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1976

1976 (MCMLXXVI) is a leap year starting on Thursday (link will take you to calendar).

Events

January-February

• 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 16 - Trial against jailed members of the Red Army Faction begins in Stuttgart, West Germany
  
  
• January 18 - The Scottish Labour Party is formed
  
  
• January 21 - The first commercial ''Concorde'' flight takes off.
  
  
• January 25 - 12 PIRA bombs explode in London's East End
  
  
• January 27 - The trial of SLA member Patty Hearst begins. She is found guilty of robbery on March 20
  
  
• 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.
  
  
• February 27 - Western Sahara declares independence
  
  
• February 28 - Spain gives up territories in Sahara but retains its enclaves of Melilla and Ceuta
  
  

  March

  
  
  
• March 1 - Merlyn Rees ends Special Category Status for those sentenced for crimes relating to the civil violence in Northern Ireland
  
  
• 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 17 - Rubin "Hurricane" Carter is retried
  
  
• March 18 - Harold Wilson resigns as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom
  
  
• March 19 - Actor Nicholas Downs born in Des Moines, Iowa at 6:45am
  
  
• 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
  
  
• March 29 - Military junta of general Jorge Videla comes to power in Argentina
  
  
• March 31 - New Jersey Supreme Court rules that coma patient Karen Ann Quinlan could be disconnected from her respirator. She remains comatose and dies in 1985
  
  

  April-May

  
  
  
• 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 5 - Jim Callaghan becomes Prime Minister of the United Kingdom
  
  
• April 5 - Large crowds lay wreaths at Beijing's ''Monument of the Martyrs'' in commemoration of the death of Premier Zhou Enlai. Poems against the Gang of Four are also displayed. This was followed by a police crackdown and became known as the Tiananmen Incident.
  
  
• April 13 - An explosion in an ammunition factory in Lapua, Finland kills 40
  
  
• April 16 - In India the minimum age for marriage is raised to 21 years for men and 18 years for women; it is to curb population growth
  
  
• April 21 - Great Bookie Robbery in Melbourne. Bandits steal A$1.4 Million in bookmakers settlements in Queen Street, Melbourne
  
  
• April 23 - Powerful punk rock group The Ramones release their first album which starts a new form of music
  
  
• April 25 - Portugal's new constitution enacted
  
  
• May 4 - Paris Wine Tasting of 1976 revolutionizes world of wine.
  
  
• May 9 - Ulrike Meinhof of RAF is found hanging in an apparent suicide in her cell in Stuttgart-Stannheim prison
  
  
• May 11 - President Gerald Ford signs Federal Election Campaign Act.
  
  
• May 24 - Washington, DC Concorde service begins
  
  

  June

  
  
  
• June 1 - UK and Iceland end the Cod War
  
  
• June 5 - Teton Dam collapses in southeast Idaho in the U.S., killing 11 people.
  
  
• June 14 - the trial begins at Oxford Crown Court of Donald Neilson, the killer known as the Black Panther.
  
  
• June 16 - Soweto riots in South Africa mark the beginning of the end of apartheid
  
  
• June 20 - Hundreds of Western tourists are moved from Beirut and taken to safety in Syria by the US military, following the murder of the US ambassador.
  
  
• June 20 - Czechoslovakia beat West Germany 5-3 on penalties to win Euro 76, after the game had ended 2-2 after extra time.
  
  
• June 27 - Palestinian extremists hijack an Air France plane in Greece with 246 passengers and 12 crew. They take it to Entebbe, Uganda, where Israeli commandos storms it on July 4
  
  
• Sismik incident starts when the Turkish survey ship Sismik entered Greek waters.
  
  

July

• 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 on Gregg v. Georgia and decides that death penalty is not inherently cruel or unusual and is a constitutionally acceptable form of punishment
  
  
• 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
  
  
• July 4 - Israeli airborne commandos free 103 hostages being held by Palestinian hijackers of an Air France plane at Uganda's Entebbe Airport; one Israeli and several Ugandan soldiers are killed in raid.
  
  
• July 7 - German left-wing terrorists Monika Berberich, Gabriella Rollnick, Juliane Plambeck and Inge Viett escape from Lehrterstrasse maximum security prison in West Berlin
  
  
• July 10 - Explosion in Seveso, Italy, kills a large number of people
  
  
• 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, Canada.
  
  
• July 17 - East Timor is declared the 27th province of Indonesia
  
  
• 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, British ambassador to the Irish Republic
  
  
• July 27 - United Kingdom breaks diplomatic relations with Uganda
  
  
• July 28 - Tangshan 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 30 - In Santiago, capital of Chile, Cruzeiro from Brazil wins 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
  
  

  August

  
  
  
• August 1 - the Caribbean nation of Trinidad and Tobago becomes a republic, replacing Queen Elizabeth II with an elected president as their Head of State.
  
  
• 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 4 - First outbreak of Legionnaire's disease kills 29 at the American Legion convention in Philadelphia
  
  
• August 5 - Racing Champion Niki Lauda suffers serious burns in the German Grand prix; the Great Clock of Westminster (or Big Ben) suffers internal damage and stops running for over nine months
  
  
• August 6 - Former UK Postmaster General John Stonehouse is sentenced for seven years for fraud
  
  
• August 7 - Viking program: Viking 2 enters into orbit around Mars
  
  
• August 14 - 10,000 Protestant and Catholic women demonstrate for peace in Northern Ireland
  
  
• August 14 - The Senegalese political party ''PAI-Rénovation'' is legally recognized. PAI-Rénovation thus becomes the third legal party in the country.
  
  
• August 18 - In North Korea at Panmunjom, two US soldiers are killed while trying to chop down part of a tree in the Demilitarized Zone which had obscured their view
  
  
• August 24 - Uruguayan army captures Marcelo Gelman and his pregnant wife. Marcelo is later killed and his wife and child disappears
  
  

  September-October

  
  
  
• 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
  
  
• Military Junta in power in Argentina.
  
  
• September 17 - Space Shuttle Enterprise rolled out.
  
  
• September 21 - Seychelles joins the United Nations.
  
  
• September 21 - Orlando Letelier is assassinated in Washington, D.C. by agents of Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet.
  
  
• October - The Damned release New Rose - the first ever single released / marketed as "punk rock".
  
  
• October 6 - Cubana Flight 455 crashes due to a bomb placed by anti-Castrist militants, after taking off from Bridgetown, Barbados. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/4535661.stm
  
  
• October 6 - Students gathering at Thammasat University in Bangkok, Thailand to protest the return of ex-dictator Thanom are massacred by a coalition of right-wing paramilitary and government forces, triggering the return of the military to government.
  
  
• 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 19 - Copyright Act of 1976 extends copyright duration for an additional 20 years in the United States
  
  
• October 22 - Cearbhall Ó Dálaigh, fifth President of Ireland, resigns after being publicly insulted by the Minister for Defence.
  
  
• October 25 - Full pardon given to Clarence Norris, last known survivor of the Scottsboro Boys.
  
  

  November-December

  
  
  
• November 2 - U.S. presidential election, 1976: Jimmy Carter defeats incumbent Gerald Rudolph Ford to become first candidate from deep south to win since the Civil War.
  
  
• November 15 - First Megamouth Shark is discovered off Oahu in Hawaii
  
  
• 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
  
  
• December 23 - New volcano, Murara, began erupting in eastern Zaire.
  
  

  Unknown dates

  
  
  
• Christopher Maier, American murder victim born, died 1997
  
  
• 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.
  
  
• Diffie-Hellman cryptography proposed
  
  
• Plans to move the Nigerian capital from Lagos to Abuja are approved.
  
  
• Ebola is first discovered in Zaire
  
  
• Women For Sobriety established.
  
  

  Births

  
  
  

January-March

• January 2 - Paz Vega, Spanish actress
  
  
• January 7 - Éric Gagné, Canadian Major League Baseball player
  
  
• January 7 - Alfonso Soriano, Dominican Major League Baseball player
  
  
• January 11 - Amanda Peet, American actress (born really 1972?)
  
  
• January 20 - Gretha Smit, Dutch speed skater
  
  
• January 21 - Emma Bunton, English musician (Spice Girls)
  
  
• January 28 - Mark Madsen, American basketball player
  
  
• January 31 - Buddy Rice, American race car driver
  
  
• February 2 - James Hickman, British swimmer
  
  
• February 4 - Cam'ron, Harlem, New York rapper
  
  
• February 9 - Vladimir Guerrero, Dominican Major League Baseball player
  
  
• February 10 - Lance Berkman, baseball player
  
  
• February 12 - Silvia Saint, Czech actress
  
  
• February 15 - Brandon Boyd, American musician (Incubus)
  
  
• February 20 - Ed Graham, British drummer (The Darkness)
  
  
• February 28 - Ja Rule, American rapper
  
  
• March 5 - Sarunas Jasikevicius, Lithuanian basketball player
  
  
• March 8 - Freddie Prinze Jr., American actor
  
  
• March 20 - Chester Bennington, American musician (Linkin Park)
  
  
• March 22 - Teun de Nooijer, Dutch field hockey player
  
  
• March 22 - Reese Witherspoon, American actress
  
  
• March 23 - Keri Russell, American actress
  
  
• March 24 - Aaron Brooks, American football player
  
  
• March 24 - Peyton Manning, American football player
  
  
• March 25 - Juvenile, American rapper
  
  
• March 26 - Amy Smart, American actress
  
  

  April-June

  
  
  
• April 6 - Candace Cameron, American actress
  
  
• April 13 - Jonathan Brandis, American actor (d. 2003)
  
  
• April 18 - Melissa Joan Hart, American actress
  
  
• April 25 - Tim Duncan, West Indian basketball player
  
  
• April 25 - Rainer Schuettler, German tennis player
  
  
• May 3 - Beto, Portuguese footballer
  
  
• May 4 - Jason Michaels, baseball player
  
  
• May 15 - Tyler Walker, baseball player
  
  
• May 19 - Kevin Garnett, American basketball player
  
  
• May 20 - Ramón Hernández, Venezuelan Major League Baseball player
  
  
• May 25 - Miguel Tejada, Dominican Major League Baseball player
  
  
• May 31 - Colin Farrell, Irish actor
  
  
• June 8 - Lindsay Davenport, American tennis player
  
  
• June 10 - Freddy Garcia, Venezuelan Major League Baseball player
  
  
• June 13 - Jason 'J' Brown, English musician (5ive)
  
  
• June 23 - Brandon Stokley, American football player
  
  

  July-September

  
  
  
• July 1 - Patrick Kluivert, Dutch footballer
  
  
• July 1 - Ruud van Nistelrooy, Dutch footballer
  
  
• July 3 - Andrea Barber, American actress
  
  
• July 2 - Gabriel Mughadam, Bodybuilder
  
  
• July 4 - Daijiro Kato, Japanese motorcycle racer
  
  
• July 8 - Ellen MacArthur, English yachtswoman
  
  
• July 9 - Shelton Benjamin, American professional wrestler
  
  
• July 9 - Fred Savage, American actor
  
  
• July 11 - Eduardo Najera, Mexican basketball player
  
  
• July 20 - Alex Yoong, Malaysian race car driver
  
  
• July 23 - Judit Polgar, Hungarian chess player
  
  
• July 31 - Annie Parisse, American actress
  
  
• August 6 - Melissa George, Australian actress
  
  
• August 9 - Jessica Capshaw, American actress
  
  
• August 9 - Rhona Mitra, English actress
  
  
• August 8 - JC Chasez, American singer
  
  
• August 12 - Antoine Walker, American basketball player
  
  
• August 14 - Alex Albrecht, American television personality
  
  
• August 15 - Boudewijn Zenden, Dutch football player
  
  
• August 27 - Carlos Moyà, Spanish tennis player
  
  
• August 27 - Mark Webber, Australian race car driver
  
  
• September 7 - Stevie Case (Killcreek), American video game celebrity
  
  
• September 7 - Shannon Elizabeth, American actress
  
  
• September 8 - Abi Titmuss, British TV presenter and model
  
  
• September 8 - Sjeng Schalken, Dutch tennis player
  
  
• September 10 - Gustavo Kuerten, Brazilian tennis player
  
  
• September 16 - Tina Barrett, English singer (S Club 7)
  
  
• September 22 - Ronaldo, Brazilian footballer
  
  
• September 25 - Chauncey Billups, American basketball player
  
  
• September 26 - Michael Ballack, German footballer
  
  
• September 29 - Andriy Shevchenko, Ukrainian footballer
  
  

  October-December

  
  
  
• October 1 - Blu Cantrell, American rapper
  
  
• October 4 - Alicia Silverstone, American actress
  
  
• October 10 - Bob Burnquist, Brazilian skateboarder
  
  
• October 19 - Michael Young, baseball player
  
  
• October 23 - Ryan Reynolds, Canadian actor
  
  
• November 6 - Pat Tillman, American football player (d. 2004)
  
  
• November 7 - Mark Philippoussis, Australian tennis player
  
  
• November 19 - Jun Shibata, Japanese singer and songwriter
  
  
• November 24 - Chen Lu, Chinese figure skater
  
  
• November 29 - Anna Faris, American actress
  
  
• December 1 - Matthew Shepard, American murder victim (d. 1998)
  
  
• December 12 - Dan Hawkins, British guitarist (The Darkness)
  
  
• December 13 - Tom Delonge, American musician (Blink-182)
  
  
• December 15 - Baichung Bhutia, Indian footballer
  
  
• December 17 - Takeo Spikes, American football player
  
  
• December 18 - Koyuki, Japanese actress and model
  
  

  Deaths

  
  
  

  January-March

  
  
  
• January 8 - Zhou Enlai, Premier of the People's Republic of China (b. 1898)
  
  
• January 10 - Howlin' Wolf, American musician (b. 1910)
  
  
• January 12 - Agatha Christie, English writer (b. 1890)
  
  
• January 23 - Paul Robeson, American actor, singer, writer, and activist (b. 1898)
  
  
• January 30 - Mance Lipscomb, American singer (b. 1895)
  
  
• February 1 - Werner Heisenberg, German physicist, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1901)
  
  
• February 1 - George Whipple, American scientist, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (b. 1878)
  
  
• February 2 - Zlatyu Boyadzhiev, Bulgarian painter (b. 1903)
  
  
• February 6 - Vince Guaraldi, American musician (b. 1928)
  
  
• February 9 - Percy Faith, Canadian-born musician and composer (b. 1908)
  
  
• February 11 - Lee J Cobb, American actor (b. 1911)
  
  
• February 11 - Alexander Lippisch, German aerodynamicist (b. 1894)
  
  
• February 11 - Charlie Naughton, Scottish actor (b. 1886)
  
  
• February 12 - Sal Mineo, American actor (b. 1939)
  
  
• February 13 - Lily Pons, American soprano (b. 1898)
  
  
• February 20 - René Cassin, French judge, recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize (b. 1887)
  
  
• February 22 - Florence Ballard, American singer (The Supremes) (b. 1943)
  
  
• March 6 - Max 'Slapsie Maxie' Rosenbloom, American boxer and actor (b. 1903)
  
  
• March 7 - Wright Patman, American politician (b. 1893)
  
  
• March 14 - Busby Berkeley, American choreographer and director (b. 1895)
  
  
• March 17 - Luchino Visconti, Italian theatre and film director (b. 1906)
  
  
• March 19 - Paul Kossoff, British guitarist (Free) (b. 1950)
  
  
• March 24 - Bernard Montgomery, British field marshal (b. 1897)
  
  

  April-June

  
  
  
• April 1 - Max Ernst, German artist (b. 1891)
  
  
• April 5 - Howard Hughes, American aviation pioneer, film director, and eccentric (b. 1905)
  
  
• April 9 - Dagmar Nordstrom, American composer, pianist, one of The Nordstrom Sisters (b. 1903)
  
  
• April 18 - Henrik Dam, Dutch biochemist, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (b. 1895)
  
  
• April 26 - Sid James, South African actor (b. 1913)
  
  
• May 9 - Jens Bjørneboe, Norwegian author (b. 1920)
  
  
• May 9 - Ulrike Meinhof, German terrorist (b. 1934)
  
  
• May 11 - Alvar Aalto, Finnish architect (b. 1898)
  
  
• May 14 - Keith Relf, British musician (The Yardbirds) (b. 1943)
  
  
• May 26 - Martin Heidegger, German philosopher (b. 1889)
  
  
• May 27 - Hilde Hildebrand, German actress, (b. 1897)
  
  
• May 31 - Jacques Monod, French biologist, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (b. 1910)
  
  
• June 10 - Adolph Zukor, Hungarian-born film producer (b. 1893)
  
  
• June 15 - Jimmy Dykes, baseball player and manager (b. 1896)
  
  
• June 25 - Johnny Mercer, American songwriter (b. 1909)
  
  
• June 30 - Firpo Marberry, baseball player (b. 1898)
  
  

  July-September

  
  
  
• July 1 - Zhang Mintian, General Secretary of the Communist Party of China (b. 1900)
  
  
• July 4 - Antoni Słonimski, Polish poet and writer (b. 1895)
  
  
• July 13 - Joachim Peiper, German military leader (b. 1915)
  
  
• August 6 - Gregor Piatigorsky, Russian cellist (b. 1903)
  
  
• August 22 - Juscelino Kubitschek, President of Brazil (b. 1902)
  
  
• August 25 - Eyvind Johnson, Swedish writer, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1900)
  
  
• August 26 - Lotte Lehmann, German soprano (b. 1888)
  
  
• August 27 - Mukesh, Indian singer (b. 1923)
  
  
• September 2 - Stanisław Grochowiak, Polish writer (b. 1934)
  
  
• September 9 - Mao Zedong, Chinese leader (b. 1893)
  
  
• September 26 - Lavoslav Ružička, Croatian chemist, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1887)
  
  

  October-December

  
  
  
• October 5 - Lars Onsager, Norwegian chemist, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1903)
  
  
• October 11 - Alfredo Bracchi, Italian author (b. 1897)
  
  
• November 12 - Walter Piston, American composer (b. 1894)
  
  
• December 2 - Danny Murtaugh, baseball player and manager (b. 1917)
  
  
• December 4 - Benjamin Britten, English composer (b. 1913)
  
  
• December 6 - João Goulart, President of Brazil (b. 1918)
  
  
• December 28 - Katharine Byron, U.S. Congresswoman (b. 1903)
  
  

  Nobel Prizes

  
  
  
• Physics - Burton Richter, Samuel Chao Chung Ting
  
  
• Chemistry - William Nunn Lipscomb, Jr
  
  
• Physiology or Medicine - Baruch S. Blumberg, D Carleton Gajdusek
  
  
• Literature - Saul Bellow
  
  
• Peace - Betty Williams and Mairead Corrigan
  
  
• Economics - Milton Friedman==Templeton Prize==
  
  
• Cardinal Suenens
  
  

  Heads of state in 1976

  
  
  
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