-
A three-story townhouse in Greenwich Village in New York City blows up, killing three Weathermen who were making a bomb.
-
The United States declares commercial whale hunting illegal.
-
President Nixon signs a bill banning cigarette advertising on radio and television, to take effect on January 1, 1971.
-
Jim Morrison, singer and lyricist for the rock band the Doors, is found dead in his bathtub.
-
California passes the nation's first "no fault" divorce law.
-
The largest attacks by North Vietnam troops across the demilitarized zone in four years prompts bombing raids to begin again by United States forces against Hanoi and Haiphong on April 15, ending a four year cessation of those raids.
-
The United States Supreme Court rules in Roe vs. Wade that a woman can not be prevented by a state in having an abortion during the first six months of pregnancy.
-
Oil imports from Arab oil-producing nations are banned to the United States after the start of the Arab-Israeli war, creating the 1973 energy crisis. They would not resume until March 18, 1974.
-
Legislation is signed by President Nixon creating the Big South Fork National River and Recreation Area along the Cumberland River in Kentucky and Tennessee.
-
Impeachment hearings are begun by the House Judiciary Committee against President Richard M. Nixon
-
United States Supreme Court rules that President Nixon must turn over the sixty-four tapes of White House conversations concerning the Watergate break-in.
-
The television show Wheel of Fortune premiers.
-
twenty-nine people attending an American Legion convention in Philadelphia are killed by a mysterious ailment, one year later discovered as a bacterium.
-
The cabinet level Energy Department is created by Jimmy Carter.
-
The United States Senate votes to return the Panama Canal back to Panama on December 31, 1999. A treaty for the return had been signed on September 7 of the previous year, pending approval by the U.S. Congress.
-
The American Pioneer Eleven passes the planet Saturn, becoming the first spacecraft to visit the ringed planet, albeit at a distance of 21,000 kilometers.