6 January – After releasing only one single for controversial punk rock band the Sex Pistols, EMI terminates its contract with them in response to its members' disruptive behaviour last month on ITV's Today and two days ago at London Heathrow Airport.[2] Their next contract (in March) with a record company lasts for 2 weeks.
10 January – Clive Sinclair introduces his new two-inch screen television set, which retails at £175.
14 January – Former Prime Minister Anthony Eden, Earl of Avon, dies aged 79 at Alvediston Manor, his Wiltshire home.
5 February – Twenty-eight-year-old homeless woman Irene Richardson is murdered in Leeds, at almost the exact location where sex worker Marcella Claxton was badly injured nine months earlier. Police believe that this murder and attempted murder may be connected, along with the murders of Wilma McCann, Emily Jackson and the attempted murders of at least three other women.[3]
11 February – Queen Elizabeth II visits Western Samoa.
13 February – Anthony Crosland, Foreign Secretary, suffers a massive stroke, from which he will not regain consciousness. He dies six days later in hospital.
14 March – The government reveals that inflation has pushed prices up by nearly 70% within three years.
15 March – British Leyland managers announce intention to dismiss 40,000 toolmakers who have gone on strike at the company's Longbridge plant in Birmingham, action which is costing the state-owned carmaker more than £10,000,000 a week.[4]
17–23 March – The Prince of Wales (now Charles III) visits Ghana.
19 March – The last Rover P6 rolls off the production line after 14 years.
National Front marchers clash with anti-Nazi protesters in London.
Prostitute Patricia Atkinson is murdered in Bradford; she is believed to be the fourth woman to die at the hands of the mysterious Yorkshire Ripper.[8]
29 April – British Aerospace is formed, to run the nationalised aviation industry.
Elizabeth II opens the new air terminal building at Edinburgh Airport.
Prime Minister James Callaghan officially opens the M5 motorway, now complete with finishing of the final stretch around Exeter, 15 years after the first stretch (beginning near Birmingham) was opened.[12]
6–9 June – Silver Jubilee celebrations are held in the United Kingdom to celebrate 25 years of Queen Elizabeth II's reign, with a public holiday on 7 June.[13]
Seventeen people are arrested during clashes between pickets and police at the Grunwick film processing laboratory.
26 June – 16-year-old shop assistant Jayne McDonald, is found battered and stabbed to death in Chapeltown, Leeds; police believe she is the fifth person to be murdered by the Yorkshire Ripper.[16]
4 July – Manchester United F.C. manager Tommy Docherty is sensationally dismissed by the club's directors due to his affair with the wife of the club's physiotherapist.[17]
10 July – Bradford woman Maureen Long, 42, is injured in an attack believed to have been committed by the Yorkshire Ripper in the West Yorkshire city.[18]
12 July – Within 24 hours of resigning as manager of the England national football team, Don Revie accepts an offer to become the highest-paid football manager in the world when he is appointed manager of the United Arab Emirates national football team on a four-year contract worth £340,000.
September – Ford launches the second generation of its flagship Granada saloon and estate models.
6 September – Car industry figures show that foreign cars are outselling British-built ones for the first time. Although Ford, British Leyland, Vauxhall and Chrysler are still the market leaders, foreign brands including Datsun, Fiat, Renault and Volkswagen are enjoying a growing market share.
16 September – Rock star Marc Bolan, pioneer of the glam rock movement at the start of the 1970s with T. Rex, is killed in a car crash in Barnes, London, at age 29. His girlfriend Gloria Jones, who was driving the car, is seriously injured.
22 September – Sir Eric Miller, a backer of the Labour Party under Harold Wilson, commits suicide while under police investigation for financial dealings involving his property companies.[30]
UEFA reinstates Manchester United to the European Cup Winners' Cup on appeal. However, they are ordered to play their return leg against AS Saint-Etienne at least 120 miles away from their Old Trafford stadium.[31]
The Queen is escorted from Buckingham Palace after reports of an armed man on site.
October
3 October – Undertakers go on strike in London, leaving more than 800 corpses unburied.
10 October – Missing 20-year-old sex worker Jean Jordan is found dead in Chorlton, Manchester, nine days after she was last seen alive. Police believe that the Yorkshire Ripper may have killed her; the first crime outside Yorkshire which the killer has been suspected of.[32]
14 October – Fourteen people are injured in a bomb explosion at a London pub.
15 October – World's End Murders: Christine Eadie and Helen Scott, both 17, disappear after leaving the World's End pub in Edinburgh, Scotland. Their bodies are found tied and strangled in the countryside the next day. In 2014, serial killer Angus Sinclair is convicted of the crime.
Police in Yorkshire appeal for help in finding the Yorkshire Ripper, who is believed to be responsible for a series of murders and attacks on women across the county during the last two years.
Chrysler Europe announces its new Horizon range of five-door front-wheel drive hatchbacks, which will be built in the UK as a Chrysler, and in France as a Simca. It will give buyers a more modern alternative to the Avenger range of rear-wheel drive saloons and estates.
Ron Greenwood signs a permanent contract as England manager, despite England's failure to qualify for next summer's World Cup. The appointment is controversial, as there had been widespread support for Brian Clough of Nottingham Forest to be appointed.[38]
14 December – 25-year-old Leeds sex worker Marilyn Moore, is injured in an attack believed to have been committed by the Yorkshire Ripper.[39]
21 December – Four children die at a house fire in Wednesbury, West Midlands, as Green Goddess fire appliances crewed by hastily trained troops are sent to deal with the blaze while firefighters are still on strike. 119 people have now died as a result of fires since the strike began, but this is the first fire during the strike which has resulted in more than two deaths.[42]
English-born comedian and silent film legend Sir Charlie Chaplin dies aged 88 of a stroke at his home in Corsier-sur-Vevey, Switzerland.
27 December – The much-acclaimed Star Wars film, which has been a massive hit in the United States, is screened in British cinemas for the first time.[50]
Undated
Inflation has fallen slightly this year to 15.8%, but it is the fourth successive year that has seen double-digit inflation.[51]
Colour television licences exceed black and white ones for the first time in the UK.
^The Herring (Specified North Sea Waters) (Prohibition of Fishing) Order 1977; The Herring (North East Irish Sea) (Prohibition of Fishing) Order 1977; The Herring (Celtic Sea) (Prohibition of Fishing) Order 1977.