(ERP, the Revolutionary Army of the People). A group of seven ERP guerrillas took him from the Esso Argentina refinery at Campana, near Buenos Aires, where Samuelson was the refinery manager. Samuelson would be held hostage for 144 days, until April 29, 1974, before being released on Exxon's payment of a then-record kidnap ransom of $14,200,000, equivalent to almost $95 million in 2023. December 7, 1973 (Friday) With the elimination of the U.S. Coast Guard Women's Reserve, the United States Coast Guard accepted its first regular enlisted women. Chief Warrant Officer Alice T. Jefferson was commissioned as the first woman to be a regular USCG officer, and Yeoman First Class Wanda May Parr and Yeoman Second Class Margaret A. Blackman as the first female enlistees. The crash of Aeroflot Flight 964 killed 16 of the 75 people on board, including five of the seven crew, during a landing at Moscow's Domodevo Airport. Convicted child murderer Lester Eubanks escaped from the Ohio Penitentiary after being allowed a temporary, unsupervised furlough to go Christmas shopping, and would elude searchers for more than 49 years afterward. As of the end of 2022, Eubanks would still be on the U.S. Marshals "15 Most Wanted Fugitives" list. Born: Damien Rice, Irish singer-songwriter; in Kildare. December 8, 1973 (Saturday) At 12:01 a.m., the maximum speed limit on motorways in the United Kingdom was reduced from to by the government, three days after being authorized by Parliament, as a measure to conserve oil to last until at least April 8, 1974. "Although no signs will be altered," a government press release stated, "police will not regard ignorance of the new law as an excuse." The Portuguese Governor-General of Mozambique, General Pimentel dos Santo, granted an amnesty of more than 400 political prisoners in Portugal's East African colony. Following the revelation that U.S. President Richard Nixon had paid only a few hundred dollars of federal income taxes in 1970 and 1971, Nixon offered at a press conference to let a Congressional committee review all of his tax returns and said that he would pay back taxes and interest if any of his claimed deductions were improper. Nixon also allowed reporters to inspect his tax returns filed by him as president for the years 1969 through 1972, on the condition that the copies could not be taken out of the White House. In a nationwide referendum in Australia, voters