1976

Decades: 1920s 1930s 1940s 1950s 1960s - 1970s - 1980s 1990s 2000s

Years: 1971 1972 1973 1974 1975 - 1976 - 1977 1978 1979 1980 1981

Events

• January 12 - UN Security Council votes 11-1 to admit the Palestinian Liberation Organization
• January 15 - Would-be Gerald Ford presidential assassin Sara Jane Moore is sentenced to life in prison.
• January 21 - The first commercial Concorde flight took off.
• February 4 - In Guatemala and Honduras an earthquake kills more than 22,000.
• February 4 - 1976 Winter Olympics open in Innsbruck, Austria
• February 11 - Clifford Alexander Jr is confirmed as 1st African-American Secretary of US Army.
• February 20 - The Southeast Asia Treaty Organization disbands
• February 24 - Cuba's current constitution enacted.
• March 3 - Fleetwood Mac records Rumours, which will be a blockbuster album in 1977
• March 9-March 11 - Two coal mine explosions claim 26 lives at the Blue Diamond Coal Co. Scotia Mine, Letcher County, Ky.
• March 20 - Patty Hearst is found guilty of armed robbery of a San Francisco bank.
• March 24 - Argentina military forces depose president Isabel Peron.
• March 27 - The first 4.6 miles of the Washington, DC subway system opens.
• April 1 - Apple Computer Company is formed by Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak
• April 4 - Prince Norodom Sihanouk resigns as leader of Cambodia and is placed under house arrest.
• April 25 - Portugal's new constitution enacted
• May 11 - President Gerald Ford signs Federal Election Campaign Act
• May 24 - Washington, DC Concorde service begins.
• June 16 - Soweto riots in South Africa mark the beginning of the end of apartheid
• July 2 - North Vietnam and South Vietnam united to form the Socialist Republic of Vietnam - a Communist country
• July 3 - Supreme Court of the United States rules that death penalty is not inherently cruel or unusual and is a constitutionally acceptable form of punishment
• July 4 - United States Bicentennial
• July 4 - Israeli airborne commandos attack Uganda's Entebbe Airport and free 103 hostages being held by pro-Palestinian hijackers of an Air France plane; one Israeli and several Ugandan soldiers are killed in raid.
• July 10 - Explosion in Seveso, Italy, kills a large number of people
• July 19 - Sagarmatha National Park in Nepal is created.
• July 20 - Viking program: The Viking 1 lander successfully lands on Mars.
• July 28 - Earthquake flattens Tangshan, China, killing 242,769 people, and 164,851 people are heavily injured
• July 29 - In New York City, the "Son of Sam" pulls a gun from a paper bag killing one and seriously wounding another in the first of a series of attacks that terrorized the city for the next year.
• July 31 - NASA releases the famous Face on Mars photo, taken by Viking 1
• August 2 - A gunman murders Andrea Wilborn and Stan Farr, and injures Priscilla Davis and Gus Gavrel in an incident at Priscilla's Mansion at Mockingbird Lane in Fort Worth, Texas. T. Cullen Davis, Priscilla's husband and one of the richest men in Texas, was tried and found innocent for Andrea's murder. He was later found innocent of a plot to kill several people, including Priscilla and a judge, and a wrongful death lawsuit. Cullen went broke afterwards.
• August 7 - Viking program: Viking 2 enters into orbit around Mars.
• August 18 - In North Korea at Panmunjom, two US soldiers are killed while trying to chop down part of a tree in the DMZ which had obscured their view.
• September 3 - Viking program: The Viking 2 spacecraft lands at Utopia Planitia on Mars takes the first close-up, color photos of the planet's surface.
• September 6 - Cold War: Soviet air force pilot Lt. Viktor Belenko lands a MiG-25 jet fighter at Hakodate on the island of Hokkaido in Japan and requests political asylum from the United States.
• Summer Olympic Games in Montreal, Canada
• Military Junta in power in Argentina.
• September 17 - Space Shuttle Enterprise rolled out
• September 21 - Seychelles joins the United Nations
• October 12 - The People's Republic of China announces that Hua Guofeng is the successor to the late Mao Tse-tung as chairman of Communist Party of China.
• October 22 - Cearbhall Ó Dálaigh, fifth President of Ireland, resigns following accusations by the Minister for Defence.
• November 2 - U.S. presidential election, 1976: Jimmy Carter defeats incumbant Gerald Ford to become first candidate from deep south to win since the Civil War.
• November 26 - Little known company Microsoft is officially registered with the Office of the Secretary of the State of New Mexico.
• December 1 - Angola joins the United Nations
• December 3 - Patrick Hillery is elected unopposed as the sixth President of Ireland.
• December 15 - Samoa joins the United Nations
• First laser printer introduced by IBM - the IBM 3800
• Cray-1, the first commercially developed supercomputer, invented by Seymour Cray
• California's sodomy law repealed.
• The term memetics first proposed by Richard Dawkins in his book The Selfish Gene.
• Toronto Blue Jays created
• CN Tower built in Toronto - The tallest free standing land structure.
• Copyright Act of 1976 extends copyright duration for an additional 20 years in the United States
• Diffie-Hellman cryptography proposed

Year in topic

• 1976 in film
  • March 22 - Filming begins on George Lucas' Star Wars science fiction film. In one of the best business decisions in film history, Lucas cuts his directing fee by $500,000 to gain ownership of merchandising and sequel rights
  • Rocky
  • All the President's Men
  • Taxi Driver
• 1976 in literature
• 1976 in music
  • December 8 - The Eagles releases one of the biggest-selling albums of all time, Hotel California
  • Björk's musical career begins
  • The Clash form
  • The Damned form
  • Graffiti artist Lee Quinones begins painting large, intricate murals in New York City; along with Quinones, hip hop artists (rappers, DJs and breakdancers) begin to expand the boundaries of the art form
• 1976 in sports
• 1976 in television
  • January 17 - The Blues Brothers make their debut on NBC's Saturday Night Live
  • April 24 - Saturday Night Live producer Lorne Michaels makes on on-air offer to pay the Beatles $3000 to reunite on the show. Lennon and McCartney were apparently watching the show together in New York and considered walking down to the studio to accept the check.
  • May 22 - Saturday Night Live producer Lorne Michaels raises his previous offer to The Beatles from $3000 to $3,200.
  • December 1 - Infamous Bill Grundy incident, wherin UK punk group the Sex Pistols cause a storm of controversy and outrage by swearing on national television
  • The Olympics, broadcast from Montreal, draw an estimated 1 billion viewers worldwide.
  • The Sonny and Cher Show premieres

Births

• January 3 - Jason Marsden, actor
• January 6 - Danny Pintauro, actor
• January 7 - Eric Gagne, major league baseball pitcher
• February 11 - Brice Beckham, actor
• February 28 - Ja Rule
• March 8 - Freddie Prinze Jr., actor
• March 20 - Chester Bennington, Linkin Park
• March 21 - Justin Pierce, actor
• March 22 - Reese Witherspoon, actress
• March 24 - Peyton Manning, NFL star, league co-MVP in 2003
• March 25 - Juvenile, singer
• March 31 - Colin Farrell, actor
• April 25 - Tim Duncan, basketball player, two-time NBA MVP
• July 1 - Patrick Kluivert, Dutch football player
• July 1 - Ruud van Nistelrooy, Dutch football player
• July 4 - Daijiro Kato, Japanese motorcycle racer
• July 6 - 50 Cent, rapper
• July 9 - Fred Savage, actor
• July 11 - Lil' Kim, rapper
• September 7 - Shannon Elizabeth, actress
• September 7 - Stevie Case (Killcreek), video geme celebrity
• September 11 - Ludacris, rapper
• September 22 - Ronaldo, Brazilian football player
• October 4 - Alicia Silverstone, actress
• October 10 - Bob Burnquist, Brazilian skateboarder
• November 12 - Tevin Campbell
• December 13 - Tom Delonge, Blink-182
• Blu Cantrell, rapper
• John Collura, The Ataris
• Mike Davenport, The Ataris
• Judit Polgar, best woman chess player in history.
• Patrick Riley, The Ataris

Deaths

• January 8 - Zhou Enlai, Premier of the People's Republic of China
• January 8 - Lord Robert Baden-Powell, founder of the Boy Scouts
• January 10 - Howlin' Wolf, musician
• January 12 - Agatha Christie, English mystery writer.
• January 23 - Paul Robeson, American actor, singer, writer and political and civil rights activist
• January 30 - Mance Lipscomb, popular singer.
• February 1 - Werner Heisenberg, physicist
• February 6 - Vince Guaraldi, musician
• February 9 - Percy Faith, musician, composer
• February 11 - Lee J Cobb, actor.
• February 11 - Alice Allen, actress.
• February 11 - Charlie Naughton, actor.
• February 11 - Alexander Lippisch, German aerodynamicist
• February 12 - Sal Mineo, actor
• February 13 - Lily Pons, opera singer
• February 22 - Florence Ballard, singer with The Supremes
• March 6 - Max 'Slapsie Maxie' Rosenbloom, boxer, actor
• March 14 - Busby Berkeley, choreographer, director
• March 17 - Luchino Visconti, italian theatre and cinema director.
• March 24 - Bernard Montgomery, British Field Marshal
• April 1 - Max Ernst, artist
• April 5 - Howard Hughes, aviation pioneer, film director, eccentric
• May 9 - Ulrike Meinhof of the Red Army Faction commits suicide
• May 11 - Alvar Aalto, architect
• May 26 - Martin Heidegger, German philosopher
• June 10 - Adolph Zukor, producer
• June 25 - Johnny Mercer, songwriter
• August 2 - Stan Farr, boyfriend of Priscilla Davis
• August 2 - Andrea Wilborn, daughter of Priscilla Davis
• August 4 - First outbreak of Legionnaire's disease kills 29 at the American Legion convention in Philadelphia
• September 9 - Mao Zedong, Chinese leader
• September 21 - Orlando Letelier assassinated in Washington, D.C. by agents of Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet
• November 12 - Walter Piston, composer
• December 4 - Benjamin Britten, composer

Nobel Prizes

• Physics - Burton Richter, Samuel Chao Chung Ting
• Chemistry - William N Lipscomb
• Medicine - Baruch S Blumberg, D Carleton Gajdusek
• Literature - Saul Bellow
• Peace - Betty Williams and Mairead Corrigan
• Economics - Milton Friedman

Referenced By