The Washington Post
What else was happening in 1974?
June 8, 2012
Nearly 40 years ago, daily headlines detailed the developments in the Watergate scandal that started with the break-in in 1972 at Democratic National Headquarters and ended with the resignation of President Richard Nixon. Also in 1974, sports records were broken, tornadoes turned deadly and a tightrope walker defied gravity.
Aug. 7, 1974
Philippe Petit, a French high-wire artist, walks across a tightrope suspended between the World Trade Center‘s Twin Towers in New York
April 8, 1974
The Atlanta Braves’ Hank Aaron (44) breaks Babe Ruth’s record for career home runs as he hits No. 715 off Los Angeles Dodgers pitcher Al Downing in the fourth inning of the game opener at Atlanta-Fulton County Stadium in Georgia.
Oct. 30, 1974
Perspiration flies from the head of defending heavyweight champion George Foreman as he takes a right from challenger Muhammad Ali in the seventh round in their world championship bout dubbed “Rumble in the Jungle” in Kinshasa, Zaire. Ali regained the world heavyweight crown by knocking out Foreman in the eighth round.
April 9, 1974
Two tornado funnels strike a Nashville subdivision. Tornadoes devastated 10 Southern and Midwestern states and Ontario, causing more than 337 deaths and heavy property damage.
Feb. 8, 1974
Skylab 3 astronauts in New Orleans. Edward G. Gibson, left, Bill Pogue and Gerald Carr sit on chairs aboard their mobile platform, which transported them from the command module to the Skylab mobile laboratories where they underwent extensive medical examinations following their record 84 days in the weightlessness of Earth’s orbit.
September 1974
Roddy McDowall, as the chimpanzee Galen from the hit movie “The Planet of the Apes.”
1974
A 1983 photo of the fossil skeleton known as Lucy, on display at the Cleveland Museum of Natural History in Ohio. Lucy is a 3.2 million-year-old fossilized partial skeleton of a species with chimp-like features that walked upright. The discovery in 1974 in Ethiopia forced a major revision of theories about the evolution of Homo sapiens.
July 10, 1974
Russian ballet star Mikhail Baryshnikov, right, talks with his manager, Dina Makarova, at his first public appearance after his defection to Canada. The former Bolshoi Ballet member was rehearsing with members of the National Ballet of Canada, which was trying to work out a contract with him. Baryshnikov had been in hiding for 10 days.
June 23, 1974
An Indian child with smallpox at Hakegora village in India.
April 12, 1974
Pipes waiting to be used in the Alaskan pipeline are stacked, crusted with snow and half-buried in drifts in Prudhoe Bay, Alaska. There were pipes in this stockpile for 168 miles of the four-foot-diameter pipeline, which would have a total length of 789 miles.The rest of the pipes to be used were ready and waiting in two other stockpiles, in Fairbanks and Valdez. The pipeline was scheduled to open in 1977 and estimated to deliver, at peak, 2 million barrels of crude a day
Aug. 14, 1974
A picture released by the Cyprus Press and Information Office shows two of five Greek Cypriot soldiers surrendering to advancing Turkish troops near Kiados (Tziaos) village during the second phase of Turkey’s invasion of the island that started Aug. 14, 1974. Cyprus was ethnically split in 1974 when Turkey invaded in response to a coup by supporters of union with Greece. A government spokesman for Cyprus had urged Turkey to account for some 1,500 Greek Cypriots who vanished during the invasion. About 500 Turkish Cypriots also disappeared during inter-ethnic clashes in the early 1960s.
March 2, 1974
Alice Cooper, left, joins Stevie Wonder, who received the most nominations for the Grammy Awards in 1974. Wonder won four awards during the 16th annual presentation in Los Angeles. Cooper was one of the presenters.
March 2, 1974
Bette Midler, center, is flanked by Karen and Richard Carpenter as she poses backstage with her Grammy during the 16th annual ceremony in Los Angeles. The Carpenters presented Midler’s award, for best new recording artist
Sept. 28, 1974
Dolly Parton was the featured performer at Virginia’s state fair in Richmond.
December 1974
Romanian Ilie Nastase backtracks for a one-in-a-million piece of tennis acrobatics at the Grand Prix of Tennis in Australia.
Aug. 9, 1974
Richard Nixon says goodbye with a victorious salute to his staff members outside the White House as he boards a helicopter after resigning the presidency. Nixon was the first president in American history to resign the nation’s highest office. His resignation came after approval of an impeachment article against him by the House Judiciary Committee for withholding evidence from Congress. With a 2,026-day term, he stepped down as the 37th president, urging Americans to rally behind Gerald R. Ford. Ford fully pardoned Nixon one month later.
