Watergate scandal: Acting Attorney General of the United States, Robert Bork, appoints Leon Jaworski as the new Watergate Special Prosecutor.
Preliminary round of the Ukrainian Cup football competition takes place.
Born: Li Xiaoshuang, Chinese gymnast, in Xiantao, Hubei
The number three engine of National Airlines Flight 27, a Douglas DC-10-10, explodes while the aircraft is over New Mexico. Fragments penetrate the fuselage, causing one passenger to be sucked from the plane; his body is found two years later. The aircraft lands safely.
Pan Am cargo flight 160, a Boeing 707-321C, crashes at Logan International Airport, Boston, killing 3 people.
Mariner program: NASA launches Mariner 10 toward Mercury (on March 29, 1974, it becomes the first space probe to reach that planet).
Born: Ben Fogle, UK adventurer and TV presenter, in London, the son of actress Julia Foster.
A tornado strikes MacGregor State High School, in Macgregor, Queensland, Australia, causing hundred of thousands of dollars worth of damage and requiring the rebuilding of much of the four-year-old school.
The Gigantinho sports arena is opened in Porto Alegre, Brazil.
US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger begins his "shuttle diplomacy" initiative to facilitate the cessation of hostilities following the Yom Kippur War.
Bergen Municipal Council votes to purchase shares in the company set up to build the Askøy Bridge over Byfjorden in Norway. The bridge is not actually completed until 1992.
Died: Alfred Romer, 79, US palaeontologist
The Liberian supertanker SS Golar Patricia explodes and sinks in the Atlantic Ocean with the loss of one of the 44 people on board. The survivors are rescued by the Spanish liner MV Cabo San Vicente.
New York state election, 1973: The election of the Chief Judge of the New York Court of Appeals is contested for the first time since 1916. Republican candidate Charles D. Breitel. emerges the winner.
Lonnie Ellisor is born
The Congress of the United States overrides President Richard M. Nixon's veto of the War Powers Resolution, which limits presidential power to wage war without congressional approval.
The Second Cod War between the United Kingdom and Iceland ends.
Millennium '73, a festival hosted by Guru Maharaj Ji at the Astrodome, is called by supporters the "most significant event in human history".
In a UK parliamentary by-election, Tim Sainsbury holds the safe Conservative seat of Hove.
The UK government makes £146 million compensation available to three nationalised industries to cover losses resulting from its price restraint policies.
Gareth Edward Chamberlain born Redruth, Cornwall.
Died: Pradyumansinhji Lakhajirajsinhji, 14th Thakore Saheb of Rajkot, 60, Indian prince
Died: David "Stringbean" Akeman, 57, US country musician, and his wife, shot dead by intruders at their home in Ridgetop, Tennessee.
Egypt and Israel sign a United States-sponsored cease-fire accord.
Died: Artturi Ilmari Virtanen, 78, Finnish chemist, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1895)
Born: Roger Engstrom of Sweden.
British miners begin an overtime ban, while ambulance drivers began selective strikes.
The UK television sitcom Last of the Summer Wine began its first series run on BBC One, following a pilot in Comedy Playhouse on 4 January. It would run for 31 series.
Died: Bruno Maderna, 53, Italian conductor and composer
In the United Kingdom, The Princess Anne marries Captain Mark Phillips in Westminster Abbey (they divorce in 1992).
Eight members of the Provisional IRA are convicted of bombings that took place in London during March 1973.
The British tanker British Mallard runs aground at Grimsnes, Norway. Thunderhead
→Nasceu Emerson Trindade Barbosa, em Jetulio Vargas Rio Grande do Sul, Brasil.
The Athens Polytechnic uprising occurs against the military regime in Athens, Greece.
Watergate scandal: In Orlando, Florida, U.S. President Richard Nixon tells 400 Associated Press managing editors "I am not a crook."
The Swedish cargo ship Gapern springs a leak and sinks 50 nautical miles (93 km) off the coast of Northumberland, UK. All eleven crew are rescued by the trawler Kingston Emerald.
Died: Sir Gerald Nabarro, 60, controversial UK politician
Born: Nim Chimpsky, chimpanzee later used in an extended study of animal language acquisition at Columbia University.
East German security chief and convicted murderer Erich Mielke receives the second of his six Order of Karl Marx awards.
U.S. President Richard Nixon's attorney, J. Fred Buzhardt, reveals the existence of an 18½-minute gap in one of the White House tape recordings related to Watergate.
Born: Marjolein Kriek, Dutch clinical geneticist, in Leiden; she is the first woman to have her total DNA genome sequenced.
Died: John Dedman, 77, Australian politician
An improvised explosive device detonates aboard Argo 16, an Italian Air Force C-47 Dakota used by the Italian Secret Service and the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency for electronic surveillance over the Adriatic Sea and to interfere with Yugoslavia's radar network, causing the aircraft to crash at Marghera, Italy, killing all four people on board.
The Cypriot cargo ship Annette collides with the harbour wall and sinks at Ashdod, Israel, killing 21 of her 24 crew.
First-round matches in the 1973–74 FA Cup football competition are played in the UK.
Greek dictator George Papadopoulos is ousted in a military coup led by Brigadier General Dimitrios Ioannidis.
Three young members of the Arab Nationalist Youth Organization hijack a Boeing 747-206B Mississippi, operating as KLM Flight 861 with 264 people on board, over Iraq. The plane first flies to Malta, where the hijackers release eight female flight attendants and most of the passengers, then proceeds with 11 passengers on board to Dubai, where the hijacking ends without further incident.
Died: Laurence Harvey, 45, English actor (stomach cancer)
The Cypriot cargo ship Armas runs aground off Alderney, Channel Islands, with the loss of one of her 23 crew.
The United States Senate votes 92–3 to confirm Gerald Ford as Vice President of the United States.
Delta Air Lines Flight 516, a McDonnell Douglas DC-9, crashes short of the runway at Chattanooga Metropolitan Airport in Chattanooga, Tennessee, US, injuring 26 of the 79 people on board.
Died: Marthe Bibesco, 87, Romanian-French writer of the Belle Époque
104 people are killed in a Taiyo department store fire in Kumamoto, Kyūshū, Japan.
Born: Ryan Giggs, Welsh international footballer, in Cardiff
Died: Allan Sherman, 48, American musical parodist (emphysema).