Tuesday Open Thread: 1976

January

• January – The Cray-1, the first commercially developed supercomputer, is released by Seymour Cray‘s Cray Research.
• January 5 – The Pol Pot regime proclaims a new constitution for Democratic Kampuchea.
• January 11 – The 1976 Philadelphia Flyers–Red Army game results in a 4–1 victory for the National Hockey League‘s Philadelphia Flyers over HC CSKA Moscow of the Soviet Union.
• January 14 – The Lutz family flees from 112 Ocean Avenue in Amityville, Long Island, New York, in the United States, 28 days after having moved in on December 18, 1975, leading to the story of The Amityville Horror.

• January 15 – Would-be Gerald Ford presidential assassin Sara Jane Moore is sentenced to life in prison.
• January 16 – The trial against jailed members of the Red Army Faction begins in Stuttgart, West Germany.
• January 18
  • Full diplomatic relations are established between Bangladesh and Pakistan 5 years after the Bangladesh Liberation War.
  • The Scottish Labour Party is formed.
  • Super Bowl X: The Pittsburgh Steelers defeat the Dallas Cowboys, 21–17, in Miami.
• January 19 – Jimmy Carter wins the Iowa Democratic Caucus.
• January 21 – The first commercial Concorde flight takes off.
• January 27
  • The United States vetoes a United Nations resolution that calls for an independent Palestinian state.
  • The First Battle of Amgala breaks out between Morocco and Algeria in the Spanish Sahara.
• January 29 – Twelve Provisional Irish Republican Army bombs explode in the West End of London.
• January 30 – Live from Lincoln Center debuts on PBS.

February

• February 4
  • The 1976 Winter Olympics begin in Innsbruck, Austria.
  • In Guatemala and Honduras an earthquake kills more than 22,000.
• February 5 – Nearly 2,000 students become involved in a racially charged riot at Escambia High School in Pensacola, Florida; 30 students are injured in the 4-hour fray.
• February 9 – The Australian Defence Force is formed by unification of the Australian Army, the Royal Australian Navy and the Royal Australian Air Force.
• February 11 – Clifford Alexander, Jr. is confirmed as the first African American Secretary of the United States Army.
• February 13 – General Murtala Mohammed of Nigeria is assassinated in a military coup.
• February 15 – The 1976 Constitution of Cuba is adopted by national referendum.
• February 24 – Cuba‘s current constitution is enacted.
• February 26 – The Spanish Armed Forces withdraw from Western Sahara.
• February 27 – The Polisario Front, Western Sahara‘s national liberation movement, declares independence of the territory under the name “Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic“.
• February 28 – Madagascar becomes the first country to recognise the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic.

March

• March 1
  • U.K. Home Secretary Merlyn Rees ends Special Category Status for those sentenced for scheduled terrorist crimes relating to the civil violence in Northern Ireland.
  • Burundi recognizes the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic (SADR).
• March 2 – Vietnam recognizes the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic (SADR).
• March 4
  • The Maguire Seven are found guilty of possessing explosives and subsequently jailed for 14 years.
  • The Northern Ireland Constitutional Convention is formally dissolved in Northern Ireland, resulting in direct rule of Northern Ireland from London via the British Parliament.
• March 6 – Algeria recognizes the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic (SADR).
• March 9 – A cable car disaster in Cavalese, Italy leaves 42 dead.
• March 9 – March 11 – Two coal mine explosions claim 26 lives at the Blue Diamond Coal Co. Scotia Mine, in Letcher County, Kentucky.
• March 11 – Angola and Benin recognize the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic (SADR).
• March 13 – Mozambique recognizes the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic (SADR).
• March 14 – After eight years on NBC, The Wizard of Oz returns to CBS, where it will remain until 1999, setting what was likely then a record for the most telecasts of a Hollywood film on a commercial television network. That record is broken by The Ten Commandments in 1996, which began its annual network telecasts on ABC in 1973 and is still (as of 2016) telecast by that network.
• March 15 – Guinea-Bissau recognizes the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic (SADR).
• March 16
  • Harold Wilson resigns as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom.
  • North Korea recognizes the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic (SADR).
• March 17
  • Rubin “Hurricane” Carter is retried in New Jersey.
  • Togo recognizes the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic (SADR).
• March 20 – Patty Hearst is found guilty of armed robbery of a San Francisco bank.

• March 24
  • Argentina military forces depose president Isabel Perón.
  • A general strike takes place in the People’s Republic of the Congo.
• March 26 – The Toronto Blue Jays are created.
• March 27 – The first 4.6 miles of the Washington Metro subway system open.
• March 29 – The military dictatorship of General Jorge Videla comes to power in Argentina.
• March 31 – The New Jersey Supreme Court rules that patient in a persistent vegetative state in the Karen Ann Quinlan case can be disconnected from her ventilator. She remains comatose and dies in 1985.

April

• April 1
  • Apple Computer Company is formed by Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak.

• Conrail (Consolidated Rails Corporation) is formed by the U.S. government, to take control of 13 major Northeast Class-1 railroads that had filed for bankruptcy protection. Conrail takes control at midnight, as a government-owned and operated railroad until 1986, when it is sold to the public.
• The Jovian–Plutonian gravitational effect is first reported by astronomer Patrick Moore.
• Rwanda recognizes the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic (SADR).

• April 2 – Norodom Sihanouk is forced to resign as Head of State of Kampuchea by the Khmer Rouge led by Pol Pot and is placed under house arrest.
• April 3 – The Eurovision Song Contest 1976 is won by Brotherhood of Man, representing the United Kingdom, with their song “Save Your Kisses for Me“.
• April 5
  • James Callaghan becomes Prime Minister of the United Kingdom.
  • Tiananmen Incident: Large crowds lay wreaths at Beijing’s Monument of the Martyrs to commemorate the death of Premier Zhou Enlai. Poems against the Gang of Four are also displayed, provoking a police crackdown.
  • Segovia prison break: in Spain’s largest prison break since the Spanish civil war, 29 political prisoners escape from Segovia prison.
• April 10 – Frampton Comes Alive!, the multi-platinum selling live album by English rock musician Peter Frampton hits #1 in the Billboard 200 and remains there for 10 weeks, becoming the best-selling album of the year.
• April 13
  • The Lapua Cartridge Factory explosion in Lapua, Finland kills 40.
  • The United States Treasury Department reintroduces the two-dollar bill as a Federal Reserve Note on Thomas Jefferson‘s 233rd birthday as part of the United States Bicentennial celebration.
• April 16 – As a measure to curb population growth, the minimum age for marriage in India is raised to 21 years for men and 18 years for women.

• April 21 – The Great Bookie Robbery in Melbourne: Bandits steal A$1.4 million in bookmakers’ settlements from Queen Street, Melbourne.
• April 23
  • The punk rock group the Ramones release their first self-titled album.
  • Jethro Tull release their album Too Old to Rock ‘n’ Roll: Too Young to Die!.
• April 25 – Portugal’s new constitution is enacted.
• April 29 – Sino-Soviet split: A concealed bomb explodes at the gates of the Soviet embassy in China, killing four Chinese.^[1] The targets were embassy employees, returning from lunch, but on that day they returned to the embassy earlier.

May

• May 1 – Neville Wran becomes Premier of New South Wales.
• May 4
  • The first LAGEOS (Laser Geodynamics Satellite) is launched.
  • A train crash in Schiedam, the Netherlands, kills 24 people.
• May 6 – An earthquake hits the Friuli area in Italy, killing more than 900 people and making another 100,000 homeless.
• May 9 – Ulrike Meinhof of the Red Army Faction is found hanged in an apparent suicide, in her Stuttgart-Stammheim prison cell.
• May 11
  • U.S. President Gerald Ford signs the Federal Election Campaign Act.
  • An accident involving a tanker truck carrying anhydrous ammonia takes place in Houston, Texas, resulting in the deaths of 7 people.
• May 21 – The Yuba City bus disaster, the worst bus crash in U.S. history to date, with 28 students and one teacher killed.
• May 24 – Washington, D.C. Concorde service begins.
• May 25 – U.S. President Gerald Ford defeats challenger Ronald Reagan in 3 Republican presidential primaries: Kentucky, Tennessee and Oregon.
• May 30 – Indianapolis 500-Mile Race: Johnny Rutherford wins the (rain-shortened) shortest race in event history to date, at 102 laps or 255 miles (408 km).
• May 31 – Syria intervenes in the Lebanese Civil War in opposition to the Palestine Liberation Organization, whom it had previously supported.

June

• June 1 – The UK and Iceland end the Cod War.
• June 2
  • A car bomb fatally injures Arizona Republic reporter Don Bolles.
  • The Philippine government opens relations with the Soviet Union.
• June 4
  • The Boston Celtics defeat the Phoenix Suns 128–126 in triple overtime in Game 5 of the NBA Finals at the Boston Garden. In 1997, the game is selected by a panel of experts as the greatest of the NBA’s first 50 years.
  • English punk rock group The Sex Pistols perform the first of two concerts to an audience of 35-40 people at the 150-capacity Manchester Lesser Free Trade Hall. Audience members go on to form the groups Joy Division, New Order, The Smiths, Simply Red, The Fall, Buzzcocks, and Magazine (band), and the record label Factory Records.
• June 5 – The Teton Dam collapses in southeast Idaho in the U.S., killing 11 people.
• June 6 – The Double Six Crash, a plane crash in Kota Kinabalu, Malaysia, kills everyone on board, including Sabahan Chief Minister Tun Fuad Stephens.
• June 12 – Alberto Demicheli, a jurist, is inaugurated as a civilian de facto President of Uruguay after Juan María Bordaberry is deposed by the military.
• June 13 – Savage thunderstorms roll through the state of Iowa, spawning several tornadoes, including an F-5 tornado that destroys the town of Jordan, Iowa.

• June 14 – The trial begins at Oxford Crown Court of Donald Neilson, the killer known as the Black Panther.
• June 16 – The Soweto uprising in South Africa begins.
• June 17 – The National Basketball Association and the American Basketball Association agree on the ABA–NBA merger.
• June 20
  • Hundreds of Western tourists are moved from Beirut and taken to safety in Syria by the U.S. military, following the murder of the U.S. ambassador.
  • General elections are held in Italy.
  • Czechoslovakia beats West Germany 5–3 on penalties to win Euro 76, when the game had ended 2–2 after extra time.
• June 25 – Strikes start in Poland (Ursus, Radom, Płock) after communists raise food prices; they end on June 30.
• June 26 – The CN Tower is built in Toronto; the tallest free-standing land structure opens to the public.
• June 27
  • G-6 is renamed “Group of 7” (G-7).
  • Palestinian militants hijack an Air France plane in Greece with 246 passengers and 12 crew. They take it to Entebbe, Uganda.
• June 29
  • Seychelles gains independence from the United Kingdom.
  • The Conference of Communist and Workers Parties of Europe convenes in East Berlin.

July

• July 2 – North Vietnam dissolves the Provisional Government of South Vietnam and unites the two countries to form the Socialist Republic of Vietnam.
• July 3 – Gregg v. Georgia: The Supreme Court of the United States rules that the death penalty is not inherently cruel or unusual and is a constitutionally acceptable form of punishment overturning the Furman v. Georgia case of 1972.
• July 3 – The great heat wave in the United Kingdom, which is currently suffering from drought conditions, reaches its peak.
• July 4
  • United States Bicentennial: From coast to coast, the United States celebrates the 200th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence.

• Entebbe Raid: Israeli airborne commandos free 103 hostages being held by Palestinian hijackers of an Air France plane at Uganda‘s Entebbe Airport; Yonatan Netanyahu and several Ugandan soldiers are killed in the raid.

• July 6 – The first class of women is inducted at the United States Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland.
• July 7
  • German left-wing terrorists Monika Berberich, Gabriella Rollnick, Juliane Plambeck and Inge Viett escape from the Lehrter Straße maximum security prison in West Berlin.
  • David Steel becomes leader of the UK’s Liberal Party in the aftermath of the scandal which forced out Jeremy Thorpe.
• July 10
  • Four mercenaries, three British and one American, are shot by firing squad in Angola.
  • An explosion in Seveso, Italy, causes extended pollution to a large area in the neighborhood of Milano, with many evacuations and a large number of people affected by the toxic cloud.
• July 12
  • Barbara Jordan is the first African-American to keynote a political convention.

  
  Barbara Jordan’s 1976 Keynote Address

  • Family Feud debuts on Television
  • California State University, Fullerton massacre: 7 people are shot and killed, and 2 others are wounded in a mass shooting on campus at California State University, Fullerton.
• July 15 – Jimmy Carter is nominated for U.S. President at the Democratic National Convention in New York City.
• July 16 – July 20 – Albert Spaggiari and his gang break into the vault of the Societe Generale Bank in Nice, France.
• July 17
  • The 1976 Summer Olympics begin in Montreal, Quebec, Canada.
  • East Timor is declared the 27th province of Indonesia.
• July 18 – Nadia Comăneci earns the first of 7 perfect scores of 10 at the 1976 Summer Olympics.
• July 19 – Sagarmatha National Park in Nepal is created.
• July 20 – Viking program: The Viking 1 lander successfully lands on Mars.
• July 21 – A bomb kills Christopher Ewart-Biggs, British ambassador to the Irish Republic.
• July 26 – In Los Angeles, Ronald Reagan announces his choice of liberal U.S. Senator Richard Schweiker as his vice presidential running mate, in an effort to woo moderate Republican delegates away from President Gerald Ford.
• July 27
  • The United Kingdom breaks diplomatic relations with its former colony Uganda in response to the hijacking of Air France Flight 139.
  • Delegates attending an American Legion convention at The Bellevue-Stratford Hotel in Philadelphia, US, begin falling ill with a form of pneumonia: this will eventually be recognised as the first outbreak of Legionnaires’ disease and will end in the deaths of 29 attendees.
• July 28 – The Tangshan earthquake flattens Tangshan, China, killing 242,769 people, and injuring 164,851.
• July 29 – In New York City, the “Son of Sam” pulls a gun from a paper bag, killing 1 and seriously wounding another, in the first of a series of attacks that terrorize the city for the next year.
• July 30 – In Santiago, Chile, Cruzeiro from Brazil beats River Plate from Argentina and are the Copa Libertadores de América champions.
• July 31
  • NASA releases the famous Face on Mars photo, taken by Viking 1.
  • The Big Thompson River in northern Colorado floods, destroying more than 400 cars and houses and killing 143 people.

August

• August 1
  • Trinidad and Tobago becomes a republic, replacing Elizabeth II with President Ellis Clarke as its head of state.
  • The Seattle Seahawks play their first football game.
  • Racing Champion Niki Lauda suffers serious burns in the German Grand Prix.
• August 2 – A gunman murders Andrea Wilborn and Stan Farr and injures Priscilla Davis and Gus Gavrel, in an incident at Priscilla’s mansion in Fort Worth, Texas. T. Cullen Davis, Priscilla’s husband and one of the richest men in Texas, is tried and found innocent for Andrea’s murder, involvement in a plot to kill several people (including Priscilla and a judge), and a wrongful death lawsuit. Cullen goes broke afterwards.
• August 5 – The Great Clock of Westminster (or Big Ben) suffers internal damage and stops running for over 9 months.
• August 6 – Former UK Postmaster General John Stonehouse is sentenced to 7 years’ jail for fraud, theft and forgery.
• August 7 – Viking program: Viking 2 enters into orbit around Mars.
• August 8 – As part of the American Basketball Association–National Basketball Association merger, a dispersal draft was conducted to assign teams for the players on the two ABA franchises which had folded.
• August 11 – A sniper rampage in Wichita, Kansas on a Holiday Inn results in 3 deaths while 7 others are wounded.
• August 14
  • Ten thousand Protestant and Catholic women demonstrate for peace in Northern Ireland.
  • The Senegalese political party PAI-Rénovation is legally recognized, becoming the third legal party in the country.
• August 16 – The Ramones make their first “professional” performance at CBGB.
• August 18 – At Panmunjom, North Korea, two United States soldiers are killed while trying to chop down part of a tree in the Korean Demilitarized Zone which had obscured their view.
• August 19 – U.S. President Gerald Ford edges out challenger Ronald Reagan to win the Republican Party presidential nomination in Kansas City.
• August 24 – In Uruguay, the army captures Marcelo Gelman and his pregnant wife. Marcelo is later killed and his wife (and unborn child) disappear.
• August 25
  • Jacques Chirac resigns as Prime Minister of France; he is succeeded by Raymond Barre.
  • Landslide disaster in Sau Mau Ping, Hong Kong.
• August 26
  • The first known outbreak of Ebola virus occurs in Yambuku, Zaire.
  • Prince Bernhard of Lippe-Biesterfeld, husband of Queen Juliana of the Netherlands, resigns from various posts over a scandal involving alleged corruption, in connection with business dealings with the Lockheed Corporation.
• August 30 – James Alexander George Smith “Jags” McCartney is sworn in as the first Chief Minister of the Turks and Caicos Islands.

September

• September 1
  • Cigarette and tobacco advertising is banned on Australian television and radio.
  • Aparicio Méndez, a jurist, is inaugurated as a civilian de facto President of Uruguay in the framework of a dictatorship.
  • The state of emergency, being in force since 1939, is lifted in the Republic of Ireland.
• September 3 – Viking program: The Viking 2 spacecraft lands at Utopia Planitia on Mars, taking 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 Hokkaidō in Japan, and requests political asylum in the United States.
  • Frank Sinatra brings Jerry Lewis‘s former partner Dean Martin onstage, unannounced, at the 1976 Jerry Lewis MDA Telethon in Las Vegas, reuniting the comedy team for the first (and only) time in over 20 years.
• September 9 – Mao Zedong, Chairman of the Communist Party of China, dies of a heart attack.
• September 10
  • Zagreb mid-air collision: A British Airways Trident and a Yugoslav DC-9 collide near Zagreb, Yugoslavia (present-day Zagreb, Croatia), killing all 176 aboard.
  • Osamu Tezuka begins serialising MW, a manga inspired by the 1974 Kakuei Tanaka government scandal.
• September 13 – The Muppet Show is broadcast for the first time on ITV.
• September 15 – Darryl Sittler scores the winning goal in the 1976 Canada Cup for Canada to win over Czechoslovakia in overtime, to win the first Canada Cup, which stayed in Canada.
• September 16
  • Shavarsh Karapetyan saves 20 people from a trolleybus that had fallen into a Yerevan reservoir.
  • Beginning with the Night of the Pencils, a series of kidnappings and forced disappearances followed by torture, rape, and murder of students under the Argentine dictatorship takes place.
• September 17 – The space shuttle Enterprise is rolled out of a Palmdale, California hangar.
• September 20 – The International Organization of Space Communications (Intersputnik) is founded.
• September 20 – September 21 – The semi-legendary 100 Club Punk Festival ignites the careers of several influential punk and post-punk bands, arguably sparking the punk movement‘s introduction into mainstream culture.
• September 21
  • The Seychelles join the United Nations.
  • Orlando Letelier is assassinated in Washington, D.C. by agents of Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet.
• September 24 – Patty Hearst is sentenced to 7 years in prison for her role in a 1974 bank robbery (an executive clemency order from U.S. President Jimmy Carter will set her free after only 22 months).
• September 25 – The Irish rock band U2 is formed after drummer Larry Mullen, Jr. posts a note seeking members for a band on the notice board of his Dublin school.
• September 28 – American singer Stevie Wonder releases his hit album Songs in the Key of Life.

October

• October 6
  • Cubana de Aviación Flight 455 crashes due to a bomb placed by anti-Fidel Castro terrorists, after taking off from Bridgetown, Barbados; all 73 people on board are killed.^[6]
  • Students gathering at Thammasat University in Bangkok, Thailand are massacred, while protesting the return of ex-dictator Thanom Kittikachorn by a coalition of right-wing paramilitary and government forces, triggering the return of the military to government.
  • In San Francisco, during his second televised debate with Jimmy Carter, U.S. President Gerald Ford stumbles when he declares that “there is no Soviet domination of Eastern Europe” (there is at the time).
  • The Cultural Revolution in China concludes upon the capture of the Gang of Four.
• October 8 – Thorbjörn Fälldin replaces Olof Palme as Prime Minister of Sweden.
• October 10 – Taiwan Governor Hsieh Tung-min is injured by a letter bomb from a pro-independence activist.
• October 12 – The People’s Republic of China announces that Hua Guofeng is the successor to Mao Zedong, as Chairman of the Communist Party of China.
• October 13 – The United States Commission on Civil Rights releases the report, Puerto Ricans in the Continental United States: An Uncertain Future, that documents that Puerto Ricans in the United States have a poverty rate of 33 percent in 1974 (up from 29 percent in 1970), the highest of all major racial-ethnic groups in the country (not including Puerto Rico, a U.S. territory).
• October 18 – Ford officially launches volume production of the Fiesta car at its Valencia plant.
• October 19
  • The Copyright Act of 1976 extends copyright duration for an additional 19 years in the United States.
  • The Battle of Aishiya is fought in Lebanon.
  • The Chimpanzee (Pan troglodytes) is placed on the list of endangered species.
• October 20 – The Mississippi River ferry MV George Prince is struck by a ship while crossing from Destrehan, Louisiana to Luling, Louisiana, killing 78 passengers and crew.
• October 22 – Cearbhall Ó Dálaigh, the 5th President of Ireland, resigns after being publicly insulted by the Minister for Defense.
• October 25 – Clarence Norris, the last known survivor of the Scottsboro Boys, is pardoned.

November

• November 2 – U.S. presidential election, 1976: Jimmy Carter defeats incumbent Gerald Ford, becoming the first candidate from the Deep South to win since the Civil War.

• November 15 – The first megamouth shark is discovered off Oahu in Hawaii.
• November 19 – Jaime Ornelas Camacho takes office as the first President of the Regional Government of Madeira, Portugal.
• November 24 – 1976 Çaldıran–Muradiye earthquake: At least 3,840 are killed in a Richter scale magnitude 7.3 earthquake at Van and Muradiye in eastern Turkey.
• November 25 – In San Francisco, The Band holds its farewell concert, The Last Waltz.
• November 26
  • Microsoft is officially registered with the Office of the Secretary of the State of New Mexico.
  • The Warsaw Treaty Organization joint secretariat is established.

December

• December 1
  • Angola joins the United Nations.
  • José López Portillo takes office as President of Mexico.
  • The Sex Pistols achieve public notoriety, as they unleash several 4-letter words live on Bill Grundy‘s early evening TV show.
  • Sir Douglas Nicholls is appointed the 28th Governor of South Australia, the first Australian Aboriginal appointed to vice-regal office.
• December 3
  • Bob Marley and his manager Don Taylor are shot in an assassination attempt in Kingston, Jamaica.

• Patrick Hillery is elected unopposed as the 6th President of Ireland.

• December 6 – The Viet Cong is disbanded, and its former members become a part of the Vietnam People’s Army.
• December 8
  • The Congressional Hispanic Caucus is established by the 5 Latinos in the United States Congress: Herman Badillo of the Bronx, E. de la Garza and Henry B. Gonzalez of Texas, Edward R. Roybal of California, and the nonvoting Resident Commissioner of Puerto Rico, Baltasar Corrada del Río.
  • Hotel California by the Eagles is released.
• December 10
  • The United Nations General Assembly adopts the Convention on the Prohibition of Military or Any Other Hostile Use of Environmental Modification Techniques.
  • The 9th Congress of the Sammarinese Communist Party convenes.
  • Stijn Tormans was born.
• December 15
  • Samoa joins the United Nations.
  • Denis Healey announces to the British Parliament that he has successfully negotiated a £2.3bn loan from the International Monetary Fund.
• December 20 – Richard J. Daley, Mayor of Chicago for 21 years, dies.
• December 23 – A new volcano, Murara, erupts in eastern Zaire.
• December 28 – Legendary guitarist Freddie King dies.