* 1973 – Launch of Pioneer 11 spacecraft.

* 1973 – The American League of Major League Baseball begins using the designated hitter.

* 1973 – Donnie Edwards, American football player

* 1973 – Randall Godfrey, American football player

* 1973 – Joe Machine, English artist, poet and writer

* 1973 – Rie Miyazawa, Japanese actress and model

* 1973 – Sun Wen, Chinese footballer

* 1973 – J. Scott Campbell, American writer and illustrator

* 1973 – Claudia Jordan, American model

* 1973 – Christina Moore, American actress

* 1973 – Antonio Osuna, Mexican baseball player

* 1948 – Alexander Onassis, American Greek socialite, son of Greek shipping magnate Aristotle Onassis ( d. 1973 )

* 1973 – Jeff Timmons, American singer and producer ( 98 Degrees )

* 1973 – Kinna McInroe, American actress

* 1908 – Lyndon B. Johnson, American politician, 36th President of the United States ( d. 1973 )

* 1973 – Jazz, American wrestler

* 1973 – Cory Bowles, Canadian actor and choreographer

* 1973 – Danny Coyne, Welsh footballer

* 1973 – Dietmar Hamann, German footballer

* 1973 – Burak Kut, Turkish singer-songwriter

* 1973 – Johan Norberg, Swedish author

* 1973 – Vera Farmiga, American actress

* 1973 – Monica Goodling, American lawyer

* 1973 – Max Kellerman, American sportscaster

* 1973 – Alexander Butterfield reveals the existence of the " Nixon tapes " to the special Senate committee investigating the Watergate break in.

* 1973 – Watergate scandal: former White House aide Alexander Butterfield informs the United States Senate that President Richard Nixon had secretly recorded potentially incriminating conversations.

* 1973 – Watergate scandal: The trial of seven men accused of illegal entry into Democratic Party headquarters at Watergate begins.

* 1973 – Watergate scandal: Televised hearings begin in the United States Senate.

* 1973 – Watergate Scandal: Leon Jaworski is appointed as the new Watergate Special Prosecutor.

* 1973 – Watergate scandal: In Orlando, Florida, U. S. President Richard Nixon tells 400 Associated Press managing editors " I am not a crook.

* 1973 – " Saturday Night Massacre ": President Richard Nixon fires U. S. Attorney General Elliot Richardson and Deputy Attorney General William Ruckelshaus after they refuse to fire Watergate special prosecutor Archibald Cox, who is finally fired by Robert Bork.

* 1973 – President Richard Nixon rejects an Appeals Court decision that he turn over the Watergate tapes.

* 1973 – The Watergate Scandal: US President Richard M. Nixon agrees to turn over subpoenaed audio tapes of his Oval Office conversations.

His intentional misinformation, that the " film you are about to see is true ", was a response to being " lied to by the government about things that were going on all over the world ", including Watergate, the 1973 oil crisis, and " the massacres and atrocities in the Vietnam War ".

< imagemap > File: 1970s decade montage. png | From left, clockwise: US President Richard Nixon doing the V for Victory sign after his resignation from office after the Watergate scandal in 1974 ; Refugees aboard a US naval boat after the Fall of Saigon, leading to the end of the Vietnam War in 1975 ; The 1973 oil crisis puts the nation of America in gridlock ; Both the leaders of Israel and Egypt shake hands after the signing of the Camp David Accords in 1978 ; The 1970 Bhola cyclone kills an estimated 500, 000 people in the densely populated Ganges Delta region of East Pakistan in November 1970 ; The Iranian Revolution of 1979 transformed Iran from an autocratic pro-western monarchy to a theocratic Islamist government under the leadership of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini ; The popularity of the disco music genre peaked during the middle to late 1970s .| 420px | thumb

In April 1973, when revelations about Watergate began to surface, Agnew was the choice of 35 percent of Republican voters to be the next Republican nominee for President, while then-California Governor Ronald Reagan was second on the Gallup Poll.

In 1973, with the government-wide panic caused by Watergate, the CIA Director Richard Helms ordered all MKUltra files destroyed.

In July 1973, as evidence mounted against the president's staff, including testimony provided by former staff members in an investigation conducted by the Senate Watergate Committee, it was revealed that President Nixon had a tape-recording system in his offices and he had recorded many conversations.

On March 23, 1973, Judge Sirica read the court a letter from Watergate burglar James McCord alleging perjury had been committed in the Watergate trial, and defendants had been pressured to remain silent.

On Feb. 7, 1973, the United States Senate voted 77 – 0 to approve and establish a select committee to investigate Watergate, with Sam Ervin named chairman the next day.

Haig served as White House Chief of Staff, while still retaining his Army commission, during the height of the Watergate affair from May 1973 until September 1974, taking over the position from H. R.

Haldeman, who resigned on April 30, 1973, while under pressure from Watergate prosecutors.

Former Attorney General Mitchell enters the Senate caucus room to testify before the Senate Watergate Committee, 1973

* Sam Ervin, ( 1896 – 1985 ), U. S. Senator from 1954 to 1975 ; famed Chairman of the Senate Watergate Committee in 1973.

The book chronicles the investigative reporting of Woodward and Bernstein from Woodward's initial report on the Watergate break-in through the resignations of H. R. Haldeman and John Ehrlichman, and the revelation of the Nixon tapes by Alexander Butterfield in 1973.