October 6 - François Cevert, French race car driver (b. 1944)
October 6 - Sidney Blackmer, American actor (b. 1895)
October 12 - Peter Aufschnaiter, Austrian mountaineer
October 16 - Gene Krupa, American jazz drummer (b. 1909)
October 17 - Ingeborg Bachmann, Austrian writer (b. 1926)
October 18 - Margaret Caroline Anderson, American magazine publisher (b. 1886)
October 21 - Nasif Estéfano, Argentine racing driver (b. 1932)
October 25 - Cleo Moore, American actress (b. 1928)
October 25 - Abebe Bikila, Ethiopian athlete (b. 1932)
October 28 - Taha Hussein, Egyptian writer (b. 1889)
October 28 - Sergio Tofano, Italian actor (b. 1883)
November 3 - Marc Allégret, French director and screenwriter (b. 1900)
November 10 - David "Stringbean" Akeman, American country music banjo player (b. 1915)
November 11 - David "Stringbean" Akeman, American banjo player (b. 1915)
November 13 - Lila Lee, American actress (b. 1901)
November 17 - The Mother, Sri Aurobindo Ashram (b. 1878)
November 20 - Allan Sherman, American comedian (b. 1924)
November 23 - Sessue Hayakawa, Japanese actor (b. 1889)
November 24 - John Neihardt, American writer (b. 1881)
November 25 - Laurence Harvey, Lithuanian-born actor (b. 1928)
November 27 - Frank Christian, American jazz trumpeter (b. 1887)
November 28 - Marthe Bibesco, Romanian writer (b. 1886)
December 3 - Emile Christian, American musician (b. 1895)
December 10 - Wolf Vishniac, American microbiologist (b. 1922)
December 13 - Henry Green, English author (b. 1905)
December 20 - Bobby Darin, American singer (b. 1936)
December 23 - Charles Atlas, Italian-born bodybuilder (b. 1892)
December 23 - Irna Phillips, American television writer
Events
January 1 - Denmark, the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, and the Republic of Ireland are admitted into the European Community.
January 7 - Mark Essex fatally shoots 10 people and wounds 13 others at Howard Johnson’s Hotel in New Orleans, Louisiana before being shot to death by police officers.
January 8 - Soviet space mission Luna 21 is launched.
January 8 - Watergate scandal: The trial of seven men accused of illegal entry into Democratic Party headquarters at Watergate begins.
January 15 - Vietnam War: Citing progress in peace negotiations, 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 Supreme Court of the United States delivers its decision in Roe v. Wade, allowing abortion
January 22 - A chartered Boeing 707 explodes in flames upon landing at Kano Airport, Nigeria killing 176.
January 23 - President Richard Nixon announces that a peace accord has been reached in Vietnam.
January 23 - A volcano eruption devastates Heimaey in the Vestmannaeyjar chain of islands off the south coast of Iceland.
January 27 - Paris Peace Accords officially end the Vietnam War. Colonel William Nolde falls, becoming the conflict's last recorded American combat casualty.
February 9 - Biju Patnaik of the Pragati Legislature Party elected leader of opposition in the state assembly in Orissa, India.
February 11 - Vietnam War: First release of American prisoners of war from Vietnam takes place.
February 12 - Vietnam War: The first United States prisoners of war are released by the Viet Cong.
February 21 - Over the Sinai Desert, Israeli fighter aircraft shoot down a Libyan Airlines jet killing 108.
February 22 - Cold War: Following United States President Richard Nixon's visit to the People's Republic of China, the two countries agree to establish liaison offices.
February 27 - The American Indian Movement occupies Wounded Knee, South Dakota.
March 1 - Black September terrorists storm the Saudi embassy in Khartoum, Sudan resulting in the 1973 Khartoum diplomatic assassinations.
March 5 - Donald DeFreeze, the future Symbionese Liberation Army leader, escapes from Vacaville Prison.
March 17 - The Pulitzer Prize-winning photograph Burst of Joy is taken, depicting a former prisoner of war being reunited with his family.
March 24 - Kenyan track runner Kip Keino defeats Jim Ryun at the first-ever professional track meet in Los Angeles, California.
March 29 - Vietnam War: The last United States combat soldiers leave South Vietnam.
April 1 - Project Tiger, a tiger conservation project, is launched in the Corbett National Park, India.
April 2 - Launch of the LexisNexis computerized legal research service.
April 3 - The first portable cell phone call is made in New York City, United States.
April 4 - The World Trade Center in New York is officially dedicated.
April 6 - The American League of Major League Baseball begin using the Designated Hitter
April 8 - Thirty-two terrorist bombings in Cyprus take place.
April 10 - A British Vanguard turboprop crashes during a snowstorm at Basel, Switzerland killing 104.
April 17 - German counter-terrorist unit GSG 9 founded.
April 28 - Over 6000 Mk. 82 500 pound bombs detonate over the course of 18 hours in a railyard in northern California. 5500 structures are damaged, and the town of Antelope, California ceases to exist, with every building being reduced to the foundation. This accident leads to the passing of the Transportation Safety Act of 1974 which makes the NTSB an independent agency.
April 30 - Watergate Scandal: U.S. President Richard Nixon announces that top White House aids H.R. Haldeman, John Ehrlichman, and others have resigned.
May 3 - The Sears Tower in Chicago is topped out as the world's tallest building.
May 8 - A 71-day standoff between federal authorities and the American Indian Movement members occupying the Pine Ridge Reservation at Wounded Knee, South Dakota ends with the surrender of the militants.
May 11 - Citing government misconduct, Daniel Ellsberg has his charges for his involvement in releasing the Pentagon Papers to The New York Times dismissed.
May 17 - Watergate scandal: Hearings begin in the United States Senate and are televised.
May 24 - Earl Jellicoe resigns as Lord Privy Seal and Leader of the Lords.
May 29 - Tom Bradley is elected the first black mayor of Los Angeles, California.
May 31 - The United States Senate votes to cut off funding for the bombing of Khmer Rouge targets within Cambodia, hastening the end of the Cambodian Civil War.
June 3 - A Soviet supersonic Tupolev Tu-144 crashes near Goussainville, France, killing 14, the first crash of a supersonic passenger aircraft.
June 4 - A patent for the ATM is granted to Don Wetzel, Tom Barnes and George Chastain.
June 10 - John Paul Getty III, grandson of billionaire J. Paul Getty, is kidnapped in Rome, Italy.
June 20 - Ezeiza massacre in Buenos Aires, Argentina. Snipers fire upon left-wing Peronists. At least 13 are killed and more than 300 are injured.
June 21 - In handing down the decision in Miller v. California 413 US 15, the Supreme Court of the United States establishes the Miller Test, which now governs obscenity in U.S. law.
June 23 - A fire at a house in Hull, England, which kills a six year old boy is passed off as an accident; it later emerges as the first of 26 deaths by fire caused over the next seven years by arsonist Peter Dinsdale.
June 26 - On Plesetsk Cosmodrome 9 people are killed in an explosion of a Cosmos 3-M rocket.
June 27 - The President of Uruguay dissolves Parliament and heads a coup d'état.
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.
July 5 - Catastrophic BLEVE (Boiling Liquid Expanding Vapor Explosion) in Kingman, Arizona, following a fire that broke out as propane was being transferred from a railroad car to a storage tank, kills 11 firefighters. This explosion has become a classic incident studied in fire department training programs worldwide.
July 10 - The Bahamas gain full independence within the Commonwealth of Nations.
July 10 - National Assembly of Pakistan passes a resolution on Bangladesh recognition.
July 11 - A Brazilian Boeing 707 crashes near Paris on approach to Orly Airport, killing 123 of the 134 on-board.
July 12 - A fire destroys the entire 6th floor of the National Personnel Records Center of the United States.
July 13 - Alexander Butterfield reveals the existence of the Nixon tapes to the special Senate committee investigating the Watergate break in.
July 16 - Watergate Scandal: Former White House aide Alexander P. Butterfield informs the United States Senate that President Richard Nixon had secretly recorded potentially incriminating conversations.
July 20 - The US Senate passes the War Powers Act.
July 20 - Vietnam War: In testimony by Assistant Secretary of Defense Jerry Friedheim to the US Senate Committee on Armed Services, the US Defense Department admits it lied to US Congress about bombing Cambodia .
July 20 - Palestianian terrorists hijack a Japan Airlines jet en route from Amsterdam to Japan and force it down in Dubai.
July 20 - First coast-to-coast black-owned and operated radio network: The National Black Network (NBN) begins operations.
July 21 - In the Lillehammer affair in Norway, Israeli Mossad agents kill a waiter whom they mistakenly thought was involved in 1972's Munich Olympics Massacre.
July 28 - Summer Jam at Watkins Glen: 600,000 people attend a rock festival at the Watkins Glen International Raceway.
July 31 - A Delta Air Lines jetliner crashes while landing in fog at Logan Airport, Boston, Massachusetts killing 89.
August 2 - A flash fire kills 51 at the Summerland amusement centre at Douglas, Isle of Man.
August 7 - NBC airs the final day of the Watergate hearings on U.S. daytime television.
August 8 - U.S. Vice President Spiro Agnew appears on television to denounce accusations he had taken kickbacks while governor of Maryland.
August 8 - Kim Dae-Jung, a South Korean politician and later president of South Korea, is kidnapped.
August 14 - The constitution of 1973 comes into effect in Pakistan
August 15 - Vietnam War: The United States bombing of Cambodia ends.
September 11 - A CIA backed coup in Chile headed by General Augusto Pinochet topples the democratically elected President Salvador Allende. Pinochet remains in power for almost 17 years.
September 18 - East Germany and West Germany are admitted to the United Nations.
September 20 - Billie Jean King beats Bobby Riggs in The Battle of the Sexes tennis match at the Houston Astrodome in Houston, Texas.
September 23 - Juan Perón returns to power in Argentina.
September 24 - Guinea-Bissau declares its independence from Portugal.
September 26 - Concorde makes its first non-stop crossing of the Atlantic in record-breaking time.
September 28 - ITT Building in New York City bombed to protest ITT's involvement in the September 11 1973 coup d'état in Chile.
October 5 - Signature of the European Patent Convention.
October 6 - The Crossing: 80,000 Egyptian troops cross the Suez Canal, destroying the fortified Israeli Bar-Lev Line and starting the Yom Kippur War.
October 8 - Yom Kippur War: Gabi Amir's armored brigade attacks Egyptian occupied positions on the Israeli side of the Suez Canal, in hope of driving them away. The attack fails, and over 150 Israeli tanks are destroyed.
October 10 - Vice President of the United States Spiro Agnew resigns after being charged with federal income tax evasion.
October 14 - Thailand's University Students, over 100,000 people, protested for a democratic government; 77 are killed and 857 injured by the soldiers. HM the King and his mother broadcasted live on television to ask both sides to stop.
October 15 - The diplomatic relations between the Soviet Union and Gabon are established.
October 16 - Henry Kissinger and Le Duc Tho are awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.
October 17 - OPEC starts an oil embargo against a number of western countries, considered to have helped Israel in its war against Syria.
October 19 - President Richard Nixon rejects an Appeals Court demand to turn over the Watergate tapes.
October 20 - The Saturday Night Massacre: President Nixon fires Attorney General Elliot Richardson and Deputy Attorney General William Ruckelshaus after they refuse to fire Watergate prosecutor Archibald Cox, who is finally fired by Robert Bork.
October 21 - John Paul Getty III's ear is cut off by his kidnappers and sent to a newspaper in Rome; it doesn't arrive until November 8.
October 21 - Fred Dryer of the then Los Angeles Rams becomes the first player in NFL history to score two safeties in the same game.
October 23 - The Watergate Scandal: US President Richard M. Nixon agrees to turn over subpoenaed audio tapes of his Oval Office conversations about the scandal.
October 23 - A United Nations sanctioned cease-fire officially ends the Yom Kippur War between Israel and Syria.
October 27 - The Cañon City meteorite, a 1.4 kg chondrite type meteorite, strikes in Fremont County, Colorado.
October 30 - The Bosporus Bridge in Istanbul, Turkey is completed, connecting the continents of Europe and Asia over the Bosporus for the first time.
October 31 - Mountjoy Prison helicopter escape. Three Provisional Irish Republican Army members escape from Mountjoy Prison, Dublin, Republic of Ireland aboard a hijacked helicopter that lands in the exercise yard.
November 1 - Watergate Scandal: Leon Jaworski is appointed as the new Watergate Special Prosecutor.
November 1 - The Indian state of Mysore was renamed as Karnataka to represent all the regions within Karunadu .
November 2 - The Communist Party of India (Marxist) and the Communist Party of India forms a 'United Front' in the state of Tripura.
November 3 - Mariner program: NASA launches the Mariner 10 toward Mercury. On March 29, 1974, it becomes the first space probe to reach that planet.
November 4 - The Netherlands experiences the first Car Free Sunday caused by the 1973 oil crisis. Highways are deserted and are used only by cyclists and roller skaters.
November 7 - The U.S. Congress overrides President Richard M. Nixon's veto of the War Powers Resolution, which limits presidential power to wage war without congressional approval.
November 8 - The right ear of John Paul Getty III is delivered to a newspaper together with a ransom note, convincing his father to pay 2.9 million USD.
November 14 - In the United Kingdom, Princess Anne marries Captain Mark Phillips, in Westminster Abbey.
November 16 - Skylab program: NASA launches Skylab 4 with a crew of three astronauts from Cape Canaveral, Florida for an 84-day mission.
November 16 - U.S. President Richard Nixon signs the Trans-Alaska Pipeline Authorization Act into law, authorizing the construction of the Alaska Pipeline.
November 17 - Watergate scandal: In Orlando, Florida, US President Richard Nixon tells 400 Associated Press managing editors "I am not a crook".
November 17 - The Athens Polytechnic Uprising against the military regime ends in a bloodshed in the Greek capital.
November 22 - The Italian Fascist organization Ordine Nuovo is disbanded.
November 25 - George Papadopoulos, head of the military Regime of the Colonels in Greece, is ousted in a military coup led by Lieutenant General Phaidon Gizikis.
November 27 - The Twenty-fifth Amendment: The United States Senate votes 92 to 3 to confirm Gerald Ford as Vice President of the United States (on December 6, the House confirmed him 387 to 35).
December 1 - Papua New Guinea gains self government from Australia.
December 3 - Pioneer program: Pioneer 10 sends back the first close-up images of Jupiter.
December 6 - The Twenty-fifth Amendment: The United States House of Representatives votes 387 to 35 to confirm Gerald Ford as Vice President of the United States (on November 27, the Senate confirmed him 92 to 3).
December 15 - John Paul Getty III, grandson of J. Paul Getty, American billionaire is found alive near Naples, Italy, after being kidnapped by an Italian gang on July 10, 1973
December 17 - Terrorism: 30 passengers are killed in an attack by Palestinian terrorists on Rome's Leonardo da Vinci Airport.
December 18 - Soviet Soyuz Programme: Soyuz 13, crewed by cosmonauts Valentin Lebedev and Pyotr Klimuk, is launched from Baikonur in the Soviet Union.
December 20 - The Spanish Prime Minister, Admiral Luis Carrero Blanco, is assassinated by a car bomb attack in Madrid.
December 21 - The Geneva Conference on the Arab-Israeli conflict opens.
December 24 - District of Columbia Home Rule Act is passed, allowing residents of Washington, D.C. to elect their own local government.
December 25 - The ARPANET crashes when a programming bug causes all ARPANET traffic to be routed through the server at Harvard University, causing the server to freeze.
December 26 - Comet Kohoutek reaches perihelion but is not as spectacular a display as expected.
December 26 - Soyuz 13 lands on earth after a week in orbit.
December 28 - The Endangered Species Act is passed in the United States.
