Home About us Products Services Contact us Bookmark
:: wikimiki.org ::
Yakubu Gowon

Yakubu Gowon

General Yakubu "Jack" Dan-Yumma Gowon (born October 19, 1934) was the head of state (Head of the Federal Military Government) of Nigeria from 1966 to 1975. He took power after one military coup d'etat and was overthrown in another. During his rule, the Nigerian government successfully prevented Biafran secession, and he subsequently followed a magnanimous "no victor, no vanquished" policy that did much to restore the goodwill that had been lost between the Igbo and the rest of Nigeria during the 1966–1970 period. He was a graduate of the University of Warwick (UK).

Early career and political ascent

Yakubu Gowon joined the ranks of the Nigerian army in 1954, receiving a commission as a Second Lieutenant on October 19, 1955, his 21st birthday. He had advanced to battalion commander rank by 1966, at which time he was still a Lieutenant Colonel. Up until that year Gowon remained strictly a career soldier with no involvement whatsoever in politics, until the tumultuous events of the year suddenly thrust him into a leadership role, when his unusual background as a genuine Northerner who was neither of Hausa or Fulani ancestry nor of the Islamic faith made him seem a particularly safe choice to lead a nation seething with ethnic tension. In January 1966, a military coup by a group of mostly Igbo junior officers under the Major Chukwuma Kaduna Nzeogwu, led to the overthrow of Nigeria's civilian government. In the course of this coup, many northern and western leaders were killed, including Sir Abubakar Tafawa Balewa, Nigeria's Prime Minister; Sir Ahmadu Bello, Sardauna of Sokoto and Premier of the Northern Region; Samuel Akintola, Premier of the Western Region, as well as several high ranking Northern army officers; by contrast, only a single Igbo officer lost his life. This gave the coup a decidedly ethnocentric cast that aroused the suspicions of Northerners, and the subsequent failure by Major General Johnson Aguiyi-Ironsi to meet Northern demands for the prosecution of the coup plotter further inflamed Northern anger. The final straw seems to have been Ironsi's Decree Number 34, which proposed the abolition of the federal system of government in favor of a unitary state, a position which had long been championed by the Igbo-dominated NCNC; this was interpreted by Northerners as an Igbo attempt at a takeover of all levers of power in the country, as the North lagged badly behind the Western and Eastern regions in terms of education, while the Igbo were already present in the federal civil service out of all proportion to their numbers as a percentage of the Nigerian population. On July 29, 1966, while Ironsi was staying at Government House in Ibadan, northern troops led by Major Theophilus Danjuma and Captain Martin Adamu stormed the building, seized Ironsi and his host, Lieutenant Colonel Adekunle Fajuiyi, and subsequently had the two men stripped naked, flogged and beaten, and finally machine-gunned to death. Other northern troops, led by Lieutenant Colonel Murtala Mohammed, the real leader of the counter-coup, then seized the Ikeja airport in Lagos. The original intention of Murtala Mohammed and his fellow coup-plotters seems to have been to engineer the secession of the Northern region from Nigeria as a whole, but they were subsequently dissuaded of their plans by several advisors, amongst which included a number of high ranking civil servants and judges, as well as emissaries of the British and American governments. The young officers then decided to name Lieutenant Colonel Gowon, who apparently had not been actively involved in events until that point, as Nigerian Head of State. Gowon wasted no time in reversing Ironsi's abrogation of the federal principle upon his ascent to power.

The buildup to the Biafran War

In the meantime, the July Counter-Coup had unleashed pogroms against the Igbo throughout the Northern Region. Hundreds of Igbo officers were murdered during the revolt, and in the North, as commanding officers either lost their control of their troops or actively egged them on to violence against Igbo civilians, it did not take long for Northerners from all walks of life to join in the mayhem. Tens of thousands of Igbos were slaughtered throughout the North, simply for being Igbo, and the persecution precipitated the flight of more than a million Igbo towards their ancestral homelands in the southeast of Nigeria. Lieutenant Colonel Chukwuemeka Odumegwu Ojukwu, the Ironsi-appointed military governor of the Eastern region, who had managed to quash any attempts by Northern soldiers stationed in his region to replicate the massacres of Igbo officers that had occurred elsewhere, then began making ever more openly seccesionist statements and gestures, arguing that if Igbo lives could not be preserved by the Nigerian state, then the Igbo reserved to right to establish a state of their own in which their rights would indeed be respected. All of this served to stoke tensions between the Eastern region and Gowon's federal government, and on 4-5 January 1967, in compliance with Ojukwu's desire to meet for talks only on neutral soil, a summit attended by Gowon, Ojukwu and other members of the Supreme Military Council was held at Aburi in Ghana, the stated purpose of which was to resolve all outstanding conflicts and establish Nigeria as a confederation of regions. The outcome of this summit was the Aburi Accord, the differing interpretations of which would soon become a major cause in pushing Nigeria to civil war. The Aburi Accord did not see the end of Ojukwu's moves to seize federal powers in the Eastern region for himself, the most consequential of which was his decision to take control of all Federal Statutary Corporations in the region and to retain all revenues collected for his own government - including oil revenues from the Niger delta region, which while not yet great in scale, were widely expected to rapidly in the coming years, huge reserves having been discovered in the area in the mid-1960s. Despite his denials in later years, it appears that Ojukwu's insistence on secession at the time was heavily influenced by his knowledge of the existence of these oil reserves; vast oil revenues would have made Biafra a viable state regardless of any measures short of war the Nigerian government might have chosen to take, and there would have been far more oil revenue per head in a Biafra that did not have to share with the rest of Nigeria. The one fly in the ointment was that virtually none of these oil reserves lay in areas in which the Igbo were the predominant population. In reaction to Ojukwu's revenue grab, on May 5, 1967, Gowon announced the division of the 3 Nigerian regions into 12 states - North-Western State, North-Eastern state, Kano State, North-Central State, Benue-Plateau State, Western State, Lagos State, Mid-Western State, and, from Ojukwu's Eastern Region, a Rivers State, a South-Eastern State, and an East-Central State. The overwhelmingly non-Igbo South-Eastern and Rivers states had the oil reserves and access to the sea, while the East-Central state, which was predominantly Igbo, had neither. Gowon's calculation was that the minority ethnicities of the Eastern Region would not be nearly as sanguine about the prospect of secession, as it would mean living in an Igbo-dominated nation in which their voices would carry no weight whatsoever. Subsequent events were to prove Gowon correct in this assumption, as many non-Igbo living in the Eastern Region either refrained from offering active support to the Biafran struggle, or actively aided the federal side by enlisting in the Nigerian army and feeding it intelligence about Biafran military activities.

Gowon as war leader

On May 30, 1967, Ojukwu responded to Gowon's announcement by declaring the formal secession of the Eastern Region, which was now to be known as the Republic of Biafra. This was to trigger a war that would last some 30 months, and see the deaths of more than 100,000 soldiers and over a million civilians, most of the latter of which would perish of starvation under a Nigeria-imposed blockade. The war saw a massive expansion of the Nigerian army in size and a steep increase in its doctrinal and technical sophistication, while the Nigerian Air Force was essentially born in the course of the conflict. The end of the war came about on January 12, 1970, with the capture of Biafran Radio by Colonel Olusegun Obasanjo, and Obasanjo's acceptance of the surrender of Biafran forces on the same day. Gowon subsequently declared his famous "no victor, no vanquished" speech, and followed it up with an amnesty for the majority of those who had participated in the Biafran uprising, as well as a program of "Reconciliation, Reconstruction, and Rehabilitation", to repair the extensive damage done to the economy and infrastructure of the Eastern Region during the years of war.

Gowon's career after the Biafran War

The postwar years saw Nigeria enjoying a meteoric, oil-fueled economic upturn, in the course of which the scope of activity of the Nigerian federal government grew to an unprecedented degree, and this unexpected good fortune made it possible for Gowon to carry out a large part of his program for the reconstruction of the former Eastern Region. Another fateful decision made by Gowon at the height of the oil boom was to have severely negative repercussions for the Nigerian economy in later years, although its immediate effects were scarcely noticeable - his indigenization decree of 1972, which declared many sectors of the Nigerian economy off-limits to all foreign investment, while ruling out more than minority participation by foreigners in several other areas. This decree provided windfall gains to several well-connected Nigerians, not the least important of whom was MKO Abiola (who Fela Anikulapo Kuti was later to lampoon as "International Thief-Thief" for his role as an inactive, nominal majority shareholder in a joint venture with ITT), but proved highly detrimental to non-oil investment in the Nigerian economy. On October 1, 1974, in flagrant contradiction to his earlier promises, Gowon declared that Nigeria would not be ready for civilian rule by 1976, and he announced that the handover date would be postponed indefinitely. This provoked serious discontent within the army, and on July 25, 1975, while Gowon was attending an OAU summit in Kampala, a group of officers led by Brigadier Murtala Mohammed announced his overthrow. Gowon subsequently went into exile in the United Kingdom, where he acquired a Ph.D. in political science as a student at Warwick University. He returned to Nigeria during the Third Republic under President Shehu Shagari and has been a member of the Senate.

External links


- [http://www.dawodu.com/gowon.htm Gowon's 1967 Speech Creating 12 Nigerian States]
- [http://www.dawodu.com/gowon2.htm Gowon's January 12 Speech Welcoming Biafran Surrender]
- [http://countrystudies.us/nigeria/70.htm US Library of Congress - The 1966 Coups, Civil War, and Gowon's Government] Gowon, Yakubu Gowon, Yakubu Gowon, Yakubu Gowon, Yakubu

October 19

October 19 is the 292nd day of the year (293rd in leap years) in the Gregorian Calendar. There are 73 days remaining.

Events


- 202 BC - The Battle of Zama results in the defeat of Carthage and Hannibal.
- 439 - The Vandals, led by King Gaiseric, take Carthage in North Africa.
- 1453 - The French recapture of Bordeaux brings the Hundred Years War to a close, with the English retaining only Calais on French soil.
- 1466 - The Thirteen Years' War ends with the Second Treaty of Toruń. Gdansk Pomerania and Prussia as a whole are incorporated into Poland; the Teutonic Knights are allowed to rule its eastern part as Polish vassals.
- 1469 - Ferdinand II of Aragon marries Isabella of Castile, a marriage that paves the way to the unification of Aragon and Castile into a single country, Spain.
- 1512 - Martin Luther becomes a doctor of theology (Doctor in Biblia).
- 1781 - Major General Lord Charles Cornwallis surrenders to George Washington and Jean-Baptiste Donatien de Vimeur, comte de Rochambeau at Yorktown, Virginia, ending the American Revolutionary War.
- 1789- Chief Justice John Jay is sworn in as the first Chief Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court.
- 1812 - Napoleon I of France retreats from Moscow.
- 1813 - The Battle of Leipzig concludes, giving Napoleon Bonaparte one of his worst defeats.
- 1822 - In Parnaíba city; Simplício Dias da Silva, João Cândido de Deus e Silva, Domingos Dias declares the Independence of State of Piauí.
- 1864 - Battle of Cedar Creek - Union Army under Philip Sheridan destroys Confederate Army under Jubal Early.
- 1864 - Confederate raiders launch an attack on Saint Albans, Vermont from Canada.
- 1873 - Yale, Princeton, Columbia, and Rutgers universities draft the first code of American football rules.
- 1912 - Italy takes possession of Tripoli, Libya from the Ottoman Empire.
- 1914 - The First Battle of Ypres begins.
- 1917 - Love Field in Dallas, Texas is opened.
- 1933 - Germany withdraws from the League of Nations.
- 1943 - Streptomycin, the first antibiotic remedy for tuberculosis, is isolated by researchers at Rutgers University.
- 1944 - United States forces land in the Philippines.
- 1953 - Arthur Godfrey fires Julius LaRosa live on American national TV.
- 1954 - First ascent of Cho Oyu
- 1973 - President Richard Nixon rejects an Appeals Court demand to turn over the Watergate tapes.
- 1974 - Niue becomes independent from New Zealand
- 1982 - John De Lorean is arrested for trafficking in cocaine (later acquitted).
- 1983 - Maurice Bishop, Prime Minister of Grenada, is overthrown and executed in a military coup d'état led by Bernard Coard.
- 1985 - The first Blockbuster Video store opens in Dallas, Texas.
- 1986 - Samora Machel, President of Mozambique and a prominent leader of FRELIMO, and 33 others died when their Tupolev 134 plane crashed into the Lebombo Mountains.
- 1987 - In retaliation for Iranian attacks on ships in the Persian Gulf, the U.S. Navy disables three of Iran's offshore oil platforms.
- 1987 - (Black Monday) Dow Jones Industrial Average falls by 22%.
- 1989 - Guildford Four convictions are quashed by the Court of Appeal - they had spent 15 years in prison through a miscarriage of justice.
- 1994 - New Zealand's Goodnight Kiwi says good night for the last time.
- 1998 - The Earth Liberation Front sets fire to the Vail Mountain ski resort in Vail, Colorado, causing $12 million in damage.
- 2001 - SIEV-X sinks en route to Christmas Island
- 2003 - Mother Teresa is beatified by Pope John Paul II.
- 2004 - Myanmar prime minister Khin Nyunt is ousted and placed under house arrest by the Thai government on charges of corruption.
- 2005 - Saddam Hussein goes on trial in Baghdad for crimes against humanity.

Births


- 1276 - Prince Hisaaki, Japanese shogun (d. 1328)
- 1433 - Marsilio Ficino, Italian philosopher (d. 1499)
- 1562 - Archbishop George Abbot, Archbishop of Canterbury (d. 1633)
- 1582 - Dmitry Ivanovich, Tsarevich (d. 1591)
- 1605 - Thomas Browne, English writer (d. 1682)
- 1610 - James Butler, 1st Duke of Ormonde, English statesman and soldier (d. 1688)
- 1658 - Adolf Friedrich II of Mecklenburg-Strelitz (d. 1704)
- 1688 - William Cheselden, English surgeon and anatomist (d. 1752)
- 1680 - John Abernethy, Irish protestant minister (d. 1740)
- 1718 - Victor-François, 2nd duc de Broglie, Marshal of France (d. 1804)
- 1720 - John Woolman, American Quaker preacher and abolitionist (d. 1772)
- 1721 - Joseph de Guignes, French orientalist (d. 1800)
- 1784 - John McLoughlin, Canadian fur trader (d. 1857)
- 1862 - Auguste Lumière, French inventor (d. 1954)
- 1873 - Jaap Eden, Dutch skater and cyclist (d. 1925))
- 1885 - Charles Merrill, American investment banker (d. 1956)
- 1895 - Lewis Mumford, American historian (d. 1990)
- 1899 - Miguel Angel Asturias, Guatemalan writer, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1974)
- 1900 - Bill Ponsford, Australian Cricketer (d. 1991)
- 1907 - Roger Wolfe Kahn, American bandleader (d. 1962)
- 1908 - Geirr Tveitt, Norwegian composer
- 1910 - Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar, Indian-born physicist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1995)
- 1910 - Jean Genet, French author (d. 1986)
- 1913 - Vinicius de Moraes, Brazilian poet and songwriter (d. 1980)
- 1916 - Jean Dausset, French immunologist, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine
- 1916 - Emil Gilels, Ukrainian pianist (d. 1994)
- 1926 - Joel Feinberg, American moral philosopher (d. 2004)
- 1931 - John le Carré, English novelist
- 1932 - Robert Reed, American actor (d. 1992)
- 1937 - Peter Max, American artist
- 1940 - Michael Gambon, Irish actor
- 1942 - Andrew Vachss, American author and attorney
- 1945 - Divine, American actor (d. 1988)
- 1945 - John Lithgow, American actor
- 1946 - Philip Pullman English writer
- 1947 - Giorgio Cavazzano, comics artist and illustrator
- 1951 - Patricia Ireland, American President of the National Organization for Women
- 1956 - Carlo Urbani, Italian physician (d. 2003)
- 1962 - Evander Holyfield, American boxer
- 1965 - Ty Pennington, American television carpenter
- 1966 - Jon Favreau, American actor, writer, director
- 1969 - Trey Parker, American cartoonist, comedian, writer, and actor
- 1972 - Pras, American musician
- 1976 - Michael Young, baseball player
- 1989 - Dallin Schmidt, Canadian musician

Deaths


- 727 - Saint Frideswide
- 1187 - Pope Urban III
- 1216 - King John died at Newark Castle
- 1432 - John de Mowbray, 2nd Duke of Norfolk, English politician (b. 1392)
- 1587 - Francesco I de' Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany (b. 1541)
- 1608 - Martin Delrio, Flemish theologian and occultist (b. 1551)
- 1636 - Marcin Kazanowski, Polish politician
- 1682 - Thomas Browne, English writer (b. 1605)
- 1723 - Godfrey Kneller, German-born painter (b. 1646)
- 1745 - Jonathan Swift, Irish author (b. 1667)
- 1790 - Lyman Hall, American signer of the Declaration of Independence (b. 1724)
- 1813 - Józef Antoni Poniatowski, Polish prince and Marshal of France (friendly fire) (b. 1763)
- 1889 - King Louis of Portugal (b. 1838)
- 1897 - George Pullman, American inventor and industrialist (b. 1831)
- 1918 - Harold Lockwood, American actor (b. 1887)
- 1936 - Lu Xun, Chinese writer (b. 1881)
- 1937 - Ernest Rutherford, 1st Baron Rutherford of Nelson, New Zealand physicist, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Chemistry (b. 1871)
- 1943 - Camille Claudel, French sculptor (b. 1864)
- 1950 - Edna St. Vincent Millay, American poet (b. 1892)
- 1956 - Isham Jones, American musician (b. 1894)
- 1973 - Walt Kelly, American cartoonist (b. 1913)
- 1983 - Maurice Bishop, Prime Minister of Grenada (b. 1944)
- 1987 - Jacqueline Du Pré, English cellist (b. 1945)
- 1988 - Son House, American musician (b. 1902)
- 1982 - Cristina Pérez, World Beauty (b. 1982)
- 1992 - Arthur Wint, Jamaican runner (b. 1920)
- 1994 - Martha Raye, American comedienne and actress (b. 1916)
- 1997 - Glen Buxton, American guitarist (b. 1947)
- 1999 - Nathalie Sarraute, Russian-born French writer (b. 1900)
- 2003 - Faith Fancher, American television journalist and activist (b. 1950)
- 2003 - Alija Izetbegovic, President of Bosnia-Herzegovina (b. 1925)
- 2003 - Margaret Murie, American conservationist (b. 1902)

Holidays and observances


- Roman festivals - Armilustrium in honor of Mars
- Roman Catholic Saints - Saints Jean de Brébeuf, Isaac Jogues, and Companions; Saint Frideswide
- Also see October 19 (Eastern Orthodox liturgics)
- Albania - Mother Teresa Day.
- Brazil - Independence Day of State of Piauí
- Niue - Constitution Day in honour of the country's independence (self-governing in free association with New Zealand) in 1974.

External links


- [http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/october/19 BBC: On This Day] ---- October 18 - October 20 - November 19 - September 19 - more historical anniversaries ko:10월 19일 ms:19 Oktober ja:10月19日 simple:October 19 th:19 ตุลาคม

List of Presidents of Nigeria

This page contains a list of presidents and other heads of state of Nigeria since 1963. See also:
- Politics of Nigeria
- list of Governors-General of Nigeria
- lists of incumbents,

Prime Ministers of Nigeria, 1960-1966


- Abubakar Tafawa Balewa: 1 October 1960 - 15 January 1966

Presidents of Nigeria, 1963-1966


- Nnamdi Azikiwe: 1 October 1963 - 16 January 1966

Heads of the Federal Military Government of Nigeria, 1966-1979


- Johnson Aguiyi-Ironsi: 16 January - 29 July 1966
- Yakubu Gowon: 1 August 1966 - 29 July 1975
- Murtala Mohammed: 29 July 1975 - 13 February 1976
- Olusegun Obasanjo: 13 February 1976 - 1 October 1979

Presidents of Nigeria, 1979-1983


- Shehu Shagari: 1 October 1979 - 31 December 1983

Chairmen of the Supreme Military Council of Nigeria, 1983-1985


- Muhammadu Buhari: 31 December 1983 - 27 August 1985

Presidents of the Armed Forces Ruling Council of Nigeria, 1985-1993


- Ibrahim Babangida: 27 August 1985 - 26 August 1993

Interim Presidents of Nigeria, 1993


- Ernest Shonekan: 26 August - 17 November 1993

Chairmen of the Provisional Ruling Council of Nigeria, 1993-1999


- Sanni Abacha: 17 November 1993 - 8 June 1998
- Abdulsalami Abubakar: 8 June 1998 - 29 May 1999

Presidents of Nigeria, 1999-present


- Olusegun Obasanjo: 29 May 1999 - Nigeria, List of Presidents of

1966

1966 (MCMLXVI) was a common year starting on Saturday (link goes to calendar)

Events

January


- January 1 - In a coup, Colonel Jean-Bédel Bokassa ousts president David Dacko and takes over the Central African Republic.
- January 2 - Strike of public transportation workers in New York City - ends January 13
- January 3 - First Acid Test at the Fillmore, San Francisco
- January 4 - Military coup in Upper Volta (later Burkina Faso).
- January 4 - Prime ministers of India and Pakistan meet in Moscow
- January 5 - Fire due to a gas leak in Feyzin oil refinery near Lyon, France - 12 dead, 80 injured
- January 10 - Pakistani-Indian peace negotiations end successfully in Moscow
- January 10 - French paper L'Express publishes a story of Georges Figon, who took part of the kidnapping of Mehdi Ben Barka. January 18 French police announces that Figon has committed suicide just before he was about to be arrested
- January 11 - Conference about the situation in Rhodesia begins in Lagos
- January 11 - Indian prime minister Lal Bahadur Shastri dies
- January 12 - Lyndon Johnson states that the United States should stay in South Vietnam until Communist aggression there is ended.
- January 13 - Robert C. Weaver becomes the first African American Cabinet member by being appointed United States Secretary of Housing and Urban Development.
- January 15 - A violent military coup in Nigeria
- January 15 - Moscow announces that Sergei Korolev is dead
- January 17 - The Nigerian coup is overturned
- January 17 - A B-52 bomber collides with a KC-135 jet tanker over Spain, dropping three 70-kiloton hydrogen bombs near the town of Palomares and one into the sea
- January 17 - Carl Brashear, the first African American United States Navy diver, is involved in an accident on a routine mission which amputates his leg.
- January 18 - About 8000 US soldiers land in South Vietnam - numbers of US troops total 190.000
- January 19 - Indira Gandhi is elected Prime Minister of India - sworn in January 24
- January 19 - Australian Prime Minister Robert Menzies resigns
- January 20 - Demonstrations against high food prices in Hungary
- January 21 - Italian Prime Minister Aldo Moro resigns due to a power struggle in his party
- January 22 - Military government of Nigeria announces that ex-prime minister Abubakar Tafawa Balewa has been killed during the coup
- January 26 - Harold Holt becomes Prime Minister of Australia when Robert Menzies retires
- January 26 - Three Beaumont chrildren disapper on their way to Glenelg Beach Adelaide SA, Australia. Never to be seen again
- January 27 - British government promises USA that British troops in Malaysia stay until more peaceful conditions in the region
- January 29 - The first of 608 performances of Sweet Charity opens at the Palace Theatre in New York City.
- January 31 - United Kingdom ceases all trade with Rhodesia
- January - First SR-71 spy plane goes into service.

February


- February 1 - West Germany has purchased 2600 political prisoners from East Germany
- February 3 - The unmanned Soviet Luna 9 spacecraft makes the first controlled rocket-assisted landing on the Moon
- February 4 - Japanese passenger jet crashes into Tokyo Bay - 133 dead
- February 6 - Fidel Castro blames China for spreading anti-Soviet propaganda among Cuban soldiers
- February 10 - Soviet writers Yuli Daniel and Andrei Sinjavski are sentenced for five and seven years, respectively, for anti-Soviet writings
- February 11 - Belgian government resigns
- February 14 - The Australian Dollar was introduced at a rate of two dollars per pound, or ten shillings per dollar.
- February 19 - Naval minister of United Kingdom, Christopher Mayhew, resigns
- February 20 - When Valeri Tarsis, Soviet author and translator is abroad, Soviet Union negates his citizenship
- February 23 - A military coup in Syria replaces the previous government with a Ba'athist regime.
- February 24 - A military coup in Ghana raises sacked general Ankrah to power while president Kwame Nkrumah is abroad.
- February 26 - Curfew in Jakarta
- February 28 - US astronauts Charles Bassett and Elliott See are killed in an aircraft accident in St. Louis, MO

March


- March 1 - Soviet space probe Venera 3 crashes on Venus, becoming the first spacecraft to land on another planet's surface.
- March 1 - The Ba'ath Party takes power in Syria
- March 2 - Kwame Nkrumah arrives in Guinea and is granted an asylum
- March 4 - The Beatles: In an interview published in The Evening Standard, John Lennon comments, "We're more popular than Jesus now," eventually sparking a controversy in the United States.
- March 5 - Massive theft of nuclear materials revealed in Brazil
- March 7 - Charles De Gaulle asks US president Johnson for negotiations about the state of NATO equipment in France
- March 8 - Anti-communist demonstrations in Indonesian foreign ministry
- March 8 – Ronald Kray, one of the Kray twins, shoots rival gangster George Cornell; the incidents leads to brother's incarceration
- March 8 - Vietnam War: Australia announces it is going to substantially increase its number of troops in Vietnam
- March 8 - A IRA bomb destroys Nelson's Pillar in Dublin
- March 10 - Crown Princess Beatrix of the Netherlands marries Claus von Amsberg.
- March 10 - Wedding of Beatrix, the crown princess of Netherlands and Claus von Amsberg. Some spectators demonstrate against the groom, because he is German
- March 11 – Indonesian president Sukarno gives all executive powers to general Suharto
- March 11 - French president Charles De Gaulle states that French troops will be taken out of NATO and that all French NATO bases and HQ's must be closed within a year
- March 16 - Gemini 8 docks with Agena target satellite
- March 17 - More anti-communist demonstrations in Indonesia
- March 17 - Off the coast of Spain in the Mediterranean, the Alvin submarine finds a missing American hydrogen bomb.
- March 23 - Pope Paul VI and Dr Arthur Michael Ramsey, the Archbishop of Canterbury, meet in Rome - the first official meeting for 400 years between the Catholic and the Anglican Churches
- March 26 - Demonstrations again the Vietnam War in USA
- March 27 - In South Vietnam, 20.000 Buddhists march in demonstrations against the policies of the military government
- March 28 - Indira Gandhi visits Washington DC
- March 29 - 23rd Communist party conference in Soviet Union - Leonid Brezhnev demands that US troops leave Vietnam and announces that Chinese-Soviet relations are not satisfying
- March 31 - The Labour Party under Harold Wilson win the British General Election
- March 31 - The Soviet Union launches Luna 10 which later becomes the first space probe to enter orbit around the moon

April


- April 2 - Indonesian army demands that the country rejoin the United Nations
- April 4 - Luna 10 enters orbit around the moon
- April 7 - The United Kingdom asks the UN Security Council authority to use force to stop oil tankers that violate oil embargo against Rhodesia. Authority is given April 10
- April 8 - Buddhists in South Vietnam protest against the fact that the new government has not set a date for free elections
- April 12 - Jan Berry of Jan & Dean suffers brain damage in a serious automobile accident in Beverly Hills, California
- April 14 - South Vietnamese government promises free elections in 3-5 months
- April 15 - anti-Nasser conspiracy exposed in Egypt
- April 18 - China declares that it stops economic aid to Indonesia
- April 21 - Artificial heart installed to the chest of Marcel DeRudder in Houston hospital
- April 21 - The opening of Parliament of the United Kingdom is televised for the first time
- April 27 - Pope Paul VI and Soviet premier Gromyko meet in the Vatican - the first meeting between representatives of the Catholic Church and Soviet Union
- April 28 - In Rhodesia, security forces kill 7 ZANLA men in combat- Chimurenga, ZANU rebellion begins
- April 29 - US troops in Vietnam total 250.000
- April 30 - regular hovercraft service begins over the English Channel (discontinued 2000 due to Channel Tunnel)

May


- May 1 - Floods in Finnish coast
- May 4 - Fiat signs a contract with Soviet government to build a car factory in Soviet Union
- May 6 - The Moors Murderers Ian Brady and Myra Hindley sentenced for life imprisonment
- May 12 - African members of the UN Security Council say that British army should blockage Rhodesia
- May 12 - Radio Peking claims that US planes have shot down a Chinese plane over Yunnan - US denies the story the next day
- May 14 - Turkey and Greece intend to start negotiations about the situation in Cyprus
- May 15 - Indonesia asks Malaysia for peace negotiations
- May 16-July 1 - Seamen's strike in Britain
- May 15 - South Vietnam army besieges Da Nang
- May 24 - Troops of Uganda army arrest Edward Mutesa II of Buganda and occupy his palace
- May 24 - Nigerian government forbids all political activity in the country (until the January 17 1969)
- May 25 - Explorer program: Explorer 32 launches
- May 25 - In St. Louis, Missouri, US Vice-President Hubert Humphrey and US Secretary of the Interior Stewart Udall dedicate the Gateway Arch as part of the Jefferson National Expansion Memorial
- May 26 - Guyana achieves independence.
- May 28 - Fidel Castro announces a martial law in Cuba because of possible US attack
- May 28 – Indonesian and Malayan governments declare that Indonesian Confrontation is over. Treaty signed in August 11
- May 31 - Philippines reform diplomatic relations with Malaysia

June


- June 2 - Eamon de Valera re-elected as Irish president
- June 2 - Surveyor program: Surveyor 1 lands in Oceanus Procellarumon the Moon, becoming the first spacecraft to soft land on another world
- June 2 - Four former cabinet ministers executed in Zaire for alleged involvement in a plot to kill Mobutu Sese Seko
- June 3 - Joaquín Balaguer elected president of Dominican Republic
- June 5 - Gene Cernan completes second U.S. spacewalk (which lasted 2 hours, 7 minutes) on the Gemini 9 mission.
- June 6 - James Meredith, civil rights activist, is shot while trying to march across Mississippi
- June 13 - The U.S. Supreme Court rules in Miranda v. Arizona that the police must inform suspects of their rights before questioning them
- June 14 - The Vatican announces the abolition of Index Librorum Prohibitum index of banned books
- June 17 - Air France personnel strike begins
- June 18 - CIA chief William F. Raborn resigns - Richard Helms will be his successor
- June 20-July 1 - Charles De Gaulle visits Soviet Union
- June 21- Opposition leader Arthur Calwell injured when shot after attending a political meeting in Mosman, Sydney, Australia
- June 28 - In Argentina a Junta deposes president Arturo Umberto Illia in a coup and appoints general Juan Carlos Ongania to lead
- June 29 - Sailors' strike, organised by the National Union of Seamen ends in the United Kingdom
- June 29 - Vietnam War: US planes begin bombing Hanoi and Haiphong
- June 30 - France formally leaves NATO

July


- July 1 - Joaquin Balaguer becomes president of the Dominican Republic.
- July 3 - Rene Barrientos elected president of Bolivia
- July 4 - North Vietnam declares general mobilization
- July 4 - President Lyndon B. Johnson signs the Freedom of Information Act into law. The act goes into effect the following year.
- July 6 - Malawi becomes a republic
- July 7 - Conference of Warsaw Pact ends with a promise to support North Vietnam
- July 12 - Indira Gandhi visits Moscow
- July 12 - Zambia threatens to leave British Commonwealth because of British peace overtures to Rhodesia
- July 12 - US lieutenant major W.H. Whalen arrested for spying
- July 14 - Israeli and Syrian jet fighters fight over the Jordan River
- July 14 - In Chicago, Illinois, Richard Speck murders eight student nurses in their dormitory
- July 14 - Gwynfor Evans becomes member of Parliament for Carmarthen, the first Plaid Cymru MP in the UK.
- July 16 - British Prime Minister Harold Wilson flies to Moscow to try to start peace negotiations about Vietnam War - Soviet Government refutes his ideas
- July 17 - Richard Speck arrested - he tries to commit suicide but fails
- July 18 - Gemini X lifts off for earth orbit with astronauts John Young and Michael Collins, setting a world altitude record of 474 miles.
- July 18 - The Hough Riots break out in Cleveland, Ohio, the city's first race riot.
- July 19 - Chinese delegate in Netherlands, Liu en-Tsiu, is declared persona non grata because of death of a Chinese engineer in unclear circumstances; there are claims that he was kidnapped and taken to the delegate's office
- July 22 - Chinese government announces Dutch delegate G. J. Jongejans persona non grata but tells him not to leave the country before group of Chinese engineers has left the Netherlands
- July 23 - Katangese troops in Stanleyville, Congo, revolt in support of the exiled minister Moise Tschombe. Mutiny lasts several weeks
- July 24 - U Thant visits Moscow
- July 26 - Lord Gardiner issues the Practice Statement in the House of Lords stating that the House is not bound to follow its own previous precedent
- July 28 - USA announces that U-2 reconnaissance plane has disappeared over Cuba
- July 29 - Nigerian army rebels and execute the head of state general Irons, Richard Steven Horvitz is born.
- July 30 - England beat West Germany 4-2 to win the World Cup at Wembley

August


- August 1 - Sniper Charles Whitman kills 13 from the University of Texas at Austin Main Building.
- August 1 - Military coup in Nigeria - general Yakubu Gowon takes over
- August 2 - Spanish government forbids overflights of British military aircraft
- August 5 - Martin Luther King leads a civil rights march in Chicago
- August 6 - Rene Barrientos takes office as the president of Bolivia
- August 6 - Bridge over the Tagus River in Lisbon, Portugal, is opened
- August 7 - Race riots occur in Lansing,Michigan.
- August 10 - East German court sentences Günter Laudahn to life imprisonment for espionage for USA
- August 10 - Lunar Orbiter 1, the first US spacecraft to orbit another world, is launched
- August 12 - In the Massacre of Braybrook Street, Harry Roberts, John Duddy and Jack Witney shoot dead three plain clothes policemen in London - they are later sentenced to life imprisonment
- August 13 - China begins Cultural Revolution
- August 13 - An earthquake in Turkey - 2394 dead, 10000 injured
- August 15 - Syrian and Israeli troops clash over Lake Genesaret for three hours
- August 15 - New York Herald Tribune stops publication
- August 16 - Vietnam War: The House Un-American Activities Committee begins investigations of Americans who have aided the Viet Cong with the intent to introduce legislation making these activities illegal. Anti-war demonstrators disrupt the meeting and 50 are arrested.
- August 17 - Saudi Arabia and United Arab Republic begin negotiations in Kuwait to end the war in Yemen
- August 18 - Vietnam War: D Company, 6th Battalion of the Royal Australian Regiment meets and defeats a Viet Cong force estimated to be four times larger, at the Battle of Long Tan in Phuoc Tuy Province, Republic of Vietnam
- August 19 - Earthquake in eastern Turkey destroys whole cities
- August 21 - Seven men sentenced to death in Egypt for anti-Nasser agitation
- August 22 - Formation of the United Farm Workers Organizing Committee (UFWOC), predecessor of the United Farm Workers of America (UFW)
- August 26 - Riots in French Somaliland
- August 30 - France offers independence to French Somaliland

September


- September 1 - United Nations Secretary-General U Thant declares that he is not going to seek re-election because UN efforts in Vietnam have failed.
- September 6 - In Cape Town, the South African architect of Apartheid, Prime Minister Hendrik Verwoerd is stabbed to death by Dimitri Tsafendas during a parliamentary meeting
- September 7 - The final new episode of The Dick Van Dyke Show airs (the first episode aired on October 3, 1961).
- September 8 - "The Man Trap", the first episode of the science fiction television series Star Trek airs.
- September 9 - NATO decides to move SHAPE headquarters to Belgium.
- September 13 - Balthazar Johannes Vorster becomes new South African prime minister
- September 13 - TASS reports about clashes between members of the Chinese Communist Party and the Red Guard
- September 16 - In South Vietnam, Thich Tri Quang begins a 100-day hunger strike
- September 16 - Metropolitan Opera house opened in New York City
- September 18 - Valerie Percy, the 21 year old daughter of Senator Charles Percy, is stabbed and bludgeoned to death in the family mansion on Chicago's North Shore.
- September 19 - Scotland Yard arrests Ronald Edwards suspected of being involved of the great train robbery
- September 30 - October 1 (midnight) - Baldur von Schirach and Albert Speer released from Spandau Prison
- September 30 - Botswana achieves independence.

October


- October 3 - Tunisia severs its diplomatic relations to United Arab Republic
- October 4 - Israel applies for the outer membership of EEC
- October 4 - Basutoland becomes independent and takes the name Lesotho
- October 5 - UNESCO signs the Recommendation Concerning the Status of Teachers. This even is now celebrated as World Teachers' Day.
- October 7 - Soviet Union declares that all Chinese students must leave the country before the end of October
- October 11 - France and Soviet Union sign a treaty about cooperation in nuclear research
- October 14 - The city of Montreal inaugurates its metro system (see Montreal Metro)
- October 15 - US President Lyndon B. Johnson signs a bill creating the United States Department of Transportation.
- October 17 - Lesotho and Botswana accepted to join United Nations
- October 21 – Aberfan disaster in South Wales, United Kingdom
- October 22 - British spy George Blake escapes from HM Prison Wormwood Scrubs prison; he is next seen in Moscow
- October 22 - Spain demands that United Kingdom stop military flights to Gibraltar - Britain says no the next day
- October 24 - Negotiations about the Vietnam War begin in Manila, Philippines
- October 25 - Military court in Jakarta sentences ex-foreign minister Subandrio to death
- October 25 - Spain closes its Gibraltar border against non-pedestrian traffic
- October 26 - NATO moves its HQ from Paris to Brussels
- October 27 - United Nations takes Namibia from South Africa
- October 28 - US artist Lynne Seemayer paints the Pink Lady, a 60-feet tall picture of a naked woman, above a tunnel on Malibu Canyon Road. Authorities have it painted over in November 3 (see [http://www.snopes.com/autos/hazards/pinklady.asp])
- October 29 - Guinean delegation en route to OAU meeting in Ethiopia is made hostages of Ghana government in Accra

November


- November 2 - The Cuban Adjustment Act enters force, allowing 123,000 Cubans the opportunity to apply for permanent residence in the United States
- November 4 - The Arno river floods Florence, damaging many art treasures
- November 5 - 38 African states demand that United Kingdom use force against Rhodesian government
- November 6 - Lunar Orbiter 2 is launched.
- November 8 - Former Massachusetts Attorney General Edward Brooke becomes the first African American elected to the United States Senate.
- November 11 - A mine kills three Israeli paratroopers on the West Bank border.
- November 11 - Spain declares general amnesty about crimes committed during the Spanish Civil War (effectively only for Falangists side)
- November 12 - Birthdate of Stuart King, popular American TV actor beginning in the 1990's.
- November 15 - Gemini program: Gemini 12, carrying astronauts James A. Lovell and Buzz Aldrin, splashes down safely in the Atlantic Ocean 600 km east of the Bahamas.
- November 15 - Harry Maurice Roberts, who had killed three policemen in August, is caught near London
- November 16 - US doctor Samuel Sheppard is acquitted in his second trial of murder of his pregnant wife in 1954
- November 17 - UN General Assembly decides to found United Nations Industrial Development Organization
- November 17 - Spectacular meteor shower of Leonids passes over Arizona at the rate of 2300 a minute for 20 minutes
- November 21 - Army crushes an attempted coup in Togo
- November 28 - Truman Capote's Black and White Ball - dubbed The Party of the Century - is held in New York City.
- November 30 - Barbados achieves independence.

December


- December 1 - Kurt Georg Kiesinger is elected Chancellor of West Germany
- December 1 - British Prime Minister Harold Wilson and Rhodesian Prime minister Ian Smith negotiate on HMS Tiger in Mediterranean
- December 2 - U Thant agrees to serve a second term as UN Secretary general
- December 3 - Anti-Portuguese demonstrations in Macau. Curfew declared the next day
- December 7 - Syria offers weapons to rebels in Jordan
- December 7 - Barbados is accepted into United Nations
- December 16 - UN Security council approves oil embargo against Rhodesia
- December 17 - South Africa does not join the trade embargo against Rhodesia
- December 20 - Harold Wilson withdraws all his previous offers to Rhodesian government and announces that he agrees to the independence only after the founding of black majority government
- December 22 - Rhodesian Prime minister Ian Smith declares that he considers that Rhodesia is already a republic
- December 26 - The first Kwanzaa is celebrated by Maulana Karenga, the chair of Black Studies at California State University, Long Beach
- December 31 - Walter Ulbricht talks about negotiations about German unification
- December 31 - Thieves steal millions worth of paintings from Dulwich Art Gallery in London
- December 31 - Congolese government takes over the Union Minière du Haut Katanga.

Unknown dates


- Cultural Revolution declared in mainland China.
- In Burundi, King Mwambutsa IV is deposed by his son Ntare V, who is in turn deposed by prime minister Michel Micombero.
- Bobby Seale and Huey P. Newton found Black Panther Party.
- Haile Selassie visits Jamaica for the first time, meeting with Rastafarian leaders
- Konstantin Chernenko, later leader of Soviet Union, becomes candidate member of the Central Committee.
- Surrealist Movement in the United States founded by Franklin and Penelope Rosemont.
- Lise Meitner and Otto Hahn are awarded the Fermi Prize.
- Congress of the United States creates National Council for Marine Resources and Engineering Development.
- Martin Richards designs the BCPL programming language.
- The DKW automobile goes out of production.
- World Buddhist Sangha Council convened by Theravadins in Sri Lanka with the hope of bridging differences and working together.
- Long-term potentiation (LTP), the putative cellular mechanism of learning and memory, is first observed by Terje Lømo in Oslo, Norway.
- Actress Saira Banu marries actor Dilip Kumar.

Births

January-April


- January 1 - Michael Imperioli, American actor
- January 12 - Rob Zombie, American musician, artist, and writer
- January 13 - Patrick Dempsey, American actor
- January 17 - Shabba Ranks, Jamaican singer
- January 19 - Floris Jan Bovelander, Dutch field hockey player
- January 20 - Tracii Guns, American guitarist
- January 29 - Romário, Brazilian footballer
- February 1 - Michelle Akers, American soccer player
- February 6 - Rick Astley, British singer
- February 9 - Ellen van Langen, Dutch athlete
- February 11 - Stephen Gregory, American actor
- February 11 - Anthony Parker, American football player
- February 20 - Cindy Crawford, American model
- February 22 - Brian G

1975

1975 (MCMLXXV) was a common year starting on Wednesday (the link is to a full 1975 calendar).

Events

January


- January 1 - Watergate scandal: John N. Mitchell, H. R. Haldeman, John D. Ehrlichman are found guilty of the Watergate cover-up
- January 2 - The Federal Rules of Evidence are approved by Congress
- January 5 - The Tasman Bridge in Tasmania, Australia, is struck by the bulk ore carrier Lake Illawarra, killing twelve people.
- January 7 - OPEC agrees to raise crude oil prices by 10%.
- January 8 - Ella Grasso becomes Governor of Connecticut, becoming the first woman to serve as a Governor in the United States who did not succeed her husband
- January 10 - Japanese soldier Teruo Nakamura surrenders on the Indonesian Island of Morota
- January 14 - 17 year old heiress Lesley Whittle is kidnapped from her home in Shropshire, England by the Black Panther.
- January 20 - Michael Ovitz founds Creative Artists Agency
- January 29 - Weather Underground bombs US State Department main office in Washington D.C.
- January - Altair 8800 is released, sparking the era of the microcomputer

February


- February 4 - The first successfully predicted earthquake occurred in Haicheng, Liaoning, China.
- February 9 - The Soyuz 17 Soviet spacecraft returns to Earth.
- February 11 - Margaret Thatcher defeats Edward Heath for the leadership of the UK Conservative Party in the United Kingdom.
- February 21 - Watergate scandal: Former United States Attorney General John N. Mitchell and former White House aides H. R. Haldeman and John Ehrlichman are sentenced to between 30 months and 8 years in prison
- February 23 - In response to the energy crisis, daylight saving time commences nearly two months early in the United States.
- February 26 - a fleeing IRA terrorist shoots dead off-duty London police officer Stephen Tibble, 22, as he gives chase
- February 27 - Movement 2 June 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.
- February 28 - In Lomé, the capital of Togo, the European Economic Community and 46 African, Caribbean and Pacific countries sign a financial and economic treaty, known as the first Lomé Convention.

March


- March 1 - Color television transmissions begin in Australia
- March 4 - Charlie Chaplin is knighted by Queen Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom
- March 6 - Algiers Accord - Iran and Iraq announce a settlement over their border dispute.
- March 6 - A bomb explodes in the Paris offices of the Springer Press. The "6 March Group" (connected to the Red Army Faction) demands amnesty for the "Baader-Meinhof Group"
- March 7 - The body of teenage heiress Lesley Whittle, kidnapped seven weeks earlier by the Black Panther is discovered in Staffordshire, England
- March 8 - United Nations begin sponsoring the International Women's Day.
- March 9 - Construction of the Trans-Alaska Pipeline System begins
- March 10 - Vietnam War: North Vietnamese troops attack Ban Me Thout, South Vietnam, on their way to capturing Saigon.
- March 15 - In Brazil, the Estado da Guanabara (State of Guanabara) merges with the state of Rio de Janeiro, under the name of Rio de Janeiro. The state's capital moves from the city of Niterói to the city of Rio de Janeiro.
- March 25 - King Faisal of Saudi Arabia is shot and killed by a nephew with a history of mental illness - the killer is beheaded on June 18.
- March 28 - A fire in the maternity wing at Kucic Hospital in Rijeka, Yugoslavia, kills 25 babies

April-May


- April 3 - Bobby Fischer refuses to play in a chess match against Anatoly Karpov, giving Karpov the title.
- 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.
- April 13 - An attack by Phalangists on a Palestinian bus in Ain El Remmeneh, Lebanon sparks over 15 years of civil war.
- April 17 - Pol Pot proclaims the "Democratic Republic of Kampuchea" in Cambodia and becomes its Prime Minister (1975–1979).
- April 24 - Six Red Army Faction terrorists take over 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 forces close in on the South Vietnamese capital Saigon, the Australian Embassy is closed and evacuated, almost ten years to the day since the first Australian troop commitment to South Vietnam.
- April 30 - Vietnam War: The Vietnam War ends as Communist forces take Saigon and South Vietnam surrenders unconditionally.
- May 5 - The Busch Gardens Williamsburg theme park opens in Vi