"Anything that can go wrong, will" -- attributed to Edward A. Murphy, c. 1949
01-26-1973
After laying dormant for several hundred years, Iceland's Eldfell volcano begins erupting again. The nearby town of Vestmannaeyar (one of Iceland's largest fishing port) is totally destroyed, despite valient efforts to stop the lava flow with fire hoses.
01-30-1973
Senator John C. Stennis of Mississippi is shot and killed during a robbery outside his Washington, D.C. residence. His colleague, Senator James O. Eastland, proposes a Handgun Control Act which (though he does not advertise it in such terms) would make it prohibitively expensive for minorities to own handguns.
03-17-1973
Cambodian leader Lon Nol is killed in a bombing attack on the Presidential Palace. Prime Minister Sirik Matak resigns. Phnom Penh will fall to the Khmer Rouge by year's end.
03-17-1973
A terrorist car-bombing shatters the opening ceremonies of the new London Bridge. Two hundred people are seriously injured, and eleven (including Lord Mountbatten) are killed.
04-13-1973
Record spring floods along the Mississippi River wash away and destroy a flood control structure near Simmesport, LA.
Within a few hours, two million cubic feet per second are thundering across the low-lying swampland and into the nearby Atchafalaya River. Within two days, the main flow of the Lower Mississippi River has permanently shifted course to follow the new channel.
For the next several months, the Atchafalaya will be an uncrossable torrent. Morgan City is completely flooded; tens of thousands of people are forced to flee the rising waters and nearly a thousand are drowned. US-90 and a brand new section of I-10 are washed out, as is every other road bridge, rail bridge, and pipeline over the Atchafalaya channel. All traffic is forced to detour hundreds of miles northward through Natchez or Vicksburg. The Intracoastal Waterway is closed to shipping until further notice.
Although there is an sharp spike in gasoline prices due to panic buying, the refineries and port facilities along the old channel are not immediately affected by the change. Nearly a third of the river's flow still passes New Orleans, and this was a record flood year to begin with; the effects on shipping and the chemical industry won't be noticed until later in the year.
On the other hand, natural gas will be in very short supply until new pipelines can be built to bypass the disaster area. Throughout the summer there will be rolling electrical brownouts as far away as the East coast; and a serious shortage of ammonia-based fertilizer during the summer and fall growing seasons.
05-14-1973
Skylab is destroyed when a solar panel rips loose two minutes into launch, causing it to tumble out of control.
06-20-1973
The plane carrying exiled leader Juan Peron back to Argentina crashes on landing.
06-21-1973
In "Miller v. California", the Supreme Court rules 5-4 that state and federal governments cannot ban obscene speech.
Congress is deluged with angry letters and phone calls; when a proposed Constitutional Amendment dies in the Senate, serious talk begins at the state level for a Constitutional Convention to overturn Miller, Roe v Wade, and various other unpopular court rulings.
06-30-1973
President al-Bakr of Iraq is killed during a failed coup attempt. Vice President Saddam Hussein manages to retain power, and has the plotters executed.
07-01-1973
A suicide bomber kills Mayor-elect Tom Bradley of Los Angeles, his wife, former Supreme Court Justice Earl Warren, and 115 other bystanders during the inaugural ceremonies on the steps of City Hall. The identity and motive of the bomber are never determined; but it is assumed by all to be racially motivated.
Riots occur in Los Angeles, Chicago, Detroit, New Orleans, and several other cities over the next week.
08-15-1973
By late summer, the Old River Channel of the Mississippi is down to just 1/4 of its normal flow and has to be closed to barge traffic (the Atachafalaya channel is still much too dangerous for navigation.)
Grain prices are already at an all-time high, due to previous overbuying by Russia and shortages of ammonia fertilizer. Now they soar even higher for lack of transportation; although meat prices temporarily decline as farmers are forced to feed their grain to local cattle instead of shipping it down the Mississippi.
Refineries and chemical plants along the lower Mississippi report increasing problems with lack of cooling water; the weak river flow is letting salt water intrude upstream as far as Baton Rouge. Much of the area's chemical industry is forced to either shut down or sharply cut production for the next several months.
The Nixon administration is forced to suspend price controls and permit price hikes for everything from gasoline to bread to house paint. New Orleans, already hit by riots and brownouts earlier, and already suffering a sharp rise in local unemployment as docks and refineries sit idle, is now forced to declare water rationing.
09-20-1973
The newly-built Concorde is destroyed by a mid-air collision with a small plane near Dallas-Fort Worth airport
10-01-1973
President Nixon abruptly collapses and is rushed to Bethesda Naval Hospital, where he dies. The autopsy reveals a massive pulmonary embolism (a blocked artery between the lung and heart) caused by a deep-vein blood clot from his leg. Vice President Agnew is sworn in as President later that evening.
10-04-1973
A Soviet Tu-16 Badger collides with a U.S. Navy F-4 Phantom II, destroying both aircraft. The Phantom had been attempting to escort the Badger away from the USS John F. Kennedy (on maneuvers in the Norwegian Sea).
10-05-1973
President Agnew, already under indictment for corruption and income-tax evasion, announces that he is resigning as President ; and that his final act in office is to issue himself a Presidential pardon. There is public outrage, and Senator Mondale calls for a Constitutional Amendment to prevent such abuses in the future.
10-06-1973
Egypt, Syria, and Jordan invade Israel, triggering the Yom Kippur War.
10-08-1973
Syrian forces take most of the Golan heights; an Israeli counterattack in the Sinai fails. Defense Minister Dayan warns Prime Minister Meir that they might have to use nuclear weapons as a final resort.
10-10-1973
Israeli forces manage to regain lost ground in the Sinai and Golan, but are unable to advance beyond the Syrian or Egyptian borders due to low supplies.
Across the Atlantic, President Albert is attempting to arrange an airlift, but neither he nor Kissinger can persuade any U.S. allies within range of Israel to permit overflights.
10-11-1973
At 8 PM, British Prime Minister Heath places a call to the White House but is told President Albert is unwell and unavailable until morning. In fact, the President is so drunk he cannot speak. Even as House Speaker, he had been known as a serious alcoholic, and the stress of his new job is far, far more than he can handle. Sometime during the night, he stops breathing from acute alcohol poisoning.
10-12-1973
The House of Representatives has failed to agree on a new Speaker during the previous week; so the Presidential succession now falls to the President Pro Tempore of the Senate, James O. Eastland. One of Eastland's first acts in office is to summon "that [expletive][religious slur]" Kissinger to his office and fire him; naming Dean Rusk as his new Secretary of State.
10-13-1973
Secretary of State Rusk notifies Prime Minister Meir that it will be impossible for the U.S. to resupply Israel with arms in a timely fashion (due to the refusal of all European allies to allow overflights), and recommends they seek an immediate cease-fire.
10-14-1973
Egypt rejects Israel's cease-fire offer, and sends three divisions of tanks across the Suez Canal. They halt and dig in at the Gidi and Mitla passes, where they are still within protective range of their own SAM missile batteries.
10-14-1973
In Thailand, General Kittikachorn brutally suppresses a student uprising. King Bhumibol is forced to flee to Singapore.
10-15-1973
Syria, aided by a massive Soviet resupply of T-62 tanks, renews their assault beyond the Purple Line and into the Golan Heights. Moscow announces that it plans to "assist in every way" the Arab effort to retake the territories won by Israel in 1967.
President Eastland is torn: a lifelong bigot and anti-Semite, he doesn't want to help Israel at all; but as a staunch anti-Communist, he really doesn't want to embolden the Soviets. Secretary Rusk has similar concerns. Accordingly, they respond that the U.S. will intervene "with all necessary force" if Syria or Egypt attempt to cross the 1948 borders.
1973-10-17
OPEC announces oil price hikes (to $3.80 a barrel) and production cuts; and threatens to embargo the U.S. if they intervene in the Arab-Israeli conflict.
Saddam Hussein, eager to prove his might as leader of Iraq, sends an additional division to the Syrian front.
1973-10-19
Syrian and Iraqi forces retake Quneitra in the Golan Heights.
1973-10-23
On the first morning after Ramadan, Iraq launches a surprise invasion of Kuwait. Saddam Hussein has been planning this since he took power earlier in the year, using an ongoing border dispute as justification. Within twenty four hours, three Iraqi divisions have completely routed Kuwaiti forces and forced the Emir to flee to Saudi Arabia.
1973-10-24
The United States, the USSR, and the Arab League all simultaneously condemn Iraq's opportunist attack on Kuwait. Saddam is unmoved.
U.S. forces go to DEFCON 3 status. A carrier group, led by the USS Hancock, is dispatched towards the Persian Gulf.
Iran quickly redeploys all available forces to defend the Iraqi border.
1973-10-25
King Hussein of Jordan, seeing nothing but Arab victories, formally enters the war against Israel. A Jordanian division crosses the border towards El Al.
Syrian and Iraqi forces cross the Golan and reach the Jordan River but are unable to force a crossing (the Israelis having destroyed all available bridges).
In the south, Egyptian troops have advanced across the Sinai to the Wadi Al Arish.
10-27-1973
In a televised address, President Eastland announces he is bringing an immediate end to "communistic and un-American" wage and price controls. He also announces his nomination of former Chicago mayor Richard J. Daley to fill the vacant office of Vice President.
10-28-1973
The old US-80 bridge over the Mississippi River at Vicksburg partially collapses following a train derailment and fire. There are now no intact rail lines crossing the Mississippi south of Memphis.
11-01-1973 President Eastland calls for nationwide gasoline rationing.
11-03-1973 President Eastland invokes the Taft Hartley Act to suspend a strike by the New York Fire Department, and threatens to suspend any other strikes by emergency service, school or transportation workers.
11-06-1973 In Detroit's mayoral election, Police Chief John Nichols defeats State Senator Coleman Young by less than five hundred votes. The press is quick to allege fraud during the recount; this, plus an unfortunately timed blackout (caused by unseasonably hot weather and fuel shortages) leads to a night of rioting and arson.
11-11-1973 Singer John Lennon is found shot to death in a Los Angeles recording studio. Despite an intensive investigation (reportedly centering on record producer Phil Spector), police are unable to gather enough evidence to charge anyone as a suspect.
11-12-1973 Truckers across the nation go on strike, halting shipments nationwide. They demand the government restore price controls on diesel fuel, which has gone up 35% in the last two weeks alone. Eastland adamantly refuses, and threatens to use federal troops to break the strike.
11-13-1973 Iraqi and Syrian troops force a crossing of the Jordan near Gadot. After more than a month of war with no outside resupply, Israeli troops are forced to fall back several km, to positions near Safed.
11-14-1973 President Eastland asks Congress to declare war on Iraq. He argues that the United States can't let Israel be destroyed by Soviet allies nor let them sieze Kuwait's oil fields (and privately, he doesn't want to lose the vote of every Jewish or gasoline-buying voter in the 1976 election).
Secretary of State Rusk (who is in London trying to convince the British to intervene) departs for Tehran to try and get the Shah's participation as well.
11-16-1973 In response to 'scab' truckers not obeying the strike, Memphis truck drivers deliberately block I-40 and I-55 just west of the Mississippi River (forcing Interstate traffic to detour a hundred miles south along 2-lane roads!) National Guard troops are sent to remove them, resulting in a two day standoff that kills one trucker.
11-18-1973 Congress declines to declare war on Iraq. The public support for war is just not there, barely ten months after ending the Vietnam conflict. Eastland feels a twinge of regret for signing the War Powers Act into law, as he orders airstrikes on Iraqi forces in the Golan Heights; and as elements of the 82nd Airborne and the 3rd Marine Expeditionary Force are moved towards the Persian Gulf.
11-19-1973 The unseasonably hot autumn in the U.S. is finally broken by a powerful arctic front. Ice and freezing rain shut down highways and knock out power in the South; a foot and a half of snow shuts down the Northeast.
11-21-1973 Consumers dig out from the snow only to find store shelves bare and gasoline pumps dry (after nine days of no deliveries due to striking truckers and impassible highways). Sporadic food and gasoline riots are reported, along with widespread price-gouging, as shoppers try to purchase any remaining supplies for the upcoming Thanksgiving holiday.
11-23-1973 Mao Tse-Tung dies. Zhou Enlai and Deng Xiaopeng are immediately purged by the Gang of Four.
11-24-1973
The U.S. launches "Operation Devil Stone". Following several days of airstrikes from the USS Hancock, troops from the 3rd Marine Expeditionary Force and the 82nd Airborne invade Kuwait.
11-27-1973
Despite U.S. airstrikes from the USS John F. Kennedy, Syrian and Iraqi tank forces advance southwest along the shore of Galilee to Tiberias; and Jordanian forces advance southeast along the opposite shore to Ha'on.
1973-12-03
Iran sends 8 divisions across the Iraqi border at Basra. Over the next two weeks, the main highway linking Basra and Kuwait City becomes a "Highway of Death" as Iranian forces push south, American forces push slowly north, and Iraqi forces try to hold the vital link.
1973-12-05
Retreating Iraqi troops set fire to several hundred Kuwaiti oil wells; Iraqi airstrikes do minor damage to Iranian airbases, and destroy the refinery complex at Abadan.
In Israel, Syrian, Iraqi, and Jordanian forces approach the outskirts of Nazareth.
1973-12-07
With U.S. unemployment and inflation both approaching 10 percent, there is growing talk of a general strike.
1973-12-09
A major advance of Syrian and Iraqi forces along the highway from Nazareth to Haifa is halted and destroyed using two 15 kiloton nuclear devices.
News reports of the strike lead to widespread panic in the U.S. - this occurs on an Advent Sunday, not 10 km from the town of Megiddo.
1973-12-09
Brezhnev refuses a Syrian request for a pre-emptive nuclear strikes against Israeli nuclear targets. He angrily points out that they were told not to cross the 1947 border, and that the Soviet Union is not going to start WWIII on their behalf.
On the other hand, he openly warns the U.S. and Israel that the USSR will be forced to respond in kind, if Israel attempts to use nuclear weapons outside their own borders.
1973-12-12
After reportedly working for three days without rest, Brezhnev suffers a massive stroke. He will spend the rest of his life in a convalescent facility.
Mikhael Suslov immediately steps in as Party leader ; one of his first actions is to order a massive conventional airstrike against Israeli nuclear targets.
1973-12-14
A conference call between President Eastland and Chairman Suslov goes ... poorly.
Suslov believes (incorrectly) that the U.S. supplied Israel with its nuclear weapons, and demands that the U.S. recall all of them immediately.
Eastland believes (also incorrectly) that Soviet agents are responsible for the outbreaks of rioting and end-of-the-world panic currently gripping most U.S. cities, and demands that the USSR withdraw all of them immediately.
It doesn't help that both men also believe (incorrectly) that the other took power by assassinating their previous boss.
1973-12-15
It's been a really bad year for Samuel Byck, an unemployed tire salesman. He's lost his job, his wife has left him, and he's had to borrow a lot of money to finance his mobile tire-store business. But with the bad economy, nobody's buying tires (especially not from a deranged-looking guy trying to sell them out of a rusty old school-bus) so he's also about to lose the business.
He knows it's all because the goverment has systematically worked to ruin his life; so he's spent the last month secretly buying ammonium nitrate and preparing for his big revenge.
At 1AM he loads up the bus, puts on his Santa hat, and heads downtown to smash through the northwest gates of the White House complex. He's already dead from Secret Service gunfire by the time the bus crashes into the North Portico and the deadman switch falls from his hands...
Fortunately for President Eastland, the White House had a good bit of steel and concrete added to it during the Truman renovations ; and his bedroom was on the opposite side of the building two floors away. He suffers a broken arm, cuts and bruises, but is alive. And extremely pissed off.
The order of succession at the moment (not that it's going to be a factor that day) is:
Vice President: Richard J. Daley (confirmed a week earlier)
House Speaker: Wilbur Mills
President Pro Tem of Senate: John L. McClellan
Secretary of State: Dean Rusk
Secretary of the Treasury: Fred LaRue (not yet confirmed)
Secretary of Defense: James Schlesinger
Attorney General: William H. Cox (also not yet confirmed)
1973-12-17
Clearly, in Suslov's view, the attack on the White House was a coup attempt by an anti-Eastland faction (he rejects out-of-hand the American media claims that it was a random assassination attempt by a disgruntled citizen ; how could the Secret Service could be that careless, unless they were part of the plot?). They have failed ; the feudalist megalomanic Eastland remains in power (intelligence reports have Eastland still using convicts for slave labor on his plantation in Mississippi) ; and he not only refuses to withdraw the American nuclear weapons from Israel, but continues to deny they were even supplied by the U.S. (as if a country the size of Israel could built its own...)
So: at Suslov's urging (and with massive resupply of Soviet aircraft and pilots), at 2AM local time Syria begins the biggest airstrike to date, mainly against Israeli air and navy bases. Under cover of the Syrian offensive, Premier Suslov orders Spetsnaz units to sieze suspected nuclear weapons bunkers at Tirosh. Clearly, President Eastland isn't going to be reasonable, and risks will have to be taken.
Two hours later, following an extremely bloody firefight, an IDF commander detonates one of his own weapons in the bunker, rather than let it be captured.
1973-12-18
Since the nuclear explosion at Megiddo, and now another one this morning, over a hundred thousand pilgrims have flooded St. Peter's Square and the surrounding streets of Rome. This afternoon, as they await some sign from the heavens, or an address from the Holy Father or one of his cardinals, they instead witness a hijacked Lufthansa 737 crashing into their midst.
1973-12-19
As emergency medical relief and prayers from around the world stream towards Rome; as the Italian Parliament debates waging immediate war upon Lebanon or Syria or anyone else that might be responsible (despite Lebanon, Syria, the PLO, the Arab League, the USSR, and pretty much every other nation and NGO on Earth condemning the atrocity and disclaiming responsibility); as angry Catholics from Poland to the Phillipines wage riot against random targets; and as a dark, moonless evening descends over the Middle East, four F-4s set off on one-way missions to deliver Israel's remaining atomic warheads upon Damascus and Baghdad.
1973-12-19
Two Israeli aircraft are shot down over Syria ; one by a MiG and one by an anti-aircraft missile.
A third crashes in the Iraqi desert from fuel starvation, after repeated course changes due to hostile enemy aircraft.
At approximately 10 PM local time, the fourth plane is destroyed in mid-air, along with most of Baghdad.
By dawn, Secretary Rusk and Premier Suslov have managed to broker a temporary ceasefire; Suslov now concedes (based on GRU reports of isotopic analysis of the fallout from the Megiddo and Tirosh explosions) that the U.S. really did not supply Israel with the weapons; and Rusk has similar intelligence reports showing the Tirosh explosion was an Israeli device, not a Soviet first strike. They agree to a 72 hour truce, during which time Suslov will not launch nuclear retaliatory strikes against Israel (since the USSR and Iraq have broken relations following Saddam Hussein's grab of Kuwait), though he warns that if any more nukes are used anywhere on Earth, the USSR will have to retaliate in kind.
1973-12-20
Rioting by Roman Catholics spreads to Lithuania, Latvia, and the Eichsfeld district of East Germany. Premier Suvlov orders large-scale movement of Red Army units (already on highest alert) into these areas to suppress the unrest. In the case of Eichsfeld, this is unfortunately very close to the Fulda Gap region.
1973-12-20
In London, an IRA car bomb causes moderate damage to the Soviet Embassy in Kensington.
During a live television interview, Chancellor Willy Brandt (whom is under investigation for both a sex scandal, and involvement with an East German spy) pulls out a pistol and commits suicide.
1973-12-21
At a secret meeting of the Politburo, Premier Suslov lays out a convincing case before Defense Minister Grechko and a majority of the other members, for a pre-emptive attack by the Warsaw Pact against NATO.
- American top leadership is in chaos (four leaders in not as many months;
and an apparent coup attempt against the current one).
- Dangerous willingness to use tactical and strategic nuclear devices (via their Israeli puppets)
- Imperialist attack against Iraq (along with their Iranian puppets)
- GRU assessment of NATO readiness in West Germany: Poor
- - U.S. morale, manpower, and materiel are all quite low in aftermath of Vietnam
- - annual REFORGER exercises have ended for the year and forces sent out of theatre
- - much of NATO's remaining airborne and medical assets have been sent to Rome
- Scientific inevitability of armed conflict between Communism and Capitalism.
1973-12-22
Egypt, Israel, and the surviving Iraqi leadership agree to a cease-fire.
In Bonn, ten thousand mourners hold a candlelight procession for the late Chancellor Brandt.
In Iraq, U.S. and Iranian forces reach the outskirts of Baghdad, and begin relief efforts.
In Rome, the remaining members of the College of Cardinals agree to convene in Venice, on January 1st, to begin selecting a new Pope.
Across the continental U.S., there is unseasonably mild and pleasant weather. No rioting is reported in any major city that evening.
1973-12-24
In less grim years, there had been an annual Christmas Eve tradition, where NORAD would pretend to use their radar network to track the progress of Santa's sleigh as he delivered presents to the good children of the world.
But tonight, there would be no such whimsy; all of the officers on duty were far, far too busy tracking a thousand real targets (both inbound and outbound) over the Arctic.
FIN
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