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This article is about the year 1975. For other uses, see 1975 (disambiguation).

1975

January

February

March

April

May

June

July

August

September

October

November

December

Millennium:	2nd millennium
Centuries:	19th century 20th century 21st century
Decades:	1950s 1960s 1970s 1980s 1990s
Years:	1972 1973 1974 1975 1976 1977 1978

2024 in various calendars

Gregorian calendar	2024 MMXXIV
Ab urbe condita	2777
Armenian calendar	1473 ԹՎ ՌՆՀԳ
Assyrian calendar	6774
Baháʼí calendar	180–181
Balinese saka calendar	1945–1946
Bengali calendar	1431
Berber calendar	2974
British Regnal year	2 Cha. 3 – 3 Cha. 3
Buddhist calendar	2568
Burmese calendar	1386
Byzantine calendar	7532–7533
Chinese calendar	癸卯年 (Water Rabbit) 4721 or 4514     — to — 甲辰年 (Wood Dragon) 4722 or 4515
Coptic calendar	1740–1741
Discordian calendar	3190
Ethiopian calendar	2016–2017
Hebrew calendar	5784–5785
Hindu calendars
- Vikram Samvat	2080–2081
- Shaka Samvat	1945–1946
- Kali Yuga	5124–5125
Holocene calendar	12024
Igbo calendar	1024–1025
Iranian calendar	1402–1403
Islamic calendar	1445–1446
Japanese calendar	Reiwa 6 (令和６年)
Javanese calendar	1957–1958
Juche calendar	113
Julian calendar	Gregorian minus 13 days
Korean calendar	4357
Minguo calendar	ROC 113 民國113年
Nanakshahi calendar	556
Thai solar calendar	2567
Tibetan calendar	阴水兔年 (female Water-Rabbit) 2150 or 1769 or 997     — to — 阳木龙年 (male Wood-Dragon) 2151 or 1770 or 998
Unix time	1704067200 – 1735689599

1975 (MCMLXXV) is the current year, and is a common year starting on Wednesday of the Gregorian calendar, the 1975th year of the Common Era (CE) and Anno Domini (AD) designations, the 975th year of the 2nd millennium, the 75th year of the 20th century, and the 6th year of the 1970s decade. It was also declared the International Women's Year by the United Nations and the European Architectural Heritage Year by the Council of Europe.

Events

January

Main article: January 1975

• January 1 – Watergate scandal (United States): John N. Mitchell, H. R. Haldeman and John Ehrlichman are found guilty of the Watergate cover-up.
• January 2
  • The Federal Rules of Evidence are approved by the United States Congress.
  • A bomb blast at Samastipur, Bihar, India, fatally wounds Lalit Narayan Mishra, Minister of Railways.
• January 5 – Tasman Bridge disaster: The Tasman Bridge in Hobart, Tasmania, Australia, is struck by the bulk ore carrier MV Lake Illawarra, causing a partial collapse resulting in 12 deaths.
• January 10–February 9 – Flight of Soyuz 17 with the crew of Georgy Grechko and Aleksei Gubarev to the Salyut 4 space station.
• January 15 – Alvor Agreement: Portugal announces that it will grant independence to Angola on November 11.
• January 20
  • In Hanoi, North Vietnam, the Politburo approves the final military offensive against South Vietnam.
  • Work is abandoned on the 1974 Anglo-French Channel Tunnel scheme.
• January 24 – Jazz pianist Keith Jarrett plays the solo improvisation The Köln Concert at the Cologne Opera. The live recording becomes the best-selling piano recording in history.

February

Main article: February 1975

• February 4 – The Haicheng earthquake in Haicheng, Liaoning, China, kills 2,041 and injures 27,538, but much of the city has been evacuated in a claimed example of earthquake prediction.
• February 5 – The Argentinian president Isabel Perón decrees Operativo Independencia, aiming to neutralize or annihilate the "subversive elements" in the province of Tucuman. Isabelita takes advantage to take a self-coup and assume extraordinary powers.
• February 11
  • Margaret Thatcher defeats Edward Heath for the leadership of the opposition UK Conservative Party. Thatcher, 49, is Britain's first female leader of any political party.
  • Colonel Richard Ratsimandrava, President of Madagascar, is assassinated.
• February 27 – The 2 June Movement kidnaps West German politician Peter Lorenz. He is released on March 4 after most of the kidnappers' demands are met.
• February 28
  • A major tube train crash at Moorgate station, London kills 43 people.
  • In Lomé, Togo, the European Economic Community and 46 African, Caribbean and Pacific countries sign a financial and economic treaty, known as the first Lomé Convention.
  • The National Liberation Front of Angola (FNLA) approaches the South African Embassy in London and requests 40 to 50 artillery pieces to assist their cause in the Angolan Civil War.

March

Main article: March 1975

• March 1
  • Aston Villa win the English Football League Cup at Wembley, beating Norwich City 1–0 in the final.
  • Australian television switches to full-time colour.
• March 4 – Television cameras are first permitted in the Parliament of Canada.
• March 6
  • Algiers Agreement: Iran and Iraq announce a settlement in their border dispute.
  • A bomb explodes in the Paris offices of Springer publishers. The March 6 Group (connected to the Red Army Faction) demands amnesty for the Baader-Meinhof Group.
• March 9 – Construction of the Trans-Alaska Pipeline System begins.
• March 10
  • Vietnam War: North Vietnamese troops attack Ban Mê Thuột in South Vietnam on their way to capturing Saigon.
  • An extended portion of Sanyō Shinkansen between Okayama Station and Hakata Station opens, giving the Japanese Shinkansen high speed rail network access to the country's second island, Kyushu.
• March 11 – The leftist military government in Portugal defeats a rightist coup attempt involving former president António de Spínola, who flees to Brazil.
• March 13 – Vietnam War: South Vietnam President Nguyễn Văn Thiệu orders the Central Highlands evacuated. This turns into a mass exodus involving troops and civilians (the "Convoy of Tears").
• March 15 – In Brazil, Guanabara State merges into the state of Rio de Janeiro. The state's capital moves from the city of Niterói to the city of Rio de Janeiro.
• March 22 – "Ding-a-dong" by Teach-In (music by Dick Bakker, lyrics by Will Luikinga and Eddy Ouwens) wins the 20th Eurovision Song Contest 1975 (staged in Stockholm) for the Netherlands.
• March 25 – King Faisal of Saudi Arabia is shot and killed by his nephew.
• March 27 – The South African government announces that it will consolidate the 113 separate homeland areas into 36.
• March 28 – A fire in the maternity wing at Kučić Hospital in Rijeka, Yugoslavia (Croatia), kills 25 people.
• March 31 – Süleyman Demirel of AP forms the new government of Turkey (39th government), a four-party coalition, the so-called First National Front (Turkish: Milliyetçi cephe).

April

Main article: April 1975

• April 4
  • Vietnam War: The first military Operation Babylift flight, C5A 80218, crashes 27 minutes after takeoff, killing 138 on board; 176 survive the crash.
  • Bill Gates and Paul Allen found Microsoft (at this time known as Micro-Soft) in Albuquerque, New Mexico and release their Altair BASIC interpreter. (Microsoft becomes a registered trademark on November 26, 1976.)

April 4: Allen and Gates four years prior to the founding of Microsoft

• April 5 – The Soviet crewed space mission (Soyuz 18a) ends in failure during its ascent into orbit when a critical malfunction occurs in the second and third stages of the booster rocket during staging at an altitude of 192 km, resulting in the cosmonauts and their Soyuz spacecraft having to be ripped free from the vehicle. Both cosmonauts (Vasily Lazarev and Oleg Makarov) survive.
• April 9 – Eight people in South Korea, who are involved in the People's Revolutionary Party Incident, are hanged.

April 9th-21st: Battle of Xuân Lộc

• April 13
  • Bus massacre: The Kataeb militia kills 27 Palestinians during an attack on their bus in Ain El Remmeneh, Lebanon, triggering the Lebanese Civil War which lasts until 1990.
  • A coup d'état in Chad led by the military overthrows and kills President François Tombalbaye.
• April 17 – The Khmer Republic surrenders, when the Communist Khmer Rouge guerilla forces capture Phnom Penh ending the Cambodian Civil War, with mass evacuation of American troops and Cambodian civilians.
• April 18 – The Khmer Rouge begins a forcible mass evacuation of the city and starts the genocide.
• April 19 – Nico Diederichs becomes the 3rd State President of South Africa.
• April 20 – Taman Mini Indonesia Indah opens to the public in Jakarta, Indonesia.
• April 24 – West German Embassy siege in Stockholm: Six Red Army Faction terrorists take over the West German embassy in Stockholm, take 11 hostages and demand the release of the group's jailed members; shortly after, they are captured by Swedish police.
• April 25 – Vietnam War: As North Vietnamese Army forces close in on the South Vietnamese capital Saigon, the Australian Embassy is closed and evacuated, almost 10 years to the day since the first Australian troop commitment to South Vietnam.
• April 29 – Vietnam War: North Vietnam concludes its East Sea Campaign by capturing all of the Spratly Islands that were being held by South Vietnam.
• April 30 – The Vietnam War ends with the Fall of Saigon: The Vietnam War concludes as Communist forces from North Vietnam take over Saigon, resulting in mass evacuation of the remaining American troops and South Vietnam civilians. As the capital is taken, South Vietnam surrenders unconditionally and is replaced with a temporary Provisional Government.