ordered to surrender his passport to the Soviet Embassy. The next day, TASS, the Communist government's news agency, said that Medvedev had been "fabricating, sending to the West and spreading slanderous materials discrediting the Soviet state and social system and the Soviet people."
• Hermine Braunsteiner became the first convicted Nazi war criminal in the U.S. to be extradited to West Germany for trial. She was found after Nazi hunter Simon Wiesenthal had learned that she was living in New York City as Mrs. Hermine Ryan.
• Died: José Villalonga, 53, coach and manager of the Spanish soccer football team

  [August 8], 1973 (Wednesday)

• Police in Houston, Texas, learned for the first time of the murders committed by serial killer Dean Corll, after Corll's accomplice, Elmer Wayne Henley, led them to a shallow grave and told them that he had shot and killed Corll. In excavating the spot at a boat storage yard, excavations found the bodies of eight people, including those of three teenagers who had been missing. In the days that followed, more human remains would be found. Henley, 17, and another accomplice, David Owen Brooks, 18, were indicted by a grand jury for murder six days later, on August 14.
• South Korean politician Kim Dae-jung, who had run against President Park Chung Hee in the 1971 South Korean presidential election and later fled to Japan, was kidnapped at gunpoint from the Hotel Grand Palace in Tokyo by the Korean Central Intelligence Agency. Kim had just left a luncheon meeting the leader of the opposition Democratic Unification Party, Yong Il Dong, and another party official, Kim Kyung. As he walked into the hallway, Kim Dae-jung was surrounded by five men, who forced him into a hotel room, then drugged him and took him down to the hotel's parking garage. After being beaten up during five days during interrogations, Kim was released at his home five days later.
• Born: Scott Stapp, American singer and lead vocalist for the rock band Creed; in Orlando, Florida
• Died:George Wiley, 42, U.S. civil rights leader and founder of the National Welfare Rights Organization, was killed when he fell from his boat into Chesapeake Bay off of the coast of Dares Beach, Maryland.