January •
January 5 – The 7.1
Tonghai earthquake shakes
Tonghai County,
Yunnan province, China, with a maximum
Mercalli intensity of X (
Extreme). Between 10,000 and 14,621 are killed and 30,000 injured. •
January 15 – After a 32-month fight for independence from
Nigeria,
Biafran forces under
Philip Effiong formally surrender to General
Yakubu Gowon, ending the
Nigerian Civil War.
February :
Ohsumi (satellite) launched •
February 1 – The
Benavídez rail disaster near
Buenos Aires, Argentina (a rear-end collision) kills 236. •
February 10 – An
avalanche at
Val-d'Isère, France, kills 41 tourists. •
February 11 –
Ohsumi, Japan's first satellite, is launched on a
Lambda-4 rocket. •
February 22 –
Guyana becomes a Republic within the
Commonwealth of Nations. • February – Multi-
business conglomerate Virgin Group is founded as a discount mail-order record retailer by
Richard Branson in the UK.
March •
March 1 –
Rhodesia's white minority government severs its last tie with the United Kingdom, declaring itself a
republic. •
March 4 – All 57 men aboard the
French submarine Eurydice are killed when the vessel implodes while making a practice dive in the
Mediterranean Sea. •
March 5 – The
Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty goes into effect, after ratification by 56 nations. •
March 6 –
Süleyman Demirel of
AP forms the new government of
Turkey (32nd government). •
March 12 –
Citroën introduces the
Citroën SM, the world's fastest front-wheel drive auto at this time, at the annual
Geneva Motor Show in
Switzerland. •
March 15 – The
Expo '70 World's Fair opens in Suita, Osaka, Japan. •
March 16 – The complete
New English Bible is published in the UK. •
March 18 – General
Lon Nol ousts Prince
Norodom Sihanouk of
Cambodia and holds Queen
Sisowath Kossamak under house arrest. •
March 19 –
Ostpolitik: The leaders of
West Germany and
East Germany meet at a summit for the first time since Germany's division into two republics. West German Chancellor
Willy Brandt is greeted by cheering East German crowds as he arrives in
Erfurt for a summit with his counterpart, East German
Ministerpräsident Willi Stoph. •
March 20 – The
Agence de Coopération Culturelle et Technique (ACCT) is founded. •
March 21 – "
All Kinds of Everything", sung by
Dana (music and lyrics by Derry Lindsay and Jackie Smith), wins the
Eurovision Song Contest 1970 (staged in Amsterdam) for Ireland. •
March 31 •
NASA's
Explorer 1, the first American
satellite and
Explorer program spacecraft, reenters
Earth's atmosphere after 12 years in orbit. •
Japan Airlines Flight 351, carrying 131 passengers and 7 crew from Tokyo to
Fukuoka, is hijacked by
Japanese Red Army members. All passengers and crew are eventually freed.
April •
April 4 – Fragments of burnt human remains believed to be those of
Adolf Hitler,
Eva Braun,
Joseph Goebbels,
Magda Goebbels and the
Goebbels children are crushed and scattered in the
Biederitz river at a
KGB center in
Magdeburg,
East Germany. •
April 8 • A huge gas explosion at a
subway construction site in
Osaka, Japan, kills 79 and injures over 400. • Israeli Air Force
F-4 Phantom II fighter bombers kill 47 Egyptian school children at an elementary school in what is known as
Bahr el-Baqar massacre. The single-floor school is hit by five bombs and two air-to-ground missiles. •
April 10 – In a press release written in mock-interview style, that is included in promotional copies of
his first solo album,
Paul McCartney announces that he
has left The Beatles. •
April 11 • An
avalanche at a
tuberculosis sanatorium in the
French Alps kills 74, mostly young boys. •
Apollo program:
Apollo 13 (
Jim Lovell,
Fred Haise,
Jack Swigert) is launched from the United States toward the
Moon. •
April 13 – An oxygen tank in the
Apollo 13 spacecraft explodes, forcing the crew to abort the mission and return in four days. •
April 15 - The Apollo 13 crew sets the record for the farthest humans have traveled, , which would stand until the
Artemis II lunar flyby in 2026. •
April 17 – Apollo 13
splashes down safely in the Pacific.: Apollo 13 crew after
splashdown •
April 21 – The
Principality of Hutt River "secedes" from
Australia (it remained unrecognised by Australia and other nations, and was dissolved in 2020). •
April 24 – China's first satellite (
Dong Fang Hong 1) is launched into orbit using a
Long March-1 Rocket (CZ-1). •
April 26 – The
World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) is founded. •
April 29 –
Cambodian campaign: The U.S. incursion into
Cambodia begins.
May •
May 4 –
Kent State shootings: Four students at
Kent State University in
Ohio, are killed and nine wounded by
Ohio National Guardsmen at a protest against the
U.S. incursion into Cambodia. •
May 6 •
Arms Crisis in the
Republic of Ireland:
Charles Haughey and
Neil Blaney are dismissed as members of the
Irish Government for accusations of their involvement in a plot to import arms for use by the
Provisional Irish Republican Army in
Northern Ireland. •
Feyenoord win the
European Cup in association football after a 2–1 win over
Celtic. •
May 11 –
Lubbock tornado: A strong, multi-vortex F5 tornado impacts areas of
Lubbock, Texas, after dark, resulting in 26 fatalities and over 1,500 injuries. •
May 14 •
Ulrike Meinhof helps
Andreas Baader escape and create the
Red Army Faction in
West Germany which exists until
1998. •
Jackson State killings: In the second day of violent demonstrations at
Jackson State University in
Jackson, Mississippi, state law enforcement officers fire into the demonstrators, killing 2 and injuring 12. •
May 17 –
Thor Heyerdahl sets sail from
Morocco on the
papyrus boat
Ra II, to cross the South Atlantic. •
May 26 – The
Soviet Tupolev Tu-144 becomes the first commercial transport to exceed
Mach 2. •
May 31 • The 7.9
Ancash earthquake shakes
Peru with a maximum
Mercalli intensity of VIII (
Severe) and a
landslide buries the town of
Yungay, Peru. Between 66,794 and 70,000 are killed and 50,000 injured. • The
1970 FIFA World Cup in association football is inaugurated in
Mexico.
June •
June 1 – •
Soyuz 9, a two-man spacecraft, is launched from the
Soviet Union for an orbital flight of nearly 18 days, an endurance record at this time. •
Assassination of Pedro Eugenio Aramburu: Former
de facto President of Argentina is extrajudicially executed by
Montoneros three days after being kidnapped from his Buenos Aires apartment. •
June 4 –
Tonga gains independence from the United Kingdom. •
June 8 – A
coup in
Argentina brings a new
junta of service chiefs; on
June 18,
Roberto M. Levingston becomes President. •
June 12 –
National Democratic Front for the Liberation of Oman and the Arabian Gulf guerrillas attack military garrisons at
Izki and
Nizwa in
Oman. •
June 19 – The
Patent Cooperation Treaty is signed into
international law, providing a unified procedure for filing
patent applications to protect inventions. •
June 21 •
Brazil defeats
Italy 4–1 to win the
1970 FIFA World Cup in Mexico. As 3-times winner, they keep the
Jules Rimet Trophy permanently. •
Penn Central, America's largest railroad, files for chapter 77
bankruptcy; the largest U.S. corporate bankruptcy at the time.
July delivering his final public speech, July 23, 1970 •
July 1 –
Xerox PARC computer laboratory opens in
Palo Alto, California, United States. •
July 3 • All 112 people on board
Dan-Air Flight 1903 are killed when the chartered British
De Havilland Comet crashes into mountains north of
Barcelona through navigational error. • The French Army detonates a 914 kiloton thermonuclear device in the
Mururoa Atoll. It is the fifth in a series that started on June 15 in their program to perfect a
hydrogen bomb small enough to be delivered by a missile. •
July 5 –
Air Canada Flight 621 crashes near
Toronto International Airport,
Toronto,
Ontario through pilot error; all 109 passengers and crew are killed. •
July 12 –
Thor Heyerdahl's papyrus boat
Ra II arrives in
Barbados. •
July 16 -
Three Rivers Stadium opens in
Pittsburgh Pennsylvania. Home to NFL
Steelers and MLB
Pirates. •
July 21 – The
Aswan High Dam in
Egypt is completed. •
July 23 –
1970 Omani coup d'état:
Said bin Taimur,
Sultan of Muscat and
Oman, is deposed in a bloodless palace
coup by his son,
Qaboos with covert British support. Among the reforms he introduces is the abolition of chattel
slavery in Oman. •
July 30 –
Thalidomide scandal: Damages totalling £485,528 are awarded to 28
Thalidomide victims in the UK. •
July 31 -
Black Tot Day observed the last daily distribution of one-eighth of an imperial pint of rum to sailors of the
Royal Navy, an amount that had been dispensed since 1866.
August •
August 11 – Creation of the
International Council of Organizations of Folklore Festivals and Folk Arts in
Confolens,
France. •
August 17 –
Venera program:
Venera 7 is launched from the Soviet Union toward
Venus. It later becomes the first spacecraft to transmit data from the surface of another planet successfully. •
August 31 –
Solar eclipse of August 31, 1970: An annular solar eclipse is visible in Oceania, and is the 14th solar eclipse of
Solar Saros 144.
September •
September 1 – An assassination attempt against King
Hussein of Jordan precipitates the country's
Black September crisis. •
September 3–
6 –
Israeli forces
fight Palestinian guerillas in southern
Lebanon. •
September 4 •
Chilean
Socialist Senator Salvador Allende wins 36.2% of the vote in his
run for presidency defeating former
right-wing President Jorge Alessandri with 34.9% of the votes and
Christian Democrat Radomiro Tomic with 27.8% of the votes. • Soviet Russian
prima ballerina Natalia Makarova defects to the West while on tour with the
Kirov Ballet in London. •
September 5 –
Vietnam War:
Operation Jefferson Glenn: The
United States 101st Airborne Division and the
South Vietnamese 1st Infantry Division initiate a new operation in
Thua Thien Province (the operation ends in October 1971). •
September 6 –
Dawson's Field hijackings: The
Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine hijacks four passenger aircraft from
Pan Am,
TWA and
Swissair on flights to
New York from
Brussels,
Frankfurt and
Zurich and flies them to a desert airstrip in Jordan. •
September 7 – Fighting breaks out between Arab guerillas and government forces in
Amman,
Jordan. •
September 8–
10 – The
Jordanian government and Palestinian guerillas make repeated unsuccessful truces. •
September 9 –
Guinea recognizes the
German Democratic Republic. •
September 10 –
Cambodian government forces break the siege of
Kompong Thom after three months. •
September 15 – King
Hussein of Jordan forms a military government with Muhammad Daoud as the prime minister. •
September 16 –
Death of Jimi Hendrix: American rock musician
Jimi Hendrix gives his last public performance, two days before his death. •
September 17 –
Black September: King
Hussein of Jordan orders the
Jordanian Armed Forces to oust
Palestinian fedayeen from Jordan. •
September 19 –
Kostas Georgakis, a Greek student of geology, sets himself ablaze in Matteotti Square in Genoa, Italy, as a protest against the dictatorial
Greek junta led by
Georgios Papadopoulos. •
September 20 •
Syrian armored forces cross the
Jordanian border. •
Luna 16 lands on the Moon and lifts off the next day with samples, landing back on Earth
September 24. •
September 21 –
Palestinian armed forces reinforce guerillas in
Irbidi,
Jordan. •
September 22 • The
International Hydrographic Organization (IHO) is founded. •
Tunku Abdul Rahman resigns as
prime minister of Malaysia, and is succeeded by his
deputy Tun Abdul Razak. •
September 27 •
Richard Nixon begins a tour of
Europe, visiting
Italy,
Yugoslavia,
Spain, the
United Kingdom and
Republic of Ireland. •
Pope Paul VI names Saint
Teresa of Ávila (d. 1582) as the first female
Doctor of the Church. •
September 28 – Vice President
Anwar Sadat is named temporary
president of Egypt following the death of
Gamal Abdel Nasser. •
September 29 – In
Berlin,
Red Army Faction members rob three banks, with loot totaling over
DM 200,000.
October •
October 2 – The
Wichita State University football team's "Gold" plane
crashes in
Colorado, killing most of the players. They were on their way (along with administrators and fans) to a game with
Utah State University. •
October 3 • In
Lebanon, the government of Prime Minister
Rashid Karami resigns. • The
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) is formed in the United States and the Weather Bureau is renamed to
National Weather Service as part of NOAA. •
Pope Paul VI names Saint
Catherine of Siena (d. 1380) as the second female
Doctor of the Church. •
October 4 •
Jochen Rindt becomes
Formula One World Driving Champion, the first to earn the honor posthumously. • In
Bolivia, Army Commander General
Rogelio Miranda and a group of officers rebel and demand the resignation of President
Alfredo Ovando Candía, who dismisses him. • American rock singer
Janis Joplin is found dead of an overdose, age 27, in her hotel room in Hollywood. •
October 5 – The
Front de libération du Québec (FLQ) kidnaps British trade commissioner
James Cross in Montreal and demands release of all imprisoned FLQ members, beginning
Quebec's
October Crisis. The next day the Canadian government announces that it will not meet the demand. •
October 6 – Bolivian President
Alfredo Ovando Candía resigns; General
Rogelio Miranda takes over but resigns soon after. •
October 7 – General
Juan José Torres becomes the new
President of Bolivia. •
October 8 • The U.S. Foreign Office announces the renewal of arms sales to
Pakistan. •
Vietnam War: In Paris, a
Communist delegation rejects U.S. President
Richard Nixon's peace proposal as "a maneuver to deceive world opinion." •
October 9 – The
Khmer Republic is proclaimed in
Cambodia, escalating the
Cambodian Civil War between the government and the
Khmer Rouge. •
October 10 •
Fiji becomes independent. •
October Crisis: In
Montreal,
Quebec Minister of Labour
Pierre Laporte becomes the second statesman kidnapped by members of the
FLQ terrorist group. •
October 11 – Eleven French soldiers are killed in a shootout with rebels in
Chad. •
October 12 –
Vietnam War: U.S. President
Richard Nixon announces that the United States will withdraw 40,000 more troops before
Christmas. •
October 13 –
Saeb Salam forms a government in
Lebanon. •
October 14 – A Chinese nuclear test is conducted in
Lop Nor. •
October 15 • A section of the new
West Gate Bridge in
Melbourne collapses into the river below, killing 35 construction workers. • In
Egypt, a referendum supports
Anwar Sadat 90.04%. •
October 16 –
October Crisis: The Canadian government declares a
state of emergency and outlaws the
Quebec Liberation Front. •
October 17 •
October Crisis: Quebec politician
Pierre Laporte is found murdered by the FLQ in south Montreal. • A
cholera epidemic breaks out in
Istanbul. •
Anwar Sadat officially becomes President of Egypt. •
October 20 • The Soviet Union launches the
Zond 8 lunar probe. • New Egyptian president Anwar Sadat names
Mahmoud Fawzi as his prime minister. •
October 22 –
Chilean army commander
René Schneider is shot in Santiago; the government declares a state of emergency. Schneider dies
October 25. •
October 24 –
Salvador Allende is elected
President of
Chile by a run-off vote in the
National Congress •
October 25 – The wreck of the Confederate submarine
Hunley is found off
Charleston, South Carolina, by 22-year-old pioneer
underwater archaeologist,
Dr. E. Lee Spence.
Hunley is the first submarine in history to sink a ship in warfare. •
October 28 • In
Jordan, the government of
Ahmad Toukan resigns; the next prime minister is
Wasfi al-Tal. • A
cholera outbreak in eastern Slovakia causes
Hungary to close its border with
Czechoslovakia. •
Gary Gabelich drives the rocket-powered
Blue Flame (part fuelled by LNG) to an official
land speed record of on the dry lake bed of the
Bonneville Salt Flats in Utah. The record, the first above 1,000 km/h, stands for nearly 13 years. •
October 30 – In
Vietnam, the worst
monsoon to hit the area in six years causes large
floods, kills 293, leaves 200,000 homeless and virtually halts the
Vietnam War.
November •
November 1 • The
Club Cinq-Sept fire in
Saint-Laurent-du-Pont, France, kills 146. • Polish Deputy Foreign Minister Zygfryd Wolniak and three Pakistanis are killed in an attack on a group of Polish diplomats at the
Karachi airport. •
November 3 •
Salvador Allende takes office as president of
Chile. • The
1970 Bhola cyclone makes landfall in modern-day Bangladesh around high tide, causing $86.4 million in damage (1970
USD, $576 million 2020 USD) and becomes the world's deadliest storm killing over 500,000 people. •
November 5 – Vietnam War: The United States Military Assistance Command in
Vietnam reports the lowest weekly American soldier death toll in five years (24 soldiers die this week, which is the fifth consecutive week the death toll is below 50; 431 are reported wounded in the week, however). •
November 8 –
Egypt,
Libya and
Sudan announce their intentions to form a federation. •
November 9 • The Soviet Union launches
Luna 17 for the moon. • Vietnam War: The
Supreme Court of the United States votes 6–3 not to hear a case by the state of
Massachusetts about the constitutionality of a state law granting Massachusetts residents the right to refuse military service in an undeclared war. •
November 13 •
1970 Bhola cyclone: A 120-mph (193 km/h)
tropical cyclone hits the densely populated
Ganges Delta region of
East Pakistan (modern-day
Bangladesh), killing an estimated 500,000 people (considered the
20th century's worst cyclone disaster). It gives rise to the temporary island of
New Moore / South Talpatti. •
Hafez al-Assad comes to power in
Syria, following
a military coup within the
Ba'ath Party. •
November 14 •
Southern Airways Flight 932 crashes in
Wayne County, West Virginia; all 75 on board, including 37 players and 5 coaches from the
Marshall University football team, are killed. • The Soviet Union enters the
International Civil Aviation Organization, after having resisted joining the UN Agency for more than 25 years.
Russian becomes the fourth official language of the ICAO. •
November 16 – The
Lockheed L-1011 TriStar flies for the first time. •
November 17 –
Luna programme: The
Soviet Union lands
Lunokhod 1 on
Mare Imbrium (Sea of Rains) on the Moon. This is the first roving remote-controlled robot to land on another world, and is released by the orbiting
Luna 17 spacecraft. •
November 19 – The six
European Economic Community nation prime ministers meet in
Munich to begin the new programme of
European Political Cooperation (EPC), a unified foreign policy for a future European Union. •
November 20 – The
Miss World 1970 beauty pageant, hosted by
Bob Hope at the
Royal Albert Hall, London is disrupted by Women's Liberation protesters. Earlier on the same evening a bomb is placed under a
BBC outside broadcast vehicle by
The Angry Brigade, in protest at the entry of separate black and white contestants by
South Africa. •
November 21 •
Syrian Prime Minister
Hafez al-Assad forms a new government but retains the post of defense minister. • In
Ethiopia, the
Eritrean Liberation Front kills an Ethiopian general. •
Vietnam War –
Operation Ivory Coast: A joint
Air Force and Army team raids the
Sơn Tây prison camp in an attempt to free American
prisoners of war thought to be held there (no Americans are killed, but the prisoners have already moved to another camp; all U.S. POWs are moved to a handful of central prison complexes as a result of this raid). •
1970 Australian Senate election: The
Liberal/
Country Coalition government led by
Prime Minister John Gorton and the
Labor Party led by
Gough Whitlam each ends up with 26 seats, both suffering a swing against them. The
Democratic Labor Party wins an additional seat and holds the balance of power in the
Senate. This is the last occasion on which a Senate election is held without an accompanying
House of Representatives election. •
November 22 –
Guinean president
Ahmed Sékou Touré accuses Portugal of an
attack when hundreds of mercenaries land near the capital
Conakry. The Guinean army repels the landing attempts over the next three days. •
November 25–
29 – A U.N. delegation arrives to investigate the Guinea situation. •
November 25 – In Tokyo, author and
Tatenokai militia leader
Yukio Mishima and his followers take over the headquarters of the
Japan Self-Defense Forces in an attempted
coup d'état. After Mishima's speech fails to sway public opinion towards his right-wing political beliefs, including restoration of the powers of the
Emperor, he commits
seppuku (public ritual suicide). •
November 27 – Bolivian artist Benjamin Mendoza tries to assassinate
Pope Paul VI during his visit in
Manila. •
November 28 – The
Montreal Alouettes defeat the
Calgary Stampeders, 23–10, to win the
58th Grey Cup in Canadian football.
December •
December 1 • The
Italian Chamber of Deputies accepts a new divorce law. •
Ethiopia recognizes the People's Republic of China. • The
Basque ETA (separatist group) kidnaps West German Eugen Beihl in
San Sebastián. •
Luis Echeverría becomes
president of Mexico. •
December 2 – The
United States Environmental Protection Agency is established. •
December 3 • October Crisis: In
Montreal, kidnapped British trade commissioner
James Cross is released by the
Front de libération du Québec terrorist group after being held hostage for 60 days. Police negotiate his release and in return the Government of Canada grants 5 terrorists from the FLQ's Chenier Cell their request for safe passage to
Cuba. • Burgos Trial: In
Burgos, Spain, the trial of 16
Basque terrorism suspects begins. •
December 4 • The Spanish government declares a 3-month martial law in the Basque county of Guipuzcoa, over strikes and demonstrations. • The U.N. announces that Portuguese navy and army units were responsible for the attempted invasion of Guinea. •
December 5 • The Asian and Australian tour of Pope Paul VI ends. •
Fluminense win the
Brazil Football Championship. •
December 7 • Giovanni Enrico Bucher, the Swiss ambassador to Brazil, is kidnapped in
Rio de Janeiro; kidnappers demand the release of 70 political prisoners. • The U.N. General Assembly supports the isolation of South Africa for its
apartheid policies. • During his visit to the Polish capital,
German Chancellor Willy Brandt goes down on his knees in front of a monument to the victims of the
Warsaw Ghetto, which will become known as the
Warschauer Kniefall ("Warsaw Genuflection"). •
Pakistan's general elections are held. •
December 12 – A
landslide in western
Colombia leaves 200 dead. •
December 15 • The USSR's
Venera 7 becomes the first spacecraft to land successfully on Venus and transmit data back to Earth. • The South Korean ferry
Namyong Ho capsizes off
Korea Strait; 308 people are killed. •
December 16 – The Ethiopian government declares a
state of emergency in the region of Eritrea over the activities of the
Eritrean Liberation Front. •
December 20 – An Egyptian delegation leaves for Moscow to ask for
economic and
military aid. •
December 21 – The
Grumman F-14 Tomcat makes its first flight. •
December 22 • The
Libyan Revolutionary Command Council declares that it will nationalize all foreign banks in the country. •
Franz Stangl, the ex-commander of
Treblinka extermination camp, is sentenced to life imprisonment. •
December 23 • The
Bolivian government releases
Régis Debray. • Law 70-001 is enacted in the
Democratic Republic of the Congo, amending article 4 of the constitution and making the country a
one-party state. •
December 25 –
ETA releases Eugen Beihl in Spain. •
December 27 – President of India
V. V. Giri declares
new elections. •
December 28 – The suspected killers of
Pierre Laporte, Jacques and Paul Rose and Francis Sunard, are arrested near Montreal. •
December 29 – U.S. President
Richard Nixon signs into law the
Occupational Safety and Health Act. •
December 30 • In
Biscay in the
Basque country of Spain, 15,000 go on strike in protest at the Burgos trial death sentences.
Francisco Franco commutes the sentences to 30 years in prison. •
Hurricane Creek mine disaster, near
Hyden, Kentucky, USA •
December 31 –
Paul McCartney sues in Britain to dissolve
The Beatles' legal partnership.
Date unknown • The first
Regional Technical Colleges open in Ireland. • The
Sweet Track is discovered in England. It is the world's oldest engineered roadway at the time of its discovery. •
Sammlung zeitgenössischer Kunst der Bundesrepublik Deutschland, the Federal collection of contemporary art, is established in Germany. • Women's movement starts in Oman with the establishment of the
Omani Women's Association.
World population ==Births==