1976 Jan 12, Mystery writer Dame Agatha Christie (b.1891), died
in Wallingford, England, at age 85.
(WUD, 1994, p.263)(SFC,12/26/97, p.C22)(AP, 1/12/98)
1976 Jan 13, Argentina ousted a British envoy in dispute over
Falkland Islands War.
(HN, 1/13/99)
1976 Jan 15, Sara Jane Moore was sentenced to life in prison for
her attempt on the life of President Ford in San Francisco.
(AP, 1/15/98)
1976 Jan 21, Leonid Brezhnev and Henry Kissinger met to discuss
Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty (SALT).
(HN, 1/21/99)
1976 Jan 21, The supersonic Concorde jet was put into service
by Britain and France.
(AP, 1/21/98)
1976 Jan 30, George Bush became the director of the CIA. He revived
the reputation of the organization and left it Jan 20, 1977.
(SFEC, 1/16/00, Par p.2)
1976 Jan 30, The U.S. Supreme Court banned spending limits in
campaigns, equating funds with freedom of speech.
(HN, 1/30/99)
1976 Jan 31, Ernesto Miranda, famous from the Supreme Court ruling
on "Miranda Rights," was stabbed to death in Arizona.
(HN, 1/31/99)
1976 Jan, In SF Robert Swanson (28), a Silicon Valley venture
capitalist, first met with Herb Boyer, a molecular biologist and co-discoverer
of recombinant DNA. The 10 minute appointment extended to a few hours and
the 2 men proceeded to found Genentech.
(SFC, 5/28/96, p.B1)(SFC, 1/19/98, p.A10)(WSJ, 12/14/99, p.A22)
1976 Jan, The entire Picasso exhibit in the Palace of the
Popes at Avignon, France, was stolen. This event led the International
Foundation for Art Research to form the Art Loss Register. Picasso is the
artist listed with the most stolen works.
(WSJ, 12/30/94, A-6)
1976 Feb 19, Britain slashed welfare spending.
(HN, 2/19/98)
1976 Feb 25, The U.S. Supreme Court ruled that states may ban
the hiring of illegal aliens.
(HN, 2/25/98)
1976 Mar 4, Pan Am was the first airline charged with criminal
negligence in a crash.
(HN, 3/4/98)
1976 Mar 5, The British pound fell below the equivalent of $2
for the first time.
(AP, 3/5/98)
1976 Mar 5, Britain gave up on the Ulster talks and decided to
retain rule in Northern Ireland indefinitely.
(HN, 3/5/98)
1976 Mar 8, Simon Wiesenthal of Yugoslavia said that he believed
that 62 Nazi war criminals were living in the United States.
(HN, 3/8/98)
1976 Mar 13, In California a jury convicted 4 Black Muslims for
3 murders and 4 assaults of a total of 23 Bay Area crimes that included
14 murders. Jessie Lee Cooks, Larry Craig Green, Manuel Moore and J.C.X.
Simon were given life sentences.
(SFEC, 3/1/98, p.W22)
1976 Mar 16, Premier Harold Wilson resigned in London.
(HN, 3/16/98)
1976 Mar 19, Buckingham Palace announced the separation of Princess
Margaret and her husband, the Earl of Snowdon, after 16 years of marriage.
(AP, 3/19/97)
1976 Mar 20, Newspaper heiress Patricia Hearst was convicted of
armed robbery for use of a firearm in the San Francisco Hibernia Bank holdup.
In Sept she was sentenced to 7 years in prison.
(AP, 3/20/97)(HN, 3/20/98)(SFC, 2/4/99, p.A8)
1976 Mar 24, In Argentina the military overthrew the government
of Isabel Peron. Jorge Rafael Videla led the military coup. Jose Siderman,
a Jewish businessman, was forced with death threats to leave the country.
He filed suit in the US in 1982 in the first trial of a foreign government
for human-rights abuses and won a default settlement. Argentina won a reversal
in an appeals court but in 1996 Argentina dropped opposition to the suit.
(SFC, 9/14/96, p.A9) (AP, 3/23/97)(SFC, 6/10/98, p.A10)
1976 Mar 24, British General Bernard Law Montgomery died.
(HC, 10/10/98)
1976 Mar 27, Washington, D.C. opened its subway system.
(HN, 3/27/98)
1976 Mar 29, Eight Ohio National Guardsmen were indicted for shooting
four Kent State students during an anti-war protest on May 4, 1970.
(HN, 3/29/98)
1976 Mar 31, The New Jersey Supreme Court allowed the removal
of the respirator that assisted Karen Ann Quinlan, who had been comatose
since Apr 15, 1975. Quinlan, who remained comatose, died in 1985.
(SFC, 12/12/96, p.C8)(AP, 3/30/97)
1976 Apr 5, Reclusive billionaire Howard Hughes died in Houston
at age 72.
(AP, 4/5/97)
1976 Apr 7, China's leadership deposed Deputy Prime Minister Deng
Xiaoping and appointed Hua Kuo-feng prime minister and first deputy chairman
of the Communist Party.
(AP, 4/7/97)
1976 Apr 13, The U.S. Federal Reserve began issuing $2 bicentennial
notes.
(HN, 4/13/98)
1976 Apr 22, Barbara Walters became the first female nightly network
news anchor.
(HN, 4/22/98)
1976 Apr, Genentech, a new biotech firm, was founded by Herb Boyer,
a molecular biologist and co-discoverer of gene-splicing in 1973, and Robert
Swanson, a venture capitalist. [see 1972]
(SFC, 5/28/96, p.B1)(SFC, 1/19/98, p.A10)
1976 May 13, NY Nets beat the Denver Nuggets in 9th &
final ABA championship, 4 to 2.
(SS, Internet, 5/13/97)
1976 May 19, The US Senate established congressional oversight
over the CIA.
(SFC, 9/17/97, p.A3)
1976 May 21, A bus on I-680 in California crashed after crossing
the Benicia-Martinez Bridge, plunged 21 feet, and rolled upside down. 28
Yuba City High School students and one adult were killed. There were 22
survivors.
(SFC, 5/20/96, p.A-20)
1976 May 24, Britain and France opened trans-Atlantic Concorde
service to Washington.
(AP, 5/24/97)
1976 May 31, Martha Mitchell, the estranged wife of former Attorney
General John N. Mitchell, died in New York.
(AP, 5/31/97)
1976 May, In Argentina Monica Mignone (24) was arrested at her
family home and never seen again. Her father Emilio Mignone (d.1998), founding
rector of a university in Lujon, became a leader of the Permanent Assembly
for Human Rights. He also founded the Center for Legal and Social Studies.
He wrote "Dictatorship and the Church," in which he criticized the inaction
of the church during the "dirty war."
(SFC, 12/26/98, p.A23)
1976 Jun 1, Great-Britain & Iceland terminated their
codfish war.
(DT Internet 6/1/97)
1976 Jun 16, White police gunned down black schoolchildren and
caused a nationwide riot that left 700 people dead. Students at Morris
Isacson High School in Soweto had marched to protest a new rule that called
for Afrikaans as the medium of instruction.
(SFC, 6/15/96, p.C12)
1976 Jun 19, "Standing Room Only", concert series, made its debut
on HBO.
(DT Internet 6/19/97)
1976 Jun 19, U.S. Viking 1 went into Martian orbit after a 10-month
flight from earth.
(DT Internet 6/19/97)
1976 Jun 28, The first women entered the U.S. Air Force Academy.
(HN, 6/28/98)
1976 Jul 2, The US Supreme Court ruled to allow states to resume
capital punishment. The Supreme Court ruled the death penalty was not inherently
cruel or unusual.
(SFC, 1/9/97, p.A4)(AP, 7/2/97)
1976 Jul 3, Israel launched its daring mission to rescue about
a hundred passengers and Air France crew members being held at Entebbe
Airport in Uganda by pro-Palestinian hijackers.
(AP, 7/3/97)
1976 Jul 4, The nation held a 200th anniversary party across the
land in celebration of America's 200 years of independence.
(TMC, 1994, p.1976)(IB, Internet, 12/7/98)
1976 Jul 4, Jonathan Netanyahu, brother of Benjamin, led and
was killed in an Israeli raid called Operation Thunderball that rescued
the [105] hostages held at Entebbe Airport in Uganda. The raid was by Sayeret
Matkal, Israel's elite counter-terrorist unit led by Muki Betser, and it
freed all but 3 of the 104 Israeli and Jewish hostages and crew of an Air
France jetliner seized by pro-Palestinian hijackers. The events are described
by Muki Betser and Robert Rosenberg in "Secret Soldier, The True Life of
Israel's Greatest Commando." 20 Ugandan soldiers, 1 Israeli officer, 3
hostages and 7 hijackers died. The hijacking was linked to Carlos the Jackal,
aka Ilich Ramirez Sanchez.
(SFC, 6/24/96, p.A19) (SFC, 7/16/96, p.E5)(AP, 7/4/97)(SFC,12/11/97,
p.C2)(HN, 7/4/98)
1976 Jul 14, Jimmy Carter won the Democratic presidential nomination
by an overwhelming margin at the party's convention in New York City.
(AP, 7/14/97)
1976 Jul 15, 4:15 p.m. School Children in Chowchilla, CA. were
kidnapped by 3 young men, Richard (22) and James Schoenfeld (24) and Newhall
Woods (24). The 26 children were herded into a moving van that was buried
in a quarry near Livermore, Ca. and held for $5 million ransom. The children
escaped after 16 hours and their captors were captured within 2 weeks.
The men were sentenced to life in prison. Richard Schoenfeld turned himself
in after 6 days. James was captured in Menlo Park and Woods was captured
in Vancouver.
(SFC, 7/14/96, zone 1 p.1)(AP, 7/15/97)(SFC, 12/3/98, p.A30)
1976 Jul 20, The Viking robot spacecraft made a successful, first-ever
landing on Mars and began taking soil samples.
(AP, 7/20/97)(HN, 7/20/98)
1976 Jul 21, "Legionnaire's Disease" killed 29 in Philadelphia,
Pa.
(OGA, Internet, 11/24/98)
1976 Jul 28, In China a 7.8-8.2 earthquake in the northern city
of Tangshan killed at least 242,000 people, according to an official estimate.
(AP, 7/28/97)(SFC, 1/8/00, p.A8)
1976 Aug 7, Scientists in Pasadena, Calif., announced that the
Viking 1 spacecraft had found the strongest indications to date of possible
life on Mars.
(AP, 8/7/97)
1976 Aug 19, President Ford won the Republican presidential nomination
at the party's convention in Kansas City. The convention was called to
order by Mary Louis Smith, chair of the Republican National Committee and
the first woman to organize and call to order the convention of a major
US political party.
(AP, 8/19/97)(SFEC, 8/24/97, p.D8)
1976 Aug 24, In Buenos Aires a government task force kidnapped
Marcelo Gelman (20) and his pregnant wife Maria Claudia Garcia Irureta
(19). Marcelo was shot and killed 2 months later and packed in cement in
an oil drum. His wife disappeared after giving birth in a military hospital
in Uruguay. Juan Gelman, the poet father of Marcelo, later campaigned in
search of his grandchild and authored the book "Not Even God's Feeble Pardon."
(SFC, 12/9/99, p.A16)
1976 Aug 26, Prince Bernhard, husband of Queen Juliana of the
Netherlands, agreed to resign his positions with the Dutch armed forces
and industry following severe criticism of his behavior by a commission
of enquiry into a Lockheed bribery scandal.
(RTH, 8/26/99)
1976 Aug, In South Africa Jimmy Kruger, minister of justice and
police, recommended killing anti-apartheid demonstrators at a cabinet meeting.
(SFC, 11/30/96, p.A12)
1976 Aug, Thailand and Vietnam established diplomatic relations.
(WSJ, 3/5/97, p.A16)
1976 Sep 1, U.S. Rep. Wayne L. Hays, D-Ohio, resigned in the wake
of a scandal in which he admitted having an affair with secretary Elizabeth
Ray.
(AP, 9/1/97)
1976 Sep 3, The unmanned U.S. spacecraft Viking 2 landed on Mars
to take the first close-up, color photographs of the planet's surface.
(AP, 9/3/97)
1976 Sep 6, A Soviet pilot landed his MIG-25 in Tokyo and asked
for political asylum in the United States.
(HN, 9/6/98)
1976 Sep 9, Communist Chinese leader Mao Tse-tung died in Beijing
at age 82. His death triggered a two year power struggle. The Cultural
Revolution's chief architects, Mao's widow (Jiang Qing) and three others,
the so-called Gang of Four, were jailed. Deng Xiaoping returned from disgrace
and eventually seized power. Yao Wenyuan was released in 1996 after serving
a 20-year prison term. "Who controls a man's ideas controls the man."
(WSJ, 8/6/96, p.A12)(SFEC, 10/7/96, A9)(AP, 9/9/97)(WSJ, 5/12/98,
p.A22)
1976 Sep 13, The United States announced it would veto Vietnam's
UN bid.
(AP, 9/13/98)
1976 Sep 17, NASA publicly unveiled the space shuttle Enterprise
at ceremonies in Palmdale, Calif.
(AP, 9/17/97)(HN, 9/17/98)
1976 Sep 24, In California Frances Mays was kidnapped at knifepoint
by Richard Allen Davis at the South Hayward Bart station. She was able
to break free and flagged down a passing patrol car. Harris was caught
and served five years. He later kidnapped Polly Klaas on 10/1/93.
(SFC, 5/16/96, p.A-15)
1976 Sep 24, Newspaper heiress Patricia Hearst was sentenced
to seven years in prison for her part in a 1974 bank robbery. (She was
released after 22 months after receiving clemency from President Carter).
(AP, 9/24/97)
1976 Sep, The US stock market began a 42 month decline of 27%.
(SFC,10/17/97, p.B2)
1976 Sep, Chilean exile Orlando Letelier was assassinated in Washington
DC by order from Chile by Gen'l. Manuel Contreras, head of the secret police
known as DINA. Contreras was convicted of the order in 1993 and sentenced
to a 7-year prison term.
(SFC, 6/27/97, p.A14)(SFC, 7/1/99, p.C3)
1976 Fall, Voters in California rejected Prop. 14, an initiative
that proposed to add to the state constitution the funding provisions and
rights of organizers (UFW) to enter farm fields to talk to workers. Opposition
to the initiative was run by the Dolphin Group, an influential lobbying
firm.
(SFEM, 4/13/97, p.28)
1976 Oct 4, Agriculture secretary Earl Butz resigned in the wake
of a controversy over a joke he'd made about blacks.
(AP, 10/4/97)
1976 Oct 4, In Gregg v. Georgia, the U.S. Supreme Court lifted
the ban on the death sentence in murder cases. This restored the legality
of capital punishment, which had not been practiced since 1967. The first
execution following this ruling was Gary Gilmore in 1977.
(HN, 10/4/98)
1976 Oct 6, In his second debate with Jimmy Carter, President
Ford asserted there was "no Soviet domination of eastern Europe." Ford
later conceded he'd misspoken.
(AP, 10/6/97)
1976 Oct 11, The so-called "Gang of Four," Chairman Mao Tse-tung's
widow and three associates were arrested in Peking, setting in motion an
extended period of turmoil in the Chinese Communist Party.
(HN, 10/11/98)
1976 Oct 15, In the first debate of its kind between vice-presidential
nominees, Democrat Walter F. Mondale and Republican Bob Dole faced off
in Houston.
(AP, 10/15/97)
1976 Oct 28, Former Nixon aide John D. Ehrlichman entered a federal
prison camp in Safford, Ariz., to begin serving his sentence for Watergate-related
convictions.
(AP, 10/28/97)
1976 Oct, Mairead Corrigan Maguire was a co-winner of the Nobel
Prize for Peace for her efforts to stop bloodshed in Northern Ireland.
(SFC, 10/8/99, p.A12)
1976 Oct, Dr. Carleton Gajdusek shared the Nobel Prize in medicine
for proving the existence of a certain kind of virus. In 1996 he was arrested
for on charges of molesting a teenage boy whom he brought from Micronesia
to live with him in Maryland.
(SFC, 4/4/96, p.A-3)
1976 Oct, Burton Richter of Stanford and Samuel Ting of MIT won
the Nobel Prize in Physics. Their work with the SPEAR machine revealed
the Psi-particle, a subatomic object that lasts for a tiny fraction of
a second. It confirmed that protons and neutrons were composed of smaller
quarks.
(SFC, 10/10/96, p.A1)(SFC, 5/1/97, p.A7)(SFC, 11/24/98, p.A20)
1976 Oct, A Cuban aircraft from Venezuela with 73 people onboard
was blown up on a flight over the Caribbean. Castro blamed the explosion
on the US. Luis Posada Carriles, a veteran of the Cuban exile's war against
Castro, was charged and twice acquitted in the bombing. Venezuelan authorities
kept him in jail for 9 years until his escape in 1985 when he settled in
El Salvador.
(SFC, 7/9/96, p.A8)(SFC,11/17/97, p.A14)
1976 Nov 2, Former Georgia Gov. (James Earl) Jimmy Carter defeated
Republican incumbent Gerald R. Ford, becoming the 39th president and the
first from the Deep South since the Civil War.
(AP, 11/2/97)(HN, 11/2/98)
1976 Nov 6, Benjamin L. Hooks was chosen executive director of
the NAACP, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People,
succeeding Roy Wilkins.
(AP, 11/6/97)
1976 Nov 10, The Utah Supreme Court gave the go-ahead for convicted
murderer Gary Gilmore to be executed, according to his wishes. The sentence
was carried out the following January.
(AP, 11/10/97)
1976 Nov 15, A Syrian peace force took control of Beirut, Lebanon.
(HN, 11/15/98)
1976 Nov 18, Spain's parliament approved a bill to establish a
democracy after 37 years of dictatorship.
(AP, 11/18/97)
1976 Nov 19, Patty Hearst was freed on $1.5 million bail.
(HN, 11/19/98)
1976 Nov 28, Bill Graham presented the Band and guests in "The
Last Waltz" at Winterland plus a turkey dinner for the capacity crowd.
The last concert of The Band took place at Winterland and was made into
a film by Martin Scorsese that included Bob Dylan, Neil Diamond and Muddy
Waters.
(SFC,12/13/97, p.A15) (SFEC, 6/28/98, DB p.52)
1976 Nov 28, Rosalind Russell (b.Jun 4, 1908,1911 or1912), Movie/Stage
Actress, died.
(DT Internet 11/28/97)
1976 Nov, Pres. candidate Jimmy Carter was interviewed in this
month's issue of Playboy and he admitted that he had committed "lust in
my heart."
(SFEC, 9/28/97, p.A11)
1976 Dec 16, President Jimmy Carter appointed Andrew Young as
Ambassador to the United Nations.
(HN, 12/16/98)
1976 Dec 16, Marjorie Mitchell, a nurse at Napa State Hospital
testified that a man, later identified as Richard Allen Davis, awakened
her in the early hours and clubbed her with a fire poker.
(SFC, 5/17/96, p.A-21)
1976 Dec 20, Hazel Frost testified that she left a Napa restaurant
and bar and that Richard Allen Davis jumped into her car and held a shotgun
to her neck. She managed to roll out of the car a grabbed a gun loaded
with birdshot from under her seat and fired in the direction that she thought
Davis was running. Davis had escaped from Napa State Hospital after he
faked a suicide attempt in the Alameda County Jail.
(SFC, 5/17/96, p.A-21)
1976 Dec 20, Chicago Mayor Richard J. Daley died at age 74.
(AP, 12/20/97)
1976 Dec 21, The Liberian-registered tanker Argo Merchant ran
aground near Nantucket Island, spilling millions of gallons of oil into
the North Atlantic.
(AP, 12/21/97)
1976 Dec 25, 100 Moslems, returning from a pilgrimage, died when
their boat sank.
(HN, 12/25/98)
1976 Dec 30, Governor Carey of New York pardoned seven inmates
to close the book on the Attica uprising.
(HN, 12/30/98)
1976 Romare Bearden created the monotype "Vampin (Piney Brown
Blues)," with watercolor additions. A monotype refers to a painting made
on a nonabsorbent surface that is transferred by a press onto a one time
print.
(SFEC, 6/15/97, BR p.7)
1976 In California Bulgarian artist Christo Javacheff created
his artwork "Running Fence," a 24-mile-long white nylon fence/curtain draped
across Marin and Sonoma counties.
(SFEC, 3/1/98, p.A16)(SFC, 3/13/99, p.A24)
1976 A 41-foot "Trowel I" was constructed for the Kroller-Muller
Museum in the Netherlands by Claes Oldenburg. He also made "Typewriter
Eraser."
(Smith., Aug. 1995, p.82)(SFC, 10/26/96, p.B1)
1976 A 45-foot-tall, giant steel "Clothespin" was constructed
at the Plaza of the City Hall of Philadelphia by Claes Oldenburg. He made
his graphic "Soft Screw in Waterfall."
(Smith., Aug. 1995, p.83)(SFC, 9/1/97, p.E4)(SFEC, 10/5/97, BR
p.4)
1976 Samuel Beckett , playwright, wrote "Rockaby."
(WSJ, 8/5/96, p.A10)
1976 David Rabe wrote his play "Streamers."
(SFEC, 5/30/99, DB p.37)
1976 Georgia O'Keefe published her autobiography in Painting with
the help of Juan Hamilton. She was legally blind by this time.
(WSJ, 7/31/97, p.A16)
1976 Alex Haley published "Roots," based on his search of his
African ancestry. It won a Pulitzer Prize and was made into a TV mini-series.
(SFC, 4/25/98, p.A3)
1976 Malachi Martin (d.1999 at 78), an Irish-born former Jesuit,
published "Hostage to the Devil," an account of the possession and exorcism
of 5 Americans.
(SFC, 7/30/99, p.D8)
1976 Sam Shepard wrote his play "The Sad Lament of Pecos Bill
on the Eve of Killing His Wife." He also wrote "Curse of the Starving Class."
(WSJ, 2/14/97, p.A12)(WSJ, 4/30/97, p.A12)
1976 Paul Bowles, German composer and writer who lived in
Tangiers, wrote his short story Allal. In 1996 three of Bowles' stories
were made into a film titled "Halfmoon" by Frieder Schlaich and Irene von
Alberti. Bertolucci had earlier transferred his novel "The Sheltering Sky"
into film. A biography of Bowles by Millicint Dillon, "You Are Not I: A
Portrait of Paul Bowles" was published in 1998.
(SFC, 6/14/96, p. C3)(SFEC, 4/5/98, BR p.3)
1976 Robert Ardrey wrote "The Hunting Hypothesis."
(NH, 11/96, p.12)
1976 A.I. Dagg and J.B. Foster published "The Giraffe: Its
Biology, Behavior and Ecology."
(NH, 5/96, p.56)
1976 "The Selfish Gene" by Richard Dawkins was published. Here
he launched the archetypal "meme," defined as a unit of cultural transmission.
It described how ideas mimic the behavior of genes and propagate
by leaping from brain to brain.
(NH, 5/96, p.13)(Wired, 2/98, p.118)
1976 John Dean, council to Richard Nixon and songbird during the
congressional investigation, wrote about Watergate in his book "Blind Ambition."
(SFC, 9/17/96, p.B8)
1976 Joan Erikson, psychologist, wrote "Activity, Recovery and
Growth." She underscored the benefits of occupational therapy.
(SFC, 8/9/97, p.A19)
1976 Jean Gimpel authored "The Industrial Revolution of the Middle
Ages."
(WSJ, 12/23/99, p.A18)
1976 Norman Maclean published "A River Runs Through It." It was
a story about fly fishing in Montana. Recorded books put out a cassette
version in 1993 with other stories that included "Logging and Pimping and
'Your Pal, Jim'," and "USFS 1919: The Ranger, the Cook, and a Hole in the
Sky."
(RB, 1993)
1976 James Michener published "Sports in America."
(SFC,10/17/97, p.A12)
1976 A German edition of Robert Musil's diaries was published.
In 1999 Philip Payne published an abridged version "Diaries 1899-1942."
(SFEC, 1/31/99, BR p.9)
1976 The Nomadic Sisters published "Loving Women," a sex manual
by, for and about women with explicit drawings.
(SFC, 2/27/98, p.A3)
1976 Harold Parrot, a Brooklyn Dodgers road secretary, published
"The Lords of Baseball."
(SFC, 8/24/98, p.A3)
1976 "Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry" by Mildred Taylor was published.
(SFEC, 2/27/00, BR p.12)
1976 Joseph Weizenbaum wrote "Computer Power and Human Reason."
He described here his program called ELIZA that demonstrated a conversation
between a patient and a computer posing as a psychiatrist.
(I&I, Penzias, p.144)
1976 Elizabeth Williams (d.1997 at 65) wrote "Notes of a Feminist
Therapist."
(SFC, 1/28/97, p.A14)
1976 "The Linguistic Atlas of England" was published.
(NH, 6/96, p.10)
1976 "Charlie's Angels" with David Doyle (1930-1997) began to
show on TV and ran until 1981.
(SFC, 3/1/97, p.C3)
1976 The TV show "What's Happening!!" began and ran to 1979. It
was a comedy about 3 high school students who hung out together.
(SFC, 12/13/99, p.A26)
1976 John Corigliano composed his "Etude Fantasy."
(WSJ, 7/2/98, p.A20)
1976 Composer Philip Glass and director/designer Robert Wilson
collaborated on their production of "Einstein on the Beach" at the NY Met.
(SFC, 12/30/99, p.E1)
1976 Henryk Gorecki wrote his "Third Symphony."
(SFC, 12/30/99, p.E1)
1976 Steve Reich created a near-symphonic masterpiece with his
"Music for 18 Musicians."
(SFC, 12/30/99, p.E1)
1976 The Eagles recorded their hit song "Hotel California."
(SFC, 1/14/98, p.D3)
1976 Fleetwood Mac released its "Rumours" album which achieved
multiplatinum status.
(SFC, 1/14/98, p.D3)
1976 Claude Vivier, a French-Canadian composer, composed "Siddartha,"
a 30 minute orchestral piece written on commission from the CBC.
(SFEC, 1/4/98, DB. p.31)(SFC, 1/9/98, p.D7)
1976 Katy Moffatt, singer-composer, went on the road as the opening
act for bluesman Muddy Waters.
(WSJ, 10/8/96, p.A20)
1976 French composers Gerard Grisey (d.1998 at 52), Michael Levinas
and Tristan Murail formed the group L'Iteneraire and pioneered what they
called "spectral music."
(SFEC, 11/22/98, p.D10)
1976 The Detroit Renaissance Center designed by John Portman was
opened. It cost $357 million.
(WSJ, 10/11/96, p.B1)
1976 The Episcopal Church opened its priesthood to women.
(SFC, 3/30/97, Z1. p.7)
1976 The Cult Awareness Network (CAN) was founded for parents
whose children had joined unconventional religious groups. It later lost
a suit brought against it by the Church of Scientology and was forced into
bankruptcy. The Church of Scientology in 1996 proceeded to buy up its records
in public auction.
(SFEC, 12/1/96, p.C15)
1976 The Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum opened in Washington,
DC.
(SFC, 11/26/99, p.A5)
1876 The Int'l. Society for Humor Studies was founded.
(SFEC, 6/28/98, p.A18)
1976 The Great American Smokeout, organized by the American Cancer
Society, was first held in California.
(SFEM, 7/14/96, p.32)
1976 Navaho weavers wove the largest Navaho rug in the world.
The 800-pound rug measured 38x26 feet and used 25 different Navaho styles.
(SFC, 10/11/97, p.A7)
1976 Stephen Spurrier, English owner of a wine shop and wine school
in Paris, held a competition tasting of French and American wines. The
best white wine was a 1973 Napa Valley Chardonnay from Chateau Montelena.
The best red wine was a 1973 Cabernet Sauvignon from Stag's Leap Wine Cellars.
(SFC, 5/29/96, ZZ1 p.4)
1976 Charlie Rose, a US democrat from North Carolina, founded
the Congressional Clearinghouse on the Future. It was to be an in-house
think tank intended as an antidote to the institutional short-termism of
Congress.
(Wired, Dec. '95, p.154)
1976 The American Basketball Association disbanded. Four of the
teams, Indiana, San Antonio, Denver and New Jersey joined the NBA. The
owners of the Spirits of St. Louis negotiated a deal to collect one-seventh
of their NBA TV money in perpetuity. Terry Pluto later authored "Loose
Balls," a definitive book on the ABA.
(WSJ, 2/22/99, p.B1)
1976 The Summer Olympics were held in Montreal. In 1998 it was
revealed that 143 members of the East German team had taken performance-enhancing
drugs.
(WSJ, 7/15/96, p.B1)(WSJ, 10/21/98, p.A1)
1976 The winter Olympics were again held in Innsbruck, Austria.
(StuAus, April '95, p.95)
1976 The Tampa Bay Buccaneers football expansion team began playing
and lost their first 26 games.
(WSJ, 1/10/97, p.A1)
c1976 Milton Friedman and E.S. Phelps, economists, proposed the
doctrine of NAIRU, the non-accelerating inflation rate of unemployment.
It generally holds that there is nothing we can do to get the unemployment
rate below its natural rate. If somehow the unemployment rate slips below
its natural rate, than accelerating inflation would be triggered. The natural
unemployment rate has been placed variously between 5 & 7%. He won
the Nobel Prize in economics and retired to the Hoover Inst. at Stanford.
(WSJ, 7/9/96, p.A18)(WSJ, 5/27/98, p.A20)
1976 The Summit of leading industrial nations was held in San
Juan, Puerto Rico. The addition of Canada let it be called the Group of
Seven or G-7.
(SFC, 6/20/97, p.A16)
1976 A congressional commission found that Pres. Nixon had authorized
$10 million for a covert CIA mission to get rid of Allende. Papers to this
effect were declassified in 1998.
(SFC, 10/22/98, p.A12)
1976 Pres. Gerald Ford signed an executive order prohibiting US
officials from plotting or engaging in political assassination. The order
was later broadened by Presidents Carter and Reagan.
(SFC, 9/4/98, p.A7)
1976 S.I. Hayakawa, former president of SF State College, was
elected to the US Senate.
(SFC, 2/2/98, p.A20)
1976 The National Forest Management Act was passed.
(WSJ, 2/25/97, p.A22)
1976 West Point Naval Academy admitted 119 women out of a class
of 1367. Four years later 62 women graduated.
(SFEC, 2/16/97, p.A12)
1976 US Congress passed the Magnuson Fishery Conservation and
Management Act. It extended US territorial waters to 200 miles offshore.
(GQ, Summer '96, p.22)(WSJ, 11/25/97, p.A1)
1976 An area of 420,000 acres in the Joshua Tree National Monument
was designated a national wilderness area.
(Sp., 5/96, p.64)
1976 The US government introduced the $2 bill.
(SJSVB, 9/2/96, p.10B)
1976 The U. S. Copyright Act of 1976 declared unpublished materials
to be in the public domain when the records are 100 years old or when the
creator of the records has been dead for fifty years, whichever date comes
first. The act also declared that records created before January 1, 1978
enter the public domain in 2002, provided that they are over 100 years
old or the creator of the records has been dead 50 years.
(SAA, 4/19/99)
1976 Former Prime Minister Kakuei Tanaka of Japan was accused
of accepting a bribe from the US Lockheed Corp. and was arrested.
(Jap. Enc., BLDM, p. 216)
1976 The trial for the 14 Zebra murders (1973-1974) occurred in
SF. Four men received life in prison under Superior Court Judge Karesh.
(SFC, 6/21/96, p.E2)
1976 The US passed the Medical Device Amendments which established
a product approval process overseen by the Food and Drug Administration
(FDA) with the authority to regulate medical devices
(WSJ, 4/9/96, p.B-1)(SFC, 4/13/98, p.A8)
1976 Celestine Tate Harrington (d.1998 at 42), a NYC deformed
entertainer, won the right to raise her own daughter when she demonstrated
her ability to change a diaper using her mouth. She was born stunted due
to a botched abortion attempt by her teenage mother.
(SFC, 2/28/98, p.A19)
1976 Entenmann's based in New York, the nation's largest baked
goods company, went public.
(SFEC, 9/30/96, p.A23)
1976 Stauffer Chemical Co. sold the Iron Mountain mine in northern
California to Ted Armand, a Sacramento businessman, who planned to
use the tailings for fertilizers. Armand claimed that he was not informed
of any environmental issues.
(SFEC,11/2/97, p.A13)
1976 W. Richard Goodwin (1924-1996), CEO of Johns Manville Corp.,
resigned. The company manufactured asbestos fibers.
(SFC, 11/11/96, p.A13)
1976 Fred Mattson (d.1997 at 76) and Dr. Robert Volpenhein, employed
by Proctor & Gamble, patented olestra, a cocktail of fatty acids that
enzymes left untouched.
(SFEC, 6/8/97, p.D6)
1976 Cadillac rolled out the El Dorado, the biggest 4-wheel drive
car in the world.
(WSJ, 6/19/96, Adv. Supl)
1976 Industry experts in 1996 picked the 1976 Chevrolet Vega as
the number 4 worst American-made car and the 1976 AMC Pacer as the number
10 worst American-made car.
(WSJ, 6/19/96, Adv. Supl)
1976 Legionnaire's disease was first identified after an outbreak
at the Bellevue Stratford Hotel in Philadelphia, Pa. It was identified
as Legionella pneumophila and found to infest water systems in general
and the hotel ventilation system in this case.
(SFC, 4/13/96, p.A-17)
1976 US scientists at the NIH isolated a poison from the skin
of the Ecuadorian frog called Epibpedobates tricolor and found that an
extract from it could block pain 200 times more effectively than morphine.
(SFC, 1/2/98, p.A6)
1976 J. Michael Bishop and Harold E. Varmus discovered a family
of genes, oncogenes, in chickens, that helped scientists understand how
cancer develops. They won the 1989 Nobel Prize in medicine for their work.
In 1998 Robert A. Weinberg published "One Renegade Cell," a primer on the
discovery of oncogenes.
(SFEC, 10/8/96, A9)(SFC, 2/6/98, p.A1)(WSJ, 11/25/98, p.A16)
1976 The Electronic Information Exchange System (EIES), an electronic
conferencing system, was built at the New Jersey Inst. of Technology.
(Wired, 5/97, p.101)
1976 Whitfield Diffie and Martin Hellman introduced public key
cryptography in a groundbreaking paper.
(Wired, 9/96, p.216)
1976 The 6502 microprocessor by MOS Technologies was introduced
and later used in the Apple II personal computer.
(TAR, 1996, p.22)
1976 The Humboldt nuclear power plant was shut down after an earthquake
fault was discovered running beneath it. In 1999 the California PUC was
expected to approve the decommissioning of the plant for 2002.
(SFC, 10/28/99, p.C4)
1976 The Viking spacecraft landed on Mars. Two Viking landers
and 2 orbiters returned detailed soil information, and data on weather
and topography. There were no clear signs of life.
(TMC, 1994, p.1976)(SFC, 11/29/96, p.A17)
1976 Eleanor Helin of NASA's Jet Propulsion Lab. discovered the
first near Earth asteroid which she named Aten. The orbits of these asteroids
lie mostly inside that of the Earth and could at some date collide with
the Earth.
(SFC, 2/1/97, p.A8)
1976 Scientists drilling off the coast of Guatemala brought up
cores with nodes that sputtered and hissed and left just a puddle. They
were hydrates, a combination of water and methane.
(NH, 5/97, p.26)
1976 The Teton Dam in Idaho burst catastrophically and water blasted
through a narrow canyon and onto Sugar City.
(Smith., 4/1995, p.51)
1976 Georg Frey, Bavarian clothing manufacturer, assembled a collection
of 90,000 beetles from around the globe before his death in this year.
(WSJ, 8/17/95, p.B-1)
1976 A crystal of beryl, 59 feet long and almost 12 feet across,
was found in Madagascar. It weighed 187 tons.
(SFEC, 9/15/96, zone 1 p.5)
1976 Americans legally bet some $17.3 billion.
(WSJ, 10/15/98, p.A20)
1976 A ski cable car, running from Cavalese to the Alpe Cermis
in the Italian Alps, crashed to the ground due to a mechanical failure
and killed 42 skiers.
(SFC, 2/4/98, p.A7)
1976 Benjamin Britten (b.1913), English composer, died.
(WSJ, 7/26/99, p.A21)
1976 Alexander Calder, sculptor, died. He invented the mobile
as a new format for sculpture. He also designed toys , jewelry, some wallpaper
and decorated DC-8s for Braniff Airlines. David Bourdon (d.1998 at 63)
wrote a study of Calder in 1980.
(SFC,11/15/97, p.C1,6)(SFC, 4/4/98, p.A24)
1976 Hungarian art forger Elmyr de Hory died of a lethal overdose
of barbiturates in Ibiza, Spain. The 1969 book "Fake" by Clifford Irving
was about De Hory and both Irving and de Hory were featured in the 1975
Orson Welles film "F" for Fake.
(SFC, 7/29/99, p.E6)
1976 J. Paul Getty, oil baron, died. He left $1.2 billion as an
endowment for a museum and art activities around the world.
(SFC, 7/15/96, p.D2)
1976 Vince Guaraldi, jazz pianist, died. He wrote "Cast Your Fate
to the Wind" and composed for the Charley Schulz "Peanuts" cartoon specials.
(SFEC, 10/18/98, DB p.44)
1976 Fritz Lang (b.1890), film director, died. His work included
"Metropolis," "M," and "The Big Heat."
(WSJ, 4/3/00, p.A46)
1976 Dada artist Man Ray (aka Manuel Radnitsky, 1890-1976) died.
(WSJ, 12/2/96, p.A16)
1976 Actor Sal Mineo was stabbed to death in Los Angeles while
coming home from a play rehearsal.
(SFEC, 3/16/97, z1 p.4)
1976 Pierre Moliniere (b.1900), artist and photographer, shot
himself to death rather than face prostate surgery and a reduced sex life.
(WSJ, 11/22/96, p.A14)
1976 Raymond Queneau, Parisian surrealist, died. His work included
the prewar novel "Les Enfants du Limon." In 1998 it was translated to English
as "Children of Clay."
(SFEC, 8/2/98, BR p.4)
1976 Paul Robeson (b.1898), black athlete, actor and singer, died.
Lloyd L. Brown later wrote the biography "The Young Paul Robeson: On My
Journey Now." His granddaughter Susan Robeson in 1981 wrote "The Whole
World in His Hands: A Pictorial Biography of Paul Robeson."
(SFC, 3/26/98, p.A26)(WSJ, 4/9/98, p.A21)
1976 In Albania a new constitution was adopted and the country
became a "people's socialist republic."
(www, Albania, 1998)
1976 In Argentina four members of a Spanish family were killed
in Rosario. Pres. Gen'l. Leopoldo Galtieri was later accused of being responsible
by a Spanish court.
(SFC, 1/1/98, p.A14)
1976 Gen'l. Juan Jose Torres, ousted as president of Bolivia in
1971, was kidnapped by a death squad in Argentina and killed. He was a
victim of the Condor Plan, a South American military pact between Argentina,
Brazil, Bolivia, Chile and Paraguay to exchange intelligence information
and help each other hunt down suspected leftists.
(SFC, 11/23/99, p.A16)
1976 In Bangladesh Muhammad Yunus began his micro-loan program
and founded the Grameen Bank. Small loans were initially made to groups
of five women who supported one another.
(Wired, 2/98, p.67)
1976 In Britain The Society of West End Theater Awards were founded.
They were renamed to the Lawrence Olivier Awards in 1984.
(SFC,2/17/97, p.D6)
1976 Britain adopted sweeping anti-racial laws, but the laws did
not extend to Northern Ireland.
(SFC, 6/30/96, A11)
1979 In Cambodia a Phnom Penh court sentenced Leng Sary to death
for
his role as deputy premier and foreign minister during the Khmer Rouge
regime.
(SFEC, 9/15/96, p.A16)
1976 In Cambodia Nhem Ein, photographer, was assigned by the Khmer
Rouge to the Tuol Sleng interrogation center called S-21. He proceeded
to methodically photograph all the prisoners who arrived before they were
tortured and executed.
(WSJ, 9/16/97, p.A20)
1976 Canada abolished the death penalty.
(SFC,10/18/97, p.A13)
1976 In Canada the pro-independence Parti Quebecois first came
to power.
(SFC, 10/3/98, p.A21)
1976 In China the Tangshan earthquake hit. Government response
was minimal and slow and spurred mass criticism.
(WSJ, 8/6/96, p.A12)
1976 In Czechoslovakia the Plastic People of the Universe band
was arrested by the Communist government. At a public trial 2 band members
were sentenced and imprisoned for 1 1/2 years.
(WSJ, 7/22/98, p.A12)(SFEC, 3/7/99, DB p.35)
1976 A volcano erupted on Guadeloupe and frightened the capital,
Basse-Terre.
(SFC, 8/29/97, p.A16)
1976 A 7.9 earthquake in Guatemala killed some 23,000 Guatemalams,
mostly Mayan Indians. It destroyed 58,000 houses in the capital and 300
villages.
(NG, 6/1988, p.785,797)(SFEM, 6/13/99, p.8)
1976 Iceland won a cod war and prohibited foreign vessels from
shipping within 200 miles of its borders.
(WSJ, 1/11/99, p.R49)
1976 Indonesia annexed East Timor. The act was not recognized
by the UN.
(G&M, 1/31/96, p.A-9)
1976 IRA soldier Pat McGeown (1956-1996) was convicted in the
bombing of Belfast's Europa Hotel.
(SFC, 10/5/96, p.A21)
1976 In Italy there was a big Dioxin contamination in Seveso that
led to a high incidence of birth defects.
(WSJ,2/12/97, p.A8)
1976 The wolves of Italy received official protection.
(NH, 12/96, p.52)
1976 In Jamaica John Issa, businessman, founded the SuperClubs
Int'l. Ltd.
(WSJ, 7/25/97, p.B1)
1976 Kurd leader Mustafa Barzani died. he was succeeded by his
son Massoud.
(SFC, 9/4/96, p.A7)
1976 In Nigeria, Africa, a fungus afflicting corn plants (the
downy mildew of maize) began spreading. By 1993 seven states in Nigeria
were affected.
(WSJ 6/21/95, p.A-22)
1976 In the Philippines a World Bank Conference was held and thousands
of squatters around Manila were forcibly moved out of sight.
(SFC, 11/18/96, p.A12)
1976 The Isle of Eigg, Scotland, was sold to Keith Schellenberg,
an industrial heir, for $375,000. He sold it in 1995 for $2.3 million to
the German artist Marlin Eckhardt. Eckhardt put the isle up for sale
in 1996 as he was in debt and unable to sell his "pictures from the world
beyond matter," produced by igniting paint on a fireproof canvas.
(SFC, 8/29/96, p.A14)
1976 In the Ukraine an 86-pound topaz crystal was found in the
central Zhytomyr region. In 1997 it was stolen from a Kiev museum.
(SFC, 2/1/97, p.A15)
1976 In Zaire (later Congo) the Ebola virus was discovered and
named after a river there. The virus can stop blood from clotting causing
patients to bleed. An outbreak of the Ebola virus killed 280 people, most
of whom were infected by reused syringes and needles.
(SFC, 10/27/98, p.A5)
1976-1978 "Chico and the Man" played on TV.
(SFEC,1/19/97, Par p.22)
1976-1979 The US $2 bill was reissued for the Bicentennial.
(SFC, 9/14/96, p.A4)
1976-1979 David H. Barnett, former CIA agent, pleaded guilty in 1980
to spying for the Soviet Union over this time while based in Indonesia.
He admitted to exposing the identities of 30 US agents.
(SFC, 11/19/96, p.A17)
1976-1979 In Britain James Callahan served as Prime Minister.
(SFC, 12/7/96, p.A8)
1976-1979 In Nigeria Gen'l. Olusegun Obasanjo ruled as head of state.
He relinquished the presidency after an election and was jailed by Abacha
in 1995 for treason.
(SFC, 6/16/98, p.A10)
1976-1982 In Mexico Jose Lopez Portillo served as president. It was
an era marked by anti-guerrilla campaigns, ultra-nationalist foreign policies,
and state-dominated protectionist economics.
(SFC, 11/28/98, p.C2)
1976- 1983 The US TV sitcom Laverne & Shirley starred Penny Marshall
as Laverne De Fazio and Cindy Williams as Shirley Feeney.
(SFC, 7/21/99, p.C3)
1976-1983 In Argentina mass killings marked these years known as the
"Dirty War" period. At least 9,000 people, suspected by the government
of being leftist dissidents, were arrested, tortured and never seen again.
In 1997 Adolfo Scilingo, a former naval officer, testified in Spain that
as many as 1,500 Argentine navy officials participated in death flights,
where people were hurled into the ocean. In 1998 Marguerite Feitlowitz
published "A Lexicon of Terror," covering the "Dirty War."
(SFC, 10/10/97, p.D2)(SFC, 7/1/98, p.A8)
1976-1983 In Argentina in 1998 prosecutors identified 4 ex-military
men as holders of Swiss bank accounts pillaged from political prisoners
of this era. Former Gen'l. Antonio Bussi, former Sergeant Carlos Vega,
former Lt. Alfredo Astiz, and Col. Roberto Roualdes (d.1995), were cited.
(SFC, 2/24/98, p.A11)
1976-1983 In 1998 Emilio Massera, a former Argentine junta admiral,
was arrested for his role in stealing babies from killed leftists during
the "dirty war." In 1999 former Pres. And Gen'l. Reynaldo Bignone was also
arrested for his role in the baby thefts.
(WSJ, 11/25/98, p.A1)(SFC, 1/21/99, p.A14)
1976-1991 In Lebanon there was a 15 year civil war with no government
and no army to control lawless groups.
(SFC, 2/19/96, p.A8)