1973 CONCACAF Champions' Cup, Central American Zone, First Round
Saprissa, Alajuelense and Comunicaciones advanced to the Central American Zone second round. 1 CSD Municipal later withdrew. 2 The match was abandoned in the 68th minute with Alajuelense leading 1–0 due to torrential rain which flooded the pitch; the result was allowed to stand.


1973 CONCACAF Champions' Cup, Central American Zone, Second Round
1Deportivo Santa Cecilia replaced Municipal, who withdrew. Saprissa and Alajuelense advance to the Central American Zone third round.


1973 CONCACAF Champions' Cup, Caribbean Zone, Fourth Round
1apparently Devonshire Colts were reinstated; as meanwhile all clubs from the Northern and Central section had withdrawn,


1973 CONCACAF Champions' Cup, CONCACAF Final Round
The final was scratched and  Transvaal were declared CONCACAF champions as Central American finalist Saprissa withdrew.


1973 CONCACAF Championship
The 1973 CONCACAF Championship, the sixth edition of the CONCACAF Championship, was held in Haiti from 29 November to 18 December. All matches were played at Stade Sylvio Cator in Port-au-Prince. This is the first edition to double as qualification for the World Cup. Haiti became winners for the first time in the CONCACAF region and qualified for West Germany '74. The North, Central American and Caribbean zone was allocated 1 place (out of 16) in the World Cup.


1973 CONCACAF Championship qualification
The 1973 CONCACAF Championship qualification consisted of a single round of play. The 14 teams were divided into 6 groups of 2 or 3 teams (four groups with 2 teams and two groups with 3 teams). The teams would play against each other on a home-and-away basis. The group winners would then advance to the tournament.


1973 CONCACAF Championship qualification, Results, Group 4
Jamaica withdrew, so Netherlands Antilles advance to the tournament automatically.


1973 Cal Poly Mustangs football team
The 1973 Cal Poly Mustangs football team represented California Polytechnic State University during the 1973 NCAA Division II football season.


1973 Cal Poly Mustangs football team
Cal Poly competed in the California Collegiate Athletic Association (CCAA). The team was led by sixth-year head coach Joe Harper and played home games at Mustang Stadium in San Luis Obispo, California. They finished the regular season as CCAA champion with a record of nine wins and one loss (9–1, 4–0 CCAA). This was the fifth of five consecutive CCAA championships for the Mustangs. UPI ranked the Mustangs Number 9 in the final Small College poll for 1973.


1973 Cal Poly Mustangs football team, Team players in the NFL
No Cal Poly Mustang players were selected in the 1974 NFL Draft.


1973 Cal Poly Pomona Broncos football team
The 1973 Cal Poly Pomona Broncos football team represented California State Polytechnic University, Pomona during the 1973 NCAA Division II football season.


1973 Cal Poly Pomona Broncos football team
Cal Poly Pomona competed in the California Collegiate Athletic Association (CCAA). Cal Poly Pomona was led by fifth-year head coach Roy Anderson. They played home games at Kellogg Field in Pomona, California. The Broncos finished the season with a record of four wins, six losses and one tie (4–6–1, 1–3 CCAA). Overall, the team was outscored by its opponents 210–286 for the season.


1973 Cal Poly Pomona Broncos football team, Team players in the NFL
No Cal Poly Pomona players were selected in the 1974 NFL Draft.


1973 Cal State Fullerton Titans football team
The 1973 Cal State Fullerton Titans football team represented California State University, Fullerton during the 1973 NCAA Division II football season.


1973 Cal State Fullerton Titans football team
Cal State Fullerton competed in the California Collegiate Athletic Association (CCAA). This was their last year in the CCAA, as they moved to the Pacific Coast Athletic Association (PCAA) the following year. The team was led by second-year head coach Pete Yoder, and played home games at Santa Ana Stadium in Santa Ana, California. They finished the season with a record of seven wins and four losses (7–4, 1–3 CCAA).


1973 Cal State Fullerton Titans football team, Team players in the NFL
No Cal State Fullerton Titans were selected in the 1974 NFL Draft.


1973 Cal State Hayward Pioneers football team
The 1973 Cal State Hayward Pioneers football team represented California State University, Hayward in the 1973 NCAA Division II football season. Cal State Hayward competed in the Far Western Conference (FWC).


1973 Cal State Hayward Pioneers football team
The Pioneers were led by third-year head coach Bob Rodrigo. They played home games at Pioneer Stadium in Hayward, California. The Pioneers finished the season with a record of three wins and seven losses (3–7, 2–3 FWC). They were outscored by their opponents 168–348 for the 1973 season.


1973 Cal State Hayward Pioneers football team, Team players in the NFL
No Cal State Hayward Pioneers players were selected in the 1974 NFL Draft.


1973 Cal State Los Angeles Diablos football team
The 1973 Cal State Los Angeles Diablos football team represented California State University, Los Angeles during the 1973 NCAA Division I football season.


1973 Cal State Los Angeles Diablos football team
The Diablos were still members of the Pacific Coast Athletic Association in 1973. As in 1972, since they had downgraded their football program to the point where they no longer qualified as a University Division team, the one game they played against a PCAA team (a loss to Pacific) did not count in the conference standings.


1973 Cal State Los Angeles Diablos football team
The Diablos were led by Foster Andersen in his third year as head coach. The team played home games at the Campus Field in Los Angeles. They finished the season with a record of four wins, six losses and one tie (4–6–1). The Diablos were outscored 281–320 for the season.


1973 Cal State Los Angeles Diablos football team, Team players in the NFL
No Cal State Los Angeles players were selected in the 1974 NFL Draft.


1973 Cal State Northridge Matadors football team
The 1973 Cal State Northridge Matadors football team represented Cal State Northridge during the 1973 NCAA Division II football season.


1973 Cal State Northridge Matadors football team
Cal State Northridge competed in the California Collegiate Athletic Association (CCAA). The 1973 Matadors were led by first-year head coach Gary Torgeson. They played home games at North Campus Stadium in Northridge, California. Cal State Northridge finished the season with a record of two wins and nine losses (2–9, 1–3 CCAA). The Matadors were outscored by their opponents 200–456 for the season, including giving up over 50 points four times during the season.


1973 Cal State Northridge Matadors football team, Team players in the NFL
No Cal State Northridge players were selected in the 1974 NFL Draft.


1973 Calder Cup playoffs
The 1973 Calder Cup playoffs of the American Hockey League began on April 3, 1973. The eight teams that qualified played best-of-seven series for Division Semifinals and Finals. The division champions played a best-of-seven series for the Calder Cup. The Calder Cup Final ended on May 15, 1973, with the Cincinnati Swords defeating the Nova Scotia Voyageurs four games to one to win the only Calder Cup in team history.


1973 Calder Cup playoffs, Playoff seeds
After the 1972–73 AHL regular season, the top three teams from each division qualified for the playoffs. The Cincinnati Swords finished the regular season with the best overall record.


1973 Calder Cup playoffs, Bracket
In each round, the team that earned more points during the regular season receives home ice advantage, meaning they receive the "extra" game on home-ice if the series reaches the maximum number of games. There is no set series format due to arena scheduling conflicts and travel considerations.


1973 Calderdale Metropolitan Borough Council election
The first elections to the newly created Calderdale Metropolitan Borough Council were held on 10 May 1973, with the entirety of the 51 seat council — three seats for each of the 17 wards — up for vote. The Local Government Act 1972 stipulated that the elected members were to shadow and eventually take over from the predecessor corporation on 1 April 1974. The order in which the councillors were elected dictated their term serving, with third-place candidates serving two years and up for re-election in 1975, second-placed three years expiring in 1976 and 1st-placed five years until 1978.


1973 Calderdale Metropolitan Borough Council election
As well as replacing the County Borough of Halifax, the new council included:


1973 Calderdale Metropolitan Borough Council election
In May 1974 a by-election for the Brighouse ward occurred to replace the Conservative councillor G. Wood. The by-election was won by the Labour candidate M. Cunningham.


1973 Calgary Stampeders season
The 1973 Calgary Stampeders finished in 4th place in the Western Conference with a 6–10 record and failed to make the playoffs.


1973 California Angels season
The 1973 California Angels season involved the Angels finishing fourth in the American League West with a record of 79 wins and 83 losses.


1973 California Angels season, Regular season
1973 was an eventful season for Angels pitcher Nolan Ryan. On May 15, Ryan threw the first no-hitter of his career. On July 3, he struck out Sal Bando of the Oakland Athletics for the 1000th strikeout in his career. Twelve days later, Ryan threw a second no-hitter, becoming the fifth pitcher in major league history to throw two no-hitters in one season.


1973 California Angels season, Regular season
For the year, Ryan set what is, as of 2020, the post-1900 Major League Baseball record for most strikeouts in a season with 383, topping Sandy Koufax's 1965 mark by one. (The all-time record belongs to Matt Kilroy, who struck out 513 batters in 1886). In the process, he struck out at least 10 batters in 23 different games.


1973 California Angels season, Player stats, Batting, Starters by position
Note: Pos = Position; G = Games played; AB = At bats; H = Hits; Avg. = Batting average; HR = Home runs; RBI = Runs batted in


1973 California Angels season, Player stats, Batting, Other batters
Note: G = Games played; AB = At bats; H = Hits; Avg. = Batting average; HR = Home runs; RBI = Runs batted in


1973 California Angels season, Player stats, Pitching, Starting pitchers
Note: G = Games pitched; IP = Innings pitched; W = Wins; L = Losses; ERA = Earned run average; SO = Strikeouts


1973 California Angels season, Player stats, Pitching, Other pitchers
Note: G = Games pitched; IP = Innings pitched; W = Wins; L = Losses; ERA = Earned run average; SO = Strikeouts


1973 California Angels season, Player stats, Pitching, Relief pitchers
Note: G = Games pitched; W = Wins; L = Losses; SV = Saves; ERA = Earned run average; SO = Strikeouts


1973 California Golden Bears football team
The 1973 California Golden Bears football team was an American football team that represented the University of California, Berkeley in the Pacific-8 Conference (Pac-8) during the 1973 NCAA Division I football season. In their second year under head coach Mike White, the Golden Bears compiled a 4–7 record (2–5 against Pac-8 opponents), finished in a tie for fifth place in the Pac-8, and were outscored by their opponents by a combined total of 380 to 245.


1973 California Golden Bears football team
The team's statistical leaders included Vince Ferragamo with 1,014 passing yards (Steve Bartkowski added 910 passing yards), Chuck Muncie with 801 rushing yards, and Wesley Walker with 361 receiving yards.


1973 California Golden Bears football team, Game summaries, Washington
Cal gained 625 yards of total offense, the second best in school history. Steve Bartkowski came off the bench when Vince Ferragamo was shaken up with the Golden Bears ahead 21–7.


1973 Camellia Bowl
The 1973 Camellia Bowl was the NCAA Division II Football Championship game following the 1973 season, between the Louisiana Tech Bulldogs and the Western Kentucky Hilltoppers.


1973 Camellia Bowl, Notable participants
Notable participants for Louisiana Tech include Fred Dean, Roger Carr, Pat Tilley, Roland Harper, Mike Barber, John Henry White, Billy Ryckman, Maxie Lambright, Mickey Slaughter, Pat Patterson, and Pat Collins.


1973 Cameroonian parliamentary election
Parliamentary elections were held in Cameroon on 18 May 1973, the first since the promulgation of the country's new constitution approved in a referendum the previous year. The country was a one-party state at the time, with the Cameroonian National Union as the sole legal party. 2,600 candidates ran for a place on the CNU list, with 120 eventually winning a place on it, equal to the number seats available in the enlarged National Assembly, winning all of them with a 98.4% turnout.


1973 Campeonato Argentino de Rugby
The 1973 Campeonato Argentino de Rugby  was won by the selection of Buenos Aires that beat in the final the selection of Unión de Rugby de Rosario


1973 Campeonato Argentino de Rugby, That year in Argentina rugby union, International
The UAR contested the decision and the RFU offered to play a match in Twickenham on 1 December, at the end of the Argentina's tour of Scotland and Ireland, but the UAR refuse this proposal considering the decision "unilateral, hasty, and based on wrong information about the situation of Argentine Republic … "-


1973 Campeonato Argentino de Rugby, That year in Argentina rugby union, International
The tour were replaced with by a tour of Romania. The UAR, as retaliation, forbid to any Club o Provincial selection to visit England


1973 Campeonato Argentino de Rugby, Knock out stages, Semifinals
Sistema di punteggio:  meta = 4 punti, Trasformazione=2 punti .Punizione and calcio da mark=  3 punti. drop = 3 punti.


1973 Campeonato Argentino de Rugby, Knock out stages, Semifinals
Buenos Aires :Dudley Morgan,  Alejandro Altberg,  Arturo Rodríguez Jurado,  Roberto Matarazzo,  Eduardo Morgan,   Hugo Porta,  Luis Gradín,  Jorge Carracedo,  Hugo Miguens,  Miguel Iglesias,  José Virasoro,  José Fernández,  Mario Carluccio,  Juan Dumas,  Fernando Insúa. Rosario: Angel Rodríguez,  Carlos García,  Ricardo Muzzio,  César Blanco,  Andrés Knight,  Javier Escalante,  Ricardo Castagna,  Eduardo Mainini,  Ricardo Covella,  Víctor Macat,  Osvaldo Galesio,  Juan Mangiamelli,  Alejandro Risler,  José Costanté,  Miguel Senatore.


1973 Campeonato Argentino de Rugby, Knock out stages, Semifinals
Cordoba: E. Mezquida,  C. Pispiero,  J. Martínez,  N. Trebuq,  D. Clavería,  M. Bernis Sales,  C. Bergallo,  R. Byleveld,  L. Domínguez,  C. Cotonaro,  R. Campra,  R. Passaglia,  J. Ruggero,  H. Bianchi,  A. Cossini. Cuyo:' J. Castro,  C. Dorá,  O. Terranova,  D. Muñiz,  M. Brandi,  C. Navesi,  L. Chacón,  J. Navesi,  J. Nasazzi,  R. Ituarte,  R. Cattáneo,  E. Sánchez,  R. Fariello,  L. M. Ramos,  J. Cribelli.


1973 Campeonato Argentino de Rugby, Knock out stages, Final
Buenos Aires :Dudley Morgan,  Roberto Matarazzo,  Alejandro Travaglini,  Arturo Rodríguez jurado,  Eduardo Morgan,  Hugo Porta,  Luis Gradín,  Miguel Iglesias,  Hugo Miguens,  Jorge Carracedo,  José Virasoro,  José Fernández,  Mario Carluccio,  Juan Dumas,  Fernando Insúa. Cuyo : Ernesto Naveyra,  Julio Villanueva,  Ricardo Tarquini,  Daniel Muñiz,  Miguel Brandi,  Carlos Navesi,  Luis Chacón,  Luis Crivelli,  Luis Ramos,  Roberto Fariello,  Eduardo Sánchez,  Alfredo Cattáneo,  Jorge Navesi,  Jorge Nasazzi,  Raúl Ituarte.


1973 Campeonato Brasileiro Série A
The 1973 Campeonato Brasileiro Série A, (officially the Terceiro Campeonato Nacional de Clubes) was the 17th edition of the Campeonato Brasileiro Série A.


1973 Campeonato Carioca
The 1973 edition of the Campeonato Carioca kicked off on March 10, 1973 and ended on August 22, 1973. It was organized by FCF (Federação Carioca de Futebol, or Carioca Football Federation). Twelve teams participated. Fluminense won the title for the 21st time. no teams were relegated.


1973 Campeonato Gaúcho
The 53rd season of the Campeonato Gaúcho kicked off on August 13, 1972, and ended on August 5, 1973. Twenty-two teams participated. Internacional won their 21st title.


1973 Campeonato Paulista
The 1973 Campeonato Paulista da Divisão Especial de Futebol Profissional, organized by the Federação Paulista de Futebol, was the 72nd season of São Paulo's top professional football league. Portuguesa and Santos split the title, with the former winning it for the 3rd time and the latter for the 13th. no teams were relegated and the top scorer was Santos' Pelé with 11 goals.


1973 Campeonato Paulista, Championship
Much like in the previous year, a preliminary phase was disputed before the championship proper, in which all teams played against each other twice and the six best teams qualified into the main championship. That phase was to be disputed in the second semester of 1972, by the teams that had been eliminated in that phase in the previous year and the six worst-placed teams in the main championship


1973 Campeonato Paulista, Championship
The championship proper was divided into two rounds, in which each team played against each other once, and the winner of each round qualified to the Finals.


1973 Campeonato Paulista, Championship, Finals
The finals would be disputed in an only match, with extra time in case of a tie, and penalties if the tie persisted. However, after Portuguesa's third shot, when Santos led by 2-0, referee Armando Marques mistakenly sounded the whistle, even though there were still two shots left for each team, and there was still the possibility of Portuguesa tying. When the referee realized his mistake, Portuguesa's players had already left the stadium, and in the very same night, the Federation proclaimed both clubs to have won the title.


1973 Campeonato da 1ª Divisão do Futebol
Statistics of Campeonato da 1ª Divisão do Futebol in the 1973 season.


1973 Can-Am season
The 1973 Canadian-American Challenge Cup was the eighth season of the Can-Am auto racing series. It consisted of FIA Group 7 racing cars running two-hour sprint events. It began June 10, 1973, and ended October 28, 1973, after eight rounds. The season came amid the Oil Crisis, which ended interest in performance cars after an already-declining market over a several-year period. The golden age of the Trans Am Series ended after the 1972 season, leaving Can Am and Formula 5000 as the frontrunners of the SCCA. The season was also the penultimate season of the series, which would fold after 1974 before being revived in an entirely reworked series based on F5000 a few years later.


1973 Can-Am season, Schedule
For 1973, the schedule was altered as the season continued on. The first race ran in a standard, single race format. Rounds two through four ran as two heats, with the results being determined by combined results. Rounds five through eight ran a Sprint qualifying heat first to determine the starting order for the Cup event. The results of the Sprint and Cup were not combined.


1973 Can-Am season, Drivers Championship
Points are awarded to the top ten finishers in the order of 20-15-12-10-8-6-4-3-2-1.


1973 Canadian Grand Prix
The 1973 Canadian Grand Prix was a Formula One motor race held at Mosport Park on 23 September 1973. It was race 14 of 15 in both the 1973 World Championship of Drivers and the 1973 International Cup for Formula One Manufacturers.


1973 Canadian Grand Prix
The 80-lap race was won by Peter Revson, driving a McLaren M23, after starting from second on the grid. This turned out to be Revson's last victory and podium finish in Formula One. As of the conclusion of the 2020 Formula One World Championship, this is the last Grand Prix to be won by a driver born in the USA. Emerson Fittipaldi took second position for Team Lotus, while Jackie Oliver took third in a Shadow, his first podium in five years and his last of all.


1973 Canadian Grand Prix
This was also the 99th and last race start of triple world champion Jackie Stewart.


1973 Canadian Grand Prix, Report
This was the first Grand Prix to feature a car with the number 0, the car in question being the McLaren of Jody Scheckter.


1973 Canadian Grand Prix, Report
The race began in very wet conditions, which caused a number of incidents later in the race. François Cevert and Scheckter collided on the 32nd lap, resulting in the deployment of a safety car for the first time in Formula One history (although it would not be until twenty years later, in 1993, when these cars were given an official role). The car in question was a yellow Porsche 914 driven by former F1 privateer Eppie Wietzes. Wietzes stayed in front of Howden Ganley's Iso-Marlboro by mistake, which allowed several drivers, including eventual winner Revson, to gain a lap on the field.


1973 Canadian Grand Prix, Report
Pit stops at the time were unusual. Formula One had only recently switched to slick tyres but the drying conditions necessitated stops mid-race. The small pit lane at Mosport became busy, with a number of drivers heading into the pit lane only to have to drive through as there was no room for them to be serviced. Ganley realised the problem and waited until team-mate Tim Schenken had made his stop, making him one of the last to stop.


1973 Canadian Grand Prix, Report
The pit stops caused significant confusion, with some believing the leader to be Ganley and others, including Team Lotus manager Colin Chapman, believing it to be Fittipaldi. Chapman even went as far as to perform his traditional victory celebration of tossing his cap in the air at the end of what he believed to be the 80th lap, even though Fittipaldi was not shown the checkered flag. After a long pause, the starter waved the flag over a group of cars consisting of Ganley, Hailwood, Revson and Hunt.


1973 Canadian Grand Prix, Report
Despite seeing the flag first, Ganley did not believe he had won the race, despite lap charts kept by the team showing him leading. The officials then announced Revson as the winner after a long confusion which included protests from Ganley's then girlfriend (later wife) who had been keeping the team's lap chart. Ganley maintains he feels he won the race, citing the fact official lap charts have him pitting when he did not.


1973 Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce bank robbery
The 1973 Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce bank robbery occurred in Kenora, Ontario, Canada on May 10, 1973. A robber entered the bank with firearms, a bomb, and bags to hold money. Upon leaving the bank, accompanied by an undercover police officer, he was shot by a police sniper and the bomb detonated. The robber was killed and the officer injured. The robber has never been identified.


1973 Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce bank robbery, Events
On May 10, 1973 a man wearing a black balaclava mask entered the Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce in Kenora armed with a rifle, a pistol and a homemade bomb consisting of six sticks of dynamite. He held a dead man's switch in his teeth to detonate the bomb. He demanded his shoulder bag and three duffel bags be filled with money. A police officer, constable Don Millard, volunteered to pose as a getaway truck driver. As the pair carried the bags outside, a police sniper shot the robber triggering the bomb and killing the bomber. Constable Millard was injured but partially shielded from the blast by the large duffel bag of money he was carrying, and went on to a career as a firefighter. The street was showered with over $100,000 of cash - virtually all of which was returned.


1973 Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce bank robbery, Aftermath and mystery about bomber's identity
The bomber's wallet was recovered containing a pair of handcuff keys, 176 dollars, and a receipt from the Kenricia Hotel. He had checked into the hotel under the name Paul Higgins with a false address on April 23, two days before apparently taking a bus to Winnipeg. He left a steamer trunk - which also bore the name "P. Higgins" - stored at the hotel. He checked back in on May 5.


1973 Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce bank robbery, Aftermath and mystery about bomber's identity
The perpetrator wore a mask during the robbery and his features were destroyed in the explosion. 19-year-old Joe Ralko, who wrote a book based on the incident, had seen the man in town in the days beforehand and described him as being in his 40s, with brown hair and a reddish-colored beard. An initial suspect was dismissed when DNA samples from his brother did not match those taken from the crime scene, and was later found to be alive and well in France.


1973 Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce bank robbery, Aftermath and mystery about bomber's identity
Joe Ralko's book, The Devil's Gap: The Untold Story of Canada's First Suicide Bomber, was released in 2017.


1973 Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce bank robbery, Aftermath and mystery about bomber's identity
The unidentified man is buried in an unmarked grave in Kenora Cemetery.


1973 Canadian federal budget
The Canadian federal budget for fiscal year 1973-1974 was presented by Minister of Finance John Turner in the House of Commons of Canada on 19 February 1973.


1973 Cannes Film Festival
The 26th Cannes Film Festival was held from 10 to 25 May 1973. The Grand Prix du Festival International du Film went to Scarecrow by Jerry Schatzberg and The Hireling by Alan Bridges. At this festival two new non-competitive sections were added: 'Étude et documents' and 'Perspectives du Cinéma Français' (which is started by the French Film Directors' Society and runs until 1991).


1973 Cannes Film Festival
The festival opened with Godspell, directed by David Greene and closed with Lady Sings the Blues, directed by Sidney J. Furie. Swastika, a documentary by Philippe Mora, got negative reactions and caused disturbance among audience by showing Adolf Hitler's daily and social life. The Holy Mountain by Alejandro Jodorowsky, created controversy at the festival due to its depiction of extreme violence.


1973 Cannes Film Festival, Jury
The following people were appointed as the Jury of the 1973 feature film competition:


1973 Cannes Film Festival, Official selection, In competition - Feature film
The following feature films competed for the Grand Prix International du Festival:


1973 Cannes Film Festival, Official selection, Films out of competition
The following films were selected to be screened out of competition:


1973 Cannes Film Festival, Official selection, Short film competition
The following short films competed for the Short Film Palme d'Or:


1973 Cannes Film Festival, Parallel sections, International Critics' Week
The following feature films were screened for the 12th International Critics' Week (12e Semaine de la Critique):


1973 Cannes Film Festival, Parallel sections, Directors' Fortnight
The following films were screened for the 1973 Directors' Fortnight (Quinzaine des Réalizateurs):


1973 Cannes Film Festival, Awards, Official awards
The following films and people received the 1973 Official selection awards:


1973 Capital City 500
The 1973 Capital City 500 was a NASCAR Winston Cup Series race that took place on September 9, 1973, at Richmond Fairgrounds Raceway (now Richmond Raceway) in Richmond, Virginia. Richard Petty won the race by two laps after leading 429 of 500 laps.


1973 Capital City 500, Race report
Richard Petty defeated Cale Yarborough by at least two laps in front of 18000 spectators; five of which were by at least one lap. After running second to Bobby Allison in the spring 1974 race, he won again in the fall 1974 and spring 1975 races, the latter by six laps. It took four hours and thirteen minutes to finish the 500-lap race with the track spanning exactly 0.542 miles (0.872 km). Petty had won six other races at this track before extending his lucky streak to 7 at the end of this event.


1973 Capital City 500, Race report
Bobby Allison acquired the pole position with a qualifying speed of 90.245 miles per hour (145.235 km/h). The average race speed was 63.215 miles per hour (101.735 km/h). Five cautions slowed the race for 123 laps. Baxter Price finished in last-place due to a crash that also took out nine other cars at the start of lap 4. Out of the 34 races on the grid, 33 were born in the United States while Vic Parsons was born in Canada. J.D. McDuffie, Richard Childress and Darrell Waltrip also participated in this race.


1973 Capital City 500, Race report
Nearly a quarter of the race was run under the yellow flag despite the fact that there were only five caution periods during the race. There were threatening skies from the green flag; causing most of the race to be done under the yellow flag. No attempt was made to postpone the race or to call it "official." A record amount of 86 laps were done under caution until the skies became blue again. Besides the weather, a red flag also held up the race for 70 minutes as Price and Bill Champion, who was also involved in a fiery crash had to go to the hospital for their respective injuries.


1973 Capital City 500, Race report
Post-race coverage was done by the local newspaper The Daily Times-News from Burlington, North Carolina.


1973 Cardiff City Council election
The 1973 Cardiff City Council election was held on Thursday 10 May 1973 to elect councillors to the new Cardiff District Council (later to become known as Cardiff City Council) in Cardiff, Wales. It took place on the same day as other district council elections in the United Kingdom.


1973 Cardiff City Council election
These were the first elections to the new district council, which would come into effect on 1 April 1974. The previous all-Cardiff elections to the old Cardiff City Council took place in May 1972. Future elections would take place every three years, with the next election scheduled for 6 May 1976.


1973 Cardiff City Council election
The 1973 election saw the Labour Party win a significant majority on the Council.


1973 Cardiff City Council election, Background
Previously a unitary authority from 1889, Cardiff's council was to become a second-tier district authority to South Glamorgan County Council from 1 April 1974. This followed local government reorganisation enacted by the Local Government Act 1972. The 1973 election was the first to the new local authority, with councillors acting in a shadow capacity until April 1974. The election to South Glamorgan County Council had taken place in April 1973, with many Cardiff councillors standing for election to this authority.


1973 Cardiff City Council election, Background
Until 1973, elections to Cardiff City Council had been annual, with each of the three ward councillors standing down for election in rotation. In May 1973 all ward councillors were elected at the same election, to sit for three years.


1973 Cardiff City Council election, Wards
The wards to the new council remained the same in 1973 as the previous Cardiff City Council, but with the addition of two new wards: Lisvane, Llanedeyrn and St Mellons (1 seat); and Radyr, St Fagans, Tongwynlais (2 seats). Fourteen of the wards continued to have three councillors, but five wards had their representation doubled to six councillors.


1973 Cardiff City Council election, Wards
The position of alderman was to be abolished, with all members of the new council being elected ward councillors.


1973 Cardiff City Council election, Results
Contests took place in all except one of the wards at this election. (a)Labour won control of the new council.


1973 Cardiff City Council election, Results by ward, Whitchurch
o = sitting councillor on (pre-1974) Cardiff City Council A = sitting alderman on (pre 1974) Cardiff City Council + = elected as councillor to South Glamorgan County Council in April 1973


1973 Caribbean Series
The sixteenth edition of the Caribbean Series (Serie del Caribe) was played in 1973. It was held from February 1 through February 6 with the champions teams from Dominican Republic (Tigres del Licey), Mexico (Yaquis de Obregón), Puerto Rico (Cangrejeros de Santurce) and Venezuela (Leones del Caracas). The format consisted of 12 games, each team facing the other teams twice, and the games were played at UCV Stadium in Caracas, Venezuela. The Series was played to honor the memory of Roberto Clemente, who died on December 31, 1972, during a humanitarian mission to assist victims of the 1972 Nicaragua earthquake.


1973 Caribbean Series, Summary
The powerful Dominican Republic team, managed by Tommy Lasorda, captured the competition with a 5-1 record, with the only defeat coming from Venezuela in Game 4. The Dominicans hit a collective .329 average, committed only three errors, and outscored their rivals 44-19. Pedro Borbón (2-0) led the pitching staff, while OFs Jesús Alou and Manny Mota tied in the race for the batting title, with a .500 average (12-for-24). SS Bobby Valentine, who provided opportune hitting and a sharp defense, was named Series Most Valuable Player. The team also featured Ps Bruce Ellingsen, Lerrin LaGrow, Charlie Hough and Dick Tidrow; C Steve Yeager; IFs Jim Spencer (1B), Ted Martínez (2B) and Steve Garvey (3B), and OFs Elvio Jiménez and Von Joshua.


1973 Caribbean Series, Summary
The Puerto Rico and  Venezuela teams, managed by Frank Robinson and Ozzie Virgil respectively, were not rivals for the Dominicans and tied in second place with a 3-3 record.


1973 Caribbean Series, Summary
Puerto Rico's victories came behind pitching efforts from Doyle Alexander, (2-0, 1.20 ERA, 13.0 IP) and Juan Pizarro (1-1, 5.25 ERA, 12.0 IP). Other significant players in the roster included Ps Lloyd Allen,  Roger Moret, Bob Reynolds, Ramón Hernández and Mike Strahler; C Elrod Hendricks; IFs Tony Pérez (1B), Jerry DaVanon (2B), Ron Cey (3B) and Juan Beníquez (SS); Ofs Don Baylor (LF), José Cruz (CF) and Willie Crawford, and utilities Julio Gotay (IF) and Angel Mangual (OF).


1973 Caribbean Series, Summary
Venezuela divided wins and losses against each team. RF César Tovar (.385 BA) and 1B Gonzalo Márquez (.381 BA) paced the offense, while Diego Seguí pitched a complete game, seven-hit shutout with 15 strikeouts. Other support came from P Milt Wilcox  (1-1, 3.27 ERA), 3B Manny Trillo (.476 SLG, five RBI) and C Joe Ferguson (.423 SLG, five RBI). The rest of the roster included P Ed Acosta, OF Tony Armas,  SS Bert Campaneris, P Reggie Cleveland, CF Víctor Davalillo, OF Bobby Darwin, 2B Gustavo Gil, C Dave Ricketts and P Ed Sprague, among others.


1973 Caribbean Series, Summary
The Mexicans, with Dave Garcia at the helm, posted a 1-5 record and finished in last place. Their only victory came against Venezuela, 3–1,  behind the combined pitching performance of the Romo brothers (Vicente and Enrique) and closer Al Hrabosky. Also in the roster were 1B Jim Campanis, Ps Maximino León and Rich Troedson, 3B Dave Hilton, and OF Matt Alexander.


1973 Carmarthen District Council election
The first election to Carmarthen District Council following the re-organization of local government in Wales was held in May 1973. It was followed by the 1976 election. On the same day there were elections to the other local authorities and community councils in Wales.


1973 Carrickfergus Borough Council election
Elections to Carrickfergus Borough Council were held on 30 May 1973 on the same day as the other Northern Irish local government elections. The election used three district electoral areas to elect a total of 15 councillors.


1973 Carrickfergus Borough Council election, Districts results, Area A
1973: 2 x UUP, 1 x United Loyalist, 1 x Alliance


1973 Carrickfergus Borough Council election, Districts results, Area B
1973: 2 x UUP, 1 x Alliance, 1 x United Loyalist, 1 x Independent


1973 Carrickfergus Borough Council election, Districts results, Area C
1973: 2 x United Loyalist, 1 x UUP, 1 x Alliance, 1 x Loyalist


1973 Castlereagh District Council election
Elections to Castlereagh Borough Council were held on 30 May 1973 on the same day as the other Northern Irish local government elections. The election used three district electoral areas to elect a total of 19 councillors.


1973 Castlereagh District Council election, Districts results, Area A
1973: 3 x UUP, 2 x Alliance, 1 x United Loyalist


1973 Castlereagh District Council election, Districts results, Area B
1973: 4 x UUP, 2 x Alliance, 1 x United Loyalist, 1 x Loyalist Coalition


1973 Castlereagh District Council election, Districts results, Area C
1973: 3 x UUP, 1 x Alliance, 1 x Independent


1973 Centennial Cup
The 1973 Centennial Cup is the third Tier II Junior "A" 1973 ice hockey National Championship for the Canadian Junior A Hockey League.


1973 Centennial Cup
The Centennial Cup was competed for by the winners of the Western Canadian Champions and the Eastern Canadian Champions.


1973 Centennial Cup
The finals were hosted by the Portage la Prairie Terriers in the city of Brandon, Manitoba and Winnipeg Arena.


1973 Central American Games
The I Central American Games (Spanish: I Juegos Deportivos Centroamericanos) was a multi-sport event that took place between 24 November - 2 December 1973.


1973 Central American Games
The games were officially opened by Guatemalan Education Minister Alejandro Maldonado Aguirre. Long distance runner Mateo Flores was honoured to light the torch in the stadium bearing his name. The flame was ignited before in Q'umarkaj, one of the ancient cultural Mayan centers located in El Quiché, Guatemala.


1973 Central American Games
María del Milagro París from Costa Rica won 13 gold and 1 silver medals in the swimming contests, and was chosen as the best athlete of the games by the journalists.


1973 Central American Games, Medal table
The table below is taken from El Diario de Hoy, San Salvador, El Salvador, from El Nuevo Diario, Managua, Nicaragua,  and from the archives of La Nación, San José, Costa Rica.


1973 Central American and Caribbean Championships in Athletics
The 1973 Central American and Caribbean Championships in Athletics were held at the Estadio José Pachencho Romero in Maracaibo, Venezuela between 26–29 July.


1973 Central American and Caribbean Championships in Athletics – Results
These are the partial results of the 1973 Central American and Caribbean Championships in Athletics which took place between July 26 and 29 1973 in Maracaibo, Venezuela.


1973 Central Michigan Chippewas football team
The 1973 Central Michigan Chippewas football team represented Central Michigan University during the 1973 NCAA Division II football season. In their seventh season under head coach Roy Kramer, the Chippewas compiled a 7–4 record and outscored their opponents, 197 to 151. The team played its home games in Perry Shorts Stadium in Mount Pleasant, Michigan, with attendance of 78,547 in five home games.


1973 Central Michigan Chippewas football team
The team's statistical leaders included quarterback Mike Franckowiak with 655 passing yards, running back Jim Sandy with 1,168 rushing yards, and Matt Means with 553 receiving yards. Sandy received the team's most valuable player award. George Duranko set a school record with a 100-yard interception return against Eastern Michigan on November 10, 1973.


1973 Ceredigion District Council election
The first election to Ceredigion District Council was held in April 1973. It was  followed by the 1976 election. On the same day there were elections to the other local authorities and community councils in Wales.


1973 Championship of Australia
The 1973 Championship of Australia was the 17th edition of the Championship of Australia, an ANFC-organised national club Australian rules football tournament between the champion clubs from the VFL, the SANFL, the WANFL and the Tasmanian State Premiership.


1973 Championship of Australia, Fixtures, Championship of Australia Final
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1973 Charlotte Tennis Classic
The 1973 Charlotte Tennis Classic, also known by its sponsored name North Carolina National Bank Tennis Classic,  was a men's tennis tournament played on outdoor clay courts that was part of group B of the World Championship Tennis (WCT) circuit. It was the third edition of the tournament and was held from April 17 through April 22, 1973 at the Julian J. Clark Tennis Stadium on the grounds of the Olde Providence Racquet Club in Charlotte, North Carolina in the United States. First-seeded Ken Rosewall won his second successive singles title at the event and earned $10,000 first-prize money.


1973 Charlotte Tennis Classic, Finals, Doubles
Tom Okker /  Marty Riessen defeated  Tom Gorman /  Erik van Dillen 7–6, 3–6, 6–3


1973 Chatham Cup
The 1973 Chatham Cup was the 46th annual nationwide knockout football competition in New Zealand.


1973 Chatham Cup
The organisation of the cup was changed from previous years, with early stages being run in three large zones (northern, central, and southern), rather than by individual associations as had previously been the case. National League teams received a bye until the later stages of the competition. In all, 103 teams took part in the competition. Note: Different sources give different numberings for the rounds of the competition: some start round one with the beginning of the regional qualifications; others start numbering from the first national knock-out stage. The former numbering scheme is used in this article.


1973 Chatham Cup, The 1973 final
The final was moved from the Basin Reserve for the first time since 1928, excluding replays. The 1973 final was - also excluding replays - the first to be held outside Wellington. Part of the reason for the move was because - for the first time ever - both finalists came from Auckland. This was only the second time (after 1971) that both finalists had come from the same urban area. The venue was to alternate between Auckland and Christchurch for several years from 1973.


1973 Chatham Cup, The 1973 final
Mount Wellington made up for their narrow loss in the marathon final of the 1972 Chatham Cup by inflicting a sound defeat on their neighbours from across the Waitematā Harbour. Coach Ken Armstrong added to his impressive tally of cup victories both on and off the field. Shore's cause was not helped when keeper Turner had to be substituted early on after an injury, but even without this handicap the Mount would have proven the stronger side. All the goals came from Mount Wellington's players, with two from Dave Taylor and one from John Houghton.


1973 Chatham Cup, Results, Third Round
* Won on penalties by Rangers (4-3), Manurewa (6-5), and North End (6-5)


1973 Chattanooga Moccasins football team
The 1973 Chattanooga Moccasins football team was an American football team that represented the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga during the 1973 NCAA Division II football season. In their first year under head coach Joe Morrison, the team compiled a 4–7 record.


1973 Chester-le-Street by-election
The Chester-le-Street by-election, 1973 was a parliamentary by-election held for the British House of Commons constituency of Chester-le-Street on 1 March 1973.


1973 Chester-le-Street by-election, Vacancy
The by-election had been caused by the death aged 60 years on 28 October 1972 of the sitting Labour Member of Parliament (MP) Norman Pentland. Pentland had held Chester-le-Street since himself winning a by-election there on 27 September 1956.


1973 Chester-le-Street by-election, Candidates
The Labour Party chose Giles Radice, the then Head of the Research Department of the General and Municipal Workers Union as their candidate. The Conservatives selected merchant banker Neil Balfour and the Liberals adopted George Suggett, an antique dealer from Newbury in Berkshire but who had been born in the constituency and who was the son of a Durham miner. The Liberals had not contested any Parliamentary election in Chester-le-Street since the 1929 general election. Suggett himself had previously stood for the Newbury seat in 1945 as a member of the Common Wealth Party.


1973 Chester-le-Street by-election, Previous general election
The contest in Chester-le-Street at the 1970 general election had been a straight fight between Labour and Conservative parties at which Norman Pentland had a healthy majority of 20,331 votes.


1973 Chester-le-Street by-election, Political background to the by-election
By any measure Chester-le-Street was a very safe Labour seat and the party had held it for nearly 70 years. At a time of Conservative government which was proving difficult for Prime Minister Edward Heath, damaged politically as he was by a series of economic and social problems there was no expectation of a serious challenge for Tory candidate Neil Balfour.


1973 Chester-le-Street by-election, Political background to the by-election
The by-election came at a better time for the Liberal Party. The Liberals had won two by-elections at the end of 1972; the first at Rochdale had been won from Labour by Cyril Smith, the second at Sutton and Cheam had been captured from the Conservatives. Cook & Ramsden characterise 1972-73 as a time of Liberal surge. Further by-election success would follow for the Liberals during the 1970-1974 Parliament. Further difficulties would also follow for Labour with the by-election at Lincoln which was held on the same day as Chester-le-Street.


1973 Chester-le-Street by-election, Political background to the by-election
This resulted in the return to Parliament of Dick Taverne standing for election as Democratic Labour candidate, having fallen out with his local Constituency Labour Party. The problems Labour experienced in Lincoln, particularly in relation to the pro-European views of people like Taverne and Roy Jenkins, have been cited as an early example of the kind of problems which led ultimately to the split in the Labour Party in 1981 and the formation of the Social Democratic Party. In July 1974 similar trouble emerged for Labour with the defection to the Liberals of Christopher Mayhew, Labour MP for Woolwich East.


1973 Chester-le-Street by-election, By-election issues
Labour fought on the poor record of the Conservative government. The Tories highlighted improvements in pensions and government investment in regional development in the North East of England. The Liberals were starting from scratch in their campaign and attacked Labour for its complacency in an area which it was alleged they took their support for granted and the Conservatives on their performance on questions such as poverty and unemployment.


1973 Chester-le-Street by-election, By-election issues, Nomination of Giles Radice
An issue which surfaced during the campaign and which caused a great deal of bitterness was the question of how Labour candidate Giles Radice had been selected. The New Statesman magazine published an article on 23 February 1973, written by journalist Richard West, alleging that officials of the General and Municipal Workers Union had systematically gained control of the Chester-le-Street Constituency Labour Party and had in effect gerrymandered their representation in the division to obtain more votes than affiliated branches of other trade unions. In his article West claimed that the union's tactics had proved unpopular and divisive inside the local Labour party with 'loyal party workers' and some groups, such as the women's section, being particularly disgruntled.


1973 Chester-le-Street by-election, By-election issues, Liberal 'smears'
In the aftermath of this controversy, Labour turned its attack on the campaign of the Liberal candidate, accusing George Suggett of trying to smear Giles Radice personally and of trying to capitalise unfairly on the nomination issue. At the declaration of the votes, Radice announced that whereas the Conservatives had conducted a clean and honest campaign, he was not going to comment on the approach of his other opponent. As Suggett tried to make his speech after the declaration he was constantly heckled and jeered by the Labour supporters, who were later silent for the speech of Neil Balfour.


1973 Chester-le-Street by-election, By-election issues, Liberal 'smears'
Suggett denied he had smeared Radice and invited the press to review his election literature and campaign speeches for any evidence of misconduct. He said the real reason was so angry was that the Liberals had "broken the weighbridge on which the Labour majority in Chester-le-Street used to be weighed".


1973 Chester-le-Street by-election, By-election issues, Liberal 'smears'
Cyril Smith, who had campaigned for Suggett in the by-election, recalled later that he deliberately, if obliquely, had raised the issue of political corruption by mentioning in a speech at the opening of the campaign the T. Dan Smith affair and how it was uncovering new instances of corruption amongst Labour councillors in the North East, including one from Chester-le-Street who later went to prison. As far as the Liberal Party was concerned, commented Smith, this was legitimate political meat and needed no apology.


1973 Chester-le-Street by-election, The result
Radice held the seat for Labour with a majority of 7,066 over Suggett, having taken 53% of the poll. Balfour came third, losing his deposit. Radice went on to represent Chester-le-Street in the Labour interest until the seat was abolished in 1983. He was then selected as Labour candidate for North Durham the successor seat which included large parts of the old Chester-le-Street constituency, until he stood down from Parliament at the 2001 general election. Neil Balfour fought Chester-le-Street again at the February 1974 general election again coming third behind the Liberals. Perhaps bruised by the attacks upon him, Suggett does not appear to have been a candidate at any further Parliamentary elections but played an active but more backroom role in Newbury.


1973 Chicago Bears season
The 1973 Chicago Bears season was their 54th regular season completed in the National Football League. The team finished with a 3–11 record, the second worst showing in franchise history until 43 years later in 2016, when the team finished 3–13.


1973 Chicago Cubs season
The 1973 Chicago Cubs season was the 102nd season of the Chicago Cubs franchise, the 98th in the National League and the 58th at Wrigley Field. The Cubs finished fifth in the National League East with a record of 77–84.


1973 Chicago Cubs season, Regular season
After a strong finish to the 1972 season, the Cubs dominated the National League East for the first half of 1973. On June 29, they were 47–31 with an 8.5 game lead in the National League East. But then the Cubs fell into a deep swoon, losing 33 of their next 42 games, including 11 straight losses from August 4–16, to fall below .500 and out of the division lead. However, the rest of the division was so mediocre that it was nicknamed the "National League Least", enabling the Cubs to stay in contention even as they remained below .500.


1973 Chicago Cubs season, Regular season
In fact, 1973 was the only season between 1945 and 1984 in which the Cubs were still in contention on the last day of the regular season, September 30. Due to several rainouts, the Cubs still had four games to play against the first place Mets, so double headers were scheduled for September 30 and October 1, the day after the end of the season. If the Cubs were to win all four games, there could have been an unprecedented five-way tie for first place, with each team having a below .500 record of 80–82 (also unprecedented). It would have taken at least three days of games to break a five-way tie.


1973 Chicago Cubs season, Regular season
Rain was still in the forecast for both days, and with Wrigley Field having no lights, National League president Chub Feeney ordered both double headers to start at 10AM (again, unprecedented), making it clear that the umpires would wait out any rain as long as there was daylight.


1973 Chicago Cubs season, Regular season
The Cubs won the first game on September 30, and suddenly it seemed possible that the most unusual end to any season of baseball might happen. But the Mets won the second game, eliminating three of the teams, including the Cubs. On a dismal October 1, in light cold rain, the Mets won the first game and clinched the NL East. The second game was immediately canceled. Milt Pappas was scheduled to pitch for the Cubs in the second game, and the cancellation cost him his chance for his 100th victory in the National League.


1973 Chicago Cubs season, Player stats, Batting, Starters by position
Note: Pos = Position; G = Games played; AB = At bats; H = Hits; Avg. = Batting average; HR = Home runs; RBI = Runs batted in


1973 Chicago Cubs season, Player stats, Batting, Other batters
Note: G = Games played; AB = At bats; H = Hits; Avg. = Batting average; HR = Home runs; RBI = Runs batted in


1973 Chicago Cubs season, Player stats, Pitching, Starting pitchers
Note: G = Games pitched; IP = Innings pitched; W = Wins; L = Losses; ERA = Earned run average; SO = Strikeouts


1973 Chicago Cubs season, Player stats, Pitching, Other pitchers
Note: G = Games pitched; IP = Innings pitched; W = Wins; L = Losses; ERA = Earned run average; SO = Strikeouts


1973 Chicago Cubs season, Player stats, Pitching, Relief pitchers
Note: G = Games pitched; W = Wins; L = Losses; SV = Saves; ERA = Earned run average; SO = Strikeouts


1973 Chicago White Sox season
The 1973 Chicago White Sox season was the team's 73rd season in the major leagues, and its 74th season overall. They finished with a record 77–85, good enough for fifth place in the American League West, 17 games behind the first-place Oakland Athletics.


1973 Chicago White Sox season, Player stats, Batting
Note: G = Games played; AB = At bats; R = Runs scored; H = Hits; 2B = Doubles; 3B = Triples; HR = Home runs; RBI = Runs batted in; BB = Base on balls; SO = Strikeouts; AVG = Batting average; SB = Stolen bases


1973 Chicago White Sox season, Player stats, Pitching
Note: W = Wins; L = Losses; ERA = Earned run average; G = Games pitched; GS = Games started; SV = Saves; IP = Innings pitched; H = Hits allowed; R = Runs allowed; ER = Earned runs allowed; HR = Home runs allowed; BB = Walks allowed; K = Strikeouts


1973 Chichester District Council election
Elections to Chichester District Council in West Sussex, United Kingdom were held on 7 June 1973.


1973 Chichester District Council election
The whole council was up for election and resulted in no overall control.


1973 Chico State Wildcats football team
The 1973 Chico State Wildcats football team represented Chico State University during the 1973 NCAA Division II football season. Chico State competed in the Far Western Conference in 1973. They played home games at University Stadium in Chico, California. This was the first year the stadium was named University Stadium. With the school's change to University status in 1972, the stadium was renamed from "College Field".


1973 Chico State Wildcats football team
The 1973 Wildcats were led by sixth-year head coach Pete Riehlman. Chico State finished the season as co-champion of the FWC, with a record of seven wins and three losses (7–3, 4–1 FWC). The Wildcats outscored their opponents 185–152 for the season. This was the last season coach Riehlman was at the helm. In his six years, the Wildcats compiled a record of 41–20, a .672 winning percentage. That's the highest winning percentage of any head coach in Chico State's history.


1973 Chico State Wildcats football team, Team players in the NFL
No Chico State players were selected in the 1974 NFL Draft.


1973 Chico State Wildcats football team, Team players in the NFL
The following finished their Chico State career in 1973, were not drafted, but played in the NFL.


1973 Chilean coup d'état
The 1973 Chilean coup d'état was a military coup in Chile that deposed the Popular Unity government of President Salvador Allende. On 11 September 1973, after an extended period of social unrest and political tension between the opposition-controlled Congress and the socialist President, as well as economic war ordered by U.S. President Richard Nixon, a group of military officers led by General Augusto Pinochet seized power in a coup, ending civilian rule.


1973 Chilean coup d'état
The military established a junta that suspended all political activity in Chile and repressed left-wing movements, especially communist and socialist parties and the Revolutionary Left Movement (MIR). Pinochet rose to supreme power within a year of the coup and was formally declared President of Chile in late 1974. The Nixon administration, which had worked to create the conditions for the coup, promptly recognized the junta government and supported it in consolidating power.


1973 Chilean coup d'état
During the air raids and ground attacks that preceded the coup, Allende gave his final speech, vowing to stay in the presidential palace and refusing offers of safe passage should he choose exile over confrontation. Direct witness accounts of Allende's death agree that he killed himself in the palace.


1973 Chilean coup d'état
Before the coup, Chile had been hailed as a beacon of democracy and political stability for decades, a period in which the rest of South America had been plagued by military juntas and caudillismo. The collapse of Chilean democracy ended a succession of democratic governments in Chile, which had held democratic elections since 1932. Historian Peter Winn characterised the 1973 coup as one of the most violent events in the history of Chile. A weak insurgent movement against the Pinochet regime was maintained inside Chile by elements sympathetic to the former Allende government. An internationally supported plebiscite in 1988 held under the auspices of the military dictatorship was followed by a peaceful transition to an elected civilian government.


1973 Chilean coup d'état
Due to occurring on the same date as the September 11 attacks in 2001, the coup has often been referred to as "the other 9/11".


1973 Chilean coup d'état, Political background
Allende contested the 1970 presidential election with Jorge Alessandri Rodriguez of the National Party and Radomiro Tomic of the Christian Democratic Party. Allende received 36.6% of the vote. Alessandri was a very close second with 35.3%, and Tomic third with 28.1%. Although Allende received the highest number of votes, according to the Chilean constitution and since none of the candidates won by an absolute majority, the National Congress had to decide among the candidates.


1973 Chilean coup d'état, Political background
The 1925 constitution did not allow a person to be president for two consecutive terms. The incumbent president, Eduardo Frei Montalva, was therefore ineligible as a candidate. The CIA's "Track I" operation was a plan to influence the Congress to choose Alessandri, who would resign after a short time in office, forcing a second election. Frei would then be eligible to run. Alessandri announced on 9 September that if Congress chose him, he would resign. Allende signed a Statute of Constitutional Guarantees, which stated that he would follow the constitution during his presidency trying to shore up support for his candidacy. Congress then decided on Allende.


1973 Chilean coup d'état, Political background
The U.S. feared the example of a "well-functioning socialist experiment" in the region and exerted diplomatic, economic, and covert pressure upon Chile's elected socialist government. At the end of 1971, the Cuban Prime Minister Fidel Castro made a four-week state visit to Chile, alarming American observers worried about the "Chilean Way to Socialism".


1973 Chilean coup d'état, Political background
In 1972, Economics Minister Pedro Vuskovic adopted monetary policies that increased the amount of circulating currency and devalued the escudo, which increased inflation to 140 percent in 1972 and engendered a black market economy.


1973 Chilean coup d'état, Political background
In October 1972, Chile suffered the first of many strikes. Among the participants were small-scale businessmen, some professional unions, and student groups. Its leaders – Vilarín, Jaime Guzmán, Rafael Cumsille, Guillermo Elton, Eduardo Arriagada – expected to depose the elected government. Other than damaging the national economy, the principal effect of the 24-day strike was drawing Army head, Gen. Carlos Prats, into the government as Interior Minister, an appeasement to the right wing.


1973 Chilean coup d'état, Political background
(Gen. Prats had succeeded Army head Gen. René Schneider after his assassination on 24 October 1970 by a group led by Gen. Roberto Viaux, whom the Central Intelligence Agency had not attempted to discourage.) Gen. Prats supported the legalist Schneider Doctrine and refused military involvement in a coup d'état against President Allende.


1973 Chilean coup d'état, Political background
Despite the declining economy, President Allende's Popular Unity coalition increased its vote to 43.2% in the March 1973 parliamentary elections; but, by then, the informal alliance between Popular Unity and the Christian Democrats ended. The Christian Democrats allied with the right-wing National Party, who were opposed to Allende's government; the two right-wing parties formed the Confederation of Democracy (CODE). The internecine parliamentary conflict between the legislature and the executive branch paralyzed the activities of government.


1973 Chilean coup d'état, Political background
Allende began to fear his opponents, convinced they were plotting his assassination. Using his daughter as a messenger, he explained the situation to Fidel Castro. Castro gave four pieces of advice: convince technicians to stay in Chile, sell only copper for US dollars, do not engage in extreme revolutionary acts which would give opponents an excuse to wreck or control the economy, and maintain a proper relationship with the Chilean military until local militias could be established and consolidated. Allende attempted to follow Castro's advice, but the latter two recommendations proved difficult.


1973 Chilean coup d'état, Political background, The military prior to the coup
Prior to the coup, the Chilean military had undergone a process of de-politicization since the 1920s, when military personnel participated in government positions. Subsequently, most military officers remained under-funded, having only subsistence salaries. Because of the low salaries, the military spent much time in military leisure-time facilities (e.g. country clubs) where they met other officers and their families. The military remained apart from society, and was to some degree an endogamous group as officers frequently married the sisters of their comrades or the daughters of high-ranked older officers. Many officers also had relatives in the military.


1973 Chilean coup d'état, Political background, The military prior to the coup
In 1969 elements of the military made their first act of rebellion in 40 years when they participated in the Tacnazo insurrection. The Tacnazo was not a proper coup, but a protest against under-funding. In retrospect General Carlos Prats considered that Christian Democrats who were in power in 1969 committed the error of not taking the military's grievances seriously.


1973 Chilean coup d'état, Political background, The military prior to the coup
Governments of Brazil (1964), Argentina (1966), Peru (1968), and Bolivia (1969) were all overthrown in coups and replaced by military governments. In June 1973 Uruguay joined the coup d'état wave that swept through the region. The poor conditions of the Chilean military contrasted with the change of fortune the military of neighboring countries experienced as they came to power in coups.


1973 Chilean coup d'état, Political background, The military prior to the coup
During the decades prior to the coup, the military became influenced by the United States' anti-communist ideology in the context of various cooperation programs including the US Army School of the Americas.


1973 Chilean coup d'état, Crisis
On 29 June 1973, Colonel Roberto Souper surrounded the La Moneda presidential palace with his tank regiment and failed to depose the Allende Government. That failed coup d’état – known as the Tanquetazo tank putsch – had been organized by the nationalist "Fatherland and Liberty" paramilitary group.


1973 Chilean coup d'état, Crisis
In August 1973, a constitutional crisis occurred; the Supreme Court publicly complained about the government's inability to enforce the law of the land. On 22 August, the Chamber of Deputies (with the Christian Democrats united with the National Party) accused the government of unconstitutional acts and called upon the military to enforce constitutional order.


1973 Chilean coup d'état, Crisis
For months, the government had feared calling upon the Carabineros national police, suspecting them of disloyalty. On 9 August, Allende appointed General Carlos Prats as Minister of Defense. He was forced to resign both as defense minister and as the Army commander-in-chief on 24 August 1973, embarrassed by the Alejandrina Cox incident and a public protest of the wives of his generals at his house. General Augusto Pinochet replaced him as Army commander-in-chief the same day. In late August 1973, 100,000 Chilean women congregated at Plaza de la Constitución to protest against the government for the rising cost and increasing shortages of food and fuels, but they were dispersed with tear gas.


1973 Chilean coup d'état, Crisis, Chamber of Deputies' resolution
On 22 August 1973, with the support of the Christian Democrats and National Party members, the Chamber of Deputies passed 81–47 a resolution that asked "the President of the Republic, Ministers of State, and members of the Armed and Police Forces" to "put an immediate end" to "breach[es of] the Constitution . . . with the goal of redirecting government activity toward the path of Law and ensuring the Constitutional order of our Nation, and the essential underpinnings of democratic co-existence among Chileans."


1973 Chilean coup d'état, Crisis, Chamber of Deputies' resolution
The resolution declared that the Allende Government sought ". . . to conquer absolute power with the obvious purpose of subjecting all citizens to the strictest political and economic control by the State . . . [ with] the goal of establishing a totalitarian system", claiming it had made "violations of the Constitution . . . a permanent system of conduct." Essentially, most of the accusations were about the government disregarding the separation of powers, and arrogating legislative and judicial prerogatives to the executive branch of government.


1973 Chilean coup d'état, Crisis, Chamber of Deputies' resolution
Finally, the resolution condemned the "creation and development of government-protected armed groups, which . . . are headed towards a confrontation with the armed forces". President Allende's efforts to re-organize the military and the police forces were characterised as "notorious attempts to use the armed and police forces for partisan ends, destroy their institutional hierarchy, and politically infiltrate their ranks".


1973 Chilean coup d'état, Crisis, Chamber of Deputies' resolution
It can be argued that the resolution called upon the armed forces to overthrow the government if it did not comply, as follows: "To present the President of the Republic, Ministers of State, and members of the Armed and Police Forces with the grave breakdown of the legal and constitutional order ... it is their duty to put an immediate end to all situations herein referred to that breach the Constitution and the laws of the land with the aim of redirecting government activity toward the path of Law."


1973 Chilean coup d'état, Crisis, President Allende's response
Two days later, on 24 August 1973, President Allende responded, characterising the Congress' declaration as "destined to damage the country’s prestige abroad and create internal confusion", predicting "It will facilitate the seditious intention of certain sectors".


1973 Chilean coup d'état, Crisis, President Allende's response
He noted that the declaration had not obtained the two-thirds Senate majority "constitutionally required" to convict the president of abuse of power: essentially, the Congress was "invoking the intervention of the armed forces and of Order against a democratically elected government" and "subordinat[ing] political representation of national sovereignty to the armed institutions, which neither can nor ought to assume either political functions or the representation of the popular will".


1973 Chilean coup d'état, Crisis, President Allende's response
Allende argued he had obeyed constitutional means for including military men to the cabinet "at the service of civic peace and national security, defending republican institutions against insurrection and terrorism". In contrast, he said that Congress was promoting a coup d’état or civil war with a declaration "full of affirmations that had already been refuted before-hand" and which, in substance and process (directly handing it to the ministers rather than directly handing it to the President) violated a dozen articles of the Constitution. He further argued that the legislature was usurping the government's executive function.


1973 Chilean coup d'état, Crisis, President Allende's response
President Allende wrote: "Chilean democracy is a conquest by all of the people. It is neither the work nor the gift of the exploiting classes, and it will be defended by those who, with sacrifices accumulated over generations, have imposed it . . . With a tranquil conscience . . . I sustain that never before has Chile had a more democratic government than that over which I have the honor to preside . . . I solemnly reiterate my decision to develop democracy and a state of law to their ultimate consequences . . . Parliament has made itself a bastion against the transformations . . . and has done everything it can to perturb the functioning of the finances and of the institutions, sterilizing all creative initiatives".


1973 Chilean coup d'état, Crisis, President Allende's response
Adding that economic and political means would be needed to relieve the country's current crisis, and that the Congress was obstructing said means—having already "paralyzed" the State—they sought to "destroy" it. He concluded by calling upon "the workers, all democrats and patriots" to join him in defending the Chilean Constitution and the "revolutionary process".


1973 Chilean coup d'état, Foreign involvement, United States
Like Caesar peering into the colonies from distant Rome, Nixon said the choice of government by the Chileans was unacceptable to the president of the United States. The attitude in the White House seemed to be, "If in the wake of Vietnam I can no longer send in the Marines, then I will send in the CIA. "—Senator Frank Church, 1976


1973 Chilean coup d'état, Foreign involvement, United States
Many people in different parts of the world immediately suspected the U.S. of foul play. In early newspaper reports, the U.S. denied any involvement or previous knowledge of the coup. Prompted by an incriminating New York Times article, the U.S. Senate opened an investigation into U.S. interference in Chile. A report prepared by the United States Intelligence Community in 2000, at the direction of the National Intelligence Council, that echoed the Church committee, states that


1973 Chilean coup d'état, Foreign involvement, United States
Although CIA did not instigate the coup that ended Allende's government on 11 September 1973, it was aware of coup-plotting by the military, had ongoing intelligence collection relationships with some plotters, and—because CIA did not discourage the takeover and had sought to instigate a coup in 1970—probably appeared to condone it.


1973 Chilean coup d'état, Foreign involvement, United States
The report stated that the CIA "actively supported the military Junta after the overthrow of Allende but did not assist Pinochet to assume the Presidency." After a review of recordings of telephone conversations between Nixon and Henry Kissinger, Robert Dallek concluded that both of them used the CIA to actively destabilize the Allende government.


1973 Chilean coup d'état, Foreign involvement, United States
In one particular conversation about the news of Allende's overthrow, Kissinger complained about the lack of recognition of the American role in the overthrow of a "communist" government, upon which Nixon remarked, "Well, we didn't – as you know – our hand doesn't show on this one." A later CIA report contended that US agents maintained close ties with the Chilean military to collect intelligence but no effort was made to assist them and "under no circumstances attempted to influence them."


1973 Chilean coup d'état, Foreign involvement, United States
Historian Peter Winn found "extensive evidence" of United States complicity in the coup. He states that its covert support was crucial to engineering the coup, as well as for the consolidation of power by the Pinochet regime following the takeover. Winn documents an extensive CIA operation to fabricate reports of a coup against Allende, as justification for the imposition of military rule. Peter Kornbluh asserts that the CIA destabilized Chile and helped create the conditions for the coup, citing documents declassified by the Clinton administration. Other authors point to the involvement of the Defense Intelligence Agency, agents of which allegedly secured the missiles used to bombard the La Moneda Palace.


1973 Chilean coup d'état, Foreign involvement, United States
The U.S. Government's hostility to the election of Allende in 1970 in Chile was substantiated in documents declassified during the Clinton administration, which show that CIA covert operatives were inserted in Chile in order to prevent a Marxist government from arising and for the purpose of spreading anti-Allende propaganda. As described in the Church Committee report, the CIA was involved in multiple plots designed to remove Allende and then let the Chileans vote in a new election where he would not be a candidate. The first, non-military, approach involved attempting a constitutional coup.


1973 Chilean coup d'état, Foreign involvement, United States
This was known as the Track I approach, in which the CIA, with the approval of the 40 Committee, attempted to bribe the Chilean legislature, tried to influence public opinion against Allende, and provided funding to strikes designed to coerce him into resigning. It also attempted to get congress to confirm Jorge Alessandri as the winner of the presidential election. Alessandri, who was an accessory to the conspiracy, was ready to then resign and call for fresh elections. This approach completely failed in 1970 and was not attempted again.


1973 Chilean coup d'état, Foreign involvement, United States
The other approach of the CIA in 1970 (but not later), also known as the Track II approach, was an attempt to encourage a military coup by creating a climate of crisis across the country. A CIA telegram to the Chile station stated: “It is firm and continuing policy that Allende be overthrown by a coup. It would be much preferable to have this transpire prior to 24 October but efforts in this regard will continue vigorously beyond this date. We are to continue to generate maximum pressure toward this end utilizing every appropriate resource.


1973 Chilean coup d'état, Foreign involvement, United States
It is imperative that these actions be implemented clandestinely and securely so that the USG and American hand be well hidden.” False flag operatives contacted senior Chilean military officers and informed them that the U.S. would actively support a coup, but would revoke all military aid if such a coup did not happen. In addition, the CIA gave extensive support for black propaganda against Allende, channeled mostly through El Mercurio. Financial assistance was also given to Allende's political opponents, and for organizing strikes and unrest to destabilize the government.


1973 Chilean coup d'état, Foreign involvement, United States
By 1970, the U.S. manufacturing company ITT Corporation owned 70% of Chitelco (the Chilean Telephone Company), and also funded El Mercurio. The CIA used ITT as a means of disguising the source of the illegitimate funding Allende's opponents received. On 28 September 1973, unknown bombers bombed ITT's headquarters in New York City, supposedly in retaliation.


1973 Chilean coup d'état, Foreign involvement, United States
According to an article written by lifelong CIA operative Jack Devine, although it was widely reported that the CIA was directly involved in orchestrating and carrying out the coup, subsequently released sources suggest a much reduced role of the US government.


1973 Chilean coup d'état, Foreign involvement, Australian
An Australian Secret Intelligence Service (ASIS) station was established in Chile at the Australian embassy in July 1971 at the request of the CIA and authorised by then Liberal Party Foreign Minister William McMahon. Newly elected Labor Prime Minister Gough Whitlam was informed of the operation in February 1973 and signed a document ordering the closure of the operation several weeks later. It appears, however, the last ASIS agent did not leave Chile until October 1973, one month after the coup d'état had brought down the Allende Government.


1973 Chilean coup d'état, Foreign involvement, Australian
There were also two officers of Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO), Australia's internal security service, who were based in Santiago working as migration officers during this period. The failure of timely closure of Australia's covert operations was one of the reasons for the sacking of the Director of ASIS on 21 October 1975. This took effect on 7 November, just four days before Prime Minister's Whitlam's own dismissal in the 1975 Australian constitutional crisis with allegations of CIA political interference.


1973 Chilean coup d'état, Foreign involvement, Australian
In June 2021, Clinton Fernandes, a former intelligence analyst, announced that he was trying to confirm the rumours of Australia's involvement in the coup by fighting for the declassification of key documents. On 10 September 2021, the day before the 48th anniversary of the coup, declassified documents confirmed that McMahon did indeed approve the CIA's request to conduct covert operations in Chile.


1973 Chilean coup d'état, Military action
By 7:00 am on 11 September 1973, a date chosen to match the historical coup of 12 September 1924, the Navy captured Valparaíso, strategically stationing ships and marine infantry in the central coast and closed radio and television networks. The Province Prefect informed President Allende of the Navy's actions; immediately, the president went to the presidential palace with his bodyguards, the "Group of Personal Friends" (GAP). By 8:00 am, the Army had closed most radio and television stations in Santiago city; the Air Force bombed the remaining active stations; the President received incomplete information, and was convinced that only a sector of the Navy conspired against him and his government.


1973 Chilean coup d'état, Military action
President Allende and Defense Minister Orlando Letelier were unable to communicate with military leaders. Admiral Montero, the Navy's commander and an Allende loyalist, was rendered incommunicado; his telephone service was cut and his cars were sabotaged before the coup d’état, to ensure he could not thwart the opposition. Leadership of the Navy was transferred to José Toribio Merino, planner of the coup d’état and executive officer to Adm. Montero. Augusto Pinochet, General of the Army, and Gustavo Leigh, General of the Air Force, did not answer Allende's telephone calls to them.


1973 Chilean coup d'état, Military action
The General Director of the Carabineros (uniformed police), José María Sepúlveda, and the head of the Investigations Police (plain clothes detectives), Alfredo Joignant answered Allende's calls and immediately went to the La Moneda presidential palace. When Defense Minister Letelier arrived at the Ministry of Defense, controlled by Adm. Patricio Carvajal, he was arrested as the first prisoner of the coup d’état.


1973 Chilean coup d'état, Military action
Despite evidence that all branches of the Chilean armed forces were involved in the coup, Allende hoped that some units remained loyal to the government. Allende was convinced of Pinochet's loyalty, telling a reporter that the coup d’état leaders must have imprisoned the general. Only at 8:30 am, when the armed forces declared their control of Chile and that Allende was deposed, did the president grasp the magnitude of the military's rebellion. Despite the lack of any military support, Allende refused to resign his office.


1973 Chilean coup d'état, Military action
At approx. 9:00 the carabineros of the La Moneda left the building. By 9:00 am, the armed forces controlled Chile, except for the city centre of the capital, Santiago. Allende refused to surrender, despite the military's declaring they would bomb the La Moneda presidential palace if he resisted being deposed. The Socialist Party along with his Cuban advisors proposed to Allende that he escape to the San Joaquín industrial zone in southern Santiago, to later re-group and lead a counter-coup d’état; the president rejected the proposition.


1973 Chilean coup d'état, Military action
According to Tanya Harmer, Allende's refusal to lead an insurgency against the coup is evidence of his unrelenting desire to bring about change through non-violent methods. The military attempted negotiations with Allende, but the President refused to resign, citing his constitutional duty to remain in office. Finally, Allende gave a farewell speech, telling the nation of the coup d’état and his refusal to resign his elected office under threat.


1973 Chilean coup d'état, Military action
Leigh ordered the presidential palace bombed, but was told the Air Force's Hawker Hunter jet aircraft would take forty minutes to arrive. Pinochet ordered an armoured and infantry force under General Sergio Arellano to advance upon the La Moneda presidential palace. When the troops moved forward, they were forced to retreat after coming under fire from GAP snipers perched on rooftops. General Arellano called for helicopter gunship support from the commander of the Chilean Army Puma helicopter squadron and the troops were able to advance again. Chilean Air Force aircraft soon arrived to provide close air support for the assault (by bombing the Palace), but the defenders did not surrender until nearly 2:30 pm. First reports said the 65-year-old president had died fighting troops, but later police sources reported he had committed suicide.


1973 Chilean coup d'état, Casualties
In the first months after the coup d’état, the military killed thousands of Chilean leftists, both real and suspected, or forced their "disappearance". The military imprisoned 40,000 political enemies in the National Stadium of Chile; among the tortured and killed desaparecidos (disappeared) were the U.S. citizens Charles Horman and Frank Teruggi. In October 1973, the Chilean songwriter Víctor Jara was murdered, along with 70 other people in a series of killings perpetrated by the death squad Caravan of Death (Caravana de la Muerte).


1973 Chilean coup d'état, Casualties
The government arrested some 130,000 people in a three-year period; the dead and disappeared numbered thousands in the first months of the military government. Those include the British physician Sheila Cassidy, who survived to publicize in the UK the human rights violations in Chile. Among those detained was Alberto Bachelet (father of future Chilean President Michelle Bachelet), an Air Force official; he was tortured and died on 12 March 1974, the right-wing newspaper, El Mercurio, reported that Mr Bachelet died after a basketball game, citing his poor cardiac health. Michelle Bachelet and her mother were imprisoned and tortured in the Villa Grimaldi detention and torture centre on 10 January 1975.


1973 Chilean coup d'état, Casualties
After Gen. Pinochet lost the election in the 1988 plebiscite, the Rettig Commission, a multi-partisan truth commission, in 1991 reported the location of torture and detention centers, among others, Colonia Dignidad, the tall ship Esmeralda and Víctor Jara Stadium. Later, in November 2004, the Valech Report confirmed the number as fewer than 3,000 killed, and reduced the number of cases of forced disappearance; but some 28,000 people were arrested, imprisoned, and tortured. Sixty individuals died as a direct result of fighting on 11 September, although the MIR and GAP continued to fight the following day.


1973 Chilean coup d'état, Casualties
In all, 46 of Allende's guard (the GAP, Grupo de Amigos Personales) were killed, some of them in combat with the soldiers that took the Moneda. Allende's Cuban-trained guard would have had about 300 elite commando-trained GAP fighters at the time of the coup, but the use of brute military force, especially the use of Hawker Hunters, may have handicapped many GAP fighters from further action.


1973 Chilean coup d'état, Casualties
According to official reports prepared after the return of democracy, at La Moneda only two people died: President Allende and the journalist Augusto Olivares (both by suicide). Two more were injured, Antonio Aguirre and Osvaldo Ramos, both members of President Allende's entourage; they would later be allegedly kidnapped from the hospital and disappeared. In November 2006, the Associated Press noted that more than 15 bodyguards and aides were taken from the palace during the coup and are still unaccounted for; in 2006 Augusto Pinochet was indicted for two of their deaths.


1973 Chilean coup d'état, Casualties
On the military side, there were 34 deaths: two army sergeants, three army corporals, four army privates, 2 navy lieutenants, 1 navy corporal, 4 naval cadets, 3 navy conscripts and 15 carabineros. In mid-September, the Chilean military junta claimed its troops suffered another 16 dead and 100 injured by gunfire in mopping-up operations against Allende supporters, and Pinochet said: "sadly there are still some armed groups who insist on attacking, which means that the military rules of wartime apply to them." A press photographer also died in the crossfire while attempting to cover the event.


1973 Chilean coup d'état, Casualties
On 23 October 1973, 23-year-old army corporal Benjamín Alfredo Jaramillo Ruz, who was serving with the Cazadores, became the first fatal casualty of the counterinsurgency operations in the mountainous area of Alquihue in Valdivia after being shot by a sniper. The Chilean Army suffered 12 killed in various clashes with MIR guerrillas and GAP fighters in October 1973.


1973 Chilean coup d'état, Casualties
While fatalities in the battle during the coup might have been relatively small, the Chilean security forces sustained 162 dead in the three following months as a result of continued resistance, and tens of thousands of people were arrested during the coup and held in the National Stadium. This was because the plans for the coup called for the arrest of every man, woman and child on the streets the morning of 11 September. Of these approximately 40,000 to 50,000 perfunctory arrests, several hundred individuals would later be detained, questioned, tortured, and in some cases murdered. While these deaths did not occur before the surrender of Allende's forces, they occurred as a direct result of arrests and round-ups during the coup's military action.


1973 Chilean coup d'état, Allende's death
President Allende died in La Moneda during the coup. The junta officially declared that he committed suicide with a rifle given to him by Fidel Castro, two doctors from the infirmary of La Moneda stated that they witnessed the suicide, and an autopsy labelled Allende's death a suicide. Vice Admiral Patricio Carvajal, one of the primary instigators of the coup, claimed that "Allende committed suicide and is dead now." Patricio Guijon, one of the president's doctors, had testified to witnessing Allende shoot himself under the chin with the rifle while seated on a sofa.


1973 Chilean coup d'état, Allende's death
At the time, few of Allende's supporters believed the explanation that Allende had killed himself. Allende's body was exhumed in May 2011. The exhumation was requested by members of the Allende family, including his daughter Isabel who viewed the question of her father's death as "an insult to scientific intelligence." A scientific autopsy was performed and the autopsy team delivered a unanimous finding on 19 July 2011 that Allende committed suicide using an AK-47 rifle. The team was composed of international forensic experts to assure an independent evaluation.


1973 Chilean coup d'état, Allende's death
However, on 31 May 2011, Chile's state television station reported that a top-secret military account of Allende's death had been discovered in the home of a former military justice official. The 300-page document was found only when the house was destroyed in the 2010 Chilean earthquake. After reviewing the report, two forensic experts told Televisión Nacional de Chile "that they are inclined to conclude that Allende was assassinated." Two forensics experts said they believed he was shot with a small-calibre weapon prior to the AK-47. One expert, Luis Ravanal, noted the lack of blood on his collar, sweater and throat suggested someone else fired the AK-47 when he was already dead.


1973 Chilean coup d'état, Allende's death
Allende's widow and family escaped the military government and were accepted for exile in Mexico, where they remained for 17 years.


1973 Chilean coup d'état, Aftermath, Installing a new regime
On 13 September, the Junta dissolved Congress, outlawed the parties that had been part of the Popular Unity coalition, and all political activity was declared "in recess". The military government took control of all media, including the radio broadcasting that Allende attempted to use to give his final speech to the nation. It is not known how many Chileans actually heard the last words of Allende as he spoke them, but a transcript and audio of the speech survived the military government.


1973 Chilean coup d'état, Aftermath, Installing a new regime
Chilean scholar Lidia M. Baltra details how the military took control of the media platforms and turned them into their own "propaganda machine." The only two newspapers that were allowed to continue publishing after the military takeover were El Mercurio and La Tercera de la Hora, both of which were anti-Allende under his leadership. The dictatorship's silencing of the leftist point of view extended past the media and into "every discourse that expressed any resistance to the regime." An example of this is the torturing and death of folk singer Victor Jara.


1973 Chilean coup d'état, Aftermath, Installing a new regime
The military government detained Jara in the days following the coup. He, along with many other leftists, was held in Estadio Nacional, or the National Stadium of Chile in the capital of Santiago. Initially, the Junta tried to silence him by crushing his hands, but ultimately he was murdered. Immediately after the coup the military sought television host Don Francisco to have him report on the events. Don Francisco declined the offer, encouraging the captain that had approached him to take the role of reporter himself.


1973 Chilean coup d'état, Aftermath, Installing a new regime
Initially, there were four leaders of the junta: In addition to General Augusto Pinochet, from the Army, there were General Gustavo Leigh Guzmán, of the Air Force; Admiral José Toribio Merino Castro, of the Navy (who replaced Constitutionalist Admiral Raúl Montero); and General Director César Mendoza Durán, of the National Police (Carabineros de Chile) (who replaced Constitutionalist General Director José María Sepúlveda). Coup leaders soon decided against a rotating presidency and named General Pinochet permanent head of the junta.


1973 Chilean coup d'état, Aftermath, Installing a new regime
In the months that followed the coup, the junta, with authoring work by historian Gonzalo Vial and Admiral Patricio Carvajal, published a book titled El Libro Blanco del cambio de gobierno en Chile (commonly known as El Libro Blanco, "The White Book of the Change of Government in Chile"), where they attempted to justify the coup by claiming that they were in fact anticipating a self-coup (the alleged Plan Zeta, or Plan Z) that Allende's government or its associates were purportedly preparing.


1973 Chilean coup d'état, Aftermath, Installing a new regime
Historian Peter Winn states that the Central Intelligence Agency had an extensive part to play in fabricating the conspiracy and in selling it to the press, both in Chile and internationally. Although later discredited and officially recognized as the product of political propaganda, Gonzalo Vial has pointed to the similarities between the alleged Plan Z and other existing paramilitary plans of the Popular Unity parties in support of its legitimacy.


1973 Chilean coup d'état, Aftermath, Installing a new regime
One of the first measures of the dictatorship was to set up a Secretaría Nacional de la Juventud (SNJ, National Youth Office). This was done on 28 October 1973, even before the Declaration of Principles of the junta made in March 1974. This was a way of mobilizing sympathetic elements of the civil society in support for the dictatorship.


1973 Chilean coup d'état, Aftermath, Continued violence
The newspaper La Tercera published on its front page a photograph showing prisoners at the Quiriquina Island Camp who had been captured during the fighting in Concepción. The photograph's caption stated that some of the detained were local leaders of the "Unidad Popular" while others were "extremists who had attacked the armed forces with firearms". The photo is reproduced in Docuscanner. This is consistent with reports in newspapers and broadcasts in Concepción about the activities of the Armed Forces, which mentioned clashes with "extremists" on several occasions from 11 to 14 September. Nocturnal skirmishes took place around the Hotel Alonso de Ercilla in Colo Colo and San Martín Street, one block away from the Army and military police administrative headquarters. A recently published testimony about the clashes in Concepcion offers several plausible explanations for the reticence of witnesses to these actions.


1973 Chilean coup d'état, Aftermath, Continued violence
Besides political leaders and participants, the coup also affected many everyday Chilean citizens. Thousands were killed, went missing, and were injured. Because of the political instability in their country, many relocated elsewhere. Canada, among other countries, became a main point of refuge for many Chilean citizens. Through an operation known as "Special Movement Chile", more than 7,000 Chileans were relocated to Canada in the months following 11 September 1973. These refugees are now known as Chilean Canadian people and have a population of over 38,000.


1973 Chilean coup d'état, Aftermath, Continued violence
The U.S. view of the coup continues to spark controversy. Beginning in late 2014 in response to a request by then Senate Armed Services Committee Chair Carl Levin, United States Southern Command (USSOUTHCOM) William J. Perry Center for Hemispheric Defense Studies (CHDS), located at the National Defense University in Washington, D.C., has been under investigation by the Department of Defense Office of Inspector General.


1973 Chilean coup d'état, Aftermath, Continued violence
Insider national security whistleblower complaints included that the Center knowingly protected a CHDS professor from Chile who was a former top advisor to Pinochet after belonging to the Dirección de Inteligencia Nacional / DINA state terrorist organization (whose attack against a former Chilean foreign minister in 1976 in Washington, D.C. resulted in two deaths, including that of an American).


1973 Chilean coup d'état, Aftermath, Continued violence
"Reports that NDU hired foreign military officers with histories of involvement in human rights abuses, including torture and extra-judicial killings of civilians, are stunning, and they are repulsive", said Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vermont, the author of the "Leahy Law" prohibiting U.S. assistance to military units and members of foreign security forces that violate human rights.


1973 Chilean coup d'état, Aftermath, Continued violence
Roberto Thieme, the military leader of Fatherland and Liberty, who was imprisoned on 11 September was shocked to hear about the degree of violence the coup was carried out with. Despite being an arduous opponent of Unidad Popular he had expected a cleaner coup.


1973 Chilean coup d'état, Aftermath, International reaction
President of Argentina Juan Domingo Perón condemned the coup calling it a "fatality for the continent". Before the coup Perón had warned the more radical of his followers to stay calm and "not do as Allende". Argentine students protested the coup at the Chilean embassy in Buenos Aires, where part of them chanted that they were "ready to cross the Andes" (dispuestos a cruzar la cordillera).


1973 Chilean coup d'état, Commemoration
The commemoration of the coup is associated to competing narratives on its cause and effects. The coup has been commemorated by detractors and supporters in various ways.


1973 Chilean coup d'état, Commemoration
On 11 September 1975 Pinochet lit the Llama de la Libertad (lit. Flame of Liberty) to commemorate the coup. This flame was extinguished in 2004. Avenida Nueva Providencia in Providencia, Santiago, was renamed Avenida 11 de Septiembre in 1980. In the 30th anniversary of the coup President Ricardo Lagos inaugurated the Morandé 80 entrance to La Moneda. This entrance to the presidential palace had been erased during the repairs the dictatorship did to the building after the bombing.


1973 Chilean coup d'état, Commemoration, 40th anniversary
The 40th anniversary of the coup in 2013 was particularly intense. That year the name of Avenida 11 de Septiembre was reversed to the original Avenida Nueva Providencia. The Association of Chilean Magistrates issued a public statement in early September 2013 recognizing the past unwillingness of judges to protect those persecuted by dictatorship. On 11 September 2013 hundreds of Chileans posed as dead in the streets of Santiago in remembrance of the ones "disappeared" by the dictatorship.