The following events occurred in December 1974:
December 1, 1974 (Sunday)
All 92 people aboard TWA Flight 514 were killed when the Boeing 727 flew into the west side of Mount Weather, near Upperville, Virginia. The jet had departed from Columbus, Ohio and was approaching Dulles International Airport at Washington, D.C., in bad weather. Later on the same day, Northwest Orient Airlines Flight 6231, another Boeing 727, crashed after taking off from New York City toward Buffalo, New York. The aircraft went down a few minutes later in New York's Harriman State Park, killing the only occupants, its three crew members. The jet had been chartered to pick up the NFL's Baltimore Colts, who had lost a game to the Buffalo Bills and were preparing to return to Baltimore. A crisis over the funeral arrangements of former UN Secretary General U Thant began in Rangoon (now Yangon), after thousands of people were outraged at the lack of respect shown by the military government when U Thant's body arrived at Mingaladon Airport without being received by an honor guard or government representatives. The anger was further compounded by the decision to bury U Thant, without a state funeral, at Kyandaw Cemetery, and led to protests by thousands of students. Jacqueline Hansen broke the world record for endurance as she won the Western Hemisphere Marathon in Culver City, California, in 2 hours, 43 minutes and 54 seconds. Hansen's time was two-and-a-half minutes faster than the previous record of 2:46:24, set by Chantal Langlacé on October 27. Near Abilene, Texas, six employees of Gulf Refining Company died when they were overcome by methane fumes in a trench while attempting to repair a pipeline leak. Died:
U.S. Army Brigadier General Roscoe "Rock" Cartwright, 55, U.S. military officer and only the second African-American to rise to the rank of a general in the United States Army, was killed with his wife Gloria in the crash of TWA Flight 514. Teng Daiyuan, 70, Chinese military leader and Chinese Communist Party politician. Teng, a former Minister of Railways in the People's Republic of China, had fallen into disfavor during China's Cultural Revolution. Sucheta Kripalani, 66, Indian freedom fighter and politician, died of a heart attack. Anita Brenner (born Hanna Brenner), 69, transnational Jewish scholar and author specializing in Mexican history and culture, died in a traffic collision. G. Gould Lincoln, 94, American political reporter, recipient of the Presidential Medal of Freedom Lajos Zilahy, 83, Hungarian novelist and playwright
December 2, 1974 (Monday) In Ethiopia, Eritrean nationalists bombed the Addis Ababa city hall and the Webi Shebeli Hotel. The ruling Derg revolutionary council used the bombings as a pretext for hardened repression against former members of the regime of Emperor Haile Selassie. The Soviet Union launched the Soyuz 16 spacecraft, carrying cosmonauts Anatoly Filipchenko and Nikolai Rukavishnikov, into orbit in order to test systems for the Apollo–Soyuz flight scheduled for July 1975. In the wake of the Watergate scandal and the resignation of former U.S. President Richard Nixon, Whittier College, Nixon's alma mater, agreed to accept and administer the assets of the Richard M. Nixon Foundation, which would disband, with plans to build Nixon's presidential library put on hold. Nixon would found a new Richard Nixon Foundation in 1983, and the Richard Nixon Presidential Library and Museum in Yorba Linda, California, would open in 1990. Died: Stephen Gill Spottswood, 77, American civil rights leader, NAACP chair and retired bishop of the African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church, died of cancer. This source gives Spottswood's day of death as December 1. Lucio Cabañas, 35, Mexican schoolteacher and union and guerrilla leader, killed himself to avoid capture and likely execution by the Mexican military. Sidney Jourard, 48, Canadian psychologist, professor and writer, was crushed to death when his car fell on him while he was working on it. Sylvi Kekkonen, 74, First Lady of Finland and wife of President Uhro Kekkonen, died of a heart attack. Hana Benešová (born Anna Vlčková), 89, widow of former president of Czechoslovakia Edvard Beneš, died of pneumonia. On December 7, several thousand people would attend Benešová's funeral, although the Czechoslovak press gave no advance notice of the service. Paul Coze (born Paul Jean Coze-Dabija), 71, French-American artist and writer Paul B. Dague, 76, former member of the United States House of Representatives from Pennsylvania British commercial diver David Keane, 27, drowned when his umbilical cable was cut through while he was conducting a bell dive in the Celtic Sea.
December 3, 1974 (Tuesday) The Pioneer 11 interplanetary probe flew past the planet Jupiter, coming within of the planet's atmosphere, and took the closest photographs up to that time of the Great Red Spot. Born: Mónika Sánchez, Mexican soap opera actress known for Laberintos de pasión; in Mexico CityFundació Acuten Fernando Sanchez Mayans Natalie J. Robb, Scottish soap opera actress known for Emmerdale; in Bellshill, North Lanarkshire Died: Władysław Bukowiński, 69, Polish Roman Catholic priest and blessed Fernando Gerassi, 75, Turkish-born American artist Helen Appleton Read, 87, American critic and art historian Cy Twombly, 77, American Major League Baseball pitcher and athletic director of Washington and Lee University, father of American artist Cy Twombly Vincent Stanislaus Waters, 70, American Roman Catholic prelate, bishop of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Raleigh, died of a heart attack.
December 4, 1974 (Wednesday)
Martinair Flight 138 crashed in Sri Lanka, killing all 191 people aboard. Carrying Muslim pilgrims who were making the hajj to Mecca, the Douglas DC-8 was approaching Colombo on an intermediate stop on its flight to Jeddah in Saudi Arabia, and was cleared to descend to an altitude of after reporting its position incorrectly. The aircraft then impacted at Anjimalai Mountain, one of the peaks of the Saptha Kanya range, at .Aviation Safety Network database On the same day at Irkutsk in the Soviet Union, all 13 people aboard an Aeroflot An-2R airplane died in a midair collision. The plane was departing on a scheduled flight to Kazachinskoye, after being cleared for takeoff into the path of an Antonov An-12 flight cleared for landing on the same runway. The two airplanes collided at . The crew of the An-12 were able to make an emergency landing with no fatalities.Aviation Safety Network database French existentialist author Jean-Paul Sartre visited the prison cell of West German terrorist Andreas Baader, of the Baader-Meinhof gang, in Stuttgart for an interview. A fire aboard a Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus train in South Carolina killed 4 circus employees. Born: Anke Huber, German professional tennis player; in Bruchsal, West Germany Died: Leo Goossen, 82, American mechanical engineer and automobile designer, died after a stroke. Lee Kinsolving, 36, American actor, died of a respiratory illness. Henry Francke Jr., 17, a linebacker on the Riverhead High School football team on Long Island, died eight weeks after breaking his neck during an intrasquad scrimmage.
December 5, 1974 (Thursday) The collapse of a snow-laden roof killed 25 people at an airport terminal in Tehran. Authorities clubbed news photographers who would not stop taking pictures of the scene. The Birmingham Americans won the first and only World Bowl, the championship game of the World Football League, defeating the Florida Blazers by a score of 22–21. The women's basketball team of the University of Connecticut, which would go on to win eleven NCAA championships in 22 seasons from 1995 to 2016, played its very first game, a 40 to 27 win over visiting Eastern Connecticut State University. Died: Pietro Germi, 60, Italian actor and neo-realist comedy director (Divorce Italian Style), died of hepatitis. Millicent Hearst (born Millicent Willson), 92, widow of William Randolph Hearst Zaharia Stancu, 72, Romanian author and philosopher Henry Wadsworth, 71, American stage and film actor Richard Whitney, 86, American financier, former president of the New York Stock Exchange and convicted embezzler Hazel Hotchkiss Wightman, CBE, 87, American Olympic champion tennis player
December 6, 1974 (Friday) The steady decline of prices on the New York Stock Exchange reached its lowest point, closing at 577.60 points, its lowest level since October 26, 1962. The nadir came after prices dropped more than 45% over two years since the NYSE's high point of 1,003.16 on November 4, 1972."1973 - 1974 Stock Market Crash", by Dustin Woodard, About.com, archived on the Internet Archive Died: Admiral Nikolai Kuznetsov, 70, Soviet naval officer who had commanded the Soviet Navy during World War II and was later the first officer to reach the rank of Admiral of the Fleet of the Soviet Union, in 1955. Robert Bartini, 77, Hungarian-born Soviet aircraft designer
December 7, 1974 (Saturday) The Randolph–Sheppard Act, a United States law titled "Vending facilities for blind in Federal buildings", took effect. With a stated goal of "providing blind persons with remunerative employment, enlarging the economic opportunities of the blind, and stimulating the blind to greater efforts in striving to make themselves self-supporting", the new law required that blind persons should be given priority in licenses to operate vending facilities on federal property. Vending facilities were defined as automatic vending machines, cafeterias, snack bars, cart services, shelters, and counters.20 U.S. Code § 107(a), text from Legal Information Institute of Cornell Law School In the 1974 Grantland Rice Bowl, played at Tiger Stadium in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, the Delaware Fightin' Blue Hens defeated the previously unbeaten UNLV Rebels by a score of 49–11. Born: Nicole Appleton, Canadian-born British singer and member of All Saints; in Hamilton, Ontario Moussa Ibrahim, former Minister of Information of Libya and spokesman for Muammar Gaddafi; in Sirte
December 8, 1974 (Sunday) Voters in Greece overwhelmingly approved the end of the monarchy and endorsed maintaining the government as a presidential republic, with almost 70 percent in favor. The paramilitary Irish National Liberation Army and its political wing, the left-wing Irish Republican Socialist Party, with a stated goal of removing Northern Ireland from the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and uniting with the Republic of Ireland to create a socialist republic, were founded at the Spa Hotel in Lucan, Ireland by Seamus Costello and others. The Soyuz 16 spaceflight returned to Earth after a successful test by Soviet cosmonauts of the docking ring and other mechanisms needed to safely connect with a U.S. spacecraft for the 1975 Apollo–Soyuz mission. The Italian musical Aggiungi un posto a tavola (Add a seat at the table) premiered in Rome. Died: Ali Mansur, 88, former prime minister of Iran 1940-1941 and 1950 Robert Duffy, 71, American college football coach and lawyer Hugues Panassié, 62, French jazz critic, record producer and impresario, died of a heart attack.
December 9, 1974 (Monday) Takeo Miki formed a government as the new prime minister of Japan, after Kakuei Tanaka had announced his resignation on November 26. The national government of Mexico published its declaration that the identification of the alcoholic beverage of tequila was limited to the blue agave liquor distilled within the Mexican state of Jalisco, and that the term "tequila" (named for the town of Tequila, Jalisco) was the intellectual property of Mexico. The statement was published in the Official Journal of the Federation (Mexico).