January 1974

January 1, 1974 (Tuesday)

• In Italy, Itavia Airlines Flight 897 crashed, killing 38 of the 42 people aboard. Flying in a heavy fog, the Fokker F28 Fellowship jet was approaching a landing at Turin on a flight from Bologna when it struck the top of a tree and then impacted at a building under construction.
• New Year's Day was celebrated as a public holiday in the United Kingdom for the first time nationwide, as England and Wales joined in making the first day of the year a paid legal holiday. Scotland had celebrated New Year's Day as a public holiday for years, and the order was applied to all of Britain by an October 8 amendment to existing wage laws.
• The Canadian Stock Exchange merged with the Montreal Stock Exchange, with the merged entity operating under the latter name.
• In the U.S. college football bowl games, the #4-ranked Ohio State Buckeyes defeated the #7 USC Trojans 42 to 21 to win the Rose Bowl in Pasadena, California; the #6 Penn State Nittany Lions beat the #13 LSU Tigers 16 to 9 to win the 1974 Orange Bowl in Miami; and the #12 Nebraska Cornhuskers upset the #8 Texas Longhorns 19 to 3 to win the Cotton Bowl in Dallas. The largest of the bowl games, the Sugar Bowl, had been played on December 31, with the #3 Notre Dame Fighting Irish beating the number one ranked Alabama Crimson Tide, 24 to 23.
• Jimmy Connors of the U.S. defeated Australia's Phil Dent, and Australia's Evonne Goolagong defeated Chris Evert of the U.S., to win the Australian Open tennis tournament in Melbourne.
• Ernst Brugger became President of the Swiss Confederation.
• Woodsworth College at the University of Toronto was founded, formally integrating part-time degree students into the University.
• At the driving of the first pile for the Komtar building in George Town, Penang, Malaysia, Prime Minister Abdul Razak Hussein said that the tower "would change the face of the city".
• On the seventh annual World Day of Peace, Pope Paul VI gave a sermon at St. Anthony's Church in Rome, saying that peace "deals with life itself, more even than the physical safety of populations, of their honor, of their name, of their history... Will peace last: yes or no?"
• The Executive of the 1974 Northern Ireland Assembly, comprising Brian Faulkner's moderate Ulster Unionist Party and the non-violent nationalists of the Social Democratic and Labour Party, was formed in Belfast, Northern Ireland.
• Due to the oil crisis, large numbers of gas stations throughout the United States were closed on New Year's Day. Mrs. Judith Kathleen Bovard of Lake Jackson, Texas, was killed when her car crashed and burned while she was carrying a can of gasoline.
• Maurice Nadon, who had been the Acting Commissioner of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police since December 29, was formally appointed as the 16th commissioner, becoming the first French Canadian to hold the post.
• Born:
• *Jonah Peretti, U.S. Internet entrepreneur, co-founder of BuzzFeed and The Huffington Post; in Contra Costa County, California
• *Marco Schreyl, German television host of Deutschland sucht den Superstar since 2005; in Erfurt, East Germany
• *Mehdi Ben Slimane, Tunisian footballer with 34 caps for the national team; in Le Kram
• *Constantinos Carydis, Greek orchestra conductor; in Athens
• *Abha Dawesar, Indian novelist known for the 2005 coming of age novel Babyji; in New Delhi
• *Christian Paradis, Canadian Minister of Industry 2011 to 2013; in Thetford Mines, Quebec
• *Giorgos Theodotou, Cypriot footballer with 70 caps for the Cyprus national team; in Ammochostos
• Died:
• *Charles E. Bohlen, 69, U.S. Ambassador to the Soviet Union 1953 to 1957, to the Philippines 1957-1959 and to France, 1962-1968, died of cancer.
• *Charles M. Teague, 64, U.S. Representative for California since 1955, died at home during a recess in Congress.

  January 2, 1974 (Wednesday)

• The maximum speed limit on U.S. highways was lowered to, a limit that would remain in effect for the next 13 years, in order to conserve gasoline during the OPEC embargo. The decrease in the speed limit was made as U.S. President Richard Nixon signed the National Maximum Speed Law. The result was a 23 percent decrease in fatalities on American highways with 853 fewer deaths in January 1974 compared to January 1973.
• The Xinhua News Agency of the People's Republic of China announced the sudden reassignment of eight of the 11 commanders of its military regions, in an apparent attempt to remove them from the power bases and networks that they had built over the years. General Xu Shiyou was moved from the Nanjing region to Guangzhou, while Guangzhou's General Ting Sheng was moved to Nanjing. Chen Hsi-lien was moved from Manchuria to Beijing and replaced by Li Desheng, a Politburo member.
• Carlos Arias Navarro was sworn in as Prime Minister of Spain, having been appointed to the position after the December 20 assassination of Luis Carrero Blanco.
• The first Supplemental Security Income checks were mailed under the program in the United States to compensate impoverished persons who had been unable to work because of disability but who did not qualify for Social Security disability. The law authorizing SSI had come into effect on January 1.
• The American-owned oil rig Transocean III sank in the North Sea, east of the Orkney Islands, shortly after midnight on the morning of January 2. All 56 crew members were rescued.
• Coleman Young was sworn in as the first African-American mayor of the U.S. city of Detroit. In his inaugural speech, he warned criminals to "hit the road".
• On their 48th day of spaceflight, the Skylab 4 crew held a televised news conference while in Earth orbit, during which astronaut William Pogue said that he tried too hard to do a good job in the early phases of the mission, but then "finally came to the realization that I'm a fallible human being". Mission commander Gerald Carr said that he missed drinking cold beer while watching football. Astronaut Edward Gibson said that he was pleased to be contributing to science.
• Born:
• *Jason de Vos, Canadian soccer player with 49 caps for the Canada men's national soccer team; in London, Ontario
• *Ludmila Formanová, Czech middle-distance runner, 1999 world champion in the 800 meter run; in Čáslav, Czechoslovakia
• *Slavko Duščak, Slovenian basketball player and coach, guard for the Slovenia national basketball team; in Ljubljana, Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia
• *Juha Lind, Finnish ice hockey left wing for the Finland national team; in Helsinki
• *Yin Yin, Chinese Olympic volleyball player for the China national women's team; in Zhejiang province
• Died:
• *Tex Ritter, 68, American country music singer best known for "The Ballad of High Noon", and actor in film Westerns including the Tex Haines series of movies, later inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame
• *E. L. Cord, 79, American business executive, founder and chairman of the Cord Corporation conglomerate that controlled American Airways, the Checker Motors Corporation, and 150 other companies.
• *Ralph Block, 84, American film producer and screenwriter
• *Mark Fax, 62, American classical music composer
• *Neva Gerber, 79, American silent film actress

  January 3, 1974 (Thursday)

• A new constitution for the Socialist Republic of the Union of Burma took effect on the eve of its independence day celebrations, establishing a one-party regime. It had been approved in a constitutional referendum held on 15 December. Burma also adopted a new flag. As part of the celebration, Burma's government released 1,212 political prisoners, but detained 1,028 others.
• The Navnirman Andolan or "Re-invention Movement" took place in India at Ahmedabad, in the state of Gujarat, as students of an engineering school, who had been up in arms since December 20 against price increases for food at the school, confronted the police who tried to intervene. Some students were arrested. On January 7, the protesters called for an indefinite student strike for Gujarat state's universities and colleges and increased their demands to new campus facilities, better food and the arrest of black market sellers.
• On Victoria Street in East Sydney, a 30-man team of workmen used sledgehammers and axes to batter down the doors of 19 houses in the King's Cross section of the city, 13 of which were occupied by squatters who had barricaded themselves inside to protest against a proposed development and then defied a court order of eviction. Police arrested 40 of those who refused to get out of the way.
• U.S. District Judge Julius Hoffman dismissed all criminal charges against 12 members of the U.S. domestic terrorist group Weather Underground, including those against Bernardine Dohrn, Mark Rudd and Kathy Boudin.
• With the NCAA recognizing the unofficial champion of college football as the team that finished in first place in the Associated Press poll of sportswriters, the Fighting Irish of Notre Dame finished in first place in the AP poll. Notre Dame, which finished 10-0-0 in regular play and defeated 11-0-0 Alabama in the Sugar Bowl, received 33 first place votes and 1,128 points overall to finish at number one, while Ohio State had 11 first place votes and 1,002 points. The UPI poll, taken before the 1973 bowl games, had declared Alabama the national champion in December.
• Bob Dylan and The Band began their 40-date North American tour with a concert at The Chicago Stadium. It was Dylan's first formal tour since 1966 and served to relaunch his career for the remainder of the 1970s and the decades to come.
• Born:
• *Davide Ancilotto, Italian professional basketball player who died of a brain ischemia during a preseason game; in Mestre, Venice
• *MV Bill, Brazilian rapper, actor and songwriter; in Rio de Janeiro
• *Mike Ireland, Canadian speed skater and Olympia, 2001 world sprint champion; in Winnipeg
• *Alessandro Petacchi, Italian road racing cyclist; in La Spezia
• *Franck Riester, French Minister of Culture, 2020 to 2022; in Paris
• *Francisco Rivera Ordóñez, Spanish bullfighter; in Madrid
• *Pablo Thiam, Guinean footballer with 31 appearances for the national team and a 14-season career in Germany's Bundesliga from 1994 to 2008; in Conakry
• *Hayley Yelling, English long distance runner and European cross country champion, 2004 and 2009; in Dorchester, Dorset
• *Faat Zakirov, Russian cyclist, winner of the 2001 Tour of Slovenia; in Andijan, Uzbek Soviet Socialist Republic, Soviet Union
• Died:
• *Gino Cervi, 72, Italian comedian, stage, film and TV actor known as the star of the RAI series Le inchieste del commissario Maigret from 1964 to 1972
• *Arthur Daley, 69, American sportswriter for The New York Times, 1956 Pulitzer Prize winner
• *Maksim Shtraukh, 73, Soviet film and theater actor, known for portraying Vladimir Lenin in six movies, including as the star of Lenin in Poland in 1966