From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Month of 1977
July 5, 1977: Pakistan's General Zia overthrows Prime Minister Bhutto
The following events occurred in
July 1977
:
July 1, 1977 (Friday)
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]
- The last
Railway Mail Service
mail train
in the U.S. completed its run, bringing an end to almost 113 years of service. The final train departed New York on Thursday, June 30 and arrived in Washington DC the next morning, after which the service was permanently discontinued. At its height, the RMS had 30,000 employees, while only 68 were left when the final train made its delivery. Starting in the 1950s, jet aircraft had gradually replaced the slower method of shipping mail by train.
[1]
- Uganda
's dictator
Idi Amin
lifted restrictions that he had imposed on June 8, when he said that the remaining 240 British residents would not be allowed to leave the East African nation. The decision was announced on Radio Kampala.
[2]
- By a single vote, a proposal failed in the U.S. Senate to end all funding for development of an American
neutron bomb
. A motion by Senator Mark O. Hatfield of Oregon lost, 42 to 43.
[3]
- The U.S. Department of State announced that diplomatic relations with
Cuba
would be restored on September 1, when ten U.S. diplomats would be stationed in
Havana
and ten Cuban diplomats would open and office in
Washington D.C.
[4]
- Serial killer
Patrick Kearney
of
Redondo Beach, California
, sought for the murder of eight people, voluntarily turned himself in at the office of the
Riverside County
Sheriff.
[5]
- The
East African Community
was dissolved.
- Tennis star
Virginia Wade
became the last British woman to win the women's singles title at
Wimbledon
. It was her third, and final Grand Slam win in tennis. After losing the first set, 4?6, in the best-2-of-3 Wade defeated
Betty Stove
, Wade won the second set, 6?3, and the deciding set, 6?1.
[6]
- Born:
Liv Tyler
, American actress; in New York City
July 2, 1977 (Saturday)
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- In defiance of South Africa's
apartheid
laws of favored treatment for white citizens and of racial segregation, the
Boy Scouts Association of South Africa
combined its four branches (Boy Scouts Association, African Boy Scouts Association, Coloured Boy Scouts Association and Indian Boy Scouts Association) into a single Boy Scouts of South Africa organization. The decision took place at the Scouting associations' first multiracial convention, the Quo Vadis Conference in
Pietermaritzburg
.
[7]
- Bjorn Borg
of Sweden won the men's singles title at
Wimbledon
, defeating
Jimmy Connors
of the U.S. in the best-3-of-5 series. Borg, who had won the 1976 Wimbledon title, lost the first and fourth match before defeating Connors in the deciding fifth, 3?6, 6?2, 6?1, 5-7 and 6?4.
[8]
- Born:
Carl Froch
, British professional boxer, world super-middleweight champion for the WBC (2008?2011), IBF (2012?2015) and WBA (2013?2015); in
Nottingham
- Died:
- Vladimir Nabokov
, 78, Russian-born American novelist known for
Lolita
.
[9]
Nabokov had been writing a new novel,
The Opposite of Laura
and had completed the equivalent of 30 manuscript pages (on 138 handwritten index cards) before becoming ill. His son Dmitri Nabokov would complete the manuscript more than 30 years later,
[10]
and with the altered title of
The Original of Laura
, the book would be published in 2009 by Penguin Books and Knopf Publishing.
- Gert Potgieter
, 47, South African operatic tenor known for his performances in the operas
Peter Grimes
,
In die Droogte
and
La boheme
, was killed in a car accident.
[11]
July 3, 1977 (Sunday)
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- The
first MRI scan of a human being
was performed with the use of
magnetic resonance imaging
by Dr.
Raymond Damadian
on Larry Minkoff, who had volunteered to be the test subject. The 5-hour process took place at the
Downstate Medical Center
of the
State University of New York
in Brooklyn.
[12]
The imaging process would be perfected by
Paul C. Lauterbur
, a professor of chemistry at SUNY Stony Brook.
- Turkey's Prime Minister
Bulent Ecevit
resigned after losing a vote of no confidence in his government. Members of the Grand National Assembly of Turkey voted, 229 to 217, against Ecevit's Republican People's Party, which finished with the highest number of seats in the June 5 general election but fell short of a majority. After the vote, Ecevit drove to the presidential palace in Ankara to present his resignation to President Fahri Koruturk, but agreed to stay on as premier until a new government could be formed.
[13]
- Pakistan's Prime Minister
Zulfikar Ali Bhutto
received a warning from Major General
K. M. Arif
that Pakistan's military was planning a coup d'etat, and was urged to negotiate with the opposition parties in the
Pakistan National Alliance
(PNA).
[14]
Although Bhutto and the PNA leaders reached an agreement for new elections to be called,
[15]
the coup would be carried out anyway.
[16]
- A pair of hired assassins shot and killed Haiti's Ambassador to Brazil as he was leaving a bar at the Meridien Hotel in the beach resort of
Salvador
. The two gunmen, who shot Delorme Mehu in the back, told police that they had been hired by Louis Robert Makensie, Haiti's secretary to President Jean-Claude Duvalier, to carry out the assassination.
[17]
- Soviet athlete
Vladimir Yashchenko
broke the world record for the high jump, clearing 7 feet, 7¾ inches, half an inch better than the mark of 7'7¼" set by Dwight Stones in 1976. Yashchenko's mark was set at the USSR-USA Junior track meet in
Richmond, Virginia
at the University of Richmond.
[18]
- The
championship
of Mexico's top soccer football league, the
Primera Division de Mexico
, was won by the
UNAM Pumas
of Mexico City, 1 to 0 over the
Leones Negros
of Guadalajara after the two teams had played to a 0-0 draw on June 29 in the two game series.
- A.C. Milan
defeated
Inter Milan
, 2 to 0, to win the
Coppa Italia
, the playoff tournament of Italy's premier soccer football league. A.C. Milan had finished in tenth place in the regular season, while Inter Milan had placed fourth.
- Died:
Gertrude Abercrombie
, 68, American painter known as "the queen of the Bohemian artists"
July 4, 1977 (Monday)
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July 5, 1977 (Tuesday)
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- General
Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq
led a coup d'etat to overthrow
Zulfikar Ali Bhutto
, who had been the first elected
Prime Minister of Pakistan
. The day before, Bhutto and other military chiefs had been guests at ceremonies at the U.S. Embassy in Islamabad for the U.S. independence day.
[23]
Bhutto, his cabinet ministers, and opposition leaders were placed in "temporary protective custody" and General Zia announced that a four-member military council (himself and commanders of Pakistan's army, navy and air force) would rule the Asian nation until free elections could be held in October.
[24]
The elections, however, did not take place. Bhutto and the other government members arrested were released on July 28 so that they could participate in the promised October elections, but Bhutto would be arrested again later.
[25]
- The Ugandan Army arrested playwright John Male,
Uganda National Theatre
director Dan Kintu, and an undersecretary of the Ugandan Ministry of Culture, Mark Sebuliba, after the staging of a play titled "The Office Is Empty". President Idi Amin inferred that the title of the play and the story was a reference to him, and the three men were charged with "insulting the president". After a trial by a military tribunal, Male, Kintu, and Sebuliba would be executed on July 24.
[26]
July 6, 1977 (Wednesday)
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- A flood off the
Yan River
killed 134 people in the city of
Yan'an
in China's
Shaanxi province
.
[27]
- The
"Night of the Neckties"
, a mass roundup by the Argentine Army of six lawyers and eight of their family members in the city of
Mar del Plata
, was carried out. Only five survived after being taken to the
GADA 601
detention center. Of the other eight, six became "
desaparecidos
" and were never seen again. The bodies of lawyers Jorge Candeloro and Norberto Centeno would be found later.
[28]
- Mexico's new agency for regulation and censorship of broadcasting and movies, the
RTC
(General Directorate for Radio, Television and Cinema) was founded.
[29]
Mexico's President
Jose Lopez Portillo
appointed his sister,
Margarita Lopez Portillo y Pacheco
as the first RTC Director.
- Born:
July 7, 1977 (Thursday)
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- Fan Yuanye, a pilot of
China
's
People's Liberation Army Air Force
veered off course after taking off from
Jinjiang
and became the first person to deliver Communist China's new
Shenyang J-6
fighter to the West. Fan, the third Chinese PLAAF pilot to defect to Taiwan, and the first since 1965, brought secret documents with him and was promised a reward of 5,000 ounces worth of gold, worth US$698,400 at that time.
[30]
Six other pilots would defect while flying the J-6 between 1979 and 1990.
- The Marxist nation of
Albania
, led by Communist Party Chief
Enver Hoxha
, criticized "its only friend in the world",
[31]
the
People's Republic of China
, as China worked on closer diplomatic ties with the United States. The official Communist Party newspaper,
Zeri I Popullit
, featured an editorial, apparently authored by Hoxha, that said that "'My enemy's enemy is my friend' cannot be applied when it is a matter of the two imperialist powers, the Soviet Union and the United States," adding that "The present theories about the so-called
Third World
and nonaligned countries are intended to curb the revolution and defend capitalism.".
[31]
Three weeks later, Albania asked China to remove its military advisers from the Balkan nation.
[32]
- The reggae album
Two Sevens Clash
by the Jamaican group
Culture
and its songwriter and lead vocalist
Joseph Hill
, was released to coincide with the date 7/7/77, in anticipation of a prediction by Pan-Africanist leader
Marcus Garvey
that the date would be a time when chaos would ensue and wrongs would be righted. Although the prediction caused great concern in Jamaica, no unusual incidents occurred.
[33]
- The governing body of the San Diego chapter
Hells Angels Motorcycle Club
gang voted unanimously to declare war on the rival
Mongols Motorcycle Club
gang in a dispute over territory in southern California.
[34]
Over the summer, four Mongols members and a 15-year-old boy would be killed, and six others injured in shootings and bombings. In October, 32 members of the San Diego Hells Angels chapter would be arrested in October.
July 8, 1977 (Friday)
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- The offices of the
Church of Scientology
in Los Angeles and
Hollywood, California
and in Washington, D.C. were raided by the
Federal Bureau of Investigation
(FBI) to seize evidence that the Church's security department, the Guardian's Office, was masterminding illegal activities. The raid, one of the largest by the FBI up to that time, gathered information that led to the arrest of 11 senior members of the Church of Scientology for conspiracy against the United States.
[35]
- The first fatal accident on the
Trans-Alaska Pipeline System
occurred less than three weeks after the Alaska Pipeline began transporting crude oil. One worker was killed and five others injured while making repairs south of
Fairbanks
at Pump Station number 8, because the flow of oil had not been completely turned off while the pipe was being worked on.
[36]
The pipeline was reopened on July 18 by the U.S. Department of the Interior.
[37]
- Born:
- Died:
July 9, 1977 (Saturday)
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July 10, 1977 (Sunday)
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July 11, 1977 (Monday)
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July 12, 1977 (Tuesday)
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- The
Ogaden War
began as the
Somali National Army
began a
full-scale invasion
of neighboring Ethiopia's desert region with the world's second largest population of
ethnic Somalis
.
[45]
Within three months after the invasion, Somalia had captured 120,000 square miles (310,000 km
2
) of territory, or 90% of the Ogaden desert. Ethiopia would make a counterattack with the assistance of soldiers from
Cuba
, and would repel the Somali invasion by March 23, 1978.
[46]
- Born:
- Died:
Osmin Aguirre y Salinas
, 87, former
President of El Salvador
from 1944 to 1945, was shot and fatally wounded outside of his home in
San Salvador
. He died en route to the nation's military hospital.
July 13, 1977 (Wednesday)
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- At 9:34 p.m., a blackout
shut off electric in all five boroughs of
New York City
, the largest city in the U.S., and parts of suburban
Westchester County
. The failure of the Consolidated Edison Company (Con Ed) system left an estimated 12,000,000 people in darkness and shut down the subway system, commuter trains, elevators and all electric appliances.
[47]
The blackout, coming on one of the hottest and most humid nights of the summer, became an opportunity for looting, vandalism and arson until power was restored 25 hours later, and 3,377 people were arrested. By contrast, there were less than 100 arrests in the blackout of November 9, 1965.
[48]
- Born:
Kari Wahlgren
, American voice actress; in
Hoisington, Kansas
- Died:
Count
Carl Gustaf von Rosen
, 67, Swedish aviator, humanitarian and mercenary, was killed in Ethiopia by Somali soldiers who overran the town of
Gode
during the Ogaden War. For 10 years after World War II, Colonel von Rosen commanded the Ethiopian Air Force at the request of Emperor Haile Selassie.
[49]
July 14, 1977 (Thursday)
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- In the largest anti-nuclear protest held in Spain, more than 150,000 demonstrators turned out in
Bilbao
against the
Lemoniz Nuclear Power Plant
, being constructed in
Bizkaia
province, populated largely by Spain's
Basque
minority. Construction would be halted in 1982.
[50]
- A U.S. Army
Chinook CH-47
cargo helicopter with four people on board strayed across the Demilitarized Zone from South Korea and was shot down in North Korea. Three of the people on board were killed and a fourth was captured.
[51]
The Chinook had departed from
Pyongtaek
and was bound for
Gangneung
, but veered northward despite warning shots fired from South Korean observation posts. After landing for the crew to inspect for possible damage, the helicopter flew southward again and was shot down 3.7 miles (6.0 km) inside North Korea.
[52]
Two days later, North Korea freed the lone survivor, Chief Warrant Officer Glenn Schwanke, and released the bodies of the three other crew.
[53]
- At least 96 coal miners were killed in
Colombia
, and 40 more were trapped underground, after an explosion at Villa Diana.
[54]
- Sir John Kerr
, who in 1975 had caused
a major constitutional crisis
by firing Prime Minister
Gough Whitlam
, announced that he would be retiring as
Governor-General of Australia
effective December 8.
[55]
- Born:
Princess Victoria
, heiress apparent to the throne of Sweden as the first child of King Carl XVI Gustaf; in
Solna
. The birth of Victoria Ingrid Alice Desiree of the
House of Bernadotte
marked "the first time a child was born to a reigning Swedish king and queen in 178 years, and the first time the delivery has taken place at a public hospital."
[56]
July 15, 1977 (Friday)
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- Mishaal bint Fahd Al Saud
, 19, Saudi Arabian princess, great niece of
King Khalid
, was executed in public along with her lover, Khaled al Sha'er Muhalhal, after both were convicted of
adultery
. On instructions from her grandfather, Prince
Muhammad bin Abdulaziz Al Saud
, Princess Mishaal was shot to death outside of the Queen's Building in
Jeddah
, while Khaled Muhalhal was beheaded with a sword. Her death would be the subject of the 1980 British documentary
Death of a Princess
.
- The
International Regulations for Preventing Collisions at Sea
(abbreviated as COLREGS), signed by multiple nations in 1972, went into effect .
- Donald Mackay
, whose information to Australian police had led to the largest drug bust in the nation's history up to that time, disappeared in
Griffith, New South Wales
after having drinks with a group of friends at a hotel. He was returning to his van at the hotel parking lot when he was apparently assaulted, dragged away and shot three times. His body would never be found and would still be missing more than 45 years later.
[57]
- Died:
Konstantin Fedin
, 85, Soviet Russian novelist and playwright known for
Cities and Years
July 16, 1977 (Saturday)
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- For the first time, a black contestant won the
Miss Universe
beauty pageant, as
Janelle Commissiong
, representing
Trinidad and Tobago
, was crowned at
Santo Domingo
in the
Dominican Republic
.
[58]
- Born:
Javier Chillon
, Spanish film director; in
Madrid
- Died:
- Dr.
Douglas Reye
, 65, Australian pathologist who was the first to identify the diseases
Reye syndrome
and
nemaline myopathy
, died of a ruptured aneurysm.
- Robert M. Stanley
, 64, American test pilot who was the first American to fly a jet aircraft and who later founded the
Stanley Aviation
company, was killed in the crash of a company-owned
1121 Jet Commander
aircraft. Stanley, his two sons, his daughter-in-law and a son's fiancee were making an approach to
Fort Lauderdale, Florida
when the jet encountered severe
wind shear
and crashed into the ocean. Stanley had been the designer of the Yankee Safety System for an rocket powered ejection seat in airplanes that was "credited with saving 100 U.S. pilots' lives in Vietnam", but "died in the crash of a plane that had no escape system."
[59]
July 17, 1977 (Sunday)
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- In aerial combat between
Ethiopia
and
Somalia
, two Ethiopian
F-5
fighters of the 9th Fighter Squadron were on patrol near Harer when they engaged with four Somali
MiG-21
fighters. The Ethiopian F-5s shot down two of the Somali MiG-21s, while the other two MiGs collided in midair while attempting to avoid an air-to-air AIM-9B Sidewinder missile. During the summer, the Ethiopians would down 25 Somali jets with
Sidewinder
missiles.
- South Korea
's government freed 14 dissidents from jail, among the 170 arrested under an emergency decree from President
Park Chung-hee
.
[60]
More than 150 other government opponents remained incarcerated, including former presidential candidate
Kim Dae Jung
. "Dissident Release 'a Trick,' Korea Opposition Says",
Los Angeles Times
, July 19, 1977, p. I-12
- Born:
Nina Kreutzmann Jørgensen
, Greenlandic popular singer; in
Godthab
, Greenland (now
Nuuk
,
Kalaallit Nunaat
)
July 18, 1977 (Monday)
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- Project Flower
, a secret agreement between
Israel
and
Iran
for Israeli missiles to be supplied in exchange for Iranian oil, began as Iran's General
Hassan Toufanian
, the assistant Minister of War, arrived in Israel for meeting with Israel's Foreign Minister
Moshe Dayan
and Defense Minister
Ezer Weizmann
. In return for $280,000,000 worth of Iranian oil, Israel began developing anti-ship missiles similar to existing U.S. weapons.
[61]
- Rhodesia
's Prime Minister
Ian Smith
dissolved parliament and scheduled elections for August 31, limited to white residents only in the minority ruled African nation.
[62]
- Protasio Montalvo Martin, the former Mayor of
Cercedilla
in Spain, near Madrid, emerged from his home after 38 years of hiding. Montalvo, a Socialist, had stayed in the basement of his house, coming up upstairs only occasionally to assist his wife in housework, but never ventured outside because he had been in fear of reprisal from the government of
Francisco Franco
.
[63]
July 19, 1977 (Tuesday)
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- Voting was held in the Bahamas
for the 38 seats of the
House of Assembly
.
[64]
The ruling
Progressive Liberal Party
(PLP), led by Prime Minister
Lynden Pindling
, increased its supermajority, winning 30 seats.
[65]
- In South Africa, the
Transvaal province
director of education announced that the province's white schoolchildren aged 10 to 12 would be required to attend classes to learn African languages, with black teachers instructing them. The most common of the
Southern Bantu languages
spoken in the Transvaal was
Zulu
, followed by
Sotho
,
Tswana
and
Xhosa
. The compulsory class was a first in the white-minority ruled African nation, which still limited the rights of black and mixed race residents as part of its
apartheid
laws.
[66]
- Egypt returned the bodies of 19 Israeli soldiers who had been killed in the 1973 Yom Kippur War, after Egypt's President
Anwar Sadat
told reporters that his decision was an unconditional demonstration of his desire for peace with Israel.
[67]
- The 24th and final studio album by
Elvis Presley
,
Moody Blue
, was released four weeks before his sudden death on August 16.
- Died:
Brigadier General
James C. Marshall
, 79, the first U.S. Army Corps of Engineers director of the
Manhattan Project
July 20, 1977 (Wednesday)
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- Flooding and the collapse of seven dams killed 84 people
in the U.S. state of
Pennsylvania
after a rainfall of 12 inches (300 mm) in 24 hours.
[68]
At 2:35 in the morning, the
Laurel Run Dam
collapsed and the waters of the Johnstown Reservoir swept away 39 residents of the unincorporated town of Tanneryville, Pennsylvania, 10 in the town of
Dale
and 35 others in 13 surrounding communities in
Cambria County
.
[69]
The disaster was the product of a
mesoscale convective complex
that had originated four days earlier over the U.S. state of South Dakota before hovering over southwestern Pennsylvania.
- In the Soviet Union, all but one of the 40 people on board Aeroflot East Siberia Flight B-2 were killed when the Avia 14 airplane crashed on takeoff from
Vitim
, in the RSFSR with an intended destination of
Irkutsk
. Blown sideways by a crosswind, the aircraft failed to completely clear a wooden fence and stalled an at altitude of 100 feet (30 m) and then impacted a forest.
- Born:
Alessandro Santos
, Brazilian-born Japanese footballer with 82 caps for the
Japan national team
; in
Maringa
,
Parana
state
- Died:
July 21, 1977 (Thursday)
[
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- In
elections in Sri Lanka
for all 168 seats of the unicameral
National State Assembly
, voters overwhelmingly rejected the
Sri Lanka Freedom Party
(SFLP) led by Prime Minister
Sirimavo Bandaranaike
, the world's only woman head of government. Though Bandaranaike retained her own seat in parliament, her SFLP went from 91 seats to only 8, while the
United National Party
of opposition leader
Junius R. Jayewardene
won went from 17 seats to 140.
[70]
- The
Libyan?Egyptian War
, sparked by a Libyan raid on
Sallum
, began.
[71]
The next day, the Egyptian Air Force bombed a Libyan airbase south of
Tobruk
, 72 miles (116 km) inside Libya. The fighting lasted until July 24.
[72]
- At least 17 members of the Army of
Thailand
were killed in battle against Cambodian troops who inaded the border village of Noi Parai.
[73]
- Suleyman Demirel
, of
AP
formed the new government of
Turkey
, a three-party coalition that called itself the "second national front" (
Milliyetci cephe
).
[74]
- Born:
Allison Wagner
, American swimmer who held the world record in the women's 200-meter swim from 1993 to 2008; in
Gainesville, Florida
July 22, 1977 (Friday)
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]
- Deng Xiaoping
(referred to in the Western press at the time as Teng Hsiao-ping), who had been Vice Premier of the
People's Republic of China
(PRC) before being purged from the
Chinese Communist Party
in 1976, was restored to power nine months after the "
Gang of Four
" was expelled from power. The decision to restore Deng to the posts of Chief of Staff of the Chinese armed forces, Vice Chairman of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), Vice Premier of the PRC, and Vice Chairman of the CCP Military Commission, was approved by the Central Committee of the CCP. Beijing television showed Deng, now the third-ranking Chinese leader, sitting on the right side of CCP Chairman
Hua Guofeng
and the second most powerful leader, Defense Minister
Ye Jianying
, sitting on Hua's left.
[75]
- Spain's King
Juan Carlos I
opened the first session of the newly-elected
Cortes Generales
, the first parliament in Spain since 1936 to have been freely elected.
[76]
- Pacific Southwest Airlines
Flight 90, with 103 people on board, narrowly averted a mid-air collision when the pilot put the Lockheed Electra into a sudden dive to avoid a collision with a small private plane. The steep dive of 6,000 feet (1,800 m) in seconds injured 26 passengers who were thrown from their seats, but PSA Flight 90 landed safely at Los Angeles at the end of its travel from South Lake Tahoe.
[77]
- In
Paris
, the representatives of 23 Western nations agreed on a plan from the Council of the
Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development
for the dumping of radioactive waste in the Earth's oceans, a practice already in effect in the UK, the Netherlands, Belgium and Switzerland, and soon to start in Japan.
[78]
July 23, 1977 (Saturday)
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July 24, 1977 (Sunday)
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July 25, 1977 (Monday)
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]
- Neelam Sanjiva Reddy
was sworn in as the sixth
President of India
for a five-year term. The inauguration took place after Reddy, the Speaker of the House of the Lok Sabha, was declared on July 21 to be elected without opposition because no other candidates had sought nomination. A vote scheduled for August 6 was declared unnecessary.
[83]
- Egypt's President
Anwar Sadat
extended an invitation to all former Egyptian Jews to return home and pledged that the 100,000 who had moved away from Egypt since the founding of the State of Israel in 1948 would be granted full citizenship and equal rights with other Egyptians. The announcement, which came in an interview in the
Cairo
newspaper
Al Ahram
, was similar to announcements made by Morocco, Iraq, Sudan and Syria, and came after the Palestine Liberation Organization had campaigned for "Oriental Jews"? those who had immigrated to Israel from Arab nations? to be given incentives to return to the Arab world.
[84]
- Died:
David Toro
, 79,
President of Bolivia
from 1936 to 1937
July 26, 1977 (Tuesday)
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- The republics of
Portugal
and of
Angola
, a former Portuguese colony in Africa, reached an agreement for repatriation of black and white Angolan residents who had fled the country during the
Angolan Civil War
. A joint communique was issue from both
Lisbon
and
Luanda
pledging that the two countries would jointly request aid from the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees.
[85]
- Brazil's President and dictator,
Ernesto Geisel
, issued a decree banning political broadcasts from radio and television. The South American nation's election laws provided that the ruling party and the only authorized opposition party were each allowed two hours of free air time per year.
[86]
- A forest fire that destroyed 200 homes in
Montecito, California
, began after a
kite
was blown by high winds into electrical power lines near the intersection of Coyote Road and Mountain Drive, and then spread by the winds into the unincorporated suburb of Santa Barabara.
[87]
Stanley Roden, District Attorney for
Santa Barbara County, California
dismissed arson as a cause and revealed that it was an accident. "The strength of the wind caused the kite string handle to be wrested from the kite flier's hand," Roden said. "The handle wrapped itself around a cable TV wire directly below high tension wires; the force of the wind carried the kite and string forward so that a 16,000-volt line directly above the cable TV line arced with an adjacent high-tension wire." Roden said also that the kite-flyer was "a man in his early 20s" who was in seclusion outside of the city.
[88]
[89]
- Born:
Rebecca St. James
(stage name for Rebecca Jean Smallbone), Australian Christian singer and 1999 Grammy Award winner; in
Sydney
July 27, 1977 (Wednesday)
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]
- The
Soviet Politburo
ordered
Boris Yeltsin
to demolish the
Ipatiev House
, where Tsar
Nicholas II of Russia
and his family were shot in 1918. Yeltsin would later call the order a barbarian act.
- In
Carol City, Florida
, a suburb of Miami, John Errol Ferguson, Marvin Francois and Beauford White entered the home of a small-time drug dealer, then tied up and shot eight people, six of whom died. Francois and Beauford would be executed in the electric chair, while Francois, who had raised the insanity defense for 36 years would be executed by lethal injection in 2013.
[90]
- Born:
Jonathan Rhys Meyers
(stage name for Jonathan O'Keeffe), Irish film and TV actor, 2006 Golden Globe Award winner known for portraying Elvis Presley in the 2006 TV miniseries
Elvis
; in
Dublin
July 28, 1977 (Thursday)
[
edit
]
- Armed robbers in France committed what the newspaper
France-Soir
dubbed "the heaviest holdup in the world"
[91]
after stopping a truck that was on its way from the French mint at
Pessac
to the Bank of France in
Paris
. The cargo was 17 million
French francs
, equivalent to US$3,540,000, but all of it was freshly-minted coins ? 1-franc, 5-franc and 10-franc pieces.
[92]
The French newspaper
L'Aurore
called the crime the robbery of "The Piggy Bank Truck" and asked the robbers in print, "Please write and tell us how on earth you are going to get rid of it. You can't buy a chateau, a car or even a pair of crocodile shoes with bags of change."
[91]
In November, police arrested a man and a woman at their residence in
Avon, Seine-et-Marne
and found $270,000 worth of the missing coins
- Peru's military ruler, President
Francisco Morales Bermudez
pledged in a nationally-televised address that
general elections would be held in 1980
in order for Peru to make a transition to civilian government.
[93]
- Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto
was released from a prison where he had been held in "protective custody" for more than three weeks after his July 5 overthrow as
Prime Minister of Pakistan
. Bhutto said upon being freed, "You will see as time passes that, no matter how the dice are loaded against me, the people are with me."
[94]
Bhutto would be re-arrested on September 3 and charged with the murder of a political opponent, a crime for which he would later be convicted and executed.
- Born:
Manu Ginobili
, Argentine professional basketball player known for championship wins in the NBA, the EuroLeague and the Olympics; in
Bahia Blanca
July 29, 1977 (Friday)
[
edit
]
- The first oil from the Trans-Alaska Pipeline arrived in
Valdez, Alaska
, at 1:02 in the morning, 50 days after the Alyeska Pipeline Service opened the pipeline on June 20 at Prudhoe Bay.
[95]
- The
Judge Retirement Age
act took effect in Australia upon receiving
royal assent
and required that any federal judges appointed afterward would be put on retirement at age 70. Ray Northrop would be the last of the Australian federal judges exempt from mandatory retirement, and would step down in 1998 at the age of 73.
July 30, 1977 (Saturday)
[
edit
]
July 31, 1977 (Sunday)
[
edit
]
References
[
edit
]
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