The first national meeting of the women's liberation movement in Britain takes place at Ruskin College. 

The Equal Pay Act enshrines in law the principal of equal pay for women. 

The Miss World Contest is disrupted by women's liberation protesters. Armed with flour bombs, stink bombs and water pistols.

Germaine Greer publishes The Female Eunuch.

Kate Millet publishes Sexual Politics.

Black American novelist Maya Angelou publishes the first part of her autobiography, I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings.

Annie Nightingale becomes the first woman DJ on Radio 1.

Lloyds of London Insurance admit its first female underwriters.

Janis Joplin (born 1943) dies of a heroin overdose in a Hollywood hotel.

Switzerland finally gives votes to women  in national elections. However, some cantons do not allow women to vote in local elections until 1994.

On 6 March over 4000 women take part in the first women's liberation march in London.

The USA passes a law banning sex discrimination in employment.

Erin Pizzey sets up the first women's refuge in Chiswick.

American feminist Gloria Steinem (born 1934) launches Ms Magazine.

Five formerly all-male colleges at Oxford University open their doors to women.

Nawal El Saadawi  (born 1931) publishes her controversial Women and Sex, the first book to challenge the position of women in Arab society. 

Rosie Boycott and Marsha Rowe launch Spare Rib, Britain's first feminist magazine.

The Jockey Club allow women to be jockeys. Meriel Tufnell is the first to win a race which she does riding her mother's horse, Scorched Earth at Kempton Park, London.

Astronomer Margaret Burbidge is appointed Director of Royal Observatory, Greenwich.

Jackie Smith joins the parachute regiment of the WRAC and becomes the first woman to fly with the Red Devils.

Rachel Heyhoe Flint captains the women's cricket team when it wins the Women's World Cup for the first time.

At the Olympic Games Mary Peters wins the gold medal for the pentathlon.

Stella Brummel is voted the first "Businesswoman of the Year". She is managing director of Benford Ltd, the largest manufacturer of concrete mixing equipment in the UK.

On 25th March 1973, women are allowed on the floor of the London Stock Exchange for the first time. Susan Shaw was the first of the ten women onto the floor.

American tennis star Billie Jean King beats Bobby Riggs, a former Wimbledon Men's Champion, in a much-publicised match in Houston.

Contraception becomes free to women in the UK more on birth control.

Virago is set up by the publisher, Carmen Callil. Life as We Have Known it, its first title, is published in 1975.

The Women's Aid Federation is set up to bring together refuges for battered women that have been springing up throughout Britain. more on domestic violence

Several key pieces of legislation are passed:  The Sex Discrimination Act, which came into force on 29 December 1975. This makes it illegal to discriminate against women in education, recruitment and advertising; the Employment Protection Act introduces statutory maternity provision and makes it illegal to sack a woman because she is pregnant; the Equal Pay Act takes effect.

Peggy Braithwaite becomes Britain's first woman lighthouse keeper at Walney Island in the Port of Lancaster.

Jacqueline Tabbick becomes the first British woman rabbi. Julia Neuberger becomes the second in Britain two years later.

Child Benefit replaces Family Allowances.

Japanese mountaineer Junko Tabei becomes the first woman to climb Everest.

Rosemary Murray becomes the first woman Vice-Chancellor of Cambridge.

Margaret Thatcher  (born 1925) is elected leader of the Conservative Party.

First lady of racing, trainer Jenny Pitman has her first win.

The Equal Opportunities Commission comes into effect to oversee the Sex Discrimination and Equal Pay Acts.

The Domestic Violence Act enables women to obtain a court order against their violent husband or partner.

Mary Joy Langdon becomes Britain's first woman fire-fighter, with the East Sussex Brigade.

Anita Roddick (born 1942) opens the first Body Shop in Brighton.

Clare Francis is the first woman to cross the finishing line in the Transatlantic Yacht Race. The following year she was the first woman captain in the Whitbread Round the World Yacht Race.

International Women's Day is formalised as an annual event by the U.N General Assembly.

Betty Williams and Mairead Corrigan win the Nobel Peace Prize for their peace campaign in Northern Ireland.

The first Rape Crisis Centre opens in London.

The parasitologist Miriam Rothschild (born 1904) hosts the world's first International Flea Conference at her home in Northamptonshire.

On 25 July Louise Brown becomes the world's first test tube baby when she is born at Oldham near Manchester.

On 4 May Margaret Thatcher  is elected Britain's first woman Prime Minister.

Dame Josephine Barnes is elected the first woman president of the British Medical Association.

Agnes Curran is the first woman governor of a male prison, Dungavel in Scotland.

'The Dinner Party' by American artist Judy Chicago is first put on show at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art.