Richard Milhous Nixon was the 37th president of the United States, serving from 1969 until his resignation in 1974. A member of the Republican Party, he previously served as a representative and senator from California and as the 36th vice president from 1953 to 1961 under President Dwight D. Eisenhower. His presidency saw the reduction of U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War, détente with the Soviet Union and China, the Apollo 11 Moon landing, and the establishment of the Environmental Protection Agency and Occupational Safety and Health Administration. Nixon's second term ended early when he became the only U.S. president to resign from office, as a result of the Watergate scandal.
The Yom Kippur War, also known as the Ramadan War, the October War, the 1973 Arab–Israeli War, or the Fourth Arab–Israeli War, was fought from 6 to 25 October 1973 between Israel and a coalition of Arab states led by Egypt and Syria. Most of the fighting occurred in the Sinai Peninsula and Golan Heights, territories occupied by Israel in 1967. Some combat also took place in Egypt and northern Israel. Egypt aimed to secure a foothold on the eastern bank of the Suez Canal and use it to negotiate the return of the Sinai Peninsula.
In October 1973, the Organization of Arab Petroleum Exporting Countries (OAPEC) announced that it was implementing a total oil embargo against countries that had supported Israel at any point during the 1973 Yom Kippur War, which began after Egypt and Syria launched a large-scale surprise attack in an ultimately unsuccessful attempt to recover the territories that they had lost to Israel during the 1967 Six-Day War. In an effort that was led by Faisal of Saudi Arabia, the initial countries that OAPEC targeted were Canada, Japan, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, and the United States. This list was later expanded to include Portugal, Rhodesia, and South Africa. In March 1974, OAPEC lifted the embargo, but the price of oil had risen by nearly 300%: from US$3 per barrel ($19/m3) to nearly US$12 per barrel ($75/m3) globally. Prices in the United States were significantly higher than the global average. After it was implemented, the embargo caused an oil crisis, or "shock", with many short- and long-term effects on the global economy as well as on global politics. The 1973 embargo later came to be referred to as the "first oil shock" vis-à-vis the "second oil shock" that was the 1979 oil crisis, brought upon by the Iranian Revolution.
Operation Nickel Grass was the codename for a strategic airlift conducted by the United States to deliver weapons and supplies to Israel during the 1973 Arab–Israeli War. Between 14 October and 14 November of that year, the Military Airlift Command of the United States Air Force shipped approximately 22,325 tons of supplies, including tanks, artillery, and ammunition, in multiple flights of C-141 Starlifters and C-5 Galaxys. This initiative was undertaken to help improve the position of the Israeli military in the face of a large-scale joint offensive by Egypt and Syria, both of which had been receiving extensive support from the Soviet Union.
The Geneva Conference of 1973 was an attempt to negotiate a solution to the Arab–Israeli conflict as envisioned in United Nations Security Council Resolution 338 following the called-for cease-fire to end the Yom Kippur War. After considerable "shuttle diplomacy" negotiations by Henry Kissinger, the conference opened on 21 December 1973 under the auspices of the United Nations Secretary General, with the United States and the USSR as co-chairmen. The foreign ministers of Egypt, Jordan and Israel were in attendance. The table with Syria's nameplate remained unoccupied, although Syria had indicated possible future participation. Each foreign minister spoke, mainly directed to their domestic audiences rather than to each other. Kissinger articulated his step-by-step strategy and stated that the goal of the conference was peace; the immediate need was to strengthen the cease-fire by accomplishing a disengagement of forces as the "essential first step" toward implementation of UN 242. The meeting was then adjourned.
The following events occurred in October 1972:
The following events occurred in March 1973:
The following events occurred in April 1973:
Richard Nixon's tenure as the 37th president of the United States began with his first inauguration on January 20, 1969, and ended when he resigned on August 9, 1974, in the face of almost certain impeachment and removal from office, the only U.S. president ever to do so. He was succeeded by Gerald Ford, whom he had appointed vice president after Spiro Agnew became embroiled in a separate corruption scandal and was forced to resign. Nixon, a prominent member of the Republican Party from California who previously served as vice president for two terms under president Dwight D. Eisenhower from 1953 to 1961, took office following his narrow victory over Democrat incumbent vice president Hubert Humphrey and American Independent Party nominee George Wallace in the 1968 presidential election. Four years later, in the 1972 presidential election, he defeated Democrat nominee George McGovern, to win re-election in a landslide. Although he had built his reputation as a very active Republican campaigner, Nixon downplayed partisanship in his 1972 landslide re-election.
The 1970s energy crisis occurred when the Western world, particularly the United States, Canada, Western Europe, Australia, and New Zealand, faced substantial petroleum shortages as well as elevated prices. The two worst crises of this period were the 1973 oil crisis and the 1979 energy crisis, when, respectively, the Yom Kippur War and the Iranian Revolution triggered interruptions in Middle Eastern oil exports.
Events in the year 1973 in Israel.
The October 22 Scud missile attack, which took place in the midst of the 1973 Yom Kippur War, was the first operational use of Scud missiles in the world. It witnessed Egypt launch three Scud missiles against Israeli targets. One of the missiles was fired at Arish and the others at the Israeli bridgehead on the western bank of the Suez Canal, near Deversoir.
The following events occurred in December 1973:
The following events occurred in May 1973:
The following events occurred in June 1973:
The following events occurred in August 1973:
The following events occurred in September 1973:
The following events occurred in the year November 1973:
The following events occurred in June 1974:
The United States foreign policy during the 1974–1977 presidency of Gerald Ford was marked by efforts to de-escalate the Cold War. Ford focused on maintaining stability and promoting détente with the Soviet Union. One of Ford's key foreign policy achievements was the signing of the Helsinki Accords in 1975. The accords were a series of agreements between the US, Soviet Union, and other European countries that aimed to promote human rights, economic cooperation, and peaceful relations between East and West. Ford met with Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev several times, and the two countries signed the Strategic Arms Limitation Talks in 1979, which aimed to limit the number of nuclear weapons held by the two superpowers.
