World Events
Population: 3.937 billion
Nobel Peace Prize: Henry A. Kissinger (US); Le Duc Tho (North Vietnam)1
Great Britain, Ireland, and Denmark enter European Economic Community (Jan. 1).
A ceasefire is signed, ending involvement of American ground troops in the Vietnam War. (Jan. 28).
US bombing of Cambodia ends, marking official halt to 12 years of combat activity in Southeast Asia (Aug. 15).
Chile's Marxist president, Salvadore Allende, is overthrown (Sept. 11); Gen. Augusto Pinochet takes power.
Fourth and largest Arab-Israeli conflict begins when Egyptian and Syrian forces attack Israel as Jews mark Yom Kippur, holiest day in their calendar (Oct. 6). Egypt and Israel sign US-sponsored cease-fire accord (Nov. 11). Background: Arab-Israeli Wars.
Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) hikes oil prices tremendously in retaliation for Western countries' involvement in Yom Kippur War.
U.S. Events
President: Richard M. Nixon
Vice President: Spiro T. Agnew
Population: 211,908,788
Life expectancy: 71.4 years
Violent Crime Rate (per 1,000): 41.5
Property Crime Rate (per 1,000): 37.4
Economics
US GDP (1998 dollars): $1,382.60 billion
Federal spending: $245.71 billion
Federal debt: $466.3 billion
Median Household Income
(current dollars): $10,512
Consumer Price Index: 44.4
Unemployment: 4.9%
Cost of a first-class stamp: $0.08
Nixon, on national TV, accepts responsibility, but not blame, for Watergate; accepts resignations of H. R. Haldeman and John D. Ehrlichman, fires John W. Dean III as counsel (April 30).
Spiro T. Agnew resigns as Vice President and then pleads no contest to charges of evasion of income taxes while Governor of Maryland (Oct. 10).
In the "Saturday Night Massacre," Nixon fires special Watergate prosecutor Archibald Cox and Deputy Attorney General William D. Ruckelshaus; Attorney General Elliot L. Richardson resigns (Oct. 20).
US Supreme Court rules on Roe v. Wade.
Sports
Super Bowl
Miami d. Washington (14-7)
World Series
Oakland A's d. NY Mets (4-3)
NBA Championship
New York d. LA Lakers (4-1)
Stanley Cup
Montreal d. Chicago (4-2)
Wimbledon
Women: Billie Jean King d. C. Evert (6-0 7-5)
Men: Jan Kodes d. A. Metreveli (6-1 9-8 6-3)
Kentucky Derby Champion
Secretariat (also won the Triple Crown: Kentucky Derby, Preakness Stakes and Belmont Stakes)
NCAA Basketball Championship
UCLA d. Memphis St. (87-66)
NCAA Football Champions
Notre Dame (AP, FW, NFF) (11-0-0) & Alabama (UPI) (11-1-0)
Entertainment
Pulitzer Prizes
Fiction: The Optimist's Daughter, Eudora Welty
Music: String Quartet No. 3, Elliott Carter
Drama: That Championship Season, Jason Miller
Oscars awarded in 1973
Academy Award, Best Picture: The Godfather, Albert S. Ruddy, producer (Paramount)
Nobel Prize for Literature: Patrick White (Australia)
Grammy Awards
Record of the Year: The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face - Roberta Flack
Album of the Year: The Concert for Bangla Desh - George Harrison, Ravi Shanker, Bob Dylan, Leon Russell, Ringo Starr, Billy Preston, Eric Clapton and Klaus Voormann (Apple)
Song of the Year: The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face - Ewan MacColl, songwriter
Miss America: Terry Anne Meeuwsen (WI)
Events
At the 1972 Academy Awards, Sacheen Littlefeather stands in for Marlon Brando and refuses his Best Actor Oscar for his role in The Godfather, to protest the U.S. government's treatment of Native Americans.
The Jamaican film The Harder They Come, starring Jimmy Cliff, launches the popularity of reggae music in the United States.
PBS airs the series An American Family, about the dysfunctional Loud family.
Movies
The Harder They Come, American Graffiti, The Exorcist, The Sting, Last Tango in Paris
Books
Daniel Boorstin, The Americans: The Democratic Experience, Vol. 3
Duke Ellington, Music is My Mistress
Thomas McGuane, Ninety-Two in the Shade
Czeslaw Milosz, Selected Poems
Joyce Carol Oates, Do With Me What You Will
Thomas Pynchon, Gravity's Rainbow
Kurt Vonnegut, Breakfast of Champions
Science
Nobel Prizes in Science
Chemistry: Ernst Otto Fischer (W. Germany) and Geoffrey Wilkinson (UK), for work that could solve problem of automobile exhaust pollution.
Physics: Ivar Giaever (US), Leo Esaki (Japan), and Brian D. Josephson (UK), for theories that have advanced and expanded the field of miniature electronics.
Physiology or Medicine: Karl von Frisch, Konrad Lorenz (both Austria), and Nikolaas Tinbergen (Netherlands), for their studies of individual and social behavior patterns.
Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol (TCP/IP) is designed and in 1983 it becomes the standard for communicating between computers over the Internet. Background: Computers and Internet.
Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (NMR), the technology behind MRI scanning, is developed.
Skylab, the first American space station, is launched (May 14).
Deaths
W.H. Auden
Pearl S. Buck
Betty Grable
Pablo Picasso
Lyndon Baines Johnson