In Watergate's Wake (Jan. 1): Nixon administration officials H.R. Haldeman, John D. Ehrlichman and John M. Mitchell are convicted of conspiring to obstruct justice in the Watergate cover-up. They are later sentenced to 2 1/2 to eight years in prison.

Refugee Tragedy (April 4): An Air Force C-5A Galaxy transport plane bringing 243 Vietnamese orphans to refuge in the United States crashes shortly after takeoff from Saigon, killing more than 100 children and 25 adults accompanying them.

Fall of Saigon (April 29): Just after dusk, 11 U.S. Marines are plucked from the roof of the U.S. Embassy in Saigon in an emergency helicopter airlift. They are the last American soldiers to be evacuated from the South Vietnamese capital after the most divisive war in U.S. history. Shortly after noon the next day, Viet Cong tanks rumble into Saigon and a North Vietnamese flag is raised over the presidential palace. The South Vietnamese surrender to the North, ending the Vietnam War after three decades of strife. The final death toll of the war is roughly 1.3 million Vietnamese and more than 56,000 Americans. The Americans' $141 billion effort to stop communism in Southeast Asia is a bust.

High-Flying Détente (July 17): In a history-making linkup, the American Apollo spacecraft and the Soviet Union's Soyuz 19 dock with each other 140 miles over the Atlantic Ocean. Although the ships are racing along at 17,400 mph, the Apollo creeps up to dock at a relative speed of one-third of a mile per hour. Cosmonaut Aleksei A. Leonov, 41, and astronaut Thomas P. Stafford, 45, float through a tunnel linking their two craft and execute the first international handshake in space.

Homemade: Soaring prices prompt many Americans to turn to gardening and home canning to trim food expenses, which are at an eight-year high as a percentage of take-home pay. There are as many as 6 million new gardeners, the Agriculture Department says.

Where's He Buried? (July 30): Former Teamsters Union leader Jimmy Hoffa disappears after being seen outside a restaurant in Bloomfield Township, Mich., near Detroit.

No Smoke on Screen (Sept. 1): "Gunsmoke," which premiered in 1955, goes off the air.

Heiress Convicted (Sept. 18): Heiress Patty Hearst is apprehended at an apartment in San Francisco, more than 1 1/2 years after she was kidnapped by the urban guerrilla Symbionese Liberation Army. At her trial, lawyer F. Lee Bailey will argue that she was coerced and brainwashed. The jury will find her guilty of armed robbery in 1976, and she will be sentenced to seven years in prison.

	Ford

Close Calls (Sept. 22): For the second time in 17 days, President Ford escapes assassination when radical activist Sara Jane Moore, 45, fires a gun as he steps out of a hotel in San Francisco. On Sept. 5, Lynette Alice "Squeaky" Fromme, 26, a follower of mass murderer Charles Manson, pointed a pistol at Ford from close range as he neared the California capitol building in Sacramento. Fromme is sentenced in December to life imprisonment.

'Thrilla in Manila' (Oct 1): Muhammad Ali retains his heavyweight title with a TKO of Joe Frazier after 14 rounds in Manila, capital of the Philippines. The bout is watched by an estimated 700 million people.

Painful Decision (Nov. 10): The parents of Karen Anne Quinlan, a young woman who had been comatose in a hospital for seven months, lose a bid in New Jersey Superior Court to turn off the respirator believed to be keeping her alive. On March 4, 1976, the New Jersey Supreme Court will give its approval for disconnecting the respirator. Quinlan proves to be able to breathe without assistance.

In Absentia (Dec. 10): Yelena Bonner receives the Nobel Peace Prize in Oslo, Norway, on behalf of her husband, physicist and dissident Andrei Sakharov. Sakharov was denied an exit visa by Moscow.

PC Power: Harvard dropout Bill Gates, 19, and childhood pal Paul Allen, 22, found Microsoft.

Singular Sensation: "A Chorus Line" debuts on Broadway and stays for 15 years and a record 6,137 performances.