Important Cultural and Political Events
in Europe & World

(Prepared by Comenius Club 2005)

1970

- First ever meeting of East and West German heads of government (Willi Stoph and Willy Brandt) at Erfurt, East Germany

- David Bowie weds Mary Angela Barnett ('Angie') at Bromley Registry Office

- In Czechoslovakia, Dubcek is expelled from the Communist Party

- The Beatles go to court to divorce each other .

- Apollo 13 Moon landing is aborted after a liquid oxygen tank explosion onboard

- Earth Day, a celebration of the Earth's ecology, is observed for the first time across the USA
- Eddy Merckx of Belgium wins the Tour de France cycle race for the second year in a row

- Jimi Hendrix (unknowingly) plays his final concert at the Isle of Fehmarn, Germany. He will be dead within the fortnight

- Singer Janis Joplin dies of a heroin overdose. She is only 27

- 142 killed in fire at French night club

- Former French President General Charles de Gaulle dies

- Divorce becomes legal in Italy

- Six die in Gdansk as Poland is rocked by riots

- Poland 's Communist Party boss, Wladyslaw Gomulka, resigns in favour of ex-miner Edward Gierek. The resignation comes in the wake of weeks of anti-government unrest

- Paul McCartney goes to court to dissolve The Beatles

1971

- 66 Football fans are killed when barrier collapses at Ibrox Park, Glasgow
- Long hair for men is declared legal in the USSR
- First divorce in UK on sole grounds of "Irretrievable Breakdown" granted.
- Swiss women win the right to vote
- A bloodless military coup in Turkey leads to the resignation of premier Suleyman Demirel
- Soviets launch the space station Salyut I

- Mick Jagger marries Bianca Perez Morena De Macias in the Town Hall at St Tropez, France
- The spacecraft Mariner 9 achieves a successful orbit of Mars

- Jim Morrison, lead singer of The Doors, dies in Paris of a heart attack while in the bath

- Swedish pop stars Bjorn Ulvaeus and Agnetha Faltskog (later of Abba ) are married near Skane in Sweden
- Tito re-elected President in Yugoslavia

- Soviet statesman Nikita Khrushchev dies - Zulfikar Ali Bhutto becomes president of Pakistan
- Mujibur Rahman becomes president of Bangladesh
- The heaviest bombing of North Vietnam since November 1968 commences
- Kurt Waldheim becomes UN secretary general

1972

- French singer Maurice Chevalier (b. 1888) dies
- "Bloody Sunday" in Londonderry , Northern Ireland . 13 civilians are shot and killed by British Troops during riots against internment

- Apollo 16 lands on Moon. Astronauts Charles Duke and Thomas K Mattingly walk on the Moon's surface, conducting tests and collecting rocks
-05 - 115 die in Alitalia DC-8 crash

- The Duke of Windsor (who gave up his throne for the love of Wallis Simpson), dies in Paris
- US Planes bomb Vietnamese village in error

- Paul McCartney and his wife Linda are arrested in Sweden for possession of marijuana

- Olympic Games open in Munich

- Arab terrorists hijack a Lufthansa flight and secure the release of three Palestinians being held in West Germany for the Olympic massacre

1973

- Britain becomes part of the EEC ( European Economic Community )
- The finance ministers of the EEC countries establish a European fund for monetary cooperation

- Spanish artist Pablo Picasso dies, aged 91
- Murry Wilson, father of Beach Boys Brian, Carl and Dennis, dies of a heart attack aged 55
- British author J R R Tolkien dies
- A military junta headed by General Pinochet seizes power in Chile in a bloody coup during which Marxist President Allende is killed
- 500 drown in Spanish floods
- Spanish Prime Minister, Admiral Luis Carrero Blanco, killed in a car bomb attack in Madrid

1974

- Nikolae Ceaucescu is elected president of Romania
- French President Georges Pompidou dies of mysterious illness
- Nixon is first US President to resign .

- French becomes the official language of Quebec , Canada

- Mohammed Ali regains his world heavyweight title in Zaire

1975

- The Channel Tunnel between England and France is abandoned

-Human Rights Pacts signed in Helsinki

- Led Zeppelin vocalist Robert Plant and his wife are seriously injured in a car crash in Rhodes , Greece . Plant has to be flown back to England in plaster to recuperate

- Spain sentences Basque terrorists to death by garrotting

- Young Czech tennis champion Martina Navratilova has defected, requesting political asylum in the US

- Richard Burton re-marries Elizabeth Taylor in Botswana

1976

- British crime writer Agatha Christie, dies aged 85
- Emma Bunton (Baby Spice of The Spice Girls) is born
- German-born French artist Max Ernst dies
- Swedish tennis player Bjorn Borg, aged 20, wins the Wimbledon men's single tennis title
- The town of Seveso near Milan in northern Italy is devastated by the release of poisonous dioxin gas from a nearby pesticide plant

- Formula 1 ace Niki Lauda critically injured and severely burnt in West German Grand Prix
- Jacques Chirac, prime minister of France , resigns. Raymond Barre takes over
- A general election in Sweden results in the defeat of the Social Democratic party after 44 years in power

- Democrat Jimmy Carter is elected 39th President by a margin of 1.7 million votes
- Normalization talks begin in Paris between the US and Vietnam, although US opposition to Vietnam's application for UN membership is a sore point

1977

- Soviet spacecraft Soyuz 24 links with orbiting space lab Salyut 5
- Sylvester Stallone's Rocky wins Best Picture Oscar
- 574 die as Pan Am and KLM jumbo's collide on the ground in world's worst air crash at Tenerife Airport in Canary Islands

- First democratic elections in Spain for 41 years.

- Elvis Presley plays his last ever public performance, at the Market Square Arena in Indianapolis, Indiana

- King of Rock & Roll, Elvis Presley , dies aged 42
- Silent film star Charlie Chaplin dies at home in Switzerland, aged 88

1978

- Sweden bans ozone-unfriendly aerosol spays

- Czech Vladimir Remek is the first man in space from neither the USSR or the USA
- Former Italian prime minister Aldo Moro is kidnapped by Red Brigade terrorists
- In Italy, senior statesman Aldo Moro is found dead after the Italian government refuses to capitulate to his captors, the Red Brigade
- Martina Navratilova beats Chris Evert for the women's singles title at Wimbledon
- Sandro Pertini is elected Italy's first socialist President
- Pope Paul VI dies
- New Pope John Paul I is crowned
- Muhammad Ali beats Leon Spinks in New Orleans, to win the world heavyweight championship a record third time
- New Pope John Paul dies of heart attack after only 33 days in office (born Albino Luciani, 1912)
- Benny Andersson and Anni-Frid Lyngstad of Swedish pop quartet ABBA , marry in a private ceremony after living together for nine years
- Mario Andretti becomes world Formula One motor racing champion
- Polish Cardinal becomes Pope John Paul II