World Events
Population: 4.086 billion
Nobel Peace Prize: Andrei D. Sakharov (USSR)
Pol Pot and Khmer Rouge take over Cambodia (April).
The city of Saigon is surrendered and remaining Americans are evacuated, ending the Vietnam War (April 30).
American merchant ship Mayaguez, seized by Cambodian forces, is rescued in operation by US Navy and Marines, 38 of whom are killed (May 15).
Apollo and Soyuz spacecraft take off for US-Soviet link-up in space (July 15).
U.S. Events
President: Gerald R. Ford
Vice President: Nelson A. Rockefeller
Population: 215,973,199
Life expectancy: 72.6 years
Violent Crime Rate (per 1,000): 53.0
Property Crime Rate (per 1,000): 48.1
Economics
US GDP (1998 dollars): $1,630.60 billion
Federal spending: $332.33 billion
Federal debt: $541.9 billion
Median Household Income
(current dollars): $11,800
Consumer Price Index: 53.8
Unemployment: 8.5%
Cost of a first-class stamp: $0.10 ($0.13 as of 12/31/75)
John N. Mitchell, H. R. Haldeman, John D. Ehrlichman found guilty of Watergate cover-up (Jan. 1); sentenced to 30 months to 8 years in jail (Feb. 21).
President Ford escapes assassination attempt in Sacramento, Calif. (Sept. 5).
President Ford escapes second assassination attempt in 17 days (Sept. 22).
Sports
Super Bowl
Pittsburgh d. Minnesota (16-6)
World Series
Cincinnati d. Boston Red Sox (4-3)
NBA Championship
Golden St. Warriors d. Washington Bullets (4-0)
Stanley Cup
Philadelphia d. Buffalo (4-2)
Wimbledon
Women: Billie Jean King d. E. Cawley (6-0 6-1)
Men: Arthur Ashe d. J. Connors (6-1 6-1 5-7 6-4)
Kentucky Derby Champion
Foolish Pleasure
NCAA Basketball Championship
UCLA d. Kentucky (92-85)
NCAA Football Champions
Oklahoma (11-1-0)
Entertainment
Pulitzer Prizes
Fiction: The Killer Angels, Michael Shaara
Music: From the Diary of Virginia Woolf, Dominick Argento
Drama: Seascape, Edward Albee
Oscars awarded in 1975
Academy Award, Best Picture: The Godfather Part II, Francis Ford Coppola, producer; Gray Frederickson and Fred Roos, co-producers (Paramount)
Nobel Prize for Literature: Eugenio Montale (Italy)
Grammy Awards
Record of the Year: I Honestly Love You - Olivia Newton-John
Album of the Year: Fulfillingness' First Finale - Stevie Wonder (Tamla/Motown)
Song of the Year: The Way We Were - Marilyn and Alan Bergman and Marvin Hamlisch, songwriters
Miss America: Shirley Cothran (TX)
Events
ABC, CBS and NBC agree to create a "family hour," an early evening time slot that is free of violence and sex.
Saturday Night Live premieres on NBC. George Carlin hosts the first show.
Movies
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, Jaws, Nashville, Dog Day Afternoon, Barry Lyndon
Books
Saul Bellow, Humboldt's Gift
E.L. Doctorow, Ragtime
Galway Kinnell, The Avenue Bearing the Initial of Christ into the New World
William Safire, Before the Fall
Anne Sexton, The Awful Rowing Toward God
Science
Home videotape systems (VCRs) are developed in Japan by Sony (Betamax) and Matsushita (VHS).
The Altair home computer kit allows consumers to build and program their own personal computers.
Nobel Prizes in Science
Chemistry: John W. Cornforth (Australia) and Vladimir Prelog (Switzerland), for research on structure of biological molecules such as antibiotics and cholesterol
Physics: James Rainwater (US), Ben Mottelson, and Aage N. Bohr (both Denmark), for showing that the atomic nucleus is asymmetrical
Physiology or Medicine: David Baltimore, Howard M. Temin, and Renato Dulbecco (all US), for work in interaction between tumor viruses and genetic material of the cell
Deaths
Aristotle Onassis
Haile Selassie
Casey Stengel