1975: Margaret Thatcher becomes Prime Minister of the UK

1974: following the watergate scandal, richard nixon resigns the us presidency on august 9th.

1972:

*the JAT Yugoslov Airline bombing, with that one survivor (they were really high when the bomb went off, too -I'm impressed anyone survived).

*the Apollo 16 mission was successfully conducted to the moon, and the Apollo 17 mission, which was the last Apollo program/mission to the moon.
Last humans set foot on the moon in December of 1972. What a sad thought. We get all that way and can't repeat it since?

*PONG (the game) is released by Atari (start of the gaming age?)

*LOD Airport massacre was that year, at the end of May

*The first female judge sat at the Old Bailey in London

*East Pakistan becomes Bangladesh

*Queen Margrethe II of Denmark becomes... well, Queen. First one for centuries.

*both the Vietnam war and the Irish troubles continue

*the 1972 Iran Blizzard kills something like 4000 people

*the US "Equal Rights" amendment is passed (Title IX amendment).

*Charlie Chaplin is finally allowed back into the US after being labelled a communist

*the Biological Weapons Convention is signed (thankfully!)

*the Black September hijacked flight is successfully recaptured

*Ceylon becomes Sri Lanka

*Canada's big hydroelectric project at Churchill Falls comes online (officially)

*Watergate scandal breaks

*the Black September terrorist attack at the Munich Olympics kills 11 members of the Israeli olympic team and a German peace officer who tried to protect them.

*the Uruguayan flight crash in the Andes mountains happens; 73 days later 16 survivors are finally found and rescued; they had been reduced to some really drastic measures to make it that long.

(you know, there are a LOT of flight crashes and hijackings in this year. I'm listing a tiny fraction of them all. And yet somehow the airport security didn't go crazy overboard until a couple decades later.... not sure what to think about that.)

*N-1 Rocket is successfully launched by the USSR

*the Nicaraguan Earthquake on 23rd December... death toll won't be figured out until well into the next year.

Jan/1/1971 - Cigarette advertisements banned on TV

1970 - first earth day celebrated in the USA