1977 - Wikiwand

1977 (MCMLXXVII) was a common year starting on Saturday of the Gregorian calendar, the 1977th year of the Common Era (CE) and Anno Domini (AD) designations, the 977th year of the 2nd millennium, the 77th year of the 20th century, and the 8th year of the 1970s decade.

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Quick Facts

1977 in various calendars
Gregorian calendar	1977 MCMLXXVII
Ab urbe condita	2730
Armenian calendar	1426 ԹՎ ՌՆԻԶ
Assyrian calendar	6727
Baháʼí calendar	133–134
Balinese saka calendar	1898–1899
Bengali calendar	1383–1384
Berber calendar	2927
British Regnal year	25 Eliz. 2 – 26 Eliz. 2
Buddhist calendar	2521
Burmese calendar	1339
Byzantine calendar	7485–7486
Chinese calendar	丙辰年 (Fire Dragon) 4674 or 4467 — to — 丁巳年 (Fire Snake) 4675 or 4468
Coptic calendar	1693–1694
Discordian calendar	3143
Ethiopian calendar	1969–1970
Hebrew calendar	5737–5738
Hindu calendars
- Vikram Samvat	2033–2034
- Shaka Samvat	1898–1899
- Kali Yuga	5077–5078
Holocene calendar	11977
Igbo calendar	977–978
Iranian calendar	1355–1356
Islamic calendar	1397–1398
Japanese calendar	Shōwa 52 (昭和５２年)
Javanese calendar	1908–1909
Juche calendar	66
Julian calendar	Gregorian minus 13 days
Korean calendar	4310
Minguo calendar	ROC 66 民國66年
Nanakshahi calendar	509
Thai solar calendar	2520
Tibetan calendar	阳火龙年 (male Fire-Dragon) 2103 or 1722 or 950 — to — 阴火蛇年 (female Fire-Snake) 2104 or 1723 or 951
Unix time	220924800 – 252460799

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Events

January

January 8 – Three bombs explode in Moscow within 37 minutes, killing seven. The bombings are attributed to an Armenian separatist group.^[1]
January 10 – Mount Nyiragongo erupts in eastern Zaire (now the Democratic Republic of the Congo).^[2]
January 17 – 49 marines from the USS Trenton and USS Guam are killed as a result of a collision in Barcelona harbour, Spain.^[3]
January 18
- Scientists identify a previously unknown bacterium as the cause of the mysterious Legionnaires' disease.
- Australia's worst railway disaster at Granville, a suburb of Sydney, leaves 83 people dead.^[4]
- SFR Yugoslavia Prime minister Džemal Bijedić, his wife and 6 others are killed in a plane crash in Bosnia and Herzegovina.^[5]
January 19 – An Ejército del Aire CASA C-207C Azor (registration T.7-15) plane crashes into the side of a mountain near Chiva, on approach to Valencia Airport in Spain, killing all 11 people on board.^[6]
January 23 – Prime Minister Indira Gandhi of India calls for fresh elections to the Lok Sabha, and releases all political prisoners.
January 24 – The Massacre of Atocha occurs, during the Spanish transition to democracy.^[7]

February

February 2 – The Congress Party of India, led by Indira Gandhi, splits with Jagjivan Ram and other senior leaders, forming Congress for Democracy. This party later merges with the Janata Party.^[8]
February 3 – In northern Japan a blizzard piles snow on rooftops, causing many to collapse killing at least 31 people.^[9]
February 4 – Eleven CTA commuters are killed when an elevated train derails from the Loop in central Chicago, United States.
February 7 – The Soviet Union launches Soyuz 24 (Viktor Gorbatko, Yury Glazkov) to dock with the Salyut 5 space station.
February 18

American Space Shuttle program: First test flight of Space Shuttle Enterprise mated to the Boeing 747 Shuttle Carrier Aircraft.^[10]
The Xinjiang 61st Regiment Farm fire started during Chinese New Year when a firecracker ignites wreaths to the late Mao Zedong, killing 694 people, mostly children. It remains the deadliest fire in China.^[11]

February 23 – Óscar Romero, an outspoken opponent of violence, becomes Archbishop of San Salvador, El Salvador.^[12]
February 28 – Queen Elizabeth II opens the New Zealand Parliament in person, after Parliament is summoned for a special short session to allow her to deliver the Speech from the Throne.^[13]

March

March 4 – The 1977 Vrancea earthquake in the Vrancea Mountains of Romania kills over 1,500 people.^[14]
March 8 – The Australian parliament is opened by Elizabeth II in her capacity as Queen of Australia.
March 9 – Hanafi Siege: Approximately a dozen armed Hanafi Movement members take over 3 buildings in Washington, D.C., killing 1 person and taking 149 hostages (the hostage situation ends 2 days later).^[15]
March 10 – The rings of Uranus are discovered.^[16]
March 12 – The Centenary Test between Australia and England begins at the Melbourne Cricket Ground.
March 19 – Results of elections to the Indian Parliament are declared. Indira Gandhi's Congress Party is routed by the opposition Janata alliance.^[17]
March 21 – Prime Minister Indira Gandhi withdraws the state of emergency which was implemented on June 25, 1975.
March 27 – Tenerife disaster: A collision between KLM and Pan Am Boeing 747s at Tenerife, Canary Islands, kills 583 people. This becomes the deadliest accident in aviation history.

April

April 2 – Horse racing: Red Rum wins a record third Grand National at Aintree Racecourse in the UK.^[18]
April 4 – Southern Airways Flight 242 crashes on a highway in New Hope, Georgia, United States, killing 72 people.^[19]
April 7 – German Federal Prosecutor Siegfried Buback and his driver are shot by Red Army Faction members while waiting at a red light near his home in Karlsruhe. The "Ulrike Meinhof Commando" later claims responsibility.

Thumb — April 11: UK Silver Jubilee (25 red buses painted silver)

April 9 – Spain legalizes the Communist Party of Spain, which had been outlawed since 1939.
April 11 – London Transport's Silver Jubilee AEC Routemaster buses are launched.
April 17 – Belgian prime minister Leo Tindemans' Christian Social Party gains eight seats in the lower house in parliamentary elections.
April 18 – An annular solar eclipse was visible in Africa, and was the 29th solar eclipse of Solar Saros 138.
April 24 – In northern Bangladesh, a cyclone kills 13 people and injures about 100 others.^{[citation needed]}
April 28 – A federal court in Stuttgart, West Germany, sentences Red Army Faction members Andreas Baader, Gudrun Ensslin, and Jan-Carl Raspe to life imprisonment.
April 30 – The Cold War between Cambodia and Vietnam evolves into the Cambodian–Vietnamese War.

May

May 1 – The Taksim Square massacre in Istanbul results in 34 deaths and hundreds of injuries.
May 12 – Portugal and Israel establish diplomatic relations.
May 14 – An IAS Cargo Boeing 707 airplane crash in Lusaka, Zambia, kills all six on board.^[20]
May 16 – A 20-passenger S-61L topples sideways at takeoff from the roof of the Pan Am Building in Midtown Manhattan. Four passengers are killed by the turning rotors and a woman at street level is killed by a falling blade.
May 17 – The Likud Party, led by Menachem Begin, wins the national elections in Israel.
May 23
- Scientists report using bacteria in a lab to make insulin via gene splicing.
- Moluccan terrorists take over a school in Bovensmilde, northern Netherlands (105 hostages), and a passenger train on the Bovensmilde–Assen route nearby (90 hostages) at the same time. The children are released on May 26. ^[21] On June 11, Dutch Royal Marines storm the train, and six terrorists and two hostages are killed.
May 27
- The 1977 Aeroflot Ilyushin 62 airplane crash in Cuba kills 69 people.^[22]
- A demonstration and coup attempt in Angola takes place. Thousands are killed by the government and Cuban forces.^[23]
May 28 – The Beverly Hills Supper Club in Southgate, Kentucky, United States, is engulfed in fire; 165 are killed inside.
May 29 – Indianapolis 500: A. J. Foyt becomes the first driver to win the race four times.

June

June 5 – A bloodless coup installs France-Albert René as President of the Seychelles.
June 15 – Spain has its first democratic elections, after 41 years of Francoist Spain.
June 21 – Bülent Ecevit, of CHP forms the new government of Turkey (40th government since the founding of the Turkish republic, but fails to receive the vote of confidence).
June 25 – The 1977 Rugby League World Cup culminates in Australia's 13–12 victory over Great Britain at the Sydney Cricket Ground before about 24,450 spectators.
June 27
- Djibouti receives its independence from France.
- Constitution for the Federation of Earth is adopted by the second session of the World Constituent Assembly, held at Innsbruck, Austria.^[24]^[25]^[26]
June 30 – The Southeast Asia Treaty Organization is permanently disbanded.

July

July 1
- The East African Community is dissolved.^[27]
- The Championships, Wimbledon (tennis) – Virginia Wade wins the women's singles title in the centenary year of the tournament, Wade's first and only Wimbledon title and her third and final Grand Slam title overall; she remains the last British woman to win the singles title at Wimbledon.
July 5 – General Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq overthrows Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, the first elected Prime Minister of Pakistan.
July 9 – The Pinochet dictatorship in Chile organises the youth event of Acto de Chacarillas,^[28] a ritualised act reminiscent of Francoist Spain.^[29]
July 10 – A temperature of 48.0 °C (118.4 °F), a record for continental Europe, is recorded in Greece.^[30]
July 13
- Somalia declares war on Ethiopia, starting the Ethio-Somali War.
- New York City is affected by a complete electricity blackout lasting through the following day that results in citywide looting and other criminal activity, including arson.
July 21–24 – The Libyan–Egyptian War, sparked by a Libyan raid on Sallum, begins.
July 21 – Süleyman Demirel, of AP forms the new government of Turkey (41st government a three-party coalition, so-called second national front (Turkish: Milliyetçi cephe)).
July 22 – The purged Chinese Communist leader Deng Xiaoping is restored to power nine months after the "Gang of Four" was expelled from power in a coup d'état.
July 27 – The Soviet Politburo orders Boris Yeltsin to demolish the Ipatiev House, where Tsar Nicholas II of Russia and his family were shot in 1918. Yeltsin later refers to this as a barbarian act.^{[citation needed]}
July 30 – Left-wing German terrorists Susanne Albrecht,^[31] Brigitte Mohnhaupt and Christian Klar assassinate Jürgen Ponto,^[32] chairman of the Dresdner Bank in Oberursel, West Germany.

August

August 4 – U.S. president Jimmy Carter signs legislation creating the United States Department of Energy.
August 9 – The military-controlled government of Uruguay announces that it will return the nation to civilian rule through general elections in 1981 for a president and Congress.
August 12 – The NASA Space Shuttle, named Enterprise, makes its first test free-flight from the back of a Boeing 747 Shuttle Carrier Aircraft.
August 15
- The Big Ear, a radio telescope operated by Ohio State University as part of the SETI project, receives a radio signal from deep space; the event is named the Wow! signal for a notation made by a volunteer on the project.
- Nazi war criminal Herbert Kappler escapes from the Caelian Hill military hospital in Rome.^[33]
August 17 – The Soviet icebreaker Arktika becomes the first surface ship to reach the North Pole.^[34]
August 20 – Voyager program: The United States launches the Voyager 2 spacecraft.
August 26 – The National Assembly of Quebec passes the Charter of the French Language (Law 101, La charte de la langue française) making French the official language of the Canadian province of Quebec.

September

September 4 – The Golden Dragon massacre, involving rival Chinatown gangs, takes place in San Francisco, United States. Five are killed.^[35]
September 5
- Voyager program: Voyager 1 is launched after a brief delay.
- German Autumn: Employers Association President Hanns Martin Schleyer is kidnapped in Cologne, West Germany. The kidnappers kill three escorting police officers and his chauffeur. They demand the release of Red Army Faction prisoners.
September 7 – Treaties between Panama and the United States on the status of the Panama Canal are signed. The U.S. agrees to transfer control of the canal to Panama at the end of the 20th century.
September 8 – Interpol issues a resolution against the copyright infringement of video tapes and other material, which is still cited in warnings on opening pre-credits of videocassettes and DVDs.
September 10 – Murderer Hamida Djandoubi is the last person executed by guillotine in France (at Marseille) and the last legal beheading in the Western world.
September 15 – Optical fiber is first used to carry live telephone traffic, as an Italian company in Turin, Centro Studi e Laboratori Telecomunicazioni (CSELT) begins operation of two telephone exchanges.^[36]
September 18 – Courageous (U.S.), skippered by Ted Turner, sweeps the Australian challenger Australia in the 24th America's Cup yacht race at Newport, Rhode Island.
September 19
- Under pressure from the Carter Administration, President of Nicaragua Anastasio Somoza Debayle lifts the state of siege in Nicaragua.
- North Korean agents abduct Yutaka Kume from Noto Peninsula starting the North Korean abductions of Japanese citizens.
September 20 – The Petrozavodsk phenomenon is observed in the Soviet Union and some northern European countries.
September 28 – The Porsche 928 debuts at the Geneva Motor Show.

October

October 1 – Energy Research and Development Administration combines with the Federal Energy Administration to form United States Department of Energy.
October 7
- The Soviet Union adopts its third Constitution. The Soviet National Anthem's lyrics are returned after a 24-year period, with Joseph Stalin's name omitted.
- Pelé plays his final professional football game, as a member of the New York Cosmos.
October 13 – German Autumn: Four Palestinians hijack Lufthansa Flight 181 to Somalia and demand the release of 11 Red Army Faction members.
October 17–18 – German Autumn: GSG 9 troopers storm the hijacked Lufthansa passenger plane in Mogadishu, Somalia; three of the four hijackers die.
October 18 – German Autumn: Red Army Faction members Andreas Baader, Jan-Carl Raspe and Gudrun Ensslin commit suicide in Stammheim prison; Irmgard Möller fails (their supporters still claim they were murdered). They are buried on October 27.
October 19 – German Autumn: Kidnapped industrialist Hanns Martin Schleyer is found murdered in Mulhouse, France.
October 20 – Three members of the rock band Lynyrd Skynyrd die in a charter plane crash outside Gillsburg, Mississippi, three days after the release of their fifth studio album Street Survivors.
October 21 – The European Patent Institute is founded.
October 23 – The president of Catalonia, Josep Tarradellas, returns to Barcelona from exile and the autonomous government of Catalonia, the Generalitat, is restored.
October 26
- The last natural smallpox case is discovered in Merca district, Somalia. The WHO and the CDC consider this date the anniversary of the eradication of smallpox, a great success of vaccination and, by extension, of modern science.
- Space Shuttle program: Last test taxi flight of Space Shuttle Enterprise, over California.
October 27 – British punk band Sex Pistols release Never Mind the Bollocks, Here's the Sex Pistols on the Virgin Records label. Despite refusal by major retailers in the UK to stock it, it enters the UK Album Charts at number one the week after its release.
October 28 – Hong Kong police attack the ICAC headquarters.

November

November 1 – 2060 Chiron, first of the outer Solar System asteroids known as Centaurs, is discovered by Charlie Kowal.

November 2 – The worst storm in Athens' modern history causes havoc across the Greek capital and kills 38 people.
November 6 – The Kelly Barnes Dam, located above Toccoa Falls Bible College near Toccoa, Georgia, United States, fails, killing 39 people.
November 8
- Greek archaeologist Manolis Andronikos discovers the tomb of Philip II of Macedon at Vergina.
- San Francisco elects City Supervisor Harvey Milk, the first openly gay elected official of any large city in the U.S.
November 9 – Gen. Hugo Banzer, president of the military government of Bolivia, announces that the constitutional democracy will be restored in 1978 instead of 1980 as previously provided.
November 19
- Egyptian President Anwar Sadat becomes the first Arab leader to make an official visit to Israel, when he meets with Israeli prime minister Menachem Begin, seeking a permanent peace settlement.
- TAP Portugal Flight 425 crashes at Madeira Airport, Funchal, Portugal, killing 131 and leaving 33 survivors.
November 22
- British Airways inaugurates regular London to New York City supersonic Concorde service.
- The TCP/IP test succeeds, connecting 3 ARPANET nodes (of 111), in what eventually becomes the Internet protocol.^[37]
November 30 – The International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) is founded as a specialized agency of the United Nations.

December

December – The Colombo Plan for Co-operative Economic and Social Development in Asia and the Pacific (CESDAP) is implemented.
December 4
- Jean-Bédel Bokassa, president of the Central African Republic, crowns himself emperor.
- Malaysian Airline System Flight 653 is hijacked and crashes in Tanjung Kupang, Johor, Malaysia, killing all 100 passengers and crew on board.
December 6 – South Africa grants independence to Bophuthatswana, although it is not recognized by any other country.
December 10 – 1977 Australian federal election: Malcolm Fraser's Liberal/National Country Coalition government is re-elected with a slightly reduced majority, defeating the Labor Party led by former Prime Minister Gough Whitlam. Consequently, Whitlam resigns as ALP leader after holding the job for nearly 11 years; he is replaced by former treasurer Bill Hayden.
December 13 – a chartered Douglas DC-3 aircraft carrying the University of Evansville basketball team to Nashville, Tennessee, crashes in rain and dense fog about 90 seconds after takeoff from Evansville Regional Airport; 29 people die in the crash, including 14 members of the team and head coach Bob Watson.
December 18 – SA de Transport Aérien Flight 730, an international charter service from Zurich to Funchal Airport (Madeira), hits the sea during a landing attempt. Many of the 36 who die drown, trapped inside the sinking aircraft. Twenty-one people survive with the help of rescuers and by swimming to the shore.
December 19 – The M_w  5.9 Bob–Tangol earthquake rocks Iran, killing at least 584 people and injuring 1,000.^[38]
December 20 – Djibouti and Vietnam join the United Nations.
December 22 – A grain elevator explodes in Westwego, Louisiana, United States, killing 36 people.