By order of the new Portuguese government, the colonial administrators of Mozambique released 554 political prisoners incarcerated at the Machava Prison. The release was supervised by the new head of the colonial police, Colonel Antonio Maria Rebelo.[3] On the same day, Portugal closed the
Tarrafal concentration camp, located on Santiago Island at Cape Verde, where hundreds of Portuguese and African political prisoners had been confined for life.[4]
In
San Francisco, seven African-American men were arrested in the
Zebra murders case.[5][6] Four of the men were released for lack of evidence on May 3.[6][7] The other three— J. C. Simon, 29; Larry Green, 22; and Manuel Moore, 23— went to trial along with Jessie Lee Cooks, who had been arrested earlier, and all four would be convicted of murder in 1976 and sentenced to life imprisonment.[8]
In
Seoul, an intoxicated South Korean Army paratrooper, Private Kim Won-je, shot and killed six fellow soldiers and three civilians. He held 200 troops and police at bay for two hours before killing himself. Private Kim's motive had apparently been his anger and being informed that he was being recalled to the army barracks.[9]
The
KVNB Cup for the championship of soccer football in the Netherlands was won by
PSV Eindhoven, 6 to 0, over
NAC Breda before 38,000 spectators at Feyenoord Stadium in
Rotterdam.
Alf Ramsey, the manager of the
England national football team since 1963, known for coaching the team that won the
1966 World Cup, was fired by England's Football Association after England failed to qualify for the
1974 World Cup, missing the world championship final tournament for the first time in its history.
The crash of an
ATESA airlines
DC-3 in
Ecuador killed all 22 people aboard, when the plane flew into the side of the inactive
Tungurahua volcano in the
Andes, east of
Quito.[16] The airplane was on its way from the airport at
Puyo to
Ambato when it hit the 16,480 feet (5,020 m) volcano at an altitude of 11,200 feet (3,400 m).[17]
West Germany's unofficial diplomatic mission to East Germany, the "
Permanent Representation Office" (Ständiger Vertretungen), opened in East Berlin with
Günter Gaus as the West German representative. In that the position of the West German government was that the German Democratic Republic in the east was illegal, the two nations stopped short of giving recognition to each other's governments. At the same time, East Germany opened its office in Bonn, with Michael Kohl as its envoy.
General Antonio de Spinola, head of the military junta that overthrew Portugal's dictatorship, ordered amnesty to thousands of young Portuguese men who had been charged with desertion for fleeing the country to avoid serving in colonial wars. Spinola said that any draft dodger who reported to his military unit within 15 days would not be charged with desertion, and that any soldiers convicted of desertion would be released from prison to return to peacetime military service.[18]
Former U.S. Vice President
Spiro Agnew was
disbarred from the practice of law in a unanimous decision of the
Maryland Court of Appeals, the highest in the state. Agnew, who had pled
no contest to a charge of
tax evasion on
October 10 and resigned the office, was described by the Court as "so morally obtuse that he consciously cheats for his own pecuniary gain."[19]
The 47.69
caratStar of South Africa diamond was sold at an auction in
Geneva for 1.6 million Swiss francs (equivalent to £225,300 or $542,000).[20]
An all-female Japanese team reached the top of the Himalayan mountain
Manaslu in
Nepal, becoming the first women to climb an 8,000 m (26,000 ft) peak.[30][31][32]
Five men died in an explosion at a
dynamite factory in
Burbach, North Rhine-Westphalia in
West Germany.[33] The employees of Dynamit-Novel AG in Burbach-Wuergendorf had been inside a concrete shelter and were operating a machine used for mixing gunpowder.[34]
The
Scottish Cup, Scotland's knockout tournament of soccer football, was won by Celtic F.C. of Glasgow, 3 to 0 over
Dundee United F.C. before 75,959 spectators at Glasgow's
Hampden Park.[41] During the regular season of the
Scottish Football League, Celtic had finished in first place (23 wins, 7 draws, 4 losses) and Dundee in fifth place (16-7-11).
In India, eight people were killed and 50 injured in rioting between
Hindus and
Muslims in
Delhi at the Sadar Bazar. The riot was the worst in Delhi since India had achieved independence in 1947.[45]
Airport workers in
Mexico City discovered a leaking container of
nitric acid in the cargo hold of a Boeing 707 that was preparing to depart on a flight to
Tijuana with 75 passengers and a crew of six. The acid had damaged suitcases and was eroding the aluminum floor when it was discovered. The airport authority said that the acid "could have eaten through the fuselage and caused the jet to explode in midair."[46]
The championship of Ireland's
National Hurling League was won by
Cork GAA over
Limerick GAA, 6-15 to 1-12 (equivalent to 33 to 15 based on 3-points for a goal and 1 point for shots above the crossbar.[47]
Portugal's General Francisco Costa da Gomes offered a cease-fire in its ongoing war against independence movements in the African colonies of Angola, Mozambique and Portuguese Guinea, conditioned on the rebels' acceptance of a plan of democracy and protection of the white European residents of the colonies.[54]
The
Partido Social Democrata (PSD) was founded in Portugal by
Francisco Sá Carneiro,
Francisco Pinto Balsemão and
Joaquim Magalhães Mota, liberal members of the Assembleia Nacional. From 1934 to 1974, the only legal political party had been the
União Nacional and elections were limited to the top 130 finishers in voting for a list of party candidates. Originally called the Partido Popular Democrático, the PSD was formed two weeks after democracy was restored in Portugal after the
Carnation Revolution.
West Germany's President
Gustav Heinemann accepted the resignation, made the day before, of Chancellor Willy Brandt and temporarily appointed Vice Chancellor
Walter Scheel as head of government until Brandt's
Sozialdemokratische Partei could select a new leader who would serve as Chancellor. An election was scheduled for May 16 on whether to approve Finance Minister
Helmut Schmidt, Brandt's choice, as successor.[64]
German serial killer
Volker Eckert committed the first of at least six murders of teenage girls and young women, but may have killed as many as 19. Eckert, only 14 years old, strangled a classmate, Silvia Unterdörfel, at her home in
Plauen.[65]
In the U.S., delegates to the convention of the
League of Women Voters voted to allow men to become members, favoring the measure by a vote of 935 to 433, more than the two-thirds majority required by the League's bylaws.[66]
At least 15 Haitian refugees drowned in
Nassau Harbor in the
Bahamas after the boat they were in struck a reef and capsized. Another 32 were able to swim ashore to
Paradise Island.[67]
In
Canada, the government of Prime Minister
Pierre Trudeau lost a vote of no confidence in the House of Commons, 137 to 123. Trudeau announced that he would ask for
new elections for July 8.[76] Governor-General
Jules Leger dissolved the House the next day and scheduled elections.[77]
Graham Bond, 36, English rock musician, was killed after being run over on the railway tracks near the
Finsbury Park station in North London, after falling or jumping in front of a train bound for the
London Underground. According to a news report after he was identified, he "was found beneath a train at Finsbury Park, London, near the Rainbow Theatre."[82]
Died:Charles Katz, 46, American mathematician and computer scientist, co-developer of the
compiler programs for the UNIVAC programming languages, died after an illness.[93]
Northern Irish terrorist
Brendan Hughes, commanding officer of the
Belfast Brigade of the Provisional IRA, was arrested in
Belfast five months after escaping from
Maze Prison.[94] During his time on the run, he had assumed the name "Arthur McAllister" and posed as a traveling salesman.[95]
In
Italy, police in
Alessandria stormed a prison hospital where 21 hostages had been taken the day before by three armed prisoners. Two of the three inmates, and three of the hostages, were shot to death, and 15 were wounded. After hours of negotiations, police had intervened "when they heard gunfire and shouts" and "believed the prisoners were executing the hostages."[96]
Dominican Republic President
Joaquín Balaguer and six other people were able to escape a helicopter crash before the aircraft burst into flames. Balaguer was accompanied by the Caribbean nation's chief of the armed forces, Rear Admiral Ramon Jimenez, along with General Eligio Bisono Jackson and Major General Santos Melido Marte on a campaign trip, and was returning to
Santo Domingo from
Puerto Plata in a heavy rainstorm when the main rotor system failed and the aircraft made a hard landing on a hill 27 miles (43 km) from the capital.[97]
All six people aboard a
Sikorsky S-61 helicopter were killed when the aircraft, operated by
KLM Helikopters, crashed into the
North Sea while en route to an oil rig. The cause was later traced to
metal fatigue in one of five rotor blades.[100] The aircraft was recovered from the North Sea floor. It was sold to Carson Helicopter in the USA and re-registered as N87580.[101]
Officer Michael Lee Edwards of the
Los Angeles Police Department was last seen alive leaving the police academy. His handcuffed body, shot execution-style, was found the next day in an abandoned building. Edwards' murder has never been solved.[102][103]
In
Colombia, police in
Bogotá rescued all the passengers and crew of a hijacked
Avianca Boeing 727, 19 hours after the jet had been taken over by three men who were armed with pistols and sticks of TNT. A group of police, posing as members of a flight crew, shot two of the hijackers while the hostage pilot used karate chops to subdue the third one. The flight from
Pereira to Bogota had been diverted on a course to
Cali, back to Pereira and then onto Bogota.[116]
Six people were killed and 35 injured in the crash of a
Greyhound bus near
Charleston, Missouri. The bus, traveling from
Chicago to
Memphis, sideswiped an overturned truck, tearing the right side of the bus open.[117]
Italian politician
Amintore Fanfani casts his vote in the referendum
Voters in Italy overwhelmingly favored keeping the right to divorce as they went to the polls in
the first referendum in the history of the Italian republic. In balloting on Sunday and Monday, voters were asked to vote yes or no on the question, "Do you want the Law of 1 December 1970, No. 898, on the regulation of cases of dissolution of marriage, to be abrogated?", and although more than 13 million voted yes, over 19 million voted no, and the matter failed by a margin of 59% to 41%.[120][121][122]
The Republic of
Iraq executed five
Kurdish activists by hanging, including
Leyla Qasim, after the group had been convicted in a nationally televised trial on charges of attempting to hijack an airplane and to kill President Saddam Hussein.[123]
Australian
John Newcombe won the $50,000
World Championship of Tennis (WCT) final over Swedish teenager
Björn Borg, after losing the first set and then sweeping the next three of the best 4-of-7 match. The score was 4-6, 6-3, 6-3, 6-2.[125]
Wayne Maki, 29, Canadian NHL player for the
Vancouver Canucks, whose career had ended during the 1972-1973 NHL season when he was diagnosed with brain cancer.[130]
By a margin of 29 for and 51 against, the
United States Senate rejected a bill filed by Senator
Bob Dole of Kansas to allow states to raise the U.S. highway
speed limit from 55 miles per hour (89 km/h) to 60 miles per hour (97 km/h).[131]
Portugal's new government, installed during the
Carnation Revolution, issued Law No. 2/74, abolishing the bicameral parliament of the Estado Novo, to be replaced by the unicameral
Assembleia da República to be elected in 1975.
In
Central Park in New York City, 13-year-old
John F. Kennedy Jr. was mugged by a boy of around 18, who took the young Kennedy's bicycle and tennis racket.[141]
An attempt by Israel's
Sayeret Matkal to free 115 hostages, most of them students at the Netiv Meir Elementary School in
Ma'alot-Tarshiha, resulted in
the deaths of 25 captives and the injury of 68 others.[144][145] All three of the terrorists, members of the
Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine who had crossed over from Lebanon into Israel, were killed. Prior to seizing the school the terrorists had killed five other civilians.[146] The next day, Israeli planes retaliated by bombing Palestinian targets in Lebanon, killing more than 20 people.[147]
General
António de Spínola took office as
President of Portugal.[149] Hours after being sworn in, Spinola named Adelino da Palmas Carlos as Prime Minister of a cabinet that included Communists for the first time in Portugal's history, with Avelino Pacheco Goncalves as Minister of Labor and Communist Party Chief Alvaro Cunhal as a minister without portfolio.[150]
By the margin of a single vote, 47 to 46, the U.S. Senate tabled further discussion of an amendment to the $25 billion education funding bill that would have required an end to
desegregation busing to achieve racial integration in U.S. schools receiving federal funding.[151]
The first game of the 6-team
National Lacrosse League, the first professional
box lacrosse circuit in North America, was played as the NLL made its debut before 9,120 fans at The Forum in
Montreal.[152] The
Montreal Quebecois defeated the visiting
Toronto Tomahawks, 14 to 8.[153] John Davis of the Quebecois made the league's first score, 13 seconds into the game, with a shot past Tomahawks goalie Ron Thomas.[153] In addition to the two Canadian franchises, the NLL had four U.S. teams: the Maryland Arrows, the
Philadelphia Wings, the Rochester Griffins and the Syracuse Stingers.
In
Belgrade, Marshal
Josip Broz Tito was unanimously re-elected by the 300-member Chamber of Deputies as the
President of Yugoslavia and, at the age of 81, given an unlimited term to effectively make him
president for life. The Communist nation's parliament also unanimously approved the selection of the first eight members of the new, nine-member "collective presidency" which would rotate to a new member each year after Tito's death. Petar Stambolic of the Socialist Republic of Serbia was the first person selected to the new office of Vice President of Yugoslavia for one year, after which the job would rotate to another member of the collective presidency.[160][161]
In
South Vietnam, the
Battle of the Iron Triangle began in the Binh Duong Province to repel an invasion by
North Vietnam, and would last more than six months. Although the South Vietnamese repelled the invasion and thousands of soldiers of North Vietnam's People's Army of Viet Nam (PAVN) were killed, the South's Army of the Republic of Viet Nam (ARVN) lost hundreds of soldiers.[163] The counterattack came on the same day 5,000 North Vietnamese troops overran the
Dak Pek Camp and its 369-member South Vietnamese Rangers battalion.[164]
In
Lafayette, Louisiana, 28-year-old Russell James Foote, the director of the local chapter of the
American Red Cross, was found in his car with a gunshot wound to the head inflicted by someone standing outside the car. He died shortly afterwards at Lafayette General Hospital. The investigation by the
Lafayette Parish Sheriff's Office revealed
embezzlement within the Red Cross office. As of 2018[update] Foote's murder had not been solved.[172]
FBI mugshot of SLA commander Donald David DeFreeze
India became the sixth nuclear power, with the successful test of a low-yield weapon at the
Pokhran Test Range in the state of
Rajasthan. Taking place on
Buddha Jayanti, celebrated as the birthday of
Siddhartha Gautama Buddha, the test was code-named Project
Smiling Buddha. The other nuclear powers at the time were the U.S., the Soviet Union, the United Kingdom, France, and the People's Republic of China.[189][190]
In fiction, May 18, 1974, is the "seventh day" in the bestselling 1962 novel Seven Days in May, about an attempted overthrow of the U.S. government. The day was modified to Sunday, May 19, for the 1964 film of the same name.
A policeman in
Belém, Brazil, fired on rioting fans at a soccer match between
Clube do Remo and Paissandu-Belém. One fan was killed and three were critically injured.[206]
U.S. District Judge
John J. Sirica ordered
President Nixon to surrender 64 tape recordings of White House conversations that had been subpoenaed by the special prosecutor,
Leon Jaworski. Addressing concerns of national security raised by Nixon's attorney, Sirica stated in his order that he would listen to individual tapes to determine whether they should be withheld from release.[211] The U.S. Supreme Court would ultimately affirm Sirica's ruling in United States v. Nixon on July 24, leading to the release of the June 23, 1972, "smoking gun" tape and Nixon's resignation.[87]
Former Portuguese Prime Minister
Marcelo Caetano and President
Americo Thomaz, who had both been arrested after deposed on April 25 in the
Carnation Revolution coup d'etat, were sent into exile in Brazil along with their families. The former leaders boarded a Boeing 707 of the Portuguese Air Force at the Portuguese resort of
Madeira and were flown to
Viracopos International Airport in Brazil and driven to
São Paulo, where they were provided with apartments on the 27th floor of the São Paulo Hilton hotel.[212]
Fire destroyed the Cody Enterprise newspaper building in
Cody, Wyoming, killing a reporter and a volunteer firefighter. The fire rekindled from ashes left in the building's rafters from an
arson fire in a neighboring alley the previous night.[216]
Died: Cardinal
Jean Daniélou, 69, French Roman Catholic cardinal, appointed as a professor of theology and "one of the few priests to be named a cardinal without having served as a bishop or in any other administrative function", died of a stroke.[217] Nine days later, the satirical French magazine Le Canard Enchaine reported that Danielou died in the apartment of a nightclub dancer, and on June 14, the Paris newspaper Le Monde published a confirmation of the story, with a columnist writing, "According to some, he died of a heart attack in the street... In fact, the crdinal died of a stroke soon after entering the apartment of a young woman who works in a Paris nightclub, whose flat he had already visited several times before."[218][219]
The largest case of cheating at the
United States Naval Academy was carried out at
Annapolis, Maryland, when at least 60 and perhaps as many as 150 of 965 sophomore midshipmen were caught with the answers to the final exam in the Academy's class on navigation.[220] In 1965, 109 cadets at the
United States Air Force Academy at
Colorado Springs, Colorado, had been forced to resign after being caught cheating. The leaked answers were traced to a U.S. Navy quartermaster who had given the information to 150 sophomores, one-sixth of the class of 1976. The 965 all took a new final exam on May 29.[221]
Thailand's Prime Minister
Sanya Dharmasakti (also called Sanya Thammasak) and his cabinet resigned following public criticism over their inability to handle the Asian kingdom's skyrocketing inflation. Premier Sanya told a delegation of supporters later, "I wonder whether it was the right thing. I am very tired. So many people wanted so many things. I just made the decision that I can't stay any longer. I may enter the monkhood."[222] After being asked by people from "all sectors of the country" to reconsider, Sanya announced that he would bring in 14 younger men to replace ministers who had resigned from the 28-member cabinet and was reappointed five days later.[223]
Fire destroyed
Bob Stupak's World Famous Million Dollar Historic Gambling Museum and Casino on the
Las Vegas Strip. Firefighters recovered currency the museum had used as wallpaper.[224][225]
What is now the world's largest
national park, the Grønlands Nationalpark, was established by
Denmark with the protection of 700,000 square kilometres (270,000 sq mi) of uninhabited territory in northeast Greenland. In 1988, it would be expanded to its current size of 972,000 square kilometres (375,000 sq mi).
The
Disaster Relief Act of 1974, authorizing the U.S. president to make declarations in order to hasten the sending of federal money to disaster-stricken areas in the United States and its territories, was signed into law by President Richard Nixon, after having passed 91 to 0 in the U.S. Senate and 392 to 0 in the House of Representatives.[228]
U.S. President Nixon informed the House Judiciary Committee that he would refuse to obey any further
subpoenas for evidence or appearances.[229]
The
Airbus A300, the world's first twin-engine, double-aisle (wide-body) airliner, was introduced into commercial service with a flight by
Air France from Paris to London.[234]
All 29 people aboard an
AeroflotYakovlev Yak-40 airliner were killed when the airplane crashed during its scheduled approach to
Kiev from a flight that had originated in
Leningrad and had stopped at
Khmelnitskiy in the Ukrainian SSR. Crash investigators concluded that the crew had been overcome by
carbon monoxide as they were making their approach to Kiev's
Zhulyany Airport and had failed to set several instruments. With the crew and passengers unconscious or dying, the Yak-40 crashed into a training range near Gorenychi at a speed of 260 miles (420 km) per hour.[235]
An electoral college met in Bonn to select the new
President of West Germany, the largely ceremonial role of the nation's head of state. All 518 members of the parliament (496 from the
Bundestag and 22 from the
Bundesrat) and an equal number (518 delegates) from the West German states, for a total of 1,036 electors, participated. Vice Chancellor
Walter Scheel of the Social Democrats defeated
Richard von Weizsäcker of the Christian Democrats, 530 to 498, with eight abstentions.
One of the domes of
Sacré-Cœur, Paris, was seriously damaged in an explosion which caused no deaths or injuries. Callers to the
Agence France-Presse news service said they had set off the explosion to protest Valéry Giscard d'Estaing's election as President and to commemorate the 103rd anniversary of the
Paris Commune.[237]
David Frank Kamaiko, a 21-year-old man from
Greenwich Village claiming to be a member of the
Jewish Defense League, hijacked a helicopter from the
East 34th Street Heliport and demanded $2 million in ransom. After landing on top of the
Pan Am Building, the pilot tried to escape and Kamaiko shot him in the arm. The other hostage inside the helicopter disarmed the hijacker, and police took him into custody.[238][239]
The New York City Council defeated a homosexual rights bill by a vote of 22 to 19. Politicians attributed the bill's defeat to opposition by the
Roman Catholic Archdiocese of New York.[240]
In the Philippines, the coronation of
Mohammed Mahakuttah Abdullah Kiram as the
Sultan of Sulu took place with approval by the government of President Ferdinand Marcos, who issued Memorandum Order No. 427.[245] The Sultan's 7-year-old son,
Muedzul Lail Tan Kiram, was recognized as Crown Prince during the ceremony. Official recognition of the Sultanate of Sulu as a limited self-governing territory would end with Mahakuttah's death in 1986.[246]
In Poland, the collapse of an underground
coal mine in Piekary killed five miners. Three others were rescued.[247]
Almost 800 girls were injured, 14 seriously, in a
human crush at a
David Cassidy concert at London's
White City Stadium.[261] One Cassidy fan, 14-year-old Bernadette Whelan, became comatose from traumatic asphyxiation, and died of her injuries four days later.[262][263]
The collapse of an apartment building, under construction in
Kuwait City, took place while 150 workers were inside as concrete was being poured on the sixth floor. Ten injured people were rescued, and four bodies were recovered, but police said that "
scores of others were feared missing."[264]
In
Boulder, Colorado, the
murder of six Hispanic-American residents began with the explosion of a bomb planted in the car of lawyer Reyes Martinez at Chautauqua Park.[277] Martinez, his girlfriend Uma Jaakola and her friend Neva Romero were all killed in the blast. Two days later another car bomb exploded in the parking lot of a Burger King restaurant that had closed for the night, killing Florencio Granado, Heriberto Teran and Francisco Dougherty. Another person, Antonio Alcantar Jr., who was standing outside the car, survived but lost a leg.[278] Nearly 50 years later, no suspect had been arrested for the killing of "Los Seis de Boulder" (Spanish for "The Boulder Six").[279]
In Brazil, 13 of the 14 people aboard a boat on the Parana River were killed when the watercraft capsized in the river, infested with
piranhas.[280]
Barbara Forrest, 20, was raped and strangled in
Pype Hayes Park,
Erdington,
Birmingham, England. Forrest's co-worker Michael Ian Thornton was charged with her murder but would be acquitted due to lack of evidence. In a bizarre coincidence, the murder of Mary Ashford, which led to the Ashford v Thornton criminal case, also took place in Pype Hayes Park on May 27, 1817, 157 years to the day before Forrest's murder. In each case, a suspect with the surname Thornton was acquitted of the crime.[281]
Died:Kurt Wiese, 87, German-born American children's book author and illustrator, known for the pictures in 300 books, including the Freddy the Pig series[287][288]
In
Long Beach, California, a young woman later known as the
Long Beach Jane Doe was raped and strangled to death. In May 2013, Gary Stamp, then 61, was arrested and confessed to the murder, but the victim's identity remains unknown.[294] Stamp died of cancer in January 2014.[295]
The United States announced that Secretary of State
Henry Kissinger had persuaded representatives of both
Israel and
Syria to reach an agreement on separation of their troops and a pullback within the
Golan Heights.[297]
France's President Giscard announced an immediate ban on government
wiretapping and restraints against the press, and said that he would work toward welcoming political refugees. Giscard told the first meeting of his cabinet, "We are here to change France. France is a liberal country and we must set our sights even more firmly in that direction."[299]
French publisher
Maurice Girodias was ordered to leave the U.S. after he had announced that he planned to publish a book titled President Kissinger. The
Immigration and Naturalization Service had received an anonymous complaint that permission for Girodias to remain in the U.S. had expired in January.[300]
The
UEFA Cup, a knockout tournament for the winners of the cup-winning soccer football teams in Europe, was won by
Feyenoord, the
1974 champion of the Netherlands'
KNVB Eredivisie, after the team had played to a 2-2 draw with
Tottenham Hotspur (the
1973 English League Cup winner) in the first leg of the two-game final on May 21 in London. With the champion determined by the aggregate score of the two games, the winner of the second leg would win the UEFA Cup. Playing at home in
Rotterdam, Feyenoord won, 2 to 0 on goals by
Wim Rijsbergen and
Peter Ressel, for an aggregate score of 4 to 2 overall.
NASA launched India's
ATS-6, sixth of the Applications Technology Satellites, the world's first direct broadcast
satellite, and the most powerful
communications satellite launched up to that time.[304]
Elections were held for white voters in
South Africa for 44 of the 54 seats in the
South African senate. The elections for the
171-seatsHouse of Assembly had taken place on April 24. The National Party of Prime Minister B. J. Vorster won 32 of the elected seats, and the United Party of
De Villiers Graaff won 12 seats. The National Party had nine of the 10 non-elected seats, for 41 of 54 overall, and the United Party just one, for 13 of 54.[305]
The
Home Office of the United Kingdom announced that the British penal system abolished the traditional "bread and water" diet that had been used to punish infractions of prison discipline, replacing the penalty with loss of earnings or the forfeiture of reductions of sentences for good behavior.[316]
Ski Hi Lee (ring name of Robert E. Leedy), 53, Canadian professional wrestler who had
acromegaly (at 6 feet 7 inches (2.01 m) the tallest man in the sport)[324][325][326]
^
abTurner, Wallace (4 May 1974).
"4 SUSPECTS FREE IN ZEBRA KILLINGS". The New York Times. Page 1, column 3; page 85, columns 1-3. Retrieved 22 September 2023.
^"Women Climbers at Summit". Los Angeles Times. June 11, 1974. p. I-2.
^Nakaseko, Naoko.
"Japanese women's expedition — Manaslu 1974"(PDF). Alpine Journal. 1975. Translated by
Yoshizawa, Ichiro: 94–99. Retrieved 21 September 2023. ... We aimed to make the first ascent of an 8000 metre peak by women and at the same time to put all the climbers on the expedition on to the top. .... . The expedition members were as follows: Kyoko Sato, Mrs Tsune Kuroishi, Mrs Naoko Nakaseko, Michiko Sekita, Mrs Masako Uchida, Mieko Mori, Masako Itakura, Mutsumi Nakajima, Teiko Suzuki, Tomoko lto, Shizu Harada and Naoko Kuribayashi. Captain P. S. Rana was Liaison Officer and Il1a Tsering was Sherpa sirdar. .... Shortly after 5.30pm on 4 May 3 climbers and one Sherpa stood on the summit of Manaslu one by one. 'Yare, Yare' (Here we are at last) was my first impression. ...
^Voiland, Adam (16 December 2013).
"The Eight-Thousanders". Earth Observatory.
NASA. Retrieved 21 September 2023.
^"5 Die in German Blast". The New York Times. AP. 5 May 1974. Page 43, column 1. Retrieved 23 September 2023.
^"Blast Kills Five Men at Dynamite Factory". Los Angeles Times. May 5, 1974. p. I-24.
^"Typical earthquakes". Earthquakes in China. China Giant Panda Museum. Computer Network Information Center of Chinese Academy of Sciences. Retrieved 21 September 2023.
^Utsu, T. R. (2002). "A List of Deadly Earthquakes in the World: 1500–2000". International Handbook of Earthquake & Engineering Seismology. Part A. Vol. 81A (First ed.).
Academic Press. p. 708.
ISBN978-0124406520.
^"Hijackers Killed as Colombia Police and Pilot Recapture 727 Jetliner". Los Angeles Times. May 12, 1974. p. I-4.
^Zündorf, Irmgard; Eimermacher, Stefanie (10 August 2016).
"Biografie Helmut Schmidt" [Helmut Schmidt Biography]. LeMO-Biografien. Lebendiges Museum Online (in German). Stiftung Haus der Geschichte der Bundesrepublik Deutschland. Retrieved 21 September 2023.
^"Tito Reelected; Group Presidency Designated". Los Angeles Times. May 17, 1974. p. I-4.
^Cooper, Julie; Banderas, Maria (May 1997).
"Irmgard Flugge-Lotz". Biographies of Women Mathematicians. Larry Riddle. Retrieved 9 October 2023 – via
Agnes Scott College.
^Notice de personne "Celi, Ara (1974-....)" [Person notice "Celi, Ara (1974-....)"] (in French). Bibliothèque nationale de France. 28 January 2009. Retrieved 15 October 2023.
^"Zsolt Erdei". Olympedia. OlyMADMen. Retrieved 15 October 2023.
^Meddick, Simon; Payne, Liz; Katz, Phil (2020). Red Lives: Communists and the Struggle for Socialism. UK: Manifesto Press Cooperative Limited. p. 160.
ISBN978-1-907464-45-4.
By order of the new Portuguese government, the colonial administrators of Mozambique released 554 political prisoners incarcerated at the Machava Prison. The release was supervised by the new head of the colonial police, Colonel Antonio Maria Rebelo.[3] On the same day, Portugal closed the
Tarrafal concentration camp, located on Santiago Island at Cape Verde, where hundreds of Portuguese and African political prisoners had been confined for life.[4]
In
San Francisco, seven African-American men were arrested in the
Zebra murders case.[5][6] Four of the men were released for lack of evidence on May 3.[6][7] The other three— J. C. Simon, 29; Larry Green, 22; and Manuel Moore, 23— went to trial along with Jessie Lee Cooks, who had been arrested earlier, and all four would be convicted of murder in 1976 and sentenced to life imprisonment.[8]
In
Seoul, an intoxicated South Korean Army paratrooper, Private Kim Won-je, shot and killed six fellow soldiers and three civilians. He held 200 troops and police at bay for two hours before killing himself. Private Kim's motive had apparently been his anger and being informed that he was being recalled to the army barracks.[9]
The
KVNB Cup for the championship of soccer football in the Netherlands was won by
PSV Eindhoven, 6 to 0, over
NAC Breda before 38,000 spectators at Feyenoord Stadium in
Rotterdam.
Alf Ramsey, the manager of the
England national football team since 1963, known for coaching the team that won the
1966 World Cup, was fired by England's Football Association after England failed to qualify for the
1974 World Cup, missing the world championship final tournament for the first time in its history.
The crash of an
ATESA airlines
DC-3 in
Ecuador killed all 22 people aboard, when the plane flew into the side of the inactive
Tungurahua volcano in the
Andes, east of
Quito.[16] The airplane was on its way from the airport at
Puyo to
Ambato when it hit the 16,480 feet (5,020 m) volcano at an altitude of 11,200 feet (3,400 m).[17]
West Germany's unofficial diplomatic mission to East Germany, the "
Permanent Representation Office" (Ständiger Vertretungen), opened in East Berlin with
Günter Gaus as the West German representative. In that the position of the West German government was that the German Democratic Republic in the east was illegal, the two nations stopped short of giving recognition to each other's governments. At the same time, East Germany opened its office in Bonn, with Michael Kohl as its envoy.
General Antonio de Spinola, head of the military junta that overthrew Portugal's dictatorship, ordered amnesty to thousands of young Portuguese men who had been charged with desertion for fleeing the country to avoid serving in colonial wars. Spinola said that any draft dodger who reported to his military unit within 15 days would not be charged with desertion, and that any soldiers convicted of desertion would be released from prison to return to peacetime military service.[18]
Former U.S. Vice President
Spiro Agnew was
disbarred from the practice of law in a unanimous decision of the
Maryland Court of Appeals, the highest in the state. Agnew, who had pled
no contest to a charge of
tax evasion on
October 10 and resigned the office, was described by the Court as "so morally obtuse that he consciously cheats for his own pecuniary gain."[19]
The 47.69
caratStar of South Africa diamond was sold at an auction in
Geneva for 1.6 million Swiss francs (equivalent to £225,300 or $542,000).[20]
An all-female Japanese team reached the top of the Himalayan mountain
Manaslu in
Nepal, becoming the first women to climb an 8,000 m (26,000 ft) peak.[30][31][32]
Five men died in an explosion at a
dynamite factory in
Burbach, North Rhine-Westphalia in
West Germany.[33] The employees of Dynamit-Novel AG in Burbach-Wuergendorf had been inside a concrete shelter and were operating a machine used for mixing gunpowder.[34]
The
Scottish Cup, Scotland's knockout tournament of soccer football, was won by Celtic F.C. of Glasgow, 3 to 0 over
Dundee United F.C. before 75,959 spectators at Glasgow's
Hampden Park.[41] During the regular season of the
Scottish Football League, Celtic had finished in first place (23 wins, 7 draws, 4 losses) and Dundee in fifth place (16-7-11).
In India, eight people were killed and 50 injured in rioting between
Hindus and
Muslims in
Delhi at the Sadar Bazar. The riot was the worst in Delhi since India had achieved independence in 1947.[45]
Airport workers in
Mexico City discovered a leaking container of
nitric acid in the cargo hold of a Boeing 707 that was preparing to depart on a flight to
Tijuana with 75 passengers and a crew of six. The acid had damaged suitcases and was eroding the aluminum floor when it was discovered. The airport authority said that the acid "could have eaten through the fuselage and caused the jet to explode in midair."[46]
The championship of Ireland's
National Hurling League was won by
Cork GAA over
Limerick GAA, 6-15 to 1-12 (equivalent to 33 to 15 based on 3-points for a goal and 1 point for shots above the crossbar.[47]
Portugal's General Francisco Costa da Gomes offered a cease-fire in its ongoing war against independence movements in the African colonies of Angola, Mozambique and Portuguese Guinea, conditioned on the rebels' acceptance of a plan of democracy and protection of the white European residents of the colonies.[54]
The
Partido Social Democrata (PSD) was founded in Portugal by
Francisco Sá Carneiro,
Francisco Pinto Balsemão and
Joaquim Magalhães Mota, liberal members of the Assembleia Nacional. From 1934 to 1974, the only legal political party had been the
União Nacional and elections were limited to the top 130 finishers in voting for a list of party candidates. Originally called the Partido Popular Democrático, the PSD was formed two weeks after democracy was restored in Portugal after the
Carnation Revolution.
West Germany's President
Gustav Heinemann accepted the resignation, made the day before, of Chancellor Willy Brandt and temporarily appointed Vice Chancellor
Walter Scheel as head of government until Brandt's
Sozialdemokratische Partei could select a new leader who would serve as Chancellor. An election was scheduled for May 16 on whether to approve Finance Minister
Helmut Schmidt, Brandt's choice, as successor.[64]
German serial killer
Volker Eckert committed the first of at least six murders of teenage girls and young women, but may have killed as many as 19. Eckert, only 14 years old, strangled a classmate, Silvia Unterdörfel, at her home in
Plauen.[65]
In the U.S., delegates to the convention of the
League of Women Voters voted to allow men to become members, favoring the measure by a vote of 935 to 433, more than the two-thirds majority required by the League's bylaws.[66]
At least 15 Haitian refugees drowned in
Nassau Harbor in the
Bahamas after the boat they were in struck a reef and capsized. Another 32 were able to swim ashore to
Paradise Island.[67]
In
Canada, the government of Prime Minister
Pierre Trudeau lost a vote of no confidence in the House of Commons, 137 to 123. Trudeau announced that he would ask for
new elections for July 8.[76] Governor-General
Jules Leger dissolved the House the next day and scheduled elections.[77]
Graham Bond, 36, English rock musician, was killed after being run over on the railway tracks near the
Finsbury Park station in North London, after falling or jumping in front of a train bound for the
London Underground. According to a news report after he was identified, he "was found beneath a train at Finsbury Park, London, near the Rainbow Theatre."[82]
Died:Charles Katz, 46, American mathematician and computer scientist, co-developer of the
compiler programs for the UNIVAC programming languages, died after an illness.[93]
Northern Irish terrorist
Brendan Hughes, commanding officer of the
Belfast Brigade of the Provisional IRA, was arrested in
Belfast five months after escaping from
Maze Prison.[94] During his time on the run, he had assumed the name "Arthur McAllister" and posed as a traveling salesman.[95]
In
Italy, police in
Alessandria stormed a prison hospital where 21 hostages had been taken the day before by three armed prisoners. Two of the three inmates, and three of the hostages, were shot to death, and 15 were wounded. After hours of negotiations, police had intervened "when they heard gunfire and shouts" and "believed the prisoners were executing the hostages."[96]
Dominican Republic President
Joaquín Balaguer and six other people were able to escape a helicopter crash before the aircraft burst into flames. Balaguer was accompanied by the Caribbean nation's chief of the armed forces, Rear Admiral Ramon Jimenez, along with General Eligio Bisono Jackson and Major General Santos Melido Marte on a campaign trip, and was returning to
Santo Domingo from
Puerto Plata in a heavy rainstorm when the main rotor system failed and the aircraft made a hard landing on a hill 27 miles (43 km) from the capital.[97]
All six people aboard a
Sikorsky S-61 helicopter were killed when the aircraft, operated by
KLM Helikopters, crashed into the
North Sea while en route to an oil rig. The cause was later traced to
metal fatigue in one of five rotor blades.[100] The aircraft was recovered from the North Sea floor. It was sold to Carson Helicopter in the USA and re-registered as N87580.[101]
Officer Michael Lee Edwards of the
Los Angeles Police Department was last seen alive leaving the police academy. His handcuffed body, shot execution-style, was found the next day in an abandoned building. Edwards' murder has never been solved.[102][103]
In
Colombia, police in
Bogotá rescued all the passengers and crew of a hijacked
Avianca Boeing 727, 19 hours after the jet had been taken over by three men who were armed with pistols and sticks of TNT. A group of police, posing as members of a flight crew, shot two of the hijackers while the hostage pilot used karate chops to subdue the third one. The flight from
Pereira to Bogota had been diverted on a course to
Cali, back to Pereira and then onto Bogota.[116]
Six people were killed and 35 injured in the crash of a
Greyhound bus near
Charleston, Missouri. The bus, traveling from
Chicago to
Memphis, sideswiped an overturned truck, tearing the right side of the bus open.[117]
Italian politician
Amintore Fanfani casts his vote in the referendum
Voters in Italy overwhelmingly favored keeping the right to divorce as they went to the polls in
the first referendum in the history of the Italian republic. In balloting on Sunday and Monday, voters were asked to vote yes or no on the question, "Do you want the Law of 1 December 1970, No. 898, on the regulation of cases of dissolution of marriage, to be abrogated?", and although more than 13 million voted yes, over 19 million voted no, and the matter failed by a margin of 59% to 41%.[120][121][122]
The Republic of
Iraq executed five
Kurdish activists by hanging, including
Leyla Qasim, after the group had been convicted in a nationally televised trial on charges of attempting to hijack an airplane and to kill President Saddam Hussein.[123]
Australian
John Newcombe won the $50,000
World Championship of Tennis (WCT) final over Swedish teenager
Björn Borg, after losing the first set and then sweeping the next three of the best 4-of-7 match. The score was 4-6, 6-3, 6-3, 6-2.[125]
Wayne Maki, 29, Canadian NHL player for the
Vancouver Canucks, whose career had ended during the 1972-1973 NHL season when he was diagnosed with brain cancer.[130]
By a margin of 29 for and 51 against, the
United States Senate rejected a bill filed by Senator
Bob Dole of Kansas to allow states to raise the U.S. highway
speed limit from 55 miles per hour (89 km/h) to 60 miles per hour (97 km/h).[131]
Portugal's new government, installed during the
Carnation Revolution, issued Law No. 2/74, abolishing the bicameral parliament of the Estado Novo, to be replaced by the unicameral
Assembleia da República to be elected in 1975.
In
Central Park in New York City, 13-year-old
John F. Kennedy Jr. was mugged by a boy of around 18, who took the young Kennedy's bicycle and tennis racket.[141]
An attempt by Israel's
Sayeret Matkal to free 115 hostages, most of them students at the Netiv Meir Elementary School in
Ma'alot-Tarshiha, resulted in
the deaths of 25 captives and the injury of 68 others.[144][145] All three of the terrorists, members of the
Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine who had crossed over from Lebanon into Israel, were killed. Prior to seizing the school the terrorists had killed five other civilians.[146] The next day, Israeli planes retaliated by bombing Palestinian targets in Lebanon, killing more than 20 people.[147]
General
António de Spínola took office as
President of Portugal.[149] Hours after being sworn in, Spinola named Adelino da Palmas Carlos as Prime Minister of a cabinet that included Communists for the first time in Portugal's history, with Avelino Pacheco Goncalves as Minister of Labor and Communist Party Chief Alvaro Cunhal as a minister without portfolio.[150]
By the margin of a single vote, 47 to 46, the U.S. Senate tabled further discussion of an amendment to the $25 billion education funding bill that would have required an end to
desegregation busing to achieve racial integration in U.S. schools receiving federal funding.[151]
The first game of the 6-team
National Lacrosse League, the first professional
box lacrosse circuit in North America, was played as the NLL made its debut before 9,120 fans at The Forum in
Montreal.[152] The
Montreal Quebecois defeated the visiting
Toronto Tomahawks, 14 to 8.[153] John Davis of the Quebecois made the league's first score, 13 seconds into the game, with a shot past Tomahawks goalie Ron Thomas.[153] In addition to the two Canadian franchises, the NLL had four U.S. teams: the Maryland Arrows, the
Philadelphia Wings, the Rochester Griffins and the Syracuse Stingers.
In
Belgrade, Marshal
Josip Broz Tito was unanimously re-elected by the 300-member Chamber of Deputies as the
President of Yugoslavia and, at the age of 81, given an unlimited term to effectively make him
president for life. The Communist nation's parliament also unanimously approved the selection of the first eight members of the new, nine-member "collective presidency" which would rotate to a new member each year after Tito's death. Petar Stambolic of the Socialist Republic of Serbia was the first person selected to the new office of Vice President of Yugoslavia for one year, after which the job would rotate to another member of the collective presidency.[160][161]
In
South Vietnam, the
Battle of the Iron Triangle began in the Binh Duong Province to repel an invasion by
North Vietnam, and would last more than six months. Although the South Vietnamese repelled the invasion and thousands of soldiers of North Vietnam's People's Army of Viet Nam (PAVN) were killed, the South's Army of the Republic of Viet Nam (ARVN) lost hundreds of soldiers.[163] The counterattack came on the same day 5,000 North Vietnamese troops overran the
Dak Pek Camp and its 369-member South Vietnamese Rangers battalion.[164]
In
Lafayette, Louisiana, 28-year-old Russell James Foote, the director of the local chapter of the
American Red Cross, was found in his car with a gunshot wound to the head inflicted by someone standing outside the car. He died shortly afterwards at Lafayette General Hospital. The investigation by the
Lafayette Parish Sheriff's Office revealed
embezzlement within the Red Cross office. As of 2018[update] Foote's murder had not been solved.[172]
FBI mugshot of SLA commander Donald David DeFreeze
India became the sixth nuclear power, with the successful test of a low-yield weapon at the
Pokhran Test Range in the state of
Rajasthan. Taking place on
Buddha Jayanti, celebrated as the birthday of
Siddhartha Gautama Buddha, the test was code-named Project
Smiling Buddha. The other nuclear powers at the time were the U.S., the Soviet Union, the United Kingdom, France, and the People's Republic of China.[189][190]
In fiction, May 18, 1974, is the "seventh day" in the bestselling 1962 novel Seven Days in May, about an attempted overthrow of the U.S. government. The day was modified to Sunday, May 19, for the 1964 film of the same name.
A policeman in
Belém, Brazil, fired on rioting fans at a soccer match between
Clube do Remo and Paissandu-Belém. One fan was killed and three were critically injured.[206]
U.S. District Judge
John J. Sirica ordered
President Nixon to surrender 64 tape recordings of White House conversations that had been subpoenaed by the special prosecutor,
Leon Jaworski. Addressing concerns of national security raised by Nixon's attorney, Sirica stated in his order that he would listen to individual tapes to determine whether they should be withheld from release.[211] The U.S. Supreme Court would ultimately affirm Sirica's ruling in United States v. Nixon on July 24, leading to the release of the June 23, 1972, "smoking gun" tape and Nixon's resignation.[87]
Former Portuguese Prime Minister
Marcelo Caetano and President
Americo Thomaz, who had both been arrested after deposed on April 25 in the
Carnation Revolution coup d'etat, were sent into exile in Brazil along with their families. The former leaders boarded a Boeing 707 of the Portuguese Air Force at the Portuguese resort of
Madeira and were flown to
Viracopos International Airport in Brazil and driven to
São Paulo, where they were provided with apartments on the 27th floor of the São Paulo Hilton hotel.[212]
Fire destroyed the Cody Enterprise newspaper building in
Cody, Wyoming, killing a reporter and a volunteer firefighter. The fire rekindled from ashes left in the building's rafters from an
arson fire in a neighboring alley the previous night.[216]
Died: Cardinal
Jean Daniélou, 69, French Roman Catholic cardinal, appointed as a professor of theology and "one of the few priests to be named a cardinal without having served as a bishop or in any other administrative function", died of a stroke.[217] Nine days later, the satirical French magazine Le Canard Enchaine reported that Danielou died in the apartment of a nightclub dancer, and on June 14, the Paris newspaper Le Monde published a confirmation of the story, with a columnist writing, "According to some, he died of a heart attack in the street... In fact, the crdinal died of a stroke soon after entering the apartment of a young woman who works in a Paris nightclub, whose flat he had already visited several times before."[218][219]
The largest case of cheating at the
United States Naval Academy was carried out at
Annapolis, Maryland, when at least 60 and perhaps as many as 150 of 965 sophomore midshipmen were caught with the answers to the final exam in the Academy's class on navigation.[220] In 1965, 109 cadets at the
United States Air Force Academy at
Colorado Springs, Colorado, had been forced to resign after being caught cheating. The leaked answers were traced to a U.S. Navy quartermaster who had given the information to 150 sophomores, one-sixth of the class of 1976. The 965 all took a new final exam on May 29.[221]
Thailand's Prime Minister
Sanya Dharmasakti (also called Sanya Thammasak) and his cabinet resigned following public criticism over their inability to handle the Asian kingdom's skyrocketing inflation. Premier Sanya told a delegation of supporters later, "I wonder whether it was the right thing. I am very tired. So many people wanted so many things. I just made the decision that I can't stay any longer. I may enter the monkhood."[222] After being asked by people from "all sectors of the country" to reconsider, Sanya announced that he would bring in 14 younger men to replace ministers who had resigned from the 28-member cabinet and was reappointed five days later.[223]
Fire destroyed
Bob Stupak's World Famous Million Dollar Historic Gambling Museum and Casino on the
Las Vegas Strip. Firefighters recovered currency the museum had used as wallpaper.[224][225]
What is now the world's largest
national park, the Grønlands Nationalpark, was established by
Denmark with the protection of 700,000 square kilometres (270,000 sq mi) of uninhabited territory in northeast Greenland. In 1988, it would be expanded to its current size of 972,000 square kilometres (375,000 sq mi).
The
Disaster Relief Act of 1974, authorizing the U.S. president to make declarations in order to hasten the sending of federal money to disaster-stricken areas in the United States and its territories, was signed into law by President Richard Nixon, after having passed 91 to 0 in the U.S. Senate and 392 to 0 in the House of Representatives.[228]
U.S. President Nixon informed the House Judiciary Committee that he would refuse to obey any further
subpoenas for evidence or appearances.[229]
The
Airbus A300, the world's first twin-engine, double-aisle (wide-body) airliner, was introduced into commercial service with a flight by
Air France from Paris to London.[234]
All 29 people aboard an
AeroflotYakovlev Yak-40 airliner were killed when the airplane crashed during its scheduled approach to
Kiev from a flight that had originated in
Leningrad and had stopped at
Khmelnitskiy in the Ukrainian SSR. Crash investigators concluded that the crew had been overcome by
carbon monoxide as they were making their approach to Kiev's
Zhulyany Airport and had failed to set several instruments. With the crew and passengers unconscious or dying, the Yak-40 crashed into a training range near Gorenychi at a speed of 260 miles (420 km) per hour.[235]
An electoral college met in Bonn to select the new
President of West Germany, the largely ceremonial role of the nation's head of state. All 518 members of the parliament (496 from the
Bundestag and 22 from the
Bundesrat) and an equal number (518 delegates) from the West German states, for a total of 1,036 electors, participated. Vice Chancellor
Walter Scheel of the Social Democrats defeated
Richard von Weizsäcker of the Christian Democrats, 530 to 498, with eight abstentions.
One of the domes of
Sacré-Cœur, Paris, was seriously damaged in an explosion which caused no deaths or injuries. Callers to the
Agence France-Presse news service said they had set off the explosion to protest Valéry Giscard d'Estaing's election as President and to commemorate the 103rd anniversary of the
Paris Commune.[237]
David Frank Kamaiko, a 21-year-old man from
Greenwich Village claiming to be a member of the
Jewish Defense League, hijacked a helicopter from the
East 34th Street Heliport and demanded $2 million in ransom. After landing on top of the
Pan Am Building, the pilot tried to escape and Kamaiko shot him in the arm. The other hostage inside the helicopter disarmed the hijacker, and police took him into custody.[238][239]
The New York City Council defeated a homosexual rights bill by a vote of 22 to 19. Politicians attributed the bill's defeat to opposition by the
Roman Catholic Archdiocese of New York.[240]
In the Philippines, the coronation of
Mohammed Mahakuttah Abdullah Kiram as the
Sultan of Sulu took place with approval by the government of President Ferdinand Marcos, who issued Memorandum Order No. 427.[245] The Sultan's 7-year-old son,
Muedzul Lail Tan Kiram, was recognized as Crown Prince during the ceremony. Official recognition of the Sultanate of Sulu as a limited self-governing territory would end with Mahakuttah's death in 1986.[246]
In Poland, the collapse of an underground
coal mine in Piekary killed five miners. Three others were rescued.[247]
Almost 800 girls were injured, 14 seriously, in a
human crush at a
David Cassidy concert at London's
White City Stadium.[261] One Cassidy fan, 14-year-old Bernadette Whelan, became comatose from traumatic asphyxiation, and died of her injuries four days later.[262][263]
The collapse of an apartment building, under construction in
Kuwait City, took place while 150 workers were inside as concrete was being poured on the sixth floor. Ten injured people were rescued, and four bodies were recovered, but police said that "
scores of others were feared missing."[264]
In
Boulder, Colorado, the
murder of six Hispanic-American residents began with the explosion of a bomb planted in the car of lawyer Reyes Martinez at Chautauqua Park.[277] Martinez, his girlfriend Uma Jaakola and her friend Neva Romero were all killed in the blast. Two days later another car bomb exploded in the parking lot of a Burger King restaurant that had closed for the night, killing Florencio Granado, Heriberto Teran and Francisco Dougherty. Another person, Antonio Alcantar Jr., who was standing outside the car, survived but lost a leg.[278] Nearly 50 years later, no suspect had been arrested for the killing of "Los Seis de Boulder" (Spanish for "The Boulder Six").[279]
In Brazil, 13 of the 14 people aboard a boat on the Parana River were killed when the watercraft capsized in the river, infested with
piranhas.[280]
Barbara Forrest, 20, was raped and strangled in
Pype Hayes Park,
Erdington,
Birmingham, England. Forrest's co-worker Michael Ian Thornton was charged with her murder but would be acquitted due to lack of evidence. In a bizarre coincidence, the murder of Mary Ashford, which led to the Ashford v Thornton criminal case, also took place in Pype Hayes Park on May 27, 1817, 157 years to the day before Forrest's murder. In each case, a suspect with the surname Thornton was acquitted of the crime.[281]
Died:Kurt Wiese, 87, German-born American children's book author and illustrator, known for the pictures in 300 books, including the Freddy the Pig series[287][288]
In
Long Beach, California, a young woman later known as the
Long Beach Jane Doe was raped and strangled to death. In May 2013, Gary Stamp, then 61, was arrested and confessed to the murder, but the victim's identity remains unknown.[294] Stamp died of cancer in January 2014.[295]
The United States announced that Secretary of State
Henry Kissinger had persuaded representatives of both
Israel and
Syria to reach an agreement on separation of their troops and a pullback within the
Golan Heights.[297]
France's President Giscard announced an immediate ban on government
wiretapping and restraints against the press, and said that he would work toward welcoming political refugees. Giscard told the first meeting of his cabinet, "We are here to change France. France is a liberal country and we must set our sights even more firmly in that direction."[299]
French publisher
Maurice Girodias was ordered to leave the U.S. after he had announced that he planned to publish a book titled President Kissinger. The
Immigration and Naturalization Service had received an anonymous complaint that permission for Girodias to remain in the U.S. had expired in January.[300]
The
UEFA Cup, a knockout tournament for the winners of the cup-winning soccer football teams in Europe, was won by
Feyenoord, the
1974 champion of the Netherlands'
KNVB Eredivisie, after the team had played to a 2-2 draw with
Tottenham Hotspur (the
1973 English League Cup winner) in the first leg of the two-game final on May 21 in London. With the champion determined by the aggregate score of the two games, the winner of the second leg would win the UEFA Cup. Playing at home in
Rotterdam, Feyenoord won, 2 to 0 on goals by
Wim Rijsbergen and
Peter Ressel, for an aggregate score of 4 to 2 overall.
NASA launched India's
ATS-6, sixth of the Applications Technology Satellites, the world's first direct broadcast
satellite, and the most powerful
communications satellite launched up to that time.[304]
Elections were held for white voters in
South Africa for 44 of the 54 seats in the
South African senate. The elections for the
171-seatsHouse of Assembly had taken place on April 24. The National Party of Prime Minister B. J. Vorster won 32 of the elected seats, and the United Party of
De Villiers Graaff won 12 seats. The National Party had nine of the 10 non-elected seats, for 41 of 54 overall, and the United Party just one, for 13 of 54.[305]
The
Home Office of the United Kingdom announced that the British penal system abolished the traditional "bread and water" diet that had been used to punish infractions of prison discipline, replacing the penalty with loss of earnings or the forfeiture of reductions of sentences for good behavior.[316]
Ski Hi Lee (ring name of Robert E. Leedy), 53, Canadian professional wrestler who had
acromegaly (at 6 feet 7 inches (2.01 m) the tallest man in the sport)[324][325][326]
^
abTurner, Wallace (4 May 1974).
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^"Women Climbers at Summit". Los Angeles Times. June 11, 1974. p. I-2.
^Nakaseko, Naoko.
"Japanese women's expedition — Manaslu 1974"(PDF). Alpine Journal. 1975. Translated by
Yoshizawa, Ichiro: 94–99. Retrieved 21 September 2023. ... We aimed to make the first ascent of an 8000 metre peak by women and at the same time to put all the climbers on the expedition on to the top. .... . The expedition members were as follows: Kyoko Sato, Mrs Tsune Kuroishi, Mrs Naoko Nakaseko, Michiko Sekita, Mrs Masako Uchida, Mieko Mori, Masako Itakura, Mutsumi Nakajima, Teiko Suzuki, Tomoko lto, Shizu Harada and Naoko Kuribayashi. Captain P. S. Rana was Liaison Officer and Il1a Tsering was Sherpa sirdar. .... Shortly after 5.30pm on 4 May 3 climbers and one Sherpa stood on the summit of Manaslu one by one. 'Yare, Yare' (Here we are at last) was my first impression. ...
^Voiland, Adam (16 December 2013).
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NASA. Retrieved 21 September 2023.
^"5 Die in German Blast". The New York Times. AP. 5 May 1974. Page 43, column 1. Retrieved 23 September 2023.
^"Blast Kills Five Men at Dynamite Factory". Los Angeles Times. May 5, 1974. p. I-24.
^"Typical earthquakes". Earthquakes in China. China Giant Panda Museum. Computer Network Information Center of Chinese Academy of Sciences. Retrieved 21 September 2023.
^Utsu, T. R. (2002). "A List of Deadly Earthquakes in the World: 1500–2000". International Handbook of Earthquake & Engineering Seismology. Part A. Vol. 81A (First ed.).
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^"Hijackers Killed as Colombia Police and Pilot Recapture 727 Jetliner". Los Angeles Times. May 12, 1974. p. I-4.
^Zündorf, Irmgard; Eimermacher, Stefanie (10 August 2016).
"Biografie Helmut Schmidt" [Helmut Schmidt Biography]. LeMO-Biografien. Lebendiges Museum Online (in German). Stiftung Haus der Geschichte der Bundesrepublik Deutschland. Retrieved 21 September 2023.
^"Tito Reelected; Group Presidency Designated". Los Angeles Times. May 17, 1974. p. I-4.
^Cooper, Julie; Banderas, Maria (May 1997).
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