1971 in the United Kingdom
Events from the year 1971 in the United Kingdom.
Incumbents
Monarch - HM Queen Elizabeth II
Prime Minister - Edward Heath, Conservative Party
Events
January - March
2 January - A stairway crush at the Rangers vs. Celtic football match at Ibrox Stadium in Glasgow kills 66 and leaves many more injured.
3 January - BBC Open University broadcasts begin.
7 January - The British heavy metal band Black Sabbath releases their breakthrough album, Paranoid.
8 January - Tupamaros kidnap Geoffrey Jackson, British ambassador to Uruguay, in Montevideo; they keep him captive until September.
12 January - The house of Robert Carr, Secretary of State for Employment, bombed by The Angry Brigade.
23 January - The first Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting, in Singapore, gives Britain permission to sell weapons to South Africa.
February - British Leyland launches the new Morris Marina range of family saloons and coupes, which replace the long-running Morris Minor and are designed as a direct competitor for the Ford Cortina.
4 February - Rolls-Royce goes bankruptand is nationalised.
11 February - The US, UK, USSR and others sign the Seabed Treaty, outlawing nuclear weapons on the ocean floor.
15 February - The United Kingdom and Republic of Ireland both switch to decimal currency. See also decimalisation.
15 February - Enoch Powell predicts an "explosion" unless there is a massive repatriation scheme for the immigrants.
24 February - Home Secretary Reginald Maudling announces the Immigration Bill that is set to strip Commonwealth immigrants of their right to remain in the United Kingdom. [http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/february/24/newsid_2518000/2518513.stm] The bill is supported by Enoch Powell, but the former shadow cabinet minister continues to demand a massive voluntary repatriation scheme for the immigrants. [http://www.whitewolves.org.uk/pages/Enoch%20Powell.htm]
5 March - The Pakistani army occupies East Pakistan.
8 March - The British postal workers' strike, led by UPW General Secretary Tom Jackson, ends after 47 days.
April - June
1 April - The United Kingdom lifts all restrictions on gold ownership.
18 April - Serious fire at Kentish Town West railway station. The station remained closed until 5 October 1981.
27 April - Eight members of the Welsh Language Society go on trial for destroying English language road signs in Wales.
11 May - The Daily Sketch, Britain's oldest tabloid newspaper, is withdrawn from circulation after 62 years.
23 May - Jackie Stewart wins the 1971 Monaco Grand Prix.
7 June - The children's show Blue Peter buries a time capsule in the grounds of BBC Television Centre, due to be opened on the first episode of the year 2000.
14 June - The first Hard Rock Cafe opens near Hyde Park Corner in London.
20 June – Britain announces that Soviet space scientist Anatoli Fedoseyev has been granted asylum.
21 June – Britain begins new negotiations for EEC membership in Luxembourg.
July - September
6 July - Police launch a murder investigation after three French tourists are found shot dead in Staffordshire.
8 July - Two rioters shot dead by British troops in Derry, Northern Ireland.
13 July - Barlaston man Michael Bassett, 24, is found dead in his fume-filled car near the scene of the recent triple French tourist murder. Police identify Bassett as their prime suspect in the murder investigation.
29 July - The United Kingdom opts out of the Space Race, with the cancellation of its Black Arrow launch vehicle.
6 August - Chay Blyth becomes the first person to sail around the world east to west against the prevailing winds.
9 August - British security forces in Northern Ireland detain hundreds of guerrilla suspects and put them into Long Kesh prison - the beginning of an internment without trial policy. Twenty die in riots that follow.
11 August - Prime Minister Edward Heath participates in the British victory in the Admiral's Cup yacht race.
15 August - Showjumper Harvey Smith stripped of his victory in the British Show Jumping Derby by judges for making a V sign.
25 August - The Who Release their critically acclaimed album Who's Next.
September - Godfrey Hounsfield's invention, the CAT scan, is first used on a patient at a hospital in Wimbledon.
1 September - the pre-decimal penny and threepence cease to be legal tender.
9 September - British Ambassador Geoffrey Jackson is freed after being held captive for eight months by extreme left-wing guerrillas in Uruguay.
21 September - The television music show The Old Grey Whistle Test is aired for the first time on BBC 2.
October - December
3 September - Qatar gains independence from the United Kingdom. Unlike most nearby emirates, Qatar declines to become part of either the United Arab Emirates or Saudi Arabia.
24 September - Britain expels 90 KGB and GRU officials; 15 are not allowed to return.
13 October - The British Army begins to destroy roads between the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland as a security measure.
21 October - A gas explosion in Clarkston, Glasgow kills 20 people.
23 October - Two women shot dead by soldiers in Belfast as their car fails to stop at a checkpoint.
28 October:
The House of Commons votes in favour of joining the EEC by a vote of 356-244.
The United Kingdom becomes the 6th nation to launch a satellite into orbit, the Prospero X-3, using a Black Arrow carrier rocket.
30 October - The Democratic Unionist Party is founded by the Rev. Ian Paisley's in Northern Ireland.
31 October - A IRA bomb explodes at the top of the Post Office Tower in London.
22 November - Six climbers die trying to climb Cairn Gorm.
4 December - 15 people are killed and 17 others injured in a bomb attack that destroys a pub in Belfast. The IRA are believed to have been behind the bombing.
10 December - Dennis Gabor wins the Nobel Prize in Physics "for his invention and development of the holographic method".
29 December - The United Kingdom gives up its military bases in Malta.
Undated
Production of the Morris Minor ceases after 23 years. It is succeeded by the Morris Marina, a larger car which is sold as a saloon or coupe, and is aimed at the hugely successful Ford Cortina.
Publications
Agatha Christie's Miss Marple novel Nemesis.
E. M. Forster's novel Maurice (posthumous).
Frederick Forsyth's novel The Day of the Jackal.
V. S. Naipaul's novel In a Free State.
Terry Pratchett's novel The Carpet People.
Paul Scott's novel The Towers of Silence, third of the Raj Quartet.
Births
January - February
1 January - Suzanne Virdee, British Newsreader-Midlands Today BBC ONE
5 January - Jayne Middlemiss, British television presenter
6 January - Charlie Neil, British regional TV weather reader
7 January - Joanne Malin, British television presenter
12 January - Jay Burridge, British artist and television presenter
14 January - Yiolanda Koppel, British television presenter
15 January - Lara Cazalet, British actress
20 January - Gary Barlow, singer
21 January - Alan McManus, Scottish snooker player
30 January - Darren Boyd, actor
31 January - Patrick Kielty, Northern Irish comedian and television presenter
2 February - Michelle Gayle, singer and actress
3 February - Sarah Kane, English playwright (died 1999)
13 February - Sonia Evans, English pop singer
16 February - Amanda Holden, British actress
16 February - Steven Houghton, British actor and singer
23 February - Melinda Messenger, British television presenter and model
March - April
7 March - Rachel Weisz, British actress
23 March - Gail Porter, British television presenter.
27 March - David Coulthard, Scottish race car driver
31 March - Ewan McGregor, Scottish actor
3 April - Douglas Carswell, British Conservative politician and MP for Harwich
11 April - John Leech, British Liberal Democrat politician, Shadow Transport Spokesperson, and MP for Manchester Withington
18 April - David Tennant, Scottish actor
27 April - Tess Daly, British television presenter.
May - June
9 May - Paul McGuigan, British musician and a founding member of Oasis
23 May - George Osborne, British Conservative politician, Shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer, and MP for Tatton
27 May - Paul Bettany, British actor
28 May - Richard Gunn, British journalist and motoring writer
5 June - Susan Lynch, Northern Irish actress
25 June - Neil Lennon, Northern Irish footballer
July - August
9 July - Dani Behr, British television presenter and actress.
2 August - Michael Hughes, Northern Irish footballer
7 August - Melanie Sykes, British television presenter
9 August - Kate Sanderson, British television presenter and newsreader
31 August - Kirstie Allsopp, British television presenter
September - October
1 September - Daniel Hannan, Conservative British politician and MEP for the South East England region
2 September - Lisa Snowdon, English fashion model, actress and television presenter
13 September
Louise Lombard, British actress.
Stella McCartney, British fashion designer
17 September - Parmjit Dhanda, British Labour politician and MP for Gloucester
25 September - Jessie Wallace, British actress
28 September - Liza Walker, British actress
29 September - Mackenzie Crook, English actor
9 October - Simon Atlee, British fashion photographer (died 2004)
13 October - Sacha Baron Cohen, British comedian
16 October - Craig Phillips, British reality show star, Winner of Big Brother UK in 2000
19 October - Kacey Ainsworth, British actress.
November - December
8 November - Michael Jeffrey, English footballer
22 November
Cath Bishop, British rower and Olympic medallist
Kyran Bracken, Irish-born rugby union footballer
1 December - Emily Mortimer, British actress
5 December - Ashia Hansen, British athlete
25 December - Dido, English singer
Deaths
12 January - John Tovey, British admiral of the fleet (born 1885)
24 January - St. John Greer Ervine, Northern Irish dramatist and author (born 1883)
28 January - Donald Winnicott, British psychoanalyst (born 1896)
6 March - Thurston Dart, English harpsichordist and conductor (born 1921)
7 March - Stevie Smith, English poet (born 1902)
1 May - Violet Jessop, Titanic survivor (born 1887)
15 May - Sir Tyrone Guthrie, English film director, producer and writer (born 1900)
20 May - Waldo Williams, Welsh language poet (born 1904)
10 June - Michael Rennie, English actor (born 1909)
6 June - Edward Andrade, English poet and physicist (born 1887)
25 June - John Boyd Orr, Scottish physician and biologist, recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize (born 1880)
1 July - William Lawrence Bragg, English physicist, Nobel Prize laureate (born 1890)
19 July - John Jacob Astor, 1st Baron Astor of Hever, British businessman (born 1886)
27 July - Charlie Tully, Northern Irish footballer (born 1924)
30 August - Peter Fleming, travel writer and brother of Ian Fleming (born 1907)
11 November - A. P. Herbert, politician and writer (born 1890)
17 November - Gladys Cooper, actress, (born 1888)
12 December
Torry Gillick, Rangers winger (born 1915)
Alan Morton, Rangers outside left (born 1893)
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