On what date did Birmingham's Spaghetti Junction open?

Birmingham’s Spaghetti Junction opened on 24 May 1972.

Officially called the Gravelly Hill Interchange, Spaghetti Junction is Junction 6 of England’s M6 motorway, where the motorway meets the A38(M) Aston Expressway near Gravelly Hill in Birmingham. Its tangled network of ramps and roads inspired the memorable nickname, which became widely used after the interchange opened.

The structure is more than a single motorway crossing. It connects the M6 and Aston Expressway with the A38, A5127, and several local roads. The interchange covers about 30 acres and includes roughly 4 kilometres of slip roads, although only about 1 kilometre belongs to the M6 itself.

The date is often confused with later road upgrades or with the opening dates of similarly nicknamed junctions elsewhere. The canonical answer refers to Birmingham’s original Gravelly Hill Interchange, not every road system that has subsequently been called “Spaghetti Junction.”