What Happened in 1970 — Events, Births & Deaths

The 7.1 Mw Tonghai earthquake shakes Tonghai County, Yunnan province, China, with a maximum Mercalli intensity of X (Extreme). Between 10,000 and 15,000 people are known to have been killed and about another 26,000 are injured.

A Spantax Convair CV-990 Coronado crashes during takeoff from Stockholm Arlanda Airport, killing five people.

Biafra capitulates, ending the Nigerian Civil War.

Nigerian Civil War: Biafran rebels surrender following an unsuccessful 32-month fight for independence from Nigeria.

Muammar Gaddafi is proclaimed premier of Libya.

The Boeing 747, the world's first "jumbo jet", enters commercial service for launch customer Pan American Airways with its maiden voyage from New York's John F. Kennedy International Airport to London Heathrow Airport.

Japan launches Ohsumi, becoming the fourth nation to put an object into orbit using its own booster.

Dominicana de Aviación Flight 603 crashes into the Caribbean Sea after takeoff from Las Américas International Airport, killing 102, including members of the Puerto Rico women's national volleyball team and lightweight boxer Carlos Cruz.

The family of Jeffrey R. MacDonald, United States Army captain, is found murdered in their home in Fort Bragg, North Carolina, US. Eventually, MacDonald was charged with and convicted of the murder of his pregnant wife and two daughters.

The Chicago Seven are found not guilty of conspiring to incite riots at the 1968 Democratic National Convention.

Rhodesia declares itself a republic, breaking its last links with the British crown.

French submarine Eurydice explodes underwater, resulting in the loss of the entire 57-man crew.

The Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons goes into effect after ratification by 43 nations.

Vietnam War: Captain Ernest Medina is charged by the U.S. military with My Lai war crimes.

Lon Nol ousts Prince Norodom Sihanouk of Cambodia.

The first Earth Day proclamation is issued by Joseph Alioto, Mayor of San Francisco.

San Diego Comic-Con, the largest pop and culture festival in the world, hosts its inaugural event.

South Vietnamese President Nguyễn Văn Thiệu implements a land reform program to solve the problem of land tenancy.

An earthquake strikes western Turkey at about 23:05 local time, killing 1,086 and injuring at least 1,200.

Explorer 1 re-enters the Earth's atmosphere after 12 years in orbit.

President Richard Nixon signs the Public Health Cigarette Smoking Act into law.

A Royal Air Maroc Sud Aviation Caravelle crashes near Berrechid, Morocco, killing 61.

Newhall massacre: Four California Highway Patrol officers are killed in a shootout.

Bahr El-Baqar primary school bombing: Israeli bombers strike an Egyptian school. Forty-six children are killed.

Paul McCartney announces that he is leaving The Beatles for personal and professional reasons.

Apollo Program: Apollo 13 is launched.

Soviet submarine K-8, carrying four nuclear torpedoes, sinks in the Bay of Biscay four days after a fire on board.

At 10:08 PM EST an oxygen tank aboard the Apollo 13 Service Module explodes, putting the crew in great danger and causing major damage to the Apollo command and service module (codenamed "Odyssey") while en route to the Moon.

During the Cambodian Civil War, massacre of the Vietnamese minority results in 800 bodies flowing down the Mekong river into South Vietnam.

Apollo program: The damaged Apollo 13 spacecraft returns to Earth safely.

The first Earth Day is celebrated.

Chicano residents in San Diego, California occupy a site under the Coronado Bridge, leading to the creation of Chicano Park.

China launches Dong Fang Hong I, becoming the fifth nation to put an object into orbit using its own booster.

The Gambia becomes a republic within the Commonwealth of Nations, with Dawda Jawara as its first President.

The Convention Establishing the World Intellectual Property Organization enters into force.

Vietnam War: US President Richard Nixon formally authorizes American combat troops to take part in the Cambodian campaign.

Vietnam War: United States and South Vietnamese forces invade Cambodia to interdict the Ho Chi Minh Trail in an attempt to cut off supplies to the Viet Cong and the North Vietnamese Army.

Vietnam War: A student anti-war strike erupts in response to U.S. and South Vietnamese forces attacking Vietnamese communists in a Cambodian Campaign.

ALM Flight 980 ditches in the Caribbean Sea near Saint Croix, killing 23.

Vietnam War: Kent State shootings: The Ohio National Guard, sent to Kent State University after disturbances in the city of Kent the weekend before, opens fire killing four unarmed students and wounding nine others. The students were protesting the Cambodian Campaign of the United States and South Vietnam.

The Beatles release their 12th and final studio album Let It Be.

The 1970 Lubbock tornado kills 26 and causes $250 million in damage.

Andreas Baader is freed from custody by Ulrike Meinhof, Gudrun Ensslin and others, a pivotal moment in the formation of the Red Army Faction.

President Richard Nixon appoints Anna Mae Hays and Elizabeth P. Hoisington as the first female United States Army generals.

The Soviet Tupolev Tu-144 becomes the first commercial transport to exceed Mach 2.

The 7.9 Mw Ancash earthquake shakes Peru with a maximum Mercalli intensity of VIII (Severe) and a landslide buries the town of Yungay, Peru. Between 66,794 and 70,000 were killed and 50,000 were injured.

Tonga gains independence from the British Empire.

After being appointed on May 15, Anna Mae Hays and Elizabeth P. Hoisington officially receive their ranks as U.S. Army general officers, becoming the first women to do so.

Penn Central declares Section 77 bankruptcy in what was the largest U.S. corporate bankruptcy to date.

The Troubles: The "Falls Curfew" begins in Belfast, Northern Ireland.

Dan-Air Flight 1903 crashes into the Les Agudes mountain in the Montseny Massif near the village of Arbúcies in Catalonia, Spain, killing all 112 people aboard.

Air Canada Flight 621 crashes in Brampton, Ontario, Canada, killing all 109 people on board.

Richard Nixon delivers a special congressional message enunciating Native American self-determination as official US Indian policy, leading to the Indian Self-Determination and Education Assistance Act of 1975.

An Antonov An-22 of the Soviet Air Forces crashes into the Atlantic Ocean, killing all 23 aboard.

After 11 years of construction, the Aswan High Dam in Egypt is completed.

Qaboos bin Said al Said becomes Sultan of Oman after overthrowing his father, Said bin Taimur initiating massive reforms, modernization programs and end to a decade long civil war.

Black Tot Day: The last day of the officially sanctioned rum ration in the Royal Navy.

California judge Harold Haley is taken hostage in his courtroom and killed during an effort to free George Jackson from police custody.

LANSA Flight 502 crashes after takeoff from Alejandro Velasco Astete International Airport in Cusco, Peru, killing 99 of the 100 people on board, as well as two people on the ground.

Patricia Palinkas becomes the first woman to play professionally in an American football game.

Soviet Union Venera program: Venera 7 launched. It will become the first spacecraft to successfully transmit data from the surface of another planet (Venus).

Organized by Mexican American labor union leader César Chávez, the Salad Bowl strike, the largest farm worker strike in U.S. history, begins.

Vietnam War protesters bomb Sterling Hall at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, leading to an international manhunt for the perpetrators.

The fiftieth anniversary of American women being able to vote is marked by a nationwide Women's Strike for Equality.

Chicano Moratorium against the Vietnam War, East Los Angeles, California. Police riot kills three people, including journalist Rubén Salazar.

NASA announces the cancellation of two Apollo missions to the Moon, Apollo 15 (the designation is re-used by a later mission), and Apollo 19.

Aeroflot Flight 3630, a Tupolev Tu-124 en route from southern Russia to Lithuania, crashes after the pilots lost control of the aircraft at cruise altitude between Rostov-on-Don Airport and Vilnius Airport, on the second leg of the flight; all 37 passengers and crew are killed.

Salvador Allende is elected President of Chile.

Vietnam War: Operation Jefferson Glenn begins: The United States 101st Airborne Division and the South Vietnamese 1st Infantry Division initiate a new operation in Thừa Thiên–Huế Province.

Two passenger jets bound from Europe to New York are simultaneously hijacked by Palestinian terrorist members of the PFLP and taken to Dawson's Field, Jordan.

Fighting begins between Arab guerrillas and government forces in Jordan.

Vietnam Television is established.

Trans International Airlines Flight 863 crashes during takeoff from John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York City, killing all 11 aboard.

A British airliner is hijacked by the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine and flown to Dawson's Field in Jordan.

The Dawson's Field hijackers release 88 of their hostages. The remaining hostages, mostly Jews and Israeli citizens, are held until September 25.

Dawson's Field hijackings: Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine terrorists blow up three hijacked airliners in Zarqa, Jordan, continuing to hold the passengers hostage in various undisclosed locations in Amman.

King Hussein of Jordan declares war against the Palestine Liberation Organization, the conflict came to be known as Black September.

Michael Eavis hosts the first Glastonbury Festival.

Kostas Georgakis, a Greek student of geology, sets himself ablaze in Matteotti Square in Genoa, Italy, as a protest against the dictatorial regime of Georgios Papadopoulos.

Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser dies of a heart attack in Cairo.

Jordan makes a deal with the PFLP for the release of the remaining hostages from the Dawson's Field hijackings.

An aircraft carrying the Wichita State University football team, administrators, and supporters crashes in Colorado, killing 31 people.

The Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) is founded in the United States.[citation needed]

The British Trade Commissioner, James Cross, is kidnapped by members of the Front de libération du Québec, triggering the October Crisis in Canada.

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn wins the Nobel Prize in literature.

The Khmer Republic is proclaimed in Cambodia.

Fiji becomes independent.

Canada's October Crisis escalates when Quebec Vice Premier Pierre Laporte is kidnapped by members of the Front de libération du Québec.

Vietnam War: Vietnamization continues as President Richard Nixon announces that the United States will withdraw 40,000 more troops before Christmas.

During the construction of Australia's West Gate Bridge, a span of the bridge falls and kills 35 workers. The incident is the country's worst industrial accident to this day.

Canadian Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau invokes the War Measures Act during the October Crisis.

FLQ terrorists murder Quebec Vice-Premier and Minister of Labour Pierre Laporte.

Gary Gabelich sets a land speed record in a rocket-powered automobile called the Blue Flame, fueled with natural gas.

Club Cinq-Sept fire in Saint-Laurent-du-Pont, France kills 146 young people.

Vietnam War: The United States turns over control of the air base at Bình Thủy in the Mekong Delta to South Vietnam.

Salvador Allende takes office as President of Chile, the first Marxist to become president of a Latin American country through open elections.

The Military Assistance Command, Vietnam reports the lowest weekly American soldier death toll in five years (24).

Vietnam War: The Supreme Court of the United States votes 6–3 against hearing a case to allow Massachusetts to enforce its law granting residents the right to refuse military service in an undeclared war.

Vietnam War: Vietnamization: For the first time in five years, an entire week ends with no reports of American combat fatalities in Southeast Asia.

Luna 17: uncrewed space mission launched by the Soviet Union.

The Oregon Highway Division attempts to destroy a rotting beached sperm whale with explosives, leading to the now infamous "exploding whale" incident.

The 1970 Bhola cyclone makes landfall on the coast of East Pakistan, becoming the deadliest tropical cyclone in history.

Bhola cyclone: A 240 km/h (150 mph) tropical cyclone hits the densely populated Ganges Delta region of East Pakistan (now Bangladesh), killing an estimated 500,000 people in one night.

Soviet Union enters ICAO, making Russian the fourth official language of organization.

Southern Airways Flight 932 crashes in the mountains near Huntington, West Virginia, killing 75, including almost all of the Marshall University football team.

Vietnam War: Lieutenant William Calley goes on trial for the My Lai Massacre.

Luna programme: The Soviet Union lands Lunokhod 1 on Mare Imbrium (Sea of Rains) on the Moon. This is the first roving remote-controlled robot to land on another world and is released by the orbiting Luna 17 spacecraft.

U.S. President Richard Nixon asks the U.S. Congress for $155 million in supplemental aid for the Cambodian government.

Vietnam War: Operation Ivory Coast: A joint United States Air Force and Army team raids the Sơn Tây prisoner-of-war camp in an attempt to free American prisoners of war thought to be held there.

In Japan, author Yukio Mishima and one compatriot commit ritualistic seppuku after an unsuccessful coup attempt.

In Basse-Terre, Guadeloupe, 38 millimetres (1.5 in) of rain fall in a minute, the heaviest rainfall ever recorded.

The United States Environmental Protection Agency begins operations.

Soviet spacecraft Venera 7 successfully lands on Venus. It is the first successful soft landing on another planet.

Polish protests: In Gdynia, soldiers fire at workers emerging from trains, killing dozens.

Koza riot: After a series of hit-and-runs and other vehicular incidents involving American service personnel, roughly 5,000 Okinawans take to the streets, clashing with American law enforcement in protest against the U.S. occupation of Okinawa.

The North Tower of the World Trade Center in Manhattan, New York, New York is topped out at 417 metres (1,368 ft), making it the tallest building in the world.

The Democratic Republic of the Congo officially becomes a one-party state.

Hurricane Creek mine disaster, near Hyden, Kentucky

Saad Hariri, Saudi Arabian-Lebanese businessman and politician, 33rd Prime Minister of Lebanon

Willie Roaf, American football player

Shemar Moore, American actor

Regine Velasquez, Filipino singer and actress

Doug Christie, American basketball player and coach

Hao Haidong, Chinese footballer

Ghostface Killah, American rapper and actor

Helen Baxendale, English actress

Cafu, Brazilian footballer

Gabby Giffords, American politician and advocate for ending gun violence in the United States

Steve Renouf, Australian rugby league player

Kelli Williams, American actress and director

E. M. Forster, English novelist, short story writer, essayist (born 1879)

Preston Foster, American actor (born 1900)