August 1974

[August 1], 1974 (Thursday)

• As part of the reforms of the "Metapolitefsi", the new civilian government of Greece restored the 1952 Constitution, which had been in effect prior to the April 1967 coup d'état. The government temporarily suspended constitutional provisions relating to the monarchy, pending the country's decision on whether to recall King Constantine.
• White House Chief of Staff Alexander Haig came to the home of U.S. vice president Gerald Ford at 514 Crown View Drive in Alexandria, Virginia, and told him to prepare to assume the presidency. Ford would write later in his 1979 memoir, A Time to Heal, "Al Haig asked to come over and see me, to tell me that there would be a new tape released on a Monday, and he said the evidence in there was devastating and there would probably be either an impeachment or a resignation. And he said, 'I'm just warning you that you've got to be prepared, that things might change dramatically and you could become President.' And I said, 'Betty, I don't think we're ever going to live in the vice president's house.'"
• The leadership of the United States House of Representatives tentatively scheduled debate on the impeachment of President Richard Nixon to run from August 19 to August 31 and approved gavel-to-gavel television coverage.
• A tugboat captain who fell asleep at the wheel rammed four barges into the Lake Pontchartrain Causeway in Louisiana, destroying of roadway. At least two people in vehicles on the bridge were killed.
• Former astronaut Alan Shepard, the first American in space and fifth man on the Moon, retired from the United States Navy after 30 years at the rank of Rear Admiral.
• Died:
• *Ildebrando Antoniutti, 75, Italian Roman Catholic cardinal and diplomat as Apostolic Delegate to Canada and then to Spain, was killed in an automobile accident near Bologna.
• *Harry Manning, 77, American mariner and aviator known for his overseeing the 1929 rescue of 32 crew of an Italian freighter, and for his record crossing the Atlantic in the maiden voyage of the ship United States in 1952. Manning was also a vice admiral in the United States Naval Reserve.
• *Ross Parker, 59, English songwriter known for the lyrics to "We'll Meet Again" and "There'll Always Be an England"

  [August 2], 1974 (Friday)

• Uganda's president Idi Amin called off plans for a threatened invasion of neighboring Tanzania, a day after having ordered the Uganda Army and Uganda Army Air Force to go on full alert. After the mobilization, Tanzania's President Julius Nyerere warned that the African nation's armed forces were also on alert to repel any invasion. Amin's change of mind was disclosed in a telegram to the president of Liberia, William R. Tolbert.
• John Dean, former legal counsel to U.S. president Richard Nixon, was sentenced to a minimum of one year in prison and a maximum of four years for his role in the cover-up of the Watergate scandal.
• A fire aboard the Swedish motor ship Eos in the North Sea killed four people.
• American comedian and actor Shelley Berman was robbed at gunpoint of $60 and a watch and left bound and gagged on the floor of his hotel room in Queens, New York City.
• Born:
• *Siddharth Roy Kapur, Indian film and TV producer, founder of Roy Kapur Films; known for co-producing the highest-grossing Indian film to date, Dangal and the Netflix TV series Aranyak and the streaming SonyLIV series Rocket Boys; in Bombay
• *Angel Boris, American model and actress; in Fort Lauderdale, Florida
• Died:
• *Fred Allison, 92, American physicist known for the Allison magneto-optic method
• *Cyril Smith OBE, 64, English classical pianist, died of a heart attack.

  [August 3], 1974 (Saturday)

• The 10-day Huntsville Prison siege ended with an escape attempt by drug baron Fred Gómez Carrasco and his two accomplices, during which two women hostages and one of Carrasco's cohorts were shot and killed and Carrasco committed suicide. Two other hostages were wounded.
• The original Broadway production of Stephen Sondheim's musical A Little Night Music closed after 601 performances.
• British long-distance runner Brendan Foster broke the world record for the 3,000 meter race, completing the distance in 7 minutes, 35.2 seconds and besting the mark of 7:37.6 that had been set in 1972 by Emiel Puttemans of Belgium. Foster, an employee of the city of Gateshead, Tyne and Wear, set the new record at the "Gateshead Games" that he had helped organize to call attention to the town's new stadium.
• The American Theatre Critics Association was founded at a meeting at the Eugene O'Neill Theater Center in Waterford, Connecticut.
• Born:
• *Jenny Beck, American TV actress known as the co-star of Guns of Paradise; in Los Angeles, California
• *Odelín Molina, Cuban footballer and goalkeeper with 122 caps for the Cuba national football team; in Santa Clara, Cuba
• *Laura Termini, Venezuelan actress and writer known for the Telemundo telenovela Guadalupe; in Caracas
• *Igor Yanovsky, Russian footballer with 32 caps for the Russia national team; in Ordzhonikidze, Soviet Union
• *Michael Gray, English footballer with three caps for the England national team; in City of Sunderland
• *Pepe Gálvez, Spanish footballer and manager; in Calvià, Mallorca, Balearic Islands
• *García Pimienta, Spanish footballer and manager; in Barcelona
• Died:
• *Edna Murphy, 74, American silent film and film serial actress
• *Joaquim Amat-Piniella, 60, Catalan writer known for the Spanish novel K.L. Reich
• *Fred Gómez Carrasco, 34, American criminal, shot himself, bringing an end to the Huntsville Prison siege.
• *Almira Sessions, 85, American character actress in over 500 films and TV shows

  [August 4], 1974 (Sunday)

• A bomb exploded on the Italicus Express train between Italy and West Germany, killing 12 people and injuring 48. Italian neo-fascists claimed responsibility.
• The West African nation of Ghana began requiring its 80,000 motorists, as well as other vehicle operators, to drive on the right-hand side of the road after decades of left-hand side driving that dated from Ghana's days as a British colony. On the day before, the government banned the sale of alcohol for nine hours in order to ensure sobriety of vehicle operators after midnight.
• The derailment of an express train in Dol-de-Bretagne, France, killed nine people and injured 30.
• Swiss driver Clay Regazzoni won the 1974 German Grand Prix at the Nürburgring.
• French Army Commandant Pierre Galopin, posted in Chad, was captured by Chadian rebels in the Sahara desert, after traveling to the rebel-held portion of the African nation to negotiate the release of hostages. Galopin would be sentenced to death by his captors and executed by hanging on April 4, 1975.
• Bob Pleso, a stunt motorcyclist attempting to break the distance record of in jumping over parked automobiles, was fatally injured in front of 3,000 spectators while trying to jump over 30 cars at the Phenix Dragway in Phenix City, Alabama. Pleso's motorcycle cleared the first 27 cars before coming down on the windshield of the 28th, and he died in a hospital two hours later.

  [August 5], 1974 (Monday)

• U.S. president Richard Nixon released transcripts of three conversations between himself and the former White House Chief of Staff, H. R. Haldeman, on June 23, 1972, six days after the Watergate break-in. One of the transcripts showed that Nixon had ordered that the Federal Bureau of Investigation halt its inquiry into the case.
• Nixon also released a statement saying that after he listened to the June 23 conversations, "Although I recognized that these presented potential problems, I did not inform my staff or my counsel of it... This was a serious act of omission for which I take full responsibility and which I deeply regret." He added that "a House vote on impeachment is, as a practical matter, virtually a foregone conclusion, and that the issue will therefore go to trial in the Senate."
• Many of President Nixon's strongest supporters in Congress withdrew their support after the transcripts' release, including Representative Charles E. Wiggins of California, Nixon's most prominent defender on the House Judiciary Committee, who said he would now vote for impeachment on the charge of obstruction of justice.
• At 10:24 in the morning, the roof of a U.S. government office building in downtown Miami, Florida, collapsed, killing 7 employees of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration and injuring 15 others. An inspection would later conclude that materials used in resurfacing of a parking lot on top of the building, as well as salt and sand, had eroded and weakened the supporting steel structure.
• The comic strip Tank McNamara, created by Jeff Millar and Bill Hinds, made its debut with distribution by United Press Syndicate. Billed as a satire on the American obsession with organized sports, the strip commented on the sports world through its title character, a former pro football player who had become a TV sports newscaster.
• The sport of dogs catching flying discs gained national exposure in the U.S. when a 19-year-old college student brought his dog, Ashley Whippet, onto the field at Dodger Stadium for an unauthorized interruption of a nationally televised baseball game between the Los Angeles Dodgers and the visiting Cincinnati Reds. Prior to the start of the ninth inning a crowd of 51,062 fans and millions of NBC viewers watched the whippet dog catch four out of five tosses with high leaps; the Dodgers won, 6 to 3.
• Born:
• *Kajol Devgan, Indian film star with six Filmfare Awards for best actress; in Bombay
• *Roman Berezovsky, Armenian footballer with 94 caps as the goalkeeper for the Armenia national team; in Yerevan, Armenian SSR, Soviet Union