July 1975

Month of 1975

The following events occurred in July 1975:

Barriers against the hiring of gay and lesbian people, as employees of the United States government, were ended, by order of the U. S. Civil Service Commission. Previously, employment could be denied to a homosexual person on grounds of "possible embarrassment to the federal service". The Commission ruled that, as with any other government employee, "there must be some rational connection between the individual's conduct and the efficiency of the service".

U. S. President Gerald R. Ford announced that he would run for President of the United States in 1976, in his first try for national office. Ford, described as "the first unelected President" because he had not run for either the Presidency or the Vice Presidency, had succeeded Richard Nixon after having been appointed U. S. Vice President in 1974. An earthquake in the Burmese city of Bagan, ancient capital of the Kingdom of Pagan, damaged most of the important structures dating from the 13th Century, many beyond repair, and 80 percent of the city's Buddhist temples.

São Tomé and Príncipe was granted independence from Portugal, as Portuguese Admiral Antonio Rosa Coutinho and Sao Tome Assembly President Xavier Dias signed documents ending Portugal's colonial rule. Manuel Pinto da Costa was sworn in as President afterward, along with Miguel Trovoada as Prime Minister. Pinto da Costa would jail Trovoada and become dictator in 1979, while setting about to create a Marxist economy that would lower production of the nation's largest export (cocoa) by two thirds in a decade, before yielding to a multiparty system in 1989. Four jets of the Spanish Air Force's acrobatic team, rehearsing for an airshow, collided during formation flying after taking off from the Murcia San Javier Airport. All five persons on board were killed.

Dirk Fisher, working with his father Mel Fisher, found the first definite proof that the wreckage of the Spanish ship Nuestra Señora de Atocha was in the area, finding five bronze cannons 40 miles off of the Florida coast. The Atocha had sunk in a storm in 1622, carrying with it 47 tons of silver and 27 tons of gold. One week later, on July 20, Dirk, his wife Angel, and another member of the team, Rick Gage, would die when their ship, the Northwind, sank in a storm. The Atocha would finally be located on July 20, 1985, ten years to the day after Dirk had drowned. Died: Judith Graham Pool, 56, American physician who developed the cryoprecipitate, a blood clotting agent for treatment of hemophilia, died of a brain tumor.

South Africa began aiding the National Liberation Front of Angola (FNLA) and the National Union for the Total Independence of Angola (UNITA), pro Western Angolan independence fighters, against the Marxist People's Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA), which had taken control of the capital of Angola earlier in the month. U. S. President Ford, on recommendation of Secretary of State Kissinger, signed an order four days later to begin Operation IA Feature, providing American financial aid to FNLA and UNITA as well. Guinea re established diplomatic relations with France, 17 years after voting complete independence from French colonial authorities, and a decade after the two nations closed their embassies.

The evacuation of thousands of Portuguese nationals, who were preparing to move away from Angola in advance of its scheduled independence from Portugal in November, began as the airline Swissair began sending jets to Luanda during a temporary lull in the Angolan civil war. Died: Lester Dragstedt, 81, American surgeon who, in 1955, was the first person to successfully separate siamese twins.

Paul Allen and Bill Gates of "Micro Soft", inventors of the Altair BASIC software program, written to be operated on the new Altair 8800 computer, signed a contract giving Altair manufacturer MITS the exclusive use of the software for ten years. A bill to lift a ban on American weapons sales to Turkey, failed 206 233 in the U. S. House of Representatives. Turkey's government would retaliate by closing American military bases there.

Nigeria's President, Major General Yakubu Gowon, was overthrown while he was out of the country at a meeting of the Organization of African Unity in Uganda. Joseph Nanvan Garba, commander of Gowon's bodyguards, took control of radio stations in the capital, Lagos, to broadcast the coup announcement, imposed a curfew, ordered most vehicles off of the street, and shut down the capital's international airport and telecommunications. Brigadier General Murtala Mohammed became the new President the next day, and deposed President Jack Gowon declared from Uganda that "I pledge my full loyalty to the nation and the new government". Chinese troops killed hundreds of rebels and civilians of the predominantly Muslim Hui minority in the village of Shadian in the Yunnan Province. Over a period of eight days of fighting, 900 Hui were killed in the village of Shadian, and hundreds more died in surrounding villages, while more than 400 soldiers of the People's Liberation Army lost their lives. The Organization of American States voted 16 3 to discontinue 15 years of sanctions against Fidel Castro by all member nations, and to allow each member to determine its own relations with Cuba. Chile, Paraguay and Uruguay opposed, and Brazil and Nicaragua abstained from the resolution. Turkish officers took control of all 24 American military bases in Turkey. The first shipment of American weapons to rebels in Angola was made with the departure of a U. S. Air Force C 141 military transport plane from Charleston, South Carolina to Zaire, for use by the UNITA forces.