Events from the year 1973 in the United States. The year saw a number of important historical events in the country, including the death of former President Lyndon B. Johnson, the U.S. Supreme Court's decision on Roe v. Wade, the signing of the Paris Peace Accords and end of the United States participation in the Vietnam War, the end of the post-World War II boom and the beginning of the first of a series of recessions that continued over the next decade, and the first oil crisis.
Incumbents
Federal government President: Richard Nixon (R-California) Vice President: Spiro Agnew (R-Maryland) (until October 10) vacant (October 10 – December 6) Gerald Ford (R-Michigan) (starting December 6) Chief Justice: Warren E. Burger (Virginia) Speaker of the House of Representatives: Carl Albert (D-Oklahoma) Senate Majority Leader: Mike Mansfield (D-Montana) Congress: 92nd (until January 3), 93rd (starting January 3)
State governments Governors and lieutenant governors Governors
Lieutenant governors
Events January
January 1 – CBS sells the New York Yankees baseball team for $10 million to a 12-person syndicate led by George Steinbrenner ($3.2 million more than CBS paid for the Yankees). January 7 – Mark Essex kills four civilians and three police officers during a siege at the Downtown Howard Johnson's Motor Lodge in New Orleans. Ten hours after the siege began, Essex is killed by a volley of gunfire from police officers stationed inside a Marine helicopter. January 14 Elvis Presley's concert in Hawaii is the first worldwide telecast by an entertainer watched by more people than the Apollo Moon landings. However, it is not shown in Eastern Bloc countries because of communist censorship (with the sole exception of East Germany, where it is shown on Der schwarze Kanal). In the United States and Brazil, it does not air until April of this year. Super Bowl VII: The Miami Dolphins defeat the Washington Redskins 14–7 to complete the National Football League's first (and only, thus far) perfect season. January 15 – Vietnam War: Citing progress in peace negotiations, President Richard Nixon announces the suspension of offensive action in North Vietnam. January 20 – President Nixon and Vice President Agnew are sworn in for their second term. January 22 Roe v. Wade: The U.S. Supreme Court overturns state bans on abortion. Former President Lyndon B. Johnson dies at his ranch in Johnson City, Texas, leaving no former U.S. president living until the resignation of Richard Nixon in 1974. George Foreman wins boxing's World Heavyweight Championship, defeating Joe Frazier by technical knockout in the second round at Kingston, Jamaica. January 23 – President Nixon announces that a peace accord has been reached in Vietnam. January 27 – U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War ends with the signing of the Paris Peace Accords. The U.S. military draft is also abolished on this same day, as the Nixon administration announces on this day that there will be no draft calls in 1973, and that it will not request an extension of the U.S. government's draft authority, which goes on to expire on June 30 of this year. January 30 – G. Gordon Liddy is found guilty of Watergate charges. January 31 – Pan American and Trans World Airlines cancel their options to buy 13 Concorde airliners.
February February 11 – Vietnam War: The first American prisoners of war are released from Vietnam. February 12 – Ohio becomes the first U.S. state to post road distance signs in metric (see Metric system in the United States). February 13 – The United States Dollar is devalued by 10%. February 21 – The 5.8 Point Mugu earthquake affected the south coast of California with a maximum Mercalli intensity of VII (Very strong). Several people were injured and damage totaled $1 million. February 27 – The American Indian Movement occupies Wounded Knee, South Dakota. February 28 – The landmark postmodern novel Gravity's Rainbow by Thomas Pynchon is published.
March March 1 – Charlotte's Web, the animated film based on the children's book of the same name, is released. March 12 – Last episode of original Laugh-In airs on NBC. The show will continue with re-runs until May 14, 1973. March 17 – Many of the few remaining United States soldiers begin to leave Vietnam. One reunion of a former POW with his family is immortalized in the Pulitzer Prize-winning photograph Burst of Joy. March 23 – Watergate scandal (United States): In a letter to Judge John Sirica, Watergate burglar James W. McCord Jr. admits that he and other defendants have been pressured to remain silent about the case. He names former Attorney General John Mitchell as 'overall boss' of the operation. March 26 UCLA captures its seventh consecutive college basketball national championship and eighth in ten seasons under John Wooden, defeating Memphis State 87–66 in the finals of the NCAA tournament at St. Louis. UCLA center Bill Walton sets championship game records by connecting on 21 of 22 field goal attempts and scoring 44 points. TV soap opera The Young and the Restless and game show The $10,000 Pyramid debuts on CBS. March 27 – The 45th Academy Awards ceremony, hosted by Carol Burnett, Michael Caine, Charlton Heston and Rock Hudson, is held at Dorothy Chandler Pavilion in Los Angeles. Francis Ford Coppola's The Godfather wins Best Picture, also tied with Bob Fosse's adaptation of Cabaret in receiving ten nominations. The latter film wins eight awards, including Best Director for Fosse. The ceremony draws a television audience of 85 million viewers. March 29 – The last United States soldier leaves Vietnam.
April April 3 – The first handheld cellular phone call is made by Martin Cooper in New York City. April 4 – The World Trade Center officially opens in New York City with a ribbon cutting ceremony. April 6 Pioneer 11 is launched on a mission to study the Solar System. Ron Blomberg of the New York Yankees becomes the first designated hitter in Major League Baseball. April 17 Federal Express officially begins operations, with the launch of 14 small aircraft from Memphis International Airport. On that night, Federal Express delivers 186 packages to 25 U.S. cities from Rochester, New York, to Miami, Florida. For the first time, the Army Corps of Engineers opens the Morganza Spillway near Baton Rouge to relieve record flooding along the lower Mississippi River. April 26 – The first day of trading on the Chicago Board Options Exchange. April 28 – The last section of the IRT Third Avenue Line from 149th Street to Gun Hill Road in The Bronx is closed. April 30 – Watergate scandal: President Richard Nixon announces that White House Counsel John Dean has been fired and that Attorney General Richard Kleindienst has resigned along with staffers H. R. Haldeman and John Ehrlichman.
May
May 1 – Following President Richard Nixon's visit to mainland China, the United States establishes a liaison office in Beijing. May 3 – The Sears Tower in Chicago is finished, becoming the world's tallest building (record held until 1998). May 5 Secretariat wins the Kentucky Derby and sets a new time record for the event. Led Zeppelin plays before 56,800 people at Tampa Stadium on the band's 1973 North American Tour, thus breaking the August 15, 1965, record of 55,600 set by The Beatles at Shea Stadium. May 8 – A 71-day standoff between federal authorities and American Indian Movement activists who were occupying the Pine Ridge Reservation at Wounded Knee, South Dakota, ends with the surrender of the militants. May 10 – The New York Knicks defeat the Los Angeles Lakers, 102–93 in Game 5 of the NBA Finals to win the NBA title. May 13 – Bobby Riggs challenges and defeats Margaret Court, the world's #1 women's player, in a nationally televised tennis match set in Ramona, CA northeast of San Diego. Riggs wins 6–2, 6-1 which leads to the huge Battle of the Sexes match against Billie Jean King later in the year on September 20. May 14 – Skylab, the United States' first space station, is launched. May 17 – Watergate scandal: Televised hearings begin in the United States Senate. May 19 – Secretariat wins the Preakness Stakes by lengths over the amazingly quick second placed Sham. A malfunction in the track's timing equipment prevented a confirmed new track record. May 25 – Skylab 2 (Pete Conrad, Paul Weitz, Joseph Kerwin) is launched on a mission to repair damage to the recently launched Skylab space station. May 30 – Gordon Johncock wins the Indianapolis 500 in the Patrick Racing Special Eagle-Offenhauser, after only 133 laps, (The race was begun on May 28 but called off because of accidents and rain, and could not be restarted May 29.)
June June 4 – A United States patent for the Docutel automated teller machine is granted to Donald Wetzel, Tom Barnes and George Chastain. June 9 – Secretariat wins the Belmont Stakes by 31 lengths becoming a Triple Crown winner and breaking a 25-year hiatus since 1948. June 16 – U.S. President Richard Nixon begins several talks with Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev. June 17 – The submersible Johnson Sea Link becomes entangled on the wreckage of the off Key West, Florida. The submersible is brought to the surface the following day, but two of the four men aboard die of carbon dioxide poisoning. June 21 – The Supreme Court of the U.S. delivers its decision in the landmark case Miller v. California, establishing the "Miller test" for determining obscenity. June 22 – W. Mark Felt ("Deep Throat") retires from the Federal Bureau of Investigation. June 24 – UpStairs Lounge arson attack: A fire at a gay bar in New Orleans' French Quarter kills 32. June 25 – Watergate scandal: Former White House counsel John Dean begins his testimony before the Senate Watergate Committee.
July July 1 – The United States Drug Enforcement Administration is founded. July 2 – The United States Congress passes the Education of the Handicapped Act (EHA), mandating Special Education federally. July 5 – A catastrophic BLEVE (Boiling Liquid Expanding Vapor Explosion) in Kingman, Arizona kills 11 firefighters. The explosion occurred after a fire broke out as propane was being transferred from a railroad car to a storage tank. This explosion has become a classic incident, studied in fire department training programs worldwide. July 12 – 1973 National Archives Fire: A major fire destroys the entire 6th floor of the National Personnel Records Center in St. Louis, Missouri. July 15 – Nolan Ryan of the California Angels pitches his second no-hitter of the season against the Detroit Tigers. He previous no-hit the Kansas City Royals exactly two months prior. July 16 – Watergate Scandal: Former White House aide Alexander Butterfield informs the United States Senate Watergate Committee that President Richard Nixon had secretly recorded potentially incriminating conversations. July 28 Skylab 3 (Owen Garriott, Jack Lousma, Alan Bean) is launched, to conduct various medical and scientific experiments aboard Skylab. The Summer Jam at Watkins Glen, a massive rock festival featuring the Grateful Dead, The Allman Brothers Band and The Band, attracts over 600,000 music fans. July 31 – Delta Air Lines Flight 723, a DC9-31 aircraft, lands short of Boston's Logan Airport runway in poor visibility, striking a sea wall about 165 feet (50 m) to the right of the runway centerline and about 3,000 feet (914 m) short. All 6 crew members and 83 passengers are killed, one of the passengers dying several months after the accident.
August August 8 – Serial killer, rapist, kidnapper and torturer Dean Corll is shot to death by one of his teenage accomplices, Elmer Wayne Henley, at Corll's home in Pasadena, Texas. Henley turns himself in and confesses, uncovering the Houston mass murders, a series of murders in which 28 young boys had been abducted, tortured and murdered by Corll and his accomplices Henley and David Brooks (who is also arrested). August 11