October 1971


The following events occurred in October 1971:

[October 1], 1971 (Friday)

  • The first CAT scan on a human being was performed, conducted outside of London in Wimbledon at the Atkinson Morley Hospital on an unidentified patient, using computerized axial tomography on a machine developed by Dr. Godfrey Hounsfield from the theories of Dr. Allan Cormack.
  • Walt Disney World opened at 10:00 in the morning near Orlando, Florida. Roughly 2,000 people were waiting when the gates opened to the eastern U.S. counterpart to Disneyland, which had opened in 1955 in Anaheim, California. On the first day, only 10,000 paying customers showed up rather than the predicted 30,000.
  • For the first time since the October 1, 1949, Chinese Revolution, the traditional massive parades through Beijing for the National Day of the People's Republic of China were canceled, and celebrations were minimal, with no explanation for the cancellation of scheduled events. Although a giant portrait of Chinese Communist Party Chairman Mao Zedong was put on display in Tiananmen Square, the official Party newspaper, Jenmin Jin Pao, made no editorial comment and omitted any photos of both Mao and Deputy Party Chairman Lin Biao. Unbeknownst to the general public, the Party and the government had been in turmoil since August after an attempted overthrow of Chairman Mao by Vice Chairman Lin.
  • As part of a program of "regional reform" in West Germany's state of Hessen, mergers of several villages went into effect. Niederwalluf and Oberwalluf were combined as Walluf; Neuenhasslau and Gondsroth were united as Hasselroth; Eibelshausen, Eiershausen and Wissenbach merged to form Eschenburg; Bleidenstadt, Hahn, Neuhof, Seitzenhahn, Watzhahn and Wehen formed Taunusstein; and the municipalities of Dauborn, Heringen, Kirberg, Mensfelden, Nauheim, Neesbach and Ohren were amalgamated as Hünfelden. In the first phase of encouraging voluntary mergers, the number of municipalities went from 2,642 to 1,233. Mandatory consolidation to reduce the number to 500 would take place in 1974.
  • Died: Senior Lieutenant Maguba Guseynovna Syrtlanova, 69, Soviet pilot and Heroine of the Soviet Union as deputy commander of the all-female 588th Night Bomber Regiment of the Soviet Air Force, nicknamed "die Nachthexen" by the Germans.

[October 2], 1971 (Saturday)

  • All 63 people on board British European Airways Flight 706 were killed when the Vickers Vanguard turboprop suffered an explosive decompression at an altitude of while flying over Belgium. Flight 706 had taken off from London 35 minutes earlier, bound for Salzburg in Austria. The explosion of an engine caused the Vanguard to plummet, and the plane crashed on a pasture near Ghent in a field beside a road between the towns of Tielt and Deinze.
  • Soul Train, created by Don Cornelius as a showcase for African-American bands, and similar to American Bandstand with a studio of teenagers dancing to the music, began as a syndicated program with weekly episodes. Originally a weekday afternoon program on Chicago's WCIU-TV channel 26, Soul Train picked up the sponsorship of the Johnson Products Company and began airing on seven U.S. TV stations, increasing to 18 by the end of its first season. The guests on the first show were Gladys Knight and the Pips, Honey Cone, Bobby Hutton and Eddie Kendricks.
  • The Soviet lunar probe Luna 19 went into orbit around the Moon and began collecting and transmitting data for more than a year, before ceasing communications on November 1, 1972.
  • South Vietnam's President Nguyen Van Thieu was re-elected unopposed after both of his challengers— Nguyen Cao Ky and Duong Van Minh— had dropped out of the race because of government interference.
  • British Rail re-inaugurated steam locomotive passenger train service on the UK's major railroads by permitting the former Great Western Railway No. 6000 King George V to operate on a series of special trains.
  • The Bible Broadcasting Network, a U.S.-based Christian radio network, began its first broadcast, signing on at 5:00 in the afternoon on station WYFI in Norfolk, Virginia. The network now is carried on 52 stations in the U.S.
  • For the first time in the history of American football, a "one-point safety" was scored in a game. Differing from the more common 2-point safety, the awarding of one point to one's opponent is reserved for infractions committed by the team opposing a point after touchdown kick, and happened in Syracuse University's 7 to 0 win over host Indiana University, when IU's Mike Heizman tipped an extra point try by George Bodine of Syracuse, and Syracuse center Greg Aulk fell on the ball in the end zone.
  • U.S. Representative Richard H. Poff of Virginia abruptly withdrew his name from consideration as U.S. Supreme Court justice, four hours after an American Bar Association committee met to survey the opinion of other lawyers about whether Poff was qualified. Poff, who had not formally been nominated, had reportedly been President Nixon's first choice to fill the seat recently vacated by Justice Hugo Black.
  • Born: Tiffany, American teenage music icon who successfully promoted her record album into a number one bestseller by her tour of free concerts at U.S. shopping malls in 1987; in Norwalk, California
  • Died:
  • *Dr. Marie Lebour, 95, British marine biologist with a career spanning 64 years. Among 28 species she discovered were Meiosquilla lebouri, Cercaria lebouri and Lepidodiscus lebouri.
  • *U.S. Navy Admiral Richard H. Jackson, 105, former commander-in-chief of the Battle Fleet, died of cardiac failure, 10 days after fracturing a hip.
  • *Otto Lucas, 68, German-born British milliner who designed fashionable hats for celebrities, was killed in the crash of BEA Flight 706.

[October 3], 1971 (Sunday)

[October 4], 1971 (Monday)

  • Researchers at the Yunnan Institute of Pharmacology in China made a breakthrough in the treatment of malaria based on Traditional Chinese Medicine and synthesis of the extract of qinghao from the artemisia annua plant, as described by an ancient physician, Ge Hong, in the 4th Century. Dr. Tu Youyou and her team of researchers discovered on October 4 that the compound they produced, artemisinin, could successfully cure common strains of malarial fever in monkeys and mice, and moved to human testing that proved equally effective in August 1972. For her discovery, Dr. Tu would be the co-recipient of the 2015 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine.
  • Egypt's President Anwar Sadat was chosen as the first President of the Federation of Arab Republics, by agreement of the three-member Presidential Council that consisted of Sadat, Libya's President Muammar Gaddafi and Syria's Hafez al-Assad.
  • Petroleum was found under Sable Island, off the coast of the Nova Scotia province in Canada.
  • In an unusual hijacking incident that cost the lives of three people because of the negligence of an FBI agent, a real estate agent in Nashville kidnapped his wife at gunpoint, leased a twin-engine aircraft claiming to be a physician who was taking her for medical treatment in Miami, then forced the two-member crew to fly him to the Bahamas. George M. Giffe Jr. killed his wife Susan, and pilot Brent Quinton Downs, after Downs landed the plane in Jacksonville, then killed himself, after FBI agents grounded the plane by shooting out the tires and an engine. The event remains a cautionary tale of poor handling of hostage negotiating. In 1975, a federal court judgment of $388,530 would be entered against the FBI and special agent James O' Connor on behalf of the estates of Mrs. Giffe and Mr. Downs, and for the Big Brother Aircraft, Inc., the owner of the airplane.
  • Died:
  • *Alberto Fermín Zubiría, 69, nominal head of state of Uruguay from March 1, 1956, to March 1, 1957, as president of the nine-member National Council of Government of Uruguay, the nominal head of a state in a nine-member executive council where the position of chairman rotated among the members for one year terms. Fermín served the term lasting from 1 March 1956 to 1 March 1957.
  • *John Carroll, 80, Australian war hero and Victoria Cross recipient for his bravery during the June 1917 Battle of Messines during World War One "
  • *U.S. Army Major General Norman Cota, 78, known for rallying troops during the D-Day assault on Omaha Beach in Normandy during World War Two.

[October 5], 1971 (Tuesday)

  • A meteorite fell in Brazil within the city limits of Marília in São Paulo state, breaking into at least seven fragments that totaled, the largest of which weighed. According to the coordinates listed on the Mindat.org site, the fragments of the H4 iron chondrite stone landed at what is now the Parque São Jorge section of Marília, near the intersection of R. Eduardo Prado and Avenida João Ramalho.
  • The [1971 1971 Baltimore Orioles season|Baltimore Orioles season|Baltimore Orioles] won the championship of baseball's American League in a three-game sweep of a best-3-of-5 series, defeating Oakland A's, 5 to 3, to advance to the World Series.
  • In one of only two exhibition game matchups between the reigning champions of the National Basketball Association and the rival American Basketball Association, the NBA's Milwaukee Bucks defeated the ABA's Utah Stars, 122 to 114, at Salt Lake City before 12,653 fans. Kareem Abdul-Jabbar scored 36 points and Oscar Robertson 24 to lead the Bucks, while the high scorers for Utah were Willie Wise, Zelmo Beaty and Glen Combs.
  • Died:
  • *Giuseppe Fiocco, 86, Italian art historian.
  • *Sir Peregrine Henniker-Heaton, 68, British intelligence officer for the MI-6 agency and the 3rd Baronet Henniker-Heaton, committed suicide after going for a morning stroll, then locking himself inside his study in his home in the London suburb of Ealing. His body would not be found until almost three years later, on June 23, 1974.

[October 6], 1971 (Wednesday)

[October 7], 1971 (Thursday)

[October 8], 1971 (Friday)

  • The government of Canada, led by Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau, adopted the policy of "multiculturalism within a bilingual framework". Trudeau addressed the House of Commons in Ottawa and said that "Although there are two official languages, there is no official culture, nor does any ethnic group take precedence over any other."
  • The Soviet Union expelled five British foreign diplomats and prohibited 13 others from returning, as a retaliation for the September expulsion from the UK of 90 Soviet officials.
  • Chinese Communist Party Chairman Mao Zedong appeared in public for the first time in more than two months, along with Prime Minister Zhou Enlai, but Vice Chairman Lin Biao, who had not been seen since June and not mentioned in the press since August, did not appear for Mao's official greeting of Ethiopia's Emperor Haile Selassie.

[October 9], 1971 (Saturday)

  • An attempted coup d'etat by a unit of the Argentine Army failed after less than a day when the rebels received no support from the rest of the military in their attempt to overthrow President Alejandro Lanusse. The coup plotters seized a radio station in Buenos Aires and the cities of Azul and Olavarría all of which were recaptured by the Argentine Army. Colonel Manuel Alejandro Garcia, leader of the rebels, surrendered to General Joaquin Aguilar Pinedo after government troops re-entered Azul. No shots were fired during the coup attempt.
  • In Vietnam, an American prisoner of war was freed by the Communist Viet Cong after more than two years as a POW. U.S. Army Staff Sergeant John C. Sexton Jr., who was captured on August 12, 1969, was released at Loc Ninh, was only the 23rd American prisoner to be released by the Viet Cong since the Vietnam War had started.

[October 10], 1971 (Sunday)

[October 11], 1971 (Monday)

[October 12], 1971 (Tuesday)

[October 13], 1971 (Wednesday)

  • For the first time since baseball's World Series had been inaugurated in 1903, one of the best-4-of-seven games was scheduled at night rather than in the afternoon, so that it could be seen in the evening across the United States. While the first three games of the 1971 World Series between the Baltimore Orioles and the Pittsburgh Pirates had started at 1:00 in the afternoon Eastern time, Game 4 began at 8:15 in the evening for telecast by the NBC network. Pittsburgh won, 4 to 3, to even the series at two wins for both teams. The remaining three games took place in the afternoon.
  • Born:
  • *Sacha Baron Cohen, British comedian known for the "Borat" series of films; in Hammersmith, London
  • *Luis Tosar, Spanish stage, film and TV actor; in Lugo, Galicia

[October 14], 1971 (Thursday)

[October 15], 1971 (Friday)

  • The 2,500 Year Celebration of Iran began, celebrating the birth of Persia with the most expensive party in history. Prominent guests, including world leaders, were invited by the Shah of Iran to a lavish banquet at the "tent city" set up near the ruins of the ancient Persian capital of Persepolis, funded from the national treasury even though 90 percent of the 28 million citizens lived in poverty.
  • The Rock 'n Roll Revival was staged by promoter Richard Nader at Madison Square Garden in New York City to feature hit singers from the 1950s, including Rick Nelson, hired to sing their best-known songs. Nelson was booed by the audience when he sang new material, and turned the experience of the evening into a 1972 hit song, "Garden Party", with the memorable chorus "But it's all right now, I learned my lesson well; You see, you can't please everyone, so... you gotta please yourself."
  • "Midnight Madness", a tradition unique to U.S. college basketball, was initiated by University of Maryland head coach Charles "Lefty" Driesell. At the time, the NCAA did not allow college teams to begin practice earlier than October 15, so Driesell scheduled an event for the public to see the Maryland Terrapins begin practicing in the first minutes of 15 October, starting at 12:03 a.m. The concept would later be adopted by additional colleges as a fun way to unveil the new season every year.
  • A 5.5 magnitude earthquake killed at least 40 people in the Aymaraes Province of Peru, reportedly destroying six villages in landslides from the Andes Mountains.
  • Born: Niko Kovač, Croatian soccer football midfielder and manager with 83 appearances for the Croatia national team, later manager of the Croatia team, as well as the Bundesliga teams Eintracht Frankfurt and Bayern Munich; in Wedding, West Berlin.
  • Died: William Hill, 68, English bookmaking gambling magnate who founded William Hill, Ltd, the UK's largest legalized gambling firm

[October 16], 1971 (Saturday)

  • All ten people aboard a Cessna 402 plane, operated by Scenic Airways, were killed in a crash during an attempted sightseeing tour that had taken off from North Las Vegas, Nevada, on an aerial tour of the Grand Canyon in Arizona.
  • Art Arfons, an American racer who broke the world land speed record on three occasions in his turbojet-powered automobile, the Green Monster, accidentally killed three people in an accident at the Dallas International Motor Speedway. Arfons lost control of his vehicle. Though he survived, his passenger, WFAA TV reporter Gene Thomas, was killed, in addition to two employees of the International Hot Rod Association, Robert Kelsey and Sean Pence.
  • Lon Nol, Prime Minister of the Khmer Republic, issued a decree removing the powers of the national parliament as part of fighting the ongoing war against the communist Khmer Rouge. Four days later, Lon asked rhetorically in a national radio address "Should we vainly play the game of democracy and freedom which will lead us to complete defeat— or should we curtail anarchical freedom in order to achieve victory?"
  • Died:
  • *Robin Boyd, 52, Australian architect, of a post-operative stroke
  • *James E. Allen Jr., 60, former United States Commissioner of Education was killed in the Scenic Airways crash, along with his wife and eight other people.

[October 17], 1971 (Sunday)

[October 18], 1971 (Monday)

  • In New York City, the Knapp Commission began public hearings on police corruption.
  • Soviet Union Premier Alexei Kosygin was mugged while visiting Ottawa as the guest of Canada's Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau. Geza Matrai, an unarmed Hungarian immigrant and resident of Toronto, broke through a ring of Soviet and Canadian security guards, shouted "Freedom for Hungary!", and tried to wrestle Kosygin to the ground before he was stopped.

[October 19], 1971 (Tuesday)

  • The U.S. Senate voted unanimously, 84 to 0, to make it more difficult for states to call for a second constitutional convention, one of the two provisions under Article V of the United States Constitution for rewriting the 1787 document. For the first 186 years of the U.S. Constitution's existence, any decisions made at such a convention required just a simple majority of the delegates, with no limit as to what could be one. A 45 to 39 vote of the Senate increased the requirement to at least two-thirds of the delegates at the convention, and the Senate approved the resolution in its entirety. In addition, the new rule required that delegates could only vote on matters specifically referred to in calls for a convention approved by two-thirds of the state legislatures. By July 1969, 33 of the 50 states, one short of the required 34, had passed a variety of resolutions calling for a convention. The Senate bill effectively made the resolutions ineffective.
  • All 15 of the elderly residents of the Geiger Nursing Home near Honesdale, Pennsylvania, died in a fire. After an investigation of nearly six years, the county coroner would conclude that one of the residents who died in the blaze had deliberately set the fire.
  • U.S. Vice President Spiro T. Agnew, making a controversial trip to Greece on behalf of the United States, was welcomed at the Greek village of Gargalianoi, from which his father Theophrastos Anagnostopoulos had emigrated in 1897.
  • Died: Betty Bronson, 64, American silent film star

[October 20], 1971 (Wednesday)

[October 21], 1971 (Thursday)

[October 22], 1971 (Friday)

  • Music from Scott Joplin's rediscovered opera Treemonisha was performed for the first time in more than 55 years, in a concert in the auditorium at the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts, with musicians William Bolcom, Mary Lou Williams and Joshua Rifkin supplying Joplin's score for the operatic singers; a full performance would be made at the Lincoln Center on January 28, 1972.
  • The coming-of-age film The Last Picture Show premiered in the United States.

[October 23], 1971 (Saturday)

  • Typhoon Hester, the worst natural disaster to strike Vietnam during the Vietnam War, swept over the five northernmost provinces of South Vietnam, along with southern provinces of North Vietnam and the DMZ. At least 85 people in South Vietnam and an indeterminate number in North Vietnam were killed directly by the storm and 33 were killed in the crash of a South Vietnamese Air Force transport flying through the heavy weather.
  • Partick Thistle defeated Celtic F.C. of Glasgow, 4 to 1 in a major upset to win the Scottish League Cup in soccer football. Not only had Celtic finished in first place in the 1970-71 season to win the Scottish League Division One championship with a record of 25 wins, 6 draws and 3 losses, but Thistle was also new to Division One, having been promoted by finishing in first place in the 1970-71 Division Two play. A crowd of 62,470 had turned out at Hampden Park and saw that team "who have no chance" take a 4 to 0 lead in the first 37 minutes of play.
  • Died: Ion Rîmaru, 25, Romanian serial killer known as "The Vampire of Bucharest" for his brutal rapes and assaults of 14 women, was executed by a firing squad at Jilava Prison.

[October 24], 1971 (Sunday)

  • The first unofficial world anthem, "United Nations Hymn", made its debut at the celebration of the 26th anniversary of the founding of the United Nations. Created at the request of UN Secretary General U Thant, with spoken words by poet W. H. Auden and orchestral music by Pablo Casals rather than an attempt to synchronize lyrics with a melody, the work was created for the occasion, and there has been no effort to create an official song for the UN.
  • Born: Dervla Kirwan, Irish stage, film and TV actress, in Dublin
  • Died:
  • *Chuck Hughes, 28, American pro football wide receiver and the only NFL player to die on the field during a game. Shortly before suffering a heart attack, Hughes, playing for the Detroit Lions in a game against the visiting Chicago Bears, had gained 32 yards on a pass. He collapsed as he was returning to the huddle with 1:02 left in the game.
  • *Gladys Coates Sanford, 80, New Zealand aviator and volunteer ambulance driver for the NZEF in World War One. A children's book about her, Gladys goes to War, would be published in 2016, 45 years after her death.
  • *Indian Army Major General Sahib Singh Sokhey, 83, Indian biochemist and director of the Haffkine Institute who coordinated nationwide inoculation efforts to stop the spread of plagues within India.

[October 25], 1971 (Monday)

[October 26], 1971 (Tuesday)

  • A gap in the air defense of the United States was revealed when a Cuban Antonov An-24 airliner landed at the New Orleans international airport after having flown from Havana without being detected. The 19 people on the plane, who flew in without authorization, had chartered the flight to participate in a conference of the International Society of Sugar Cane Technologists.
  • A group of homeowners in the U.S. state of Maine voted, 21 to 13, to incorporate their area as the town of Carrabassett Valley, which now has a population of about 800 people.
  • U.S. chess champion Bobby Fischer defeated former world champ Tigran Petrosian in Argentina to win the right to challenge Boris Spassky for the world championship of chess. The final match of the elimination series took place in Buenos Aires.
  • Born:
  • *Audley Harrison, British boxer, in London
  • *Lino Rulli, American radio host known for his program The Catholic Guy Show; in St. Paul, Minnesota
  • Died:
  • *Yves de la Casinière, 74, French composer and musician
  • *Gbadebo II, Nigerian Yoruba monarch as the Alake of Egbaland since 1963

[October 27], 1971 (Wednesday)

[October 28], 1971 (Thursday)

[October 29], 1971 (Friday)

[October 30], 1971 (Saturday)

[October 31], 1971 (Sunday)

  • Women voted in Switzerland for the first time as elections were held for the 200 seats of the National Council, the first since the February 7 referendum allowing women's suffrage. At least three women were elected to the lower house of the Council, including attorney Elisabeth Blunschy in the Canton of Schwyz— one of several counties that did not permit women to vote for the upper house of the Council.
  • The new Pope of the Coptic Orthodox Church was selected in random fashion in Egypt to replace Pope Cyril VI, who had died on March 9. Nazir Gayed Roufail, Bishop Anba Shenouda of Abnub, was picked as the 117th Pope at the Cathedral of St. Mark in Cairo, two days after Coptic clergymen had voted to place the names of three candidates— Bishop Shenouda, Bishop Samuel and the Reverend Timotheus El Makary— into a silver box. A six-year-old boy, Ayman Munir Kamel, was then blindfolded and made the pick in order to fulfill the requirement that the choice represent "the will of God". On November 15, he was consecrated as Pope Shenouda III.
  • A bomb caused severe damage to the Post Office Tower in London, at the time the tallest building in the UK at. A caller claiming to represent "the Kilburn battalion of the I.R.A." took credit, Kilburn being a suburb of northwest London with a large Irish population.
  • Nguyen Van Thieu was sworn in to a new four-year term as President of South Vietnam amid heavy security in Saigon after an October 3 election in which he was the only candidate. Thieu would serve less than years of his term, fleeing the country on April 21, 1975, in the face of the invasion of Saigon by North Vietnamese troops.