January

• January 2
  • Ibrox disaster: A stairway crush at the Rangers vs. Celtic football match in Glasgow, Scotland, kills 66.
  • A ban on radio and television cigarette advertisements goes into effect in the United States.
• January 3 – BBC Open University begins in the United Kingdom.
• January 5 – The 1st ever ODI cricket match is played between Australia & England at the M.C.G.
• January 8 – Tupamaros kidnap Geoffrey Jackson, British ambassador to Uruguay, in Montevideo, keeping him captive until September.
• January 9 – Uruguayan president Jorge Pacheco Areco demands emergency powers for 90 days due to kidnappings, and receives them the next day.
• January 12 – The landmark television sitcom All in the Family, starring Carroll O'Connor as Archie Bunker, debuts on CBS.
• January 14 – Seventy Brazilian political prisoners are released in Santiago, Chile; Giovanni Enrico Bucher is released January 16.
• January 15 – The Aswan High Dam officially opens in Egypt.
• January 18
  • Strikes in Poland demand the resignation of Interior Minister Kazimierz ?wita?a. He resigns January 23 and is replaced by Franciszek Szlachcic.
  • Ivan Koloff defeats Bruno Sammartino for the WWWF World Heavyweight Championship ending a Seven and two thirds years reign. (the longest in the Championships history)
• January 19 – Representatives of 23 western oil companies begin negotiations with OPEC in Tehran to stabilize oil prices; February 14 they sign a treaty with 6 Khalij el-Arab countries.
• January 24 – The Guinean government sentences to death 92 Guineans who helped Portuguese troops in the failed landing attempts in November 1970; 72 are sentenced to hard labor for life; 58 of the sentenced are hanged the next day.
• January 25
  • In Uganda, Idi Amin deposes Milton Obote in a coup, and becomes president.
  • In Los Angeles, Charles Manson and 3 female "Family" members are found guilty of the 1969 Tate–LaBianca murders.
  • Himachal Pradesh becomes the 18th Indian state.
  • Intelsat IV (F2) is launched; it enters commercial service over the Atlantic Ocean March 26.
• January 31 – Apollo program: Apollo 14 (carrying astronauts Alan Shepard, Stuart Roosa, and Edgar Mitchell) lifts off on the third successful lunar landing mission.

February

• February 4 – In Britain, Rolls-Royce goes bankrupt and is nationalised.
• February 5 – Apollo 14 lands on the Moon.
• February 6 – The 4.6 Mb Tuscania earthquake shook the Italian province of Viterbo with a maximum Mercalli intensity of VIII (Severe), causing 24 deaths, 150 injuries, and extreme damage.
• February 7
  • Switzerland gives women voting rights in state elections, but not in all canton-specific ones.
  • W?adys?aw Gomu?ka is expelled from the Central Council of the Polish Communist Party.
• February 8 – A new stock market index called the Nasdaq Composite debuts.
• February 9
  • The 6.5–6.7 M_w Sylmar earthquake hits the Greater Los Angeles Area with a maximum Mercalli intensity of XI (Extreme), killing 64 and injuring 2,000.
  • Satchel Paige becomes the first Negro League player to become voted into the Baseball Hall of Fame from the Negro League.
  • Apollo program: Apollo 14 returns to Earth after the third manned Moon landing.
• February 11 – The US, UK, USSR and others sign the Seabed Treaty, outlawing nuclear weapons on the ocean floor.
• February 11–February 12 – Palestinian and Jordanian fighters clash in Amman.
• February 13 – Vietnam War: Backed by American air and artillery support, South Vietnamese troops invade Laos.
• February 15
  • Decimal Day: – The United Kingdom and Ireland both switch to decimal currency (see also decimalisation).
  • Protesting Belgian farmers bring 3 live cows to crash the EEC meeting in Brussels.
• February 16 – In Italy, a local parliament elects the city of Catanzaro as the capital of Calabria; residents of Reggio di Calabria riot for 5 days because of the decision.
• February 20
  • Fifty tornadoes rage in Mississippi and Louisiana, killing 74 people.
  • The U.S. Emergency Broadcast System sends an erroneous warning, meant to be a standard weekly test conducted by NORAD in Cheyenne Mountain in Colorado; many radio stations just ignore it. The most notorious warning was of WOWO (AM) in Fort Wayne, Indiana.
• February 21 – The Convention on Psychotropic Substances is signed at Vienna.
• February 26 – Secretary General U Thant signs the United Nations proclamation of the vernal equinox as Earth Day.
• February 27 – Doctors in the first Dutch abortion clinic (Mildredhuis in Arnhem) start to perform abortus provocatus.
• February 28 – Evel Knievel sets a world record and jumps 19 cars in Ontario, California.

March

• March 1
  • A bomb explodes in the men's room at the United States Capitol; the Weather Underground claims responsibility.
  • Pakistani President Agha Muhammad Yahya Khan indefinitely postpones the pending National Assembly session, precipitating massive civil disobedience in East Pakistan.
  • Canadian John Robarts ends his term of office as the 17th Premier of Ontario.
• March 4 – The southern part of Quebec, and especially Montreal, receive 16½" (42 cm) of snow in what becomes known as the Century's Snowstorm (la tempête du siècle).
• March 5 – The Pakistani army occupies East Pakistan. In Belfast, a Led Zeppelin show includes the first public performance of Stairway to Heaven, a song from the fourth album.
• March 6 – A fire in a mental hospital at Burghölzli, Switzerland, kills 28 people.
• March 7
  • The British postal workers' strike, led by UPW General Secretary Tom Jackson, ends after 47 days.
  • Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, political leader of then East Pakistan (present day-Bangladesh), delivers his famous speech in the Racecourse Field in Dhaka, calling on the masses to be prepared to fight for national independence.
• March 8
  • The Citizens' Commission to Investigate the FBI breaks into the Media, Pennsylvania offices of the Federal Bureau of Investigation and removes all the files.
  • 'Fight of the Century': Boxer Joe Frazier defeats Muhammad Ali at Madison Square Garden.
• March 10 – William McMahon replaces John Gorton as the Liberal/Country Coalition Prime Minister of Australia, after Gorton resigned following a vote of confidence that was tied 33-all.
• March 12 – Hafez al-Assad becomes president of Syria.
• March 12–March 13 – The Allman Brothers Band plays their legendary concert at the Fillmore East.
• March 16 – Trygve Bratteli forms a government in Norway.
• March 18 – A landslide at Chungar, Peru crashes into Yanawayin Lake, killing 200.
• March 23 – General Alejandro Lanusse of Argentina takes power in a military coup.
• March 25 – The Pakistani army starts Operation Searchlight in East Pakistan from midnight, after President Agha Muhammad Yahya Khan, a military ruler, voids election results that gave the Awami League an overwhelming majority in the parliament.
• March 26
  • East Pakistan (now Bangladesh) independence is declared by Ziaur Rahman for Sheikh Mujibur Rahman and transmitted using East Pakistan Rifles (now Border Guards Bangladesh) radio.
  • Nihat Erim (a former CHP member) forms the new government of Turkey (33rd government, composed mostly of technocrats).
• March 27 – East Pakistan (now Bangladesh) independence is repeatedly declared by Army Major (later President of Bangladesh) Ziaur Rahman on behalf of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman from Kalurghat Radio Station, Chittagong.
• March 28 – The Ed Sullivan Show airs its final episode.
• March 29
  • U.S. Army Lieutenant William Calley is found guilty of 22 murders in the My Lai Massacre and sentenced to life in prison (he is later pardoned).
  • A Los Angeles jury recommends the death penalty for Charles Manson and 3 female followers.

April

• April 1 – The United Kingdom lifts all restrictions on gold ownership.
• April 5
  • In Ceylon, a group calling themselves the People’s Liberation Front begins a rebellion against the Bandaranaike government.
  • Chile and East Germany establish diplomatic relations.
  • Mount Etna erupts in Sicily.
• April 7 – Greece releases 261 political prisoners, 50 of whom are sent into internal exile.
• April 8 – A right-wing coup attempt is exposed in Laos.
• April 9 – Charles Manson is sentenced to death; in 1972, the sentence for all California Death Row inmates is commuted to life imprisonment.
• April 10 – Veterans Stadium in Philadelphia opens.
• April 12 – Palestinians retreat from Amman to the north of Jordan.
• April 17
  • The People's Republic of Bangladesh forms, under Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, at Mujibnagor.
  • Libya, Syria and Egypt sign an agreement to form a confederation.
• April 19
  • The government of Bangladesh flees to India.
  • Sierra Leone becomes a republic.
  • The Soviet Union launches Salyut 1.
  • Followers of Charles Manson, the Manson Family, are sentenced to the gas chamber.
• April 20
  • Swann v. Charlotte-Mecklenburg Board of Education: The Supreme Court of the United States rules unanimously that busing of students may be ordered to achieve racial desegregation.
  • Cambodian Prime Minister Lon Nol resigns, but remains effectively in power until the next elections.
• April 21
  • Siaka Stevens is elected the first president of Sierra Leone.
  • François Duvalier, president of Haiti, dies; his son Jean-Claude Duvalier follows him as president-for-life.
• April 24
  • Soyuz 10 docks with Salyut 1.
  • Five hundred thousand people in Washington, D.C. and 125,000 in San Francisco march in protest against the Vietnam War.
• April 25
  • Todor Zhivkov is re-elected as the leader of the Bulgarian Communist Party.
  • Franz Jonas is re-elected as president of Austria.
• April 26 – The government of Turkey declares a state of siege in 11 provinces, Ankara included, due to violent demonstrations.
• April 28 – The first number of Il Manifesto is issued in Italy.
• April 29 – Bolivia nationalizes the American-owned Matilde zinc mine.
• April 30 – The Milwaukee Bucks win the NBA World Championship, sweeping the Baltimore Bullets in 4 straight games.

May

• May 1
  • Amtrak begins inter-city rail passenger service in the United States.
  • The Ceylonese government promises amnesty for those guerillas who surrender before April 5.
• May 2 – In Ce