Nigeria's President,
Yakubu "Jack" Gowon, announced that the government pledge to return the West African nation to civilian rule by 1976 was being postponed indefinitely.[1] Gowon would be overthrown seven months later.[2]
Houston reporter
Anita Martini became the first female journalist admitted to the locker room of a major league sports team after the
Los Angeles Dodgers had defeated the host
Houston Astros, 8 to 5, to end the season in first place in the National League West. Martini followed male reporters to the locker room and announced that she wanted to interview
Jimmy Wynn and was told, as she expected, that she would have to wait until Wynn got dressed and came out to see her. She asked the attendant to take a message to Wynn, who got the approval of Dodgers manager
Walt Alston and allowed Ms. Martini to come in.[3]
The Soviet Union detonated a 1.7-kiloton atomic bomb near the village of
Udachny as part of a dam construction project. Plans for further atomic blasts were halted after the radioactivity from fallout proved to be much larger than expected.[12]
The
Cleveland Indians became the first team in
Major League Baseball history to name an African-American manager, with the announcement that they had hired
Frank Robinson to guide the team in the 1975 season.[13] The hiring came five days after Cleveland manager
Ken Aspromonte's contract expired and was not renewed.
Marianne Timmer, Dutch speed skater who won three Olympic gold medals and three world championships, primarily for the 1000m, between 1997 and 2006; in
Sappemeer,
Groningen[28]
Woody Aragón (stage name for Emilio de Paz Aragón), Spanish magician and illusionist; in
Madrid
Dave Kunst became the first person verified to have
traveled around the world on foot, arriving back at his home at
Waseca, Minnesota, after having left there, with his brother John, on June 20, 1970.[36] Kunst covered an estimated 14,450 kilometres (8,980 mi) in his journey. John had been shot to death by bandits in Afghanistan in 1972.[37]
The
Provisional Irish Republican Armybombed two pubs frequented by
British Army personnel in
Guildford,
Surrey in
England, killing five people and injuring 54. All of the dead and most of the injured were inside The Horse and Groom at 8:30 in the evening when the first bomb detonated, left under a table by two terrorists posing as a man and woman on a date.[38] The second bomb exploded at The Seven Stars, which had been evacuated after the first bombing, but was being searched by pub employees.[39] Two more pubs were bombed in
London on October 11, without fatalities.[40]
A yes or no election was held in
Albania for the 250 seats of the
Kuvendi. Only one candidate was nominated in each constituency, and all 250 were members of the
Democratic Front of Albania. The Albanian government announced that all 1,248,530 of the eligible voters had cast their ballots, and that 1,248,528 of the ballots were valid.[49]
King
Bhumibol Adulyadej promulgated
Thailand's
ninth Constitution, but issued a memorandum objecting to its provision that the president of the Privy Council countersign the monarch's order appointing senators.[57]
Wilbur Mills, Chairman of the
Ways and Means Committee of the
U.S. House of Representatives for almost 17 years, had his political career ended by a bizarre incident of public intoxication. Mills was drunk when police pulled over the car he was riding in, along with his extramarital mistress,
Fanne Foxe.[59] Although he won re-election as a Congressman from Arkansas, he compounded his reputation for drinking irresponsibly on November 30 as reporters followed him and would resign on December 1.
U.S. President Gerald Ford launched his "Whip Inflation Now" (WIN) campaign in conjunction with a speech to Congress to reduce the federal deficit by reducing federal spending and raising the income tax for corporations and wealthy individuals by five percent. The "WIN" campaign was intended to encourage Americans to save money by reducing personal spending.[70] The next day in major newspapers, a button that said "WIN" on it was offered to anyone who signed and mailed back a pledge that said, "Dear President Ford: I enlist as an inflation fighter and Energy Saver for the duration. I will do the very best I can for America."[71]
In
La Paz, Bolivia, a bomb destroyed a statue of former U.S. President
John F. Kennedy on the Avenue of the Americas. There were no injuries.[72]
The
IBM 3850 computer accessory, the first to use compact cartridges for
nearline storage, was introduced by the IBM company. The 3850 Mass Storage System could store a then-record 50
megabytes of memory on a small 4 inches (100 mm) long cartridge with a 70 inches (1,800 mm) long spool of magnetic tape, useful for holding infrequently used programming and data. Each cartridge could be loaded, when necessary, at a cost cheaper than maintaining data in a computer hard drive.[77]
One of the first popular crime horror films, The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (as billed in the credits and in its copyright registration), more popularly written as The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, premiered in theaters. Produced and directed by
Tobe Hooper, the low-budget ($140,000) movie, with a cast of unknowns (starring
Marilyn Burns and
Paul A. Partain), returned more than 200 times its investment, grossing $30,900,000 worldwide.[91]
In
Burien, Washington, Seattle Times photographer Jerry Gay took the
Pulitzer Prize-winning photograph Lull in the Battle, depicting 4 firefighters resting after fighting an early-morning house fire.[92]
The
murder of Arlis Perry, a 19-year-old newlywed, took place in a church on the campus of
Stanford University in
California. While the campus
security guard who discovered the body was a suspect, evidence confirming his involvement would not be discovered until 2018, more than 43 years after Perry's death. Stephen Blake Crawford would commit suicide before he could be arrested.[101]
Jane Chastain became the first woman on U.S. television to be a commentator on a nationally-televised
NFL game, appearing alongside play-by-play announcer
Don Criqui and commentator
Irv Cross on the CBS telecast of the
New Orleans Saints playing against the
Denver Broncos, to a mostly negative reception from the public.[107][108]
The first
Berlin Marathon was held, with 274 runners moving along a "mostly forested route through the city's Grunewald forest."[109]
Wojciech Rubinowicz (aka Adalbert Rubinowicz), 85, Polish theoretical physicist known for the Maggie-Rubinowicz representation for which scalar and electromagnetic fields are interpreted as a transformation of a surface integral into a line integral[113]
The
Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) was recognized by the
United Nations General Assembly as the representative of the Palestinian people, and granted the right to participate in the deliberations of the General Assembly on the question of Palestine in plenary meetings.[120]
Elections were held in Kenya for 158 of the 170 seats of the
National Assembly. Although the African nation's only legal political party was the
Kenya African National Union (KANU), 740 candidates were on the ballot for the 158 positions and 88 incumbents, including four government ministers, were not re-elected. President
Jomo Kenyatta appointed his choices for the other 12 seats.[121]
In
Tokyo, an explosion on the third floor of
Mitsui & Co.'s head office injured 16 people, including five police officers.[122]
The death of the first of two British
commercial divers in the
North Sea occurred as John K. J. Clark vomited and drowned after sustaining broken ribs while conducting a nighttime surface dive to monitor another diver off the
semi-submersible platform drill rig Waage One in the
North Sea. The next day, Gary Shields was
asphyxiated after his oxygen umbilical was tangled during a
bell dive on the
Ekofisk pipeline in the Norwegian Sector.[123][124]
The eruption of the
Volcán de Fuego in
Guatemala destroyed most of the town of
Yepocapa.[132] A sudden eruption on June 3, 2018, would kill 159 people and leave 256 others missing.[133]
In a protest in
Curtiss, Wisconsin, against rising feed costs and lower prices for farm products, members of the
National Farmers Organization (NFO) slaughtered 658 calves and 15 pigs and dumped their bodies in a trench.[137] Criticism of the waste from the protest was such that even U.S. President Ford called it "shocking and senseless."[138]
The
Philadelphia Bell of the
World Football League, known for having claimed that almost 65,000 paid customers attended one of its home games in July, attracted a crowd of only 750 customers to the 102,000-seat JFK Stadium. A torrential downpour and a record of 6 wins and 9 losses were the primary factors.[145]
U.S. President Gerald Ford became the first incumbent President since
Woodrow Wilson (and, as of 2024, the last) to testify in a Congressional hearing as he made a personal appearance before a subcommittee of the House Judiciary Committee to answer questions about his reasons for pardoning former President Richard M. Nixon. Ford testified that the pardon had not been prearranged, and that he made the decision because of his concern over reports of Nixon's deteriorating mental and physical health.[153]
An early morning fire killed 16 people and injured 30 at the New Nam San Hotel in
Seoul in
South Korea. Some of the guests, unable to escape, jumped to their deaths from the fourth and fifth floors of the hotel.[154]
The first private manufacturer of space rockets,
OTRAG (Orbital Transport-und Raketen-Aktiengesellschaft), was founded in
Neu-Isenburg in
West Germany, near
Frankfurt, by aerospace engineer
Lutz Kayser.[156] The company would make one successful launch of a
launch vehicle on May 20, 1978, from facilities in the African nation of
Zaire (now the
Democratic Republic of the Congo). International opposition to the first manufacturing, since
World War II, of German rockets and missiles led to the West German government closing down OTRAG facilities, after which OTRAG would move its operations to
Libya and finally close entirely in 1987.[157]
Roti Kapada Aur Makaan ("Food, Clothes and Shelter"), the highest-grossing Indian film of the year, was released across the nation. It would gross 52,500,000 Indian rupees and would win a
Filmfare Award for its director,
Manoj Kumar.[160]
Mary Woodson, a 29-year-old ex-girlfriend of American singer
Al Green, dumped a pan of scalding
grits on him as he was getting out of the bathtub at his home near
Memphis, Tennessee, leaving him with
second-degree burns, and then shot herself to death.[162][163]
Voters in a referendum in Switzerland overwhelmingly rejected
a proposal to evict 540,000 of the 1.4 million foreigners in the European nation, most of whom were farmhands, restaurant workers, and unskilled laborers, by January 1, 1978.[173]
Shathel Taqa, Minister of Foreign Affairs for Iraq, died of a heart attack while in
Rabat in Morocco for a meeting of the foreign ministers of the Arab world.[178]
The white minority government of
South Africa announced that it would increase the minimum wage paid to the nation's 400,000 black miners by 33 percent, effective December 1, though still less than the wages paid to 4,000 white miners. For the black and coloured South Africans, the increase for underground miners was to $2.28 per day from $1.71, and surface miner daily wages would increase from to $1.71 from $1.43.[182]
Former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations
George Bush arrived at the U.S. diplomatic mission in
Beijing to begin service as the U.S. liaison to the
People's Republic of China.[183] The U.S. and China would not have full diplomatic relations until 1979.
A fire in a pipeline link at the
Kuwait Oil Company's installations in Umm al-Aish killed 9 people, including one American and one British oil expert.[186]
A 3:30 a.m. bombing caused $1,500 in damage to a room at the Midway Elementary School southeast of
Charleston, West Virginia, a continuation of the violent protests over textbooks in
Kanawha County. There were no injuries.[187]
The makers of the American children's television series Sesame Street filed a
copyright infringement suit against Bergen Liquidators, Inc., of
New Jersey, charging that the company had planned to sell defective
hand puppets of characters from the series.[188]
In
Aragon, Georgia, a maintenance train backed into a school bus, killing 7 children and injuring 73 other people.[195] According to the bus driver, 61-year-old Billy Kellett, failure of the bus' brakes caused the accident.[196]
An IRA time bomb exploded shortly before midnight in the basement of the caretaker's house at
Harrow School in England. There were no injuries.[39][197]
Yekaterina Furtseva, 63,
Soviet Minister of Culture since 1960, and the only woman in Soviet history to serve as a member of the Soviet Communist Party's ruling Politburo (serving from 1957 to 1960).[203][204] Furtseva died of a heart attack, though there were rumors that Furtseva committed suicide after losing her seat in the Soviet Union's Presidium in June.[204][205]
At the
Scheveningen Prison in the
Hague, four convicted terrorists took 22 people hostage, including several children, during a
Roman Catholic Mass.[217] Two of the criminals had been convicted for the March hijacking of a
British Airways jet. After the terrorists had released all of the children and several adults, Dutch Marines and Hague police stormed the prison chapel on October 31, rescued the remaining hostages unharmed, and arrested the four terrorists.[218]
In the early morning hours between 2:55 and 3:35, Puerto Rican separatists of the
Fuerzas Armadas de Liberación Nacional Puertorriqueña (FALN) terrorist group set off five bombs in Manhattan, with the largest bomb set off in New York's Financial District. Despite the damage, there were no injuries.[219]
A two-year experiment in the U.S. to make
Daylight Saving Time last year round, and abolish the practice of turning clocks one hour forward in the autumn, ended ten months after it had gone into effect on January 6, 1974, after complaints about the effect of the
Emergency Daylight Saving Time Energy Conservation Act, which had turned clocks back in the middle of winter and was intended to stay in effect for at least two years.[225] The U.S. Congress repealed the act on September 30, 1974.[226]
The Soviet Union launched the robotic lunar lander Luna 23 toward the Moon, with the goal of drilling 2.5 metres (8.2 ft) into the lunar service, collecting a sample, and returning the sample to Earth.[231] When Luna 23 landed on the Moon on November 6, however, it tipped over and was unable to carry out its mission.[232]
The
Equal Credit Opportunity Act (prohibiting discrimination based on race, gender and other non-financial characteristics of applicants) and its amendment, the
Fair Credit Billing Act (protecting consumers from unfair billing practices and giving them remedies for fixing problems), were signed into law by U.S. President Ford.[233]
Westpark Mustard, a
racinggreyhound dog, set a record when she made her 20th consecutive win in racing. Westpark Mustard broke the record of 19 in a row set by
Mick the Miller in 1930. Coincidentally, her 20th win came in the Mick the Miller Record Stakes. Westpark Mustard lost the next race she ran, ending her streak at 20.[238][239]
Everaldo Marques da Silva, Brazilian footballer with 24 caps for the World Cup-winning national team from 1967 to 1972, was killed in a car accident.[244]
Former U.S. President Richard Nixon, who had resigned less than three months earlier following the Watergate scandal, was in
critical condition after he went into
vascular shock six hours after surgery to remove a blood clot from his leg.[245] Nixon remained in the intensive care unit at Long Beach Memorial Medical Center for one week and was released from the hospital on November 14.[246]
New York City Fire Department firefighters Russell T. Linneball and Johnnie Williams were electrocuted when an aluminum ladder they were lowering after a warehouse fire in
the Bronx came into contact with an 11,000-volt power line.[250][251][252]
Serial killer
Carl Eugene Watts, suspected in the murders of at least 14 people, committed the first known homicide for which he was convicted, killing 20-year-old Gloria Steele in
Kalamazoo, Michigan.[262]
Died:Begum Akhtar (born Akhtaribai Faizabadi), 60, Indian singer and actress, reportedly died of stress from singing too high at her final concert.[263]
A cigarette ignited a bag of fireworks aboard an express train in northern India, causing an explosion and fire that killed 52 people.[264]
The initial flight of the
IAR-93 Vultur, the first jet fighter aircraft produced entirely in
Romania, was made by Colonel Gheorghe Stănică, who took off from
Bacău and landed again after a 21-minute test fiight.[265]
^"Admiral Moosbrugger, 73; Led Destroyers in Pacific". The New York Times. AP. 4 October 1974. Page 42, column 1. Retrieved 28 November 2023. SAN DIEGO, Oct. 3 (AP)—Frederick Moosbrugger, a retired vice admiral who was regarded as one of the Navy's top destroyer commanders in World War II, died yesterday in a hospital here. This source gives Moosbrugger's day of death as October 2.
^Yakovleva, Natalia (2017). Corporate Social Responsibility in the Mining Industries. Taylor & Francis.
^"Sweden 2008". Eurovision Song Contest - Belgrade 2008.
EBU. Archived from
the original on 26 May 2008. Retrieved 29 November 2023.
^"Henry J. Cadbury, Biblical Scholar". The New York Times. 9 October 1974. Page 46, columns 1-2. Retrieved 21 February 2024. Dr. Henry Joel Cadbury, a prominent Quaker and Biblical scholar, died Monday at Bryn Mawr (Pa.) Hospital.
^DeSantis, Sarah (2015) [Spring 2009].
"Henry Cadbury 12/1/1883 - 10/9/1974". Pennsylvania Center for the Book.
The Pennsylvania State University. Retrieved 21 February 2024. On October 9, 1974, Henry Cadbury died of a cerebral hemorrhage at Bryn Mawr Hospital in Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania, following a fall down the stairs of his home. This source incorrectly gives Cadbury's day of death as October 9.
^McFadden, Robert D. (14 October 1974).
"Josef Krips, the Conductor, Dies of Cancer in Geneva". The New York Times. Page 36, columns 4-5. Retrieved 30 November 2023. Josef Krips, one of the last representatives of the great Viennese school of conducting, died Saturday night at the Cantonal Hospital in Geneva, where he was being treated for lung cancer.
^"Otto Binder Dies; Science Writer, 63". The New York Times. 19 October 1974. Page 34, column 4. Retrieved 2 December 2023. This source gives Binder's day of death as October 14.
^Coran, Arnold G.; Caldamone, Anthony; Adzick, N. Scott; Krummel, Thomas M.; Laberge, Jean-Martin; Shamberger, Robert (25 January 2012).
Pediatric Surgery E-Book. Elsevier Health Sciences. p. 17.
ISBN978-0-323-09161-9.
^"Reluctant President Signs Campaign Reforms Into Law". Miami Herald. UPI. 15 October 1974.
^Padilla-Babilonia, Alvin (2020). "Reforming the Federal Election Commission: Storable Voting". Wyo. L. Rev.20: 287.
^Lauck, Jon (1 April 2000). American agriculture and the problem of monopoly: the political economy of grain belt farming, 1953-1980.
University of Nebraska Press.
ISBN0803229321.
^Yu Sichen (19 October 2019).
"周迅生日杨幂上演"摸脸杀", 45岁周迅依旧灵动, 杨幂穿长裙太美" [On Zhou Xun's birthday, Yang Mi staged a "touch face kill", 45-year-old Zhou Xun is still smart, and Yang Mi is too beautiful in a long skirt]. Sohu (in Chinese).
Archived from the original on 8 May 2022. Retrieved 2 December 2023.
^"William Tabbert, Actor, Dies; Lieut. Cable in 'South Pacific'". The New York Times. 22 October 1974. Page 44, columns 2-3. Retrieved 3 December 2023. William Tabbert, an actor and lyric tenor who originated the stage role of Lieut. Joseph Cable in "South Pacific," the Pulitzer Prize-winning musical, died Saturday, apparently of a heart attack, in Polyclinic Hospital.
^"Elie Lescot Dies; Leader in Haiti". The New York Times. AP. October 23, 1974. Page 48, column 1. Retrieved December 3, 2023. PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti, Oct. 22 (AP) — Elie Lescot, President of Haiti from May 15, 1941, to Jan. 11, 1946, died today at La Boule, Haiti. This source gives Lescot's day of death as October 22.
^"Lengyel Dies at 95 in Budapest; 'Czarina' Among His Hit Plays". The New York Times. 27 October 1974. Page 65, column 4. Retrieved 4 December 2023. PARIS, Oct. 26 — Melchior Lengyel, the Hungarian playwright, died yesterday in Budapest at the age of 95. This source gives Lengyel's day of death as October 25.
^"Yekaterina Furtseva Dead; Ex-Soviet Culture Minister". The New York Times. 26 October 1974. Page 34, columns 4-5. Retrieved 3 December 2023. MOSCOW, Oct. 25—Yekaterina A. Furtseva, the only woman in Soviet history to become a member of the ruling inner circle of the Communist party, died today of a heart attack. This source gives Furtseva's day of death as October 25.
^Davis, Kenneth Morton (1993). The Life and Works of Leon Kroll with a Catalogue of His Works.
Ann Arbor, Michigan: UMI Dissertation Services. p. 14.
OCLC31484438.
^Kurth, Joel (December 9, 2004). "Watts faces new charge in Michigan; Convicted killer is slated to be arraigned today in Kalamazoo in 1974 stabbing death". The Detroit News.
Nigeria's President,
Yakubu "Jack" Gowon, announced that the government pledge to return the West African nation to civilian rule by 1976 was being postponed indefinitely.[1] Gowon would be overthrown seven months later.[2]
Houston reporter
Anita Martini became the first female journalist admitted to the locker room of a major league sports team after the
Los Angeles Dodgers had defeated the host
Houston Astros, 8 to 5, to end the season in first place in the National League West. Martini followed male reporters to the locker room and announced that she wanted to interview
Jimmy Wynn and was told, as she expected, that she would have to wait until Wynn got dressed and came out to see her. She asked the attendant to take a message to Wynn, who got the approval of Dodgers manager
Walt Alston and allowed Ms. Martini to come in.[3]
The Soviet Union detonated a 1.7-kiloton atomic bomb near the village of
Udachny as part of a dam construction project. Plans for further atomic blasts were halted after the radioactivity from fallout proved to be much larger than expected.[12]
The
Cleveland Indians became the first team in
Major League Baseball history to name an African-American manager, with the announcement that they had hired
Frank Robinson to guide the team in the 1975 season.[13] The hiring came five days after Cleveland manager
Ken Aspromonte's contract expired and was not renewed.
Marianne Timmer, Dutch speed skater who won three Olympic gold medals and three world championships, primarily for the 1000m, between 1997 and 2006; in
Sappemeer,
Groningen[28]
Woody Aragón (stage name for Emilio de Paz Aragón), Spanish magician and illusionist; in
Madrid
Dave Kunst became the first person verified to have
traveled around the world on foot, arriving back at his home at
Waseca, Minnesota, after having left there, with his brother John, on June 20, 1970.[36] Kunst covered an estimated 14,450 kilometres (8,980 mi) in his journey. John had been shot to death by bandits in Afghanistan in 1972.[37]
The
Provisional Irish Republican Armybombed two pubs frequented by
British Army personnel in
Guildford,
Surrey in
England, killing five people and injuring 54. All of the dead and most of the injured were inside The Horse and Groom at 8:30 in the evening when the first bomb detonated, left under a table by two terrorists posing as a man and woman on a date.[38] The second bomb exploded at The Seven Stars, which had been evacuated after the first bombing, but was being searched by pub employees.[39] Two more pubs were bombed in
London on October 11, without fatalities.[40]
A yes or no election was held in
Albania for the 250 seats of the
Kuvendi. Only one candidate was nominated in each constituency, and all 250 were members of the
Democratic Front of Albania. The Albanian government announced that all 1,248,530 of the eligible voters had cast their ballots, and that 1,248,528 of the ballots were valid.[49]
King
Bhumibol Adulyadej promulgated
Thailand's
ninth Constitution, but issued a memorandum objecting to its provision that the president of the Privy Council countersign the monarch's order appointing senators.[57]
Wilbur Mills, Chairman of the
Ways and Means Committee of the
U.S. House of Representatives for almost 17 years, had his political career ended by a bizarre incident of public intoxication. Mills was drunk when police pulled over the car he was riding in, along with his extramarital mistress,
Fanne Foxe.[59] Although he won re-election as a Congressman from Arkansas, he compounded his reputation for drinking irresponsibly on November 30 as reporters followed him and would resign on December 1.
U.S. President Gerald Ford launched his "Whip Inflation Now" (WIN) campaign in conjunction with a speech to Congress to reduce the federal deficit by reducing federal spending and raising the income tax for corporations and wealthy individuals by five percent. The "WIN" campaign was intended to encourage Americans to save money by reducing personal spending.[70] The next day in major newspapers, a button that said "WIN" on it was offered to anyone who signed and mailed back a pledge that said, "Dear President Ford: I enlist as an inflation fighter and Energy Saver for the duration. I will do the very best I can for America."[71]
In
La Paz, Bolivia, a bomb destroyed a statue of former U.S. President
John F. Kennedy on the Avenue of the Americas. There were no injuries.[72]
The
IBM 3850 computer accessory, the first to use compact cartridges for
nearline storage, was introduced by the IBM company. The 3850 Mass Storage System could store a then-record 50
megabytes of memory on a small 4 inches (100 mm) long cartridge with a 70 inches (1,800 mm) long spool of magnetic tape, useful for holding infrequently used programming and data. Each cartridge could be loaded, when necessary, at a cost cheaper than maintaining data in a computer hard drive.[77]
One of the first popular crime horror films, The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (as billed in the credits and in its copyright registration), more popularly written as The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, premiered in theaters. Produced and directed by
Tobe Hooper, the low-budget ($140,000) movie, with a cast of unknowns (starring
Marilyn Burns and
Paul A. Partain), returned more than 200 times its investment, grossing $30,900,000 worldwide.[91]
In
Burien, Washington, Seattle Times photographer Jerry Gay took the
Pulitzer Prize-winning photograph Lull in the Battle, depicting 4 firefighters resting after fighting an early-morning house fire.[92]
The
murder of Arlis Perry, a 19-year-old newlywed, took place in a church on the campus of
Stanford University in
California. While the campus
security guard who discovered the body was a suspect, evidence confirming his involvement would not be discovered until 2018, more than 43 years after Perry's death. Stephen Blake Crawford would commit suicide before he could be arrested.[101]
Jane Chastain became the first woman on U.S. television to be a commentator on a nationally-televised
NFL game, appearing alongside play-by-play announcer
Don Criqui and commentator
Irv Cross on the CBS telecast of the
New Orleans Saints playing against the
Denver Broncos, to a mostly negative reception from the public.[107][108]
The first
Berlin Marathon was held, with 274 runners moving along a "mostly forested route through the city's Grunewald forest."[109]
Wojciech Rubinowicz (aka Adalbert Rubinowicz), 85, Polish theoretical physicist known for the Maggie-Rubinowicz representation for which scalar and electromagnetic fields are interpreted as a transformation of a surface integral into a line integral[113]
The
Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) was recognized by the
United Nations General Assembly as the representative of the Palestinian people, and granted the right to participate in the deliberations of the General Assembly on the question of Palestine in plenary meetings.[120]
Elections were held in Kenya for 158 of the 170 seats of the
National Assembly. Although the African nation's only legal political party was the
Kenya African National Union (KANU), 740 candidates were on the ballot for the 158 positions and 88 incumbents, including four government ministers, were not re-elected. President
Jomo Kenyatta appointed his choices for the other 12 seats.[121]
In
Tokyo, an explosion on the third floor of
Mitsui & Co.'s head office injured 16 people, including five police officers.[122]
The death of the first of two British
commercial divers in the
North Sea occurred as John K. J. Clark vomited and drowned after sustaining broken ribs while conducting a nighttime surface dive to monitor another diver off the
semi-submersible platform drill rig Waage One in the
North Sea. The next day, Gary Shields was
asphyxiated after his oxygen umbilical was tangled during a
bell dive on the
Ekofisk pipeline in the Norwegian Sector.[123][124]
The eruption of the
Volcán de Fuego in
Guatemala destroyed most of the town of
Yepocapa.[132] A sudden eruption on June 3, 2018, would kill 159 people and leave 256 others missing.[133]
In a protest in
Curtiss, Wisconsin, against rising feed costs and lower prices for farm products, members of the
National Farmers Organization (NFO) slaughtered 658 calves and 15 pigs and dumped their bodies in a trench.[137] Criticism of the waste from the protest was such that even U.S. President Ford called it "shocking and senseless."[138]
The
Philadelphia Bell of the
World Football League, known for having claimed that almost 65,000 paid customers attended one of its home games in July, attracted a crowd of only 750 customers to the 102,000-seat JFK Stadium. A torrential downpour and a record of 6 wins and 9 losses were the primary factors.[145]
U.S. President Gerald Ford became the first incumbent President since
Woodrow Wilson (and, as of 2024, the last) to testify in a Congressional hearing as he made a personal appearance before a subcommittee of the House Judiciary Committee to answer questions about his reasons for pardoning former President Richard M. Nixon. Ford testified that the pardon had not been prearranged, and that he made the decision because of his concern over reports of Nixon's deteriorating mental and physical health.[153]
An early morning fire killed 16 people and injured 30 at the New Nam San Hotel in
Seoul in
South Korea. Some of the guests, unable to escape, jumped to their deaths from the fourth and fifth floors of the hotel.[154]
The first private manufacturer of space rockets,
OTRAG (Orbital Transport-und Raketen-Aktiengesellschaft), was founded in
Neu-Isenburg in
West Germany, near
Frankfurt, by aerospace engineer
Lutz Kayser.[156] The company would make one successful launch of a
launch vehicle on May 20, 1978, from facilities in the African nation of
Zaire (now the
Democratic Republic of the Congo). International opposition to the first manufacturing, since
World War II, of German rockets and missiles led to the West German government closing down OTRAG facilities, after which OTRAG would move its operations to
Libya and finally close entirely in 1987.[157]
Roti Kapada Aur Makaan ("Food, Clothes and Shelter"), the highest-grossing Indian film of the year, was released across the nation. It would gross 52,500,000 Indian rupees and would win a
Filmfare Award for its director,
Manoj Kumar.[160]
Mary Woodson, a 29-year-old ex-girlfriend of American singer
Al Green, dumped a pan of scalding
grits on him as he was getting out of the bathtub at his home near
Memphis, Tennessee, leaving him with
second-degree burns, and then shot herself to death.[162][163]
Voters in a referendum in Switzerland overwhelmingly rejected
a proposal to evict 540,000 of the 1.4 million foreigners in the European nation, most of whom were farmhands, restaurant workers, and unskilled laborers, by January 1, 1978.[173]
Shathel Taqa, Minister of Foreign Affairs for Iraq, died of a heart attack while in
Rabat in Morocco for a meeting of the foreign ministers of the Arab world.[178]
The white minority government of
South Africa announced that it would increase the minimum wage paid to the nation's 400,000 black miners by 33 percent, effective December 1, though still less than the wages paid to 4,000 white miners. For the black and coloured South Africans, the increase for underground miners was to $2.28 per day from $1.71, and surface miner daily wages would increase from to $1.71 from $1.43.[182]
Former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations
George Bush arrived at the U.S. diplomatic mission in
Beijing to begin service as the U.S. liaison to the
People's Republic of China.[183] The U.S. and China would not have full diplomatic relations until 1979.
A fire in a pipeline link at the
Kuwait Oil Company's installations in Umm al-Aish killed 9 people, including one American and one British oil expert.[186]
A 3:30 a.m. bombing caused $1,500 in damage to a room at the Midway Elementary School southeast of
Charleston, West Virginia, a continuation of the violent protests over textbooks in
Kanawha County. There were no injuries.[187]
The makers of the American children's television series Sesame Street filed a
copyright infringement suit against Bergen Liquidators, Inc., of
New Jersey, charging that the company had planned to sell defective
hand puppets of characters from the series.[188]
In
Aragon, Georgia, a maintenance train backed into a school bus, killing 7 children and injuring 73 other people.[195] According to the bus driver, 61-year-old Billy Kellett, failure of the bus' brakes caused the accident.[196]
An IRA time bomb exploded shortly before midnight in the basement of the caretaker's house at
Harrow School in England. There were no injuries.[39][197]
Yekaterina Furtseva, 63,
Soviet Minister of Culture since 1960, and the only woman in Soviet history to serve as a member of the Soviet Communist Party's ruling Politburo (serving from 1957 to 1960).[203][204] Furtseva died of a heart attack, though there were rumors that Furtseva committed suicide after losing her seat in the Soviet Union's Presidium in June.[204][205]
At the
Scheveningen Prison in the
Hague, four convicted terrorists took 22 people hostage, including several children, during a
Roman Catholic Mass.[217] Two of the criminals had been convicted for the March hijacking of a
British Airways jet. After the terrorists had released all of the children and several adults, Dutch Marines and Hague police stormed the prison chapel on October 31, rescued the remaining hostages unharmed, and arrested the four terrorists.[218]
In the early morning hours between 2:55 and 3:35, Puerto Rican separatists of the
Fuerzas Armadas de Liberación Nacional Puertorriqueña (FALN) terrorist group set off five bombs in Manhattan, with the largest bomb set off in New York's Financial District. Despite the damage, there were no injuries.[219]
A two-year experiment in the U.S. to make
Daylight Saving Time last year round, and abolish the practice of turning clocks one hour forward in the autumn, ended ten months after it had gone into effect on January 6, 1974, after complaints about the effect of the
Emergency Daylight Saving Time Energy Conservation Act, which had turned clocks back in the middle of winter and was intended to stay in effect for at least two years.[225] The U.S. Congress repealed the act on September 30, 1974.[226]
The Soviet Union launched the robotic lunar lander Luna 23 toward the Moon, with the goal of drilling 2.5 metres (8.2 ft) into the lunar service, collecting a sample, and returning the sample to Earth.[231] When Luna 23 landed on the Moon on November 6, however, it tipped over and was unable to carry out its mission.[232]
The
Equal Credit Opportunity Act (prohibiting discrimination based on race, gender and other non-financial characteristics of applicants) and its amendment, the
Fair Credit Billing Act (protecting consumers from unfair billing practices and giving them remedies for fixing problems), were signed into law by U.S. President Ford.[233]
Westpark Mustard, a
racinggreyhound dog, set a record when she made her 20th consecutive win in racing. Westpark Mustard broke the record of 19 in a row set by
Mick the Miller in 1930. Coincidentally, her 20th win came in the Mick the Miller Record Stakes. Westpark Mustard lost the next race she ran, ending her streak at 20.[238][239]
Everaldo Marques da Silva, Brazilian footballer with 24 caps for the World Cup-winning national team from 1967 to 1972, was killed in a car accident.[244]
Former U.S. President Richard Nixon, who had resigned less than three months earlier following the Watergate scandal, was in
critical condition after he went into
vascular shock six hours after surgery to remove a blood clot from his leg.[245] Nixon remained in the intensive care unit at Long Beach Memorial Medical Center for one week and was released from the hospital on November 14.[246]
New York City Fire Department firefighters Russell T. Linneball and Johnnie Williams were electrocuted when an aluminum ladder they were lowering after a warehouse fire in
the Bronx came into contact with an 11,000-volt power line.[250][251][252]
Serial killer
Carl Eugene Watts, suspected in the murders of at least 14 people, committed the first known homicide for which he was convicted, killing 20-year-old Gloria Steele in
Kalamazoo, Michigan.[262]
Died:Begum Akhtar (born Akhtaribai Faizabadi), 60, Indian singer and actress, reportedly died of stress from singing too high at her final concert.[263]
A cigarette ignited a bag of fireworks aboard an express train in northern India, causing an explosion and fire that killed 52 people.[264]
The initial flight of the
IAR-93 Vultur, the first jet fighter aircraft produced entirely in
Romania, was made by Colonel Gheorghe Stănică, who took off from
Bacău and landed again after a 21-minute test fiight.[265]
^"Admiral Moosbrugger, 73; Led Destroyers in Pacific". The New York Times. AP. 4 October 1974. Page 42, column 1. Retrieved 28 November 2023. SAN DIEGO, Oct. 3 (AP)—Frederick Moosbrugger, a retired vice admiral who was regarded as one of the Navy's top destroyer commanders in World War II, died yesterday in a hospital here. This source gives Moosbrugger's day of death as October 2.
^Yakovleva, Natalia (2017). Corporate Social Responsibility in the Mining Industries. Taylor & Francis.
^"Sweden 2008". Eurovision Song Contest - Belgrade 2008.
EBU. Archived from
the original on 26 May 2008. Retrieved 29 November 2023.
^"Henry J. Cadbury, Biblical Scholar". The New York Times. 9 October 1974. Page 46, columns 1-2. Retrieved 21 February 2024. Dr. Henry Joel Cadbury, a prominent Quaker and Biblical scholar, died Monday at Bryn Mawr (Pa.) Hospital.
^DeSantis, Sarah (2015) [Spring 2009].
"Henry Cadbury 12/1/1883 - 10/9/1974". Pennsylvania Center for the Book.
The Pennsylvania State University. Retrieved 21 February 2024. On October 9, 1974, Henry Cadbury died of a cerebral hemorrhage at Bryn Mawr Hospital in Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania, following a fall down the stairs of his home. This source incorrectly gives Cadbury's day of death as October 9.
^McFadden, Robert D. (14 October 1974).
"Josef Krips, the Conductor, Dies of Cancer in Geneva". The New York Times. Page 36, columns 4-5. Retrieved 30 November 2023. Josef Krips, one of the last representatives of the great Viennese school of conducting, died Saturday night at the Cantonal Hospital in Geneva, where he was being treated for lung cancer.
^"Otto Binder Dies; Science Writer, 63". The New York Times. 19 October 1974. Page 34, column 4. Retrieved 2 December 2023. This source gives Binder's day of death as October 14.
^Coran, Arnold G.; Caldamone, Anthony; Adzick, N. Scott; Krummel, Thomas M.; Laberge, Jean-Martin; Shamberger, Robert (25 January 2012).
Pediatric Surgery E-Book. Elsevier Health Sciences. p. 17.
ISBN978-0-323-09161-9.
^"Reluctant President Signs Campaign Reforms Into Law". Miami Herald. UPI. 15 October 1974.
^Padilla-Babilonia, Alvin (2020). "Reforming the Federal Election Commission: Storable Voting". Wyo. L. Rev.20: 287.
^Lauck, Jon (1 April 2000). American agriculture and the problem of monopoly: the political economy of grain belt farming, 1953-1980.
University of Nebraska Press.
ISBN0803229321.
^Yu Sichen (19 October 2019).
"周迅生日杨幂上演"摸脸杀", 45岁周迅依旧灵动, 杨幂穿长裙太美" [On Zhou Xun's birthday, Yang Mi staged a "touch face kill", 45-year-old Zhou Xun is still smart, and Yang Mi is too beautiful in a long skirt]. Sohu (in Chinese).
Archived from the original on 8 May 2022. Retrieved 2 December 2023.
^"William Tabbert, Actor, Dies; Lieut. Cable in 'South Pacific'". The New York Times. 22 October 1974. Page 44, columns 2-3. Retrieved 3 December 2023. William Tabbert, an actor and lyric tenor who originated the stage role of Lieut. Joseph Cable in "South Pacific," the Pulitzer Prize-winning musical, died Saturday, apparently of a heart attack, in Polyclinic Hospital.
^"Elie Lescot Dies; Leader in Haiti". The New York Times. AP. October 23, 1974. Page 48, column 1. Retrieved December 3, 2023. PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti, Oct. 22 (AP) — Elie Lescot, President of Haiti from May 15, 1941, to Jan. 11, 1946, died today at La Boule, Haiti. This source gives Lescot's day of death as October 22.
^"Lengyel Dies at 95 in Budapest; 'Czarina' Among His Hit Plays". The New York Times. 27 October 1974. Page 65, column 4. Retrieved 4 December 2023. PARIS, Oct. 26 — Melchior Lengyel, the Hungarian playwright, died yesterday in Budapest at the age of 95. This source gives Lengyel's day of death as October 25.
^"Yekaterina Furtseva Dead; Ex-Soviet Culture Minister". The New York Times. 26 October 1974. Page 34, columns 4-5. Retrieved 3 December 2023. MOSCOW, Oct. 25—Yekaterina A. Furtseva, the only woman in Soviet history to become a member of the ruling inner circle of the Communist party, died today of a heart attack. This source gives Furtseva's day of death as October 25.
^Davis, Kenneth Morton (1993). The Life and Works of Leon Kroll with a Catalogue of His Works.
Ann Arbor, Michigan: UMI Dissertation Services. p. 14.
OCLC31484438.
^Kurth, Joel (December 9, 2004). "Watts faces new charge in Michigan; Convicted killer is slated to be arraigned today in Kalamazoo in 1974 stabbing death". The Detroit News.