Historical Events in 1977

Events 1 - 200 of 600

• Jan 1 1st woman formally ordained an Episcopal priest (Jacqueline Means)
• Jan 1 Belgium reapportions 2,359 communities into 596
• Jan 1 Czech intellects begin Human Rights Group Chapter 77

• Jan 3 "The Police Tapes" premiere on New York City TV station WNET, based somewhat on 1960s NYPD officers who worked in its South Bronx
• Jan 3 Former Home Secretary Roy Jenkins announces his intention to be Britain's first President of the European Commission

• Jan 4 Mary Shane hired by Chicago White Sox as 1st woman TV play-by-play announcer
• Jan 6 Charter 77, a document criticising the Czech government's human rights abuses, is published in Prague

• Jan 10 20th hat trick in Islander history - Bobby Nystrom
• Jan 10 Steve Allen's "Meeting Of The Minds", a round table talk-show in which he interviews figures from history debuts on PBS
• Jan 11 France releases Abu Daoud, a Palestinian suspected of involvement in massacre of Israeli athletes at 1972 Munich Olympics
• Jan 11 MLB Chicago Cubs trade outfielder Rick Monday to Los Angeles Dodgers for Bill Buckner
• Jan 11 Poetry's Bollingen Prize awarded to David Ignatow
• Jan 12 Anti-French demonstrations takes place in Israel after Paris released Abu Daoud, responsible 1972 Munich massacre of Israeli athletes
• Jan 14 "Fantasy Island" starring Ricardo Montalbán and Hervé Villechaize premieres on ABC TV

• Jan 15 Coneheads debut on "Saturday Night Live"
• Jan 15 Festac '77, the Second World Black and African Festival of Arts and Culture, begins in Lagos, Nigeria
• Jan 16 Cap's H Monahan scored on 2nd penalty shot against Islanders
• Jan 17 Gary Gilmore is executed by firing squad in the Utah state prison, convicted of murder
• Jan 17 KC releases Tommy Davis, ends an 18-year career with 10 teams
• Jan 17 Zaire president Mobutu visits Belgium
• Jan 18 Australia's worst rail disaster occurs in Sydney, killing 83 people

• Jan 18 Scientists identify a previously unknown bacterium as the cause of the mysterious Legionnaires' disease.

• Jan 19 Snow falls in Miami, Florida. This is the only time in the history of the city that snowfall has occurred. It also fell in the Bahamas.
• Jan 19 US President Ford pardons Iva Toguri D'Aquino (Tokyo Rose)
• Jan 19 World's largest crowd gathering - the Hindu Kumbh Mela in India attracts a then record 15 million people
• Jan 20 George H. W. Bush ends his term as 11th director of CIA replaced by E. Henry Knoche as acting director

• Jan 23 $1.5-million Serge Lepage dress exhibited, Paris
• Jan 23 Mini-series "Roots" premieres on ABC
• Jan 24 Massacre of Atocha in Madrid: Five labor lawyers murdered by fascists in Madrid during the Spanish transition to democracy
• Jan 26 Soviet figure skaters Sergei Shakrai & Marine Tcherkasova are 1st to perform a quadruple twist lift in Helsinki
• Jan 30 8th (final) part of "Roots" is most-watched US entertainment show ever (100 million)

• Jan 30 Edward W. Stack replaces Paul Kerr ad president of baseball's Hall of Fame
• Jan 31 Frenchman Francois Claustre freed, after 33 months as hostage in Chad

• Jan 31 The Pompidou Centre, designed by architects Renzo Piano and Richard Rogers, housing the greatest collection of modern and contemporary art in Europe, is inaugurated in Paris [1]
• Feb 1 Blizzard in upstate New York and Southern Ontario claims 23 lives
• Feb 2 Soviet Salyut 4 Space Station re-enters Earth's atmosphere
• Feb 2 Toronto Maple Leafs Ian Turnbull scores 5 goals, NHL record for a defenseman
• Feb 3 Martin Dihigo and John "Pop" Lloyd are elected to Baseball Hall of Fame

• Feb 4 Elevated train jumps track, crashes onto Chicago st (11 die, 200 hurt)
• Feb 4 Wings release their single "Maybe I'm Amazed"
• Feb 5 "CB Savage" by Rod Hart peaks at #67
• Feb 5 "Dis-Gorilla (part 1)" by Rick Dees peaks at #56

• Feb 5 "Turn Loose On My Leg" by Jim Stafford peaks at #98
• Feb 5 Comedy album "Up Your Nose" by Gabriel Kaplan peaks at #91

• Feb 5 General Mills Adventure Theater premieres on CBS radio
• Feb 6 4th time New York Rangers shut-out New York Islanders, 4-0
• Feb 6 Alain Prieur jumps his motorcycle 65 m over 16 buses, near Paris
• Feb 6 Harley Race beats Terry Funk in Toronto, Ontario to become NWA wrestling champ
• Feb 7 Soyuz 24 launches with 2 cosmonauts
• Feb 8 Earthquake in San Francisco, at 5.0, strongest since 1966

• Feb 10 Bomb explosion in Moscow metro
• Feb 10 Jonathan Netanyahu Lane in the Bronx, New York, named in honor of the Bronx-born Israeli soldier who died freeing hostages in Entebbe Raid in Uganda in 1976
• Feb 11 20.2-kg lobster caught off Nova Scotia (heaviest known crustacean)
• Feb 12 Festac '77, the Second World Black and African Festival of Arts and Culture, finishes in Lagos, Nigeria
• Feb 12 Toronto Maple Leafs shutout Washington Capitals 10-0
• Feb 15 Social-democrats win Danish parliamentary election
• Feb 16 USSR performs nuclear test at Sary Shagan

• Feb 18 American rock band KISS play their first concert in their hometown venue of Madison Square Garden in New York City

• Feb 18 Space Shuttle Enterprise takes its maiden flight affixed atop a Boeing 747 Shuttle Aircraft Carrier
• Feb 18 West Indies cricket fast bowlers Joel Garner (4/130) and (Colin Croft 3/85) debut in drawn 1st Test v Pakistan at Bridgetown, Barbados
• Feb 19 19th Grammy Awards: "This Masquerade"and Starland Vocal Band win
• Feb 19 A's sell pitcher Paul Lindblad to the Rangers for $400,000
• Feb 19 Doug Walters scores 250 v NZ, 217 stand for 7th wicket with Gilmour
• Feb 19 France performs nuclear test at Mururoa atoll

• Feb 19 Right wing Rod Gilbert scores a goal and adds an assist in a 5-2 defeat at the NY Islanders to become first player in NY Rangers history (11th in NHL) to score 1,000 career points
• Feb 19 Space shuttle Enterprise makes 1st Test flight atop a 747 jetliner

• Feb 21 74 Unification Church couples wed in NYC
• Feb 24 US President Jimmy Carter announces US foreign aid will consider human rights

• Feb 25 Oil tanker explosion west of Honolulu spills 31 million gallons
• Feb 25 Soyuz 24 returns to Earth
• Feb 26 1st flight of Space Shuttle (atop a Boeing 747)

• Feb 28 1st killer whale born in captivity (Marineland, Los Angeles California)
• Feb 28 Dock strike in Rotterdam/Amsterdam ends
• Mar 1 Bank of America adopts the name VISA for its credit cards
• Mar 1 US extends territorial waters to 200 miles

• Mar 2 Libya amends constitution
• Mar 3 Ice Pairs Champs at Tokyo won by Irina Rodnina/Alexandr Zaitsev (URS)
• Mar 3 Islanders allow Red Wings only 11 shots on goal
• Mar 3 Libyan Socialist Arabs People's Republic forms
• Mar 3 Men's Figure Skating Champions in Tokyo won by Vladimir Kovalev (USSR)
• Mar 4 1st CRAY 1 supercomputer shipped, to Los Alamos Laboratories, New Mexico
• Mar 4 Earthquake in Romania kills 1,541

• Mar 4 West Indian cricket fast bowler Colin Croft takes 8-29 against Pakistan in 2nd Test win at Port-of-Spain; best Test figures by a pace bowler from the West Indies
• Mar 7 Ali Bhutto's Pakistan People's Party wins elections

• Mar 8 Henry L Marsh III elected mayor of Richmond, Virginia
• Mar 8 Princess Anne announces she's expecting her 1st child (Peter)
• Mar 9 Adm Stansfield Turner, USN (Ret), becomes 12th director of CIA replacing acting director Knoche
• Mar 9 Hanafi Muslims invade 3 buildings in Washington, D.C., siege ended Mar 11th
• Mar 10 CBS' premiere of "A Circle of Children", starring Jane Alexander and based on the life and book about this by Mary Mac Cracken
• Mar 10 Rings of Uranus discovered during occulation of SAO
• Mar 11 Hanafi Muslims hold 130 hostages in Washington, D.C.

• Mar 15 "Eight is Enough" premieres on ABC-TV
• Mar 15 TV comedy "Three's Company" starring John Ritter, Suzanne Somers, and Joyce DeWitt, premieres on ABC in US
• Mar 15 US House of Representatives begins 90 day test of televising its sessions
• Mar 16 US President Jimmy Carter pleads for a Palestinian homeland
• Mar 17 Australia wins cricket Centenary Test by 45 runs, same result as 1877
• Mar 18 The Clash release their first recording "White Riot"
• Mar 18 US restricts citizens from visiting Cuba, Vietnam, North Korea & Cambodia
• Mar 18 Vietnam hands over MIA to US
• Mar 19 France performs nuclear test at Mururoa atoll
• Mar 19 Jevgeni Kulikov skates world record 1000m (1:15.33)

• Mar 20 Communists and socialists win French municipal elections

• Mar 22 Dutch coalition government under Labour Party (PvdA) leader Joop den Uyl falls
• Mar 22 Indira Gandhi resigns as Prime Minister of India

• Mar 26 AIAW Women's Basketball Tournament, Delta State beat Louisiana State University 68-55 in Minneapolis

• Mar 26 Focus on the Family is founded by Dr. James Dobson

• Mar 28 Morarji Desai forms a government in India
• Mar 31 Michael Cristofer's "Shadow Box" premieres in NYC
• Apr 1 Attempt for Muslim state in Chad fails
• Apr 2 Fleetwood Mac's "Rumours" album goes to No. 1 & stays atop charts for 31 weeks
• Apr 2 Montreal Canadiens rout the Washington Capitals, 11-0 at the Montreal Forum to set an NHL record of 34 straight home games without a loss
• Apr 3 Boston Bruin Jean Ratelle scores his 1,000th NHL point
• Apr 3 Egyptian President Anwar Sadat's 1st meeting with US President Jimmy Carter
• Apr 3 Netherlands, Belgium and Luxembourg adopt summer time
• Apr 5 US performs nuclear test at Nevada Test Site
• Apr 6 Judge rules Beatles 1962 Hamburg album can be released
• Apr 6 Kingdome opens, Seattle Mariners 1st game, loses to Angels 7-0
• Apr 7 Consumer Product Safety Commission bans "TRIS" flame-retardant
• Apr 7 German Federal Prosecutor Siegfried Buback and his driver are shot dead by two Red Army Faction members, starting the "German Autumn"
• Apr 7 MLB Toronto Blue Jays 1st game, they beat Chicago 9-5
• Apr 8 Israeli premier Yitzhak Rabin resigns
• Apr 9 Communist party in Spain allowed legally after 40 years
• Apr 10 Cleveland Indians set club record for longest, 9 inn game (3:17)

• Apr 11 Ireland sets fishing zone at 50 mile
• Apr 14 US Supreme Court says people may refuse to display state motto on license
• Apr 15 1st baseball game at Montreal's Olympic Stadium

• Apr 17 Christian-democrats win Belgium parliamentary election
• Apr 18 Alex Haley author of "Roots" awarded Pulitzer Prize
• Apr 18 Pulitzer prize awarded to Michael Cristofer for "Shadow Box"

• Apr 20 Supreme Court rules "Live Free or Die" may be covered on NH licenses

• Apr 23 ADO Den Haag soccer team forms in The Hague, Netherlands
• Apr 23 Czech chess master Vlastimil Hort plays 201 games simultaneously & only loses 10
• Apr 23 Dr Allen Bussey completes 20,302 yo-yo loops
• Apr 23 Milt workers kill 300-500 students in Addis Ababa
• Apr 25 Cincinnati Reds tie record of 12 runs in 5th inning beating Braves 23-9
• Apr 25 USSR performs nuclear test at the Semipalatinsk Test Site in northeast Kazakhstan
• Apr 26 Opening of Studio 54 in New York, N.Y.
• Apr 27 Bloody riots in Soweto, South Africa
• Apr 27 HCC, Hobby Computer Club, forms in Netherlands
• Apr 28 American defense employee Christopher John Boyce convicted for selling secrets to the Soviet Union

• Apr 28 The Budapest Treaty on the International Recognition of the Deposit of Microorganisms for the Purposes of Patent Procedure is signed
• Apr 29 British Aerospace forms

• Apr 30 Ron Cey sets record of 29 RBIs in April
• May 1 36 people are killed in Taksim Square, Istanbul, during the Labour Day celebrations.
• May 1 American golfer Debbie Austin wins the Birmingham Classic, the first of 5 LPGA Tour victories in a 4-month span

• May 1 French runner Chantal Langlacé sets female world marathon record (2:35:15.4) in Oyarzun, Spain
• May 3 1977 NFL Draft: Ricky Bell from USC first pick by Tampa Bay Buccaneers
• May 4 US Catholic bishops rescind automatic excommunications for divorced and remarried Catholics (receiving communion still outlawed if the previous marriages were not annulled by Church tribunals)
• May 6 Parlophone releases live album "The Beatles at the Hollywood Bowl" in UK; recorded during 1964 and 1965 tours, sound quality was of sub-par quality, but released to combat bootleg versions
• May 9 Hotel Poland in Amsterdam destroyed by fire, 33 killed
• May 9 Mabel Murphy Smythe confirmed as ambassador to Rep of Cameroon
• May 11 Ted Turner manages an Atlanta Braves game

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