Hal Mohr, American cinematographer responsible for The Jazz Singer (1927); Phantom of the Opera (1943); and 80 other films, dies in Santa Monica, California. He was 79.

Legendary actor and dancer Fred Astaire celebrates his 75th birthday.

Two Chicago Transit Authority elevated trains collide, injuring 222 people. Nobody is killed.

The New York Nets defeat the visiting Utah Stars 111-100 to win the American Basketball Association championship 4-1.

G. Gordon Liddy, already convicted of crimes in the Watergate Scandal, is found guilty of contempt of Congress.

Six months are added to his sentence.

President of the Dominican Republic Joaquín Balaguer and six associates are involved in a helicopter crash, but they escape just before the burning aircraft explodes.

Northern Irish terrorist Brendan Hughes, commanding officer of the Belfast Brigade of the IRA, is arrested in Belfast.

Prisoners in Alessandria, Italy take 21 hostages inside a prison hospital.

Police storm the hospital, killing four inmates and two hostages and wounding 15 others.

A massive 7.1 earthquake strikes Zhaotong, China, triggering hundreds of landslides. Between 5,000 and 20,000 people are killed and up to 100,000 are made homeless.

Six people belonging to one family are killed in a house fire in Brooklyn, New York City.

Bob Dylan and his friends throw a benefit concert in Madison Square Garden, New York City, for the victims of Chilean Generalissimo Augusto Pinochet.

The Savannah, Georgia Civic Center opens.

Bus drivers in Washington, DC strike. Promptly, the streets fill with private vehicle traffic that is impossible to navigate as 250,000 commuters who normally take the bus decide to drive instead.

The House of Representatives’ impeachment proceedings against President Nixon commence.

If successful here and in the Senate, President Nixon may be removed from office.

The Prague, Czechoslovakia Metro is inaugurated.

An Aeroflot Il-18 overruns the runway at Ivano-Frankovsk, Ukrainian SSR, and crashes into a ravine.

The plane breaks in two and catches on fire, but miraculously nobody is killed.

Robert Cutler, the first-ever US National Security Advisor (under President Eisenhower), dies in Concord, Massachusetts. He was 78.

Author and Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel’s play Zalmen, or The Madness of God, premieres at the Arena Stage in Washington, DC.

Daniel Oduber Quirós takes office as President of Costa Rica.