June 30 - Very long total solar eclipse visible in NE South America, the Atlantic, and central Africa. During the entire Second Millennium, only seven total solar eclipses exceeded seven minutes of totality. This was the last. Observers aboard a Concorde jet were able to stretch totality to about 74 minutes by flying along the path of the moon's umbra.
October 10 - Spiro T. Agnew resigns as vice president of the United States and then, in federal court in Baltimore, pleads no contest to charges of evasion of income taxes on $29,500 he received in 1967 while he was governor of Maryland. He is fined $10,000 and put on three years' probation.
October 17 - A worldwide oil shortage, the 1973 energy crisis, followed an Arab Oil Embargo against several countries which gave support to Israël.
November 16 - US President Richard Nixon signs the Trans-Alaska Pipeline Authorization Act into law, authorizing the construction of the Alaska Pipeline.
