1971

Decades: 1920s 1930s 1940s 1950s 1960s - 1970s - 1980s 1990s 2000s

Years: 1966 1967 1968 1969 1970 - 1971 - 1972 1973 1974 1975 1976

Events

• January 1 - British divorce Reform Act comes into force
• January 2 - 66 die in stairway crush at Rangers v Celtic football match, Glasgow, Scotland.
• January 2 - A ban on television cigarette advertisements goes into effect in the United States.
• January 3 - BBC Open University commences
• January 7 - Howard Hughes breaks his silence to announce that his supposed biography is a forgery.
• January 15 - Aswan Dam officially opened
• January 19 - No, No Nanette premieres (46th Street Theatre, New York City).
• January 25 - Charles Manson and three female "family members" are found guilty and sentenced to life imprisonment for the murder of Sharon Tate and others
• January 25 - Idi Amin leads a coup deposing Milton Obote and becomes Uganda's president
• January 25 - Himachal Pradesh becomes the 18th Indian state
• January 31 - Apollo program: Astronauts aboard Apollo 14 lift off for a mission to the moon.
• February 2 - In Uganda after a coup, Idi Amin replaces President Milton Obote as leader.
• February 4 - In Britain, Rolls Royce goes bankrupt - state takes over
• February 5 - Apollo 14 lands on the Moon.
• February 7 - Tuscany, Italy, wrecked in an earthquake
• February 7 - Men of Switzerland vote for giving voting rights to women in state elections - but not in all canton-specific ones.
• February 8 - A new stock-market index called the Nasdaq debuts.
• February 9 - The 6.4 on the Richter Scale Sylmar earthquake hits the San Fernando Valley area of California.
• February 9 - Satchel Paige becomes the first Negro League player to become voted into the Baseball Hall of Fame
• February 9 - Apollo program: Apollo 14 returns to Earth after the third manned moon landing.
• February 11 - US, UK, USSR, others sign Seabed Treaty outlawing nuclear weapons.
• February 13 - Vietnam War: Backed by American air and artillery support, South Vietnamese troops invade Laos.
• February 15 - "Decimalization" - United Kingdom switches to decimal currency.
• March 1 - Bomb explodes in men's room in the White House - Weather Underground claims responsibility.
• March 10 - Twenty-sixth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution lowers voting age to 18.
• March 12 - Hafez al-Assad becomes president of Syria.
• March 18 - A landslide at Chungar, Peru crashes into Lake Yanahuani killing 200.
• March 26 - East Pakistan declares its independence from Pakistan and the establishment of Bangladesh.
• March 29 - William Calley is found guilty of 22 murders in My Lai massacre and sentenced to life in prison. He is later pardoned.
• March 29 - A Los Angeles, California jury recommends the death penalty for Charles Manson and three female followers.
• April 5 - Mount Etna erupts.
• April 9 - Charles Manson is sentenced to death but the sentence is commuted to life imprisonment.
• April 17 - Libya, Syria and Egypt sign an agreement to form a confederation.
• April 19 - Soviet Union launches Saljut I.
• April 19 - Followers of Charles Manson, the Manson Family, are sentenced to gas chamber.
• April 20 - Supreme Court of the United States rules unanimously that busing of students may be ordered to achieve racial desegregation.
• April 24 - 500.000 demonstrate against Vietnam War in Washington DC.
• May 3 - Anti-war militants attempt to disrupt government business in Washington, D.C.; police and military units arrest as many as 12,000, most of whom are later released.
• May 3 - All Things Considered, National Public Radio's flagship news program, broadcasts for the first time.
• May 19 - Mars probe program: Mars 2 is launched by the Soviet Union.
• May 30 - Mariner program: Mariner 9 is launched toward Mars.
• May 31 The birth of a new country, Bangladesh. It is out of territory formerly part of Pakistan
• June - The Pentagon Papers are published
• June 14 - Norway begins oil production in North Sea.
• June 17 - USA and Japan sign a treaty which gives Okinawa and other islands back to Japan.
• June 28 - Black assassin shoots Joe Colombo to the head in a middle of a Italian-American rally. Colombo goes into coma.
• June 30 - The crew of the Soyuz 11 spacecraft are killed when their air supply leaks out through a faulty valve
• July 5 - Right to vote: The voting age in the United States is reduced to 18 from 21 (provision of the 26th Amendment formally certified by President Richard Nixon on this day).
• July 9 - Britain sends 500 more soldiers to Northern Ireland.
• July 16 - Franco makes Prince Juan Carlos his successor.
• July 26 - Apollo program: Launch of Apollo 15. On July 31 the Apollo 15 astronauts become the first to ride in a lunar rover a day after landing on the surface.
• August 9 - British security forces in Northern Ireland detain hundreds of guerilla suspects and put them into Long Kesh - the beginning of an internment without trial policy. 20 die in riots that follow
• August 14 - Emirate of Bahrain declares independence.
• August 15 - President Richard Nixon announced that the United States would no longer convert dollars to gold at a fixed value, effectively ending the Bretton Woods Gold Standard.
• August 18 - Vietnam War: Australia and New Zealand decide to withdraw their troops from Vietnam.
• August 26 - Civilian government in Greece.
• September 3 - Qatar regains independence from the United Kingdom.
• September 4 - A Boeing 727 carrying Alaska Airlines Flight 1866 crashes into the side of a mountain near Juneau, Alaska killing all 111 people on board.
• September 8 - In Washington, DC, the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts is inaugurated with the opening feature being the premiere of Leonard Bernstein's Mass.
• September 9 - September 13 - Attica Prison riots - 43 dead, 10 of them hostages.
• September 24 - Britain expels 90 KGB and GRU officials and 15 are not allowed to return
• September 27 - October 11 - Emperor Hirohito travels abroad.
• September 28 - Cardinal Mindszenty, who has resided in US embassy in Budapest from 1956 is allowed to move out of Hungary.
• September 29 - Cyclone and tidal wave in the Bay of Bengal in Orissa state in India kills 10.000
• October 1 - Walt Disney World opens.
• October 25 - The United Nations General Assembly admits the People's Republic of China and expels the Republic of China (on Taiwan).
• October 27 - Democratic Republic of the Congo is renamed Zaire.
• October 28 - British House of Commons votes in favour of joining the EEC by 356-244
• October 29 - Vietnam War: Vietnamization - The total number of American troops still in Vietnam drops to a record low of 196,700 (the lowest level since January 1966).
• October 30 - Rev. Ian Paisley's Democratic Unionist Party founded in Northern Ireland
• November 3 - The UNIX Programmer's Manual is published.
• November 6 - US nuclear bomb test in Aleuts.
• November 10 - In Cambodia, Khmer Rouge forces attack the city Phnom Penh and its airport, killing 44, wounding at least 30 and damaging nine airplanes.
• November 12 - Vietnam War: Vietnamization - US President Richard M. Nixon sets February 1, 1972 as the deadline for the removal of another 45,000 American troops from Vietnam.
• November 13 - Mariner program: Mariner 9 enters Mars orbit.
• November 15 - Intel releases world's first microprocessor, the 4004.
• November 23 - The People's Republic of China is given the Republic of China's seat on the United Nations Security Council (see China and the United Nations).
• November 24 - During a severe thunderstorm over Washington, a man calling himself D.B. Cooper parachutes from the Northwest Orient Airlines plane he hijacked with US$200,000 in ransom money (he was never heard from again).
• December 1 - Cambodian Civil War: Khmer Rouge rebels intensify assaults on Cambodian government positions, forcing their retreat from Kompong Thmar and nearby Ba Ray, 10 kilometers northeast of Phnom Penh.
• December 2 - Six Sheikdoms in Persian Gulf founds United Arab Emirates
• December 3 - Indian-Pakistan War begins
• December 18 - US dollar devalued for the second time in US history
• December 18 - World's largest hydroelectric plant in Krasnoyarsk, Russia, begins operations.
• December 29 - The United Kingdom gives up its military bases in Malta
• Don't Make A Wave Committee changes its name to Greenpeace
• Intel introduces the microprocessor for micro-computers. The 4004 chip
• Ray Tomlinson sends the first e-mail.
• Libertarian party established in USA
• First Concorde test flights
• Free City of Christiania is founded.
• Intelsat IV

Year in topic

• 1971 in film
  • The French Connection
  • A Clockwork Orange by Stanley Kubrick
  • Fiddler on the Roof
  • Dirty Harry starring Clint Eastwood
  • The French Connection by William Friedkin
• 1971 in literature
• 1971 in music
  • John Lennon recorded Imagine
• 1971 in sports
• 1971 in television
  • January 10 - Masterpiece Theatre debuts on PBS
  • All in the Family premieres January 12 on TV

Births

• January 11 - Mary J. Blige, pop singer
• January 17 - Kid Rock, singer
• January 19 - Shawn Wayans, actor, writer, producer
• February 3 - Sarah Kane, playwright
• February 17 - Denise Richards.
• February 25 - Sean Astin, actor
• February 26 - Erykah Badu, singer
• March 5 - John Frusciante, musician, former member of Red Hot Chili Peppers
• March 11 - Johnny Knoxville, ("Jackass"), television personality
• March 27 - David Coulthard, Formula One racing driver
• March 31 - Ewan McGregor, actor
• March 31 - Pavel Bure, ice hockey player
• April 1 - Method Man, musician
• April 17- Selena Quintanilla, famous Mexican-American tejano music singer (died 1995)
• May 17 - Máxima Zorreguieta, wife of Prince Willem-Alexander of the Netherlands
• May 25 - Sonya Smith, actress
• June 16 - Tupac Shakur, rapper, poet, actor (died 1996)
• June 22 - Kurt Warner, two-time NFL MVP
• July 22 - Kristine Lilly, American soccer star; all-time leader in international matches played (men or women)
• August 4 - Jeff Gordon, NASCAR racing driver
• August 12 - Pete Sampras, tennis player
• September 1 - Hakan Sükür, Turkish football star
• September 18 - Lance Armstrong, cyclist, five-time Tour de France winner
• September 11 - Richard Ashcroft, singer
• September 20 - Henrik Larsson, Swedish football star
• October 25 - Pedro Martínez, baseball pitcher, three-time Cy Young Award winner
• October 29 - Winona Ryder, actress
• November 25 - Christina Applegate, actress
• December 24 - Ricky Martin, singer
• December 25 - Dido, singer
• December 28 - Frank Sepe, bodybuilder and male model

Deaths

• January 5 - Douglas Shearer, pioneer motion-picture sound engineer
• January 6 -- Sonny Liston (date he was found dead)
• January 10 --Gabrielle Chanel, aka Coco Chanel, fashion designer
• January 11 - Jose Arigo,"psychic surgeon"
• January 20 - Gilbert M. 'Broncho Billy' Anderson, actor, director, writer, producer
• January 28 - Donald Winnicott, British psychoanalyst
• February 11 - Whitney Young Jr, National Urban League director.
• February 26 - Fernandel, French comedian
• March 8 - Harold Lloyd, silent screen comedian
• March 11 - Philo T. Farnsworth, television pioneer
• March 16 - Thomas Dewey, candidate for President of the United States in 1944 and 1948
• April 6 - Igor Stravinsky, composer
• April 21 - Papa Doc Duvalier, despotic President of Haiti.
• May 11 - Sean Lemass, former Taoiseach of the Republic of Ireland, aged 71
• May 15 - Sir Tyrone Guthrie, director, producer, writer
• May 19 - Ogden Nash, poet
• May 28 - Audie Murphy, WW II hero, actor
• June 30 - Viktor Patsayev, Georgi Dobrovolsky, and Vladislav Volkov, cosmonauts on Soyuz 11
• July 3 - Jim Morrison, American singer, songwriter and poet.
• July 4 - August Derleth, American author and anthologist.
• July 7 - Claude Gauvreau, Quebec playwright, poet and polemist
• July 7 - Ub Iwerks, American animator.
• September 11 -Nikita Sergeevich Khrushchev, Soviet politician and leader. He was buried without official honors.
• September 12 - Bi Lao, China's defense minister. Air crash in suspicious circumstances
• October 24 - Carl Ruggles, composer

• William F. Albright, American archeologist and Biblical scholar

Nobel Prizes

• Physics - Dennis Gabor
• Chemistry - Gerhard Herzberg
• Medicine - Earl W Sutherland, Jr
• Literature - Pablo Neruda
• Peace - Willy Brandt
• Economics - Simon Kuznets

Referenced By