1975 was a common year starting on Wednesday (the link is to a full 1975 calendar).

Events

January

• January 1 - Watergate scandal: John N. Mitchell, H. R. Haldeman, John D. Ehrlichman are found guilty of the Watergate cover-up and are sentenced to between 30 months and 8 years in jail on February 21
• January 5 - The Tasman Bridge in Tasmania, Australia, is struck by the bulk ore carrier Lake Illawarra, killing twelve people.
• January 7 - OPEC agrees to raise crude oil prices by 10%.
• January 8 - Ella Grasso becomes Governor of Connecticut, becoming the first woman to serve as a Governor in the United States who did not succeed her husband
• January 10 - Japanese soldier Teruo Nakamura surrenders on the Indonesian Island of Morota
• January 14 - 17 year old heiress Lesley Whittle is kidnapped from her home in Shropshire, England by the Black Panther.
• January 16 - Angola gains independence from Portugal
• January 20 - Michael Ovitz founds Creative Artists Agency
• January - Altair 8800 is released, sparking the era of the microcomputer

February

• February 4 - Queen Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom visits Mexico.
• February 9 - The Soyuz 17 Soviet spacecraft returns to Earth.
• February 11 - Margaret Thatcher defeats Edward Heath for the leadership of the UK Conservative Party in the United Kingdom.
• February 21 - Watergate scandal: Former United States Attorney General John N. Mitchell and former White House aides H. R. Haldeman and John Ehrlichman are sentenced to prison
• February 27 - Movement 2 June kidnaps Peter Lorenz , Christian Democrat Union candidate for mayor of the West Berlin. They demand release of 7 left-wing terrorists within three days. Six of them are released and taken to Yemen. Movement 2 June releases Lorenz in March 4
• February 28 - A major tube train crash at Moorgate station, London kills 43 people.
• February 28 - In Lomé, the capital of Togo, the European Economic Community and 46 African, Caribbean and Pacific countries sign a financial and economic treaty, known as the first Lomé Convention.

March

• March 1 - Color television transmissions begin in Australia
• March 4 - Charlie Chaplin is knighted by Queen Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom
• March 6 - Algiers Accord - Iran and Iraq announce a settlement over their border dispute.
• March 6 - A bomb explodes in the Paris offices of the Springer Press . The "6 March Group" (connected to the Red Army Faction) demands amnesty for the "Baader-Meinhof Group"
• March 7 - The body of teenage heiress Lesley Whittle, kidnapped seven weeks earlier by the Black Panther is discovered in Staffordshire, England
• March 8 - United Nations begin sponsoring the International Women's Day.
• March 9 - Construction of the Trans-Alaska Pipeline System begins
• March 10 - Vietnam War: North Vietnamese troops attack Ban Me Thout , South Vietnam, on their way to capturing Saigon.
• March 15 - In Brazil, the Estado da Guanabara (State of Guanabara) merges with the state of Rio de Janeiro, under the name of Rio de Janeiro. The state's capital moves from the city of Niterói to the city of Rio de Janeiro.
• March 25 - King Faisal of Saudi Arabia is shot and killed by a nephew with a history of mental illness - the killer is beheaded on June 18.

April-May

• April 3 - Bobby Fischer refuses to play in a chess match against Anatoly Karpov, giving Karpov the title.
• April 4 - Vietnam War: The first military Operation Babylift flight, C5A 80218, crashes 27 minutes after takeoff. 138 die and 176 live.
• April 13 - An attack by Phalangists on a Palestinian bus in Ain El Remmeneh, Lebanon causes over 15 years of civil war in Lebanon.
• April 17 - Pol Pot proclaims the "Democratic Republic of Kampuchea" in Cambodia and becomes its Prime Minister (1975–1979).
• April 24 - Six Red Army Faction terrorists take over West German embassy in Stockholm, take 11 hostages and demand release of the jailed members of RAF. They shoot embassy's military attaché Lieutenant Colonel Baron Andreas von Mirchbach and Dr. Heinz Hillegart. Shortly before midnight some of their explosives detonate and Swedish police exploit the situation to capture them
• April 25 - Vietnam War: As North Vietnamese forces close in on the South Vietnamese capital Saigon, the Australian Embassy is closed and evacuated, almost ten years to the day since the first Australian troop commitment to South Vietnam.
• April 30 - Vietnam War: The Vietnam War ends as Communist forces take Saigon and South Vietnam surrenders unconditionally.
• May 12 - Mayaguez incident: The Cambodian navy seizes the American merchant ship SS Mayaguez in international waters
• May 15 - The American merchant ship Mayaguez, seized by Cambodian forces, is rescued in operation by U.S. Navy and Marines. 38 are killed.
• May 16 - India annexes Sikkim
• May 16 - Junko Tabei becomes the first woman to reach the summit of Mount Everest
• May 28 - 15 West African countries sign the Treaty of Lagos thus creating the Economic Community of West African States.
• May 30 - 1972 Olympic runner Steve Prefontaine dies in a car accident.

June-July

• June 5 - The Suez Canal opens for the first time since the Six-Day War
• June 9 - Order Of Australia (OA) awarded for 1st time
• June 19 - Lord Lucan found guilty in absentia of the murder of the nanny Sandra Rivett
• June 28 - Mozambique gains independence from Portugal
• July 1 - Aus Postmasters General Department Split in two and becomes Telecom Australia + Australia Post
• July 4 - Sydney newspaper publisher Juanita Nielsen disappears, and is presumed to have been murdered.
• July 5 - Cape Verde gains independence after 500 years of Portuguese rule
• July 6 - The Comoros declare their independence from France
• July 12 - São Tomé and Príncipe declare independence
• July 15 - Apollo Soyuz Test Project: Apollo and Soyuz spacecraft take off for U.S.-Soviet link-up in space
• July 17 - Apollo-Soyuz Test Project: An American Apollo and a Soviet Soyuz spacecraft dock with each other in orbit marking the first such link-up between spacecraft from the two nations
• July 31 - In Detroit, Michigan, Teamsters Union president Jimmy Hoffa is reported missing.

August

• August 8 - The Banqiao Dam, in China's Henan Province, failed after a freak typhoon. Over 200,000 people perished.
• August 8 - Samuel Bronfman, son of the president of Seagrams, is kidnapped in Purchase, New York
• August 11 - British Leyland comes under British government control
• August 11 - Mário Lemos Pires , Governor of Portuguese Timor, abandons the capital Dili following UDT coup and outbreak of civil war between UDT and Fretilin.
• August 15 - Birmingham Six sentenced to life imprisonment
• August 20 - Viking program: NASA launches the Viking 1 planetary probe toward Mars
• August 24 - Officers responsible for the military coup in Greece in 1967 are sentenced to death in Athens. The sentences are later commuted to life imprisonment

September-October

• September 5 - In Sacramento, California, a follower of incarcerated cult leader Charles Manson named Lynette "Squeaky" Fromme attempts to assassinate US President Gerald Ford, but is thwarted by a Secret Service agent.
• September 14 - Rembrandt's painting "The Night Watch" is slashed a dozen times at a gallery in Amsterdam.
• September 15 - The French department of Corse, the entire island of Corsica was divided into two departments: Haute-Corse and Corse-du-Sud.
• September 20 - End of term for Tuanku Al-Mutassimu Billahi Muhibbudin Sultan Abdul Halim Al-Muadzam Shah ibni Almarhum Sultan Badlishah as the 5th Yang di-Pertuan Agong of Malaysia.
• September 21 - Sultan Yahya Petra ibni Almarhum Sultan Ibrahim Petra, Sultan of Kelantan becomes the 6th Yang di-Pertuan Agong of Malaysia.
• September 22 - President Ford survives a second assassination attempt, again by a female.
• October 9 - Bomb explosion outside Green Park Tube Station near Piccadilly in London - 1 dead, 20 injured.
• October 16 - Five Australian-based journalists are killed at Balibo by Indonesian forces during an incursion into Portuguese Timor.
• October 27 – 18-year-old Robert Poulin begins shooting in St Pius X High School in Ottawa, Canada and then shoots himself. 1 dead, 5 wounded.
• October 29 - First victim of Yorkshire Ripper (Peter Sutcliffe).
• October 30 - Prince Juan Carlos becomes King of Spain after dictator Francisco Franco concedes that he is too ill to govern.

November

• November 3 - An independent audit of Mattel, of the United States largest toy manufacturers, reveals that company officials fabricated press releases and financial information to "maintain the appearance of continued corporate growth."
• November 6 - Green March begins: 300,000 unarmed Moroccans converge on the southern city of Tarfaya and wait for a signal from King Hassan II of Morocco to cross into Western Sahara
• November 10 - United Nations Resolution 3379: With a vote of 72 to 35 (with 32 abstentions), the United Nations General Assembly approves a resolution equating Zionism with racism. The resolution provokes an outcry among Jews around the world.
• November 10 - The 729-foot-long freighter (then, the largest ship on the Great Lakes) SS Edmund Fitzgerald sinks during a storm 17 miles from the entrance to Whitefish Bay on Lake Superior, killing all 29 crew on board
• November 11 - Angola becomes independent from Portugal (a deadly civil war soon erupts)
• November 11 - Australian constitutional crisis of 1975: Australian Governor-General Sir John Kerr dismisses the government of Gough Whitlam and commissions Malcolm Fraser as Prime Minister
• November 14 - Spain abandons Western Sahara
• November 22 - Juan Carlos is declared King of Spain following the death of dictator Francisco Franco.
• November 25 - Suriname independent from the Kingdom of the Netherlands
• November 25 - Irish Republican Army outlawed in the United Kingdom
• November 27 - Ross McWhirter, the co-founder of the Guinness Book of Records, is shot dead by the IRA
• November 28 - Portuguese Timor declares its independence from Portugal as East Timor
• November 29 - The name "Micro-soft" (for microcomputer software) is used by Bill Gates in a letter to Paul Allen for the first time (Microsoft became a registered trademark on November 26, 1976).

December

• December 7 - East Timor invaded by Indonesia.
• December 21 - Left-wing terrorists, including Carlos the Jackal, kidnap delegates of an OPEC conference in Vienna. They kill three hostages, extort $5 million ransom and escape into Middle East.
• December 29 - bomb explodes at LaGuardia Airport - 11 dead.

Unknown dates

• In New Zealand, Maori leader Whina Cooper leads a march of 5000 people in support of Maori claims to their land
• The Third Cod War between UK and Iceland
• Government of Colombia announces finding of Ciudad Perdida
• Spanish army quits Spanish (Western) Sahara. Saharaui Republic (RASD) is created. Morocco invades ex-Spanish Western Sahara.
• First use of the term fractal
• Victoria abolishes capital punishment (a)
• South Australia becomes first Australian state to decriminalize homosexual acts between concenting adults
• Self-proclaimed time traveller John Titor arrives to acquire an IBM 5100 for use in 2036

Year in topic

• 1975 in film
  • March - Production begins on Star Wars.
  • June 20 - Jaws
  • July - In order to create the necessary special effects for his film, Star Wars, George Lucas forms Industrial Light and Magic.
  • One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest starring Jack Nicholson.
  • Rooster Cogburn starring John Wayne, Katharine Hepburn and others
  • The Rocky Horror Picture Show is released in the UK
• 1975 in literature
• 1975 in music
  • Paul Simon releases album Still Crazy After All These Years .
  • Art Garfunkel releases album Breakaway.
  • Simon and Garfunkel release single "My Little Town," the last single they have released together to date. Song hits #9 on Billboard charts and is released on both their solo albums of 1975.
• 1975 in rail transport
  • April 1 - The second American Freedom Train tour begins, powered by the newly restored Southern Pacific 4449 steam locomotive, in Wilmington, Delaware.
• 1975 in sports
  • July 5 - Arthur Ashe becomes the first black man to win the Wimbledon singles title.
• 1975 in television
  • January 18 - The Jeffersons debuts on CBS.
  • March 1 - Australian television stations officially convert from black and white to colour transmission.
  • April 28 - Tom Snyder interviews John Lennon on The Tomorrow Show .
  • October 11 - Saturday Night Live is broadcast for the first time. (George Carlin is the guest host).
  • November 10 - The producers of the long-running serial drama The Guiding Light change the show's name to Guiding Light, in an attempt to modernize the show's image.
  • Wheel of Fortune premieres.

Births

January-April

• January 3 - Danica McKellar, actress
• January 5 - Bradley Cooper, actor
• January 13 - Shazia Mirza
• January 16 - Odalys Garcia
• January 22 - Balthazar Getty, actor
• January 25 - Tim Montgomery, American athlete
• January 29 - Sara Gilbert, actress
• February 2 - Todd Bertuzzi, NHL ice hockey player
• February 4 - Natalie Imbruglia, Australian musician
• February 17 - Wish Bone, US rapper
• February 20 - Brian Littrell, musician ("Backstreet Boys")
• February 21 - Affirmed, race horse (d. 2001)
• February 22 - Drew Barrymore, actress
• March 5 - Jolene Blalock, US actress
• March 5 - Niki Taylor, fashion model
• April 4 - Scott Rolen, baseball player
• April 9 - Robbie Fowler, soccer player
• April 22 - Greg Moore, CART race car driver (d. 1999)

May-August

• May 1 - Marc-Vivien Foé, Cameroonian footballer (d. 2003)
• May 2 - David Beckham, English footballer
• May 3 - Maksim Mrvica, Croatian pianist
• May 8 - Enrique Iglesias, singer
• May 10 - Hélio Castroneves, Brazilian race car driver
• May 12 - Jonah Lomu, New Zealand rugby player
• May 15 - Ray Lewis, American football player
• May 19 - London Fletcher, American football player
• May 25 - Lauryn Hill, hip-hop singer
• May 27 - Jamie Oliver, British celebrity chef and TV personality
• June 4 - Angelina Jolie, American actress
• June 17 - Chloe Jones, pornographic actress
• June 9 - Andrew Symonds, Australian cricketer
• June 18 - Martin St. Louis, hockey player
• June 25 - Vladimir Kramnik, Russian chess player
• July 18 - Torii Hunter, baseball player
• July 27 - Shea Hillenbrand, baseball player
• July 27 - Alex Rodriguez, baseball player
• July 30 - Graham Nicholls, British artist
• August 7 - Charlize Theron, South African actress

September-December

• September 17 - Jimmie Johnson, NASCAR race car driver
• September 25 - Matt Hasselbeck, American football quarterback
• October 5 - Kate Winslet, actress
• November 18 - David Ortiz, Major League Baseball All-Star
• November 19 - Sushmita Sen, Indian actress, Miss World winner
• December 13 - Tom Delonge, Guitarist/Singer in blink-182
• December 17 - Milla Jovovich, actress, model
• December 27 - Heather O'Rourke, child actress, star of the Poltergeist movie series (d. 1988)
• December 30 - Tiger Woods, golf superstar

Deaths

• unknown - Will Mastin, vaudevillian

January-April

• January 8 - Richard Tucker, American tenor (b. 1913)
• January 19 - Thomas Hart Benton, U.S. muralist
• January 24 - Larry Fine, actor (The Three Stooges)
• January 27 - Bill Walsh, movie producer and writer
• February 4 - Louis Jordan, musician
• February 10 - Nikos Kavvadias, Greek poet and writer, (stroke)
• February 14 - Julian Huxley, British biologist (b. 1887)
• February 14 - P. G. Wodehouse, writer
• February 16 - Morgan Taylor, American athlete
• February 24 - Nikolai Bulganin, Premier of the Soviet Union
• February 25 - Elijah Muhammad, Black Muslim leader
• March 7 - Ben Blue, actor, comedian
• March 8 - George Stevens, director, producer, cinematographer
• March 14 - Susan Hayward, actress
• March 15 - Aristotle Onassis, shipping magnate
• March 16 - T-Bone Walker, musician
• March 24 - Ivo Andric, Croatian writer (b. 1892)
• March 25 - King Faisal of Saudi Arabia
• April 5 - Chiang Kai-shek, President of the Republic of China
• April 13 - N'Garta Tombalbaye, President of Chad
• April 17 - Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan, Indian philosopher and president
• April 23 - William Hartnell, actor
• April 30 - Gen Paul, French artist

May-December

• May 5 - Moe Howard, actor (The Three Stooges) (b. 1897)
• May 8 - Avery Brundage, President of the International Olympic Committee
• May 13 - Bob Wills, country musician
• May 18 - Leroy Anderson, American composer (b. 1908)
• May 23 - Moms Mabley, African-American comedienne
• May 30 - Steve Prefontaine, American distance runner
• June 26 - Josemaría Escrivá, Spanish priest and founder of Opus Dei
• June 28 - Rod Serling, screenwriter of The Twilight Zone
• July 17 - Konstantine Gamsakhurdia, Georgian writer and public benefactor
• July 29 - James Blish, U.S. science fiction author
• August 8 - Julian Cannonball Adderley, saxophonist
• August 9 - Dmitri Shostakovich, Russian composer (b. 1906)
• August 16 - Vladimir Kuts, Soviet long-distance runner, and computer hacker
• August 29 - Eamon de Valera, Taoiseach & third President of Ireland
• September 20 - Saint-John Perse, French diplomat and poet (b. 1887)
• September 27 - Jack Lang, Australian politician
• October 21 - Charles Reidpath, American athlete
• November 2 - Pier Paolo Pasolini, Italian film director (b. 1922)
• November 20 - Francisco Franco, dictator of Spain (b. 1892)
• November 27 - Ross McWhirter, Guinness Book of Records co-founder
• December 1 - Anna E. Roosevelt, radio personality (b. 1906)
• December 1 - Nellie Fox, Baseball Hall of Famer (b. 1927)
• December 24 - Bernard Herrmann, composer

Nobel Prizes

• Physics - Aage Niels Bohr, Ben Roy Mottelson, Leo James Rainwater
• Chemistry - John Warcup Cornforth, Vladimir Prelog
• Medicine - David Baltimore, Renato Dulbecco, Howard Martin Temin
• Literature - Eugenio Montale
• Peace - Andrei Dmitrievich Sakharov
• Economics - Leonid Kantorovich, Tjalling Koopmans