1973

Events

January

• January 1 – The United Kingdom, the Republic of Ireland and Denmark enter the European Economic Community, which later becomes the European Union.
• January 15 – Vietnam War: Citing progress in peace negotiations, U.S. President Richard Nixon announces the suspension of offensive action in North Vietnam.
• January 17 – Ferdinand Marcos becomes President for Life of the Philippines.
• January 22
• * The Sunshine Showdown: George Foreman defeats Joe Frazier to win the heavyweight world boxing championship in Kingston, Jamaica.
• * A Royal Jordanian Boeing 707 flight from Jeddah crashes in Kano, Nigeria; 176 people are killed.
• January 27 – U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War ends with the signing of the Paris Peace Accords.

  February

• February 8 – A military insurrection in Uruguay poses an institutional challenge to President Juan María Bordaberry.
• February 21 – Libyan Arab Airlines Flight 114 is shot down by Israeli fighter aircraft over the Sinai Desert, after the passenger plane is suspected of being an enemy military plane. There are 108 fatalities, and only five people on board survive.
• February 28 – The Republic of Ireland general election is held. Liam Cosgrave becomes the new Taoiseach.

  March

• March 8 – The Troubles: A referendum is held in Northern Ireland over whether to reunite with the Republic of Ireland or to stay a part of the UK. The result was 98% remain. The Provisional Irish Republican Army responds to the referendum by planting four car bombs in London on the same day, two of which went off, causing one death and injuring over 200 people.
• March 10 – Sir Richard Sharples, Governor of Bermuda, is assassinated outside Government House, along with his aide-de-camp.
• March 18 – Comet Kohoutek is discovered.
• March 20 – A British government White Paper on Northern Ireland proposes the re-establishment of an Assembly elected by proportional representation, with a possible All-Ireland council.
• March 21 – The Lofthouse Colliery disaster occurs in Great Britain. Seven miners are trapped underground; none survive.
• March 27 – At the 45th Academy Awards, The Godfather wins best picture.

  April

• April 1
• *India launches the wildlife conservation program Project Tiger.
• *Value Added Tax is introduced in the United Kingdom.
• April 3 – The first handheld mobile phone call is made by Martin Cooper of Motorola in New York City.
• April 4 — The World Trade Center is officially dedicated.
• April 5
• * Fahri Korutürk becomes the sixth president of Turkey.
• * Pioneer 11 is launched on a mission to study the Solar System.
• April 7 – Tu te reconnaîtras by Anne-Marie David wins the Eurovision Song Contest 1973 for Luxembourg.
• April 10
• * Operation Spring of Youth: Israeli commandos raid Beirut, assassinating 3 leaders of the Palestinian Resistance Movement. The Lebanese army's inaction brings the immediate resignation of Prime Minister Saeb Salam, a Sunni Muslim.
• * The Islamic Republic of Pakistan introduced its new constitution, its supreme law.
• April 15 – Naim Talu, a former civil servant, forms the new government of Turkey.
• April 17 – The German counter-terrorist force GSG 9 is officially formed in response to the Munich massacre.

  May

• May 3 – The Sears Tower in Chicago, United States, is topped-out, becoming the world's tallest building at.
• May 5 – Shambu Tamang becomes the youngest person to climb to the summit of Mount Everest.
• May 10 – The Polisario Front, a Sahrawi movement dedicated to the independence of Spanish Sahara, is formed.
• May 11 – The Data Act − the world's first national data protection law − is enacted in Sweden.
• May 14 – Skylab, the United States' first space station, is launched.
• May 18 – Second Cod War: Joseph Godber, British Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, announces that Royal Navy frigates will protect British trawlers fishing in the disputed limit around Iceland.
• May 25
• * Skylab 2 is launched on a mission to repair damage to the recently launched Skylab space station.
• * Héctor José Cámpora becomes democratic president of the Argentine Republic ending the 1966 to 1973 Revolución Argentina military dictatorship.

  June

• June 1 – The Greek military junta abolishes the monarchy and proclaims a republic.
• June 3 – A Tupolev Tu-144 crashes at the Paris air show; 15 are killed.
• June 10 – Henri Pescarolo and co-driver Gérard Larrousse win the 24 Hours of Le Mans in the Equipe Matra MS670B.
• June 20 – The Ezeiza massacre occurs in Buenos Aires, Argentina. Snipers shoot at left-wing Peronists, killing at least 13 and injuring more than 300.
• June 24
• * Leonid Brezhnev addresses the American people on television, the first Soviet leader to do so.
• * UpStairs Lounge arson attack, an as-yet unsolved attack on a gay bar in New Orleans, Louisiana, in which 32 patrons are killed.
• June 25 – Erskine Hamilton Childers is elected the 4th President of Ireland.
• June 26 – At Plesetsk Cosmodrome, nine people are killed in the explosion of a Cosmos 3-M rocket.
• June 27 – Coup d'état in Uruguay: pressed by the military, President Juan María Bordaberry dissolves Parliament; a 12-year-long civic-military dictatorship begins.
• June 28 – Elections are held for the Northern Ireland Assembly, which will lead to power-sharing between unionists and nationalists in Northern Ireland for the first time.
• June 30 – A very long total solar eclipse occurs. During the entire second millennium, only seven total solar eclipses exceeded seven minutes of totality.

  July

• July 3 – Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe.
• July 5 – The catastrophic BLEVE occurs in Kingman, Arizona, United States, following a fire that broke out as propane was being transferred from a railroad car to a storage tank, killing 11 firefighters. This explosion becomes a classic incident, studied in fire department training programs worldwide.
• July 10 – The Bahamas gains full independence within the Commonwealth of Nations.
• July 11 – Varig Flight 820 crashes near Orly, France; 123 people are killed.
• July 16 – Watergate scandal: Former White House aide Alexander Butterfield informs the United States Senate Watergate Committee that President Richard Nixon had secretly recorded potentially incriminating conversations.
• July 17 – King Mohammed Zahir Shah of Afghanistan is deposed by his cousin Mohammed Daoud Khan while in Italy undergoing eye surgery.
• July 20 – France resumes nuclear bomb tests in Mururoa Atoll, over the protests of Australia and New Zealand.
• July 21 – Lillehammer affair: Agents of Mossad, the Israeli secret intelligence agency, shoot and kill a Moroccan waiter in Lillehammer, Norway, mistakenly believing him to be a senior member of the Palestinian Black September Organization.
• July 23 – The Avianca Building in Bogotá, Colombia, suffers a serious fire, in which four people are killed.
• July 25 – The Soviet Mars 5 space probe is launched.
• July 28 – Skylab 3 is launched, to conduct various medical and scientific experiments aboard Skylab.
• July 31 – A Delta Air Lines DC-9 aircraft flying as Delta Air Lines Flight 173 lands short of Logan Airport runway at Boston, United States, in poor visibility, striking a sea wall about 165 feet to the right of the runway centerline and about 3000 feet short. All 6 crew members and 83 passengers are killed; one of the passengers died several months after the accident.

  August

• August 1 – Caribbean Community and Common Market is inaugurated.
• August 2 – A flash fire kills 51 at the Summerland amusement centre at Douglas, Isle of Man.
• August 5
• * Black September members open fire at the Athens airport; 3 people are killed, 55 injured.
• * Mars 6, also known as 3MP No. 50P, is launched by the Soviet Union to explore Mars.
• August 8 – South Korean politician Kim Dae-jung is kidnapped in Tokyo by the KCIA.
• August 15 – The U.S. bombing of Cambodia ends, officially halting 12 years of combat activity in Southeast Asia according to the Case–Church Amendment-an act that prohibits military operations in Laos, Cambodia, and North and South Vietnam as a follow-up of the Paris Peace Accords.
• August 23 – The Norrmalmstorg robbery occurs, famous for the origin of the term Stockholm syndrome.
• August 25 – Disappearance of Joanne Ratcliffe and Kirste Gordon: Two Australian girls go missing whilst attending an Australian rules football match at the Adelaide Oval, never to be seen again.

  September

• September 9 – Scottish racing driver Jackie Stewart becomes World Drivers' Champion when his Tyrrell 003-Cosworth finishes fourth in the 1973 Italian Grand Prix at Monza.
• September 11 – Chile's democratically elected government is overthrown in a violent military coup after serious political instability. President Salvador Allende allegedly commits suicide during the coup in the presidential palace and General Augusto Pinochet heads a US-backed military junta that governs Chile for the next 17 years.
• September 15 – Carl XVI Gustaf, becomes King of Sweden following the death of his grandfather, King Gustaf VI Adolf.
• September 18 – The two German Republics, the Federal Republic of Germany and the German Democratic Republic, are admitted to the United Nations.
• September 20
• * Billie Jean King beats Bobby Riggs in a singles tennis match billed as the "Battle of the Sexes".
• * Jim Croce, Maury Muehleisen and four others are killed in a plane crash shortly after takeoff following a concert at Northwestern Louisiana University in Natchitoches.
• September 27
• * Soviet space program: Soyuz 12, the first Soviet crewed flight since the Soyuz 11 tragedy in 1971, is launched.
• * Luís Cabral declares the independence of the Republic of Guinea-Bissau from the Estado Novo regime in Portugal. It is later granted in September 1974.