January 1: First Apple Computer was sold.
January 25: The first Concorde (Air France flight 296) crossed the Atlantic Ocean in under 4 hours.
March 21: Former Australian Prime Minister Gough Whitlam led over 200,000 people to protest the dismissal of his Labour government by Governor-General Sir John Kerr.
March 24: Military junta takes control of government in Argentina, ousting President Isabel Perón.
April 1: Apple was founded by Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak.
April 12: The Khmer Rouge, led by Pol Pot, captured the Cambodian capital of Phnom Penh, establishing the Democratic Kampuchea regime.
June 19: Palestinian guerrillas attacked an Air France airliner at Entebbe Airport in Uganda. The raid by Israeli special forces rescued most of the hostages but also resulted in the deaths of an IDF soldier and several hostages.
July 20: The American Viking program landed Viking 1 on Mars, achieving the first successful landing on the planet.
July 23: The United Nations Development Program (UNDP) is founded.
July 28: A devastating earthquake measuring 7.8 on the Richter scale struck Tangshan, China, resulting in the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people.
August 22: The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) is established in the United States to coordinate disaster relief efforts.
September 11: Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet survived an assassination attempt by leftist guerrillas.
September 22: Soviet spacecraft Soyuz 22 launches with an all-female crew, Valery Ryumin and Valery Kubasov.
October 1: Stevie Wonder released the album "Songs in the Key of Life", considered one of the greatest albums of all time.
October 6: Fidel Castro became president of Cuba.
November 2: U.S. President Gerald Ford survived two assassination attempts in San Francisco and Sacramento, California.
November 23: King Faisal of Saudi Arabia was assassinated by his nephew, Prince Faisal bin Musaid.
December 15: The Seychelles gained independence from the United Kingdom.
December 25: Vietnamese forces captured Saigon, the capital of South Vietnam, effectively ending the Vietnam War and unifying the country under communist rule.