July 1974


The following events occurred in [Presidential Palace, Nicosia|]July 1974:

[July 1], 1974 (Monday)

presidential palace in Nicosia, was replaced by Nikos Sampson, an Enosis activist who supported the annexation of the Greek and Turkish island by Greece. Sampson would be forced to resign eight days later after the Turkish invasion of Cyprus and the collapse of the Greek regime.
  • Christine Chubbuck, a 29-year old TV news announcer for WXLT-TV Channel 40 in Sarasota, Florida, became the first person ever to commit suicide on live television, shooting herself after her delivery of the local news on the talk show Suncoast Digest. At 9:38, Ms. Chubbuck, upset over a recent change in the talk show's format to emphasize crime news, told viewers "In keeping with Channel 40's policy of bringing you the latest in blood and guns in living color, you are going to see another first— attempted suicide." She then pointed a.38 caliber pistol to her right ear and fired the gun as thousands of viewers watched.
  • Born: Denis Berezovsky, former Ukrainian Navy commander who defected to Russia one day after being appointed the Ukrainian Navy's commander-in-chief; in Kharkiv, Ukrainian SSR, Soviet Union
  • Died:
  • *Arturo Mor Roig, 59, Argentine politician who served as President of Argentina's Chamber of Deputies from 1963 to 1966, and later as Minister of the Interior from 1971 to 1973, was assassinated by Montoneros terrorists. Mor Roig was eating lunch in a restaurant in the Buenos Aires suburb of San Justo when he was shot to death.
  • *Erik Charell, 80, German theatre and film producer known for ''Der Kongreß tanzt''

    [July 16], 1974 (Tuesday)

  • British troops rescued Archbishop Makarios III, the Greek Cypriot leader who had been overthrown as President of Cyprus, from the coastal city of Paphos and flew him to Malta and then to the UK.
  • An avalanche on the north face of Mont Blanc killed eight people, all but two of whom were teenagers ranging from 16 to 18 years old.
  • A jury in the U.S. state of Texas recommended that Elmer Wayne Henley, the teenage murderer who had assisted in serial murders carried out in Texas by Dean Corll between 1970 and 1973, be sentenced to six 99-year terms in prison after convicting him in 6 of the 27 murders carried out by Corll. Formal sentencing was set for July 26, with the judge to determine whether the sentences should run concurrently or for 564 consecutive years.
  • Born:
  • *Stefano Fresi, Italian film and TV actor known for Ma Cosa ci Dice il Cervello; in Rome
  • *Espido Freire, Spanish novelist; in Bilbao
  • *Chris Pontius, American stunt performer and TV personality; in Pasadena, California

    [July 17], 1974 (Wednesday)

  • The bombing of the Tower of London by terrorists of the Provisional Irish Republican Army killed one person and injured 41 others. The blast was from a time bomb, planted under a cannon on display, and took place while tourists and sightseers were in the 60-by-30 foot Mortar Room of the Tower. Dorothy Household, a London librarian, died of her injuries after the blast.
  • France conducted an atmospheric nuclear bomb test over the Mururoa Atoll test site in the south Pacific, roughly southeast of the French colony at the island of Tahiti. The test, code-named Centaure, had been carried out at 7:04 in the morning local time based on inaccurate weather predictions and the cloud of radioactive fallout passed directly over Tahiti and surrounding islands 42 hours later, on July 19, 1974, exposing as many as 110,000 people with 500 times the maximum exposure to radioactivity.
  • The Contraceptive Bill, sponsored by Ireland's National Coalition government, was defeated in a vote in the Dáil Éireann. The Taoiseach, Liam Cosgrave, was one of seven Fine Gael members to vote against the bill.
  • The Northern Ireland Act 1974 became effective upon receiving royal assent by Queen Elizabeth II of the United [Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland].
  • Baseball pitcher Bob Gibson of the St. Louis Cardinals became the first player in National League history, and only the second in Major League Baseball, to strike out 3,000 batters in his career, retiring César Gerónimo of the visiting Cincinnati Reds season|Cincinnati Reds]. Walter Johnson had been the first to reach the 3,000 strikeout mark.
  • Born: Jargaltulgyn Erdenebat, Prime Minister of Mongolia 2016 to 2017; in Mandal, Selenge province
  • Died:
  • *Dizzy Dean, 64, U.S. baseball player and inductee in the Baseball Hall of Fame, died of a heart attack.
  • *Don Rich, 32, American country music guitarist and fiddler for The Buckaroos, was killed in a motorcycle accident at Morro Bay, California while on his way home from a recording session with Buck Owens at Bakersfield.

    [July 18], 1974 (Thursday)

  • In Ireland, a group of women who played the sport of Gaelic football organized the Ladies' Gaelic Football Association. Representatives from the counties of Galway, Kerry, Offaly and Tipperary met at the Hayes' Hotel in Thurles, County Tipperary, almost 90 years after the Gaelic Athletic Association had been founded in the same hotel. In September, the four teams and teams from another four counties would play the first LFGA Championship tournament. The GAA would accord recognition to the LFGA in 1982.
  • In Hanoi, capital of North Vietnam, General Võ Nguyên Giáp of the People's Army of Vietnam gave the go-ahead to General Hoang Van Thai for preparation for the conquest of South Vietnam, starting with a preparatory mission on December 13, 1974 and a larger general offensive to complete the reunification of Vietnam, under Communist rule, by the end of 1976. South Vietnam would be conquered less than five months after the start of the invasion, with Saigon falling on April 30, 1975.
  • Commercial diver Fred Brening failed to surface from a dive into a flooded dry dock pump well at the Brooklyn Navy Yard. Brening, who had only an hour's supply of oxygen, was found dead the following day in a maze of pipes on the second level of the well.

    [July 19], 1974 (Friday)

  • Seven people were killed and 349 others injured in the U.S. by the explosion of a railroad tanker car containing isobutane, following its collision with a boxcar in the Norfolk & Western railroad yard at Decatur, Illinois.
  • Hospitalized for phlebitis, Spain's dictator Francisco Franco signed a decree appointing Prince Juan Carlos de Borbon y Borbon as the acting chief of state.
  • American mobster Sam Giancana was arrested in Mexico after fleeing the U.S. to Cuernavaca to avoid testifying before a grand jury. He was deported from Mexico on July 21 and flown to Chicago, where he continued to live until his murder in 1975.
  • Born: Timur Artemev, Russian mobile phone entrepreneur who founded Euroset; in Moscow, Soviet Union
  • Died:
  • *Joe Flynn, 49, American TV and film actor best known for the comedy McHale's Navy, died of a heart attack while swimming at his home.
  • *Stefano Magaddino, 82, Italian-born American crime boss who controlled the underworld in Buffalo, New York, died of natural causes.

    [July 20], 1974 (Saturday)

  • Five days after Greek Cypriot activists overthrew the government of Cyprus, armed forces from Turkey carried out a massive invasion and occupation by land, sea and air of the northern portion of the island republic, which was primarily occupied by Turkish Cypriots. After departing from the Turkish port of Mersin the night before, four battalions of 3,500 Turkish soldiers began coming ashore at Glykiotissa, near the northern port of Kyrenia at 7:15 local time, and engaged in battle against the Greek-commanded Cypriot National Guard. At the same time, Turkish warplanes bombed the airport at the capital, Nicosia, and both a Cypriot National Guard camp and a Greek Army contingent near Nicosia. Turkish Prime Minister Bulent Ecevit said that the decision to invade was made at an emergency meeting of his cabinet before dawn.
  • Hours after the Turkish invasion of Cyprus, members of the Greek Cypriot National Guard entered the predominantly Turkish village of Alaminos and murdered 15 men between the ages of 25 and 50. According to a correspondent with the American TV network NBC, the national guardsmen were reportedly upset that their commander had been killed in a fight with Turkish invaders.
  • Death sentences for five South Korean dissidents, issued by a military court-martial, were commuted to life imprisonment by Defense Minister Suh Jong Chul. The group— poet Kim Chi Ha, Yoo In Tai, Kim Byung Kar, and Rah Byung Shikr— were leaders of demonstrators and had been convicted on charges of attempting to overthrow the government.
  • A group of women calling themselves the "Dublin City Women's Invasion Force", including Nell McCafferty and Nuala Fennell, intruded on the Forty Foot bathing place in Sandycove, traditionally a men-only nude bathing area, to claim the right to swim there.
  • On the fifth anniversary of the Apollo 11 landing on the Moon, Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin and Michael Collins spoke at a press conference, where Armstrong confirmed a statement by Collins that Armstrong had exercised his right as mission commander to be the first person to walk on the Moon, despite early flight plans that gave the assignment to Aldrin. Armstrong said that since he was closest to the hatch, he left the lunar module first even though the practice was for the module pilot to leave first, allowing Aldrin to go first "required that the two crewmen change places in pressurized suits in a cramped area. It was not impossible, but it was very difficult and possibly dangerous." Collins had written in his book, Carrying the Fire: An Astronaut's Journeys, that Aldrin and Armstrong had argued about the decision prior to the mission launch, and said "I did not mean to imply in my book that there was anything abnormal about the reversal. It was a normal thing and made the best sense." Aldrin told reporters "I do what my boss tells me to."
  • The first rock concert to be held at Knebworth House in Hertfordshire, UK, featured The Allman Brothers Band, Van Morrison, Tim Buckley and others, and was attended by an estimated 60,000 people.
  • Born: Yury Slyusar, Russian businessman and CEO of United Aircraft Corporation ; in Rostov-on-Don, Russian SFSR, Soviet Union
  • Died: Alexander Kartveli, 77, Georgian-Russian born U.S. aeronautical engineer for Republic Aviation and pioneer in turbojet military fighters

    [July 21], 1974 (Sunday)

  • Turkish Air Force fighter planes mistakenly attacked and sank the Turkish Navy destroyer TCG Kocatepe, killing 54 people, and heavily damaged the ships Adatepe and Mareşal Fevzi Çakmak off the coast of Paphos at Cyprus.
  • Eddy Merckx won the 1974 Tour de France.
  • Israel's cabinet voted, by a large majority, to reject a proposal to begin discussions with moderate Palestinian representatives to establish an independent Palestinian nation on the West Bank in exchange for Arab recognition of Israel's right to exist.
  • Egypt signed agreements granting exclusive rights to prospect for oil and gas to, in an around the Gulf of Suez, to Standard Oil Company of Indiana, and for rights in and around the Red Sea to Mobil Oil Corporation and Union Oil Company of California, in return for the companies to pay 20% of any revenues made from the discoveries.
  • Amparo Muñoz of Spain was crowned as Miss Universe 1974 at the pageant in Manila. Muñoz, one of 65 competitors from around the world, would voluntarily relinquish her title six months later after declining to travel to Japan as part of her worldwide visiting requirements, and no successor would be named.

    [July 22], 1974 (Monday)

  • Operation Niki, an attempt by Greece's Hellenic Air Force to support the Greek Cypriot National Guard in defending against the Turkish invasion of Cyprus, failed when the guardsmen mistook the Greek air support for enemy invaders. The "friendly fire" by members of the national guard, which had not been informed that the Greek commandos were coming to their rescue, shot down a Nord Noratlas transport aircraft as it was about to land, killing 27 Greek commandos and the four-member crew.
  • Endelkachew Makonnen, Prime Minister of Ethiopia, was removed from office, and replaced by Lij Mikael Imru. Makonnen was arrested the next day on orders of the ruling Derg.
  • Otto Kerner Jr. resigned as a U.S. federal judge with the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals before the U.S. House of Representatives was to hold hearings on whether to impeach him. Kerner, former Governor of Illinois, prominent as Chairman of the Kerner Commission on the investigation of race rioting and a judge since 1968, had lost his appeal on a conviction of mail fraud, conspiracy and perjury. On July 29, seven days after his conviction, Kerner began serving a three-year federal prison sentence after stepping down from the bench.
  • Died:
  • *Wayne Morse, 73, U.S. Senator for Oregon from 1945 to 1969, known for being one of two Senators to vote against the 1964 Gulf of Tonkin Resolution that approved the U.S. President's commitment of military combat in Vietnam without a declaration of war, died after becoming ill during a campaign to regain his seat in the 1974 U.S. Senate elections.
  • *Edna Lewis Thomas, 88, African-American stage actress on Broadway from 1923 to 1958

    [July 23], 1974 (Tuesday)

  • Greek President Phaedon Gizikis called a meeting to attempt to appoint a national unity government with the goal of peacefully preventing a war in Cyprus between Greece and Turkey. Former Prime Minister Konstantinos Karamanlis returned from exile to Athens on a Mystère 20 jet, made available to him by French President Valéry Giscard d'Estaing.
  • Glafcos Clerides, Speaker of the Cyprus House of Representatives, took office as President of Cyprus after coup leader Nikos Sampson stepped down in the wake of Turkey's invasion of the island republic.
  • British Airways Flight 6356, flying to London after taking off from Belfast with 92 people, made an emergency landing in Manchester after an Irish newspaper and a news agency were tipped off by an anonymous caller that a gelignite time bomb had been placed on the aircraft. A two-pound bomb was found in a paper bag under a seat on the Trident jet, apparently after being placed there by a passenger who had flown to Belfast and left before the plane departed again for London. The plane was carrying a crew of seven and 85 passengers, including James Flanagan, police chief of the Royal Ulster Constabulary.
  • Born: Maurice Greene, U.S. Olympic sprinter, gold medalist in the 100m dash in 2000, winner of gold medals in three world track and field championships in 1997, 1999 and 2001; in Kansas City, Kansas
  • Died: Soekiman Wirjosandjojo, 76, Prime Minister of Indonesia 1951 to 1952

    [July 24], 1974 (Wednesday)

  • The U.S. Supreme Court issued a landmark decision in United States v. Nixon, holding unanimously that the President of the United States could not withhold evidence based on the defense of national security, and ordering U.S. President Nixon to release the tape recordings, pertaining to the Watergate scandal, made of conversations in the Oval Office of the White House. Associate Justice William Rehnquist recused himself from the decision because he had worked for the U.S. Attorney General in the past and had been appointed to his position by Nixon. The decision would clear the way for the release of the incriminating tape of June 23, 1972, in which Nixon authorized obstruction of justice.
  • The Greek military junta, headed by General Dimitrios Ioannidis, stepped down as former Premier Konstantinos Karamanlis was sworn in as Prime Minister. Karmanalis took office at 4:00 in the morning after returning to Athens from Paris, where he had been living since 1967. General Phaedon Gizikis continued as the figurehead President of Greece. Amnesty was granted by the Karmanalis government to all political prisoners who had been incarcerated during the rule of the junta. The first detainees were returned to mainland the next day from the prison island of Gyaros
  • The Huntsville Prison siege began in Huntsville, Texas, United States, when Fred Gómez Carrasco, serving a life sentence for the attempted murder of a police officer, and two other inmates laid siege to the education building of the Walls Unit.
  • In Colombia, a 29-year-old man hijacked an Avianca Boeing 727, with 129 passengers on board, shortly after it took off from Pereira, for a domestic flight to Medellín, and demanded a ransom of two million U.S. dollars and the release of a political prisoner. The airliner diverted to Cali, where police disguised as flight mechanics boarded and overcame the hijacker and a female companion. The suspect, Eduardo Martinez, had hijacked a Colombian plane in 1969 and flown it to Cuba, then made it back to Colombia to commit a second air piracy. The hijacker was shot when he threatened an armed police officer who had boarded the aircraft. He died of his injuries hours later at the hospital.
  • The record for fewest votes cast in the British House of Commons was set on a motion to adjourn debate on the British Railways Bill. At 1:33 in the morning, with few MPs present, Conservative member Bernard Braine cast the lone vote, opposing the motion. The motion was declared not decided because of the lack of a quorum.
  • Born:
  • *Atsuhiro Miura, Japanese footballer with 25 caps for the Japan national team; in Ōita, Ōita Prefecture
  • *Eugene Mirman, Russian-born American comedian and voice actor, as Evgeny Borisovich Mirman in Moscow
  • *Veronica Vasquez, American singer; in the Bronx, New York
  • Died:
  • *James Chadwick, 82, English physicist and 1935 Nobel Prize laureate for his discovery of the neutron
  • *Ernest Milton, 84, American-born British Shakespearean actor

    [July 25], 1974 (Thursday)

  • The United Nations Buffer Zone in Cyprus was established by agreement of the foreign ministers of Greece George Mavros, Turkey and the United Kingdom at a meeting in Geneva, setting a neutral zone separating the Greek Cypriot population in southern Cyprus from the Turkish Cypriot population in northern Cyprus. The zones are divided by a line that runs west to east from Kato Pyrgos to Paralimni and passes through the capital of Cyprus, Nicosia. The "Green Line" effectively divides the Republic of Cyprus and the largely unrecognized Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus.
  • The U.S. Supreme Court ruled, 5 to 4, that busing of students from suburban school districts to city schools, to achieve racial desegregation, was unconstitutional. The decision came in a challenge to a ruling requiring white students in Michigan, living outside Detroit city and school district limits, to be sent on school buses to predominantly black schools in Detroit.
  • The World Court of the United Nations ruled against Iceland in favor of the UK and West Germany in a suit arisung from the "Cod Wars" over fishing in the North Atlantic Ocean. The International Court of Justice held that Iceland was not entitled to extend its fishing limit from to.
  • The Legal Services Corporation was created in the U.S. as President Nixon signed legislation passed by Congress to fund legal aid for the poor, for limited purposes. In return for funding, representation was limited to civil cases involving rent, child custody, property, housing and welfare rights, and were barred from being paid for cases involving constitutional law, such as for the military draft, racial desegregation, labor disputes and abortion.
  • In Green Bay, Wisconsin, 21 NFLPA union members were arrested during the union's labor strike against the National Football League, after refusing orders to comply with a restraining order. The rounded up members of the Green Bay Packers and Chicago Bears posted bond during their arraignment and were released. Players arrested including Rich McGeorge and Gale Gillingham of Green Bay, and Mac Percival of Chicago. The remaining packers went on to beat Chicago, 17 to 0, in a preseason game.

    [July 26], 1974 (Friday)

  • In the Soviet Union, the 1,517 delegates of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet voted unanimously to re-elect Nikolai V. Podgorny as the official head of state, and Alexei Kosygin as Chairman of the Council of Ministers, equivalent to Prime Minister. Podgorny and Kosygin had been nominated by Communist Party First Secretary Leonid Brezhnev, de facto leader of the Communist nation as well as a voting member of the lower house of the Supreme Soviet, the 767-member Soviet of the Union.
  • Serial killer Paul John Knowles picked the lock of a jail cell in Jacksonville, Florida, where he was being held for assault, broke into a house, and strangled a 65-year-old woman, the first of 18 murders he would commit over the next four months. Three murders followed in August, five in September, three in October and six more in November. The day after shooting a Florida state trooper and a motorist, Knowles would be caught on November 17, 1974, by a civilian in Georgia. Knowles himself would be shot to death on December 18 after attempting to disarm a sheriff.
  • U.S. Representative Paul Sarbanes of Maryland, a member of the House Judiciary Committee, introduced the first proposed article of impeachment against U.S. President Richard Nixon on charges of the crime of obstruction of justice.
  • A teenage girl discovered the body of an unidentified woman at Race Point Dunes, Provincetown, Massachusetts. The identity of "The Lady of the Dunes" would remain unsolved for almost 48 years until 2022, when genetic testing confirmed that she was Ruth Marie Terry, who had been murdered by her husband.
  • Died:
  • *George Barr, 82, American Major League Baseball umpire
  • *Floyd H. Nolta, 74, American airplane pilot and inventor who developed the first successful method of dropping water from an airplane for fighting forest fires
  • *Arthur K. Watson, 55, President of IBM World Trade Corporation and former U.S. Ambassador to France, died eight days after being fatally injured from a fall at his home in Connecticut.

    [July 27], 1974 (Saturday)

  • The U.S. House Judiciary Committee voted, 27 to 11, to approve the proposed Article One for the impeachment of U.S. President Nixon, a resolution alleging that "Richard M. Nixon, using the powers of his high office, engaged personally and through his subordinates and agents, in a course of conduct or plan designed to delay, impede, and obstruct the investigation" of the Watergate scandal as well "to cover up, conceal and protect those responsible; and to conceal the existence and scope of other unlawful covert activities." Six Republicans joined all 21 Democrats on the Committee in voting in favor of the article. White House Press Secretary Ronald Ziegler told reporters, "The President remains confident that the House will recognize that there simply is not the evidence to support this or any other article of impeachment. He is confident because he knows he has committed no impeachable offense."
  • The Rhodesian Army began Operation Overload, the forcible relocation of 49,690 black African civilians within the Chiweshe Tribal Trust Land to 21 "protected villages" away from guerrillas of the Zimbabwe African National Liberation Army. By August 15, the relocation was completed but the protected villages proved to be inadequately protected and lacked sanitation facilities.
  • Portugal's President, General António de Spínola, announced that his government would grant unconditional independence to the European nation's African colonies in Angola, Cape Verde, Mozambique, São Tomé and Príncipe and Portuguese Guinea, Hong Kong Cantopop music singer and actor; in British Hong Kong
  • Died: Lightnin' Slim, 61, U.S. blues musician, died of stomach cancer.

    [July 28], 1974 (Sunday)

  • The sinking of the South Korean ship Western Star, after its collision with the Japanese freighter Kikuko Maru, killed 24 of the 26 people on board.
  • Born: Alexis Tsipras, Greek politician, Prime Minister of Greece from 2015 to 2019; in Athens
  • Died:
  • *Konstantin Chkheidze, 76, Czech–Georgian–Russian writer, committed suicide.
  • *Don McCafferty, 53, head coach of the Detroit Lions season|Detroit Lions] and former head coach of the Baltimore Colts, died of a heart attack at his home shortly after the opening of training camp in preparation for the 1974 NFL season.

    [July 29], 1974 (Monday)

  • In the U.S., the "Philadelphia Eleven", all deacons in their own churches became the first women to be ordained as priests in the Episcopal Church. Three men who were Episcopal bishops conducted an unauthorized ceremony at the Church of the Advocate in Philadelphia. Among the 11 were Alison Cheek, future federal judge Emily C. Hewitt, Isabel Carter Heyward, balloon pilot Jeannette Piccard, and Betty Bone Schiess. They were ordained by Robert L. DeWitt, Bishop of Pennsylvania; Daniel Corrigan, Suffragan Bishop of Colorado; and Edward R. Welles II, the retired Bishop of West Missouri.
  • Yuri Andropov, Director of the KGB, the Soviet Union's espionage and internal security agency, issued order number 0089/OV, establishing the Alpha Group, a sub-unit of the KGB's Special Forces.
  • Peru's President Juan Velasco Alvarado, announced Plan Inca, the ruling military junta's program for modernizing the South American nation.
  • An eruption of the Japanese volcano Niigata-Yakeyama killed three students who were climbing the mountain at the time.
  • Born:
  • *Josh Radnor, American TV actor best known for portraying "Ted Mosby" on the long-running show How I Met Your Mother; in Columbus, Ohio
  • *Afroman, American hip hop artist and comedian, Grammy Award nominee; in Los Angeles
  • Died:
  • *Cass Elliot, 32, U.S. singer for The Mamas & the Papas, known as "Mama Cass", died of a heart attack linked to obesity. The death was originally attributed, incorrectly, to choking on food.
  • *Erich Kästner, 72, German poet and children's book author known for Emil and the Detectives
  • *W. J. Seeley, 79, former dean of Duke University Pratt School of Engineering

    [July 30], 1974 (Tuesday)

  • The Foreign Ministers of Greece, Turkey and the United Kingdom signed a peace agreement in Geneva, after mediation by U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, providing for the immediate end of fighting on the island of Cyprus.
  • Segregated voting was held in Rhodesia for the 66-member House of Assembly, with white voters picking candidates for the 50 seats reserved for the white minority, and black and mixed race voters selecting from 26 candidates for the 16 "tribal seats" reserved for the non-white candidates. The Rhodesian Front party won all 50 of the contests for the white seats although candidates from the Rhodesia Party were on the ballot. At the time, 300,000 residents of Rhodesia were white, while 5,700,000 were black or mixed race. Despite being only 5% of the population, the whites had 76% of the seats in parliament.
  • The U.S. House Judiciary Committee adjourned its proceedings for impeachment after passing three articles of impeachment in three days. A proposed Article IV, regarding illegal use of power in the 1970 invasion of Cambodia, was rejected, with 12 votes for and 26 against. Debate in the full House on whether to impeach was scheduled for August 19, but Nixon's resignation on August 9 made the point moot.
  • The 1974 Scheldeprijs cycle race was held in Belgium and the Netherlands, and was won by Marc Demeyer.
  • Born:
  • *Hilary Swank, U.S. film actress, winner of two Academy Awards for Best Actress for Boys Don't Cry and Million Dollar Baby ; in Lincoln, Nebraska
  • *Jacek Dukaj, Polish science fiction writerknown for Starość aksolotla ; in Tarnów
  • *Nami Otake, Japanese women's national football team soccer footballer, with 46 caps; in Machida, Tokyo
  • Died: Elizabeth Gould Davis, 64, American librarian, author of The First Sex, suicide by firearm

    [July 31], 1974 (Wednesday)

  • In Canada, the Official Language Act (Quebec) was passed, making French the official language of government and business in the province of Quebec.
  • The Dewan Rakyat, national parliament of Malaysia, was dissolved by order of the Asian nation's elected monarch, the Yang di-Pertuan Agong, Abdul Halim of Kedah, and elections were scheduled for August 24.
  • The Consumer Credit Act 1974 was given royal assent and became law in the United Kingdom
  • Born: Emilia Fox, English actress, to Joanna David and Edward Fox; in Hammersmith, London
  • Died: Raymond Aloysius Lane, M.M., 80, American Roman Catholic missionary