A Boeing 727 carrying TWA Flight 514 crashes 25 miles (40 km) northwest of Dulles International Airport during bad weather, killing all 92 people on board. The same day, in Havershaw, another plane of the same class crashes, causing the death of the three crew members.
In Addis Ababa, the City Hall and to the Webi Shebeli Hotel are bombed, carried out (according to the international press) by Eritrean nationalists. The Derg (revolutionary council) use the bombings as a pretext for hardened repression against the notables of the negus' regime.[1]
In Argelato (Bologna), the brigadier of carabineri Andrea Lombardini, in a routine patrol, is murdered with gunfire by five terrorists, who were preparing a robbery on a security officer. The killers, quickly arrested, are members of Lavoro Illegale ("Illegal work"), a terrorist organization come out of Potere Operaio, under the inspiration of Toni Negri, and later merged into the Red brigades. One of them, Bruno Valli, four days later hang himself in jail. The month sees also, in Italy, a series of demonstrative attacks by the Red Brigades against industrial managers.[2]
Dead: Pietro Germi, 60, actor and director, author of many masterpieces of neo-realism and Italian comedy.
In Arcore, the self-styled prince Luigi D'Angerio, leaving the Silvio Berlusconi's villa, escapes luckily a kidnapping; probable organizer of the abduction is the Mafioso Vittorio Mangano, Berlusconi's groom, arrested for fraud twenty days later. The episode, never fully explained, will arise, in the following decades, many suspects about the presumed links between the Milanese businessman and the organized crime.[3]
In Greece, a referendum (Greek republic referendum, 1974) confirms the end of the monarchy and the republican form of the state, with the 69.4% of votes.
At the Sistina Theatre in Rome, debuts "Aggiungi un posto a tavola" (Add a seat at the table), a musical comedy by Garinei and Giovannini, music by Armando Trovajoli. The piece, a pleasant modern version of the Noah's history, with Johnny Dorelli in the leading role of a witty country priest, gets an unheard-of success, staying on stage for a whole season, and becomes a classic of the Italian light theater.[4]
The Paris summit, reuniting the European Communities' heads of state and government, commences. It states the institution of the European Council and of the ERDF (European regional development fund) and the direct election of the European Parliament by citizens.
The Supreme court of Cassation transfers all the running enquiries about the Piazza Fontana bombing to the Catanzaro's seat. The decision avoids the incrimination of the Admiral Eugenio Henke, former director of the SID, by the Milan Procure, for the false leads fulfilled by the secret services.
The American congress, unanimously, votes the Jackson–Vanik amendment, linking the execution of the commercial treaties with Soviet Union to a more liberal politic by Moscow about the Jewish emigration.
In London, the Worsley Hotel is destroyed by an arson (seven victims)
The enquiry of the Padua procure about the "Compass Rose", an extreme-right secret society planning a military coup, causes the arrest of the general Ugo Ricci, charged of conspiracy against the state. Two weeks later, (December 30), the Supreme Court of Cassation transfers the enquiry to Rome, with a decision much discussed and seen as a cover-up.
In Nicaragua, constitution of the UDEL (Union Democratica de Liberacion, Democratic liberation Union), representing the moderate and non-violent wing of the opposition to the Somoza's regime.
Dead: Anatole Litvak, 72, American director by Ukrainian origin.
Gerald Ford, in a conversation-interview with James Alsop, declares to held for very probable, in the 1975, a new war in Middle East and a world crisis, following the economic breakdown of a "European country, allied to the United States" (United Kingdom or Italy)[6]
In Managua, a FSLN commando, headed by Eden Pastora, bursts into the house of Josè Maria Castillo, president of the Banco Central and takes hostage his guests (included two relatives of the dictator Somoza). Three days later, thanks to the Managua archbishop's intermediation, the hostages are released, in exchange of a million dollars and the freedom for some political prisoners. Castillo is the only victim of the action.[7]
In Llevin (France), a firedamp explosion kills 42 miners.
The Constitutional Court abolishes the articles of the penal code forbidding the strike for political reasons. The law, enacted by the Fascist regime, was by then almost no more applied, though formally in force.