1973 Archives - PopHistory.org

Miami Dolphins win Super Bowl VII to cap NFL’s only perfect season

On January 14, 1973, the Miami Dolphins achieve something no NFL team has repeated: a perfect season. Despite a gaffe by kicker Garo Yepremian that has earned its own place in history, the Dolphins hold on to beat Washington, 14-7, in Super Bowl VII, capping a 17-0 season.

The Dolphins, 10-3-1 the previous season, were the defending AFC champions. Despite being blown out by the Dallas Cowboys in Super Bowl VI, they were early favorites to win the relatively weak AFC East. Miami survived close calls with the Minnesota Vikings and Buffalo Bills early in the season and lost their starting quarterback, Bob Griese, to injury in Week 5.

With veteran backup Earl Morrall leading the offense, the Dolphins forged ahead, piling up wins and then turning heads with their 52-0 victory over the New England Patriots—head coach Don Shula’s 100th NFL win.

The team benefitted from depth at running back, as Larry Csonka and Eugene “Mercury” Morris became the first teammates to rush for 1,000 yards each in a season. Shula pulled Morrall in favor of Griese midway through the AFC Championship Game against the Pittsburgh Steelers, won 21-17 by the Dolphins in Pittsburgh.

Two weeks later, Super Bowl VII took place before 90,182 fans at Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum. Neither team’s quarterback played well—Griese passed for only 88 yards, and Washington’s Billy Kilmer set a Super Bowl record by throwing three interceptions.

Shula and his kicker nearly combined to ruin the perfect season with a decision the Miami head coach later admitted was based on his desire to cap a 17-0 season with a 17-0 win.

With just over two minutes left, instead of going for it on fourth-and-4 in Washington territory, Shula had Yepremian attempt a 42-yard field goal. The kick was blocked, and Yepremian’s attempt to salvage the play resulted in a fumble, which cornerback Mike Bass returned 49 yards for a touchdown.

“I shoulda just fallen on the ball,” Yepremian told reporters. “I shoulda ate it, but I made a mistake.”

Dolphins safety Jake Scott, who had two interceptions, was named MVP of the game.

The Dolphins were the first team to reach the Super Bowl with a perfect record. The second team to do so, the 2007 Patriots, rode an 18-game winning streak into Super Bowl XLII but lost that game, 17-14, to the New York Giants.

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George Steinbrenner’s group buys Yankees from CBS

On January 3, 1973, a 12-member group headed by George Steinbrenner purchases the New York Yankees for $10 million from Columbia Broadcasting System, which owned the team since 1964. The group includes CBS’s Yankees president Michael Burke, who briefly serves in that role under Steinbrenner. Known by many as “The Boss,” Steinbrenner goes on to become one of the more controversial owners in sports history.

Steinbrenner’s initial investment was actually fairly small: $168,000, which was a little less than a 2 percent ownership stake. However, over the years he wrestled majority ownership of the team from others. Four months after Steinbrenner’s purchase, Burke resigned his position. When he died in 2010, Steinbrenner owned 57 percent of the team, Business Insider reported.

Steinbrenner, who made his fortune in the shipping industry, had a football background—he served as a graduate assistant at Ohio State under legendary coach Woody Hayes.

Like Hayes, Steinbrenner had a bristling personality. As former Yankees general manager Bob Watson once put it, “If things go right, they’re his team. If things go wrong, they’re your team. His favorite line is, ‘I will never have a heart attack. I give them.'”

“The Boss” could be abrasive in the media toward his own players and managers. He hired and fired Billy Martin five times as manager and wouldn’t let players have facial hair below their upper lip. (He was mocked on the TV show The Simpsons for that.) Steinbrenner was even banned from Major League Baseball for a period of time after pleading guilty to making illegal contributions to the presidential re-election campaign of Richard Nixon.

Over the course of Steinbrenner’s ownership, the Yankees won seven World Series and 11 American League pennants. The team is one of the most valuable in sports.

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Endangered Species Act signed into law

On December 28, 1973, President Richard Nixon signs the Endangered Species Act into law. The act, which Nixon called for the previous year, is considered one of the most significant and influential environmental laws in American history.

The government started taking action to protect endangered species in the early 1900s, as it became apparent that hunting, industry and deforestation were capable of wiping out entire species. The near-extinction of the bison, once extremely common in North America, provided ample evidence that such protections were necessary, as did the death of the last passenger pigeon in 1901. Early acts of Congress focused mostly on animals that were commonly hunted, and although the Department of the Interior began publishing a list of endangered species in 1967, it did not have the adequate powers to help animals in need.

Recognizing the need for proactive legislation, Nixon asked Congress to expand protections. The result was the 1973 Endangered Species Act. Among other things, it mandated that the federal government keep a list of all species in need of protection, prohibited federal agencies from jeopardizing such species or their habitats, and empowered the government to do more to protect wildlife. Though the Act only applied to the actions of the federal government, it was wildly successful. In its first 30 years, the less than one percent of the plants and animals added to the Endangered Species List went extinct, while more than 100 showed a 90 percent recovery rate. Over 200,000 acres of crucial habitats have also been protected under the act. The ESA is widely regarded as the strongest endangered species law in the world, and one of the most successful pieces of environmental legislation in history.

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World Trade Center, then the world’s tallest building, opens in New York City

Year: 1973

Month Day: April 04

The “Twin Towers” of the World Trade Center officially open in New York City. The buildings replaced the Empire State Building as the world’s tallest building. Though they would only hold that title for a year, they remained a dominant feature of the city’s skyline and were recognizable the world over long before they were destroyed in a terrorist attack in 2001.

Planning, designing and clearing space for the World Trade Center took over a decade. The New York State Legislature originally approved the idea in 1943, but concrete plans did not materialize until the 1960s. The deal that created the new complex, of which the Twin Towers would be the centerpiece, also included the creation of the Port Authority Trans-Hudson Corporation, or PATH, to operate the trains which entered Manhattan from New Jersey on what was to become the grounds of the WTC. Architect Minoru Yamasaki drew inspiration from Arabic architecture for the towers’ design. In order to efficiently move people up and down the 110-story towers, Yamasaki and his team developed the concept of express elevators—based on the New York City Subway’s system of express and local trains—that traveled directly to “sky lobbies” on the 44 and 78 floor, from which “local” elevators ran to neighboring floors. The first tenants moved into the North Tower in December of 1970, with the official opening of both buildings taking place over two years later.

The towers’ construction ended the Empire State Building’s 41-year run as the tallest building in the world. They were replaced by Chicago’s Sears Tower the following year, an indication of the rising trend of supertall construction. The World Trade Center dramatically altered the New York skyline and the cityscape of Lower Manhattan. As such, they were often used as a shorthand for the area in visual media, and were frequently included in establishing shots of films set in New York. Though most of the World Trade Center was occupied by office space, the Top of the World Observation Deck on the South Tower became a popular tourist destination, as did the North Tower’s Windows on the World restaurant, which featured its own wine school.

The towers were first targeted by terrorists in 1993, when a bomb exploded in the garage under the North Tower, killing six and injuring over 1,000. The Twin Towers were destroyed, and were the site of the vast majorities of the casualties, on September 11, 2001, a final chapter that has since overshadowed the rest of the World Trade Center’s story. The building that replaced them, One World Trade Center, was completed in 2014 and is currently the seventh-tallest building in the world.

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Maurice Ferré becomes first Puerto Rican to lead a major U.S. mainland city

Year: 1973

Month Day: November 08

On November 8, 1973, Maurice Ferré is elected Mayor of Miami, Florida. In addition to becoming the first Puerto Rican to lead a major city in the mainland United States and the first Hispanic Mayor of Miami, Ferré is credited from transforming Maimi from a tourist town into an international city.

The Ferré Family was one of the wealthiest in Puerto Rico, and Ferré’s relatives included prominent politicians, novelists, and industrialists. Ferré served briefly in the Florida House of Representatives before being elected Mayor in 1973. He would hold the position until 1985, serving six two-year terms. Despite being a “weak mayor”—the Mayor of Miami was just one of five commissioners and did not have the power to unilaterally make appointments—Ferré transformed the city. He immediately set about challenging the “non-group,” a cabal of white businessmen who had effectively run the city for the last several decades, and integrating a city that was still largely segregated. With the help of two allies on the city’s governing commission—the black civil rights leader Rev. Theodore Gibson and Manolo Reboso, the city’s first Cuban-born elected official—Ferré appointed the first black city attorney, the first black city manager, and the first two black police chiefs. He and that attorney, George Knox, convinced the federal government to sue the city for discrimination, forcing the desegregation of the police and fire departments.

Known for his cosmopolitanism, Ferré sought to make Miami a global city rather than merely another East Coast beach town. “I had a clear vision that Miami really needed to look south,” he later told the Miami Herald. During his time as mayor, he expanded the city’s port, lured domestic and foreign banks to a newly-christened financial center, and welcomed the immigrants who poured in from Cuba. Among numerous other new developments, Ferré secured the site of AmericanAirlines Arena, home of the Miami Heat, for the city. His focus on building affordable housing and developing urban areas is credited with revitalizing much of the city and preventing suburban sprawl from consuming the Everglades. In many ways, his dream of an international hub and his infrastructure programs created Miami as it is known today.

Ferré’s tenure came to an end due to a trend he helped encourage: Cuban-American participation in city governance. After he was replaced by the city’s first Cuban-American mayor, Ferré held a number of posts in the public and private sectors and ran for senate unsuccessfully in 2010. Upon his death in September of 2019, both allies and bitter political rivals acknowledged his contributions to the city. His obituary in the Herald, whose board had once included members of the “non-group” he sought to destroy, referred to him as “the father of modern-day Miami.”

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Vice President Agnew resigns

Year: 1973

Month Day: October 10

Less than a year before Richard M. Nixon’s resignation as president of the United States, Spiro Agnew becomes the first U.S. vice president to resign in disgrace. The same day, he pleaded no contest to a charge of federal income tax evasion in exchange for the dropping of charges of political corruption. He was subsequently fined $10,000, sentenced to three years probation, and disbarred by the Maryland court of appeals.

Agnew, a Republican, was elected chief executive of Baltimore County in 1961. In 1967, he became governor of Maryland, an office he held until his nomination as the Republican vice presidential candidate in 1968. During Nixon’s successful campaign, Agnew ran on a tough law-and-order platform, and as vice president he frequently attacked opponents of the Vietnam War and liberals as being disloyal and un-American. Reelected with Nixon in 1972, Agnew resigned on October 10, 1973, after the U.S. Justice Department uncovered widespread evidence of his political corruption, including allegations that his practice of accepting bribes had continued into his tenure as U.S. vice president. He died at the age of 77 on September 17, 1996.

Under the process decreed by the 25th Amendment to the Constitution, President Nixon was instructed to the fill vacant office of vice president by nominating a candidate who then had to be approved by both houses of Congress. Nixon’s appointment of Representative Gerald Ford of Michigan was approved by Congress and, on December 6, Ford was sworn in. He became the 38th president of the United States on August 9, 1974, after the escalating Watergate affair caused Nixon to resign.

READ MORE: What Is the 25th Amendment?

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Stephenie Meyer, best-selling author of “Twilight” novels, is born

Updated:: Dec 20, 2019
Original:: May 9, 2011

Year: 1973

Month Day: December 24

On December 24, 1973, Stephenie Meyer, author of the “Twilight” novels, a vampire romance series for young adults that became a literary phenomenon, is born in Hartford, Connecticut.

Meyer, born Stephenie Morgan, was raised in Phoenix, Arizona, the second of six siblings. She married at 21 and graduated from Brigham Young University with a degree in English in 1997. Meyer was a stay-at-home mother of three boys in 2003 when the idea for “Twilight”—the story of teenager Bella Swann and her handsome vampire boyfriend Edward Cullen—came to her in a dream. Three months later, Meyer, who had never written seriously before, finished the manuscript for “Twilight.” After a string of rejections from literary agencies, she landed an agent and a $750,000, three-book deal. “Twilight,” released in 2005, went on to become a huge best-seller. Three more books in the series, which developed a massive following among young girls as well as grown women, followed: “New Moon” (2006), “Eclipse” (2007) and “Breaking Dawn” (2008). The books have sold more than 100 million copies worldwide and been translated into dozens of languages. Meyer’s Mormon faith has influenced her writing: While her “Twilight” characters aren’t Mormons, they don’t drink or smoke and there are no graphic sex scenes in her books.

In the summer of 2008, Meyer released a science-fiction novel marketed to adults, titled “The Host,” which like her earlier books became a best-seller. In November of that year, legions of “Twilight” fans, known as “Twihards,” flocked to movie theaters for the Hollywood adaptation of Meyer’s first novel. The film, starring Kristen Stewart as Bella and Robert Pattinson as Edward, was a box-office hit, and the other three novels in the series later received big-screen adaptations.

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Sydney Opera House opens

Year: 1973

Month Day: October 20

After 15 years of construction, the Sydney Opera House is dedicated by Queen Elizabeth II. The $80 million structure, designed by Danish architect Jørn Utzon and funded by the profits of the Opera House Lotteries, was built on Bennelong Point, in Sydney, Australia. Famous for its geometric roof shells, the structure contains several large auditoriums and presents an average of 3,000 events a year to an estimated two million people. The first performance in the complex was the Australian Opera’s production of Sergei Prokofiev’s War and Peace, which was held in the 1,547-seat Opera Theatre. Today, the Opera House remains Sydney’s best-known landmark.

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“Tie a Yellow Ribbon Round the Ole Oak Tree” tops the U.S. pop charts and creates a cultural phenomenon

Year: 1973

Month Day: April 21

The yellow ribbon has long been a symbol of support for absent or missing loved ones. There are some who believe that the tradition of the yellow ribbon dates back as far as the Civil War era, when a yellow ribbon in a woman’s hair indicated that she was “taken” by a man who was absent due to service in the United States Army Cavalry. But research by professional folklorists has found no evidence to support that story. The Library of Congress itself traces the cultural ubiquity of this powerful symbol to the well-known song by Tony Orlando and Dawn: “Tie a Yellow Ribbon Round the Ole Oak Tree,” which topped the U.S. pop charts on April 21, 1973.

“Tie a Yellow Ribbon” was a massive international hit, holding the top spot on both the U.S. and U.K. charts for four consecutive weeks and earning upwards of 3 million radio plays in 1973. It was sung from the perspective of a man returning home after three years in prison and looking anxiously for an agreed-upon sign that the woman he loves would welcome his return. Songwriters Irwin Levine and L. Russell Brown got the idea for the song from a story they’d heard while in the Army. New York newspaper columnist Pete Hamill sued Levine and Brown for copyright infringement because he believed they took the idea from a 1971 column of his relating a very similar story as fact. Hamill dropped his suit, however, when researchers uncovered multiple versions of the same general tale dating back at least as far as the 1950s. “Probably the story is one of these mysterious bits of folklore that emerge from the national subconscious to be told anew in one form or another,” Hamill said at the time. To use a more familiar term, it was an urban legend.

Fast-forward to January 1981, when the Library of Congress was inundated by press inquiries over the historical roots of the yellow ribbon. What prompted the sudden interest in the origins of the “tradition” was the spontaneous appearance all around the country of yellow ribbons welcoming the U.S. hostages home after 444 days in captivity in Iran. The Library’s experts heard assertions of connections to the 1949 John Wayne film She Wore a Yellow Ribbon, and they found a 1917 song called “Round Her Neck She Wears a Yeller Ribbon (For her Lover Who Is Fur, Fur Away),” but they found no actual evidence of anyone ever actually wearing yellow ribbons or tying them to trees, lampposts, etc. Instead, the Library of Congress ruled that the most compelling evidence explaining the origin of the yellow-ribbon “tradition” was to be found in a television interview with Penelope Laingen, wife of the U.S. Chargé d’Affaires in Tehran, whose ribbon-bedecked Maryland home appears to have started the trend in 1981. “It just came to me,” she said, “to give people something to do, rather than throw dog food at Iranians. I said, ‘Why don’t they tie a yellow ribbon around an old oak tree.’ That’s how it started.” Her reported inspiration: the Tony Orlando song that reached #1 on this day in 1973.

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Kidnapped grandson of Getty billionaire found

Updated:: Jul 27, 2019
Original:: Mar 4, 2010

Year: 1973

Month Day: December 15

Jean Paul Getty III, the grandson of American billionaire J. Paul Getty, is found alive near Naples, five months after his kidnapping by an Italian gang. J. Paul Getty, who became the richest man in the world in 1957, had initially refused to pay his 16-year-old grandson’s $17 million ransom but finally agreed to cooperate after the boy’s severed right ear was sent to a newspaper in Rome. He eventually secured his grandson’s release by paying just $2.7 million, the maximum amount that he claimed he was able to raise.

Born in Minneapolis in 1892, Getty inherited a small oil company from his father. Through his autocratic rule and skillful manipulation of the stock market, Getty soon shaped Getty Oil into a massive financial empire. By 1968, Getty’s fortune exceeded $1 billion. However, the world’s wealthiest man did not live an ideal life. He is remembered as an eccentric billionaire who married and divorced five times and had serious relationship problems with most of his five sons.

In the final 25 years of his life, Getty lived near London, England, in an estate surrounded by double barbed-wire fences and protected by plainclothes guards and more than 20 German shepherd attack dogs. He was also a notorious miser–his installation of a payphone for guests in his English mansion is a famous example. Three years after failing to pay his grandson’s ransom in a timely manner, J. Paul Getty died at the age of 83.

His children and former wives fought bitterly over the inheritance of his fortune in court, but ultimately the bulk of his billions went to the J. Paul Getty Museum “for the diffusion of artistic and general knowledge.” Today, the Getty Museum, based in Los Angeles, is the most richly endowed museum on earth.

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