50 Fun Facts About 1974

Which puzzle toy did a Hungarian architecture professor first build by hand from blocks of wood in 1974?

Rubik's Cube took its own inventor about a month to solve after he first scrambled it, and it was sold as the Magic Cube until it was renamed after him in 1980.

Which archaeological treasure did farmers digging a well near Xi'an, China, uncover by accident in March 1974?

The Terracotta Army dates from the late 200s BCE and lay about 1.5 km east of the tomb mound of the Qin emperor it was made to guard.

What name did scientists give the 3.2-million-year-old skeleton found in Ethiopia in 1974, after a Beatles song?

Lucy got her name because Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds played over and over on a tape recorder in camp while the team celebrated the find that evening.

Which product became the first item ever scanned with a UPC barcode, at an Ohio supermarket in June 1974?

Wrigley's chewing gum made retail history at 8:01 a.m. on June 26, when a 10-pack of Juicy Fruit crossed the scanner at a Marsh supermarket in the town of Troy.

Who became US president in August 1974 without ever being elected either president or vice president?

Gerald Ford had been appointed vice president only eight months earlier, when Spiro Agnew resigned, and he remains the only president never elected to either office.

Which Atlanta Braves slugger hit his 715th career home run in April 1974 to pass Babe Ruth's record?

Hank Aaron hit number 715 off Al Downing of the Dodgers, a pitcher who happened to wear the same number 44 on his back.

In which African country did Muhammad Ali win back the heavyweight title from George Foreman in October 1974?

Zaire staged the Rumble in the Jungle at 4 a.m. local time so that viewers in the eastern United States could watch it live on closed-circuit television at 10 p.m.

Which pop group won the 1974 Eurovision Song Contest in Brighton with a song named after a Napoleonic battle?

ABBA won for Sweden with Waterloo, the group's first global hit and the launch pad for one of the best-selling careers in pop music.

Which 19-year-old newspaper heiress was kidnapped from her Berkeley apartment in February 1974 by the radical SLA?

Patty Hearst was filmed ten weeks later holding a carbine as she helped her captors rob a branch of the Hibernia Bank in San Francisco.

Which New York landmark did French high-wire artist Philippe Petit cross on a cable without permission in August 1974?

The World Trade Center walk lasted 45 minutes, with Petit making eight passes between the Twin Towers about 400 metres up and even lying down on the wire.

Which 1974 Mel Brooks Western spoof stars Cleavon Little as the newly appointed sheriff of Rock Ridge?

Blazing Saddles counted Richard Pryor among its writers, and its final brawl breaks the fourth wall by bursting onto a neighbouring set where a musical is being filmed.

Which actor co-wrote 1974's Young Frankenstein with Mel Brooks and starred as the mad scientist's grandson?

Gene Wilder came up with the idea and began the script himself, and much of the film's laboratory equipment had been built for the 1931 Frankenstein.

Which actor won an Oscar for playing the young Vito Corleone in The Godfather Part II, released in December 1974?

Robert De Niro delivered nearly all his lines in Sicilian dialect, and the film became the first sequel ever to win Best Picture.

Which 1974 Roman Polanski film stars Jack Nicholson as private eye Jake Gittes amid a Los Angeles water scandal?

Chinatown drew on the real California water wars, in which Los Angeles secured water rights in the distant Owens Valley at the start of the 20th century.

Which disaster film starring Paul Newman and Steve McQueen was the highest-grossing film released worldwide in 1974?

The Towering Inferno merged two similar skyscraper-fire novels, The Tower and The Glass Inferno, with Fox and Warner Bros. sharing a single film.

Which masked killer made his screen debut in 1974 in Tobe Hooper's low-budget film The Texas Chain Saw Massacre?

Leatherface was loosely inspired by the real murderer Ed Gein, and the film was made for less than $140,000 with a little-known cast drawn mainly from central Texas.

Which actor played the assassin Scaramanga opposite Roger Moore's James Bond in 1974's The Man with the Golden Gun?

Christopher Lee was the step-cousin of Bond creator Ian Fleming, who had once offered him the villain's role in the very first film, Dr. No.

Which British actor was co-hosting the April 1974 Oscars when a naked streaker ran across the stage behind him?

David Niven regained his composure after Robert Opel dashed past flashing a peace sign, then answered with a joke at the intruder's expense.

Which 10-year-old became the youngest winner of a competitive Oscar in April 1974 for the film Paper Moon?

Tatum O'Neal won as the con artist Addie Loggins, acting opposite her real father Ryan, and beat her own co-star Madeline Kahn to the award.

Which ABC sitcom set in 1950s Milwaukee premiered in January 1974 with Ron Howard as teenager Richie Cunningham?

Happy Days grew out of an unsold pilot that had aired in 1972 as a segment of the anthology Love, American Style, and it went on to run for 11 seasons.

Which actor, formerly Little Joe on Bonanza, starred as Charles Ingalls when Little House on the Prairie began in 1974?

Michael Landon was also the show's executive producer, writer and director, moving to the new NBC series the year after Bonanza was cancelled.

Which actor played Jim Rockford, a private eye living in a Malibu trailer, in the NBC series launched in September 1974?

James Garner had starred in the Western Maverick for the same creator, Roy Huggins, who imagined the new hero as Bret Maverick turned modern-day detective.

Which CBS sitcom about the Evans family in a Chicago housing project spun off from Maude in February 1974?

Good Times was television's first sitcom about a two-parent African-American family, and Florida Evans had first appeared as Maude's housekeeper.

Which Mary Tyler Moore Show spin-off drew more than 52 million viewers for its heroine's wedding in October 1974?

Rhoda married Joe Gerard in an hour-long special seen by over half the US viewing audience, and fans mailed real wedding gifts to the CBS studios.

Which actor played bionic astronaut Steve Austin when The Six Million Dollar Man went weekly on ABC in 1974?

Lee Majors first played the role in three 1973 television films, and the character came from Martin Caidin's 1972 novel Cyborg.

Which actress starred as undercover Sergeant Pepper Anderson when the NBC drama Police Woman began in September 1974?

Angie Dickinson won a Golden Globe for the part, and the series, one of the first hour-long dramas led by a woman, influenced Charlie's Angels.

Which Jamaican-born singer had a worldwide 1974 disco hit with Kung Fu Fighting, first planned as a B-side?

Carl Douglas recorded it in the last ten minutes of a studio session, and the throwaway track went on to sell eleven million copies.

Which guitarist topped the US chart in 1974 with a cover of Bob Marley's I Shot the Sheriff?

Eric Clapton put the cover on his album 461 Ocean Boulevard, and it remains his only single to reach number one on the Billboard Hot 100.

Which former Beatle walked on stage at a Madison Square Garden concert in November 1974 after losing a bet?

John Lennon had promised Elton John he would appear if Whatever Gets You thru the Night hit number one, and it became his only solo US chart-topper in his lifetime.

Which country star topped the US country chart in 1974 with both Jolene and I Will Always Love You?

Dolly Parton wrote I Will Always Love You as a farewell to her mentor Porter Wagoner, with whom she was ending a seven-year professional partnership.

Which Southern rock band released Sweet Home Alabama in 1974 as an answer to two Neil Young songs?

Lynyrd Skynyrd felt that Southern Man and Alabama blamed the whole South for slavery, and the reply became the band's highest-charting single at number eight.

Which punk band from Forest Hills, Queens, formed in 1974 and made its CBGB debut that August?

The Ramones grew out of a group of friends from one middle-class neighbourhood and became fixtures of the new downtown Manhattan scene built around CBGB.

Which singer from The Mamas & the Papas died in a London flat in July 1974 after two weeks of Palladium concerts?

Cass Elliot died of a heart attack in a flat lent to her by Harry Nilsson; the long-repeated story that she choked on a ham sandwich is false.

Which singer had Billboard's number-one single of 1974 with the title song of a film co-starring Robert Redford?

Barbra Streisand took The Way We Were to the top of both the US Hot 100 and the Canadian chart before it finished first on Billboard's year-end list.

Which Motown star won the 1974 Grammy for Album of the Year with Innervisions, months after a serious car crash?

Stevie Wonder had been pulled unconscious from the wreck and lay in a coma for days, an ordeal he said opened his ears to the things around him.

Which host nation came from behind to beat Johan Cruyff's Netherlands 2–1 in the 1974 FIFA World Cup final?

West Germany conceded a penalty in the second minute, before any of its players had touched the ball, then won through goals by Paul Breitner and Gerd Müller.

Which team won a second straight Super Bowl in January 1974 by beating the Minnesota Vikings 24–7 in Houston?

The Miami Dolphins leaned on fullback Larry Csonka, whose 145 rushing yards made him the first running back to be named Super Bowl MVP.

Which baseball team won its third straight World Series in October 1974 by beating the Los Angeles Dodgers?

The Oakland Athletics became the first club since the 1949–53 Yankees to win three in a row, and did it in the first World Series played entirely in California.

Which team beat the Boston Bruins in May 1974 to become the first 1967 expansion club to win the Stanley Cup?

The Philadelphia Flyers had lost 17 and tied two of their previous 19 games in Boston, and the Bruins went into the final as heavy favourites.

Which daredevil tried to leap Idaho's Snake River Canyon on a rocket-powered Skycycle in September 1974?

Evel Knievel survived with minor injuries after his parachute opened too early, and the stunt was sold to cinemas on closed-circuit television.

Which future Oscar winner for The Revenant was born in Los Angeles in November 1974?

Leonardo DiCaprio got his name because his pregnant mother first felt him kick while she stood before a Leonardo da Vinci painting in the Uffizi in Florence.

Which future New York Yankees shortstop, nicknamed the Captain, was born in New Jersey in June 1974?

Derek Jeter moved to Kalamazoo, Michigan, at the age of four and went on to captain the Yankees from 2003 until he retired in 2014.

Which author's debut, Carrie, came out in April 1974 after his wife rescued the opening pages from the trash?

Stephen King wrote the book while living in a trailer in Hermon, Maine, and had given up on the story before his wife Tabitha talked him into finishing it.

Which fantasy role-playing game did Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson create, first published in 1974 by Gygax's company TSR?

Dungeons & Dragons grew out of miniature wargames, and the original 1974 set still relied on an earlier game called Chainmail to settle its combat.

Which British earl vanished in November 1974 after his children's nanny was murdered in the family home?

Lord Lucan was named as the killer by an inquest jury in 1975 but was never found, and he was declared legally dead in 1999.

Which Ohio city lost 32 residents to an F5 tornado during the Super Outbreak of April 1974?

Xenia was struck at 4:40 p.m. on April 3 by the deadliest single twister of the outbreak, which destroyed homes, churches and the local high school.

Which Washington city hosted Expo '74, the first world's fair with an environmental theme, from May 1974?

Spokane was at the time the smallest city ever to stage a world's fair, and the riverside fairgrounds became today's Riverfront Park.

Which university ended UCLA's record 88-game basketball winning streak with a 71–70 upset in January 1974?

Notre Dame had also handed UCLA its previous defeat, an 89–82 win over the top-ranked Bruins in January 1971, just before the streak began.

On which Caribbean island did astronomers beam the Arecibo message toward a distant star cluster in November 1974?

Puerto Rico's giant radio telescope sent the signal only once, and it will need about 25,000 years to reach its target, the star cluster M13.

Which Canadian singer had a worldwide number one in 1974 with Seasons in the Sun, adapted from a Jacques Brel song?

Terry Jacks sold over 14 million copies of a song about a dying man's farewell, which the Kingston Trio had been the first to record in English.