BRITAIN AND THE WORLD SINCE 1953

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1975

Jan10 Thirty years after the end of WW2 Teruo Nakamura a Japanese surrenders on the Indonesian Island of Morota
Jan16 Angola gains independence from Portugal
Feb11 Margaret Thatcher becomes leader of Conservative party (in opposition) after defeating the former Prime Minister Edward Heath
  Former US Attorney General John N. Mitchell and former White House aides H.R. Haldeman and John D. Ehrlichman were sentenced to two and a-half to eight years in prison for their roles in the Watergate cover-up.
Feb 14 The novelist PG Wodehouse dies in Remsemburg, Long Island. There are long held suspicions that he was a Nazi sympathiser
Feb28 At 8.37a.m. a Northern Line Underground train crashes through the buffers at Moorgate Station and hits a dead end wall. The death toll amounts to 41 people and 50 are seriously injured. The rescue operation took three days to complete
Mar7 The body of kidnapped heiress Lesley Whittle was found in a 60ft drain shaft. She had been held for 52 days then strangled by Donald Nielson, "the Black Panther", who was later given four life sentences (21st June 1976). He was also the murderer of three sub-postmasters who were killed in raids on their businesses
Mar25 King Faisal of Saudi-Arabia is assassinated by his nephew - the latter is beheaded on June 18th
Apr17 Khmer Rouge enter the Cambodian capital of Phnom Penh and begin the forceable removal of its inhabitants to the countryside. Year Zero
Apr30 End of Vietnam war as South Viet-Nam is taken by the North Vietnamese
May16 Mrs Junko Tobei of Japan becomes the first woman to climb Mount Everest
May27 Worst UK motor vehicle disaster;a bus of elderly women plunges off Dibble's Bridge Yorks, killing 38 persons
Jun5 Suez Canal reopens (after Six Day War resulted in its closure) to international maritime traffic
Jun6 British voters decide to remain in Common Market after the U.K.'s first ever referendum
Jun19 Lord Lucan is found guilty of the murder of the nanny Sandra Rivett but is still at large.
Jun28 Mozambique gains independence from Portugal
July4 A jury in Hamburg sentences the former Head of the Gestapo in Warsaw Ludwig Hahn to life imprisonment
Jul5 Arthur Ashe wins Men's Singles Championship at Wimbeldon
  Cape Verde Is gain independence after 500 years of Portuguese rule 
Jul29 Gerald Ford becomes first US President to visit Auschwitz Poland
Jul30 Former U.S. Teamsters Union President James Hoffa was reported missing. He was last seen in the parking lot of the Machus Red Fox restaurant in Bloomfield Township,It is believed that he was subsequently murdered by members of an organised crime syndicate but despite extensive FBI investigations no substantial evidence was found. He was declared "presumed dead" on December 8, 1982.
Aug8 Samuel Bronfman, son of the president of Seagrams, was kidnapped in Purchase,New York, on August 8, 1975. His family paid the $2.3 million ransom.His kidnappers were apprehended soon after in Brooklyn and were convicted for extortion
Aug11 British Leyland the only major British owned Motor Co comes under government control
Aug15 Birmingham Six are sentenced to life imprisonment for the bombing of two pubs in Birmingham which resulted in the deaths of 21 people.
Aug19 The England - Australia test match at Headingley is abandoned after the wicket is dug up by a group campaigning for the release of jailed London taxi-driver George Davis
Aug24 Those who are held responsible for the military coup in Greece in 1967 are sentenced to death in Athens. The sentences were later commuted to life imprisonment
Aug27 Haile Selassie the Emperor of Ethiopia dies
Sep5 Lynette "Squeaky" Fromme attempts to assassinate Gerald Ford in Sacramento Ca
  Two die and sixty three are injured after a bomb explosion at London's Hilton Hotel
Sep11 The last Wolsey rolls off the production line
Sep14 Rembrandt's painting "The Night Watch" is slashed a dozen times at a gallery in Amsterdam
  Papua New guinea gains independence from Australia
Sep19 The magnificent "Fawlty Towers" is shown for the first time on BBC 2. John Cleese and Connie Booth wrote the 12 episodes of the series
Sep28 Members of the Black Liberation Front hold members of staff hostage in what was to become known as the "Spaghetti House" siege (77 Knightsbridge London). After five days the hostages were released unharmed and the abducters arrested  
Sep30 The "Thriller in Manila" - Muhammad Ali defeats Joe Frazier to retain the World Heavyweight Boxing Title
Oct5 Austrian Niki Lauda becomes Formula OneWorld Motor Racing Champion
Oct9 One person dies and twenty are injured after a bomb  explosion outside Green Park Tube Station near Piccadilly (London)
Oct10 Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor remarry in a remote village in Botswana
Oct29 Yorkshire Ripper Peter Sutcliffe kills the first of his thirteen victims
Oct30 First detected in France in 1918 a Forestry Commission Report states that 6.5 million trees have been destroyed by Dutch Elm Disease
Nov3 First North Sea oil comes ashore [some say 11 June]
Nov7 Tiede Herrema is released after 36 days after being kidnapped by the IRA. the abducters surrender to the Guarda after a siege lasting 19 days
Nov11 The Australian Labour Government of Gough Whitlam is sacked and is replaced by a caretaker government
Nov22 King Juan Carlos was sworn in as King of Spain, the first Spanish monarch since Alfonso XIII went into exile in 1931. General
Franco, who had ruled Spain since 1939, died two days previously.
Nov25 Irish Republican Army was outlawed in Britain following the deaths of 21 people in a pub bombing in Birmingham.
Nov27 Ross McWhirter, co-editor and compiler of the Guinness Book of World Records, was shot dead by Irish Republican Army
(IRA) active service unit outside his home. - see Dec 12 "The Balcombe Street Siege"
Nov29 Two times world motor racing champion Graham Hill is killed along with five members of the Lotus Grand Prix team in a plane crash near Elstree airport Hertfordshire.
Dec12 UN General Assembly demand that Indonesia withdraws from East Timor
Dec14 Six South Moluccan terrorists surrender, holding 23 hostages for 12 days
Dec12 A IRA Provisional IRA ASU is arrested after the siege in 22B Balcombe Street London in which the two occupants John and Sheila Matthews were held hostage for six days. The four members Martin O'Connell, Edward Butler, Harry Duggan and Hugh Doherty were given life sentences at their subsequent trial for ten murders and twenty bombings. They were freed in April 1999 under the terms of the multi-party peace deal for Northern Ireland, known as the Good Friday Agreement 
Dec27 Equal Pay Act and Sex Discrimination Act come into force
Dec29 11 are killed and 75 hurt by terrorist bomb at LaGuardia Airport in New York

 

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Last Updated 08/10/03 10:46

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