19 January – The government announces the lifting of all restrictions on broadcasting hours on television and radio. Daytime television hours will be extended in October.
20 January – Unemployment exceeds the 1,000,000 mark for the first time since the 1930s,[4] almost double the 582,000 who were unemployed when Edward Heath's Conservative government came to power less than two years ago.[5]
30 January – 'Bloody Sunday' in Northern Ireland: fourteen Catholics are killed when troops open fire on unarmed demonstrators in Derry.
6 April – As announced in March, Ford launches its new executive model, the Granada, available as a saloon, coupé or estate, which replaces the Zephyr on the UK market and will be produced at the Dagenham plant as well as Ford's Cologne plant in West Germany.[16] It is designed to compete with the likes of the Rover P6 and Vauxhall Victor and will also be sold as the Ford Consul in mainland Europe.
19 April – A report into the Bloody Sunday shootings by the Lord Chief Justice, Lord Widgery, exonerates the British troops of blame because the demonstration had been illegal.[17] This report will be completely discredited by the Saville Inquiry published on 15 June 2010, on which day the British prime minister David Cameron will acknowledge in the House of Commons, among other things, that the paratroopers had fired the first shot, had fired on fleeing unarmed civilians, and shot and killed one man who was already wounded; he will then apologise on behalf of the British Government.
The final stretch of the M6 motorway opens between junctions 6 (Spaghetti Junction) and 7 north of Birmingham, with the fully operational motorway stretching more than 200 miles from Rugby to Carlisle, more than a decade after the first sections were opened.[23]
Battersea Park funfair disaster: Five children die and 13 are injured when a haulage rope on the Big Dipper roller coaster snaps, causing a car to roll backwards and crash.[26]
The Angry Brigade, a far-left militant group that has carried out small bomb attacks in England between 1970 and 1972, go on trial. Four of the "Stoke Newington Eight" will be convicted on 6 December.[27]
June
1 June – Hotels and boarding houses become required to obtain certification under the Fire Precautions Act 1971.
3 June – A Protestant demonstration in Derry turns into a battle.[28]
11 June – Eltham Well Hall rail crash: an excursion train travelling from Margate to London derails near Eltham station in outer London (then called Eltham Well Hall), and five passengers and the train driver, Robert Wilsdon, are killed.
18 June – British European Airways Flight 548 crashes near Staines and 118 people are killed, making it the UK's worst air disaster at this date. The only two survivors both die by the time they reach a hospital.[30]
1 July – The first official gay pride march in London is held.[32]
7 July – A Provisional IRA delegation led by Seán Mac Stíofáin meets secretly regarding The Troubles with members of the British government, led by Secretary of State for Northern Ireland William Whitelaw, in London, but without an outcome.[33]
21 July – Bloody Friday: Nine people die and over a hundred are injured in a series of IRA explosions in Belfast city centre.[34]
28 July – A strike by thousands of dockers, leading to the government announcing a state of emergency on 4 August, the last such declaration (as of 2022).[35]
Claudy bombing ("Bloody Monday"), 10:00 AM: Three car bombs in Claudy, County Londonderry, kill nine people. It becomes public knowledge only in 2010 that a local Catholicpriest was an IRA officer believed to be involved in the bombings but his role was covered up by the authorities.[36]
August
6 August – Expulsion of Asians from Uganda: Idi Amin, dictator of Uganda, announces that 50,000 Asians with British passports will be expelled from Uganda to the United Kingdom within the next three months as they have been (according to him) "sabotaging the Ugandan economy".
28 August – Prince William of Gloucester, a cousin of the Queen, is killed in an air crash near Wolverhampton. He is thirty years old, a bachelor and ninth in line to the British throne at this time. This means that Prince Richard, the Duke of Gloucester's only other son, automatically becomes heir to the dukedom.[37]
September
1 September – Raising of school leaving age in England and Wales from fifteen to sixteen for pupils leaving school at the end of the academic year begins. Many temporary new buildings are erected in secondary modern and comprehensive schools to accommodate the older pupils, while some authorities raise the secondary school transfer age from 11 to 12 or 13.[38][39] The age is also raised in Scotland and Northern Ireland.[40]
11 September – The BBC1 television quiz programme Mastermind is broadcast for the first time.[18]
12 September – The sinking of two British trawlers by an Icelandic gunboat triggers the second Cod War.[18]
13 September – Hypermarkets make their debut in the United Kingdom some twenty years after their appearance in France, when French retail giant Carrefour opens one in Caerphilly, South Wales.[41]
19 September – A parcel bomb kills a diplomat at the Israeli embassy in London. It is one of 8 such bombs delivered to diplomats, the others being discovered in time to avoid injury.[44]
2 October – Following January's lifting of restrictions on broadcasting hours, daytime television is extended. BBC1's afternoon schedule launches with the first edition of a new lunchtime magazine programme Pebble Mill at One from its Birmingham studios.
13 October – Bank rates are abolished and replaced with the Minimum Lending Rate.[18]
16 October
As part of ITV's new afternoon service, the first episode of Emmerdale Farm, a soap opera set in rural Yorkshire, is broadcast on ITV produced by Yorkshire Television.[46]
Rioting Maze Prison inmates in Northern Ireland cause a fire that destroys most of the camp.
7 December – Murder of Jean McConville: Provisional Irish Republican Army volunteers, including women, take a recently-widowed mother-of-10, who they claim to be an informer, in Belfast at gunpoint. She is shot in the head and buried secretly across the Irish border. There is no police investigation of the crime until 1995.
December – White Paper Education: A Framework for Expansion is published by Margaret Thatcher, Secretary of State for Education, announcing planned increases in nursery provision and of polytechnics and other higher and further education institutions.
Undated
Inflation falls slightly during the year to 6.4% from 8.6%.[52]
British car production peaks at more than 1,900,000 units, despite regular strikes and increasing competition from overseas.
Honda, the Japanese manufacturer whose motorcycles are already popular with British buyers, begins importing passenger cars to the United Kingdom, beginning only with its recently launched small Civic hatchback, one of the first medium-sized cars sold in Europe to feature this bodystyle which competes with similar sized saloons including the Ford Escort.[54] A larger hatchback and saloon model is due within the next four years to compete with the likes of the Ford Cortina.[55]
Japanese carmaker Nissan enjoys a surge in sales of its Datsun badged cars, with more than 30,000 cars sold in Britain this year compared to less than 7,000 in 1971. Popularity of imported Japanese products from Mazda and Toyota is also rising.
Archie Cochrane's Effectiveness and Efficiency: Random Reflections on Health Services, drawing attention to collective ignorance about the outcomes of health care.[57]
^ abPalmer, Alan; Palmer, Veronica (1992). The Chronology of British History. London: Century Ltd. pp. 433–434. ISBN0-7126-5616-2.
^Day, Alan (1997). Political violence in Northern Ireland: conflict and conflict resolution. Westport, CT: Praeger. p. 9. ISBN9780275954147.
^Baumann, Michael (2000). Wie alles anfing = How it all began: the personal account of a West German urban guerrilla. Vancouver: Pulp Press. p. 5. ISBN9780889780453.
