1974

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• After Greek Cypriot officers depose Archbishop Makarios of Cyprus on 15 July, Turkey uses the coup as an excuse to invade and occupy half of the island. The Turkish Federated State of Cyprus is proclaimed on 13 February 1975.

• On 9 August, US president Richard Nixon resigns after admitting his complicity in the cover-up of the burglary at the Watergate headquarters of his opponents, the Democratic party, in Washington DC in 1972. He is succeeded by the vice president Gerald Ford.

• On 12 September, Emperor Haile Selassie is deposed in Ethiopia by a military coup.

• On 10 October at the general election, the British Labour party has an overall majority of three seats. Harold Wilson returns as prime minister.

• On 13 February, Russian dissident Alexander Solzhenitysyn is forced into exile following the publication of his novel The Gulag Archipelago, which reveals the horror of Soviet labour camps.

• The 'terracotta army' – more than 6,000 life-size model soldiers – is discovered near Xi'an in central China, guarding the tomb of the country's first emperor.

• With his Godfather II, director Francis Ford Coppola achieves the near- impossible – making a sequel that is better than the original.

• British author John Le Carré's spy novel Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy creates a world of espionage that becomes the template for all such works that follow.

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