October 1975

October 1, 1975 (Wednesday)

• In the "Thrilla in Manila", Muhammad Ali retained his world heavyweight boxing championship against former champion Joe Frazier in a boxing match in Manila, the Philippines.
• Morocco and Mauritania reached a secret agreement to invade the Western Sahara and divide the territory between them, after Spain announced that it would hold a referendum in the Saharan colony.
• The Gilbert and Ellice Islands, a British protectorate in the South Pacific Ocean, were divided in anticipation of independence. The Gilbert Islands would become the nation of Kiribati, while the Ellice Islands would become Tuvalu.
• After eight years of construction and the spending of 5.7 billion dollars, the Safeguard Program, anti-ballistic missile complex for the United States, became fully operational in Cavalier County, North Dakota with two radar complexes and 32 silos. The U.S. House of Representatives voted the next day to shut down the program, in large part because the radar system was a vulnerable target that would be ineffective during a nuclear war; the site was closed after four months.
• A blast at a Canadian Industries Ltd. explosives factory killed eight employees at McMasterville, Quebec, near Montreal.
• Ugandan President Idi Amin addressed the United Nations General Assembly in New York, and criticized Zionism for its influence in the United States and the actions by the State of Israel for its occupation of territory that it had captured during the Six-Day War.
• Died: Al Jackson, Jr., 39, American drummer who was a founder of Booker T. & the M.G.'s, died after being shot during a burglary of his home in Memphis.

  October 2, 1975 (Thursday)

• The W. T. Grant department store chain, with over 1,000 stores in 42 U.S. states, filed a Chapter 11 action for reorganization in the largest retail store bankruptcy in American history. The last 359 stores would go out of business at the end of March 1976 as a result of court-ordered liquidation.
• The first Chevrolet Chevette, a two-door hatchback called the Chevette Scooter, went on sale. The first of the 1976 models had rolled off the Detroit assembly line on August 18 as "the first of hundreds of thousands of little three-door autos that are the smallest made in large volume in the United States since the Crosley." and the car was unveiled on September 16, in Washington, DC. The Chevette had a 1.4 liter engine and got 40 mpg on the highway, but had little room, with a reviewer noting "If the Chevette is the car of the future, luggage space will soon be a thing of the past."
• The U.S. Congress reversed its decision on an embargo against arms sales to Turkey.

  October 3, 1975 (Friday)

• For the first time since Bangladesh had seceded from Pakistan in December 1971, the two nations established diplomatic relations.
• The Teton Dam in Idaho began to fill as the Teton River was closed off. Eight months later, on June 5, 1976, the earthen dam would break, flooding the town of Wilford and killing eleven people.
• Died: Guy Mollet, 69, former Prime Minister of France

  October 4, 1975 (Saturday)

• Professional wrestler Johnny Valentine, the reigning NWA champion, was paralyzed, and Ric Flair sustained a broken back, when the plane in which they were riding ran out of gas and crashed at Wilmington, North Carolina, killing the pilot. Despite being advised to give up the pro wrestling circuit, Flair would return to the ring after months of rehabilitation and an alteration of his style, and would go on to fame and fortune as "The Nature Boy".
• Died: May Sutton, 89, American tennis champion, Wimbledon women singles title 1905 and 1907, U.S. Open singles champion 1904

  October 5, 1975 (Sunday)

• In elections for the Austrian Nationalrat, the Social Democratic Party of Austria, led by Chancellor Bruno Kreisky, retained its slim majority in the lower house of Parliament, with 93 of the 183 seats.
• The Algerian nuthatch, a small passerine bird which is the only bird species endemic to Algeria, was first discovered. A team led by Belgian botanist Jean-Pierre Ledant, had been at the Djebel Babor mountain in the Petite Kabylie range in northern Algeria, for a different purpose, the study of the Algerian fir tree species.
• The ten-team Swedish Hockey League began playing as Sweden's top professional ice hockey league. The first game was an 8 to 7 win by MoDo AIK over Färjestads BK, and the first goal was scored by Färjestads' Benny Andersson of Färjestad. On March 22, after a four-team playoff Färjestads would win the first championship, 2 games to 1, over Leksands IF.
• Born:
• *Kate Winslet, British film actress ; in Reading, Berkshire
• *Parminder Nagra, British film actress ; in Leicester
• *Gao Yuanyuan, Chinese television actress ; in Beijing
• *Monica Rial, American voice actress ; in Houston
• Died: Lesley Molseed, 11, was murdered in England at West Yorkshire. Stefan Kiszko would be convicted of the crime and would spend 16 years in prison before forensic evidence proved his innocence. Molseed's killer, Ronald Castree, would not be identified and caught until 2006.

  October 6, 1975 (Monday)

• Italo Luder, serving as Acting President of Argentina during a leave of absence by President Isabel Perón, signed Decree 2772, giving the Argentine armed forces authority to "annihilate subversion" by any means necessary against guerilla insurgents.
• For the first time in American television history, major TV networks declined a request to interrupt programming to broadcast a speech by a U.S. President. The nationwide address by President Gerald Ford was carried only by the ABC Television Network.
• The DINA, secret police agency of Chile, attempted to assassinate former Interior Minister Bernardo Leighton and his wife Anita, who were in exile in Italy. The Leightons were seriously wounded but survived a machine gun attack by paid gunmen.
• Born: Peter Pellegrini, President of Slovakia since 2024, Prime Minister 2018 to 2020; in Banská Bystrica
• Died: Chiura Obata, 89, Japanese-American artist, in Okayama Prefecture

  October 7, 1975 (Tuesday)

• Five days after President Ford vetoed an extension of the federal school lunch and nutrition program, both houses of Congress voted to override, 397-18 in the House and 79-13 in the Senate.
• East Germany and the Soviet Union signed a new Treaty of Friendship, Cooperation and Mutual Assistance, although their 1964 Friendship Treaty still had nine years to run. The 20-year treaty was to run until 1995, although East Germany would end in 1990 and the Soviet Union in 1991.
• John Lennon, formerly of The Beatles, won the right to stay in the United States after a four-year legal battle to avoid deportation, whennthe U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit ruled 2–1 to reverse an INS order of deportation. Two days later, Lennon would celebrate his 35th birthday and the birth of his son, Sean.
• Born:
• *Terry Gerin, American professional wrestler billed as "Rhino Richards"; in Detroit
• *Kaspars Znotiņš, Latvian stage actor, in Jelgava, Latvian SSR, Soviet Union

  October 8, 1975 (Wednesday)

• South Korean serial killer Kim Dae-doo, who murdered 14 people in the month of September and 17 total, was arrested the day after claiming his final victim, bringing an end to a killing spree that had started on August 13, 1975.
• Doug Jarvis played his very first National Hockey League game, with two assists for the Montreal Canadiens in a 9–0 win over the Los Angeles Kings, and then appeared in 964 consecutive games to set the NHL record, finishing on October 10, 1987 with a 4–2 loss for the Hartford Whalers against the New York Islanders.
• Women were allowed admission into the United States Service academies for the first time, as President Ford signed legislation that included the requirement.
• The defending champions of pro basketball's two rival leagues played in an exhibition game in Louisville, with the ABA Kentucky Colonels beating the NBA champion Golden State Warriors, 93-90. On October 5, 1971, the NBA's Milwaukee Bucks had beaten the ABA's Utah Stars 122-114.

  October 9, 1975 (Thursday)

• Soviet nuclear physicist and dissident Andrei Sakharov was announced as the recipient of the 1975 Nobel Peace Prize, but was not allowed to travel to Oslo to accept it.
• The U.S. Senate voted 70–18 to authorize American civilians to join the United Nations forces in the Sinai peninsula, a day after the House had approved the measure 341-69.
• West Germany and Poland signed three agreements in Warsaw, with Poland agreeing to allow 125,000 former German nationals to emigrate to West Germany, in return for two billion deutschmarks worth of credit. Major German cities that became part of Poland after 1945 were Breslau, Danzig, Stettin, Schneidemühl, Glewitz and Thorn.
• The snail darter, a small fish indigenous to the Little Tennessee River, was declared an endangered species by the United States. Protection of the habitat of the snail darter would delay construction of the Tellico Dam for two years; the dam would eventually be constructed and the snail darter population would increase to the point that its status would be altered in 1984 to "threatened species".
• Born: Sean Lennon, American singer and songwriter, to John Lennon and Yoko Ono, in New York City

  October 10, 1975 (Friday)

• "Airmail" was ended in the U.S. as a separate form of mailing letters domestically and internationally, bringing a close to an era when delivery would be made more quickly by paying additional postage to guarantee that the mail would be carried by airplane, rather than by train or truck, to its destination. By 1975, the U.S. Postal Service was transporting all interzone mail by airplane.
• Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton remarried, with a civil ceremony taking place in the African nation of Botswana. Although their first marriage lasted from 1964 to 1974, the second union would end in 1976.
• Died:
• *Norman Levinson, 63, American mathematician
• *Lillian Walker, 88, American film actress