1973 History, Facts, and Trivia

Quick Facts from 1973

• World-Changing Event: The Paris Peace Accords were signed on January 27, 1973, ending direct U.S. military involvement in Vietnam — a war that had cost over 58,000 American lives, divided the country more sharply than any conflict since the Civil War, and produced the most sustained domestic protest movement in American history
• Top Song: Tie a Yellow Ribbon Round the Ole Oak Tree by Tony Orlando and Dawn, which spent four weeks at #1 and gave the yellow ribbon permanent symbolic meaning in American culture
• Must-See Movies: The Sting, American Graffiti, The Exorcist, Soylent Green, Enter the Dragon, Paper Moon, and The Way We Were
• The Most Famous Person in America: Elvis Presley
• The Funny Guys: Robert Klein and Albert Brooks; The Funny Late Night Host: Johnny Carson; The Funny Duo: Cheech and Chong; The Funny Lady: Carol Burnett
• Notable Books: Fear of Flying by Erica Jong and The Princess Bride by William Goldman
• Metal ice cube tray: 91 cents; Raleigh Triumph bicycle: $97.95; gallon of gas: 38 cents; average new home: $32,500
• Super Bowl ad (30 seconds): $88,000
• Chinese Zodiac: Year of the Ox, associated with diligence, dependability, and a stubborn refusal to quit, which was about what was needed to get through 1973
• The Conversation: Did Nixon really say he’s not a crook? And have you seen The Exorcist yet?

Top Ten Baby Names of 1973

Girls: Jennifer, Amy, Michelle, Kimberly, Lisa Boys: Michael, Jason, Christopher, James, David

The Hotties, Sex Symbols, and Fashion Icons

Adrienne Barbeau, Dyan Cannon, Veronica Carlson, Pam Grier, Dayle Haddon, Peggy Lipton, Maureen McCormick, Caroline Munro, Ingrid Pitt, Diana Ross, Maria Schneider, Barbra Streisand, Jane Seymour

Hollywood Hunks, Leading Men, and Sex Symbols

Robert Redford, Paul Newman, Richard Roundtree, Marlon Brando

The Quotes

“My brain? But that’s my second favorite organ!” — Woody Allen, Sleeper

“Have it your way.” — Burger King

“People have got to know whether or not their President is a crook. Well, I’m not a crook. I’ve earned everything I’ve got.” — President Richard Nixon, November 17, 1973

“It’s people! Soylent Green is made of people!” — Charlton Heston, Soylent Green

“It ain’t over till it’s over.” — Yogi Berra, 1973, the first recorded use of the phrase

Time Magazine’s Man of the Year

John Sirica, the federal judge who presided over the Watergate trials, refused to accept the defendants’ light sentences and issued the subpoena for the White House tape recordings that ultimately forced Nixon’s resignation

Miss America and Miss USA

Miss America: Terry Meeuwsen, De Pere, WI
Miss USA: Amanda Jones, Illinois

We Lost in 1973

Jim Croce — the singer-songwriter whose warm, storytelling style had produced Bad, Bad Leroy Brown and Time in a Bottle, died September 20, 1973, at age 30, when the chartered plane carrying him and his band crashed on takeoff from Natchitoches, Louisiana, after a concert at Northwestern State University. Time in a Bottle, which he had been reluctant to release as a single, reached #1 posthumously. All six people aboard the plane were killed.

Bruce Lee — the martial artist and film star who had become an international phenomenon with Enter the Dragon, died July 20, 1973, in Hong Kong, at age 32. The official cause of death was cerebral edema — swelling of the brain — attributed to an allergic reaction to a prescription painkiller. He had collapsed once before, two months earlier, under similar circumstances. His sudden death at peak fame and physical condition produced conspiracy theories that have circulated ever since.

Pablo Picasso — the Spanish painter and sculptor who spent most of his adult life in France, co-founder of Cubism and the most commercially successful artist of the 20th century, died April 8, 1973, at age 91, at his home in Mougins, France.

Lyndon B. Johnson — the 36th President of the United States, whose Great Society programs transformed American domestic policy and whose Vietnam War decisions destroyed his presidency, died January 22, 1973, at age 64, at his Texas ranch, of a heart attack. He had asked not to be resuscitated. He died the day before the Paris Peace Accords were announced, ending the war that had consumed his final years in office.

Born in 1973

Kate Beckinsale — July 26, 1973. Tori Spelling — May 16, 1973. Pharrell Williams — April 5, 1973. Neil Patrick Harris — June 15, 1973.

America in 1973 — The Context

Richard Nixon began 1973 with his second inaugural and ended it fighting for his political survival. The Paris Peace Accords in January produced brief optimism about the Vietnam era finally ending. By summer, the Watergate hearings were dominating American television. In October, Nixon fired the special prosecutor investigating him in the Saturday Night Massacre. In November he said he was not a crook. The country was not fully convinced.

Simultaneously, the Arab oil embargo triggered a gasoline shortage that produced long lines at gas stations, odd-even rationing by license plate number, and a national speed limit of 55 miles per hour. Inflation ran at over 6%. The stock market fell sharply. The economy that had funded the Great Society and the Vietnam War was contracting. The Watergate scandal and the energy crisis arrived simultaneously, producing a crisis of confidence in American institutions that would not fully dissipate for years.

Vietnam Ends

The Paris Peace Accords, signed on January 27, 1973, by the United States, South Vietnam, North Vietnam, and the Viet Cong, called for an immediate ceasefire and the withdrawal of all American forces. The last U.S. combat troops left Vietnam in March 1973. The war, in terms of direct American military involvement, lasted from 1965 to 1973. In terms of military advisors and CIA involvement, it had begun in the early 1950s.

The final American prisoner of war from Vietnam, Colonel Floyd J. Thompson, was released in March 1973 after spending nearly nine years in captivity — longer than any American POW in U.S. history. He had been captured in 1964.

American combat deaths in Vietnam totaled 58,220. Vietnamese civilian and military deaths on all sides are estimated between 1.5 and 3.5 million.

Watergate

The Watergate hearings before the Senate Select Committee began on May 17, 1973, and were broadcast live on all three major television networks, which rotated coverage. Americans watched witnesses describe a White House engaged in political espionage, obstruction of justice, illegal campaign financing, and the systematic abuse of federal agencies for political purposes. Former White House counsel John Dean testified that the president was “aware of everything” about the cover-up. Nixon aide Alexander Butterfield revealed the existence of the White House taping system.

Nixon refused to surrender the tapes. He fired special prosecutor Archibald Cox on October 20, 1973 — the “Saturday Night Massacre” — after both his Attorney General and Deputy Attorney General resigned rather than carry out the order. The firing accelerated calls for impeachment. A new special prosecutor, Leon Jaworski, was appointed. The tapes battle continued into 1974.

On November 17, 1973, Nixon told an Associated Press managing editors conference: “I am not a crook.” It was the first time a sitting president had been required to make that specific denial.

Roe v. Wade

The Supreme Court ruled 7-2 on January 22, 1973, in Roe v. Wade, that the Constitution’s right to privacy protected a woman’s right to obtain an abortion. The decision struck down abortion restrictions in 46 states. It remained the law of the land for 49 years until the Court overturned it in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization in June 2022. Its arrival in 1973 and its departure in 2022 were both among the most significant political events of their respective decades.

The Oil Embargo

On October 17, 1973, the Arab members of OPEC announced an oil embargo against the United States, Western Europe, and Japan in retaliation for their support of Israel in the Yom Kippur War. The price of oil quadrupled. Gasoline, which had sold for about 38 cents per gallon before the embargo, quickly became scarce and then expensive. Gas stations closed on Sundays, then ran out of fuel entirely. Lines stretched for blocks. Drivers with odd-numbered license plates bought gas on odd days; even-numbered plates on even days.

The embargo lasted until March 1974, but its effects permanently reshaped American energy policy, automobile design, and geopolitics. The interstate speed limit was reduced to 55 miles per hour as a fuel-conservation measure, enforced nationwide under threat of loss of federal highway funds. Daylight Saving Time was moved to begin in January rather than April. The Alaska Pipeline was authorized. American appetite for large fuel-inefficient cars began, slowly, to shift.

The Battle of the Sexes

On September 20, 1973, Billie Jean King, age 29, defeated Bobby Riggs, age 55, in straight sets — 6-4, 6-3, 6-3 — in a match billed as the “Battle of the Sexes” before 30,492 spectators at the Houston Astrodome and an estimated 90 million television viewers in 36 countries. Earlier in the year, Riggs defeated Margaret Court, the world’s #1 women’s player, 6-2, 6-1, to set up the challenge. He arrived at the Astrodome in a cart pulled by women. King was carried in on a golden litter. She won in one hour and fifteen minutes. Riggs paid King a $100,000 check and said she was “too good.” The match had a measurable effect on women’s participation in sports and on public attitudes about professional women’s athletics.

Pop Culture Facts and History

The Exorcist, directed by William Friedkin and released on December 26, 1973, was the first horror film nominated for the Academy Award for Best Picture and became one of the highest-grossing films in American history. The film depicted the demonic possession of a 12-year-old girl. Audiences fainted in theaters. Ambulances were called to screenings. Some theaters provided barf bags. Lines wrapped around the block in winter weather for weeks. The Catholic Church reported increased requests for exorcisms in the months following the film’s release. It remains the most sustained mass public reaction to any single film since Birth of a Nation in 1915.

American Graffiti, directed by George Lucas and released on August 1, 1973, was a coming-of-age film set on a single night in 1962 in California. Made for approximately $775,000, it grossed over $140 million worldwide and was nominated for five Academy Awards. It launched the careers of Richard Dreyfuss, Ron Howard, Harrison Ford, and Cindy Williams simultaneously. The film’s success gave Lucas the credibility and financing to develop his next project, which he called Star Wars.

The Sting, directed by George Roy Hill and starring Paul Newman and Robert Redford, won seven Academy Awards, including Best Picture. It introduced a Scott Joplin ragtime soundtrack to mass audiences — the Joplin revival it triggered produced the year’s best-selling soundtrack album.

Hip-hop was born on August 11, 1973, at a back-to-school block party in the Bronx organized by Clive Campbell — DJ Kool Herc — at 1520 Sedgwick Avenue. Campbell used two turntables to extend the percussion breaks on funk and soul records, creating continuous loops of the most danceable moments. The technique — the “Merry-Go-Round” — became the foundational element of hip-hop production. The party is now celebrated as the birth date of one of the most globally influential musical genres in history.

Pink Floyd’s The Dark Side of the Moon was released on March 1, 1973. It spent 741 consecutive weeks on the Billboard charts from 1973 to 1988. In total it charted for over 917 weeks — a record that has never been approached. The album addressed time, greed, mental illness, and death with unprecedented sonic ambition. Its sales have been estimated at between 45 and 50 million copies. Many people who were not yet born when it was released have heard it so many times they know every note.

Bob Fosse became the only person in history to win an Oscar, an Emmy, and a Tony in the same calendar year — 1973. The Oscar was for Cabaret, the Tony was for Pippin, and the Emmy was for Liza with a Z. The achievement is sometimes called the “Triple Crown” of entertainment awards.

The first handheld mobile phone call was made on April 3, 1973, by Martin Cooper, a Motorola engineer, on a street corner in New York City. He called Joel Engel, his counterpart at Bell Labs. The phone weighed 2.5 pounds, was 9 inches tall, and provided 30 minutes of talk time before requiring a 10-hour recharge. Cooper was asked afterward what Engel said. Cooper said he didn’t remember. The patent was filed in June 1973. Commercial mobile phones reached the market in 1983.

Secretariat won the Triple Crown in 1973 — the Kentucky Derby, Preakness Stakes, and Belmont Stakes — in the most dominant fashion in thoroughbred racing history. At the Belmont Stakes on June 9, he won by 31 lengths, setting a track record of 2:24 that still stands. His Kentucky Derby time of 1:59 2/5 was the first time the Derby had been run in under two minutes; that record also still stands. When Secretariat died in 1989, his heart weighed 22 pounds — approximately three times the size of a normal thoroughbred heart. Veterinarians believe the heart was the physiological source of his extraordinary capacity.

Led Zeppelin’s 1973 American tour was the largest and most successful rock tour to that point. The band flew between cities on a Boeing 720B they leased and nicknamed “The Starship,” paying $30,000 for it. During a layover, $203,000 in cash from the New York concert proceeds was stolen from their hotel safety deposit box. The theft has never been solved. Drummer John Bonham allegedly flew the plane between New York and Los Angeles on one occasion despite lacking a pilot’s license.

KISS played their first concert on January 30, 1973, at the Coventry club in Queens, New York. Fewer than ten people attended. The band was paid $50. Within two years, they had become one of the most commercially successful rock acts in America, demonstrating that face paint, platform boots, and theatrical volume covered a multitude of gaps.

Johnny Carson made a joke on The Tonight Show in December 1973 about a rumored toilet paper shortage. The joke was based on a memo from a Wisconsin congressman about potential paper shortages. There was no actual shortage. Viewers panicked, rushed to buy toilet paper, and created the shortage the joke had described. Store shelves were bare of toilet paper across the country for weeks. Carson later apologized for inadvertently causing the crisis.

The American Psychiatric Association voted on December 15, 1973, to remove homosexuality from the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders — reversing a classification that had been in place since the DSM’s first edition in 1952. The vote followed years of activism and a direct confrontation at the 1970 APA conference. The decision did not immediately change American society’s treatment of gay people, but it removed the formal medical justification for “treatment” that many had been subjected to involuntarily.

Marlon Brando won the Academy Award for Best Actor for The Godfather but declined to accept it in person. He sent activist Sacheen Littlefeather to the ceremony to read a statement about Hollywood’s treatment of Native Americans. Littlefeather was met with booing from part of the audience and reportedly threatened backstage. Brando’s statement was one of the most high-profile political acts in Oscar history.

MRI — magnetic resonance imaging — was invented in 1973 by chemist Paul Lauterbur, who published his initial paper in Nature that same month. The technology produced detailed images of soft tissue inside the human body without radiation by using magnetic fields and radio waves. It became the most important diagnostic imaging advance in medical history. Lauterbur received the Nobel Prize in Medicine in 2003.

The first airbag in a production automobile was offered as an option in the 1973 Oldsmobile Toronado. Few were sold. The technology did not become standard until the 1990s.

Spiro Agnew resigned as Vice President of the United States on October 10, 1973, pleading no contest to federal income tax evasion in exchange for the dropping of more serious corruption charges. He was fined $10,000 and sentenced to probation. He was the first vice president in American history to resign for criminal reasons. Gerald Ford was appointed to replace him under the 25th Amendment — the first use of that provision.

The Sydney Opera House officially opened on October 20, 1973, by Queen Elizabeth II. Designed by Danish architect Jørn Utzon, the building had been under construction since 1959 and was so far over budget and behind schedule that Utzon had quit in 1966. It became one of the most recognized buildings in the world and was declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2007.

The Sears Tower was completed in 1973 in Chicago, becoming the world’s tallest building at 1,451 feet. It held that title for 25 years until the Petronas Towers in Kuala Lumpur surpassed it in 1998.

The World Trade Center opened officially on April 4, 1973, in Lower Manhattan. The Twin Towers replaced the Empire State Building as the world’s tallest building. They held that distinction for only about a year before the Sears Tower surpassed them. They remained the most recognizable features of the New York skyline until September 11, 2001.

Federal Express began operations on April 17, 1973, from Memphis, Tennessee, with 14 aircraft delivering 186 packages to 25 cities. The founder, Fred Smith, had proposed the concept in a Yale undergraduate thesis. His professor reportedly gave him a C, noting that the concept was interesting but that the feasibility study was inadequate for commercial success.

The DEA — the Drug Enforcement Administration — was established by President Nixon on July 1, 1973, through executive order, consolidating several federal drug enforcement agencies into a single unit. Its founding coincided with Nixon’s declaration of the “War on Drugs,” which he had announced in 1971.

Stanley Kubrick personally ordered A Clockwork Orange withdrawn from distribution in the United Kingdom in 1973, after the film was blamed for inspiring copycat crimes. Kubrick owned the distribution rights to the film in Britain. It was not seen legally in the UK until after his death in 1999.

John Paul Getty III, 16-year-old grandson of oil billionaire J. Paul Getty, was kidnapped in Rome on July 10, 1973. The kidnappers initially demanded $17 million. The elder Getty refused to pay, saying he had 14 grandchildren and that paying would make them all targets. In November, a severed ear and a lock of hair arrived at an Italian newspaper. Getty ultimately negotiated a payment of $2.2 million — the maximum amount deductible as a charitable donation under then-current tax law. His grandson was released.

The words “factoid,” “televangelist,” “food processor,” “hot tub,” “pro-choice,” “soccer mom,” and “trauma center” all appeared in print for the first time in 1973. The decade was inventing its vocabulary.

An MIT computer simulation study called “The Limits to Growth,” published in 1972 and widely discussed in 1973, predicted that industrial society would collapse sometime around 2040 if current growth trends in population, industrialization, and resource consumption continued. The study’s predictions have been periodically revisited; some of its trajectories have tracked closely with actual outcomes.

Garlic knots were invented in 1973 in Ozone Park, Queens, New York, by pizzeria workers who used leftover pizza dough scraps rather than discarding them. Several neighboring pizzerias reportedly developed the same idea within days of each other. The garlic knot has been a New York pizzeria staple ever since.

The Volcano on Heimaey, Iceland, erupted in January 1973 and threatened to destroy the town of Vestmannaeyjar. Rather than evacuate permanently, the island’s residents pumped approximately six million tons of seawater onto the advancing lava flow, cooling and hardening it into a barrier that redirected the lava into the harbor. The technique worked. The town survived with most of its structures intact. As a bonus, the harbor was improved by the volcanic addition.

Spencer Haywood was offered a 10% partnership stake in Nike in the early 1970s in lieu of a cash payment. He took the $100,000 cash instead. By 2022, Nike’s market capitalization made the 10% stake worth approximately $12.4 billion. It is one of the most expensive single financial decisions in sports history.

The Scandals

Two New York Yankees pitchers, Fritz Peterson and Mike Kekich, announced at separate press conferences in March 1973 that they had traded families — wives, children, and dogs. The announcement shocked the baseball world considerably. Kekich’s relationship with Peterson’s family did not last; Peterson eventually married Kekich’s wife and remained with her for decades.

The 1973 Soap Box Derby winner, 14-year-old Jimmy Gronen of Boulder, Colorado, was stripped of his title when officials discovered his car contained an electromagnet in the nose. When activated, the magnet attracted the steel starting paddle, giving the car a forward surge at the start of the race. His uncle, Robert Lange Sr., had designed the car. The scandal prompted the All-American Soap Box Derby to implement comprehensive inspection procedures.

Nobel Prize Winners

Physics — Leo Esaki, Ivar Giaever, and Brian David Josephson for their experimental discoveries regarding tunneling phenomena in semiconductors and superconductors, foundational to modern electronics and quantum physics
Chemistry — Ernst Otto Fischer and Geoffrey Wilkinson for their pioneering work in organometallic chemistry
Medicine — Karl von Frisch, Konrad Lorenz, and Nikolaas Tinbergen for their discoveries concerning the organization and elicitation of individual and social behavior patterns in animals; the “bee dance” communication research of von Frisch was foundational to understanding animal language
Literature — Patrick White, Australian novelist, for an epic and psychological narrative art that has introduced a new continent into literature
Peace — Henry Kissinger and Le Duc Tho for the Paris Peace Accords; Le Duc Tho was the only person in history to decline the Nobel Peace Prize, stating that peace had not in fact been achieved in Vietnam; Kissinger accepted his share

Broadway in 1973

A Little Night Music opened February 25, 1973, at the Shubert Theatre, with music and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim and book by Hugh Wheeler. It won the Tony Award for Best Musical and introduced Send in the Clowns, which became one of the most performed theater songs in Broadway history.

Pippin opened October 23, 1972, and ran through 1977, winning five Tony Awards in 1973, including Best Director for Bob Fosse — one of his three major awards that year.

Best Film Oscar Winner

The Godfather, directed by Francis Ford Coppola and starring Marlon Brando, Al Pacino, James Caan, and Robert Duvall, won Best Picture at the 45th Academy Awards on March 27, 1973, presented for the 1972 film year. Brando won Best Actor and declined the award in protest. The Godfather had grossed over $245 million worldwide, making it the highest-grossing film in history at that time.

Top Movies of 1973

1. The Exorcist
2. The Sting
3. American Graffiti
4. Papillon
5. The Way We Were
6. Magnum Force
7. Serpico
8. Last Tango in Paris
9. Paper Moon
10. Enter the Dragon

Most Popular TV Shows of 1973

1. All in the Family (CBS)
2. The Waltons (CBS)
3. Sanford and Son (NBC)
4. M*A*S*H (CBS)
5. Hawaii Five-O (CBS)
6. Maude (CBS)
7. Kojak (CBS)
8. The Sonny and Cher Comedy Hour (CBS)
9. The Mary Tyler Moore Show (CBS)
10. Cannon (CBS)

Schoolhouse Rock premiered on ABC in January 1973, between Saturday morning cartoon segments, teaching grammar and arithmetic to children through three-minute animated musical shorts. I’m Just a Bill, Conjunction Junction, and Three Is a Magic Number entered the long-term memory of an entire generation of American children and have been retrieved from it at unexpected moments ever since.

1973 Billboard Number One Songs

December 16, 1972 – January 5, 1973: Me and Mrs. Jones — Billy Paul
January 6 – January 26: You’re So Vain — Carly Simon
January 27 – February 2: Superstition — Stevie Wonder
February 3 – February 23: Crocodile Rock — Elton John
February 24 – March 23: Killing Me Softly with His Song — Roberta Flack
March 24 – April 6: Love Train — The O’Jays
April 7 – April 20: The Night the Lights Went Out in Georgia — Vicki Lawrence
April 21 – May 18: Tie a Yellow Ribbon Round the Ole Oak Tree — Dawn featuring Tony Orlando
May 19 – May 25: You Are the Sunshine of My Life — Stevie Wonder
May 26 – June 1: My Love — Paul McCartney and Wings
June 2 – June 29: Give Me Love (Give Me Peace on Earth) — George Harrison
June 30 – July 6: Will It Go Round in Circles — Billy Preston
July 7 – July 20: Bad, Bad Leroy Brown — Jim Croce
August 4 – August 17: The Morning After — Maureen McGovern
August 18 – August 25: Touch Me in the Morning — Diana Ross
August 25 – September 8: Brother Louie — Stories
September 8 – September 14: Let’s Get It On — Marvin Gaye
September 15 – September 28: Delta Dawn — Helen Reddy
September 29 – October 5: We’re an American Band — Grand Funk
October 6 – October 19: Half-Breed — Cher
October 20 – October 26: Angie — The Rolling Stones
October 27 – November 9: Midnight Train to Georgia — Gladys Knight and the Pips
November 10 – November 23: Keep On Truckin’ — Eddie Kendricks
November 24 – November 30: Photograph — Ringo Starr
December 1 – December 14: Top of the World — The Carpenters
December 15 – December 28: The Most Beautiful Girl — Charlie Rich
December 29, 1973 – January 11, 1974: Time in a Bottle — Jim Croce (posthumous)

Jim Croce’s Time in a Bottle reached #1 three months after his death in September 1973 — one of the most bittersweet chart moments of the decade. Stevie Wonder had two separate #1 singles in 1973 and was also involved in a serious car accident in August that left him in a coma for ten days, during which he reportedly responded to a friend singing his own Higher Ground to him. You’re So Vain by Carly Simon has generated 50 years of speculation about its subject. Simon confirmed it was about Warren Beatty — at least the second verse.

Biggest Pop Artists of 1973

Stevie Wonder, Carly Simon, Jim Croce, The Carpenters, Elton John, Roberta Flack, Tony Orlando and Dawn, Marvin Gaye, Paul McCartney and Wings, George Harrison, Gladys Knight and the Pips, The Rolling Stones, Diana Ross, Cher, Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, The Allman Brothers Band, Grand Funk Railroad

Popular and Best-Selling Books of 1973

Breakfast of Champions — Kurt Vonnegut Burr — Gore Vidal Fear of Flying — Erica Jong Gravity’s Rainbow — Thomas Pynchon Jonathan Livingston Seagull — Richard Bach The Odessa File — Frederick Forsyth The Princess Bride — William Goldman Sula — Toni Morrison Where the Red Fern Grows — Wilson Rawls

Fear of Flying by Erica Jong was the first mainstream American novel to depict female sexuality from a female perspective with complete frankness, using language and situations that had previously appeared only in work by male authors. It sold over 20 million copies, was translated into 27 languages, and permanently changed the landscape of what American women could publish and how.

The Princess Bride was published in 1973 as William Goldman’s “abridgment” of a fictional earlier work by “S. Morgenstern,” a framing device Goldman invented entirely. The book sold modestly. Goldman later adapted it as the 1987 film. The book and film together have generated one of the most loyal fan followings of any narrative work of the last half-century.

The Habits

Playing Pong, watching All in the Family and then arguing about it; wearing platform shoes; listening to Dark Side of the Moon all the way through; reading Fear of Flying and hoping no one saw the cover; and waiting in line for gas on the wrong day because you forgot whether your plate was odd or even.

Sports Champions of 1973

World Series: Oakland Athletics defeated the New York Mets 4-3 in seven games; their second consecutive championship; Reggie Jackson won Series MVP
Super Bowl VII: Miami Dolphins defeated the Washington Redskins 14-7 on January 14, 1973; the Dolphins completed the first and only perfect season in NFL history, finishing 17-0; kicker Garo Yepremian threw an attempted pass that was caught and returned for a touchdown, nearly ruining the perfect season in the final minutes
NBA Champions: New York Knicks defeated the Los Angeles Lakers 4-1
Stanley Cup: Montreal Canadiens defeated the Chicago Blackhawks 4-2
U.S. Open Golf: Johnny Miller shot a final-round 63 at Oakmont, considered one of the greatest rounds in major championship history
U.S. Open Tennis:  Men/Women: John Newcombe / Margaret Smith Court
Wimbledon:  Men/Women: Jan Kodes / Billie Jean King
NCAA Football Champions: Alabama and Notre Dame (co-champions)
NCAA Basketball Champions: UCLA,  their seventh consecutive national championship under coach John Wooden; center Bill Walton shot 21 for 22 from the field and scored 44 points in the championship game
Kentucky Derby: Secretariat, the first Triple Crown winner since Citation in 1948; his Belmont Stakes victory by 31 lengths remains the most dominant performance in Triple Crown history

Sports Highlight: Secretariat’s 1973 Triple Crown campaign is considered the greatest individual performance in the history of American horse racing. His 31-length Belmont Stakes victory was described by broadcaster Chic Anderson as: “Secretariat is widening now! He is moving like a tremendous machine!” The Miami Dolphins’ perfect 17-0 season is the only undefeated championship campaign in NFL history. Billie Jean King’s Battle of the Sexes victory over Bobby Riggs before 90 million television viewers was one of the most-watched sporting events of the decade.

FAQ — 1973 History, Facts and Trivia

Q: What were the Paris Peace Accords?
A: Signed January 27, 1973, the Paris Peace Accords ended direct U.S. military involvement in the Vietnam War, called for a ceasefire, and authorized the withdrawal of American forces. The last U.S. combat troops left in March 1973. The war between North and South Vietnam continued until April 1975, when North Vietnamese forces captured Saigon.

Q: What was the Saturday Night Massacre?
A: On October 20, 1973, Nixon ordered Attorney General Elliot Richardson to fire Watergate special prosecutor Archibald Cox, who had subpoenaed the White House tape recordings. Richardson refused and resigned. Deputy Attorney General William Ruckelshaus also refused and resigned. Solicitor General Robert Bork then carried out the firing. The firings accelerated impeachment proceedings.

Q: What was the Battle of the Sexes?
A: A tennis match on September 20, 1973, between Bobby Riggs,  a 55-year-old former champion who had loudly claimed women couldn’t beat a man his age,  and Billie Jean King, age 29 and the world’s top women’s player. King won 6-4, 6-3, 6-3, before 30,492 people at the Houston Astrodome and an estimated 90 million television viewers worldwide.

Q: When was hip-hop born?
A: August 11, 1973, at a back-to-school block party in the Bronx organized by DJ Kool Herc at 1520 Sedgwick Avenue. Herc used two turntables to extend the percussion breaks on records, creating a foundational technique in hip-hop production. The address is now a New York City landmark.

Q: How dominant was Secretariat’s Triple Crown?
A: Secretariat set track records in all three races that still stand. He won the Belmont Stakes by 31 lengths. His Kentucky Derby time of 1:59 2/5 was the first sub-two-minute Derby in history. His heart was found upon his death to weigh 22 pounds — three times the normal size — which physiologists believe was the source of his extraordinary endurance.

Q: What effect did The Exorcist have on audiences?
A: Audiences fainted, vomited, and fled screenings. Some theaters stationed ambulances outside. Churches reported increased requests for exorcisms. The film was the highest-grossing of the year and the first horror film nominated for Best Picture. Its impact on mass public behavior at theatrical screenings has no equivalent in modern film history.

Q: What did the American Psychiatric Association do in 1973?
A: On December 15, 1973, it voted to remove homosexuality from the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders — reversing a classification that had been used to justify involuntary “treatment” since the DSM’s first edition in 1952. The vote was a significant milestone in the modern LGBTQ rights movement.

Q: What was Dark Side of the Moon‘s chart record?
A: Pink Floyd’s The Dark Side of the Moon charted for 741 consecutive weeks on the Billboard charts from 1973 to 1988 and for a total of over 917 weeks across multiple chart runs — both records that have never been approached by any other album.

More 1973 Facts & History Resources:

Most Popular Baby Names (BabyCenter.com)
Popular and Notable Books (popculture.us)
Broadway Shows that Opened in 1973X
1973 Calendar, courtesy of Time and Date.com
Fact Monster
1970s, Infoplease.com World History
1973 in Movies (according to IMDB)
Retrowaste Vintage Culture
Rewind365: 1973
Roe v. Wade
1970s Slang
Wikipedia 1973
Yom Kippur War 1973