July 25, 1978: The first human being conceived by in vitro fertilization is born.July 7, 1978: The Solomon Islands are granted independence by Britain
July 1, 1978 (Saturday)
The new Northern Territory flag
Australia's Northern Territory (NT) became a self-governing unit, with Paul Everingham, the Legislative Assembly majority leader, becoming the first Chief Minister. The transition to self-government was celebrated with the raising for the first time of the NT's flag at a ceremony in the capital, Darwin.
Guerrillas from the Zimbabwe African National Union (ZANU) carried out the massacre of 14 black African workers and their families who lived on a white-owned farm near the town of Rusape in Rhodesia, including five children.[1]
Former U.S. President Richard Nixon appeared at his first public rally since his 1974 resignation, after accepting an invitation to the small town of Hyden, Kentucky for the dedication of the newly-built Richard M. Nixon Recreation Center, which the government of Leslie County, Kentucky, had named in his honor. More than 4,000 people crowded into the gymnasium at the center to listen to Nixon's 41-minute speech.[2][3]
Aleki Lutui, Tongan rugby union player in the New Zealand league, with 38 caps for the Tonga national team; in Tofoa
Died: General Kurt Student, 88, Nazi German Luftwaffe officer and convicted war criminal known for creating the Fallschirmjäger paratrooper force and for the 1941 massacre of civilians on Crete
July 2, 1978 (Sunday)
Australia's government announced that it was purchasing the Cocos Islands from their owner, John Clunies-Ross, whose family had been granted private ownership of the 27 Indian Ocean atolls in 1886 by the British Empire's Queen Victoria. The Commonwealth of Australia had placed the Cocos under government authority in 1955. At the time of Australia's acquisition, the Cocos had 360 inhabitants, mostly Australians of Malay descent as well as the Clunies-Ross family.[5]
As the deadlock in Italy's presidential election continued in the electoral college, the founder of the Italian Socialist Party, Chamber of Deputies President Sandro Pertini was introduced as a compromise candidate.[6]
The People's Republic of China announced that it would not provide further economic aid to Vietnam, after having given 14 billion U.S. dollars to North Vietnam and over the previous 20 years, with decreasing amounts after the 1975 conquest of South Vietnam.[7]
The children's afternoon TV program Récré A2 premiered on the French TV network Antenne 2, and would run for almost 10 years. Intended to run only during summer vacation, the show was broadcast as an after school program from 5:30 to 6:30 p.m. on most weekdays, with a two-hour program on Wednesday afternoons from 3:00 to 5:00. It would conclude on June 29, 1988, a few days short of its 10th anniversary."[10]
By a vote of 5 to 4, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the right of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to ban profane language from the radio and television broadcast from within the United States, holding that the right of free speech guaranteed in the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution did not include the right to use "indecent language" in broadcasts, and defined "indecent" as "not conforming to generally-accepted standards of morality."[11]
James Daly, 59, American TV, film and stage actor best known as the co-star of the TV hospital drama Medical Center, died of a heart attack.[13]
July 4, 1978 (Tuesday)
U.S. Patent No. 4,098,260 was awarded to inventor William Goettl for designing the first solar thermal collector, initially designed to be used in providing solar panels and a system for air circulation to be placed on the roofs of buildings to safely warm water pipes and air ducts.[14]
General Ignatius Acheampong, President of Ghana since 1975 as Chairman of the National Redemption Council of the West African nation, was overthrown in a military coup d'etat led by his Chief of Staff of the Ghana Armed Forces, Lieutenant General Fred Akuffo.[16]
South Korea's President Park Chung-hee was re-elected for the fourth time by an electoral college of 2,581 members who had been approved by voters on May 18. President Park was the only candidate on the ballot and received 2,577 votes, while three electors did not cast a ballot and one, Park Seung-guk, submitted a blank ballot as a protest against the process.[20]
What has been described as "the first recorded hip hop song",[27] "Enterprise" was released as part of the 41 songs on the album Runaways (Original Broadway Cast Recording), from the 1978 Broadway musicalRunaways.
Mustafa al-Shamyri, Yemeni citizen imprisoned at the U.S.-owned Guantanamo Bay detention camp for 13 years from 2004 to 2017 after being accused falsely of terrorism as a victim of mistaken identity.
Died:
Morris the Cat, 17, popular advertising mascot for the Star-Kist Foods company who had appeared in dozens of television commercials for 9Lives catfood since 1966, with actor John Erwin doing the voice-over for the cat's thoughts.[30]
Henry Trefflich, 70, German-born American animal importer nicknamed "The Monkey King" for his capture and reselling of wild animals to zoos around the world[31]
July 8, 1978 (Saturday)
Voting for President was completed by a 1,011-member electoral college in Italy, composed of all 323 Senators, all 630 Deputies and 58 regional delegates. Sandro Pertini, the President of the Chamber of Deputies, received 832 votes on the 16th ballot, well over the 506 required for a majority.[32] Sandro Pertini was sworn in as President of Italy, the next day, exactly two months after the May 9 assassination of former Premier (and favorite for the office of president) Aldo Moro. Pertini said in a speech to a joint session of the Parliament at the Montecitorio Palace, "If it had not been for the ruthless assassination, he, not I, would speaking to you today from this platform."[33]
Brazil's Museu de Arte Moderna, which had opened in 1948 in Rio de Janeiro, lost 90 percent of its works of modern art (950 out of 1055) when the museum accidentally caught fire.[34] Among the works destroyed were paintings by Pablo Picasso ("Cubist Head" and "Portrait of Dora Maar"), Miró ("Persons in a Landscape"), Salvador Dalí ("Egg on a Plate, Without the Plate"), Max Ernst, and Joaquín Torres-García, whose artworks were on display as part of a retrospective sponsored by the museum.
The first elections in 12 years were held in Bolivia, with the government declaring General Juan Pereda as the winner of the presidential election, and reportedly defeating former presidents Hernán Siles Zuazo (who served 1956 to 1960) and Víctor Paz Estenssoro (who served 1960 to 1964). Investigations supported allegations of a rigged election, including the fact that the government that 1,971,968 votes had been cast, 102.6 percent of the 1,921,556 registered voters.[36] Pereda's Unión Nacionalista del Pueblo (UNP) party was also reported to have won a majority of votes (53%) for the Chamber of Deputies.[37] The South American nation's electoral court annulled the results 11 days later and Pereda became President anyway on July 21, when a military coup d'etat removed General Hugo Banzer.
Abd ar-Razzaq an-Naif, a former Iraqi military officer who was a vocal opponent of Iraq's President Saddam Hussein, and who had served as Prime Minister of Iraq for two weeks in 1968, was shot and mortally wounded by members of Saddam's Mukhabarat secret police as he was leaving the Intercontinental Hotel in London. He died the next day.[38]
Voters in the South American nation of Guyana reportedly approved the proposal for a new constitution by an overwhelming majority, including new rules to outlaw future referendums on the constitution to make amendments. Prime Minister Forbes Burnham, whose People's National Congress Party had obtained control of 37 of the 53 seats in parliament, obtained a mandate to allow parliament to change the constitution by a two-thirds vote, and would push through changes canceling the upcoming election, changing Guyana to a presidential republic, and giving him broad powers as president. The government issued figures claiming that more than 70% of the registered voters turned out to vote, and that of those, more than 97% voted for the new constitution.[45][46]
Born:Ray Kay (stage name for Reinert K. Olsen), Norwegian photographer and video director, MTV Video Music Award winner; in Haugesund.
July 11, 1978 (Tuesday)
The explosion of a tanker-truck at a campsite killed 217 tourists in Spain at the Los Alfaques campground near Alcanar.[47][48][49] The tanker was carrying 23,470 kilograms (51,740 lb) of liquid propylene picked up at a refinery at Tarragona, despite the maximum allowed load for the tanker having been 19,350 kilograms (42,660 lb). As the truck was driving past the campsite, the product of overheating and a lack of room to expand during thermal expansion, the pressure increased to the point that the tank exploded at 2:36 in the afternoon and spilled burning fuel into to the crowd of tourists.
What was, at the time, the most powerful solar flare ever recorded,[50] with an x-ray classification of X15.0. The flare, which would not be exceeded until August 16, 1989, occurred in the course of Solar cycle 21, which had started in March 1976 and would last until 1986.
Voters in Sierra Leone overwhelmingly approved a ballot measure to make the West African nation a one-party state. The All People's Congress (APC) of President Siaka Stevens became the only legal political party, with more than 97% of 2.2 million voters reportedly in favor, while parliament members elected from the Sierra Leone People's Party joined the APC.[52] President Stevens had campaigned for the measure, arguing that a one-party state was "more African" than Western-style democracy.[53]
Born:
Topher Grace (Christopher John Grace), American TV and film actor known for That '70s Show; in New York City
The People's Socialist Republic of Albania, a Marxist Communist nation which had severed its relations with the Soviet Union in 1961, lost its only remaining financial supporter when the People's Republic of China announced that it would not provide further economic aid to the Balkan nation.[57]
Entertainment and Sports Programming, Inc., was incorporated in the U.S. state of Connecticut for a fee of $91, with a stated purpose of creating a cable television network for sports telecasts. The network would be launched on September 7, 1979 as ESPN.[58]
Lee Iacocca was fired from his job as the president of the Ford Motor Company by the Board of Directors, after clashing with Henry Ford II, the CEO and grandson of the founder.[59] Iacocca would soon be hired as the president of the ailing Chrysler Corporation, the third largest U.S. auto maker after General Motors and Ford Motor, and turn Chrysler into a profitable company.
Canadian jockeyRon Turcotte, who had ridden the thoroughbred racehorse Secretariat to victory in the U.S. Triple Crown races of 1973, was rendered a paraplegic after being thrown from the horse Flag of Leyte Gulf during a race at Belmont Park.[60][61]
Died:J. Clarence Karcher, American geophysicist who invented the reflection seismograph, described as "the means by which most of the world's oil reserves have been discovered."[62]
July 14, 1978 (Friday)
Henri Maïdou took office as the last Prime Minister of the Central African Empire, after being appointed by the Emperor Bokassa.[63] Upon the overthrow of Bokassa and the restoration of the Central African Republic a year later, Maïdou became Vice President in the regime of President David Dacko.
Soviet dissidentAnatoly Shcharansky was sentenced to three years in prison, followed by 10 years in a labor camp, after insisting that the Soviet Union should abide by its commitments in the 1975 Helsinki Accords to improve human rights. Shcharansky was convicted of "anti-Soviet agitation and propaganda" and on a lesser degree of treason under Articles 70 and 64-a of the penal code for his activity in the Moscow Helsinki Group.[64]
At the age of 65, American long distance swimmer Walter Poenisch became the first person to swim from Cuba to the United States, arriving at the island of Little Duck Key in the U.S. state of Florida, 33 hours after having departed from the Cuban capital, Havana.[65]
"The Longest Walk", a project of the American Indian Movement in support of tribal sovereignty and protection of the rights of the indigenous peoples of the United States, was completed after 205 days and a journey of more than 3,200 miles (5,100 km) from San Francisco to Washington D.C.. After starting on February 11 with a ceremony at Alcatraz Island off of the coast of San Francisco, the walk was completed with a rally of several thousand people in front of the Washington Monument. The U.S. Congress followed by withdrawing several proposed bills from consideration, and the approval of the American Indian Religious Freedom Act by both the House and the Senate on July 27, followed by the signing of the bill into law by U.S. President Carter on August 11.[67][68]
Pope Paul VI, leader of the Roman Catholic Church, became seriously ill at his summer residence at the Palace of Castel Gandolfo, the day after meeting with Italy's President Sandro Pertini. The 80-year-old Pontiff's condition worsened over the next three weeks and he would die on August 6.[72]
Died:Howard Estabrook (pen name for Howard Bolles), 94, American screenwriter, film director and stage actor, 1931 Academy Award winner for Best Adapted Screenplay for Cimarron[73]
July 17, 1978 (Monday)
The parliament of the North Yemen (officially the Yemen Arab Republic approved Ali Abdullah Saleh as the Middle Eastern republic's new President, replacing the late Ahmad al-Ghashmi, who had been assassinated on June 24. Saleh was sworn in the next day.
Bolivia's National Election Court issued an order annulling the results of the July 9 presidential election, because of evidence of "irregularities all along the process" during voting before a transition to civilian government, and directed that a new election be held within the next 180 days. General Juan Pereda, who had been declared the winner of the election, had asked to discard the results and to hold another vote "to avoid sorrow and tears for the nation."[75]
General Juan Pereda, who was declared the winner of the July 9 election in Bolivia despite evidence of massive fraud, was installed as the new President of Bolivia. The Bolivian Army staged a coup d'etat that toppled President Hugo Banzer, who had come to power in a coup in 1971.[79]
Terrorists in Madrid killed two officers of the Spanish Army, killing Brigadier General Juan Sanchez Ramos and his aide, Lieutenant Colonel Jose Antonio Perez, as the two men sat in a car in front of General Sanchez's home. The Basque separatist organization [[ETA (separatist group)|ETA (Euskadi Ta Askatasuna) claimed responsibility for the killings, saying that the Spanish Army was "the axis of fascist repression" in the Basque provinces, although two other terror groups claimed that they had made the killings.[80][81]
Three guards were killed in a riot involving more than 1,000 inmates at the Pontiac Correctional Center, a maximum security prison in the U.S. state of Illinois.[82]
Born:
A. J. Cook (Andrea Joy Cook), Canadian TV actress known for portraying Agent JJ Jareau for more than 15 years on the American crime drama Criminal Minds; in Oshawa, Ontario
SelecTV, the first pay cable television network to allow its subscribers to pay only for the programs that they selected to watch, was inaugurated in the U.S., starting with the Los Angeles metropolitan area.[83] At its height it had 125,000 subscribers in various locations in the United States, but the network would go bankrupt in 1989.[84]
Born:
Stefanie Sun (stage name for Sng Ee Tze), popular Singaporean singer, songwriter and actress; in Singapore
The Viking 2 orbiter, which had entered orbit around Mars on August 7, 1976, after being launched from the U.S., turned off by NASA after returning almost 16,000 images in more than 700 orbits around Mars.[91] Francis Lawrence Keating]], American armed robber who teamed with Thomas James Holden to create the Holden-Keating gang that carried out holdups from 1926 to 1932.[92]
July 26, 1978 (Wednesday)
A man and his two nieces, aged 10 and 15, were killed and another girl one seriously injured at the Six Flags over Mid-America amusement park in St. Louis, when a cable car was knocked off of the "Skylift" ride and fell 75 feet (23 m).[93]
In the city of Marathwada in the Indian state of Maharashtra, Hindu residents began a riot after the state government had approved the renaming of Marathwada University to "Ambedkar University", in honor of B. R. Ambedkar, a hero among the Dalitcaste, formerly referred to as the "untouchables". At least 27 people, mostly Dalits, were killed and the approval of the name change was revoked.[95] The continued agitation for the renaming of the university would continue until 1994, when a compromise settled on the name "Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar Marathwada University".[96]
July 28, 1978 (Friday)
The 100-member Asamblea Constituyente of Peru opened its first session after being assembled by General Francisco Morales Bermudez, the president of Peru, to write a new constitution to facilitate the South American nation's transition back to democracy after a decade of military rule.
Carlos Menem, formerly the Governor of Argentina's La Rioja Province was released from the Magdalena prison more than two years after he had been arrested on charges of corruption following the 1976 overthrow of President Isabel Perón.[98] In 1989, after the restoration of democracy, Menem would be elected as the President of Argentina and serve for more than 10 years, until 1999. Menem would later be arrested on charges of embezzlement in 2001 and 2013, being placed under house arrest each time.[99]
Convicted murderers Randy Greenawalt and Gary Gene Tison, both serving life sentences at Florence State Prison in the U.S. state of Arizona, was able to escape with the aid of Tison's three sons, Donald, Ricky and Raymond, who were not searched when they arrived for a visit.[100] Once inside, two of the Tison brothers pulled out a shotgun from a cardboard box they had carried inside. The next day, the escapees murdered a family of four, including two children. After 12 days on the lam, Greenawalt and two of the Tison brothers were captured;[101] Gary Tison fled the scene but was later found dead. Greenawalt would be executed at Florence State Prison in 1997, while the surviving Tyson brothers would have their death sentences commuted to life imprisonment.
Farnum Fish, 81, American airplane pilot known as "The Boy Aviator" for having been a licensed pilot at age 15.[102]
July 31, 1978 (Monday)
In Burma (now Myanmar), Operation Nagamin, the forced expulsion of the minority Rohingya people in Arakan State (now Rakhine state) to Bangladesh ended as Burma and Bangladesh signed a repatriation agreement moderated by the United Nations and the International Red Cross. The Burmese military operation had started on February 6 and as many as 250,000 people were forced to flee. After the signing of the pact, more than 180,000 returned from Bangladesh to Burma.[103]
Royal assent was given in the United Kingdom to the Scotland Act 1978, providing for residents of Scotland to vote on limited self-government.[104] The Act also required that at least 40 percent of Scotland's registered voters had to approve of the change in law, rather than a majority of voters who participated in the referendum. The voting, held on March 1, 1979, showed that 51.6% voted yes, but less than 2.4 million of Scotland's 3.7 million registered voters participated, so the approval was by less than one-third of the electorate.
North Korean agents kidnapped Kaoru Hasuike and his girlfriend, Yukiko Okudo, from a beach in the town of Kashiwazaki in Japan's Niigata Prefecture, and kept them for the next 24 years.[105] The two, who married and had children, were allowed to visit Japan in 2002 while North Korea held their daughter and son as hostages. Hasuike and Okudo elected to remain in Japan, and the two children would be allowed to leave two years later. Hasuike would later publish a memoir, Abduction and My Decision, recounting his experience.[106]
^The outsider who won the race, The Economist (London, England), July 15, 1978, p. 45
^Fleming, Louis B. (July 10, 1978). "New President of Italy Installed With Firm Promise Not to Yield to Forces of Violence". Los Angeles Times. p. I-5.
^"Up in smoke: 20th century masterpieces". Philadelphia Inquirer. AP. July 10, 1978. p. I-.
^Post, Jerrold (June 1991). "Saddam Hussein of Iraq: A Political Psychology Profile". Political Psychology. 12 (2): 279–289. doi:10.2307/3791465. JSTOR3791465.
^Graeme, Roland (2001). "Lear. Aribert Reimann". The Opera Quarterly. 17 (1): 158–161. doi:10.1093/oq/17.1.158.
^Boriçi, Gjon. "The Decline of the Albanian–Chinese Relations 1971-1978." ILIRIA International Review 6.1 (2016): 107–118. online
^Miller, James Andrew; Shales, Tom (2011). Those Guys Have All the Fun: Inside the World of ESPN. Little, Brown and Company. p. 6. ISBN978-0-316-04300-7.
^Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe (1982). "Appendix B. Imprisoned members of the Helsinki monitoring groups in the USSR and Lithuania". Implementation of the Final Act of the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe: findings and recommendations seven years after Helsinki. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office. p. 249.
^"Bolivian President Quits; Rebel General Takes Over". Los Angeles Times. AP. July 22, 1978. p. I-3.
^"General, Aide Assassinated in Madrid". Los Angeles Times. AP. July 22, 1978. p. I-7.
^"Basque Separatists Take Responsibility for Murders". Los Angeles Times. AP. July 23, 1978. p. I-4.
^Green, Larry (July 23, 1978). "3 Guards Die in Prison Riot in Illinois; Damage Heavy— Loss Estimated at $2.5 Million as 3 Buildings Are Damaged or Destroyed by Fire in 5-Hour Uprising". Los Angeles Times. p. I-1.
^"At 38, the surgeon who gave hope to hundreds is dead; But pioneering work of Professor Caves lives on", by Gordon Airs, Daily Record (Glasgow, Scotland), July 25, 1978, p.9
^Biografía de los miembros de la Junta de Gobierno: General Augusto Pinochet Ugarte, Almirante José Toribio Merino C., General Gustavo Leigh Guzmán, General César Mendoza Durán. Montgomery Ward. 1978. pp. 2–3.
^U.S.-Japan Relations: An Overview: Hearing Before the Subcommittee on Asia, the Pacific, and the Global Environment of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, House of Representatives, June 12, 2008 (U.S. Government Printing Office, 2008) p.17
^DiFulco, Denise (2008-09-01). "Making a Name for Herself"(PDF). Williams Alumni Review - Life of the Mind. Archived(PDF) from the original on 2023-03-13. Retrieved 2023-03-13.
^"Latest Coldplay News". Capital FM (Press the "View More" button on the "Facts" column). 2023. Archived from the original on 27 February 2023. Retrieved 27 February 2023.
