March 1975

March 1, 1975 (Saturday)

• Color television broadcasting was officially introduced in Australia, where black and white TV had started in 1956. ATV used the slogan "First in Color" while the Nine Network described its new programming as "Living Color".
• The Covenant of the Goddess was founded in Oakland, California, by 40 witches from 15 Wicca covens.
• The popularity of CB radio in the United States was fueled by a decision of the Federal Communications Commission to lower the cost of the required citizens band radio license from twenty dollars to four dollars.
• The army of North Vietnam, led by General Văn Tiến Dũng, began an attack on the Central Highlands of South Vietnam, starting at Pleiku, before moving on to Ban Mê Thuột.
• Aston Villa won the Football League Cup at Wembley, beating Norwich City 1–0 in the final.
• The factory of the Sponge Rubber Products Company, located in Shelton, Connecticut, was destroyed by a bomb planted by the Weather Underground terrorist group. The three security guards at the plant were overpowered and kidnapped by three masked men, who detonated the bombs, and freed the men later. Although nobody was hurt, the destruction caused the loss of 1,100 jobs.
• An Iraqi Airways airliner was hijacked by three Kurdish gunmen, shortly after taking off from Mosul to Baghdad with 93 people on board. The hijackers demanded that 85 Kurdish political prisoners be released, that they receive five million dollars, and that they be flown to Iran. After the plane made a forced landing in Tehran on a blocked runway, a gunbattle ensued between Iraqi security guards onboard and the gunmen. One passenger was killed and ten others wounded, including Hasan, who later died of his wounds. Taimi and al-Qeitan were executed a month later by a firing squad in Iran.
• Died: Clarence Ray Carpenter, 69, American primatologist

  March 2, 1975 (Sunday)

• Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi of Iran declared the kingdom to be a one-party state, with the new "Rastakhiz Party" to be led by Prime Minister Amir-Abbas Hoveyda.
• Central African Republic President Jean-Bédel Bokassa, in power since 1965, declared himself President-for-life. A year later, he would declare himself to be an Emperor.
• A bomb planted at a bus terminal in Nairobi, Kenya, killed 27 people and injured almost 100.
• Born: Jaime Meline, American rap artist, nicknamed El-P; in New York City
• Died: J. M. Kariuki, Kenyan politician, was kidnapped from the Nairobi Hilton Hotel by bodyguards of Kariuki's political opponent, Kenyan President Jomo Kenyatta and murdered. His body was found three days later in a valley of the Ngong Hills.

  March 3, 1975 (Monday)

• The first 30 women "Mounties", officers of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police for the all-female RCMP Troop 17, graduated from RCMP Academy, Depot Division, after 32 had entered the academy on September 16, 1974 for regular training.
• In its decision in Cox Broadcasting Corp. v. Cohn, the United States Supreme Court declared unconstitutional, by an 8-1 vote, a Georgia law prohibiting the press from revealing the names of rape victims.
• Died: General Óscar Bonilla Bradanovic, 56, Chilean Minister of National Defense, in a helicopter crash, while returning from vacation at Curicó. Two French technicians of the Aérospatiale helicopter company were killed on March 22, in another helicopter accident, after investigating the crash.

  March 4, 1975 (Tuesday)

• English-born comedy actor Charlie Chaplin was knighted by Elizabeth II.
• Iran signed a trade deal pledging to spend 22 billion dollars in the United States over a ten-year period.
• Peter Lorenz, the Christian Democratic Union's candidate for Mayor of West Berlin, was released, unharmed, after the West German government freed five guerillas, gave each of them cash, and flew them to Aden in South Yemen.
• Television cameras were first permitted in the Parliament of Canada.
• Ethiopia's ruling military council, the Dergue, issued Proclamation 31, nationalizing all rural land, giving households 10 hectares apiece of land, and assigning 800 hectares apiece to local "Peasant Associations".

  March 5, 1975 (Wednesday)

• The Homebrew Computer Club, originally a gathering of computer hobbyists, held its very first meeting, at the garage of Gordon French in Menlo Park, California. One of the people in attendance, 24-year-old Steve Wozniak, couldn't afford the Intel 8080, and began searching for a cheaper 8-bit substitute. After finding the MOS Technology 6502 microprocessor, Wozniak worked at trying to modify it to hook to a standard keyboard and to connect to an ordinary television. Wozniak, Steve Jobs, and Ronald Wayne would join to form Apple, Inc.
• David Owen Brooks, who assisted Dean Arnold Corll and Elmer Wayne Henley in the serial killings of 28 young men and boys in Texas, was sentenced to life in prison for strangling of 15-year-old Billy Ray Lawrence, one of 27 murders committed in the summer of 1973 of which he had been accused.
• In Tel Aviv, the Savoy Hotel was seized by eight Al-Fatah commandos after they rowed ashore to Israel from the Mediterranean Sea. Thirteen people were taken hostage in the early morning. The Israeli counter-terrorism unit Sayeret Matkal stormed the hotel later in the day, killing seven of the eight guerillas. Eight hostages and three of the Israeli soldiers died in the operation.
• Born:
• *Jolene Blalock, American actress, best known as T'Pol on the series Star Trek: Enterprise; in San Diego
• *Niki Taylor, American model, in Fort Lauderdale, Florida

  March 6, 1975 (Thursday)

• Iran and Iraq announced a settlement in their border dispute at a meeting of the OPEC nations in Algiers. The Shah of Iran signed on behalf of his nation, while Iraq was represented by Saddam Hussein, an aide to President Ahmed Hassan al-Bakr and future President of Iraq. The meeting was overseen by Algerian president Houari Boumediene. Iraq agreed to drop claims to half of the Shatt al-Arab, while Iran agreed not to supply weapons to Kurdish separatists in northern Iraq. In 1980, Iraq would break the agreement and invade Iran, starting the eight-year Iran–Iraq War.
• The key 26.6 second section of the "Zapruder film", the home movie which had inadvertently filmed the assassination of John F. Kennedy on November 22, 1963, was shown for the first time on television, broadcast by ABC News on "Good Night America" featuring Dick Gregory and Robert J. Groden, hosted by Geraldo Rivera.
• Technical Sergeant Leonard Matlovich of the United States Air Force presented letter to his commander at Langley Air Force Base, Captain Dennis Collins, announcing, "After some years of uncertainty, I have arrived at the conclusion that my sexual preferences are homosexual as opposed to heterosexual." In doing so, Matlovich became the first U.S. military serviceman to challenge a ban against service by gay men and lesbians.

  March 7, 1975 (Friday)

• The United States Senate voted 56–27 to change the rules on ending a filibuster. Previously, the vote of 67 the 100 Senators was needed to end an overly long speech, and the rule was changed to 60 percent.
• The body of teenage heiress Lesley Whittle, kidnapped 7 weeks earlier by the "Black Panther", was discovered in Bath Pool park, Kidsgrove, Staffordshire, England.
• The 114th and final episode of the television series The Odd Couple was broadcast on the U.S. ABC television network. Nearly five years after meticulous Felix Unger was divorced by his wife and moved into the apartment of his slob friend Oscar Madison, the story concluded with Felix being taken by his wife and moving out.
• Died:
• *Mikhail Bakhtin, 79, Soviet author and pioneer in semiotics
• *Ben Blue, 73, Canadian-American comedian

  March 8, 1975 (Saturday)

• The first "United Nations Day for Women's Rights and International Peace" was proclaimed on International Women's Day during the International Women's Year.
• The "Whip Inflation Now" program, that had been launched on October 8, 1974, by the Citizens Action Committee to Fight Inflation", was brought to an end by the same Committee.
• The Cuban Family Code, which decreed equality between husbands and wives, went into effect.
• Died: George Stevens, 70, American film director, and winner of two Academy Awards for A Place in the Sun and Giant.

  March 9, 1975 (Sunday)

• As civil war continued between Eritrean secessionists and Ethiopia, the army of Ethiopia massacred 208 civilians in the city of Agordat, located in Eritrea's lands.
• The Golden Hinde II arrived in San Francisco Bay, re-enacting the voyage of Sir Francis Drake, which sailed in the bay in 1579. The journey had started on September 24 from Plymouth, England.
• Born: Roy Makaay, Dutch footballer known as "Das Phantom"; in Wijchen
• Died: Warren K. Lewis, 72, American chemistry professor known as "the father of chemical engineering".

  March 10, 1975 (Monday)

• Troops of the Army of North Vietnam began an early morning attack on the city of Ban Me Thuot in South Vietnam with the 316th, 10th and 320th Divisions, easily overrunning a South Vietnam Army regiment of defenders who were outnumbered by 5 1/2 to 1. By 10:30 the next morning, "Campaign 275" was over and had effectively placed half of South Vietnam behind enemy lines. Because of Ban Me Thuot's strategic location at the intersection of South Vietnam's two main highways, the defeat created a "domino effect" that would lead to the disintegration and conquest of South Vietnam, as ARVN troops abandoned the Highlands and fled south. NVA General Van Tien Dung would later write, "Was it true that the thunderous blow we had dealt at Ban Me Thuot had produced such a shattering impact on the enemy? It was true that the enemy had been stunned and rendered strategically confused. The enemy had again made another strategic mistake.
• Ibrahim Nasir, the president of the Maldives, fired Premier Ahmed Zalti and imposed presidential rule on the African nation.