1978: Information from Answers.com
- ️Sun Nov 22 4674
1971 1972 1973 1974 1975 1976 1977 1978 1979 1980
Religious riots rock Iran's holy city of Com January 7, on the 15th anniversary of the shah's land reform and women's emancipation decrees, both despised by the nation's 180,000 Muslim preachers. The shah has the chief of the Savak secret police arrested June 9 on charges of corruption and torturing prisoners. A packed movie theater at Abadan burns August 20 with a loss of 377 lives; opponents of the shah charge that Savak agents set the fire, but the government blames Islamic Marxists. The prime minister resigns August 27 and the shah, hoping to appease his opponents, closes gambling casinos and dismisses high-ranking members of the Bahai sect, including his personal physician. Martial law is imposed in the capital and 11 other cities after 100,000 march in an anti-shah demonstration at Teheran. Troops open fire in Teheran's Jaleh Square, killing 121 demonstrators, wounding 200 others. The cabinet resigns November 6, and Iran's first military government since 1953 comes to power. Moscow cautions Washington against military intervention, Washington warns Moscow to stay out. Marine guards use tear gas to chase away a Teheran mob trying to storm the U.S. embassy December 24. The shah asks a leader of the opposition National Front to form a new civilian government December 29, and Shahpour Bakhtiar, 62, assumes power (see 1979).
Afghanistan has a bloody coup April 27 as pro-Soviet leftists oust President Mohammed Daud (see 1973). Mur Muhammad Taraki, 60, succeeds Daud as president and concludes a 20-year economic and military treaty with Moscow (see 1979).
Pakistan's president Fazel Elahi Chaudhry leaves office September 16 after a 5-year term; the chief martial law administrator Gen. Mohammed Zia ul-Haq, 54, declares himself president (see 1986).
A bomb kills the president of North Yemen (The Yemen Arab Republic) June 24 as he receives the credentials of the new ambassador from South Yemen (The People's Democratic Republic of Yemen), whose presidential council head is ousted and executed June 26. South Yemen's Supreme Council elects a new president December 27, he reverses moves toward reconciliation with North Yemen, acquiesces to a continuing Soviet military buildup in his country, but will embarrass Moscow and resign abruptly in 1980 (see 1979).
Syrians begin fighting with Lebanon's Christian militia in February (see 1976), and an Al Fatah guerilla assault on the Haifa-Tel Aviv road March 11 kills 30 Israeli civilians. Israel invades Lebanon March 14, pushes back Palestinians who have been harassing Israelis, establishes a "security zone," and begins a phased pullback April 11 as a UN peacekeeping force occupies a buffer zone between the border and the Litani River. Yasir Arafat of the PLO agrees May 24 to keep his forces out of the UN buffer zone, and Israelis complete their withdrawal June 13, turning over posts to the Christian militia, who declare an independent enclave but permit UN forces to occupy some sites (see 1981).
The Camp David accord reached September 17 after 13 days of negotiating by Egypt's president Anwar el-Sadat, Israel's prime minister Menachem Begin, and President Carter provides what all parties call a "framework for peace" in the Middle East (see 1977). Sudan's president Gaafar el-Nimeiri has been prominent among Arabs supporting President Sadat's efforts to make peace with Israel, President Carter has summoned Sadat and Begin to Camp David and worked intensively to keep the two parties talking, but many Muslims have opposed the peace effort (see 1979). Former Israeli prime minister Golda Meir dies of viral hepatitis and a malignant lymphoma at Jerusalem December 9 at age 80 after a 12-year struggle with leukemia.
A Soviet fighter jet attacks a Korean Air Lines commercial jet bound from Paris to Seoul April 20 when defective navigational equipment causes the KAL 707 to stray over Russian territory. Two passengers are killed and 10 injured by the Soviet missile; the plane crash-lands on a frozen lake near Murmansk.
The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act signed into law by President Carter October 25 bars the National Security Agency established in 1952 from targeting suspected terrorists within the United States unless it can persuade a special federal court that a suspect is probably an agent of a foreign power involved in espionage, sabotage, or terrorism. The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court in the Department of Justice Building at Washington, D.C., will file brief semi-annual reports providing the number of surveillance orders that it has approved but will otherwise have no obligation to provide information to congressional oversight committees on search and wire-tap orders, whose numbers will escalate in the next 20 years.
The Ethics in Government Act signed into law by President Carter October 26 requires yearly financial statements by 14,000 top federal officials in all three branches of the government, including the Supreme Court. Designed (in Carter's words) to "help to restore public confidence in the integrity of our government," the law sets up standby authority for a special prosecutor (independent counsel), appointed by the attorney general, to investigate alleged wrongdoing on the part of the president, vice president, cabinet members, or others highly placed in the executive branch. The new law will have unintended consequences, with blatantly political motives driving special prosecutors to spend tens of millions of dollars on harassing public officials.
The Presidential Records Act signed into law by President Carter November 4 calls for the release of presidential papers 12 years after any administration. The law is scheduled to take effect in 1981 (but see 2001).
Former vice president Hubert H. Humphrey dies of cancer at Waverly, Minn., January 13 at age 66; Gen. Lucius D. Clay (ret.) of emphysema at Chatham, Mass., April 16 at age 80; former Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman Gen. George S. Brown (ret.) of cancer at Washington, D.C., December 5 at age 60 (Brown aroused controversy in 1974 by suggesting that U.S. Jews exerted undue influence on U.S. affairs and, again, 2 years ago when he called Israel a "burden" to the United States).
Italian Red Brigade terrorists kidnap former premier Aldo Moro, 61, March 16 after killing Moro's five bodyguards in a bloody ambush on Rome's Via Fani. The government rejects demands to release imprisoned terrorists, the Red Brigades announce that they have held a "people's trial" and have found Christian Democratic Party leader Moro guilty, and his bullet-riddled body is found 55 days later in a parked car on the Via Caetani May 9. The election of socialist Sandro Martini, 81, to the presidency July 8 assures continued cooperation between Italy's communists and the Roman Catholic Christian Democrats, but conflict between communists and neo-Fascists continues (see 1980).
Former British foreign minister John Selwyn Loyd, Baron Selwyn Lloyd, dies at his Oxfordshire home May 17 at age 73.
Former S.S. colonel Herbert Keppler dies of stomach cancer at Soltau, West Germany, February 9 at age 70 (he escaped from a military hospital at Rome in mid-August of last year); former German tank commander Gen. Hans von Manteuffel dies of a heart attack at Reith, Austria, September 24 at age 81; Soviet presidium president Anastas Ivanovich Mikoyan of cancer at Moscow October 22 at age 82.
Spain adopts a new constitution following its approval in a national referendum December 6.
The Panama Canal treaties approved by the U.S. Senate 68 to 32 March 16 and April 18 provide for Panamanian operation of the canal beginning December 31, 1999 (see 1977). Neutrality of the canal is guaranteed. The action is intended to begin a new era in U.S.-Latin American relations but has been vigorously opposed by former diplomat Spruille Braden, who has died of heart disease at Los Angeles January 10 at age 83.
Nicaraguan leftist guerrillas seize the National Palace at Managua August 22 and hold hundreds hostage for two days in a bid to oust dictator Anastasia Somoza. The Sandinista Liberal Front takes its name from guerrilla Gen. César Augusto Sandino (see 1934). Sandanista rebels free all but eight hostages August 24 in exchange for the release of political prisoners held by the Somoza regime, $71,000 in cash, and safe passage to Panama, where they seek asylum (see 1979).
Guatemalans elect Gen. Romeo Lucas Garcia president. Washington cuts off military aid as Lucas Garcia begins a brutal and corrupt dictatorship that will continue until 1982.
Dominica in the Caribbean gains independence November 3 after 153 years of British colonial rule.
Former Paraguayan president Federico Chávez dies at his native Asunción April 24 at age 96 (approximate) and is buried with full state honors, dictator Alfredo Stroessner attending; former Mexican president Emilio Portes Gil dies of cardiac arrest at Mexico City December 10 at age 87.
Mauritania's president Moktar Ould Daddah is deposed July 10, having held office since the country gained her independence in 1960. His efforts to annex part of the Spanish Sahara has been costly and created discontent; Daddah's chief of staff Lieut. Col. Mustapha Ould Salek leads a coup d'état, Daddah goes into exile, but Salek will rule the country only until June of next year.
Rhodesia's civil war continues with massacres on both sides (see 1976); rebel troops under the command of Joshua Nkomo shoot down an Air Rhodesia flight September 4; 18 of the 56 civilians aboard survive, but guerrillas arrive on the scene and allegedly shoot 10 of them in cold blood. Nkomo chuckles about the incident in a BBC radio interview, enraging white Rhodesians, but although they mount a furious counterattack their days of power are numbered (see 1979).
Guinea-Bissau's premier Francisco Mendes dies in an auto accident July 7 at Lisbon at age 39; Kenya's president Jomo Kenyatta (Kaman Ngengi) dies in his sleep while vacationing at Mombasa August 22 at age 86 (approximate) after 15 years in office and is succeeded by Daniel arap Moi, 53, who will hold office until the end of 2002; South Africa's president Nicolaas Diederichs dies of a heart attack at Cape Town August 21 at age 74.
South Africa approves a UN plan to set up an independent government in Namibia (South-West Africa). Pretoria agrees December 22 to let a peacekeeping force of 1,500 South Africans and 7,500 UN troops police the 318,261-square mile area (estimated population: 1 million) and to hold UN-supervised elections in 1979. Differences will develop over UN proposals for monitoring guerrillas of the South West Africa People's Organization (Swapo) during a cease-fire and over South African demands that the internal parties have a formal part in negotiations (see 1974).
Algeria's president Houari Boumedienne (Mohammed Ben Braham Boukharuba) goes into a coma with Waldenstrom's macroglobulinemia for 6 weeks and dies at Algiers December 27 at age 53 after 13 years in office. He is succeeded by Chadi Benjedid, 49.
Former Australian prime minister Robert Gordon Menzies dies of cancer while reading in his study at Melbourne May 14 at age 83. He has been confined to a wheelchair by a stroke since 1971.
The Solomon Islands gain independence July 7 after 85 years of British rule.
Tuvalu (Ellice Islands) in the western Pacific gain independence September 30 after 86 years as a British protectorate.
A Sino-Japanese treaty of friendship signed August 12 brings Soviet charges that the pact is hostile to Moscow. Beijing (Peking) and Washington then announce that they will reopen full diplomatic relations January 1, 1979. Washington recognizes the People's Republic of China December 15, announcing that it will sever diplomatic ties with Taiwan as of January 1, 1979, despite objections that this will abrogate a 1954 treaty of mutual security and mean deserting an old friend.
Vietnamese troops invade Cambodia (Kampuchea) December 25, using Soviet-supplied arms to stop Khmer Rouge border attacks and drive out Pol Pot's regime (see 1976). Vietnam's communist regime made a sudden announcement early in the year that it would implement a program socializing industry and agriculture in the south; hundreds of thousands of ethnic Chinese and other Vietnamese have fled the country on foot or by sea (see 1979).
Civil rights lawyer Samuel S. Leibowitz suffers a stroke and dies at Brooklyn, N.Y., January 11 at age 84.
The Bakke decision handed down by the U.S. Supreme Court June 28 upholds a reverse-discrimination ruling and thus jeopardizes affirmative-action programs designed to help minority students gain admittance to U.S. colleges and graduate schools. National Aeronautics and Space Administration engineer and Marine Corps Vietnam veteran Allen Paul Bakke, now 38, applied in 1973 to the University of California Medical School at Davis and was twice rejected, not because of age or lack of any qualification but because a special-admissions minority program had reduced the number of places open to white applicants (16 of the 100 seats were reserved for minority applicants, and the total number of applicants was 3,737). The Court rules 5 to 4 that the special-admissions program at Davis violates Title VI of the Civil Rights Act. A different majority of five justices condones some consideration of race in the admissions process, so while the Bakke decision clearly forbids racial quotas and non-competitive evaluations of minority candidates, it does not bar schools from considering race and ethnic origin in their efforts to obtain diversity among student bodies (see commerce [Weber decision], 1979).
South African authorities jail apartheid foe Helen Joseph for contempt after she refuses to testify against Winnie Mandela, whose husband, Nelson, has been imprisoned since 1962 (see 1961; Biko, 1977). Now 72, Joseph has visited Mrs. Mandela at Brandford along with Jackie Bosman, Ilona Kleinschmidt, 28, and Barbara Waite, 42. Bridget Oppenheimer, wife of the diamond- and gold-mining magnate, has been moved by the Soweto riots and inspired by the example of women in Northern Ireland to form the liberal group Women for Peace (see politics, 1979).
U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Andrew Young, 46, compares Soviet dissidents to U.S. civil rights activists and says July 12 that there are "political prisoners in both countries." The White House disavows Young's views and President Carter rebukes him.
A Moscow court sentences Soviet dissident Anatoly Shcharansky to 13 years of prison and hard labor in a ruling handed down July 14 (see 1978). Shcharansky has upheld the Final Act of the 1975 Helsinki Agreement, "the right to know and act upon one's rights." In the courtroom he has cried out, "Next year in Jerusalem." World opinion has failed to sway the judges, who have convicted Shcharansky on trumped-up charges to discourage other "refuseniks" who want to emigrate but whom the Soviet government wants to retain (but see 1986).
The nongovernmental U.S.-based Human Rights Watch has its beginnings in the Helsinki Watch founded to monitor compliance by Canada, the United States, and the European signatories to the 1975 Helsinki Accord with regard to protecting the rights of children, women, prison inmates, and others. The group will issue reports each January with detailed analyses of developments in more than 70 countries, its quarterly Human Rights Watch Update will alert readers to what is happening on a current basis, and it will issue some 100 reports per year on specific issues.
Nearly 100,000 demonstrators assemble on the Mall at Washington, D.C., July 9 to support an extension of the 7-year deadline for ratification of the Equal Rights Amendment beyond March 22, 1979. Held in humid 90° F. weather, the largest feminist gathering in the world marks the start of renewed efforts to obtain ratification, now only three states short of being achieved (see Schlafly book, 1977). Many participants are dressed in white, like early suffragists (a few elderly women turn out who marched in 1919), they carry purple, yellow, and white banners. The House votes 233 to 189 August 15 to extend the deadline by 39 months, and the Senate follows suit 60 to 36 October 6 (but see 1982).
The New York Times settles a class-action sex-discrimination suit October 6 during an 88-day newspaper strike that has shut down all three of the city's dailies. The Times agrees to pay $350,000, including an average of $454.54 each in back pay (the Times calls the payments "annuities") for 550 women and to institute an affirmative-action program.
California voters overwhelmingly reject a ballot initiative (Proposition 6) that would have made it illegal for homosexuals "or anyone advocating a homosexual lifestyle" to teach in state schools.
Insurance and real-estate magnate John D. MacArthur dies of cancer at West Palm Beach, Fla., January 6 at age 80 (he has become the state's largest land owner), leaving an estate valued at $1 billion, with much of it earmarked for a John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation that will give annual awards (see education, 1981); banker and philanthropist E. Roland Harriman dies at Arden, N.Y., February 16 at age 82; banker-philanthropist Ralph Lowell at Boston May 15 at age 87; philanthropist John D. Rockefeller III is killed in an auto accident at Pocantico Hills, N.Y., July 10 at age 72.
Unemployment rises throughout the world with a U.S. rate of 6 percent, up from 4.9 in 1973 (twice as many blacks are jobless as in 1968). Britain's rate is 6.1 percent, up from 2.9; France's 5.5, up from 2.7; West Germany's 3.4, up from 0.8.
Nearly 80 percent of women in the U.S. workforce in March hold clerical, sales, service, plant, or factory jobs. More than half of all husband-wife families have two or more wage earners. Only 140,000 women working in the private sector earn $25,000 per year or more as compared with 4,173,000 men. The U.S. Department of Labor issues regulations designed to increase the number of women in blue-collar construction jobs. Appalachian women's and citizens' groups organize the Coal Employment Project to encourage hiring of women and minorities in the coal pits.
President Carter signs legislation April 6 raising the mandatory retirement age for most U.S. workers to 70.
The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) issues a rule June 23 about exposure to cotton dust, estimating that compliance will cost industry $250 million in new equipment. Industry estimates range as high as $444 million; the actual cost will prove to be $83 million.
California voters approve a $7 billion (57 percent) cut in property taxes (Proposition 13), and the support by 65 percent of the electorate June 6 sparks similar tax revolts in other states.
British women mark the 50th anniversary of suffrage July 2 but note that while women constitute 40 percent of the workforce they still earn on average only 65 percent as much as men; women seldom appear on company boards or in top executive ranks, and the mandatory retirement age for women is 60, whereas for men it is 65. Under the income-tax law, a husband is responsible for filling out his wife's tax return, making it impossible for her to hide any of her income from him, and a survey has revealed that seven out of ten British wives do not know how much their husbands earn.
Legislation signed by President Carter October 10 authorizes the minting of silver dollars bearing the portrait of Susan B. Anthony, but the small coins will be confused with quarters and enjoy little popularity.
The 401(k) program of U.S. retirement plans has its genesis in a paragraph (k) added by Congress in the fall to Section 401 of the federal tax code, permitting an employee who receives a profit-sharing bonus to put some of the money into an investment plan, with the tax on the contribution to be deferred until his or her retirement (when the money can be drawn down and taxed at a presumably lower rate). When the new code becomes effective next year, thousands of companies will adopt 401(k) plans to replace or supplement traditional retirement programs they have funded themselves, employers will usually match at least a percentage of the worker's contribution, the number of plans will grow to 17,000 by 1984, within 20 years some 27 million workers will be pouring about $70 billion per year into about 200,000 401(k) plans, 70 percent of the money will be going into equities, it will help to fuel a long-lasting boom in the stock market, and by the end of the century the assets of the plans (together with those of the federal employees' Thrift Savings Plan) will have grown to more than $2 trillion.
U.S. inflation spirals out of control, with prices and wages both climbing steeply as consumers buy in anticipation of higher prices to come. People on fixed incomes are especially hard hit, and President Carter announces a program of voluntary wage-price guidelines October 24, resisting demands that he impose mandatory controls but raising fears that inflation will worsen. Wall Street's Dow Jones Industrial Average nevertheless leaps a record 35.4 points November 1 on hopes that the new guidelines will bring inflation under control (see Volcker, 1980).
President Carter signs an $18.7 billion tax-cut bill November 6 despite feelings that it favors middle- and upper-income taxpayers.
Tokyo's Nikkei Dow Jones average closes above 6,000 for the first time December 1. It reached 5,000 for the first time in December 1972, then plunged in the wake of the 1973 oil crisis and did not reach 5,000 again until January 1978.
Cleveland defaults on $14 million in debts December 16 and another $1.5 million in notes held by the city treasury are extended.
The U.S. Supreme Court rules December 18 that a national bank can export interest rates on consumer loans from the state where credit decisions are made to borrowers nationwide (Marquette National Bank v. First Omaha Service Corp.). More than three dozen states have usury laws that cap interest rates and fees on credit cards, most at annual percentage rates of less than 18 percent, but South Dakota has no cap on rates, and the high court says national banks can charge the highest rate in the bank's home state, not the customer's state (see Citibank, 1980; Smiley v. Citibank, 1996).
U.S. money-market funds have assets of $10 billion by year's end (see 1974). Paying interest rates far higher than those obtainable at banks, credit unions, or savings and loan institutions, they will have $100 billion by March 1981, all of it invested in large-denomination, high-yielding financial instruments not previously available as investment vehicles except to large institutions.
Wall Street's Dow Jones Industrial Average closes December 29 at 805.01, down from 831.17 at the end of 1977, having fallen below 800 January 6.
Radio Shack founder Howard Tandy dies of an apparent heart attack at Fort Worth, Texas, November 4 at age 60; gem dealer Harry Winston of a heart attack at New York December 8 at age 82, leaving an enterprise that includes stores at Caracas and Monte Carlo.
The Nuclear Exports Control Act (Nuclear Non-Proliferation Act) signed by President Carter March 10 imposes strict new controls on export of U.S. nuclear technology to prevent the spread of atomic weapons. A receiving nation may not further enrich reactor-grade U.S. uranium to the 90 percent-plus concentration needed for a bomb. India will not agree to such a limitation and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission acts April 20 to bar the sale of 7.6 tons of enriched uranium for two nuclear projects in India. President Carter approves the sale April 27.
Five new U.S. nuclear reactors begin generating electricity on a commercial basis.
Nuclear fusion enthusiasts claim a breakthrough July 4 when the Princeton Large Torus test reactor, fueled by deuterium gas, reaches a temperature of 60 million degrees F. and holds it for one-twentieth of a second. Scientists strive to attain a temperature that will match the sun's—100 million° F.—and sustain it for pulses of a full second or more, making it commercially feasible to produce electricity from heavy isotopes of hydrogen, extractable in abundance from seawater.
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission suspends construction of a Seabrook, N.H., atomic energy facility but rules August 10 that construction may resume despite opposition from the "Clamshell Alliance" of environmentalists who vow to continue nonviolent civil disobedience protests. West Coast opponents of nuclear energy demonstrate against the Trojan nuclear plant near Rainier, Ore., and the Diablo Canyon plant near San Luis Obispo, Calif.
A National Energy Act signed into law by President Carter November 4 contains a controversial stipulation which deregulates natural gas and forbids electric utilities to burn natural gas. Within a year there will be such a glut of natural gas that the Department of Energy will be urging utilities to use gas.
Ministers of 13 OPEC nations meet in Abu Dhabi and agree December 17 to raise oil prices by 14.5 percent in four stages by the end of 1979, from $12.70 per barrel to $14.54 by October 1, 1979. Libya and Iraq have demanded increases of 20 percent or more but agree to the lower hike, thus ending an 18-month price freeze. The OPEC accord affects about half of all world crude oil production.
Petroleos Mexicanos (Pemex) announces December 20 that it will gradually raise its export price of crude oil 10.7 percent to $14.50 per barrel by the end of 1979.
Germany's last Volkswagen "Beetle" sedan rolls of the assembly line January 19 at Emden. The Wolfsburg plant switched over to producing Rabbits and other new models in July 1974 and the Emden plant's cars are the last of 19.2 million Beetles made since 1949 (see 1934), a number that surpasses the production record of 15,007 million Ford Model Ts set in the 1920s. Volkswagen plants in Brazil, Mexico, Nigeria, and South Africa continue to turn out Porsche-designed Beetles (see 1998).
Power steering inventor Francis W. Davis dies at Cambridge, Mass., April 16 at age 91. Full-size motorcars are now routinely equipped not only with power steering but also with power brakes, power seats, and power windows.
Firestone Tire & Rubber Co. begins a recall of 10 million "500" series steelbelted radial tires, the largest tire recall in history. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration will fine Firestone $500,000 in May 1980, charging that it marketed tires it knew were defective (it will be the largest civil penalty imposed since passage of the National Traffic and Motor Vehicle Act of 1966), and Firestone will recall another 1.8 million "500" series tires in 1980 (see Bridgestone, 1988; 2000).
A 1973 Ford Pinto explodes in flames August 10 after being struck from behind by a van near Goshen, Ind.; three young women are fatally burned. Internal company papers will be found showing that Ford Motor Company knew about safety problems in Pinto cars but that company officials decided it was more cost-effective to pay damages than to make the changes required to prevent such accidents; criminal charges will be brought against Ford, and a Winimac, Ind., jury will decide for acquittal in March 1980 after Ford shows that it did everything it could to recall the Pinto beginning in June of this year following a government investigation of complaints about the car.
Tashkent's Metro opens in Central Asia's largest city with chandeliers (and police) in every station. Supplementing bus, tram, and trolley service, the new subway serves nearly 2 million people and is open from 5 o'clock in the morning until midnight; its Uzbekistan line will be augmented by a Chilanzor line to provide a 22-minute ride from one end to the other, and a third line will be completed early in the next century.
Tokyo's new International Airport opens in May at Narita, 41 miles outside the city. Violent protests by farmers and students have delayed the opening 2 months; their opposition has limited the facility to just one runway, and the lack of any more in this century will strain the capacity of Haneda Airport, whose overcrowding it was intended to relieve.
An Air India Boeing 747 takes off from Bombay (Mumbai) January 1 en route to Dubai in the Middle East. It crashes into the sea, killing 213; a Pacific Southwest Boeing 727 collides with a Cessna while landing at San Diego's Lindbergh Field September 25, killing all 135 aboard plus two in the Cessna and four on the ground; an Icelandic Airlines DC-8 carrying Indonesian Muslims home from Mecca crashes on landing at Colombo, Sri Lanka, November 15, killing 183.
Grumman Aircraft pioneer William T. Schwendler dies at his Farmingdale, L.I., home January 15 at age 73; Flying Tigers fighter pilot and cargo-line founder Robert W. Prescott of cancer at Palm Springs, Calif., March 3 at age 64; Lear jet designer William P. Lear of leukemia at Reno, Nev., May 14 at age 75; aeronautical engineer and Arctic aviation pioneer Umberto Nobile at Rome July 30 at age 93; German fighter-plane designer Willy Messerschmidt after surgery at Munich September 15 at age 80.
The Airline Deregulation Act signed by President Carter October 24 provides for a phasing out of federal regulation of the U.S. industry (see CAA, 1934). Civil Aeronautics Authority control of routes will end in 1982, pricing power in 1983, and the Board will expire January 1, 1985. Airlines begin dropping shorter, less profitable routes as they compete for business on longer routes and also routes with high volume, cutting fares to attract passengers despite higher fuel costs.
Intel rushes its 29,000-transistor 8086 microchip into production (see 1972); it will be the world's standard for computers for more than 20 years (but see 1982).
Oracle Systems develops the world's first relational database for computers (see 1977).
Japanese-born MIT biophysicist Toyoichi Tanaka, 32, blends a fluid and a polymer to create a "smart" gel that expands and contracts in response to even the tiniest change in temperature, light, a solvent, or other stimulus. A polymer is a long chain of monomers, or molecules, that are cross-linked like a web of fibers, and since the links enable it to absorb water they give it elasticity and fluidity. Tanaka's "smart" gels can undergo huge, but reversible, changes in volume, giving them the ability to create new systems that can envelop and release materials. They will be engineered for a wide variety of applications, including toxic-waste cleanup, the release of insulin in the body, and the retention and release of fragrances in cosmetics.
Archaeologist Mary Leakey finds two or three trails of fossilized hominid footprints at Laetoli, 30 miles south of Olduvai Gorge on the Serengeti Plain in northern Tanzania, and says they prove without a doubt that human ancestors walked upright 3.65 million years ago (see 1975). The discovery sparks bitter controversy among archaeologists, but most will conclude that the fossils and footprints did indeed belong to Australopithecus afarensis, a direct ancestor of Homo habilis and of modern humans.
"A Gene Complex Controlling Segmentation in Drosophila" by Wilkes-Barre, Pa.-born developmental geneticist Edward B. Lewis, 60, appears in Nature magazine November 2, reporting the results of groundbreaking experiments on the fruit fly Drosophila melanogaster. Thomas Hunt Morgan Professor of Biology at the California Institute of Technology since 1966 (he joined the faculty 20 years earlier), Lewis began working on Drosophila while still in high school. The fly typically has two wings, but Lewis found a four-winged mutant, used chemicals and radiation to isolate other four-winged mutants, and finally found that the genes in their chromosomes were laid out in a DNA order that corresponded to their body parts. He shows that "master control" clusters in fruit flies have their counterparts in mice, humans, and other vertebrates, that single genes have significant impacts on the development of embryos, and that they can be turned on and off like switches during a cell's development; his work will help to explain (and perhaps eventually prevent) congenital human malformations (about 40 percent of all human birth defects) and may also lead to in-vitro fertilization techniques, as well as a better understanding of substances harmful to early pregnancy (see Nuesslein-Volhard, Wieschaus, 1980).
Mathematical-logician Kurt Gödel dies at Princeton, N.J., January 14 at age 71. He emigrated to America in 1940 and has long since gone mad (convinced that someone was trying to poison him, he has refused to eat or drink); archaeologist Max Mallowan dies in Oxfordshire, England, August 19 at age 74; archaeologist Dame Kathleen Kenyon at Wrexham, Clwyd, Wales August 24 at age 72; anthropologist Margaret Mead of cancer at New York November 15 at age 76; physicist Samuel A. Goudsmit is found dead of a heart attack at Reno, Nev., December 4 at age 76.
Cigarette smoking is "slow motion suicide," says HEW Secretary Joseph A. Califano Jr. January 11. A onetime heavy smoker who has quit at the urging of his children, Califano announces a new government campaign to discourage children and teenagers from smoking and to help 53 million U.S. smokers quit the habit. He does not challenge the $80 million Department of Agriculture program to support tobacco prices. The American Tobacco Institute calls the Califano plan an intrusion on civil liberties. President Carter visits North Carolina August 4 and undercuts Califano by pledging government support of efforts to make cigarettes "even safer than they are."
The National Cancer Institute reports that lung cancer in women increased 30 percent from 1973 to 1976.
The first recombinant DNA product—human insulin—is produced at the City of Hope Medical Center, Duarte, Calif., in a joint effort with Genentech, Inc. (see science, 1977). The U.S. Food and Drug Administration will approve its use in 1982.
Egyptian-born Chicago gynecologist Harith M. Hasson, 46, develops an olive-shaped sleeve that facilitates endoscopy for laparoscopic surgical procedures (see de Kok, 1977; Mühe, 1985).
Five women in a West Virginia plant submit to sterilization in order to keep their jobs following an announcement by American Cyanamid Co. that it will bar women of reproductive capability from jobs that expose them to lead compounds.
The Women and Health Roundtable reports that 23.7 percent of students enrolled at U.S. medical schools in the past year were women, an increase of 87 percent over 1973. About one-fourth of British physicians are women, but the higher-paid specialties, such as surgery, continue for the most part to be closed to women.
Diabetes pioneer Charles H. Best collapses after hearing that one of his sons has died of a heart attack and dies himself of a ruptured abdominal blood vessel at Toronto March 31 at age 79; antihistamine developer Bernard Halpern dies at Paris September 23 at age 73; Nobel biochemist and penicillin synthesizer Vincent du Vigneaud of a stroke at White Plains, N.Y., December 11 at age 77, having isolated the pituitary hormones vasopressin and oxytocin.
Pope Paul VI dies at Castel Gandolfo August 6 at age 80 after a 15-year reign; Albino Cardinal Luciani, 65, is elected to succeed him as John Paul I but dies under mysterious circumstances at Rome September 28 after a 34-day reign; Polish prelate Karol Cardinal Wojtyla, 58, is elected pope October 16, becoming John Paul II—the first non-Italian pontiff since 1523. His papacy will continue until 2005.
Worldwide Church of God radio evangelist Herbert W. Armstrong excommunicates his 48-year-old son Garner Ted Armstrong, who has twice been suspended from his ministry for philandering (see 1934). The younger Armstrong has been the star of his father's church since the 1950s, appearing on radio and television programs called The World Tomorrow heard on 360 radio stations on five continents and seen by 20 million people on 165 stations; accusations of his sexual misconduct have been widely reported, but he will join with other former church members in charging the senior Armstrong, now 81, with having siphoned off millions of dollars in church funds to enrich himself.
Jonestown, Guyana, is the scene of the most sickening religious mayhem since John of Leyden's excesses in 1535. U.S. Congressman Leo J. Ryan of California arrives at the remote settlement November 17 to investigate complaints from constituents about treatment of relatives in the commune established by former San Francisco clergyman James Warren "Jim" Jones, 47. Accompanied by 17 staff members and several newsmen, Ryan meets with Jones, who denies any mistreatment and keeps most commune members away from Ryan. Some 20 members of the People's Temple tell Ryan they want to leave and accompany him to Port Kaituma airport November 18, but as the group starts to board two small planes cult member Larry Layton pulls a handgun and fires, wounding two people before fleeing. Three other men arrive, wound Ryan and four others, then shoot each of the five in the head. After a planeload of survivors takes off for Georgetown, Jones has 911 of his followers drink Kool-Aid laced with cyanide. Those who refuse are shot or forcibly injected with cyanide; Jones shoots himself in the head or is murdered; only 32 escape.
Chemist and former Harvard University president James B. Conant dies of cancer at a Hanover, N.H., nursing home February 11 at age 84; former Brown University president Henry M. Wriston of cancer at New York March 8 at age 88 (his son Walter is chairman of Citicorp).
More women than men enter U.S. colleges for the first time in history, but a report by the National Association of Secondary School Principals declares that the percentage of female high-school principals has declined from 10 percent in 1965 to 7 percent this year.
The Revisionists Revised: A Critique of the Radical Attack on Schools (essays) by Diane Ravitch is a polemic refuting recent suggestions that teaching in public schools reflects a conspiracy against the proletariat or an assault upon human spontaneity. Education has meant different things to different people over the years, she says, but the poorest Americans have consistently placed their hopes for their children in formal education, and with good reason.
The Middle Income Student Assistance Act signed into law by President Carter November 1 removes the income ceiling from federally-subsidized college loans and raises the maximum income allowable for Pell grant eligibility. Tuitions have soared since 1967, making it impossible for many families to give their children higher education, but the cost of implementing the new law will explode; Congress will institute a needs test for the guaranteed loan program in 1981.
Beijing adopts the Pinyin (transcription) style of spelling most Chinese names in Roman letters, replacing the old Wade-Giles style in an effort to render the sounds of Mandarin Chinese more accurately (see Giles, 1891). Peking becomes Beijing, Tibet Xizang, etc., but most Western publishers will retain a few Wade-Giles spellings. Some Pinyin letters have unique sounds (e.g., x = sh, as in she; q = ch, as in cheek).
Engineers at the Japanese electronics company Toshiba introduce the first word processor to use the simplified set of characters known as kana. While an English-language word processor must store 128 characters, its Japanese counterpart has had to store at least 2,000; and where a Roman letter can be represented on a computer screen by 35 or 72 picture elements, or dots, it may take 256 or even 576 dots to represent a Japanese character. An early IBM keyboard fit the needed characters on just 216 keys, but each key represented 12 characters that were printed in tiny type on the top of the key; the operator had not only to choose which key to use but which character on that key, so even typewriters have for the most part gathered dust in offices while clerks wrote by hand (most business letters continue to be hand written or are sent out to professional printers). An operator using the Toshiba machine types in katakana and the computer converts it to kanji (it also translates Roman letters into kanji; see 1983).
Hayes Corp. has its beginnings in D. C. Hayes Associates Inc., founded in January by South Carolina-born engineer Dennis C. Hayes, 27, who last year invented a modem that converted digital signals to analog signals and thereby enabled computer hobbyists to communicate with each other over telephone lines. The Hayes modem is the first such device for small computers, and the company started on his dining room table with a $5,000 investment by Hayes and his partner Dale Heatherington will grow as it manufactures modem boards.
Self magazine begins publication at New York in January as Condé Nast expands.
Working Woman magazine begins publication at New York in March.
The French feminist magazine F. begins publication at Paris.
Montreal-born Toronto businessman Conrad (Moffat) Black, 34, takes control of Argus Corp. with a view to transforming the investment holding company into an operating company with a major presence in the newspaper business. Son of Argus director George Black, the younger Black became part owner and operator of two small Quebec weeklies in 1967 and by 1972 owned 21 local papers across Canada. As head of Argus, he will soon sell its investments in Hollinger Mines, the Massey-Ferguson farm equipment company, and the Dominion Stores grocery chain as he builds a media empire of nearly 250 newspapers that will include the London Daily Telegraph, the Jerusalem Post, Australia's Fairfax Group, Canada's Southam Press, and close to 100 U.S. local dailies (see 1994).
The Chicago Daily News goes out of business after 102 years of publication as afternoon papers continue to disappear. Sun-Times publisher Marshall Field IV bought the News in 1959 and has been forced by circulation problems and rising expenses to stop his losses.
"Garfield" by Indiana-born cartoonist James Robert "Jim" Davis, 32, debuts June 19 on newspaper comic pages. Garfield, a cat named after Davis's grandfather, will within a few years be appearing in more than 2,000 papers.
Nicaraguan publisher Pedro Josquin Chamorro is gunned down in the streets of Managua January 10. His newspaper La Prensa has bitterly opposed dictator Anastasio Somoza, and his death gains support for Sandanista rebels as members of the Chamorro family continue publication; former New Yorker magazine Paris correspondent Janet Flanner of a heart attack at New York November 7 at age 86; sports cartoonist Willard Mullin of cancer at Corpus Christi, Texas, December 21 at age 76.
The U.S. first-class postal rate goes to 15¢ per ounce May 29 (see 1975; 1981).
20/20 debuts on ABC TV June 8 with Geraldo Rivera in the first prime-time week-night news program. Produced by Roone Arledge, who has gained control of ABC's news division as well as its sports division, the initial broadcast is a disaster but it will recover, gain a following, and continue into the 21st century (seeNightline, 1980).
Ninety-eight percent of U.S. households have television sets, up from 9 percent in 1950, 83.2 percent in 1958; 78 percent have color TV, up from 3.1 percent in 1964, 24.2 percent in 1968.
A new U.S. copyright law takes effect January 1, superseding the 1909 law and extending protection for up to 75 years from the date of publication (28 years plus a renewal term of 47 years, or for the author's lifetime plus 50 years).
Nonfiction: The Declining Significance of Race: Blacks and Changing American Institutions by Pennsylvania-born University of Chicago sociologist William Julius Wilson, 42, who rejects the claim that entrenched racial discrimination has produced the underclass and that dependence on welfare plus cultural deficiencies have impoverished it; Orientalism by Jerusalem-born Palestinian scholar Edward W. Said, 42, who teaches comparative literature at Columbia University and since last year has been a member of the Palestinian parliament in exile; Main Currents of Marxism: Its Rise, Growth, and Dissolution by Polish philosopher Leszek Kolakowski, 50, who calls Marxism "the greatest fantasy of our century" (Kolakowski began his career as a Marxist, became disillusioned, was expelled from the Communist Party, and went into exile 10 years ago after losing his professorship at Warsaw University); The Illusion of Technique: A Search for Meaning in a Technological Civilization by William Barrett; Human Nature by Edward O. Wilson; Children of the Revolution by Jonathan Kozol; A Just Measure of Pain: The Penitentiary in the Industrial Revolution by Toronto-born Vancouver historian Michael Ignatieff, 31; The Pursuit of Happiness, and Other Sobering Thoughts by Champaign, Ill.-born Washington Post syndicated columnist George (Frederick) Will, 37; Russia, the Soviet Union, and the United States: An Interpretive History by John Lewis Gaddis; Power and the Powerless by Michael Parenti; Two Cheers for Capitalism by Irving Kristol; American Caesar: Douglas MacArthur, 1880-1964 by William Manchester; The Road Less Traveled: A New Psychology of Love, Traditional Values, and Spiritual Growth by Connecticut psychiatrist M. (Morgan) Scott Peck, 42, whose inspirational book will be a bestseller for 2 decades; The Life of the Mind by the late Hannah Arendt; Nuclear Madness: What You Can Do! by New Zealand physician Helen (Mary) Caldicott (née Brionowski), 40 (with Nancy Herington and Nahum Stiskin) (having fought to stop France from testing nuclear bombs in the South Pacific, Caldicott moved to the United States last year and is active in seeking a freeze on nuclear-weapon construction); Lying: Moral Choice in Public and Private Life by Stockholm-born philosopher Sissela (Ann) Bok, 43 (daughter of social scientists Alva and Gunnar Myrdal, she was married at age 20 to Derek Bok, now president of Harvard); A Distant Mirror: The Calamitous Fourteenth Century by Barbara Tuchman; Metropolitan Life (essays) by New York writer Fran (Frances Ann) Lebowitz, 27, who champions smoking and other unpopular practices but opposes such things as shirts with messages on them; If Life Is a Bowl of Cherries, What Am I Doing in the Pits? by Erma Bombeck.
Scholar-critic Gilbert Highet dies of cancer at New York January 20 at age 71; Chicago University English-language authority Bergen Evans of cancer at Highland Park, Ill., February 4 at age 73; former Columbia University linguistics teacher Mario Pei of a heart attack at Glen Ridge, N.J., March 2 at age 77; biographer Matthew Josephson at Santa Cruz, Calif., March 13 at age 79; critic F. R. Leavis at Cambridge, England, April 14 at age 82; Civil War historian Bruce Catton at Frankfort, Minn., August 28 at age 78.
Fiction: The World According to Garp by Exeter, N.H.-born novelist John (Winslow) Irving, 36; Hamilton Stark by Newton, Mass.-born novelist Russell Banks, 38; Tales of the City by Washington, D.C.-born San Francisco journalist-author Armistead Maupin, 34, whose stories have been serialized in the San Francisco Chronicle; An Imaginary Life by Australian novelist David Malouf, 44; The Cement Garden by Ian McEwan; Jake's Thing by Kingsley Amis; The Sea, The Sea by Iris Murdoch; The Far Pavilions by Simla, India-born English novelist M. M. (Mary Margaret) Kaye, 70, who began her writing career with children's books in the mid-1930s, had a mystery published in 1940, and has survived a 14-year battle with cancer; The Bookshop by Penelope Fitzgerald; War and Remembrance by Herman Wouk; Chesapeake by James Michener; Final Payments by Far Rockaway, Long Island-born novelist Mary (Catherine) Gordon, 28; The Emperor (Cesarz) by Polish novelist Ryszard Kupuscinski, 46, is based on Ethiopia's late Haile Selassie; Quasi Objects (Objecto Quase) by José Saramago; The Coup by John Updike; Falconer by John Cheever; Mortal Friends by Boston Roman Catholic priest-turned-novelist James Carroll, 35; The Turner Diaries by Atlanta-born West Virginia neo-Nazi and white supremacist William (Luther) Pierce, 44, who publishes the chilling novel himself under the pen name Andrew MacDonald. It gains the attention of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (the FBI calls it the most dangerous book in America), but close to 200,000 copies will be sold by 1996 (see politics [Oklahoma City bombing], 1995); The Central Life: Stories of Big City Life by Irish-born London schoolteacher-turned-writer Maeve Binchy, 36, of the Irish Times whose one-act play End of Term was produced 2 years ago at the Abbey Theatre; A Woman of Independent Means by Dallas-born novelist Elizabeth Hailey (née Forsythe), 40; Scruples by New York-born Beverly Hills novelist Judith Krantz (née Tarcher), 50; Compromising Positions by Brooklyn, N.Y.-born novelist Susan Isaacs, 35; The Holcroft Covenant by Robert Ludlum; The Girl with a Squint by Georges Simenon, now 75.
Novelist Paul Scott dies of cancer at London March 1 at age 57; Faith Baldwin at Norwalk, Conn., March 19 at age 84, having written 85 books; Sylvia Townsend Warner dies at Maiden Newton, Dorset, May 1 at age 85; James Gould Cozzens of pneumonia at Stuart, Fla., August 9 at age 74; Ignazio Silone at Geneva August 23 at age 78; Van Wyck Mason of a heart attack while swimming at a Bermuda beach August 28 at age 77.
Poetry: Mirabell: Books of Number by James Merrill; Maria Nephele by Odysseus Elytis, who will win next year's Nobel Prize for Literature; The Retrieval System by Maxine Kumin; The Five Stages of Grief by Linda Pastan.
Poet Phyllis McGinley dies at New York February 22 at age 72; Louis Zukofsky at Port Jefferson, N.Y., May 12 at age 74; Hugh MacDiarmid at Edinburgh September 9 at age 86.
Juvenile: Sideways Stories from Wayside School by East Meadow, N.Y.-born Norwalk, Conn., author Louis Sachar, 24; God on the Rocks by Jane Gardam; The Skates of Uncle Richard by Carol Fenner, illustrations by Ati Forberg; The Last Guru by Daniel Pinkwater.
Soviet authorities permit a Moscow show of avant garde paintings to open March 7 but only after a score of works have been removed for ideological reasons. Painters represented include Vitaly Limtsky, Vladislav Pomotorov, and Nikolai N. Smirnov, but Vladimir N. Petrov-Gladki, Nikolei N. Rumyantsev, and others are excluded.
Painting: Brunhild-Grave by Anselm Kiefer; Children Meeting by Elizabeth Murray; Self-Portrait by Andy Warhol; Stepping Out by Roy Lichtenstein; Diptych (collage of charcoal and paper on canvas) by Lee Krasner. Painter-decorator Duncan Grant dies at Aldermaston, Berkshire, May 10 at age 93; Norman Rockwell at Stockbridge, Mass., November 13 at age 84; Giorgio de Chirico of a heart attack at Rome November 20 at age 90; representational painter Edwin W. Dickinson on Cape Cod December 2 at age 87.
Sculpture: In Memory of May 4, 1970, Kent State: Abraham and Isaac and Hot Dog Stand (both plaster of paris) by George Segal; Throwback by Tony Smith; Christo covers 3 miles of winding footpaths in Kansas City's Loose Park with nylon October 3 in a $100,000 project. Japanese potter Shoji Hamada dies of pneumonia at Shiko January 5 at age 83.
Camera inventor Victor Hasselblad dies of cancer at Gothenburg, Sweden, August 6 at age 72; photo-journalist W. Eugene Smith suffers a fall at his Tucson, Ariz., home and dies of head injuries October 15 at age 60.
Theater: Deathtrap by Ira Levin 2/26 at New York's Music Box Theater, with John Wood, Marian Seldes, Victor Garber, 1,793 perfs.; Plenty by David Hare 4/14 at London's National Theatre (Lyttleton); Tribute by Bernard Slade 6/1 at New York's Brooks Atkinson Theater with Jack Lemmon, 212 perfs.; Night and Day by Tom Stoppard 11/8 at London's Phoenix Theatre, with Diana Rigg, Peter Machin, William Marlowe, Ohu Jacobs, David Langton; Betrayal by Harold Pinter 11/15 at London's National Theatre (Lyttleton), with Michael Gambon, Daniel Massey, Penelope Wilton; Buried Child by Sam Shepard 12/5 at New York's off-Broadway Theater de Lys, with Richard Hamilton, Mary McDonnell, Tom Noonan, Jacqueline Brooks, 152 perfs.
Comedienne Charlotte Greenwood dies at Beverly Hills, Calif., January 18 at age 87; actress Ilka Chase of complications resulting from a fall at Mexico City February 15 at age 72; Gate Theatre cofounder Michaél MacLiammóir at Dublin March 6 at age 78; Peggy Wood of a cerebral hemorrhage at Stamford, Conn., March 18 at age 86; comedienne Totie Fields of a heart attack at Las Vegas August 2 at age 48; comedian Frank "Crazy Guggenheim" Fontaine of a heart attack at Spokane August 4 at age 58; actor Robert Shaw of a heart attack near Tourmakeady, Ireland, August 28 at age 51.
Television: Fantasy Island 1/28 on ABC with Ricardo Montalban (to 5/19/1984); The Incredible Hulk 3/10 on CBS with 138-pound Bill Bixby, six-foot-five-inch, 276-pound Lou Ferrigno (to 6/2/1982); Dallas 4/2 on CBS with Larry Hagman as J. R. Ewing, Barbara Bel Geddes, Victoria Principal (to 5/3/1991); The South Bank Show on London Weekend Television is an arts program that will continue for at least 20 years with actors, artists, authors, critics, directors, film makers, musicians, and the like being interviewed; Taxi 9/12 on ABC with Judd Hirsch, Neptune, N.J.-born actor Danny De Vito, 33, New York-born actor Andy Kaufman, 29, Jeff Conway, Tony Danza, Marilu Henner in a series based on a New Yorker magazine article (to NBC beginning in June 1982, to 7/27/1983; 111 30-minute episodes); Mork and Mindy 9/14 on ABC with Pam Dawber, Scottish-born comedian Robin Williams, 23, Conrad Janis (to 9/12/1982, 91 episodes); Vega$ 9/20 on ABC with Ohio-born actor Robert Urich, 31, Tony Curtis, Phyllis Davis (to 5/27/1981, 66 episodes); Diff'rent Strokes 11/3 on NBC with Zion, Ill.-born actor Gary Coleman, 20, Dody Goodman, Canadian-born actor Conrad Bain, 55 (to 8/30/1986).
Actor Carl Betz dies of lung cancer at Los Angeles January 18 at age 56; Will Geer of a respiratory ailment at Los Angeles April 22 at age 76; Hogan's Heroes star Bob Crane is found beaten to death in his Scottsdale, Ariz., apartment June 29 at age 49; Karl Swenson dies of a heart attack while visiting relatives at Canaan, Conn., October 8 at age 70.
Films: Michael Cimino's The Deer Hunter with Robert De Niro, Summit, N.J.-born actress Meryl (originally Mary Louise) Streep, 29, Christopher Walken, John Savage; Permanno Olmi's The Tree of the Wooden Clogs with Luigi Ornaghi; Paul Mazursky's An Unmarried Woman with New York-born actress Jill Clayburgh, 33, Alan Bates. Also: Paul Schrader's Blue Collar with Richard Pryor; Franco Brusati's Bread and Chocolate with Nino Manfredi, Danish-born actress Anna Karina (Hanna Karin Bayer), 38; Fred Schepisi's The Chant of Jimmie Blacksmith with Tommy Lewis; Hal Ashby's Coming Home with Jane Fonda, Jon Voight; Terrence Malick's Days of Heaven with Richard Gere, Brooke Adams, Linda Manz; James Toback's Fingers with Harvey Keitel, Jim Brown; Bertrand Blier's Get Out Your Handkerchiefs with Gerard Depardieu, Carol Laure, Riton, Patrick Deware; Ted Post's Go Tell the Spartans with Burt Lancaster, Craig Wasson; Howard Zieff's House Calls with Walter Matthau, Glenda Jackson, Art Carney; Rainer Werner Fassbinder's In a Year of Thirteen Moons with Volker Spengler as a transsexual; Woody Allen's Interiors with Kristin Griffith, Marybelle Hurt, Diane Keaton, Richard Jordan; Reinhard Hauff's Knife in the Head with Bruno Ganz; Alan Parker's Midnight Express with Brad Davis; John Duigan's Mouth to Mouth with Kim Krejnus, Sonia Peat; Louis Malle's Pretty Baby with Dennis Morgan, Betsy Drake, New York-born actress Brooke Shields, 13 (as a 12-year-old New Orleans prostitute); Claude Sautet's A Simple Story (Une Histoire Simple) with Romy Schneider; Geoff Steven's Skin Deep with Deryn Cooper, Ken Blackburn; Paul Verhoeven's Soldier of Orange with Rutger Hauer; Richard Donner's Superman with New York-born actor Christopher Reeve, 25, as Clark Kent, Canadian-born actress Margot Kidder, 29, as Lois Lane, Marlon Brando, Gene Hackman.
Comic Jack Oakie dies of an aortic aneurism at Northridge, Calif., January 23 at age 74; actor Leo Genn at London January 26 at age 72; 1920s cowboy star Tim McCoy at Nogales, Ariz., January 29 at age 86; Oscar Homolka in Sussex, England, January 27 at age 79; Wendy Barrie at Englewood, N.J., February 2 at age 65; Peggy Wood of a cerebral hemorrhage at Stamford, Conn., March 18 at age 86; director-producer Basil Dean of a heart attack at London April 22 at age 91; director Mark Robson of a heart attack at London June 20 at age 64; actor James Daly of a heart attack at Nyack, N.Y., July 3 at age 59; Charles Boyer of a barbiturate overdose at Phoenix August 26 at age 78, 2 days after the death of his wife; studio head Jack L. Warner dies of a pulmonary edema at Los Angeles September 9 at age 86; ventriloquist Edgar Bergen in his sleep at Las Vegas September 30 at age 75; animated film-process inventor John R. Bray at Bridgeport, Conn., October 10 at age 99; actor Dan Dailey of anemia (after an artificial hip inserted last year became infected) at his Los Angeles home October 16 at age 62; Gig Young by his own hand at New York October 19 at age 60, apparently after fatally shooting his bride of 3 weeks; producer Louis de Rochemont dies at Newington, N.H., December 23 at age 79.
Hollywood musicals: Randal Kleiser's Grease with John Travolta, songs that include the title song by Barry Gibb; Steve Rash's The Buddy Holly Story with Gary Busey as Holly; Bruno Barreto's Dona Flor and Her Two Husbands with Sonia Braga, Jose Wilkes.
Stage musicals: On the Twentieth Century 2/19 at New York's St. James Theater, with Imogene Coca, Kevin Kline, John Cullum, Madeline Kahn, music by Cy Coleman, book and lyrics by Betty Comden and Adolph Green, 453 perfs.; Dancin' 3/27 at New York's Broadhurst Theater, with 18 dancers, choreography by Bob Fosse, music by 25 composers from J. S. Bach to Neil Diamond, 1,774 perfs.; Ain't Misbehavin' 5/9 at New York's Longacre Theater, with Ken Page, Amelia McQueen, André De Shields, Charlotte Woodward, music and lyrics mostly by the late Thomas Wright "Fats" Waller, who died in 1943, songs that include "Honeysuckle Rose," "Mean to Me," "The Joint Is Jumpin'," and the title song, 1,604 perfs.; Runaways 5/13 at New York's Plymouth Theater (after 76 perfs. at the Public/Cabaret Theater), with Elizabeth Swados, 27, music and lyrics by Swados, 274 perfs.; The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas 6/19 at New York's 46th Street Theater, with Carlin Glynn, Henderson Forsythe, Delores Hall, music and lyrics by Carol Hall, choreography by Wichita Falls, Tex.-born director Tommy Tune, book based on a Playboy magazine story by journalist Larry L. King about the closing of the "Chicken Ranch" at La Grange, Texas, 1,584 perfs.; Evita 6/21 at London's Prince Edward Theatre, with Elaine Paige, 27, as Eva Perón, music by Andrew Lloyd Webber, lyrics by Tim Rice, songs that include "Don't Cry For Me, Argentina"; The Act 10/9 at New York's Majestic Theater, with Liza Minnelli, music by John Kander, lyrics by Fred Ebb, 233 perfs.; Ballroom 12/14 at New York's Majestic Theater, with Dorothy Loudon, Vincent Gardenia, music by Billy Goldenberg, lyrics by Alan and Marilyn Bergman, 116 perfs.
New York's Radio City Music Hall draws a capacity crowd April 12 for what has been billed as its final show. It has exhibited nothing racier than G-rated films, which have often attracted no more than a few hundred patrons, leaving most of its nearly 6,000 seats empty, and has been losing money at a phenomenal rate. Rockefeller Center management has announced the closing of the great music hall, but the Rockettes have worked the streets to get signatures on a petition to keep it open, management meets that night at the nearby Rainbow Room to discuss the Music Hall's fate, and it is announced April 13 that it will remain open, not as a movie house but with stage shows featuring celebrity performers (and the famed Rockettes).
Former Ziegfeld Follies showgirl Ruth Etting dies of cancer at Colorado Springs September 24 at age 80; Belgian-born singer Jacques Brel of a lung embolism at Bobigny, France, October 9 at age 49.
Composer Aram Khachaturian dies at Moscow May 1 at age 74; opera singer Alexander Kipnis of a stroke at Westport, Conn., May 14 at age 87; conductor William Steinberg of a heart ailment at New York May 16 at age 78; ballerina Tamara Karsavina at Beaconsfield, Buckinghamshire, May 26 age 93; Mexican National Symphony founder Carlos Chavez of a heart ailment at Mexico City August 2 at age 79; composer Howard Swanson at New York November 12 at age 71; composer William Grant Still at Los Angeles December 3 at age 83.
Popular songs: "Just the Way You Are" by New York composer-piano bar performer Billy Joel, 29; Street Legal (album) by Bob Dylan includes the song "Changing of the Guard"; "What a Waste" and "Hit Me With Your Rhythm Stick" by Ian Drury; This Year's Model (album) by Elvis Costello; "Miss You" by Mick Jagger and Keith Richards of the Rolling Stones; Damaged Goods (album) by the British rock group the Gang of Four, founded at Leeds last year by vocalist Jon King, now 23; guitarist Andy Gill, 22; drummer Hugo Burnham, 22; and bassist Dave Allen, 22, who mix Marxist politics with a danceable fusion of funk and rock; I'm Ready (album) by Muddy Waters, now 63; "Shadow Dancing" and "Love Is Thicker Than Water" by Andy Gibb; "Last Dance" by Brooklyn, N.Y.-born songwriter Paul (Frederick) Jabeout; Come Get It! (album) Buffalo, N.Y.-born "punk-funk" rock performer Rick James (originally James Johnson), 30, includes the hit "You and I."
Lyricist Turner Layton dies at London February 6 at age 83; songwriter Claude "Clo Clo" François is accidentally electrocuted at Paris March 11 at age 39; rock singer-composer Sandy Denny dies of a brain hemorrhage following a fall at London April 21 at age 30; composer-conductor Ray Noble of cancer at London April 3 at age 71; bandleader Enoch Light at New York July 31 at age 70; British bandleader Victor Sylvester drowns near Lavandou, France, August 14 at age 78; jazz violinist Giuseppe "Joe" Venuti dies of lung cancer after a heart attack at Seattle August 14 at age 74; trumpeter-bandleader Louis Prima of pneumonia at New Orleans August 24 at age 66. He has been in a coma for nearly 3 years following surgery for a brain tumor; drummer Keith Moon of the Who dies of a drug overdose at London September 7 at age 31; country singer-guitarist Maybelle Carter of the Carter Family at Nashville October 23 at age 69.
Oakland beats Minnesota 32 to 14 at Pasadena January 9 in Super Bowl XII.
Muhammad Ali loses his heavyweight boxing title February 15 to St. Louis-born Olympic champion Leon Spinks, 25, in a 15-round decision at Las Vegas, the World Boxing Council withdraws recognition of Spinks March 18 and awards its title to Illinois-born boxer Ken Norton, 32, who loses it June 9 to Georgia-born boxer Larry Holmes, 28, in a 15-round decision at Las Vegas. Ali, now 36, regains the World Boxing Association title September 15 by winning an easy 15-round decision over Spinks in the Superdome at New Orleans.
Björn Borg wins in men's singles at Wimbledon, Martina Navritilova, 21, (Czech) in women's singles; Jimmy Connors wins in men's singles at the new USTA stadium in Flushing Meadow, New York, Chris Evert in women's singles.
Santa Clara, Calif., swimmer Penny Dean sets a new English Channel speed record July 29, swimming the 20-mile distance from England to France in 7 hours, 42 minutes.
Golfer Jack Nicklaus wins his third British Open. Gary Player wins the Masters Tournament for a third time (see 1959). Now 42, he is the third man (Gene Sarazen and Ben Hogan preceded him) to have won all four tournaments of modern golfing's Grand Slam, and no other golfer has won major championships in 3 decades.
Torrance, Calif.-born golfer Nancy Lopez, 21, wins an unprecedented five consecutive LPGA tournaments, pocketing $161,235—the most any first-year professional, man or woman, has ever won.
Affirmed wins U.S. racing's Triple Crown under the whip of Covington, Ky.-born jockey Steve Cauthen, 17.
Former baseball commissioner Ford C. Frick dies following a stroke at Bronxville, N.Y., April 8 at age 83.
Minnesota Twins owner Calvin Griffith is quoted in September as saying to a civic group at Waseca, Minn., that "we came here because you've got good, hard-working white people here," and that "black people don't go to ball games, but they'll fill up a rassling ring, and put up such a chant it'll scare you to death" (see 1961). The racist, tight-fisted Griffith claims his remarks were taken out of context, but the Minneapolis Star runs a front-page editorial calling upon him to sell the team, civil-rights groups recommend a boycott of Twins games, and Griffith and his sister Thelma will finally sell their 52 percent interest for $32 million in 1984.
Female reporters cannot be barred from locker rooms at New York's Yankee Stadium under a ruling handed down in September by federal judge Constance Baker Motley in a case filed last year by Sports Illustrated reporter Melissa Lincoln (née Ludtke).
The New York Yankees beat the Boston Red Sox 5 to 4 in a one-game playoff for the American League eastern division title and go on to win the World Series, defeating the Los Angeles Dodgers 4 games to 2.
Argentina wins the World Cup football (soccer) championship, defeating the Dutch 3 to 1 in overtime at Buenos Aires.
Olympic 100-meter gold medalist (1924) Harold Abrahams dies at London January 14 at age 78; U.S. congressman (and former Olympic sprinter) Ralph Metcalfe at Chicago October 10 at age 68; former heavyweight boxing champion Gene Tunney of a circulatory ailment at Greenwich, Conn., November 7 at age 80.
High-wire performer Karl Wallenda of the "Flying Wallendas" dies March 22 at age 73 of injuries sustained in a 150-foot (10-story) fall from a cable strung between the Condado Holiday Inn and Flamboyan hotels at San Juan, P.R.
Atlantic City, N.J., hails the opening May 26 of the first legal U.S. gambling casino outside Nevada (see 1931). The state's voters approved gambling last year, Resorts International opens the casino in a Boardwalk hotel, and the take for the first 6 days is $2.6 million (see Golden Nugget, 1980).
Nevada gambling casino pioneer William F. Harrah dies at Rochester, Minn., June 30 at age 66, having undergone surgery for an aortic aneurism.
The video game "Space Invaders" is introduced (see "Pong," "Odyssey," 1972; Atari, 1976). Run on an Atari 2600 computer (initially called a Video Computer System, or VCS), the slide-and-shoot title is the first hit video game in America, and Atari will be earning $2 billion per year by 1982 (see "Asteroids," 1979).
The learning toy Speak & Spell that uses digital speech synthesis is the first low-priced, mass-produced consumer product to have a human voice electronically simulated on a single microchip.
Socialite Barbara Cushing "Babe" Paley dies of cancer at New York July 6 at age 63.
Elizabeth (Lisa) Hallaby, 26, is married at Amman July 15 to Jordan's King Hussein, now 42, whose first wife died and who has divorced his second, Princess Muna, to marry a daughter of U.S. aviation executive Najeeb Hallaby. He gives Elizabeth the name Noor al-Hussein and makes her queen of Jordan.
Shipping heiress Christina Onassis, 27, is married August 1 at a Moscow "wedding palace" to former Soviet merchant-marine official Sergei Kausov, 37. She says she has been brought up with every luxury and now wants to live a normal life, wash dishes, and take care of her husband.
Italian fashion designer Gianni Versace, 31, stages the first show of creations produced by the house that he started at Milan last year, using supermodels, rock music, and celebrities to gain attention for ideas that some call vulgar. His sister Donatella, 21, and brother Santo, 33, will help him build a business that by 1996 will have worldwide sales of more than $800 million (see crime, 1997).
British-born dress designer Charles James dies of bronchial pneumonia at New York September 23 at age 72; swimsuit designer Roe Marie Reid of complications following surgery at Provo, Utah, December 18 at age 66.
Americans buy 13 million pairs of running shoes and 42 million pairs of "look-alike" jogger-type sneakers. Sports shoe manufacturer Adi Dassler of Adidas dies of a heart attack at Herzogenaurach, West Germany, September 18 at age 77.
Huggies disposable diapers challenge Procter & Gamble's Pampers (see 1966). Introduced by Kimberly-Clark, they have an hourglass shape and elastic fit that make them superior to the Kimbies brought out by Kimberly-Clark in 1968 but like other such products they absorb far less liquid than they could, and they leak (see Luvs, 1980).
Industrial designer and film maker Charles Eames dies of a heart attack at his native St. Louis August 21 at age 71; Zippo lighter manufacturer George D. Blaisdell at Miami Beach October 3 at age 83; Italian-born designer Harry Bertoia of a pulmonary hemorrhage at Barto, Pa., November 6 at age 63; industrial designer Russell Wright of a heart attack at New York December 22 at age 72.
Colombian narcotics trafficker Carlos Enrique Lehder Rivas, 28, builds an airstrip on Norman's Cay in the Bahamas and uses it to expedite his Medellín Cartel's shipments of cocaine and heroin to nearby Florida destinations. Lehder bribes Bahamian officials to look the other way, and the strip is soon handling millions of dollars worth of drugs per day (see 1987).
An Illinois prison riot July 22 at the Pontiac Correctional Center 100 miles south of Chicago ends with three guards dead and a fourth with 31 knife wounds. The 107-year-old facility has 2,000 prisoners in space designed for 1,400 with 300 guards doing the work of 400. The 5-hour rampage causes $4 million in damage before state police quell it with tear gas. Prison officials say they are surprised that the riot did not occur earlier.
San Francisco supervisor Dan White resigns November 10, saying he can no longer afford the $9,600-per-year job. Mayor George Moscone calls a news conference November 27 to name White's successor; White changes his mind and meets privately with the mayor minutes before the scheduled conference; Moscone is found shot to death and shots then ring out in the office of Supervisor Harvey Milk, an avowed homosexual who has been at odds with White over his homophobic and law-and-order positions. White turns himself in to police 35 minutes later and is charged with killing Milk and Mayor Moscone.
A precision robbery December 11 at the Lufthansa cargo terminal of New York's JFK Airport nets more than $5 million in unmarked currency and $850,000 in jewelry for six or seven bandits.
The U.S. Supreme Court rules 6 to 3 June 26 that the application of New York City's 1965 Landmarks Preservation Law to Grand Central Terminal's real-estate holdings did not constitute a "taking" of the property "within the meaning of the Fifth Amendment as made applicable to the states by the Fourteenth Amendment." Says Justice William J. Brennan, Jr. in his majority opinion, "Landmarks cannot be divorced from aesthetics—particularly when the setting is dramatic and an integral part of the original concept. The Terminal, in its setting, is a great example of urban design. Such examples are not so plentiful in New York City that we can afford to lose any of the few we have, and we must preserve them in a meaningful way . . ." Justice Rehnquist writes a dissent in which Chief Justice Berger and Justice Stevens concur.
Delirious New York: A Retroactive Manifesto for Manhattan by Dutch architect Rem Koolhaas, 34, reinterprets the city from a contemporary point of view at a time when some architects are prepared to dismiss the modern movement as a conspiracy to replace everything with glass boxes.
Architect Edward Durrell Stone dies at New York August 6 at age 76.
The U.S. real-estate market falls into depression as double-digit mortgage rates (some as high as 18.5 percent) discourage construction and home purchases, forcing down prices in an otherwise inflating economy.
The Gehry house is completed at Santa Monica, Calif., to designs by Toronto-born California architect Frank O. (Owen) Gehry (originally Ephraim Goldberg), 49, who established his own firm in 1962. His Cabrillo Marine Museum is also completed.
North Dakota's 70,416-acre Theodore Roosevelt National Park is designated as such in the badlands along the Little Missouri River. In addition to prairie land and a burning coal vein, it contains part of the late Teddy Roosevelt's Elkhorn Ranch.
The U.S. tanker Amoco Cadiz runs aground off the northwestern coast of France March 16 and breaks up, spilling 1.62 million barrels of crude oil into the sea.
A tornado April 16 in India's Orissa state kills 600. Floods in northern India kill 1,200 from May to September.
Love Canal east of Niagara Falls, N.Y., makes world headlines in August as scores of residents are evacuated from houses built over an abandoned excavation site used from 1942 to 1953 to dump toxic chemical waste such as benzene (related to leukemia) and dioxin (found in tricholophenol) (see 1953). Heavy precipitation in 1975 and 1976 created a dramatic rise in the area's water table, a high incidence of birth defects and illnesses has been reported in the neighborhood, Niagara Falls Gazette reporter Mike Brown has written articles in May about poisons in the canal, public hearings in June produce stories of landfill erosion, foul chemical odors, dogs burning their noses from sniffing the ground, children unable to play in their backyards because the soil burned their feet, and the like; local mother Lois Gibbs has begun a door-to-door campaign to petition for a cleanup of the school, the state health department recommends temporary relocation of pregnant women and young children August 2, Gibbs organizes the Love Canal Homeowners Association August 4, Gov. Hugh Carey signs an order August 9 for the permanent relocation of 239 families known to have had miscarriages and birth defects, but action on the order is delayed (see 1979).
An earthquake in northeastern Iran September 16 registers 7.8 on the Richter scale and kills 15,000.
Michigan and Maine voters approve a ban on no-deposit, no-return bottles—a victory for environmentalists. The Glass Packaging Institute and other lobby groups work to prevent passage of "bottle bills" against non-returnables, but Oregon, Vermont, Iowa, and Connecticut have banned such bottles. Industry groups claim that litter-recycling laws are more effective than outright bans.
India has record agricultural production, but millions of farmers and their families face starvation because they cannot afford to eat what they grow. Health officials in Indonesia say that half of the nation's population is malnourished.
United Brands pleads guilty July 19 to charges that it conspired to pay a $2.5 million bribe to a prominent Honduran official for a reduction in the export tax on bananas and a 20-year extension of certain favorable terms (see Black suicide, 1975).
A second edition of last year's McGovern Committee report is published in January and stands by its original contention that Americans can increase their protection against "killer diseases" by eating fewer animal fats and increasing their consumption of fruits, vegetables, and whole-grain cereals but modifies its recommendation that people eat less meat and more poultry and fish following attacks by the meat industry and criticism by the American Medical Association.
Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons nutritionists Ernest Wynder, John Weisburger, and Philippe Shubik announce in June that research into the nutritional causes of cancer indicates that American ways of cooking and eating may contribute to 40 percent of cancer deaths. Kansas-born Harvard Medical School nutritionist George L. (Lincoln) Blackburn, 42, says that one out of 10 deaths in cancer patients is caused by malnutrition, yet fewer than 1 percent of cancer patients receive nutritional therapy as part of their treatment.
The U.S. Public Health Service attributes 17 deaths to an over-the-counter liquid protein powder; the Food and Drug Administration issues a warning against use of such products for losing weight, those who use them almost invariably regain any weight they lose, but liquid-diet products will proliferate and Americans—especially women bent on achieving unrealistic body shapes dictated by fashion—will continue to buy them.
The price of raw sugar falls to 6¼¢/lb. in world markets, but other food prices rise.
The Canadian supermarket chain Loblaw's (owned largely by the 96-year-old Toronto food-industry giant George Weston Ltd.) introduces No Name products that are equivalent in quality to heavily-promoted national brand-name foods (Heinz, Kellogg's, etc.) and non-food items but are priced 20 to 30 percent lower. Loblaw's head David Nichol, 38, who was recruited by George Weston's grandson W. Galen Weston, has upgraded the quality of the chain's house brands, he will expand the No Name line to include 2,000 products (sold only in Canada and mostly through Loblaw's No Frills chain), and by introducing a line of President's Choice products (notably cereals, bottled juices, cookies, microwave popcorn, and petfoods), sold through U.S. chains, he will increase Loblaw's North American sales. Kroger will retaliate by upgrading its own house brands (sold under the Kroger label), Safeway will offer Safeway Select, and A&P Master's Choice (see Wal-Mart, 1993).
Coca-Cola signs an exclusive agreement to bottle its drinks in the People's Republic of China. Pepsi-Cola has exclusive rights in the USSR.
Retired Schweppes chairman Commander Edward Whitehead dies at Petersfield, England, April 19 at age 69.
Ben & Jerry's Homemade Ice Cream and Crepes opens May 5 in a converted Burlington, Vt., gas station. Hippy entrepreneurs Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield, both 27, who are well-acquainted with Steve's in Somerville, Mass. (see 1972), have invested $12,000 to start a superpremium ice cream business that will grow to rival Häagen-Dazs (see 1959).
Legislation signed by New York's governor Hugh Carey May 11 ends the ban on using the word saloon for an establishment selling alcoholic beverages, a holdover from Prohibition days.
Hua Guofeng tells the Fifth International People's Congress in February that China's birthrate must be lowered to less than 10 per 1,000 within 3 years (see 1979).
Italy votes May 18 to legalize abortion in the first 90 days of pregnancy, although girls under 18 must have parental approval and some will still patronize back-alley abortionists, fearing that state-run facilities may compromise their privacy. The Vatican continues to call abortion homicide.
Officials at a National Right to Life Committee convention June 2 urge 2,000 delegates to step up political efforts to adopt an anti-abortion amendment to the Constitution.
The world's first "test-tube baby" is born July 25 at London's Oldham Hospital, where consultant gynecologist Patrick (Christopher) Steptoe, 65, and physiologist Robert (Geoffrey) Edwards, 52, have used a laparascope to fertilize an egg from 31-year-old Lesley Brown's womb with sperm from her husband and re-implanted the fertilized egg in the mother's womb. Surgeons had been unable to remove a blockage in the Fallopian tubes leading to her uterus, and the birth of Mrs. Brown's healthy five-pound daughter Joy Louise creates a storm of controversy.
"Boat people" pour out of Vietnam in search of asylum following the imposition of new socialist economic measures early in the year. Canada, France, West Germany, Taiwan, and the United States take thousands of refugees. Malaysia reverses policy December 4 to permit entry of Vietnamese, most of whom are ethnic Chinese; hundreds have drowned in boat capsizings after being refused entry.
Population pressures contribute to tensions in the Middle East. Egypt has 39.8 million people, up from 20.5 in 1950; Israel 3.7 million, up from 1.3; Jordan 2.9, up from 1.3; Lebanon 2.9, up from 1.4; Saudi Arabia 7.9, up from 3.4; Syria 8.1, up from 3.5; Iraq 12.5, up from 5.2; Iran 38.2, up from 17.4. Few of these countries have much arable land, most depend on food imports, and present growth rates indicate that populations in most of them will double by 2005.
1971 1972 1973 1974 1975 1976 1977 1978 1979 1980