March 8 - In the 'Border Poll', voters in Northern Ireland endorse remaining in the United Kingdom. Irish nationalists largely boycotted the referendum.
March 20 - British government White Paper on Northern Ireland proposes re-establishment of an Assembly elected by proportional representation, with a possible All-Ireland council.
April 10 - Israeli commandos raid Beirut, assassinating 3 leaders of the Palestinian Resistance Movement. The Lebanese army's inaction brings the immediate resignation of Prime Minister Saib Salam, a Sunni Muslim.
April 17 - Federal Express officially begins operations, with the launch of 14 small aircraft from Memphis International Airport. On that night, Federal Express delivers 186 packages to 25 U.S. cities from Rochester, NY, to Miami, Fla.
May 1 - An estimated 1,600,000 workers in the United Kingdom stopped work in support of a Trade Union Congress "day of national protest and stoppage" against the Government's anti-inflation policy.
May 27 - By virtue of the non-retroactivity of Soviet copyright laws, all works published before this date are public domain. This applies worldwide.Confirmation needed
June 23 - A house fire in Kingston upon Hull, England, which kills a 6-year-old boy is passed off as an accident; it later emerges as the first of 26 fire deaths caused over the next 7 years by arsonist Peter Dinsdale.
June 24 - Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev addresses the American people on television, the first to do so.
July 5 - The catastrophic BLEVE (Boiling Liquid Expanding Vapor Explosion) in Kingman, Arizona, following a fire that broke out as propane was being transferred from a railroad car to a storage tank, kills 11 firefighters. This explosion has become a classic incident, studied in fire department training programs worldwide.
