December 1970 in History

Events in History

Nobel Prize

Dec 10 Soviet novelist Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn chooses not to claim his Nobel Prize in Literature for fear that the USSR would prevent his return afterwards. Accepts in 1974 after he was deported.

Writer and Nobel Laureate Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

Dec 11 Start of the 1st Test match at the WACA, Australia v England
Dec 12 Polish government proclaims price rise
Dec 12 Small Astronomy Satellite Explorer 42 launched to study X-rays
Dec 12 USSR performs underground nuclear test
Dec 15 Illinois State Constitution is adopted at a special election
Dec 15 South Korean ferry Namyong-Ho sinks in Strait of Korea, 308 killed
Dec 15 Soviet Venera 7 is 1st spacecraft to land on another planet (Venus)
Dec 15 Striking shipyard workers in Gdańsk, Poland set ablaze the ruling Provincial Committee's building; responding soldiers kill 8
Dec 16 Polish Vice-Prime Minister Stanisław Kociołek, condemns labor protesters and calls for the workers to get back to work, in a televised speech
Dec 16 US performs nuclear test at Nevada Test Site
Dec 17 US performs nuclear test at Nevada Test Site
Dec 17 USSR performs nuclear test at Eastern Kazakh/Semipalitinsk USSR
Dec 17 Workers returning to shipyard in Gdynia, Poland are met by soldiers who shoot at the crowd, killing at least 18, wounding hundreds
Dec 18 Polish uprising fails
Dec 18 US performs nuclear test at Nevada Test Site
Dec 20 Edward Gierek succeeds Wladyslaw Gomulka as Poland's communist party leader
Dec 21 Oregon v. Mitchell Supreme Court case was decided, lowering the minimum voting age in U.S. federal elections to 18. The voting age for state and local elections was left to states discretion
Dec 22 Treblinka SS commander Franz Stangl sentenced to life imprisonment

Event of Interest

Dec 23 7,511th performance of Agatha Christie's play "The Mousetrap" (record) in London's West End

Dec 23 A Protestant man is shot dead at his home in Belfast, North Ireland
Dec 23 French author Régis Debray freed in Bolivia
Dec 23 NYC World Trade Center reaches highest point (411 m)
Dec 23 USSR performs nuclear test
Dec 24 9 Jews are convicted in Leningrad of hijacking a plane
Dec 28 Yemen Arab Republic (North Yemen) adopts constitution
Dec 29 Occupational Safety and Health Act (United States) signed into law by President Richard M. Nixon
Dec 30 The financial cost of the disturbances and riots in Northern Ireland during 1969 and 1970 are today estimated to be £5.5 million

Event of Interest

Dec 31 Congress authorizes Eisenhower dollar coin

34th US President & WWII General Dwight D. Eisenhower

Dec 31 President Allende nationalizes Chilean coal mines

Birthdays in History

Dec 1 Jouko Ahola, Finnish strongman and power-lifter (World's Strongest Man 1997, 99), born in Hämeenlinna, Finland
Dec 17 Benedictine, a St. Bernard dog who grew to become the heaviest known dog (137 kg)
Dec 18 Jonathan Yeo, English artist and contemporary portraitist famous for his explicit unauthorized portrait of George W. Bush, born in London
Dec 18 Miles Marshall Lewis, American author
Dec 22 Ted Cruz [Rafael Edward], Canadian-born US politician (Senate-R-Texas 2013-), born in Calgary. Alberta
Dec 23 Shannon Bream [DePuy], American Journalist (Fox News) Miss Virginia (1991), born in Lynchburg, Virginia
Dec 29 Yaroslav Ihorovych Pustovyi, Ukrainian cosmonaut, born in Kostroma, Ukraine

Deaths in History

Dec 6 Thomas S Power, American USAF-gen (Raid on Tokyo-March 1945), dies at 65
Dec 7 Romaine Brooks [Beatrice Romaine Goddard], American painter, dies at 96

Rube Goldberg (1883-1970)

Dec 7 American cartoonist whose carttoons inspired the Rube Goldberg contests (Pulitzer Prize 1948), dies of cancer at 87

Dec 8 Christopher Kelk Ingold, English chemist (Cahn–Ingold–Prelog priority rules), dies at 77
Dec 9 Artem Mikoyan, Russian aircraft designer (MIG), dies at 65
Dec 9 Sir Feroz Khan Noon, Prime Minister of Pakistan (b. 1893)
Dec 12 Doris Blackburn, Australian politician (Member of the Australian Parliament for Bourke), dies at 81
Dec 12 Louis Zimmer, Flemish astronomer and clock maker (Jubelklok, Wonder Clock), dies at 82
Dec 14 Franz Schlegelberger, German Nazi politician, dies at 94
Dec 23 Bessie Abramowitz Hillman, Russian-American labor leader and founder of Amalgamated Clothing Workers of America, dies at 71
Dec 28 L. Mendel Rivers, American politician (Rep-D-SC), dies at 65
Dec 29 William King Gregory, American zoologist and paleontologist (mammalian teeth, evolutionary theory), dies at 94