November 1975

November 1, 1975 (Saturday)

• U.S. President Gerald Ford testified in a videotaped deposition for the trial of Lynette Fromme, who had tried to shoot him in September. The tape was not released to the press nor made available to the public.

  November 2, 1975 (Sunday)

• An arsonist set fire to one of England's most popular tourist attractions, the Royal Pavilion in Brighton. The 22-year-old assailant hurled a firebomb through the window of the music room of the structure, designed by architect John Nash and constructed as a seaside resort for George IV. Firefighters put out the blaze before it could spread to the rest of the building, known for its combination of various Asian architectural styles, but damage was estimated to be at least £100,000.
• Died: Pier Paolo Pasolini, 53, Italian film director, was murdered by a 17-year-old boy following a violent argument. Giuseppe Pelosi, who said that Pasolini had made sexual advances toward him, struck Pasolini's skull several times with a piece of wood. Pelosi then took Pasolini's car and used it to run over the film director's body. Pelosi, whose claim of self-defense was rejected, was sentenced to prison for the murder.

  November 3, 1975 (Monday)

• General Khaled Mosharraf led a coup d'état against the government of Bangladesh led by President Khondaker Mostaq Ahmad, arrested Army Chief of Staff Ziaur Rahman, and named himself the new Chief. President Mostaq was sent into exile along with the persons who had carried out the assassination of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman on August 15, 1975. Mosharraf would be killed four days later by Ziaur's supporters in a countercoup.
• Before the assassins were sent into exile, but before they left, they arranged the murder of Awami League leaders who were held prisoner at the Dhaka Central Jail. Former members who died were prime ministers Tajuddin Ahmed and Muhammad Mansur Ali, vice president Syed Nazrul Islam, and Minister of Industries and Awami League President A.H.M. Qamaruzzaman. November 3 is now observed annually as "Jail Killing Day".
• The first petroleum pipeline in the United Kingdom opened in Scotland between Cruden Bay and Grangemouth.
• In what was dubbed the "Halloween Massacre", despite occurring three days after Halloween, U.S. President Gerald Ford fired CIA Director William E. Colby and Defense Secretary James R. Schlesinger. Replacing Colby was the U.S. representative in Beijing, future U.S. President George H. W. Bush, while Chief of Staff Donald Rumsfeld replaced Schlesinger.
• Following the cabinet shakeup, U.S. Vice-president Nelson Rockefeller, expected to be President Ford's running mate in 1976, announced in a letter to Ford that "after much thought I have decided I do not wish my name to enter into your consideration for the upcoming Republican nomination." Rockefeller said that he would serve the remainder of the term to which Spiro Agnew had been elected in 1972; after Agnew's resignation, Ford, and then Rockefeller, had become the only persons to ever be appointed as U.S. vice-president.
• Good Morning America telecast its first episode, with David Hartman and Nancy Dussault as co-hosts as the ABC network's morning news show. Hartman and Dussault replaced the ten-month-old failed program, AM America, and its team of Bill Beutel and Stephanie Edwards. On the same morning, the television game show The Price Is Right expanded from half an hour to an unprecedented hour-long format, on CBS.
• A partial solar eclipse was visible in southern South America and Antarctica and was the 51st solar eclipse of Solar Saros 123.

  November 4, 1975 (Tuesday)

• Cuba's leader Fidel Castro ordered 650 troops to Angola to support the Marxist MPLA government in its war against UNITA and South Africa.
• "Nitecaps", hosted by Herb Jepko, became the first nationally syndicated call-in radio show in the United States, broadcast over affiliates of the Mutual Broadcasting System. On February 11, 1964, Jepko had pioneered the concept of a radio show where listeners could call on the telephone and the conversations could be heard over the air.
• A furnace explosion caused the deaths of 11 people at the Queen Victoria steelworks at Scunthorpe, Lincolnshire in England, when water accidentally entered a ladle transfer car, filled with molten steel. Four workers died immediately, while another seven eventually died due to their injuries.
• Died:
• *Francis Dvornik, 82, Czech historian
• *Audrey Williams, 52, American musician, widow of Hank Williams and mother of Hank Williams Jr., died of congestive heart failure in Nashville at her home, which she was attempting to convert into a museum to honor her late husband.

  November 5, 1975 (Wednesday)

• The Sex Pistols gave their first public concert and introduced "punk rock" to the United Kingdom. Singer John Lydon, billed as Johnny Rotten, was backed by Glen Matlock, Steve Jones and Paul Cook in a performance at the St. Martin's School of Art opening for Bazooka Joe. The Pistols were influenced by the music of an American group, the New York Dolls. They covered The Who, Faces and even "Stepping Stone" by the Monkees. Flyer and anniversary of the event lists it as Nov 6, 1975
• The United States announced that it was withdrawing from the International Labour Organization. When the departure became effective on November 6, 1977, the ILO lost 25% of its income; the U.S. would rejoin the ILO on February 18, 1980.
• Travis Walton, a 22-year-old logger, was working in the Apache-Sitgreaves National Forest with six co-workers near Snowflake, Arizona, when he suddenly disappeared. Walton was found five days later and said that he had been abducted by extraterrestrials. His book, The Walton Experience, would become the basis for a film, Fire in the Sky.
• Died:
• *Annette Kellerman, 89, Australian swimmer and actress
• *Edward Lawrie Tatum, 65, American geneticist, Nobel Prize winner 1958
• *Agustín Tosco, 45, Argentine union leader and rebel against the Peron government, died of bacterial encephalitis while registered under a false name at a hospital in Buenos Aires. Tosco had been ill for months but, because he was in hiding, had not sought treatment.
• *Lionel Trilling, 70, American literary critic
• *Lieutenant General Beqir Balluku, 58, former Minister of Defense of Albania, was executed by firing squad along with Major General Petrit Dume, 55, the former Chief of Staff of the Albanian Armed Forces, and Lieutenant General Hito Çako, 52, the former chief of the Albanian Army political directorate. All three had been removed from office in 1974 and convicted of attempting a coup d'état against Albania's Communist First Secretary, Enver Hoxha.

  November 6, 1975 (Thursday)

• The "Green March" began as 524,000 unarmed civilians crossed the border from Morocco into the Spanish Sahara, despite warnings from Spain that they would be shot. After leaving Tarfaya, the group halted after crossing the border and camped, rather than approach the defensive line and minefields set up by Spain. Spain would agree to relinquish the territory eight days later.
• Khondaker Mostaq Ahmad, who had become President of Bangladesh in August after the assassination of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, was overthrown in a coup and replaced by Chief Justice Abu Sadat Mohammad Sayem. The coup leaders freed Major General Ziaur Rahman, the Chief of Army Staff who was the strongman for the regime and who had been imprisoned two days earlier.
• Died:
• *Ernst Hanfstaengl, 88, German confidant of Adolf Hitler who defected to the Allies and then provided information on Nazi leaders to the United States.
• *Shimun XXI Eshai, 67, Patriarch of the Assyrian Church of the East since 1920, and leader of Assyrian Christians, was assassinated at his home in San Jose, California, bringing an end to the hereditary succession of the "Shimun line" that had existed since 1600.

  November 7, 1975 (Friday)

• In the U.S., the ABC television network aired The New Original Wonder Woman, the pilot for a new series, as part of its The ABC Friday Night Movie presentation. A previous pilot, Wonder Woman, had aired on ABC on March 12, 1974, with Cathy Lee Crosby in the title role, but had mediocre ratings. The new pilot featured Lynda Carter and more consistent with the comic book franchise. Interest in the show with Carter was so great that two more TV movies were produced, and eventually the television series, Wonder Woman, produced by Douglas S. Cramer and starring Carter, would debut as a mid-season replacement on April 21, 1976.
• A vapor cloud explosion at a petroleum cracking facility in Geleen, Netherlands killed 14 people and injured 109, with fires continuing to burn for five days.
• Netherlands industrialist Tiede Herrema was released unharmed in Monasterevin in Ireland, after having been kidnapped and held captive for 36 days.
• Four days before Angola was to become independent, the first two shiploads of Cuban soldiers, each carrying 4,000 troops, tanks and equipment, departed from Cuba.
• A team of psychiatrists concluded that former kidnap victim turned criminal, Patty Hearst, was competent to stand trial.

  November 8, 1975 (Saturday)

• Shortly before midnight, Moscow time, the crew of the Soviet frigate Storozhevoy mutinied, as second-in-command Valery Sablin locked up Captain Anatoly Putorny, then seized control of the vessel. The mutiny, which would fail, would inspire the best-selling Tom Clancy novel, and later a film, The Hunt for Red October. Captain 3rd Rank Sablin would be convicted of treason and be executed on August 3, 1976.
• Daniel "Rudy" Ruettiger, a, senior walk-on to the Notre Dame football team, who had never gotten to take the field, was allowed to come into the lineup in the final 27 seconds of a game against Georgia Tech. Ruettiger broke through the line and sacked the Tech quarterback who, coincidentally, was also a Rudy— Rudy Allen. Ruettiger's story of determination would later be made into the film Rudy.
• The first 164 Cuban troops arrived in Angola, as two turboprop airplanes, carrying the MININT Special Forces, landed at Luanda. On the same day, a force of FNLA and Zaire troops invaded Cabinda, an Angolan enclave that was separated from the rest of the nation.
• Born: Ángel Corella, Spanish ballet dancer, in Madrid