• The first World Games are held in Santa Clara
 • Erhard Seminars Training in San Francisco dissolved
 • The Sonoma Valley AVA (winery directional sign pictured, left) is established
 • The Napa Valley AVA (historic marker pictured, right) is established
 • The Gulf of the Farallones National Marine Sanctuary is established in coastal waters off the Golden Gate
 • Arthur Leonard Schawlow at Stanford University, along with Nicolaas Bloembergen and Kai Siegbahn, share the Nobel Prize in Physics for their work with lasers
 • 14 year old Marcy Renee Conrad is murdered in Milpitas
 • Ceratitis capitata, known commonly as the "Mediterranean fruit fly", infests the Bay Area