1974 in the United Kingdom

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1973 in the United Kingdom:
Other years
1972 \| 1973 \| 1974 \| 1975 \| 1976
Sport and Music
British and Irish current events
1974 English cricket season
Football England \| Scotland
1974 in British music

Events from the year 1974 in the United Kingdom.

1 Incumbents
2 Events
- 2.1 Unknown dates
3 Births
4 Deaths
5 References

[edit] Incumbents

Monarch - HM Queen Elizabeth II
Prime Minister

1 January - 3 March - Edward Heath, Conservative Party
4 March - 31 December - Harold Wilson, Labour Party

[edit] Events

February 3 - The second Bathurst Gaol riots; prisoners destroy much of the facility with petrol bombs.
7 February - Grenada becomes independent of the United Kingdom. ^[1]
February 28 - The United Kingdom general election results in an almost dead-heat. Harold Wilson becomes Prime Minister again, despite his Labour Party (UK) having received fewer votes than the Conservative Party (UK).
March 10 - Ten miners die in a methane gas explosion at Golborne Colliery near Wigan, Lancashire.
March 18 - Oil embargo crisis: Most OPEC nations end a 5-month oil embargo against the United States, Europe and Japan.
March 20 - Ian Balls fails in his attempt to kidnap Her Royal Highness Princess Anne and her husband Captain Mark Phillips in The Mall, outside Buckingham Palace.
April 1 - The Local Government Act 1972 comes into effect in England and Wales, creating six new metropolitan counties and comprehensively redrawing the administrative map.
June 1 - Flixborough disaster: An explosion at a chemical plant in Flixborough, UK, kills 28 people.
June 15 - The Red Lion Square disorders: Members of the fascist National Front clash with leftist counter-protesters in London's West End; one student is killed.
June 17 - A bomb explodes at the Houses of Parliament in London, damaging Westminster Hall. The Irish Republican Army claims responsibility for planting the bomb.
July 17 - A bomb planted by the Irish Republican Army explodes in the White Tower at the Tower of London, killing one person and injuring 41. Another bomb explodes outside a government building in South London.
September 23 - Ceefax is started by the BBC - one of the first public service information systems.
October 5 - The Guildford pub bombings at The Horse and Groom and The Seven Stars kill five people, and lead to the wrongful conviction and imprisonment of the Guildford Four the next year.
October 10 - The second United Kingdom general election of the year results in a narrow victory for Labour, still led by Harold Wilson.
November 7 - Lord Lucan disappears.
November 7 - An IRA bomb explodes at the Kings Arms, Woolwich.
November 21 - In Birmingham, England, 2 pubs are bombed, killing 21 people (the Birmingham Six are later sentenced to life in prison for this).
November 27 - The Prevention of Terrorism Act is passed in the United Kingdom.
December 5 - Party Political Broadcast, the final episode of Monty Python's Flying Circus, is broadcast on BBC 2.

[edit] Unknown dates

Friedrich Hayek shares the 1974 Nobel Prize in Economics with ideological rival Gunnar Myrdal "for their pioneering work in the theory of money and economic fluctuations and for their penetrating analysis of the interdependence of economic, social and institutional phenomena."^[2].
Martin Ryle and Antony Hewish win the Nobel Prize in Physics "for their pioneering research in radio astrophysics: Ryle for his observations and inventions, in particular of the aperture synthesis technique, and Hewish for his decisive role in the discovery of pulsars". ^[3]