Contemporary
SALT I and the ABM Treaty (1972): First Strategic Arms Limits
The superpowers limited anti-ballistic missile defences and froze their numbers of strategic missile launchers for five years.
Region
Americas
Contemporary
Title IX (1972): The Law That Transformed Women's Sport in the US
Federal law barred sex discrimination in any education programme receiving federal funds, leading to a large expansion of girls' and women's sport.
Contemporary
Pioneer 10 (1972): The First Spacecraft to Reach Jupiter
Pioneer 10 crossed the asteroid belt safely, returned the first close-up images and measurements of Jupiter and became the first spacecraft set to leave the solar system.
Contemporary
Apollo 17 (1972): The Last Crewed Moon Landing
Two astronauts spent about three days on the Moon and returned the largest haul of lunar samples of any Apollo mission; no human has landed on the Moon since.
Contemporary
Chilean Coup of 1973: Pinochet Overthrows Salvador Allende
The elected Popular Unity government fell, Allende died in La Moneda, and a military junta led by Augusto Pinochet ruled Chile until 1990.
Contemporary
APA Removes Homosexuality from the DSM (1973): A Turning Point
The APA Board of Trustees voted to delete homosexuality as a mental disorder from the DSM-II, a decision upheld by a membership referendum in 1974.
Contemporary
Wounded Knee Occupation (1973): AIM's 71-Day Standoff
The occupation ended by agreement after 71 days with two occupiers dead and a federal marshal paralysed; it drew national attention to Native American grievances.
Contemporary
Battle of the Sexes (1973): Billie Jean King vs Bobby Riggs
King won 6–4, 6–3, 6–3, a widely watched victory that boosted women's professional tennis and the wider campaign for equality in sport.
Contemporary
Roe v. Wade (1973): The Supreme Court Abortion Ruling
The Supreme Court ruled 7-2 that the Constitution protects a woman's decision to have an abortion, striking down most state bans; the decision was overruled in 2022.
Contemporary
Skylab (1973-1979): America's First Space Station
Three crews spent a total of 171 days aboard, proving that astronauts could live and work in orbit for months; the empty station re-entered over the Indian Ocean and Western Australia in 1979.
Contemporary
First Handheld Mobile Phone Call (1973): Martin Cooper
Motorola showed that a cellular telephone could be carried in the hand, beginning a ten-year path to the first commercial handheld mobile phone in 1983.
Contemporary
Arecibo Message (1974): Humanity's Radio Signal to the Stars
A three-minute coded radio message was transmitted towards the globular cluster M13 as a symbolic demonstration of the upgraded Arecibo telescope.