Timeline May 1974

Events in May 1974 7

• 1899 – 1974 Duke Ellington (1899-1974) Died 24 May 1974, aged 75 Duke Ellington was an American composer and bandleader widely regarded as one of the most influential figures in jazz history. He led his orchestra for over fifty years and wrote thousands of compositions.
• 1974 "Winter in America" With Brian Jackson Released "Winter in America" — a stripped-down, deeply political album rooted in African and R&B sounds, containing the original version of "The Bottle". Initially a cult underground hit with limited distribution, it later worked its way onto the R&B charts.
• 1974 Led Zeppelin launch Swan Song Records Own label Their own record label, also home to Bad Company.
• 1974 India conducts first nuclear test Smiling Buddha detonated at Pokhran India detonated its first nuclear device at the Pokhran test range, codenamed Smiling Buddha and officially described as a peaceful nuclear explosion. It made India the sixth country to demonstrate nuclear weapons capability.
• 1974 Giscard d'Estaing elected French president Narrow runoff victory following Pompidou's death Valéry Giscard d'Estaing narrowly defeated Socialist François Mitterrand in a presidential runoff, following the death of President Georges Pompidou earlier that year. He became France's youngest president since Napoleon III.
• 1974 Duke Ellington dies in New York Aged 75 Over 12,000 people attend his funeral.
• 1974 – 1999 Big L (1974-1999) Died 15 February 1999, aged 24 Lamont Coleman, known as Big L, was a Harlem rapper regarded as an influential figure in 1990s hip-hop lyricism. He was shot and killed near his childhood home in Harlem, New York, in an unsolved murder. His posthumous reputation grew substantially in the following decades.