May 1974

[May 1], 1974 (Wednesday)

• The first successful nuclear fusion using a laser,, was achieved by scientists at KMS Industries, backed by Keeve M. "Kip" Siegel at Ann Arbor, Michigan, targeting a deuterium-tritium pellet and collecting the evidence with neutron-sensitive nuclear emulsion detectors developed by physicist Robert Hofstadter. After confirmation of the results, the breakthrough was announced 12 days later, on May 13.
• By order of the new Portuguese government, the colonial administrators of Mozambique released 554 political prisoners incarcerated at the Machava Prison. The release was supervised by the new head of the colonial police, Colonel Antonio Maria Rebelo. On the same day, Portugal closed the Tarrafal concentration camp, located on Santiago Island at Cape Verde, where hundreds of Portuguese and African political prisoners had been confined for life.
• In San Francisco, seven African-American men were arrested in the Zebra murders case. Four of the men were released for lack of evidence on May 3. The other three— J. C. Simon, 29; Larry Green, 22; and Manuel Moore, 23— went to trial along with Jessie Lee Cooks, who had been arrested earlier, and all four would be convicted of murder in 1976 and sentenced to life imprisonment.
• In Seoul, an intoxicated South Korean Army paratrooper, Private Kim Won-je, shot and killed six fellow soldiers and three civilians. He held 200 troops and police at bay for two hours before killing himself. Private Kim's motive had apparently been his anger and being informed that he was being recalled to the army barracks.
• During International Workers' Day celebrations on May Day in Buenos Aires' Plaza de Mayo, President Juan Perón denounced the Montoneros, his left-wing guerrilla supporters, implicitly blaming them for the assassinations of conservative trade union leaders.
• Two airline employees were injured when a bomb exploded in a locker at John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York City.
• The KVNB Cup for the championship of soccer football in the Netherlands was won by PSV Eindhoven, 6 to 0, over NAC Breda before 38,000 spectators at Feyenoord Stadium in Rotterdam.
• Alf Ramsey, the manager of the England national football team since 1963, known for coaching the team that won the 1966 World Cup, was fired by England's Football Association after England failed to qualify for the 1974 World Cup, missing the world championship final tournament for the first time in its history.
• Born: Lornah Kiplagat, Kenyan-born Dutch Olympic runner, 2007 cross country world champion; in Kabiemit, Keiyo District
• Died: Sir Frank Packer, 67, Australian media magnate and owner of the Nine Network and of Australian Consolidated Press

  [May 2], 1974 (Thursday)

• Six people were killed in Northern Ireland, and 18 injured, when the Ulster Volunteer Force terrorist group detonated a bomb in the Rose & Crown Bar in Belfast.
• The crash of an ATESA airlines DC-3 in Ecuador killed all 22 people aboard, when the plane flew into the side of the inactive Tungurahua volcano in the Andes, east of Quito. The airplane was on its way from the airport at Puyo to Ambato when it hit the volcano at an altitude of.
• West Germany's unofficial diplomatic mission to East Germany, the "Permanent Representation Office", opened in East Berlin with Günter Gaus as the West German representative. In that the position of the West German government was that the German Democratic Republic in the east was illegal, the two nations stopped short of giving recognition to each other's governments. At the same time, East Germany opened its office in Bonn, with Michael Kohl as its envoy.
• General Antonio de Spinola, head of the military junta that overthrew Portugal's dictatorship, ordered amnesty to thousands of young Portuguese men who had been charged with desertion for fleeing the country to avoid serving in colonial wars. Spinola said that any draft dodger who reported to his military unit within 15 days would not be charged with desertion, and that any soldiers convicted of desertion would be released from prison to return to peacetime military service.
• Former U.S. Vice President Spiro Agnew was disbarred from the practice of law in a unanimous decision of the Maryland Court of Appeals, the highest in the state. Agnew, who had pled no contest to a charge of tax evasion on October 10 and resigned the office, was described by the Court as "so morally obtuse that he consciously cheats for his own pecuniary gain."
• The 47.69 carat Star of South Africa diamond was sold at an auction in Geneva for 1.6 million Swiss francs.
• Born:
• *Jon Oringer, American computer programmer and billionaire businessman, founder of Shutterstock; in Scarsdale, New York
• *Matt Berry, English actor known for Toast of London, 2015 BAFTA Award winner for Best Male Performance in a Comedy Programme; in Bromham, Bedfordshire
• *Chang Chen-yue, aboriginal Taiwanese rock and hip-hop musician, 2013 Golden Melody Awards winner for Best Album; in Suao Township, Yilan County, Taiwan
• Died:
• *James O. Richardson, 95, United States Navy admiral, commander in chief of the United States Fleet, relieved of command after warning against the redeployment and concentration of the Pacific Fleet at Pearl Harbor in Hawaii in 1941.
• *Frank Moraes, 66, Indian journalist and newspaper columnist, editor of The Indian Express 1957 to 1972
• *Ebbe Munck, 69, Danish Resistance fighter in World War II, later Denmark's Ambassador to Thailand and chief of the royal court

  [May 3], 1974 (Friday)

• Colombian serial rapist Daniel Camargo Barbosa was arrested in Barranquilla for his first of at least 72 murders.
• Born:
• *Princess Haya bint Hussein of Jordan, Olympic equestrian, daughter of King Hussein; in Amman, Amman Governorate
• *Joseph Kosinski, American computer-generated imagery expert and film director known for Tron: Legacy; in Marshalltown, Iowa
• Died: Helen Hemingway Benton, 72, owner and publisher of Encyclopædia Britannica, widow of U.S. Senator William Benton

  [May 4], 1974 (Saturday)

• An all-female Japanese team reached the top of the Himalayan mountain Manaslu in Nepal, becoming the first women to climb an peak.
• Five men died in an explosion at a dynamite factory in Burbach, North Rhine-Westphalia in West Germany. The employees of Dynamit-Novel AG in Burbach-Wuergendorf had been inside a concrete shelter and were operating a machine used for mixing gunpowder.
• In Manhattan, a crowd of 1,000 rallied on Christopher Street to urge the New York City Council to pass a bill recognizing equal rights for gay and lesbian people.
• Cannonade, ridden by jockey Ángel Cordero Jr., won the 1974 Kentucky Derby, the 100th running of the event, at Churchill Downs in Louisville, Kentucky.
• The Expo '74 world's fair was opened in Spokane, Washington as U.S. President Richard Nixon declared the start of the fair at a ceremony attended by 85,000 people.
• The New Mangalore Port, now the seventh largest in India, was opened in the Karnataka state.
• The Scottish Cup, Scotland's knockout tournament of soccer football, was won by Celtic F.C. of Glasgow, 3 to 0 over Dundee United F.C. before 75,959 spectators at Glasgow's Hampden Park. During the regular season of the Scottish Football League, Celtic had finished in first place and Dundee in fifth place.
• Died: Maurice Ewing, 77, American geophysicist and oceanographer, discoverer of the SOFAR channel within the ocean

  [May 5], 1974 (Sunday)

• In the first round of voting in the French presidential election, François Mitterrand of the Parti socialiste received a plurality of the vote finished second. Since no candidate received at least 50 percent of the votes cast, a runoff election between the top two finishers— Mitterrand and Giscard— was held two weeks later, on May 19. The vote had been prompted in the wake of President Georges Pompidou's death on April 2.
• In India, eight people were killed and 50 injured in rioting between Hindus and Muslims in Delhi at the Sadar Bazar. The riot was the worst in Delhi since India had achieved independence in 1947.
• Airport workers in Mexico City discovered a leaking container of nitric acid in the cargo hold of a Boeing 707 that was preparing to depart on a flight to Tijuana with 75 passengers and a crew of six. The acid had damaged suitcases and was eroding the aluminum floor when it was discovered. The airport authority said that the acid "could have eaten through the fuselage and caused the jet to explode in midair."
• The championship of Ireland's National Hurling League was won by Cork GAA over Limerick GAA, 6-15 to 1-12 (equivalent to 33 to 15 based on 3-points for a goal and 1 point for shots above the crossbar.
• David Pearson won the 1974 Winston 500 at Alabama International Motor Speedway in Talladega, Alabama. Three members of Gary Bettenhausen's pit crew were injured, one seriously, when Grant Adcox crashed into Bettenhausen's car in the pit.
• Malcolm Arnold's Symphony No. 7 was publicly performed for the first time, premiered by London's New Philharmonia Orchestra at the Royal Festival Hall.
• Died:
• *Abu Bakar Ri’ayatuddin Al-Mu’azzam, 69, hereditary ruler of the Sultanate of Pahang in Malaysia for more than 40 years, beginning in 1932. Abu Bakar was succeeded by his son, Ahmad Shah Al-Musta’in Billah ibni Almarhum, who would later serve as the monarch of Malaysia from 1979 to 1984.
• *Vito Tamulis, 62, American Major League Baseball pitcher

  [May 6], 1974 (Monday)

• Willy Brandt, the Chancellor of West Germany, presented his resignation to President Gustav Heinemann after his personal assistant, Günter Guillaume, had been discovered to be a spy for East Germany.
• In Iceland, the coalition government of Prime Minister Ólafur Jóhannesson collapsed. Jóhannesson did not resign immediately, but elections were scheduled for June 30 for the Althing, Iceland's parliament.
• Portugal's General Francisco Costa da Gomes offered a cease-fire in its ongoing war against independence movements in the African colonies of Angola, Mozambique and Portuguese Guinea, conditioned on the rebels' acceptance of a plan of democracy and protection of the white European residents of the colonies.
• World Team Tennis, a new format in tennis with players on franchised teams in North American cities, played its very first match, debuting before a crowd of 10,611 people inside the Philadelphia Spectrum indoor arena, as the Philadelphia Freedoms, featuring league founder Billie Jean King, defeated the Pittsburgh Triangles, 31 to 25.
• The Partido Social Democrata was founded in Portugal by Francisco Sá Carneiro, Francisco Pinto Balsemão and Joaquim Magalhães Mota, liberal members of the Assembleia Nacional. From 1934 to 1974, the only legal political party had been the União Nacional and elections were limited to the top 130 finishers in voting for a list of party candidates. Originally called the Partido Popular Democrático, the PSD was formed two weeks after democracy was restored in Portugal after the Carnation Revolution.
• Johannes Vermeer's painting The Guitar Player, stolen from London on February 23, was recovered by Scotland Yard after a caller said that it could be found in the cemetery adjacent to the St Bartholomew-the-Great church at Smithfield, London. The painting, more than 300 years old, was relatively undamaged except for some dampness.
• Died:
• *Vera Gilbride Davis, 79, described as the Grand Dame of Delaware Politics
• *Walter C. Lowdermilk, 85, American soil conservationist who worked internationally on reclamation of farm lands in Belgium and in Israel to alleviate famine.
• *Robert Maestri, 74, former Mayor of New Orleans and campaign manager for Huey Long
• *Ángel Sagaz Zubelzu, 61, Ambassador of Spain to the United States, died of bladder cancer.